In my series of articles on side hustles and learning how to grow them, I break down an individual hustle for people who want to augment their income but need some additional information. The overview will include the fundamentals of the hustle, how to get into it, and a breakdown of my GROWTH metrics. Not every hustle covered will be ideal for you, but it may help you find out more information before you take the dive. I’ve covered a list of lucrative side hustles and how to turn your side hustle into a full-time endeavor. If you want an additional push, take my 30 day side hustle challenge now!
What Is Consulting?
It’s probably best if you just think of consulting as the same thing as freelancing. Depending on the industry, consultants provide options, a detailed analysis, recommendations, or technical support and maintenance. In other words, take just about any profession and put it in an environment where you’re not a full-time employee for a company. Maybe a company needs a medical expert’s opinion, but they don’t need them on staff full-time. Perhaps a company needs desktop support and routine maintenance, but wants to outsource the work instead of hiring internal staff for it.
Consulting is similar to a full-time or part-time job in the sense that you’re still trading your time for money. Fortunately, you can charge per project instead of per hour, and there are many scaling opportunities available to you.
Who Can Consult?
One of the lovely things about consulting is that almost anyone can. As long as you have a valuable skill, you have the ability to consult on the side. This is one of the easier side hustles to start since you can take the skills you learn at your day job and just use them for consulting as well. Be wary of any conflicts of interest. If you still have a standard job, and try to compete with your employer, you could be fired. If there are potential issues, make sure you report it and check all the boxes so that you’re covered.
Why Should You Consult?
You should consult if you want to start an easy, flexible side hustle. You don’t, generally, have to learn many new skills to start since you can just do what you already know. On top of that, consulting can help you expand your core skillset and make you more valuable at your day job too. Also, depending on the niche, consulting can be extraordinarily lucrative, so it may be the best option for you.
When Should You Consult?
Consulting is best when you have the available time for a side hustle, but not enough time for a full-blown business. Also, it’s best to try this when there are no potential conflicts of interest. Otherwise, this is usually a great opportunity. Even if you’re juggling a job and kids, it’s not hard to make a few hundred bucks (if not a thousand) per month with this. Some consulting gigs may be remote too, it just depends on the industry.
Where Can You Consult?
Fortunately, consulting can be done just about everywhere. There are endless opportunities in medium and large cities, but you may also have a lot of competition. Some consulting niches may only be viable in larger areas. If you live in a rural area, don’t fear! Often times, in more remote areas, many niches aren’t being served properly. There may not be as many potential customers, but there will also be far fewer competitors.
GROWTH
Next up, we’re going over the GROWTH metrics behind consulting. These include gains, ROI, obtainability, workability, time required, and general health. These aren’t the only things you can consider, as there are many specifics to your personal situation I can’t account for. However, this will go over the common truths with consulting and give you what you need to know in order to make the best decision about starting a consulting business or side hustle.
Gains
First up is the potential gains, or income. For the most part, especially as you start out, you’ll be billing hourly. This will be comparable to a normal salary in the field, but likely a significant amount more. As a general rule of thumb, when you charge hourly you can expect at least 20% more than what you would make in your day job – assuming you do the same thing. Sometimes you may be able to charge 50% more or even double!
As you grow, you may be able to charge more per hour or even based on projects (instead of an hourly rate). There are pros and cons to charging based per project, so make sure you do your research before you make an unwise commitment. All-in-all, consulting, if done full-time, should make you a considerable amount of money – more than the day job counterparts. The hard part is lining up enough work to keep that pay up.
Take network engineering and cybersecurity, for example. I know engineers who charge $300 per hour as a minimum. That’s a lot of money! Some of them even work on projects, making a full-time income while only working 10-20 hours each week. These are obviously edge cases, but it goes to show how much money you can make when you know what you’re doing.
ROI
It’s hard to gauge the return on your investment for this. Really, your startup costs will just be whatever it takes to form your company – essentially just the legal fees. You may also have to pay for a website, which is honestly a low expense. All-in-all, you should be able to earn back your startup costs relatively soon. In other words, this has an amazing potential ROI. If you start your own consulting firm, then there may be additional expenses that go with that. I’d still label the ROI as good, probably strong, but I’d suggest testing the waters on your own so that you can build up your repertoire of clients.
Obtainability
This category is more about the realism aspect. How easy is it for most people to achieve? Generally, it’s one of the easier side hustles to start. Again, as long as you have any valuable skill, you can start consulting on the side. Keep it small, simple, and straightforward. You’ll start bringing in customers. As long as you do great work for them, you’ll see repeat customers and your reputation will grow considerably.
Starting your own firm or agency is a bit more complex. It is also moderately achievable to build. However, it is much more obtainable if you do that initial leg work on your own. There is a huge difference between hiring staff when you’re starting out with no revenue and having a backlog of clients – already being at the max of what you can do on your own.
Workability
Workability, while similar to obtainability, has more to do with the operations side of it. In other words, how easy is this to work into your schedule? If it is flexible, or requires light hours, then I’d consider it a good deal.
In the case of consulting, I also give high marks for workability. You can start out just working outside of your normal day job – the hours are flexible and you can adjust the workload to whatever you need it to be. Once you starting hiring people, if you even choose to go that route, then consulting becomes much more rigid in that sense.
Time Required
This is a hard side hustle to review the time factor for. In one sense, it’s easy to work a few extra hours and make a couple hundred dollars. However, if you want considerable income, then you’ll need to work many hours, hire people on, or get exceptionally great project deals. In short, the con with this is the same as your day job – you are basically trading time for money (even if it is really good money).
Health
Last on the list is the overall health of consulting as a side hustle or business. I’ll go ahead and give you the short version – it’s strong here as well. In densely populated areas, there will always be small and medium sized business looking for help – you just have to have better services or a more competitive price. For the more rural areas, you have fewer work opportunities, but far less competition as well. In other words, you’re likely set for potential sources of income! As long as your niche or industry has a use in your area, you can expect consulting to be a reasonable and profitable endeavor.
Prospects
Overall, the future prospects of consulting depend largely on your niche, and sometimes your location. For example, in specialized technology services (like cybersecurity), the pay can get a bit outlandish. If you live near somewhere like Washington DC, then there are even more opportunities to make a lot of money in cybersecurity. So, for the best prospects, make sure your skillset is in demand where you live.
Scalability
Scalability is a mixed bag with consulting. It’s above average, but it’s also not stellar. You can hire consultants on under you, and at a certain point you definitely should. However, between their pay, benefits, and time off, you are looking at much lower profit margins. If you do it well, you will have a great opportunity to scale and make a substantial living off of it. Issues arise when you are trying to scale at the beginning, and once you’re trying to go from a medium sized consulting agency to a large one.
As I’ve said, you can minimize the burden at the beginning by loading up work and then hiring once there is more than you can do alone. Once you’re expanding to a larger size – well, there are a lot of variables and I have no experience there. Just be cautious and thorough in your planning.
Positives Of Consulting
- You can make a lot of money per hour.
- You can bill per hour or project.
- There is the potential to expand and create a strong business.
- It’s reasonable to make significantly more than your day job once you have enough work lined up.
- Location doesn’t always matter – at least not enough to not be profitable.
- It gets top marks in gains, ROI, obtainability, workability, and health.
- Consulting doesn’t always require a lot of time if you just want to supplement your income.
- It can build up your skillset and give you more experience.
- Some gigs can be done completely remote.
Negatives Of Consulting
- There can be a lot of pressure.
- Scaling can sometimes be difficult.
- There can be conflicts of interest because of your employer for your job.
- Sometimes you may have to travel.
- Going full-time can be risky, and you’ll need a lot of customers.
- Customer demands can be intensive, and you can easily bite off more than you can chew.
How To Start
Starting is relatively easy. If you’re looking to turn this into a full-time business, then check out my article on the side hustle challenge to help you get started. There are legalities that go with it, so it may be wise to reach out and see what information you can provide. If you want to starting consulting on the side, as I recommend, then just try to find a gig with a small company near you. This could even be a non-profit. Do your first few jobs for a reduced rate, to build up the reputation, and try to build a list of customers. Alternatively, you can use something like Fiverr to help you get started.
Conclusion
I’ve got to hand it to consulting – it makes a fantastic side hustle. There is good money to be had, as well as long-term opportunities. I understand it isn’t for everyone, but it’s available to so many that it’s hard to not notice. My last tip is to just do your best work. That reputation is really the key to long-term success as an independent consultant!
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