The In-House to Independent Consultant Blueprint with Mili Kanoujiya

You know how to run a DPIA, answer a 200-question vendor review and explain AI risk to a board.

What's harder is answering a founder who asks, "So what exactly would you do for us, and what does it cost?"

This ebook is for experienced privacy and AI governance professionals who want to work independently but aren't sure how to package, price and sell what they know.

Who it's for

• In-house privacy managers, DPOs and data protection specialists
• AI governance and responsible AI leads
• Professionals still employed who want to test consulting safely first
• Recent leavers who have started consulting but are struggling with positioning and finding clients

The gap this book addresses

Inside a company, work comes to you. Your salary means someone has already decided to pay for your expertise.

As an independent consultant, nobody has made that decision yet. A buyer has to notice the problem, connect it to you, trust you, find the budget and choose you over doing nothing. Your expertise helps with only one of those steps.

The person who approves the spend is often not a privacy specialist. They don't buy DPIAs. They want a stalled enterprise deal to move again, a clear answer for the board on AI risk, or cover for a privacy lead who has just resigned. This book shows you how to describe your work in those terms.

What you'll work through

• Finding your most marketable expertise: the problems you've solved repeatedly, described as business outcomes
• Choosing a niche using the Buyer–Problem–Trigger Method
• Building and pricing a first offer, including how to work out a floor rate and turn it into a fixed project fee
• Positioning yourself so people can repeat what you do in one sentence
• Rewriting your LinkedIn headline and About section for buyers, not recruiters
• Building a list of 40 potential buyers and referral partners
• Starting conversations without pitching
• Running a structured 30-minute discovery call
• Writing a one-page proposal
• Testing all of it through a 30-day validation sprint

What's included

• 10 chapters in five parts, from choosing your opportunity to converting interest into work (63 pages)
• 12 printable worksheets, ending with a one-page summary of your consulting proposition
• 5 named frameworks, plus the Evidence Ladder for judging real demand
• 12 outreach scripts and further copy-and-adapt templates
• A 30-minute discovery call structure, 18 discovery questions and responses to 8 common objections
• Worked examples: three sample offers, a one-page proposal and an annotated discovery call
• 10 LinkedIn headline rewrites, a 12-point profile audit and 15 content prompts
• Guidance for readers who are still employed, including how to check your contract and how to ask permission for outside work

What you can work towards

One chosen buyer and problem, a defined service, a pricing approach you can explain, a positioning statement, an updated LinkedIn profile, a prospect list, your outreach messages, a discovery call script, a proposal outline and a 30-day plan with a clear decision point.

Why it's different

• Written for your field. The examples cover enterprise privacy reviews, AI governance assessments and fractional privacy support, not generic freelancing.
• It tests before you leap. The book helps you gather evidence, not just encouragement, before you resign or invest heavily.
• Built for people still employed. A clear Go / Check / Stop guide shows what you can usually do now and what needs permission.
• Honest about limits. It doesn't teach privacy law and doesn't promise clients or income. It gives you a method to find out whether your offer works, and what to change if it doesn't.

Not for you if you're new to privacy and want to learn GDPR or the EU AI Act, or you need help with company set-up, tax or contracts. The book directs you to qualified advisers for those.

About the author

Mili Kanoujiya is a Certified DPO with a legal and privacy background and hands-on experience advising startups on GDPR compliance. Over the past year she has worked with 30+ privacy professionals, lawyers, HR and finance professionals and coaches on positioning and visibility.

Get the Blueprint

Read it over a weekend, then apply it for 30 days at about 45 minutes a day. If you've been meaning to work out whether your expertise could become a consulting offer, this gives you a structured way to find out.