"Why Self-Employed Consultants Fail" is an article of special interest in the current BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK: Karen E Klein interviews Alan Weiss of the Summit Consulting Group.
For starters, the article says that there are around 400,000 consultants in the United States; half working at it as a primary venture, the rest either as a second career, or as part-timers.
A couple of points to whet your interest:
1. Consulting is "really a marketing business. Even if you go into it with a great approach or methodology, that's not nearly sufficient."
2. "Don't arbitrarily use a methodology. Come in and find out what has to be improved. Use observed evidence and create something for that situation.
S"o many consultants have solutions searching for problems. They go in with their methodology and try to find a place to use it. Everybody's fond of telling you what they want: a two-day leadership conference, a person coached for a month. Your value-added is to ask what they want, and discover what they need. That's where you get higher fees."