I find that many of my clients aren't eager to do retainers because they don't trust that I'll actually be around (I did only start consulting this year). Do you have any advice for overcoming that?
This could be turning up and running email campaigns to improve retention, or it could be the wider world of finding a niche in a nice industry that is about to get disrupted (all of them), working out what the world will be like after it is hit, and becoming an expert in that business model / software
It turns out writing software at the dynamic language web request processing end is nothing particularly strenuous. Which means some great tools get produced quickly which means the people who can sell a solution dont necessarily have to be the ones who can write it.
What I think I mean is that increasing customer conversion for SaaS companies is a lot less coding than it is getting the gig and introducing rigour into an ignored process
If you want to stay ahead of the game - well I am not sure, but its likely to be find a vertical niche, where specialisation wins or find new technical integrations where early wins (such as uses for UAVs) - but combinations appeal to me - I bet there is scope for GPS in waste collection lorries for example, and across europe thats a multi billion dollar industry
As a stopgap, offer to invoice after the month, not before: "That way if I'm not there when you need me, you don't have to pay."
THanks for the reminder