> Getting consulting clients is a completely different skillset than doing consulting work. If you're not the type of person who enjoys networking, cold outreach, selling yourself, and chasing deals then the consulting life probably won't be as fun as it may sound on the internet.
It's really not this dramatic.
People need software developers. All you really need to do is let enough people - who can hire you - know who you are and what you do. I do this entirely online.
I will say it's way easier when you specialize in a particular industry however.
> All you really need to do is let enough people - who can hire you - know who you are and what you do.
Right, that's what I said: If you're not the type of person who enjoys networking, putting yourself out there, and setting up contracts with clients then it's going to be a pain to do this.
> I will say it's way easier when you specialize in a particular industry however.
I looked at your profile and it appears you are very specialized in a smaller (fewer overall specialists) market. Big fish in a small pond makes consulting easy. The average developer doing generalized work isn't going to have the same experience, though.
> Right, that's what I said: If you're not the type of person who enjoys networking, putting yourself out there, and setting up contracts with clients then it's going to be a pain to do this.
LOL fair point. I guess I never really thought of what I was doing as networking. I don't exactly think of myself as a very extroverted, salesy kind of person. I just went about it from first principles - problem 1 was no one knows I exist, solution was let people know I exist.
> I looked at your profile and it appears you are very specialized in a smaller (fewer overall specialists) market. Big fish in a small pond makes consulting easy. The average developer doing generalized work isn't going to have the same experience, though.
While there is some stuff in my industry that's different (low connectivity and older users) - really the day to day work is not that much different than writing software for any other. I'm sure most people could look at their past employment history and find themselves a market.
The ease of this is really entirely dependent on knowing the right people.
Years ago I tried selling myself as a freelancer, but in spite of doing fine work for one or two people, I couldn't find clients, so gave up - I realized that the trick is, you've got to have boss-tier or management-tier friends (aka, be upper middle class).
Pro Tip: Hire a marketing specialist. You don't have to do everything yourself, you just have to quickly understand, monitor, and properly respect all the aspects of doing the business.
If that is out of budget, find a partner that can build that aspect of the business.
And it's infuriating how many people keep passing this off as easy or "not that hard". Building up to deals is VERY hard unless you have the skillset for it, and it takes either a LOT of time to develop such a skillset (if you can at all), or it takes natural talent.
Maybe I just lucked into the right niche in the right locale at the right time because I definitely don't have some kind of amazing deal-building skills.
That was never my experience. I found clients from my existing network and was always turning away work. My sales activity was passive rather than active.
And bully for you. That doesn't make it easy for other people. I gave up after 2 years of losing money between the few contracts I could scrape together.
It's really not this dramatic.
People need software developers. All you really need to do is let enough people - who can hire you - know who you are and what you do. I do this entirely online.
I will say it's way easier when you specialize in a particular industry however.