6-Mo of Full-Time Consulting
Today marks six months of me going full-time on my own. It’s been both exciting, disappointing, fun, hard, tiring, and most of all, extremely educational. Although not a complete list, I thought I’d share some important things I learned.
Getting Paid
Before you sign anything, make sure you have a payment schedule from your client and it’s same as stated in the contract. I made this mistake with a firm that handles the payment for the client I work for. Although I was given a payment schedule, the firm decided not to honor that and went with net 30 term. That effectively screwed up my budget and it’s not pleasant explaining that to my wife.
As for the payment term, if you invoice after two weeks and the payment term is net 30, you have to expect that there will be minimum of 6 weeks of non-payment when you go on your own. That is, if they don’t give you “the check is in the mail” line. Make sure you get a retainer upfront and check the credit of the company you’ll be receiving the payment from.
My advise here is that if you’re faced with working with a consulting firm and not the client directly, don’t do it. It’s much easier to talk to the people you work with than some outside company. I also saw this happen to other consultants when I worked with a consulting firm as a CTO.
Work Load
Don’t ever take on more work than you can handle. You’ll always get tempted by the financial reward but there’s more to life than money. I originally went into consulting because I thought I’ll get to see my family more. However, I ended up working like I did before. Always think about why you’re doing this to begin with.
I had to reduce the work load by transferring some clients to others who I trust. That’s another thing, always make sure your client that you can’t handle to good hands.
Time Management
As a consultant, time is money. I don’t have to explain how important time management is. Stay away from anything that is not considered productive use of your time. e.g. going out for drinking.
I have a gig that requires me to be onsite. What that means is that I have almost 4 hours of non-billable time per day. If you’re going to take on an assignment that requires you to be onsite, make sure your rate can cover that lost time. I use my commute time to catch up on studies and work online using EVDO.
Knowing My Place
Although I can offer lot more than what’s on the agreement, I have to be sensitive to the client’s employees and the management. The last time I opened my mouth and said what I thought, I ended up becoming a CTO. However, I did it because the person I was saying it to can handle it and was okay to do so based on the conditions at the time.
It used to frustrate me when I saw people making the same mistakes I made years ago. However, I now accept my role and there’s some comfort in knowing that they too, will learn from the mistakes. It may not always be the best thing for me to help. However, I’ll always roll up my sleeves if asked.
