The Delicate Dance of a Comms Career

If you're still clinging to a full-time communications role in 2025, you're not playing it safe — you're gambling with your future.

When I first started my comms consulting business three years ago, I was in the mindset of: ‘I’m going to give this a go.’ What I can clearly see now, is that starting your own business is a necessity to save your career. While full-time employees grapple with the fear of redundancy in the age of AI, comms consultants are gaining a superpower.

Here's what the doomsayers missed about AI: it will create an army of new founders who desperately need comms people. But only if we know how to show them that they need us.

AI tools are democratizing entrepreneurship. Every day, someone with a laptop and a dream is launching a startup powered by ChatGPT and Midjourney. But here's the catch: in a world drowning in AI-generated content that sounds exactly the same, these founders aren't just fighting for customers — they're fighting for narrative.

They don't need more words. They need meaning.

They don't need content. They need connection.

They don't need information. They need inspiration.

And they can't get that from a prompt.

BUT, the truth is, if we can’t figure out a way to collectively explain what we do to help founders, the communications industry is in trouble – because communications professionals are spectacularly bad at communicating what we do.

Think about it. Our stakeholders don't know what we do. Cross-functional leaders don't know what we do. Our CEOs don't know what we do. Hell, our own mothers don't know what we do. And the most embarrassing part?

We can't even collectively explain our value to each other. This isn't just an identity crisis — it's a career death sentence. Because in a world where budgets are tight and productivity demands are sky-high, if you can't articulate why someone needs you, they'll assume they don't.

Full-time communications professionals are becoming glorified task completers. You show up, you execute the brief, you attend the meetings, you check the boxes. You're a cog in someone else's machine.

But founders don't think in org charts and process flows. They think in problems. Urgent, expensive, make-or-break problems that need solving yesterday.

Consultants are ruthless problem solvers. We don't just execute — we diagnose, strategize, and deliver solutions that work repeatedly. We don't just complete tasks; we create systems. We don't just follow briefs; we write them.

And while full-time employees will continue to get made redundant by AI, most of the AI-powered founders who need fresh storytelling can't afford the top-tier full-time communications talent they need.

But they can afford us. And they need us more than ever.

This is where most consultants get it wrong: if you don't have a system or a product, you're not really a consultant — you're just a glorified employee.

You can’t just call yourself a consultant and wait for referrals. What we’re seeing across most of the consultants (experienced and new) is that they don’t know who their target client is – think: I can help anyone in any size of company!! They don’t know what their product is – think: I can do all aspects of comms!!

Believe me – out of anyone out there, I get it. I went through this same process when I first started out. As experienced comms people, we can all do all areas of comms and those skills can be applied across all industries. But where the opportunity lies right now – your most likely type of client (founders) – is with specific problems. They don’t need all things comms (or at least don’t know they do). All they know is that they have a problem that needs solving.

You have to show them that you can fix it.

The consultants who will thrive aren't the ones who take on every project that comes their way. They're the ones who productize their expertise. They create repeatable frameworks. They build systems that solve problems faster and better each time. They know the most common problems that founders run into and turn providing solutions for the problems into a machine.

Because founders don't want to hire you to learn on their dime. They want to hire you because you've solved their exact problem before, and you can solve it again, better and faster.

We're at an inflection point. The demand for human-centered communications is exploding just as AI is commoditizing everything else. The founders who will build the next generation of companies are looking for their communications partners right now.

The consultants who establish themselves in the next 12-24 months won't just capture market share — they'll define the market. They'll set the standards, command the premiums, and build the networks that will sustain them for decades.

The late adopters won't just miss the boat — they'll watch it sail away while they're still updating their LinkedIn profiles.

Your employer isn't protecting you from AI disruption — they're just giving you a front-row seat to watch it happen. Every day you stay in a traditional role is another day you're letting someone else control your narrative, your growth, and your future.

The founders of tomorrow need communications partners who can move fast, think strategically, and deliver human connection in an AI world. They need consultants who understand that experience is the product, narrative is persuasion, and humans will always outperform artificial intelligence when it comes to building trust.

The question isn't whether you'll eventually become a consultant. The question is whether you'll be early enough to matter.

Because in a world where everyone sounds the same, being irreplaceable isn't just an advantage — it's survival.

For those looking to navigate through their consulting journey with other business owners, we’re opening our Comms People doors on Monday, September 8.