Long story short, I'm working for a massive consulting firm, and I really don't like having bosses which is what it is is. I'm thinking of going solo with an emphasis on financial strategy, marketing analytics, and data analytics. So my question is whether anyone has gone out and hung up their own shingle so to speak to perform business consulting on a solo basis? If so any lessons learned? How did you go about getting clients? What % of time did you put into selling work vs delivering work?
I'm considering doing a few projects for free just to build a solo portfolio. Has anyone tried this? How did you go about pricing your services? I'm not thinking about billing anywhere near my current rate as quite a bit of that has the name of my firm baked into it. So I'd probably be billing at <50% of what I currently bill which is fine.
Has anyone used stuff like the Elance, Odesk, or Guru sites? It seems like you're mainly competing against low cost talent offshore on there, and while I have no doubt in my ability to put together a pitch deck, financial model, etc versus any of those folks I'm not sure how to convey the value prop in an online format. Obviously superior work samples are an easy differentiator.
Anyhow, if anyone has gone this route I'd be interested in hearing your experiences. I'm looking to spend the next 6 months trying to do this part time & marketing services to see how feasible this endeavor would be.
I'm considering doing a few projects for free just to build a solo portfolio. Has anyone tried this? How did you go about pricing your services? I'm not thinking about billing anywhere near my current rate as quite a bit of that has the name of my firm baked into it. So I'd probably be billing at <50% of what I currently bill which is fine.
Has anyone used stuff like the Elance, Odesk, or Guru sites? It seems like you're mainly competing against low cost talent offshore on there, and while I have no doubt in my ability to put together a pitch deck, financial model, etc versus any of those folks I'm not sure how to convey the value prop in an online format. Obviously superior work samples are an easy differentiator.
Anyhow, if anyone has gone this route I'd be interested in hearing your experiences. I'm looking to spend the next 6 months trying to do this part time & marketing services to see how feasible this endeavor would be.