Suppose you wanted to moonlight as a chimney sweep, what steps might you take? Well there are two contexts.
1. Any chimney might or might not need sweeping. Any random person might or might not have a chimney. This means that just telling the people you meet that you are available as a chimney sweep might result in work.
2. There aren't chimneys in hobo camps. Wealthy people tend to hire trades workers. This means that efforts marketing should be targeted at people who hire chimney sweeps.
That's consulting. It's preparing the ground to increase the odds of being lucky enough to find a job and then being saavy enough to land it and capable enough to complete it. Then you're back at square one.
Developing a backlog of consulting work takes a really long time, a track record, and more luck. The image of "picking up" consulting gigs is not helpful. It's picks and hammers and salt mines and most of the veins you hit when you are lucky enough to hit one, run dry quickly. Any consultant who hits the mother load was lucky and probably built the mother load theirself.
The easiest way to get started in consulting is to work for another consultant. The industry is famous for hiring free-lance talent to balance work load. Which hits the final point: There is no planning to do consulting. Until the contract is signed there is no consulting to be done. Even after the contract is signed, there often is no consulting to be done, or less consulting than the contract might suggest or less payment than one might be entitled to.
There aren't people just standing around waiting to hire consultants. It's sales with the leads and prospects and closings and collections that come with that process.
1. Any chimney might or might not need sweeping. Any random person might or might not have a chimney. This means that just telling the people you meet that you are available as a chimney sweep might result in work.
2. There aren't chimneys in hobo camps. Wealthy people tend to hire trades workers. This means that efforts marketing should be targeted at people who hire chimney sweeps.
That's consulting. It's preparing the ground to increase the odds of being lucky enough to find a job and then being saavy enough to land it and capable enough to complete it. Then you're back at square one.
Developing a backlog of consulting work takes a really long time, a track record, and more luck. The image of "picking up" consulting gigs is not helpful. It's picks and hammers and salt mines and most of the veins you hit when you are lucky enough to hit one, run dry quickly. Any consultant who hits the mother load was lucky and probably built the mother load theirself.
The easiest way to get started in consulting is to work for another consultant. The industry is famous for hiring free-lance talent to balance work load. Which hits the final point: There is no planning to do consulting. Until the contract is signed there is no consulting to be done. Even after the contract is signed, there often is no consulting to be done, or less consulting than the contract might suggest or less payment than one might be entitled to.
There aren't people just standing around waiting to hire consultants. It's sales with the leads and prospects and closings and collections that come with that process.
Good luck.