A consultant is an independent contractor who sells professional expertise in a particular area of specialisation. The consultant performs work for a fee within an agreed time frame with his customer. Note that I’m not talking about consultants who are employed by a consulting firm. I’m talking about people who stand on their own two feet and are independent consultants in their own right, who run their own business.
These consultants find their own clients, take care of their own training, chase the unpaid invoices and a great deal more. They are not guided by HR or a manager – they are guided by their own judgement and experience. They are not comforted by corporate cotton wool. They are exposed to the harsh realities of the business world.
Depending on the specialisation, the consultancy field can be highly competitive, but it can also be highly lucrative. There are many who have the skills and knowledge required to do ‘the work’ of a consultant, so if your area is in Java Development, you might be the greatest coder around, but the real challenge in being a successful consultant is not just being good at your trade. You have to be business savvy too with an ability to market yourself, negotiate and create excellent rapport with your customers and more. The consultant who is only good at his trade will often find himself working for low fees, taking on work which is not that thrilling and suffering long periods when they just can’t find any work.
Being a consultant is being in business and the best employee can easily become overwhelmed and fail as a consultant because of the additional set of challenges they face when being in business for themselves. But if you do have what it takes to be a successful consultant, or if you are prepared to put in the work to learn, you can enjoy being part of an extremely lucrative industry where a $100,000 or $200,000 salary is easily replaced with rewards of $1000 to $3000 per day and the freedom to choose to work where you want, for whom you want and when you want. For many people, it’s the freedom that the high rates can buy which is more important than the material items that can be bought.
There’s a compendium of reasons why consultants are successful and top of the list are the qualities that anyone needs to be in any business for themselves. If you’re ready to break away from employment and face te challenge, a lucrative business, freedom and choice awaits you. But remember too that it takes a lot more to succeed as a consultant than it does to be a good employee.
1 response so far ↓
Angela // 29 September 2008 at 1:53 am |
There is no more rewarding career than independent consulting, in my opinion. It does have its challenges, but most successful consultants enjoy the ultimate challenge of being solely responsible for your own success or failure. Many consultants are now using portable employer of record organizations, which take away some of the hassles associated with office managment, like invoicing. One of the biggest challenges consultants face is learning to market themselves, if they don’t have any prior experience with sales or marketing – as is the case with a lot of IT professionals.