An example: a good friend of mine is a consultant for a nonprofit agency that matches volunteers who give support to women fighting life-threatening illnesses. Her job is screening, training, and assigning volunteers. It would seem that the best solution for this responsibility would be a full-time employee called something like Volunteer Manager and who gets paid a salary of, say, $50-60K plus benefits. Instead, she is paid $200 per hour for 20 hours a week to develop and deliver trainings! Yes – you read that right. Although her contract is not for 20 hours every week, this organization pays her close to $100K per year all told — more than a similar job would pay for part-time work.

Most people I know who do work like this didn’t actually get into it for the money. They are usually people who, as employees, got tired of being stuck in quasi-support positions and/or put into management jobs with no professional workers (such as themselves!) to whom they could delegate. So, they did the only thing these cultures would accept — created professional independent contributor jobs for themselves under the guise of “consulting.”

If you have thought of working with a nonprofit but feared low pay, look into marketing your business skills as this sort of consultant! The biggest frustration I hear from people who have done this — this really is an inefficient way to work; what they say they really want to tell some of their clients is, “This should be a staff position!”

I would also try to connect and network with existing successful healthcare consultants. Perhaps there is someone really busy who could use some help on a project. That is a great way to get exposure to the market without having to do all the sales and marketing yourself. Just make sure you don’t elbow in and steal their clients … you will burn your reputation right away!

And Brip Blap, I would agree with you on the pressure to search for problems for young consultants… although it is common, it still doesn’t make it a very good practice. I had a lot of fun, flexibility and success in my own niche, so I agree that is a good way to go if you can make it work.

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate the input. I will definitely keep all of this in mind.

VBM

Your only real hope for big money and – in my opinion more importantly – a human lifestyle is to strike out on your own (or with a smaller firm). Establishing a niche is key. Make sure you have some obscure speciality and you’ll do OK. Generalists struggle.

And I know it wasn’t meant that way, but the 5 stupid mistakes aren’t always the mistake of the consultant. If I told my partner the client was doing OK, I’d be told to go back and keep digging until I found problems, no matter how inconsequential. The juniors often have a good understanding of how much crap they’re shoveling, but they can’t get around their bosses. So it’s not always a stupid mistake – sometimes it’s just kowtowing to authority.