I recall a fellow attendee at my first sales training course, when I was preparing for my own transition from employee to consultant. She confided in me that before her first sales meeting, she threw up in the car park ...
Business never sleeps, Endless hustle and bustle, Success is the goal
Being the sensible woman that she was, her next step was to book a place on the course where I met her, which taught both of us the five most common personal challenges that independent consultants, advisors, or coaches face when making the transition from employee to adviser.
Of course, this is my list; there may be others you've experienced:
Loss of confidence - As the list of things you don't know about running a business grows, the confidence in your own abilities, even in your core skills, takes a nose dive. This is called Imposter Syndrome.
Coping with rejection - If you have never been in a sales or marketing role. As a consultant, you will be selling yourself rather than the company so the rejection can seem personal. Even when you've won the work your client can still reject your solution.
Managing your finances - Many consultants underestimate the working capital they will need to get off the ground. The first year feels like it's paying out rather than earning in. Cash flow suddenly becomes deeply personal when the regular paycheck doesn't drop automatically into your bank at the end of each month.
Managing your time - One of your reasons for going it alone may well have been to be more in control over the hours you put into work and which hours they are. At first, an empty diary and a phone that doesn't ring may knock your confidence further. Once you start signing up clients, the pressure becomes about fitting all your new tasks that must be done around delivering your promise to your hard-won clients. Other time pressures are around project creep when clients always expect to be your priority, add in additional out-of-hours support, and there is no one there to delegate to.
Loss of peer support - Lastly, there is the informal personal support of others in your workplace. You used to go to lunch with a colleague and bounce ideas off them before you took them to the CEO. As a consultant, you have no peers within the business, and care needs to be taken to manage the power dynamics in each client company. You may not be watching who you talk to the most or choose to confide in, but others in the organisation will.
These may seem like trivial side issues, but they will impact your effectiveness in your new role, and more importantly, they may impact your mental health and the long-term sustainability of your business.
I offer three related tips to make the most significant difference in tackling these challenges:
You need to take care of yourself before you can help others. Therefore, include a self-development section in your annual business plan and give it the same priority as you would to any key personnel in your business.
Invest in a coach or mentor who will hold you accountable for both writing this up and, more importantly, putting all of it into practice. After all, if it were easy to do on your own, it wouldn't be a challenge. It's too easy to rush through the easy parts without regard for the implications and think yourself too busy to address the tough stuff.
And finally, imagine what your business would look like and how your life would feel if you were operating at the top of your game. Feeling confident, with just enough people saying yes to assure you've got your prices right. Your back office systems mean you get paid on time, and all your compliance systems are up to date. Celebrate your success with your friends, family and fellow business owners.
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