Sanity check / thought experiment

[ladymuck]

My view is that in any case, it's raising my profile with potential clients AND strengthening my relationship with the existing client. I'm not averse to billing a client for it but that's not my first inclination. Depends on the client, conference, client relationship, etc, I suppose.

It's not just about attending a conference. It's the whole package of consultancy of which being at conferences is one small part.

[malvolio]

It's not just about attending a conference. It's the whole package of consultancy of which being at conferences is one small part.

True. The other thing that is routinely forgotten (or ignored) is that the consultant needs to be able to talk knowledgably about the various departmental roles, be it HR, accountancy, shop floor or emergency control room (and in one gig I had all four...) and in different cultures (civil service, banking and industry all have their own world view). That's why a degree, an MBA and two years with DeLoitte does not make you a consultant.

[LondonManc]

Are you attending the conference while under contract to the client?
If so, are they expecting to not sign your timesheet for this?

[vwdan]

I've been down this road - in my experience it gets fuzzy very very quickly.

I think you have to treat each relationship individually, and to some degree follow your heart. In other words, what's the likely end result of this effort.

I'm actually going through a similar thing at the moment - working with a consultancy, who are starting to send more and more unbillable e-mails and requests. I'm basically going to tread carefully until I work out whether it's going to work out via them chucking a decent amount of work my way, or whether they're confusing me for a permie.