Why Consulting Is A Job Everyone Needs To Experience

 You should see yourself as a consultant. Here’s why you need to experience consulting

Reason #1: Problem solving

No matter what field you are consulting in, your job is to identify problems, and fix them.
If you are lucky, you’ll have free rein to do whatever you want, but the chances are you’ll have to solve the problem within specific guidelines. This means you’ll have to be creative and start to think outside of the box. This is important for you to learn because it will not only teach you how to solve problems, but it will also teach you how to do this across any industry. This means you can work in any field in the future because you can adapt to any environment. And if you decide to stay with the 9 to 5 route you will be more valuable to your employer as they will be able to throw you at any problem.

Reason #2: You’ll learn to speak your mind

A consultant isn’t an employee. Sure you maybe working for a consulting firm, or your own firm, but when you go to different businesses to help them out, you’re considered a consultant… not an employee. As a consultant, you won’t be shy to speak your mind and tell companies what they are doing wrong. Why? Because you are getting paid to do that!
Speaking your mind is a really important trait… these days there are one too many people who are afraid to do this in the corporate world. By speaking your mind, you are helping your co-workers or the company who hired you. So always say what you are thinking, especially if it benefits the company.

Reason #3: You’ll learn how to keep a job

If you’ve ever worked at a large corporation, you know that there are plenty of people who just twiddle their thumbs every day. And to make matters worse, they keep getting paid without doing much work and no one ever dares to fire them. As a consultant you won’t have that luxury. Businesses have much more strict rules when it comes to laying off an employee versus firing a consultant. Typically they can fire a consultant without requiring any approval from their superior. This means that you have to continually earn spot as a consultant. You will have to keep on working hard and continually provide exceptional results. You’ll learn how to fight to stay alive and never give up.

Reason #4: Communication

The best thing I learned as a consultant is how to communicate effectively. You won’t be working in an office every day and you know your gig isn’t steady. You’ll have to keep providing results, as I mentioned in reason number 3 above. But providing results isn’t enough, you need to show them. You do this through reports, emails, phone calls, meetings and any other form of communication you can think of. By communicating on a regular basis people will know that you are working away and producing results. The moment you stop communicating is the day they’ll think you are goofing off, which will lead to you being fired.
You can’t take communication for granted and it is important no matter what you do in life.

Reason #5: Deadlines

Don’t you hate it when people miss deadlines? I’m so used it these days that I expect certain people within my organization to be delayed and I even account for it on my end. Well, you won’t have the luxury of missing them as a consultant. You either hit the deadlines, or else you’ll face consequences. I still remember each of the deadlines I missed because it usually lead to me getting fired or I wasn’t paid for the work that I put in. It taught me that you need to hit deadlines and how important it is to be timely. And what you’ll really learn is that a lot of people within a company can affect your deadline. Sometimes it isn’t you who is causing the delay, so you’ll have to learn how to manage people and timelines.

Reason #6: C-level experience

No, you’re not going to be the CEO as a consultant. But you do get to interact with the CEO or other high-leveled executives. They are the ones who approved hiring you and they write your check. You’ll have to learn how to sell yourself and your solutions. This is very valuable experience because in the corporate world, you can’t just do anything you want, you typically have to get buy in from other people. And if things don’t go your way and you get shot down a few times, don’t worry about it. Pick yourself back up and keep pushing forward. Eventually you’ll learn how to convince executives to do what you think is best for them. It took me a few years to get there, but now, I am great at selling to C-level executives.

Reason #7: Money management

It doesn’t matter if you are consulting for a big corporation with billions of dollars in the bank, or a small startup. Everyone has budget constraints. You’ll have to learn how to play within the constraints to get the job done. You’ll get first hand experience when it comes to trimming the fat, figuring out ways to be more efficient, and stretching the dollar as far as it can possibly go. Best of all, you’ll learn how to keep track of expenses, which is something that everyone can use. You can’t run a company without being conscious about how much you’re spending on a weekly if not daily basis.