By Wendy Mihm | Thursday February 10, 2011

I run my own marketing consulting business, and it’s been a great experience in many important ways.  I’m able to set my own hours, command excellent pay, work fewer overall hours and be my own boss.

Getting established did take some risk tolerance on behalf of our family:  I was without income for about 5 months while I got the venture off the ground and sought my first paying client.  But the experience, the resulting flexibility, and the financial rewards were well worth it.

So if you’re interested in making the jump yourself, here are five tips for starting your own consulting business.

1.  Decide whether your professional experience translates well into private consulting.

Before you quit your job to venture off on your own, you should be sure that your experience is well suited for private consulting.  Let’s use my situation as an example.  I had come directly from corporate marketing and communications at a large consumer packaged goods firm.  This is known in the industry as “CPG” marketing experience, and it is highly valued as the most classic of all marketing experience.  While at a CPG firm, you typically carry a high level of responsibility, receive quite a bit of formal training and are given a great deal of exposure to sales, finance, operations, R&D, and public relations.  I came to realize that this is fairly well known, and as a result, many companies value CPG experience and will pay an individual to share it.

Think about your experience in a similar way.  What do other companies in your industry know about your type of experience?  What about your experience is unique, in-demand and marketable?  That’s how you’ll want to present and publicize your skill set as a consultant.

2.  Focus in on what you have to offer as a consultant.

Once you’ve decided that you have a unique and marketable skill set, narrow your experience down to about three core competencies.  It takes some real discipline and thought to do this. But if you tout much more of your expertise than that, you’ll start to confuse yourself and your potential clients about what you have to offer.  As an example, I narrowed my core competencies down to these three:

• Providing brand marketing and communications strategy

• Developing marketing plans

• Writing copy

That’s it.  You’ll notice that the competencies are all very much related to each other.  That was not by accident.  This focus made it easier to communicate to people about what I had to offer.  It also made it easier for my friends to promote me to their network of contacts.  This is no small point.  In fact, it’s the point.  It’s how I got my best client.

3.  Create a basic website for your consulting business.

It does not have to be fancy, and you don’t have to know much about web programming to do this.  There are lots of build-your-own website applications out there that can help you create a basic site.  I just Googled “build your own website” and got plenty of results.  Mine is at Tenzeau.com and I built it on my Mac using the iWeb application in just a few days.

The idea is not to try to build a huge site and drive traffic to it – that can take years.  You just want to spend a few dollars and a few days to put up a basic site that you can send people to after you’ve networked with them.  That way they can refresh their memories about who you are and what you have to offer.

4.  Spread the word about your consulting business.

Now that you know exactly what consulting services you’re offering (maybe you’ve even practiced a nice, smooth pitch), and you have a basic website where you can send people, it’s time to tell everyone you know that you’re in business.

Start by writing a polished email that includes your pitch and a link to your new website.  Then send it to everyone you know.  Literally, pretty much everyone you know should get this email.  Even if they are older friends of your parents.  Remember, these folks may hold high-ranking positions or have sons and daughters in the work force who can help you. You never know who people might know.

Then update all of your social media pages (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) to reflect your new business venture.  Join groups that will expand your network.

When you’re out and about, talk to people about your new business—in fact, talk about it (appropriately, of course) wherever you go.

Remember, most people get jobs through friends, family and other connections, rather than formal job listings.  Again, that’s how I got my best gig.  I sent out my email blast to everyone I knew, then several months later, a friend mentioned it to his boss and badda bing – I had a client!

5.  Be smart about what you charge.

When those clients start coming in, they will ask you how much you charge.  Be ready to answer them intelligently.  One place to start is with your last salary.  Take the dollar value of your last salary (including bonus) and multiply it by 1.3.  That will get you roughly to the amount your employer actually paid for you, including your benefits package.  If you have deeper insight into what that number is, use that.  I am using a general rule of thumb that a benefits package costs roughly an additional 30%. 

Now give yourself a raise.  Why not, right?  How about a 15% raise?  So whatever number you ended up with, multiply that by 1.15.  This is your new annual salary.  Let’s say it’s $150,000.  Now use a little math to break it down into 12 months and you have what you would charge someone to keep you on a monthly retainer.  This is roughly how I billed my client.  Now use a little more math and break that number down by the hour, and you have your hourly rate.

Have all of these figures in the back of your head when you walk in the door.  If you sense from the meeting that the client has a large budget, feel free to tack a few dollars onto your fees before you state them.  If the client continually talks about tight budgets, you might want to shave a few dollars off in order to win the business.

Whatever you do, have confidence in your ability to sell yourself and your skills. Most of us know more than we think we do.  And remember, after the Great Recession many companies laid off a good chunk of their workforce and now they’re short staffed.  If you’ve got the skills they need, it’s less risky for them to hire you as a consultant than it is for them to add a full time employee to their books.

Good luck!

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By Wendy Mihm | Wednesday February 2, 2011

I work from home. More specifically, I work from a somewhat chilly, 400 square foot, finished basement of a 98-year-old Craftsman house in Pasadena, California.

I know, it’s not as glamorous as a mid-town Manhattan address, but it’s more frugal.  And if you’re going to write a finance blog for a living, you might as well practice what you preach, right?

When people ask me about what I do, two questions come up immediately.

1.  How do you get along with your husband?!  (He works from home too.  About 21 feet away from me.)

2.  What’s it really like to work from home?

The answer to number 1, is, well, pretty good actually!

The answer to number 2 is the subject of this post.  I tell people that I have a love/hate relationship with working from home, which has motivated me to synthesize what I’ve learned from the experience.  This, in-turn, I hope will save you some time and headaches if you are about to set up shop in your own basement, den, office or bedroom nook.

A Dedicated Home Office Space is Crucial

This space should be clearly defined and, if possible it should have a door that you can close.  If not, try to find another way to partition it off in either a visual or symbolic way, so that you, your spouse and children know that when you are behind that barrier, you are at work and not to be trifled with.  This will matter to you and your family so you can clearly determine when you are at work and when you are at home.  A real door will also help close out the din of your household if others are often home while you are working.

Maintaining Consistent Hours Works Best

If you work from 9:30am till 10:15, then run to the grocery store, then work again from 11:20 till 1:00 and break for lunch, work again from 1:45 till 3:30 and stop to pick up the kids from school, help with their homework and eat dinner, then work again from 9:00 till 10:30, that may be ok.  But if you work the next day from 8:00 am till 5:00pm and eat lunch at your desk while your spouse takes care of kid pickup duties, and this on and off pattern repeats itself with no rhyme or reason, it’s tough to get into a groove.  Try to create a schedule and stick to it.  Even if it is a strange schedule by traditional workday standards, and even if it is not the same schedule every day.  What is important is to establish a predictable schedule over the course of each week.  That way you can plan what you hope to accomplish in any given work day, and you can be productive all week.

In contrast, if your days are haphazard and you can’t predict with any certainty whether you will have a block of time of 25 minutes or 3 hours, it’s difficult to schedule a conference call or to get a productive chunk of work done.  If you need to coordinate with your spouse to figure out pickup and drop off schedules for the week, or the month to establish your schedule, do it. 

Showering is Important


People love to glamorize the idea of working in their jammies.  I hate it.  It just makes me feel like a slob.  You may find the same to be true.  Notice how, when you’re sick and you’ve been lying around all day and haven’t showered, that when you finally gain a little strength back and you do actually take a shower, you feel so much better?  I think every day is a little like that.  Get up.  Get dressed like you’re going to work.  Take yourself seriously.  I’m not saying you have to get into a suit or even into business casual clothes.  I’m wearing jeans, a sweater and boots as I write this.  But I would never wear sweats and slippers.  I have showered, put on makeup and done my hair, like I do every day.  This is my job, I take it seriously, because I believe that the way you prepare for your day flows into your attitude and the kind of work you produce.  Did that just sound like my mother?

Mentally Separating From Home is Key


This is the hardest one for me.  It’s easy for my husband to separate work from home, but I struggle with it non-stop.  When Alex is crying, I have to fight hard not to go up and assist our nanny, even though I know she is perfectly capable and does not need my help.  The laundry calls me all the time. When I am stuck on some technical issue or something I’m trying to write, I am tempted to pull in the recycling bins or take care of that stack of bills upstairs.  My husband, however, is really good at completely delving into his work until 5:30pm, when he becomes Daddy again, 100%.  If you can pull that off, please tell me your secrets – and any other thoughts, for that matter – in the comments section.

So if you are embarking on a work-from-home career, hats off to you!  It is not easy.  It takes discipline (but if I can do it, anyone can) and practice, but the rewards of being so accessible to your family and avoiding costly and potentially dangerous and time-consuming commutes are well worth it. 

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By Wendy Mihm | Tuesday November 30, 2010

Considering changing careers?  Here are some things you should consider before you trade your employer’s ID badge for a graduate school or other ID.

Changing Careers Vs. Making Life Adjustments

First, make sure it’s your career that needs to change, and not just some other aspect of your life.  We all get bogged down sometimes, but because we go to work every day, it’s easy to blame a rut on your job.  I hate it when people tell me I need a new hobby, so I will spare you that.  But maybe you need to rediscover how much fun your girlfriends are.  You might be surprised at how much you’ll all be rejuvenated by a standing lunch and movie/pedicure/tennis/ date one Saturday each month.  Or how much you and your husband/partner need to drop the kids off with the In-laws and go on a few more dates.  It sounds trite, but sometimes just shaking things up with a small change in your personal life can make a bigger difference than you could ever predict.

Changing Careers or Changing Jobs

Second, ask yourself whether it’s your career you’re done with, or just your job? We all need a change now and then, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to throw away all your experience and completely start over. Maybe you’re really just tired of your current job situation.  Take some time to seriously consider all the other ways you can apply your career expertise to different areas in your field.

For example, classroom teachers can apply their skills in a different school or district, in administration, on a different project such as a new subject or grade level, or a special assignment like curriculum development.  A marketer at a big company could change brands, move to a special project like innovating a new product, or even try a special assignment like teaching corporate marketing courses to new employees.  Be creative in how you interpret your skills and you may be surprised to find how flexible your skills and knowledge really are.

Consider Passions Before Changing Careers

Third, think honestly about what you really enjoy about your current line of work before you jump to another.  That way, you’ll know which skills to take with you and where they will apply best.  Is it the research?  Working with people?  Not working with people?  Crunching numbers? Manual labor? Working with children? Dig beyond what you’ve been trained to tell people, and find what you truly, honestly, enjoy.  If this feels too hard, there are tools and tests to help you identify a career (link) that will capitalize on your true strengths.  They not cheap, but they may lead you to a true passion that can help you to build a fuller and possibly more profitable future.

Research Before Changing Careers

Fourth, and I know this is obvious, but make sure you research, research and research some more.  Don’t just jump right into training for something else because it seems glamorous from the outside.  I guarantee you, whatever it is, it is not as glamorous from the inside.  Google this career and read about it.  Check the US Department of Labor Statistics for basic info on the job outlook for that industry. Google the companies in that industry.  Find out what kind of degree you’ll need.  Will you need to go back to school?  What kind of investment will that mean for you? And whatever you do, don’t forget to talk to people on the inside.  Even if you don’t directly know anyone in the industry you’re considering, chances are that someone you know does, so start asking.  If you think you need a little help, check out our sample email request for informational informational interviews. 

Make a Financial Plan Before Changing Careers

Finally, if after some true soul searching and research, you decide you really do want to change careers, make sure you have a financial plan in place.  As in, you have a way to keep the food on the table, the bills paid and the kids cared for, while you get the training and do the networking you need.  If you’ve chosen a new career that you really love, this could be an investment in time and money that really pays off in a healthy, happy financial life.

Good luck!

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