Feras Alhlou walks through how to prepare before starting a consulting business: develop your strengths and soft skills, learn sector-specific AI tools through free accounts and demos, do pro bono work for nonprofits to build a portfolio, and establish real expertise in one area.
Develop a skill, especially if you're on the younger age bracket. See what you're good at. Whatever your teachers, your parents, your friends praise you for. You might be a very good listener. You might be someone who people come to when they have issues. These are important soft skills, right? But also, if you love— if you're in AI and you're very process-oriented, maybe you can start learning some of these AI tools in a specific sector. Get a free demo and get a free account and play with it. And then do a couple of projects for some nonprofits, and then you have something now under your belt that you can go out and sell with. So ideally, before you start a consulting business, you have an area of expertise.
