Hey guys,
Wanted to chime in that I am loving this thread! I'm currently a salaried employee in a consulting company, fully planning on working independently as a consultant in the next few years. Reading through these posts gave me a fresh list of books to read, that will certainly be valuable as I prepare to make the transition.
Here's my 2c on the original questions:
Useful training
Graduate school in energy efficient building design, and several years in the field are what's giving me the chance to consider this path. I started working to bring in my own projects about a year ago, and discovered that people were excited to work with me based on reputation alone. This is a long winded way of saying that if you want to work as a knowledge expert, get whatever training you need to be a knowledge expert.
Emotional intelligence, team building, leadership subjects.
-As far as I can tell, consulting is 25% about what you can do, and 75% about whether or not people like working with you. I found Emotional Intelligence 2.0 useful for that, though it can basically be summarized with the lines "Don't be a jerk, and be aware enough to see when you're accidentally being a jerk."
-A lot of my consulting work is done in collaboration with other researchers. In those situations, I'm the proposal writer which makes me the de facto leader of the projects. Understanding how to keep people happy and engaged, and how to manage projects effectively makes my life a lot easier. For that, I really enjoyed reading Harvard Business Review's 10 Must Reads for New Managers. It's a serious of 10 articles meant to help out specialists making the transition to management, and covers a lot of topics around the more inter-personal side of work life.
First Clients
Answering this one is a bit weird since I'm still an employee rather than being out on my own, but so far my clients have all come from previous work relationships. My main client is an organization that has done work with my company previously. I showed up, we formed a good relationship, now I pitch projects to them when I have an idea and they approach me when they have questions they need answered. Other clients came from attending conferences. I listen to presentations, hear what people have done and the challenges/limitations remaining in their work, and approach them if I think I can offer a solution. Since I've been in the residential hot water energy efficiency industry for a few years now, it's never weird. I can approach them as a known face & name with a reputation for collaborating, rather than being some weird person coming up and seeking money.
First Partners
In a similar vein, it's valuable to think about how we found our first collaborators! Things are often much harder independently, after all.
I found my main partner similarly to my first client; I started at this job, and was assigned a project studying a new energy efficiency technology (Drain water heat recovery for the nerds in the thread). I was in charge of test plan development, data analysis, and algorithm development. I was collaborating with somebody else who was in charge of laboratory testing. Turns out, that we got along splendidly and now collaborate on as many projects as we can.
Big ah-ha moment
I'd mention three:
1. When I realized that the independent consultant work flow is more flexible, which fits my need for variety in life (Sitting at the same desk, surrounded by the same people, for the same 40 hr each week is torture for me).
2. When I brought in over twice my salary in consulting projects, convincing me that I absolutely, 100% can do it when I decide to take the leap.
3. Several years ago, when I read Tim Ferris's The Four Hour Work Week. I have a lot of qualms about some of the specific things he did in that book, the the concept of working faster, smarter, and harder to get your work done in fewer hours really hit home for me. This was when I knew I had to go independent some day; in that case, finishing your work faster is rewarded with more time to pursue your interests, and isn't that what FIRE is all about?