6 replies to this topic

[Kalai Selvan]

Hey All!!!

Hope everyone is fine, i have been doing some goggling and thought of sharing/asking my thoughts to you all..
Apart from your regular freelancing cartography/gis work, do you guys also work as consultants, does taking up consulting task needs lot of traveling? apart from just fetching more money, are you in control with your actual work.(Just ignore if you work for 8hrs in an office)..These are the general question that i am asking and getting different answer, whats that you guys think about this?

Please shoot your thoughts.

Thanks
Kalai Selvan

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hope everyone is fine, i have been doing some goggling and thought of sharing/asking my thoughts to you all..
Apart from your regular freelancing cartography/gis work, do you guys also work as consultants, does taking up consulting task needs lot of traveling? apart from just fetching more money, are you in control with your actual work.(Just ignore if you work for 8hrs in an office)..These are the general question that i am asking and getting different answer, whats that you guys think about this?

Exactly how much travelling are you referring to here? Do you mean: wake up in the morning, travel to a customer's office, work there for x hours and then travel home *or* do you mean actually staying in the general area of your customer's office and working there several days (weeks, months) in a row?

[Kalai Selvan]

Hans, your second questions is more relevant may be...your thoughts on that please?

Hope everyone is fine, i have been doing some goggling and thought of sharing/asking my thoughts to you all..
Apart from your regular freelancing cartography/gis work, do you guys also work as consultants, does taking up consulting task needs lot of traveling? apart from just fetching more money, are you in control with your actual work.(Just ignore if you work for 8hrs in an office)..These are the general question that i am asking and getting different answer, whats that you guys think about this?

Exactly how much travelling are you referring to here? Do you mean: wake up in the morning, travel to a customer's office, work there for x hours and then travel home *or* do you mean actually staying in the general area of your customer's office and working there several days (weeks, months) in a row?

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hans, your second questions is more relevant may be...your thoughts on that please?

Exactly how much travelling are you referring to here? Do you mean: wake up in the morning, travel to a customer's office, work there for x hours and then travel home *or* do you mean actually staying in the general area of your customer's office and working there several days (weeks, months) in a row?

Well, here's how I see it:

I am a self-employed consultant/cartographer/software vendor. The entire company consists of just me. Every now and then I get contacted with the question whether I'd like to take on a "big" project. Sometimes within The Netherlands, sometimes in another country, but always for at least a couple of months (last one was for an entire year even), full-time (so "40 hours per week").

That does not fit with my business model. I have other clients that depend on me (e.g. technical support on the software that I've sold them) and if I spend several months up to a year working full-time for one client, I have very little, if any, opportunity to respond to other client requests in a timely manner, or do acquisition for new projects to follow the first one.

Another thing is that those big projects are usually "goal-driven" rather than "time-driven". You get an assignment and it has to be done by a certain date. If that takes more than 40 hours per week, too bad... but you have to finish it on time. That's not a situation I'd like to be in.

Don't get me wrong, this could be a very good business model if the proceeds are high enough to be able to overcome a bit of a gap between one project and the next, but in all honesty, all the times that the discussion got to that point the rewards were not sufficient.

So that's why I prefer short-term projects.

[Kalai Selvan]

Well said Hans, same situation here i am one man for my company, and i too don't believe in long term assignment, where in you sit on site and ignore all other prospects.. may be like minded people accept what you say..

Hans, your second questions is more relevant may be...your thoughts on that please?

Exactly how much travelling are you referring to here? Do you mean: wake up in the morning, travel to a customer's office, work there for x hours and then travel home *or* do you mean actually staying in the general area of your customer's office and working there several days (weeks, months) in a row?

Well, here's how I see it:

I am a self-employed consultant/cartographer/software vendor. The entire company consists of just me. Every now and then I get contacted with the question whether I'd like to take on a "big" project. Sometimes within The Netherlands, sometimes in another country, but always for at least a couple of months (last one was for an entire year even), full-time (so "40 hours per week").

That does not fit with my business model. I have other clients that depend on me (e.g. technical support on the software that I've sold them) and if I spend several months up to a year working full-time for one client, I have very little, if any, opportunity to respond to other client requests in a timely manner, or do acquisition for new projects to follow the first one.

Another thing is that those big projects are usually "goal-driven" rather than "time-driven". You get an assignment and it has to be done by a certain date. If that takes more than 40 hours per week, too bad... but you have to finish it on time. That's not a situation I'd like to be in.

Don't get me wrong, this could be a very good business model if the proceeds are high enough to be able to overcome a bit of a gap between one project and the next, but in all honesty, all the times that the discussion got to that point the rewards were not sufficient.

So that's why I prefer short-term projects.

[Lui]

Well I'm also working alone. Currently I'm working as consultant for a company (half a year contracts) near my home in flexible full time (with flexible payment ;-). In the evenings I'm working in my own smaller projects like maps for hiking, cycling guides, visualizations, LIDAR data processing, data fusion,... If any of those projects goes over my capabilities then I work less as consultant and dedicate more time to my own project or even hire someone to help.

There is always a question how a company that hired me response to my flexible demands? It is not a problem due to extended knowledge that I bring from all those small problems and their variety. As consultant I'm bringing a wider and different view to problems that have to be solved. But the first rule is not to overlay scope of work.

[cartdeco]

Back in my freelancing days I did some long term work for a client. Working in-house for them and me commuting quite a distance to their office. The downside -I didn't get paid for my travel. The upside - I got paid on a regular basis. As part of the deal I was able to negotiate some flexibility in hours, that is work full time for a period, then tail off commitment to a couple of days a week as the project was nearing completion.

The project was worthwhile as it was a major atlas project that garnered many awards and improved my professional standing.

Like any project you need to way up the pros and cons and if it's worthwhile. Try and negotiate a deal that works best for you and the client. Most people are understanding and flexible. If they're not then the jobs probably not worth doing.