The way we’ve been attracting Software companies to our UI/UX agency is through sideproject marketing. I wanted to write an article about this but here’s the tldr version of it: build small standalone projects that provide value and communicate the value you provide to potential customers. There are a few good articles about this but I feel sideproject marketing is highly underrated. You can use your skills as a developer/designer to market your service. Without feeling dirty about selling.
How to Find Consulting Clients
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Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#22I 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 lea…
> (large corporations likely have the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs)
I think some of the same magic involved in finding consulting clients draws parallels to getting large corporations to consider you for contract work?
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#23The 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…
Assuming this semantic distinction holds, what are the practical consequences? How do you find "consulting" clients?
In fact, what is even the shape of a "consulting" engagement in software development, where I am telling the client what to do, instead of doing what I'm told? Do clients hire consultants to build software without knowing at least something about what software needs to be built? Not trying to put up a strawman here, it's just that I've seen this distinction made elsewhere, but not clear on how it plays out in practice. I suspect the line between "consultant" and "contractor" isn't that bold.
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#24I 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 lea…
> (large corporations likely have the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs) I think some of the same magic involved in finding consulting clients draws parallels to getting large corporations to consider you for contract work?
How are consultants and contractors different?
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#25Some of this advice is also good for just plain getting hired: giving talks, having visible evidence of what you can do. It can cause actual humans to contact you directly rather than recruiters.
But it takes work and isn't for everyone.
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (large corporations likely have the tech team and contractors to cover almost of their needs) I think some of the same magic involved in finding consulting clients draws parallels to getting large corporations to consider you for contract work?
How are consultants and contractors different?
There's quite some overlap, but generally a consultant is more specialised and has a higher billable rate and works on shorter term projects than a contractor.
e.g. my company currently has a couple of Navision consultants doing integration work for our invoicing system. Once the project is done they'll probably leave. I imagine they bill a lot per hour. Contrast to me (contractor) working on multiple projects, and I've now been there for 1.5 years.
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#27The 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…
But he actually gives examples of things you could recommend to a potential lead. I don't think it's as far off as you claim. And it's generally good advice anyway...
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#28He's spot-on with that last part: you only need a few. The same few contacts (4-5) have brought me more work than I can actually do, and I often have to say no. It's pretty hard maintaining a relationship with all of them, though: when you say no, they have to look elsewhere, and that's when the relationship can falter.
Yup. I've been working with 2 clients for about a year now. Occasional spikes in work from the client that's more part time can be a bit tricky to manage, but in general it's kept me very busy and I like the variety.
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#29I take issue with using "meetups" of other tech consultants as a way to get clients. I'd rather "network" (another uncool word for meetups) with potential leads, within an industry vertical than spend my time talking to other geeks.
Re: How to Find Consulting Clients
#30The 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…
Assuming this semantic distinction holds, what are the practical consequences? How do you find "consulting" clients? In fact, what is even the shape of a "consulting" engagement in software development, where I am telling the client what to do, instead of doing what I'm told? Do clients hire consultants to build software without knowing at least something about what software needs to be built? Not trying to put up a…
> Do clients hire consultants to build software without knowing at least something about what software needs to be built?
Yes? All the time.
"I've heard about this thing called machine learning. Come assess how I can use it in my business."
"We have a problem where orders are missing their commit dates and we need something built to find those earlier in our procurement process. Maybe our new cloud ERP can help...?"
So they have some degree of knowledge around the success criteria (what) and the value (why) but even those need to be shaped up and agreed upon.
And then the design considerations, approaches, tradeoffs, constraints, risks, options, etc. (the how) is somewhere between directionally correct and nonexistent.