Consulting for the Consultant: When to walk
I've always been really excited about technology. Combining new technologies with the people it can help has been a personal passion of mine since helping my grandparents figure out the first computer they ever saw when I was tiny.
I grew up to do the same through IT and eventually Tech Writing. So when the new emerging AI market started being viable enough to help small businesses I was eager for what it could do for the small businesses around me. Bringing people who already do great work more business than they had seen, or funding new tailored diluting to long term problems to ease the burden were actual fun puzzles for me to solve and making money to live from it felt even better! Lately though I'm not so sure about it.
The market for this feels like it's going in a direction I really don't like. "AI should enhance your people not replace them" is the motto I always went by. "AI isn't smarter than you, it's just faster" is what I'd reassure those scared of being left behind. I tried to do things with an ethical and honest effort that I felt was appreciated and customized every solution so that it worked for detailed needs. I was proud to market that, but with the way the marketing is now I'm not sure I can keep up. I'm even less sure that I want to.
I don't like the way people seem to try to trick others, especially small businesses owners into slapped together solutions that break under the first hint of scale. Or deliver incomplete things in a pretty but cookie cutter fashion.
I'm sure I'm just naive, that it's the nature of things to go this way. It's just for a time I was happy to make a living helping people l grow and learn themselves so that at the next challenge they were ready and knew they didn't have to panic. I'm still proud to see my fingerprint on sites I designed before and even moreso on the ones I helped people design with custom tools even more quickly using the technology we have at our fingertips today, but when I look around at my peers in the space and the quality they produce, I'm not quite sure how I can reasonably maintain and I'm wondering about going back to what I was doing before.
I can't keep up with the cold calls. Even if I did, I'm no salesman. If something isn't helpful I'm not going to hound someone, just offer the opportunity to see that nobody needs to get swept away by what we've gained and there's never been a better time to chip away at the gap in industry between large corporations and small businesses started with passion and grit. Just feels like maybe, somewhere along the line, I got swept away by the very same industrialized version of things by holding onto it. I couldn't blame anyone but me in that.
Anyways, just a rant from a small business owner who's probably just not enjoying the scenery when I look around. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my ramblings. If anyone has any tips on staying encouraged during times like this I'd appreciate it. I'd rather hang it all up than become the type of person I'm not proud to be. So the hardest question I have to ask is: Is it just time to walk away?