Ben Reichelt asks an interesting question: How does consulting work?

He asks how you can manage to bring on new clients when old clients are calling for new features, bug fixes, etc.

And in doing so, he hits on exactly why consulting works. Repeat clients is a good thing!

This is just my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt, but the hardest part of consulting isn't the work. It's the sales process. Convincing someone you don't know to spend money on you is a difficult sell. But if you do a great job on an existing client, and they seek you out for more work, then the hardest part of consulting is taken out of the equation.

There's one point that I think he's missing that's causing his confusion, though. That's what's known as the warranty period. Contracts don't gaurantee code to be bug free, and will put a time limit on how long bugs will be fixed. There's also what's known as a customer sign-off, where the customer, at the end of the project, agrees that what was delivered is what was expected to be delivered.

Of course, it's a little different depending on how many people are at the consulting company. A company of one will have a much more difficult time moving on, because they don't have the bandwidth, where as a larger company can afford to divert one person back to the project.

But I still content having clients calling you back is a good thing!