Kind of depends upon who your tagret market is. For some markets, certs don't mean a thing because they don't know what it means. A MS cert might mean something because of the "MS". An A+ cert leaves them clueless.
I find that even with corporate markets, certs have varying value depending upon who your talking to. Most of them have mixed environments so a cert might help for part of the load, but be valueless for other aspects of the job.
Certs also have a limited lifespan so you need to be certain of your return on investment. I have a very smart friend who collects certs - MS, Cisco, Novell, Sun, etc. Has over 70 certs collected over 15-20 years. About 15 are still valid. He works mostly for corporates who will pay for certification.
Some certs are valueless in themselves. A Sun Certified Java Programmer knows java syntax so the cert doesn't impress me. A Sun Certified Java Developer knows coding technique, so that's what I look for.
A couple of jears back Sun changed their certified Architect program to align with major industry environments - e.g. IBM Java Architect, MS Java Architect, Oracle Java Architect, etc. The hiring gatekeepers see IBM and discount the resume because they're a MS shop although 85-90% of the content is cross-environment.
Certs can however be and integral part of your business model if they offer a clue to the clueless and insight to those in the know. Should be tied in to your business description though.
I am PMI certified - Project Management Institute. It's something that works into both ends of the business - Corporate and Small-Medium business services.
For Corporates, some are PMI shops but all of them know about it and have other certified people onboard. For the Small-Medium sized businesses I sell web implementation services. Do the grunt work, coding and hosting mostly myself but farm out graphics and sometimes other work. I don't build web sites. I increase business capability through web projects. So we have business strategy sessions, planning sessions, test plans, project status, etc. I sell the project, not the site. The words "Project Management" in the cert are understandable to the most obtuse client even if they don't grasp what the cert entails. They understand it's part of the value add and get the warm fuzzies.
The key part of your OP is "no one ever asks". No small business ever asked if I was PMI Certified. Being able to display the certification however helps because thay can see the direct relationship between it and the services I offer even if they won't understand what the cert entails. Certainly more pertainent than an NT Admin cert I picked up in the 90's.
I supply prospects with links to the PMI site and with contact info of former customers who agree to act as references. They get confused by the cert site but sold by the references. If I had to go without certs or without references, I'd toss the cert.
If I were you, I'd concenterate on obtaining and categorizing my references - what references to use for what type of work. The direction your business goes will drive your need/lack of need for certs.
I'd also recomend that anyone starting out in independent consulting read books by Alan Weiss. Does a good job of descibing how to transition from run-of-the-mill task based consulting to value based consulting. Teaches you to think like a consultant - not like a small business owner. Gives you a larger context for action.
EDIT:
Please forgive the length of this missive as I did not have the time to make it small.
- Blais Pascal
Edited by dpyers - 25 May 2005 at 4:07pm
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the boss wrote:
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)so i guess i am lucky there.(none of your guys move here mind