Here is a response I sent to a newsletter from Bob Bly, the direct-mail/copywriting guru. Bob is a fellow engineer turned successful marketing consultant many years ago.

I subscribe to his free newsletter (and have also bought some products) and find them useful and interesting.

The topic that promoted my response was Bob’s recommendation to pursue Fortune 500 clients. When starting out, you may be intimidated by the “big guys.”  Don’t be — they often make the best clients. As Bob pointed out they have deeper pockets… pay higher fees… and have more repeat assignments. They are loyal, too.

Here is my reply:

Hi Bob,

The Fortune 500 companies have been the best clients for our engineering consulting business too.They pay their bills, and bring you back again (assuming you do a good job in the first place.)

Sorry to say that the worst clients have been fellow consulting firms. Had to wait almost a year to get paid by one – their cash flow was abysmal as they were waiting on their clients. After that, we got advance payments from consulting firms.

Smaller firms were somewhere in the middle. If over about 200 employees, they were usually safe. One such smaller firm, however, was owned by a well known “politically connected” equity firm, and stuck us for $10K in a phony bankruptcy.

So I agree with your recommendations. Just because you are an independent practitioner, doesn’t mean you can’t play with the big boys. And once in, they can become very good clients.

Bob was featured here as a past success story – read it here.  You can subscribe to his free newsletter here.

P.S. The Fortune 1000 is pretty safe too. Even the bankruptcy was an anomaly, but I am still cautious of privately held firms. (Once burned – twice shy.)  

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