5 things you shouldn't do if you're starting out in consulting

1. Kid yourself you want to be a consultant, when all you really want is a job...

2. Spend lots of cash on pretending you are an "established company"

3. Fail to plan in the time - and effort - to sell your services

4. Get really busy doing the sexy stuff on your current contracts - without taking the time to secure the next ones

5. Assume that just because you are great at what you do then people will buy your services

Here's a link to a good article from Karen E Klein in Bloomberg Businessweek:

 Why self-employed consultants fail