You need two things 1) an accountant and 2) customers. Lots of people get thrust into consulting because they are given a customer.
Technical skill is required but not sufficient. Even average is ok. What matters is all the stuff around the technology. Most of it being diligence, follow through, following up and being predictable and consistent. You have those and you can write your ticket.
I would add to this the following points:
- being 5 minutes ahead of your customer in terms of what is hot and useful (or: the second part is super important)
- constantly ensure that your deliver value to your client ( if they negotiate you on price, bring it back to the value your deliver )
- good communication skills (the capacity to explain your thoughts in plain , concise language)
- good situational awareness (understand your clients problems and solve for that (not the tech that you want to test)
- get your ego out of the way, if your client or someone on their team doesn't accept your solution, raise ) argument once or twice, then stop. Your client understands his/her context better than you. If your solution is not retained, it is not a reflection of how good you are.
- steernaway from internal politics.
- build good personal relationships with people (your client, their employees, other providers / consultants) this will help you build your network and get more work.
Hope that helps.
Personally I had great projects and others were lawyers were involved.
But all in all, switching projects every other month, meeting new people , playing with different architectures ... It keeps me sharp and super happy.
Your comment reminds me of something else you touched on, make everyone around you look good to great all the time. Never call anyone out and give tactical advice to all levels. If someone is really into Redis, tell them about some new cool extension module. If someone likes Kafka, show them some new commit that does a cool thing. Go out and seek these things in technologies the customer uses. They think ur on the ball, and they are given something that they can pass on and look even better.
Technical skill is required but not sufficient. Even average is ok. What matters is all the stuff around the technology. Most of it being diligence, follow through, following up and being predictable and consistent. You have those and you can write your ticket.