Deciding your long term and your short term goals, planning. Going out on your own as a consultant is one of the most exciting and rewarding things you can do. While I love what I do, and being my own boss, I can tell you that is obviously it's not always cookies and cream. But anything you're serious about you need to have a plan of action and set some goals for yourself. If you're currently working full time, you'll be thinking about paying your bills, your mortgage, living expenses, etc. As you'll be going from a secured monthly payment to the risk of uncertainty, but also limitless potential.

Remember that part? Now you don't have to jump in straight away. Alright, always before is having some savings put aside. So you do have a buffer to cover your bills for the next few months to take the pressure off. You can always consider part time employment. That way you can then focus on your business for the rest of it.

Time before taking the leap of faith into full time consultant. Do what works and feels comfortable for you. For me, I took the leap of faith. Yes, I had some savings, but also had a plan of action. And I was fed up with nine to five rat race, and couldn't wait to free myself in a nine to five. So I did some research.

And this is what I suggest you do, you know, do some research and start working out what your short term goals and your long term goals are. For me, my short term goal was to join a number of recruitment consultancies that I knew place consultants to work for really good daily rates, and on a contract basis. So it could be a few weeks or part time one, but the rates will work for me. And I had really set up a minimum daily rate that I thought would work for me and with my experiences, my experience, and that was fine. In fact, it worked so fine that I was placed immediately, which was great, but I knew it was only short term for me because in addition to registering with Few consultancies are also looked into other elements there. So I went to look up freelance worker platform.

So my industry in PR, there were few agencies or platforms out here that actually helped you in case tools, freelancers or consultants, so I could do a bit of dabble in there. So for me, that was a short term goal to make sure I was able to, you know, keep my skills in use and start making new contacts. My long term goal was to work totally independently with my own clients from home, rather than another office. I didn't want or need or plan for an office office space, because you know, I think we're going to have the additional overheads. So that saved me some costs. And it will take some time to build up my client base to allow me the freedom to work in this way.

Hence, my short term goals. So it's about you know, setting the building blocks and taking the steps that will take you to your long term goal. So for you, the question is what will be your short term goals? You join any revenue agencies and obtain some great day rates in the interim, when consulting the old saying of not putting your eggs into one basket is definitely applicable. This isn't hard to do just a bit of research by telling to say traffic Google and speaking to some colleagues and friends that work in your industry, okay? By That way, you'll find out what are the best, you know, agencies and if there are any kind of freelance platforms that can help you.

I like the idea of contracting as a consultant, essentially by an agency. Because it worked out well for me, it meant that I was able to pay my bills, I was still getting paid a really good rate, and I was also making good contacts. Now, I will say that actually, you know, doing this sort of contracts or interim work really does work for you both ways, obviously, as getting paid but be I was making new contacts. So it is a double, it's a double as a great way to network. So if you actually like the organization, you have to contract it out. And then Like you can, they're bound to get you back in or that might be they might extend your contract.

If a company uses consultants or freelancers by a recruitment firm, they could easily just decide to come to you and cut out the middleman. It just depends on your role. And depends on what you want to do. And but just know that you are working with different companies, you will therefore come into contact with your new potential clients. It worked like that for me. In fact, I worked at one place doing some work, and I came in contact with somebody else and help them solve an issue.

And they bought me design consulting for them. So one thing can lead to another. And I'd say it's definitely key to build a good rapport and to not burn any bridges, because you never know where any relationships may lead to or who may be referring you on. I know plenty of consultants who are happy, absolutely happy working in this way. They basically work for a few months by a recruitment agency, they get great day rates, and they go off traveling for months to come. I can do it all over again.

So it's up to you. It's about making life work for you. As I mentioned, you know, I did some contracts and consultancy like that for a few months. And you know, one of the cases that I worked at was many of you for a few weeks, and they end up asking to stay for longer, because they have to stay on longer, I actually use that to my advantage, and I reduce my contract hours because at that point, I was contracting full time was meant to be a six week role. And because it's gonna go on for some months, I actually negotiated my time down and made it work, go down to part time, which is fine for them, but tough one for me. And it meant that I could actually start picking up some independent work, which I did.

So I have the best of both worlds. You know, some would say, you know, I had the contract there. And I had my own independent clients. So that works well. It's about what you want, and you know what your long term goal is for yourself. You could easily take the same approach, you know, take on the contract, maybe look for a part time into orange room contract, part time role, and then work in your business in your spare time, wherever the case I would always advise setting out a plan of action to suit your lifestyle.

The lifestyle you are trying to create doesn't have to be a massive plan. It just should actually outline your short term and your long term goals and use your business objectives and detail your steps in terms of how you plan to achieve that. So now that we've discussed your short term and long term goals, what are your short term goals be? Don't write them down. And what were your long term goals be? write those down, too.