Consulting isn’t the glamour job that a lot of people think it is. Sure, you may get to travel and learn new things, but as anyone who travels a lot will tell you, it can be a bit wearing after a while, and you find yourself suddenly hankering for the most basic of simple meals after weeks at a time of hotel or restaurant food.
Nor do you do consulting for the fame. Sure, good consultants will get reputations in their fields, but we’re hardly household names (except maybe in particularly niche/geeky households). Undoubtedly I think the best consultants start with a passion for their field and a desire to learn as much as possible, but this will only get you so far. There needs to be something else to prevent burn out and to allow for personal growth.
I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to develop and keep long term customer relationships, carrying customers between my last company (which collapsed) and my current company, and equally having customers carry those relationships with me from one company to the next. At one level, they remain customers – but at another, as you’ve been working with certain customers year in, year out, you realise that the true value of consulting is the people you’re doing the consulting for. It’s not about being able to solve problems and challenges for companies that you deal with, it’s about being able to solve problems and challenges for the individual people you deal with. The first just pays the bills; the second one is what gives you the job satisfaction.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve had a few people I’ve been working with for years advise me that they’re moving on to other endeavours. It’s always at this time that I pause to think about the core reason I do this job: to help people.