For most of you who have not entered consulting as a second, retirement career, you're not in the position of having a large company or the government taking care of your long-term future. Start a retirement plan immediately, and try to maximize your contribution to it, especially the tax-free incentives.

Most consultants who enter the field at a younger age put off retirement planning as a luxury, and plunge profits back into the business, or use them to pay off indebtedness, or simply live large. With some intelligent planning, these are not mutually exclusive goals. It's as important, for example, to invest in a tax-free retirement account as it is to pay down debt. The reason is that the younger you are when you begin, the more opportunity there is for the investment to grow and the relatively less you have to put away, since you have the benefit of time and compound interest.

Consult your financial adviser on the best vehicle for your circumstances. But you can shelter an increasing amount of money ($46,000 maximum at this writing, depending on age, but scheduled to increase over the years) in a SEP-IRA (simplified employee pension individual retirement account). This donation is paid by the company in pretax, deductible dollars, and gains interest and dividends from your chosen investments tax-free until withdrawn. Moreover, the investments are determined by you, be they stocks, bonds, or other kinds of qualified investments. A regular IRA, in which you can contribute up to $6,000 at this writing (if you're 50 or older), can be made only with after-tax salary dollars, but all of the subsequent appreciation is tax free until withdrawn, and a nonworking spouse can also make that investment. Roth IRAs are increasingly favored by many financial advisers at the moment. Your firm can create a Keogh or 401(k) plan, subject to your organization and personal situation. These latter plans provide for the company to use pretax dollars to match your own contributions, and also allow for diverse investments.

Some retirement alternatives require that all employees be automatically included, but that is a moot point when you are the sole employee, or your spouse is also an employee of the firm.

At the very least, you should plan to invest the maximum amount permitted by current laws into your SEP-IRA or Keogh or 401(k) plans (these are usually mutually exclusive devices). As an overall guide as you become more successful, try to invest a minimum of 5 percent to 10 percent every year in retirement investments. You want to place yourself in the position that enables you to determine what kind of work you will take on in later years, and not be forced to take on whatever is available because you need the money.

Intelligent retirement planning and investing right from the outset is an important part of your business strategy.

In addition to strictly retirement planning, you should create a reserve fund to cover six months on minimum living expenses, and a slush fund that varies in amount, but can buy you that new plasma TV or send you on that vacation without your having to go into debt.

The finest way to learn that I'm aware of is by teaching. I learn more than my clients do every time. Consequently, I've begun a large-scale mentoring program that has now had nearly 800 graduates. This interaction has kept me in touch with all aspects of the profession (and enabled me to authoritatively write books like this one), and has exposed me to many consulting situations through the mentees that I don't personally experience (for example, small business, education, government, technology, and so forth).

Once you've achieved a modest measure of success (and, remember, this is not time related), you can begin to consider serving as a mentor. You don't have to do it on my scale. Simply offer your help to someone who is currently where you were when you started or were at an earlier point in your growth. The mentoring can be quite informal—"Call me if you need to bounce something off me"—or quite systematic—"Let's meet twice a month to talk about your issues."

When you mentor others, you can't help but learn yourself, you establish a name as someone investing back in the profession, and you might just find some people whom you get to know well who might make significant contributions to your own business as subcontractors or even employees.

Here are some guidelines for effective mentoring:

Once you've become successful in consulting, you should make a habit of always having a mentoring relationship with someone. If you choose, as some point, to turn this into a revenue-producing service, you'll be well established and positioned.

Most of us who make it big in consulting do so as lone wolves. If that is your situation (or even if you're in collaboration with one or two others), you must take precautions to maximize your professional growth and not become a hermit.

As your success grows, also increase both the number of professional organizations to which you belong and your profile in the organizations. Take on more of a leadership role, to ensure that you are as interactive with others as possible.

Organize a reading regimen that puts you in touch with both contemporary writing on consulting and the classics in areas such as leadership, communication, and other organizational needs. Get to the books you've heard others talk about but haven't yet read. Aside from recreational reading, a growing consultant should read at least one professional book a month in his field.

Think about teaching at some level. The local colleges or community colleges may be interested in a course on consulting skills. Or a professional association may be having a convention that lends itself to such a theme. In creating and organizing some kind of course you'll be forcing yourself to critically examine what you do, how you do it, and why it's of value.

Consider acquiring new skills that may require formalized instruction. Many consultants pursue MBAs or PhDs part-time. You can also learn, however, about coaching, facilitating, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, and a plethora of other fields through seminars, workshops, and courses. Why not deliberately and systematically expand your own competencies?

Finally, use reverse mentoring. That is, find someone to serve as your mentor, someone who will force you out of your comfort zones and demand that you stretch. The key to finding a terrific mentor is not to pursue someone who is at the very top of the profession, but to find someone who two years ago was where you are now. He or she will be most familiar with your current situation, and have relevant, timely experiences and perspective to share.

At a given level of your success, some clients will just want to have access to your smarts, and will not be so concerned about specific projects and objectives. They will, in essence, want you on call in the event you're needed. Sometimes this will be reactive, in the case of some emergency, and sometimes it will be proactive, in the case of a new initiative being planned.

If you're comfortable with the ambiguity, accept this kind of business gladly, but do so on a retainer basis, not on a per diem basis. Retainers are simply variants of project fees.

Never guarantee a number of days for a retainer relationship (for example, "I'll be available for one day a week or seven days a month"). Simply promise to be available as a resource, and that actual onsite visits will be subject to mutual scheduling convenience. The client should always pay for travel expenses, so that is not an issue in determining your fee.

I recommend a minimum of 90-day retainers. I like to structure them this way: "I will be available to you as a general consulting resource for a fee of $10,000 per month.^[67] The minimum period is three months, and the fee is to be paid at the beginning of the period. Thirty days before the end of the period, both of us will determine whether to extend it for another, similar period."

This arrangement means that you are paid, in my example, $30,000 at the beginning of the first month. You don't have to worry about how many times you show up, and you needn't worry about how many times the client calls on you (onsite visits are subject to your schedule and the client pays the expenses). If the client committed to six months of this arrangement, I might lower the fee to $8,500 per month (now I'm being paid $45,000), and for a year, perhaps $7,000 ($84,000).

Clients virtually never abuse retainer relationships; the work can often be accomplished over the phone and by e-mail; expenses are protected; your scheduling is protected; and the money is in hand. If you can establish two or three of these annually as you become more successful, you'll find that you're making more and working less. I guarantee it, if you use my system.

Three key aspects for retainers:

The higher each of these valuables, the more the retainer should be.

As you become better known and the gravity of your marketing approaches draws more and more interest to you, you can begin to selectively choose your projects and clients. At the outset, we all tend to take on whatever we can to put bread on the table and create some momentum, but too many of us continue in that vein long beyond the need. For several years I accepted full-day training assignments, which I loathed, but which paid well and kept me active in attractive clients. But as soon as I could afford to, I gracefully left those assignments and declined similar, new ones, which allowed me to reach out to better and more fulfilling opportunities.

There is nothing wrong in being selective about the work you accept. Here are some guidelines that may be useful in determining which work you accept and under what conditions:

Once you're in the position to be selective, apply some template or criteria to your new business opportunities so that you can mold the future of your firm and of your own growth. That's a wonderful position to be in, but one that many consultants either can't see or choose to ignore.

Let me admit to a bias here: I think that travel is fulfilling and educational, particularly when you can control or influence it. If you have a spouse or partner whom you can bring with you, it can become absolutely invigorating, and build even better relationships.

I've had the good fortune to have visited 56 countries and 49 states, as of late 2008. I plan to build on my country list (although I don't know about finally getting to North Dakota). When I visited South America frequently, I learned to speak some Spanish. On one trip, I was able to converse in Spanish with the concierge at the Wyndham Palace Hotel in Orlando, and we established a wonderful rapport. There was no request I could make that was inconvenient or burdensome. Travel and its by-products constantly increase our depth and our appeal.

Someone asked me once why travel was so important when current media allow you to view the world from your home. I told them it was the difference between seeing it in black and white and a million colors.

Once you're on a roll of sorts, begin to think about where you'd like to go for vacations and how you can build business around those areas. If your children are grown and living elsewhere, or your own parents are in a distant city, you may want to schedule periodic business in those locales.

As you travel for business, you'll amass a bewildering assortment of frequent flier points, hotel points, credit card points, and a myriad of variations on those themes. My advice is to restrict your purchases and travel to those suppliers who offer the best deals, and build sizable bankrolls of these perks. (Some sources, such as American Express and Diners Club, allow you to transfer points to any number of travel partners.) Don't use them for frivolous trips or business trips, or fritter them away for minor upgrades. Save them so that you and a partner can fly significant distances in first class, stay in suites in fine hotels, rent cars for free, and enjoy other benefits. When you combine the trips with business, the client will offset most of your remaining costs.^[68]

How can you focus your marketing to reach places you'd like to visit? Here are some ideas:

Too many consultants view travel as an inescapable evil of the profession. After you've established yourself, travel can actually be a rich enhancement to your job and your life.

There are celebrities and there are celebrities. Some people are well known for exploits in their field (for example, Lance Armstrong), and some are well known for, well, being well known (for example, television personalities). Some people, however, become well known within more limited bounds for their expertise and competence. And therein lies your possible celebrity.

I'm going to define celebrity for our purposes as "that status which confers upon you a credibility and competence that is spoken about by others and readily accepted without further proof or validation by those who do not know you."

It's sort of a personal brand.

You need to be proactive about creating celebrity for yourself, but it's not as difficult as it might sound once you have some successful projects under your belt and your gravity has been effective for a while. No one else is going to do it for you, and the harder you work at it, the luckier you'll get.

If you don't blow your own horn, there is no music.

Here are some techniques that might be useful to establish a celebrity about yourself.

Celebrity is not difficult to achieve if you establish your playing field and assiduously pursue the limelight. Once you've grabbed it, it's fairly simple to stay within the focus of others.

As successful as I've been in consulting, and as passionate as I am about the work, I've always viewed it as a means to an end. In my case, the end is the success of my family in finding fulfillment in life; my personal learning and growth; our ability to contribute back to society; and the flexibility that comes from security and independence. Your life goals may be different, but your perspective on your chosen career must be a balanced one.^[70]

As you become more successful, you'll have the opportunity to transfer some of the intensity, passion, focus, time, and perseverance that you've invested in your business—and necessarily so, to launch and sustain it successfully—to your private interests, family, community, and friends. Ironically, that transfer to a greater balance of life and work will actually accelerate your business growth still more. The reason is that no one can sustain a 100 percent focus on the business for too long, or they will become burned out, or bored, or bereft of ideas. The fuel is not in unlimited supply, but must be restocked and restored.

The ability to pursue nonbusiness passions, to engage in quality family time, to atone for the lost days and perhaps distant travel incurred in a business startup is a valuable asset. The problem is that too many consultants ignore it or never see it. They believe that the route to more business growth is simply to do more and more of the same things that got them to where they are. But businesses mature in the same way that people do, and changes are required.

I've found that the truly successful consultants are those who appreciate life balance to the extent that they significantly change their professional habits once their business becomes successful.^[71] Here are some attributes and habits of those who understand and exploit the opportunities posed by business success to maximize personal growth and fulfillment:

At some point you'll realize that you don't have a professional life and a personal life, but that you only have a life. Once the compartmentalization is overcome, and you've blended your talents, passions, and abilities into an integrated pattern of growth and success, you've achieved true life balance.

One final note: TIAABB: There Is Always A Bigger Boat. Visiting St. Bart's in the Caribbean, I found six $25 million yachts docked together as though in a parking lot, with a dozen more anchored in the harbor because they couldn't fit. Don't judge your success or yourself by the neighbors, or coaches, or the media. The idea is not to have the biggest boat, which is impossible (at least, for long).

The idea is to be happy.

Because of the life balance issues, the firm's future is not the key consideration in your long-range planning. While this may seem counterintuitive, consider the fact that your business has served as a means for your individual ends. The business is not an end in and of itself.

If the firm grows to the extent that it employs people, owns significant assets (buildings, property), and has a client base along with goodwill that transcends the individual principal (you), then it is clearly an asset of value that is part of your financial planning. The firm can be sold, for example, or passed on to children. Be careful, however, when selling the firm to outsiders. The only thing worse than expending blood and sweat for your own equity is to do so for someone else's equity, and management contracts that bind the seller into employment for a transition period that is often several years are like indentured servitude. You haven't come this far to be someone else's employee again, so any sale of the business should be clean, with no lingering affiliations or attachments. I've seen too many once-happy former owners become embittered over what new ownership has done to "my company." Cut the strings and move on.

We are talking in most circumstances, however, about solo practices with no employees and, deliberately, no major assets. In these cases, you can consider the following eventual options.

Most practically, perhaps, in this day of global communications and worldwide access, it's probably best to maintain your presence is a relaxed manner. If you've been successful in getting started, you should be in fine shape to maintain your business at whatever level of work intensity you desire.

When you've reached the points on the climb up the mountainside when your goals are being met, you are financially successful, and your prospects are plentiful, be sure to contribute something back to this wonderful profession. If those of us who approach the summit don't leave handholds and pathways for those further below, then we've abrogated a trust and a professional and ethical responsibility.

Ask yourself what you could have used earlier in your career, and provide it for someone you meet while networking or in a trade association. Establish a section on your web site For Consultants Only to share your insights and experiences with colleagues. Take on leadership positions in trade associations. Debunk and refute articles and commentary in the media that unfairly castigate the profession. Provide pro bono help to those organizations that need your expertise but can't afford it, not for the publicity but for the public good.

Establish a scholarship for consultants to attend conventions or further their learning. Provide resources for a local chapter of a professional trade association. Play a role in the debate on national licensing, or codes of ethics, or governance.

Make your voice heard and your presence felt. You've launched your practice, built your career, and improved the profession. Others are looking up to you. Let them hear you.

Final thought: Success is never final, and failure is seldom fatal. It's courage that counts.

—Winston Churchill

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Q. How long, how long, how long?

A. I get this all the time, and understandably so. Here, again, my formula: Expect to close your first business within six months from your incorporation if you have no prior clients or contacts to work with. (Many new consultants begin with a contract from their former employer.) Plan to be supporting a reasonable lifestyle in one year. (In 1985 dollars, I made $67,000 my first year, $125,000 my second, $247,000 my third, and so on.) If you're not making money after a year or so and you've used good advice and hard work, this may not be the profession for you. Remember, it's seldom the economy that's the problem. There is always consulting work.

Q. What is a proper expectation for my style of travel and reimbursement?

A. For consultants, coach airfare domestically, and business class overseas. That is what the client is probably providing internally. Marriott-type hotels. Taxis, not limos. Feel free to upgrade any of that but at your own expense. You can stay at a Ritz-Carlton, for example, but only claim a Marriott-level reimbursement. (For speakers, it's common to require first class travel, since you must be in good shape for an important keynote.)

Q. Do I keep money under the mattress or in the bank?

A. Actually, a good question. Always keep cash on hand, say $1,000, in case you need to dash off on a weekend or in the evening unexpectedly and you'll need money. ATMs and credit cards aren't always a viable option. If you're an LLC or a subchapter S corporation, all money flows through your individual tax return, but it's still important to keep company accounts separate from personal accounts. And it's also a good idea to have a daily checking account and some kind of money market account where you can park excess cash until needed. Don't forget that your cash flow will vary greatly from month to month.

Q. There are a lot of people out there giving advice, how do I know who's legitimate?

A. Two ways. First ask for referrals from people you trust. Many people come to me, for example, and ask for guidance on where to get insurance or legal help. Second, use the "ski instructor test." You don't want a ski instructor who sits in the chalet sipping brandy giving you advice. You want someone who can do what you need to do, right ahead of you, on the slopes. Don't take writing advice from someone who has never published a commercially successful book, and don't take business advice from someone who is dressed sloppily or is always looking for bargains.

Q. In pro bono work, what criteria would help to determine which of thousands of organizations I should work with?

A. Try these: