Taking on a Consulting Role in Retirement

As you get older, you build up years of experience and knowledge through your work. Hustling and learning and growing over decades in your field have made you an expert. However, it’s also true that, as you age, you might wish to slow down and move out of the fast-paced working world. Maybe you no longer want to spend as much time in an office. Perhaps you’re interested in only working for part of the year, but not every day. You might enjoy certain parts of your job more than others and only want to focus on those.

Your experience in your field can likely make consulting a very natural next step.

What is Consulting and Why Move into Consulting?

Consulting is the process of providing professional advice or strategy in exchange for a fee. Consultants aren’t typical employees. Instead, they bring their expertise to a company as a third party, usually for a defined period or to work on a specific project.

Companies work with consultants because they want access to experience and knowledge that their internal teams may be lacking. They’re also often looking for greater objectivity. Employees within the organization may have certain preferences or biases that consultants don’t have, since they’re not a full-time part of the organization. This allows them to provide advice, guidance, and strategy without being burdened by ties to the company. Consultants are often brought into a company when it is growing or changing quickly, as a consultant can provide skills quickly without a lengthy hiring process.

Taking on consultant work can be an excellent way to utilize your years of experience. This often means increased financial benefits. Many companies will pay a good amount to work with someone who has decades of industry connections, knowledge, and skills. Younger employees may have more youthful energy, and they might be more apt at modern technologies, but they lack experience. Working as a consultant, your seniority matters. This isn’t always true in many corporate jobs.

Unfortunately, it’s a reality that a lot of organizations may look to cut bait with people once their hair starts to grey. There’s an idea in many companies that you can be “too old” to contribute, and this bias often leads to older employees being sidelined from major projects. Consulting turns this around. When you’re a consultant, your age helps you. If you’re over 50, that usually means you have considerable experience in the field. Companies will pay for this expertise.

Consulting also gives you incredible flexibility. You can choose your clients and work on projects that truly interest you. You can also set your own schedule, within reason. There are a lot of older professionals who decide that they want to take the summers off, for example, or that they’d rather not work during the holiday season. This is hard to do when you have a full-time job, but it’s much more possible when you’re a consultant. You also won’t have to participate in the parts of work that you’re not interested in. Instead, you can focus your efforts into areas that provide you with greater fulfillment.

This is a huge reason why many people move into consulting. Rather than deal with the day-to-day aspects of working at a job, you’re able to use your experience to achieve greater work-life balance and earn a good income doing work you enjoy. You can spend your time doing work that truly matters to you and working with organizations that mean something to you. In short, you can be pickier with your jobs. You’ve earned that right! 

What About Fractional Work?

Fractional work tends to be more embedded into a company than consulting work. When you work as a fractional leader, you’re often responsible for managing staff and budgets and carrying out other leadership roles within an organization. 

Many people who do fractional work serve as part-time executives, sometimes with more than one company at a time. They work more as operational owners than they do as advisory specialists. 

Fractional operators work differently than freelancers or consultants. They focus more on outcomes and are often directly responsible for strategies, much like a senior team member in a company. However, they work only a certain number of hours a week, or full-time for a limited period.

Businesses often use fractional leaders to access experience and leadership skills quickly, without hiring someone full-time. They don’t need to deal with a lengthy hiring process, and they aren’t responsible for paying a full-time salary plus benefits. This can be an excellent flexible role for someone over 50 who is looking for work that doesn’t involve becoming a full-time employee. 

How to Get Started

If you’re an experienced worker, you have the skills and knowledge that a lot of companies need. However, getting work as a consultant or fractional leader isn’t the same as working as an employee. 

The first step should be to choose your focus. If you’re looking to start consulting, you’ll want to be specific about what you do and for whom. The best way to market yourself is by focusing on the problem you solve. Rather than saying “I’m an engineer”, you may want to say, “I help manufacturing plants eliminate downtime by improving the reliability of their machinery.” The more specific you can be, the better. You want a company who has a problem to immediately recognize that you’re the person who can solve it.

If you’re looking for fractional leadership work instead, you’ll still want to focus on the problems you solve, but you’ll also want to decide on the role you’re going to serve. For instance, determine if your skills and your work are best delivered as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), CFO (Chief Financial Officer), or other type of officer. 

When you’re doing consulting or fractional work, you may want to consider setting up a single-member limited liability company (LLC) to better protect yourself. However, know that doing this comes with additional costs and compliance responsibilities. It does protect your personal assets, though, and can help with tax flexibility.

You will then need to determine how much you want to work and how much you would like to charge. Many consultants use project-based on value-based pricing and many charge retainers. Try to avoid billing everything on an hourly rate, because you’ll probably have a lot of administrative time that you and you’ll want to make sure that is covered. For a fractional role, decide how many hours you would like to work for each company during each week. Clearly defining your role, your deliverables, and your work expectations makes it much easier for people to hire you.

To find work, start by leveraging your network. If you have worked in the industry for many years, you probably have contacts such as former colleagues or clients. Talk to them about the services you’re offering and see if there are any opportunities. Updating your social media profiles (especially LinkedIn) to include the work you’re doing and the problems you can solve is important as well. You may also want to join a local business community. 

For fractional work, consider joining a factional network. There are also many companies that match fractional leaders to organizations. Look into these services and decide if joining one is right for you.Transitioning into a strategic consulting or fractional leadership role can be a great step if you’re looking towards retirement, but not ready to stop working completely. It’s also an excellent step for retirees who are looking to earn some additional income after they’ve left the workforce. However, if you’re collecting social security or other retirement benefits, know that earning income from consulting might reduce these benefits. Make sure you understand the financial costs before you start looking for