Alan Weiss - The Consulting Bible

Also remember that full‐ and even part‐time employees often must be covered in the same benefit formulas and retirement plans that you implement for yourself and your family. And then there's illness, theft, personal problems, errors—do you really need these headaches? Most of us are refugees from larger organizations and the people management issues that thrive there, like mold in a damp cellar.

Here are six suggestions and resolutions:

1 Tuck your ego away. Having a staff doesn't elevate you in the eyes of the buyer. Telling someone your “people” will look into it will generate only levity.

2 Learn to do simple tasks efficiently. You should have invoice templates, sample proposals, automated expense statements, and so on. Use technology. Send clients or prospects letters from your laptop.

3 Learn to type, and I don't mean with your thumbs. I can type 60 words a minute, and so can you. If you can learn to use a keyboard, then you can learn to type on it. (I love the airline counter clerks who have been using keyboards for 20 years and never bothered to learn to touch type. It's not rocket science. These days, even rocket science isn't rocket science.)

4 Delegate and outsource. I use the following regularly:Automated voice mailGraphics designerBookkeeperPrinterAudio studioVideographerInternet expertsInternational limo companyAmerican Express travel servicesPostage and packaging suppliesFedEx and UPS accountsYou get the idea. These people and companies are available when you need them for fixed fees and rates (don't give them this book). I also make it a habit to pay local vendors such as my printer and designer first, because they are small businesses and always need the cash, and when I need a priority job they always put me at the top of their lists.

5 Shift work to the client. Your value is in results, not physical presence. Educate the buyer about how the client provides scheduling, administrative support for the project, security passes, parking, prompt reimbursement of expenses, internal follow‐up, and so forth. Make your work less labor intensive; don't design it to provide work for a staff of your own.

6 Hire people by the hour situationally. If you absolutely must, hire college students or community acquaintances (not friends!), or even part‐time employees from agencies for a few hours or a day to get volume work done. But that should be a last resort.

Early in your career, practice lean and mean. Later in your career, check for the bloat that often accretes to a growing, successful practice. I've counseled and coached consultants making $350,000 annually who have two full‐time and two part‐time employees! I run a business in excess of $3.5 million with no employees.

One of the interesting and common reasons for staffs to be hired is that the consultant has very strong affiliation needs that were once met by a larger, corporate (or intimate, small‐office) environment, but are now missing. The resolution for that is to find affiliation in other ways: civic responsibilities, socializing, professional associations, family gatherings, volunteerism, and pursuing hobbies with others.

In the worst case, if you don't have affiliation, get a dog. But don't get a staff. I love dogs and would do anything for them, but they've never cost me $450,000.

This last need leads me to a much more intangible but far more vital support requirement.

Emotional support cannot be virtual, and it's the most important support in any consulting practice, whether nascent or mature.

Ideally, it comes from family, then friends, then acquaintances, then professional colleagues, then the helping professions (counselors). I've mentored too many solo practitioners and small firm owners who are laboring mightily for their families and whose families do not support them emotionally .

Here are some of the reasons and what you can do about them.

Not everyone has the same risk tolerance. Moreover, if you don't have all the information you tend to overestimate risk .

In the chart shown in Figure 2.1, which I use with corporate clients, you can introduce to others the idea of your current position (status quo) and the relative risk and reward of your venture, idea, or initiative. The problem of risk is that there is usually no counterbalance. Certainly a risk of −5 accompanied by a possible reward of 12 is not worth taking, unless the risk can be mitigated. But a 14 benefit with a −2 risk is well worth it.

This kind of visualization will help you with family and conservative others (attorneys, bankers, accountants) to understand the difference between prudent risk and gambling. It also provides the ability to exploit the benefit (move from 13 to 14) and mitigate risk (move from −3 to −2) with some intelligent planning. Investing in a $50,000 conference center may make no sense emotionally, until you realize that last year you made $300,000 in conference revenues but had to spend $150,000 on retail conference space.

FIGURE 2.1Risk/Reward Ratio

You have to offset those occasions when you miss dinner, or miss a dance recital, or even miss an anniversary with those when you can be at an afternoon soccer game, take a long weekend vacation on impulse, or provide an extraordinary anniversary gift.

When I first began traveling (without benefit of modern technology and remote flexibility), I was on the road 80 percent of the time. I had two personal goals in that regard: First, I wanted to keep reducing it, 5 and second, I wanted to compensate for it. My kids, when I missed grammar school events, became accustomed to telling their friends I was in California or Florida or London, but also were quite proud to point me out on the sidelines during an afternoon soccer game or morning field trip. I wasn't there all the time when other parents were, but I was often there when other parents weren't.

It's never good to miss special days and special events. But these days on the calendar are meant to represent something far greater than a period of time passing, and it's that personal and loving experience that needs to be celebrated, no matter when that is.

And we've all now learned how effective remote work can be, especially in advisory roles. I'm writing this in September 2020, and I haven't been on an airplane since early March, which is my longest consecutive span of not flying since 1972, when I entered this profession!

Consulting demands time, especially to grow a thriving practice. If your significant other also has a career, then the two of you need to make common adaptations. You need to outsource! Hire help to mind the pets, watch the kids, clean the house, pick up the cleaning, mow the lawn, water the plants, and so forth. If a dual income isn't sufficient to hire the resources that working couples require, then there is something wrong with the dual income.

Dual careers shouldn't become dueling careers . Look for ways to substitute for the mundane (cleaning the yard, painting the house) while safeguarding the sacrosanct (taking vacations, quality time with the kids, walks on the beach). This can't be a zero‐sum game, where one benefits only if the other sacrifices. Both have to invest to reap the dividends.

But it makes zero business sense to spend $50,000 in child care when it compensates for one spouse making $40,000 on the job. The kids will grow and one can go to work then, but the kids' youth can never be recaptured.