Working and Lifestyle as an Independent Consultant

OK I’ve written this, re-read it and I kind of feel like a hypocrite!  The thing is, it annoys me when I see pictures of people wandering through the surf on the front of white collar franchise “buy my lifestyle business” brochures – it just doesn’t ring true.  Working as a consultant usually isn’t the same as wandering through the surf unless I suppose you are a surf life saving consultant??!

But it does mean that if you manage your consultancy properly – and yes there is a right and wrong way to manage it – you can and do have the flexibility that you don’t have as a typical employee.  That can include working where and when you want which if I think about it has included working on/by a beach on more than one occasion in Australia, New Zealand, Cyprus or Fiji so hence I feel like a bit of a hypocrite!

A “typical” consultant’s scenario sees you working with clients at their premises and working on the administrative side of your business at your office when and where you want to.  Depending on the type of consultancy you have you may be out every day or only once or twice a month.

When I was an employee I used to commute 3-4 hours a day which used to bug me in all sorts of ways – mainly because I saw it as wasted time – one thing working as a Consultant has done for me is to make my life more efficient.  Importantly I have freed up a lot more quality time with the family that I never would have had which is priceless.

As you might expect a 3-4 hour commute is not conducive to seeing much of your kids during the week.  Leaving the house between 6-7am and getting back at 8-10pm meant that I was only a weekend Daddy.  Not what I wanted. 

Time Management

To give you a before and after - this was a good day as an employee – on a bad day I would arrive home between 23:00 and 24:00 hrs with no family time.

·         6:00 am                Alarm goes off

·         6:00-7:00              Get ready and leave

·         7:00 – 8:45           Commute

·         8:45 – 19:00         Work (21:00 if a bad day)

·         19:00 – 21:00       Commute

·         21:00 – 23:00       Time with Lisa my wife (after the kids were asleep).

Here I was working for 10-12 hours a day – I could read while commuting but it wasn’t easy, also I only had two hours family time at the end of the day when I was most tired. Working from home means that I sometimes work longer hours but a typical day now looks like this:

·         6:30am                 Alarm goes off

·         6:30-7:00              Check email / news

·         7:00- 8:30             Get kids ready – spend time with kids / wife

·         8:30-17:00            Work

·         17:00 – 20:00       Family time

·         20:00 – 23:00       Work if needed / if I want to

Here I still work 8-12 hours a day but the time I spent commuting is now spent with friends and family, importantly I’m free between 17:00 and 20:00 hrs.  What I haven’t added yet is that sometimes I will work until the early hours but if I’m doing that I will probably also catch a short 18 minute siesta at about 14:00 (not easy to do in a 9-5 job!).  If I want to go to the gym I get up earlier or after 9am when it’s empty.  If I do travel, I tend to arrange the travel off peak which saves time as well as cost.  I do work some weekends but only to fill in here and there.  I also have client meetings but they are not every day.  Recently with more and more training, contact is happening online and I am travelling less.

Choosing where your customers are can have a huge impact on your time efficiency.

My point is that you can be much more flexible, if I want to play a game of golf I will, then I will catch up on work that evening.  What has been really neat is that my son who is now 7 has almost only ever known me to work from home.

Holidays

I like working but I also really like taking holidays and tend to average 4-5 a year.  I am originally from New Zealand and I often pop back to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji for holidays when I can. With Australia and New Zealand being so far away it doesn’t make much sense to only go for a week or two because the kids take a few days to adjust to timezones. So when we go, we go for four weeks at a time.

Now I will be honest I do often work at times while on a break but this is usually only a few mornings a week and checking emails etc, but it is more through choice than through necessity.  Again the key here is flexibility.

Toys and rewards

I’m of the firm opinion that all Consultants should reward themselves when times are good so long as you have your investments and retirement covered.  I’m not big into cars, I prefer holidays so I don’t drive a Ferrari or anything fancy – although I have recently taken a liking to the Audi R8 Coupe ... we’ll see how this year goes!  In saying that we have a nice Robbie Williams style Jacuzzi in our garden and number of waterfront properties being built in Fiji, when we travel we typically stay 5 star by the beach which has all been made possible from my consultancy income.

It’s important to realise that working as a consultant is not a licence to print money but you can certainly make a very respectable income on your terms and if you are able to fast track your success through learning from others this can be achieved quicker, with less cost and more profit.

Income – how much can I earn?

Ultimately this depends on the demand for your expertise and the ability to add value.  As a standalone Management Consultant you can typically earn anywhere from £50,000 to £250,000, my consultancy billed over £400,000 a year between myself and my partner.  If you ramp up your income streams or build a larger practice the only limiting factor is how quickly you can provide consistent high value to your clients. It depends on your business model, subcontractor’s number of clients etc.  I have one client who I have invoiced £350,000+ over 3 years, in 4 seperate projects, others have only billed only £20,000 during the same period. Some consultants have a regular income others have a very spiky income. A nice model I have used is to earn enough to cover your costs and live on then tailor your fee structure so that there is the potential for large windfall payments every few months which can go towards investment and lifestyle improvements.

Working from home

Good for some people - suicidal for others.  I enjoy working from home but one very important point – when I’m working from home clients can only reach me if the kids are not there. Otherwise the phone is answered by a remote PA or goes to voicemail.  There is nothing more distracting than hearing kids in the background when you are having a serious business discussion.

The home office I have is actually separate from the house – it used to take up one of the spare bedrooms but that made me unpopular!   My home office works really well, is bigger than most executive offices and with a much better working environment.  More importantly actually leaving the house and going “to work” provides important work/home separation.

What about meetings at my office?  I am lucky here, I have a large and well furnished Costa Coffee cafe 5 minutes walk away – most business meetings are held there - fully catered of course.  Larger meetings are held in Hotels and internal meetings are either held online (Skype) or at my home office which can easily hold up to 4-5 people.  There have been a few times I have been tempted to buy or rent an office but it has never been an issue to date and you can probably tell I really enjoy working from a home office so I have no plans to change yet.

 

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