Consulting Blog

Contract Horror Stories Contest - Win a Shirt!

We hear it all the time – Consultants and independent contractors get caught in a tangled web of business contract woes. Seemingly innocuous contracts wreak havoc on your business (or your mental health)! It’s almost guaranteed that for every horror story you have...

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Contract Terms: Intellectual Property

You did the work. You should own it, right? Not according to Intellectual Property clauses in most independent consulting contracts. The truth is, when you perform work for a client, the product and collateral goods created for and pertaining to the assignment belong to...

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Quit Your Job and Get a Great Gig

Who would think of leaving their job in this economy? It turns out exploring other employment opportunities, like becoming an independent consultant, might not be the worst idea. But you may have to tweak your idea of what a “job” should be before you get your next “gig”.  Traditional employment (fulltime, vs. a “gig” which would be a contract/temporary) is not as safe...

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Contract Terms: Non-Compete Clause

Almost every employment contract  has one: the dreaded “non compete clause". A provision put into place to prevent you, the independent consultant or freelancer, from working with specified clients, consulting companies, or staffing agencies either concurrently with your contract assignment, and/or once an engagement has ended. In the case of the staffing agency or consulting company, it’s a mechanism to prevent...

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Contract Terms: Non-Disclosure Agreements

Independent Consultants are put in the unique position of being privy to confidential information about the companies that engage them. They move into and out of companies, contract after contract, and each time are expected to maintain a level of confidentiality throughout. The term “non-disclosure”, unlike some others we’ve tackled in our series on contracts, is...

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Contract Terms: Indemnification

Indemnification, a clause in almost every single contract, is easiest discussed in common terms. When you indemnify your client, you are promising to compensate that client for any loss they may suffer while you’re working on that contract. In other words, you are protecting...

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Contract Terms: A Glossary That WIll Save Your Business

Consulting contracts can be scary. When you sign your name on the dotted line, you could be signing your life away – or at least your livelihood. That is, of course, unless you have the knowledge to turn contracts in your favor. Every time you enter into a contract for your next assignment...

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Freelancers Networking in Real Life: True Tales

Online social networking is becoming old news. Important news, but "it's been done." The latest thing -- and this is groundbreaking, so you might want to sit down -- is networking in REAL LIFE! For all of you working as freelancers and independent consultants, operating from a home office or jet-setting from client site to client site, you may be disconnected from the social mix of the American workforce. What role should real life in-the-flesh social networking play . . .

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Value Method: Another Strategy for Bill Rate Calculation

What are you worth? It’s a very important question for independent consultants, and one that we’ve been answering throughout our blog series on bill rate strategies. 

But what if we ask it a different way…“What’s your value?” Does rephrasing the question cast your “worth” in a new light? When bill rates are calculated on the...

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Consulting Bill Rates: Competitive Market Pricing

Today's post is on market based bill rates for independent consultants. The subject of consultant bill rates is complex, so we have broken it down into a series of posts, each focusing on one aspect of figuring out your bill rate. In our last post, we discussed “cost based” bill rates. Today, we are taking a closer look at market based rates, a slightly more labor intensive approach. While cost based bill rates are black and white...

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