Starting a consulting business can be extremely daunting, especially when you are trying to figure out things like your niche, target customers, and what services to offer. First, consider your skills and passions. What are you good at? What do you enjoy working on?…
Do your management consulting clients actually need to like you?…
Self-confidence, or rather, the lack of it, can be a considerable hurdle for anyone wishing to set up shop as an independent consultant. However, confidence is a trait that you can build…
A few months ago, a visitor to my blog asked me, in a comment, about the value of having a website in the early stages of a consulting business. Specifically, the reader asked if a new independent consultant would be disadvantaged by starting up without the immediate support of a website…
Whatever you think of email, as an independent consultant you will use it a lot, because your clients will use it a lot. The problem with this is that your emails will always be vying with hundreds of others for the attention of your recipient. To make matters...
Did you ever lead meetings in your career, prior to your decision to enter the independent consultant’s profession? If not, you will need to get used to leading them, and even if you are experienced in running successful meetings, things will be a little different in...
Love them or hate them (most consultants hate them); consulting proposals will become a regular feature in your career as an independent consultant. If you can get away with winning a project without a proposal, consider it a significant achievement. A letter...
There’s no doubt that starting a new independent consulting business can be hard on family life. Naturally, you will need to put a lot of time, effort, and dedication into growing your business, and clients can be demanding. After all, they’re paying for your services...
In the course of your career, many of your consulting clients will hire you to make recommendations to solve specific business problems. It’s probable that you’ll be less frequently engaged through to implementation. With that in mind, the success enjoyed by clients...
Problem-solving will be at the heart of what you do in your new life as an independent consultant. Your customers will only hire you to solve their problems. Business leaders don’t typically hire consultants to fix things that they don’t consider are broken or need...