It is important to understand the benefits and pitfalls when deciding if consulting is the right choice for you. If you are an expert in your field of expertise you may want to consider being a consultant. The benefits are that you are not tied down to a long term job that you may get bored with. You can also be in control of your earnings because you can charge a premium for your expertise that you may not receive at a standard job.
So how do you even begin to assess whether it's the right choice for you?
First, you'll need to answer some hard questions:
Can I financially survive if I don't have consistent cash flow?
Can I get or do I have medical benefits in place once I'm on my own?
How will I get my first contract?
Am I knowledgeable enough in my chosen area of expertise to be perceived as a valuable resource by my peers and potential clients?
Do I have enough presence in my local community to be called by companies for consulting assignments?
Do I have the skills & know how to market my business?
Am I disciplined enough to work hard to make my business succeed or do I need to report to someone else to consistently generate work?
Can I work from home or will I need to rent office space?
What will my "start-up" expenses be?
Will I be able to assemble a team of independent contractors who can help me grow my business?
Will I be able to delegate work to others to accomplish my goals?
Do I have people to support me in this business endeavor (other professionals and your family members)?
And finally, just how good am I at tech support?
First you should take out a tablet of paper and spend some quality time reviewing each question. Think about how this major change in your professional life would impact you and your family and whether it makes sense for you to pursue this professional change given your answers to these questions.
Then you need to develop Your Expert Status. Did you achieved expert status by working with many different industries in the your field for 20+ years?
How can you build your own skills to gain expert status and become self-employed? Evaluate your own skills where you know you excel, the performance reviews you've received over the years that identified your strengths, compliments or awards you've received from your company's managers/employees to determine in which technical area you want to become an expert. You already know which technical area you enjoy the most.
| Article Source: © Bryan Burbank |
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