Indie Consultant

Before you take the leap to freelancing, I highly recommend doing 2-3 "practice" engagements where you either do them pro-bono or a small fee to keep each other honest.

A proposal is one of the most important things you need to do in landing a client project.  Too many people think about it as a legal contract. A better way to think about it is to have it be the start of your working relationship.  I always present a short 3-4 page proposal as a working draft and ask the client to directly edit the document. This enables us to start working together and enables me to start learning about the company, the language and the nuances of the issues brought up in earl

"Free" work is literally part of the word freelancer and you should accept that you are going to have to do unpaid work, especially at the start.  The best types of free work to do are the types of work you're really excited about doing over the long term.  Some examples of things you might want to think about doing: 1. Offering a free high-level analysis for a potential client 2. Joining meetings with the client to offer perspectives 3. Writing on your own personal site or blog about topics