Becoming an independent consultant

I became a consultant more than a decade ago. It started with a dream, then with a plan focused on how to become a consultant. Although I briefly considered a career in a consulting firm, my true passion was to build my own practice by becoming an independent consultant. I didn’t want to build a business for someone else – unless they were a paying client. As I note in the Becoming a Consultant FAQ, you can start consulting on your own without building a complex business. In most places, you can hang out your shingle without having to get more than a municipal business license. Of course, you’ll want to have a plan and some guidance along the way. But there’s no reason to think that building a consulting business is an impossibility, if you’ve taken steps to discover whether a consulting career is right for you.