Tag: consultants

is it a good idea to be a consultant?

consulting presentation

 

consulting presentation

I don’t think anyone can prove this, but there’s probably a rising prejudice against the job description “consultant”. The reason is that as long-term unemployment becomes more and more common amongst professionals, many of them have started calling themselves consultants during their unemployed tenure. They don’t actually consult - they have no clients, they have no portfolio and what they really want is simply to be able to call themselves anything but unemployed. Is it fair for Human Resources departments to almost automatically flag people with the “consultant” title as “probably just an unemployed person who didn’t wish to label themselves as unemployed?”

It’s easy to take up both sides of this argument. One, anyone can call themselves a consultant. In a society in which you need permission to label yourself a person who administers health care to birds, it’s amazing that anyone can present themselves as an expert in a field in which they may have no expertise at all. I could advertise myself as an “expert Excel consultant” tomorrow and there’s no chance my state or country would blink an eye. If I proclaimed myself an expert accountant (CPA) or expert tooth extractor (DDS) I’d have state agencies knocking at my door tomorrow. It’s not fair that anyone be able to label themselves as a consultant - that word should imply some recognized expertise.

On the other hand, why not? I’m expert at many things, in my own opinion: I’m a decent writer, I’m quite good implementing, training and using several internal audit software packages, I’m a good trainer (in multiple languages) and I am better than many in the use of Excel and Access. Shouldn’t that give me the right to call myself an expert? A consultant? A coach? Whatever the term, why can’t I offer myself up and let my skills speak for themselves?

I think it’s a disservice to the title “consultant” that so many people these days grab on to that moniker the second they are unemployed. HR departments are justified in assuming that many consultants are simply unemployed people who hang that title around their necks once they lose a job. I sympathize - simply labeling yourself as “unemployed for 6 months” is much worse, of course, than labeling yourself as an “up-and-coming consultant” over that time period. But I would recommend that anyone who calls themselves a consultant be ready with a few things when coming to an HR department:

 

  1. A portfolio. Anyone can prepare a portfolio, of course. But the simple fact that you prepared it means you’ve put at least that much effort into it. If you don’t have a portfolio - be it online, hard copy or even just a well-constructed LinkedIn profile - you’re not a serious consultant, and nobody will take you seriously.
  2. References. If you don’t have at least 2 or 3 former supervisors or past consulting clients who can enthusiastically vouch for your work, I wouldn’t hire you as a consultant. A consultant lives and dies off the quality of their past work. I’ve hired consultants solely off of recommendations from colleagues and acquaintances I’ve trusted, and I’ve rejected consultants who couldn’t provide those references. It’s quite simple: consultants with references thrive; consultants without references die.
  3. Proof. If you don’t have a portfolio and your don’t have references, what do you do? Have proof. Be able to back up your skills. If you claim to be an expert in Access, ask for permission to demonstrate it. If you know SAP backwards and forwards, show it. Don’t claim to have expertise in an area you don’t know. But be ready to show total command of any area an employer/client is looking for: have an idea how to amaze them ready to go. Certification is a great help here, too. If you can show certification in an area, you’re well along to convincing an HR department that you’re qualified to provide services.

It’s not an easy thing to tell people you’re good enough to fix things. I’ve been doing it since 2005, full-time. I’ve sold to Wall Street and the Fortune 500. It’s hard to convince smart people you’re going to bring something to the table they don’t have. They don’t like to hear that. But the simple fact is that if you’re going to present yourself as the mystical “consultant” you have to bring that little bit extra. You have to sell, you have to convince, and most of all … you have to DO. Consultants have a narrow margin for error. Employees can blame politics and teams and all kinds of things, but a consultant - especially a standalone consultant - has to show results, and soon. Don’t worry about the unemployed who call themselves consultants - distinguish yourself through your portfolio, references and proof and you’ll be on your way to a six-figure career in no time.

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how to become a successful consultant

I’ve preached the gospel of “going it alone” for years on this blog, and I stick by it. I’ve seen far too many of my colleagues hung out to dry by the corporations they work for to think that being an employee is a good career path. But being a consultant has one ugly secret, deep down at its core: in order to be a successful consultant (monetarily, not actually effective) requires that you first spend your time in the dirty, ugly trenches as an employee.

I’d like to say it isn’t true. I’d like to think a really gifted, talented person with an eye for change could leap out of college and start helping people as a consultant. I’d like to think that the tools for communication would naturally be there for some of these people: comfort speaking in front of large groups, the ability to write clearly and directly, the personal confidence to sell products and relate to decision makers without trepidation.

In my experience: nope, doesn’t happen.

I’m a good public speaker. I can sell. I can work a technical presentation and apply complex principles to difficult problems. I couldn’t have done any of this, in my opinion, without the years in the trench: the years I spent hammering away, unrewarded, at Big 4 firms and multinational corporations. What they gave me was, at the same time, invaluable and a curse. They let me work hard. They put me in front of very senior management or executives at clients before I might have been ready to deal with them. They asked me to navigate politics, presentations, negotiations and calculations without a net. I sweated a lot of 11 pm nights at the office working on presentations so I’d be relaxed and able to throw them off without much trouble today.

If you’d like to be a consultant - a REAL consultant - with a grasp of your subject and the sort of calm, unhurried patience you see in the most polished advice-givers, let me give you a tip: spend a decade getting your brains beaten in by a consulting firm or a corporation. There’s no better training for confidence than to have your confidence challenged, pushed and tortured for years. It’s sad but true. If you work out, the true muscle-building activity takes place on the rep where you “fail” - the rep where you can’t lift the weights one more time. That’s the point at which new muscle mass - scars, really - build up your muscles and increase your strength. Being pushed to prepare that presentation or asked to analyze that acquisition on short notice is what will make you a better consultant.

There is no shortcut. When I was hiring for a multinational corporation, I didn’t look to independent consultants two years out of MBA school. I looked to the Big 4 and other consulting firms. Why? Not because I had any love lost for them (I didn’t, at all) and not because they had the best prices or even the best people. I did it because I knew these were people who had been pushed since day 1 at their firms to fail. The “upwards or out” mentality is useful even if you’re not in a corporate position. You’re either increasing your skills and widening your contact pool or you’re heading out. This is the philosophy of the Big 4. Up or out. It makes sense, even while it’s a sad way to live.

So if you think about becoming a consultant, think about putting in a long time in your chosen profession as an employee first. Get that job at an engineering firm, or hospital, or accounting firm, or whatever. Make sure you can cut it. Once you’ve stopped failing, or struggling, maybe you’re ready to sell yourself as a consultant. Just don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that there is no job bigger than you or tougher than you; as a consultant, you have to be constantly aware that eventually “the one” project will arrive where you can’t quite keep up. And that’s when those ugly skills and pathetic abilities - staying up late and working while everyone else is out at the local bar - will come in handy.