Keep consulting or go back to full-time work?

February 6, 2024 6:25 PM

I've been self-employed as a consultant for six years. Business is slow and my life circumstances are changing... would it make sense to go back to working for someone else again?

(Previously asked a variant of this five years ago. Time flies!)

I'm self-employed as a consultant in the marketing/PR world mainly doing corporate communications and trade show work. I have several contractors I rely on for administrative support and creative work, but am the only full-time employee. Am a guy in my early forties, married with a young kid.

The big problem I'm facing is that business has slowed down a lot due to industry-wide stuff (reduced budgets everywhere in the advertising and marketing worlds) and specific stuff for my company (both of our anchor clients merged/were acquired by much larger companies and laid off our contacts). I used to be able to gross $125,000 a year w/o doing any marketing at all and gross $200,000 if I tried, but last two years we barely cleared $75,000 while aggressively reaching out to new clients.

I'm lucky that my wife has a well paying job with benefits so the loss of income hasn't been catastrophic to us, but I'm seriously thinking about finding an in-house job or returning to agency life. My kid is starting kindergarten in the fall, which will make childcare much more stable.

My thoughts:
1. Age discrimination in my industry is very real and I'm already in my forties. I feel like this may be one of my last chances to work on "big" projects instead of the more modestly-funded projects my consulting business typically works on.
2. With my skill set, I feel there's a decent chance I could earn more money as an employee than being self-employed in the current economy.
3. After being self employed for more than five years, I feel like any more time running my own business might make me unemployable in the future.

With that said, I'm hesitant to throw away a small business with regular customers that I've spent years working on.

What's the best way to approach this?

posted by allthethings to Work & Money (3 answers total)

IMO, try for Corp work. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but you've only lost a few hours a week in that pursuit. This is not a zero sum game, and you may find nothing interesting. You may also find someone willing to pay 20x (this is a true statement for a friend of mine, of whom I am endlessly and eternally jealous) which I guess I mention as a warning about my bias.

This is not a choose-your-own-adventure. You can decide to stop, so why not give it a try to see what may (or may not) turn up? I mean that literally -- is there a specific reason you don't even want to try?

You can worry about discarding your existing clients when that becomes necessary, not before.
posted by aramaic at 7:07 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]

I started a consultancy business (education industry) after being made redundant but, with the keenest sense of timing you can imagine, I did that at the very moment COVID was stealthily starting its roll-out across the country. So, lockdowns, border closures etc meant I was able to gather few clients and the work was sparse to say the least because every education provider that hadn't gone broke or just shut the doors for the duration was running on pared-to-the-bone budgets.

One of those clients I had been able to engage offered me a job, initially three days per week and that was extended to full-time six months later. It's been three years now and I'm still there, mostly enjoying it. I have kept the consultancy going in a small way, basically just with my favourite clients, largely because I expect to mostly retire within five years and my plan has been to continue doing that work part-time to keep some money coming in.

All that to say you can have your cake and eat it too, to some extent. Obviously, there's nothing to stop you from at least looking for a 'real' job while you continue what you're doing and that means you can be a bit fussier about the jobs you apply for. In your industry, the likelihood that a company would be willing to employ you and let you continue to consult would be low I imagine, given you'd possibly be a competitor. But, in a perfect world, you'd get to keep those regular customers and also earn a salary.
posted by dg at 8:39 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]

As someone from the agency world in my 40’s (like you) I would personally steer clear right now and aim for a full time job client side. I think you’ll make more money and have less bd + admin stress. You might consider keeping some existing clients on the side, your nicest ones only!
posted by gillianr at 8:40 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]