An independent consultant (IC) is just that; a one-off on his own. The list of the disadvantages of being an independent consultant always feels phenomenal if you are one of the ordinary rank-and-file who has to earn enough money to fund the work of the business (phone bills, stationery, postage, motor car bills) and support some kind of a family.

There is an endless challenge of being expected to keep coming up with new ideas, a new initiative, for achieving this or that breakthrough in promotion or business presentation or operating economies. You are often expected to know everything in your niche, or at least where and how you can research it. Thank goodness for the Internet and the likes of Google – except you must always keep in the back of your mind the likelihood that at least two of the bosses have young children who have already found for their father at least three definitive websites that you might have missed, and they will be waiting to trap you in the boardroom. Not always out of any intended personal malice I might add.

The big challenge can be the work-load. If successful, it can be busy and intense. You and your consulting business survive in the long term by taking on numerous clients at any one time, on the basis that if you lose one client you still have enough income to avoid going bust.

However as an independent consultant you cannot tell any of your clients that they will have to be priority two or three for your time and attention. They will all expect to be priority one – your most important client.

Hence working into the night and all through every weekend can quickly become the norm, And the very worst nightmare is the client who, on Wednesday, finally remembers to tell you that he and all his directors and managers will be going away on Friday night to stay at a seaside hotel for a two-day intensive review of company practice and „hope“ you will be able to be with them. And you had been planning to do so many other important things.

It is even likely that none of them are even aware of the others for whom you are working and, generally speaking, it is best kept that way.

You might be in a busy city, where there are many poential clients, and also probably many consultants competing for their business. But if you are in a small-town environment. where perhaps you get a better quality of life, you could be in trouble if Client A asks you to come to an important meeting to discuss how to combat the bright new initiatives that have been launched by rival Company B, completely unaware that Company B is indeed another one of your clients and his bright new initiative is part of a business plan which you had developed for them, and now you are under orders to find a way to sabotage it.

It is always good to read about Max Clifford and his adept handling of one of his high-profile celebrity cases for which he is getting a celebrity-level fee that will see him ‚OK at the bank‘ for some while to come. But for the ordinary independent consultant it can often feel there are more disadvantages to being an independent consultant than there are advantages.

If an organisation decides it needs an important injection of expertise, there is often no time to waste as the expertise required is not usually sitting within the organisation with enough bandwidth to assist.

Securing the right independent consultant calls for a fast and efficient process to identify the appropriate level of experience. Unless the company has a good network of consultants to consider, they will often turn to their networks to help get the right person on board as quickly as possible. This is why I always ensure that organisations know that I am available for consulting assignments, whereas many independent consultants will be not be proactive in terms of marketing themselves.

I don’t think this makes good sense on the part of the independent consultant, but of course not everyone is suited for marketing so the consultant, regardless of their level of expertise, can often struggle to retain a regular pipeline of clients. Most people do not enter the world of independent consulting. Whereas it suits some people perfectly, the uncertainly, continuous change and other challenges keep most people in a permanent role.

I have loved the independent consulting world and I thrive upon the challenges and rewards that come with it. It is easy for me to write about all of the positive sides to consulting and encourage others to try it, but I am also aware that it is a lifestyle that many are not interested in. On occasions in the early days of my consulting career, I too had thought, „maybe I should get a job“, but I am so thankful that I never did that and I do not envy those in permanent roles.

Many of the independent consultants I know are not interested in a routine existence and of course there is the hunger for a challenge to change things that they enjoy. They know they are able to do it too, because they have successfully done so for many clients already. They have typically reached a ‚go-it-alone‘ stage in life and thrive on a very demanding, yet rewarding lifestyle.

Experience to create change is essential for a good independent consultant – together with strong interpersonal and communication skills. This is of course reqired of most employed managers, but the independent consultant has to undertake a task without any prior experience of the organisation in question and this is a huge challenge that most people never consider.

Personal attributes required of the independent consultant include being a high-achiever, results orientated, positive, someone who is proactive, prefers a ‚hands-on approach‘ and is able to do what it takes to get things done. They must be politically sensitive and very self-aware too. An understanding of international business and cultural issues is very useful too, depending on how wide you cast your net

A typical independent consultant will step into an organisation on day one and quickly establish a team relationship with their peer group and generally sell the concept of why they are there. Outstanding interpersonal skills and a positive attitude should be immediately apparent with the ability to strike up good relationships with all key people on the client-side.

Potential clients should always move quickly to secure the interest of the independent consultant to undertake their challenge. This is to avoid the risk of losing them to another client. Independent consultants are indeed a growing breed, but many have and will contunue to fail because they do not know how to market themselves properly and suddenly they run out of business. The independent consultant who succeeds the long-haul will usually have a regular flow of clients – not becuase of their expertise in their area of consulting, but because they have learned the various ways in which successful independent consultants market themselves.