Consultants abound!

I’ve spent a good deal of time recently beefing up my LinkedIn network and profile. I’ve added a number of new contacts and signed up to participate in several additional groups. In the process, I’ve noticed the burgeoning number of consultants who focus on internal communication. 

When I started Eloquor back in 2001, those of us who strictly focused in the internal communication space were few and far between. It was a really small niche. There were those in advertising and PR who said they also did employee communication, but I’ve always believed internal communication to be a rather unique discipline. Clients confirm this in the stories they tell about working with those PR and ad agencies who claim they know how to do internal communication.

I’m fascinated by the apparent increase in practitioners. Is it because these folks lost their corporate jobs and are filling the time between corporate roles? Is it that tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have simply made all these independent consultants more visible? Is it that internal communication is indeed a higher corporate priority – opportunity begets more opportunity?

So, the really important question is: Will there continue to be enough work to go around? Or, will we see an imminent decrease in the numbers of independent internal communication consultants in the near-term? Obviously, for those of us who have been around a while in this discipline, we have to keep up, we have to compete, we must deliver value and competitive pricing.

As is so often the case in consulting, these axioms apply:

• If you deliver great value, they will return
• Work begets more work
• Ambiguity is the norm
• Courage stands out in a crowd