A lot of IT work exists for individuals taking consulting contracts under $100,000. Most independent consulting contracts come from non-tech, small to medium sized commerce companies.

Consultants on this level get lots of different types of work. If a hiring company does not have enough money to update its computer systems, the company may hire consultant to maintain, repair, or operate the legacy systems. When a medium-sized company has enough capital to expand, they usually hire small consultant companies to create e-commerce web sites, databases, internal networks, or medium-scale content management systems.

Independent consultants should be comfortable working with older operating systems and applications. They should also have experience installing and supporting medium-scale networks, office utility applications, and database-driven web sites. Consultants should have experience in technical writing, since they are expected to give lots of technical documentation to the hiring company.

Independent consultants also help companies as analysts. As stated earlier, there used to be a glut of under-qualified consultants, and many companies used to waste resources on bad consulting advice and products. Now, those same companies are looking for people who can phase out the bad legacy products and systems.

"A good example of this is in the content management field. There's a huge trend where companies buy a content management product, and it never even gets implemented," explains John Running, CEO of MobiusWEB, an independent consulting company that creates databases, version-control software, and web sites. "Either the product wasn't implemented properly, or whoever sold it didn't focus on meeting the customer's needs."

"I realized that the thing to do is to spend more time interviewing the people who would use the software, and stay inexpensive," explains Running. "I sold a content management system to the American Ballet Theater this way. Big consulting firms charge insane amounts of money to spend time talking to the customers. The hiring companies are much better off talking to a small consultant like you."

Medium sized companies usually pay consultants around $30,000 to $100,000 to create or replace software and system solutions. In a slow economy, companies are likely to scale back on six-figure projects, but they will probably continue to outsource for smaller IT projects. Large consulting firms usually do not bother at all with contracts under $50,000, so independent consulting firms can find lots of business in this market.

"IBM isn't going to go after a thirty or forty thousand dollar project. But there's an awful lot of companies out there who need thirty and forty thousand dollar projects done," says Brad Smith, Vice President of Research for Consulting Magazine. "So, the smaller niche firms who have very little overhead, and can act very nimbly, and cost competitively, are going to succeed in this sort of environment."

However, hiring companies only want to hire consultants with proven track records. Thus, new consultants who do not have portfolios or business references usually have to work for smaller contracts under $10,000. Companies that hire these green consultants are usually new themselves, and do not have the capital to go with more experienced consultants. These customers may be hard to work with, as they still need to get their own bearings together. Consultants here must learn how to deal with customers quickly if they want to make a good impression and gain professional references. Beginner consultants may have to scrape for business in this manner for a year or two before they have enough credentials to catch the attention of larger companies.

(Article from http://www.vault.com/articles/Going-it-alone:-Independent-IT-consulting-20601392.html)