How to be a consultant

Being a consultant is a dream to which anybody can aspire – the lifestyle, income and flexibility make it a highly attractive lifestyle. Do you want to work for yourself? Do you want to make good money? Do you want the flexibility to enjoy the life you always wanted? Well, read on friends, because after several years of exhaustive research and observation in the workplace, I have the foolproof guide to being a consultant.

1. Try and get a contract in a government department. Government departments have huge amounts of money to throw at projects they rarely if ever finish, and many people in government departments actually believe that the more expensive a consultant is, the more effective they will be. They will quite happily spend £2000 a day on a consultant, even if that consultant spends most of his time on lunch breaks, hiding, or playing golf in Dubai. Many government departments fortunately also have confused or non-existent HR policies, which will quite likely result in your being retained for several years, not the standard three to six months, and probably in a management position. Some examples exist of consultants who have even been sent on training by their client, and have been paid for it. So don’t worry if you don’t know what you’re doing!
2. Ensure that, at no point during your commission, is anyone entirely clear on what you actually do. Useful tools to throw people off the scent include colourful Excel spreadsheets, gigantic Gantt charts, and PowerPoint slideshows containing pictures of people in suits shaking hands.
3. In meetings and communications, regardless of the objective of the project, guarantee that it will all be delivered next week, under budget. It doesn’t matter what it is, because if it isn’t delivered, you’ll be in another consultancy role by then, and you did everything you could, it’s just the useless bastards that were working with you. Recent experiments found that consultants provided ‘cast-iron guarantees’ that resolutions could be found next week for the NHS IT systems failure, the African AIDS pandemic, and conflict in the Middle East.
4. Arrange meetings. Lots of meetings. Meetings are a complete waste of time, however they do allow you to look important, show off, and breeze back in to your office looking important.
5. Ask questions. Lots of questions. You never actually need to provide any answers, but asking lots of questions will give the impression that you are challenging, curious, thrusting and proactive. If put in a situation where you are asked to answer a question yourself, useful responses include “I haven’t got time to waste on this – you bring me a solution”, “We’re adopting a holistic approach and should be delivering a solution next week”, or “I’ve been waiting for a response on this from your people”.
6. Keep the following phrases handy and use them at every opportunity available – they impress people. They are:
   • “Can we talk offline?”
   • “I think there are some synergies we can identify here”
   • “Let’s not boil the ocean”
   • “That is a delta point we need to address”
   • “I know a guy over there, he’s a good guy, I’ll get in touch with my guy”
7. If you work in an open-plan office, try and make a point of discussing your property investments, cars, new favourite restaurant, and more property investments, as loudly as possible with any other consultants in the vicinity. This, needless to say, is pretty clever and impressive, and shows those permanent staff in the office who do the same job as you on a quarter of your wage just who’s boss.
8. Try and get all the right people out for drinks after work. You’ll find a great many more important decisions are made when drunk, the shared memory of your line manager with a lapdancer’s tits pressed in to his face at two in the morning will likely mean he won’t give you any grief if you show up late for work, and you’ll have lots of ‘in’ jokes and innuendos you can share at top volume in the gents.

So, the best of luck – follow the guide above, and you’ll be a successful consultant in no time. Cheers!

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