Narrator: Imagine this: It's 1985. You've just been fired. The reason? A "mutual antipathy" with your boss. For many, this would be a moment of panic, a crisis. But for one man, it was the starting gun for a new life. Instead of polishing his resume, he went home, and from that same home, he built a solo consulting practice. No fancy office, no staff, just his own expertise. And over the years, that home-based business grew into a multi-million-dollar powerhouse, giving him a lifestyle that most people would call retirement. This isn't a fairy tale; it's the real story of Alan Weiss. And his journey reveals a powerful truth: the path to a successful, independent, and incredibly rewarding consulting career is not what you think it is. The blueprint for that path is laid out in his definitive book, Getting Started in Consulting.

Narrator: So many aspiring consultants get trapped by the wrong expectations right from the start. They believe they need a prestigious office, a full-time staff, and long, grueling hours to be taken seriously. They build a house of expectations based on bad advice, and then, as Winston Churchill said, that house begins to shape them. They end up burned out, losing money, and living a life they’d never recommend to their own clients.

Alan Weiss offers a radical alternative. When he was just starting out, he considered renting a formal office. It seemed like the professional thing to do. But his wife asked him a simple, devastatingly brilliant question: "Why do you want an office? Are clients going to be visiting you there?" The truth was, he wanted it for the image, for the ego. He realized that consulting isn't a walk-in business. The money he would have spent on rent, utilities, and equipment—which he estimates would be nearly $700,000 over the years—was instead invested in his family and his life. He proved that success isn't about a physical address; it's about the value you provide. All you truly need is a dedicated space, privacy, and the discipline to treat your home office as the castle keep—the most important, protected part of your professional life.

Narrator: Think about the last time you got a cold call from a "smarmy securities salesperson" at 8:30 at night. How did you feel? Annoyed? Defensive? That's the feeling you create when you pursue clients. You're immediately putting yourself in a position of begging for their time and justifying your existence. Weiss argues this is the absolute wrong approach for a consultant.

Instead, you need to be like a Bentley dealer. People don't just wander onto a Bentley lot; they arrive with intent. They've already been attracted by the brand, the reputation, the perceived value. When they walk in, the conversation isn't about if they should buy, but how—which model, which features. The price is secondary to the value they know they're getting. This is what Weiss calls "market gravity." Your job isn't to chase clients; it's to build a professional reputation so powerful that the right clients are pulled into your orbit. Marketing, then, isn't about selling; it's about creating and accentuating a need. It's about showing a potential client the gap between where they are and where they could be with your help. The bigger that gap—what Weiss calls the "value distance"—the more valuable you become.

Narrator: In our digital world, it's tempting to think your website is your primary sales tool. We pour money into flashy designs and SEO, hoping to catch the eye of someone searching for a consultant. But Weiss delivers a hard truth: "No one in his right mind decides to spend several hours a day combing the Internet for ads." And yet, most consultant websites read exactly like advertisements.

Your website has a different, more important job. It's not a sales site; it's a credibility site. Its purpose is to validate you for people who have already heard about you through your marketing gravity—through a referral, an article you wrote, or a speech you gave. When that potential client lands on your page, it should immediately confirm that you are a credible, authoritative expert. It should offer value, perhaps through insightful articles or position papers, that makes them want to come back. It should be a place that builds trust, not a place that screams "hire me!" This is why Weiss famously says that "blogging comes after a brand, not before it." You must first build the reputation that makes people want to hear what you have to say.

Narrator: You can have the best marketing in the world and a website that oozes credibility, but it all means nothing if you're talking to the wrong person. In any organization, there are dozens of people who can say "no," but often only one person who can give you a definitive "yes." This is the "economic buyer." This isn't necessarily the CEO or the person with the fanciest title. The economic buyer is the person who controls the budget for your project and has the authority to sign the check without asking for anyone else's permission.

Spending time building a relationship with a friendly, enthusiastic manager who isn't the economic buyer is, in Weiss's words, "self-defeating and futile." So how do you find this crucial person? You can use a simple tool Weiss calls the "handshake test." In a meeting, you ask a direct question: "If you and I reach agreement on the scope and value of this project today, can we shake hands and begin tomorrow?" If the answer is anything other than a confident "yes"—if it's "I'll have to run it by my boss" or "I need to check with finance"—you know you're not talking to the economic buyer. Your primary goal then becomes getting into a room with the person who can actually say yes.

Narrator: This is perhaps the most transformative idea in the entire book. The moment you start billing by the hour, you turn your expertise into a commodity. You force your client to watch the clock, to worry about a "meter running" every time they want to ask a question. You're being paid for your time, not your results. Weiss argues you must shift to value-based fees.

This means you work with the economic buyer to define three things: the objectives (the business outcomes), the measures of success (how you'll know you're on track), and the value (the financial or strategic impact of achieving those outcomes). Your fee is then a reasonable investment relative to that total value. This is actually in the client's best interest. It gives them a fixed, predictable investment and focuses everyone on the result. Think of it as the "Mercedes-Benz Syndrome." When you buy a Mercedes, you don't pay for the hours the engineers worked; you pay for the superb engineering and reliability—the value. By offering a "choice of yeses"—three different options or project scopes at three different value points—you shift the client's thinking from "Should I hire you?" to "How should I hire you?"

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Getting Started in Consulting is that building a thriving practice isn't about working harder; it's about thinking differently. It's about rejecting the old models of chasing clients and trading time for money. Success comes from establishing yourself as a high-value, peer-level partner who is sought out for the results you can deliver, not the hours you can bill.

So, here is the challenge the book leaves us with: Stop defining yourself by what you do—the tasks, the reports, the hours. Start defining yourself by the outcomes you create. Ask yourself this one question: What is the one result you can deliver for a client that is so valuable, the time it takes to achieve it becomes completely irrelevant? The answer to that question is the key to your independence.