I was working in e-commerce when my company for acquired by a larger one. Since I was 100% remote and had zero face time with anyone I was one of the people to get canned. Actually, most of our company got canned.
At first I was furious and a bit depressed and that's when I said enough is enough, I will never let anyone else in a position over me, I'm done being an employee, I will never be let go ever again.
A year later I was working insane hours as a freelancer, just learning the ropes with enough pay to get by on. Fast forward to year 3 and I am a consultant making more than I did at the ecommerce company. I am my own boss. I can fire my clients instead of the other way around. Pay is great, hours are insanely good - I work just a couple of hours per week with occasional bursts of power sessions exceeding 3-4 hours. I get to spend most of my time with my kid.
The downside is having to always have business lined up but I have been fortunate to never really have any downtime. I'm slowly building out my marketing channels and once everything is in place I can pick and choose really carefully who I work with. Oh, and if I want a raise I just increase my weekly retainer.
"Fast forward to year 3..."
May I ask: are you e-commerce consulting?
Your comment suggests that you repositioned yourself purposefully, rather than the outcome simply eventuated. If so, was this based on a discovery you made in the market or client demand while you were freelancing?
Did this result in you "niching down" from a broader "catch all" offering as a freelancer? Are you clients higher ticket/larger SME's compared to freelancing (which is often outsourced agency work)?
I started as a freelance designer, then quickly niched down to UX designer and then again to CRO consultant. I only work with companies that will see direct ROI impact from my work. While I still design UIs, the whole process starts with discovery and an audit. It's a data based approach with no guessing involved. The process involves understanding customer pain points, their language and behavior. Clients vary in size from 10 person teams to larger e-commerce operations with maybe 30-40 employees. I do all of the work myself and expect full cooperation from the client or we don't go forward. I've definitely made every mistake in the book but I've learned a lot along the way. I'm sure there are consultants 2 tiers ahead of me though with productized services or just products. My ultimate goal is to have a product (who's isn't, right).
To answer your first question, I do consult in e-commerce, but not limited to it (though that may be a good idea). Most of my leads come through dribbble or LinkedIn. The client typically expects grunt work but after my initial email and call, they are quickly educated on my process and most see clearly that the way they thought of approaching their problems is backwards.
"The client typically expects grunt work but after my initial email and call, they are quickly educated "
That's the part that makes me hesitate jumping into consulting. How do you advertise yourself in a way that you can avoid the wrong clients, which seems you'll always gonna get.
Some would point out that you likely have your risk distributed across multiple clients now, whereas having a single full-time employer is like having all of your eggs in one basket.
My website is really stale as I am typically busy doing the work. I've tried to improve it but it does not generate any leads yet. So far the bulk of my inquiries comes from dribbble or LinkedIn. I get repeat business from an agency that uses me exclusively in place of their own designer / cro person as they do a lot of a/b testing.
I was wondering how you were making that much as a contract research organisation.
If you want to see how one person does better on conversion rate optimisation look at draft.nu Given what you’ve said about your rates and funnel you probably don’t need to improve but Nick Disabato puts a lot of work into being a guy people think of when they’re doing big a/b tests so he can charge them giant piles of money. Thought leader stuff like books, mailing lists, for a while a podcast.
Thanks, I'm well aware of Nick and draft. The agency I have done work for charged their clients 10k per month for a/b testing. I don't know what Nick charges, would be interesting to know.
At first I was furious and a bit depressed and that's when I said enough is enough, I will never let anyone else in a position over me, I'm done being an employee, I will never be let go ever again.
A year later I was working insane hours as a freelancer, just learning the ropes with enough pay to get by on. Fast forward to year 3 and I am a consultant making more than I did at the ecommerce company. I am my own boss. I can fire my clients instead of the other way around. Pay is great, hours are insanely good - I work just a couple of hours per week with occasional bursts of power sessions exceeding 3-4 hours. I get to spend most of my time with my kid.
The downside is having to always have business lined up but I have been fortunate to never really have any downtime. I'm slowly building out my marketing channels and once everything is in place I can pick and choose really carefully who I work with. Oh, and if I want a raise I just increase my weekly retainer.