Freelance Consultant's Diary

I don't know if I should be thinking and saying this, but it seems that as awful as Coronavirus has been for everyone, including myself (with the business wiped out for the time being and no clue about what the future holds), I am glad that at least the politicians realized that those of us who might be known as self-employed, gig economy workers, contractors, 1099-ers, etc. (including those of us who work for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, GrubHub, Instacart) may be able to receive unemployment insurance to pay our bills. Under the provision of the so-called The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), unemployment benefits are available to us.  The Act also extends the number of available weeks of benefits for all claimants, and supplements all claimants’ weekly benefit amount by $600. How will it work? Since I have never received these payments in the past, I decided to find out, and here is what I learned: Because it has never been done before, the s...

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...