
The Plumber’s Guide to Finding & Keeping Clients - tomh
http://www.freelanceswitch.com/finding/lessons-from-the-plumbers/
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radu_floricica
I will admit something embarrassing here: I would not have gone to the trouble
of interviewing seven plumbers. And my mistake (and be honest, yours too)
makes it hard for Michael to thrive and for the others to fail. After all,
once you get a client, if you do the job somehow it won't hurt you much if you
do it less then perfect. They might even recommend you: it's not like they
know somebody else, and you _did_ do the job, after all.

This btw is one application of the Internet I expected for more then a decade
and never materialized. A wiki-consumerist, with reviews in any domain.
Unfortunately, I do not think it is easy.

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silentOpen
The primary problem seems to be trust and identity. Those people who are being
reviewed will want their chance to speak or vote. They may even do so
surreptitiously. Who would run the service? They probably have conflicts of
interest if they are doing it for money.

I have hope that the uptake of social networking will see some smart people
deploy a service like this in the next 5 years.

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edw519
I love #1:

"Some people are going to come to you with tough jobs. How you respond to
their inquiries says a lot about you and your work. Are you going to be like
Michael, who relished the challenge and motivated his crew to step up to it?"

We are fortunate to be in an industry still in its infancy. Many of our
contemporaries don't know how to do things, so they mistakenly believe "they
can't be done".

When I hear, "that can't be done," that's when the juices start flowing.

(Be careful, there's a flip side. Don't turn your nose up at work that
"anybody can do".)

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robryan
There is of course though a fine line between going the extra distance for a
client and being taken advantage of/ underpaid.

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weaksauce
I think this really boils down to being an expert in your chosen field. As a
consultant, the people are paying you to be the expert and take care of all
aspects of the project.

