191–200 of 495 posts
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Not OP, but the answer to this is almost always "network with people who will pay you to freelance." This assumes you already have the skills/knowledge worth paying a freelancer for.
I always hate that answer, because it doesn't actually answer the "how".
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Not everyone can be in the top 1% of paid professionals in their field. That extends to acting or consulting. And there simply aren't enough clients that can pay that much to support a significant increase in the # of folks pulling down those fees, regardless of the quality of the service offered. If 100 Michael Jordans showed up tomorrow, that would just increase competition for the same scarce resource of NBA playe…
I would argue that increasing the number and quality of great actors increases the profitably of movie studios, and thus the number of movies made. Similarly with sports, there is a huge range of player incomes and assuming the sport becomes more interesting to watch and thus profitable their would be room for more highly compensated players.
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The weird thing with consulting (in my experience) is that a customer almost never knows how capable they are of effectively using a consultant's time and output. "Okay, we signed a one month consulting engagement, starting Tuesday." Consultant(s) show up on Tuesday, no db's or credentials have been set up, everyone seems surprised they're there. It consistently amazed me how much consultant time companies waste. Whe…
this is another reason weekly billing works in everyone’s favor. in the former ex, the customer would not lose with hourly billing. with weekly billing they become very motivated to resolve hurdles to your success
To this day, I'm still not quite clear about what a consultant actually does. I mean, beyond some vague idea ("goes to some company, talks with people, gives some recommendation"). I'd really love for someone to give some example or describe in a tangible way what the work of a consultant entails, what skills one typically needs and actually employs, what a typical gig looks like from beginning to end and so on. If a…
For some further research, read up on "process consulting"[1], for example.
True consulting is almost like being a psychologist for an organization. Technology consulting varies, but true technology consultants are not technology specific, they are more like experts in knowing how organizations use systems and technology and assisting organizations with technology selection, architecture, hiring, training, organizational development, change, politics, psychology and/or complex situations that require additional outside expertise or brainpower.
I think a good example where technology and business consulting intersect is data warehouse consulting. If you have or want an enterprise data warehouse, you need likely need dimensional modeling. Dimensional modeling is a technique not a specific technology, many organizations don't have specialists with that knowledge. The best data warehousing consultants I have seen will come in when requested, determine the organizational situation through observation, propose a conceptual solution in concert with the organization, designed to fit the way the organization works, help with training staff on necessary techniques (such as dimensional modeling, if the organization chose to adapt it), and act as an expert for tough questions during implementation and after. Assist the organization with identifying data warehouse technology solution options that fit the need and budget, staff and skills, data migration, etc. as needed and desired by the org.
I think one key difference between a consultant and a contractor is, a consultant is more like an architect/engineer advisor "thinker and recommender", but a contractor is often more like the engineer/builder "thinker and do-er". Both are external experience for hire. Of course you get blends/crossover people who are both.
I also think consulting is more prevalent when there are a smaller pool of people with knowledge and experience that needs to be shared. Scarcity of skill creates demand that requires compensation due to competition for that limited resource.
Skills wise, I think you need a mix of soft skills and specialized knowledge in such an area, combined with the ability to communicate, market, network and run a business. Education -wise, I have a degree in information systems and one in organizational studies. I think combining organizational studies plus any specialty area is a great combination. You can also achieve this through an MBA+specialty area.
Step 1: Be popular/famous enough that people know your name. Step 2: Be good/accurate enough at opining in ways that make sense. Most people won't have either 1 or 2 going for them. There's one more thing - charging a lot is how to signal value, which is a a huge thing. I know a guy who used to manage an A-list rock band (everyone knows their songs) who went into consulting, and started out lowballing people, for $1k…
Step Somewhere-between-1.5-and-infinity: Market the holy shit out of everything you do.
I have an Internet buddy in Chicago named Thomas Ptacek. [...] I decided to invite Thomas out to coffee. At the end of the conversation, Thomas said something which, no exaggeration, changed my life. Thomas: Some food for thought: If this hadn't been a coffee date, but rather a consulting engagement, I'd be writing you a check right now. Me: Three hours at $100 an hour or whatever an intermediate programmer is worth…
The $X0.000 salary has also been debunked several times.
The two are promoting and namedropping each other.
Step 1: Be popular/famous enough that people know your name. Step 2: Be good/accurate enough at opining in ways that make sense. Most people won't have either 1 or 2 going for them. There's one more thing - charging a lot is how to signal value, which is a a huge thing. I know a guy who used to manage an A-list rock band (everyone knows their songs) who went into consulting, and started out lowballing people, for $1k…
So he became instantly popular with no previous effort? Or is it remotely possible that he actually spent time blogging on topics that his audience found compelling?
Scroll down to the start. See what you think.
Step 1: Be popular/famous enough that people know your name. Step 2: Be good/accurate enough at opining in ways that make sense. Most people won't have either 1 or 2 going for them. There's one more thing - charging a lot is how to signal value, which is a a huge thing. I know a guy who used to manage an A-list rock band (everyone knows their songs) who went into consulting, and started out lowballing people, for $1k…
Step 2: Be good/accurate enough at opining in ways that make sense.
Neither of these are prerequisites for being extremely successful at consulting. My consulting rates are now approximately $10,000/week with a 70% annual utilization rate. I'm not industry famous at all. I also do not maintain a blog or do "content marketing." For a while I had no website, and even now my website isn’t exactly great, it’s what I’d call “minimally good enough” (but then I’m not a web developer :). I started consulting several years ago, and I have literally never gone onsite to a client's location. A significant number of Y Combinator companies have been clients of mine, and virtually all work comes to me via referrals from past clients.
I don't typically brag about this, but I'd like to say it because patio11 is an easy target for the "he got there by being industry famous" critique, and I think that would be the wrong thing to take away from his writings. I got to this rate by following his consulting advice as sprinkled throughout his blog and his comments here on Hacker News. I started my rates at approximately $5,000/week, which if I recall correctly tptacek once told me was "criminally low" for the industry :). Here are the two steps I would suggest, in place of yours:
1. Be demonstrably technically competent and capable of presenting your expertise coherently to various audiences,
2. Be willing to raise your rates and willing to ask clients for referrals at the end of every engagement.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that the very first time I raised my rates was spontaneously, on the phone with a client. I was asked my rates and thought to myself, “fuck it, let’s see what happens if I ask for 20% more than usual.” I did, there was a moment of silence, then an “okay.” That exchange is the substantive content of essentially every instance I’ve ever raised my rates. There’s not much magic to it aside from being willing to do it.
I personally used to be in the same position you're in now, in about 2012, reading patio11's blog and being cynical about it. But I find that framing to be defeatist after having accomplished it myself without either of your steps as a prerequisite. I firmly believe just about anyone who isn't socially tonedeaf and who has a real technical competency can achieve the same if they are determined to do so.
As a side note, I personally feel that I owe a lot of my success to patio11, and I’ve told him as much before. His response was essentially to pay it forward, and I hope I can do that a bit with this comment.
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There are definitely small ( Margins matter too, not just headcount. Someone could do $2m/year but make less than someone doing $800k/year with better margins. Doing perf/security reviews of a niche like that (woo, magento, etc) would probably still be a place to focus and make money, if you want to stay 'back end' (or at least technical). But even then, some of the measurable stuff will be needed - "we reduced the l…
Security stuff is notoriously difficult for demonstrating any kind of value. 99% don't care unless and until they get hacked, they will also forget about it all in 2 months. If they don't get hacked for years they will just attribute that to luck and probability, not valuable security consulting. And if they do... you can guess that one.
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I would argue that increasing the number and quality of great actors increases the profitably of movie studios, and thus the number of movies made. Similarly with sports, there is a huge range of player incomes and assuming the sport becomes more interesting to watch and thus profitable their would be room for more highly compensated players.
For that to happen, they would have to increase the number of teams. This requires new stadiums/arenas to be built, and expansion teams to be created. This requires rebalancing of conferences and divisions within the league.