You become a consultant when you are able to learn quickly and like solving problems in situations where the answer is not obvious. Some consultants become entrepreneurs when they identify a specific problem, haven’t seen a compelling solution in the market, and are willing to build a product, service, or other form of value to solve it.
But an entrepreneur consultant? That’s a whole different animal.
An entrepreneur consultant (EC) is someone who has left traditional consulting to build her own practice around a problem she believes the market is not solving, or isn’t solving well. She lives in both worlds and does both jobs. This means not only being responsible for finding product-market fit, but also for the legalities of the business, methodology, relationships, partnerships, marketing, sales, delivery, and fulfillment required to make that solution viable. Meaning, the breadth of problems she’s solving has expanded by at least ten fold.
In this article, we will explore the top three mindset shifts that will help you prepare for the jump from consultant at a large firm to the owner of your own practice.
ONE : The problem is broader
As a consultant at a large firm, your primary responsibility is the problem in front of you. There is a firm, a brand, an ecosystem of trust, established methodologies, existing clients, and other people who are responsible for making sure there is an engagement waiting for you when your current one ends.
When you start your own practice, none of that comes for free. This was the first thing I became aware of when I made the transition: I had to build my own system to keep everything running. Fortunately, I attacked it one problem at a time, and with the help of automations and scrappiness, I got a handle on it.
TWO : The market is boss, and you manage yourself
At a large firm, you get used to receiving feedback from someone else. Partners review your slides, clients respond to recommendations, and managers determine your next step to career progress. As an EC, most of that disappears and is replaced with market signals. These signals can put you on an incredible wave of growth, or they may demand that you to iterate your value offering or pivot into an entirely different market sector.
Instead of waiting for someone to tell you whether you are right, you have to make a bet, watch what happens, and keep moving until the market gives you enough information to keep going, iterate, or change course. All in real time.
THREE : You become a creator, so you need a structure
Consultants are exceptionally good at taking established methodologies, and applying them to a complicated client problem. There is enormous value in that ability, but an EC also needs to build a unique framework that belongs to her. If she doesn’t, she’s essentially a freelancer under the guise of a founder.
She has to develop a methodology in a way that other people can understand, buy into, and ultimately associate with her practice. The market will only buy from you if it sees your approach as distinctive and your results as sound. If you merely roll out the same toolkit used by the Big Three, clients will simply hire them instead.
FOUR: You own the pond
The transition from being a small fish in a big pond to owning the pond feels uncomfortable at first because you’re renegotiating your own identity, with yourself and the market, in real time. But also because the habits that made you excellent in one environment can become your ceiling in the other. Here are two examples:
- Certainty over speed. Collecting more information, building a stronger case, or making the answer more defensible are strengths in consulting. However, as an EC, you actually need to make a decision, ship something, and see what happens.
- Solving the problem is only the start. As a consultant, solving the problem is most of the job. As an EC, it’s only the beginning. You also need to be a hunter gatherer, a compelling marketer, and a community builder. You need to be able to distinguish an opportunity from a distraction, and you need to sell, deliver, and keep iterating on it so your clients stay happy and successful.
The bottom line
None of this means that your consulting skills become irrelevant. They become incredibly valuable once they are placed inside an operating system, ideally an automated one, so you can run as fast as you need to. Learning quickly helps you understand your market, structuring problems helps you identify opportunities, and communicating clearly helps you sell your ideas.
It’s hard at the beginning, but once you’ve built an operating system for yourself, the compounding can take you to heights you never imagined reaching.
You are now responsible for all of it.
Aneta Kosinska is a Polish – Canadian, MSc + CEMS MIM alumni. With management consulting, analytics and startup/entrepreneurial experience, she aspires to contribute to the knowledge sharing economy.
Image: Aneta Kosinska
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