I don't want to be a freelancer getting paid low canadian dollars per hour. I want to be a consultant getting paid lots of money.
Based on what everyone described and this article says, the differences are subtle.
So what can I do to change how I present myself as a consultant rather than a freelancer? What changes can I make on my freelancer website? Where can I find my first consultant client? Why would a client use an expensive consultant vs odesk (based on some customer's words not mine)? How can you avoid running into these type of cost reducing customers?
These are the tough questions I think anyone curious about becoming a consultant would care about.
Your website doesn't really matter. If you want to improve the quality of clients, try:
Give them quotes per project or part of project, not per day, or heaven forfend by the hour.
Don't find clients on odesk, find them anywhere else (referrals and contacts is the best way, you've already done some work, so work those contacts).
Don't do work and then walk away - build meaningful relationships and trust with clients over years, and keep delivering for them (and being paid). Trust is key. So don't drop clients unless they are toxic - aim to build up a stable of good clients with repeat work and income. You've probably already met your first consulting client.
Do drop clients who don't trust you or insist on lower prices. If they don't trust you, you can't work for them.
Don't talk technology to them unless necessary or requested. Your client doesn't care if you use odoo with git or poo with tigger, they care about what you can deliver. They won't even know what OpenERP is (I didn't either). You can do a lot of work for clients without them knowing or caring what tech is used as long as what you build is solid and solves the problem.
Discuss requirements with them first in an in-depth way, don't wait for them to give you a list of things that need done, have a discussion, and come back with a quote which details ways to improve their business (efficiencies, new features, new markets etc). Think of yourself and present yourself as a partner, not someone contracted to do some odd jobs.
PS Since you asked about your site, it is a little topsy turvy, it starts from top to bottom with stuff you care about, and only reaches stuff clients will care about at the bottom - consider instead having a set of case studies at the top with projects you have been paid for (just 3 is fine), and quotes from happy customers. Your clients are usually focussed on their business and making money for that business more efficiently. Your personal views, your favourite technologies, and even the types of work you do, come secondary to that.
> Give them quotes per project or part of project, not per day, or heaven forfend by the hour.
But if you do this, definitely have a strategy for when the project explodes, or when a client keeps asking for "just one more little fix" for months. I tend to summarise every new project (usually discussed over the phone) in an email, so that I can refer to what is and what isn't part of the quote later. I wonder if it comes across as lawyer-y, though.
I strongly disagree with the sibling comment. Your website _does_ matter. At least in so far as it represents how you are positioning yourself to your clients.
Your website is all about what kind of software you can build. Your clients don't care about that. They want to know what kind of business value you can deliver. What kind of results can you achieve?
As a business owner, I don't want to see example websites, I want to see a case study about how you increased revenue by 20% with a new user onboarding process. I want to see how you saved 100 hrs per month in staff time (i.e. expenses) with the new set of automation features you developed.
If you don't have this data from past projects, then start collecting it. Start framing all of your conversations this way from now on. If a client is working toward a business objective, help them achieve it and make sure you put mechanisms in place to measure success and assign a real dollar value to what you helped them achieve.
Don't misunderstand me here -- contacts to a employee are not bad per se, but in my experience, those contacts usually care about their problems, but do not have the budget to have the work done properly.
OTOH, if you have a contact that is higher up in the chain, those tend to have a broader view and you can discuss prices not in terms of effort on your side but in terms of business value for them.
Take a look at my "freelance" website http://appsonify.com
Tell me how I can turn it into a "consultant".
I don't want to be a freelancer getting paid low canadian dollars per hour. I want to be a consultant getting paid lots of money.
Based on what everyone described and this article says, the differences are subtle.
So what can I do to change how I present myself as a consultant rather than a freelancer? What changes can I make on my freelancer website? Where can I find my first consultant client? Why would a client use an expensive consultant vs odesk (based on some customer's words not mine)? How can you avoid running into these type of cost reducing customers?
These are the tough questions I think anyone curious about becoming a consultant would care about.