How to Be a Consultant—and Actually Make It Work

Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More professionals than ever are rethinking what’s next. For many mid-career and senior-level workers, consulting is the best path forward. But how do you actually make the leap? In this week’s episode of Hello Monday, host Jessi Hempel sits down with Erin Halper, founder and CEO of The Upside, a vibrant community for consultants. Erin shares what she’s learned from years of working independent consulting and coaching others through the same transition. From pricing and positioning to finding your first clients and building support systems, Erin and Jessi walk through what it really takes to thrive as a consultant. They also tackle the big questions: How do you know if consulting is right for you? What’s the best way to price your work? How do you talk about what you do in 10 words or less? What role does community play in solo success? How do you shift between full-time work and consulting as your career evolves? Whether you're just starting out or thinking about a pivot, this episode offers practical advice, clarity, and confidence for building your independent career—especially in an uncertain job market. 🔗 Join us for Office Hours. We’re continuing the conversation on Wednesday at 3PM ET on the LinkedIn News page. RSVP here!

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn News.
0:06.1	It's really hard for people to narrow down what they're doing as a consultant because they think
0:11.6	I can do everything, so I should do everything.
0:14.7	And it's really the opposite.
0:16.5	The more niche you can get, the more specific you can get.
0:19.7	And for whom, the easier it is to sell
0:22.4	your services, to be known for something, to charge more, because you become that expert in that
0:28.4	space. From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessie Hempel, and this is Hello Monday. It's our
0:36.0	show about the changing nature of work and how that work is changing all of us.
0:41.0	And if you're here today, it's probably because you care a lot about how to be a great consultant.
0:46.5	Maybe you're a person who's just getting started and you have a lot of questions.
0:51.4	Maybe you've been doing it a long time and so you've really sharpened the things
0:55.2	that you're great at and you know exactly where you'd like to work. Or maybe you're just starting
1:00.3	to wrap your mind around this as a possible path for the future. Regardless of where you're at,
1:06.6	I'm here to tell you that consulting is the single best path forward for the mid-career
1:11.2	and senior professional in 2025.
1:14.3	Full stop.
1:15.3	I'm serious here.
1:16.7	You know, most of my peers, people who are about my age, when we're moving out of full-time
1:21.8	roles, we look around for new full-time roles and what we're seeing is often jobs that aren't as exciting as the
1:29.1	ones we're leaving. Maybe they don't pay as well. Maybe they don't give us the grand per view.
1:34.1	Maybe they're just not there. And in the face of that uncertainty, we discover that the best option
	...

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