Consulting
If you think that consultants are just big businesses who hire graduates from flashy schools and earn lots of money doing things you can’t understand then you are way off the mark. Consultants can be companies or individuals who have extensive personal experience in a given field which could be anything from grief counselling to rocket science. The chances are, if you have a lot of experience in a specific field you could work as a consultant.
Of course working as a consultant and setting up as an independent consultant are two different things. The former gives you the stability of your current job but with a higher income, the latter gives you zero security but with the potential to make a lot of money.
If you are looking for the security of a job but want to earn more money then go and see the big consulting firms and see whether you can sell them on your skill set. They will want to know about the contacts you have in your industry and how much work you think you could generate, and they may already have people doing this. I have worked as a consultant in this capacity and it’s a lot of fun.
Regardless of whether you set up on your own or work for someone else you will have to sell your services. Think about all the people that you know in the industry, make a list and if you don’t have phone numbers or email contacts then start asking your friends and colleagues before you make the jump. Touch base with people that you haven’t spoken to in a while and in your own mind work out how everyone is connected. Start going to as many seminars, training courses and conferences as your boss will allow; this allows you to collect business cards and get your face out there. It will help a lot if people know who you are, so be prepared to give some lectures if the opportunity arises.
Once you have made the jump you can use the following techniques to get noticed: -
Networking
Speak at conferences
Run training courses
Advertising
Write a book
Build an informative website
The preparation above is all about building your network, it isn’t hard to do and once you get used to walking up to people and introducing yourself it can be a lot of fun. You will meet all sorts of interesting people and of course other people’s networks will start talking about you. It’s a great feeling when people start calling you as opposed to you doing all the running. Once you know a lot of people you have to be able to ask for work, start by asking who you should talk to in order to pitch, if you are lucky it is not the person you know but their boss, this takes the pressure of friends doing business out of the equation and you can ask your friend to set up the appointment for you.
Speaking at conferences is a fantastic way of augmenting your reputation. Prepare thoroughly and be willing to tell your audience things that they may not know. I have presented unique research papers at industry conferences before and people always ask why I am prepared to do it. The simple answer is that without the work that goes into proving my conclusions the conclusions themselves are worthless. You can give your audience insights that mean they might have to hire you in future to get access to the proof, and at the very least will show you to be an open person at the forefront of your industry. The more people who come up and ask you questions afterwards the better, you get to hand out and collect more business cards and you may even learn something as a result. Its not difficult to get on the speaking circuit, after you attend any conference tell one of the organisers that you would be interested in speaking at future events, I guarantee they will contact you.
Training courses are great, they are lucrative and they build your reputation as an expert simultaneously. You will need to put some money out upfront to cover the cost of the venue and printing materials, food and beverages etc. but my advice would be to book the venue with a deposit and advertise the course (send flyers to all your contacts). Once you have some orders you can go to your bank manager for a loan to cover the additional costs if funds are short. Remember to remind your students that the course is a bonus and your main business is consulting.
Advertising can be tricky depending upon the industry. The easiest ways are to take booths, and hand out flyers at events and to send flyers/brochures to your network advertising any specific events that you are running or involved in. If there are industry magazines then advertising should be cost effective. Don’t advertise in national newspapers and other generic media for a consulting service in a specific industry, you will need better targeting than this.
Writing a book is similar to training courses but has the added advantage that it can be handed around and recommended by people in the industry. I remember one programming book for SAS that everyone used to use, it was only small but was so clearly written and easy to cross reference that you had to have it. I don’t remember the title or authors now because it is too long ago but I bet I still have the book in storage in the UK. You don’t have to be an excellent writer to write a training manual or information book. Simply lay out your chapters logically and don’t be afraid to self publish as you will be selling into your client base so can make money where a mainstream publisher would not. I have a colleague who wrote a book about direct marketing and he uses it for job interviews and networking, simply giving a copy away here and there where he thinks it will build on his credibility….and it does.
Websites for niche industries or even segments of industries can be enormously rewarding. Despite all the information that is out there on the internet it is still relatively easy to get found if you use industry specific keywords. When I ran my credit scoring website I got enquiries from all over the world. The value of this to a consultant is immeasurable. If you start getting jobs in South America, Africa and Asia your network will think you have hit the big time and in all probability you will have.
Unfortunately your stock is your experience, if you have spent 20 years in the restaurant business don’t try to set up an accountancy based consultancy firm but you can consider setting up a consultancy for restaurant start ups.
There is no field which does not need experts, even in administration, recruitment, and street repairs. If you are too young to have the experience and network to make this work then consider joining an existing consultancy, the breadth of experience you will gain will leap frog you above your peers in no time.
Some of the materials that you develop will belong to you, but be careful that you don’t share information amongst competitors that could assist one company at the cost of another.
Be careful what you re-use from your current employers. It is better to study materials and re-write them than to simply tweak existing materials in Microsoft Office; the chances are you will miss a logo, or a reference and you could get yourself in trouble.