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Comment by emilecantin | Hacker News Reader

He's spot-on with that last part: you only need a few. The same few contacts (4-5) have brought me more work than I can actually do, and I often have to say no. It's pretty hard maintaining a relationship with all of them, though: when you say no, they have to look elsewhere, and that's when the relationship can falter.

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Do be careful. Becoming overly dependent on upstream "feeders" is what killed my company.

It is a balance. Turning down work is dangerous, and the generally opposite of why you're in business. But giving other firms too much leverage will kill you just as dead as insufficient work. I started getting nervous when one company was over 50% of our income, but there was disagreement about urgency and what exactly to do about it with my partners, and we dithered until the bomb went off.

All it takes is for someone at the client to take a new job elsewhere. Whoever replaces them will have different people who they know and different priorities.

I my experience, at least for an individual, I think saying no is exactly the opposite of dangerous. I’ve been contracting exclusively for 10 years and said yes about 6 times and no dozens or hundreds of times. As long as you say no frankly, with a reason, and offer some names of people who can help, people are happy with you and will more often than not ask again in the future. Saying no, especially for bad fit, is one of the most important parts of success I’ve had in consulting.

"and offer some names of people who can help"

For people who are reading this quickly, this is the magic that makes saying no ok. If you are just turning down client requests they'll stop asking. Most people are extremely busy so they really appreciate having a "go-to guy" they can send any requests even vaguely related to what you do.

Oh, absolutely, I couldn't agree more.

I guess I should add, this was in the 2000s. We started the company in the aftermath of the dot.com crash. Getting work was a major challenge, and turning down anything felt like asking to be made homeless. It is a very different market now.

This is actually a really good time to refer your client to a trusted contact from your network (you do have one, don't you?) scoring points with both the client and your contact.

Yup. I've been working with 2 clients for about a year now. Occasional spikes in work from the client that's more part time can be a bit tricky to manage, but in general it's kept me very busy and I like the variety.

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