A common mistake many IT consultants make that may prevent them from being able to go full-time is that they basically give away their services. As IT consultants, it is your responsibility to ensure you charge market rate.

IT Consultants: Prove you are Professionals

To be perceived as a professional, you need to charge similar hourly billing rates to those you aspire to compete with on a full-time basis. If you charge way below market billing rates, you'll never have enough steady consulting revenue to go full time. It's really hard to raise your billing rates substantially when contracts come up for renewal.

The full time IT consultants you compete with have already figured out the hourly billing rates they need to cover their overhead. Ensure that, at this stage of the game, you aren't overlooking this aspect.

Successful IT consultants know all about the costs including taxes, training expenses, insurance, marketing and promotion, research and administration.

IT Consultants: Don't Sell Yourself Short

If you're thinking you can go out there and be the Crazy Eddie of IT consultants in your marketing, or go out there for $25, $35, $45 an hour and ultimately, you're going to make it up on volume - you're wrong. There are only so many extra hours you can work in a week, even on a full time basis.

To survive as IT consultants and eventually make the transition to full-time, you need to study the competition when it comes to setting your rates. As you look to move into full time consulting, make sure you have multiple sources of steady consulting revenue.

The Bottom Line about IT Consultants

Don't put all your eggs in one basket and don't quit your day job if 90% of your IT consulting revenue is just coming from one or two clients. There's too much uncertainty. As IT consultants, you want to make sure that you're diversifying your client roster.

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