Reply to: howto become agency/consultant company

[tomtomagain]

Awesome

It needs updating. He's missed all the sales, marketing and HR roles off.

[phoenix32]

Got it covered.

Awesome

[Lance]

Got it covered.

'guessed'

[Cid]

* Submit an organisation chart - this is popular, quickly flushes out the one-or-two man-bands.

Got it covered.

[tomtomagain]

Thanks for you valuable inputs

A friend of mine was advised here, some of you may know.
Contracts Finder

Have you ever worked on a tender? Either from the buyer-side or supplier-side? If not apply for a few of them and receive and review the documentation. You don't have to submit a tender.

The first few stages of any competitive tendering process is to eliminate the majority of applicants. Especially if you are tendering for some fairly generic work, for example website development or general software development.

Types of questions you will be asked are along the lines of:

* What is your turnover to the nearest £million
* How many years have you been in business
* Submit an organisation chart - this is popular, quickly flushes out the one-or-two man-bands.
* What %age staff work in the technical or support functions.
* What %age of your staff are off-shore ( a low percentage is not an advantage, the perception is that you will be cheaper ).

If you get through the initial screening then there's often an open forumn where you will be able to ask clarification questions on the bid, the questions and answers are supplied to all parties.

Then you might get to submit your proposal - which could have involved you working on it, unpaid, for several days. I've seen proposals that require hundreds of questions to be answered. I have just had to answer an 86 question security assesment myself.

You might be asked to supply the CVs of any staff who will be working on the project. This is quite common too.

If your bid is short-listed, there may well be a presentation stage, at which you present yourself and company ( and key staff ) to the client. They may want to do this at your office, as it gives them a chance to suss you out.

Then the client makes his choice.

Let's say you "win". The next stage is commercial negotations, followed by contracts being issued.

Then you have to do the work.

Finally, depending on how you structured the contract, you get paid.

Applying for and winning business is a full-time job. That's why consultancies and software houses have entire teams dedicated to pre-sales, it isn't just a case of quickly filling in a couple of documents and crossing your fingers.

Once you have got in through the door subsequent contracts can be a lot simpler to win. Often the client has already made up their mind on who they want to use but are required to go through a competitive process anyway.

[northernladuk]

Why are you telling us this?

[phoenix32]

Thanks for you valuable inputs

A friend of mine was advised here, some of you may know.
Contracts Finder

These are government contracts and some of them also has a requirement docs attached. I think finance industry does it similar.

Long story short from this public RFQ:
https://procontract.due-north.com/Fi...tTypeId=Advert

- there are compliance requirements ( anti-fraud, GDPR, etc)
- there are procedures about staff (screening etc)
- an extensively insured and financially good company (no problems in past etc)

[WordIsBond]

Just announce that this is what you are doing.

Clients will fall in place wanting your services because....

Programmers will fall in place wanting to work for you because....

Fill in the blanks. Why will clients come to you? Why will programmers want to work for you? No answers? No go.

Figure out the answers. What will you be providing to clients that they can't get elsewhere? What will they be willing to pay for that? What will you be providing to programmers that they can't get elsewhere? What will they be willing to pay (in lower income, as opposed to working direct) for that?

It's NOT just a case of deciding you are going to do this and skimming some of the fees for yourself. If you think you'll get something for nothing, forget it. The world doesn't work that way.

[silverlight1]

Bored!

[Hobosapien]

On each contract, I am signing, "I am not going to do any business directly with end-client without agency"
And since there is an agency in all contracts. I thinks this creates 2 options;
1. partnering with agency
2. old clients
3. ?

This is where networking over time pays off. Some clients may want you back, strengthening your relationship with them, allowing you to go direct or suggest a longer term arrangement that bypasses agencies for the type of consultancy you are on about offering (b2b rather than named person contract based).

Otherwise it's been known for permies to leave and set up a consultancy to offer their skills back to the client when client realises they've lost a pool of talent they still need. Usually that revolves around domain knowledge of specific systems (bespoke or niche) that the client depends on and people leave en-mass during a takeover or major business change.

The other option is to get 'expert' in a new product, service, or methodology and sell consultancy to companies wanting to get in on it, where there is a lack of permanent staff/contractors with the skills yet. Recent examples of that would be Agile in its various forms, various Microsoft Products (TFS, VSTS now Azure Devops), cloud (AWS, Azure) which has grown so large a field there are niche specialities such as IAAS, PAAS, FAAS, security, architecture, migration, Big Data, BI, AI, Machine Learning, ... always new specialist niches being created somewhere in the world of IT. Though you need to be good at 'selling' to convince a client you have x years experience in a niche that has only been public for much less than that.

[WTFH]

On each contract, I am signing, "I am not going to do any business directly with end-client without agency"
And since there is an agency in all contracts. I thinks this creates 2 options;
1. partnering with agency
2. old clients
3. ?

There does not have to be an agency for every contract.
You can go direct to clients, generally that requires you having a good reputation and getting other contractors to recommend you, or having worked at the client previously.
If you want to “partner with an agency”, what you are looking to do is work for a consultancy. Plenty of those around.

[northernladuk]

congratulations to that ones who didn't need to ask questions,
It is also a choice @northernladuk, I am sure many people exists who is able to do, but not doing it. Because it may require too much dedication.

Possibly. So where does that leave the people that can't or don't know how to do it?

3. Develop a business model and create an offering that's better and more attractive than the competition and go out there and sell it.

The fact you don't know this is exactly why it will not work.

[man]

On each contract, I am signing, "I am not going to do any business directly with end-client without agency"

Nothing to stop you not signing and approaching directly. I'd be surprised if it works (rather than just losing you the contract) but anything's possible. Also, you could negotiate for shorter time periods relating to this clause to allow you to do independent business with the end client sooner.

[phoenix32]

To paraphrase an old joke, if you want a successful consultancy company I wouldn't start from here.

It's a lot easier if you find an opportunity to get the first client on board, usually from contacts or current work situation. i.e. the opportunity presents itself rather than chasing it cold.

Also don't start it with friends if you want them to remain as such. It may start out easy with a client or two covering all the overheads and a reasonable income but when the work dries up someone is usually unhappy about having to do more work than the other(s), unless you're running the business well in terms of communication and expectations of all participants with a major stake in it.

Freelance consultancy seems to me to be a much easier life. Depends what floats your boat and how deep the water is, some cope better than others, so if you really want to give it a go, give it a go. Good luck, who dares wins.

Thanks for sharing thoughts, and I am totally agreeing most of them especially freelance consultancy is very comfortable & safe.

... usually from contacts or current work situation...

On each contract, I am signing, "I am not going to do any business directly with end-client without agency"
And since there is an agency in all contracts. I thinks this creates 2 options;
1. partnering with agency
2. old clients
3. ?

[phoenix32]

The fact you don't know the answers to your questions means you've no chance of making it work.

Every contractor on earth has though about how to get more staff in and next to none of them have achieved it. The ones that did didn't need to ask basic questions on an internet forum.

congratulations to that ones who didn't need to ask questions,
It is also a choice @northernladuk, I am sure many people exists who is able to do, but not doing it. Because it may require too much dedication.