DaedTech

Stories about Software

Mar
13

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How to Get Clients for Your New Consulting Business

Category: You Asked For It | 2 Comments

Having ironed out the day of the week for reader questions last week, I’ll get right to the point here.  Today I’m going to talk about how to get clients for a consulting business.  This is in response to the following reader question.

It’s ideal to reach out to existing contacts, but past that what is the best way to approach people outside your immediate network for work?

When starting out, should you be highly specialized or more general to get the freelance practice started? And is it better to focus on a particular single offering or cast a wider net by offering more services?

So let’s set the scene.  You’re working a 9-5 gig, but with visions of starting to moonlight.  Maybe you want to become an efficiencer, a freelancer, or a consultant (if you’ve been reading my developer to consultant series).  Whichever of these you want, the advice I’d give is coalescing into one consistent narrative.  And I’ll offer that narrative today.

The person asking this question is exactly right in the first sentence.  It is ideal to reach out to existing contacts and, more specifically, to those who view you favorably.

But it’s not ideal for the reason you probably think.

You probably think these are ideal outreach candidates because they like or respect you.  But, while that doesn’t hurt, it’s not actually that important.  The reason outreach to close associates is so valuable is because they know how you can help them and how you can help others.

Job-Seeking Teaches You A Sales Pitch That Hurts You as a Consultant

I’m going to answer the reader question, but first I have to explain this subtle distinction.  And I’m going to explain this subtle distinction, but first I have to explain why the best way to look for jobs is the worst way to land consulting gigs, and vice-versa.

When you apply for jobs, your general mission is to make it clear how broadly useful you can be for prospective employers.  A good resume paints you as someone with a broad set of skills and a work history full of employer-favorable outcomes.  It reassures prospective employers that you’ll be useful to them in the years to come, regardless of changing circumstances.

The overarching message?

“I can be useful to you in whatever ways you need and deem necessary.  You, future boss, are the work planner and I am your broadly useful resource.”

This makes you an honestly good employee.  And it makes you a relatively useless consultant.

I once referenced an idea from Book Yourself Solid  that you need a “who and do what” statement.  I help [who] do [what].  As a consultant, you have this statement in lieu of a resume.

The overarching message?

“I can be useful to you in this very specific context where I am an expert and you need my help.”  This makes you pretty useless as a prospective employee, but well-positioned as a consultant.

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Mar
9

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DaedTech Digest: Migrating East, LCOM, Regex, and Legacy Code

Category: Digests | 4 Comments

Another end to another week.  At least, depending on your penchant for wrapping up weeks early or working weekends or something non-traditional.  But however traditional you may be or not, you’re still getting a DaedTech digest right on time.

For those of you that don’t yet know the drill, here’s how this works.  Each Friday, I talk about random stuff a bit.  Then I treat you to some picks of mine, plus five or six blog posts I’ve written at some point for other blogs.  Because I’m so chatty via the spoken word that not only do I post three times per week here, but I also do a bunch of posts for Hit Subscribe clients besides.

As I type this, I have about a week left in San Diego, for those of you interested in our nomadic traipsing around the country.  For the last couple of months, I’ve looked out my back window at this every night as the sun sets.

Seriously, this is the view we have of the sun setting over the Pacific every night, from our couch.

But we’ve only got about 6 of those left before we pack up and head for Phoenix.  What’s in Phoenix, you might ask, besides cactus and desert?  Nothing but… Cubs Spring Training, that’s what!  We’re going to spend a couple of weeks watching baseball games live most nights, which makes me very happy.

So that’s all I’ve got for now on the nomad front.  Let’s do some picks.

Picks

  • If you have any interest in lifestyle businesses, entrepreneurship, side hustles, and location independence, give the Tropical MBA a subscribe.  It’s a really interesting podcast.
  • This seems maybe a little lame, but I’d like to throw one out there for the Fifth Third Bank mobile app.  Sticking with the nomad theme, I’m on the road a lot, running finances for multiple businesses, which gives me a lot of occasions to deposit checks with the phone app.  And Fifth Third’s app is next level for its check deposit feature.  I just point the phone vaguely at the check and it somehow automatically centers it, zooms in properly, and uses flash or not, as needed.
  • I’ve been reading something called the Broken Empire trilogy, which starts with this book, Prince of Thorns.  It’s a little… over the top at first.  But if you stick with it for several chapters it becomes this sort of gritty, surreal page turner.
  • Finally, I pick blood oranges.  I absolutely love their abundance here in Southern California and will really miss them when we go.

The Digest

Have a good weekend, all, and thanks for reading!

Mar
7

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Whiteboard Interviews: How to Avoid Them and Improve Your Career

Category: The Life of a Programmer | 6 Comments

As I mentioned last Friday, I’ve lost track of the number of folks who have shared Michael Lynch’s piece about quitting Google with me.  I suppose I should expect that, since I often rail against hiring practices that people associate with Google and similar companies.

This includes the titular whiteboard interviews, of course.  And, for good measure, I’ve even written a book in which I suggest simply not agreeing to do this style of interview.

Interestingly enough, though, I don’t have anything in particular against Google at all.  Nor do I have anything against its contemporaries, all of whom I am coming to think of as Enterprise Silicon Valley, given their legacy of innovation combined with their increasing resemblance more to the IBMs and GMs of the world than the hottest new startups.

I wouldn’t agree to interview at these companies, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them.  I mean, I like Chrome and Gmail and have an Android phone — keep pluggin’ away, guys.

I’ll even go so far as to say I don’t begrudge companies using whiteboard interviews nor do I think that it’s a bad idea for them to do so, in some cases. 

But I’ll come back to the nuance of that later, leaving a dangling question of my hypocrisy until I do.  In the meantime, I want to share a tweet and a story of my own failure to follow up on messaging.

A Twitter Conversation about Breaking into Software

Amidst my (now often overwhelming, sorry to anyone who tweets at me and I don’t see it) mentions on Twitter, I noticed this one from a few days ago:

Melissa channels my take absolutely correctly.

In the part of Developer Hegemony where I explain my take on the path to, well, developer hegemony, I offer that advice.

Simply refuse to do whiteboard interviews.

Define and manage your career in such a way that you don’t need to do them.

The book covers a lot of ground, so I don’t place a ton of detailed emphasis on that point.  But I think that I should have followed up with some content that did.

Zoom out and look at the conversation.

Melissa’s tweet comes in response to someone named Daniel asking about resources for breaking into the programming world.  He appears to be attempting to synthesize the advice of people in that world, concluding that, no matter what, breaking in requires knowledge of “data structures [and] algos.”

I’ll leave it as a reader exercise to consider whether entry level work banging out forms-over-data web apps requires theoretical computer science experience.

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Mar
6

By

The Mercenary’s Guide to Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Category: You Asked For It | 2 Comments

Look at that!  It’s Monday and I’m actually doing reader question Monday.  Just kidding.

Once again, I’m doing reader question Monday on a Tuesday.  In fact, I am going to pull the trigger on switching it to Tuesday going forward.

My wife and I are experimenting with a 4 day week that would make Tuesday the new Monday for us.  Also, for those of you interested in blogging advice, Tuesday is a better day to publish posts, anyway.

Enough of This!  What’s The Question?

Alright, housekeeping aside, let’s get down to brass tacks.

Do you have advice for helping one answer the age old question, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” At what point is it time to throw in the towel and move on?

I don’t want to be a quitter and always have regret that I missed out on the company becoming an awesome place six months after leaving. Yet, I don’t want to waste six months of my life and career on hopes and opportunities that never manifest into reality.

I’m well aware the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and all companies have problems. However, in today’s developer advantaged job market, when is it time to change one’s attitude from “I can make a difference” to “Not my problem anymore”?

Thanks for writing and publishing such thought provoking content. I really enjoy reading your articles; even though you write faster than I can read 🙂

Well, first of all, thanks for the kind words!  Failing to create enough volume of content has never been a problem for me, to be sure.

I Have Biases, So Let’s Get Those Out of the Way

Now, before writing this post, I need to address something.  I have, in the past, written posts encouraging you to job hop, saying that you should always be leaving, and that you take jobs already thinking of your exit strategy.  I also wrote a book with an entire part devoted to the merits of viewing the very existence of a company as a limiting illusion.

So there’s that.

I mention this because you need to understand where I’m coming from with my advice.

This isn’t to say that I can’t conceptualize enjoying being part of a larger whole or regarding a company as a potentially benevolent entity.  It’s more that I would tend to view those things as creature comforts that conflict with career advancement.

For people looking to get ahead, I wouldn’t recommend a company collectivist attitude.

That said, I’ll do my best to put aside my own preferences and beliefs.  Just know what those are as you read: I’m a mercenary and a lone wolf and, when it comes to jobs, a quitter.

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Mar
1

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DaedTech Digest: Muscle Cars, Dark Launches and Logging Basics

Category: Digests | 5 Comments

Welcome to yet another edition of DaedTech Digest Friday.  I bring this edition to you from a hotel in Detroit instead of an ocean-front condo in San Diego because, as it turns out, I’m insane.

Actually, I’m just doing a quick consultation and codebase assessment for the week.  And coming to Detroit to do that may or may not make me insane.

If you were a reader of this blog last spring and summer, you might remember that I’d left this lifestyle.  Instead of spending 5+ nights per week in hotels and doing high-touch management consulting, I built location independent businesses.  Well, that’s still true, but the consultative end of that does involve occasional and focused travel.

So here I am, having flown for the first time in 9 months (wow), dusting off the traveling lifestyle.  The Marriott I’m staying in has a revamped bathroom with in-shower shampoo dispenses.  But besides that, same old stuff.

Picks

  • Going with the travel theme, I’m going to offer a dual pick of Hertz and the Dodge Charger.  Apparently, I still have pretty good status with Hertz because I reserved the cheapest rate for the week and they pointed me out at a group of cars in the “President’s Circle” and said, “go nuts, buddy.”  So I picked out a V8 Dodge Challenger.  Not only is it fast and muscle-car-y, but it handles really well in the snow.
  • Someone I’m working with this week showed me this awesome thing: “ag, the silver searcher.”  It’s like issuing a recursive grep with a regex from the Bash command line, but without the need for any flags, and it’s an order of magnitude faster.  You won’t be sorry.
  • And, finally, a former Google engineer named Michael Lynch posted this, explaining why he quit.  It’s a pretty eye-opening read about how even supposed destination employers have their own Dilbert-esque piles of bureaucratic facepalm.

Digest

Have a good weekend, and thanks for reading.

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