The biggest roadblock to getting started as a freelancer or consultant is deciding what to charge.

If you charge too much, potential customers will walk away. If you don’t charge enough, you are leaving money on the table. Obviously, not good.

So you fret and worry. Are you charging as much as the market will bear? Are you charging so much that you lose desirable projects that don’t pay all that low? How do you know if you have charged as much as you can?

You want the client to say “yes” when you present your price. Or truly, you want the client to say yes but to wince. And how do you know if the wince is real or if it is to prevent you from raising the price later because you think you are at the brink?

Just thinking about this is enough to give you a headache.

And when you are writing an actual proposal, it’s enough to add upset stomach to your health woes.

Now here is the number one reason that what you charge is not all that important:

Each client stands apart. No one knows what any other client of yours has paid so you are not setting a precedent in pricing jobs for future clients, assuming you have not publicly posted rates on your website or elsewhere.

Granted, there is still the sticky issue of how to raise the price on existing clients. But if you are starting out, existing clients are by definition but a fraction of your future customer base. Furthermore, there are ways to address this issue later on when it becomes a problem.

But your pricing headache will soon start throbbing if you worry years in advance. Today’s challenge is snaring your first few assignments.

Our attitudes about pricing have been shaped through corporate employment. So let’s get on the same page about how corporate salary administration works.

When you accepted your first job offer out of school you didn’t feel you could bargain much for a higher salary because your work experience was limited. You took what was offered and found out later that in the sophisticated U.S. career market, smart applicants negotiate their entry salary like they’re shopping for a sombrero at a tourist trap. Compounding the problem is that some of us unknowingly (or even knowingly) experienced gender or other discrimination that further depressed starting pay.

Then ever after, employers administer your wage by percentage increases. So if you start low, the increases increment from a lower base, resulting in significant (but secret) pay disparity among coworkers over time.

It’s like if one person invests $1000 in a bank passbook savings account and another invests $1000 in a bond paying 10%. After 30 years, the second person has a lot more money (unless the company goes bust).

Currently, employers want to maintain past disparity among new hires. Some hiring companies insist upon learning your past salary in your application cover letter. And some require past pay stubs before making an offer.

This is unconscionable, obviously. The valid question is what are your services worth to the new employer, not what the past employer got away with underpaying you.

Freelancing and consulting are not like this. Though you may list past clients on your website, no one will ask you what were paid for these assignments. Nor will anyone ask you for a contact at past clients so they can verify what you were paid.

The objective of freelancing and consulting is to have enough different clients that you never feel as powerless as when you wed yourself to a single full-time job and forsake all others.

Each freelance or consulting client is a new day, a fresh start. This makes each proposal you prepare much less of a life-altering event.

Let’s conclude with a funny story from Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek. There’s much in that book that I don’t believe would work for most people (starting with the fundamental premise that we can make all the money we need to live a pleasure-filled lifestyle by working only four hours a week). But some of his ideas are intriguing.

Now for the story. Ferriss recommends approaching local offices of big-name companies and offering them your services in a small way. For instance, call the area service office of IBM and propose a brown-bag luncheon program on time management. No matter how little you are paid (or even if you do it for free) and no matter how few people show up, he says you can legitimately claim you have consulted with IBM forever after

Here’s how you can follow the footsteps of highly successful consultants:

1. Know the client. It is not enough that you know your clients’ business and to which industry they belong to. To become more effective on what you do, you need to make time to gain in-depth knowledge about your clients’ goals, history, and missions. You will also need to obtain information about their competitors and stakeholders. Keep in mind that you will be paid to carry out your clients’ objectives and you will not be able to perform this better unless you are equipped with all the relevant information.

2. Active listening. As a consultant, you need to listen actively to your clients so you can accurately assess their problems and offer the most appropriate solutions. What you can do is to encourage them to give you all the details of their problems or goals. Don’t forget to take down notes. Use effective probing questions to easily get a clear picture.

3. Work with key people. The problem with other consultants is that they don’t know how to identify the people that they need to talk to when they are trying to understand or resolve the organizations’ problems. As a consultant, you need to know the function of every people in the organization who can give you the right information and who can help you assess and resolve the existing problems.

4. Tailor-fit your consulting services. Keep in mind that when it comes to people, strategies, processes, and solutions — one size does not fit all. You will need to tailor-fit your services to the needs and demands of your clients to better serve them.

Here’s how you can increase your chances of being hired by top consulting companies:

1. Assess your skills and your expertise. The first thing that you need to do is to make sure that you have what it takes to become an effective consultant. You must have the needed educational background and experience. For instance, if you are applying to financial consulting companies, it is imperative that you have a bachelor degree in accounting, commerce, or business. It would work to your advantage if you have relevant experience like working for mortgage companies in the past.

2. Resume. It’s crucial that you’ll be able to capture the attention of your potential employer through your resume. You can make this happen by making your resume compelling and extra powerful. It must be well-written and it must speak volumes about your expertise. Include only the information that are relevant to the position that you are applying for. Do not forget to include your most recent, most friendly-looking photo.

3. Prepare for the interview. If your resume is truly interesting, I am pretty sure that you’ll be called in for an interview. Make sure that you do necessary preparations ahead of time to increase your chances of being hired. I suggest that you read several articles that are posted online where you can get tips and techniques as to how you can impress your interviewer. It’s important that you project a confident image, that you dress for the occasion, and that you articulate your thoughts and ideas in a very easy to understand manner.

This article is for those people who want to start a career in corporate consulting. Here’s what you need to have to get started on the right foot:

1. In-depth knowledge about the job. Obviously, you’ll increase your chances of making it big in this endeavor if you understand the job and its description on a deeper level. I recommend that you read and learn as much as you can about corporate consulting. Right now, there are several ebooks, articles, and even newsletters about this endeavor. Take advantage of them and increase your knowledge in no time.

2. Skills. Make sure that you possess the following skills; people, communication, problem-solving, analytical, leadership and interpersonal skills. These are crucial to your success in this endeavor.

3. Experience. You are most likely to be hired by organizations (if you are an independent consultant) or consulting companies if you have relevant working experience. It’s an advantage on your part if you have worked as a manager or a team leader in a big company. It would also be a big plus if you have relevant educational background and if you have attended relevant seminars and trainings in the past.

4. Availability. Although you might not spend much time dealing with clients for the first couple of months, this might change once you have made a mark in this field. Several clients might sign up with your services and it’s crucial that you give them enough coaching time. It would work to your advantage and it will benefit your bank account if you work as full time corporate consultant when this happens.

Consulting is one lucrative but highly competitive field. Here’s how you can get ahead of the pack:

1. As a consultant, you must pay close attention to details and you must be able to deliver effective solutions on a timely manner. You are expected to be professional, organized, prompt, reliable, and of course, responsive. Your clients must not wait for more than 24 hours to get replies to their email inquiries otherwise, you’ll surely lose their business. You are also expected to stay on top of latest trends and you must exert conscious effort to constantly increase your knowledge on your chosen field.

2. Analyze the problems first. Make some time to research and study all angles of the problems before you make suggestions or offer solutions. Identify relevant components and dynamics and make sure that you outline how elements fit together before you start formulating successful solutions.

3. Interpersonal skills. As a consultant, it’s very important that you possess excellent verbal and listening skills. You must be able to effectively articulate your thoughts and you must be able to communicate in a very easy to understand manner while still sounding highly intelligent.

4. Be cross-functional. It would work to your advantage if you know the ins and outs of your chosen consulting field. You don’t need to be experts on different disciplines but at least you must know a little bit of everything so your clients will not need to hire additional consultants for their other related problems. Through this, you can help these people save a lot of money in the long run.