How to grow from a few great contracts !

[blueriv]

Grateful thanks in advance for any help or insight, I've been reading the posts here and I can see there is a wealth of professionals with very focused and refreshing advice !

Some background information: I have been doing enterprise level web development and programming for close to 20 years, serving as an employee or contractor via agencies like Robert Half, for diverse companies including Royal Caribbean, Office Depot, IBM, Corning Inc, Digital. I recently lost my perm job in a major US company as a result of Globalization(all new projects are now outsourced to other countries). I have decided I will do independent contracting from now on and work from home where I have built an full service facility to do programming, graphics, web design and hosting.

In the early 90s, I had my own company for about two years where I optimized client's machines, built my own high performance systems, installed full networks, did custom programming, and serviced many computers for my customers. I definitely made much more money than I ever did as an employee, but 2 things happened;

1-Hardware started dropping in price like a rock and my profit margins got smaller and smaller as more of my clients resisted paying my fees for PCs when they could walk into a CompUsa or order from Dell and buy similar equipment for much less.

2-I had most of my eggs into one major customer in California that paid me a very nice monthly check for my custom programming and remote technical support of his network. This customer eventually grew to need a full time IT dept., and although they made me a generous offer to relocate to LA(I am based in Florida), I did not want to live in La, so I turned it down, sold them the source code and trained my replacement. Unfortunately for me, I had become comfortable with my small customer base I had and was not able to recover from this loss, so I went back to working as an employee/contractor.

Needless to say that experience left me a bit scared about working on my own, and today I could not make the money I made from reselling hardware, that segment of my business has vanished. so I am left with developing custom software development and doing high level web design which so far has proven to be very profitable and has kept my few clients very happy.

Here is my dilemma: Most of my contracts presently come by through a friend in Texas who runs a hosting company and does not do any web development although his clients have been asking for this service. He is tickled pink to be able to offer my services and we have a nice percentage agreement working. The problem is, I'll need to get at least three of four more sources like this to maintain enough income to stay self employed and I have not come up with a viable(well, at least in my mind anyway) way to increase my visiblilty, expand my contacts, get other hosting companies aboard that may need similar work, plus I have yet to explore doing local small business work yet since I've honestly been working as an employee for so long, I just don't know where to start. wow, this was a mouthful, but I realized reading the posts here that the more info, the better and more informed the response !

I have no problems getting paid what I ask for my services, and the clients I have serviced so far love my work. I just need some advice on my first steps in finding more work and securing enough customers to get this ball rolling. Today I'm working on some ads I'll be placing in the local community flyers, pennysavers, and maybe a local newspaper ad... Any ideas will be deeply appreciated, I want to show my family it is possible to earn a living with your own business, but I'm just drawing a blank when it comes to growing what I am already doing well... Anything that can point me in the right direction would be wonderful ! Thanks !

Warm regards, Stephen G. Rivera

[Shaun]

Well I would recommend that you find other hosting companys that doesn't provide the services you offer and try to work out a deal with them just like you did with your friend. It really is a no brainer for most business people, if you are willing to pay me 25% of each sale you make for off my customers without me really having to do any addtional work then why shouldn't I work with you.

Shaun