The Wright Company Blog

I totally get it - making the decision to quit a job with a professional services firm to go out on your own can feel risky and overwhelming. This is especially true if you don't have anyone to guide you through the journey and offer support at each step.

When I quit my job six years ago to start my own consulting company, I had probably five main fears:

1. I'm not old enough to be a successful independent consultant
2. No one will hire me because I'm not an expert in anything
3. I'm no good at sales, so I can't possibly sell high-value engagements
4. I have no idea how to replace the benefits and pension I earned from my previous employer
5. I'm going to have to work alone and I'll have to do everything myself

I think this generally boiled down to a fear of failure. As a classic overachieving perfectionist, I was really scared to make this big ambitious career move only to bomb spectacularly.

Luckily, it became obvious pretty quickly that these fears were unfounded.

• Clients didn't care how old...

I have been working as a management consultant for 15 years, and I love what I do. Working with clients to solve complex problems and deliver high-quality work still gets me excited.

I spent several years at the beginning of my career working for one of the Big 4 global professional services firms.

At first, I loved it – I had brilliant colleagues around me, I was making a good salary, and was traveling around North America for interesting projects.

BUT, after having my two kids, I started to see that big consulting firms don’t always do the best job of setting young moms up for success.

While my company was actually very supportive of me, and allowed me to do an alternative work arrangement, I was really struggling.

I was supposed to work 70% of full time for 70% of my salary, but I was on a high-pressure client project, and ended up working way more than full time hours for $70,000 a year.

I had little control over my schedule, and I was incredibly stressed trying to...