Reply to: How to begin to work with (bigger) clients directly and not thru an agency?

[clearedforlanding]

You are paying the agency 16% to outsource your sales & ongoing customer retention/admin to them. They are also factoring your invoice.

Factoring 90 days is not cheap. Salesmen are not cheap.

I think learning business fundamentals before moving on to client acquisition & ongoing servicing et al is needed here.

[IVR247]

I used to work direct with a large pharma company. I was working a niche and they needed me. I ran the contract as a business though, with a couple of part time workers helping me as it was 24x7 365 support contract. There was more admin that came with it and getting paid was a pain EVERY time. They had me on 60 day terms on the 5th of the month - so if the 60 days ended on the 6th, then they would pay it on the next upcoming 5th - so up to 3 months for an invoice to be paid. I always had to chase it too. It was very good money, but a pain as well.

My current gig pays me every Friday through an agency, much easier.

[edison]

I'd rather grow slowly and sustainably with the right people than throw in anyone I can make a cut off.

Good plan.

You also need a critical mass to really be seen as a true supplier/consultancy. It used to be about 6 people, not sure what it might be now.

[Old Greg]

At least it's a good problem to have and in a long term growth sector.

A relative of mine has taken 5 or 6 years to get to this stage with several associates (his services are in PR and marketing, mainly to tech companies.) He has more potential work than he can deliver but is very selective about who he uses. He's picked up a couple of people who used to work in the events industry which has been decimated by Covid.

I'd rather grow slowly and sustainably with the right people than throw in anyone I can make a cut off.

[edison]

I've offered people in my network a grand for a successful referral of PMs and BAs. Problem is I'm in digital health and everyone is busy with Covid. Am based in Dublin but open to remote working (obviously) for the next few months.

At least it's a good problem to have and in a long term growth sector.

A relative of mine has taken 5 or 6 years to get to this stage with several associates (his services are in PR and marketing, mainly to tech companies.) He has more potential work than he can deliver but is very selective about who he uses. He's picked up a couple of people who used to work in the events industry which has been decimated by Covid.

[Old Greg]

Ah I see.
Totally on the case then!
I cannot think of anyone who can help in my networks off top of head unfortunately.
I will have a better think.
Good luck!

Thanks!

[courtg9000]

I've offered people in my network a grand for a successful referral of PMs and BAs. Problem is I'm in digital health and everyone is busy with Covid. Am based in Dublin but open to remote working (obviously) for the next few months.

Ah I see.
Totally on the case then!
I cannot think of anyone who can help in my networks off top of head unfortunately.
I will have a better think.
Good luck!

[Old Greg]

I am surprised you are hitting that barrier.

I do not know what skill set you are after granted but I see quite a few posts here about being on the bench from the benched contractors themselves. Maybe there is a source?

As you are not an agency you are actually in a better place to run a referral or recommend a friend/colleague scheme if the numbers work for you. There is very low take up when agencies do this mainly because they have a p155 poor record on paying out. 999 out of 1000 never pay up! And, yes, you will have to pay out to gain your credibility! Its worth a thought or 2.

I've offered people in my network a grand for a successful referral of PMs and BAs. Problem is I'm in digital health and everyone is busy with Covid. Am based in Dublin but open to remote working (obviously) for the next few months.

[courtg9000]

Actually it's the recruitment. I could place another 6 subbies if I can find them, but everyone with the right experience is busy. Trying to do a bit of client education to get a bit more realism.

I am surprised you are hitting that barrier.

I do not know what skill set you are after granted but I see quite a few posts here about being on the bench from the benched contractors themselves. Maybe there is a source?

As you are not an agency you are actually in a better place to run a referral or recommend a friend/colleague scheme if the numbers work for you. There is very low take up when agencies do this mainly because they have a p155 poor record on paying out. 999 out of 1000 never pay up! And, yes, you will have to pay out to gain your credibility! Its worth a thought or 2.

[Old Greg]

The cashflow and the selling will be the biggest headaches here.
If you can nail the pair of those at the same time (fecking hard to do!) you can consider yourself very good at this business lark!

Actually it's the recruitment. I could place another 6 subbies if I can find them, but everyone with the right experience is busy. Trying to do a bit of client education to get a bit more realism.

[courtg9000]

Thank you. Now we would like to work with clients directly, but this is how we start out to get bigger, and then clients will deal with us directly. And by then we should be equipped to manage the cashflow challenges.

The cashflow and the selling will be the biggest headaches here.
If you can nail the pair of those at the same time (fecking hard to do!) you can consider yourself very good at this business lark!

[edison]

Couldn't disagree more.

This is something those with no hard skills say to sell themselves. They are leeches. Attaching themselves to people that produce and leeching off that production and stealing from it.

I say this with management experience (in my perm life) along with an mba from a top school and advanced technical skills in my area. So I feel I am positioned to speak to both sides.

The business world is starting to become wise to this. Which is why you are seeing more and more technically competent tech leaders/management. Also seeing more traditional management tasks being distributed among the team.

We'll have to agree to disagree then.

Yes, some management tasks are more likely to be distributed to teams these days but there have been plenty of surveys and studies showing that only a small proportion of people want to be a manager or enjoy it. Historically there has been a shortfall of soft skills including leadership in IT management and I don't see that has changed so significantly in the last 5-10 years.

[Old Greg]

Thats a nice little result.

Thank you. Now we would like to work with clients directly, but this is how we start out to get bigger, and then clients will deal with us directly. And by then we should be equipped to manage the cashflow challenges.

[courtg9000]

Funnily enough, I've just got off the ground in this respect after 5 years of trying. I have a business partner and we now have two subbies. Early days but BOOM, I guess. Even then we are working via PSL agencies who are taking their cut. This doesn't bother me as they pay 15 days post invoice so we can pay our subbies within 30 days after being paid, long before end client has paid agency.

Thats a nice little result.

[jmo21]

Luck and timing! And the easiest way has to be repeat business to cut out the middlemen.

A client of mine from 2011 led to a ton of fixed price work over the last 8 years for me. Multiple changes/upgrades to the system I built from them. All in my spare time outside my normal day-to-day contracts.

In 2015 a similar agency wanted their system, and they sold it to them. But they got me to install it for them, and then do a bunch of changes over the course of a year, before their devs took ownership of the codebase. And now I am close to doing the same for another similar agency for the same system. And it's all down to being in the right place at the right time. I got that original contract, when any one of 100's of others could have done it, and it led to a lot more than the original total payment I got for the first contract.

I built a system for another client, and it nearly led to more work once they were bought over. Timing didn't work out though, I couldn't find the time to fit it in, and they went another way.

Another time, a client manager phoned me up directly to see if I was available, and I ended up going through a new agency that they preferred and it was £50 a day more than I was on the year before. Couple of years before, the same happened, but the client manager wasn't able to wait the 3 weeks til the end of my contract and had to get someone else in.

So yeah, luck, timing and being liked and respected by your clients (and not being totally useless!)