Independent consultants, assemble

Here are four vignettes that illustrate why I believe The Consultancy Business is useful and necessary.

First, a Zoom call with an experienced communications professional. She has left her stellar career in financial services to found her own consultancy. It is obvious to me that she has huge value to bring to a wide range of organisations. But she is struggling to see how her business can achieve commercial viability. “The thing is,” she said, “two weeks ago I was Googling what to charge. And I’m sure I’m getting it wrong.”

Second, a meeting with a new mentee — an ambitious and clever consultant who has just found out that his highest spending client has decided to pause his firm’s retainer fee. As we start to talk, the consultant says he feels cold and alone. He is physically trembling with fear about what will become of him and his family.

Third, a phone call from a friend — a consultant whose work I have admired for years. His order book has recently fallen to zero. He is ranting, disillusioned with “capricious clients who do f*** all but waste my time, then ghost me”.

And finally, another meeting, this time with a small consultancy. Their core business isn’t doing so well, but their leader has ploughed all their remaining capital into AI — only to see it barely touch the sides of the development budget needed.

It shouldn’t happen here

Each of these stories is drawn directly from my experience over the last few years (although I’ve tweaked a few details to preserve anonymity). 

These people are smart, experienced, passionate, committed and willing to back themselves in a way that the majority of the population simply can’t or won’t.

But they each had a problem that, left unchecked, risked killing their business.

They all felt overwhelmed by that problem, and unsure where to turn.

And every one of those problems could have been prevented, or solved much earlier, with access to the right kind of help.

This time it’s personal

I’ve not only witnessed issues like the above many times as a mentor and advisor to independent consultants, I’ve also experienced them myself. 

All of them. Over and over again.

I’ve had more sleepless nights than I can count. I’ve made the ranting phone calls. I’ve spent weeks, sometimes months, wondering what would become of me and my family.

An industry-wide problem

Over the last few weeks I have published a series of articles that seek to highlight the impact of the astonishingly high failure rate of independent consultancies on individuals, families, businesses and the wider economy. (You can access them all on this site; just filter by The Consultancy Business tag.)

I have also discussed in depth why independent consultants like me struggle to take advantage of insight, knowledge and support that could help them tackle the many challenges that working in this industry brings.

The difficulty of accessing good quality support is one. 

Misaligned incentives is another: the dynamics of the market conspire to create a treadmill that is tiring and hinders consultants from feeling able to work in accordance with their long-term interests.

A third issue is bound up with the perceived vulnerability of independence, which can make commercial resilience feel out of reach.

To date, I have largely overcome these challenges in my own working life, partly through luck and partly through judgement. But I also know — and have heard of — too many good people who failed to reach their potential.

Time for a change.

The opportunity in a nutshell (well, five nutshells)

1. There is colossal economic, social and commercial value to be created through consultancy — and specifically, in experienced independent professionals being available to organisations on an ‘as needed’ basis as sources of insight, knowledge and support.
2. There is power in trying to live life on your own terms, and working as an independent consultant is a laudable ambition in this context.
3. Your ability to add value as an independent consultant is a consequence of your ability to build a business that represents your skills, your values, your experience, and your personality in all their impossible-to-replicate brilliance — and which allows them to flourish in service of your clients.
4. Independent consultancy has low barriers to entry but ruthlessly high barriers to sustainable success; the road to building a sustainable business is fraught with danger.
5. What prevents independent consultants from being able to realise their dreams isn’t an inability to offer specialist advice or outstanding domain knowledge. It’s a lack of specific knowledge and experience about how the consultancy business functions, and how to acquire and retain a commercial edge in that context.

See a problem, solve a problem

No-one in government has the faintest clue about how to address this, or even a glimmer of understanding about why it’s an issue that’s worthy of consideration.

But here’s what I do know about consultants: we’re pretty good problem solvers, by and large.

So, I thought: if we can build a community of consultants who share a commitment to helping each other survive and thrive as independents, we’ll get somewhere together we could never go alone.

If I needed any proof of this in action, the last few months have provided it. I’ve seen a team of independent consultants create, collaborate and solve problems to build what we’re now launching.

Time to get going

Our mission: we exist to help independent consultants build the consultancies nobody else can.

And my personal hope: in the coming years, our work here helps people like me have fewer reasons to tremble in fear for their future. If we achieve that, we’ve done our job.

Want to join us? We’d love to welcome you to our podcast.

What to take from this article

There is a different way of solving the problems you face as an independent consultant.

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