So you want to be an independent consultant. Let’s skip past the stage where I scream “don’t do it!” and onto the next step:
How to position yourself.
How to position yourself.
It's natural to want to be the jack/jane-of-all-trades; anything within the vague realm of technology being what you do.
It's also a mistake.
It's also a mistake.
Your first deals are going to come from your network--friends, former colleagues, etc. You want word of mouth to spread, because traditional marketing in this space is nightmarish.
Generalists don't get recommended.
Generalists don't get recommended.
Find an expensive problem that you know how to solve, and position yourself instead as tackling that specific problem.
Your goal here is to trigger a "Rolodex moment;" when you mention what you do, someone in the room perks up with "I know someone you need to talk to."
Your goal here is to trigger a "Rolodex moment;" when you mention what you do, someone in the room perks up with "I know someone you need to talk to."
Take me as an example.
When I started out, I was planning on being "The Cloud Solutions Architect." Trouble is I'm competing with an awful lot of folks for that title--and they can outspend me something fierce.
When I started out, I was planning on being "The Cloud Solutions Architect." Trouble is I'm competing with an awful lot of folks for that title--and they can outspend me something fierce.
There's a strong argument I didn't go into a small enough niche. The canonical positioning approach would have looked more like "I fix the horrifying AWS bill for SaaS companies in the Bay Area" or whatnot. Oops.
What you're looking for is a specific, expensive problem that people are willing to pay to make go away.
"I'm the Serverless expert" is specific (ish), but it's not an expensive problem, so you'll struggle to find work.
"I'm the Serverless expert" is specific (ish), but it's not an expensive problem, so you'll struggle to find work.
A lot closer are things like:
"I fix your overbroad IAM policies."
"I optimize your EMR clusters to achieve X outcome."
"I stand up websites for credit unions in the Pacific Northwest."
You want to hit "that's me" and "that's a big problem I have" and "I don't wanna do it."
"I fix your overbroad IAM policies."
"I optimize your EMR clusters to achieve X outcome."
"I stand up websites for credit unions in the Pacific Northwest."
You want to hit "that's me" and "that's a big problem I have" and "I don't wanna do it."
Talk to folks you've worked with before. Ask them to describe the value you brought to them. It might surprise you!
You think of yourself a certain way; they cast it in a different light, and they're the folks who sign checks.
You think of yourself a certain way; they cast it in a different light, and they're the folks who sign checks.
Expect it to take time. Expect to revisit your positioning every 18 months or so.
Expect it to be marketing. You're optimizing for people reaching out with their problems. You can always *do* more than that, but it's a marketing story first and foremost.
Expect it to be marketing. You're optimizing for people reaching out with their problems. You can always *do* more than that, but it's a marketing story first and foremost.
We'll get more into this in another thread, but Specific Expensive Problems are way easier to productize and charge more to solve.
But "find an expensive problem in your space you know how to solve, then solve it" is the first step.
But "find an expensive problem in your space you know how to solve, then solve it" is the first step.
Sheer naïveté. "I've done this a few times; how hard could it be?" I learned a *lot* on my first few projects. Had I known then how little I really knew, I'd never have gotten off the ground.
https://twitter.com/gortok/status/1366582082332467202
The way I got around this early on was with a money-back guarantee. In time I stopped including this, both because it wasn't necessary (I "got good" quickly enough) as well as because it aligned people around the wrong things (cutting vs. optimizing).
Absolutely. You can turn that into "job replacement revenue" within days or weeks; building a SaaS MVP takes... considerably longer before you're "Ramen Profitable."
https://twitter.com/tobermatt/status/1366583608413097984
I'll get more into pricing tomorrow, but a common myth about consulting is that you're YEARS ahead of the client. On a good day you'll be 15 minutes ahead.
Worst case, half a sentence.
"Thinking deeply about a specific problem for a month" gets you there. I'm being serious.
Worst case, half a sentence.
"Thinking deeply about a specific problem for a month" gets you there. I'm being serious.
https://twitter.com/adatagman/status/1366586436166811652
Take the @awscloud bill. There aren't THAT many services that have runaway bills. There's clearly some structure to it, it's a bounded problem space, and it lent itself to deep thinking without growing faster than I could wrap my head around it.
IAM policies, service discovery problems, query optimizations for specific databases, improving S3 security / querying, etc. all lend themselves to similar types of problems. Those are the things I'd look into; yours are in whatever you enjoy working with.
Why consult at all?
Income security.
Sounds nuts, right? If you have a diversified client base, contrast how many people would need to fire you in order to wreck your financial picture vs. how many would have to do so in a job.
Income security.
Sounds nuts, right? If you have a diversified client base, contrast how many people would need to fire you in order to wreck your financial picture vs. how many would have to do so in a job.
Thread continues here:
https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1366870640733523968?s=20
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