The Biggest Challenges You Face as a Consultant Change

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Hi team!

A good friend of mine is named Ahsan. He’s also a former BCGer who left to go independent about two years after I did.

He used to call me quite a bit when he first went independent.

In the beginning, it was all tactical. He called to ask about how to land a client, what to include his proposals, and pitch tips.

Then, he started calling to ask about how best to ensure the client was happy while he was delivering consulting work.

Then, he started to call to talk about how to hire additional consultants and freelancer help underneath him.

Each stage, he ran into a different challenge.

You Never run out of challenges in consulting

There is never a point where you “figure it out” in consulting. There are always challenges in the space.

Paul Graham, the founder of the legendary startup school Y Combinator has made a similar point regarding startups. He said that the challenge of running a startup never goes away.

In the beginning, your challenges are finding product-market fit and getting to first revenue. Later on, your challenges might be “construction delays to your new London office.”

But, the challenges always exist.

Why does this matter?

I’ve spoken with a lot of new and prospective independent consultants. Many are of the mindset that “once I get my first client, everything will be fine.”

The reality is: that’s not the case. There are always issues that pop up and things to learn.

Hell, when I was years into consulting, I was still calling Catalant to talk through issues that came up and how best to deal with them!

As a result, it’s extremely imperative that new consultants don’t come into this space with rose-colored glasses.

It is not easy. You always will have challenges. Mentally prepare yourself to run a small business.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what an independent consulting firm is: a small business!

2024 Consulting Challenge

I mentioned this last week and figured I’d give one more plug about this!

With the New Year starting up, I figured it might be a lot of fun to set up a 2024 consulting challenge.

There are some amazing people in this solo consultant community who are doing incredibly well.

Why don’t we celebrate that as a group?

What it would look like:

The goal would be to create a chart like this for next year. We update it every month to show how much the consultants in this community make in total that month.

We can cheer each other on & celebrate really big months together

How to take part

If you want to take part in it, simply put your UpWork URL on this link HERE.

What I will do then is check everyone’s profile and add up everyone’s total earnings. This could be completely anonymous!

If you work outside of UpWork, then just reply to this email and I can help you get set up alternatively!