A friend of mine said that working at a corporation gives you the illusion of stability, and working as a freelancer gives you the illusion of freedom.
I found that to be very true. Working freelance basically means that each client is a new boss. Each boss will want things from you and they don't know or care about the other bosses! So you have to be really good at juggling projects.
Freelancing != Consulting. I think this is a huge issue with the article posted.
Freelancing = Not so great jobs where clients dictate what they want (low pay)
Consulting = Excellent jobs with clients that want you for your knowledge (much much higher pay)
Making the leap is the difference between "building websites" and "building websites for a particular industry with a very specific technology that only a handful of people really know".
The difference is you can fire clients. It's hard to fire bosses. Plus you should be seeking multiple revenue streams.
The stability of a "job" comes from a regular paycheck and not having to do the work in addition to sales. Roughly 50% of the time working as a independent developer should be spent (IMO) working to add new clients and/or expand your revenue stream. If it gets to be too much work, you've now got a consulting company with people working under you (and the nightmare expands).
I cannot agree. Not every freelancer work with one boss at the time.
I am a freelancer, but I sell my services to multiple buyers (few dozens) each month. I then outsource some of it to my team. I am able to keep prices low, but not low enough to start getting cheap demanding customers (you need to really work on your pricing to snatch mostly wealthy customers, that see your price like a discount, not cheap and that if anything goes wrong wont give you hard time about it).
I don't mind if I lose 1 or even 10 customers and I tend to "fire customers" every month or two. That's freedom.
And just to clarify - I am no a company - I still work a lot and I do the most important jobs myself. I also never blame my employees for delays etc - as employer expects me to deliver, not my employees.
imo freedom is achievable as a freelancer only if you can fire your customers without going bankrupt and affecting your future finances to much.
While you mention freelancing, I have found this sentiment very true of consulting as well. You have multiple clients, all likely without knowledge or consideration of the others.It becomes very difficult to manage deadlines and expectations. It becomes an art of estimation and project management as well as consulting, which makes the work in my opinion very interesting.
For years I worked as a concierge programmer, and it was the most fun that I ever had, mostly because of the one-to-one relationship I had with my clients. All of them were in the same circumstance, which is that they had inherited a large amount of money, and they had an idea for a website. I was able to offer 2 different skills: my skill as a programmer, and my experience in the world of startups. In all such cases my clients were non-technical and inexperienced in the world of startups. They had no interest in being angel investors, instead they wanted to dive in and use their own creativity to find out how hard it was to build a business around software. They tended to be reasonably interesting people, and I enjoyed working with them, and I enjoyed shaping their vision into something that could exist in the real world. All of the projects eventually grew (for a time) into something larger, at which point I would help put together a team of what was needed (typically some mix of backenders, frontenders, QA, writers, and customer service support).
I did make good money during those years (2002 to 2009) but what I recall most fondly is how much fun all of it was.
I think that world has now largely died out, as even the earliest stage startups now belong to a scene that is somewhat professionalizing. But the earlier web was unprofessional, and that was the best thing about it.
Still I find, even now, even in New York City, there is some of the same energy among those dreaming about doing very early stage startups. Certainly the creativity and excitement is still there. The problem I've run into lately is the large number of people who are so sure that their idea will someday be worth billions that they do not want to pay cash right now, they only want to pay in equity. And that kills all of the fun for me.
For years I worked as a concierge programmer, and it was the most fun that I ever had, mostly because of the one-to-one relationship I had with my clients.
I still do this sort of work, and still love it (London though, not NYC). As you say it can be a lot of fun if your clients have interesting problems and rely on you to clarify and reify their ideas. I can confirm that world has not died out, and I suspect it won't, because there will always be a stage where people have some money to spend but not enough to take a risky bet on an untested idea and start hiring employees, which is a huge fixed cost - consultants will always be better for that sort of work.
When they're spending other people's money, of course companies are more willing to take on employees and fixed costs even at the start, so in some ways VC funding does distort this market.
The problem I've run into lately is the large number of people who are so sure that their idea will someday be worth billions that they do not want to pay cash right now, they only want to pay in equity. And that kills all of the fun for me.
If they were sure their idea would someday be worth billions, they wouldn't want to give any percentage of that away... IMO the reason they want to pay in equity is to spread some of the risk that this idea won't work - it's all upside for them if you are not paid in money now but in hypothetical money which they only have to pay if things go incredibly well.
> people who are so sure that their idea will someday be worth billions that they do not want to pay cash
I think the opposite is more likely true. If you really believed your idea was worth billions you would want to keep all that equity for yourself. I don't consider equity-only offers worth the paper they're printed on.
As someone in a somewhat similar situation, this is the first time I've heard the phrase "concierge programmer" and Google doesn't turn up any interesting matches for the phrase either. What a great concept!
Totally agreed on the equity vs. cash thing. I think most of us know enough about the last dotcom boom to be wary of going down that path.
> I've made life long friends with some of my clients. That, more than anything else on this list, has made consulting special to me.
Hah, I had the exact opposite experience freelancing straight out of college, and this was why I stopped and sought full-time employment.
Most of the people I was interacting with (clients, etc) were significantly older than me, and it was brutally isolating after awhile. Even barring the age barrier, there was always a definitive client/vendor line that seemed to prevent any meaningful relationship from developing.
I even tried a coworking space, but it was never quite the same for me since people were there to work mostly, and it's not like you were ever going to work together aside from some rare cases.
I did it for about a year and then resolved never to do it as a full-time thing ever again. The freedom attracted me, but (for me at least) the isolation was overwhelming.
Disclaimer: blah blah blah, my own experience and not yours necessarily, etc.
It always saddens me to read about coworking spaces like that. I think it's probably rare and takes a lot of effort, but coworking that builds real and lasting relationships does exist. It's not common and I think your experience is the norm, which is what disappoints me about this 'coworking revolution.'
>I get asked a lot about what software consulting (aka freelancing) is like.
Are consulting and freelancing synonyms now? In my world, most "consultants" work for small or big (Accenture, one of the French corps, Deloitte...) consulting companies and don't have many of the problems mentioned in this blog post (but also likely have lower earning potential).
I work as a consultant, and at least for my work it is like this:
Consultants are brought in to "consult", ie they have knowledge and expertise that the client does not have and that the client needs access to. For example, many of my clients have aging skillsets and development practices, and need to rapidly retool their team and organization.
I don't often hear the term freelancer used, but I often hear "contractor". A contractor is brought on to augment the client's existing staff and/or create a specific deliverable. For example, contracting a web designer to implement the desired look and feel of a web page.
Basically, contractors are a lot like employees with higher hourly rates and temporary employment. Consultants are brought in to help a client change their business.
In my book, different but overlapping terms. A consultant can be a freelancer or can work for either a consulting firm or a product company that has a consulting arm. In IT, "consultant" tends to suggest on-site work though that certainly doesn't have to be the case. And a freelancer can include consultants and programmers but also includes, for example, many writers.
But I often liken "consulting" to mean the product you are selling is yourself. Where as "freelance" means the product you are selling is some output (app, website, code, etc.).
It's a lot harder to grow a consulting business beyond 30 to 40 hours a week because a human can only sell so much of his time. But if the value you are providing is an output, you can scale by hiring others to help offload your work. Much more difficult when you have sold yourself as a consultant and the client is expecting YOU.
The terms are somewhat interchangeable to me, and you can refer to yourself either way if you are doing contract work. But I think freelance has a more individual aspect to it - you are working as a solo person (ie Joe Smith). When you start calling yourself a consultant, you might be working under a business name ("ABC Corp" for example) even if it's still just a one-person company. That might also involve how you invoice your clients as well.
Of course these are just my own impressions, there's no firm rules as far as I know for calling yourself one vs the other.
I've always considered consultants to be more on-site, but maybe that's because I didn't hear of freelancing much before the Internet and remote working.
Contractors are usually double what you would pay a salary person in the US too. It is because contractors have less reliable work and pay more taxes than salaried employees.
One of the best things I learned during my time consulting was an acute sense for the value of my time.
Spending a half hour goofing off or taking a longer lunch translated directly into a lower paycheck. Realizing that altered the way I work and how I focus on what needs to get done. It made me more productive.
Finding gigs gets tough when you want to break out of web dev, to e.g. C++/systems/desktop stuff.. And also add REMOTE constraint to that.
Network[ing] gets mentioned quite a lot, but, from my experience, if you truly want to work on really different project/domain, you have to search elsewhere.
I'd be interested to hear where. I'd like to try freelancing, but my skills are in embedded, so I figured I'd need to get good at web? Where are you finding your customers?
I was part of a mobile dev boutique "shop" for a few years. We had maybe 10 projects a year, and the majority of the projects were your run of the mill projects (ie, me-too projects, simple apps,..etc) . It became just like any other job except that you had 10 bosses instead of 1. Everyone's experience is different. But my takeaway was that it's better to define your own passion projects and make it work than to be someone else's mercenary.
I agree with you which is why I stopped consulting after five years. I started to feel like I couldn't focus on anything because I always had 5-6 projects going on at once.
Another thing is that you really begin to feel the pressure of having all time on the computer being billable time - in order to pay your bills (or in my case meet payroll for employees). So that leads to not being able to do much exploration of new technologies. For example I would stress out if spending a week learning something new because that would be a week that I would have no revenue.
> But my takeaway was that it's better to define your own passion projects and make it work than to be someone else's mercenary.
That's the beauty of being able to set your own price! You can increase your hourly rate/project estimates until some clients will decline, and then spend the free time to work on your own project.
It took me some getting used to it, though, because losing out on a project feels like a defeat, even when it isn't.
Although, "being your own boss" seems a very pleasing thing but quite possibly, you could have a steady line of work after investing some time in building relationships, one of the aspect which seems a little daunting is - boredom due to grunt work.
Most of the non-technical people would want to build a simple site with simple functionality and after sometime it is bound to get repetitive. Pay could be one of the motivating factor but would it be motivating enough to continue it for many years? Certainly, such complains can also be made about startup jobs but there are certain problems related to scaling and optimization that always give excitement and satisfaction.
There are a few very successful consultants whose skill-sets are just too awesome for a full time job and they have a steady line exciting work but probably, that would require knowledge of the deepest sort in certain fields like scaling, or statistics.
having to do grunt work is an effect of a lack of automation in most cases. one of the things he mentions is getting very tight and efficient with his tool chain, to eliminate wasted time.
also, you outsource the things you're bad at yourself, or you create a relationship with another contractor to trade work. typically this split is "designer & coder".
I disagree. Apparently, you have had one set of bad experiences with an Agency. I have had a rather good experience.
At an Agency, I am usually brought in for green field projects that larger companies don't feel their team either has the time of expertise for. This is awesome.
Also, at an Agency, I get paid for every hour I work. This is not usually the case in Product Development, where salaries are more common. The caveat, would be if you have equity. Equity can beat being paid for every hour you work, but obviously this is not always the case.
Freelancing also means you usually get paid for every hour you work. However, you also have to spend mad time marketing and looking for clients, as well as managing taxes, heath care and other housekeeping items. I dislike this, and would rather have someone else do it for me.
Why the stigma against agencies? I'm actually finding agency work more rewarding however I am a strategist working directly with multiple clients on how they can grow their business.
YMMV, but in my time consulting has tended to be when customers ask for strategic, architectural and design input more than Contractors, who often are more focussed on implementing a plan that is a bit more formed.
I don't want to be a freelancer getting paid low canadian dollars per hour. I want to be a consultant getting paid lots of money.
Based on what everyone described and this article says, the differences are subtle.
So what can I do to change how I present myself as a consultant rather than a freelancer? What changes can I make on my freelancer website? Where can I find my first consultant client? Why would a client use an expensive consultant vs odesk (based on some customer's words not mine)? How can you avoid running into these type of cost reducing customers?
These are the tough questions I think anyone curious about becoming a consultant would care about.
Your website doesn't really matter. If you want to improve the quality of clients, try:
Give them quotes per project or part of project, not per day, or heaven forfend by the hour.
Don't find clients on odesk, find them anywhere else (referrals and contacts is the best way, you've already done some work, so work those contacts).
Don't do work and then walk away - build meaningful relationships and trust with clients over years, and keep delivering for them (and being paid). Trust is key. So don't drop clients unless they are toxic - aim to build up a stable of good clients with repeat work and income. You've probably already met your first consulting client.
Do drop clients who don't trust you or insist on lower prices. If they don't trust you, you can't work for them.
Don't talk technology to them unless necessary or requested. Your client doesn't care if you use odoo with git or poo with tigger, they care about what you can deliver. They won't even know what OpenERP is (I didn't either). You can do a lot of work for clients without them knowing or caring what tech is used as long as what you build is solid and solves the problem.
Discuss requirements with them first in an in-depth way, don't wait for them to give you a list of things that need done, have a discussion, and come back with a quote which details ways to improve their business (efficiencies, new features, new markets etc). Think of yourself and present yourself as a partner, not someone contracted to do some odd jobs.
PS Since you asked about your site, it is a little topsy turvy, it starts from top to bottom with stuff you care about, and only reaches stuff clients will care about at the bottom - consider instead having a set of case studies at the top with projects you have been paid for (just 3 is fine), and quotes from happy customers. Your clients are usually focussed on their business and making money for that business more efficiently. Your personal views, your favourite technologies, and even the types of work you do, come secondary to that.
I strongly disagree with the sibling comment. Your website _does_ matter. At least in so far as it represents how you are positioning yourself to your clients.
Your website is all about what kind of software you can build. Your clients don't care about that. They want to know what kind of business value you can deliver. What kind of results can you achieve?
As a business owner, I don't want to see example websites, I want to see a case study about how you increased revenue by 20% with a new user onboarding process. I want to see how you saved 100 hrs per month in staff time (i.e. expenses) with the new set of automation features you developed.
If you don't have this data from past projects, then start collecting it. Start framing all of your conversations this way from now on. If a client is working toward a business objective, help them achieve it and make sure you put mechanisms in place to measure success and assign a real dollar value to what you helped them achieve.
I'm doing consulting on the side and loving it. Besides the money, I'm able to really hone some front-end skills that went a little stale because of the project I'm on at my full-time job.
My experience is different than the OPs though. Although we live in the same town, almost all of our interaction is by phone. And I've been fortunate that my contacts are typically technical.
Of course the only downside is time. When you've got a full-time job and then doing it on the side, every minute is precious, but I'd probably be goofing off anyway.
In the article didn't he clearly state he was working in the same space? To put it in a more generalized context, he was meeting people in real life (and he also mentioned how real life connections were important).
[+] [-] jakejake|11 years ago|reply
I found that to be very true. Working freelance basically means that each client is a new boss. Each boss will want things from you and they don't know or care about the other bosses! So you have to be really good at juggling projects.
[+] [-] ryanSrich|11 years ago|reply
Freelancing = Not so great jobs where clients dictate what they want (low pay)
Consulting = Excellent jobs with clients that want you for your knowledge (much much higher pay)
Making the leap is the difference between "building websites" and "building websites for a particular industry with a very specific technology that only a handful of people really know".
[+] [-] iolothebard|11 years ago|reply
The stability of a "job" comes from a regular paycheck and not having to do the work in addition to sales. Roughly 50% of the time working as a independent developer should be spent (IMO) working to add new clients and/or expand your revenue stream. If it gets to be too much work, you've now got a consulting company with people working under you (and the nightmare expands).
[+] [-] dksidana|11 years ago|reply
"working at a startup gives you the illusion of ownership"
[+] [-] funkyy|11 years ago|reply
I am a freelancer, but I sell my services to multiple buyers (few dozens) each month. I then outsource some of it to my team. I am able to keep prices low, but not low enough to start getting cheap demanding customers (you need to really work on your pricing to snatch mostly wealthy customers, that see your price like a discount, not cheap and that if anything goes wrong wont give you hard time about it). I don't mind if I lose 1 or even 10 customers and I tend to "fire customers" every month or two. That's freedom.
And just to clarify - I am no a company - I still work a lot and I do the most important jobs myself. I also never blame my employees for delays etc - as employer expects me to deliver, not my employees.
imo freedom is achievable as a freelancer only if you can fire your customers without going bankrupt and affecting your future finances to much.
[+] [-] stevebot|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lisa_henderson|11 years ago|reply
I did make good money during those years (2002 to 2009) but what I recall most fondly is how much fun all of it was.
I think that world has now largely died out, as even the earliest stage startups now belong to a scene that is somewhat professionalizing. But the earlier web was unprofessional, and that was the best thing about it.
Still I find, even now, even in New York City, there is some of the same energy among those dreaming about doing very early stage startups. Certainly the creativity and excitement is still there. The problem I've run into lately is the large number of people who are so sure that their idea will someday be worth billions that they do not want to pay cash right now, they only want to pay in equity. And that kills all of the fun for me.
[+] [-] grey-area|11 years ago|reply
I still do this sort of work, and still love it (London though, not NYC). As you say it can be a lot of fun if your clients have interesting problems and rely on you to clarify and reify their ideas. I can confirm that world has not died out, and I suspect it won't, because there will always be a stage where people have some money to spend but not enough to take a risky bet on an untested idea and start hiring employees, which is a huge fixed cost - consultants will always be better for that sort of work.
When they're spending other people's money, of course companies are more willing to take on employees and fixed costs even at the start, so in some ways VC funding does distort this market.
The problem I've run into lately is the large number of people who are so sure that their idea will someday be worth billions that they do not want to pay cash right now, they only want to pay in equity. And that kills all of the fun for me.
If they were sure their idea would someday be worth billions, they wouldn't want to give any percentage of that away... IMO the reason they want to pay in equity is to spread some of the risk that this idea won't work - it's all upside for them if you are not paid in money now but in hypothetical money which they only have to pay if things go incredibly well.
[+] [-] juliangregorian|11 years ago|reply
I think the opposite is more likely true. If you really believed your idea was worth billions you would want to keep all that equity for yourself. I don't consider equity-only offers worth the paper they're printed on.
[+] [-] SmellyGeekBoy|11 years ago|reply
Totally agreed on the equity vs. cash thing. I think most of us know enough about the last dotcom boom to be wary of going down that path.
[+] [-] ChainsawSurgery|11 years ago|reply
Hah, I had the exact opposite experience freelancing straight out of college, and this was why I stopped and sought full-time employment.
Most of the people I was interacting with (clients, etc) were significantly older than me, and it was brutally isolating after awhile. Even barring the age barrier, there was always a definitive client/vendor line that seemed to prevent any meaningful relationship from developing.
I even tried a coworking space, but it was never quite the same for me since people were there to work mostly, and it's not like you were ever going to work together aside from some rare cases.
I did it for about a year and then resolved never to do it as a full-time thing ever again. The freedom attracted me, but (for me at least) the isolation was overwhelming.
Disclaimer: blah blah blah, my own experience and not yours necessarily, etc.
[+] [-] ohashi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aqwis|11 years ago|reply
Are consulting and freelancing synonyms now? In my world, most "consultants" work for small or big (Accenture, one of the French corps, Deloitte...) consulting companies and don't have many of the problems mentioned in this blog post (but also likely have lower earning potential).
[+] [-] cpitman|11 years ago|reply
Consultants are brought in to "consult", ie they have knowledge and expertise that the client does not have and that the client needs access to. For example, many of my clients have aging skillsets and development practices, and need to rapidly retool their team and organization.
I don't often hear the term freelancer used, but I often hear "contractor". A contractor is brought on to augment the client's existing staff and/or create a specific deliverable. For example, contracting a web designer to implement the desired look and feel of a web page.
Basically, contractors are a lot like employees with higher hourly rates and temporary employment. Consultants are brought in to help a client change their business.
[+] [-] ghaff|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinbartlett|11 years ago|reply
But I often liken "consulting" to mean the product you are selling is yourself. Where as "freelance" means the product you are selling is some output (app, website, code, etc.).
It's a lot harder to grow a consulting business beyond 30 to 40 hours a week because a human can only sell so much of his time. But if the value you are providing is an output, you can scale by hiring others to help offload your work. Much more difficult when you have sold yourself as a consultant and the client is expecting YOU.
[+] [-] jakejake|11 years ago|reply
Of course these are just my own impressions, there's no firm rules as far as I know for calling yourself one vs the other.
[+] [-] mholt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ujjain|11 years ago|reply
It seems in the United States salaries for permanent employees are higher, but that contractors don't get paid double.
[+] [-] therealwill|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gk1|11 years ago|reply
My experience hasn't been the same (I'm a consultant), but I can only speak for myself.
[+] [-] tome|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shiftb|11 years ago|reply
Spending a half hour goofing off or taking a longer lunch translated directly into a lower paycheck. Realizing that altered the way I work and how I focus on what needs to get done. It made me more productive.
[+] [-] zerr|11 years ago|reply
Network[ing] gets mentioned quite a lot, but, from my experience, if you truly want to work on really different project/domain, you have to search elsewhere.
[+] [-] shubb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wooyi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakejake|11 years ago|reply
Another thing is that you really begin to feel the pressure of having all time on the computer being billable time - in order to pay your bills (or in my case meet payroll for employees). So that leads to not being able to do much exploration of new technologies. For example I would stress out if spending a week learning something new because that would be a week that I would have no revenue.
[+] [-] gurkendoktor|11 years ago|reply
That's the beauty of being able to set your own price! You can increase your hourly rate/project estimates until some clients will decline, and then spend the free time to work on your own project. It took me some getting used to it, though, because losing out on a project feels like a defeat, even when it isn't.
[+] [-] semi-extrinsic|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shubhamjain|11 years ago|reply
Most of the non-technical people would want to build a simple site with simple functionality and after sometime it is bound to get repetitive. Pay could be one of the motivating factor but would it be motivating enough to continue it for many years? Certainly, such complains can also be made about startup jobs but there are certain problems related to scaling and optimization that always give excitement and satisfaction.
There are a few very successful consultants whose skill-sets are just too awesome for a full time job and they have a steady line exciting work but probably, that would require knowledge of the deepest sort in certain fields like scaling, or statistics.
[+] [-] chrismarlow9|11 years ago|reply
also, you outsource the things you're bad at yourself, or you create a relationship with another contractor to trade work. typically this split is "designer & coder".
[+] [-] k__|11 years ago|reply
"A dev got sick, but we got to ship on monday! We gonna pay you mad monies to come over the weekend and safe our ass"
Paid good money, but was boring work. But I would recommend it anyone before starting to work for an "agency".
Product development > Freelancing > Unemployment > Working for an agency
[+] [-] stevebot|11 years ago|reply
At an Agency, I am usually brought in for green field projects that larger companies don't feel their team either has the time of expertise for. This is awesome.
Also, at an Agency, I get paid for every hour I work. This is not usually the case in Product Development, where salaries are more common. The caveat, would be if you have equity. Equity can beat being paid for every hour you work, but obviously this is not always the case.
Freelancing also means you usually get paid for every hour you work. However, you also have to spend mad time marketing and looking for clients, as well as managing taxes, heath care and other housekeeping items. I dislike this, and would rather have someone else do it for me.
[+] [-] sycren|11 years ago|reply
Is it the pay/workload/clientel?
[+] [-] snambi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoboon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cafard|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ExpiredLink|11 years ago|reply
... or so are your delusive dreams. In reality you trade one kind of dependency for another.
[+] [-] DonHopkins|11 years ago|reply
A: A contractor knows the difference.
[+] [-] mlvljr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j45|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meapix|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiously|11 years ago|reply
Take a look at my "freelance" website http://appsonify.com
Tell me how I can turn it into a "consultant".
I don't want to be a freelancer getting paid low canadian dollars per hour. I want to be a consultant getting paid lots of money.
Based on what everyone described and this article says, the differences are subtle.
So what can I do to change how I present myself as a consultant rather than a freelancer? What changes can I make on my freelancer website? Where can I find my first consultant client? Why would a client use an expensive consultant vs odesk (based on some customer's words not mine)? How can you avoid running into these type of cost reducing customers?
These are the tough questions I think anyone curious about becoming a consultant would care about.
[+] [-] grey-area|11 years ago|reply
Give them quotes per project or part of project, not per day, or heaven forfend by the hour.
Don't find clients on odesk, find them anywhere else (referrals and contacts is the best way, you've already done some work, so work those contacts).
Don't do work and then walk away - build meaningful relationships and trust with clients over years, and keep delivering for them (and being paid). Trust is key. So don't drop clients unless they are toxic - aim to build up a stable of good clients with repeat work and income. You've probably already met your first consulting client.
Do drop clients who don't trust you or insist on lower prices. If they don't trust you, you can't work for them.
Don't talk technology to them unless necessary or requested. Your client doesn't care if you use odoo with git or poo with tigger, they care about what you can deliver. They won't even know what OpenERP is (I didn't either). You can do a lot of work for clients without them knowing or caring what tech is used as long as what you build is solid and solves the problem.
Discuss requirements with them first in an in-depth way, don't wait for them to give you a list of things that need done, have a discussion, and come back with a quote which details ways to improve their business (efficiencies, new features, new markets etc). Think of yourself and present yourself as a partner, not someone contracted to do some odd jobs.
PS Since you asked about your site, it is a little topsy turvy, it starts from top to bottom with stuff you care about, and only reaches stuff clients will care about at the bottom - consider instead having a set of case studies at the top with projects you have been paid for (just 3 is fine), and quotes from happy customers. Your clients are usually focussed on their business and making money for that business more efficiently. Your personal views, your favourite technologies, and even the types of work you do, come secondary to that.
[+] [-] joemoon|11 years ago|reply
Your website is all about what kind of software you can build. Your clients don't care about that. They want to know what kind of business value you can deliver. What kind of results can you achieve?
As a business owner, I don't want to see example websites, I want to see a case study about how you increased revenue by 20% with a new user onboarding process. I want to see how you saved 100 hrs per month in staff time (i.e. expenses) with the new set of automation features you developed.
If you don't have this data from past projects, then start collecting it. Start framing all of your conversations this way from now on. If a client is working toward a business objective, help them achieve it and make sure you put mechanisms in place to measure success and assign a real dollar value to what you helped them achieve.
[+] [-] hisyam|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikerichards|11 years ago|reply
My experience is different than the OPs though. Although we live in the same town, almost all of our interaction is by phone. And I've been fortunate that my contacts are typically technical.
Of course the only downside is time. When you've got a full-time job and then doing it on the side, every minute is precious, but I'd probably be goofing off anyway.
[+] [-] curiously|11 years ago|reply
How do you get a coffee with a real estate realtor or someone like that?
Craigslist?
PPC? what keywords do you target?
Landing page? How does it differ from a freelancer's portfolio?
How did you find out what he quotes he was getting? Did you match it or underprice it somewhat?
[+] [-] ohashi|11 years ago|reply