Do half the work

There is a consulting joke that says only 50% of the work you do for a client is useful. You just don't know which 50%.

If you are a diligent professional, you're probably used to systematically working through assigned projects, making sure they're polished, free of typos, etc.

This is necessary if your immediate client is of the middle management variety.

BUT, if you want to start establishing your reputation as a smart, strategic 1099 consultant, you need to start taking risks, which means doing work no one asked for, and discarding work they may have asked for.

For example, if you are assigned to do an analysis and build a deck, you may go through the whole process and build out 50 slides because you think more is better and you want to look smart.

But this approach takes a long time and a lot of your deck may be useless.

Instead, you should try to think about what the client actually wants and make a few guesses. You can even ask them if you access.

Then, deliver incrementally.

Instead of delivering a full deck, you can send the client an e-mail saying something like

"Hey I'm still working on the deck but here are a few high level talking points and a chart. Will this help you accomplish X? Just want to make sure we're moving in the right direction."

A good percentage of time you may find out a full deck was unnecessary and that a single slide is good enough.

Or you may find out you misunderstood and you need to move in an entirely different direction.

Trying to find out early on which half of the work is useful will make you look smart, save time and give you better client relationships.

Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.