How do you know its a good time to leave your current full time employment and launch into a full-time IT consulting career? Start now. We have broken down the process into 21 steps that will take you over about 90 days, or 3months, to do. You'll need to understand what your utilization rates is and how much youre able to bill out consistently on a regular basis. Understand your Expenses Know what your living expenses are before you leave your full time job. You need to understand whats in your sales funnel, or pipeline. Prepare for The Unexpected You need to know and be a little prepared to know what to do if all of a sudden the launch that you were planning on happening 6 months from now all of a sudden gets moved up. You may wake up and find you have been laid off of your current job. What was going to be slow and gradual has now thrusted you into your IT consulting career. Focus on Getting Steady Clients How can you give up your steady check the benefits, the vacation, the lifestyle, the perks, the sick time and still have a lifestyle that is a good lifestyle? What is extremely important in your IT consulting career is that you have steady clients and steady income with some regularity in your business. Charge Appropriate Rates Dont undercharge your clients. You need to charge rates that are close to the top of the market. You cant afford to be messing around with cheapskates and tightwads. And you cant afford to be messing around with people that arent serious. Finding steady clients and charging the right rates for your services and not cheating yourself is so very, very important for a successful IT consulting career. Consider Moonlighting We have a 21-step checklist that will take you through your first 90 days. We also can help you adapt to a sudden launch of your IT consulting career. But in the meantime, you should make the most of your moonlighting opportunities to make it build toward something. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting 101. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance} |
