Fifty Ways to Start a Consulting Practice While Still in Graduate School

Bennett E. McClellan 2012

1. Declare yourself a consultant. I am now what I intend to become. I am a consultant. Im
working on a (another) degree. The work Im doing now adds to my life portfolio. Im not a
student worker; Im a working student of life, of industry, of professions, etc.
2. Print a business card. What is your expertise? What do you want to help people achieve? Call
me! Use the back of the card to print a marketing message. Call me!
3. File a DBA. DBA stands for doing business as. Costs about $125 and can be done by the
local paper and are filed with the county in which you do business. DBAs last 5 years.
4. Advertise. Put up posters. Drop off flyers. Send out mailers. Make noise! Tweet!
5. Get a business license. Business licenses give credibility. Basic license costs less than $100.
They let the officials know you intend to pay your taxes.
6. Open a bank account. If you are going to catch rain, you need some buckets. Bank accounts
are buckets. With your DBA and business license, you can open a bank account in the name of
your consulting firm. This step further increases your credibility and provides a way for clients to
make payments directly to your DBA.
7. Get a credit card in the name of the DBA. As a result of filing a DBA, you receive invitations
from credit card companies catering to small business owners. Accept these offers graciously.
You are now in business as a consultant. You are on your way to establishing a track record both
as a business entity and as a borrower. Business specific credit cards provide an easy means for
tracking spending that is exclusively related to your business activities. These assets will come in
handy as you progress with you career.
8. Build a website for yourwork.com. Put your picture on it. Without revealing confidences, outline
the kind of assignments you have done. Lace it with words Google might pick up to your
advantage. Assert you competence. Invite contact. You are looking for inquiries. What do you
do?
9. Open an office. Even if its a shared office with 9 other students. The PhD candidate across the
hall from my office on Yale Avenue rents space during the day to a psychologist and a music
producer. He uses the office at night and on the weekends. I asked him, What do you do? He
said, Oh, Im a consultant. And the office expenses are tax deductible.
10. Get a colleague. Consultants, like wolves, are more effective hunting in pairs. If you need
motivation to keep you going, a colleague who is similarly needy could provide help. Or not.
Sometimes working closely with another person can drag you down. It can also pick you up.
11. Get a collaborator. Collaborators are people who are doing things similar to what you are doing,
but who you do not have to share an office with. Im currently collaborating on writing a book with
a consultant whos spent the last 17 years measuring customer loyalty for large retailers. That
sounds likesomething someone else would be interested in learning. We are collaborating on a
book. His ideas. My structure. Well both get credit as authors. Nice!

12. Develop a framework. Provide some evidence that you can structure problems. Frameworks
are tools. Post this to a blog. Or send it to someone who might need a tool for helping them think
about a problem. Or develop a talk around it. Flog your framework in as many ways as possible.
13. Respond to a published piece. Get into the conversation where people can see you and notice
how you work and think. You dont have to shoot other people down to get noticed. Just play
nice and say something useful.
14. Link-in. Or Plaxo. Connect to as many connection websites as you can comfortably manage to
maintain. Put your picture up. Put your name up as Consultant. State your areas of interest.
Reach out for connections. Do NOT put your consulting work on Facebook. Consulting is for
grownups. Unless you are a yoga teacher, raw food instructor, or art consultant. The medium
needs to fit the message.
15. Seek recommendations. Ask people you have helped to write something nice. Ask them if they
will put their recommendations on LinkedIn.com. Or have them enter it directly on one of the
social networking sites. Offer to return the favor. Or start with a recommendation for someone
else. Ask if they feel comfortable reciprocating.
16. Put your name on lists of people willing to talk to the media. Assert your competence to
comment by making yourself available. You can also send comments directly to journalists.
They may or may not call you, but at least you are opening doors. Dont pontificate. Opine.
17. Put your name on lists of people willing to talk with students. You can start to build your
resume anywhere there is audience. A person from Cal Arts attended the last one of these talks.
Afterward she asked me to come talk with their students. That never happened. But it was a nice
opening.
18. Seek referrals. Ask people you have helped to refer you to others you might help. Do you know
anybody whos having this kind of trouble? Would you feel comfortable introducing us? Im doing
some preliminary research on the topic and Im looking for contacts. Know anybody?
19. Seek interviews. Reach out to people who write, blog, or in some other ways provide content
to media. Address them personally. Let them know you are available to think about their
questions and respond on call, when called, promptly and professionally. You might consider
interviewing people as experts on topics you would also like to write about. Then write something.
Send it to them for review. They will remember you.
20. Congratulate new office holders. Someone just got a new job. Send them a note. Let them
know you consult. Dont ask for a job. Just assert your competence to help in certain situations
should those be situations they are facing. They most likely will send you a thank you. Good!
21. Start asking questions like consultants ask. How can I make a difference? Where can I make
a difference? For whom can I make a difference? When can we meet? Make a list of people to
meet. Make a schedule to make those calls. Start today. Make one call a day. Minimum.
22. Find a situation that provides opportunity for problem solving. Where is there turmoil?
Whos experiencing it? Who is likely to experience it? How can you get to talk with them? Who
do you know that can help you connect with them? What questions do you think they are facing?

23. Show up in that situation. Reach out. Invite yourself. Volunteer. Hello There are lots of
organizations where you can start practicing how to practice consulting. Including how to take
NO as an answer and move on. What happens when you show up and they say go? You go.
Its no biggie. Not all your efforts will be appreciated. Not all your outreach will be reciprocated.
24. Seek chaos. Where are there problems? Where are the problems coming from? Who are the
problems coming from? People in a mess are more likely to take chances on unknowns.
25. Convert a passion into a consulting gig. Everyone knows someone who as a child got
fascinated with computers and now works as a computer consultant. Computer consultant.
26. Convert an internship into a consulting gig. Most of us have at least seen this happen, but I
want to add you are never too old. Last year I undertook a 10 month internship to learn how to
teach gourmet raw cuisine at Living Light Culinary Arts Institute. Through that experience I was
hired by one of the instructor-authors to work as prep chef making the food that would be featured
in her new book, Raw for Dessert by Jennifer Cornbleet. Food styling consultant.
27. Convert a summer job into a school-year consulting project or part time consulting job.
th
The Disney Company hired me as a production consultant for LAs 100 Birthday party and other
events as my business school summer job. Through that assignment I met the president and
chairman of the company. The president confided to me that they had a problem getting people
from the UK to come to Disney World in Orlando. The Brits just stayed in Miami. Why?
I returned to business school with a consulting assignment to figure out how Disney could lure
Brits to Orlando. Unpaid. For me and 4 teammates that meant an all expense paid week in
Orlando, two weeks in the UK, and Mickey Mouse watches. Marketing consultant.
28. Convert a full-time job into a consulting gig. About five years after business school I got tired
of being a full-time management consultant with McKinsey & Co. I got into the MFA program at
UCLAs school of theater, film and television. At the time I was married, had two small children,
and owned a house. So student loans were not going to cover the expenses. Instead, I
persuaded the consulting firm of Arthur D. Little to engage me as a part-time consultant, with a
pay or play contract. That paid for film school. Media consultant.
29. Convert a part-time job into a consulting gig. I took the reverse route out of film school.
While in film school I generated an assignment with Hanna-Barbera to help reorganize that
company. They subsequently hired me as a consultant to oversee international production and
package the company for sale. That was a pretty good first job out of film school. It also led later
to a consulting gig with Nickelodeon. Production consultant.
30. Convert volunteer work into a consulting gig. While at McKinsey & Co. another consultant
and I did a pro-bono project for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Five years later, four members of
the board and the executive director called me on the same day to recruit me to become the
General Manager of that company in a turnaround situation. My credentials for this position came
not as an experienced manager of an orchestra but as a strategy consultant who managed to
fight constructively with the executive director and change the organizations pricing policies. Its
not necessarily who you know, its who you get to know and what it is they remember about you.
It helps to let people know how they can reach you when their need arises. Turnaround
consultant.

31. Convert your current position into a consulting gig. If you can do it full time, the chances are
you can do it part time these days. As a contactor, not as an employee. Almost anything you can
think of doing full time has the potential to become a part time job on a consulting basis. The
boundaries are getting more permeable day by day with downsizing, outsourcing, net-working,
open sourcing, and de-stratifying institutions. Contractor/consultant.
32. Convert a curiosity into a consulting gig. Last year, as a sideline to writing my dissertation, I
got interested in the idea of stuckness. What is being stuck, why do people get stuck, and what
do they do to get unstuck? I was talking with a friend who seemed to be stuck. So I started
exploring stuckness and working toward a model of un-stuckness with him. During our last
meeting he said, Send me a bill. I was so into my own process, I didnt even realize I had
developed something of value for him, too. Consultants are people who provide value to others.
Hold that idea. Personal coach.
33. Convert winning a contest into a consulting gig. My colleague is a champion in-line skater.
After winning her first race, she found herself in demand as an in-line skating coach. Sports
consultant.
34. Convert your teaching into a consulting gig. If you are currently teaching in an institutional
environment, you can also teach in a non-institutional environment. You call yourself a coach or
a specialist and you go get clients. Post a flyer. Start a blog. Educational consultant.
35. Convert your research into a consulting gig. My doctorial research was focused on the
question of how consulting projects are evaluated. One day last year I started making a chart on
why projects work and why they dont work. Driving back and forth to Mendocino last year for the
raw food internship, I sketched out a workshop called The Strategy RAWTreat. Its really just a
list of questions. End of March, the CFO of a Silicon Valley company emailed me out of the blue
to ask if Id be available to facilitate a board workshop in May. He had gotten my name from
someone I had once worked with. I put together a proposal, included my RAWTreat model, over
the weekend and sent it off on Sunday night. I did this activity instead of applying for a
dissertation grant. That Monday, the CEO and CFO and I spent nearly two hours on the phone
as I asked questions, largely informed by my RAWTreat framework. I dont know how much I
would have gotten if I had spent the time answering the questions on the dissertation grant
application, but asking questions got me a two-week consulting gig. Workshop facilitator.
36. Convert your hobby into a consulting gig. I like baking bread. A few years ago I got a
fantastic sourdough starter from a bakery in Booneville, CA. Ive since made bread weekly. The
problem with making bread is that you either have to give it away or eat it. And if you eat the ten
pounds I make in a batch, you know what happens. So I give most of my bread away. Giving
bread to the chefs at Hoch-Shannon dining hall led to meeting their boss, who happened to need
someone to instruct a class on what vegans eat. Hello, Im also a certified vegan raw food chef.
Training Chef.
37. Expose causality. What logical act leads to what appears to be an illogical outcome? What are
the connections that others have not made? Whats hard to see? Whos having trouble? Can
you get to see them? Correction, how can you get to see them?
38. See things different. What creative tools can you apply that might help you or others to see
the problem, or see the problem differently? Or see solutions? Think Steve Jobs. Think different.

39. Explore alternatives. What options can you think of? What are the options you have not thought
of? First, figure it out yourself. Then, get someone to listen to you. You start with I may be
telling myself a story but heres what Im seeing... What am I missing? Where am I getting off
track? Help me out here.
40. Generate recommendations. Take a chance. But dont try to sell your recommendations.
Recommendations made to unreceptive ears dont make their way to receptive minds. Seek
permission. Develop the trust of those you would help. You might get the assignment. Or you
might get blown off. Hey, youre only a consultant. Move on to the next opportunity.
41. Build something. The first acknowledged management consultant was Charles T. Sampson, an
American industrialist. In 1871 Sampson sold a production system he had developed for his own
business using unskilled labor to another business on a consulting basis (Kubr 1996). Have you
figured out a better way to do anything? That could be your gate pass. I mean ANYTHING!
42. Organize something. You see ads for people who will organize your garage or basement. What
about your research files? Or you computer hard drive? What about your life priorities?
43. Break something. While at the Harvard Business School I became publisher of the Harbus
News, that prestigious institutions campus newspaper. I decided to experiment with graphic
differentiation of mastheads based on thematic content. The publisher of the Boston Globe called
me in on a short term consulting project to provide a fresh perspective to their editors on graphic
discontinuity.
44. Fix something. I was involved in recruiting at McKinsey & Co. for a few years. Every year I was
amused to read the resume of someone who had become publisher of the Harbus News and had
miraculously saved that faltering institution. Every year. I guarantee those people got interviews.
45. Find something. There are people who make livings as consultants finding lost things.
Research papers, shipwrecks, and relatives. People looking for help finding information are
perfect consulting clients. Fact finder. Researcher. Freelance archeologist.
46. Invent something. This is the obvious route for the technology oriented. But remember
technology only means codified knowledge. A knowledge process that can be codified can be
patented and its invention then exploited. Duncan Donuts. Federal Express. McDonalds. These
are all invented knowledge systems. What might you invent? Or, just provide an improved
version of?
47. Produce something. I know another graduate student who produced catered events as an
undergraduate in Michigan. Shes now worked her way into positions that allow her to organize
catered events at CGU and CST. First year for free. Second year for fees. And by the way,
some of her catering business went toyour friendly vegan chef. You never know where a
catered meal might take you. Learning to make things happen helps you make things happen.
48. Publish something. Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group, helped
introduce his fledgling consultancy (circa 1963) to potential clients by re-publishing condensed
versions of recently released business books with opinions attached. If you call yourself a
publisher, the materials you publish need not be your own work exclusively. You can also publish
commentary or reviews or contradictions. Just make sure you give proper credit to authors!

49. Start something. Like a club, a mailing list, or an annual event, an advisory service. Once you
have started things, others want to know how you did it. Starters are revered. They are the best
kind of beginners. Entrepreneurs are incurable beginners. Starting something allows you to
promote yourself shamelesslyAS A BEGINNER.
50. Respond to something. Companies, government agencies, not for profit institutions are
constantly sending out requests for proposals (RFP) to assist them with certain short-term
problems. Call or email the institutions you are interested in work with. Ask them to put you on
their list of vendors to be contacted when RFPs are issued. Read the RFPs carefully. If it looks
like something you could do, step up. Write a proposal. Its good practice and it might land you a
gig. You need to be able to participate competently in the formal process of reading and
responding to institutional requests for proposals. The more you do, the more likely you will
eventually find work.
51. Write something. Papers are good. But what about grants applications? Have you ever asked
anybody for money for your schooling or for a school project? I wrote my first grant application to
fund the start up of a childrens theater while an undergraduate at UCSD. Half a dozen years
later I found myself as Producing Director of a little theater in San Diego. At that point, I read a
book on grants writing. Five hundred dollars. I took a weekend class on grants writing. Five
thousand dollars. When the Old Globe Theatre burned down in late 1970s, I was hired as a
consultant in charge of writing grant proposals. That year I wrote dozens of proposals, including
one that got the third highest level of funding from the National Endowment for the Arts that year.
Two and a half million dollars. Practice pays.
52. Stop something. In the popular media management consultants are sometimes portrayed as
people called in to shut things down, lay people off, or do things that are unpleasant or too difficult
for those in charge to do. But stopping things need not always be unpleasant. Consider what it
might mean if you stopped procrastinating on becoming a consultant today. Also, consider
what it might mean to help others stop procrastinating. If you are in SBOS, you might build a
whole practice around this specialty area. Do you need a PhD to do this? No. You only need
the PhD to get a license to practice psychology. At a minimum you might end up with a book.
Heres the working title: 99 Ways to stop doing whats stopping you from doing. Books
dont have to be amazing. They just have to make you famous enough for people to seek your
counsel. Heres how you put together a book: catchy cover art, good personal photo, a few
endorsements on the back, and 10 ideas on the inside cover. As a partner I once worked for at
PricewaterhouseCoopers observed, Nobody reads the stuff in the middle. Why are you
bothering to write it?
53. Talk something. I originally spent a couple of days over a two week period working on this talk.
Ive generated 10, 33, 45 50 ideas so far on how you can start consulting while in graduate
school. These are not theoretical. They are based on my own experiences and the experiences
of people I know. I dont claim they are original ideas. But they are ideas that have worked and
will work. I have also packaged them as a talk. I now have a presentable paper on the topic and
10, 33, 45 50 ideas to help you become a consultant. I am a third of the half way to having 99
ideas for my book. Im positioning myself as a consultant for those who want to become
consultants. I wonder what thats worth

54. Always over deliver. Over delivery is not the same as over achieving. There is no such thing as
over achieving. There is just achieving at different levels. But there is such a thing as over
delivering. Delivery has to do with managing expectations. You set expectations. You meet
them. Thats delivery. Delivery leaves people satisfied. You set expectations and exceed them.
Thats over-delivery. Over-delivery leaves people delighted. Delighted people keep your
phone number and provide referrals.
Thank you for listening.
Heres my email address: bennett.mcclellan@cgu.edu
The (newest) work-in-process consulting website is www.totalquestionworkout.com
My Twitter tag is DrBennettMcC