[consulting] What Causes Feast or Famine?

[Sam Cohen]

It seems that the overwhelming majority of new work comes from referrals, so
it's important to work with the type of people who are going to bring you
new work.

For anyone who wants a lot of work, I strongly recommend partnering with
successful designers and communication firms.

And many of these folks would probably prefer you don't have a website, as
they want all the work to go through them, so not having a site isn't
necessarily a handicap.  I didn't have a website for myself until recently,
when I started promoting Drupal training, and I was never lacking work.
(But if you do have a site, it doesn't mean they won't bring you in for
jobs).

If you don't already have partnerships with these types of folks, I'd
suggest building them, offer  to put a Drupal back end on their site,  take
them to lunch and tell them why they should be using Drupal, or anything
else that will show them how you can help them.

Another approach is to hire them for work, design or logo or something or to
refer work to them.

Of course, if you are doing design yourself, then this approach might not
work ...

Sam



Sam Cohen, Principal
New Media Solutions <http://new-media-solutions.com>
Drupal Training & Services

http://twitter.com/samcohen



On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Fred Jones <fredthejonester at gmail.com>wrote:

> It has been discussed here more than once that there are two main
> camps of Drupal developers--those flooded with work and those
> constantly looking for work. Without going into unnecessary detail
> about my boring private life (or lack thereof) I would like to move
> myself from the second camp into the first. :)
>
> I am wondering therefore, what it is that people think creates for
> them a flood of work? I am wondering if it's:
>
> 1. Modules you authored on drupal.org. People find you there and hire you.
> 2. Your fantastic site. People find you there and hire you. I doubt
> this is relevant for a little guy like me however.
> 3. Your constant presence on d.o forums or IRC where you meet people
> who want to hire you.
> 4. Your clients all refer to you new clients because they just love
> you and they all hire you.
>
> I hang out on a certain non-Drupal forum sometimes and I have gotten
> work from that a BIT, so I know that can work. But I don't know about
> d.o nor IRC nor authoring modules. As far as client referrals go, I do
> have some but my clients generally either have no one to send me or
> the people they do send me aren't the type I want to work for, i.e.
> don't have a budget or whatever.
>
> More than one client has said they WOULD highly recommend me, but they
> don't have anyone to sell me to. Not surprising because a massage
> therapist, an autistic school secretary and a car wash guy don't
> necessarily spend much or any time discussing building web sites.
>
> So I was thinking of making myself a website and then trying to put
> some energy into whatever it is that might help attract more work to
> me, as opposed to my current system of chasing after it.
>
> Any ideas are appreciated. :)
>
> Thanks,
> Fred
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