What’s your end game as a consultant? Have you even thought about it? Will you be happy working along as a solo designer or developer until the end of time? Want to become an agency?
Well if you haven’t Aaron at Technosailor has, and his next step was going back to having a boss.
As a consultant, there was no viable end. Unless I’m committed to building out a team (I’m not), increasing a production pipeline (without a team, I can’t), or other such motivations, a consultancy looks exactly the way it does in 10 years as it did on day 1 – find clients, build something for them, collect money, wash, rinse, repeat. There’s no glorious ending. To me, that makes for an unhappy Aaron.
So what’s my end/next step. Well I’m launching a book an WordPress January 16th (it’s available on the store here). My end goal is to have enough income from other sources that I don’t have to worry about client work. I’ll keep doing client work but I just want to be able to say no, with no thought about what the potential pay day will be.
Yes I’m picky now with my clients, but when you have bills to pay you have to take some work from that percentage of clients you’re not really interested in.
Again, what’s your 10 year plan? If it’s being happy working about the same way you do now then keep on trucking. If it’s not, then you better start making a plan and executing it.