Before I quit my job to start consulting, I read all of (every... single... one) Patrick McKenzie's blog posts and podcasts. That gave me the knowledge that there is a market for results-oriented, bullshit-free consultants, and that clients in that market are willing to pay for results.

So when I quit and self-declared myself a consultant, I went straight to charging premium weekly and monthly rates, as Patrick and others have recommended.

It wasn't $30k/week, and it still took many months to stop feeling like a fraud, but two years later I'm earning a living by working with extremely interesting and successful clients. I altogether skipped the dreaded "cheap freelancer living week-to-week" stage, and I give a lot of credit to Patrick's articles for that.