- A lot of my friends who work in corporate jobs tell me,
"Someday I want to do what you do."
I ask them what do you think I do?
They say, "Well, you speak and teach and get paid for it,
"and that looks like a lot of fun."
I tell them it is,
but it's only 10% of what I actually do.
Let me tell you about the other 90%.
I then share all the topics I'll be covering in this course.
It can be rewarding to run your own consulting business,
but you must realize that the actual
consulting portion of the work
is but a small component of running the business itself.
Activities like marketing, selling, contracting,
and administering the business are critically important
and will consume a great deal of time and effort.
Subjects I've covered in other courses
include things like writing a business plan
which helps you build a solid business,
solving business problems
which offers a classic consulting method
for understanding problems and generating solutions,
getting ideas approved covers how to craft
compelling recommendations that your clients will support,
and building high performance teams will give you ideas
on how to create a team whose work you'll be proud of.
I offer these as suggested resources
to help you build your consulting firm.
Throughout this course I'll use examples
from running my own consulting firm for going on 15 years,
having worked at a major consulting firm,
and from consulting firms
run by friends, colleagues, and clients.
This will give you a sense for the wide variety
of consulting practices available
and help you understand how the principles in this course
apply to different business models.