A seasoned HR leader with 17 years’ experience running her own HR consultancy firm, offers her advice to those looking to launch and scale their own business.

After working in the HR profession for over 30 years – the last 17 of which have been spent running my own boutique HR consultancy – I’ve learned that transitioning from a corporate role into a consultant position is more than just a career pivot. It requires a total professional evolution and mindset shift.

When I left my last role as a Head of HR – which involved 50-60 direct reports for a company of approximately 15,000 employees – I was looking for a lifestyle shift that enabled greater work-life balance to help me both work and raise my family.

While the transition to consultancy certainly afforded me greater flexibility, it would be remiss to suggest the shift was without significant complexity. Navigating the move from a corporate head of HR to a business owner requires a major shift in how you value your time and expertise. 

Now, 17 years into this journey, I have reflected on the lessons – both anticipated and unforeseen – that have underpinned the growth of a thriving practice.

For the HR practitioner contemplating a move into the consulting landscape, the following considerations are essential for building a viable and sustainable business model.

Claire Harrison FCPHR will be unpacking more tips in a webinar on 24 June on the topic of ‘Taking the Leap from HR Corporate to HR Consulting’. Sign up here.

1. Master the sales and marketing “hustle”

In a corporate role, you are an internal service provider; as a business owner, you are a salesperson. 

This is often the steepest learning curve for HR practitioners, who are often not used to putting themselves in the spotlight and may find the concept of selling themselves and their business unnatural or perhaps uncomfortable.

Here are some tips to help you:

• Reframe the Pitch: You don’t need to be salesy, but you must be curious. View every conversation as a problem-solving exercise. By asking the right questions and finding out about their business nuances and challenges, you position yourself as a partner rather than a vendor. 
• Build credibility first: Influence is built on a foundation of trust and credibility. Focus on addressing low-hanging fruit and securing early wins for a client, as these problem-solving successes are what ultimately allow you to influence at a deeper level.
  
  You can do this through casual coffee catch ups and networking, offering advice and support where appropriate or through getting credentials, such as becoming a Certified HR practitioner.
• Leverage thought leadership: Establish trust long before you ask for a contract by sharing your expertise. This can be done through LinkedIn articles, speaking at workshops, or contributing to AHRI.
  
  This builds a personal brand that does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. You want people to have heard of you, and your area of expertise, before you try and convince them to work with you.

• Nurture the relationship: The HR sales cycle is often long. It is not about a quick conversion in the first meeting. It requires building relationships over time, which is a skill that comes naturally to most HR practitioners, who are inherently relational.
  
  Read AHRI’s article on how to build your professional brand on LinkedIn.

2. De-couple your value from your time

One of the most significant challenges for an internal practitioner transitioning into consultancy is the sudden, pressing reality of billing their time. 

In a corporate environment, we’re rarely required to cost out our time or track increments of work, whereas consultants in law or accounting firms are raised in a culture of rigid billing targets. 

To build a profitable business, you must undergo a mental shift: you are not just selling your time; you are selling the years of qualifications, diverse experiences and high-level expertise that allow you to provide that time’s worth of advice.

To protect your earning potential, it’s vital to move away from simply trading hours for dollars whenever possible. Relying solely on an hourly rate can be limiting and often fails to reflect the true value of the solutions you provide.

Instead, I recommend leaning into a fixed-fee project model. By charging a set fee for a specific outcome, you provide the client with price certainty while ensuring you are compensated for the value delivered, rather than the speed at which you work.

Beyond one-off projects, the key to long-term sustainability is securing recurring revenue. A substantial portion of a successful consultancy’s income should ideally come from retainer services. 

These arrangements create much-needed stability and a consistent pipeline of work during the quieter periods that naturally occur in a solo or boutique practice. 

While it can be uncomfortable to have these pricing conversations initially, valuing yourself and being confident in your worth is the only way to ensure your business remains financially viable.

“You are not just selling your time; you are selling the years of qualifications, diverse experiences and high-level expertise that allow you to provide that time’s worth of advice.” – Claire Harrison FCPHR

3. Gain broader business skills

Moving from an internal HR role to a consultancy requires a rapid expansion of your business acumen, as you are no longer just a subject matter expert, but the CEO, CFO, CMO, and Chief Strategist of your own firm. 

Beyond technical HR proficiency, you need to develop a deep understanding of the financial and legal frameworks required to protect and grow a company. This starts with the fundamentals of business structure – such as registering as a company for liability protection – and mastering systems like your financial and project management software to maintain real-time visibility over your profitability.

4. Double down on your niche

Attempting to be everything to everyone often results in standing out to no one.

To build a sustainable consultancy, you should first identify a clear point of difference that allows you to niche down effectively. This might mean specialising in a high-stakes functional area – such as industrial relations, change management or the emerging field of AI-driven workforce planning – where your deep expertise becomes a premium asset.

Alternatively, you can niche by industry sector, focusing your efforts on a specific field like medical practices or SMEs.

This targeted approach allows you to customise your toolkit and systemise your offerings specifically for that audience, making your marketing far more potent. 

Niching is not about limiting your opportunities, but about building the credibility and social proof required to become the go-to expert in your chosen field.

5. Prioritise systems and productisation

As a solo consultant, you will inevitably encounter the feast or famine cycle: periods where you are either too immersed in delivery to go searching for new business, or finishing a project only to find yourself desperately hunting for leads. 

To break this cycle, consider prioritising productisation of your services. By creating standard tools, templates and frameworks, you ensure you aren’t starting from scratch with every new engagement, which significantly improves your efficiency and protects your capacity.

As the business grows, it’s vital to systemise your intellectual property. Once you begin to employ other consultants – a move I recommend making earlier rather than later to diversify your revenue – having robust systems in place ensures high-level quality control. These systems allow your team to deliver results that meet your personal standards without requiring you to fall into the trap of micromanagement.

6. Maintain consistency discipline

While the autonomy, variety and flexibility of business ownership is often the primary drawcard, it can also become a significant trap if not managed with a strong amount of discipline and accountability.

True success in this landscape requires the discipline to maintain a structured business development routine, even when the immediate need for work feels less pressing. 

I recommend setting strict weekly targets for yourself, such as a specific quota for networking events, coffee catch-ups and sales calls. This discipline ensures that your pipeline remains healthy.

A critical component of this routine is the speed of your engagement. Commit to following up with every new connection within 24 hours to maintain momentum and demonstrate the professional standards your clients will expect. 

Also, you must be ruthless with your energy. It’s easy to fill your diary with ‘nice’ networking events that offer social connection but don’t include your core target audience. To be effective, you must ensure that your high-energy efforts are reserved for environments where your prospective clients are.

7. Find and nurture strong referral partners

Building relationships with referral partners can be just as important (and fruitful) as nurturing prospective clients.

Rather than relying solely on cold outreach, you can focus on building reciprocal relationships with professionals who already serve your target market. For an HR consultancy, accounting firms and employment lawyers often make the most effective referral partners. 

These professionals are frequently the first to hear about a client’s people-related challenges – whether it’s a compliance issue or a need for workforce restructuring – and can position your services as the ideal solution. You would, in turn, do the same for them.

These arrangements don’t necessarily require formal, written partnership documents, but they thrive on consistency and mutual value. By engaging in joint events or simply keeping a regular cadence of communication, you can ensure a constant stream of high-quality, warm leads. 

You can also engage in activities such as joint webinars or workshops with these other SMEs, as a way to strengthen both the relationship and your offering to your client base.

8. Pivot from practitioner to strategic partner

The most vital mindset shift is moving from the person who manages HR processes to the person who solves business problems. 

CEOs value strategic, conceptual thinking over administration. If you can position yourself like this, you move from being an optional expense to an invaluable business asset. This is especially important in a tight economic climate, where businesses are looking for ways to cut costs (HR and external partnerships are often first on the chopping block, so can you demonstrate ongoing impact?).

Transitioning into consultancy is a hustle, particularly in the first few years. However, if you can balance your technical HR expertise with a disciplined approach to business development, the rewards – and the freedom – are well worth the effort.

🧰 HR’s career resource kit

Turn the learnings from this article into action:

• Webinar: Learn more about how to make the leap from corporate to consultant. Sign up to AHRI’s webinar, featuring more insights from Claire Harrison FCPHR, on 24 June.
• Certification: Enhance your credibility by becoming a Certified HR practitioner. Learn more today.
• Learning: Ready to transition from operational responsibilities to visionary leadership? AHRI’s course, The Strategic HR Leader, will enable you to create value and drive sustainable change.
• Listen: Listen to AHRI’s podcast episode on building influence and credibility with the C-suite