Freelance Consultant's Diary

As I have been chronicling my journey to transition to a freelance, independent business consultant , I must point out that the opportunity to reboot my career as a management consultant came through alums of the firms that I have worked in the past.  I was almost in a hopeless situation and if that opportunity had not come, even though I had six-figure savings, I would have struggled to find my footing . Having said that, the transition has not been easy .  I have only had projects from this firm and they have struggled to pay me in a timely manner .  Plus, I am realizing that even with my excellent credentials finding paid work has been a challenge.  I even wonder if my impeccable bio has become a barrier. The other consideration is the excessive amount of time that is wasted in sales marketing, up to 70% .  I am a critical thinker and a researcher and it breaks my heart to realize that I spent major part of my day and year searching for work than a...

The other day while researching things for me to do to find clients and projects , I came across this article by Alyson Krueger in which she quotes Stephen Robert Morse of SkillBridge, who says, " If you are a consultant you spend 50 to 70 percent of your time hustling for work, and 25 percent of your time actually doing the work .”  Now as a business consultant who worked for consulting firms in the past, billability was a hugely important metric.  We filled our time sheets each week and the billability was a point of discussion during performance evaluation meetings.  It was problematic, though, because many of us who actually did the projects were helpless if the partners were not bringing work (or brought projects that required you to work full time but you could not bill the hours since the project was sold at a lower price -- if you said no to such projects you billability was zero and you were considered not a team player but when the time came to evaluate your pe...

As I have been writing about the challenges of getting invoices paid on time , I have been struggling to figure out what is the best way to handle this.  So this is the background.  I am not necessarily trying to reinvent myself because I used to be a consultant before, but I am definitely trying to transition back.  During my 10 year absence as a consultant, I went to do other things, mostly working in a startup.  In that process, I did not develop industry contacts with people who can hire me as a freelance consultant. This is when I hooked up with ex-colleagues who run a boutique consulting firm.  The work is interesting but does not pay extremely well.  Let us say between $50 and $75 an hour but since the projects last for months, it is much better than seeking work each week for a few hours or weeks.  During a 18 month relationship with them while they could not keep me billable 100% of the time, they hired me to do work worth $125,000.  I...

So when my roof started to show signs of trouble (water leak during the monster winter of 2014/2015, chipping off of shingles, and mildew/lichen on shingles) I had no choice but to get a new roof after 20 years.  Since the roofers have had such a good year, they were so snooty that they wouldn't return my call.  I was avoiding the big box stores because I know that despite being more reliable (I just had carpets installed by Home Depot -- three bedrooms for $1,100 and I ripped off the old carpet myself and also moved the furniture myself), they do charge more.  I finally got two written estimates and one oral. I have a 4-bedroom colonial with a front porch and a screened porch at the back.  Just about 24 squares in the lingo of roofers.  I also wanted to get quality work done for peace of mind so I was reluctant to hire illegals .  I did a lot of research online but there is simply no way to get an accurate estimate of what you should be paying but I just w...

When I decided to revive my career as a business consultant , among others, I signed up with Elance, because this is a service that I had used almost a decade ago to find freelancers to do some work for me.  This time I became a provider and within a few weeks I realized that in their desperate desire to grow, the management at Elance had destroyed the business.  Now, unless there are geographic restrictions for a project, you are competing with folks in Bangladesh and Kenya.  You try to be as competitive as you can and hope that you can do quality work for $50 and hour but then comes an individual in a third world country whose total billing is $50 for a week's work.  Ouch!  I closed my account. For last several weeks I have been checking out Hourly Nerd.  They have not made the same mistake as Elance by allowing everyone in.  Instead, they only let folks from elite colleges with business education join.  Having said that, I still see a lot...

After receiving long delayed payments for my work after a weight of nearly 6 months , because I continue to struggle to find new consulting work, I ended up taking on new work from the same company in March.  Unfortunately, some of their problems have not gone away and for work that I started in March 2015 and completed in August 2015, I have still not been paid a penny.  In summary, for work done this year, I have been paid only 20% of my invoices and that impacted my family finances adversely.  I have been tapping into our savings by selling our stocks.  Thankfully, all the savings I have done over the years have been helping us from filing for bankruptcy but the thought that if my client were to file for bankruptcy and that I might lose all that money causes me a lot of anxiety and stress. It was during such a time that I got a text message asking to contact a firm that was looking for representatives in USA and Canada.  As someone with a background in ...

Since I am an engineer and obsessed with science, when we first bought our home in 2001 (the previous owner pumped the septic tank at the time of sale), I got a call from Wind River Environmental two years later reminding us that it was time to pump (more or less like the 3,000 mile oil changes, or whatever other random number they pick to sweep chimneys or to change batteries in smoke alarms).  Since I investigate these matters before falling into their trap, I held off till 2005 to pump the septic tank (afraid that despite my research showing that in a household with 2 members for a tank of our size we need to pump every 9 or so years).  The Wind River Environmental technician who came said that there was excess sludge and we should buy their bacteria which will make the septic tank run smoothly. I did even more research when the phone started to ring in 2007 and this time, believe it or not, waited till 2015, nearly 10 years.  We still did not see any signs of trouble ...

If you recall, I discussed the enormous anxiety I went through for months when my only client did not pay me any money for almost six months .  The work was done and the ultimate client was very happy but as a subcontractor to the consulting company I still did not get paid because of their own internal financial challenges.  Since the company is essentially two partners with a few employees, I was afraid that they could file for bankruptcy and simply tell me that they did the best to save the company but ultimately they lost.  I know how this works because as a management consultant I have helped many of clients actually shut down their operations. A lot of time when I went through this 6-month period of not knowing if I was going to get paid, I wondered if this was somewhat usual.  I could not find an answer online and I told myself that if I asked someone about it they might ask me to sue (as another consultant in a similar situation did and got paid) or st...

You see my wife and I are educated, professionals with an upper-middle class life.  We almost never bothered with lottery tickets because mathematically it made no sense to us, and at least here in America, I thought that only poor people seemed to buy them.  Then, in November 2011, I heard how the jackpot went to three asset managers based in Greenwich, Connecticut.  I wondered if three brilliant and filthy rich dudes buy lottery tickets, there is something wrong with my thinking.  It was then that we started to buy lottery tickets, though, we have yet to win anything except a buck or two here and there. The important thing to remember is that if you are as financially comfortable as I am, $2 spent on PowerBall or $1 spent on MegaMillions when the potential reward is tens or hundreds of millions of dollars is worth spending.  I don't buy every week, and often miss even when the jack-pot is enormous, but if the prize is going to be huge and I happen to be pumpin...

One of the biggest challenges of being self-employed and/or small business owner like I am and starting off as an independent market research consultant is that I have to work for more established companies while I build my client-base (I guess those of you who have a client base already before starting have an advantage).  For last year or so, I have been subcontracting with a relatively small but established consulting company and while I love the work (though, the pay is smaller than I would like), I have had a hard time getting paid on time.  Some of the delays are standard for this type of situation -- they don't pay me until they get paid (which is not fair because that is not an excuse and neither legally valid) -- because they always have that excuse.  In this case, however, because of their internal problems, I have not been paid a penny for over 6 months and I even had to pay from my pocket for a few business trips (those invoices also remain unpaid, even thoug...

Being an independent business consultant has its interesting moments and I have always wondered if folks in my situation or those who aspire to have a career or an independent business want to find out what it is like to do this on a daily basis.  I am hoping that I can give you some insights on what it takes to be a business consultant and hopefully hear from others who have similar experiences.  And obviously, I have my frustrations and this will allow me to share those here.