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Most people don't wake up one day and decide to become an independent consultant.

More often, the decision starts with a career change, a push from circumstance, or a feeling that there's something better on the other side of corporate life.

In this episode of my Ask Me Anything series, I’m giving you a glimpse of my journey — from an unexpected exit to building a consulting business. I also answered the questions I hear most often from professionals considering the leap.

If you're wondering whether you're ready, or how to prepare before you make the move, this conversation is a great place to start

Q: Did you always plan to become an independent consultant?

A: It wasn’t in my career plan and I was pretty early in my career. But in 2013, the company I worked for was taken private and offered a voluntary workforce reduction. I hadn't been planning to leave, but when I saw the severance package, everything changed.

I checked the numbers and saw that it gave me 12 months of financial runway. I thought, If I worked as hard for myself as I worked for other people, why couldn't I make this successful? That financial security gave me the confidence to take the leap.

Q: Did you start consulting immediately after leaving?

A: No. I took six months off because I was completely burned out. I hadn't taken a real break from being an anxious overachiever since I was 13 years old.

I was getting married, so I finally gave myself permission to rest. Looking back, that break was one of the best decisions I made because I needed it to be mentally ready to jump straight into something else.

Q: How did your consulting business actually get started?

A: It happened organically. After my break, I started talking to people about what I should do next.

Instead of another full-time job, people began offering me project work. One project led to another, then another, and eventually that became my business. It wasn't a grand strategy, but it evolved naturally through relationships and opportunities.

Q: Looking back, was leaving corporate the right decision?

A: I thought my future was leading a large organization as an executive, but through this process I realized I actually didn't enjoy that path. It took me a while to let go of the ego that came with a traditional executive career. But once I did, I realized this was a much better fit for me.

Q: What's the first thing someone should prepare before becoming independent?

A: Prepare the people around you, not just yourself. This is a major life change, and your support system matters.

I think about it in three groups: your family, your peers, and your advisors. Your family helps you emotionally, your peers give you people to think alongside, and advisors help you avoid mistakes by sharing lessons they've already learned.

Q: How important is your partner's support when making the leap?

A: It's incredibly important. Your partner doesn't need to understand consulting, but they do need to understand what your work will look like.

It means they should know your work hours, respect your workspace, and understand what success looks like because the wins are different than they were in corporate. Helping them understand that makes the transition much smoother for everyone.

Q: How do you overcome imposter syndrome when you're starting out?

A: First, identify the specific problem you're great at solving. Every person has at least one problem they can solve exceptionally well. Focus on that instead of trying to be everything to everyone.

Most people struggle because they can't clearly explain what they actually do. Once you know your problem, your marketing and sales become much easier.

Q: How can you talk about your experience with more confidence?

A: Focus on real stories instead of trying to sound impressive. Show people the problems you've solved, the patterns you recognized, and the judgment you used. Then practice saying it out loud.

My advice is to talk to yourself in the mirror until you don’t cringe about it anymore. Confidence comes from knowing your own story, not from memorizing someone else's script or trying to sound like everyone else.

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You've landed the client. You've delivered the work. Now comes the part that should be easy but never is: getting paid.

Before going independent, most of us have never had to send an invoice so we don’t know what’s customizable or not.

But we have a lot of options, instead of just letting thousands get lost to processing fees every year.

Before you get that first invoice out the door, here’s what’s worth knowing.

The platforms that make invoicing feel effortless – QuickBooks, FreshBooks, Xero – are genuinely useful tools. They look professional, send reminders, and track everything.

But the moment your client clicks Pay by Credit Card; the meter starts running.

Here’s what each major platform charges:

That 2.99% sounds small until you do the math on a $12,000 invoice: nearly $360 gone before you’ve paid a single business expense.

The deeper issue here is that most of these platforms are built for small retail or e-commerce businesses transacting hundreds of times a month at low dollar amounts.

As a consultant, you’re doing the opposite: fewer transactions, much higher amounts.

The fee structure that’s “reasonable” in one context becomes genuinely punishing in the other.

Let’s put some real numbers on it.

Say you’re already operating at $400K a year, billing about $36,000 a month across three clients. Here’s what you net depending on how they pay:

The gap between credit cards and ACH at this revenue level is nearly $12,500 a year.

That processing fee is already a month of a client retainer you could be earning. And it’s not a result of any single bad decision; it’s the result of never making a decision at all and letting the platform default do it for you.

A fellow fractional once asked our group chat for recommendations on a simple way to bill and receive payments from clients. There were a lot of good suggestions, but some work better than others in specific situations.

Here’s what I use, and what I’ve seen work well for others:

Bookkeeping is not a requirement at any specific revenue level, but it’s actively encouraged.

The more seriously you manage business finances, the more the setup pays for itself.

⚠️ A note on Zelle: It’s genuinely free and fast (with transfers typically arriving within minutes), but it doesn’t integrate with accounting software, has no built-in invoice trail, and has transfer limits that vary by bank. Use it as a supplement to your system, not as the system itself.

⚠️ A note on ACH: This is the sweet spot for most consultants. You keep the professionalism and record-keeping of a platform like QuickBooks or FreshBooks, but you actively steer clients toward bank transfers instead of credit cards. Most platforms support ACH; just make sure the option is enabled and clearly presented. Some consultants add a line to their invoices: “Bank transfer preferred – use ACH option to avoid card fees.”

Your clients don’t generally care how they pay; they just need an easy path. Give them one that doesn’t cost you 3%.

One thing that surprised me is that most clients don’t have a strong preference about payment methods.

They’re not attached to using a credit card for consulting fees the way they might be for personal purchases. What they care about is convenience and clarity.

If you make ACH easy with a simple link in the invoice and clear instructions, most clients will use it. Some corporate clients might even prefer it because it integrates cleanly with their own accounts payable systems.

A few will want to pay by credit card to rack up points; in those cases, you can either accept the fee as a cost of doing business or factor it into your rate.

The point is: don’t let the default setting of your invoicing platform make this decision for you. The default will always result in them getting the most out of your transactions.

Before you do anything else, I suggest pulling up your last three months of invoices. Look at what you actually received versus what you billed.

If there’s a consistent gap beyond your platform subscription fee, you’re likely losing money to processing fees you didn’t consciously choose.

Then, check two things: whether ACH is enabled on your account, and whether your invoice template presents it as a clear option to clients. 

In most cases, this is a 15-minute fix that pays for itself in the first few months.

Remember, you didn’t get into independent consulting and fractional work to donate 3% of your revenue to a payment processor.

Set it up right once, and you won’t have to think about it again.