Have You Failed If You Find Yourself Freelancing?

A vast majority of the people who try to make it as a consultant will eventually wind up as freelancers. Why does this happen? What's the difference? And is it necessarily a bad thing?

Hi, I’m Rich, welcome to my consultancy newsletter. Please subscribe and check out my best articles.

Are you starting a consultancy practice or an agency?

The difference between consulting and contracting (or freelancing) is pretty simple.

If you are helping organisations define their problems and the steps to resolve them, you are a consultant.

If you are providing organisations with the resources to execute these steps, you are a contractor.

For example, FeverBee might help clients build their entire community strategy - including what platforms and techniques to use. But we don’t (usually - more on that later) provide the resources for the client to implement this strategy.

The client will then either do the work themselves (if they have the capacity) or hire an agency to implement the aspects of the strategy they can’t do (i.e. build the website or moderate the community).

In short, a consultant defines the work.

A freelancer does the work.

Both are very important tasks, but the bu…