4 min read · Written by Grant Rayner on 22 Feb 2023
Share by emailIn the last article, I shared a number of reasons why you should consider the life of an independent security professional. I also shared my own motivations for setting out alone.
However, it’s not all beer and skittles, as they say. I’d also suggest that not everyone has the personality and temperament to work independently. That’s perfectly fine. The industry benefits from a mix of different people and career profiles.
In this article, I’ll share seven reasons why becoming an independent security professional may not be for you. As you read through these reasons, there’s value in being honest with yourself as you evaluate your own motivations.
If you want your services to be considered by potential clients, you’ll need to have experience. In fact, you’ll need more experience than the consultants your larger competitors will be proposing for any project where you’re competing. This experience is your competitive advantage.
Your experience needs to be tangible, and must consider the number and types of projects, the number and types of clients, and the locations where you’ve delivered those projects. I’ll share more details on the approach of consciously and deliberately building your experience in a later article.
If you’re going to be working for yourself, you’ll need to wake up each day and be clear on what you need to do that day. No one is going to tell you what to do or help you prioritise your time. If you’re the type of person that needs direction, you may find that working for yourself is aimless and non productive. You’ll need high levels of motivation, perseverance and self-discipline to be successful.
As an independent security professional, it will be rare that you’ll receive any validation for your work. You won’t have a manager who’ll pat you on the back and tell you you’re doing a great job. You’ll deliver the service, your client will pay your invoice, and then you’ll move to the next project. Of course, you will get some degree of appreciation from your clients. But it’s not the same as you might be used to from a manager.
If you’re used to managing others and not delivering projects yourself, you’re going to struggle with the shift to a situation where you’re literally doing all the work. Not only that, you’ll be doing all the associated administration that goes on behind the work. For this reason, senior security managers accustomed to leading large teams may struggle with life as an independent security professional.
Most corporate workplaces are relatively structured. In comparison, you’ll probably find that your daily routine as an independent security professional will be very unstructured. The effects will be amplified if you’re working from home. That said, it’s your business, so you have full control over your schedule. You will have the power to make your day as structured or unstructured as you like. If you want to go to the gym at 11 a.m. each day, you can do that. If you only want to handle client calls in the afternoon, you can do that too. But the key point here is that there won’t be anyone else defining that structure for you.
Running your own business can be a lonely affair at times. From time to time, you may work on projects with other people from a client organisation. You may even bring in sub-contractors for specific projects. But mostly you’ll be working alone. You won’t be able to bounce ideas off co-workers or team members. You’ll be editing your own reports. You’ll be your own counsel.
Working alone may be harder than you think. You can compensate for this feeling of isolation by establishing a good professional network and by having one or more mentors. Even still, the feeling of starting a new project or arriving in an unfamiliar location knowing that the only person you can depend on is you is pretty sobering.
As an independent security professional, you’ll need to sell your services and products. If not, you won’t survive. It’s that simple.
Many security professionals enjoy doing the work, but don’t always feel comfortable selling. Selling isn’t an optional activity, so you’ll need to get past that feeling. I’ll be getting into sales in significant detail in later articles.
Looking through the list of factors above, I’d say your success will boil down to a few key factors. The first is having the necessary knowledge and experience to be credible and that can be leveraged to create valuable products and services. The second is your ability to execute. Execution requires continual motivation, perseverance and self-discipline. Sales is an integral part of execution.
In addition to the list above, there’s a few other factors to consider.
As an independent security professional, it’s unlikely you’ll be building a business empire in the traditional sense. You won’t have a large team reporting to you (which you’ll then need to manage). You won’t have an office (or a series of offices around the world).
However, don’t mistake the fact that you won’t be building a business empire for thinking you won’t be doing anything meaningful. You can still make your mark by building a unique and valuable set of products and services. I’ve done more meaningful things as an independent security professional than I did working for other companies. One key advantage will be your ability to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities.
As I’ll explain in future articles, there’s value in staying small.
Another factor to consider is that you probably won’t build a business that has commercial value and can be sold. The business will be reliant on you—your personality, your expertise, and your relationships with your clients. It will be hard—if not impossible—for someone to come in and take your place. The exception may be if you’re building an application or an information service. Otherwise, when you stop, your business stops. There’s no residual value.
As an independent security professional, you’ll have limited access to larger projects. That may be fine with you (it’s certainly fine with me), but it’s something to be aware of as you consider your options. I’ll get into some of the trade-offs relating to project size in later articles.
In summary, there are a number of factors you’ll need to carefully consider before you make the decision to drop everything and start a business as an independent security professional. As I said at the beginning, it’s certainly not for everyone. The factors listed above should provide a reality check.
In the next article, I’ll get into one of the questions many independent security professionals face as they set out alone: should you try to appear like a big company to gain credibility?