Your First 90 Days as a Consultant Solicitor

Most new consultants spend their first 90 days in one of two unhelpful modes. Either they panic-build everything at once (website, brand, CRM, accounting software, content calendar, LinkedIn strategy) and burn out in week six. Or they coast, assume the work will appear, and discover in month three that it hasn't. The trick is sequencing. Some things must be done in week one. Most things can wait. A few things should never be done at all.

Days 1–14: Foundations only

Two weeks. Three things. First, get your platform firm paperwork done — engagement, PII, AML, anti-money laundering training, the lot. This is the boring administrative tax of consultancy and you cannot bill until it's clean. Second, get a usable website live. Not perfect, not redesigned three times — usable. A clear positioning line, a credible photo, your practice areas, your contact details, your platform firm and SRA footer. If you spend more than a week on this, you are procrastinating on the next step. Third, tell people. A simple email or LinkedIn post to your professional network announcing the move, what you do, and how to instruct you.

Things you do not need in the first two weeks: a logo redesign, a CRM, a podcast, a YouTube channel, a TikTok account, a business coach, or a strategy day. None of those will earn you money in the next 90 days.

Days 15–30: Convert what's already in motion

Week three and four are about harvest, not planting. Most consultants underestimate how much pent-up enquiry sits in their existing network: clients who would have instructed them at the old firm but didn't know they'd moved, former colleagues with overspill work, referrers who have been waiting for an excuse. Make a list. Phone or email each one personally — not a mass send. The first month's billings almost always come from this list, not from marketing. If you skip it because it feels uncomfortable, month three will hurt.

Days 31–60: Build the engine

Now and only now do you start the systems work. Set up a simple, lightweight CRM (a spreadsheet is fine for most consultants in the first year). Decide on your accounting stack — FreeAgent, Xero or QuickBooks; all fine. Register for VAT if you're going to cross the threshold (most commercial consultants do; many private client and family consultants don't). Open a separate business bank account if you haven't already. Pick one marketing channel — one — and commit to it for 90 days before evaluating. The temptation to do all of LinkedIn, blogging, SEO, podcasting and networking simultaneously is exactly how consultants burn out without results.

Days 61–90: Avoid the month-three slump

Almost every consultant hits a wall around day 75. The handover work has dried up, the announcement post is old news, the marketing channel hasn't produced leads yet, and the brain starts whispering “maybe this was a mistake.” It wasn't. The slump is a phase, not a verdict. Three things help: keep talking to your existing network (yes, again), publish or say something visible every week, and book one meaningful in-person meeting per week with a referrer, peer or prospective client. Visibility plus momentum will carry you through to month four, where the second wave of work tends to arrive.

What to track, what to ignore

Track three numbers and three only in the first 90 days: enquiries received, enquiries converted, billings raised. Do not track website visitors, LinkedIn impressions, follower counts or any other vanity metric. They are noise. The only question that matters is whether the pipe is filling and converting. Everything else is theatre.

The most common mistakes

In rough order of frequency: spending too long on the website, refusing to chase old contacts because it feels needy, undercharging out of insecurity, taking on work outside your specialism because the money looks good, not having a written process for new enquiries, and assuming the platform firm will market you. Avoid those six and you are already in the top quartile of new consultants.

The big shift

Around day 75 to 90, most consultants notice a shift in how they think. They stop thinking like an employee waiting for work to be allocated and start thinking like an owner deciding what work to take. That mental shift is when consultancy starts to feel like the right decision rather than a leap of faith. The first 90 days are the price of admission. If you survive them with your sanity, your bank balance and your client list intact, the rest gets a lot easier.