If, like me, you’re an independent consultant or freelancer I can highly recommend the podcast The Freelancer’s Show, which is about the business of consulting and freelancing in the IT / software development industry.
More than 300 episodes in it covers a wide range of subjects that are vital if you want to run a successful and sustainable software consulting business. Some of the questions the show tries to answer or at least help the listeners with are:
- How do I position myself?
- How do I approach pricing?
- How do I get noticed by potential clients?
- How do I market my services?
- How do I negotiate with clients?
- How can I deal with difficult clients?
I can particularly recommend episodes 295 (“Erik Dietrich on the Future of Labor”) and 296 (“Negotiating with Clients”), some of the key takeaways of which are:
- Position yourself as a consultant who creates comprehensive solutions instead of just a pair of hands that merely code a solution someone else devised.
- Take end-to-end responsibility for your work and your results.
- Don’t commoditise yourself.
- Don’t negotiate or compete on price.
