Regarding giving up IP, all of my consulting clients have wanted to own the copyright for the software I write for them and keep it as secret sauce. And I've wr

Regarding giving up IP, all of my consulting clients have wanted to own the copyright for the software I write for them and keep it as secret sauce. And I've written some amazingly good stuff over the years that I wish I could reuse for other clients or for myself. Software is an asset. I don't like getting paid to create assets for other people. I want to create my own assets and leverage them to get paid. This is the route to wealth creation. Cold calling is really awkward, yeah. I don't enjoy it, and probably wouldn't do it again unless there was no other way. It is possible, though. It's much easier if you have "warm" leads from an email campaign or via a LinkedIn group or something. Ultimately, it's a numbers game. For phone sales skills, learn from the late, great Chet Holmes: http://vimeo.com/46164281 http://vimeo.com/46164281 Don't contact people trying to sell them something; just try to learn about their problems. If you find one that's painful enough and get them into an emotional state about it, they'll beg you to fix it for them. Read "SPIN Selling" for sure, and put it into practice. After I read that book and started putting it into practice, I went from spending weeks chasing deals (and often losing them) to closing them in a single phone call.