Best and Worst aspects of being a marketing consultant
Best and Worst aspects of being a marketing consultant
Today I thought I would talk to you about some of the best and worst aspects of being a marketing consultant.
So, I’ve been working as a marketing consultant for nearly four and a half years. Now I used to work in the city in quite big corporate marketing teams, and I decided to chuck that all in and become a marketing consultant. So, what is it that I like about being a consultant?
Variety
Well, firstly, it’s variety. When I looked back at my CV, I was moving every 18 months and it’s because I sponge things up and move on. I absolutely love working with lots of different clients from lots of different industries and it keeps my brain ticking. I think one of the big problems that I had when I was working in a corporate is it is cyclical.
Like every year you write a marketing plan, it’s very similar to last year’s marketing plan, except for a couple of tweaks. But when you’re working with lots of different clients, you can apply different logic across different industries.
You get exposure to how businesses actually run because when you’re in a big corporate, for instance, you don’t get to see that. And I’m getting a lot more kind of exposure to what I call, grassroots marketing, setting up processes, setting up teams, writing marketing plans from scratch for businesses. It’s very exciting and you can really see the difference that you’re making. Whereas when you’re in a big corporate, you’re kind of like a cog in a machine.
So variety is a big one for me. It keeps me interested because I tend to get bored quite easily.
Flexibility
Flexibility is a big one for me. I used to get up at six, get on the train for seven, be home at seven in the evening. I didn’t have a life and I worked much better in the mornings. So I tend to do a lot of my work first thing, get it over and done with, and then spend the afternoon working on my business.
So, I get to choose how I spend my day. And that’s really important to me having that kind of flexibility.
Meeting People
And the other really kind of good thing is I’ve met a lot of people through networking, through being introduced. I got a really amazing network now, and I love the fact that I know lots of different people that do lots of different things and I can tap into them for advice.
I never had that when I was in corporate. So that’s a really, really good one for me in terms of the worst things….
Hard work
I think sometimes it can be hard work. It’s hard work trying to find clients, trying to make sure we have a pipeline doesn’t always exist. You know, like it’s a bit of a dating game when it comes to clients, you’ve got to make sure there’s a right fit. Just because you get an inquiry. It doesn’t mean that that’s going to lead to a client, has to be the right fit, personality-wise, you know, budget-wise, what you can actually do for them. And that takes time. So that’s that.
Quiet Times
And sometimes you can have some real quiet times as well. You know, you’re sitting there, get your work done and it’s Monday morning. Like what else can I do? So sometimes it is a little bit difficult to get your head around. Your like suddenly even though you enjoy the flexibility and the variety, sometimes you find you’ve got more time on your hands. So, I don’t know if that’s a first-world problem, but it’s making the most of the time on your hands really.
And I’ve had to really think about how I do that, but there are a couple of the best and worst aspects of being a marketing consultant. Hope you found that interesting and see you next time.
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