An Independent Consultant Shares Why He Left His Career At Accenture

Will Oakley, 35, Lives in London and Works as an Independent Consultant. He works, in part, with the barton partnership, whic helps Him bring in other consultants as needed to assist in his work with clients. The following has been edited for Brevity and Clarity.

I Started Out My Career At Accenture, so i Went Through the Graduate Machine There, Did My Training, My Time in the Trenhes, and Enjoyed that Experience. Accenture is a huge consulting company, and it is a great place to cut your teeth. But with all of the those Large, tier-on and tier-two consulting firms, they are with a Certain Culture and a Certain Way of Working.

There’s always been a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit in me. Be started and looked at the Next 10 years, i thought, did i want to climble that corplate ladder, or take some risk and try to budild my own portfolio?

I’ve been Independent SINCE 2014. A LOT of People Say I’m Kind of an Independent Consulting Thoroughbred, in the sense that i have really have too Much of a Long, permanent career.

The Last Decade has Been Spent Going from Client to Client. I’ve been Lucky Enough to have Client Relationships that have lasted four or five years and never have had to have a break between those contracts. I’ve just kind of rolled from one to the Next, and Companies like barton have helped with that in the last few years and gioven with the storm of the piping and opportunities.

Network-Based Consulting

Other Parts Have Come From My Own Prospecting, My Own Network, and Some Recommendations. Today, I’m Not Just an Independent Consultant. We’re Starting to Pull Together a New Model and Way of Working, Where Its Network-Based Consulting. We’re Starting to Form Together Into Teams of Consultants Who Can DO Projects and Programs for Clients at Much Larger Scales.

CLIENTS, WE FOUND, ARE LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE TO THose Traditional Players Who Usually Come With Extremely High Costs. CLIENTS COME TO US AND SAY, “hey, can you would that next step in the chain of what the firm was about to do?” SO, we’ve Kind of followed in the wake of the huge container Ships and the Made A Pretty Good Living off the back of that.

When it was just me, there was sort of a predefined Expectation with the Client of what they are shopping for. It might be, “I need a project manager, and i’ve got a series of deliviles already done; i just want you to come in and do so.”

Now, it’s Kind of Changed the Narrative. I Can Bring Other People ino The Conversation to Not JUST EXECUTE, but maybe help you look forward to recommending what you showed be thinking about.

‘Do Meritocy Kind of Guy’

The thing that attracts People to this approach is the flexibility. If you decide to take some time out, you’re your own boss. We’re offen Working with Remote and Global Clients, so there’s an element of being able to locate your WORLD and Move BetWeen Different Clients.

While Our Day Rates are Lower than Traditional Consultants’, People offten take home than they might have with a permanent career at a big firm.

One Downside is Trying to Find a Way to Mitigate KnowLEDGE LOSS. I was quite call it ip, but the content that you bring from one client to the next. Often, be you’re engaging with clients, what do you building is for say, and itir ip. That what they’re’re paying you for. In the background, there are fields of playbooks and frameworks, and materials that you can Store for yourelf. But how do you galvanize five, 10, 15, 20 Other Independent Consultants to Rally Around the Same Service Offering or Solution?

I am a Meritocracy Kind of Guy. I like to deliver good work and be Judged on the results of that work. For those at more traditional consulting firms, it can be a printy brutal political game. Some People love that, but a lot of the Advice i got right at the start of my caareer was that that that makes the top of the peoples sell for the longest period. I thought, “is that the life i want?”

The best Advice i give ther independent consultants is, what level of experience you’re at or what you’re playing, invest in your own so that you can be indispensable.

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