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The Eightfold Path to Consulting Bliss

By crooky | May 9, 2008

This article might ring a little false after my antics earlier this week:

“Wah wah wah! I’m a consultant, not a wage slave! I can drop the F-bomb on my blog if I want! Wah wah wah!”

I want to take a step back though because all of these shenanigans have caused me to reflect on my own attitude towards my work. A good friend of mine recently asked me what pulled me towards consulting and I corrected her and said “I know what pushed me into consulting”.

For years, I’ve thought of my transformation into consultant as something that was thrust upon me, not chosen. At the same time, my recent flirting with the RCMP has taught me: even when a great job opportunity is presented to me, I can’t turn away from the path I’m on. I’m a consultant for better or for worse.

In this post, I want to explore the Eightfold Path to Consulting Bliss:

1. F*ck The World

Very few consultants start out as consultants. I’d argue that if you’ve never had a job before, you can’t do a very good job of working for people with jobs. You need to understand their reality in addition to bringing in outside perspective. So I am comfortable with assuming that most consultants out there left a job/career before leaping into self-employment.

There is no sweeter feeling in the world that walking out of that office that has been a boot on your neck for the past X years, grinning from ear to ear as your co-workers pat you on the back, glare daggers or generally look sympathetic because they think you’re making a mistake.

You don’t care! The world is your oyster and you’re going to crack that baby open and gorge on it. (I had a more graphic analogy involving crustaceans. Be grateful that I spared you.) For the first few months, you look down on your fellow man who watches the clock, punches time cards and metes out their life in 1 hour increments for a pension and a dental plan.

2. Failure

Every consultant has a rough start. It might be three weeks in, it might be three months in or it might be three quarters in. At some point, the blush is going to wear off and instead of “fuck the world”, you’re going to be thinking “what the fuck have I done?” The bills are piling up, customers aren’t biting and your spouse/significant other/parent is starting to be a little less subdued about their doubt in your ability to win bread.

It’s okay. This happens to most people. The normal response is to re-evaluate your decision. Re-look at your business plan (or, in my case, start thinking about writing a business plan), looking for a new job, etc… This leads us to:

3. Retreat

The pressure is going to get too high at some point. You’re going to crack and you might even try to go running back to your old job with your tail between your legs. Trust me, this is not the worst thing that can happen. Falling on your face and trying to retreat into your old life is going to teach you something very, very important - you can’t go back.

Your old job isn’t as easy as you remember. It’s more confining than you remember. The people you work with smell worse than you remember. It’s like going back to dial-up internet after having broadband for a year.

4. Re-inforcement

Once you’ve put that ridiculous retreat phase behind you, you’ll be thinking one thing: “Oh man. That sucked. I never want to go through that again.” This is the tipping point for you as a consultant or freelancer - it’s go big or go home. At this stage, you start investing in marketing collateral for your business. You might incorporate or register a business name. You get proper business cards printed and maybe even a web site.

You start networking and pressing the flesh and winning new clients the hard way. This is the stage in which you pay your dues. It’s hard work and you won’t get rich overnight but with a couple of years of perseverence, you’ll be doing well.

5. Resignation

You might start to slip back into stage three again after the inevitable “famine” phases. By now, you’ve started re-inforcing your consulting career and you’ve started making market rates for your work. You’ll come to the conclusion that it’s not only emotionally impossible for you to go back but it’s financially irresponsible to do so as well.

You’re now a full-fledged consultant, at least on paper. This realization, combined with some success will lead you to:

6. Overconfidence

Ah, the old “fuck the world” stage - how I missed thee. What’s that? You’re back?? YES! At some stage, you’re going to be doing so well that you’ve got less experienced consultants coming to you for advice about consulting, clients are banging on your doors, you have to start thinking about hiring help. You’ve arrived.

This is where it can all go sideways. You’re going to get too cocky. You’ll start over-commiting and under-delivering. Your quality of service will suffer and your old standby clients whom you consider friends may start to give you the cold shoulder. Oh oh.

7. Recognition

It’s not too late to save your consulting soul. You just need to get a grip and realize that you’ve come a long ways but you haven’t done so on your own. There’s the contributions of your spouse/significant other/assorted loved ones to consider. They’ve sacrificed so you can soar. There’s your loyal clients. Do you think they were 100% confident in your abilities when they hired you the first time? Hell no. They took a chance. Don’t forget that.

Also don’t forget your super-networker friends who have constantly and consistently thought of ways to support your business through unpaid lead generation and word of mouth marketing over the years - you couldn’t have done it without them. Humble theyself.

8. Acquiescense

Once you’ve been through your naivity, your failures, your successes and survived your own ego, you can embrace the true meaning of being a consultant. You are only as good as the relationships you nurture. Without them, you might as well be selling used cars. Your role in this world is part of a larger web of relationships and economies.

Once you can recognize that and brush that chip off your shoulder, you’ll move into a new reality - one where your clients love you, people want to be near you and business is good.

Consulting is a good career for the right person. If you can’t go down this path and keep the faith - you might not be cut out for the job.

I’d like to wrap this post up with a great Robot Chicken clip about a giraffe stuck in quicksand going through a similar trial - just on a shorter timeline.

*********************
Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Business of Consulting, Levity |

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