Choose a Niche

If you want to stand out among the thousands of other .NET programmers, you should carve out a niche technology to concentrate your talents.  This way you can become an expert in a particular area of the technology.  Generally a niche can be roughly divided up into two categories: front end and back end work.  Front end consists of anything from XNA and DirectX, to Windows Forms, WPF, or ASP.NET.  There is such a large range of front end technology in the Microsoft world that you may want to pick one area in particular and focus on it.  Some areas are saturated with developers, so they may demand less pay.  Back end development is usually referring to server side technology.  This can be anything from database development in Sql Server, WCF, multithreading, or complete server architecture to name a few.  Server side development also requires understanding the hardware limitations behind this software and how to overcome these hurdles.  Although some may not consider server side work very sexy, it can often be very lucrative and should not be ruled out.  Microsoft has a multitude of server side high level solutions: Sharepoint, Biztalk,  Azure Cloud, and Sql Server to name a few.  You can also become  an expert at writing your own custom server architectures which is also in high demand.

Write about your Niche

Once you’ve decided on a niche, you need to make people aware that you are an expert in this niche.  You should write articles, start your own blog, or tweet all about the niche that you are claiming expertise in.   Marketing yourself is hard work, but it will bring the customer to you if they are seeking someone who can solve a problem for them that involves the niche you have worked so hard to carve out.

Contact a Recruiter

Recruiters do the leg work of finding available consulting positions.  Often they will contact you, if they are googling for a particular individual who has your expertise.  If your niche in Microsoft technology is esoteric enough, there won’t be that many hits on the topic you’re an expert in except for your own particular blogs and articles.  Unfortunately, when you have a niche, the recruiter may ask you to travel to a distant location to perform consulting in your area.  Sometimes this is only for a short term assignment, but sometimes it can be longer term.  You need to weigh your flexibility when choosing to consult.  If you are a traveling consultant, you’ll find there is no shortage of work for you.  If you are a telecommuter, your consulting is more limited.  Recruiters will work hard to get you the job, because they are often competing against others who can beat them to it.  When you work with a recruiter, make sure you have a fair rate in mind ahead of time and stick with it.

Dice

Dice.com is an excellent source for finding niche jobs.  The site seems to do the work for you.  Simply set up an agent with your niche, and wallah!  The agent will report jobs to you everyday with your particular expertise.  When you use Dice, you’ll find that most of the time recruiters come up and not the actual company offering the consulting.  Try to research the recruiter before calling, because often there will be multiple recruiters for the same job, especially if the company who contacted the recruiters is looking for a niche area.  For the company doing the search it may be the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack so the will give the requisition to every recruiter in the world.  Try to stay clear of recruiters that are not in the same town as either your home or the town that the client searching is located.  The reason you don’t want to work with recruiters that are not in your current location, is if there is ever a problem with them paying, you don’t want to have to run after them.  Also try to pick a bigger established recruiting firm, they pay much more reliably.

When signing up for dice make sure you describe your niche well with the appropriate keywords.  If you want people to locate your niche, make sure your entire commonly known niche terms are in the keyword section.  If you are using .NET technology, make sure you have C# or .NET or VB.NET in your skills mentioned for the agent.

Monster and others

If you really want to spread a wide umbrella, you can also submit your resume and niche info to Monster.  I find Monster is not nearly as effective as Dice, but it doesn’t hurt since Monster covers such a huge client base.

Do Training in your Niche

If you offer a seminar in your user group, or set up a training session in a conference in your niche, you can greatly raise awareness for your expertise and also meet face to face with potential clients seeking your talents.  Training does require a certain amount of public speaking skill, though, and if this is not your forte, then you might want to pursue less public avenues such as book writing.

Write an e-book or published technical book

Although book writing is time consuming and usually not very profitable, if you write a book in your niche, there is probably no better way to market yourself.  The book will be marketed by the publisher and possibly end up in large chains such as Borders and Barnes & Noble.  The books will also go to trade shows and your name will become associated with expertise in your niche.  Be prepared to suffer when writing a book, because you need to go through editing, technical editing, and revisit each of your chapters multiple times.  Some people have described writing a book akin to having a baby.  I’m not sure its quite as laborious, but its up there.

Magazine Article

If you are an expert in a particular area, you can submit an article on your subject matter to a magazine.  If its interesting enough for the reader, a magazine may pick it up.  Also if it is interesting to the company sponsoring the journal to market the particular expertise, and no one else is writing about it, you have a good chance of getting the article accepted.

Keep your Client Happy

Once you do get some perspective clients, its important to keep them happy, because most of your work will come from repeat clients.  Whenever you are on an assignment , communication is the most important aspect to pay attention to next to accomplishing the technical task.  Each step of the way, make sure you have satisfied the client’s needs.  A happy client, is very often a repeat client.  Also, if you do a good job, the client may refer you to others.

Let People know When you are Available

If you are finishing up with a client, make people aware that you are available again.  This means going back onto Dice and resubmitting your latest skillset.  Resubmitting on Dice, brings you to the top of the availability queue. Also blog about your availablility so people following your niche know you are freed up.  Contact recruiters who you have worked with and feel comfortable working with again, let them know you are ready to take on more work.  Contact other existing clients.  Ask how your software is working for them and if they have need of any new features.  Perhaps even suggest a new feature you thought might improve the product you worked on.

Conclusion

Marketing your .NET expertise may not be as difficult as you have thought.  We have talked about several avenues that are time proven methods for getting consulting work.  As your expertise in a particular .NET area becomes more and more widely known, you may find yourself with more work than you can handle.  At the point that you are overwhelmed, it may behoove you to train others in your area and employee them to satisfy the needs of your clients.  Hey, before you know it, you may have established your own consulting firm!  In any case, if you have never written an article before and are looking to get into consulting work, C# Corner is a good place to start. We welcome new talent in a particular niche in .NET, so break out the keyboard, and try typing something other than code for a change!  You may find you like it almost as much.