These FAQs currently cover basic questions beginning consultants might ask.

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Q. How much can I charge?

A. There are 4different ways to calculate how much to charge. You can charge what the client offers, you can charge the market rate, you can charge what you can afford to charge, or you can charge according to the value your work offers the client.

Download the magic charge-out formula spreadsheet (described in Freetools) to calculate what you can afford to charge. Talk to clients and colleagues about what they charge and read chapter 6 of the Australian Consultant's Guide for more details on how and what to charge.

Q. How do I bill people, and how often?

A. You can bill the client as often as you like. The more frequently the better. Remember to put your billing conditions in any proposal or contract you have with them.

You can bill based on work completed, or on elapsed time. Whenever you can, ask for payment up front (eg 50% up front and weekly invoices till completion).

If you need an example, download our sample invoice.

Q. How do I find work as a consultant?

A. The short answer is to tell people what you do, and how you can help them. The long answer includes 23 different ways to market yourself without cold calling. Thirteen of these are outlined in chapters 7 to 10 of The Australian Consultant's Guide. Then Ten more ways to promote your consulting business gives you the other 10. Both of these books are available from this site. You can also read the chapters on building availability and affability in Consulting Mastery also available from this web site. Finding work could involve networking, cold calling, talking to colleagues and previous employers about whether they need help, answering tenders, finding agents, working with other consultants, getting advice and references, checking thepapers, writing articles, running seminars, going to courses… there are hundreds of ways to get business. The short answer, though, is letting people know you're in business, and what you do.

Q. Do I have to work for a big consultancy to be a consultant on my own later?

A. Not at all. There are no rules for what you have to know, do or be to become a consultant. In fact some of the "issues" that people in general have about consultants arise from this fact.

It's essential to have some expertise, but you don't have to have worked for a consultancy to be a consultant. In fact sometimes it's useful to bring your own ethics, customer service paradigm and professionalism, rather than trying to imitate another consulting firm's way of doing business.

Having worked for a consultancy can help, on the other hand, because it exposes you to managing projects and billing clients. It also gives you a network of colleagues and a clearer idea of what you can charge clients.

Q. Do I have to be expert in something to be a consultant?

A. I was talking to a very intelligent senior sales executive just last week, and she said she had no idea why people even used consultants. Her tone was contemptuous and dismissive, and she clearly thought that a client who used consultants was stupid. I explained to her that there were a few reasons why a client would use a consultant - only one of them was to get advice on something they didn't know about. There is also the "pair of hands" consultant - where the client knows what to do but doesn't have the resources to do it right now. Then there's the "external perspective" reason for getting a consultant - even though the client knows the solution is there, they may need someone from outside to prove it to them, or to point out what was right under their nose in the first place.

So that said, you can get consulting work knowing very little, as long as you can do what the client is paying you to do, and do it well. It's essential to have some expertise, but it's not necessary to be an expert. Expertise builds. Start out as the photocopying and binding consultant, and you may end up a printing expert. Begin as the person who mows lawns, and complete your career as an expert in hedges and ground-cover. We all have to start somewhere, and as long as you don't oversell your expertise, you can be a consultant too.

Q. How do I get into consultancy?

A. Getting into consultancy can be as simple as printing a few business cards with the word "Consultant" after your name. If you have skills and expertise to sell to clients, you can work as a consultant with little else.

Of course, the longer you're a consultant the more you'll know - you may begin as a learner, and through strength of having done many projects of similar type, you become an expert in that type of work.

The real test of being a consultant though is your track record. Repeat business is a sure sign that you're doing a good job as a consultant. Then you'll know you're a real consultant. The Australian Consultant's Guide is designed for you to browse and read the stories of what other people have done to start and build their business. You can just read the true stories of what to do (and what not to do), and you can also use the checklists and lists of questions to ask people around you to get into consultancy. You can buy The Australian Consultant's Guide on this web site.

Q. What sort of consultants are there?

A. In my definition, a consultant is anyone who sells their services and expertise. I have encountered consultants in plumbing, image, architecture, law, management, medicine, human resources, education, finance, weddings, and even parenting.

If you can package your service so people want to buy it, and then you sell it, you're a consultant.

Q. Why do you say consulting is different from just doing a job?

A. Consulting by its very nature responds to customer demands. This means consultants will often have no weekends, because there's a crunch on, or because there's an excellent networking opportunity at a client function held over the weekend, or because, in fact they're working on a proposal for the next client.

Consulting is different from a job because very few consultants can have a 9 to 5 mentality. Even if their office is separate from their home they can spend hours there at all times of the day or night, responding to a client request, or anticipating one.

It's different because the flipside to all that is that consultants can afford occasionally to go shopping in the middle of a working week, in the middle of a working day. Or they can take off Wednesday afternoon for golf, or take a month at Christmas time to work on their favourite hobby. There's more freedom with consulting.

Most importantly, consulting can be better paid, but more erratic in payment than a job - it's not always the case that the money is in the bank at the end of each fortnight to pay the consultant.

For a full discussion of the pros and cons of consulting, refer to chapter 1 of the Australian Consultant's Guide.

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