Daily Cup of Tech

According to a story from Newsfactor.com, computer criminals are starting to change their tactics. Instead of going after larger corporations (i.e. big targets), they are starting to focus more on small businesses.

The thinking is that small businesses do not have the staff nor the budgets to properly protect themselves like the bigger corporations. While they may get a smaller return by attacking these smaller targets, they will have a greater chance of success.

The article writes:

According to the new study by the Small Business Technology Institute, approximately 70 percent of small businesses consider information security a high priority, and more than 80 percent have confidence in their existing protective measures. But 56 percent of small businesses experienced one or more security incidents in the past 12 months before completing the survey.

I guess I always knew that this was the case or that this would become the case but it never actually formalized itself in my head until I actually read this article. But, for those of you who lean toward the consulting side of things, this may be an opportunity.

Let’s say that you are a $100 per hour consultant (for the sake of easy math). A small business could never afford to pay someone of your caliber as a full time employee. But, they definitely need someone with your high end skills.

The solutions can be coming in as a contract employee. If you were to come in once a week for a day to work on projects and technical support, they could potentially find $40,000 a year for your time. Yes, they could possibly hire a full time junior tech for that price but they are not solving their problems because this person will probably not have the skillset required to ward off the problems. If you can find five small businesses that are willing to take you on each one day a week, suddenly you are making $200,000 a year!

Having worked as a consultant, I know that this is usually not how consultants work. Typically, you work to the job. But I have been working for a company as a part time employee one day a week for over a year and it works great for them and for me. I get paid what I am worth and they get the skills that they need at a price they can afford.

The one thing that you need to make very clear if you decide to do this is that you are working for them only one day a week and that you do have responsibilities the other days to other people. Make sure that you do have some flexibility in the case of emergencies but I have found that this is rarely a problem.

Definitely something to think about!

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