What kind of consultant are you? Regardless of the type of audience you serve, the numbers below clearly show....you are not alone.
Utilization of consultants on the rise according to IRS reports
Colorado Springs Business Journal, Jun 25, 2004 by Marylou Doehrman
I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At General Motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is hire a consultant on snakes.- H. Ross Perot, former director of General Motors
According to the Bureau of Labor, an estimated 8.5 million people - or 6.7 percent of the U.S. work force - are independent contractors, consultants or freelance workers. The Internal Revenue Service defines consulting as the provision of advice and counsel, and IRS reports indicate that business consulting is one of the fastest- growing industries worldwide.
Corporate downsizing has created scores of displaced workers who have turned to consulting as a way to make a living. However, the National Bureau of Professional Management Consultants, according to the Department of Treasury, reports that 70 percent of consultants new to the industry drop out within the first year.
The IRS lists 35 consulting fields, from accounting to labor relations to public relations. There are numerous generalized consultant associations, such as the American Association of Professional Consultants, and associations specific to each field, such as the Association of Noise Consultants. There are consultants who find consultants. Consultants are problem solvers and advisors, and, given the competition, their niche must be well defined and their background indicative of their expertise.
Growing your consulting business
Black Enterprise, Nov, 1994 by Margie Markarian
When Anthony Drake started his airport finance and facilities management company more than five years ago, the young vice president in charge of finance and management believed that leveraging his finance experience at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and a large aviation consulting firm, Landrum & Brown, was his ticket to success.
And for two and one-half years, Drake's Chicago-based Unison consulting Group made the uphill climb, attracting lucrative projects from O'Hare and other major airports such as Newark, Miami and LAX in Los Angeles. But that wasn't enough for Drake and his patterns, Sharon Gist Gilliam and Judith I. Byrd, who believed that diversification was the key to growing the business. They were right: Starting a facilities planning and engineering division proved to be a successful growth strategy for this $2.8 million airport consulting firm.
"We saw our involvement in facilities design and engineering projects as supports to our core practice - airport finance and management," says the 39-year-old Drake.
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