Great news, your AI Consulting persona is…
The Engineer
Your epic tech skills will help you accelerate your launch into consulting, and we’ll help you scale up your business skills while ensuring you don’t get stuck in these common traps:
(A) waiting until every detail is perfect
(B) believing that clients only want super-advanced solutions instead of basic training.
As an engineer, you’ve spent much of your career immersed in tech – you’re likely a power user of many different tech tools, and perhaps a pretty good coder as well. You’ve also worked in environments where you’re responsible for delivering solutions to clients, managers or internal customers – so even if you’ve never run a consultancy of your own, you’ve had at least some exposure to things like sales and project management.
Your challenge is to rapidly skill up in the key elements of running your own business – while at the same time accepting that it’s often OK to get to “B+” or “good enough” status and then move on to your next set of goals. Since you’re an engineer, you often want to get everything exactly right before moving on to your next task – but in this case, starting a business is not like writing software or creating a detailed procedure manual. For this part of your life, getting to “perfect” is actually the enemy of getting the job done, so you’ll need to exit your comfort zone a bit and several new things at a “good enough” for now. In other words, one of the biggest benefits you’ll get from the program is having clear action steps and a mindset that ensures you don’t get “stuck in your head” for too long while you launch your new consultancy.
By the same token, it is likely that your personal network is full of other engineers — so we will start by emphasizing that other engineers are NOT your ideal clients. We often hear engineers say things like, “all my friends say this idea is too basic,” and when we dig in, we realize that all those friends are software developers themselves! Yes, some things are basic from the perspective of an engineer — but your job is to make sales and deliver solutions to the 99% of humanity that has less advanced skills than you do.
For this reason, engineers often bristle at the idea of an “AI 101 Training” being their first gig, but that’s exactly where we recommend you start. It’s good practice to sell to non-techies, since those people will be the ones who get tons of value from your services over many years.
You’ll scour your non-techie personal network and score your first gig, and then work on finding a niche and setting up your AI Consulting Service Menu. We’ll also show you Client-Ready AI Projects, such as document automation, AI agents and chatbots, in our tech skills chapters.
Most importantly, remember that the people around you already see you as a skilled technical professional. So the work you need to do is about building your business systems and your own confidence so that you can easily get out there and make sales (even selling stuff that feels “basic” to an engineer) and get your consultancy rolling.
Join the Slack Channel:
Join your fellow #engineers on Slack!
Where to Start:
First – Create Your AI Consulting Services
Because you’re coming in with excellent tech skills, we recommend starting with a quick overview of the AI Consulting Service Menu. This will give you an idea of what you’ll be able to provide to clients, and you’ll be able to start brainstorming your menu right away.
Keep in mind: Most engineers are surprised that their clients want “basic” stuff like AI 101 Trainings and strategy sessions. The mind of the engineer immediately jumps to building complex workflows and automations, but it’s important to allow your client to make a journey with you — first gaining trust during smaller, simpler projects and then eventually contracting you for the big stuff. Many engineers get stuck because they only envision themselves doing advanced $100k custom builds, and they miss the opportunity to get clients with the smaller projects we talk about in the Consulting Menu lessons.
Once you have a draft consulting menu, move on to Launching Fast.
Then – Launch In 7 Days
To see what other consultants are doing (with far less tech skill than you already have), start with our lesson on Real-World AI Consulting Businesses (that you can build right now). Then work through the lessons in the “Launch in 7 Days” projects until you get to Score Your First Gig.
Next – Meet 100 Solid Leads
Then, it’s time to start reaching out to people outside your “warm” network. Follow the Meet 100 Solid Leads project to learn how to build a super-simple website, update your online reputation, build a prospect list and reach out to them with gentle, powerful, human “cold outreach” that gets their attention and gets them excited to hop on Zoom with you to talk about how you can help them enhance their businesses with AI.
After That – Specialize Your AI Skills & Tech Stack
If you’d like, you can take a detour from business and level up your AI skills a bit more – or team up with the other “techie” folks on the IWAI team and in our student community to talk shop and experiment with the most cutting-edge tools. Our AI Skills & Tech Stack lessons will give you the framework you need to make great recommendations to your clients, and to level up so you can build even more complex tools as you grow your business.
Then dive into building some real, ready-to-sell client projects, following the guides in our Build It Together series:
Explore the Full Curriculum
Once you’ve completed your customized Engineer starter path, explore the 100+ in-depth lessons in our full curriculum — we guide you through every step in building a thriving consultancy.
What to Focus On:
- Your tech skills are epic, but you sometimes underestimate the value of making a human connection with a client and having them join you on a journey from AI 101 to advanced builds. Make sure you’re building relationships early, with smaller jobs, before diving into the big stuff!
Common Challenges:
- As a tech specialist, you often have an urge to experiment with (or become an expert in) all the various tools that are available to you. Resist the urge to learn new programming languages, test out dozens of tools, or otherwise go down the “tech details” rabbit hole. Right now, your big wins will be in relationship-building and getting your consultancy started fast.
How to Win Big:
- Craft a “client journey” that leads your client from the basics to the more advanced stuff — with the knowledge that the more advanced stuff is where you really shine. Still, it’s critical to understand that you need to give your clients time (and help) to catch up, and that they may not be ready for a giant custom build the day you meet them. That’s not evidence that your Service Menu is “too basic,” but instead, that you have a responsibility to guide your client through a longer journey (and that you will be paid handsomely to do so).
Not an Engineer?
You might also be an Inventor (less advanced business skills), an Executive (more advanced business skills), or a Creator (less advanced tech skills). Or, you can retake the quiz.