51–60 of 126 posts
John Smith
CEO and President
John Smith Global Design Enterprises
I'm struggling with this, since it feels slightly like lying to call just myself "we". What should I answer when the clients ask who "we" are?
I can imagine some clients would find it disingenuous to have a company name when it's just you, yeah. This post was interesting because my current boss had the exact opposite experience. He said when he dropped the "company/we" terminology he had been using and was upfront about how it's just him, his relationship with clients improved greatly. It probably all depends on the types of clients you have.
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 fo…
Have been through more or less the same process as you stated. Its really tough to define what value as you pointed out at the end. Faking the full-time bit is completely true, does not make sense ... but then seems to be a necessity.
It's weird, 'cause I do think I'm unusually good as a temporary worker; I'm willing to tailor the time when I leave to something comfortable for the employer (whereas someone wanting a full-time job is going to jump at the request of a company that is willing to hire them full-time)
And because I'm looking at it as a temporary gig, Not only am I going to feel okay with it when you do let me go, I'm trying to set things up so that the person you get to replace me has an easier time of it; I pride myself on the ability to do things like train replacements. Hell, often I'll help you /find/ the replacement. (another thing that I can do well, but that so far I've failed to figure out how to monetize.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you read the article? He is simply suggesting to get a business license and act as a company, instead of calling yourself "freelancer". Its a pure image/marketing thing, and I can see his point.
It also protects your personal assets...
For what it's worth, if you do decide on a company, call it something modest - and don't try to pretend that you're something that you're not or pretend that you're bigger than you are. Seeing a business card that reads: John Smith CEO and President John Smith Global Design Enterprises just does not cut it.
And it's pretty obvious to a customer that if the "CEO" answers his own phone and they never meet any of the CEO's employees, they're dealing with a one-man operation that's putting up a fake front.
If you want to be a solutions company then be prepared to be a salesperson as well as engineer. If you want to be a body for hire then there are hundreds of agencies that will do that part for you.
They're all assholes, but that's their job.
I'm hoping to do this by the end of the year or soon thereafter, just so I can start working on being an employee (W-2) of my own company. My motivation was listening to Gina Trapani (of Lifehacker, etc.) talk on the In Beta podcast ( http://5by5.tv/inbeta/73 ) about how she and her partner in applying for a mortgage basically were having to leave out Gina's income because as a self-employed and 1099 contractor with…
I realize now that an elegant way to handle this type of situation is through an LLC where my annual income is a separate fact from the on-and-off-again nature of contract tech work.
It really all boils down to risk management. If you're a self-identified say, "Ruby freelancer", the value proposition is "I am an independent Ruby developer for hire". For staff augmentation gigs or applying for a FT position, this is all well and good, because whoever's hiring is looking for warm bodies with specific technical capabilities. However, many companies are looking to solve specific business problems and…
This really depends a lot on the business. Even for consultants, many companies prefer to split business and technical consulting, sometimes contracting them out separately, or sometimes just contracting one of them out as needed. In that situation, they typically do not want the technical consultant involving themselves in the business case, because they were hired to solve a technical problem, not to second-guess t…
I'm struggling with this, since it feels slightly like lying to call just myself "we". What should I answer when the clients ask who "we" are?