"Balance between sales thinking and clear profiling".

MK Ms. Manger-Wiemann, once consultants go into self-employment, do they primarily run the risk of orienting themselves too much to the profile of their previous employer and therefore not being able to differentiate sufficiently?

EVA MANGER-WIEMANN You can't give a blanket answer to that. Certainly, the experience and skills gained at the previous employer play an important role for the future profile. Methodological and any industry expertise certainly pay off in terms of the new range of services and competence profile. Nevertheless, differentiation remains an issue in general, of course. The role usually changes in the course of going self-employed. This automatically leads to a different positioning. If you were previously embedded in a larger organization, you now have to redefine services and collaboration models as an individual consultant or consultant with a small team.

MK Is it advisable to actively "pull" as many customers as possible away from the previous employer, so to speak, as start-up capital, or would it be better to limit oneself to those who come along voluntarily?

MANGER-WIEMANN This depends very much on the contractual competition clause. In such a clause, the takeover of existing customers may be largely excluded for a certain period of time or only permitted in the case of offering non-competing services. But of course, consulting is a personal business.Therefore, there is of course considerable potential to continue serving existing clients, preferably with services not directly comparable to those of the previous employer. Starting with already one or two secure customers, new or old, is of course advisable in any case.

MK What should you look out for when leaving so that your previous employer doesn't put any obstacles in your way?

MANGER-WIEMANN It is certainly advantageous if you do not acquire the same customers at the beginning and "plow" the same topics. A cooperation with the former employer could even offer a sustainable option - both in terms of acquisition and resources. The keyword is "subcontracting". Today, such a cooperation is certainly well enforceable, since all consulting firms are desperately looking for consultants and are more likely to get involved in such deals.

MK As a newcomer to the independent consulting market, how can you make a name for yourself as quickly as possible or network skillfully?

MANGER-WIEMANN Exploiting existing relationships is very central. Then it makes sense to position yourself at events and conferences with "new" topics such as digitization, business model innovation or agility. You can make yourself visible as an expert via social media platforms, offer interesting training courses and workshops or webinars, or present yourself at matching platforms. Studies show that customers find experts in particular online (30%), via recommendation (19%) and publications (19%) as well as conferences, trade shows, conventions, etc. (10%).

MK Should you clearly specialize right from the start?

MANGER-WIEMANN Yes, you absolutely should. At the same time, however, there is still the risk of getting bogged down, because at the beginning you may be more dependent on opportunities that do not necessarily fall within your core competencies. The challenge here is to find a balance between revenue-oriented thinking and building a clear profile and image.

MK How important is it to study the supply market carefully before starting your own business?

MANGER-WIEMANN Of central importance. Only those who know the competition in detail receive truly relevant input with regard to their own positioning. Many aspiring consulting entrepreneurs are not as well informed about this because they were previously embedded in a larger consulting organization and had to worry less about competition from small providers. However, it is equally important to know the demand market in order to identify the clients with whom one wants to do profitable business in the future.

MK What financial as well as customer base do you need to be able to approach self-employment with good chances?

MANGER-WIEMANN Of course, this depends heavily on the level of ambition of the individual and the customers, as well as the type and size of the projects. Financially, one should certainly have pre-financed a year in the previous lifestyle or have set aside the necessary funds for this. Despite the booming market, the lead times for consulting projects are at least three to six months for most new acquisitions. Here, too, if you start with the topics that are currently in high demand, for example, digitization, you can of course build up a customer base very quickly. Many individual consultants also live quite well from "subcontracting mandates" with larger consulting firms.

Four tips for success: How to succeed in an independent career in consultingPitch only when appropriate: Analyze in advance which types of clients, projects, and procurement and tender modalities make sense for one's own service offering. Many smaller consulting companies have said goodbye to participating in large tenders, e.g. with corporate groups, because they are too time-consuming and too formalistic with low chances of winning.Avoid cluster risks: A too small customer base leads to great dependency. Many consultants find themselves in a precarious situation, sometimes threatening their very existence, if they have been handling large projects for two or three customers for years on a "standing order" basis and suddenly have to write off at least half of the planned sales volumes after a change of management at the customer or due to cost efficiencies. It seems to make sense here to outline a diversified ideal portfolio within the framework of one's own resource availability. It consists, for example, of xy feasible large projects, xy possible smaller mandates, and possibly training courses/workshops.Allocate resources: A high operational workload in projects often leads to neglecting one's own business development, i.e. not yet looking for new projects and customers before the old projects expire. The danger here is that you always start at "point 0" and have to bridge idle times. The remedy is to have a sufficiently filled pipeline of leads. You must always assume that only one third of the leads lead directly to projects.Differentiation via consulting-related products: Software solutions that map methods or function as analysis tools are suitable, for example. They often demonstrate efficient and cost-effective alternatives to customers and are therefore very popular to buy. Such products enable consulting companies to get customers and projects with little use of resources.Source: Cardea