Consulting has become the great umbrella for those drenched by downsizings. These days, everybody's a consultant at least until they find their next salaried position. In a recent survey of 670 executives and professionals in the $50,000 to $125,000 income range and actively seeking new jobs, executive recruiter William Mangum found 32 percent were working as consultants during their searches. Of those, 65 percent were consulting part time; 35 percent were full time.
Consulting is much more than a temporary haven for job seekers. It's a $20 plus billion industry booming at all levels, from such giants as EDS and Andersen Consulting, all the way down to (and of special interest here) solos practitioners like you and me. Consulting is among the most common forms of home based employment.
If you can get the work, consulting can be golden: the initial investment is minimal, you're likely to be able to work from home, set your own hours, have few or even no employees (according to your wishes and business opportunities), and make very good money (though it's generally limited by the availability of your personal time).
All in all, consulting is ideally suited to the New Economy. You assist organizations with your special knowledge and skills exactly when they need them. There's lots of variety, and it's a kick to be selected for an engagement.
But if you can't find the work, or are suffering through the inevitable dry spells that even the best consultants encounter, it can be tough more of a roller coaster than many other occupations.
It can also be lonely. One day a consulting project will look like a smooth series of steps along familiar paths and perhaps even the same day you can fall into a funk of dead ends and begin to think you took a wrong turn a long time ago. Only your very best friends will listen to (or do anything about) your travails, so it becomes your challenge to learn to enjoy the ride and to stay in shape for the hills and valleys.
Consultants are always selling, and they are always outsiders. As a consultant, you'll often lack the resources you'd like to have and you'll occasionally deal with clients who seem to be thwarting your every opportunity for success, either by nature or because of organizational issues beyond everyone's control.
Then there's the travel usually too much of it to make it attractive. There are the incredible hours (sometimes someone else's hours, sometimes yours, depending on your practice but always a lot). There's the uncertainty of consulting: Unless you pull your weight every day by delivering results and developing the next piece of work, there's nothing to put in the bank.
For all of these reasons, consulting as a career choice clearly involves the same kind of commitment that's needed in starting or buying a business. Just because it requires minimal start up costs, doesn't mean you can enter this field lightly and be successful.
"You must really commit to starting the business," says Alex Schibanoff, executive director of The Consultants Bureau in New Brunswick, NJ. "It's impossible to promote a consultancy and look for a new job at the same time."
In fact, consulting's easy entry and perennial low standing as a career that people are committed to make it even tougher for those starting out to establish themselves as serious enterprises. In my own experience, aside from whatever merit there may be in the work I'm doing and future demand for it, there's been lots of skepticism and confusion among people I encounter. It's not the same as taking a new job that's too good to resist. It's not like starting a business in which you're being backed by lenders convinced of your likelihood of success. It's not like buying a business of known value. Instead, it's vague and kind of slippery. There's an undercurrent of "we'll see" in each conversation.
Such are the challenges of those who choose this tricky path. It takes an extra bit of chutzpah.
But for me, and for many, the pros of consulting are way ahead of the cons. Instead of looking at the number of hours I work and wishing I could be home more, I'm home most of the time, couldn't care less how many hours I work and instead count only the number of billable hours I can put in always trying to make it bigger!
Are You the Type?
In his helpful book, From Executive to Entrepreneur: Making the Transition (New York: Amacom, 1991), Gilbert G. Zoghlin, a partner in an employee benefits and financial planning consulting firm in Wilmette, IL, lists 10 questions executives should ask themselves before jumping into consulting. They are:
- Are you between 35 and 55 with at least 10 years of business experience?
- Is your area of consultancy directly in line with your area of expertise?
- Do you have a significant amount of marketing and sales experience?
- Were you a middle manager or higher level?
- Have you developed, with relative ease, a network of contacts within and outside your organization?
- Have you enjoyed corporate assignments that have been challenging and diverse (vs. those that required little homework and few new approaches)?
- Are you going into consulting with the idea that you'll do it until you retire?
- Do you dislike delegating tasks and relying on others?
- Are you curious about how well ideas that work in your organization would work in others?
- Have you enjoyed the brainstorming as well as the details of your corporate job?
But there's more to the personality of the successful consultant. Writing in Consultants News, Donald Baiocchi of D.P. Baiocchi Associates in Chicago, a career management consultant to senior executives and their organizations, describes these areas in which to look for at least adequate, if not superior, abilities:
- Intellect. You should be highly analytical, expert in critical thinking and curious. You should enjoy tackling complex issues and be objective yet able to identify with clients' problems. You must be comfortable with ambiguity, uncertainty and unstructured situations and able to handle constant scrutiny by clients and partners.
- Leadership. You need vision and initiative, the willingness to challenge yet also inspire confidence, respect and trust. You must be able to work with clients as well as for them.
- Managerial abilities. You must be well organized and able to balance selling and doing. You need experience in planning the work of others, developing and teaching staff members, controlling the project, coordinating feedback to the client, projecting a sense of urgency and meeting deadlines.
- Communication skills. There can be no doubt about your ability to express yourself clearly in writing and present yourself convincingly in person. You must be a good listener who can promote dialogue, identify problems and persuade others to help solve them.
- Personal qualities. You need good health, high energy and a personal life that supports the significant commitment you make to your clients and colleagues. You must be resilient, highly ethical, and discreet and always ready to learn.
- Interpersonal skills. Tact, diplomacy and sensitivity are essential. You need poise, a professional appearance and manners, and the ability to project an accurate self image. You'll have to intervene successfully in tough situations, and be willing to disagree without being disagreeable. Most of all, you must be comfortable with yourself and your role as a consultant.
