Consultants are Paid to Learn

A curious person’s dream job

Every day I consult people and teams how to be more operationally efficient. I build systems, facilitate workshops and trainings, and perform interview sessions. I come to each of these engagements with years of experience using tools and methodologies to do impactful work. But recently, I noticed that with each new engagement I get more than money as payment; I learn.

We all learn something everyday, but can we all say that we get paid to learn? Sure, researchers and academics can say that, but most of us can’t. While we all learn something in a 9-5 job, do we all learn starkly new things daily? As a Digital Operations Consultant, I embed myself into a company, team, or a persons’ world. I learn about their industry, the way they work, and where it can be improved. I do this through research and conversations. Some of these engagements are short and transactional, but most of them last at least 30 days. The longer the engagement, the deeper I can get.

Historically, I come from a SaaS background. I was Head of Product for a software development company. In those years I learned a lot about the TV Everywhere industry and how engineering, product, and design fit into it. After a few years of working there, the inbound knowledge changed from a deluge to a trickle. This is common when you stay with a company or industry for a while. You hit a peak knowledge point. While there is always more to learn, the starkness of that knowledge is not as impactful. This is a big reason why people switch industries or pivot roles – there is an excitement in learning something new.

Over the last few years, I have worked with people and teams in starkly different industries. I've had clients who are career coaches, video and design agencies, venture capital firms, general construction, physical and digital retailers, and of course, AI software products. While a lot of the problems these vastly different companies face are similar, the solutions to them are all nuanced. Each company and industry has a different lens in which to filter the solutions through. This might be as simple as changing the order of operations for a few or terms of art for others, but in some cases it means rethinking how I solve the problem entirely. This process is the learning of their industry.

Most of the time learning happens directly, during calls with the client. Other times it happens while I am auditing their primitives(documents and meeting notes) and deliverables. But occasionally I need to learn a lot from the ground up. I'll need to understand an industry that I have little to no knowledge of. These are the truly exciting projects.

These generally last months and I get to embed myself as a part of their team. I try to be more than a consultant to these teams. I go in as a fractional COO. I get CC'd on emails, get added to internal meetings, and have one on one sessions with people. I am essentially a temporary team member. Durning these engagements I need to learn more than the challenges at hand. I need to understand their business entirely. This is the learning I am talking about. This goes beyond my skill set directly, it goes into theirs. During this period, there are not many deliverables. The only outcome from this period is my ability to speak their language and understand how and why they do what they do.

I have talked to a lot of consultants that have a period of their client engagements that look like this. It is like your first 90 days in a new 9-5. You are getting paid to learn. As a consultant, we get to do this with every new client, to varying degrees, and it's wonderful.

After three years of full-time consulting, I can say that if you crave a sense of novelty and a high influx of learning, consider consulting. Every new client and industry presents an opportunity to learn. It provides that powerful influx of knowledge and the excitement of learning without the need to start a new role. If you are a person with a unique skill set, are curious, and enjoy learning, consulting is the best way to earn a living while learning.