How to Pay Less Tax as an Independent Consultant

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How to Pay Less Tax as an Independent Consultant

Tax season is probably the most important time for independent consultants to think like business owners. You want to pay as little tax as possible without triggering an audit so that you keep more of what you earn. Ask yourself (and your accountant) this question: As a business owner, how can I lower my tax bill? 

The short answer is to maximize your tax deductions this year and take steps to reap tax-saving benefits every year. The longer answer is in this article.

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Your Complete Guide to Subcontracting as an Independent Consultant

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Your Complete Guide to Subcontracting as an Independent Consultant

Having consistent cash flow is one of the hardest parts about being self-employed, especially when you’re just starting your business. It can be difficult for veterans, too! Client payment terms can be ridiculous, often leading to stressful delays. Even if you start working tomorrow, you might not see any money for 45-60 days after submitting your first invoice. Realistically, it can take months for the money you earn to reach your bank account. To improve cash flow, I recommend subcontracting as a way to generate income while you continue to build your own business.

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Steps for Getting Started as an Independent Consultant

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Steps for Getting Started as an Independent Consultant

If you're preparing to launch your own business, you're probably experiencing a mix of excitement and anxiety. As someone who's helped hundreds of professionals make the leap to self-employment, I can assure you that those feelings are completely normal. But here's the good news: with the right preparation, mindset, and support, you can move forward with confidence.

Naturally, there are a hundred things to learn and do when you’re just starting out. Here’s an overview of the initial steps with additional resources at the end.

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Now Is the Best Time to Raise Your Rates

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Now Is the Best Time to Raise Your Rates

Thanks to inflation, everything is more expensive now. Seems like a good excuse to raise your rates, and now is the perfect time. 

The easiest time to raise your rate is on the cusp of something new — a new year, a new project, a new client. With the new year just around the corner, now is the time to inform your clients that your rates will be going up next year. Read on for ways to make this easier. 

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Making Your Mark as a Solopreneur: How to Announce Your New Business on LinkedIn

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Making Your Mark as a Solopreneur: How to Announce Your New Business on LinkedIn

Most solopreneurs launch their business with a simple LinkedIn post—but they're missing a golden opportunity. Your launch announcement isn't just another social media post; it's your debut on the professional stage. When done strategically, it can create momentum for your new venture and lay the groundwork for future success.

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From Contacts to Contracts: Use a "Love List" for Solopreneur Success

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From Contacts to Contracts: Use a "Love List" for Solopreneur Success

Most solopreneurs find the majority of their work through referrals or repeat business from previous clients. These successful independents are the ones who come to mind when the need for their services arises. As I explain in my book, Succeeding as a Solopreneur, the two keys to making this happen are being memorable and nourishing your network. Using a “love list” is an excellent way to do both because it keeps your name fresh in people’s minds.

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How to Develop Your Tagline to Win More Work

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How to Develop Your Tagline to Win More Work

One of the six keys to success as a solopreneur is to be known for something and be memorable. When you are perceived as an expert, you’ll get more referrals and win more work. Narrowing your niche is an important step in the right direction, but you’ll also want to develop a tagline as part of your branding.

A marketing tagline is short phrase that helps people remember you in a certain way. Just like the phrase “Just Do It” makes you think of Nike, your tagline should make people think of you when they hear it. Ideally, it should say what you do and the results you achieve.

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Taming Your FUD Monster to Create the Consulting Career of Your Dreams

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Taming Your FUD Monster to Create the Consulting Career of Your Dreams

The one thing all independent consultants and coaches have in common is we all get FUD from time to time: FEAR of change, UNCERTAINTY about how to address a situation, and DOUBT about trying something new. When these emotions crop up, I refer to it as the FUD monster. I imagine a hairy gremlin on my shoulder, whispering nasty self-doubt into my ear. Here’s what you can do to tame your FUD monster…

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How to Get Your Client to Pony Up and Pay

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How to Get Your Client to Pony Up and Pay

Sometimes, no matter how many times you remind a client to pay you, they still don’t send the money. Your client might give all sorts of excuses, or worse, they stop replying to you at all.

Whether it’s $5,000 or $500,000, it’s still worth taking the time to get the money you deserve, and you may not even need to hire a lawyer or collections agent. Based on personal experience, here are some things you can do on your own.*

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Win the Work with Samples

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Win the Work with Samples

Everyone knows that consulting services can be hard to sell because it’s often perceived as expensive and too theoretical. To combat this bias, demystify your process. Using work samples and deliverables to show prospects how you do what you do will go a long way toward eliminating their skepticism. 

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Legal Alert: Independent Consultants May Need to Comply with New Corporate Transparency Act

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Legal Alert: Independent Consultants May Need to Comply with New Corporate Transparency Act

Although the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) sounds like it only applies to large corporations, it affects you as an independent consultant if your business is structured as anything other than a sole proprietorship. If your business is an LLC, C-corporation, or filing taxes as an S-corp, you are legally obligated to fulfil the reporting requirement that kicked in at the start of this year. This article tells you what you need to know and how to comply so you can avoid unnecessary fees and penalties.

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Narrow Your Niche to Win More Work as a Solopreneur

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Narrow Your Niche to Win More Work as a Solopreneur

Many solopreneurs make the mistake of marketing themselves as a jack-of-all-trades. They think that putting themselves out there with a variety of services and expertise means they’ll be hired for more work. The exact opposite is true.

Being memorable generates referrals and credibility. This is why you want to be “The Person” to talk to for a given situation. Think of it from your potential client’s perspective. If someone is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars, they want to hire an expert, not someone who has “done something sort of like it,” or “done it once or twice,” or who may be able to help them. They want to hire a specialist and you want to be that person.

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Use the Power of Intention for Critical Conversations

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Use the Power of Intention for Critical Conversations

As consultants, our ability to communicate effectively is vital to our success. Whether you’re meeting a potential client for the first time or you have to deliver some difficult feedback, it’s hard to over prepare.  That said, I suspect most of us don’t do enough preparation for these important conversations. Sure, we may jot down our key points or put together a flawless presentation, but have we prepared our brains to seek the outcomes we desire?  …

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As a Solopreneur, Don’t be #OpenToWork on LinkedIn. Do this instead!

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As a Solopreneur, Don’t be #OpenToWork on LinkedIn. Do this instead!

If you provide services to companies as an independent consultant or to business professionals as an executive coach, you should be using LinkedIn to help build your business. It’s an excellent tool to establish your credibility, create awareness about your expertise and services, expand your network, and of course, keep in touch with your existing connections to help foster referrals. Although it’s a terrific platform, using LinkedIn effectively is getting more complicated as new features and tools are added. This article discusses two of the more recent LinkedIn tools that can be used as a solopreneur to help drive awareness of your services and build your pipeline of prospects.

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Use ChatGPT to Boost Your Productivity as a Consultant

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Use ChatGPT to Boost Your Productivity as a Consultant

Of course you’ve heard of ChatGPT but are you using it to work smarter and more efficiently yet? If not, you should be! Recently the Professional Independent Consultants of America (PICA) hosted a members-only roundtable discussion to help people jumpstart their use of this powerful tool. Special thanks to Alexis Hultine of Digital by Design, and Dave Seaton of SeatonCX for leading the session and sharing their insights. This article was written by ChatGPT using the transcript of the roundtable.

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Figuring Out Your Billing Rate as an Independent Consultant

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Figuring Out Your Billing Rate as an Independent Consultant

Too many solopreneurs undercharge for their expertise. They don’t know to add a hefty margin to cover things like self-employment tax, business expenses, health insurance, and nonbillable time spent on business administration. Or they haven’t raised their rates consistently over time, or they haven’t switched to a fixed fee. This article explains how to determine your “base rate”, and the external factors that will impact your pricing. …

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Business Development in the 21st Century

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Business Development in the 21st Century

As self-employed professionals, we’re experts at helping our clients solve problems but we often struggle when it comes to building a healthy pipeline of leads. For most of us, prospecting for new clients is the very last thing we want to do.  But what if there was a way to make it less of a chore and maybe even enjoyable? …

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Start Each Engagement with the WOW Factor

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Start Each Engagement with the WOW Factor

One of my “whys” for becoming a solopreneur nearly 20 years ago was to have more quality time with my daughter. Self-employment would not only let me set the boundaries I needed, but it would also allow me to manage my time as well as my clients’ expectations. To do this…

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How to Generate Referrals Without Asking

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How to Generate Referrals Without Asking

Last month, we took our first look at insights from Stacey Brown Randall’s webinar, “How to Generate Referrals Without Asking.” We discovered her penetrating critiques of referral-generating “best practices,” and we learned about the science of referrals. Ultimately, we discovered that the common wisdom isn’t so wise, and that the best referral-generating strategies are the ones that empower referrers to serve their own social networks, boost their own senses of self, and close the loop on generous reciprocation. This month, we’re pivoting out of philosophy and into practice.

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How to Generate Referrals Without Asking

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How to Generate Referrals Without Asking

A few months ago the PICA community gathered for a webinar with Stacey Brown Randall, a leading light in business referrals strategy. She spoke about one of the biggest problems in solopreneurship: the feast-famine cycle.

How do we put a stop to that cycle? How do we bring more clients into the fold? How do we systematize the business development process? And how do we do it all without spending money and effort on digital advertising and direct marketing?

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