Consulting can be a cold and lonely place when you're just starting out (or when business isn't as hot as you'd like it to be).
I know you're doing all the right things, professionally. You're networking like mad with your former colleagues and employers, attending local association meetings to let people know you're available and what you can do, working with your financial and legal advisers to make sure you've got the best possible business strategies, keeping up on your professional skills.
But one thing a lot of consultants miss--and I know I really missed--is the ability to bounce things off your colleagues, compare experiences, and maybe create some personal baselines for your progress. That's easy in the employee world, not so easy when you're on your own. Now, you can find local entrepreneurial groups and small business support that can be a great help...but you should also check out the virtual world of consultants.
Consultants use blogs to promote their services, provide tutorials for their clients and perform discreet market research. But they also use blogs to connect with their peers in a kind of virtual watercooler. I thought I'd share some of my favorites, and invite you to share some of yours, too.
ConsultantJournal. "Consulting is not about selling your knowledge, it's about selling people on your knowledge," says consultant Andrea Coutu. She manages ConsultantJournal, a support blog for consultants working in everything from restaurant management to IT.
Dr. Bamster's Blog contains excellent resources, discussions and support for the over-40 crowd that's interested in making career transitions, including a move into consulting. Dr. Bamster (in real life Dr. Barbara Marchilonis) is a career counselor with lots of good suggestions for rethinking your strategies for a successful professional life.
The Future of Work discusses today's evolving workforce and the trends toward consulting, working from home, mobilizing (i.e., make Starbucks your conference room), and other things. The people who write and comment know firsthand how it feels to start a consulting business.
The popular Kinetic Ideas from Wendy Maynard discusses how to promote yourself and your small business without spending a lot of money.
Guerrilla Consulting, based on the book, Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, this blog gets down to the nitty-gritty of selling your services to prospective clients.
So you want to be a consultant? OK, it's not a blog, but Unix consultant Steve Friedl gives great advice about the dos and don'ts of technology consulting. I think it's a must-read for all consultants.
Speaking of non-blog support for consultants, you might also want to check out CHIMBY, a search engine specializing in career management advice. It's kind of a compendium of advice for consultants (and others). There's a lot of "let's join hands and sing in the flowery meadow" kinda stuff in its search results...but there's a lot of good, solid information you can use, too.
Sometimes blogs about other subjects include some great excerpts on consulting experiences. Swiss blog consultant Stephanie Booth has a great post of notes taken from a consulting seminar with Martin Roell's LIFT seminar. You'll often find these sorts of things by monitoring your favorite blogs, or by searching through popular engines like Digg, Technorati and Google Blogsearch.
These are just starters--there are a LOT more out there. I've added some to my blogroll (you'll find it on the lower right of this page). I'll be adding others--what would you suggest? Got a blog about your consulting life? Post a comment, and I'll check it out.
Cheers--
--Doug
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