If you’ve been in a leadership role for a while and come to a point where you think, ‘what’s next?’, consulting might be a way to share the expertise and experiences you spent years building throughout your career.
As with many industries, consulting is undergoing rapid shifts because of factors like political change and the proliferation of artificial intelligence. But Northeast Wisconsin leaders who are finding success in traditional consulting — either alongside or following a corporate career — say it’s all about working with clients strategically and authentically.
Why consulting
Vicki Updike of New Sage Strategies, who spent the last seven years of her corporate career as president of Silver Star Brands, says she never thought she’d start her own business. “I had a great corporate career. I loved what I was doing, loved the team,” Updike says. But she found herself doing less and less of the thing she truly loved, which was “growing people to do more than they ever thought they could.”
Now through New Sage Strategies, which opened in April 2017, Updike has returned to that passion. She coaches leaders one-on-one as well as offers her expertise to executive teams who can benefit from her experience leading a large company with multiple brands.
Micki Koehler worked her entire career in the insurance industry, and when she lost her corporate job in November 2023, she launched Micki Koehler Consulting to focus on operational excellence, strategic planning and customer experience — all of the areas in which she worked during her corporate career.
“I realized that I could take everything that I had learned in the corporate world and use it to help other people,” Koehler says.
Koehler decided to focus on working with small businesses and nonprofits, “companies that don’t traditionally have access to a lot of these types of services,” she says: “It’s been really gratifying and really rewarding to see the difference that I’ve been able to make with some of these companies.”
Koehler says she wishes she would have known how much she’d like consulting. “I honestly would have been happy working in my corporate job until retirement … I did good work in it, but I feel like I’m adding value in an entirely new way, and it’s so rewarding.”
Chris Calawerts, president and COO of Oshkosh Door and its two other divisions, Oregon Door and Edgewater Door, turned to consulting about 20 years ago following a transition from his family’s commercial interiors company, VerHalen, Inc.
As he returned to leadership roles he set aside consulting temporarily, but he recently started up again, working with clients through Idaho-based Apex Leaders.
While he limits the number of consulting projects he takes on (since he’s also running three companies), Calawarts finds it rewarding to help others who are seeking guidance. “You finally get to an age — I’m 63 — where you realize, ‘Oh, I guess I know a little bit; I guess I’ve been through stuff,’ and maybe it’s OK for me to share that,” he says. “Maybe somebody actually is interested in what I have to say.”
How it works
Because Calawerts is currently leading a company, he first reviews projects for potential conflicts of interest. If he can take on the project, he says it’s all about crafting a unique solution or response to that company’s needs. “I don’t view myself as having a magic bullet — I have options that I will present. And yeah, if you want my opinion on which way to go, you’re going to get it.”
Updike bases all her work on building relationships, so when a potential client reaches out, “I really want to get to know them, get to know their journey, and understand the issue that’s in front of them … sometimes it leads to a client, and sometimes it just leads to a really great relationship with another colleague or another person in my network.”
When a project starts, Updike starts out with “a lot of one-on-one meetings — and a lot of times it’s with a leadership team — to truly understand problems from various perspectives,” she says. That offers her a grounded look at the problem, and then she can identify how to address the issue with that company specifically.
She spends four to six months working with each company on strategic planning, strategic alignment, and strategic execution. Executive coaching clients might be with her for a year or two. She found there was a high demand for that side of her business, with about 70% of Updike’s work now focused there. “As I was stepping out past Silver Star Brands, I just recognized that women are still faced with so many of the challenges that I faced in my career,” she says.
When a potential client comes to Koehler, she first hears their story and determines if they’re a good fit: “Essentially, does what they need match with the skills that I can bring?” she says. If they are, Koehler might engage with them for a specific project, or for a certain block of time.
“One of the ways that my experience has really helped is particularly in the customer experience front,” Koehler says. “A lot of times, business owners can make decisions based on what they would want if they were their customer. But sometimes they don’t always realize that they are not their customer.”
The business of it
So how do consultants get started, including where to find clients and what rates to charge?
Koehler says rates depend “on the type of work that you’re able to do. Do some research out there, talk to some people who are already in the field and think about the level of service you can provide.”
As far as finding clients, “I’ve been really lucky that I’ve gotten mine all through networking,” says Koehler, who started by simply putting the word out about what she was doing. She’s also connected with clients through her volunteer work with nonprofits in the community.
“Really think about what differentiates you,” Koehler says. “What can you bring to the table that’s different from anybody else? … Think about what you bring to the table and where you want to focus.”
Setting up those one-on-one networking discussions and building relationships is vital to informing people about your new pathway, Updike says. “Consulting and advising and coaching are very generic terms, and assumptions can be made on what all of that means,” she says.
Updike now sees most of her business come through referrals, which becomes the case the longer you’re in business.
“The hardest part for me with stepping out on my own was that there wasn’t a company or a job title that was aligned with me anymore,” Updike says. “You’re stepping out as you, so it was just me as ‘Vicki Updike,’ and that was probably the most vulnerable component of it.”
As to rates, Updike says that can be tough to settle on, but “you know your experience … it really looks to the value you bring to the organization and the solutions you’re looking to create.” Updike bills by the project instead of an hourly rate, “so if I put in double the hours I thought I was going to put in, that’s not on you, that’s on me — and that’s ok.”
Calawerts, on the other hand, was asked for an hourly rate at Apex, so he chose $400 “because my lawyer charges me $400,” Calawerts says. “I thought, ‘If he can, why can’t I charge that?’ So it really wasn’t that complicated … the value of the information that I was going to share and the willingness seemed to be worth more money.”
For those who want a taste of consulting, one option is to join an executive leadership group, he says. Calawerts is a part of Vistage, which allows him to talk confidentially with other executives about his challenges. “In that setting, you’re a personal consultant to one, or to 15 people, in a safe environment,” he says. “They’re not paying you to do that, but … if they respect you as a leader they will take those ideas and put them into their blender and mix it all up and use it. So for me personally, you could transition into that without making a full-scale jump right away.”
Why companies seek consultants
One of the reasons companies seek the help of consultants is to find out why they’re not more profitable, Koehler says: “They know something’s going on, but they can’t quite pinpoint what it is, but they need to fix it because they want to make more money. That’s why they’re in business. They love what they do, but they also obviously need to make a living doing it.”
Some of Koehler’s clients have “a lot of vision for where they want to go, but they don’t quite know how to get from point A to point B,” she says. “So that’s when I can sit and talk with them … there’s certain things that I can map out in partnership with them, and we can really devise that strategy on how to make that vision a reality.”
Calawerts worked with O’Connor Connective at Oshkosh Door during a time when his company was going through a transition period and culture shift; Updike also worked with consultants during her corporate career. “Being on that side of the table and … leaning on consultants to help me through my business journey really helps me relate to the clients and those executives that I work with,” she says.
She also knows the benefit of the coaching side, saying there’s value to having an outside dialogue partner.
Turning to someone outside the sphere of the company allows those unbiased discussions to help executives think through issues or opportunities, Updike says. “The best part and the most rewarding [part] are when you see the lightbulbs go on with the people you work with,” Updike says, “when those ‘a-ha’ moments happen.”
