How to Start a Consulting Business?

There are several factors you’ll need to consider to help you start a consulting business, including creating a business plan, addressing risks, and protecting yourself with the right insurance.

Starting a consulting business is a great opportunity to be your own boss, share your expert advice, and help other businesses succeed.

More and more people are taking the leap each year. Industry research shows there are 35% more consultants in the U.S. now than there were in 2013 – and the demand keeps growing.

As turnover increases, companies turn to consultants to help them fill roles, change strategy, and perform important tasks.

Now’s the perfect time to jump into your freelance consulting career. So, what do you need to know to get started? This guide will walk you through the nine most important steps for starting your own successful consulting business this year.

1. Develop Your Area of Expertise:

Good consultants share their advice, resources, and know how in specific areas with their clients. Before you start your own consulting business, you need to decide what your area of expertise will be. Most companies aren’t looking for a “jack-of-all-trades” consultant who can help them with a bunch of different needs. Instead, they want to hire a specialist who can help them solve a very specific problem.

That’s good news for you. You don’t have to be able to do everything for every company. As a self-employed consultant, you decide what consulting work you do, whether you’ll work from an office space or solely online, and how big or small you want your consulting business to be.

2. Decide Which Consulting Services You’ll Offer: 

Most successful consultants offer one (or more) of these five services:

- You share your expertise with your clients’ employees to empower them to do better work themselves. This could include soft skills like communication and negotiation techniques for managers and salespeople, or hard skills like how to use new software.

- You help your clients find new employees. You can either focus on general hiring for all positions or recruiting for executives or other specialized positions.

- You work with a team within a company or the company’s leadership to dig into their performance, product, and projections to set concrete plans for the future.

- You fill the role of an interim manager by building a team, overseeing work, and sharing your expertise. Management is often paired with training since you’ll likely train future managers to take over when you step away.

- You recommend and set up new tech systems, service and optimize existing ones, and offer high-level technical support and troubleshooting. This service is also often paired with training.

3. Find Your Target Market:

Once you decide what you’ll do as an independent consultant, you need to decide who you’ll do it for. Just like choosing a specialization, you’ll typically have better luck when you focus on one specific client base for your consulting business instead of trying to help everyone.

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