My Experience Starting a Consultancy/Consulting: Animwaa Consulting (This and that with DrAnimwaa)

 

My Experience Starting a Consultancy/Consulting: Animwaa Consulting 

Premise 

I have always wanted to work on my own or have a side business. I have been nursing this idea since my undergraduate days and it’s no wonder that my undergraduate and masters thesis was on entrepreneurship. Thus, I have been nursing several business ideas one of which was a DEI consulting.

 

At a previous job, I connected with a community member on a project and through conversations, he told me he owned a consulting business. I was intrigued and asked what he does and how he started. 

 

He mentioned that, it was difficult for him to find a job after school so he started a research consulting and he had five employees at the time we spoke. I went home that day and was certain that I will start Animwaa Consulting and it will thrive. 

 

The birth of Animwaa Consulting 

I had DEI already in the works but I was too scared to start. There were several thoughts running through my mind such as,

“Who will hire me?”

“What if I fail?”

“The discipline is already saturated”.

Additionally, a former manager who knew I had plans of starting one told me straight in the face, “you cannot make a living out of this”. 

 

Regardless, I was motivated by the talk with the gentleman to start the consulting. I started planning towards it and brainstorming ideas. One thing I did was, once I started planning, I told people about it as well. 

 

One day, I facilitated a training and the training manager loved my presentation. We got talking after the presentation and I got to know she had a consulting and training business as well. During this meeting she told me, “Animwaa, you are a good facilitator. If you start your consulting, I will hire you.” 

It takes one person to believe in you. 

I asked if we could meet again so I can get more inspired by her and she agreed.

After our conversation, I knew I had to start Animwaa Consulting. I was fired up and ready. 

 

Challenges before starting

Scared to Start

As I mentioned earlier, I was scared to start. Even after I had the conversation with the manager who wanted to hire me, I was still scared to start. 

 

Oh yes, even when I had my first client, I was scared. The manager kept calling and checking in, “Have you started? Are you ready? I want to book you.”  I always declined because I wasn’t ready.

 

The Motivation

My husband was always encouraging and asking to me to start. He was able to motivate me to connect with my first client. The night before I was going to send the email, I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw this quote:

“What if I fall?

Oh, but my darling what if you fly?”

~Erin Hanson~

 

I sent the email to my first client the next day and finally, Animwaa Consulting (formerly Animwaa Consultancy) was started in November 2019.

 

If you are scared, don’t be! Just start. Start!

Yes, the market can be saturated but you will find your own clients that will choose you, over and over again.

 

Challenges after Starting 

Pricing 

My biggest challenge in starting the consulting was pricing. I had no idea how to price my services. So, for the longest time, I lowballed my worth and services. Thus, I was doing a lot of work but I did not have the finances to back the work I was doing. 

Someone may be wondering why I lowballed myself, here are the reasons:

 

1.  You remember I mentioned earlier that I had a manager that said, “you cannot make a living out of this”. The day we had this conversation, she added that, “do you remember the whole day training we did for [XYZ] organization? They paid us $300. Is that what you want to survive on?”
2. None of the consultants I spoke with while’s preparing for my start up, opened up about their pricing. I always asked and all that I got was, you will figure it out. 
3. My first ever deal was on condition that I will be given the job if I accepted a small rate. This was because they were getting it for free so it would not make financial sense to pay me so much for something they were essentially getting for free. 

These informed my prices till I decided that I needed to start charging what I was worth because I was bringing 

1. Experience - Over 10 years of experience 
2. Education- 11 years of postgraduate education 
3. Skills – Great facilitation and research skills.

And when I decided to charge my worth, the organizations I worked with paid me what I was worth. Charge what you deserve, those who see your value will pay for it.

 

Benefits of having a Consulting firm

1. I have grown in my field. To be able to deliver quality work, I continue to learn, develop and grow in my field. 
2. Networking- I have been connected to amazing people since I started. 
3. Financial benefit- because I have a 9 to 5, this is extra money. 

Branding

When I started, I decided to take my LinkedIn serious and brand myself. I started posting about a week, gained some followers and stopped. Branding is very important if you want to put your business out there.

You will need a platform to sell you and your services. So, decide which social media platform is good for selling your business. For my business, LinkedIn is my best bet. Twitter is a great place too. Forget about what people will think and sell yourself. I got my clients from word of mouth. Now, I am taking my branding serious and putting myself out there. So, this is me marketing myself, I run Animwaa Consulting, a diversity, equity and inclusion business. If you need trainings or strategies, please connect with me at Animwaaconsulting@gmail.com.

 

This is how Animwaa Consulting was birthed. I hope you are inspired to start that idea you have been nursing. You never know if it will succeed, if you don’t start, so start!

And until next time, know that 

You are enough, you are worthy!

Learn to Live life in the present 

And know that nothing last forever so everything will be fine! 

Take care of YOU, YOU have all you got!