Summary: When you hear the term “consultant,” you probably think of someone in a fancy suit, talking about strategy in a corporate boardroom.<br> But Jonathan Dison, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Consulting-Economy-Manage-Workforce-Revolution-ebook/dp/B06XCPCGG4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Consulting Economy</a>, says most consultants don’t actually do that. Consultants are just normal people with skills, who get hired to work on projects.<br> And if they pursue consulting full-time, it’s possible for them to earn $250,000+ per year.<br> In this episode, you’re going to learn:<br> <br> * How to get started as a consultant<br> * How you can land your first clients<br> * How to make a full-time living doing work you love<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Consulting-Economy-Manage-Workforce-Revolution-ebook/dp/B06XCPCGG4/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a>Get Jonathan’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Consulting-Economy-Manage-Workforce-Revolution-ebook/dp/B06XCPCGG4/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Consulting Economy</a> on Amazon.<br> Check out Jonathan’s company <a href="http://benchwatch.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bench Watch</a>. <br> <br> What is the #1 take away from The Consulting Economy?<br> The main idea is that you can make a job out of being a consultant. It’s not like you need to go out and advise the biggest companies in the world. That’s like 5% of the consulting market.<br> The first step is to carve off your niche. The process starts with thinking about what you really like to do and who you like to do it for. In other words: what type of industries or clients are you interested in.<br> One of the biggest hurdles that we see — and we’ve done this hundreds of times — is people have a tendency to want to tell people that they can do more, that they can do everything.<br> And then the client doesn’t know what you do really well, and better than anybody else.<br> This was something that I learned early in my career, in a super painful way.<br> We had gone to a client, Hewlett Packard. This guy got us a trusted interview and introduction there, and we’re trying to sell him some work.<br> We went in there and man, we told him we could do everything — from mergers and acquisitions, to technology implementations, to project management.<br> It was a smooth pitch. We walked out of there, we thought we had it made.<br> And this guy, this former executive at HP did us a big favor, which was very painful.<br> He said:<br> <br> “You’re not going to get anything out of that, and I’ll tell you why:<br> You told them you could do everything and they don’t believe that. I don’t even believe that, and I’m your friend.<br> You didn’t tell them what you do better than anybody else.”<br> <br> Carving off your specific niche is almost counterintuitive. To narrow down to the ONE thing that you do really well, and that you like to do well.<br> Because that’s the other thing: people want to buy people that love what they do.<br> If you’ve got an energy and a passion about something, that’s part of what they’re paying for. Because they don’t want to do that well, so they believe that you’ll bring the passion and just pour yourself into doing a really good job for them.<br> Pick the one thing that you like the best.<br> Even if you put it out there and it fails, you can still rebrand yourself to the next thing quickly and easily.<br> Because there are so many people out there looking for you that the market’s going to tell you pretty quickly whether they’re buying what you’re selling. And for you to change that to the next thing on your list is about a 30-minute process.<br> So if you really love the digital marketing, put yourself out there in that niche. There are thousands of consulting and staffing firms that have clients already,...
