It Consulting 101 – 6 Tips to Help Protect yourself as an Independent Contractor

So you’ve just found your first client! Now what?

Setting out alone in the big bad world of IT consulting can be quite a steep learning curve. A fine line exists between going beyond the call of duty for your first few clients, and protecting yourself as a contractor. Whilst it is vital to make a positive first impression to get the word of mouth engine rolling, do not jeopardize your own rights in the process. Unscrupulous operators are more than happy to take advantage of your inexperience. That is, if you let them!

Whilst being relatively new to IT consulting, I’ve had my fair share of difficult clients and sticky situations. The first of these was a website development project that came my way via a lucky cold-call. Being an inexperienced university student and desperate to retain the contract I gave little consideration to the time required to complete the task. The hastily offered quote was severely underpriced, and with hindsight I shudder to think that I ended up working for less than minimum wage.

Tip #1 - Do not underquote without a valid reason.

You’d be surprised to learn that with most clients, price is not as critical as you might think. The aforementioned client was a large leisure centre and gym with a hefty marketing budget. Underquoting has two negative side effects. First, you open yourself up to be taken advantage of, and secondly, it gives off the impression that you lack confidence in your own ability. As long as the deal is fair for both parties, you can’t go wrong.

In a recent situation, my services were requested by a small consulting firm needing help as they were understaffed and the deadline was fast approaching. During the initial briefing I was told the client wished for the task to be completed within seven business days. The briefing gave only a cursory overview of the project but I agreed to take on the role and asked to be provided with a specification document. My schedule was open and the project appeared to be a relatively simple website.

It all started to go pear-shaped after having not received word back from them after two days. All they were able to offer me was an incomplete collection of Photoshop mockups and the hasty instruction to code up a front-end template while they prepared a Content Management System framework and written spec. Without a full understanding of my exact task, I held off from starting work until I received a second almost identical email the following afternoon. This was accompanied by an inappropriate check-up phone call, which brings me on to the next tip.

Tip #2 - Be professional and easily reachable, but keep your distance. You are not an employee.

The check-up phone call made me realize the manager of this consulting firm was treating me as employee rather than an independent consultant. I was effectively being rebuffed for not providing status of my work progress, despite having no formal specification. Later in the project I was required to participate in MSN conversations at awkward times to fix problems outside of my control, and even assist a junior staff member on a completely unrelated project. Whilst I’m not averse to helping others, it was not appropriate in this situation.

Unless the contract is long-term, you must give the initial impression that you are a professional freelancer engaging in a client-consultant relationship.

Following this event I made another substantial mistake – with the available days disappearing fast I began working on the template, before having received a written job specification and quoting for my time.

Tip # 3 – In a subcontracting situation, the client’s deadline is not necessarily your deadline.

I was fooled into working towards the client’s deadline, despite events beyond my control jeopardizing my ability to meet it. If I was dealing directly with the client, I would have gathered all the necessary information before agreeing on a deadline. It was the job of the middleman to account for subcontractor involvement within their deadline, or to re-negotiate with the client.

It is critically important to push back as soon as it becomes apparent you are being forced into an unsalvageable position.

To cut a long story short, after a couple more days of hurdles, obstacles and stuff-ups I finally had enough information to understand the full scope. It was considerably more than I had first expected. The “project specification” was a sorry half-page of rough notes and the CMS framework being developed was a bug ridden mess. Hence, developing within this certain environment (both front and back-end) without clear instruction was turning the job into a royal headache.

Tip #4 - Do the work in your own way using your own server.

I understand there are limitations to this tip, such as being required to update an app written in .NET as one example. However, in my situation considerable time was wasted both in receiving and getting my head around a CMS framework filled with deprecated code. I could have done this myself at a fraction of the time and difficulty.

Also, the testing server crashed frequently and was not set up to spit out PHP errors, leading to a debugging nightmare. Most frustratingly, obtaining various passwords for FTP/database/admin access was like extracting teeth.

Going away and developing the site yourself will save you a heck of a lot of time as you can seldom rely on others to be as organised as you are. Just remember to give your client access.

With barely enough time to finish the job within the aforementioned deadline, I quoted based on time already spent and time estimated for completion. The quote was quite fair considering the extent of the project.

The reply was brief.

It stated that the quote was a little excessive as they were given a fixed budget. They had estimated to pay almost half as much as my quote, which was ridiculously low for the work required. I managed to negotiate a happy medium, but unbeknownst to me, it became apparent I was the fourth fish in a chain of disorganized consulting firms.

The client negotiated a price with one group, who being incapable of taking on the job themselves, subcontracted to the second consulting firm. Being understaffed themselves, they found a lackey in myself to take on the entire workload. Money was being passed down the chain to be enjoyed by the middlemen, while I found myself in an unfortunate position with very little bargaining power. Had I been the client, I would be severely unhappy with the way my project was handled.

Tip #5 - Demand a full written specification and agree on project scope before starting work.

I dug myself a hole by being sucked into the unreasonable deadline, but the most critical lesson to be learned is this one. It should be an elementary aspect of consulting but as you have seen it is very easy to fall into a trap if you lack experience.

If dealing directly with the client, extract enough information from them to be able to produce a detailed specification and have them sign-off on it. As a subcontractor, you must request one from your employer, scour through it, confirm any aspects that are unclear, and then sign-off and quote. All scope increases will then be quoted separately.

While the task is complete, minor modifications and changes continue to trickle down to me. Although this is less than ideal, I must remain professional and show I am a more than suitable candidate for future work. However, the people I dealt with on this project were unprofessional, disorganised and lacked business etiquette. The instinctual reaction is to display anger, but as explained in the next tip, this is definitely not the way to conduct yourself in consulting.

Tip #6 - Don’t take things personally!

The reality of business is we live in a dog eat dog world. Businesses screw other business and people screw other people – it’s a fact of life. Keep yourself above the masses by realizing that having a hidden agenda and trading unethically will only get you so far.

So keep a level head under adverse situations, be conscious of your brand image and if you need to blow off some steam, head out to the golf course and play 18 relaxing holes!

I hope you learn from these tips and story as much as I learnt through experiencing it.

Andy Parthenopoulos runs an Australian IT and SMS consulting firm Noodle Networks Pty Ltd.