- Freelancers (be they contractors or consultants) live and die by lead generation
- Most lead generation is word of mouth (trust based)
- Good clients are hard to find
- Bias towards avoiding downtime (gotta pay that mortgage)
This leads to the following:
- Over time, freelancers will sign long term retainers with their best clients.
Which leads to:
- No motivation to do lead generation (you're already booked)
Which leads to:
- Monoposony risk (what happens if the good client vanishes)
- Effectively an employee (albiet with flexible hours and work conditions)
Create a more robust lead generation system by banding together with fellow freelancers
- Web site with profiles of each person (bio, pic, github, maybe resume, recent projects, availability)
- Lead generation form
- Shared blog (any member can post)
- Shared Slack
- Maybe: email newsletter (unclear on frequency or content)
This would look fairly similar to an agency / consultancy web site, but without being a single entity.
Other possible group activities / campaigns:
- Tabling/networking at conferences
- Purchase sponsorships at local conferences or events
- Unclear how generic leads would be handed off within the group. Potentially more than one person may be suitable.
- Joint bids would be possible, but subcontractor arrangements would be handled by the individuals, not the coop
- Group would informally agree to refer leads that aren't a fit to others in the group
- Group could also pool common legal resources (contract templates) and maybe share retained services for accounting/bookkeeping