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Original poster

Is personal experience enough to start being an advisor

38 replies

southOfthegarden · 10/04/2022 11:07

Or do you need a relevant formal qualification in the same area?

I am trying to think of ways I could became self employed and wasn’t sure of this was a possibility? Or if you always have to have formal qualifications

OP posts:
latriciamcneal · 10/04/2022 11:39

Like a consultant? Yes, the key is to build up your brand. Get recognition of your expertise, write some articles, do some free consulting and get recommendations. Go on youtube and type things like 'how to become a consultant' and you'll find lots of tips.

WowIlikereallyhateyou · 10/04/2022 11:40

Surely it rather depends on what you are advising on?

Greatoutdoors · 10/04/2022 11:40

What kind of an advisor?

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Jobs
Yiibe · 10/04/2022 11:41

What kind of advisor?

PaulaTrilloe · 10/04/2022 11:43

What type of lived experience do you have?

MadMadMadamMim · 10/04/2022 11:47

I'd imagine you would be very limited on what you could advise on and also you need to remember that every single experience is different. Your experience of an event doesn't mean you can offer advice to everyone on it, surely?

Whynotnowbaby · 10/04/2022 11:48

It’s going to depend on your field. If you want to advise on education because you once went to school it is clearly not enough, you need formal teaching qualifications and further experience to make you a credible advisor. If you are talking about a different area that doesn’t always involve professional qualifications - perhaps style and beauty, then why not, if you can convince people you know what you’re talking about.

Bare in mind that if you give advice and people act on it in good face and are then harmed, you could be sued. Being a member of a professional body gives some protection from this.

BarbaraofSeville · 10/04/2022 12:31

An advisor of what?

While there might be many subjects where life experience is sufficient to advise people, there are many more where legally you are required to have certifications, professional registration and appropriate insurance to practice. You can't offer the service without these and your advice may not be valid to the service users if you are not qualified.

For example, I have qualifications in a specialist H&S field and businesses that work with the hazard that I advise on are legally required to consult someone with my qualifications.

The other issue would be whether there are people/businesses willing to pay someone for this 'advice'. Because without that, you don't have an income, even if you can find people who would be willing to take advice from you.

Brownlongearedbat · 10/04/2022 12:53

I would imagine being qualified would allow you certification or membership of a professional body, which would quite possibly come with some personal liability insurance. Whatever self employed sphere you work in, it is important to take out insurance to protect yourself. Have you thought what would happen if your advice was wrong and because of it, a client suffered loss or damage of some sort? I don't know how easy it would be to get insurance for something that sounds rather subjective without having the relevant qualifications to back up your advice.

Sexnotgender · 10/04/2022 12:56

Definitely going to need more information 😂

SonicBroom · 10/04/2022 13:01

How much personal experience do you have compared to most people and how did you get it, is it something they could get themselves easily given that you did it without qualifications?

How would you commercialise it, would you charge by specific task, by time, by outcome?

And as others have said, what protection would you have if people thought your advice was wrong, what might the impact be for them and what would it mean for you?

Magic question - what advice is it??

Fernsinthegarden · 10/04/2022 13:01

I’ve got a lovely image of a medievalesque royal advisor in my mind now 😂

Gowithme · 10/04/2022 13:02

I know someone who is an advisor based on experience. She is excellent at self promotion and is always singing her own praises, having promotional photos taken and talking about the 2 day course she's done (ie not proper qualifications). I certainly wouldn't pay for what she offers - but I guess some people fall for it and do.

Fernsinthegarden · 10/04/2022 13:04

@Gowithme like a life coach? My boss had one of those and the only benefit I could see was that she had someone that validated her choices and gave her ‘empowering’ sound bites.

Candleabra · 10/04/2022 13:06

No I don’t think so.
I’ve had counselling from people with no real qualifications and I’m sure they did their best but they had no insight other than their own experiences.

pookieandgarfield · 10/04/2022 13:09

Impossible to say as we have no idea what kind of advisor you mean!

Original poster
southOfthegarden · 10/04/2022 15:39

Well I had a few different ideas but obviously can see anything to do with education or health would need a relevant qualification and possibly joining a regulatory body so not anything like that !

OP posts:
NightmareSlashDelightful · 10/04/2022 15:45

Not wanting to be unkind, but if you don’t know what you want to advise upon, how do you know that you’re skilled and/or knowledgeable enough to advise on it?!?

minipie · 10/04/2022 15:56

Ask yourself why people would pay for your advice.

Usually the answer is because the advisor has a lot of experience in that area (often a qualification as well).

What do you have lots of experience in?

Original poster
southOfthegarden · 10/04/2022 16:04

@NightmareSlashDelightful

Not wanting to be unkind, but if you don’t know what you want to advise upon, how do you know that you’re skilled and/or knowledgeable enough to advise on it?!?
I do know I have 2 or 3 ideas just unsure which would be best to try. I’m just trying to work out if there’s something I can do so that I can work
OP posts:
BornIn78 · 10/04/2022 16:05

So you want to be an advisor… an advisor of what, you don’t know, but what you do know is that you don’t want to be an advisor of anything that needs a relevant qualification or requires membership of a regulatory body.

Have you considered just joining some MLM scheme? I feel like that’d be your type of thing.

Kezzie200 · 10/04/2022 16:06

If you will.be self employed earning money is difficult. There are very few wealthy idiots out there.

So you will need to be good at what you advise to then create recommendations from which you make your next income, and so on and so forth.

Otherwise you will have a large overhead on marketing or advertising to create leads and that eats into any income.

Original poster
southOfthegarden · 10/04/2022 16:09

@BornIn78

So you want to be an advisor… an advisor of what, you don’t know, but what you do know is that you don’t want to be an advisor of anything that needs a relevant qualification or requires membership of a regulatory body.

Have you considered just joining some MLM scheme? I feel like that’d be your type of thing.

No not MLM I wouldn’t do anything like that at all

I’m just trying to think of possible jobs and I have years of personal experience with a couple of things that I wondered if I could turn from a negative to a positive if that makes sense? It’s quite personal and outing so while I’m at the brainstorming stage I don’t want to go into details I was just wondering what the rules were around it

OP posts:
Original poster
southOfthegarden · 10/04/2022 16:10

And the reason why I’d not do anything that needs a qualification is that I don’t have any so I don’t want to spend years studying at my age when id rather find something I could do to earn money rather than get into debt with course fees

OP posts:
Silverclocks · 10/04/2022 16:10

@southOfthegarden

Well I had a few different ideas but obviously can see anything to do with education or health would need a relevant qualification and possibly joining a regulatory body so not anything like that !
Would you pay for the advice you can give?