Originally published on LinkedIn, September 17 to October 2, 2026.
It feels like everyone is talking about leaving corporate to become a consultant.
I have spent 12 of the last 14 years as an independent consultant and worked as a strategy consultant right out of business school. I have at least one conversation a week with friends looking for advice on going independent, and I thought, why not put some of this on paper?
I call myself a consultant, but much of this applies to anyone doing fractional work, contracting, freelance, or side gigs.
No. 1: How to price your first engagement
First up: How should you price your first consulting engagement?
If a client cannot meet your rate, reduce scope. If a client has a smaller budget, offer as many hours as you can for that amount before agreeing to a lower hourly or day rate.
For 12 years, I kept two rates: one for nonprofits and one for corporate clients. This functions as your range if a company asks you to give numbers first. A rough rule of thumb (and I have no idea why it works or whether it works in other fields) is to take the annual salary for the role and remove three zeros to get the hourly rate. Another rough calculation is to divide the full-time equivalent salary into an hourly rate, then add 30 to 50 percent.
Check market reports, job listings, and RFPs. Ask other contractors what they charge. Contractors talk a lot about rates, what clients are like to work with, how quickly they pay, and other key details about working with them.
No. 2: Start before you look like a business
I have great news: you do not need a website, logo, or new business entity to "become a consultant."
All you need is a client. Well, and a clear, written contract that covers what you will do, when, and for how much money.
I didn't form an S-Corp until I had more than $90k a year in consulting (1099) revenue. That was the point when paying an accountant to help me decide whether the extra structure was worthwhile made sense for me. Your threshold and the right structure will depend on your circumstances but don't assume it needs to be your first step.
I only had a personal website with a portfolio page, not a business website, until I had AI to help me build it. To this day, I have never sold a project from my website. I will cover how I actually sold projects in the next post.
Two things helped me from the beginning:
Errors and omissions insurance. Mine runs about $50 a month in my field, and some contracts required it. I did not need general business liability insurance for the work I was doing. The right coverage depends on the work, client, contract, and policy, so check before buying every option offered to you.
A separate bank account and credit card for work expenses. More on being your own accountant and bookkeeper in another post.
It's easy to spend six weeks building the appearance of a consulting business instead of telling anyone you are consulting. Make yourself a folder. Change the color and name it something like "Consulting Empire." Then spend your time telling everyone you know that you are looking for projects.
No. 3: How I actually got clients
Tell everyone you know that you are consulting. Tell them what kind of work you want.
My first consulting check came from someone I met at a networking event. It was $100. My first real consulting work came through someone my sister met in line at a bakery. It was IDEO.
It happened because I'd shared dream clients and memorable soundbites about my fledgling consulting business with her. Start with people who have seen you work or can make a credible introduction: former colleagues, clients, classmates, friends, and family. Make it incredibly easy to say what you are available to do (with simple examples so they don't have to guess). Name the problem you can help with and the kind of organization you want to work with.
At the end of a project, ask the person closest to you for feedback like a LinkedIn recommendation or another piece of proof you can keep. Tell them what kind of engagement you want next. Ask them to keep you in mind.
If you do great work, your clients will assume you're too busy to chat or take small projects. It's nice on the ego to let them think you're booked ten years out, but for great clients, make it explicit that you will make time for them and projects they refer you to.
And make friends with your clients. I do not mean perform friendship as a sales tactic. Know the people and let them know you. It makes the work better, and it makes it easier for them to remember you later. Some of my closest friends started out as clients!
No. 4: Don't start before the contract is signed
It can be really hard to wait, but if you want to get paid for your time, don't start working before the contract is signed. Know enough to get and sign the contract, but hold off on the actual work.
A verbal yes is not a contract. An email saying everyone is ready is not a contract. A kickoff meeting on the calendar is not a contract. It is really awkward to get a contract that doesn't include work someone asked you to do before procurement got involved.
It is also awkward to hold the line when the client is eager to begin. Setting boundaries, communicating clearly and openly, and staying confident in your position will help you here and will set the tone for the whole project. Until the contract is signed, timing, scope, rate, payment terms, ownership of the work, or what happens if the project gets canceled can all change.
Before you sign, calculate when the money will reach your bank account. Payment terms are an often overlooked negotiation lever.
A contract with payment made 30 days after invoicing means you work for a month, send the invoice (the minute you can!), wait another month for payment, and then wait a week for it to hit your bank account. That is if there are no delays. Ask anyone working on a contract; delays are almost always a factor, especially if the company has not worked with consultants much. Do not be afraid to follow up.
Read the payment terms and invoicing process or ask if they are not in the contract. Count the days from the first day of work. Ask how they make payments, and make sure you have given them your payment details before you send the invoice. I always try to include late-payment terms in the contract and on the invoice when they are permitted, although they are not always enforceable.
No. 5: Choose the contract model
Consultants either sell time or a defined result.
An hourly contract pays for the time the work takes, usually with a cap. A deliverable-based contract pays for a specified outcome and rewards you (upside potential) for producing it efficiently. I always aim for an hourly or daily contract, especially with a new client, because so many unknowns can make delivery take longer than expected. I can't think of a single project where I realized the elusive upside potential.
Clients, especially those who are new to hiring consultants, will want to combine them. A fixed deliverable with unlimited revisions, close management of every hour, and a hard cap gives the client the protection of both models while you're exposed to the risk of both.
I am obsessive with timekeeping and forecasting, so I know every day how much of a contract I have left. I begin talking about it with the client as soon as a potential problem arises. Not from a feeling, but from numbers: how long things are taking and how much we have left on the budget.
If I'm working on deliverables, I require the revision process to be stated in the contract: who gives feedback, how many times, with how long to provide it, and what constitutes final approval.
No. 6: Bill for the meeting
If the client requires the meeting, include it in the billable work.
Meetings use the same hours as research, analysis, writing, or making the thing. If you do not bill for them, your calendar can fill up while the actual work gets pushed into your unpaid time. Conversations with clients and their teams are incredibly important to great work and long-term relationships. Just do not let them eat up your day. Boundaries are critical for a consultant; get used to saying when you need to leave (based on the time you have in the contract, not just your calendar) before the talking starts.
Sometimes the meetings are the work. Great. Price that contract accordingly and decide what counts as billable time before the invitations start arriving. Put it in the contract. Make sure your estimate includes the standing meetings, the prep, and the follow-up they create. In fact, if you have to come up with the estimate, knowing the client organization's meeting cadence is a place to start.
No. 7: Give every project a home
Make the consulting folder before you need it.
Give every prospect and client a folder. Keep business development separate, then move the work when the contract is won.
Inside each client folder, I kept separate places for:
Contracts
Working documents
Deliverables
Documents the client gave me
Invoices
Expenses
This is not glamorous. It does mean you can find the signed agreement when the scope changes. You can find the invoice when payment is late. You can close the project without searching three inboxes and covering your desktop in Final Final v4 (final).docx.
No. 8: Go on-site at the beginning and the end
If the project is mostly remote, try to be there in person at the beginning and the end.
At the start, sit with everyone you'll be working with and run an informal interview about the project, their working styles, their hopes and fears. Get to know them and understand who you need to talk to about what. Being an outsider is one of the hardest parts of consulting; get to know people so you feel like you're on the inside interpersonally, even if you aren't officially.
At the end, being there can make the handoff better. It helps people ask questions they didn't know they had when they read the deliverable alone.
Sometimes it is worth funding the travel yourself. Not every project justifies it. Some do. The relationship and the work can be better because you were in the room.
No. 9: Build the case study while you remember
After every project, spend a day making a record for your future self, organizing your files, and debriefing yourself. When I'm really on top of it, I do this at the end of each week, asking my AI tool of the moment to summarize everything I've done so I can use it as a foundation.
Even when the work is confidential, keep a simple spreadsheet database of what happened:
Context: the industry, organization, team, tools, contract length, scope, and price
Action: what you did, what decisions were made (and by whom), roadblocks and changes to the original scope of work
Result: the numbers or observable change, deliverables (with links), new methods and frameworks
Learnings: what you can offer next time and what you will not do again
Do this while the work is still in your head. Later, when you need a proposal, portfolio example, or post, you will not have to reconstruct six months from a few calendar invitations!
Then make the public version when you are on the beach between projects.
No. 10: Know what enough costs
When your income isn't fixed, it's even more important to know where your money goes. Knowing your monthly burn rate makes weathering the slow times more tolerable and lets you actually relax when you have made enough. I did not go independent to maximize my income. I did it for the freedom.
The income swings in consulting can take you for a ride. A strong month makes the ceiling feel endless. Do not buy a new car when you land a big contract; do it when you hit a savings goal. A quiet one makes every expense feel like a crisis. Don't spend all your time looking for a new job; split it between business development and your new, low-cost hobby (more on that later).
I put all of my accounts into Monarch and tag and budget relentlessly. It's my positive procrastination technique for staying in bed on my phone a few minutes longer in the morning. I use a separate bank account and credit card for business expenses. I also found access to a line of credit invaluable, but the interest rate and fee structure dictate how much you can use it. My working rule was to move at least 30 percent of every payment into a separate tax account that earns interest.
This is OBVIOUSLY not individualized tax or financial advice. It is the scaffolding I used to get through slow months and quarterly tax payments.
No. 11: When the pipeline goes quiet
When the pipeline goes quiet, do something that is not consulting.
Yes, keep telling people you are available. Follow up. Make the case study. Share your expertise online. Run or participate in a workshop. Meet new folks in your industry. Reach out and introduce yourself to people you admire (don't pitch anything; just get to know them). Do the small things that help the next project find you.
Then stop.
Get a hobby that does not cost much money. Go outside. Visit someone you haven't seen in a while. Make something nobody will buy. Invent a training schedule and get in shape. An open week does not have to become unpaid business development. Let it fuel your life.
The gaps are part of independent work. You need some scaffolding for the money, but you also need a life that keeps every quiet period from feeling like a personal emergency. It can feel overwhelming at first, when you wake up every day and don't have anywhere you have to be. You have to find a way to be ok with that. It is an excellent way to develop creativity. But in some cases, it just doesn't work, and it makes sense to go back to a full-time job with a dependable salary.
No. 12: Decide what you will not chase
Decide what enough looks like while the pipeline is healthy.
Write down the income the business needs to provide. Write down the conditions you will not accept. The rate that is too low. The scope that cannot fit. The client behavior that makes the money beside the point.
Write down the dream project, dream client, dream contract. Know what your goal revenue, rate, project count, and billable monthly hours are, and celebrate when you hit them.
Consulting has strong periods and weak ones. Both can distort your judgment. A strong period can make endless growth feel necessary. A weak one can make any contract look reasonable.
Know your number. Notice when you are chasing more because you need it, and when you are chasing more because stopping feels strange.
No. 13: Build your community
I've hinted to how I actually get projects across these notes and writing them forced me to really look at my biz dev practices.
I didn't start going to industry events until I was looking for a full-time job, which is a huge missed opportunity for me as someone who actually loves talking to strangers about work.
But what really drove my success as a consultant was having strong relationships with other consultants. Regular calls on the calendar and commitments to meeting IRL when we can. People I talk shop with, reach out to for putting together bids, commiserate during hard projects, and hand off opportunities when my schedule is full.
While networking with customers is always a good idea, independent consultants are constantly changing teams. I found that building my own small, informal team of consulting friends not only provides the support we all need over the course of our careers, but is how I built my business.
