Finding clients is basically the hardest part. Not going to lie: Most of my clients come from my network and their referrals. Most of my freelancer friends’ clients come from their network and their network referring clients to them. While it is possible to find clients organically through advertising, it’s much easier if you can build a network to pull from. You can start by simply contacting people you know and ask…
> Don’t underestimate how good a stable, big company job is right now. This. Also don't underestimate how hard it is to get the money from a client if they decide not to pay you, even if you did a good job.
There are reasonably easy methods that filter out 90% of this BS: 50% upfront payments, milestones, etc.
If you are in the US, take a look at Dice and Indeed to get a sense of where the market is and what is the rate per hour. As others have said, networking helps but I started my contracting journey through Dice and Indeed. Good luck.
$300/hr is the same as $600K/year. As a manager, who are you going to pay that kind of rate to? Why would someone hire a contractor at that rate, when they could hire the top tier Google Engineers? $200-300/hr rates are usually for 'expertise' style inputs - it's where you have industry leading or arcane knowledge in your field, and you bill for your insight, which might just be a few hours. A lawyer who specializes…
hey, could you check my website (in my profile) and estimate my hourly rate?
Both your examples mention single digits hours, ie very small amount of money. The problems tend to happen if there's larger amounts of money involved. So it's important as a contractor not to enable a situation where they owe you a lot of money, especially if you have no leverage.
> Both your examples mention single digits hours, ie very small amount of money. The problems tend to happen if there's larger amounts of money involved. I've had lots of 100+ hour month contracts, some of which have spanned for years. At some point you have to use your judgment to figure out what to do. If an individual with no registered business emails you asking you to put in 150 hours worth of work in a month, h…
re: ...no registered business... etc. I would typically take that as a "don't engage with them" sign.
One of the challenges of being professional is to know when to refuse clients and their work. Both for potential clients and on-going clients gone bad.
Does any other country have the same concept and size of contracting market as we have in the UK? Here you go to a website such as Jobserve, type in eg “React Contract” and apply to one of thousands of daily rate contracts. (Inventory is a bit low today due to start of the year, but will be 1000+ in a few weeks.) After a short interview process, typically you will start a contract for 3-6 months, but can often stay f…
Never heard of similar in the US, although I’ve never used a real job site. When I was a contractor I just worked for a firm that hired me out to other firms.
Permy role -> Consulting role -> Contracting is the way I did it.
Although as a lot of people say, clients come from my network and referrals. So build that up first. Also, I started my own consulting gig in the UK, which is pretty much consulting central (I don't know any other country that normalises contracting to such an extent).
Possibly something like TopTal would work if your network hasn't reached critical mass yet. They'll take the pain out of finding clients. But that's never been an issue for me.
I think starting from scratch now might be a bit trickier. I have a Saas that's in an industry that's sort of dependent on relationships. And those are harder to build in today's virtual world (or at least, I'm finding it so). I don't think I have any great wisdom on what to do differently though. My pipeline is sort of an organic subsconscious thing.
Worked in digital agencies. Met a lot of contacts. Started taking on side projects. Produced good work. Kept on getting referrals. Quit my full time job and freelanced for 5+ years. Wasn’t always easy but I kept my costs low and steadily increased my rates.
Easiest way to start? Freelance for an agency or a consultancy. They always need someone, like right now, to work on a project.
Some years ago when getting started, I did a lot of research ahead of time by reading books and talking to other people who had done it. While there are always new situations and the learning never stops, the single most important thing in my mind is to manage yourself as a business. In addition to doing the work, you have operations like healthcare, retirement, vacation, and services like accountants and attorneys. My wife helps with that so I can spend more of my time on billable activities, but business aspects are still something you have to pay attention to no matter what. When you negotiate with customers and/or recruiters, you're representing your business. Your loyalty resides with your business. Recruiters are an easy way to get started. I asked my attorney to help understand my first couple of contracts (there are good ones and very bad ones) and learned most of what I need to know over time. The more work you do with different companies, the more you can build out your network. As you build a network, take care of other people and make referrals for them (whether permanent opportunities or contracting). Occasionally, people might do the same for you - that's how this thing works. There will be gaps between contracts, which is normal. If you're too successful, the phone will always be ringing and you can work yourself to death - so set boundaries and take care of yourself. Therefore, when determining your pay, you need to consider the operational aspects of the business, gaps between gigs, and how much you want for payroll. BTW, my wife gets a paycheck and benefits too because she is doing work for the business. Then do research on what the market might pay for your services. There's likely a gap between what you need to live and what the market will bear and that's the space you negotiate in. If you take less than what you need, you and your business suffers. One of my early attorneys wisely advised me - you have a right to make a profit.