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Ask HN: Consultants, what problem are you solving for companies?

1 pointsby kablamoabout 11 years ago
TLDR: I am wondering how to go from contracting at $65 per hour to consulting fees based on the value I provide to the company.<p>One thing that stuck with me when reading Sebastian Marshall and patio11 is the idea of charging weekly rates. Sadly I don&#x27;t think it applies to me. I think the key issue is I am not solving the right kind of business problem by marketing myself as web developer. There are lots of web developers so I am somewhat of a commodity. In effect I am selling my hourly programming labor.<p>What I need to do is find a business problem I can solve and market myself as the solution. Then I can charge based on the value I am providing rather than the hours I am putting in. If I can show I provide $100,000 of value then I could maybe charge $6,000 a week and how much time I spent working would be less relevant to the client.<p>The above outlines my understanding of the difference between a consultant and a contractor and why consultants are paid more. My understanding is consultants provide a solution to a problem whereas contractors provide raw labor. I think of it as a spectrum between labor and product. Consultants are closer to being a product rather than labor.<p>So I&#x27;m looking for examples of how other people market themselves as consultants rather than &quot;programmer labor&quot; so I can come up with my own idea.

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