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How to Find Consulting Clients

chrisachard.com

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Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#11

Post by blunt_asshole »

turk73 wrote: post #2

How timely. Currently am frustrated by indy consulting. I have watched several colleagues successfully launch into independent consulting. Honestly, it's a mixed bag. They speak very positively about it, but when I ask more direct questions, I hear about trouble getting paid, Net60 and longer durations between checks, long periods between gigs (7 weeks was what one friend just reported). Every time I attempt to go in…

> It's almost like there's a blacklist out there and my name is on it for some reason

If you're getting that feeling due to your HN account, it's because you're shadowbanned. Only people with showdead will see your comments. It's actually really impressive how you've managed to write hundreds of comments to void for the last half a year without picking up on the hint.

There's a good chance you're not picking up on hints IRL either. Maybe ask a blunt friend what they think of you? The industry is small and people talk.

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#12

Post by ossworkerrights »

turk73 wrote: post #2

How timely. Currently am frustrated by indy consulting. I have watched several colleagues successfully launch into independent consulting. Honestly, it's a mixed bag. They speak very positively about it, but when I ask more direct questions, I hear about trouble getting paid, Net60 and longer durations between checks, long periods between gigs (7 weeks was what one friend just reported). Every time I attempt to go in…

Depends on the country and the market in that country for contractors / consultants. The UK is pretty much boiling with demand, mainly around London, for software consultants. Hopefully the gov won't kill it with the upcoming IR35. Usually in the UK it would be recruiters that would find indie gigs for you, but you do need to have a skill for it (good mix of more than just a stack) and the agility to learn a client's code base fast, or to create one for greenfield projects. But like everything else, it takes time to build a rep.

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#13

Post by 11eleven »

I don't necessarily agree with all of this advice. Yes giving talks, having a blog, etc. help but they are a medium to long-term play and you have to wait for leads to discover you or be referred to you. You don't have much control over when this happens, which is what causes a lot of the feast and famine cycles.

I have had success just directly reaching out to companies I wanted to work with. This meant I was at least proactively putting myself in front of them, instead of hoping they find me or remember me.

Came across this comment from another thread [1] that breaks it down a bit:

1. Go to https://trends.builtwith.com/framework to find websites that use the tech stack you specialize in.

2. Focus on smaller to mid-size companies (large corporations likely have the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs)

3. (Optional) Search for each company on Linkedin and add managers with relevant roles (VIP of sales, project manager, marketing manager, etc.). The goal is to familiarize them with your name so they're more likely to open your email (step 5).

4. Find the email format of these companies with https://hunter.io/.

5. Reach out to the most senior person with a relevant role at each company with a personalized 1-on-1 email.

The key here is to review their website and business and share 2-3 ideas of what you can them build or fix (if there are any glaring issues or vulnerabilities). They may not necessarily use your ideas but the goal is stand out and help them understand how they can put your programming skills to use. Here's a template you can reference: https://artofemails.com/new-clients#developer

There are a lot of businesses out there whose teams don't have the capacity to build everything so they would be keen to have a reliable freelance programmer help them bring some features or projects out of backlog.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20971098

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#14

Post by rpedela »

BrentOzar wrote: post #10

The title is way off: he's talking about contractors, not consultants. Short version: Consultants tell the client what to do. Contractors are brought on to do what they're told. The advice in the article is a lot about "do you need someone do to ___ task" or "are you hiring an FTE, and could you do with a contractor instead" and that's contracting, not consulting. It's still valuable advice, but you don't find consul…

If you are just getting started, I think it is good advice either way. What is most important at first is just having clients. Whether you are behaving as an executive or grunt doesn't matter. If someone has clients, then I think it is easier to transition to consulting from contracting. And giving talks, blog posts, etc is great advice for consulting and contracting at any stage.

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#15

Post by andreygrehov »

turk73 wrote: post #2

How timely. Currently am frustrated by indy consulting. I have watched several colleagues successfully launch into independent consulting. Honestly, it's a mixed bag. They speak very positively about it, but when I ask more direct questions, I hear about trouble getting paid, Net60 and longer durations between checks, long periods between gigs (7 weeks was what one friend just reported). Every time I attempt to go in…

I second @blunt_asshole. Here is the screenshot of your profile: https://imgur.com/AjHUdO0

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#16

Post by rpedela »

blunt_asshole wrote: post #11
turk73 wrote: post #2

How timely. Currently am frustrated by indy consulting. I have watched several colleagues successfully launch into independent consulting. Honestly, it's a mixed bag. They speak very positively about it, but when I ask more direct questions, I hear about trouble getting paid, Net60 and longer durations between checks, long periods between gigs (7 weeks was what one friend just reported). Every time I attempt to go in…

> It's almost like there's a blacklist out there and my name is on it for some reason If you're getting that feeling due to your HN account, it's because you're shadowbanned. Only people with showdead will see your comments. It's actually really impressive how you've managed to write hundreds of comments to void for the last half a year without picking up on the hint. There's a good chance you're not picking up on hi…

I can see his comment and I don't have "showdead" turned on?

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#17

Post by tootie »

Arqu wrote: post #8

I went the boutique consultancy route just last week and brought on a couple of people into the mix. I pretty much agree that everybody kind of faces the same question and feelings. To be honest, I might have taken a small leap of faith as I pulled the trigger before securing a client. Though the only reason I felt comfortable with it is that I've been in the space enough to be pretty sure I can land a client in the…

I'm curious how well this scales though. Are the kind of clients you're reaching out to small- to mid-size? I've spent a lot of time working at fairly large consulting agencies and the amount of time and resources that go into just pitching seem daunting to a newcomer.

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#18

Post by rpedela »

turk73 wrote: post #2

How timely. Currently am frustrated by indy consulting. I have watched several colleagues successfully launch into independent consulting. Honestly, it's a mixed bag. They speak very positively about it, but when I ask more direct questions, I hear about trouble getting paid, Net60 and longer durations between checks, long periods between gigs (7 weeks was what one friend just reported). Every time I attempt to go in…

It can take time to learn how to close. The more you try, the better you will get at it. Also sometimes things happen that are completely out of your control.

For example, I was negotiating an initial 5 figure contract but they were so impressed that they were talking about 7 figure contracts if the first one went well. Then I didn't hear from them for a month which was strange given the prior behavior. Turns out they were hacked via a third-party contractor, and the top executives made a knee-jerk decision to ban all third-party contracting. My contact person either resigned or fired because he signed the particular third-party that got hacked.

Re: How to Find Consulting Clients

#19

Post by blunt_asshole »

rpedela wrote: post #16
blunt_asshole wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's almost like there's a blacklist out there and my name is on it for some reason If you're getting that feeling due to your HN account, it's because you're shadowbanned. Only people with showdead will see your comments. It's actually really impressive how you've managed to write hundreds of comments to void for the last half a year without picking up on the hint. There's a good chance you're not picking up on hi…

I can see his comment and I don't have "showdead" turned on?

Turn on showdead to see all the other comments that didn't show up. You can vouch (if you have >500 karma) for individual comments to make them not dead.
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