Starting a consultant company and leaving corporate

[dataguyaus]

Hi all,

I've been in corporate consulting (think big4) for quite a few years now, and I have gotten quite senior quite quickly. I've got an opportunity with some peers to start my own consultancy.

Luckily I have a niche, with big money in it and a lack of it in the market I am in. I've got a few hundred thousand saved, so I can afford to give it a crack for a few years. If you have any advice on starting an enterprise consultancy, I would love to hear from you.

Aiming to launch in March 2023, wish me luck!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Hi all,

I've been in corporate consulting (think big4) for quite a few years now, and I have gotten quite senior quite quickly. I've got an opportunity with some peers to start my own consultancy.

Luckily I have a niche, with big money in it and a lack of it in the market I am in. I've got a few hundred thousand saved, so I can afford to give it a crack for a few years. If you have any advice on starting an enterprise consultancy, I would love to hear from you.

Aiming to launch in March 2023, wish me luck!

Are you able to take on clients yet?

Do you have clients lined up to start in March 2023?

Are your potential clients on LinkedIn? Are you active on LinkedIn?

Can you help in public, even without getting paid?

Can you hop onto other people's podcasts as a guest? And get the recordings to chop up and distribute?

 

[dataguyaus]

Are you able to take on clients yet?

Do you have clients lined up to start in March 2023?

Are your potential clients on LinkedIn? Are you active on LinkedIn?

Can you help in public, even without getting paid?

Can you hop onto other people's podcasts as a guest? And get the recordings to chop up and distribute?

Hi Andy, I appreciate the reply!

I can't take clients early due to legally enforceable parts of my current contract, however, I have begun discussions with my network of clients, in order to hit the ground running so to speak. I do post on LinkedIn regularly, write blogs etc but the main source (at least initially) is personal contacts. The niche I am in the projects tend to happen in 100-400k chunks rather than advisory ongoing work.

Podcasts are a good suggestion - I just recorded one last week and promoted it, I also do presentations at industry events and conferences 1-2 a month, which I have moved away from my current employers brand to my own.

I would love to start doing more of it, but there's a huge conflict of interest. My current thinking is to do as much as I can personal media/branding side, word up my clients and step up the relationship side and then when I quit start to line things up more concretely. Thoughts?

 

[Andy Black]

Hi Andy, I appreciate the reply!

I can't take clients early due to legally enforceable parts of my current contract, however, I have begun discussions with my network of clients, in order to hit the ground running so to speak. I do post on LinkedIn regularly, write blogs etc but the main source (at least initially) is personal contacts. The niche I am in the projects tend to happen in 100-400k chunks rather than advisory ongoing work.

Podcasts are a good suggestion - I just recorded one last week and promoted it, I also do presentations at industry events and conferences 1-2 a month, which I have moved away from my current employers brand to my own.

I would love to start doing more of it, but there's a huge conflict of interest. My current thinking is to do as much as I can personal media/branding side, word up my clients and step up the relationship side and then when I quit start to line things up more concretely. Thoughts?

Is there a way to promote the services you're providing for your employer, but from your personal account?

So you'd post stuff on LinkedIn about how your employer's solution helps people with XYZ problem?

I suspect if you went out of your way to promote your employer and generate more business for them, then it will automatically help your own personal brand.

Are you able to give an example service to help brainstorm? (Feel free to DM me if you want.)


Is your LinkedIn profile optimised fully? I wouldn't say mine is at the moment, but you might get ideas from it:

• www.linkedin.com/in/andyblackjnr

This thread might help:

• Andy's Inbound/Sales Braindump

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[addV]

Welcome dataguyaus ,

Scaling services does not seem to be easy, I am trying it as well

I know you are still trying to go from 0 to 1, but from there on.. how big is the pool of resources you could be hiring from? How teachable are the skills you need to deliver the services? Can the services be productized?

Have you already discussed the distribution of functions/accountabilities with your partners? As they are peers I guess they are also consultants, will you all be in operations initially? What is the plan mid term?

Good luck!

 

[empiricalwriter]

Beautiful idea.

Andy has said most of my suggestions. I'll also want to add that you can use Google ads grant. It's a $10k monthly grant from Google they give out for ad campaign. You can Google it and read more on it. It'd boost your credibility, and can also help you with a wait-list of ready clients who you'd launch with by March next year.

There are conditions attached to getting approved though. I know someone who can set-up one for you. He's a Google certified guy. Let me know if you want his contact.

I wish you success on your launch.

 

[dataguyaus]

Is there a way to promote the services you're providing for your employer, but from your personal account?

So you'd post stuff on LinkedIn about how your employer's solution helps people with XYZ problem?

I suspect if you went out of your way to promote your employer and generate more business for them, then it will automatically help your own personal brand.

Are you able to give an example service to help brainstorm? (Feel free to DM me if you want.)


Is your LinkedIn profile optimised fully? I wouldn't say mine is at the moment, but you might get ideas from it:

• www.linkedin.com/in/andyblackjnr

This thread might help:

• Andy's Inbound/Sales Braindump

I can as long as its not explicit, I can have personal conversations but I can't post publically, I agree with the promote them to promote myself, that + general industry discussion is what I'm focused on, I'll take you up on the DM.

On LinkedIn - not as good as yours, but not bad! I actually wrote an ebook on LinkedIn optimisation a few years ago haha.

Welcome dataguyaus ,

Scaling services does not seem to be easy, I am trying it as well

I know you are still trying to be from 0 to 1, but from there on.. how big is the pool of resources you could be hiring from? How teachable are the skills you need to deliver the services? Can the services be productized?

Have you already discussed the distribution of functions/accountabilities with your partners? As they are peers I guess they are also consultants, will you all be in operations initially? What is the plan mid term?

Good luck!

Not easy at all! Luckily I do have some experience having done it for larger companies before, but at my scale will be interesting.

I have had that discussion - so far I've confirmed one silent partner who currently runs his own recruiter firm in the space (which makes getting resources easier thank god), I will be doing sales/delivery/team management, leveraging his network for contacts and resources, then when we hit mid-size he'll transition to non-silent partner (normal partner I guess?)

Thanks, likewise!

Beautiful idea.

Andy has said most of my suggestions. I'll also want to add that you can use Google ads grant. It's a $10k monthly grant from Google they give out for ad campaign. You can Google it and read more on it. It'd boost your credibility, and can also help you with a wait-list of ready clients who you'd launch with by March next year.

There are conditions attached to getting approved though. I know someone who can set-up one for you. He's a Google certified guy. Let me know if you want his contact.

I wish you success on your launch.

Oh that's very good to know - I wasn't aware of that, contact would be fantastic I'll send you a DM. Thanks!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Beautiful idea.

Andy has said most of my suggestions. I'll also want to add that you can use Google ads grant. It's a $10k monthly grant from Google they give out for ad campaign. You can Google it and read more on it. It'd boost your credibility, and can also help you with a wait-list of ready clients who you'd launch with by March next year.

There are conditions attached to getting approved though. I know someone who can set-up one for you. He's a Google certified guy. Let me know if you want his contact.

I wish you success on your launch.

Just be aware the Google Ads grant is for charities and non-profits.

• Google Ad Grants - Free Google Ads for Nonprofits

I'll take you up on the DM.

Connected on LinkedIn.

You have so much inbuilt authority with your current role that I think you should get super active on LinkedIn championing your employer, data sciences, and careers in data science.

"Be so good they can't ignore you."
(Steve Martin)


Check out Justin Welsh's course. I found it useful (even though I've not finished it and decided to go the video route for now).

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwelsh/

 

[dataguyaus]

Just be aware the Google Ads grant is for charities and non-profits.

• Google Ad Grants - Free Google Ads for Nonprofits

Connected on LinkedIn.

You have so much inbuilt authority with your current role that I think you should get super active on LinkedIn championing your employer, data sciences, and careers in data science.

"Be so good they can't ignore you."
(Steve Martin)


Check out Justin Welsh's course. I found it useful (even though I've not finished it and decided to go the video route for now).

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwelsh/

Appreciate the feedback, I'll check out the course now.

Time to get posting again! I'll have to dig out the guide to get into data science I wrote a few years back..

 

[addV]

I would also start thinking about the value proposition for clients, do you have got specific services defined or is it custom services? In that case.. Fixed priced projects or Time and material projects?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[dataguyaus]

I would also start thinking about the value proposition for clients, do you have got specific services defined or is it custom services? In that case.. Fixed priced projects or Time and material projects?

Yep, services are predominately in data science, which covers (I need to narrow this down and get more specific):

• AI Services (voice/video etc)
• Data Strategy
• Data Science Services
• Machine Learning Engineering & MLOPS
• CDO / CIO / CTO Advisory
• Data Governance (less focus)
• Data Engineering and Platforms Services (less focus)

In regard to the type of projects, the main approach (in order of preference)

• Advisory retrainers, 5-6 hour a week retainers for CDO/CIO/CTO advisory
• Fixed price, reduces the risk for clients (gives the risk to me..), I've got a contact with a company where I can outsource contracting costs until projects are paid (for a small fee, obviously), which gives me a lever to reduce some of that risk, and provide more value. I also have a lot of experience in the fixed price space, and I've gotten quite good at accurately forecasting them (40-50% margin each time)
• T&M, less ideal but may be useful for response to some RFQ's (requests for quotations) in order to generate work

I think my sales process is important here, at a super quick overview I want to almost completely avoid public competitive bids/RFQ's and focus on value-based selling: Free proof of concepts, that turn into pipelines of work based on relationships. I've done this 4-5 times now and it works really well in the market, and these are usually all fixed-price phases

 

[G-Cream]

I think Andy is on the right track. Value proposition is important, but if you are perceived as the best, or an expert in your industry, the clients will follow.

If you are unable, at the moment, to promote yourself, is there anything else you can be doing to generate clients. Are there business that aren’t in your industry, but are relatable in which you can provide some value.

Are there phone calls that could be made to family, friends and past clients that no longer do business with your company.

Unfortunately I don’t know enough about your industry to offer better advice, but it sounds like a few good clients could be a game changer. Be open minded, look not only at your industry but also how other unrelated industries generate business, and start getting those clients.

Best of luck brother, you got this!

 

[dataguyaus]

I think Andy is on the right track. Value proposition is important, but if you are perceived as the best, or an expert in your industry, the clients will follow.

If you are unable, at the moment, to promote yourself, is there anything else you can be doing to generate clients. Are there business that aren’t in your industry, but are relatable in which you can provide some value.

Are there phone calls that could be made to family, friends and past clients that no longer do business with your company.

Unfortunately I don’t know enough about your industry to offer better advice, but it sounds like a few good clients could be a game changer. Be open minded, look not only at your industry but also how other unrelated industries generate business, and start getting those clients.

Best of luck brother, you got this!

I am currently an expert in the field - and within the niche I'm targeting so that does help, I just need to continue promoting which Andy gave some good advice on.

I can promote myself and my personal brand just not that of my own consulting firm - I write blogs / do podcasts/industry presentations regularly at the minute.

You are very correct on the first few clients, a lot of smaller consultancy stagnate because they get initial projects to pay the bills, not to increase their name in that space, so I'm going to be putting maximum effort into lining up the right sort of projects initially.

Appreciate the advice!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Questions to ask yourself for your consultancy:

Who will you help?
What will you help them with?
How will you do it?

Some advice from book "Ready, Fire, Aim": when under $1m ARR focus on one channel, one avatar, one product.

Jay Abraham advises asking yourself "Who already has your clients?"

I don't know what size business you're targeting. Personally, I focus on dealing with business owners and not their employees. A RFQ automatically excludes them for me, and I consider it a bullet dodged.

Check out the inbound/Sales braindump in my signature.

Write some pieces for LinkedIn about the future and benefits of data science for businesses and the world. And how people can get into into field. Become a champion for data science, and have people thinking of you as "The Data Science Guy" (or BI guy, or CIO guy, or whatever you decide to position yourself as).

For me, I focus on fixed monthly fee where I might spend a lot of time initially getting something working, but where a good enough % of clients stay long term on a monitoring/reporting/tweaking arrangement.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

@dataguyaus you could go after private equity firms or mergers & acquisitions firms.

If those companies look to buy and hold assets for a while, they'll likely want to consolidate all of their data in one system so that they can evaluate their portfolio as a whole. And they will also want the option to look at their new acquisitions in their current reporting tools.

Data integration projects can take a while too, plus if they keep buying new assets, you'll get steady retainers from them.

 

[dataguyaus]

Questions to ask yourself for your consultancy:

Who will you help?
What will you help them with?
How will you do it?

Some advice from book "Ready, Fire, Aim": when under $1m ARR focus on one channel, one avatar, one product.

Jay Abraham advises asking yourself "Who already has your clients?"

I don't know what size business you're targeting. Personally, I focus on dealing with business owners and not their employees. A RFQ automatically excludes them for me, and I consider it a bullet dodged.

Check out the inbound/Sales braindump in my signature.

Write some pieces for LinkedIn about the future and benefits of data science for businesses and the world. And how people can get into into field. Become a champion for data science, and have people thinking of you as "The Data Science Guy" (or BI guy, or CIO guy, or whatever you decide to position yourself as).

For me, I focus on fixed monthly fee where I might spend a lot of time initially getting something working, but where a good enough % of clients stay long term on a monitoring/reporting/tweaking arrangement.

Good pointers - ive added those questions to my planning. I'll also check out the ready aim fire book!

Yep, blogs are a great place to start, I'll need to have a think about my brand, data has moved into more specialist niches.

@dataguyaus you could go after private equity firms or mergers & acquisitions firms.

If those companies look to buy and hold assets for a while, they'll likely want to consolidate all of their data in one system so that they can evaluate their portfolio as a whole. And they will also want the option to look at their new acquisitions in their current reporting tools.

Data integration projects can take a while too, plus if they keep buying new assets, you'll get steady retainers from them.

Interesting point - I've lead with a few of these, whilst usually a clusterfuck they are a good money maker. Appreicate the insight. Any ideas how to target a market like that?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[dataguyaus]

Update for those playing along at home - I've confirmed a silent partner to begin with which will give me a big boost in network and contacts (in particular employees). Also organised the personal finances so I don't need to take any profit past the launch date (targeting March 2023), as well as a service to mitigate contractor risk.

Currently working with mentors on defining and refining offerings and starting to kick off potential client conversations (have to be careful on this one due to legal issues, so working slowly).

My real pain point is a name, I'm so very terrible at coming up with them.... if anyone has ideas, these are the guidelines I'm thinking:

• Structures:
  • Something - Solutions
  • Something - Consulting
  • Something - Partners
  • Something - & Co.
  • Something - Technologies
  • Something - Consulting Group
  • Something - Services
  • Something - Analytics
  • Something - Science
• Potential names:
  • Dataology
  • Dataex
  • Titan data
  • NeoData
  • Datafocus
  • Resolve Consulting
  • Thinkable
  • Clarity Partners
  • Delo
  • Adamant
  • Datadoc Solutions
  • Gaze Consulting
  • Artelytics
  • Quantum Insights
  • Datalogic
  • Evoluent
  • Qaunta
  • Merge Technologies

Also feel free to steal any of them and beat me too it, friendly competition is good competition haha.

 

[Andy Black]

Update for those playing along at home - I've confirmed a silent partner to begin with which will give me a big boost in network and contacts (in particular employees). Also organised the personal finances so I don't need to take any profit past the launch date (targeting March 2023), as well as a service to mitigate contractor risk.

Currently working with mentors on defining and refining offerings and starting to kick off potential client conversations (have to be careful on this one due to legal issues, so working slowly).

My real pain point is a name, I'm so very terrible at coming up with them.... if anyone has ideas, these are the guidelines I'm thinking:

• Structures:
  • Something - Solutions
  • Something - Consulting
  • Something - Partners
  • Something - & Co.
  • Something - Technologies
  • Something - Consulting Group
  • Something - Services
  • Something - Analytics
  • Something - Science
• Potential names:
  • Dataology
  • Dataex
  • Titan data
  • NeoData
  • Datafocus
  • Resolve Consulting
  • Thinkable
  • Clarity Partners
  • Delo
  • Adamant
  • Datadoc Solutions
  • Gaze Consulting
  • Artelytics
  • Quantum Insights
  • Datalogic
  • Evoluent
  • Qaunta
  • Merge Technologies

Also feel free to steal any of them and beat me too it, friendly competition is good competition haha.

Check which .com 's are available and pick one. You can switch later. There's a few threads in the forum about picking domain names.

Maybe also get <yourname>.com or .net or .co or something? Your personal branded domain name will be with you for life. It can be super simple too. Check out andyblack.net, which is like a Linktr.ee site (maybe use Linktr.ee initially?). When I email people from andy@andyblack.net I know they'll check out my site, which will lead them to content I have strewn over the internet.