I have been doing my consultancy business for just over a year now. It is going okay, in the sense that I have very nearly as much money now as I did this time last year, and there is every prospect that I will be earning more than when I had a job in the fairly near future. So neither a catastrophic failure nor a runaway success. I hasn't turned out quite how I expected though, so I have to confess that the modest results are down to luck rather than judgement. In other words, when I took the plunge there was a real possibility that I would now be looking back on a year of failure and disappointment.
So basically so far I have been lucky. But I have learned a great deal and changed a lot, so the unremarkable headline story masks a lot that has been going on behind the scenes, much of it happening between my ears invisible to anyone else, and maybe not as clear to me as it could be.
The biggest discovery I have made is that I don't really want to be a consultant. On the face of it, this is rather bad news. But luckily I think I have a workable solution.
Originally my intention had been to set myself up to solve people's problems. This sounded like a good course for me. I have been a problem solver for a long time and it is what I like doing. The problem was, I found that I wasn't really interested in solving other people's problems. I like finding out about them. I even like coming up with solutions. The trouble is that problem solving is not really a mental exercise. It is all about coming up with plans, testing things out, assessing the results and implementing changes. This is all good stuff, but I find it is rather hard to motivate myself to actually do all the hard work when I don't have a long term investment in the organisation.
This really came home to me the other day when I had a client with a problem that they wanted me to sort out for them. I avoided their e-mails for as long as possible. I put off meeting them and I quoted an outrageous sum for working with them. This was designed to put them off, and it did in the sense that they couldn't afford my proposal. I am still not sure just how conscious all this was. I hope it was under my control, but I have a feeling it wasn't.
Anyway they came to see me and talked things over. (I had refused to go to see them because the journey was too time consuming.) I ended up suggesting that rather than hire me to solve their problem they have me over for a day to show them how to solve it themselves. They loved this suggestion.
I loved it as well. Rather than getting a pile of tasks to fit into an already busy schedule instead I got a day where I could explain and educate people. I found that a lot more motivating. In fact maybe too motivating because I have spent a lot more time preparing for the meeting than I should have done. It was still quite a lucrative gig on a per hour basis when we arranged it but if I spend too much time on it I will dilute the value.
But maybe I shouldn't worry too much. I am already thinking about using this as a case study for my professional blog to encourage other people to work in the same way. I can also imagine that I can work it up into a product that I can sell off the shelf. But most importantly it is something that really resonates with the way I like to work and to relate to people. I think following your heart on this kind of thing is probably more sensible than following the path that seems to generate the most cash. And luckily, I think that there is nothing stopping me from morphing into a trainer rather than a consultant. It is lucky that the opportunity has presented itself.
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