Charge whatever you can get away with. Set a number and show willingness to walk away.
I used to do cloud consulting from an LLC after doing client-facing enterprise AWS consulting.
Consulting experience TLDR braindump:
* Enterprise shops look down on people that don't charge enough.
* Some shops feel entitled to get a bunch of stuff for free. Hold your ground and explain you have bills to pay and can't set a new precedent. Your time is valuable.
* Free assessments are an easy way to determine how much crap and hand-holding you'll have to deal with. It'll also let you show you know what you're talking about and be able to
* Research solutions before raising proposals. Anything you raise will basically be put on you to support.
* Raise prices every year or two. It'll be less of a surprise if it's a fairly regular thing and it's mentioned ahead of time.
* Work on- vs. off-site has +s and -s.
* Work with fun clients that pay on-time and don't do hourly. Hourly is for noobs that take too long. Milestone-based at the same comfortable hourly rate puts the onus on you to always deliver.
* Getting a % of the milestone upfront for a good faith deposit.
* Don't do Net 30 or + ever... Collecting will be a hassle. Net 10 -2%, 15
* Master agreement
* Put milestones in writing to be clear. (Contracts are only as good as the relationships on which they are written.)
* Engage with the highest ranking person you can, and you'll more or less own the place. (Just don't get too cocky, instant hubris.)
Comments
Charge whatever you can get away with. Set a number and show willingness to walk away.
I used to do cloud consulting from an LLC after doing client-facing enterprise AWS consulting.
Consulting experience TLDR braindump:
HTH