How to become a business consultant

From the qualifications you may need to how to set yourself up as a sole trader or freelancer, it is important to understand what to consider to establish yourself as a business consultant.

Read our article below to explore how to become a successful and trusted business consultant.

What does a business consultant do?

Business consultants are typically individuals with years of industry experience, who are hired by organisations to offer their expert advice with the aim of improving business performance in terms of profit, future growth, management structure, and more. An article from LinkedIn shares how additional responsibilities can include identifying marketing needs and developing a strategy, identifying funding and applying for loans, or reviewing accounting and budgeting.

Those who choose to go into a career as a business consultant usually specialise in a specific area or have a lot of expertise in one field. Popular business consultant roles include:

• HR business consultant
• IT business consultant
• Finance business consultant
• Marketing business consultant

What do you need to become a business consultant?

When it comes to what you may need to become a business consultant, this can be broken down into three areas:

• Qualifications
• Experience
• Skills

While you may not require all of the below to become a successful business consultant, a combination of these aspects can help you to establish yourself as a well-respected and trustworthy consultant in your chosen field.

Qualifications

While a business consultant degree or specific qualification is not necessary to operate in this line of work, depending on your specialism, specific qualifications can make you stand out and help you to demonstrate your knowledge. For example, having Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development qualifications in HR, or a BA in Business Information Systems, can help you to exhibit your specialist expertise, knowledge, and insight if you are positioning yourself as a HR or business IT consultant, in turn enhancing your marketability to potential clients.

If you already hold qualifications in a specific area of business but are looking for a consultancy qualification to help you transition into your new role, the Institute of Consulting, the accrediting body for consultants in the UK, can help. This institute offers a wide range of workshops, training sessions, qualifications and awards designed to improve your skills and make you a more appealing consultancy option.

Experience

When becoming a business consultant, with numerous areas for you to specialise in, a range of past experiences can be beneficial. For example, previous professional experience in business management, IT, HR, project management, finance, and accounting can be invaluable.

Aside from years of professional work, relevant work experience, placements, and internships which relate to your specialist area, or even at an existing business consultancy, can also help you transition into a business consultancy role.

Skills

The right set of communication and organisational skills can decide if a career as a business consultant is right for you. Skills that can help you to become a successful business consultant include:

Communication skills

Being a good communicator is one of the best skills to have as a business consultant. It is essential that you can transfer your knowledge into practical and implementable advice for your client through clear communication to help succeed as a consultant. The ability to confidently explain your methods to a group of people who may have no existing knowledge of your specialist area is essential.

Organisation and planning skills

Unlike more traditional nine-to-five jobs, being a self-employed business consultant requires exceptional organisational skills. If you build a successful consultancy career, it is likely you will need to manage the workloads for several different clients at once, as well as the regular administrative work that comes with running your own business.

Secondary skills

Demonstrating secondary skills and qualifications away from your area of expertise can help you to stand out from those competing for similar clients. For example, the ability to speak foreign languages can be hugely beneficial, while previous experience in other areas of business (away from your key specialisation) can highlight you as a high-value consultant with additional capabilities.

How can I become a business consultant?

The first step to becoming a business consultant is to produce a realistic business plan and decide how you want to operate. You will then need to make sure your new consultancy has the correct type of business insurance, before finally looking at ways to secure your first client.

Produce a business plan

A detailed business plan should lay out how you will operate (either as a sole trader or self-employed freelancer), how you will fund your business, what your costs look like, how you will secure business, and how you will stand out from the crowd.

A business plan should function as a roadmap and should help you visualise what you want to achieve, how you are planning to do this, and if you think your business will work in practice. It can also help you secure funding if, for example, you are considering taking out a business loan from the bank.

Register your business

You can choose between operating as a self-employed business consultant, working on a freelance basis, or starting your own limited company. Once you have decided which would work best for you, you need to register your business – how you decide to operate impacts all aspects of your business, from the amount of money you will earn and the amount of tax you pay to the type of consultant insurance you may want to secure.

Sole trader

If you choose to register as a sole trader, you are solely responsible for all the liabilities connected with your business, meaning if you start losing money, your own personal finances and assets could be at risk. However, if you are profitable, you stand to benefit more as an individual.

As a sole trader you must submit all tax returns to HMRC on time, pay all taxes promptly yourself, and handle your own National Insurance contributions. You may also want to consider sole trader and public liability insurance. 

Limited company

If you choose to set up and register a limited company when becoming a business consultant, all liability for any financial losses is the responsibility of the company and not you personally (subject to there being no wrongdoing or mismanagement by company directors).

In terms of insurance, as a limited company you may want to consider professional indemnity insurance and employers' liability insurance, while public liability insurance and legal expenses insurance can also prove valuable.

Getting started and landing clients 

Once you have registered your business and created a solid business plan, explore how you plan to land clients. The simplest and most common way to get started is by contacting individuals and businesses you have networked with in your professional career and offering up your services. Consider who you have worked with in the past, the businesses you have built strong relationships with, and what you can do for them – you can call or email pitching your services to them on a business consultancy basis.

You can market your services on social networking platforms such as LinkedIn, or you can contact local businesses who you think would benefit from your services. Word of mouth is important for new business consultants, so you may find after you have secured your first client, your business grows quickly. 

Please note: This article provides guidance for information purposes only. It should not be relied upon wholly when making or taking important business decisions – always seek the services of an appropriately qualified professional. The views expressed by websites referenced to are limited to those of the websites, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Markel Direct. Markel Direct is not affiliated with any of the brands, companies or websites mentioned in this article.