How to Succeed as a Solo Consultant

Breaking Out on Your Own

Stephen D. Field

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781951527167
• eBook ISBN: 9781951527174
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Consulting
• Index: Business

This book is written for the person who has gained workplace experience and is thinking about striking out on his or her own as a consultant or a service-based entrepreneur.

The reader is taken through the steps of deciding on whether they have the tools to start a new business and what they need to do before making the leap.

The author focuses on the major steps of a start-up consulting practice, including business formation decisions, verbalizing the business offerings, determining market viability, and much more. Additionally, he dives into less-often discussed topics such as office space, business insurance, business ethics, and the impact on the family unit. Each chapter provides homework that outlines the steps the reader needs to complete to gain confidence they have the tools to succeed. This book also emphasizes the lifestyle implications of any solo proprietor service business.

CHAPTER 1

Solopreneur Consulting

There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?

—Warren Buffett

Con-sul’-tant: An experienced professional with wide knowledge in a specific field who provides expert advice or services in a particular area to a business or individual.

Anyone can call himself or herself a consultant. There is no legal protection given to the job title. There is no industry regulation, training, or certification process, as is the case for doctors, architects, or even realtors. But you do not just want the title of consultant; you want to be a successful consultant.

Here are four characteristics that distinguish a consultant from other professions:

• Consultants provide expertise that clients lack. This can be an unfilled opening at a company or simply the need to add skill capacity for a certain period of time. Consultants hold a knowledge advantage over their client.
• Consultants charge a fee for their professional services. If you are doing this for free, you are a volunteer, not a consultant.
• A consultant operates independently from the client; there can be no conflict of interests between the client’s issues and the services provided. This independence can be a sticky point with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), if not properly documented.
• A consultant operates in a professional manner, ensuring high-quality service delivery. This includes having the ability to provide the needed services and not just faking it.

This book focuses on what a solopreneur needs to do to successfully launch and operate a consulting business in order to generate the income their family needs to live in the style they desire.

Solopreneur reflects a start-up business consisting of only the founder. Businesses with employees create a certain level of responsibility, limiting one’s flexibility. When a solopreneur service business owner retires, the business typically folds because it has minimal real business assets or any employees to carry on business activities. It is not a sustaining entity. If you have the entrepreneurial drive and energy to start a business, hire employees, and set a goal of growing it to some much larger scale, I applaud you. You will likely need to make sacrifices in your personal life for the sake of the business. That is a different path than the one described in this book. Some people are fortunate enough to travel both paths (sometimes more than once!) during their working career.

An important element of focus is on the business. This is not a hobby or an after-work activity. This is a full-time commitment to forming a true business entity with all of the required paperwork and operational action items. This includes dedicating the necessary time to turn the ­business into a functioning company.

Style they desire is the final important element. Some people get by with a very modest income, while others need more substantial resources to maintain or achieve the style of living they seek. A solopreneur consulting practice can be considered successful if it brings in adequate income for the owner and his or her family to live on (including money from other sources such as spousal earnings) and provides the flexibility for the business principal and family to enjoy their free time and achieve any other goals they have set.

Anyone can start a consultancy, but success is not guaranteed. Beginning a consulting business is the same as any other start-up company. It takes hard work and some luck. Various publications report that while more than half of all Americans of working age thought they were capable of starting their own company, only nine percent actually took the plunge and began the process.

Nevertheless, a small business owner has lots of company. There are approximately 543,000 new businesses (of every type) started each month.1 Data from Forbes shows there over 24 million one-person small business operations in the United States with no payroll or employees.2 These numbers continue to grow every year, and 52 percent of all small businesses are home-based.

Service-oriented businesses have a high dropout rate. Less than half of them survive five years.3 Every business owner is different, and a variety of reasons explain the demise of small businesses. Do not be discouraged by this. Perhaps, your business does not need to last for five years or is merged with another. The key is to understand what you are trying to accomplish, what steps you need to take to make it happen, and what contingency plans to have in place to manage the inevitable potholes you encounter.

A business can sell services, products, or some combination of the two. Service-based companies (such as consultancies) are selling the time and expertise of the business owner. The revenue from a service-based consulting business is contingent on the total amount of time put into the business by the individual. Money remaining after expenses provides the income an individual receives. During any period of time when there is no revenue, there is no income.

Product-based companies face additional issues, including buying (financing) the raw or finished goods inventory, maintaining equipment, storing material, and shipping to customers. Unless you are independently wealthy, keep any initial inventory investment to a minimum.

Reasons for Starting a L...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Testimonials
• Abstract
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Part 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Part 2
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Part 3
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Part 4
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Author notes
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4A
• Appendix 4B
• About the Author
• Index