Consultation period

I could see the gleam of hope kindle and then blaze in her eyes with the heat of a white hot sun. She'd read my CV, discussed my career aspirations, and now she pounced with the zeal of someone revealing the entire secrets of the universe to the uninitiated.

'You could be,' she paused dramatically, 'a consultant' and then leaned back in her chair with the triumphant look of someone who has just bought the last bag of brussel sprouts in Tescos before Christmas whilst all around her the unlucky ones wailed and gnashed their teeth at their misfortune (well they do where I live).

And that was it, 50% of the result of the career counsellor's output after exhaustive psychometric testing, CV evaluation and interview skills. Oh that and be an interim manager which proved to be the other 50% and we've already had a little look at those roles. Having developed a poker face, as a result of so many people telling me 'Oh you'll soon get a job with your qualifications', and then not having done so, I asked, simply, 'Consult who with what?'. Had I asked how to fix the Large Hadron Collider for just £5.30 I feel I might have got a more fulfilling answer. 'Ah' she said, 'I've just forgotten that I had another client, er right now in Mumbai, must go'.

So let's put the beefburger of consultancy over the flames of possibility and see what catches fire. Well I've been an independent 'consultant' and it falls, in my experience, somewhere between the fun you have hitting your face with a house brick repeatedly and running over your foot with the car. Both interesting experiences in their own ways but you are very glad when they stop.

Firstly, consult what? Well, when you've had many years in the wacky and fun filled world of the sandwich-in-a-balloon industry you might feel uniquely qualified to be able to consult with the said purveyors of sandwiches-in-balloons. Of course, you first have to get over the hurdle that the the employer that has just ejected you might not feel like having you back on the premises, in the same town, county or even country and the fact that their competitors probably loathe them and their staff with a passion bordering on an obsession. The moment you left you were erased completely from corporate memory unless you figure in the same sentence as 'Ah that was the fault of XYZ, he/she didn't complete it before they left.' Your departure is good for at least six months of backside saving.

Then you discover that, strange though it seems, there are 65 other people who also claim to be to be consultants on the sandwiches-in-a-balloon business. You've never heard of them, you don't know where they've come from but they all seem to be pitching for the same teeny weeny bit of work. And all have strangely sounding business pedigrees that somehow make yours just that little bit less lovely and cuddly.

How much do charge? Oh this is so hard, so very hard. You are desperate for the work but don't want to sell yourself short because, once you name a day rate, hell will freeze over before you can raise it. £500 a day sounds a lot. But how many days will you work for and how any days do you have to spend not being paid looking for the next job. And you don't get paid when you are on holiday or have a sickie - pulling a sickie now costs you money (and that's a bad thing). Remember consultants often have the same, or slightly worse, survival rate of a soldier in the trenches during the First World War. I once turned down a week's work at £250 per day on the basis that it was half my usual day rate and then spent that week at home not earning anything. Still I had my pride. And an empty wallet. But I had my pride and that's what counts Tesco, that's what counts why are you escorting me out of the store?

The car, what car do you buy? Right, the big shiny company car has gone leaving only a small oily stain and few weeds on the drive. Now you have to buy your own. Prudence says a 10 year old Fiesta will do - but what will the client think? Too big a motor and they will think you are charging them too much, a pile of rust and they will think nobody else will employ you and have they made a major error. But how can you be a consultant without a sharp suit and a big shiny car? Everyone else has a big shiny car, why can't I Mummy?

And then there is the actual work.
'So what value exactly will you add to our company Mr EoTP?'
'Well I know stuff.'
'What stuff do you know and will that stuff enable us to sell more of our stuff for more money?'
'Well I know stuff about the industry and stuff about selling and stuff about marketing. And I have a kitten.'
'OK we like the kitten but not you - the kitten can stay.'
Fundamentally you will only get work as a consultant if you can actually show that, by the end of the paid period, that things are actually better in some way. Compare that to most people's jobs where they are satisfied if things are not actually materially worse than when they started out that morning or, at the very least, somebody else has been blamed for it.

And don't think that a groovy web site that lists your qualifications and Alma Mater will make the blindest bit of difference: it won't. Neither will funky headed paper - I had really very funky and colourful headed paper and I couldn't find any work after 18 months and therefore no one to send it to. Anyone like to buy 15 reams whilst we're here? The people who pay you money want the knowledge in your head extracted and put into a bottle and then they can throw the husk of your body out onto the cold, cold streets.

There are the accounts and the Inland Revenue to deal with and I still have nightmares about the day the VAT man sent in the bailiffs. Yes I was VAT registered. Pay the VAT before the children eat, before the mortgage is paid, above all else do not fail to pay the VAT man as they have super powers that transcend all us mortals. Pay them and all will be well, they said. Well I did and the one time that the VAT system paid my cheque into the wrong account, through their error, I had the bailiffs knocking on the door three days later demanding anything that wasn't too large to get through the front door but not including Mrs EoTP fortunately. Oh it was all sorted out, how I laughed, though I'm still waiting for an apology 10 years later.

In the end I gave up the consultation work. To be fair it gave me up first. All my contacts dried up or moved on and in the end there wasn't really a market for what I was offering. Marketing support for small to medium enterprises since you ask. Though I was prepared to do anything by the end of the period. That work as an ice trucker paid handsomely thank you. As if.

So before you decide that consulting is the very thing for you, in the worst recession the country has seen since the dinosaurs were wiped out by a giant meteorite or some one said 'there's a big black rat just got off that boat do you think it might be carrying a funny foreign disease', just be sure that the stuff you are selling is the stuff organisations are buying.

Or you'll be stuffed.