Random bullets.
* You need to be making 150-200% of your FTE rate to come out ahead in a year
* Bill daily, not hourly (you can bill weekly, or quarterly, too.)
* Raise your rates.
* Count on signing your clients master agreement, not yours
* You can win by getting every contract reviewed, or by just signing them blindly
* Specialize
* Incorporate; it's easy and cheap
* Keep your SOWs vague
* Don’t waste time on your website design (but do write)
* Do go nuts with your proposal design; pay someone to help you
* Target 80% utilization; past that, hire or jack your rates up
* Don’t work with clients you’d want a down payment from
* Don’t hire a salesperson
* Your availability on a calendar is worth money; so is your implied consent to be
terminated on no notice; make sure you’re charging for it
* Get an accountant ASAP
* Do favors; karma works better than ads
* Don’t do conferences/conventions
* You can subcontract at first — most new consultants do — but get out of that quickly.
These are just things I think I learned over 15 years of doing this work; only some of them --- like never billing hourly --- are things I'd go to the mattresses over, but I think they're all generally correct.
* You need to be making 150-200% of your FTE rate to come out ahead in a year
* Bill daily, not hourly (you can bill weekly, or quarterly, too.)
* Raise your rates.
* Count on signing your clients master agreement, not yours
* You can win by getting every contract reviewed, or by just signing them blindly
* Specialize
* Incorporate; it's easy and cheap
* Keep your SOWs vague
* Don’t waste time on your website design (but do write)
* Do go nuts with your proposal design; pay someone to help you
* Target 80% utilization; past that, hire or jack your rates up
* Don’t work with clients you’d want a down payment from
* Don’t hire a salesperson
* Your availability on a calendar is worth money; so is your implied consent to be terminated on no notice; make sure you’re charging for it
* Get an accountant ASAP
* Do favors; karma works better than ads
* Don’t do conferences/conventions
* You can subcontract at first — most new consultants do — but get out of that quickly.
These are just things I think I learned over 15 years of doing this work; only some of them --- like never billing hourly --- are things I'd go to the mattresses over, but I think they're all generally correct.