[consulting] Getting Freelance Work

[skessler at denverdataman.com]

You say that you were number two...sorry to be blunt but who cares. There is no consolation prize for the first runner up. The goal has to be to win the RFP. 

We do go after some government RFPs but only when we think we have a skill set we can use to differentiate ourselves or we know people involved in the review. The blind process is hard and asking the right questions during the Q&A is vital. 

We have won some busines/nonprofit  RFPs where we have seen a listing on some of the boards we are on. 

That said as a small company relationships are our core marketing tool. People do business with people they know like and trust. That means that we build strong relationships in local business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. These "friends" then connect us with the organizations that they are a part of. 

The question how much free spec work to do is a good one. We are not bidding on a local city site because they want three full mockups and more just for the bid. We can't do that.

The next RFP question is what you do to get work in the first place. Its hard to show you can do it. We work with other development shops for our codding talent so this can be a liability as well but we have been working on ways to mitigate that. Vote for my session with Andy Walters on this topic for Drupal Camp Colorado to learn more. 

One last issue I want to raise is that many of the government contracts have massive auto insurance burdens even for web development. We have found ourselves having to factor this in and watching our prices go up accordingly. 

Hope this ads some vale to the conversation. 

Thanks,
Steve 
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----
From: Sami Khan <sami at etopian.net>
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:48:11 
To: A list for Drupal consultants and Drupal service/hosting providers<consulting at drupal.org>
Subject: Re: [consulting] Getting Freelance Work

> "Dude, I am far better than anyone
> else you will find, so just hire me."

that's going on my next business card.

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