Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 045 What Are The Pros & Cons Of Becoming A Consultant?

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045 What Are The Pros & Cons Of Becoming A Consultant? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: So who should become a consultant?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Can I become a consultant right away?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Do I need experience first?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what are the downsides to becoming a software development consultant?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: These are questions that Jasper asked me, and I want to touch on them because, yeah, who should be a consultant?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start off with the question of when can you become a consultant first?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer is whenever you want, in some ways.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can decide that after you graduate college or even after you graduate high school, or just in your free time, no matter where you are in life, you can become a consultant.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean anyone will hire you.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And even if someone hires you, that doesn't mean you'll have a clue what to do.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be a scary place to be.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: If someone were to hire you and you've never built a real application, and they hire you and say, you know what?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: We want to bring you in.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: We want you to build this application.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: What do you say?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you say yes, I mean, that'd be great, right?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: You get you got a consulting job right away.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: You got a you get your next six months or next year lined up, and you start to work on it.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: You've never built one before.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: How do you now build one under pressure and expect to get it right?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's really hard.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So consulting becomes easier the more experienced you are.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking about experienced as in experienced in a specific job.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say you get hired to become a software developer when you're a junior level, you know, first job, and you start doing small little bug fixes, and you spend the next 10 years doing nothing but small little bug fixes.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is that gonna prepare you to be a consultant?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not usually, unless you're gonna come in and fix somebody else's bugs, you will have be encountering things that you've never done before.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be okay.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now you may have heard my story before.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: When I was just out of my first year of college, I was hired to be a software development consultant.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was so junior.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: I had no clue.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had some programming experience, I had worked as an intern, I had been doing some coding, but um it was unguided, it was horrible, but I got the job done.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really the important part, right?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I was hired to be a software development consultant, and then my boss was he had a great teaching style.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if it was accidental or intentional, but his teaching style was just push him deep into the pool and see if he swims.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so he put me in a job where I'm like, I told him, I'm like, I have no clue what I'm doing.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, you can figure it out.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I did, but I tell you what, that was hard.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not something that everyone's going to succeed at.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay not to succeed at swimming the first time you're pushed into the deep end of the pool.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: But if you are a consultant and you are on your own, if you can't swim, then you drown, your company drowns, and that's not a good thing.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the more experience you have, the easier it will be to be a consultant.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of step one here.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let's talk about what are the upsides to being a consultant?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the upsides is you hire you.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So in any other job, you have to apply to that job.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: You have to convince somebody that you're the right candidate for the job.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: When you are the one doing the hiring, I would hope you'd pick yourself.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: I get it, maybe you wouldn't.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'd love to hire somebody else too.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, but you pick you.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to go through that process of being hired.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: You just say, Yeah, I'm gonna be a consultant.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: You also get to pick your clients.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: This can be huge.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can target certain types of clients.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you are really good at building simple websites, um, websites that that aren't really complex, but maybe look nice.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you could target certain businesses as a consultant to say, hey, I would like to build a website for you.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then because you're targeting certain types, you get the work that is best for your skill set.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to every restaurant in town and say, hey, I can build you a new website.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you know how to build a restaurant website, you're golden.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that would give you a lot of, well, potentially a lot of work.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you could do that in the next town over, and the next town over.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe by that time you can come around the first town again and say, hey, those of you who didn't do it, are you regretting that?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you want to want to get a website.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you get to pick your clients.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: That also means that if there's a client that you've heard about that's miserable to work for, or that you just don't want to work for, you can say no.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you're working for somebody else and you're told to work with this company or this individual, you don't have a lot of choice.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're a consultant, you can say, you know what?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that we're right for each other.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's part ways.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: As a consultant, another big upside is you can make a lot of money.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're a consultant, you should get paid more than a traditional developer.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you are a traditional, let's just make up numbers here.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um it all depends on your area and all the rest.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: But let's just say if you are a traditional developer, you would get paid$50 an hour.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as a consultant, you should probably get paid at least$100 an hour then, maybe even more.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're not hiring you full time, they're not giving you benefits, they're not guaranteeing you an income for the whole year.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So because they're not doing those things, they have to put more money into what they do pay you per hour.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: So in that case, then you can make a lot of money.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you can get enough clients, you can make double, triple, or even more what you would as a traditional developer.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the upsides to being a consultant.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: But with any choice you make in life, there's also some downsides.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So downside number one is that up and down uh cycle of being a developer.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: There'll be times when you're booked, when you have so much work you don't know how to get it all done.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that sounds like a great problem to have, but at the same time, that can also cause frustrated clients because you're not getting enough done.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the the really uptimes can even cause you to lose clients.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the downtimes are times when you have no clients, and then it doesn't matter what you're charging, no one's paying, therefore you have to live on savings.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: That can be a really tough time, especially when you see no end in sight.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that up and down cycle can be quite difficult.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, another thing that can be a downside of being a consultant is that you're not just a developer.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is a hard balance to hit.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because usually when you start off as a consultant, the traditional thought is you're on your own.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're just saying, hey, I'm going to do some consulting work.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if you need me, I can you know hire out.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, at that point, you're not just a developer, you're also your marketing person.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because you don't get clients unless clients know about you.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to figure out a way to get in front of people that potentially could hire you.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're marketing.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to having a website or other presence, you're the webmaster, you're the person that puts the website up, you're the person who maintains the website, you're the person who answers emails, you're the office assistant, you are everything.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: When the trash can gets full by your desk, you're the janitor.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds humorous in some ways, but I tell you what, when you're doing it, it can be wearing because you find yourself doing one of two things.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Either you're doing lots of development, in which case everything else is slipping, which by the way, that's marketing, is one of the things that slips.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, your next client and the client after that, they start drying up because you're not talking to them, you're not talking to people and getting those lined up.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that means at some point you're going to have one of those low periods where you don't have any clients.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So either you're doing that, you're getting money today, but you're sacrificing tomorrow's money, or you're doing a lot of work today to get clients for tomorrow, and you're not getting paid for that time now.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that can be difficult.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: That adds to that same curve of the loss of income or the too much income or too much um too much time being spent.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then kind of the third big downside of being a consultant is you're responsible.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: When something happens, you're responsible.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you write a piece of software and give it to a customer or client, and you know, you say, okay, here is the the working software.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if what if there's a bug?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Who fixes that?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that'd be you, usually.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are responsible for that bug, well, that means that if you're working on the next project, but the previous client has a bug, you gotta kind of take time and fix that.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now it takes the time away from the client you're currently working on.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: You have to juggle that.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it becomes this, it can become this weight that you're under where you have legacy stuff you're still supporting while trying to do new stuff.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I don't want to sound down on consulting.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Consulting can be amazing, but it's not simple.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go into it thinking it's simple, you're gonna get burned.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I want you to look honestly at the pros and cons of this and look at your skill set.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Are you confident in what you can do?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: As a consultant, when I walk into a business, I want to be able to be the voice in the room that has the answer.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's not always the case.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there are times when I say, you know what, I just don't know because I don't know everything.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I need to be the voice in the room that has the experience to say, I've seen this done before.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not exactly this, but roughly this, and this is what I see.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I need to be able to be the voice in the room that says, here's the direction I think you should go.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or be able to say, you know what, what you want me to do is not, in my opinion, the wisest choice, and here's why.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And by doing that, you will earn the respect of your clients and you will get yourself out of bad situations because you know that the this right here, this path that they're on, will lead them down into a bad area, into a problem down the road.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't know about that, and you say, sure, I'll do what you want, and you start down there, and it becomes a problem, even if you did what they asked you to do.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna look at you as the problem or associate you with the problem.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And while that might not be fair, that's part of consulting too.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it helps to have that wisdom and knowledge of having been there and done that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I found that I came back to consulting later.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I started off in consulting, and while I did have my boss to kind of support me, and I made a lot of mistakes, um, I got through it in those six years as a consultant.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: But when I came back to consulting later, I had a lot more wisdom, a lot more to offer companies, and I could be a lot better of a guide to them, not just an extra employee.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that was valuable.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got out of it again.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I did consulting for a year, about four or five years ago, and maybe longer than now.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Time flies, but I did it for about a year where that's all I did.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I was tired of was that cycle of lots of clients, lots of money, and then no clients, no money.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And being the marketing person and never knowing if a current client's gonna change directions and all of a sudden that work's gonna dry up, and I have nothing else for this month.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually went back to full-time work, where I chose to go back to um a 40-hour week job instead of just continuing to consult because that that cycle was was difficult on my time.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: It took a lot of time, it added a lot of stress.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And even though I was good at it, even though I was making good money at it, that stress and that that cycle of worry and of thinking through how to do the next thing and spending so much time just drained me.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not living to work, I'm using work as a tool to help me live.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to spend time with my kids, I want to spend time with my wife, I wanted to enjoy life, not just always be focused on work.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I chose to stop consulting for a while.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did it again for a while as on a side, and I changed my focus.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I changed how I presented myself, where I say, you know what, I'm not gonna do as much custom code.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna write the code.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: What I'll do is I'll help guide you as a business.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that was revolutionary because that allowed me to do what I am good at.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it allowed me to do it on the side.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm still getting a constant income, but at the same time, I can get a lot extra on the side.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was making more money on the side than I was at my normal business because I was able to charge a lot more and have customers lining up to work with me.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have that experience, if you focus on the areas that you are best at, that will definitely help you succeed as a consultant.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: But you do have to acknowledge there are downsides.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: You do have to think through if you're willing to go through the downsides in order to get the upsides.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my long-winded answer saying, yeah, maybe.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's up to you.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you can do that right out of the gate as a junior developer.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is it going to be easy?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is it the first step I would take?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's the first step I took, kind of actually kind of a second step, but pretty much the first step I took.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I succeeded.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: But it was difficult.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was hard.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't alone.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually being hired by someone which took those dips out.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's up to you.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think I would make the choice of hiring on somewhere first and then becoming a consultant later, if that's something you still feel like you want to do.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks to the question, Jasper.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you found this episode helpful, I'd love it if you'd share it on your social network of choice.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 17:52
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• 17:59
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• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 18:11
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