Welcome to the wild world of consulting! I hope you enjoy your stay, it's the only way to live in my opinion.
What's helped me in my freelancing/consulting journey more than anything else has been building one on one relationships (aka, networking). The more people you know who know what you do, the more opportunities you'll have come your way. Some call it Luck Surface Area.
Join a paid online community of other consultants. Go to meetups around your city. If someone wants to learn programming take them out for coffee. Go to networking events. Give talks in public. Anything that will introduce you to other humans. Then keep track of all of them in a CRM. Follow up with people and provide as much value to them as you can. Participate in Hacker News (this post is increasing the number of people you might meet!). Put it on your Github/Twitter/Website etc.
Ways I've gotten gigs lately:
* Person from my online freelancer community I'd talk with multiple times was working on a project and they needed help, brought me on, now I'm getting more work from that client.
* Someone from college I hadn't talked to in 8 years saw my LinkedIn profile and contacted me about a project for their company.
* Someone saw a comment on HN about my work and reached out to me.
* College student wanted advice on freelancing, I took them out for coffee, 3 months later "I decided not to freelance but I found a client, do you want them?"
* Sitting in a coworking space and person I met yesterday and told about my business says, "I'm getting a full time job, want this client?"
None of these have had to really come from direct "selling" and all of them came to me which in my experience makes it way better since they already want and trust you. I don't even feel like I'm all that good at promoting myself, but I have work because I talk to people.
Happy to chat about this further if you want, my email's in my profile. Best of luck in your consulting!
I couldn't agree more with this advice. I'm more of a dev than a consultant, but I believe this applies to many fields.
I quit my job a year ago to start doing freelance/contract work, I never directly looked for clients but just by having good relationships with my former employer, colleagues, and people I know in general, by October I had so many projects on my hand I had to work 80hrs/week for a short period of time.
Just to re-iterate in how many different ways you can get projects and even long-term clients, this is my "how I've gotten gigs" list:
* Former employer: when I quit I was 100% honest, boss trusted me and wanted to keep working with me. They are still giving me work
* Former colleague: he quit right before me, started his own small company, knew he could count on me being a reliable dev, became a long-term client
* I was looking for devs on Twago, in order to get help in case I had too many jobs on my hand. One of the applicants was a small dev agency looking for projects. They ended up giving me work, instead of the other way around.
* (most random one) A client I had a few years ago, during my first venture as entrepreneur, messaged me on Skype by mistake, thinking I was somebody else they knew. Turns out they needed a dev, became a long-term client.
* Went back home to Italy during the summer, rented a room for a few months. My landlord was working in marketing, ended up giving me a few very good clients
What's helped me in my freelancing/consulting journey more than anything else has been building one on one relationships (aka, networking). The more people you know who know what you do, the more opportunities you'll have come your way. Some call it Luck Surface Area.
Join a paid online community of other consultants. Go to meetups around your city. If someone wants to learn programming take them out for coffee. Go to networking events. Give talks in public. Anything that will introduce you to other humans. Then keep track of all of them in a CRM. Follow up with people and provide as much value to them as you can. Participate in Hacker News (this post is increasing the number of people you might meet!). Put it on your Github/Twitter/Website etc.
Ways I've gotten gigs lately:
* Person from my online freelancer community I'd talk with multiple times was working on a project and they needed help, brought me on, now I'm getting more work from that client.
* Someone from college I hadn't talked to in 8 years saw my LinkedIn profile and contacted me about a project for their company.
* Someone saw a comment on HN about my work and reached out to me.
* College student wanted advice on freelancing, I took them out for coffee, 3 months later "I decided not to freelance but I found a client, do you want them?"
* Sitting in a coworking space and person I met yesterday and told about my business says, "I'm getting a full time job, want this client?"
None of these have had to really come from direct "selling" and all of them came to me which in my experience makes it way better since they already want and trust you. I don't even feel like I'm all that good at promoting myself, but I have work because I talk to people.
Happy to chat about this further if you want, my email's in my profile. Best of luck in your consulting!