E. 333: Wes Wheless on Turning Corporate Expertise Into an Independent Consulting Business

After more than 20 years in corporate roles and two consecutive tech layoffs, Wes Wheless found himself asking a question a lot of new independent consultants face: Without the company name and job title, who am I, what do I do, and where do I fit?

Then someone in his network approached him with a problem that matched his experience. Suddenly, Wes wasn’t an employee whose expertise was getting lost among meetings, reviews, and corporate politics. He was the expert in the room.

In this conversation, Wes shares the idea behind his new book, The Expert’s Privilege, and explains how to identify the expertise you’ve accumulated throughout your career, find the work that genuinely lights you up, and validate where that expertise is valuable in the market.

We also talk about why consultants need to make their invisible expertise easier to understand. Wes explains how “intellectual headshots” and simple visual frameworks can help prospects immediately recognize their problem, understand your point of view, and trust that you can help.

Wes is an independent consultant and author who helps experts find their lane, turn their knowledge into intellectual property, and visually communicate what makes their expertise valuable. He holds business degrees from the Wharton School and Kellogg School of Management and is also the founder of Seattle Solos, an in-person community for independent consultants and coaches.

Wes’s perspective matters because leaving corporate is about more than replacing your salary. It is an opportunity to decide how you want to deploy your expertise, what kind of life you want your business to support, and what freedom actually looks like for you.

Find this episode for free on your favorite podcast player.

Tune into this episode to hear:

How two tech layoffs pushed Wes to reconsider his 20-year corporate career
Why your expertise may be inefficiently deployed inside a corporate role
How to identify the work that lights you up before worrying about monetizing it
Why your warm network can help validate where the market sees your expertise
How intellectual headshots make invisible expertise easier for prospects to understand
Why your buyer’s personal pain point is often more powerful than the company’s problem
The difference between replacing your corporate salary and designing a business around the life you want