Episode 150: Six Momentum Killers For Women Building A Consulting Business While Working Full Time

How to Start Consulting While Working Full-Time | 6 Mistakes Keeping Women Stuck

Are you trying to start a consulting business while working full-time—but still feel stuck?

In this episode of Black Girls Consult TOO!, we break down the 6 biggest mistakes keeping smart, qualified women from building momentum in consulting.

If you’ve already started consulting but progress feels slow, inconsistent, or unclear, this video is for you.

We cover:

✔ How to start consulting while employed
✔ Why qualified women stay stuck in consulting
✔ How to build momentum while working full-time
✔ Mistakes women make starting consulting businesses
✔ How to get consulting clients and grow faster
✔ Why expertise alone doesn’t create traction

If you’re a professional woman ready to turn your expertise into a profitable consulting business, this conversation will help.

Ready for support building your offer, pricing, and pipeline? Learn more about Revenue Runway below.

https://drangelinadavis.myflodesk.com/rrwaitlist

Transcript

Why Brilliant Women Feel Stuck

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What I have always found so interesting is that some of the most qualified women to consult are actually making the least progress. I mean, they have the education, the degrees, the credentials, all of the experience. They have generated results. They saw problems that clients and organizations want to pay for, but still they feel stuck. Things are slow. Things seem inconsistent. And they really have a difficult time getting the ball rolling when they are starting a consulting business. And what I have found is that this is not uncommon, especially for women who are high achievers and who are highly ambitious, women who are actually brilliant at what they do. And if any of this sounds like you and you know that you're more than capable, you have already made the moves that you need to make, but you just feel stuck, then this conversation today is for you. Because today we're going to unpack the six mistakes that may be keeping you stuck, especially if you are starting to consult while you're working full-time and what you can actually do instead. They say the odds are stacked against us as women, especially women of color, trying to thrive in the consulting world. But rather than wait for a seat at the table that may never fun, what if we build our own table? What if we channel our talent into guiding each other towards the success we deserve? Welcome to the Black Girls Cultural Podcast. I'm your host that can enter in a data class, walk the path from healthcare consultant to a mentor for women like you. Ambitious, unstoppable, and ready to make way to the consulting world. This podcast is your go-to spot for all free entrepreneurial consultants. For us as women, especially women of color, think of it at your weekly coffee date with a friend who's here to ditch out real talk on building a solid business, elevating your thought leadership, and mastering that all-important mindset. And let's not forget, we're doing all of this while balancing day jobs, family life, and running feed. Yes, we can do it all. So if you're ready to dive into how you can grow a thriving consultancy or get strategies and insights that actually fit your busy lifestyle, then you're in the right place. Grab your coffee, tea, or hey, even a glass of wine. I won't judge. Let's get started. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Black Girls Consult 2 podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Angelina Davis. And today we are going to be talking about some mistakes that I commonly see a lot of women who are starting their consulting businesses, especially while they're working full-time, make that is really slowing them down. And if any of this applies to you, I want you to really tune in and listen in because if we can correct some of these mistakes, it will make all the difference in the world. Okay, let's start off with one of the biggest mistakes that I commonly see. And that's treating your business like a side hustle instead of a real business. Now, if you mean for your consulting practice to be a side hustle, then this would not apply. But in most cases, that's not the desire or the goal. It really is to build something that will eventually turn into that six-figure, seven-figure business that is our own. And we can't do that if we are inside hustle energy. Because typically when we're hustling, putting in this intense effort in order to get a result in the short term, we're not thinking months, weeks, years down the road. And because of that, it leads to a level of inconsistent effort. There is a hard push and then we fall off, and then we push again and then we fall off. And when we're doing that, we're not building any type of momentum. It is a literal momentum killer after starting. Also, when you're hustling, there's really not much thought about business standards or how you see the business five, 10, 15 years later. And because of that, it leads us to create something that may not be fully representative of what we want to have long term. The thing is that you can have a side hustle or you can have a real business. But there has to be the decision as to which one that you actually want. If you want this to be something that is a business that lasts, then you're going to have to move out of the side hustle energy. Because when you're in the side hustle energy, when you're treating it like a side job, a side idea, then you are not putting all that you can into building it up. You're not going all in when it comes to your business. You're making the business optional. And if the business is optional, then the likelihood that it will be sustainable is actually very low. So one of the first mistakes we make is making our business a side idea or a side hustle. And we really do need to remove that side hustle energy. Now, the next mistake that I often see is waiting for more time or the right time to get serious. And this is problematic because there is no right time because life is going to life. You're going to have responsibilities. As a working professional, you have a lot on your plate already. If you have a family, you have tons on your plate already. There is a lot going on day to day. And there is so much that we can't plan for that happens. And if we are always waiting for that time where things are going to be perfect, where we're going to have all of the time and the energy and feel great in order for us to move forward with the things that we need to do in order to get the business fully off the ground, then it is not going to happen. So it's not about really thinking about time per se. It is more so about you determining for yourself that you are going to commit to this. This is something that is a little bit sneaky because often we think that we're committing to the work. We're showing up, we're networking, we're trying to get our name out there, we're trying to land clients. But if we're very honest with ourselves, we're often not going all in. We're not doing all of the things that we could. We are doing just enough to get by, but we're not leaning fully into the process. And I think that this is led to the misconception that many times people believe you need to quit your job in order to get to that point. And that's not true. It it really is a mindset shift. When you determine that you are going to focus on your business, that you're going to carve out time and space for that business, for the actions that you need to take in order to land the clients that you want to serve, then you're going to see the fruits of that labor. You are going to find that the more that you are able to commit to the things that you need to do, commit to the routine, commit to the marketing, commit to the sales, commit to the networking, commit to the creation of the tools that you're going to use, commit to the intellectual property that you want to establish. When you fully commit to that, that is the moment where things begin to take off. And one of the biggest hurdles that often causes many highly successful women to remain stagnant is the fact that we're successful. It's the fact that you have the success in your current job. And your career is not designed for you to create something of your own. It's designed for you to grow in that career. So you have to be very intentional about carving out the time that you need in order to grow the business that you want. But when you do that, you'll find that the momentum will come, the growth will come, the scale will come. But the first obstacle we have to get over is waiting on the right time for us to take that step. You don't have to quit your job. You don't have to drop everything and put it all behind your business and your business idea. But instead, we have to commit and focus on what is necessary in order to get us to that next level. Okay, so you know your stuff. You deliver transformational results every time you work on a project. I mean, you solve problems that other people can't. You know your worth is more than you're even getting paid. But for some reason, you can't figure out why they don't see your genius. I mean, people know that you're the go-to person, but it's like you're the best kept secret in the room. Well, look, we don't want that to continue to be the case. In order for you to lead in this consulting industry, you need to stand out as a leader. So let's close this gap. And it starts with the two-minute quiz. It's time for you to get clarity to finally claim your place as the premium expert you are. This quiz reveals what's keeping you invisible to the decision makers who desperately need your help. Wanna know what's missing? Simply click the link in the description, take the quiz now, and get your results emailed to you in no time. You're already the expert. It's just time for your business to reflect that. All right, I got on my soapbox for a minute, so let's move on. Now, the third mistake that I see often happen is that we often underestimate our current market value. This is a huge issue, especially for women with experience, with a lot of experience, mainly because a lot of what you do day to day, you take for granted. You are taking for granted the knowledge that you have that came from the degrees that you've earned. You're taking for granted a lot of the experience that you have from working in your job over the years. You're taking for granted even the lived experiences, the little moments that you have experienced as a woman in the workplace, as a woman of color in the workplace that have shaped the way that you perceive things. You're taking for granted the talents and the skills that you hold that don't directly align with the job that you have right now. And when we do that, we are selling ourselves short. What often happens starting out is that many women consultants go into this industry and they try and recreate what they have done in their nine to five in their consulting business. And that's not necessarily wrong, but what it often leads to is us putting out services that lead to underpricing and even a lot of competition because we're not standing uniquely in the market in the space that we can actually hold based upon all that we're bringing to the table. And a lot of what I like to do with clients when we're first starting to work together is to really pull from the totality of what they're bringing to the table, all of their experiences, all of their knowledge, and all of their skills and tools and talents and assets. Because when you do this, you're increasing the value of what you are providing. And let's be honest, when we're able to increase the value, you can price at a higher level. And being able to do that helps you get the business off the ground more swiftly because your business is there to make money. Yes, it's there to make an impact. Yes, it's there to serve your clients. Yes, it's there to do all of these other wonderful things. But you also want to generate the revenue that you need in order to, if you want to, leave your nine to five or just create more freedom and flexibility in your life so that these things become a choice and an option for you instead of being something that you feel like you have to do. So being able to extract that value fully is what's going to help you increase your value in the market and therefore increase the amount that you're compensated for it. Now, the next mistake, and this is a big one, is overthinking your lunch plans, how you start your business, how you grow, you're overthinking it. And this can be very common for many high-level ambitious women, mainly because if you're like me, you're a recovering perfectionist. And so you are challenged with overcoming this perfectionism that tends to rear its ugly head when you're in the process of building this business. You're doing things like tweaking your website and you're rewriting your offer time and time again. You're changing your niche because you hear another coach or someone else recommend a different strategy or a different approach to doing that. You're going in branding loops where you're trying to figure out how you want to brand yourself in this space, whether it is from colors and uh fonts, to how you actually are branded personally, your personal branding. You're doing all of these things instead of selling. When you get in the cycle of overthinking, when you are trying to create the perfect way for you to launch your business, then you are in essence wasting a lot of time that can be used towards selling your offer. And if we instead focus on how we can take what we have created and then start creating more conversations around that work, you'll find that it's a lot easier for you to sell because cells are a result of the conversations that we're having. So when you're not having those conversations, when you're putting that off because you're doing so many other things that our perfectionism has us doing, then that is going to decrease the number of sales that you make and often keep you stuck. So we have to overcome the perfectionism and the overthinking that keeps us stuck in the same place. And instead think about how we begin to build that pipeline that is going to lead to the sales that we want in the future. You know, when you're working in the B2B and corporate space, that sales cycle takes a little bit longer. So you need to start having those conversations sooner rather than later. And one way of doing that is to stop overthinking. Now, our fifth mistake is that we often let old professionalism keep you invisible. And when I say old professionalism, it's this old definition that we have that many of us hold of what it means to be professional. It often means fitting in. When we think about how we show up as a professional in our workspace, in our jobs in the in corporate, whatever environment you may be in, there is a particular way that you show up. There is a way that you may dress, there is a way that you may wear your hair, especially if you're a woman of color. You may, I know things have changed, you know, more now, but you may have felt that you needed to straighten your hair, that you needed to always wear a suit, that you needed to show up and speak a different way. And that's why there's so many, I feel like funny videos and different memes online about how people get off of work and they just like relax and veg out. They turn into their real selves. And what I want to get you to think about is how this old definition of professionalism is keeping you invisible. Because anything that was created to help you fit into a space is not going to allow you to stand out. And the thing about entrepreneurship is that you do need to stand out in order to win the business that you want and that you need. If we're being too polished, if we are being too muted, we're not saying the things that we need to say, we're not speaking as boldly as we need to speak, if we have no personality and we see seem dry and boring, if we don't share our opinion and we act as if everything is neutral or everything is lukewarm, then we're not going to have any visibility. And not having visibility is going to hurt our business in the long run. So we have to let go of our old definition of professionalism. And instead, I like to encourage clients to think more so about how you can show up in excellence. Because I think if we are focused on showing up in excellence, then that is going to help you put your best foot forward. You're going to do the things that you need to do in order to represent yourself well, in order to win the business that you want to win, in order to attract the clients that you're meant to serve, because they're going to be attracted to how you are presenting yourself because that's who you are authentically. So I want us to not feel so confined and feel as if you need to be so buttoned up in structure. The fact that I'm doing this podcast right now in a casual outfit and a more casual setting speaks to the fact that I'm even leaning into how I can release a lot of these preconceived notions that I have about what it means to be professional. And it's hard. It's extremely hard to do that. But what I can tell you and speak from experience about is that when you are able to lean more fully into that excellence and not just hold on to the old professionalism, is that you will land the clients that you need. So I want you to think about how you can begin to peel back some of those layers. Give yourself grace. It's going to take time. But if you can get over this hurdle of the old professionalism keeping you invisible, you will make the strides you need to grow the business that you want. And last but not least, you do not need more credentials in order to create the momentum in your business. You are not stagnant because you don't have another credential behind your name. When you're thinking about additional credentials, certifications, anything else that you want behind your name, I want you to embark on that journey because you want to do it, because you feel as if you need that knowledge in order to serve better. Because no matter what you may feel, and this is something that I feel as if is somewhat heartwired in our minds as women of color, especially, another certificate, another degree, another class is not going to make someone see you as more qualified. There are certain preconceived notions that some people have that we can't do anything about. We have to detach ourselves from that need to prove, from the desire to somehow show others that we are qualified. You are more than qualified right now. As successful as you have been in your career, you are vastly qualified in order to serve as a consultant, in order to build your business. And so these credentials that you may be eyeing or looking at or even thinking about, they are not needed for that purpose. Do it for yourself, but not for the business. You have all that you need right now in order to start and grow your business because the key to uh really building the business that is going to thrive and take off is building around your strengths. And as long as you do that, then these added degrees and credentials are not going to add what you think that they are. You are very powerful right now with what you have. And so I just want you to lean into that and not use this as another obstacle or something that is standing in your way. I wanted to break down these mistakes because if you recognize yourself in any of these, then I want you to hear me clearly. You are not behind or stuck because it's not going to work for you, or you're not meant to be an entrepreneur, or you're not successful at building a business. You just haven't reached that level of success yet that you truly are capable of because you are likely making one of these mistakes. And in many cases, solving that problem is rather simple. When you understand why these mistakes are occurring and how they impact how you're showing up, then you can create the habits and the beliefs and the standards that are necessary for you to create a business that is going to last. It is all about committing to the process, taking it step by step, releasing a lot of the conditioning and the baggage that you're carrying from being in your job, being in your nine to five, because what made you successful there is not going to be what makes you successful as an entrepreneur. Two different worlds. And if we can realize how different those worlds are and appreciate that, then we are going to move further along a lot faster. And that's going to get you to your goal of having that six, seven, or even more figured consulting business. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope it helps you think about some of the things that may have been standing in your way and ways that you can circumvent some of these obstacles so that you can grow and you can thrive. If you've enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. Remember to subscribe to the channel. And until next time, take care. Thank you for tuning in to the Black Girls Hunter 2 podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave your review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe, and share it with a friend. We're on a mission to increase the success and longevity of women in consulting. And you can help us do just that. Also, I'd love to hear from you. So let's connect at Dr. Including David on Instagram or LinkedIn. And don't forget to visit Excel at consulting.com for more information to support your consulting journey. Until next time, keep breaking glass doing. Alright. Take care.