As an independent freelancer and consultant, it’s always a challenge to try and learn something new everyday while you’re serving and helping your clients. In addition to improving your client’s business, you also have to be consistently looking to improve yourself as a person and as a professional.
So naturally, when I started thinking about what these business lessons are, it made me think harder and deeper.
For something as simple as “learning something new,” learning while you’re working for others can be a very difficult thing to accomplish!
And yet, after all of these years, I can look back at my experiences and say, “Hey! I didn’t know much about [x] topic until I got that [job] or [experience].”
There are definitely more than 5 business lessons learned as a consultant, but these are the ones that really stood out to me and helped me grow in my career.
I Learned How To Be Scrappy
When you’re in a freelance or consulting role, you’re basically everything to your business: HR/Operations, Sales, Marketer, IT, Administration, Accounting, Design, Development, and any other role that is needed for your business to succeed.
And that’s exactly what I had to be.
Being a freelancer did not come with a manual when I first started back in 2004, so I had to learn from blogs, books, former managers, colleagues, Twitter and Facebook friends, industry experts, Google and any other form of knowledge I can get my hands on.
- BSOD? There’s Google and my former colleagues in the tech sector.
- How do I fix a plugin error that’s causing my site to fail? There’s Google, WordPress forums and Twitter friends (and a few WordPress experts that I thankfully have the pleasure of having their cellphone numbers).
- How do I file taxes? There are plenty of blogs and other freelancers and small agency owners I look to for advice.
I’ll be honest that this skill set didn’t come naturally, and it certainly didn’t come cheap. There were many mistakes, many obstacles and many missed opportunities that I had to experience to actually get myself up to speed.
I Learned How To Code
Being an artist, I like to be creative in everything I do, especially in technology.
But when I was starting out in coding, I really didn’t like having to learn the technical mumbo-jumbo that was required of me to make things work for my business.
Even when I was at Microsoft, I wasn’t very keen on learning programming and coding in .NET; or when I was doing Flash development, learning ActionScript and JavaScript wasn’t at all what I expected.
At the time, I was really more interested in making things look pretty and functional without really having to spend hours coding line after line.
You see, I liked being creative without being too technical. Sadly, when you’re developing websites from start to finish by yourself, you kind of have to be that technical.
So when I continued this path of coding, I found that I can actually be both at the same time. Who knew that I can draw, color, animate, even create shapes and cartoon characters and superheroes using HTML, CSS and JavaScript?
Who knew that I can make beautiful, engaging and interactive websites, and be able to give my clients a great product that they love and a product that will increase their business – all because I learned how to code?
Because in consulting, it’s all about helping your clients grow and succeed.
I Learned How To Listen and Pay Attention
When you’re a consultant, listening and paying attention should come with the territory, but sadly it’s something that I didn’t really understand during my initial go-round. My first time consulting with a company as a paid gig didn’t really go so well.
I didn’t listen to their needs and wants, and I didn’t pay attention to the goals they wanted to achieve and the details that came along with it.
Why? Because I had it in my head about what they already wanted before I got into the door. I was naive and a little overconfident that I can do what they ask for with the tools that I have, and not really knowing or understanding the reasons behind what they’re looking for.
In the end, they paid the price for my lack. Lessons learned.
I Learned How To Say No and/or Disagree
Anybody in a relationship or friendship should be able to understand this concept. Your opinions are yours, and you exercise the right to share that opinion in that relationship.
But how do you use this in the context of a business environment, where, as the consultant, you are bound to upholding “the customer is always right” mentality?
For me, that took a couple of experiences to get right. Well, I say “a couple” loosely.
When I consulted for a professional company, the client wanted to do something that wasn’t best practice to their organic SEO campaigns.
So I told them exactly what could happen, but didn’t push the warning enough – or better to say that I didn’t disagree hard enough – to make them change their minds.
In a few months, they lost some of their traffic and conversion rates, and of course the responsibility is on me. When I was asked about the results and why the client got them, I told them of the consequences of their actions based on their decisions, and the response I got was classic:
Why didn’t you tell us sooner? Why didn’t you push to warn us?
Because I was passive in my belief, and I didn’t know how to say “Don’t do this” or “I disagree in the method, and here’s an alternative on how we can do this better,” simply because I didn’t want to lose the client.
Or for the most obvious reason – I like to eat.
I Learned How To Be a Better Marketer
In the world of consulting, especially in the marketing industry and culture, you’re up against some pretty smart people.
And some of those cats are H-U-N-G-R-Y.
I knew I couldn’t compete with a lot of them – individuals, studios or agencies – but I at least wanted to try.
So I did what I could do: learn, be hungrier than those cats, hustle and keep growing. I took on jobs that exposed me to other sorts of marketing like events and product marketing.
I put myself in positions where I humbled myself to learn and grow. There is no shame in humbling yourself so that you can better your knowledge. That is a quiet type of strength.
Final Thoughts
Hindsight is always 20/20, but it’s never too late to apply what you’ve learned, or even experience new things that may be scary or uncomfortable.
In the end, it’s not about the end goal. It’s about the journey of growth, the path of finding yourself as you grow.
Because that’s where the true lessons lie.
Got questions or comments? Want to see more advanced articles? Feel free to reach out to me or find me on LinkedIn.
