31–40 of 130 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't follow. The companies I'm describing are likely to be your most lucrative clients.
Looking in from geophysics, 3/4 lucrative customers for the 1 non-paying is not sustainable. If you're looking for customers that don't intend to pay, is it 1/5 that end up paying well? 1/100? 9/10?
Random bullets. * You need to be making 150-200% of your FTE rate to come out ahead in a year * Bill daily, not hourly (you can bill weekly, or quarterly, too.) * Raise your rates. * Count on signing your clients master agreement, not yours * You can win by getting every contract reviewed, or by just signing them blindly * Specialize * Incorporate; it's easy and cheap * Keep your SOWs vague * Don’t waste time on your…
What's an SOW?
Random bullets. * You need to be making 150-200% of your FTE rate to come out ahead in a year * Bill daily, not hourly (you can bill weekly, or quarterly, too.) * Raise your rates. * Count on signing your clients master agreement, not yours * You can win by getting every contract reviewed, or by just signing them blindly * Specialize * Incorporate; it's easy and cheap * Keep your SOWs vague * Don’t waste time on your…
What's an SOW?
Selling your time doesn't scale
Random bullets. * You need to be making 150-200% of your FTE rate to come out ahead in a year * Bill daily, not hourly (you can bill weekly, or quarterly, too.) * Raise your rates. * Count on signing your clients master agreement, not yours * You can win by getting every contract reviewed, or by just signing them blindly * Specialize * Incorporate; it's easy and cheap * Keep your SOWs vague * Don’t waste time on your…
What's an SOW?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking in from geophysics, 3/4 lucrative customers for the 1 non-paying is not sustainable. If you're looking for customers that don't intend to pay, is it 1/5 that end up paying well? 1/100? 9/10?
I don't know who the "non-paying" customers are. Don't do business with companies that might not pay.
Niches = riches. You want a super-tight thing that you do (e.g. "I fix performance issues for large NodeJS code bases", or better still "I write tooling to measure performance hotspots in NodeJS code bases".) Despite this sounding like cutting off potential customers, it doesn't work that way. Customers will reach out to you with some generic work that they want done "because I know you know NodeJS" even when you say…
For the former, I'd bill fixed price, fixed outcome - half up front, half on delivery. This is the highest margin work buts it's bitty.
For the rest, a flavour of t&m depending on duration of the engagement.
Testimonials are great, but get some case studies together also and make sure your pitch deck is tight.
There is a lot more I could say, ask in the comments if you wanna talk - happy to oblige.
Source: I did tech consulting and advisory for investment banks and hedge funds for 20 years.
20+ years since I started my firm, we are very successful and I love our team and our work. Few points… Word of mouth is best advertising. Prove yourself trustworthy and honorable, there are still assholes who will try to take advantage of you but on balance, this will pay off over time. Don’t work for free. If companies want you to work because it will look good for referrals or something- run. Don’t work for equity…
Obligatory The Oatmeal: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know who the "non-paying" customers are. Don't do business with companies that might not pay.
When you say "delay on payables", do you mean not paying you for agreed-upon already-completed work, or do you mean not giving you new work right now?