How to Become a Consultant After Leaving Corporate

The short answer is simpler than the internet usually makes it: Consulting after corporate works when you stop selling “my years of experience” and start packaging a result a buyer already wants.

Choose the buyer and problem

The first offer should be narrow enough to explain and important enough to fund.

Create a defined engagement

Audit, strategy sprint, implementation, advisory retainer or training. Give it a start, finish and outcome.

Use your network as distribution

Former colleagues, vendors, partners and industry relationships are not a guarantee of sales, but they are a warmer first market than strangers.

Build proof outside the old logo

Publish your thinking, run small engagements and collect legitimate evidence. The corporation's reputation cannot remain your only credential forever.

What people get wrong

Do not price experience only by the number of hours it takes you to use it. Sometimes the value is that twenty years lets you see in twenty minutes what somebody else would miss for six months.

Put it into practice this week

1. List the skills that travel beyond your title.
2. Choose one problem those skills can solve for somebody else.
3. Test the idea through a project, conversation or paid pilot.
4. Review what the test taught you before making the next move.

What I would do next

Write the first paid engagement you could deliver in 30 days without hiring anybody or building software.

You do not need to make the whole decision today. You do need to create enough movement that the next decision has better information than the last one.

FAQ

What is the first step with become a consultant after corporate?

Get specific about the problem, constraint or result before you add tactics. A clear problem is easier to act on than a vague feeling that everything needs to change.

How quickly should I expect progress?

Fast enough to create new information, slow enough to avoid unnecessary damage. I prefer 30- to 90-day experiments over dramatic declarations when the decision can be tested first.

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