Posts Tagged ‘Contracting’

In a previous post, I talked about how I occasionally like to mix up my freelance working practices by working as an IT contractor on a customer site. The reason for doing this (if you don’t want to read the original entry) is to keep up to date with what is happening in the real world in terms of customer expectations, technologies and environments.

Now whilst selling freelance and small business services means putting on a sales hat and talking benefits and features, landing a contract is all down to the interview.

Throughout my freelancing career, I have done four contracts, and attended around twenty two contract role interviews. In all of those interviews, there has only ever been one occurrence where I was not offered the role. In most cases, I have 3 or 4 offers on the table, and it comes down to selecting the role I prefer.

I believe the reason why I was offered so many roles comes down to one important interview tip:

Give a Killer Answer to the Trick Question
I am sure that the people who have hired me have other candidates with similar or better technical skills, similar or better experience, and similar office/interpersonal skills. If they are any thing like me when I am interviewing for candidates (which I am often asked to do when freelancing for companies) the stream of people I am interviewing soon becomes a blur.

So I make sure I stand out with my Killer Answer to their Trick Question.

All interviewers at some point will ask what they think is a trick question. It may be in the form of “Whats your biggest weakness” or “Whats the number one thing you would bring to this role” or even “Why should we give the contract to you?”. I have found generally, all interviews will consist of such a question in different forms.

And my killer answer to any such question is always “Oh, Its because I am lazy!!”.

Yep – I know. It sounds mad. Why would I say such a thing? Why would I say I am lazy?

Simple – its an answer they wont expect. It’s a surprise. It will shock them awake. They will take notice. I will be remembered.

But clearly, if that was my whole answer, then its unlikely I would land any contracts. So I continue after a brief pause to let the answer soak in and have an impact!

“Oh, its because I am lazy!!!!” Pause (count to three)….”Sorry – that’s not quite right. Lazy is the wrong word. What I mean is that I avoid doing more work than is required. If a task needs something put together, I will look at what I have done in the past, or what is already in place, to reuse it as much as possible, which of course will save time and effort and build on what already works. Yes, sorry, lazy is the wrong word. Efficient – that’s a better word.”

That is a great answer as it shocks them to take notice, gets them thinking, then reassures them that they are going to get the biggest bang for their buck by hiring you.

Again, I know it sounds mad, but I make a point of using this killer answer to their tricky questions, and only once has it ever let me down.

And I have been interviewing people myself for over 20 years – I know what interviewers are expecting and what they want to hear in an answer.

Give it a try yourself.

I have just decided to treat my wife to a quick weekend break in the spring of next year. I am taking her for a ‘city break’ to Venice, Italy. Its just a short stay – 4 days visiting this wonderful (I hope) floating city of canals, bridges and great Italian food.  The picture below is Venice from the air (I didn’t know its an island, did you?).

But, I am not here to gloat about going away next year.   No, if I am going to gloat about anything, it’s the cost of the trip. From England to Venice, 5 star hotel in the center of the city, flights and transfers is costing me just £22.

Ok – honesty time.  So it didn’t really cost me £22 – it actually cost me £590 – but… in terms of budgeting it only cost me £22, because I saved £570 though other savings.

I have talked before about cutting personal and business costs.  Well in October, I really pulled out all the stops.

For a lot of suppliers, I used the ‘I’m cancelling my account with you (now show me your best deal)’ trick with almost all my personal and business suppliers.

For instance, I struck a deal with Sky (my satellite TV provider) for a 50% discount for 12 months, which saves me £150 a year. And British Telecom (phone for home and business) gave me a 60% discount for 12 months – so that’s another £90. And so it goes on – totaling £570 of savings. Some were instant money back or savings, and some were discounts over time. So the savings were invested in a short break.

And the point is, anybody can do the same – all that is needed is advice about money.

I am not talking about specialist ‘Financial Adviser’ type of advice, its just a question of staying up to date with current advice, warnings of changes which may effect you (such as utility price rises), and taking advantage of the advice which is out there.

So if you are interested in saving/making money (both for yourself and your business), can I introduce to you, my definitive list of great money information (all the changes I made this month which saved me that money came from these sources).

There are a lot of resources out and I could list them all for you, but these are the cream of the crop:

Money Podcasts
BBC Money Box – For UK freelancers, this weekly show brings you all the latest personal finance news
BBC Money Box Live – Again for the UK, a weekly phone in show covering a different topic each week
Which Money Podcast – Another UK weekly podcast, with advice from the Which team
Radio 5 Wake up to money – Final UK podcast – a daily update on all things changing in personal and business money.
Planet Money – Three times a weekly, American based finance news
CNBC Fast Money – Daily updates on US Finance from the CNBC team

Money Blogs
MoneySavingExpert – For the UK, signing up to this weekly email feed is a must, with alerts on finance changes, utility rises, discounts and ways of saving money.  Sadly, there does not seem to be a US version of this site.
GetRichSlowly – A collection of articles about both reducing debt and growing wealth.
I will teach you to be rich – This site is run by Ramit Sethi.   It is less about saving money, and more about growing wealth.

Money Tweeters
@prairieecothrif -If you want to be inspired to live the life you have always wanted in a sustainable way, check out the connected blog.
@retirebyforty – He quit his corporate job! Now you can follow and see if he can stay out of the corporations for the next 40 years, whilst he shares money advice!
@TalkMoneyBlog – They talk about personal money issues and give free information, help and advice about the mortgage market, debt problems, credit cards and money saving tips.
@thisismoney – This is Money: news, conversation, top articles, tips, advice and opinion from the team at the UK’s best financial website.
@lovemoney_com – Lots of useful information to help you have a better relationship with your money.

If you have any other suggestions of blogs, podcasts or tweeters to follow, I would really love to hear about them.   Please, leave a comment below.

I am going to get straight to the point… when you are working on a customers site on a fixed term contract, who do you think is the most important person in the company?

Do you think it’s the end users of your service – the staff within the company who will use the products, services, management or consultation you are providing?

Do you think it is the top level boss of the company – the MD, FD or CEO?

Do you think its that person who insists you help them – the one who always goes whining to everybody when they are not happy?

Do you think it’s the person who pays the bills – the head of the finance department?

I am going to suggest the most important person is…. the person who originally agreed for you to start work on the contract. Simply because – it is they who will make the decision whether to keep you on when it comes to contract renewal time.

You may have done a lot of great work for the MD, helped out one thousand end users, and assisted all your new friends in the desks around you with their technical work, but if that person who employed you is not aware of all your activity, then your perceived value is greatly reduced, and this will impact you when they are weighing up whether to renew you or just let your existing contract end and let you leave.

So whatever you do, make sure that person who controls your contract is your VIP.

Give them a special “I always pick up for you” ring tone on your phone, make sure your client email system highlights all their emails, and make sure their work is always a high propriety in your do list (dropping other work when they give you a new action).

That is, assuming you want to be renewed in your contract.

In my previous post, I talked about how I have started sending out regular newsletters to my old customers and future prospects. Today, I wanted to cover why, who and how.

Keeping In touch – The Why and Who

I have no doubt that when it comes to marketing, out of sight is also out of mind. Which is why I wanted to start sending out newsletters. But I am also a believer that its easier to win back old customers that it is to find new customers – you never know when that old customer will need some help on a new project, or some additional consultancy time or help on a new project.

With this in mind, I decided that the initial target of my newsletters would be my old customers. So a quick email went to each of them saying that I had been working recently on some exciting other projects and I thought that some of the things I had created whilst working on these other tasks could benefit them to (pretty much those exact words). I said that I was going to be sending out a regular update of some useful routines and tips, and also stressed that the updates would only come from me every 2 weeks or so – so it would not be overload. I also pointed out that if they were not relevant, they could unsubscribe at any time.

My feedback was good – I got 100% sign up on everybody I emailed (although it did help that I had worked with them in the past, therefore they knew what I did and how I liked to share useful information).

Of course, I then took the opportunity to contact my current handful of prospects and offered to sign them up in the same way. So far, the uptake from prospects has been 45% – which I am fairly happy about.

The newsletter – The How

From the beginning, I wanted my newsletter to be no effort for me. I also wanted to keep track of my subscribers, and see if anybody was actually reading the newsletters (no point in wasting time producing something that nobody was reading). After a quick bit of research, I decided that I would use the marketing email system – mailchimp.

Mailchimp is an internet based mass emailing system. It is really designed for sending out large numbers of emails as part of a marketing campaign (you know the ones, the ones we all get every day and curse (50% off sprockets in our Spring sale)).  But it works just as well for sending out newsletters.

Mailchimp is not designed to be a free service, but it is free for the first 2000 subscribers with 12,000 emails a month (enough for everybody who could run a small business to keep in contact). If your newsletter gets more than 2000 subscribers or needs that number of emails, you are doing so well you can probably afford to may the $10 a month usage fee.

Setting up a newsletter is a snip – you can quickly design a sign-up form, manually add your subscribers if needed, and then design your newsletter (in terms of Mailchimp, each fortnightly email I want to send I setup as a campaign so I can track who is reading it).

One of the magical things about Mailchimp is that when you register, you give it your personal details including web site, and it does so much work for you – it goes to your web site and finds your web site style sheet and graphics – so straight away it sets up a template with your company logo, fonts and address. All I had to do was enter the text. Text editing is a breeze – you can change the look feel, fonts, colours and so much more within your text. you can also include graphics if required.

Once you have your first newsletter done, you can then duplicate it for the next week, and the next – and just have to paste in the text you need – for that weeks edition. The creation of a newsletter really just takes me 4 or 5 minutes (once I have the text from my Evernote files – see my previous entry).

Once defined, the mail can then be sent straight away, or (as I do) scheduled to be sent at a point in the future. I already have newsletters set up taking me into the summer.

When the emails are sent, MailChimp takes care of everything – the email is sent from your email address, and appears in both text and HTML format (depending on the recipients email client and preferences). Once sent, everything is tracked – for each weeks newsletter, MailChimp tells me how many emails it went out to, how many people it was sent to, how many opened the email , how many clicked embedded links in your mail, how many unsubscribed and how many people it was forwarded on to.

I am sure if I was a big company, I would be using MailChimp for sending offer and sales emails – but even for something as modest as my newsletter, it does everything I need.

So everybody’s happy. My old customers and prospects get some (hopefully) useful information, I get to be noticed by them every week (which should lead to more work), and I get to get on with my day job, leaving Mailchimp to track how well my newsletter is performing.

If you would like to take a look at my sign-up form or even read what I am sending out (my tips are about SQL Server databases tips and useful functions), my sign up form is here.

Enjoy.

One of the things that has been playing on my mind for the last couple of years has been newsletters.   I have read many books, read many blogs and heard many presenters talk about how a newsletter can keep you in a customers/prospects mind.   Yes, it all sounds great, but why would anybody want to read a newsletter about my small insignificant company?  I mean, ‘breaking news – we have a new pot plant’ just seemed so ridiculous.  Yet people go on and on about having a newsletter.

Last week I had a breakthrough, thanks to a fellow freelancer who I met at a technical seminar.  Over lunch we got chatting about freelancing, about the time drain that is ‘social media’ and then about newsletters.   He said that newsletters had generated a lot of business for him – so I asked what he did.

Newsletters – Are not about News
The advice I received was that newsletters are not in fact about news.  He agreed that nobody really cares about you, or your company or your products, or your services, or the new office pot plant.  None of this does anything for them.  In a word, it’s not useful.

What he did was to turn it into something which delivered value – but didn’t try to sell.   Having your name. company name and company logo in front of people on a regular basis is enough to keep you in their mind.  He let the constant contact keep his name in everybody’s in tray, but added value to make sure the emails were opened.

So what was his technique?

Share your knowledge on what you do
Its as simple as that.  Don’t have a newsletter full of your latest projects – just have a newsletter full of your latest tips.  Create from what you know and do.

If you create databases, have regular updates on new functions you have created, clever SQL scripts for doing calculations, or methods of moving databases.  If you are a coder or web designer, have a newsletter with CSS examples, or useful subroutines or functions.   Provide value to make sure your newsletter is opened every time – and maybe even shared with other people.

It’s a small piece of the Puzzle
Now it may seem that by having a newsletter with a subroutine or function or other bit of code may be giving stuff away for free – and your right, it is just that – free work.  But, the bit you give away is a tiny, insignificant, but useful single part of the whole puzzle.   That routine may be useful to an old customer or future prospect, but because it’s so small, they cannot complete the whole jigsaw with just that one piece – they still need somebody to create the whole thing and put it together.

A useful technique is to make sure that when you do send out useful stuff in your newsletters, you include comment lines in any example functions and procedures to show what it does, how it works, and make sure to include your name, company and contact details (web URL, email and phone number).   That way, if it does add value, your details are always on hand should they look to expand their project and need your assistance (or your details are in the code at their office if they just cut and paste the code you send out).

After all, the whole point of a newsletter is to keep your name and contact details in front of your old contacts and future prospects.

How to get Four times the value
The other technique that I learned (from a 2^nd freelancer who joined in our conversation) was to get multiple value from each entry – by reuse.

I have written in the past about my technique of storing useful new techniques and functions I create in Evernote so I can use them in future projects – well this reuse idea just expands for the newsletter.

When I am working on a customer project and I develop a new useful function (say a SQL function to turn a date into a financial month and/or year), I copy that to Evernote for future use.  But now what I do is I also turn this into a quick newsletter for my contact list – it doesn’t have to be a long letter (in fact the shorter, the better) – I just explain what it is, how it works, and include the function.  Another free newsletter is created.

Then what I do, is I take the exact same newsletter text, and post it on my company blog web site – so it adds value and search ability to my web site.

One bit of created script or function (for a customer project that I am already being paid for) is then used 4 times – on the project, into Evernote for future projects, into my newsletter, and then on my company blog.  Maximum value for minimum effort.  Perfect.

Next time, I am going to talk about how I get names on my newsletter list, and what software I use.

Whenever I come to the end of a freelance job or contract role, there are two things I do.   The first is to create a summary report of work performed and suggested next actions (which can really help to land more work with the same customer).  The second thing I do is to ask by email, three simple questions.

I prefer to ask the questions of the most senior person involved on the project by email.  Being able to answer by email means they have time to think about the answers , and also means you will get more honest answers than having to tell you to your face.

The answers to the first two questions help shape my working practices and style for future work.  The last one is there to scope out any more work with other companies.

The three questions I always ask (and the email I send out) are as follows:

Jo,

Having completed the {title here} project, there is one final task I would ask of you.   When you have a few moments spare, would it be possible for you to provide me some feedback by answering the following three questions – if there are more than one answer for any question, feel free to list them out.  I really appreciate any feedback you can provide.   The answer to question three is of course optional.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards

Me.

Q1: What did I do that particularly impressed you (so I can do them again for future clients)

A1:

Q2: What did I do that didn’t impress you (so I can avoid this in the future)

A2:

Q3: Do you know of anybody else who you think could also use my services?  If so, would you be happy to introduce us?

A3:

When you first send such an email, it will feel like the hardest thing you have ever done (the hardest part is actually pressing that SEND button), but I can promise that the majority of recipients will provide some form of answer that will provide you with valuable information.

So when you complete your next project or contract, take a deep breath, copy and paste, and now…. SEND.

For my small company 2009 was a pretty good year – with the recession just starting and people cutting back, I still managed to increase both my company revenue and profit.  2010 was even better than 2009.  But by far, 2011 was the best year my company ever had.   I doubled the revenue in 2011, and tripled my profit level.  After analysis, I calculated that in 2011, my profit margin was 76.5% of turnover – which is a very good number indeed.

This good year has left me with a couple of problems; (1) A very large corporation tax bill due in the Autumn (so large in fact, I almost cry) and (2) a problem of how to invest the extra surplus money my company now finds itself with (a topic I will cover in a later post).   But in terms of all possible problems, these are two of the nicest problems to be facing.  I would rather have too much money than not enough.

So how did I do it?   How did I have a better year, each year, and expand my turnover massively in 2011?   Well it all comes down to the following 14 simple steps which I have built up over many years freelancing, continue to review and add to from time to time (details of each action in the links below):

1. Adwords as marketing – The vast majority of my marketing was carried out using Adwords.   In 2011, I spent £780 in adwords, and the projects generated from the adwords generated me £179,000 of revenue (I had additional revenue from projects from elsewhere, plus support and change revenue).   Now that is a good return by anybodies standards.
2. Respond to enquires FAST – I have seen various reports that suggest more than 50% of work is awarded to the company that responds first.   I made sure when I received an enquiry, I responded within the hour – faster if possible.
3. The never ending question sheet – As I have described previously, I have a ‘never ending question sheet’ which I build up over time to tease and pull out the exact project requirements.  This has helped me with a lot of work over the years as I seem more knowledgeable than my competitors.
4. Repeat the Requirements back to the prospect – In a recent post, I talked about the power (and additional revenue) of creating a Summary Of Understanding.   In 2011, my analysis shows that I generated an additional £19,000 of ADDITIONAL revenue through this technique, above and beyond the additional project scope.
5. Creation of very good proposals that deal with their needs and desires – I would like to think that I now have an almost perfect quotation template for projects that I have developed over time.   Plus, I have recently started utilising tools to create proposals and estimates much faster
6. Reward yourself – I treat myself with a little reward at various milestones, with biggish rewards when I win a contract (I even do a little dance) and also at the end of the project.  But I also reward myself at other times when I do a good job to keep my motivation going forwards.
7. Cloud Based project management – Once the project has been awarded, I used cloud based project management to control projects, which means I have less administration to do, and can run multiple projects at the same time whilst saying in control
8. Keeping control of my company finances – Other than adopting cloud based project management, switching from a standard accountant to on-line accounting has really changed my business.  I know my finance picture immediately with every invoice raised, bill paid or payroll payment.  Its so easy to do, I regularly mentally kick myself for paying my old accountant so much for so long when a child could do it.
9. Watching the cash flow – Coupled with the company finances using a cloud based system, tracking cash flow is a must.   I selected Float for cash flow and budgeting, and this has allowed me to see what my finances will look like next week, next month or next year and so make sure I am on track with my budgets.  This in turn means I no longer have to think about money, and can simply get on with generating it.
10. Increased productivity on the next project – I now cannot imagine a world without my two favourite free productivity tools; Dropbox and Evernote.   Dropbox makes the transfer of files between computers seamless, and Evernote means I am so much more efficient.   I use Evernote to piece together work I have done in the past for new customers, save any new routines which may be useful and so become a Professor Frankenstein of development with terrific results for all concerned.
11. Review and learn the lessons – At the end of the project, I do a review.  I review my project costs against my estimates (how profitable was the project, should I quote more next time), I review any problems to review this action plan, review my tools and review my documents to see if there were any holes which need to be plugged.
12. Offer follow up and bolt on services – After this internal review, I then create a project completion document for the customer, with suggestions for next steps, considerations and suggestions.   This generally leads onto more work and sometimes nice lucrative support contracts.
13. Upgrade LinkedIn – I also make a point of updating my LinkedIn profile with any new experience.  Whilst LinkedIn rarely produces any work directly, I have lost count of the number of times that somebody has told me that they Goggled me before awarding the work, only to find my LinkedIn profile near the top, and then viewed all my experience which gave them more faith in my company’s ability.
14. Repeat – And finally, repeat the cycle.  Of course, my marketing is always running (unless I am really overworked), so the repeat may loop back to step 4, 5 or 7.

When I am contracting on a customer site, one of the things I find most helpful to me is the alarm on my watch.

As per my last Freelancing verses Contracting post, with contracting we are being paid for our time, not for the products we produce.   So when I contract, it makes sense to me to ensure that I leave their offices each day as soon as the agreed hours have been met.

That may sound harsh or inflexible, but look at it this way – if a contract for resource time is for 7.5 hours a day and you end up skipping lunch and staying for an extra 30 minutes at the end of every day, that can add an extra hour or 90 minutes of effort a day.  Over a week this can add up to 7.5 hours – or an extra day of work.   You are not being paid for that time, so what you are effectively doing is either discounting your rates by 20%, or you are reducing the length of the final contract by a day a week.   If you do an extra week a month of unpaid work, its one week sooner when the contract will end (or wont get renewed).

Of course one of the problems of leaving on time is that you are running out of the door when the permanent workers may still be working.  But wait a minute – they are doing that not for the love of the work – they are doing it in the hope of a pay rise, or to further their career or just to keep their jobs.  As a contractor, you have none of these to worry about.  So why shouldn’t you leave on time?

I have found the best method of easing into the ‘leave on time’ is to initially work the hours agreed plus a bit more for the first week, and then to explain to everybody how I will miss a transport connection by leaving after the agreed time (oh the traffic is so bad after 5:15pm around here, oh I just miss my train connection, etc).  Then make sure you leave on time.  But to signal the exit by setting a discreet (but audible) alarm on my watch to signal and remind me when its time to end the day.

That way you do the hours, do the job, but your alarm is the one nagging you that it’s time to go.

Of course some contracts do pay overtime – in which case this is not needed.   But generally that’s not the way contracts work – you have a day rate for a fixed length of day.  So stop robbing or short changing yourself, and get out of the office on time.

PS – In case you are worried that this may effect any contract extensions, I have used this system on all my previous contracts, and never have I not been renewed or extended.

For most freelancers and contractors, one of the things that customers want is regular status updates.   This may be to provide regular updates on project development, or support provided, activities completed or support/development time used.  Generally, I have 2 or 3 regular status updates that need to be sent every week or so.

Yesterday, I was given a great tip for providing easy status update emails.

Now whilst I am able to avoid having to send project progress status emails thanks to my cloud based project system, I still have to report support time usage for customers who have pre-booked some support days, or quick updates to senior company managers who insist on being kept in the loop but don’t want to go looking for the information.   This tip I was given has saved me lots of effort.

The tip is to simply set up an email with the status report, type a default template email (“Hello, this is how much support time we used…” etc) but before pressing send, use the “Delay delivery” option and set the date to the scheduled status date.   Then, include yourself in the blind copy (so you know when it’s gone, and have the template for the next week or month).

The email will then sit in your outbox, waiting.   Whenever I do an action which will need to be reported, such as do some support work, I just click on the outbox pending email, and add it to the email text.  Come the day of the status update, it gets sent automatically with the progress to date.  Effectively, I am using the outbound email as a notepad (so much easier than trying to remember it all).

When the status emails do get sent, I of course get a copy.  With this copy, I then simply hit “reply to all”, and I have the next template email for the next status run – just remember to change the “Delay delivery” option to the date that the next email is due and remove this weeks/months activities.

Note, with this system it is worth setting the status template email to initially say something like “This week, there has been no activity” so the email makes sense if not changed – this no activity can be removed and replaced with the activity once something happens.

Effortless status reporting.  Thanks for the tip Richard.

Here in the UK, there is a great divide between Freelancing and Contracting work.   Whilst there are a multitude of differences between the two types of work, for me, the difference is fairly clear:

Freelancing – Working with a customer, to provide a product or service.  This will consist of an agreed project, where the work if quoted, agreed, and fixed by way of a final delivery.  This delivery can be a product, a report, a site visit, a web site or anything else.  BUT, something agreed upon is delivered.  You get paid for the delivery rather than the time.

Contracting – A contracting role is where a resource is provided to a customer for a fixed length of time, and during that time, the resource works on the activities dictated by the customer which will typically vary during the contracted period.  You get paid for the time (normally paid by day at an agreed day rate) rather than upon completion of a delivery.

Now both of these activities can be carried out at a customer’s office, or can be carried out at your home/business office.   Both can be provided to the customer directly, or through a third party agency.  Both can be based on a hand shake, or can be nailed down with complex contracts.   Other than the product delivery Vs resource difference, the lines defining freelancing and contracting can be fuzzy.

Bread and Butter verses Meat

For me and my own business, the majority of the work I perform can be classed as falling into the Freelance category.

But here is a confession…… now and again, I love to do some contract work.   Generally, I like to do some contract work at least once a year.  More if time allows.

The way I view it is that contract work is the Bread and Butter of my business.   It pays pretty well (but no where near as good as a nice juicy freelance job), is nice and dependable, and the money is regular.  However, Freelance work is the Meat in the freelancing-contracting sandwich.   It is (generally) more interesting work, you have all the benefits of (generally) working from home (or a location of your choice) and you are the boss of your time and schedules.  Plus with freelancing, you have the option to run multiple freelance projects at the same time.

Given a choice, Freelancing for me is far juicer than contracting.

Why I love to Contract

So you may then ask, if I love Freelancing work, why then do I make sure that I do some contracting work at least once a year?   Well, there are many advantages to doing a contract stint for a few months for your average freelancer.  For me, the advantages outnumber the disadvantages:

1. Contracting for a short while forces me back to a regimented routine of 9 to 5.   It is terribly easy to fall into the easy working days that freelancing allows, so contracting reshapes my days
2. Contracting allows me to make more connections out in the field.   There is nothing better than picking a contract with a high flying company, and working with their teams for a solid block of time to build those connections for future work
3. Allows me to refresh my ideas of what commercial companies need.   As time changes, so the demands of companies change.  When sitting in an isolated environment of a home office, it is too easy to miss the subtle changes going on in the real world (such as technologies now being used, what products are starting to be shunned, etc)
4. Contracting can fill the void (time wise and cash wise) between freelancing work and so reduce the unpaid ‘sitting on the bench’ time
5. Whilst contracting, this for me is the perfect time to ramp up the freelancing marketing activities, and land freelance work ready for the end of the contract
6. I always find the mixture of ‘regular’ type office work when combined with a dynamic work approach (as demanded with a contract) together with working on new customer projects a way of ‘blowing out’ the cobwebs.   When I return back to freelancing a few weeks later, I am generally more energised and productive.

For me, a mixture of Freelance work, with some contracting thrown in from time to time is the perfect combination.