by mhalligan

Another rant on marketing, and selling yourself as a consultant.

If you don’t like talking to people, especially in person, or to strangers who are not even remotely technical, then get out now.

Sometimes, I feel like I’ve been consulting since the womb. In practicality, every FTE position I’ve had, I’ve really just been
a consultant who happened to have health insurance, and worthless stock options. It’s a way of life, that isn’t for everybody.

We’ve all heard the stories before. The brother of a colleague’s best friend’s cousin makes $150 per hour as a consultant, billing out 1500 hours a year, and spending three months per year on a deserted tropical island. Chalk them up urban legends, consulting is a lot more work than full-time employment.

You’ve been down sized, off-shored, or just quit your job. You’ve decided be a consultant. It’s not so hard, right? Just put your resume on craigslist, tell your friends about it, and watch the billable hours pour in. The good life

It doesn’t work that way. Sure, there were a few insanities between ’97 and ’00, but those are long since gone. The first thing you need to learn about being a consultant is that you are not very special. Sure, you might have a technical skill that most other people don’t have. So what. In the eyes of any potential customer, you’re just another techie who wants money, and can be treated as a commodity. Welcome to consulting.

Consulting is going to make you develop skills that you never really cared about. As a consultant, these skills are your salesmanship. As a corporate wage-slave, some might call these, “soft skills”, but they’re all the same thing. You need to convince somebody else that you are providing unique value. The ability to get this message across has very little to do with technical prowess.

OK, the lecture is over. Here are a few tips to make this venture a little bit easier.


  • Get an accountant. Turbotax won’t do it. You cannot do it yourself. If you have time 4x per year to do your own taxes, then
    you are not working hard enough. In San Francisco, an accountant for a consultant can be expected to cost around $1k per year, in 4 chunks of $250. It might be less if you’re very well organized, or more if you’re not. This is a business expense.

  • Get a lawyer. Have him/her write up your standard contract. Ask them about what type of insurance you need. Ask your lawyer about corporate structuring (LLC, sole-proprietorship, etc). The old rule of becoming a corporation to protect your assets is really no longer true. Lawyers learned a long time ago how to pierce the corporate veil. Insurance will probably go a lot further to protect you.

  • Get a banker. Open up a business account at a bank you trust, sit down with one of their business account managers. Develop a relationship. This person will help you manage your cash flow, get lines of credit, etc.

  • The chamber of commerce is your friend. Your town has one, I promise you. Become a member, it’s a tax write-off. ATTEND THE FUNCTIONS. I cannot stress this enough. Go to your local chamber of commerce functions. Smile, shake hands, hand out business cards. Talk to a minimum of 10 people, 5 of whom you do not know.

  • Develop a brand. Register a respectable domain name. Bigdumbox@hotmail.com is not an e-mail address that inspires confidence in potential clients. Get a logo, and a website designed by a good designer. Expect to spend between $2500 and $10k for this.

  • Be presentable. You’re a commodity now. Assume that you should always dress business casual. Know your customers, understand when you need to dress up, or dress down. Wearing a suit when your customer has a mohawk & tatoos is bad. Sporting a mohawk when your customer is a banker, is even worse.

  • Develop a marketing routine. For example:

    • Post your resume every tuesday, at 9am on craigslist
    • Start a $200 per month Google Adwords Campaign, devote 2 hours per week to tweaking this
    • Read up about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and tweak your website constantly
    • Distinguish yourself. Write articles for trade journals.
    • Practice your pitch. Find two people to give your elevator pitch each, and every day.
    • Practice your people skills. Go to lunch with a colleague, client, or vendor, once a week.
    • Be positive, nobody wants to give money to the consultant that bellyaches all the time.
    • Find appropriate venues to advertise your skills. A good start is FindOpenSourceSupport
    • Choose wisely amongst the freelance sites like eWork Most of them aren’t worth your time at best, and at worst are spammers who will represent you in a very negative light.

    • Network professionally. Find other consultants. This is a huge market, you have no competitors, only potential colleagues & collaborators. Learn everybody’s skills, study how they are personally, decide if they should be in your blackbook of “people I can bring on if I sign a contract I cannot possibly handle with less than X people”.

    Consider these two books, as they are the best consulting references I own.


    In the end, just utilize the resources available to you. There are many. How willing you are to grow, and how well you utilize the resources will very likely be the determining factor in your long-term viability.