Top 5 Reasons people start a consulting business & Top 5 Reasons they talk themselves out of it.
February 8, 2021
In this episode, Sheldon goes over the top 5 reasons people start a consulting business and the top 5 reasons people talk themselves out of starting a consulting business. He gives his thoughts as to each of the points through personal experiences.
Top 5 Reasons People Start a Consulting Business
1. Family obligations
2. Testing the waters for retirement
3. Burnout from employer
4. Being laid off
5. Restless and needing a challenge
Top 5 Reasons People Talk Themselves out of Starting a Consulting Business
1. Imposter syndrome
2. Time constraints
3. Financial issues for start-up cost
4. No safety designation
5. Not knowing how to transition from safety officer to safety consultant
Keywords: Sheldon Primus, Safety and Health, Imposter syndrome, start-up, business, consulting, consultant, safety consultant, EHS, Safety FM, Dr. Jay Allen, Time management, budgeting, safety designation, COSS, COSM, CSP, Alliance Safety Council, Resources, Retirement, Laid off, Business accelerator
[00:00:00] : this'll episode is powered by Safety FM. Hey, welcome to the safety consultant podcast. I am your host on the promise. Who's the podcast? Right? Teach you the business of being a safety consultant. And this week we are actually going to go over one thing that was just kind of going through my mind recently. And truly, I decided I'm gonna dio two for here. This could very easily be two episodes, Not in the time just in the content. But what I'm gonna do here is we're gonna give you the top five reasons people started consulting business, and then I'm going to give you the top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a consulting business. So we're gonna do a little bit of both, So I'm going to truly just go in there. A Sfar is the topic wise and give you some of my understanding of things that I've been hearing about people saying All right, this is it. Time to start my consulting business on for these reasons or some people, when you ask them all you should be doing your own business was going on, and they're like, you know, I well and then they start that whole Siri's going right from from their mind. So bringing to him go ahead and talk about the top five reasons people start their business. And then also, we're going to give you the top five reasons people talk themselves out of the business. And for each one of these things, I'll just give you my input on there. Right? So we're gonna go ahead and get this on going. We're going to start on this one, and I am going to tell you that throughout this thought process for me kind of brought back some memories. You know, truly some things that I was thinking about. Like, Wow, I haven't, actually, uh, let's see, 2000 and eight just to kind of go back e even know if I have a back button. I should look that one up. That be awesome, doing like a nice reverse. But eso some of the things that I've actually thought about since 2008, when I started my consulting business, the first business I started was called Utility Compliance Inc. And, uh, and that was the name my idea behind it was I was going to basically be the person that you would go to if you were in a water or wastewater facility distribution system collection system, because that's where I came from my field. I'm still licensed in that. And I was a adjunct instructor for Florida Gateway College in the wastewater side of their border to go program. And truly, I was thinking our aim. Now that I'm ready to consult, this is what I'm gonna do. People gonna come right to me and I'm gonna go ahead and consult throughout the whole globe on water, wastewater process, safety and process management and management of the the actual facility. Because I was the manager of the time and that was gonna be my my business helping utilities. They compliant with EPA or whatever regulatory agency they had. It was good and it gave me some work initially, But like all consulting firms in any kind of field you're in, you could get the highs and lows and highs and lows. So when the lows came, I was like, Oh, especially when the load started getting lower and lower and lower. Then I was like, Oh, I'm gonna have to do something so truly I needed Thio Thio changed my whole perspective. Have to blow up my business model. And then I had to decide. All right, what am I going to do next? So I decided I was going to get some OSHA compliance in there because I was doing safety throughout my whole career. Might as well throw some safety in there. So I started thinking about how can I incorporate utility compliance with safety compliance? And I started offering some private sector, uh, training as well as private sector consulting for OSHA compliance. And I had to you a little disconnect with that because of the name of the business was utility compliance. But yet people were coming to me for OSHA 10 or thirties, so I couldn't really get that one to stick. So then I added a d b a from my business called OSHA Compliance help. And if you are listening to linked in or Facebook or any of the other social media that I belonged thio every Tuesday and Thursday, for the most part, sometimes I have to switch it up from Tuesday and Thursdays. Uh, on I'll let everybody know when I do those things and I do a OSHA compliance help show. It actually came from the name of that second business I had toe kind of pivot to in order for me to to ebb those lows from getting too deep and start making some more money. So that's the few things that I really had thio start thinking about and doing. So now when you really thinking about, uh, well, transitioned again to safety consulting, uh, mentoring and coaching. So that's another thing I ended up having doing. So let me get that out of the way before I go into the reasons for for my business. So a lot of the things that I I was feeling at the time help me come up with this list with the top five reasons to start your consulting business. And then ah, lot of things that I was feeling also that was halting and pushing back is also that top five reasons that people talk themselves out of starting a consulting business. So I use that as well as some things I've heard from students. Some things that I've heard from just looking around and listening and the Lincoln posts and all those things those air or what I incorporated here, I kinda have this labeled in order of the top to the least. However, I know you may have your own twist to this list that I'm giving you so you might order it differently, which is just fine. That's what you do. So this is what I'm thinking about. All right, So the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm actually going to start with number one. See? Look at that. I'm not even going to give you guys that usual suspense that says, You know, I'm going to start from number five on, then work my way to number one. So none of that suspense stuff I'm just going straight to here is my number one. And this is why it's my number one. So for me, family obligations truly if you have small Children, if you have a spouse that works, you know some really strict hours or even loose hours, and you want to make sure that someone's always around for the Children. Uh, then that's family obligations that you can have. Uh, when I was doing this and starting to branch out of my own, the family obligation side. Waas. My wife had a nice, steady job working for a school district as a teacher, and she taught Children with autism. And that's her business right now. Also is is working with those families, families and and providing services for them as well. So look her up. OEM amazing kids dot com Marianne Privacy. Thank you, Marianne. I love you. But anyway, a to that time. So for us, I just really have to. I wanted to be around as well as the kids were in high school at the time, so it was good to be able to do with the events and everything else. Uh, actually, it was middle school leading into high school is if I'm remembering that right and just gotta get my mindset here. But I think that's that's what I'm remembering, right? So at that point, it was a lot of stuff, and I coach my son's basketball for quite a while. I was a coach for Martin County in Florida. Uh, there's a youth league that was a private sports league, and I was coaching for them. I actually coached for the Y M C A for a while, is a youth basketball coach. So doing that stuff was really fun, especially when I could work for myself and then also for a family obligations. Especially when we started traveling. We were able to travel and then also be able thio, like right now give you a true ah story that those people that do know me personally know that this is what's the family obligation side for me. The last two years, my wife and I have been stationary off the road from our RV ing in Ocala, Florida, to take care of her mother. Uh, and therefore we could not have done that with that, actually having some sort of leeway and just something that we could do with our schedule. My wife retired, so therefore her schedule her, she left it should say, not retired. She left the district she was working with to be her own boss. But with both of us being our own bosses, me in the consulting room, heard in a a support system, we're able to have some flexibility for family obligations. So I'm giving you that as the number one as the number one reason, and for us it really Waas. Let's go with number two. So the number two reason is sometimes you just want to test the waters for what you going to consider is retirement. Not everybody is going to retire and play golf and just sit around and do nothing. Some people retirement is still working, but working for yourself with your own schedule and not being your own boss, not having someone over you on Lee having the demands of clients and not the demands of Anak actual, uh, whatever it is, if it's gonna be your owner or if it's gonna be a manager or whatever, you're gonna control control this thing a little bit better yourself. So if you're going to start a consulting business and I truly tell people this, now is the time to start your business while you're still working wherever you're working. The reason is because you are getting steady income. Chances are you might even be able to get some payment for actually training and learning and developing yourself, including safety designations, and then use all that stuff. Take it with you when Ugo if there's um let's say it's ah, it's a consideration that says we're gonna pay for your schooling and you could get your bachelors, your masters, your doctorate whatever through the reimbursement program we have with our employment. HR says. All right, here's your payment. But in order to do that, you're gonna have to spend an additional three years or contract goes through an additional three years. So in those cases, that's going to be fine. Get the designation, get the training, get whatever degree you need to get. And within that time, you could still start your own business and start testing the waters and days off and vacations. And if you need to take some time off and use your vacation and sick, I hate to say it that way, but some people do that. I think I may have done that a time or two. Just just say it and therefore you're building a clientele. You're getting used to working for yourself, and then you also get the opportunity to see if this thing's gonna work for you. Just test it out, test it out and you're going toe. Start aging your company, which is a big thing. The reason why I say that is many companies they need to be aged so that when you're ready to go out on your own and you could see I have been in business X amount of years, that really helps you. So that's why you could say, If you start in 2021 let's say you have a five year commitment because you're paying for your master's degree when you're ready to leave in 2026 you're gonna have the five years that you've been doing this thing part time. And so when you get to your six and you're going full time now, you would have already tested the waters for several years at this and gotten really the bumps and scratches and bruises and everything like that worked out where there was a little impact to your actual salary, because this is gonna be extra money at that point, the money that you're going to save to really launch your business later. Another thing that we're gonna do number three burn out right now from your employer. There is a seriously thing with burnout, especially in the safety and health field, because truly at some time you might actually be the person that is, let's say, this way. Three. The bucket will fall with you. Let's say this way. Just just just bear me out on this. I hit the mute too quick. Well, let's turn to my mike. Bring me out on this one. Okay, so let's say, um Kobe, 19 issues. They're coming up, right? And, uh, and now you have been trying to fight with people to do basic epidemiology things that you've been learning about and you're trying to get yourself in gross and how you could protect the workplace. You're looking at the guidance from CBC in the World Health Organization and OSHA and other regulators throughout the countries that you are in listening to me and you keep getting a brick wall and bouncing against your head as to, uh, why people aren't listening to your suggestions. And then there's an outbreak, and all of a sudden fingers get pointed at the safety person. Safety person. What's going on here? Why don't you help us out? Why don't you do more? And you're just like thes people? E just can't take it. Eso that could lead to several things, including burnout. So when you start seeing that and signs or maybe year in and year out of, uh, getting opposition to what you're talking about or people not listen to you or something is saying I'm gonna snap if I don't leave here or I just can't show up It's not the same excitement anymore. That is what leads people to start a consulting business, saying Hey, I may have even hired a consultant. I could probably go ahead and do this myself. And that might be is something that you're thinking about me and I could do this myself. Therefore, let me go ahead and get this going. And then a Zilong, as you don't have, like a non compete clothes or anything similar to that, then you could start branching out and talk to family. Talk to friends, talk to people that might be able to help you get this business started. So that is a number three experiencing burnout. So you're thinking, all right, let me go get myself going number four, maybe directly related to this, and that's going to be getting laid off. So in some cases, especially if you are in an organization that doesn't value safety, the safety and health officer may be the first one to get let go when there's issues. I see a lot of companies that are furloughing because of the pandemic. Their production hasn't been right, so therefore they start furloughing people. One of the first apartments. In some cases I'll go. It would be safety. Why would you need a designated safety and health officer in thes people's minds? Uh, if there's less people that are going to get hurt and therefore, uh, this is a position that we could go ahead and liquidate. And if that's the case and you get laid off, then all of a sudden you have to scramble real quick to figure out what am I going to do? The thought of consulting will come to your brain, and then you're like, All right, let's go ahead and do this thing because I need money. Unemployment's going to run out anytime. And while I'm getting unemployment, let's go ahead and let's do something that I could benefit myself with. And if that's the case, then that is number four. Being laid off might be the catalyst to starting your business. Ah, many of people have had that catalyst to start their business Another thing that you could be thinking of is, Yeah, this is number five. I'm putting this last on the list is sometimes you just restless. You need to change. Yeah. You've been doing this job for so long and you're like, Man, I got so much potential is just being wasted here, just flat out wasted. So therefore, I'm gonna have to do something because I cannot take this. I'm just so bored. So if that's the case, then what you gonna do? You're going to go ahead and you're going thio. Just you might end up phoning it in. I hate to say it that way, but in some cases, you just It's kind of like one of those Children that you're in school or the child's in school, and they're just the work. It's so beneath them that all of a sudden that they become the class clown because they're just so bored. And now you're getting a call saying you've got to take your son. You take your daughter out of school just because they're acting up and when you get to the root cause it's like they probably or support with the material because they know it. They may need to go to the next grade up, if that's possible. Or they may need to get some private tutoring that is going to launch them to something more challenging for them. And or they might have to be the student that is going to help teach all their fellow students peer to peer in learning this information. So that might be just truly for for our adult life. We may just need to have something more challenging. So we decided. Let's go ahead and do this ourselves. So those are the top five reasons for starting the business. Alright, so let's go ahead and think about the top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a business eso we get the five good reasons to start now. They were saying, All right, we're gonna do this and then all of a sudden, in the depth of our soul or the secret thoughts that we have at night time, we start backpedaling. So in the same tradition, I'm going to start with number one. So in the same tradition, number one is going to be imposter syndrome. You may actually feel that Who am I who am I to go ahead and tell somebody that I am the consultant? Here's the absolute or Or at least let's start here and then we'll work towards where we're gonna develop and get a new business plan. So who am I to do that? Do I really know my stuff? Um, I really the guy who is the authority in this so that imposter syndrome, especially if you get into your own head, can just keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back. And therefore in your mind, you're actually going to talk yourself out of doing something. So there's several ways of addressing imposter syndrome where you feel that you aren't good enough. One could be very simply meditation. Thoughtfulness. I had a great interview over the holiday months. Uh, this one's with Dr Christina Bartha and Bata. Excuse me, Dr Batta. And then he was talking about intermittent silence, but also some meditation practices. So if you're going to go through some meditation practices, Ah, lot of that is silencing. Uh, one of the things that that monks call it is the monkey brain. You'll see that a lot with yoga and meditation and mindfulness. And when you silence that monkey brain from from going ahead and telling you all the things that you can't do or shouldn't do And this is episode, uh, not too sure the episode number. But it's leading to my my hundreds episode. So it's Episode 93. I just clicked on that episode 93 of My podcast You're going to see Dr Krishna Bata. He is also about, uh, doing age in your names there. He also has an app called Relax R E L a X X. So in those imposter syndrome times, you really have to think about, uh, um, I just listening to old rear on tape about you're not good enough from influencer early in your life. Do I need to go ahead and work on myself to get that out? That's one way, another way. That's just a practical way. Doing it is staying in your lane. And what I mean by doing that is a soon as you say that you're going to start a business for yourself. Opportunity is gonna come and they'll keep coming and we'll keep showing itself as being really and all of a sudden people are calling you and it's just like me. And thing is great. I'm just getting myself one. After the next somebody is helping me out and you're in a role. So in those situations, when you're on a roll, go with it. Um, but uh huh you might get opportunity that is gonna lead you to stretch your knowledge base. Some of that's good. If you have a foundation toe work with the release, you have some influencers that could help you with taking on a new project. Or you might just have to say, This is not for me. I just can't do this is too much where I I'm not the authority here. I don't know enough for this, and that's okay. You're not a consultant For every single aspect to safety. There's some aspect to safety. I don't touch. I don't touch maritime much. I don't touch agriculture much. I usually do construction in general industry. Maritime. I do have a working knowledge of most of the things, but I don't know the three volumes that they have in the standards, you know, for 1915, 16 and 17 year believers. Six. Yeah, see, that's even bad right, 1915, 16 and 17. I believe in 1915, 16 and 18. 1 of those, uh, I don't know, See, So therefore, I could take aspects of it that matches up with either general industry construction. But I'm not going to go ahead and, you know, do a full time maritime, uh, consulting project, because I just don't know. And, uh, I might not know, uh, safety when it comes to the aviation field, or I may not know safety as it relates to the nuclear field. But, man, I could tell you all day long about safety with waste order and water and distribution system and collection system. That's just a bunch of ham between that for so long. So I know that stuff. So I I will refer other things to other people. So that's gonna keep me from the imposter syndrome because I'm going to stay in my lane there. Number two is time constraints were saying I may not have the time to start my own consulting business. I may not be the person that that kid do 2 to 3 things right now because I am so caught up with the day job that I can't see past that. So if that's one of the reasons why you're going thio and it's not maybe not to just a job, but it could be other family obligations as well. That's when you may have to start thinking of your day, uh, getting outside of the 24 hour day and start thinking of 1/7 week, Uh, cycle versus should say, a seven day cycle versus a one day cycle for your life, meaning maybe Monday I'm just done spent. But I may have Tuesday at three or I may have. You know, if I wake up in our early three times a week, I could work on some sort of program or work on some work, or maybe one Saturday a month. I might be able to go ahead and host on online, uh, event where people will pay. And now I could tell them my specialty in online system, and that's going to be one Saturday, a month. So in that case, you're going to create a different structure for your time, and now you're going to be ableto put it in where you want and then another thing for time constraints is batch ing where you do have a good block of time. So now you could go ahead and some people do this with podcast episodes and you say All right, I could do four podcast episodes on Monday. We're going to make these next four episodes. I'm going to go to schedule it out on my hosting network service, my podcasting hosting service. And then Now I know I'm good with this. I spent four hours. I spent six hours. Whatever it is, I did those next four episodes, and now I got the month of February set up. That's another way of working towards time constraints. So truly you could do that. You could look for services that could cut down your learning eso. That's another way of doing that, uh, financial issues for start up costs. So this is number three. So sometimes starting your business, especially if you're starting from scratch, you're gonna have a whole bunch of different things that you're gonna have to pay in. First, you'll have to make sure that you're gonna get your physical business set up correctly. It your state in your federal, uh, and that could cost the money Sometimes you want to get some legal help to get you started. Sometimes you may want an accountant to get you going. That makes cost you money. Sometimes you're gonna have to get that while you definitely will need to get that email service to collect emails that's going to cost you money, time and energy also cost you money. So therefore, if you're currently making, let's say at your workplace you're making $55.60 dollars an hour and now you're going to spend an hour or two learning something, uh, to help you with your startup. So that 60 $65 an hour, you multiply that by two, and that's truly money that's being cost in startup. The best way to get around that is look for shortcuts. Look for things I'll help you with. Your resource is so that now you don't have to, uh, spend all this money on one thing and do it annually or do it. Uh, you know, if you're going to do it, I always do my subscriptions. I shouldn't say always, but for the most part, I try to do them annually because you'll get a a natural break for annual versus monthly. That's going to save you with the money in the long run. And then also, uh, then I know for sure I've got it, and when I'm ready to use it at any time, I'm not thinking about the billing cycle and all that stuff, so get it done. Get it out of the way. Pay annual, go ahead and use it whenever I need to get that discount for the annual discount that they have. So that's another way of helping yourself out. Safety designations Number four If you don't have a safety designation, sometimes people will talk themselves out, starting the business because it's maybe a little bit of both imposter syndrome and then also with your safety consulting that having that designations such as the certified occupational safety specialist designation cost or the certificate of occupational safety manager costs M. And those were the two that I say, because those are the two that I'm in a contract instructor form with the Alliance Safety Council in Baton Rouge. They created the costs and the costs M designations. If you're if you hadn't had a chance to go back, I had an interview with the actual executive director of the Alliance Safety Council. Kathy Train Hand. I talked to her in October. We've got two episodes with her part one Part two with Kathy. Trey Han. So you want to go back and you want to check out Episode 85 86? We talk about the cost program and several other things. I even talked to my mentor, writer Cobb, And he is one of the people where the cost program actually came from his notes and eso if you want to get some information from writer, uh, I've got writer in earlier Episode two Give me a chance of kind of giving flipping through my my list of podcasts and everything as I'm giving you guys the episodes. But writer was actually really, really early in my in my career for for doing interviews and everything. So writer Cobb is definitely one of the ones that you really wanna listen to and give you some good information regarding the backbone of the certificate of occupational safety manager. And then I also interviewed a bunch of my past, uh, students is well, so you could go back to some of my earlier episodes and you could get those as well. So writer was Episode 27. Then I talked to him, and, uh, that could be, you know, your option for designation. But there's the B C. S P. They have all kinds of designations there. There's so many safety and health certifications out there, you just look up, which one means to most of you, just do it, get a designation. But I would say Start with what you know, get a designation for construction, specialty or whatever you know, and then use that for showing that the client they really know that you have proficiency in this. But even if you don't have a designation, do a detailed proposal. And in your detailed proposal, put a bio of all the things you've done and you can also add a resume showing all the places that you're done and worked in. So now they get to look at those two things and then they'll see that. Okay, well, this person had that experience, and then another thing is, if you still don't get a safety designation, which you know it's not a must, but it does help you what it really does is it shows the client that you have some other agency backing your knowledge is really what is backing When I say backing, I just mean that they're saying that you have learned this to the proficiency that we have given you a designation that you have to renew every whatever cycle eso That's what I mean by that. But if you again wanna do it a different way uh, you might also not only with the proposal, uh, detailed proposals showing everything that you've done. But you may also have Thio go ahead and do a train the trainer class. So if you do a train, the trainer class, then you could also say, Well, I could train your people with this information that I've learned as a train the trainer certified, trained the trainer. And then while you're there, go ahead and give him a free estimate or a free audit. And then all they need to do is pay for the report, a written report or something. But you do a Orel on where you walk through, maybe not audit to, say, a walk through our overview of their system. If it's written program and that's gonna help you if you don't do the safety designation. So that's a work around for that one. Number five. Not knowing how to transition from a safety officer to a safety consultant. So that is the fifth of the top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a safety consulting business. And for this one, number five, don't worry about it. I got you go through earlier episodes. This'll podcast. This podcast is literally teaching you the business behind being a safety consultant so you could see step by step by step, how to do it. Get the blueprint course if you wanted. Thio and the Course Self will help you step by step on how to do it. I have safety consultant dot tv Goto, safety consultant dot TV and for of I believe it's a 14 99 is the monthly service fee for it's a subscription video on demand that you sign up, you get templates and everything else as well as you could see it on any device that you have out there, including Raku and your Amazon TV and Apple TV and all that stuff so that right now that barrier is truly so low that you could learn it very easily, and there's other people out there that may be doing the same thing. So find a voice that, you know, that agrees with you. I know I'm on first. I don't know if there's that many other people out there. I just know that I'm the first. So that's good, right? So just go ahead and start listening to some of those things, and you could truly, truly get yourself going. There's more resource is than you know to help you. So as a review, we've got the top five reasons people start a consulting business. Number five Excuse me. Number one Family obligations Number two. They want to test the waters for retirement. Number three. They get burnt out from their employment number. Four. They've been laid off, and now Plan B goes into action. Number five. There just restless, even a change challenge. Something thin. The top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a consulting business. Number one in a posture syndrome number two e just don't have enough time. The time constraints. Number three financial issues for the startup cost number four no safety designation and then number five not knowing how to transition from safety officer to safety consultant. You guys could do this. Another resource that have for you if you go toe safety consultant that Sheldon Prima's dot com safety consultant that sheldon primers dot com I've got four different ways that you can actually go ahead. Either launch your business or accelerate your business through shared resource is so, uh, that is four different ways to get into it s so that you can help yourself get your safety consulting business. You just go to safety consultant that Sheldon prima's dot com Check it out, see if that's, ah way to do it. If not, go ahead. Just listen to the podcast. Or do you say from consultant that TV and go ahead and get started, though that's the key. You just get started somehow. Some way to get started today. All right, so I want to thank everybody for being part of the show. Happy day after a Super Bowl. I know. Going for the bucks go bucks. It hasn't started yet for me during the time of this recording. Alright, so everybody have a wonderful rest your week. I'm going to see you this Tuesday. If you hook up with me on LinkedIn, I'll do the ocean compliance. Help show. Also, if you are on Facebook or YouTube looking up there too, then we will do the ocean compliance. Help shows this week. All right, go get him. This'll episode has been powered by Safety FM Oh.
[00:00:00] : this'll episode is powered by Safety FM. Hey, welcome to the safety consultant podcast. I am your host on the promise. Who's the podcast? Right? Teach you the business of being a safety consultant. And this week we are actually going to go over one thing that was just kind of going through my mind recently. And truly, I decided I'm gonna dio two for here. This could very easily be two episodes, Not in the time just in the content. But what I'm gonna do here is we're gonna give you the top five reasons people started consulting business, and then I'm going to give you the top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a consulting business. So we're gonna do a little bit of both, So I'm going to truly just go in there. A Sfar is the topic wise and give you some of my understanding of things that I've been hearing about people saying All right, this is it. Time to start my consulting business on for these reasons or some people, when you ask them all you should be doing your own business was going on, and they're like, you know, I well and then they start that whole Siri's going right from from their mind. So bringing to him go ahead and talk about the top five reasons people start their business. And then also, we're going to give you the top five reasons people talk themselves out of the business. And for each one of these things, I'll just give you my input on there. Right? So we're gonna go ahead and get this on going. We're going to start on this one, and I am going to tell you that throughout this thought process for me kind of brought back some memories. You know, truly some things that I was thinking about. Like, Wow, I haven't, actually, uh, let's see, 2000 and eight just to kind of go back e even know if I have a back button. I should look that one up. That be awesome, doing like a nice reverse. But eso some of the things that I've actually thought about since 2008, when I started my consulting business, the first business I started was called Utility Compliance Inc. And, uh, and that was the name my idea behind it was I was going to basically be the person that you would go to if you were in a water or wastewater facility distribution system collection system, because that's where I came from my field. I'm still licensed in that. And I was a adjunct instructor for Florida Gateway College in the wastewater side of their border to go program. And truly, I was thinking our aim. Now that I'm ready to consult, this is what I'm gonna do. People gonna come right to me and I'm gonna go ahead and consult throughout the whole globe on water, wastewater process, safety and process management and management of the the actual facility. Because I was the manager of the time and that was gonna be my my business helping utilities. They compliant with EPA or whatever regulatory agency they had. It was good and it gave me some work initially, But like all consulting firms in any kind of field you're in, you could get the highs and lows and highs and lows. So when the lows came, I was like, Oh, especially when the load started getting lower and lower and lower. Then I was like, Oh, I'm gonna have to do something so truly I needed Thio Thio changed my whole perspective. Have to blow up my business model. And then I had to decide. All right, what am I going to do next? So I decided I was going to get some OSHA compliance in there because I was doing safety throughout my whole career. Might as well throw some safety in there. So I started thinking about how can I incorporate utility compliance with safety compliance? And I started offering some private sector, uh, training as well as private sector consulting for OSHA compliance. And I had to you a little disconnect with that because of the name of the business was utility compliance. But yet people were coming to me for OSHA 10 or thirties, so I couldn't really get that one to stick. So then I added a d b a from my business called OSHA Compliance help. And if you are listening to linked in or Facebook or any of the other social media that I belonged thio every Tuesday and Thursday, for the most part, sometimes I have to switch it up from Tuesday and Thursdays. Uh, on I'll let everybody know when I do those things and I do a OSHA compliance help show. It actually came from the name of that second business I had toe kind of pivot to in order for me to to ebb those lows from getting too deep and start making some more money. So that's the few things that I really had thio start thinking about and doing. So now when you really thinking about, uh, well, transitioned again to safety consulting, uh, mentoring and coaching. So that's another thing I ended up having doing. So let me get that out of the way before I go into the reasons for for my business. So a lot of the things that I I was feeling at the time help me come up with this list with the top five reasons to start your consulting business. And then ah, lot of things that I was feeling also that was halting and pushing back is also that top five reasons that people talk themselves out of starting a consulting business. So I use that as well as some things I've heard from students. Some things that I've heard from just looking around and listening and the Lincoln posts and all those things those air or what I incorporated here, I kinda have this labeled in order of the top to the least. However, I know you may have your own twist to this list that I'm giving you so you might order it differently, which is just fine. That's what you do. So this is what I'm thinking about. All right, So the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm actually going to start with number one. See? Look at that. I'm not even going to give you guys that usual suspense that says, You know, I'm going to start from number five on, then work my way to number one. So none of that suspense stuff I'm just going straight to here is my number one. And this is why it's my number one. So for me, family obligations truly if you have small Children, if you have a spouse that works, you know some really strict hours or even loose hours, and you want to make sure that someone's always around for the Children. Uh, then that's family obligations that you can have. Uh, when I was doing this and starting to branch out of my own, the family obligation side. Waas. My wife had a nice, steady job working for a school district as a teacher, and she taught Children with autism. And that's her business right now. Also is is working with those families, families and and providing services for them as well. So look her up. OEM amazing kids dot com Marianne Privacy. Thank you, Marianne. I love you. But anyway, a to that time. So for us, I just really have to. I wanted to be around as well as the kids were in high school at the time, so it was good to be able to do with the events and everything else. Uh, actually, it was middle school leading into high school is if I'm remembering that right and just gotta get my mindset here. But I think that's that's what I'm remembering, right? So at that point, it was a lot of stuff, and I coach my son's basketball for quite a while. I was a coach for Martin County in Florida. Uh, there's a youth league that was a private sports league, and I was coaching for them. I actually coached for the Y M C A for a while, is a youth basketball coach. So doing that stuff was really fun, especially when I could work for myself and then also for a family obligations. Especially when we started traveling. We were able to travel and then also be able thio, like right now give you a true ah story that those people that do know me personally know that this is what's the family obligation side for me. The last two years, my wife and I have been stationary off the road from our RV ing in Ocala, Florida, to take care of her mother. Uh, and therefore we could not have done that with that, actually having some sort of leeway and just something that we could do with our schedule. My wife retired, so therefore her schedule her, she left it should say, not retired. She left the district she was working with to be her own boss. But with both of us being our own bosses, me in the consulting room, heard in a a support system, we're able to have some flexibility for family obligations. So I'm giving you that as the number one as the number one reason, and for us it really Waas. Let's go with number two. So the number two reason is sometimes you just want to test the waters for what you going to consider is retirement. Not everybody is going to retire and play golf and just sit around and do nothing. Some people retirement is still working, but working for yourself with your own schedule and not being your own boss, not having someone over you on Lee having the demands of clients and not the demands of Anak actual, uh, whatever it is, if it's gonna be your owner or if it's gonna be a manager or whatever, you're gonna control control this thing a little bit better yourself. So if you're going to start a consulting business and I truly tell people this, now is the time to start your business while you're still working wherever you're working. The reason is because you are getting steady income. Chances are you might even be able to get some payment for actually training and learning and developing yourself, including safety designations, and then use all that stuff. Take it with you when Ugo if there's um let's say it's ah, it's a consideration that says we're gonna pay for your schooling and you could get your bachelors, your masters, your doctorate whatever through the reimbursement program we have with our employment. HR says. All right, here's your payment. But in order to do that, you're gonna have to spend an additional three years or contract goes through an additional three years. So in those cases, that's going to be fine. Get the designation, get the training, get whatever degree you need to get. And within that time, you could still start your own business and start testing the waters and days off and vacations. And if you need to take some time off and use your vacation and sick, I hate to say it that way, but some people do that. I think I may have done that a time or two. Just just say it and therefore you're building a clientele. You're getting used to working for yourself, and then you also get the opportunity to see if this thing's gonna work for you. Just test it out, test it out and you're going toe. Start aging your company, which is a big thing. The reason why I say that is many companies they need to be aged so that when you're ready to go out on your own and you could see I have been in business X amount of years, that really helps you. So that's why you could say, If you start in 2021 let's say you have a five year commitment because you're paying for your master's degree when you're ready to leave in 2026 you're gonna have the five years that you've been doing this thing part time. And so when you get to your six and you're going full time now, you would have already tested the waters for several years at this and gotten really the bumps and scratches and bruises and everything like that worked out where there was a little impact to your actual salary, because this is gonna be extra money at that point, the money that you're going to save to really launch your business later. Another thing that we're gonna do number three burn out right now from your employer. There is a seriously thing with burnout, especially in the safety and health field, because truly at some time you might actually be the person that is, let's say, this way. Three. The bucket will fall with you. Let's say this way. Just just just bear me out on this. I hit the mute too quick. Well, let's turn to my mike. Bring me out on this one. Okay, so let's say, um Kobe, 19 issues. They're coming up, right? And, uh, and now you have been trying to fight with people to do basic epidemiology things that you've been learning about and you're trying to get yourself in gross and how you could protect the workplace. You're looking at the guidance from CBC in the World Health Organization and OSHA and other regulators throughout the countries that you are in listening to me and you keep getting a brick wall and bouncing against your head as to, uh, why people aren't listening to your suggestions. And then there's an outbreak, and all of a sudden fingers get pointed at the safety person. Safety person. What's going on here? Why don't you help us out? Why don't you do more? And you're just like thes people? E just can't take it. Eso that could lead to several things, including burnout. So when you start seeing that and signs or maybe year in and year out of, uh, getting opposition to what you're talking about or people not listen to you or something is saying I'm gonna snap if I don't leave here or I just can't show up It's not the same excitement anymore. That is what leads people to start a consulting business, saying Hey, I may have even hired a consultant. I could probably go ahead and do this myself. And that might be is something that you're thinking about me and I could do this myself. Therefore, let me go ahead and get this going. And then a Zilong, as you don't have, like a non compete clothes or anything similar to that, then you could start branching out and talk to family. Talk to friends, talk to people that might be able to help you get this business started. So that is a number three experiencing burnout. So you're thinking, all right, let me go get myself going number four, maybe directly related to this, and that's going to be getting laid off. So in some cases, especially if you are in an organization that doesn't value safety, the safety and health officer may be the first one to get let go when there's issues. I see a lot of companies that are furloughing because of the pandemic. Their production hasn't been right, so therefore they start furloughing people. One of the first apartments. In some cases I'll go. It would be safety. Why would you need a designated safety and health officer in thes people's minds? Uh, if there's less people that are going to get hurt and therefore, uh, this is a position that we could go ahead and liquidate. And if that's the case and you get laid off, then all of a sudden you have to scramble real quick to figure out what am I going to do? The thought of consulting will come to your brain, and then you're like, All right, let's go ahead and do this thing because I need money. Unemployment's going to run out anytime. And while I'm getting unemployment, let's go ahead and let's do something that I could benefit myself with. And if that's the case, then that is number four. Being laid off might be the catalyst to starting your business. Ah, many of people have had that catalyst to start their business Another thing that you could be thinking of is, Yeah, this is number five. I'm putting this last on the list is sometimes you just restless. You need to change. Yeah. You've been doing this job for so long and you're like, Man, I got so much potential is just being wasted here, just flat out wasted. So therefore, I'm gonna have to do something because I cannot take this. I'm just so bored. So if that's the case, then what you gonna do? You're going to go ahead and you're going thio. Just you might end up phoning it in. I hate to say it that way, but in some cases, you just It's kind of like one of those Children that you're in school or the child's in school, and they're just the work. It's so beneath them that all of a sudden that they become the class clown because they're just so bored. And now you're getting a call saying you've got to take your son. You take your daughter out of school just because they're acting up and when you get to the root cause it's like they probably or support with the material because they know it. They may need to go to the next grade up, if that's possible. Or they may need to get some private tutoring that is going to launch them to something more challenging for them. And or they might have to be the student that is going to help teach all their fellow students peer to peer in learning this information. So that might be just truly for for our adult life. We may just need to have something more challenging. So we decided. Let's go ahead and do this ourselves. So those are the top five reasons for starting the business. Alright, so let's go ahead and think about the top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a business eso we get the five good reasons to start now. They were saying, All right, we're gonna do this and then all of a sudden, in the depth of our soul or the secret thoughts that we have at night time, we start backpedaling. So in the same tradition, I'm going to start with number one. So in the same tradition, number one is going to be imposter syndrome. You may actually feel that Who am I who am I to go ahead and tell somebody that I am the consultant? Here's the absolute or Or at least let's start here and then we'll work towards where we're gonna develop and get a new business plan. So who am I to do that? Do I really know my stuff? Um, I really the guy who is the authority in this so that imposter syndrome, especially if you get into your own head, can just keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back. And therefore in your mind, you're actually going to talk yourself out of doing something. So there's several ways of addressing imposter syndrome where you feel that you aren't good enough. One could be very simply meditation. Thoughtfulness. I had a great interview over the holiday months. Uh, this one's with Dr Christina Bartha and Bata. Excuse me, Dr Batta. And then he was talking about intermittent silence, but also some meditation practices. So if you're going to go through some meditation practices, Ah, lot of that is silencing. Uh, one of the things that that monks call it is the monkey brain. You'll see that a lot with yoga and meditation and mindfulness. And when you silence that monkey brain from from going ahead and telling you all the things that you can't do or shouldn't do And this is episode, uh, not too sure the episode number. But it's leading to my my hundreds episode. So it's Episode 93. I just clicked on that episode 93 of My podcast You're going to see Dr Krishna Bata. He is also about, uh, doing age in your names there. He also has an app called Relax R E L a X X. So in those imposter syndrome times, you really have to think about, uh, um, I just listening to old rear on tape about you're not good enough from influencer early in your life. Do I need to go ahead and work on myself to get that out? That's one way, another way. That's just a practical way. Doing it is staying in your lane. And what I mean by doing that is a soon as you say that you're going to start a business for yourself. Opportunity is gonna come and they'll keep coming and we'll keep showing itself as being really and all of a sudden people are calling you and it's just like me. And thing is great. I'm just getting myself one. After the next somebody is helping me out and you're in a role. So in those situations, when you're on a roll, go with it. Um, but uh huh you might get opportunity that is gonna lead you to stretch your knowledge base. Some of that's good. If you have a foundation toe work with the release, you have some influencers that could help you with taking on a new project. Or you might just have to say, This is not for me. I just can't do this is too much where I I'm not the authority here. I don't know enough for this, and that's okay. You're not a consultant For every single aspect to safety. There's some aspect to safety. I don't touch. I don't touch maritime much. I don't touch agriculture much. I usually do construction in general industry. Maritime. I do have a working knowledge of most of the things, but I don't know the three volumes that they have in the standards, you know, for 1915, 16 and 17 year believers. Six. Yeah, see, that's even bad right, 1915, 16 and 17. I believe in 1915, 16 and 18. 1 of those, uh, I don't know, See, So therefore, I could take aspects of it that matches up with either general industry construction. But I'm not going to go ahead and, you know, do a full time maritime, uh, consulting project, because I just don't know. And, uh, I might not know, uh, safety when it comes to the aviation field, or I may not know safety as it relates to the nuclear field. But, man, I could tell you all day long about safety with waste order and water and distribution system and collection system. That's just a bunch of ham between that for so long. So I know that stuff. So I I will refer other things to other people. So that's gonna keep me from the imposter syndrome because I'm going to stay in my lane there. Number two is time constraints were saying I may not have the time to start my own consulting business. I may not be the person that that kid do 2 to 3 things right now because I am so caught up with the day job that I can't see past that. So if that's one of the reasons why you're going thio and it's not maybe not to just a job, but it could be other family obligations as well. That's when you may have to start thinking of your day, uh, getting outside of the 24 hour day and start thinking of 1/7 week, Uh, cycle versus should say, a seven day cycle versus a one day cycle for your life, meaning maybe Monday I'm just done spent. But I may have Tuesday at three or I may have. You know, if I wake up in our early three times a week, I could work on some sort of program or work on some work, or maybe one Saturday a month. I might be able to go ahead and host on online, uh, event where people will pay. And now I could tell them my specialty in online system, and that's going to be one Saturday, a month. So in that case, you're going to create a different structure for your time, and now you're going to be ableto put it in where you want and then another thing for time constraints is batch ing where you do have a good block of time. So now you could go ahead and some people do this with podcast episodes and you say All right, I could do four podcast episodes on Monday. We're going to make these next four episodes. I'm going to go to schedule it out on my hosting network service, my podcasting hosting service. And then Now I know I'm good with this. I spent four hours. I spent six hours. Whatever it is, I did those next four episodes, and now I got the month of February set up. That's another way of working towards time constraints. So truly you could do that. You could look for services that could cut down your learning eso. That's another way of doing that, uh, financial issues for start up costs. So this is number three. So sometimes starting your business, especially if you're starting from scratch, you're gonna have a whole bunch of different things that you're gonna have to pay in. First, you'll have to make sure that you're gonna get your physical business set up correctly. It your state in your federal, uh, and that could cost the money Sometimes you want to get some legal help to get you started. Sometimes you may want an accountant to get you going. That makes cost you money. Sometimes you're gonna have to get that while you definitely will need to get that email service to collect emails that's going to cost you money, time and energy also cost you money. So therefore, if you're currently making, let's say at your workplace you're making $55.60 dollars an hour and now you're going to spend an hour or two learning something, uh, to help you with your startup. So that 60 $65 an hour, you multiply that by two, and that's truly money that's being cost in startup. The best way to get around that is look for shortcuts. Look for things I'll help you with. Your resource is so that now you don't have to, uh, spend all this money on one thing and do it annually or do it. Uh, you know, if you're going to do it, I always do my subscriptions. I shouldn't say always, but for the most part, I try to do them annually because you'll get a a natural break for annual versus monthly. That's going to save you with the money in the long run. And then also, uh, then I know for sure I've got it, and when I'm ready to use it at any time, I'm not thinking about the billing cycle and all that stuff, so get it done. Get it out of the way. Pay annual, go ahead and use it whenever I need to get that discount for the annual discount that they have. So that's another way of helping yourself out. Safety designations Number four If you don't have a safety designation, sometimes people will talk themselves out, starting the business because it's maybe a little bit of both imposter syndrome and then also with your safety consulting that having that designations such as the certified occupational safety specialist designation cost or the certificate of occupational safety manager costs M. And those were the two that I say, because those are the two that I'm in a contract instructor form with the Alliance Safety Council in Baton Rouge. They created the costs and the costs M designations. If you're if you hadn't had a chance to go back, I had an interview with the actual executive director of the Alliance Safety Council. Kathy Train Hand. I talked to her in October. We've got two episodes with her part one Part two with Kathy. Trey Han. So you want to go back and you want to check out Episode 85 86? We talk about the cost program and several other things. I even talked to my mentor, writer Cobb, And he is one of the people where the cost program actually came from his notes and eso if you want to get some information from writer, uh, I've got writer in earlier Episode two Give me a chance of kind of giving flipping through my my list of podcasts and everything as I'm giving you guys the episodes. But writer was actually really, really early in my in my career for for doing interviews and everything. So writer Cobb is definitely one of the ones that you really wanna listen to and give you some good information regarding the backbone of the certificate of occupational safety manager. And then I also interviewed a bunch of my past, uh, students is well, so you could go back to some of my earlier episodes and you could get those as well. So writer was Episode 27. Then I talked to him, and, uh, that could be, you know, your option for designation. But there's the B C. S P. They have all kinds of designations there. There's so many safety and health certifications out there, you just look up, which one means to most of you, just do it, get a designation. But I would say Start with what you know, get a designation for construction, specialty or whatever you know, and then use that for showing that the client they really know that you have proficiency in this. But even if you don't have a designation, do a detailed proposal. And in your detailed proposal, put a bio of all the things you've done and you can also add a resume showing all the places that you're done and worked in. So now they get to look at those two things and then they'll see that. Okay, well, this person had that experience, and then another thing is, if you still don't get a safety designation, which you know it's not a must, but it does help you what it really does is it shows the client that you have some other agency backing your knowledge is really what is backing When I say backing, I just mean that they're saying that you have learned this to the proficiency that we have given you a designation that you have to renew every whatever cycle eso That's what I mean by that. But if you again wanna do it a different way uh, you might also not only with the proposal, uh, detailed proposals showing everything that you've done. But you may also have Thio go ahead and do a train the trainer class. So if you do a train, the trainer class, then you could also say, Well, I could train your people with this information that I've learned as a train the trainer certified, trained the trainer. And then while you're there, go ahead and give him a free estimate or a free audit. And then all they need to do is pay for the report, a written report or something. But you do a Orel on where you walk through, maybe not audit to, say, a walk through our overview of their system. If it's written program and that's gonna help you if you don't do the safety designation. So that's a work around for that one. Number five. Not knowing how to transition from a safety officer to a safety consultant. So that is the fifth of the top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a safety consulting business. And for this one, number five, don't worry about it. I got you go through earlier episodes. This'll podcast. This podcast is literally teaching you the business behind being a safety consultant so you could see step by step by step, how to do it. Get the blueprint course if you wanted. Thio and the Course Self will help you step by step on how to do it. I have safety consultant dot tv Goto, safety consultant dot TV and for of I believe it's a 14 99 is the monthly service fee for it's a subscription video on demand that you sign up, you get templates and everything else as well as you could see it on any device that you have out there, including Raku and your Amazon TV and Apple TV and all that stuff so that right now that barrier is truly so low that you could learn it very easily, and there's other people out there that may be doing the same thing. So find a voice that, you know, that agrees with you. I know I'm on first. I don't know if there's that many other people out there. I just know that I'm the first. So that's good, right? So just go ahead and start listening to some of those things, and you could truly, truly get yourself going. There's more resource is than you know to help you. So as a review, we've got the top five reasons people start a consulting business. Number five Excuse me. Number one Family obligations Number two. They want to test the waters for retirement. Number three. They get burnt out from their employment number. Four. They've been laid off, and now Plan B goes into action. Number five. There just restless, even a change challenge. Something thin. The top five reasons people talk themselves out of starting a consulting business. Number one in a posture syndrome number two e just don't have enough time. The time constraints. Number three financial issues for the startup cost number four no safety designation and then number five not knowing how to transition from safety officer to safety consultant. You guys could do this. Another resource that have for you if you go toe safety consultant that Sheldon Prima's dot com safety consultant that sheldon primers dot com I've got four different ways that you can actually go ahead. Either launch your business or accelerate your business through shared resource is so, uh, that is four different ways to get into it s so that you can help yourself get your safety consulting business. You just go to safety consultant that Sheldon prima's dot com Check it out, see if that's, ah way to do it. If not, go ahead. Just listen to the podcast. Or do you say from consultant that TV and go ahead and get started, though that's the key. You just get started somehow. Some way to get started today. All right, so I want to thank everybody for being part of the show. Happy day after a Super Bowl. I know. Going for the bucks go bucks. It hasn't started yet for me during the time of this recording. Alright, so everybody have a wonderful rest your week. I'm going to see you this Tuesday. If you hook up with me on LinkedIn, I'll do the ocean compliance. Help show. Also, if you are on Facebook or YouTube looking up there too, then we will do the ocean compliance. Help shows this week. All right, go get him. This'll episode has been powered by Safety FM Oh.
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