Читать книгу The Consulting Bible - Alan Weiss - Страница 42

I mentored Phil for about 18 months some years ago. He was 47 at the time, about 30 pounds overweight, and failing at breaking his smoking habit. He had a staff of eight, all of whom were delivery people. Phil generated, through his rainmaking, about $450,000 a year. That's not bad for an independent consultant, but very poor for a firm of this size (which should be doing at least $2.25 million with that complement of professionals).

Phil and I spoke about once or twice a month, and it wasn't unusual not to hear from him some months when he was heavily booked with appointments. He traveled about 80 percent of the time, which was tough on his wife and two children.

After a two‐month hiatus, I called his office. His wife answered and told me that Phil had passed away two weeks earlier, alone, in a hotel room in Boston. She hadn't been able to contact everyone yet to tell them. Some clients didn't even know.

FIGURE 2.3 Consulting Model

I can always make another dollar, but I can't make another minute.

I have never advocated starting out as a solo consultant and building a firm as a natural extension. I routinely make well over $3 million working out of my home with no staff at all. When I began, I made $67,000 my first year. The revenue has changed, but the structure of my business hasn't. Could I be making $4 million or building a $40 million firm? Perhaps. Maybe it's even probable. But I have no interest in doing so. Remember that wealth is discretionary time.

I would urge you to consider the advantages of a solo practice and the vast disadvantages of building a firm. If you need affiliation, find it in other ways and by other means. Building a company is a very expensive and awkward way to create colleagues.

A very basic model for successful consulting appears in Figure 2.3. There's no reason in the world you can't do it yourself.

And remember: We're all refugees from larger firms, but in launching solo careers sometimes we have a worse boss. Give yourself a break.