If your interest in starting a consulting business stems from a desire to break free from the corporate rat race and work for yourself, that’s as good a reason as any. Certainly, with your own business, you’re no longer lining the coffers of an employing organisation. The money you earn is limited only by your ability to attract clients, set lucrative rates and limit your overheads.
I hear this motivation a lot from people entering our programmes. They’ve spent fifteen years in middle management somewhere, they’re tired of the politics, and they want out. Fair enough.
However, I think it’s important to qualify what it means to be your own boss when launching and running a consulting business.
You see, the truth is that while you certainly aren’t dependent on an employer for your livelihood, you only get to be your own boss for a small proportion of the time you spend as a consulting professional.
When Running a Consulting Business—The Customer is King
That’s right: you’re truly only your own boss during the hours for which you’re not billing a client. What’s more, during those hours you’re not actually making any money.
For the vast majority of the time, you are not your own boss – your client is your boss.
There are two reasons I felt it important to share this reminder:
- Because consultants who forget this fact, typically come across as arrogant and tend to alienate their clients. I’ve seen it happen and heard plenty of anecdotes to support this point.
- Because if you REALLY don’t like the idea of answering to anyone else in your professional life, you may want to consider a different line of work.
On that first point, I once watched a perfectly capable supply chain consultant lose a six-month engagement because he kept overriding the client’s procurement manager in meetings. He had the technical knowledge, sure. But he treated the relationship like he was the authority rather than the advisor. The client didn’t renew, and honestly, I understood why.
It’s Just a Cold, Hard Truth
Being your own boss is a compelling reason to set up shop as a business consultant, but remember that clients will hire you to advise them, not to tell them what to do. The clients pay you and while you are working on tasks for which you charge them, they are your bosses: The rest of the time you spend running a consulting business … well, that’s all your own.
My comments on the meaning of being your own boss in consulting are not meant to discourage you. As with any new venture though, understanding the cold, hard facts from the outset will help to avoid disillusionment, especially when you land a client who turns out to be a little more domineering than you’d like.
What You Actually Control
So what does “being your own boss” look like in practice when you’re running a consulting business? It’s the bits around the edges, mostly.
You decide which clients to pursue. You set your rates (within reason, the market has opinions). You choose your working hours, though client expectations will shape these more than you might expect. You pick your specialisation, your marketing approach, your business structure.
The thing is, these decisions matter enormously over time. Choosing to work only with clients who respect professional boundaries, for instance, shapes your entire experience of consulting. Some consultants take every engagement that comes along and burn out within three years. Others are more selective and build sustainable practices that run for decades.
You also control how you respond when a client is difficult. That’s worth something. In a corporate job, you’re stuck with whoever sits across from you in the org chart. In consulting, you can—eventually, once you’re established, choose to walk away from clients who make your life miserable.
That freedom is real. It’s just not quite the freedom most people imagine when they picture “being their own boss.”