Reply to: Is there a "jobserve" for Consultancy tenders/contracts ?

[ratewhore]

Well I never thought I could put such a large cat amongst the pigeons (or is that rats!) But as usual agents look at it the thing from the wrong perspective. Its not a case of collaboration which, by the way also means "working with the enemy" we should be looking at, in essence, creating a new breed of "OK lets use the word" 'agency' that is owned by contractors to do the leg work. Not wishing to go into a large amount of detail but we all (contractors) run our own business, we do our own invoicing etc. etc. so why should we give some middle man a percentage of our rate for only finding the contract (of which most come to them rather than the other way around) so they can then sit on there rear end for 6 to 12 months taking a cut ! lets loose the cut, put in a monthly fee to keep our own slaves in milk and bread and do it right. As we are the ones that know the clients needs better than any one else and understand the technical stuff they are talking about rather than just noding our heads making a note and scanning the result against CV db's. Any muppet can do that part ! P.S. I'm not saying all the initial set up is simple but it can be done.

I can't wait for the comments....

Unless you get a sales force,it will never get off the ground. Like I said, look at the experiences of those who have gone before you, then make your decision.

Someone posted on here not so long ago about how owning a Ltd does not make you the next Branson. Wise words indeed.

Good luck, because I suspect you won't heed any advice...

[AgencySlayer]

I like the PCG term - Collaboration. So lets look at the idea of cutting all the agencies out so they wither and die and the contractors "working for themselves and each other" form the Collaboration.

So you have your basic group of contractors who (now there are no agents - the splitters!) have banded together as a collaboration. Naturally not everyone within the collaboration can go out on gigs after all who is going to process invoicing, timesheets, credit control and generally organise back office functions? So one of the collaboration agree to stay behind and rather than going on gigs will work on organising tendors, making sure other contractors get paid on time and whenever one of the contractor's hear of a new opportunity, the one that is doing all the other back office stuff will then have to phone around finding out what the opportunity is. Eventually the one that ends up doing the internal running of the collaboration will get miffed off with earning less that the other contractors who go on the gigs all the time, so he/she asks to be paid a percentage of whatever total amount of money was made on the gig so they get some money for all the effort, then you know what has happened...you have become a pimp.

For collaboration, read agency. Yeah, yeah at the beginning it is just a bunch of mates/contractors all assisting each other but take the model 10 years down the line and the original bunch have either left or are now directors in the collaboration, employing people to do all the stuff that the original contractors did and you have your very own recruitment agency.

Wonder how big the margins will be when you guys are running your collaboration!

Still could be worse, it could end up as as Consultancy firm, now we are talking mega margins and NO delivery!!

Well I never thought I could put such a large cat amongst the pigeons (or is that rats!) But as usual agents look at it the thing from the wrong perspective. Its not a case of collaboration which, by the way also means "working with the enemy" we should be looking at, in essence, creating a new breed of "OK lets use the word" 'agency' that is owned by contractors to do the leg work. Not wishing to go into a large amount of detail but we all (contractors) run our own business, we do our own invoicing etc. etc. so why should we give some middle man a percentage of our rate for only finding the contract (of which most come to them rather than the other way around) so they can then sit on there rear end for 6 to 12 months taking a cut ! lets loose the cut, put in a monthly fee to keep our own slaves in milk and bread and do it right. As we are the ones that know the clients needs better than any one else and understand the technical stuff they are talking about rather than just noding our heads making a note and scanning the result against CV db's. Any muppet can do that part ! P.S. I'm not saying all the initial set up is simple but it can be done.

I can't wait for the comments....

[ratewhore]

If intelligence means unnecessary abuse then I will play dumb any day. You could have raised some really good points subjectively but instead wrote a load of abuse to demonstrate your intelligence. Well done you.

I concur.

[PM-Junkie]

If intelligence means unnecessary abuse then I will play dumb any day. You could have raised some really good points subjectively but instead wrote a load of abuse to demonstrate your intelligence. Well done you.

Indeed. One thing that always amuses me about characters like jkoder who get their jollies out of that sort of abuse.....if being an agent is so easy and such easy money, why don't they do it?

I certainly couldn't be an agent - I'd end up thumping someone! I suspect that wouldn't be good for business

[Another Dodgy Agent]

Agency folk are always blowing out of proportion how much work they do. I mean couldn't this same collaboration hire the same back office staff as you and rake the margin you guys charge? A lot of your business is based on reading a CV (which is still hard for you undereducated liars) and then deciding it's sort of fits a role you have, the contractors win the role, not you idiots, you simple select a number of us and get paid off the law of averages. AND, even if you did know what you were selling it's not really a difficult job anyway. When the headmaster ask the young student what they would like to be when they grow up none of them say "an agent" but lots of them dumb little bastards end doing so.

I can't think of an agency, in any field where less intelligent people get paid for selling intelligent people as services.

If intelligence means unnecessary abuse then I will play dumb any day. You could have raised some really good points subjectively but instead wrote a load of abuse to demonstrate your intelligence. Well done you.

[jkoder]

I like the PCG term - Collaboration. So lets look at the idea of cutting all the agencies out so they wither and die and the contractors "working for themselves and each other" form the Collaboration.

So you have your basic group of contractors who (now there are no agents - the splitters!) have banded together as a collaboration. Naturally not everyone within the collaboration can go out on gigs after all who is going to process invoicing, timesheets, credit control and generally organise back office functions? So one of the collaboration agree to stay behind and rather than going on gigs will work on organising tendors, making sure other contractors get paid on time and whenever one of the contractor's hear of a new opportunity, the one that is doing all the other back office stuff will then have to phone around finding out what the opportunity is. Eventually the one that ends up doing the internal running of the collaboration will get miffed off with earning less that the other contractors who go on the gigs all the time, so he/she asks to be paid a percentage of whatever total amount of money was made on the gig so they get some money for all the effort, then you know what has happened...you have become a pimp.

For collaboration, read agency. Yeah, yeah at the beginning it is just a bunch of mates/contractors all assisting each other but take the model 10 years down the line and the original bunch have either left or are now directors in the collaboration, employing people to do all the stuff that the original contractors did and you have your very own recruitment agency.

Wonder how big the margins will be when you guys are running your collaboration!

Still could be worse, it could end up as as Consultancy firm, now we are talking mega margins and NO delivery!!

Agency folk are always blowing out of proportion how much work they do. I mean couldn't this same collaboration hire the same back office staff as you and rake the margin you guys charge? A lot of your business is based on reading a CV (which is still hard for you undereducated liars) and then deciding it's sort of fits a role you have, the contractors win the role, not you idiots, you simple select a number of us and get paid off the law of averages. AND, even if you did know what you were selling it's not really a difficult job anyway. When the headmaster ask the young student what they would like to be when they grow up none of them say "an agent" but lots of them dumb little bastards end doing so.

I can't think of an agency, in any field where less intelligent people get paid for selling intelligent people as services.

[SueEllen]

I like the PCG term - Collaboration. So lets look at the idea of cutting all the agencies out so they wither and die and the contractors "working for themselves and each other" form the Collaboration.

So you have your basic group of contractors who (now there are no agents - the splitters!) have banded together as a collaboration. Naturally not everyone within the collaboration can go out on gigs after all who is going to process invoicing, timesheets, credit control and generally organise back office functions? So one of the collaboration agree to stay behind and rather than going on gigs will work on organising tendors, making sure other contractors get paid on time and whenever one of the contractor's hear of a new opportunity, the one that is doing all the other back office stuff will then have to phone around finding out what the opportunity is. Eventually the one that ends up doing the internal running of the collaboration will get miffed off with earning less that the other contractors who go on the gigs all the time, so he/she asks to be paid a percentage of whatever total amount of money was made on the gig so they get some money for all the effort, then you know what has happened...you have become a pimp.

For collaboration, read agency. Yeah, yeah at the beginning it is just a bunch of mates/contractors all assisting each other but take the model 10 years down the line and the original bunch have either left or are now directors in the collaboration, employing people to do all the stuff that the original contractors did and you have your very own recruitment agency.

Wonder how big the margins will be when you guys are running your collaboration!

Still could be worse, it could end up as as Consultancy firm, now we are talking mega margins and NO delivery!!

Cheers for that.

I knew there was job out there for me in the contract world when I decide to breed.

[Another Dodgy Agent]

A wise man once said "I haven't failed a 1000 times more I have found a 1000 ways it will not work! which means I am all the more closer to finding the solutions"

And thats how we ended up with the light bulb and the black box's that give us a job !

I like the PCG term - Collaboration. So lets look at the idea of cutting all the agencies out so they wither and die and the contractors "working for themselves and each other" form the Collaboration.

So you have your basic group of contractors who (now there are no agents - the splitters!) have banded together as a collaboration. Naturally not everyone within the collaboration can go out on gigs after all who is going to process invoicing, timesheets, credit control and generally organise back office functions? So one of the collaboration agree to stay behind and rather than going on gigs will work on organising tendors, making sure other contractors get paid on time and whenever one of the contractor's hear of a new opportunity, the one that is doing all the other back office stuff will then have to phone around finding out what the opportunity is. Eventually the one that ends up doing the internal running of the collaboration will get miffed off with earning less that the other contractors who go on the gigs all the time, so he/she asks to be paid a percentage of whatever total amount of money was made on the gig so they get some money for all the effort, then you know what has happened...you have become a pimp.

For collaboration, read agency. Yeah, yeah at the beginning it is just a bunch of mates/contractors all assisting each other but take the model 10 years down the line and the original bunch have either left or are now directors in the collaboration, employing people to do all the stuff that the original contractors did and you have your very own recruitment agency.

Wonder how big the margins will be when you guys are running your collaboration!

Still could be worse, it could end up as as Consultancy firm, now we are talking mega margins and NO delivery!!

[AgencySlayer]

No such thing as failiure

You should check out the collaboration forum over at the PCG. You'll see how hard it is, how many times it's been tried before, and how many times it's failed to go anywhere...

A wise man once said "I haven't failed a 1000 times more I have found a 1000 ways it will not work! which means I am all the more closer to finding the solutions"

And thats how we ended up with the light bulb and the black box's that give us a job !

[ratewhore]

I've looked into this and there is a shed load of things to consider when getting a buch of contractors to work together on this kind of thing. I'm interested in going deeper here as its about time we got rid of the pimps and set up something for contractors and run by contractors for our benefit .... time for the worm to turn me thinks.

You should check out the collaboration forum over at the PCG. You'll see how hard it is, how many times it's been tried before, and how many times it's failed to go anywhere...

[AgencySlayer]

Sounds like one of HMRCs "black ops" to flush out more contractors to investigate! Steer well clear.



But won't this inevitably lead to someone eventually thinking "Hang on, I can make a 10% margin out of this ..."

Well that is true but then if its owned by us (contractors) then we are the only ones to benefit in the end and not the pimps.
Anyway when you take into account the agents take of 10 to 20% and chop that off the average rate for PM say you can keep undercutting them every time.. ? So we would allways be the cheapest...

[moorfield]

As in the title... with Supply2 you need to provide financial details as well eg last three years accounts, directors lists, not be a bankrupt etc.

Sounds like one of HMRCs "black ops" to flush out more contractors to investigate! Steer well clear.

I'm interested in going deeper here as its about time we got rid of the pimps and set up something for contractors and run by contractors for our benefit .... time for the worm to turn me thinks.

But won't this inevitably lead to someone eventually thinking "Hang on, I can make a 10% margin out of this ..."

[AgencySlayer]

Tenders are only the start of it

Supply2.gov.uk

i'd be interested in teaming up if you know anyone who knows how to write tenders effectivly..

As in the title... with Supply2 you need to provide financial details as well eg last three years accounts, directors lists, not be a bankrupt etc. The real trick is in making sure you get all the details rom the client and then pithcing your bid at the budget and showing you are able to deliver.

The big problem is if your a one man outfit like most uf us then youve got no chance but I do think you get a better shot if youv'e set up as a consortium of contractors. I've looked into this and there is a shed load of things to consider when getting a buch of contractors to work together on this kind of thing. I'm interested in going deeper here as its about time we got rid of the pimps and set up something for contractors and run by contractors for our benefit .... time for the worm to turn me thinks.

[ratewhore]

Supply2.gov.uk

i'd be interested in teaming up if you know anyone who knows how to write tenders effectivly..

Has anyone actually won any business from here? As far as I can see, there's still tons of hoops you have to jump through...

[LittlestHobbo]

Supply2.gov.uk

i'd be interested in teaming up if you know anyone who knows how to write tenders effectivly..