- find a niche you enjoy you think is marketable - strongly engage the community in that niche - advocate strongly and support that community, so that you’re

- find a niche you enjoy you think is marketable - strongly engage the community in that niche - advocate strongly and support that community, so that you’re an integral part of it - Hustle to advocate for the community. This means educationally, with outreach, running conferences, writing books, speaking, etc - Avoid selling your business hard (though make it clear you’re a consultant). You’ll organically grow your network of potential clients and fellow consultants. Naturally some will seek you out for advice as your authority in the niche becomes clear. Be prepared with small offerings like trainings or workshops they can grow a bit of trust with you before taking the plunge on a bigger project. These are usually fairly transactional engagements, easy for the client to buy. If things look promising for the relationship, then you can decide to do a more complicated proposal and contract, scaling not sides investment with the trust. It was rarely worth the effort to invest in AdWords or social media ads. But we were also open to the idea we weren’t doing it right. Rather our North Star was the authority and long term page rank of our content. I recently left consulting after 8 years, I wrote a blog on my experience: https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2020/12/22/hack-your-career-with-consulting.html https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2020/12/22/hack-your-career-wi...