As a consultant, I mostly worked on projects solving specific issues for my clients. Their lead scoring model was out of whack. Their CRM and their marketing automation platform weren’t talking together properly. They needed a better way to nurture leads. They wanted a new lifecycle model to start their account based marketing initiative.
These projects were satisfying to work on. They scratched an intellectual itch, and the process of learning the issue inside and out, recommending and then implementing the solution was pretty enjoyable. But the problem with these sorts of consulting engagements is that you’re usually only fixing a part of the issue. The bigger problem was often out of scope.
I felt like a plumber working to fix a sink, in a house that was on fire.
The lack of ownership to not only call out, but address the bigger issues was my biggest issue with full time, freelance consulting. It’s why I decided to go back to a full time, in-house role. But I imagine I’m hardly the first to come up against this issue. The challenge, I think, to making consulting a worthwhile full-time pursuit long term, is to pursue clients and projects that involve a more strategic role in the organization.
But that may mean coming to terms with the fact that the big, strategic projects may not be something you can do alone.