Allen Eskelin

There have always been nomadic workers who work on the road. In the past decade, a new type of nomad has emerged, the Digital Nomad. As technology has enabled affordable, continuous connectivity anywhere, more and more information workers have moved toward a mobile lifestyle. Dell provides technology to these workers and has created an online community for these Digital Nomads. Here is their definition of a Digital Nomad:

"In the Connected Era, Digital Nomads will Rule - Redefining productivity, placeshifting and timeshifting. Their devices won't wait to connect - they will simply be connected. Always. Everywhere. Business as usual will become business unusual."

Source: digitalnomads.com

How does the concept of a Digital Nomad apply to consulting?

Consulting as a Digital Nomad

Most consultants are also Digital Nomads. By nature a consultant is mobile, visiting client locations regularly. Since their clients have no reason to visit a consultant's office, there is no need to have an office. A consultant's office is wherever they are when they perform their craft. This is even more the case with solo consultants as they work alone and have no need for an office. Here are some considerations when preparing to apply the Digital Nomad approach to consulting:

• Mobility: A light-weight laptop is essential for a consultant as it enables them to work onsite at a client location. I've also found it beneficial to have a tablet PC so I have the option of using it somewhat like a clipboard. My suggestion is to get an extra battery and a car power cord so you can continue to function during long spells away from your client or home office.
• Connectivity: Ultimate mobility means being able to work anywhere at any time. That means having network connectivity anywhere at all times. My latest laptop has a built in broadband cellular connection. I have found this type of connection to have sufficient performance and it beats trying to find WiFi hotspots.
• Communications: Cell phones and PDAs are now everywhere. Even 10-year old kids are walking around with sophisticated phones. As a consultant, you have no excuse for not having a decent and reliable phone. Additionally, take a look at services like Google Voice, where you can route your calls and have voicemails translated to text and emailed to you. Depending on the type of consulting, being reachable in a crisis can significantly increase your value to your clients.
• Digital: The need to print everything out on paper is quickly going away. With the number of people using WiFi connected laptops in their offices, it can be more effective to email a file to everyone instead of printing it on paper. Digital Nomads go paperless so they don't have to carry their files around. Instead, keep everything online and setup a regular process for backing up your data. There are even services online today that will back up your files as you work and save them on multiple servers in a datacenter.
• Work/Life Integration: People used to talk about creating work/life balance. As a consultant and Ditigal Nomad, I like to think of it more as work/life integration. Instead of working 9-5 and trying to have a life after 5, a consultant can often incorporate work throughout their daily lives. For example, you might take some time off during the middle of the day to enjoy a nice walk and/or lunch with your spouse and then take a call with clients in Asia in the evening. If you work 9-5, an evening call eats into your personal life and creates an imbalance. As a consultant and Digital Nomad, there is no imbalance as you can shift personal activity schedule around as needed.

While consulting as a Digital Nomad can initially seem chaotic, give yourself 6 months to get used to it and you will wonder how you ever worked 9-5 in a cubicle. It's freeing, improves your quality of life, and allows you the flexibility to experience life without missing out on important activities due to a rigid 9-5 desk job.

Finally, consulting as a Digital Nomad enables you to spend more time face-to-face with your clients, forging stronger relationships. These relationships are critical to succeeding as a solo consultant.

If you are a cubicle dweller, I feel your pain. I've been there. I've got the t-shirt. After 6 years with one Fortune 500 company and 7 years with another, I made the jump to solo consulting. There's a whole story there but we'll save that for another time. Let's just say that going solo was the best move I've made in my career. The goal of this post is to lay out the case for you to go solo.

If you are one of the people described in the next section, I highly recommend that you consider this profession.

Who Should Be A Solo Consultant?

While you can go solo anytime in your career, this profession is ideal for someone who is already established in their career and already has a financial cushion and network of contacts. Once you have built up a resume and punched your ticket, going solo is the ticket to leading a better lifestyle while reaping the benefits of your years of hard work.

Benefits of Solo Consulting

• Money: It's common knowledge that you have more control over the amount of money you make as a business owner than you do as an employee. As a solo professional, your overhead is minimal and most of the money you make goes straight to you. I personally take out approximately 95% of revenues out of my business every year. There's no reason to keep the capital in the company because, as a solo, I don't need capital to fund expansion. While money isn't the only reason to pursue solo consulting, it's a very big reason to consider it as a profession.
• Lifestyle: When you become a solo consultant, your clients can't treat you like an employee or they risk blurring the line between employees and contractors. Therefore, they don't typically dictate your hours and that you spend 8-5 at a desk in their office. Instead, the focus shifts to results. In my experience, clients don't care when you work or where you work, they care about getting the results they're paying you for. This means you now have control over your work/life balance. I like to think of it more as work/life integration. Instead of starting work at 8 and ending at 5, I tend to incorporate work throughout the day and schedule in non-work activities as well. As far as where to work, work from home or work out of a local coffee shop. It doesn't matter where you work if you set yourself up with a laptop and cellular broadband.
• Less Stress: In my experience, employees are loaded up with as many projects as they can handle. They just keep piling work on your plate until it starts dropping off. This causes you to do a lot of work but nothing really well. Consultants on the other hand are typically hired to tackle one project. This allows a consultant to focus on quality and execution and not be spread too thin. One huge benefit of this is less stress. If you come from a corporate climate, you will find consulting a lot easier. I my case, I went from being responsible for over 40 projects, a staff of 9, support of multiple business critical systems, owning 3 business unit relationships, and leading multiple negotiations as an employee to being responsible for one project as a consultant. It was like doing 70 mph and having to slow down to 25 mph to drive through a small town. The good thing about this is that you can easily hit home runs and the client is extremely happy about that. It takes 6-12 months to adjust to the new pace but what a difference in the stress level.
• Less Politics: There will always be politics in any large group of people. The key difference as a solo consultant is that your personal stakes aren't as high in the outcome of those politics. For example, as an employee if someone takes credit for your work, it could impact your ability to get promoted. As a consultant, this is no longer a concern. It doesn't matter if someone takes credit for your work. As long as the person paying your bill is happy, it doesn't matter. So the stakes are lower. The other side of this is that you can also make more bold political moves on behalf of your client. It doesn't matter if you burn some bridges but your client has to live with these people. You become a greater asset if you can rock the boat a little on behalf of your client. Clients don't always ask you to do this but experience will tell you when it's the right thing to do on behalf of your client.
• Independence: As a solo consultant, you answer only to yourself. Your career is not at the mercy of a manager who may not have your best interests in mind. Your promotions are not dependent political maneuvering or decisions made several levels up the corporate ladder. Instead, your growth is entirely dependent on the value of the results you provide to your clients. It's a true meritocracy. You do great work and clients keep hiring you and paying your fees. If you don't, they stop. It's as simple as that. If you want to make more money, provide more value to the client.
• Opportunism: By staying solo, you don't have to sell your clients on a service or product. Instead, you can observe and listen to your clients and find out what they need. When you see a new opportunity, there is nothing stopping you from pursuing it. Over time, you gain confidence in your ability to adapt your products and services to any opportunity that presents itself. Using a surfing analogy, you don't try to change the waves for better surfing, you go find a beach that already has great waves and then you go surfing.
• Agility: When you are solo, you can change your business focus immediately when you stumble upon a new opportunity. This is not always the case when you have employees with limited skillsets who are dependent on your decisions or when you have invested significant capital (bet the company) on a product or service with a year or more break-even point. As a solo consultant, when revenue declines, you can immediately cut expenses to a bare minimum and change your business to a more prosperous market opportunity. This agility provides a lower risk path than building up a large business.

False Drawbacks of Solo Consulting

These are the drawbacks that I have found to be false for solo professionals in my experience:

• Job Security: As a solo consultant, by design you are fired every 3-6 months. Because you know this going in, you set yourself up to handle downtime and change. For example, when money is coming in, you save some so you have a cushion for the times when money isn't coming in. Another example is that you build your network broadly so that you aren't dependent on one company for your revenue. As an employee, I think you have less job security because someone else can fire you without you seeing it coming. Then you are faced with finding a job and dealing with cobra. As a solo consultant, you are networking all the time and always looking for new opportunities. This means you network all the time, not just after you are fired.
• Insurance: One of the things I hear the most as the reason not to go into business for yourself is that insurance is too expensive. Most of these people haven't done the research to find out what the rates are for a personal health insurance plan. In my experience, it cost me more to have my spouse on my employer's insurance plan than it cost us to have personal insurance. Some employers provide full insurance coverage but these companies become increasingly rare in tough economic times. Another question to consider: if you can make another $100K per year as a consultant, who cares if you pay another $3-6K per year for insurance?

True [Potential] Drawbacks of Solo Consulting

Here are the drawbacks that I have found to be potentially true for solo professionals in my experience. I say potentially because there are ways to minimize the risk of these drawbacks becoming a reality:

• Finding Work: Solo consultants shoulder the responsibility for finding their own work. As an employee, you are not typically responsible for finding your own work. You rely on a sales and marketing organization focused on bringing in new business. If you are in sales and marketing and you have a bad month that doesn't mean you don't get paid, that is unless you work strictly on commission. As a solo consultant, if you don't find work, you don't get paid. While this is a drawback to being solo, you can minimize this risk by developing a strong network and using gravity marketing to attract new clients.
• Cash Flow Consistency: Managing cash flow is critical for a small business. When you're solo, it's even more critical since you don't always have diverse sources of revenue. If you are working for one client full-time and they end your contract early, your cash flow stops. This is one of the reasons why you will need to charge more as a consultant. You need to assume you will not work 100% of the time. You can minimize risk of running out of cash by building up a financial cushion when money is coming in so that you have some to weather the storm when money isn't coming in.
• Ego: If you have been successful as an employee and you venture into solo consulting, you will find that people treat you differently. You no longer have a prominent role/title in a large company to identify with. When people ask what you do, you will find that people respond differently when you say you're a solo consultant. They often automatically assume you are out of work and just saying that because it sounds better than saying you're unemployed. You will also find that many of the people who you thought were friends will stop taking your calls once you are no longer in a prominent role in a big company where you can do something for them. Personally, I found this to be a good exercise in growing humility and not taking yourself too seriously. It's also a great way to filter/test your network to find out who your real friends are. After being a solo consultant for the past 5 years, I can say that it's worth it to shed the title in order to get a better lifestyle and make more money in the process.

Conclusion

Transitioning from employment to the solo consulting profession is a personal decision that only you can make. My hope is that this article will give you some things to think about when determining if this profession is right for you. All I can say is that it's the best decision I have made in my 19 year professional career and I wish I had made the jump a few years earlier.