Stop Freelancing

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I've known people do that when their small business was sold to a larger one, and they did not want to stay at the larger company for longer than the hand-over period. Though they have eventually grown back to having a new small business with employees, so haven't stayed as singleton freelancer so they might not count for what you are asking.

huh. Interesting.

The thing is? I have no trouble at all getting freelancing or "contract" work where I'm paid by the hour, and where I'm expected to pretend like I want to be a full time employee.

I mean, other than the pretending, I have no objections; usually the work is easy and the pay is good.

The thing is, I like mercenary work, and I'm good at it (Most of the gigs I've gotten, well, they seem to be looking for someone who wants full-time work but can't get it without contracting for a while first. Generally speaking? I am better than most people who can't get full-time work, and way better than most people who can't get full-time work, but who can pass the contracting interview process.)

I have a business (and a business licence, and a corporation, and employees, and health +workers compensation insurance, and actually rather more revenue from hosting/VPS customers than I could reasonably expect to make from consulting) - but I still don't have whatever it takes to get larger or more monied companies to hire me as a company, rather than as a freelancer.

It's... odd, 'cause generally speaking? I don't hire people who aren't better than me. If you can hire my company, rather than me? even if you are paying rather more, you are getting a significantly better product.

Now, you could say, the primary difference is that when freelancing, often I use a body shop. Which could be the case; but more than once, I've had a manager call me back after I've left and negotiate a new deal (that he then takes to the body shop) so I guess I'm a little unclear on what value the body shop is bringing the client, so I have no idea how to go about replacing them for my corporation. (the body shop is bringing me value in the form of giving me access to clients who won't do business with my small company.)

Edit: note, I /can/ get gigs without a body shop, and flat-rate gigs, too... but... the people I can sell to directly? Generally speaking, they have... much smaller budgets. To the point where I end up making less money. A whole lot less money.

So, that's my problem; it seems that the body shops are only set up to deal with hourly work, and it seems that I lack something that companies with money need in order to do business.

I have been called unprofessional, and eh, I have a hard time arguing... but like I said, I do just fine; generally far above expectations when going through a body shop, and I /do/ have an infrastructure for outsourcing more of the professional bullshit.

To be clear, I'm not saying the body shop isn't bringing value to the customer... just that I don't know what that value is.

In my case, it really worked the opposite way. When I was an 'agency', I barely had any clients because they didn't feel personal. When I used my name, they were more comfortable and were able to relate more, thus feeling more inclined to hire.