Becoming an independent consultant

Becoming an Independent Consultant

Things that surprised me – but maybe shouldn’t have been that surprising?

While writing these all out, I thought, “wow, these are obvious.” In reality though, there were so many things going on as I started my new consulting practice that they didn’t lift to the top of my mind, I was instead just getting things done and learning lots. So while they feel obvious now, they might be helpful to others, so here it goes!

Working for an evaluation consulting firm was critical

Having been an evaluator for about 8 years and in different contexts (nonprofit, academic, consulting), the years I spent at an evaluation consulting firm taught me how to be a consultant (and of course, helped me to grow as an evaluator too).

From managing the “feast or famine” of workload, to scoping projects, knowing exactly how long tasks take me, building long-lasting client relationships, navigating difficult projects and clients, contracting and contract schedules, billing, and more.

Most of these things didn’t come up when I was doing evaluation in academia or internal to a nonprofit, yet as an independent consultant, I do them every single day. I didn’t quite realize that other new independent consultants were coming into to consulting without this experience. I imagine this is similar to how others are surprised when people start a consulting business without knowing anything about accounting (that was me… but don’t worry I’ve got it figured out now and my accountant is amazing).

Growing up around entrepreneurs instilled small amounts of important information and work ethic over a long period of time

While I’m a first generation college student, I come from a family of entrepreneurs: my grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncle. So while I started my business feeling confident in evaluation, I did not feel confident about how to run a business. In none of my schooling, did I take one class on accounting, legal things, or what starting and running a business encompassed.

I did learn these things in the first bit of starting my business through asking for help, YouTube videos, books, and my brilliant Atlanta accountant. However, there were certain tips and topics in my brain that weren’t covered in my recent studies. I realized that over the years, I picked up on a lot of information (it seems through osmosis) from growing up around entrepreneurs. I was inadvertently listening to what they talked about, watching them navigate sticky situations, seeing them form strong relationship with their clients and employees, and dedicating their lives to make something succeed. Also, a short stint on watching Shark Tank during the pandemic helped with the terminology too.

Hustle to not hustle – counterintuitive I suppose

I recently had a conversation with a colleague who reached out to me asking about my transition to independent consulting. We got to talk about the tendency to slide into a hustle and work work work. I am prone to that sliding because of who I grew up around – see the reflection just above.

At the same time, my dream, like many others who move into independent consulting is to craft a fulfilling and balanced life – one where I work with folks who do amazing things, share my values, and who I feel energized by -  while also a life where I can do the things I love with people who I care deeply about. I realized that in order to get to that, I did and continue to hustle a bit to get to that balance – although the hustle is less than it was – we are getting there.