Consulting: The Final Refuge of the Corporate Castaway

It’s a tale as old as the severance check. A veteran employee—newly liberated from the corporate mothership—decides that instead of searching for another job, they will take their decades of experience and launch a consulting career. Why not? They know the industry inside out, have a bulging contact list, and finally get to call themselves their own boss. It sounds ideal. But the reality, as countless would-be consultants have discovered, is often less glamorous and even less scalable.

From Boardrooms to Solopreneurs

The leap from employee to independent consultant seems straightforward at first. Armed with years of expertise and a polished LinkedIn profile, the ex-corporate pro steps boldly into the world of entrepreneurship. But soon, cracks begin to form in the gilded façade:

1. Your Old Colleagues Never Call:
   • Those long lunches and collaborative meetings you once shared with industry peers? They vanish like mist on a sunny day. It turns out many of your “connections” were more loyal to your former title and corporate budget than to you personally.
   • Selling your services becomes a humbling experience. Former colleagues—now potential clients—start ghosting you, or worse, casually suggest you “circle back in six months.”
2. The One-Person Band Syndrome:
   • As a consultant, you’re now salesperson, marketer, accountant, and product all rolled into one. There's no IT department to fix glitches, no assistant to book travel, and no team to brainstorm solutions.
   • Real work gets hard when you’re wearing every hat. Those strategic visions you used to craft now take days because you’re juggling emails, invoices, and website glitches.
3. Budget Shock:
   • After years of wielding six-figure budgets, reality sets in: you’re spending your own money now. That fancy design project? Too expensive. Those high-end tools? Out of reach. Business-class flights? Laughable unless you’re footing the bill and sacrificing profit.
4. Results Over Titles:
   • Clients don’t care about your résumé or your former glory. They want results—and quickly. Decades at a big company might have taught you the politics of internal approvals, but those skills often don’t translate to helping a scrappy startup or mid-sized company.

Consulting Rarely Scales

The unspoken truth about consulting is that it doesn’t scale well. Many former executives dream of building a consulting empire—a team of like-minded experts, billable hours flowing like champagne. But here’s the rub:

• Time Is Finite: Consulting is inherently tied to your time. Even with high hourly rates, your income caps quickly unless you hire others (and they charge less than you).
• People Rarely Build Companies: Most consultants remain solopreneurs, managing everything alone. The effort required to turn a consultancy into a scalable business—hiring staff, marketing, building a brand—is daunting. Many opt out, preferring the relative simplicity of going it alone.
• Exponential Effort: Unlike product-based businesses, where scaling means producing more units, consulting requires scaling relationships, clients, and deliverables—an exhausting prospect.

Confession time: I tried this myself. The plan was simple: grow a boutique consultancy, bring on a few partners, and carve out a niche. But the realities hit quickly. Clients want your personal expertise, not your junior associates. Building processes, hiring staff, and marketing while also delivering value became overwhelming. Now, I’m back to focusing on what I know best—helping companies navigate funding and writing. And I’ll admit it: scaling back was liberating.

Egos and Isolation

The consulting life isn’t just a grind—it’s lonely. After years of working in teams, the shift to flying solo can be jarring. And many consultants refuse to partner with others because of their egos. Why share the spotlight when you’ve spent decades building a reputation? But this reluctance to collaborate often leads to stagnation:

• Big opportunities are missed because consultants refuse to team up or hire.
• The dream of scaling fades as the reality of endless solo hustle takes over.

The Author’s Brief Encounter with Consulting

My foray into consulting followed a familiar path. Armed with grand ambitions and a Rolodex of contacts, I launched my own firm. The early days were exciting—pitch meetings, new clients, and the intoxicating freedom of being my own boss.

But then reality set in:

• The fancy hotels and business-class flights I once took for granted? They quickly felt extravagant when I was footing the bill.
• The work? It was endless. Without a team, I was chief strategist, copywriter, accountant, and coffee-fetcher all at once.
• Scaling the business? A distant dream. Clients wanted me, not an associate or junior partner.

Eventually, I realized that consulting wasn’t the empire-building opportunity I’d envisioned. Today, I split my time between writing (hello!) and helping companies secure funding. It’s not easier, but it’s more aligned with what I enjoy—and what I’m good at. Consulting taught me to ditch the ego, focus on results, and let go of unsustainable ambitions.

Lessons from the Trenches

If you’re considering a leap into consulting, here’s the unvarnished truth:

1. Kill Your Ego: Nobody cares about your past title. Focus on delivering value, not prestige.
2. Kick the Habits: Those five-star hotels and airport lounges? Lovely when someone else paid for them. Now, economy class is your new best friend.
3. Accept the Grind: Consulting is not a shortcut to success. It’s hard, lonely, and clients demand results, not theories.
4. Be Realistic About Scaling: If you dream of building a consultancy empire, prepare for the hard truth: it’s more difficult and less profitable than it seems.

Conclusion

Consulting may sound glamorous, but for most, it’s a brief stop on the way to something else. The hard truths—limited scalability, constant hustle, and financial strain—leave many consultants returning to full-time roles within a year. And that’s okay. For the few who stick with it, the rewards are real but hard-earned. For the rest of us? There’s always economy class, your home office, and the quiet satisfaction of ditching those fancy illusions.