Re: Tips for work-at-home consultant?

Three more tips:

1) Become a Sub-Chapter S corporation, this limits liabilities and a
lot of bigger companies prefer to do business corp to corp. This also
gets you around legal issues pertaining to being an employee of your
client (i.e. for a corp called ABC Corp (your name here), you are an
employee of ABC Corp, if you work for say IBM Corp then they are doing
business with ABC Corp who supplies you as the consultant - this gets
around the employee issues). In the state of North Carolina it cost
$250 to become an S corp, money well spent.

2) Get a good CPA no matter what the cost. I learned this the hard
way, went the cheap route with a friend of a friend of a friend (I
think we all have some of those stories) and paid dearly. Ask other
small businessmen in your area for their recommendation - they will
gladly tell who the good ones are and who the bad ones are.

3) Let's not forget insurance, General Liability and Business. Most
big companies need you to have a General Liability policy (damage you
can do to them), i pay $130 a year for this coverage. Business
insurance cover's business assets, say you buy a used iSeries to do
coding in your home office - because this is business equipment then
your homeowner's policy will not cover it and if something should
happen then you will not be able to recoup the expense.


Chuck Ackerman wrote:
Don,

Those are great suggestions!

Here's another one.

Know the laws. Some states such as in California will consider you
an
employee if you don't show enough independence. If you work their
hours and
on jobs at their command then the state will consider you an employee
and
make the company pay employee taxes.

Work your own schedule, and if possible, use your own laptop
computer. That
will show that you are supplying your own tools. Get only general
management on tasks.

chuck
Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.

<don.schenck@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1112797308.669391.117950@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Scott --

I've been doing this for seven years, and been successful. My
advice:

* Find someone that can inspire or motivate you. Meet with that
person
on a regular basis. Doesn't have to be another "techie"; just
someone
who believe in you. This is huge ... trust me.

* Learn all you can about selling. The Sandler Sales series of
books
and CD's has an excellent repuation. Don't underestimate the value
of
sales training. After all, we techies at heart.

* Network, network, network ... and I don't mean TCP/IP. Get out
there
and shake hands. Develop an "elevator speech" (mine is the last
paragraph on my web site home page). Tell EVERYONE you meet of what
you
do. Without fail.

* Look for opportunities. They will often come in very unexpected
places.

* Don't make the mistake of thinking that, because you are a
one-man
show, that large corporations don't want you. Just the opposite.
Sell
it as "You get to deal directly with the owner". Also, large
corporations have the money to spend.

* Don't waste your time (translation: Money) on small clients that
are
too tight with their money. They either: Don't have the money, or
don't
realize the value of what you have to offer. Think about it; a 20
percent increase in productivity to a small company might be worth
a
few thousand dollars a year. The same to, say, a Pfizer, would be
worth
tens of millions. Now, which one do you think will be more likely
to
shell our $85 per hour for your skills?

* Take vacations.

* Always maintain just enough distance for your clients so that
they
understand that you are NOT their employee. If it means taking a
day
away every once in a while just to make that point, do it. The last
thing you want to do is be "owned" by the client. Remember, it's a
two-way street.

* Do the little extras, and don't charge for them. For example,
whenever I come across information that I think would be helpful
for a
current or past client, I email it to them. Keeps me on their mind,
and
let's them know that I'm genuinely interested in their ongoing
success.

* Take advantage of any free seminars you can, whether it's from
Microsoft, IBM. Within reason, of course ... or you'll spend all
your
time at seminars and no time billing.

* ASK for work. Look for work at your current clients, and make
wise
suggestions. A client once hired me for a three month project, and
it
turned into a HUGE worldwide project, taking four years, and was a
huge
success.

* Ask for referrals.

* In keeping with the above, make sure your clients know that you
have
other clients. You don't have to name them (probably best you
don't),
but let them know that you are a busy man with other clients. This
is a
plus! You can assure them that the ideas and skills that you apply
at
other clients are a benefit to all your clients.

* At the same time, never let other clients interfere with the
client
you are focusing on at the moment. When you are work at or for XYZ
Corporation, they are your most important client.

* Set up lines of communication with your clients, probably email.
Make
sure they all know that you may be working for a client and can't
be
reached via mobile phone at the instant, but, you can be reached
via
email and will QUICKLY respond, even if just to say "I got your
message". Clients don't mind of you have to QUICKLY respond to
another
client. After all, some day THEY will be contacting you.

* Finally, a techie thing (sort of). I pay $12 a month to
Mailstreet.com to have my emails sent to and from my domain name
(Xceeda.com). That way, I don't have to run an Exchange server at
my
office, but I get professional-looking email. Spend the money.
Using a
gmail or hotmail account looks too amateurish.

Hope this helps; it comes from years of experience.

PLEASE (anyone on this list) feel free to contact me with
questions,
comments, criticisms, cigar ratings, or work!

*smile*

don.schenck@xxxxxxxxxx

All The Best,

-- Don Schenck, York, PA


.

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