If you've been a consultant for any length of time, your work life may look desirable to others, for a variety of reasons.

And if so, you've probably been asked this question by at least a few colleagues, friends, family members, at some point:

“Should I become a consultant?”

With current economic uncertainty, the odds are you'll hear the question again.

Many people who find themselves out from under the umbrella of the
corporate environment for the first time think that consulting is an
easy business to begin, manage and grow.

You know, and I know, though, that's far from the case. It is a
business, and it requires the same care, attention, and thoughtful
management as any of our clients' businesses do.

Below, here's a summary of what a few of my fellow consultants in a
Bay Area-based professional association, Women in Consulting (WIC),
advised when asked the question, "Should I become a consultant?"

Hopefully these ideas will help you, too, when you have to field
requests for “I think I'll go into consulting…what do you think?”
advice:

The consulting life is a good work life, in many ways.
Satisfactions include helping people solve problems that may seem
overwhelming to them. It's also very satisfying helping them achieve
business results much greater than they initially thought were
possible. The dissatisfactions? Well, they include not seeing how
things play out, once you've made your recommendations and handed the
project off.

The benefits are clear, but what may not be so readily apparent
is that being a consultant takes a LOT of work behind the scenes.
As a consultant, unless you are employed by a larger firm, you are a
small business owner and entrepreneur. The service you are selling is
some combination of expertise and advice, a strategy, action plan,
implementation guidance, problem-solving and specific deliverables as
well as your personal style in delivering your solutions.

One needs to devote a lot of time – consistently – to business development to make the business a success.
The most successful consultants make it look effortless, but they're
always marketing, in some way. Experienced consultants advise that 20%
of one's time needs to be spent each week on developing new business
with new clients. This is very important for continuing to be
successful through changes in the economy, such as we're seeing now.

Running the business, and growing the business is satisfying, if you are an entrepreneur at heart.
But a lot of people don't like that part of consulting. And more don't
realize how much a part of this work life that is. In addition, we're
often in the position of re-inventing our businesses based on changes
in our interests and in the marketplace. That means “re-starting,” in
some fashion, throughout the life of the business.

Another key part of starting, running, and growing your business
is the infrastructure aspect. You are responsible for every part of the
business. As a small business owner, you don't have a
corporate IT support desk to call for help, nor do you have an accounts
payable or receivables person to issue your checks or follow up when
receipts don't come in on time. Some of us enjoy doing these activities
ourselves while other consultants build a right-sized infrastructure
for their businesses or employ virtual assistants to do these things.
These are choices we all need to make about how to sustain the business
around us while doing the work we are most passionate about.

To test your entrepreneurial interest before going very far down the consultant path, study a few issues of Inc. magazine, Fortune Small Business, or Fast Company.
All of these magazines address the small business management life quite
well, as do a number of websites. If the problems small business owners
are solving don't interest you, it is a clear sign you may be missing
the entrepreneurial DNA that's an important part of consulting success.

If you pass the “Am I really an entrepreneur?” test, select a few
consultants who do what you want to do in the business segment you like
and approach them for informational interviews.

To prepare for your research,
think through the types of problems you could solve for a client, the
types of organizations you like working with best, the types of people
you enjoy working with, and the problems you have solved successfully
in the past for some organization. Are they marketing problems?
Management problems? Business process problems? Sales? Project
management? Fund-raising? Infrastructure or systems?

As a consultant, you are concentrating your business and marketing
efforts in one area or another, not all possible avenues of consulting.
You have to make it easy for your right clients to find you. You have
to be clear about who you are, and what you do that can make their
organizations or individual work lives more successful, in some way.

So, to recap:

Do you like the entrepreneurial life? If you don't have a
pretty good sense of that yet, start your research there. Start with
“Inc.”, Fortune “Small Business,” and “Fast Company” magazines, along
with small business-focused websites.

What problems can you solve well? Cite some specific examples
you could use to illustrate your problem-solving history you do your
informational interviews with a few specific people in your desired
field.

Who needs those particular problems solved? As a first fast
pass of research into your market, search Monster.com or any of the
major jobhunting sites with a few key words to see who is hiring for
those types of skills. This gives you a sense of the best markets for
your services, either as an employee or as a consultant. Consider using
a research tool such as a Hoover's subscription or other business
service.

Along the way, of course, you may find you'd really rather be an employee.
If, as is sometimes the case, you find a job you really want while
you're researching the market for companies who might use you as a
consultant, you may find the perfect job for you to take. Pursuing one
direction – consulting research – can lead to fulltime opportunities
you might otherwise have missed or roles that you didn't know existed
in the corporate world. For example, maybe you've started a career in
marketing and are researching consulting there, and it leads you to an
opportunity you really want in a larger organization in corporate
social responsibility.

However you resolve your curiosity or drive toward consulting, take
the first steps by taking a research spin. It'll clear up a lot of
questions before you decide whether to move further down the consulting
career path.

What if the Person Who Asks About Consulting is a Fresh College Grad?

I recently fielded the question to WIC, “I'm a new college graduate
and I'm thinking of going into consulting. What would you advise?” I
sent the question to the WIC Community list and these are the themes in
advice sent by about 20 WIC consultants:

1. Figure out what work you're truly passionate about, and competent
at. You need to have a core competency which will drive your consulting
practice.
2. Get experience, mentoring, and contacts in that field.
3.
It's hard to consult if you've never done the thing you want to consult
on. Most people in consulting have expertise developed by working a
while in that field for someone else.
4. Few consulting firms hire new BS grads.
5.
Large firms generally hire MBAs – bear in mind that those roles
typically require 100% travel. Most people find that pattern
sustainable for no more than 5 years.
6. Smaller regional firms
may have opportunities for people with new bachelor's degrees, but
those positions are typically filled through college recruiting cycles
in the fall and winter.
7. Hold off on diving into consulting for
a few years. As a consultant you lose the opportunity to learn and
collaborate with peers from your company or department or company.
8.
Mentoring is tremendously important, especially early in your career.
Take advantage of every opportunity to be mentored, especially in the
early years of a career when you're learning so much.