Foreign.

Welcome to the Consulting for Humans podcast.

Like always, you're with Ian and with Mike.

And in each episode on Consulting for Humans, we we are going to be shining a light on a new topic that gets to the heart of what makes consultants happy and successful.

On the Consulting for Humans podcast, it's our mission to add just a little more humanity to the lives of consultants.

And we'd love to bring some of the skills and perspectives of consulting to human lives, too.

That's right.

So if you're a consultant who's trying to be more of a human, or even, who knows, a human who's trying to be a little bit more of a consultant, then welcome to the show because we think you're just our kind of people.

Now, in the last two episodes, we discussed the skill of delegation in consulting.

In the next three episodes, we're going to talk about solopreneurs, consultants who operate independent consulting businesses.

We'll discuss managing yourself as a solopreneur, managing your work and managing your clients successfully.

That's right.

Today we're starting with managing yourself as a solo consultant.

I want to say a quick hello to some possible new listeners today.

This week, P31 has been speaking at the business show Miami, and we know some of you might have caught our sessions there.

So if you are part of our awesome audience in Miami, then you're very welcome.

Here's what we have for you in today's episode.

First of all, we're going to talk about some of the reasons why solo consultants struggle and what makes life a challenge.

Mike, what else are we going to cover?

Well, we're going to talk about some of the roles and identities that you need to take up independent working for yourself.

These are some things that we often find people who are struggling a little bit with this or people who are thinking about going into it and wondering what they need may have missed.

Right.

We're going to get into the decision making priorities, the kind of thinking process, the kind of strategies that the most successful solo consultants find time for those new perspectives.

And we're going to have a few tips for sharpening the saw, keeping your knowledge and skills current as a solopreneur.

Right.

And finally, since we both are examples of a type here, we're going to give you some final thoughts from both of us on what's kept Ian and Mike going in careers as independent consultants.

So, Mike, get us started here.

Take us to our first topic.

Well, topic one is to sort of start with, let's think about what goes wrong sometimes and this is not necessarily where we suggest you always start, but we do think about looking at the gap between where you are and where you'd like to be.

And there's good reason for that.

I mean, just small businesses in general have a really high failure rate.

Only half of small businesses survive for more than five years.

It's also, to my mind, a great idea about what drives success in independent work and small business.

Oftentimes the best predictor is how many times you failed before in starting other businesses.

So there's a lot of learning here, but there's also a lot besides learning.

The rise and fall of the economy, the changing level of demands from change climate clients.

You know, these are some of the challenges that successful consultants overcome in order to make it past, especially those first few years, not to fall in those early, early extinction statistics.

Right.

And we've been looking into some of the key drivers behind failure in small businesses and therefore potentially failure in small consulting businesses.

And there are four that stand out to us, that relate to, to this week's topic of managing ourselves.

Getting to consistent standards of financial management.

It sounds like it ought to be a hygiene factor, but it's very variable among small service businesses.

Looking after cash reserves, taking care of pricing, managing the whole gamut of what you might call fairly boring and mundane, but important business costs.

Those kind of finances are surprisingly flaky, to be honest, in folks who are in our line of business.

And it's not just about looking after the money of ourselves, it's about looking after our health as well.

Not everybody goes to the point of burnout, but I think everybody's got to the point of some level of fatigue because we find it hard as really motivated independent consultants to create sustainable work patterns and sustainable boundaries.

Yeah, and in addition, there's that sense of isolation, especially if you've been used to working in a bigger group setting, in a corporate environment, in something that, that you have to have some sort of professional network for support and referrals.

So that is important.

And not everybody really is on top of that right away or realizes how important it is.

And then finally kind of a similar thing, skill stagnation, failing to evolve our services as the market needs change.

Sometimes we've got a lot more market sensing mechanisms in a larger firm.

Sometimes larger firms are also walled off from the market.

So there are advantages and disadvantages.

Certainly lots of opportunities here.

Yeah, absolutely.

And looking at this list here, I'm almost embarrassed by how many of these echo with me.

I don't know many independent consultants including myself, who have been completely successful at making sustainable work patterns.

I know a few and I know one or two close colleagues who are great at this, but I think it's really hard to do it successfully and consistently.

And like you say, Mike, isolation has been a big issue, not only in general because of our solar partner working, but since the pandemic.

We've all found it easy, I think, to be in our own bubble a little bit.

I remember when the pandemic lifted, I gave myself the task of saying, I'm going to go to a couple of business events, I'm going to go to some societies, I'm just going to get into the city again because I'm a commuter in and out of London.

I'm going to get into the city and just be around people.

And I really needed to make an effort to do something about that.

It's also the kind of thing that brings me to events like business shows.

So here we are.

Yeah, I can absolutely relate to those remarks.

I mean, one of my early jobs was being inserted as the CFO for a big turnaround.

Second largest music retailer in the us.

Yeah, I'll tell you what, did amazing thing with their finances and their future, while my own absolutely were in freefall because I just didn't have time.

It was the classic case of the cobblers, kids not having shoes.

So I just wasn't paying attention to that.

And I remember at one point we have all these Faustian bargains in literature.

I would have sold my soul for an AI companion that traveled with me around the world on all those crazy trips and all that crazy time.

Just somebody to talk to every once in a while.

Absolutely.

Well, with then I'm like, you can talk to the AI anytime and may it, may it profit you.

The challenge on financial management was interesting.

When it came to the top of our list, I kind of thought that's a bit mundane, that's not very thought provoking.

But actually solo consultants inconsistent ability to manage their financial lives is a great example of a wider concern.

I think that we need to fill a whole range of roles in our solar businesses.

Not only chief financial officer, but we need to be our own hr, our own IT supports our own research and development function.

So let's talk more generally about identity and roles.

Let's talk about some of the roles that we have to fulfill and which ones we might miss.

It's so true.

I mean, sit back if you're listening right now, if you're in this, think about all the hats that you have to wear.

And perhaps think about any that are missing here, any that are missing.

And we're just going to.

We're going to jump not at an exhaustive list, but some things, like besides being the practitioner, you've also got to be the business developer.

You've got to be the administrator, you've got to be your own subject matter expert at times, you've got to be your extra pair of hands.

You need to be a learner, a teacher, a partner, a vendor.

You have.

And I think we could just keep going on and on down this list.

Think of everything that a really successful firm has and the things that add value, add value to the firm, add value to yourself, add value to your clients and think there's some essence of all that that you need to bring to this practice.

That's right.

Let's not forget the other roles in our lives, like parent, spouse, partner, friend, colleague.

There's a lot going on there.

And it's really easy for us, I think, to get our role perception out of balance somehow.

I mean, one of those role perceptions are, you know, I can't tell you how many times I was going out the door or into the airport or off to somewhere because I got to go to work.

I got to go to work, I got to go to work.

Well, when you're your boss, you don't necessarily have to go to work.

There's.

There's got to be a different.

Why then, you know what, somebody's going to be pissed or I'm going to get fired or whatever to get up and go in the morning.

And I think it's really interesting.

Lots of people who've worked in big organizations are able to take it for granted that their role is to serve the purpose of the organization.

And you go into being a solo consultant thinking this is going to help me fulfill my own purpose without a boss.

But actually, you need to reevaluate why are you doing this and what's your kind of.

Your wellspring of motivation, the thing that will help you to choose in the morning, and also the thing that will help you to choose to say, do you know what?

Today is one for the family.

And I'm going to take a day stepping back.

So we need, I think, to be aware of that.

There are some different mindsets and some different choices that we make.

I hear lots of solo consultants say, oh, I have to do it this way.

Things are moving too fast around me.

I am too in demand.

I don't have a choice.

And I think that phrase I Don't have a choice is one that I've heard myself using in my head sometimes.

And we should challenge that.

You know, when you hear yourself saying that too many times, you can be sure that burnout is haunting you somewhere around the periphery.

Right.

You know that the whole lack of any kind of intrinsic motivation, the whole thing of this treadmill, treadmill, treadmill.

There are many kinds of burnout, but that's sniffing around one of them for sure.

Yeah.

And I think some of my friends who've given me good advice have challenged me to think what.

What's really going on, what counts as work and what counts as fun.

Because the mix of it has changed.

Being a solo versus having a.

Having a job with a salary, I think.

And thinking about identity reminds me that as solo people, as independent consultants, we need to keep thinking about what the rest of the world, what our clients and our colleagues and our business partners see us as.

And again, your identity as a functional expert sitting in a line job in a big organization is going to be different than your identity and I might even say your personal brand when you're out there in front of customers.

My history in the last 15 years, same as yours, has been mostly doing training and coaching for big corporate organizations.

The last year and a half, two years, I've been part of a team that's been trying to develop our profile with exactly the people that we're talking about here, solo independent businesses.

And my brand is a little different and my identity is a little different.

The things I talk about and the things I keep coming back to, the themes that come up in my working life have changed, and I think I needed to be aware of that.

Well, it's interesting, you know, you're talking about a big change like that, and I think even in the midst of all those, there's also, you know, we've got to have separate systems.

We've got to have different mindsets for the different business functions within our own thing.

I mean, when I'm acting as my own procurement, I need to act a little bit differently than when I'm acting as business developer, than when I'm acting as subject matter expert, when I'm acting as the person brought in to kind of clean up my own mess, the person who's humming and extending a relationship on.

So I've got to have that mindset and I've got to have systems that support each of those.

Otherwise the switching cost is just way too much.

Yeah, and it's funny, you're talking about systems we're Talking here about taking a new perspective on yourself and what your role is for.

And we were talking earlier on about how inconsistent financial management is a big pitfall for solo consultants.

I think taking a new perspective on your business and your money and your income and your wealth is a challenge for us.

This we have a tendency, I think, to focus on the short term and think, okay, well, I need to get the groceries for the next quarter and my thinking and decision making is driven by that.

But the really successful independents I know are people who've got a really long term perspective.

Successful solo consultants, I think find a way, either by themselves or with a coach to step back and take a look at what I'm doing and what it's for and how it's doing what you might call the leading indicators.

So if we're talking about taking stock of money, for example, the people I know who are good at this, I'm just looking at the next few months and paying the groceries.

They're thinking about the long term plan, taking care and making decisions of stuff that's going to affect your happiness and your financial health for next year, not just for next month.

Yeah, I think that's fabulous.

And I think it translates.

When you start looking at running your own business, running your own life, that has to translate.

You've got to have language and boundaries for managing yourself.

I remember I used to talk to and you were probably one of them saying, I've got the toughest boss I've ever had in my life now.

And then I've seen some other solopreneurs who have the easiest boss they ever had in their life now.

But also some people that said, you know, finding ways to develop and language and boundaries for this idea that you're always on, you know, that there's nobody to turn this over to or there's no need to turn this over to because I have a business that's up and running and sustaining.

And to your point, Ian, it's not tied to that to do list for today or tomorrow that I can't go to bed for.

It's tied to where I'm going to be three years out, five years out, and all the pieces of my life so that I've got my energy, I've got my work, I've got my connections there.

I think that's fabulous.

And I think the people who are good at this find time to reflect.

Find time to reflect.

Maybe at the end of a piece of work, at the end of a business year, a birthday or a wedding anniversary, think about how the business is doing.

Think about the kind of decisions that you're faced with on that long term perspective.

Decisions that sometimes have been bugging you for a while.

You know, I think we're all a little bit prone to the challenge of overthinking.

And I think the people who've really helped me in my business life, the people who say, well, hold on a second, don't just keep thinking about it, make a decision now that you think he's going to either take this off the table or is going to help you do something new to keep your business going in, in the next year.

There's a really good line in one of David Macer's book, I think It's True Professional, where he talks about the difference between what's going to help you with billable hours this year is probably already taken care of.

The decisions that you make with your off the clock time are what's going to feed you next year and the year after.

That's a really good lesson for people in big consulting firms.

I think it's a really good lesson for people doing solo work as well.

So giving yourself a bit of a framework for stepping back and taking stock.

Yeah, I think it's such a great point, Ian.

And I think this idea of really, you know, like we talked about what makes for a great consultant in our earliest episodes.

This both end.

So this idea of taking stock, the longer view.

There's also the thing that says, okay, I know some people who've been thinking about going independent and have been thinking about it for years and they want to put together the perfect plan and they want to have, they want to figure out like, where is the market, where are the client, what's my target, what's my brand, what's my everything?

Well, part of that is you just got to step out.

You know, there's an old story about opening a donut shop.

You can do strategic planning for your donut shop for a year and really try to develop that algorithm of vanilla donuts versus chocolate donuts.

Or you could open the shop and probably within a short time you're going to know how many chocolate and how many vanilla you need and you're going to start to learn about seasonal variation and you're going to start to learn about other correlated things.

But it's all stuff that you never would have known for your business at that place at that time until you opened that business.

Right.

So again, compared to having a big job in a big firm where you've got like market research and research reports going ahead.

A lot of what we need to know is kind of in front of us.

And I think again, people who are good at thinking about the long term, gather round them.

You might call it a personal advisory board, a couple of friends that they call on who are trusted colleagues and mentors.

I've got a couple of those and I've learned a lot from them.

Partly I've had great encouragement to keep thinking about rates and keep thinking about value.

There's a colleague of mine coached me a few years ago about trebling my daily income and I think it worked really, really great.

I can remember the same colleague a few years ago saying to me, do you know what, Ian?

You'll know that your business is mature and that you're ready to progress as an independent consultant if you know the two or three people that you're going to call when you absolutely need some income for a quarter.

And I haven't ever, I'm going to say hardly, hardly at all, had to come close to calling those people.

But the fact that I had to think about who they were and in what circumstances I might make the call was really, really good long term advice.

So having partners, peers, coaches around you who can be a mentor in some way, I think is especially useful for us in the solo world.

Well, I think that's absolutely right, Ian.

And there are folks that there are some things that we really do have to figure out, or more importantly, we have to make choices about.

Because figuring out what makes solo consulting successful is, is not like discovering an unknown element.

There are lots of ways to make that successful and there are a lot of people who have done a lot of that work for us and that will gladly share a lot of what's around it.

The secret sauce that makes ours more.

That's what we can work on without having to rediscover the other.

What is it, 70, 80, 90% of this is what you have to have now?

What are you going to add to it and that, you know, you're talking about that personal advisory board, those trusted colleagues, mentors, coaches, really invaluable, not just professionally, but also personally.

I think in going through this back to our isolation and stagnation.

Exactly.

One of the things you can do is start a business podcast with your best friend and trusted partner.

That works great for me.

Sharing those war stories, understanding what new resources you found, spotting and talking about bouncing around on things going on in the market makes all the difference in the world.

Yeah, yeah.

So, Mike, we've talked a bit about Habits for thinking ahead.

We talked about taking care of our, of our longer term business health, if you like.

Let's come back to a subject that's a favorite for you and me.

What Stephen Covey called sharpening the saw.

Now, we've talked about Stephen Covey in previous episodes.

He wrote this fabulous book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

And this is one of the seven habits.

And sharpening the saw isn't just about setting time aside for learning and development activities.

Important though that is, I think the sharpening the saw mentality is a bit of a mindset change as well.

So I think it's a great idea.

Imagine that you had a really effective really switched on boss at the beginning of every business year in a regular large company.

You'd probably get a personal development plan and your line manager would sit down with you and you'd set some learning goals.

The benefit of going through that process and shaping that plan doesn't go away when you're working for yourself.

In fact, you might even say that you're more at risk, right?

Oh, I think absolutely true, Ian.

I think like everything else, we can be so busy that we don't take the time to step back and do this.

Nobody's holding us accountable for a development plan and except ourselves.

And that development plan and the process of getting there is going to make us attuned to a lot of things that are going on around us already and within us already that we just haven't given a moment to here.

Yeah.

And without doing those things, I mean there's a real risk that industry developments, that functional knowledge, that all sorts of opportunities around us slip bias opportunities and threats that we're not attuned to if we're really, really busy.

And sometimes it's peaks and valleys.

And anybody that's been in consulting for long enough knows the peaks and valleys.

It can be even more amplitude in those peaks and valleys in a solo career.

Absolutely.

And when it works well, I think you find that you're connected to particular categories of customers, particular parts of certain industries and it becomes an easy thing to stay in touch with.

It's surprisingly easy for that to drift.

And I found out a few Tim's in my career, I've had to go back to the pieces of technical knowledge that I know are going to be important to me from an industry perspective, from a practice perspective, and make sure that I'm up to date.

Learning and sharpening our soil, I think sometimes requires us to step a little bit outside of what's familiar.

Right Exactly.

Exactly.

Two things run through my mind here.

One is this idea of one of the greatest values of consultants are that you see many different variations on whatever theme it is that you work around.

Your firm saw a lot of those and you picked up a lot of that, hopefully when you were working in a bigger firm.

You've now got that responsibility now, but you have that ability to turn it into an interconnected, vital part of your business of being in touch, of talking, of learning, of.

It's so much easier to do an informational interview, if you will, to be networking, to be doing the kinds of things that will take care of a lot of your business development as a learning opportunity, and to be sure that you are consciously seeking and taking on and doing the work that keeps you just a little bit out of your comfort zone, because that's where the learning occurs.

I'm thinking about myself, too.

I think we've got to go from how interesting, how exciting is our new approach to that.

Or as Phil Stultz, as told by Brian Johnson, would say, bring it on.

Bring it on.

Oh, it's a little different.

It's a little outside of what I usually do.

Let's make sure I'm getting a steady diet of that in what I do, and let me take that back to other places, too.

I got to find a new way of managing my interaction with home and family and friends in this new career.

Bring it on.

Bring it on.

This is where I get energized.

This is where I learn.

This is where my success lies in my evolution to being the self that I want to be.

Yeah.

So bring it on.

We're going to be encouraging ourselves to get exposed to new experiences and I think getting exposed to ideas from other people as well.

And just to wrap up there, sharpening the sore topic, I think people who've been good at this have been good at picking up ideas from a community of colleagues.

They've been good at getting some coaching from their peers, good at getting ideas from people that they're connected to in their network.

I'm seeing that a lot this week as well.

I've been at the business show and I'm seeing loads of people exchanging ideas and really pushing themselves a little bit, pushing themselves a little outside their comfort zone.

And it's super inspiring.

Mike, we've talked a bit about that, habits that drive success in solar consulting firms.

We've talked about the pitfalls, we've talked about some of the things we can do to step back and get some fresh perspectives.

You and I have been in this industry for a while.

Let's take a moment to think about what our final thoughts are.

What are our takeaways and our top tips for our listeners this episode?

So I've been thinking about this, Mike.

What's something that I would pass on to somebody else who's in the solo independent consultant world maybe for the first time?

And I'm going to say the decision to take the plunge to say I'm going to be independent, I'm going to be self employed.

Or if you like, the decision to renew the plunge to take a fresh start at a solo career that you've already had a swing at.

I think like you said earlier on, it's really easy to overthink market size.

It's really easy to overthink differentiation.

It's even easy to overthink strategy and be as detailed and as completeist as you would have been in a corporate job.

I think making the decision to go independent and to sustain it means thinking honestly about what your skills are and what your motivation is.

Think honestly about who are the people out there who have problems and budget who are going to call you as well.

But that's a topic for another day.

And being honest with yourself about the skills that you have, being good at doing one thing, and that one thing only doesn't mean that you should go into business doing that on your own.

I've seen plenty of people who would easily qualify as experts in a particular field, in a particular domain and get lauded and appreciated and respected for the expertise sitting in a big company.

And they have not necessarily been happy and successful in the world of consulting and in the world of independent work.

If you end up making your work or your expertise the only thing or even just the main thing, then actually it's very hard for the rest of your professional life and for the rest of your personal life to fall into place.

So taking a plunge, I think get a little bit real about the balance of things that you have to offer and about the balance of things that you're going to need.

Yeah, it's so true that taking the plunge.

It's funny because I've seen some folks hesitate so long who absolutely should be in and other folks who have jumped in without.

I think what I'll come back as a takeaway, the self knowledge here, this self knowledge.

It's ancient wisdom to say know thyself, right?

But know all sorts of things that are going to impinge upon how this works out for you.

How do you use your time?

What's Your motivation, where's your energy levels, not just how much do you have, but where, where is it during the day, where does it come from, what sustains it?

And really start to get in touch with where you are, what you see as the best version of yourself and where you want to be there.

I think ultimately all business comes down to creating and exchanging value.

And so that exchange is the key part of it.

It's that value for yourself, the value for the others in your lives, including your clients and potential clients.

What is it that is you do that other people will find valuable and in doing it, what will continue to drive value for you and for the people most important in your life?

And this is not a once and done thing.

This is a constant growth of seeing where's the line, where's the line of where I want to be, where I'm, you know, where I see myself being and this isn't.

We'll talk another day about motivation, external and intrinsic and everything else that they, that this is what's driving you.

And use a friend, use a coach, use somebody who will keep you a little bit accountable, keep you thinking about this, help you listen to your own answers here.

And whenever you get the opportunity, spend some time with somebody who has a new perspective or a fresh set of skills, just seize those opportunities.

They don't necessarily come along very often and I would say that when we're not looking for them, they don't come along hardly at all or we miss them.

We see them as a setback or a challenge rather than this opportunity that the universe is bringing to us.

Great point.

So we should get a bit of honesty behind our decision to take the plunge.

We should get a bit of self knowledge.

I think that's really important.

It probably goes without saying, but I will say look after yourself.

Yeah, it's.

There's so much more resources and attention paid today to wellness and mental well being and good habits and self development.

There's so much more of that these days than there was 20 years ago.

But just because it's out there and because there are videos on YouTube and there are self help books in the airport, that's not going to help you unless you actually engage with it.

And I think look around and notice the people who've got good habits that are helping to keep their body and their mind and their spirit and their bank account healthy and read some of them and try some of them and stay in touch.

Because the people who I've seen disregard this have a really tough time.

I think that when a challenge comes along, when their resilience is tested, the people who've made it past that five year mark as successful independent consultants are the ones who found a way, in their own terms and in their own time to take care of themselves.

And that includes taking care of the family.

That includes taking care of the friends and the folks around you as well.

I think all of it, Ian, we keep kind of coming back to learning actively, you know, continuing to think about what's the next new skill need to be, what do I already have that I need to be employing?

How am I leveraging strengths?

How am I being aware and compensating, filling in for weaknesses, learning from new people and other people who are excellent practitioners of skills that you appreciate?

I remember public speaking.

That was going to be something that I really wanted to progress on.

And I was amazed, once I was attuned to that, how many phenomenal models came into my life or were already in my life, that I could get an advanced degree just modeling and learning from.

Marshall Goldsmith is an executive coach to top executives around the world, wrote a book called what Got yout Here Won't get yout There.

And I think for all of us, especially people moving or in the midst of a solopreneur adventure, need to continue to remember that what got us here won't get us there on the next step.

And by the way, hey, circle back to Marshall Goldsmith when you have a moment.

Yeah.

If you haven't found Marshall Goldsmith, check him out.

We'll put a link in the show notes for some Marshall Goldsmith resources.

I absolutely love it.

But Mike, that's a message about looking ahead, looking ahead to what's next and being a little skeptical of what came before.

Let's do the same for the podcast.

I think we've had a really good discussion today about how we look after ourselves, how we pay attention to their identity and the well being of the person who's our biggest consulting asset.

We need to look to the other important stakeholder constituency, and that's our clients.

So two weeks from today, in the next episode of the Consulting for Humans podcast, we're going to be talking about managing clients, especially from the point of view of solo consultants and independents.

Mike, I think it's a thorny subject, but there are some really good learnings that we can all grab from that.

But what do you say that we reconvene next time on the Consulting for Humans podcast?

Oh, I would like that.

Of all things.

The Consulting for Humans podcast is brought to you by P31 Consulting.