VideoJon Lieb was working as the communications manager for The Greenberg Group, a real-estate-consulting firm in Long Island, New York, when a few people in quick succession asked if he was available for some freelance work. It made him think the time could be right to go out on his own.
Working for himself was something he'd always wanted to do, but he wanted one solid, steady client to get him going. So he came up with a plan to outsource his own job. His boss, Steven Greenberg, "listened to my reasoning, that he would get the same level of results from me in a more cost-effective way," Mr. Lieb recalls.
Mr. Greenberg agreed, and arranged for Mr. Lieb to work in the office once a week and be available by phone as needed on the other days in exchange for a retainer. Now, over a year later, Mr. Lieb has a half-dozen clients as well as Greenberg. The deal he struck isn't the one he'd negotiate as a seasoned consultant (he charges other clients an hourly rate). But Mr. Lieb says his former boss has given him referrals and sends him to represent the company at events where he can network with other potential clients. Most importantly, he says, the arrangement gave him a low-risk way to strike out on his own.
The number of people who count themselves as self-employed rose in 2003 to 9.3 million from 8.9 million the year before, after declining between 2000 and 2002, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you've been longing to join that crowd of free agents, but don't know where you'd turn to find that crucial first client, take a cue from Mr. Lieb and look around your office.
"This a great time" to turn your employer into a client, says Terry Lonier, a business coach for the self-employed and the author of "Working Solo" (John Wiley & Sons, 1998). "Everything is up for grabs these days: Companies are open to anything that will save money, improve efficiency or boost the bottom line," especially outsourcing.
But, you need to have a proposal that will appeal to the boss and a plan for adding other clients to your roster fairly quickly. Here are some tips novices should keep in mind when they seek to turn their former employer into their first client.
Don't Be Overly Grateful to Your Boss
Even people who made a strong business case for outsourcing their job felt, in retrospect, that they were still thinking about their employer as a safety net more than as a client. They felt "grateful," "lucky," even "blessed" that their boss would give them this opportunity. As a result, they focused too much on how they could accommodate him or her in terms of their availability or fee structure. And they didn't think hard enough about what would be best in the long term for their fledgling business.
For example, when Ruth Furman moved from Chicago to Las Vegas, she arranged to outsource her job as communications manager for a hardware-and-tools company. She ultimately wanted to branch out and take on other clients, but still told the company she'd be as available and productive as she'd always been. "I even offered to work Chicago hours," which meant getting on the phone at 6:30 a.m. for early-morning staff meetings, she recalls.
"I made myself crazy trying to do this virtual-office thing and work these hours while also trying to meet people and make business connections in a new city," she says. "Former co-workers told me I was more available as a consultant than I'd been as an employee. I thought that was probably a bad thing."
It was. When the company went through a shake-up two years later, a new management team cut back the work being farmed out to her. "I had new clients, but not enough to absorb that loss, so I had to scramble to get more clients quickly," she says. "But it was my own fault. I wanted to prove they weren't losing anything by not having me in Chicago, and I was way too accommodating."
Stay Connected with Former Colleagues
One consultant who left a travel-services firm to go out on his own kept a desk at the company for a while, so he could work there one day a week. He quickly learned to use that time to drum up more business. "You run into people in the cafeteria and at the water-cooler and get to talking. I got work from a few other departments that way," he says.
Ms. Lonier agrees that former colleagues who know you well "can be your biggest cheerleaders," and can help you get new business. Mr. Lieb has found this to be true: "Of all the clients I've had, Steven Greenberg has gone out on a limb the most in terms of referring new business to me and telling people about me."
Ms. Lonier suggests helping your former colleagues talk you up by coming up with a simple way to describe what you do that they can pass along. "Instead of saying 'I'm a strategic-marketing consultant for Fortune 500 companies,'" she advises, "say, 'I help big companies understand small companies so they can do a better job of selling to those small companies.' "
Laura Ford wishes she'd been more aggressive about asking former colleagues for help when she and a partner left Linguisystems, a small publisher, to start New Avenues, a human-resources-consulting firm in Moline, Ill. "We were renting space from our old company and were doing work for them too," she explains.
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