Achieving Success as an Independent ERP Consultant Tips

As a consultant you have to be personable and charming to get through the door. Once you’re through the door, you have to be a great listener and an even better communicator.

Be aware that an ERP contractor wears a lot of hats, and educate yourself about all of the aspects of marketing yourself. Being consultative is all about getting the job done however you can, so don’t be afraid to experiment. For example, if you’re a whiz-bang consultant, but just can’t market yourself, see if you can hook up with a staffing firm, like B2B Workforce, who has entrenched client relationships and can match your expert level skills with a top level project.

In the ERP marketplace world, it’s easy to get pigeonholed as a consultant, trainer, or developer. But the fact is that skills are beginning to blend together, and transform the way jobs in ERP work. As an ERP consultant, for example, you can not only solve implementation and upgrade challenges but can also teach others to do so as well. In other words, you can become a trainer. The good news about training is that the addressable audience is larger. Consultants can only work with clients at the company level, and are unlikely to work on more than one project at one time, but trainers can teach thousands of people. Moreover, ERP trainees needn’t just be end users; you can train other consultants, students, or even people wanting to break into ERP (particularly SAP or Oracle consultant jobs) from other industries. The bad news is that trainers have to be available all the time, and being a trainer can conflict with your consulting work. However, if you get into online or on-demand training, you may be able to work around those limitations and still add an income stream.

A lot of the routine administrative tasks that come with being an ERP consultant are boring. Tax preparation, receipt storage, business card printing—the chores never seem to end. However, if your version of consulting is all vision without the details, you may soon find yourself in tax trouble, and a general environment of disorganization will rob you of the efficiency needed to effectively serve your client. It’s a fact that some personalities just aren’t comfortable with administrative details, but you have to remember that, as an ERP consultant, you are your own support staff.

Unless you can hire a secretary to support you, you’d better start becoming comfortable with learning about, and executing, the dozens of small tasks for which any self-employed business person is responsible.

Working as an independent consultant means you’ll have to do your own prospecting, marketing, and sales. Even if you’re good, industries whose risk management model leads them away from independents won’t hire you. This is where professional service firms come in. Allowing you to remain an independent ERP consultant, you can rely on firms to lend their credibility as well as expert placement for your specific skill set.

Be aware that, as an independent contractor, you will face feast or famine scenarios, and some anxious moments waiting for callbacks in your new ERP career. Some personalities will handle this scenario well, as the potential upside is high. However, people with families, precarious financial situations, or a natural aversion to risk need to understand that being an independent ERP contractor can have a major downside as well. With times as tough as they are, think very carefully about your risk tolerance before making a decision one way or the other. It could impact the rest of your career in ways you might not have thought about yet.

ERP consulting jobs have their own unique trajectories. After ten years at a consultancy, you may have hit the glass ceiling. If you haven’t made partner, you know it might be time to move into your own independent consulting gig. On the other hand, if this is your first year working with a consultancy, you can look forward to racking up a lot more experience and learning plenty of new tricks.

Thus, one thing to consider before you go solo is whether you’re ready to stop gaining experience. If you’ve got years of traditional work on your resume, you might not need the corporate world to validate you any longer. If you’re green, a consultancy can still give you a lot of the experience you need. Think about experience before you leap into independent consulting. If you’re already solo, think about how you’re still learning. Do you read the latest books, go to conferences, network with your peers?

LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter all have their place, but your potential customers may not be Web 2.0 people. Often, they don’t have time for social networking, and the one place they will be freely available to you will be industry events. For this reason, try as hard as you can to get to as many events as you can. It’s certainly an investment, as there are travel and event fees, but you can try to negotiate with the vendor. You can also plan ahead and try to present at events, which might allow you to bypass the registration fee. In terms of SAP, don’t just think SAPPHIRE and TechED as source of SAP ERP jobs; think smaller, regional ASUG events where you can pitch to smaller, but more attentive, groups of potential customers. One advantage of attending events is that you can not only scare up business for yourself but also make contacts that will let you land a traditional full-time ERP consulting job with an end user.

You can’t be two places at once, and this limitation impacts your services revenue. You are only worth as much as you can bill to one client at a time. However, as an ERP consultant, you have more leeway to turn your knowledge into products. If you know a lot about a particular product or vertical, write a book about it and self-publish on Amazon. Royalty rates for self-publishing are higher than ever and, best of all, you can sell books while you sleep. It’s passive, recurring revenue that can make up for times of famine in your consulting work.

Also, while books are an excellent way to productize your knowledge, think bigger. The opportunities offered by social media are extremely diverse: you can create downloadable PDF guides, e-learning webcasts, and Flash presentations and host them on a website (such as Spinact.com) that serves as a marketplace for consultant products. Hit the niches: if you have experience in PeopleSoft consulting jobs, get it on the page, regardless of the Oracle acquisition. However you proceed, the bottom line is to start thinking of yourself as a content provider as well as a service deliverer; it’ll add another dimension or two to your earning power.

When you’re an ERP consultant, it’s hard work getting the best ERP consulting jobs. One way of achieving this objective is to find a staffing firm, like B2B Workforce, that is trusted by top employers. A staffing firm can help find you positions that may not be advertised elsewhere. Because their client employers already know and trust their opinion, a staffing firm’s referral help you stand out from other applicants.

Once you’re foot is through the door, it’s up to you to impress during an interview. A staffing firm can give you the inside scoop on the type of things an employer is looking for. You’ll have an edge by being more prepared, and you’ll seem more professional than your competition.

As an ERP contractor, you may only have a couple of focus areas. That’s fine, but you have to get the larger ERP picture in order to sound relevant and clued in to the needs of potential clients. In SAP ERP, for example, terminologies change every year. Consultants get into the habit of referring to SAP modules by their old names, but this can raise red flags to a potential customer who may think you’re behind the times; meanwhile, in Oracle consulting jobs, you’ll have to keep track of Oracle’s acquisitions and how they impact customers.

Remember, you don’t have to know the functionality itself, but you should know what it’s called and walk around with a current knowledge of your ERP suite of choice, since talking about it intelligently will make you seem like an insider to potential clients. Also, this kind of exercise forces you to get out of your focus areas and think about ERP from a strategic level. If you understand the direction in which an entire suite is evolving, you will also develop a better understanding of where your own competencies are heading.

As an independent ERP contractor, you can get more money per hour than an ERP consulting company would give you, as you are more in control of selling your expertise to the client. However, one trade-off is that you will face increased risk. If you work for ERP consulting companies or systems integrators (SIs), you don’t have to worry about finding work; the work will always be there. If you’re on your own, you’ll have to do your own prospecting, marketing, and sales. Even if you’re good, industries whose risk management model leads them away from independents won’t hire you. This is where professional service firms come in. Allowing you to remain an independent ERP consultant, you can rely on firms to lend their credibility as well as expert placement for your specific skill set.

Be aware that, as an independent contractor, you will face feast or famine scenarios, and some anxious moments waiting for callbacks in your new ERP career. Some personalities will handle this scenario well, as the potential upside is high. However, people with families, precarious financial situations, or a natural aversion to risk need to understand that being an independent ERP contractor can have a major downside as well. With times as tough as they are, think very carefully about your risk tolerance before making a decision one way or the other. It could impact the rest of your career in ways you might not have thought about yet.