The Prosperous Software Consultant - Nader Dabit - Medium

In my consulting career, I’ve had the fortune of working with companies all the way from fortune 500 (Amazon, Samsung, American Express, Visa), to small startups and everything in between (Warner Bros, Indeed).The advice we offer on that podcast episode and the advice offered in this blog post will apply to anyone in the software field looking to either make a name for themselves, make more money, or to have more control in their dealing with clients and over their lives.Why should you listen to me? Well, maybe you shouldn’t, it’s up to you, but hear me out.Over the past 8 or so years I’ve invested a lot of time and money into books, paid mentorships, and paid time to consultants (that already were where I wanted to be one day) for their knowledge, and I am sharing the information I paid for here for free.I’ve also managed to make between $200,000 and $400,000 a year for 4 years consecutively while living in Mississippi, a place without much opportunity for developers.I’ve distilled the knowledge & advice I’ve received from these specialists and the techniques that have worked for me into seven items: Building Bridges, Specialization, Content, Flat Rate Pricing, Networking, Image, & Learning.A few years ago I was really into Angular. I attended the NG Vegas conference, and there I saw one of the best talks I’ve ever seen (by Aaron Frost) that I still think about to this day: Building Bridges.I highly recommend checking out this talk.This talk has helped frame my thought process as a developer and a person for the next couple of years, and implementing the ideas put forth in this talk has been extremely fulfilling both personally and professionally.The only reason I am where I am today is because of the work other people have done, the tutorials they have made, the open source projects they have created and tirelessly contributed to. But you could and should go even deeper and more specialized.Some examples of specialists that I’ve seen excel in the real world are: Python Training, Postgres Database Query Optimization, Mobile Development for Credit Unions, Progressive Mobile Web Applications for Financial Institutions, Cross Platform Mobile Applications for Furniture Stores, Python Machine Learning Training, Node APIs.Being a specialist allows you to charge more, have more control over your terms, and generally work with more respect from your clients.You are not losing out on the millions of people that weren’t finding you in the first place, you are instead standing out as a big fish in a small pond, VS a small fish in a large ocean.Companies are also more likely to bring you in more quickly and with more money as a specialist because you do not need much onboarding (onboarding that costs them time & money). You will be able to build & ship much more quickly, making your higher rate not only justifiable but actually cheaper for your client at the end of the contract.I’ve learned a lot about specialization from books like The One Thing, The Freelancers Show Podcast, and paid time from other successful consultants.Today anyone can write a book or blog post or create a video series on YouTube. If you can accomplish the job 4x faster than your competition, charging 1.5 or 2x more is still much cheaper for your customer.After paying for mentorship and specialists for their time, I’ve realized there are two big secrets in the high paying consulting industry: training and flat rate pricing.When you are billing hourly, you end up hitting a limit.Say for instance your hourly rate is $125.00, and you are billing 35 hours a week.If you work 48 weeks a year, the max you can make is $210,000.00.