Wow, you got good contact there. Thanks.

Agree with you building panels business isn't easy and the need to applying for iso and esomars.

Btw have another question for you, what is the most annoying question you ever asked a respondent in your careers? Did you ever get scolded for that or punch in the face for asking those questions?

Hi TS. Respect to you .

May I ask some questions to you:

1. How to be self disciplined against distractions and procrastination? You know that work at home sometimes your parents/wife/children will call you while you work?

2. Do you listen music while you are working?

3. How about your space work? Do you have the special decorative room to make you alert when working?

4. Can you give a day in the life of an market research analyst?

5. How many times do you travel in a year?

6. Do you meet your clients face to face ocasionally?

Thank you for your reply

This post has been edited by L.Torreira: Apr 10 2019, 10:16 PM

I suppose then you can sign off with your own name as letterhead. Just curious coz I thought SC or Bursa may have some requirements on who does these IMR for public listings.

saturated industry. Look at freelancer upwork already know.

first sentence say making a living working at home, then say only side gig....so which is which?

Absolutely agree, this is why I have never fully committed to this line of work. In fact, I think it is probably on a long-term decline. I'm lucky to have a few clients that I can work with regularly but I have no idea whether this is something I can do for the rest of my life.

About your second question, it is a side gig in that it takes up 3-4 hours a day of my time. I make a living from doing it because this is 100% of the income I report to LHDN. It's sufficient to pay for expenses and some savings.

good for you. So you only work part-time.

Pitching
As a freelancer and part-timer, cold pitches don't really work for me. Clients would prefer to work with someone they know. It's a brand recognition thing. Would you want to stick your neck out and tell your boss you hired "mesothelium from LYN"? Most of the work I get is repeat business from previous clients. Sometimes, I do a sub-contracting job for someone I already know.

Scope of coverage
At a very high level, what is covered by the Five Forces model and PESTEL framework. Of course, the devil is in the details..

Charge
I charge a flat rate. I do an internal estimate of how long it will take for me to do it, and apply a per-hour cost depending on the job type. It normally works out reasonably well, and I can justify my numbers to a client if they asked for them.

Credibility
I do have a track record built up over years but it depends what the client wants to be done. For industry reports, I can point to 50+ that I have written. I have a few examples of primary market research and other due diligence work to show if that's required.

Subbing out
I wish I could do this! But, no, I haven't built the network of trusted collaborators to whom I can parcel out parts of the work. Neither have I built the infrastructure to monitor them all. More often than not, I am the subcontractor that someone has contacted.

Plagiarism
I'd be a bit flattered if people actually wanted to plagiarise my work. The reports I send out are property of the client and they can do whatever they like with them, including passing copies around to whoever they wish. Normally, since the content is of a confidential nature, the client is particular about making sure they don't get distributed indiscriminately. Actually, they tend to make sure that I am not the one passing it out instead of the other way round.

thanks for the insight
i have done this in the past, as a so called consultant for a new firm
they asked to provide a road-map for their new set up, and a guideline on how to move forward

did it for free, just to build portfolio
in return, the company director will share some profit when applicable, unfortunately that comp not making much

Yup, the economics just doesn't work. The number of new firms that become viable standalone businesses is small enough that you'd probably have to provide "consulting services" for 15-20 companies before finding one that achieves reasonable scale. If each engagement is going to take you 3 months - a reasonable amount of time to provide any "meaningful" insights - you're talking 4-5 years in the hopes of even getting paid out. Can you last that long without getting paid? Do you really want to go down that road?

The way I see it, it's just angel investing except you pay for your shares with sweat rather than cash. It's a rich man's game, makes sense if you allocate 5% of your entire net worth to that sort of thing but not too much more than that.

What u think abt Felda White Paper ?

Would u write abt financial fraud also?

I don't have the financial resources to do that sort of writing. I'm also not that brave. If I get called up by the police about something I wrote and published under my own name, I would honestly shitbrix.

1. I won't lie to you, some days are better than others. To minimise distractions, I find that getting most of the work done in the morning works best. I tried for a while to wake up at 4:30 am and managed to do it for a while but it's really hard. 6:00 am is more likely these days.

2. Most of the time. The type of music depends on what kind of task I'm doing. If it's boring stuff like data entry, I prefer more upbeat music to stay awake. But when I'm in the writing flow, it tends to be something more calming. Classical music like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Handel feature a lot here. During the evenings, it's something like jazz.

3. Nope, standard blank desk with my PC in front of me. I like my space to be a bit cluttered. Actually, that's not true. That's a nice way of saying I haven't been bothered to tidy up.

4. There isn't much to it. Get up at 6:00 am, out the door by 6:30 for a run until about 7:30, shower and at the desk at 8:00. I try to get at least 2 hours in, sometimes 3. Early lunch around 11:30-12:00 and then work on other things or take care of family issues until about 2:30 pm. Try to get another 1-2 hours in until about 5:30. Early dinner then work on other issues again.

5. If you mean around Malaysia, every 1-2 months. Last trip overseas was to Bangkok (2018) but otherwise haven't travelled out of the country much (been meaning to change this).

6. Yes, I try to meet them at least once in my lifetime. It is hard because most of my clients are not in the country, the majority are in Europe. But if they happen to be in the country, or I happen to be there, I'll take time out to meet them face-to-face.

Listening to this now, in fact.