Salesmanship. Except for "repeats" and referrals from current clients...and starting out you won't have any...every assignment will be one you've had to sell. If you can't approach new people, and can't tolerate rejection, don't go into consulting.
Analytical, Bright, Logical Mind. Clear, insightful thinking is...along with your special expertise...what you're selling.
Written and Oral Communication. Sometimes you'll present informally. But expect to deliver written reports and chart/slide presentations. If your pen and platform skills aren't good, don't enter consulting.
Self-Start and Self-Discipline. Performing what you promise when you promise is mandatory. And no supervisor will check your progress toward deadlines.
Creativity, Open-Mindedness, Resourcefulness, Versatility, and Adaptability. Being able to invent, improvise, ad lib, and generally deal with the unexpected and unfamiliar is essential. "By-the-book" people have little to offer as consultants.
Common Sense, Practicality, and Pragmatism. Down-to-earth, easy-to-implement recommendations are the best kind.
Service Attitude. Unfortunately, consulting is a service business.
If you'd much rather be accommodated than accommodate, consulting is not for you.
Ability to Cope with Financial Insecurity. There's feast and famine...no regular payday.
Fortunately, traits that may handicap you in large organizations are tolerated...and even desired...in an independent consultant.
Do you have these characteristics? If so, you may be more welcome on retainer than on payroll.
Obvious Personal Brilliance. The same superior who feels threatened by a subordinate with an off-the-chart IQ is delighted to find such brain-power in an outside consultant.
Strong Self-Assurance and Matching Ego. Same goes for a strong, sure touch and lack of self-doubt...scary in a subordinate or a peer, but excellent in a consultant who can be summoned and dismissed at will.
Task Orientation and Political Aloofness. A consultant must be politically sensitive. But he or she can concentrate on the work, safely ignoring the day-to-day skirmishes that can undermine the too-task-oriented corporate employee.
If you're not average, not a team player, don't care about petty politics, don't suffer fools (other than paying clients) gladly, and tend to challenge authority and to be outspoken...then perhaps you can do the corporation, and yourself, more good as a paid observer than as a salaried participant.
Indeed, even if you have patently undesirable characteristics from a corporate point of view, you may be able to get by with them as an outside consultant. Maybe you like to work three 18-hour days and take a week off. Maybe you have a drinking problem but can discipline yourself to keep critically important commitments. Maybe you're brilliant, but have a loathsome personality and are insufferable as both a boss and a subordinate; yet you're capable of exquisite charm when you choose to display it. Show your clients only the good side of your Jekyll & Hyde personality, and you can succeed as a consultant.
Don't get into consulting unless you can endure some very negative aspects.
The withdrawal pangs are excruciating!
As a $100,000+ or a $600,000+ executive, you're used to having power. People at your beck and call. The prerogative to decide. Even when you have to seek higher endorsement, you determine what is or isn't considered.
Every executive who's had power and suddenly becomes a consultant is shocked by the role reversal. Nothing I say can adequately prepare you.
As an executive, you can call meetings to which any number of people must come...some of them perhaps far more prominent and wealthy than you are. And you preside. One by one the participants tell what they've done to further your objectives since the last meeting, and what they propose to do in the future. Finally, you assess their contributions, and you assign further work in preparation for the next meeting.
How different when you become a consultant.
You can still call a meeting. But this time it's probably a fact-finding session, at which you take notes. And if a report has to be written, you write it.
Maybe, on the other hand, your meeting is a "progress report" to your client. Elapsed-time-pressure was building up, and you called her before she called you. But now you're the supplier. What have you accomplished since the last meeting? And what will you do prior to the next one? The shoe's on the other foot. And until you get used to it, it pinches!
Moreover, what you produce will be analysis and recommendations. You don't control whether...nor how well...your advice will be carried out. And you may become very frustrated that lots of your time and hard work produces minimal benefit. Welcome to the world of consulting. You merely study and suggest. You no longer decide.
Another pain will be the lack of big-company support services. Your computer and laser printer, plus online informational resources, will substitute for personal assistants at the outset. But you'll miss the research department, and the reproduction and mailing people...not to mention all your other capable subordinates. Indeed, you'll even miss the social interaction and the sounding board for ideas that were afforded by the sheer numbers of people around you.
And of course there's the fundamental insecurity of not having a predictable paycheck. Every dollar you get is for a consulting engagement you've sold, and for work you've done...or as general contractor farmed out to others, verified, and submitted to your client. No selling? Then no engagement... no money. Poor performance? Then no repeat business...no referrals...no money. The marketplace is a stem and objective judge. Submitting yourself to it is a gutsy move that shouldn't be taken lightly and, indeed, shouldn't be taken at all by some people.
