(Part 2 in the Consultant’s Pyramid series—a short blog series on keeping the project pipeline full).

So, this one should be a no-brainer: billable work is how most consultants¹ generate revenue. If you have billable work for one or more customers that is currently actionable, do it—but don’t overdo it. An all-too-common pitfall among consultants (myself included!) is to get wrapped up in a big project and sink all available time into it. However, even the best of relationships will end for no good reason.

Perhaps the worst time to go looking for more business is the week after your customer has been bought out by a larger company that has already unplugged your servers and routed all information through their corporate headquarters. Yes, it does happen.

No doubt, billable work is king, but even the king needs backup, and, more importantly, succession. When your favorite client falls over, what will you do next? Do only the amount of billable work that will still give you time to complete the rest of your daily routine, and have the emotional reserves to maintain a healthy life outside of work. For me, that translates to about 4 hours of billable work per day. Your sweet spot may be different.

Occasional dips and peaks in billable time are practically unavoidable for consultants, but chronically or significantly overshooting your daily quota can be just as disastrous as working too little. This business strategy is all about balance and sustainability; as an independent consultant, you must switch roles regularly, and that means stepping away from the technical work frequently enough to focus on the other aspects of your business.

Finally, billable work done to a high quality standard is easily your best advertising tool; it often leads to more billable work from the same customer, or at the very least, a glowing reference.

Success Measure for Billable Work: You have completed actionable, billable work today, with time to spare.

The next posts in the series will focus on the other tiers in the pyramid. You may subscribe to my RSS feed here.

As someone who has been doing consulting either full-time or part-time since about 1993, I have certainly tried a number of different methods to grow my business. More often than I’d like to admit, some of these methods have been unmitigated failures. It would be easy to excuse myself by saying I am a computer scientist first, and a marketer second. But of course, technical skills alone do not magically produce a successful consulting business.

Like the proverbial Phoenix, the best marketing truths I have ever come up with are usually the little ones—the tiny embers of truth—that rise from the ashes of the most spectacular failures. I certainly haven’t made millions, nor do I need huge success to fuel my passion for technology. (It has plenty of fuel by itself). My needs are far more modest: a steady stream of interesting projects to work on, and just enough money to pay the bills and have a little fun.

So, through the next several posts this week, let me introduce you to my current daily work routine. It consists of five tiers (activities) that I engage in every day. I think about these tiers in terms of their overall value; if one falters, the whole pyramid will (eventually) crumble. It won’t crumble overnight, so by the time I run low on billable work, it’s hard to identify which of the other four activities were neglected. Every step is vital to continued success and growth.

If you do choose to incorporate any of these habits into your own routine, keep in mind that rigid scheduling may do more harm than good. I suggest you complete these activities in a fluid order; if you always leave the same activity to the end of your day, there’s a good chance that some other activity will consistently pre-empt it.

The second you sense one of these key activities is falling behind, your mission is clear: forget about remorse, and instead make a concrete resolution to correct the imbalance within a day. Follow through. Ultimately, you want to develop and maintain these habits, not be a slave to your day planner.

The Consultant’s Pyramid

• Do Billable Work
• Serve an Existing Relationship
• Promote Yourself
• Begin a New Relationship
• Improve Yourself

The next posts in this series will explore each of these activities in detail. Subscribe to my RSS feed.

If you are a bank, and you are going to advertise investment services in uncertain (or downright ugly) economic times, it pays to choose your language carefully:

Far be it for me to question the marketing strategy of a banking giant like CIBC, but the best answer they can come up with to their own provocative yes/no question is “It’s worth a talk”?

Lisa Neal Gualtieri of CIO.com just published an article, “Job Hunting? Think Twice about Revealing your Hobbies”. In the article, she discourages job applicants from including the ubiquitous “Hobbies” section on their resumes, suggesting that “employers can read anything the wrong way”. She goes on to list examples, such as:

and:

As someone who has made selections based on just a few tens of thousands of resumes, I completely disagree. I would never, ever pass on a candidate based on my own preconceived notion of where I think their priorities lie. Not only would I likely be overlooking well-qualified candidates, but potentially opening myself to liability via the labor laws in most jurisdictions, too.

In fact, I would be a little concerned about someone who wouldn’t put their children first. Employers, for the most part, recognize the value of a healthy work/life balance with their employees. Why on Earth would an employer not want to hire someone who had a passion for something outside of work, assuming no illegal activity or conflict of interest?

As a manager, I have happily granted leave requests for World of Warcraft campaigns, kids’ sports games, sick pets, religious holidays, band gigs, unicycling contests, and, my all-time favorite: “Hey Ryan, is it OK if I stay home today? I think I pulled something in my leg playing Wii Sports Bowling”. These people all applied the same passion and focus to their software development, and were among my top performers. Unlike some of their more dedicated counterparts, these folks didn’t burn out.

Besides–depending on your outlook–any employer that passes on your resume because you might have a life outside of work may just be helping with your job screening process.

What do you think? Please post your comments below.

[ CIO.com Article ]

Tags: jobhunting, recruiting, interview, resume, hobbies