IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v34y2004i4p265-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: How I Started an OR/MS Consulting Practice with a Laptop, a Phone, and a PhD

Author

Listed:
  • Carrie Beam

    (15 Sunset Drive, Pleasant Hill, California 94523)

Abstract

Rather than become a professor after finishing my PhD in operations research, I became a small-business owner. Armed with a few books on sales and proposal writing, and with no industry contacts, I built my consulting business from the ground up through cold-calling, networking, paying referral fees, and teaching. To transform contacts into new business, I fill and manage a pipeline, ask for and follow sales advice only from successful salespeople, and never write a proposal until I have both a budget and a deadline. As a sole proprietor, my time is my money, and I have learned to manage it carefully, especially because much of my time is not billable—including the hours I spend drumming up business. I have learned that creating a successful consulting firm takes money, tenacity, experience selling your time and talent, and a strong desire to work for yourself. My business proves that it is possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Carrie Beam, 2004. "ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: How I Started an OR/MS Consulting Practice with a Laptop, a Phone, and a PhD," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 34(4), pages 265-271, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:34:y:2004:i:4:p:265-271
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.1040.0090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.1040.0090
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.1040.0090?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Frederic H. Murphy, 2005. "ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: Elements of a Theory of the Practice of Operations Research: Practice as a Business," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 35(6), pages 524-530, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:34:y:2004:i:4:p:265-271. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.