Start a consulting business

You already know how to do the work. You just have no idea what to charge for it, or who would say yes.

Somewhere in your company there is a problem only three people can solve, and you are one of them. You have solved it for years, on salary, on a Tuesday, without anyone ever calling it consulting.

Someone you used to work with left two years ago. Now they come in for two days, do the same work, and invoice for it. You have not entirely stopped thinking about that number since you heard it.

This book is about the ninety days before you hand in your notice.

Not the fantasy version, where you quit on Monday and bill five figures on Friday. The real one, written for someone who still has a mortgage, a manager, and a payroll deposit arriving on the same date every month.

Inside this short, practical guide:

• How to find out whether anyone would pay you, without announcing that you are leaving
• The four signals that tell you a problem is actually budgeted, and the three that waste three months
• What to read in your own employment contract before you speak to a single person
• How to leave so that your current employer becomes your most likely first client
• Your offer, on one page, with a worked example
• How to work out your rate in ten minutes, and the three sentences that let you say it out loud without flinching
• Eight conversations that turn into paid work, written out word for word
• The proposal document, and why most people write it for entirely the wrong reader
• The month four collapse that catches almost everyone, and the one habit that prevents it

Every chapter ends with one small action you can take this week, from inside your current job, without telling anyone anything.

There are no seven-figure case studies here, and no promise that it is easy. There is a ninety-day plan, a set of templates, and a straight account of what the first year actually looks like, including the parts nobody warns you about.

You do not need to become a different person. You need one offer, twenty names, and a price you can say without your voice moving.

Book 1 of The Independent Path.