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How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

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Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#211

Post by shin_lao »

philwelch wrote: post #204
F_J_H wrote: post #106

There seem to be a lot of comments centered on “wow, this sounds great – I wish I could charge more” or “how do I find these high paying contracts”? Here’s one way. It may seem obvious to many, but I think it bears stating. If you are looking for consulting contracts that pay really well, focus on providing a service that helps companies make money rather than save money. In other words, help grow revenues rather tha…

> If you are looking for consulting contracts that pay really well, focus on providing a service that helps companies make money rather than save money. In other words, help grow revenues rather than reduce expenses – people pay much more for that. But decreasing costs by $1 is mathematically the same as increasing revenue by $1--it increases profitability by $1. Which means any process or mentality that prefers one…

Except there is a limit to how much you can reduce costs, not to how much you can increase revenue.

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#212

Post by atsaloli »

ana_hilinsky wrote: post #203
Dramatize wrote: post #123

Has anyone had success with ecommerce consulting?

Yes, do you have any specific questions? We do a lot of Magento builds for medium sized retailers.

What does medium sized mean? My friend has an online store that grossed 5 million USD in the last year, he is looking for help him next-gen'ing his Magento store as well as SEO. Is that something you'd be good at? He wants one solution provider for both re-doing his store and SEO.

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#213

Post by m0nty »

philwelch wrote: post #204
F_J_H wrote: post #106

There seem to be a lot of comments centered on “wow, this sounds great – I wish I could charge more” or “how do I find these high paying contracts”? Here’s one way. It may seem obvious to many, but I think it bears stating. If you are looking for consulting contracts that pay really well, focus on providing a service that helps companies make money rather than save money. In other words, help grow revenues rather tha…

> If you are looking for consulting contracts that pay really well, focus on providing a service that helps companies make money rather than save money. In other words, help grow revenues rather than reduce expenses – people pay much more for that. But decreasing costs by $1 is mathematically the same as increasing revenue by $1--it increases profitability by $1. Which means any process or mentality that prefers one…

It's about the psychology. One thing I've learned from consulting gigs etc is that clients are irrational and you have to learn to deal with it. If you can do the same amount of work but get more kudos for it, why waste energy on the low-rewards activities (i.e. saving money rather than "making money").

So you're right from a programmer's perspective, and about the unhealthy bias. But most people don't think like that.

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#214

Post by roel_v »

smiler wrote: post #88
polyfractal wrote: post #81

I feel like every post by Patrick should be printed out and taped to the wall. So many great lessons in his writing. Thanks patio! Question of my own: if you are breaking into consultancy, how do you go about cold-calling potential clients? Say you've identified a few clients that you think you could help. What kind of email do you send them? Go the honest route and say "Hey, I'm new but I want to help your business…

I've been freelancing / consulting for just over a year myself and am discovering more of the process myself. Here's what I've done so far.. - Reach out to your existing network - if you have friends who have done freelancing / consulting, find out what companies they did freelancing / consulting for - chances are those companies still need it. - Offer to meet for coffee / lunch / dinner. I'm based in the UK and was…

"I'm based in the UK and was trying via e-mail to speak to a potential client. It just wasn't happening. They are based in the US. So I called them up and offered to meet for dinner there at a time convenient for them"

I'm probably missing something here, but tell me you didn't fly to the US to have dinner with a potential client you were cold-selling yourself to?

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#215

Post by nfm »

philwelch wrote: post #204
F_J_H wrote: post #106

There seem to be a lot of comments centered on “wow, this sounds great – I wish I could charge more” or “how do I find these high paying contracts”? Here’s one way. It may seem obvious to many, but I think it bears stating. If you are looking for consulting contracts that pay really well, focus on providing a service that helps companies make money rather than save money. In other words, help grow revenues rather tha…

> If you are looking for consulting contracts that pay really well, focus on providing a service that helps companies make money rather than save money. In other words, help grow revenues rather than reduce expenses – people pay much more for that. But decreasing costs by $1 is mathematically the same as increasing revenue by $1--it increases profitability by $1. Which means any process or mentality that prefers one…

The problem is that reducing costs doesn't typically scale. If you want to grow a businesses profit significantly, you need to increase sales. It's entirely reasonable to double your sales. It's pretty difficult to halve your costs.

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#216

Post by new299 »

nandemo wrote: post #172
F_J_H wrote: post #106

There seem to be a lot of comments centered on “wow, this sounds great – I wish I could charge more” or “how do I find these high paying contracts”? Here’s one way. It may seem obvious to many, but I think it bears stating. If you are looking for consulting contracts that pay really well, focus on providing a service that helps companies make money rather than save money. In other words, help grow revenues rather tha…

> There seem to be a lot of comments centered on “wow, this sounds great – I wish I could charge more” or “how do I find these high paying contracts”? Actually, I'm wondering how can I get gigs that pay $100/hour in Japan.

As someone who is currently living in Japan, but only working remotely for companies in the US/UK I'm kind of interested to know how you find work here? Is it hard to get contract work? Where do you look? What is the pay like?

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#217

Post by okok »

ahoyhere wrote: post #137
seiji wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody wants a nobody. Have you tried manipulating the HN audience into thinking you're special? I can, annoyingly, name a dozen people from here who self-promote and pop up with frustrating frequency. After a while you start to think they're special even when they're just persistent. But few people are persistent with such follow through. Write stuff people want. Get it distributed widely. Repeat.

It's sad that you think "writing stuff people want" is manipulative and faux.

Well writing it for the sake of promoting yourself most definitely is.

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#218

Post by alexfarran »

mdonahoe wrote: post #210
paulsutter wrote: post #139

A friend of mine is a marketing consultant and a real genius. He got paid $x0,000 to come up with the title and general theme for the book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". But the author has made $x0,000,000 from it, despite the mediocre (at best) quality of the book. Really it was the positioning that made it catch on. My friend's career is full of stories like that, so it's not a one off. If you do work as a consultant, defin…

That author is bankrupt now, for what its worth. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-dad-poor-dad-bankrupt-163...

One of his many companies is bankrupt, as a ruse to avoid paying money he owes.

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#219

Post by borplk »

acconrad wrote: post #141

This is all well and good, but the biggest reservation I have about all of these consulting blog posts is who should do this and who shouldn't? I feel like consulting is easier to consider when you're a seasoned programmer (10+ years) because you have the accumulated knowledge to really provide value to a company when you're not an employee. I'm almost 27, is my lack of years of experience going to prohibit me from a…

You mention a good point.

I think consulting requires a character. If you are 20-something I really doubt it's going to work very well.

Unless you have a history of extra-ordinary achievements which sets you apart, in which case you probably wouldn't have or want to do consulting.

Re: How I went from $100-an-hour programming to $X0,000-a-week consulting

#220

Post by d0n1 »

I couldn't help but post, I run a very similar business model to the one that is described in the article and i can confirm that it is a very successful model. We are slowly at the stage of try to scale out.

The "terrifying cashflow" problems are very real, we take the model of taking a modest wage as to not cripple it the cash flow. We also have put on our first staff member which we are pretty excited about.

Its interesting to hear that others are using the residual cashflow to create a product. We have tried to generate a couple of differente products but it hasn't out performed the consulting arm.

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