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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

#241

Post by JVIDEL »

davemel37 wrote: post #185
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…

I humbly disagree with your theory that making money for a company is more valuable than saving them money. As a marketer/rainmaker, I can assure you that I get much further with clients when I can cut their advertising and marketing costs, or cost per acquisition, than when I find them more profitable traffic and revenues. My clients never scream, bring me the rain... They demand, "Bring Me More Rain For Less Money.…

I was going to write the same thing: it's really really difficult to get clients when your pitch is "I can increase your revenues" because the average client wonders if you can deliver on your promises. But when you talk about saving money they are all ears.

When I was 12 a friend of my dad's was complaining about problems managing his warehouses and I offered to write him a program that would solve his problems and save him money.

That's how I got my first job, writing some code for $70 an hour, not bad at all.

Right now I'm working on a project that has a long list of clients (clients, not users) signed up and hasn't even launched.

Our catch? we are not only better than the competition, we're up to 40% less expensive.

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

#242

Post by rapind »

tomjen3 wrote: post #52
SageRaven wrote: post #24

Damn, that sounds nice. I wonder if system admin/architecture can be modeled that way. I'd love to bill even a modest $2k/week, rather than trawl craigslist, responding to posts for "unix/linux ninjas" then having shops balk at anything over $20 an hour. I don't know how many messes I've cleaned up (likely left by people charging a hell of a lot more than me) for really low rates. I know, I know. Craiglist and other…

Have you considered remote classes on how to prevent the messes you have been called in to clean up? Or even specialize in when shit hits the fan? I mean the advice to startups are always 'find a customer with their hair on fire'.

Be "The Wolf".

http://youtu.be/ANPsHKpti48

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

#243

Post by smiler »

roel_v wrote: post #214
smiler wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It was not cold-selling no. I had worked with them before in a different role so I was a known quantity. I also combined it with a meeting with another client I was cold-selling to - albeit through a recommendation from a friend and had already submitted a proposal.

In total it cost me about $2000 but am expecting work to come from it.

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

#244

Post by loceng »

tptacek wrote: post #46
loceng wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I work for myself, am building my own company(ies). I knew I would never get paid the value I can bring to the table, and I would never be motivated to do my best in that scenario.

You think you could never get paid the value you bring to the table because you are imagining delivering services to the kinds of companies who would think to look at freelance markets to find the going rate for building code in the platforms you work in. But the world is full of businesses with absolutely no technical competence at all, and so much operational competence in their own field (health services, benefits…

I agree with all that you say. Not sure about something though. I'm not sure you'd have access to the information that would allow you to discover/see the possibility of changes that could allow millions of dollars in positive changes. Also, I'm thinking in ranges of $10-$100 million+ per year ranges; Larger ecosystems, etc.. and to have such an influence in an existing company, where they'd be willing to pay you out anything other than bonus or work you're way up to a million-dollar salary, would require many many years working at said time, with lots of risk that you wouldn't be rewarded adequately.

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

#245

Post by trapexit »

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…

"If I can optimize your front-end code, get you higher performance and SEO rankings, are you going to hesitate / ignore me because of my lack of years in the field?"

This is a testable hypothesis. Test it.

Seriously. Most people who fail are defeated not by external forces, but by forces from within. Stop worrying and start testing.

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

#247

Post by ana_hilinsky »

atsaloli wrote: post #212
ana_hilinsky wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you send me a quick email so we can take this off the board? I'd be happy to either help or point you in the right direction. ana@buildrx.com

We do work for retailers such as True Religion Brand Jeans, Joie Clothing, Tart Collections.. (all Magento based).

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

#248

Post by eldavido »

This post is great advice if you want to work doing consulting for large companies run by MBAs/business people that view technology as "IT": a tool for solving business problems. I'd guess 90% of programmers earn their living this way, so I agree with it, to a first approximation.

What Patrick doesn't acknowledge is the huge role of culture/norms in business, and how these differ based on geographic region, and the backgrounds of the founders.

Revenue and profit attribution are human processes that involve a lot of bias. If a salesperson sells twice as much product, should he earn twice as much compensation? How does marketing's work on improving the company's positioning/messaging, engineering's product work, and/or the overall state of the economy factor into this calculation? Who really "created business value" here?

The other problem is bigness: as companies get bigger, it's way harder to measure whose contribution is helping the company succeed, whereas it's a lot more obvious when only a handful of people are involved.

I'm an engineer, but I work at a product company. If the product is better, it sells more, and we get compensated more, along with sales, marketing, and the whole team. People in Chicago (where I grew up) still bring this dumb 19th century management model to their companies, and it's exactly why (1) all the best innovators and engineers head to the west coat, and (2) why I personally got the hell out of there. I wanted to be a professional programmer, someone who made peoples' lives better by shipping a superior product, and get compensated accordingly, not some IT lackey selling some nebulous concept of 'business value' to some feet-on-the-desk small-business-owning ex-investment banker who wouldn't know the difference between Objective-C and HTML.

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

#249

Post by nfm »

ksmiley wrote: post #233
baruch wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to double the profits you need to either double the sales or eliminate all costs . Or do a mix of both. Doubling sales multiple times is more likely than making profits on your infrastructure... Amazon AWS is probably the exception here.

How much you need to reduce costs, in order to double your profit, is dependent upon your current costs and revenue. So you don't necessarily need to eliminate all costs to double profit. Suppose you purchase widgets from a manufacturer for 100$ and sell them for 101$. In that case, 101$(revenue per widget) - 100$(cost per widget) = 1$(profit per widget). Suppose you then change manufacturers and reduce your cost per…

In theory, yes, but if you have a profitable business with a 1% margin by definition it already has to be absolutely giant (e.g. Amazon) to be making money. And to reduce costs at this scale is harder than increasing sales.

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

#250

Post by mikehealy »

ahoyhere wrote: post #154
tptacek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admire people who can execute this consultative approach (and, it should go without saying, I admire Amy Hoy's work in particular). If you can make $500/hr/person for talking sessions, I think you should do that. But I want to take yet another opportunity to stab wildly at the idea that only people who can execute at this level are "consultants", and the rest "freelancers". Though I find the terminology a little si…

I don't think we're disagreeing here about pricing at all! Lots of very good freelancers are undercharging and everybody should price on value delivered. (Especially those freelancers who disappear and only get work done when yelled at. If only!) That's why a lot of the educational content I've used to promote Freckle is about delivering, understanding & capturing value… for freelancers. (Which includes understanding…

I'm interested in the fact that your clients never sought someone cheaper to execute the plans in your report. If one of the (or THE) difference between consultants like yourselves and freelancers is the research and strategy work, then wouldn't it matter less who executes that plan?

In other words, once you've come up with the strategy is there still extra value in it being executed at your rates, compared to a freelancer executing the same plan at a much lower cost?

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