Never ever rely primarily on a single large contract. Several smaller ones are more reliable. Contracts will go south, and when they do the impact on you depends on how large a fraction of your business that contract is. See the Wal-Mart/record-labels post below for example. CD sales are 2% of Wal-Mart's business, Wal-Mart sales are 20% of the labels' business. If that deal goes south, the impact on Wal-Mart will be negligible. The impact on the labels, however, is going to be major. The same thing with consulting deals. If a contract that goes bad is 10% of your business, you only lose 10% of your income while you find a replacement (and a replacement will be easier to find, there's more small deals out there than large ones). If that contract's 75% of your business, you're out 75% of your income if it goes bad. Which would you rather deal with?

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