Starting a consultancy

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Just wondering if anybody did this successfully as a plan b and what are the ways to go about it... Must be something every contractor has thought about at some point.

[Murder1]

consultancy
kənˈsʌlt(ə)nsi/Submit
noun
1.
a professional practice that gives expert advice within a particular field.
"a management consultancy firm"

Would appear my Plan A is already one

[northernladuk]

I think the question is who hasn't. To do it properly it had to be a plan A.

We had a guy only last week ask this and got it so badly wrong. Will look for the link when I get in.

[doodab]

I know of two proper ones, one is a group of 4 guys with different skills who hire other contractors as and when they need them. The other is a couple of guy who after several stalled attempts started a full service web consulting firm based around their own CMS & other software, again they buy design etc skills in from freelancers all the time.

As others have said it has to be plan A, neither of these were contractors who hired an extra guy, they both had the contacts and the skills (and make no mistake, calling people, meeting people and persuading them to buy your tulip is the main one you need) to make it work.

[Kanye]

I have been flogging this horse for 6 months now.

It is all about your industry connections to people with buying power.

You can be a great techy and have good visibility but that doesn't even get you started based on my experience.

Selling consultancy at high rates is difficult. We've had some success selling in at contractor rates, but the margins are small so after the hassle factor, funding invoices, finding the candidates and building a sales pipeline, it is not something that is viable.

It's definitely too big for one man on the side of a contract. You might get lucky and bring in one or two subbies on a project, but I agree that you need to be doing this as your plan A and preferably as part of a small team.

[eek]

I have been flogging this horse for 6 months now.

It is all about your industry connections to people with buying power.

You can be a great techy and have good visibility but that doesn't even get you started based on my experience.

Selling consultancy at high rates is difficult. We've had some success selling in at contractor rates, but the margins are small so after the hassle factor, funding invoices, finding the candidates and building a sales pipeline, it is not something that is viable.

It's definitely too big for one man on the side of a contract. You might get lucky and bring in one or two subbies on a project, but I agree that you need to be doing this as your plan A and preferably as part of a small team.

You don't use contractors when selling at that rate, use lowish level permies with a couple of good uns to problem solve and sell....