From CIO to consultant: The first month

It's been one month since Mike Barrett left his cushy executive job to become a self-employed consultant. So how's it going? And what's he learning? Here's his update.

What's it like stepping from the cosseted corporate world to one where you have to do everything yourself? Here's a great example. Remember those business trips you used to take? Arranged for you by the company travel agent? Taxi to the airport, quick check-in, breakfast in the lounge, business class seats to New York, car to the 5 star hotel? Think again!

You're a start-up now, cash is king and bootstrapping is the order of the day. Here's how my recent trip to New York differed from my corporate trips.

First - flights. Luckily my brother is a pilot with Virgin so he got me a cheap flight from Heathrow to JFK otherwise it would have been an online trawl to find the best fares, economy class of course.

Next - hotel. The conference organisers had arranged a 'special' rate for attendees at $495 per night. But with the prospect of a £2,000 bill, it was online for a more cost-effective alternative - a nice hotel five minutes' walk from the conference hall at less than half the price. Admittedly the rooms were half the size and it had the smallest bath in the world but hey, it had a bed, a desk, a chair and wi-fi access so the essentials were covered.

With the main costs out of the way, it was time to look at the extras, I had to arrange my own travel insurance - back online where I paid £33 for a full year's cover.

In the past, I would book a cab from my house to Heathrow but that would cost £65 each way so it's the train into London, cab across town (it was Sunday) and Heathrow Express to the airport at less than half the price. At the airport I blagged furiously to try to get an upgrade but to no avail.

Once I arrived at JFK, normally I would jump in a cab from the airport to the hotel but when I booked the hotel, I had the option of a shuttle bus for £8 so I chose that instead.

My first morning in New York I took my breakfast in the hotel but I was shocked at the price - a whopping $37 for English breakfast, orange juice, tea and toast. Even at $1.96 to the pound, that's outrageous. The café next door did good trade with me for the rest of the week at a quarter of the price.

Amazing how much more careful you are when it's your own money. I got just as much value from the conference, had equally nice food and got there in exactly the same amount of time as the business class passengers. I also got to use the lounge at the airport and my communications while away were the same cost as when I'm at home via the wonders of wi-fi, email, Skype and instant messenger.

Apart from the cost consciousness that comes with starting your own business, the biggest change is the additional functions that you have to take on. With only myself to manage, HR isn't really a big problem and I like to think, like most CIOs, I've always had a decent handle on finance.

Managing multi-million pound budgets though is a world away from managing your outgoings on a weekly basis. The amount of time spent documenting what has been spent and who the clients were is like having to do your expenses every day of the week.

One of the great things about consulting is that the overheads are minimal, once you've got a laptop and business cards you are pretty much up and running. What isn't so obvious is the hundreds of small expenditures that are required to run the business. Train fares, taxi fares, lunches, dinners all require receipts and documentation if the tax man is to be satisfied at the end of the year.

The other two areas that CIOs don't have much exposure to are sales and marketing. I think we've all been involved with both functions to some degree but as an independent consultant you now need to really understand how they work.

Most people only market themselves when they are looking for a new job. As a consultant, you are always looking for a new job so it's a full-time function. For the business I'm trying to attract that means increasing my public profile so that people know who I am and what I do. I had great support from a good friend with a marketing background who helped me hone down the following:

• What I do (strategic online consulting)
• Who I do it for (online publishers and tech start-ups)
• What my unique selling point is (my experience)

From this I created a plan to approach marketing in a systematic way. I established a blog on ZDNet.co.uk, sister site to silicon.com, where I talk about technical issues. I also have a blog on my own website which addresses the online publishing and technology arenas. And this column is another example of marketing myself.

In addition, I keep up-to-date profiles on my blog site, LinkedIn and other social networking sites.

And so to sales. It's taken me a few weeks and some pain to get myself to a point where I have a system that allows me to track potential leads and the stage I'm at with each client. Again, once you have the system in place, it's easy enough to run with the process but I learned pretty quickly, it's 10 times more time consuming if you don't invest in setting it up properly.

Overall, after four weeks, how does it feel? Scary? Liberating? Tedious? Exciting? All that and more. Every day I achieve something or learn something new and the great thing is that it's all for me. I've got my first clients on board and I'm ready to actually do some consulting. More about that too in future articles, right now I'm off to work.

Mike Barrett was until recently COO for CNET Networks UK, the publisher of silicon.com and other online publications. He now consults on strategy and development for the online publishing industry and assists tech start-ups in building products for the web 2.0 world. You can read his blog at www.compoundmedia.co.uk.