Business of Consulting « Previous Entries

How To Land Your First Client As An Independent Consultant

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

I talk to a lot of folks who are looking to transition from employee to consultant and one of the most common questions I get asked is “how do you land those first few clients?” It’s an excellent question and I’m going to outline how you get started consulting once you’ve decided to make the [...]

How to Write a Great Consulting Resume

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

Like many consultants, I was once a salaried employee that read job postings, applied for jobs and wrote cover letters. When you start consulting, you leave much of that song and dance behind you because you shift from marketing yourself from within the strict confines of formal job seeking to sales mode. Even consultants are [...]

Stave Off Depression With Blog Plugin Maintenance

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

I was starting to get kind of bummed out about my readership levels. About a month ago, it looked like my readership took a nose dive. At the same time, the amount of spam comments I was getting on my posts skyrocketed. I kept writing but I was starting to lose my motivation. Just today, [...]

How to Make Your Business Look Impressive

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

I’ve talked about sub-contracting and outsourcing a number of times before but I wanted to explore this issue further after some conversations I’ve had recently. A lot of sole proprietor consultants (like myself) have this feeling that we’ll never be taken seriously unless we have employees and a brick & mortar office. I don’t think [...]

Tired of Being Crammed Between Gen X and Gen Y?

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

This is something that I swore I would never advertise because I feel it is a liability to my business - I am 30 years old. Now that I’ve put that out there, it’s a much more interesting conversation to explore why my age has been a liability in my business these past five years.
Let [...]

Consulting Business by the Numbers: How Are You Spending Your Time?

Friday, June 20th, 2008

I was going over my bookkeeping records today as a housekeeping exercise and I thought it might be interesting to look at how many billable hours I’ve racked up so far this year (since January 1, 2008). Aside from the fact that I should be using a proper bookkeeping system like Clarity Accounting, I learned [...]

The Death of the Desktop PC? London Drugs Says “Not Quite”

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

I’ve recently been on the market for a new desktop PC. I have a laptop that I bought around two years ago and it’s been showing signs of decay. It probably just needs more RAM and a clean install of Windows but I’m finding that my computing needs are increasing and my little Dual Core [...]

Three Big Ideas for Gaining an Edge in the Consulting Market

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

I wanted to loop back on a few ideas that have been kicking around this blog and my network over the past few months. First, I want to re-look at professional designations. Second, I want to discuss the idea of teaming up with other consultants. Third, I want to talk about lead gen.
1. Professional Designations

I’m [...]

The Myth of Work-Life Balance

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

Over the years, I have heard people that I otherwise respect chide me on my lack of “work-life balance”. They see my weight problems, my obvious lack of sleep and my stress levels as an outward sign of a pending collapse. What they don’t see is the level of satisfaction that I derive from my [...]

Volunteerism - Marketing That Money Can’t Buy

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

One of the reasons that I didn’t post on Friday afternoon is because I was representing the SFU Alumni Association at the Spring Convocation Ceremony for Applied Science students at SFU’s main campus in Burnaby. I played a minor role in the ceremony - gave a short speech about life after university and the importance [...]

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