From Booklist
For readers who are dying to go into the consulting biz (you have just been fired or are overworked or disillusioned), Florzak provides a wealth of information on getting started in this new field. He begins with an overview of the business, then explains how to draw on one's personal skills, traits, and experience. He tells how to create a business plan to gain financing and to guide the direction of your business, how to set up a rate structure, and how to work with five basic legal forms. He explains the importance of several types of insurance, of retirement funding, of marketing on the Web and to agencies, and of creating a marketing plan. He gives tips on setting up an office at home, on basic record keeping, and on submitting proposals and contracts. George Cohen


Ed Martin, About.com Book Review, November 22, 1999
"I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I picked up Doug Florzak's Successful Independent Consulting. When I put it down, I was pleasantly surprised. If you want to be a consultant but don't know anything about setting up or running your own business, or are thinking about becoming a consultant, this book can help and let you turn your career experience into a consulting business."


Michele McDonald, ForeWord Magazine, January 2000
This is not a book bogged down with legal terms or financial script, but communicates necessary information in a refreshingly quick and to-the-point manner.


Book Description
Consult your way to a new career! Reviewed by Booklist and Foreword magazine, this book provides a roadmap to starting your own business as an independent consultant. It’s a great resource for professionals who want to become a master of their own fate. This book shows you how to set your rate, select the legal form of your business, market on the Internet, understand basic record keeping, and much more. It includes a recommended resource list and sample worksheets to help you start and maintain your consulting business.


From the Author
I believe self-employment is growing not only as an economic alternative to what we independents call "captive employment" but as a lifestyle. A consulting business is one of the easier self-employed businesses to set up, because it leverages the career experience you've already accumulated as a professional in your field. Although any business is hard work, consulting, like many other self-employed businesses, provides choices and offers the possibility to "custom-design" your work. While it may not be for everyone, I think it can be a great way of life.


About the Author
Doug Florzak has nearly twenty years combined experience as a consultant and professional in the technology industry. He is founder of Logical Directions, Inc., a technical communications firm. In addition to his experience designing and writing award winning paper and online publications, Doug worked extensively in the computer industry. He was a senior systems consultant for Wang Laboratories, Inc. Before Wang, Doug was a systems consultant for GTE Telenet. He received a certificate in Technical and Professional Communications from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also received a B.S. in Information Science and a B.S. in Business and Management from Northeastern Illinois University.


Excerpted from Successful Independent Consulting by Douglas Florzak. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
From Chapter 1: If you are new to consulting, this is your first step. In this chapter, we'll start by trying to define what makes a consultant. Since everyone has a different definition for the practice of "consulting," you'll see it's not easily defined. Why do people become independent consultants? What are the "categories" of consulting? Is there a "career path" for independent consultants? What are the benefits and challenges? This chapter provides answers to these and other questions as it tries to orient you to the world of consulting. Why do people become independent consultants? There are many paths that lead to independent consulting. Even if you haven't started your own consulting business, you may be on one of these paths right now and not even realize it! Although the profiles of independent consultants vary, I've identified several scenarios that seem to serve as incubators for people who ultimately become independent consultants. See if any of these apply to you. "I want to work for myself." Most independent consultants start their businesses because they experience almost an instinctual desire to work for themselves. Are you fed up with the corporate life and all it entails? Do you want more control over your own schedule? Do you believe you can make more money working for yourself? Despite the risks, you may be ready to trade the "security" of a fixed paycheck and provided benefits for the challenge of building a business you can call your own. In today's employment market, working for yourself may be the most stable kind of work. After all, you can't fire yourself! "I want to release my creativity." Many people feel creatively stifled working for someone else. Unfortunately, many mainstream jobs are not equipped to channel creativity and new ideas from their employees. Are you given the response "that's the way we always do it" after your boss turns down your proposal for an improvement? Does your company have a suggestion box with a lock and no key? Are all your best ideas destroyed by committee? The desire to express their creativity is one of the driving forces behind many independent consultants. They seek what psychology researcher Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the "optimal experience" or simply the state of "flow." Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as "the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it." Does this describe a place you would like to reach? People tell you, "I heard you're the expert on this." Many people become independent consultants as a matter of chance because other people recognize them as experts. Are you the person other employees always come to because you're the only one they know who has experience with a specific type of problem? Are you the only person at your company with skill in a certain operation? Even when given the choice of other employees with similar skills, does management consistently come to you for help? Are you known in your neighborhood as the guy or gal to come to for (you fill in the blank)? When I was working for a sales branch of Wang Laboratories in the late 1980s, a fellow systems consultant learned the then-new Aldus PageMaker layout computer program. Once sales representatives knew she could create customized marketing materials for their presentations, she was swamped with requests to do this kind of work. As Wang systems consultants, our primary job was to provide technical assistance to the sales reps and their customers. The situation in this case became so acute the woman complained to her boss that if she tried to fulfill every PageMaker request she received, she would not have time for her other duties! She could easily have started an independent consulting business as a desktop publisher right at that moment. If you're the person people come to for advice on how to do something in your company or if neighbors and friends come to you, even offering money for your expertise without you asking for it, this may be a sign you were meant to be an independent consultant. If you are lucky enough to be in this situation and recognize it as such, you've already made it past the first hurdle in starting your business because you have an established client base! "I've been downsized!" No one likes to lose his or her job, but some people use the stimulus of getting laid off to start their consulting business. Sometimes getting laid off can be a blessing in disguise because the decision to cut the "golden handcuffs" of a steady paycheck and provided benefits is extremely difficult for many people. This is how I got started with my consulting business after I was laid off from Wang Laboratories. I felt a combination of shock and betrayal, but relief at the same time. I had been thinking of starting my own business and this forced me to take my dreams seriously. "I can do this myself, so why am I working for this place?" Many people start a consulting business because they see themselves already doing consulting for someone else. Does your company pay you to provide a service to its customers, charging them a fee for your time? Does your company trust you with important decisions regarding the fate of a client project? Do you sometimes question what "added value" your company provides when it sells your time to their clients? If you already provide consulting to your employer's clients, it doesn't take long until you realize you can provide the same exact service as an independent consultant to your own clients. "I want to work in a related field." Many people become consultants because a new development in a related field creates a sudden demand for experts. This situation is particularly prevalent in the technology industry. For example, the demand for Web page designers after 1990 seemed to pop up overnight.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

If you feel tossed about by anonymous forces and seek a chance to become master of your own fate, this book is just what you need to make a smooth transition from employee to self-employed. Veteran independent consultant Douglas Florzak draws on nearly a decade of success-filled experience to present a clear road map for starting and maintaining a successful consulting business.

Whether you are already a consultant or thinking about becoming one, this guide has everything you'll need.

This book will show you how to:

Create a business plan

Set your rate structure

Select the legal form of your business and understand related tax issues

Set up retirement funding and choose appropriate insurance

Set up your home office

Implement Internet marketing strategies

Understand basic record-keeping

Also included is a recommended resource list and sample worksheets to help you start and maintain your consulting business. This is a life-changing book for experienced professionals at a crossroads in their career. Successful Independent Consulting is a must if you are contemplating the freedom of self-employment.

FROM THE CRITICS

McDonald - Foreword (December, 1999)