Consulting Clients - Two (Good!) Surprises
Two surprising (and good!) facts - as an independent consultant, you don't need a lot of clients because:
1) Some clients will stay clients for a very long time. Sometimes the term "mothership" clients has been used. I have several clients that have been clients for 8 to 20+ years including The SANS Institute, The Open Software Foundation, and Digital Equipement Corporation (DEC).
Other multiyear clients have included Cisco, IBM, The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, The Singapore Ministry of Education, and many others.
2) Some clients will give you a lot of work.
It may be 50 to 80% of your work at times.
Right now I have a great client who is giving me 50-60% of my work.And no surprise, some clients will be long term clients who also give you a lot of work!
So, you can be an extremely successful independent consultant without needing lots of clients.Some of my other videos (as well as my book) go into how to get clients.
More Articles
Consulting on the Side to Fulltime: A Case Study
Kenneth G Hartman began his career as an electrical engineer working for food manufacturers like Kraft. After about a decade, shortly after 9/11, he joined his brother in a small #startup in the health care space, where he got interested in transitioning into security. We met shortly afterwards in Madison, Wisconsin and we hit it off.Ken has since gone on to work in infosec for internet giants in Silicon Valley, started consulting on the side, and eventually has become a full time consultant.
How much does a Great Idea matter ?
How important is a great idea when you are doing something new, whether it's a startup or something else significant?
Most people think the "great idea" is essential, and if you have a truly great idea, life will be easy: it'll be easy to get people to join you, get momentum, get funding if you need it and more.
I will argue that a great idea, although "great," is not as important as people think. We will ignore right now that an idea, regardless of how good, is useless unless someone takes action.
Even with a smashingly great idea, and enormous success, that idea will have changed during implementation, it will have morphed.
It did for Android (they were originally making a camera operating system well before Google bought them), Nintendo (paper playing cards), Nokia (started as a paper mill), YouTube (a dating site), and many more.
My opinion: Don't worry about a great idea; go for the Big Execution!
Positive Procrastination
We normally think of procrastination as negative, but procrastination can be positive.If you procrastinate on the right things, you might never need to do some of them!
Why Get Involved with a Startup ?
Why would anyone get involved with a startup, leaving the relative safety of a corporate job?
First, let's define a startup: An endeavor with has high growth potential and is potentially innovative or disruptive in some way.
There are several reasons, and three big ones at least in my mind . . .