Start building your consulting business or freelance presence on the side while you still have a steady stream of income. For example, by the time I left my full time job, I had:
- full time contract work for at least 6 months
- my LLC formed (US only, I think)
- my site built, setup w/analytics, a blog, Google webmaster tools, etc.
- my first set of business cards in hand (may not be that important to some people, but they came in handy for me)
- other misc. stuff (spoke to my CPA about taxes, researched sample contracts, looked into software I'd need, etc.)
Doing all that while still having income meant that I didn't have to trade billable time for those once I became a consultant. When you're running your own business, you'll always have to invest non-billable time, but those first 3/6/12 months are always the hardest, so do what you can to maximize billable hours and finding more clients or work, w/out overwhelming yourself.
- full time contract work for at least 6 months
- my LLC formed (US only, I think)
- my site built, setup w/analytics, a blog, Google webmaster tools, etc.
- my first set of business cards in hand (may not be that important to some people, but they came in handy for me)
- other misc. stuff (spoke to my CPA about taxes, researched sample contracts, looked into software I'd need, etc.)
Doing all that while still having income meant that I didn't have to trade billable time for those once I became a consultant. When you're running your own business, you'll always have to invest non-billable time, but those first 3/6/12 months are always the hardest, so do what you can to maximize billable hours and finding more clients or work, w/out overwhelming yourself.