Consultant Exchange - A HotGigs blog

Do's and don'ts of business blogging

Business blogging can be a useful marketing medium for consultants to promote their knowledge and expertise. But this story about a Nintendo worker who was fired because of the job-related content posted on her personal blog,has me thinking about consultants out there who may have business blogs with questionable content.  It can sometimes be hard to judge what material is 'blog-approved' and what posts might have your future clients furiously clicking the 'back' button on your site.  So I've put together my own "dos and don'ts" list. Feel free to add to it.

Dos:

• Try to balance facts and opinions within each post
• Link to reliable sources in your field
• Include an 'About Me' link on your blog's main page with all relevant contact info
• Maintain professionalism when responding to comments/e-mails
• Have guest authors, if appropriate for your blog topics
• Use your blog service's 'Stats' page to see where your site visitors are coming from, or check out StatCounter or Site Meter for free visitor and site referrer information

Don'ts:

• Don't use your blog to vent frustrations concerning clients/co-workers/bosses
• Don't dig deep into your personal life, try to keep the blog's focus business related
• Don't over-promote yourself - there are times for self-promotion, but not in every post
• Don't post anything you don't want Google to pick up
• Don't use client names in posts without express permission or consent

Like the former Nintendo employee, it might be too late to salvage your contract or client relationship once you start seeing comics created about your blog's inappropriate content. If you're new to the blogging arena, it might be helpful to check out this post on How to Start a Blog.

- Colleen

Colleen Williams is the Consultant Community Manager for the HotGigs Staffing Exchange.

The IT gender gap persists - but will Gen Y break the mold?

Guest post by David Southgate.

A recent post from our friends at AffinityLabs at their brand new techcommunity.com forum discussed the issue of pay inequity among genders.  Women still lag their male countergeeks in earnings.  But as a counterpoint, Steven Rothberg of CollegerRecruiter.com cites a recent study that said women from Generation Y in some professions, and some areas of the United States, are now actually earning more than their male counterparts.

While the data on hour wages for IT consultants by gender is still scant (and probably more skewed towards skills, rather than gender), the techcommunity.com posts suggests that women still find the IT workplace to be male-dominated. This makes for a "psychologically defeating" environment for many women, who apparently have rightly griped about  less than interesting work assignments, low grade promotions and pay.

The stereotype of guys with greasy hair and smelly clothes sleeping under their desks after a long night of hacking out code still may keep some women from entering Computer Science programs.  But for those who are already working in the profession, this techcommunity.com article highlights some great action points for coping:

• Network. Look for ways to build your own brand outside the company. If one of your bosses hears that you received an award, or that you’re appearing on a panel or speaking at a conference, he will be impressed.
• Find every opportunity to volunteer or join a committee within the organization. Once your male counterparts or bosses feel comfortable with you, your relationship with them can shift.
• Stop and examine your own belief systems. Do you believe that you can’t get to where you want to go? Many women have been socialized to believe they can’t run a company or be successful within the technology or math fields.

We think these tips are great for anyone who wants to advance, not just women. And they’ll work equally well for consultants and full-time 9 to 5-ers.

David Southgate is HotGigs’ national PR consultant, working from sunny Puerto Rico.

Consulting vs contracting - for what it's worth

Toby Lucich at More Than a Living offers some good guidelines for pricing consulting rates, and how not to let the tactical tail wag the strategic dog:

If you begin scoping the work at too high a price point without qualifying your expertise, the client will likely begin considering alternative bids. Come in at too low a rate, and you will get bucketed with all the other tacticians being directed and herded.

I view this as the “contracting” versus “consulting” rates. Contractors have technical expertise, contribute as part of a larger endeavor, and are expected to be managed. Consultants have technical expertise AND strong management skills, define and or lead projects with a defined outcome, and are expected to be self-directed in fulfilling their obligations.

If your billing rates seem low, you may have succumbed to being positioned as a contractor instead of a consultant.

When setting rates, it all seems to be a matter of what you are consulting on, and how you manage your client’s perception of your value. If you are seen as temporary staffing, then your rate will most likely parallel the costs of finding a similarly experience resource through a staffing agency. If you are seen as a subject matter expert brought in to deliver a specific solution, your rate should likely reflect the market-defined value for similar professionals that deliver results under a defined methodology or implementation framework. Understanding how you will interact with the client organization is perhaps the most critical part of setting the rate.

Setting rates is always a delicate balancing act. Most consultants who have more than a couple of engagemements under their belt have at least some benchmark as to what their time is worth, but a great deal is dependent on local or industry supply and demand around a particular skill set. IT skills that were white hot in the '90s were in drastic oversupply in the post-Internet bubble. Consultants who were used to being in high demand had to readjust their expectations -- and their rates.

What are you worth as a consultant? It's one of those chicken-and-egg questions. If you have consulted and have a history with at least a couple of clients, you have some sense of what you can bill for your time. But how do you set rates when that history is still in the making? Thanks to sites like Salary.com and Payscale.com, candidates applying for perm positions can get a good sense for the going rate based on job titles and descriptions. Consultants can do a quick-and-dirty conversion from full-time salary figures to hourly rates by dividing by 2040 (the number of working hours in a year; some people use 2000 or 1980 hours per year to account for vacation time) and then adding in a markup factor (typically 30-50% more) to cover self-employment taxes and business overhead, plus the fact that hourly contract rates are usually higher overall.

But this type of calculation, while useful, is just one data point. The real question is: "What are people in my location paying on an hourly rate for my skill set?" One way to know if you are in the ballpark is to see what the other players are making.

At HotGigs, we offer rate research tools to help consultants get a sense of their market worth. For example, if you are a Project Manager, the average hourly bill rate nationally is $105 -- higher in metro markets such as Boston or the Bay Area. Billing through a firm, a PM may get between $40-$80 / hour. Enter your own confidential rate data for recent projects in a specific geography to get access to rates entered by other consultants with similar skills in that geography.

One savvy consultant I know advises those considering making the jump from full-time into contract work, "Find a consulting firm or staffing agency to work with where you have a good ongoing relationship. Naturally, they will bill you out at a higher hourly rate than they pay you, but you can get a good sense of your market worth, and many companies will only work with consultants through firms anyway."

In the final analysis, as Toby Lucich emphasizes in his post, the biggest determining factors of your rate are your credentials, performance and reputation.

It's YOUR business...

I just came across a post by veteran .NET coder (and contractor) Eric Wise which--if you just skimmed through it--is a strong argument for reform in the contracting industry.

But I think it's an even stronger argument for examining your own business practices as a contractor or consultant and using them to improve your market position. I don't know if I completely agree with him on just what needs to be reformed, but his comments are thought-provoking and worth discussion.

Wise's post is primarily aimed at large staffing firms that he feels are more interested in getting fees than partnering with clients. He cites companies that make the pitch with one highly skilled contractor and substitute someone with much less experience once the work starts. Or companies that low-ball the price by cutting corners or forcing contractors into accepting much less than their standard bill rate "just this once," or with the promise of possible permanent employment with a top company.

Your best defense against such practices? If you discover that a firm you're considering working with indulges in such things, don't work with them. It's cheaper in the long run. In any case, your best defense is to stay in control and professional: Act with integrity, do the job as if your life depended on it and give a little extra.

Wise talks about the lack of incentive for some contractors to perform, because they get paid whether they're successful or not. Or, because the hiring company or firm doesn't clearly define responsibilities and goals, not being held accountable for not doing them.

But to me, holding themselves accountable is what separates truly professional contractors and consultants from the rest. Contractors do have a stake in a successful outcome: It adds to reputation, it's a notch on the gunbelt, and it's a whole lot better than "yeah, we had that guy. Useless" if somebody talks to a former client. Clients have their own networks and, believe me, word travels.

A good reputation sells better than 10 marketing campaigns, and it gets you more money. That's one reason HotGigs instituted the client rating system for its consultants. It's an easy way for the people that hire you to build your reputation.

No clearly defined responsibilities and goals? Again, it's your work. Getting agreement on what you'll do, when you'll do it, and what you should accomplish is the most basic part of any project plan. If the client doesn't spell this out, then you spell it out for him, and get his agreement.

Bottom line: It's your life. Your profession. If you let someone else control the way you conduct business, you're asking for trouble. Run your practice like a business, and you'll be a lot more successful.

Wise suggests instituting incentive payments to up the stakes in a successful outcome, and I'm all for it; the guys who do the best work should be rewarded. But I look on it as a nice but unnecessary bonus for being better than the common herd, not a necessary step in getting the work done right.

Opinions? Agree? Disagree? How do you handle awkward or uncomfortable situations such as Wise describes? Let me know.

Cheers--

--Doug

Consultants' virtual support groups

Consulting can be a cold and lonely place when you're just starting out (or when business isn't as hot as you'd like it to be).

I know you're doing all the right things, professionally. You're networking like mad with your former colleagues and employers, attending local association meetings to let people know you're available and what you can do, working with your financial and legal advisers to make sure you've got the best possible business strategies, keeping up on your professional skills.

But one thing a lot of consultants miss--and I know I really missed--is the ability to bounce things off your colleagues, compare experiences, and maybe create some personal baselines for your progress. That's easy in the employee world, not so easy when you're on your own. Now, you can find local entrepreneurial groups and small business support that can be a great help...but you should also check out the virtual world of consultants.

Consultants use blogs to promote their services, provide tutorials for their clients and perform discreet market research. But they also use blogs to connect with their peers in a kind of virtual watercooler. I thought I'd share some of my favorites, and invite you to share some of yours, too.

ConsultantJournal. "Consulting is not about selling your knowledge, it's about selling people on your knowledge," says consultant Andrea Coutu. She manages ConsultantJournal, a support blog for consultants working in everything from restaurant management to IT.

Dr. Bamster's Blog contains excellent resources, discussions and support for the over-40 crowd that's interested in making career transitions, including a move into consulting. Dr. Bamster (in real life Dr. Barbara Marchilonis) is a career counselor with lots of good suggestions for rethinking your strategies for a successful professional life.

The Future of Work discusses today's evolving workforce and the trends toward consulting, working from home, mobilizing (i.e., make Starbucks your conference room), and other things. The people who write and comment know firsthand how it feels to start a consulting business.

The popular Kinetic Ideas from Wendy Maynard discusses how to promote yourself and your small business without spending a lot of money.

Guerrilla Consulting, based on the book, Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, this blog gets down to the nitty-gritty of selling your services to prospective clients.

So you want to be a consultant? OK, it's not a blog, but Unix consultant Steve Friedl gives great advice about the dos and don'ts of technology consulting. I think it's a must-read for all consultants.

Speaking of non-blog support for consultants, you might also want to check out CHIMBY, a search engine specializing in career management advice. It's kind of a compendium of advice for consultants (and others). There's a lot of "let's join hands and sing in the flowery meadow" kinda stuff in its search results...but there's a lot of good, solid information you can use, too.

Sometimes blogs about other subjects include some great excerpts on consulting experiences. Swiss blog consultant Stephanie Booth has a great post of notes taken from a consulting seminar with Martin Roell's LIFT seminar. You'll often find these sorts of things by monitoring your favorite blogs, or by searching through popular engines like Digg, Technorati and Google Blogsearch.

These are just starters--there are a LOT more out there. I've added some to my blogroll (you'll find it on the lower right of this page). I'll be adding others--what would you suggest? Got a blog about your consulting life? Post a comment, and I'll check it out.

Cheers--

--Doug