
Ask HN: Good source of education on building an independent consulting business? - blunte
Periodically we see topics on freelancing and consulting, and usually a few people comment that they are successful and happy as solo (or self-owned firm) consulting.  And often, those people stress that a good percentage of their time is spent networking and marketing to keep business flowing in.<p>Can anyone in this situation recommend modern, high quality resources where one can learn the networking and marketing skills to use to build a successful solo tech&#x2F;dev consulting business?
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cjbarber
Yes!

For people like the OP seeking high quality resources with an emphasis on the
networking/sales/marketing skills required to succeed as a tech/dev/software
consultant, I'd recommend starting with "Getting Starting in Consulting" by
Weiss.

Then if you'd like more after finishing that, others to check out are:

* This PDF on sales processes [https://www.entrepidpartners.com/how-to-sell-guide](https://www.entrepidpartners.com/how-to-sell-guide)

* "An Insider's Guide to Building a Successful Consulting Practice"

* "The Software Engineer's Guide to Freelance Consulting"

But start with the Weiss book first because it gives a good and tactical
overview.

~~~
cjbarber
Also, I'd like to talk with anyone actively trying to shift from being a
software engineer full-time to being a software consultant. Or anyone trying
to grow a new consultancy. I'm exploring starting a business that makes it
easier for engineers to successfully transition to consulting. I'm just at the
early pre-product stage, and am still trying to better understand the new or
prospective software consultant perspective. I seem to get along well with
people from HN so if anyone here is happy to help and jump on the phone with
me, that'd be hugely appreciated! My email is in my profile.

~~~
JamesBarney
I'd be happy to jump on the phone with you.

Started a consulting business a year and a half ago. Still trying to figure
out how to grow it.

~~~
cjbarber
Thanks James! What's your email?

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exabrial
My advice after doing this: charge a lot; you have to pay for the time you're
not working. Keep your schedule full: be closing always. Look for passive
income; retainer +hourly is a good model. Dress professional when on site
(premium brand image). Provide value, don't nickel and dime your customers.
It's a hard business model to execute.

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gashaw
I highly recommend "The Secrets of Consulting" by Gerald Weinberg.

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softwaredoug
Guidelines:

\- Find a good niche

\- Be comfortable being very public presence in that niche (blogging,
speaking, etc)

\- Develop a way to present your niche to stakeholders, not just
technologists. Be comfortable writing persuasive writing to convince people
they need your service (both w/ proposals and marketing)

\- Genuinely care about your clients & their success

The tricky thing is to be a well known name in your niche is the "sweat
equity" of consulting, it requires a lot of work and late nights & weekends.
Does it take writing a book? Or just traveling to a bazillion conferences,
blogging, upping your social media game? Building lots of relationships? All
of the above? It can take a lot of work to get established.

Eventually you'll begin making connections to prospective clients (this is as
easy as a single sentence reminding people you're a consultant). At first,
you'll take what business is there, and do your best to make your first batch
of clients successful. At this point, you'll have to divorce yourself from
being so focused on pushing all your time into being "tech thought leader" and
find a balance between that and the day-to-day client work that pays the
bills.

Balancing the two turns out to not be too hard if you take the attitude that
your early-stage work (marketing and sales) is about caring about prospective
client's success before you meet them, not about you pumping yourself up. You
genuinely care about how aluminum widgets should be used in glem refractors,
so you are eager to teach the market about it. Clients with particularly
tricky glem refractor problems know you're the person to talk to.

Finally you'll gradually work up to more and more sophisticated clients, doing
more and more interesting work. If you're turning down 90% of your prospective
clients due to time constraints, that's a sign to raise your rates a lot. It's
expected you'll filter out the riff-raff with higher rates - these were the
clients that don't want to invest in your domain anyway, you-the client
probably aren't a good fit.

You should be prepared to reach a point in complexity where just one
consultant w/ no support might not be sufficient. You'll need to have a good
team and back-office: contracts, lawyers, invoicing, etc. You really need to
think hard about cashflow and dealing with non-payment :'(. With more
experience and a bigger team, you'll begin to see things that are reproducible
and can be repeated, and can market those as productized offerings for your
market. Return to the marketing & sales side, rinse, repeat.

Every round here is a level of increased sophistication, more sophisticated
and challenging clients, and opportunity to really push yourself. But it's not
for the feint hearted - do it because you really like your domain & serving
clients. Expect to need to treat consulting as a craft in-and-of-itself,
regardless of content area. Also expect that technology has its limits in how
much it can help orgs. So many client issues really are organizational in
nature. You'll need to think about how the organizational/people aspects
intersect with the technological.

Of course happy to give you 30 mins of my time to chat about our experience -
feel free to reach out [http://o19s.com/doug](http://o19s.com/doug)

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redis_mlc
If you're in the USA, Obamacare ruined the business model for contractors.
Health insurance went from $250/month to $500+/month. Not sure what Trumpcare
will look like.

So you're good if your wife works or you're in Canada, otherwise you start off
with one strike against you.

Also, if you want to buy a house, do it as an employee first. Getting a
mortgage with self-declared income is wonky.

The best thing is to have a "jack maneuver" ...

Most people who make it as consultants are really ex-employees who are billing
their former companies.

If you invoice somebody without an existing long-term relationship, there's a
very large chance you will be paid late or never, and thus have significant
cash flow problems.

There's nothing glamorous about consulting. It's less work to just do leetcode
and make $400k a year at Google.

Also, if you change your mind and want to work as an employee again, expect
some awkward conversations with hiring managers.

~~~
JamesBarney
Just as a counter anecdote I was only able to do consulting because of
Obamacare.

