12 Things No-One Tells You About Setting Up A Consultancy Practice

If you're just getting started, what are some of the lessons it would help to know as soon as possible?

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Someone recently asked me what newcomers might not know about consulting.

Here are the 12 things which came to mind:

1. Your niche is almost certainly too big. Your niche will determine most of your success. The smaller your niche, the more successful you will be. I’m not worried about new consultants entering my field and competing directly with us. I am worried about consultants zeroing in on small niches and slicing them away from us (see: 6 Rules For Picking A Niche Where You Can Thrive).

2. You will always have too much work or too little. It’s been 15 years now and there’s never been a time to just relax. The workload always feels like it’s too high and I’m struggling to manage it - or it’s too low and I’m worried about where the next project will come from (see: How Much I Earned In My First Five Years).

3. You will waste a lot of time creating proposals people won’t respond to. You will get frustrated wi…