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So You Want To Be A Consultant

Posted by michael on from the billable-hours dept.

Stephen Friedl writes "I've been a self-employed consultant for almost 20 years - I still have my first customer! - and I'm asked often about the business by those who are considering it. It's not for everybody, and there are often surprises, so I've written up a Tech Tip that recounts my experiences and provides advice for the n00b. Executive summary: It's much more about customer service than it is about technical skill."

4 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. me too ! by selderrr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am also a self-employed developer/consultant (although I'm technically a programmer, I find myself spending a lot more time on consultancy)

    Keeping your first customer is NOT perse a good thing. Only if you still make money on work for that customer. The first 10 years of my own business, I found my self spending a lot of time giving phone-support for previously programmer stuff. Or for other stuff... or for no stuff at all (help, my mouse doesn't work properly anymore !)... The most difficult thing in being self employed is : learn to charge for everything. If you work on something, even if it is only 5 minutes : bill'em.

    It's the only advice I can give. If you start a relationship with your customer based on free support (in the widest possible interpretation of support), yuo're fucked

    --
    When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
  2. Re:are you going to pay me? by sosegumu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you are your own business you end up putting up money for various things, and when your incomming payments start to lag, you can end up in serious trouble.

    Which is why being under-capitalized is the number one reason new businesses fail.

    --
    It's easier to wear the spandex than to do the crunches. --David Lee Roth
  3. Re:Technical skill? by Steve+Friedl · · Score: 5, Insightful
    My point on the Warm Fuzzy Feeling is that if your customer doesn't have it about you (they don't like you, find you hard to work with, etc.), it doesn't matter much about how good your technical skills are. New consultants usually focus on the technical skills and forget the people skills, and this doesn't make for good, long-term customer relationships.

    I'm much more on the technical side of consulting, and the only "marketing" I do is publishing original, technical content. Mainly I write C code all day, though I'm sure that this slashdot post is seen as "marketing"...

    Steve

    --
    Steve Friedl / Unix Wizard / Microsoft MVP / www.unixwiz.net
  4. Simple Rule of Thumb. by sanityspeech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Persons allergic to incompetence cannot be consultants. - Ioan Tenner