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by rietta 2689 days ago
I have misgivings about "consultant." In the Metro Atlanta area that almost universally means a solo person with the possible unstated thought that he/she is living off his/her spouses income. It's harder to get placed than it is as a professional services firm. It's a bit different if you are actually doing high end management consulting. For developers I find clients are looking for "doers" not "talkers about doing" (which is what consultant implies).

So it really depends on what business and the market that the business is going for if the "consultant" label is any better than the sub-optimal "freelancer" label.

4 comments

As a native Atlantan and long time consultant/freelancer, this is not a thing. No one in my experience has ever characterized a consultant as a freelancer supported by their spouse.
Maybe I'm responding to a more direct personal experience of "so you're just consulting then". Anyway, this is not a problem I have not overcome in my own business.

There are some very huge consulting companies in the Atlanta area for sure. That is a different scale altogether.

That was freelancers means to me. Atlanta doesn't have a large presence of consulting companies like KPMG, Deloitte & the rest?

I think the point is to have a consulting company even if you're a solo consultant there.

I consider myself a 1-man agency, if I land a huge client that needs 10 devs, you better believe I'll get the extra devs.
> In the Metro Atlanta area that almost universally means a solo person with the possible unstated thought that he/she is living off his/her spouses income.

In the rest of the business world, consultant means "freelancer, but professional".

If you choose to let the local stereotypes hold you back in life, then you won't succeed. End of.