SELF-EMPLOYMENT - 7 lessons from 7 years of marketing consulting
A slight break from the norm this time. Allow me to share thoughts if you can. If self employed or thinking of it, this is definitely one for you (and for everyone else too for that matter)!
Good Afternoon/Evening,
Hope all is well!
I am going to start with a question here :
How often do you step back and think about how far you have come, what you have learnt, and what you could do with that learning?
We do it in day job, but giving ourselves that same love? Don’t be daft!
Like many of you I am sure, I have been so focussed on doing the work, for clients, with my head right in it. The combination of this, juggling with (again like many) some major extracurricular stuff, I have not been able to be as proactive or reflective as I would like to have been in recent times. This monthly drop aside, routines can be tricky. Maybe it’s the ADHD coupled with the total rug pull of recent circumstances, or just the oscillating nature of the day job and consulting. But things get dropped, and we certainly get less time to reflect.
On this subject, I did get a realisation at the start of the month when I sat down. May Bank Holiday weekend : a lovely 3 day laptop embargo I always try to honour (queue looking at phone more, but a story for another time). Like your smartphone no doubt does, it throws up random photo memories or bizarre curations with insipid music. Love a picture from the vault, especially those with a reduction of greys in my beard!
Here was one. 3rd May 2019. A sunny day in London, a few lovely pics. A Clerkenwell mural. A Flat White from Benugo. A selfie on the tube (no idea why) and screenshots of my new company logo, the companies house and domain registration. What a montage!
7 years! Honestly feels like yesterday in many ways. But 7 years, 3 locations, and 2 lockdowns later it would seem that quite some time has passed. So yes, I am now -based on what I have observed and discovered - an officially established ‘long-term’ marketing consultant, especially as ‘solopreneur’ majority down tools within first 5 years. So yes - well done me (so far)!
This isn’t a brag (or making out) I assure you, but I have over the years, especially as time goes on and have established self further, been asked a lot about advice and thoughts on starting up a consultancy, or going alone / freelance, with offers of coffee to pick brains and such. As I hope some of you may know, I aim to be generous with my time and support where possible, but duty often prevents such. So I want to corral some potential wisdom (at least thoughts) gleaned from the last 84+ months!
Broadly broken down into 7 things, I will attempt to share this ‘wisdom’ with you. To preface, this is not advice nor a how-to guide. Just real observations, experience that may well resonate, or perhaps help you consider the fundamentals of it all :
1. ON SETTING UP - your circumstances are unique, think Pull not Push
First - don’t listen to the guff and ‘proven formulas’. As a general rule, don’t compare your circumstances to others. We are all coming into this from a different lens, some with more experience or privilege than others. Be careful taking advice or taking on board frameworks from those who do not fully disclose the circumstances from which they came. Remember, folk show the showreel, never the cutting room floor; by the same token, tales of survivorship bias are often masking a base privilege.
For example, when I set up I 1. had 2-3 of months cash (for London living at the time), enough to start but not enough to relax, gleaned from decent salaried roles previous in case it went kaput and 2. I also had a couple of business ventures that I had learnt the hard way on, as well as a broad range of experiences to start (becoming the marketing generalist with media specialism). So it made sense to just bring it together and go alone, but for margin and profit reasons, monetise my input rather than trades etc.
You also need the PULL factors not just the PUSH. By Push, I mean you have circumstances making you not want the alternative (employment). Perhaps you are sick of your boss / having one, or you were made redundant and need to do this. These are the ignition sparks, but it is the Pull factors that are required for good reasons and sustained business. Do you want self employment? Can you solve a very specific problem? Is the autonomy - yet with a bedrock of instable peril and often unpredictability - OK for you? Know thyself, the good and the bad!
2. GOING TO MARKET? Have an initial approach, but forget perfect
Without going all Ikagai-nauseum on you, broadly speaking it seems we need to combine what people need with what we are pretty good at and can earn from, and with love for what we do. I’ve never bought into the ridiculous ‘love what you do and you won’t work a day in your life' mantra, but if you are going to sell something, you’d better at least mainly enjoy doing it, because when things get tough (and when you perhaps miss the workplace camaraderie), the work can be a dependable friend. Well, that is what I’ve found. If I have ever done work that bored me, being honest, it probably showed and I wasn’t ever going to be shining the best light on myself.
So you have a good starting point. You have an informed / intuitive sense of what is needed and you know you want to fill that gap, so you have an initial position. But don’t be too high on yourself at first. This will change, this door may evolve to an absolute close, and in true consulting style, you may find that the thing you end up doing is more white circle than turquoise (above). But you can do it, you are adding to the scope, you are feathering your cap, and importantly you are adding client value.
3. LEAD GEN IS MULTI FACETED - learn your own Category Entry Points
Whenever I indeed have one of these coffees / catch-ups with those thinking of going it alone, one of the first questions I often get asked, which in full candour irritates me more than it should, is ‘How do you get your leads?’, and I invariably - after perhaps reminding folk they must surely have a hunch having wanted to get to this in the first place - give a 2-3 pronged answer…
Well first of all, part 1 matters here, where you came from. Know thyself. You may have the strongest network, which has indeed served me very well, but it is definitely not a thing to solely rest on the laurels of.
Secondly, I would check out some previous Front of Mind posts perhaps ( :) ) and think about why this is being read in the first place; customer acquisition is the old age challenge for any company, from a lone ranger to a global behemoth, which is why marketing as a practice exists and is constantly a challenge. One should give their own strategy the same love they’d give a client, and remember you are a company who should respect and learn marketing fundamentals of which we try to speak and hold dear!
Thirdly, your appetite for ‘promotion’ may be different based on shape. I personally only need / want a few good leads a year for my marketing consultancy to exist, given my scale of projects and focus, and for me to have a sustained living (hence my always giggle when I get a spam email offering 20-30 qualified leads a week!) If however you have need for more gigs e.g. a freelancer doing one off designs or paid ads, you probably would want more leads, a wider addressable market and your activity should reflect that. Maybe message is the medium. e.g. Smart keyword targeting showcases your approach to ad buying.
For me, writing and sharing thoughts, conversing and networking with other marketing and brand professionals is my starting point, showing up with my thinking where thoughts need to be. It depends. Work it out. I had to. I still am. It is evolution. Anyone who tells you they have nailed it needs treating with caution. Test & Learn!
4. YOU ARE UNDERWAY - now embrace the Equilibrium mindset
Congratulations, you’ve started up! Perhaps with a kick-off client getting you going. Or a gig or even an interim contract. You announce it on LinkedIn. It’s all oohs and aahs, and massive congratulations, and let’s catch up soon’s. 416 likes, 48 comments and 3 months later, there can be a dearth. I once heard a phrase I rate to capture this : the trough of sorrow. Typically 3-4 months in, when the excitement dies down, you’ve milked the most immediate cows. The trough is apparent, the wondering what you got into can creep in.
But it is temporary. Having done this consultancy thing for 7 years now (+ 4 years of less gainful self employment in years previous) I now feel qualified to say this, and I confess it is a cliché albeit an informed one - it is the resilience and mindset shift that keeps you going.
Courage to set up is great. So is starting well. But what makes you do this for 3 years? 5 years? 7 years? 10 years? Another visual I have scribbled on my iPhone Notes far too many times for said coffee buddies is below. It is essentially about maintaining a steady equilibrium, both mentally and financially. Don’t overspend or get too high on self when you’re flying, because the nature of your work means it is not guaranteed to last. Inversely, when shit is in the abyss, you have to remember who you are, and that it is a blip. The process is proven before and should be trusted. Last year, my trough was longer and deeper than I’d have hoped, but the principle remained and was proven in the end. Treat self with the same solution-led love you would bestow upon a client.
5. BE FLEXIBLE & OPEN TO DEVELOPING MATTERS - take 15 minutes!
You are up and running, you have been trading for a little while now, getting some nice work under your belt, and even evolved your mindset. So far so good. But standing completely still in this climate is not an option. You have to keep moving mentally and stay close to things. One perk of being employed that I definitely took for granted is the constant Personal Development that organically happens and is encouraged through training budgets. It is something you lose when going alone. So you need to take time out to think about this, and look into areas of growth.
Keep tabs. Evolution is key. And not just your sector area, wider macro impacts that are sector agnostic. AI. Talent. Culture. Data privacy. Someone will be entering your sphere with a hunger that you feel may have subsided in you. Hell I am nowhere near as ravenously hungry as I was 7 years ago, but that has evolved into more wisdom, experience and what I like to think is a more discerning eye. And with intersectional insights, I am a more credible partner to clients. Thanks to partners and industry relationships, I aim to maximise every free / low cost research, insights or course so I can keep abreast of things. Keeping myself subscribed, and aware of the conversation, even if not contributing as much.
For sustainability of commercial as well as personal development, do something each day that future you will be grateful for. Some days that is doing that extra proposal, outreach, response, DM or a great pitch. We consultants can get so deep into our current brief and workstream that we can neglect to keep an eye on our own future. Sometimes it may just be a case of reading that downloaded PDF you said you would 6 months ago. Or it may be tidying up those receipts. But that extra 15 minutes at the end of the day where you want to throw the towel in? Just hold firm. Just another quarter of an hour. I guarantee with a good ending to the work day before that satisfying laptop slap down, you’ll be happy for that extra thing. Eventually anyway!
6. FIND WAYS TO SHOWCASE YOUR PROGRESS - you aren’t static
This is something that I have honestly, cards on the table, sometimes missed from my employment day. In bigger brands and agencies, if someone lands a big job or a promotion, or someone becomes the Global head of '[big role] at [massive cool brand] Plc, it is going to be an avalanche of recognition and in turn eyeballs and awareness, and you see those who only like those kind of posts, and you come to realise that majority tend to performatively play homage to the more conventional routes. Because it is recognisable. Hell, I thought of toying with progression of job title, messing about with promotion announcements!
Now being a consultant - you don’t often have that. Or you at least don’t think you do. You are little you. You may have a brand but it doesn’t have their salience. And you may be under covenant of the work you do or wish to keep private. But trust me - there are always eyeballs. Forget vanity metrics, the silent ones often comment on message or in person how they have been following progress and reveal they have a lead for me. The love language of progress has to imbue the work, the thinking, the examples, the proposition. Doing it through case studies, quoted testimonials, examples of work, product launches, presentations or industry features is the way to constantly showcase your prospective clients the evolution that so deserves the awareness.
7. THERE IS GREEN GRASS ON ALL SIDES - enjoy some of your own!
The grass is often greener we think to ourselves. Don’t think that I don’t lament the days of the admin-free tax-deducted salary, the package benefits, or (queue dirty talk) of not having to chase payment and just getting paid. Or something that I did (and most employees do) take for granted ; the community and the ready-made social interaction, the water cooler happenstance and the Thursday night beer with colleagues after a hard day’s work.
But then I look at where I am, I have not been on anyone but my own payroll since April 2019, I work with clients I want to (that takes time by the way), doing what I want and pretty much where I want; I spent most of 2022-2024 working remotely and travelling the world as I worked. No holiday booking system slot needing a line manager sign-off.
Yes there is rough Mariana Trench moments, uncertainty and the odd moments of nihilism. But there’s so much upside I have enjoyed, and holistic wealth (i.e work:life balance) that I would never have got had I continued on my path. I got offered a global leader role at an agency 2 years ago. A handsome salary that would arguably surpass what I have earnt consulting, but the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. No autonomy, no free time. etc.
You can reconstruct a lot of the FOMO stuff by the way. Cowork communities and spaces. Those who love to consult and freelance do not necessarily always want to be alone. I like working alone more often than not (more for focus than anything) but I can opt into that stuff. I cannot be an island. I prefer being part of an archipelago.
FINAL THOUGHTS - In true Consulting Fashion - Consult Yourself!
No really! Look at the above.
How much of this do you relate to?
How much not?
How much of it is new thoughts you could perhaps alter your approach on?
Can I sustain this equilibrium for a while?
Like I said, I never prefaced to be the sage on this, I am speaking from experience and battle hardened thoughts that may help a couple of you. I take none of it for granted and if things get bad and it is necessary, I will go back intto employment with my head held high, with an incredible body of work and experiences behind me, which in many ways accelerated and not hindered my career, with even more feathers in my cap. I’ve been in boardrooms, shortlists, events, stages, countries, publications, lecture theatres and all sorts of places I really doubt I’d have ever have got into if I had not had the faith to take the leap.
But if you are looking into this, or already in play and thinking longer term, then thinking about the above, the mindset, the need for equilibrium and always helping your future self, you shall not go far wrong. Well, it’s as right as possible, I think!
Happy consulting!
SA
P.S. All coffee catch-up quips aside, I have actually set up a page so, in lieu of such thoughts, and if you appreciate my work and words, you could actually Buy Me That Coffee If you want!
PPS. I really hope you like this, find it interesting, or at least find useful. If you think anyone else would : a marketer, a business owner, an auntie, or anyone you think needs it, feel free to share/forward this to them and maybe they can subscribe too, it is so appreciated. Also, follow me on LinkedIn, personally or on my company page. If you want to work with me, you need some marketing advice, or you just want to discuss something I’ve said, drop me a note. Thanks and happy reading/marketing!