If you work on your own, once you’ve decided who
you are, what you do, and who it benefits, you still have to figure out how you
want to conduct your business.
Would you rather have one client fill 100% of your
availability for an extended period of time or do you prefer to have more than
one client at a time for shorter periods?
Neither answer is right or wrong. It depends on your goals.
If you’re a freelancer a lot of work over a long
period of time might be just what you want. It represents security, time savings (less
time looking for work), and consistency (working with the same people).
If you’re building a business having a full time client
may leave you no time to find future clients, develop diverse streams of
revenue, or experience diverse settings and challenges. Ironically, you may feel less secure with “all
your eggs in one basket”.
Do you sell your time?
Have you thought about which model you prefer?
Hi Ming – “Selling time” is a rather blunt term (and exactly what I don’t want to do – I don’t consider myself a freelancer). We are definitely investing our expertise – hopefully in a way that it grows for us and offers growth and benefit to our clients. Personally, I believe that I contribute more and learn more when I work with more than one client.
Steve – no worries on the spelling!! You could always email me and I’d edit it for you – I don’t touch people’s comments unless they ask.
I think your model sounds perfect. One “anchor client” a year that you spend 50-60% with and then 3 or 4 more peppered throughout the year to round things out. That also leaves you the time to work in some professional development, conferences, etc. What a great recipe!
What I find interesting is that I think most companies are used to the consultants that want to become entrenched for long periods of time. That’s not me at all!
Also–
Looking back at my previous comment I should note that I do not earn my living editing spelling errors.
Hi, Ann,
I sell my expertise. But the relaed time factors have to be accounted for.
Over the years I’ve usually managed about 3-5 corporate client projects/year. However, there has always been a single client that accounted for about 60% of revenues on any given year.
Looking back over the last 30 year, it turns out that that’s not a bad model for a sole practitioner.
i sell my time, and i’ll only do it till i get enough leverage, so that i nolonger sell my time, but invest it.
givent the two choices, the less clients the better.