Re: Hourly rates ???

Dinar Dhond <ddhond_at_prpi.com> wrote in article <33D63700.41C6_at_prpi.com>...
> I have decided to became a consultant after being a full-time employee
> for a long time.
>
> Q) Can anybody advise me a bout the pros and cons about being a
> consultant?

Pros: These are obvious. Variety, money, etc.

Cons: No stability. If the person you are working for leaves, you are gone.

If you want to be legal, the paperwork
is a nightmare. In the Eastern US it is a major pain as you have to have your corp registered in every state where you do business. State tax laws kill you on interstate work. All those laws designed to nail professional sports people get you too.

A big con is that you don't get to do projects, for that you need a team. You are only a body. No one person can do the whole thing well.

Also, how do you convince your prospective client that you aren't an idiot (like the last five contractors that they hired)?

You need a big cash buffer. My group has waited up to 6 months to get paid. This is true for even the largest companies.

I wasn't happy consulting until I built a team to do $1,000,000 projects.

>
> Q) What would be good hourly rate? I have worked as an application
> developer (Dev 2000) and a DBA(Oracle) for about 4 years.

To get the best rates you need skill AND visibility. Write papers, give presentations, do a chapter for a book. It really helps. With new clients, we show them all the papers we published in the last year. It really helps. As a result, we do no advertising, All work comes from word of mouth and from conferences.

Rate depends on where you are. In the East US, we charges from $500/day - $2,000/day. Your experiences would get you between $600 - $1,000/day around here. Rate is what you can negotiate. Sleeping at home should get a high premium. Long term contracts mean no downtime so command a lower rate.

Paul Dorsey
Dulcian, Inc.

>
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
> Dinar
>
Received on Thu Jul 24 1997 - 00:00:00 CEST