The pitfall of a small business consultant.

The most common pitfall faced by small independent consultants is that rather than remaining as business advisers, they end up as direct service providers, handling the major workload of the business process where they were expected only to provide. This becomes very expensive for the client and changes the relationship. In place of mutual satisfaction, you now have mutual dissatisfaction.

There are three possible outcomes in such situations - the client pays up and remains upset with you, the client doesn't pay your bills and you are upset with the client, or both parties reach an unhappy compromise.

In certain cases, time-schedule, lack of resources on part of the client, or other urgent needs may call for you to provide most of the work as a direct service provider. But in such cases, the client needs to understand from the very beginning that the instant situation needs a service provider with your experience, more than it needs power of consulting. The client needs to have a clear idea of the costs that may be chalked up if you were providing direct service, or the client is free to hire another direct service provider, to save the day. Even providing that little advice is sufficient for you to bill as a consultant, because the client was unable to recognise the situation. What you are doing is business consulting, and not creating a fallible situation.