Futureproofing Your Career in the Age of AI with Sarah Jones

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Yeah, welcome back to another edition of the MCA 65 podcast.

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Today's guest brings a unique perspective to one of the biggest challenge

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facing your industry right now.

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How we build a successful career when AI is transforming everybody around everything around us.

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Sarah Jones has spent more than 20 years in recruitment and career coaching,

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helping technology professional navigate the market shift,

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redundancy, career change, leadership, transition and the move into freelancing.

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She is particularly active in the Microsoft ecosystem, power platform,

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Dynamics 65 and AI communists.

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And she is passionate about helping people future-proofed their careers.

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Sarah also is a female focus podcast dedicated to amplify the voice of woman and tech

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and exploring career growth in the rapid changing industry.

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Today we will explore AI layout skills, freelancing, personal branding,

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Microsoft careers and what a professional need to do right now to stay relevant over the next decade.

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Sarah, welcome to the show.

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Hi, thank you for having me.

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Yeah, you have so much more.

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I hope I picked the most relevant topics, but yeah.

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I hope you can give up to that.

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Yeah, can you tell us about your background and how you end up specialising

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a technology recruitment in career coaching?

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Yeah, sure.

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So I fell into recruitment, which is something you'll hear a lot of recruiters say.

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Accidentally, about a stop counting at 20 years, because it just made me feel old.

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So I started out because my sister worked in recruitment in Chester in England.

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And there was a job there and I'd previously worked in sales.

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That I was working in at Minroll and I was a bit bored.

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So yeah, I went and just worked on this industrial desk.

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So it was factories, warehouses, drivers.

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Really good for, really enjoyed it.

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It's not particularly family friendly.

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It required our vows weekend, even in early mornings.

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So I decided to move.

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Actually, again, to my sister who moved to Australia at this point, I went to her wedding.

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And she worked in IT recruitment in Sydney and all these people that were there

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worked in IT recruitment and they said, get into tech.

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You want to get into tech.

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So came back and I found a good, what looked like a good local technology recruitment

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agency close to me and was terrified to speak to developers.

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This is all like.net and most of the digital transformation with, we would call them

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end users, I suppose.

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And I was like, I can't speak to a developer, they're going to know then that they'll

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know I don't know what I'm talking about.

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But anyway, seven years down the line, working at that company, I was quite confident

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with that.

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But Jorin lockdown was when I found the Microsoft community.

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So we already worked with a couple of Microsoft partners, but didn't know there was this thing

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out there.

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I was recruiting for a dynamics developers and architects.

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And it was also always quite tricky one to understand the detail of the tech for me.

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It didn't seem a straightforward as the pro code stuff.

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Because of the client face inside of that role.

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And Jorin lockdown, nobody was recruiting or looking for a job really unless they've been

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unfortunately enough to be between jobs at that time.

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So I just started doing these round table events around RPA technologies because I was

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working with through prison, knew a bit about RPA.

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So we had about six people on this call talking about that journey of implementing automation

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and then somehow found power automate and then somewhere out of no way, road of MVP starting

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popping up and coming in and speaking and then it continues now on some different brand.

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But yeah, that's it.

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I think that's where I got into the community space and specialised as a recruiter.

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It was on a found that community felt very at home, very comfortable with people in it.

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And yeah, so I kind of went further down that focus on tech.

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More recently, yes, going to career coaching.

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It's very much the same as what I would do as a recruiter, but totally independent, totally

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unbiased.

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I'm not being paid by a company to try and influence people into their company.

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I'm giving people my opinion, my advice on how to secure their next role.

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And I'm doing that on freelance basis as well.

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Yeah, this is awesome.

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This career shift, but let's talk a little bit about recruiters.

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What do you think is the biggest misconception, especially tech people have about recruiters?

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I don't think people understand how recruiters get paid.

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And so I think that they can be treated as a bit of a sort of free service sometimes.

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And this might upset some people because you will have a trusted recruiter that will make

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time for you and have a conversation throughout your career when you need it, review your CV

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for you or go over LinkedIn or make some friendly introductions.

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But recruiters, especially self-employed recruiters, don't get paid for about 90% of their

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time.

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It's all worked at risk, but they might get paid by the company that's asking them to find

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the people that they want.

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That company can change their minds through the process.

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They can pull vacancies, so all the while you work really hard to try and fulfill that requirement

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you've been given.

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So there's that.

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Even if you work in a recruitment agency, you're under strict high targets.

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Usually there's some greedy business owner that's wanting to know where their next check

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is coming from.

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And then if you've got people in the job market that are asking just for a check, you're

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free to catch up, that's really costing you the opportunity to fill the work that you've

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got that might pay you.

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And I've seen so much recently on LinkedIn of people that are open to work, they've got

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green banner on and they're frustrated.

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I totally understand that they're finding the job market tough, but the blame is going, so

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the recruiters who, I don't know how they're responsible for this, they haven't got time

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to just pick up and have a chat with anybody, you know, just to be nice.

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And the good ones will make a certain allowance for that every week.

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There will be an allocation of time that they will make to just do that and help people

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out and pay back.

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Yeah, that's something I'm noticing more and more.

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And it's another reason why I do some of the things that I do is to go here, some access

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to us, it's not expensive, but you can actually get access to that knowledge and information

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if you want to.

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And what's more to waste your most when you're helping someone, yeah, I think, transform

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their career?

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I think that there are different things that there's always a success story with the

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candidate or now I would refer to a client.

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If they've managed to turn around the whole kind of job search process and I have done it recently

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with someone I've known for years, he came to me, we did some work on this seed base because

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I knew this guy as well, I knew he was really good at it, and it wasn't articulated on the

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seed he was originally did.

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His interviews were increased and he ended up getting a job.

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So that was great because he was getting quite down about it and again, that kind of thing

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that I've just mentioned that we're seeing people just feel frustrated and like the job

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market is totally against them, we made some changes and that really turned out well for him.

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The other thing that the freelancing network that we've got as well in that, out of nowhere,

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somebody will just drop in a comment that they've done something successful and then we'll

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get a whole conversation with everybody chipping in saying how they've had some wins this

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week, this month and again, seeing something that you believe in working out successfully

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and it's really nice.

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So get a kick out of that too.

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Yeah, I think actually, especially everywhere on this topic, especially when people think

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about their career, we're talking about AI.

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How different is this disruption compared to previous technology based?

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So do you mean a job search?

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Yeah, especially when people, I think a lot of people say, I think there is one thing

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all say, you are ex-ypsilums that lose their job when they don't use AI and so on.

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It's a little bit, yeah, how did you think is this a job market and career building change

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in, yeah, through other technological waves we have?

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I think the next six to 12 months is going to be very telling about that.

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I don't think anyone could give a straight answer.

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We do see the big companies making mass layoffs because there's a spreadsheet at the top

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somewhere saying, we've got AI about, get rid of people and a lot of those companies

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have a re-higher, whether it's hiring the same skill setting again or not is another story,

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but I do think that the ones that are joined into making those big cuts are making a mistake.

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I also think that people, with their head in the sand, not thinking that AI is going to

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change things, they're going to have a bit of a shock at some point.

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I think we need to try and stay ahead of the game.

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Everybody is talking about it.

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There's podcasts, there's access to things online, even on Instagram now, getting offered

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like, Claude memberships and training memberships and things like that.

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So there are lots of resources out there that are not all expensive to get someone training

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and some support on keeping your AI skills up to date.

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I'm involved in a user group in Manchester, centered around AI.

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We have a lot of students that will come to those events too and you see the same kind of

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deflate as they think, how are we supposed to get AI skills if we can't get a job?

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There's loads of ways you can practice using AI in your own time, automating things at

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home, just playing around with it, I think will help you to become more kind of native and

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familiar and adopt it in a work setting and hopefully future proof at yourself against,

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you know, there might be, you might have the same skills with somebody else next to you.

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They've got good AI and tuition then they might have a better chance.

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Having said that, this is kind of a flip-flop because I do think people's skills are more important

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than ever.

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I think you're going to have to be able to articulate your value in your role more and

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clients still want a human in the loop and they won't reassure them that they can trust

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the AI so they're going to need that human that they trust to confirm that we're doing

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everything properly so communication skills are important, AI isn't taking that away.

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So as a skills, there are becoming more important through the age of AI.

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You say communication, are there a lot of skills?

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Are there other skills?

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What do you mean, sorry?

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Yeah, if people, what are the skills companies searching for that's changed through, I

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think, the communication, there are new skills or is there a shift in the skills people

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need to be, yeah, interesting for getting hired as freelancers are already in the company.

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So I think that there's two answers, there's the permanent job market.

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And I remember seeing all of a sudden an AI solution architect job title and I was like,

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okay, what's that? Because actually when you look at the job description, it's a dynamics or something.

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But the, you know, the buzzword is AI, it's in a lot of the job, job titles, job descriptions now.

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But the, really, if you're looking for Microsoft partner, they've still got the same clients they

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have before, they're probably still delivering a huge project. If it's an enterprise client,

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would say government or something like that, not much will have changed, they won't probably

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look in a copilot as well. Everywhere is different, there are more start sub firms and more

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that sort of technology leading in technology and delivering AI projects. But I think really,

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in the main jobs are similar now permanent rise. But you will probably be asked more,

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how are you using copilot, what are you using AI to do as part of your job and how are you

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making sure that you're doing your job properly at the same time? You know, it's, it's

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ChatGPT, right? And all of your documents. And I've certainly checking it. And does it sound

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like ChatGPT is written? How good are you at prompting? But that kind of thing is something that will

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keep evolving. FreeLands, I think is very different. I think that the tools that you can use now to

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automate your work, you know, I live with the power pages, freeLands, you know, and he's kind of

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in-clawed, honestly, inseparable, right? Because there's all these rabbit holes to go down, you know,

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what can I do? What skills can I build? Consume build in skills that make the work more scalable.

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And that's been really interesting. So a person makes me the huge shift in how a freeLancer would use

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AI because there's nobody kind of, you don't need to be online, nine to five and then

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ticking a task list off for your manager. This is kind of, there's a lot more autonomy around it.

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And so it's, it's going to be more profitable, I think, for freeLands, is who are really getting

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stuck in with AI. And they're also skills, I say, yeah, they are becoming less valuable through AI.

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I mean, yeah, I think that there's, there's going to be the things that you can just use it. Like,

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you know, repeating yourself, writing documents over and over again, or, you know, huge kind of

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mathematical analysis data, that there's going to be things that you don't need to do anymore,

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the kind of mundane tasks that people don't like doing. I think that's the main thing is we can

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take those boring bits away from people now, let them focus on the interest and stuff, research or

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dealing with customers. So, but yeah, I think, I think for now, in my opinion, I don't, I always feel

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really uncomfortable claiming to be any kind of expert in this. I just say what I see, you know,

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I just kind of listen to what people've got to say. And we could just hate it. So, um, so, yeah,

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I think there's going to be those repetitive tasks that we don't need to do anymore. It's going to

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be the main thing, but I think there will be, as, as AI increases productivity, as it is doing,

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there's going to be a need for more work. So, then sales will be important and account management

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and finding more work to pay, especially in, you know, in a traditional kind of Microsoft partner

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or a permanent team. You're going to need more things to do with you, you're going to employ those

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people for the same amount of hours. And there are these, I think, new trend is ATS systems,

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when you're searching for a job. What did you think about these ATS?

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So, they're not new ATS systems. I've been around for a long time. And

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that there are, I had this conversation last week with a group of people hiring managers and

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people who designed systems. And we had a good debate about it because my advice would always

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be to somebody getting a, basically, V together, and I linked in together is bear in mind that

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somebody who's a generalist recruiter or somebody who maybe in their first job doesn't understand

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technology or and will have a list of words that they need to find on your profile to them

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know that you're right for the job. But that might be the depth of knowledge that they've got. So,

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you've got to have that keyword search working for you. So, the same applies with AI, AI is

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screening that system now, the words, the words have to be there. The context that needs to

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be selling you to the hiring manager who does know what they're talking about, doesn't sound

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technologies. But I don't think that if the ATS is working properly and again, that's another

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story, isn't it? Because if they are missing things, if the search is on working properly, then that's

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a system issue. But yeah, the words need to be there to be found whether it's by AI or a

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apprentice who's working in a talent team. If you go in to be found, everything starts with some

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sort of search. They are getting a lot of slack because there's a lot of just automatic replies

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getting out from these systems. But it's hard because you see a job advertiser linked in and you can see

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300 applications, 400, 500, it makes sense to use tools to search through that and find the right

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the right people. You do find that the people that are applying might not hit the search criteria

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that they've been asked to, yes or no, that might still not be correct, those applications coming

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through. So we have to automate, but I think that there's owners on the candidates to make sure

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that the information is there and findable through a search or the companies are just checking

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that those systems are working properly and just maybe do a little bit of a stress test on it and

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see if there's anything that's slipping through the net because it does, it is happening, it's

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happening for sure, but it always has the other bit of advice I would give on that actually, if

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anybody is listening to this and is finding that they're not getting, they feel like they're

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right for the job and they're getting rejected. You know, as you're tracking these applications,

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follow up with whoever it is, find people in that company that head of the department you're applying

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to, sometimes you can see on the, on the advert who the hiring manager is, whether it's the manager

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of the talent team or the person in the talent team, or somebody in the hiring team, and follow up,

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not constantly, just, you know, maybe as you put your application in, hey, I just apply for this,

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just like it because these are the reasons I think I'm great for the role and detail them

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and follow up maybe three to five days, oh, how do you say that, I'm just saying that,

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that might just, if you have slips through the net, it might just catch you.

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Okay, I think that's an interesting tip, I should try that one.

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Especially Microsoft professionals think, how should they think about co-pilot, AI agents and automation?

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How should Microsoft partners think of them?

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Yeah, professional or people that are in the Microsoft space.

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I mean, when you're in Microsoft space, it's kind of all you hear about, isn't it? Any event you go to,

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it's kind of, you know, co-pilot and agents and governance and it's, you can't, can't move for it,

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if you're involved in these things, I think you have to, except especially if you were a professional

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in Microsoft partner because you're selling those services and I think, you know, possibly more

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so than Canvas apps now and, you know, it's kind of involved in this is where you need to be.

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So yeah, if you're in Microsoft space, absolutely. I went, I've been to a few events recently

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in Manchester that are non-Microsoft events and that's really interesting and I would recommend

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anybody to do the same thing because yes, we need to speak with Microsoft technologies and

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absolutely, I keep going to the Microsoft events too but it's, there was just something a bit different,

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a bit more like big wide world about going to these things that, there's no Microsoft partners

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selling you anything, Microsoft aren't selling you anything, it's, you know, it's AI experts,

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professors from universities, start companies using AI, there's a lot of it to a Manchester,

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with this company that are making vertical farms and these and AI and the vegetables are produced

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in a hugely nutritious and it's their verticals so they're not taking a less ground space.

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That was really interesting, I thought no, I would ever say that at Microsoft event, we would

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have a speaker like that at Microsoft event, so I use in Microsoft to do it, of course, I'm in

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team statement. So yeah, I found that really interesting, sorry, my team just tried to do something

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in the background. Yeah, I'm the other thing is, is kind of unsound and the physical side,

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the data centers that they bring into your alloclaria here and the, you know, cloud services and

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the different things that have an impact on the big wide world of AI, not just inside the Microsoft

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ecosystem. So yeah, I'd encourage people to go and look outside of it.

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And yeah, I think a little bit about one topic, we, I think it's not really new, but

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we have this personal branding, I think it's become, you know, increasingly important,

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especially in the times of AI. What tips can you give here?

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If something that I advocate for, I coach people on as well as part of the freelance

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in course, which is extra life that I run with Francois and so, and part of that is the personal

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brand thing. I think if anyone's considering freelance at any point, that personal brand is important,

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it's where, you know, it's where you'll get referrals from, it's where you'll know as the expert

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in your fields. If, you know, if you think it kind of is like Parvaz, Gumrose, ALM,

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Francois, Pages, you know, there are these individuals that you know. If somebody came to you with a

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project with those words around it, you would have, you would have fill those people. And that's

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because they're vocal, they support other people, they are at conferences, they speak at conferences,

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they appear on podcasts and things, and they, they kind of teach you, it's almost selling without

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selling as well, you kind of position as the expert, where you get the opportunity to talk

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about an event, but also you can demonstrate like business value. I remember this is where the course

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came from was seeing Franco do a session in Scotland, and there was people in the room that had huge

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power platform projects, like huge financial services companies, and I knew they were, I'm a recruiter,

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I'm a sales person, somewhere, okay, there's these people in the room, I want to speak to,

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you know, on stage Franco is talking about the, the impact on the customer, the impact on the business,

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and the impact on the users in the teams, and what that all meant, you know, why was it

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we were with, why also kind of go down this road? And I was like, that's really clever, and he's

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in there, he was doing it, there was a queue of people at the end of the event rating to talk more to,

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and I said, oh, that was clever, I was, I was, because it was so habitual to him to talk in that way,

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so yeah, personal brand is about trust, but having a platform to speak on, and then also demonstrate

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what problems you can solve for people in public. So for free lands is in particular, I think

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that's quite important, and people who aren't sure where to get started, even just posting on LinkedIn

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or YouTube, following all this and commenting and supporting all this content as well,

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you can make friends quite quickly in this space if you support and have the right attitude,

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and that will help massively. I don't think it's as essential for permanent employees,

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working directly for companies. It does help, but I was at the event last week, and my friend

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had like four people approach her about a job, but different opportunities in the permanent world,

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so it helps for sure, but definitely for free lances.

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Yeah, and we have their link, and how important are social networks today, I think, especially linked,

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and but they're other, I don't know, TikTok or what's, I don't know, Facebook, and so on.

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What did you think about social media for free lancers?

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I'm kind of stealing this from people I've been speaking to recently in our world, who

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is so far that LinkedIn's got them, and I can resonate with this as well, LinkedIn gets just so far,

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but actually YouTube seems to be really successful to people, if they were, people that kind of sell

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courses and things, you know, seems to be finding that they're getting more traction through their YouTube

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content now, to LinkedIn. I don't know much, I'm a bit old for TikTok, and those other platforms,

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I don't see much business, although like I say, I do have an Instagram account, and I will keep getting

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off of the course, but yeah, I think that YouTube seems to be particularly successful for people,

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posting useful content. Again, you don't need to be selected to speak an event, do you, if you're on

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YouTube, and you've got good searchable kind of words in there, you know, so if someone's searching,

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how do I, whatever the thing is, you should be able to call more kind of Google search, or YouTube

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search. Whereas LinkedIn, it's like, what you get, you get posts like three weeks after it's been posted,

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don't you? You might see, see a post about an event, and then you're like, oh, that happened last week,

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so you can't, I don't know if it's easy to search things on LinkedIn, as you can on kind of Google or YouTube.

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And what are the two things, I think, listen to us, yeah, call do this week to improve their professional

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visibility? Oh, I mean, that was quite an individual thing, depending on what they're doing,

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but my advice would be firstly, look over your LinkedIn profile, you know, photo is good, if you don't

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have a photo, I'd get that on there. Does it show clearly who you are and what you do, what do you

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want to be known for? And that's from the content, you know, the information about your work history,

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and any engagement posts that you've got out there, comments that you've put on the people's posts,

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that's all easily visible. If you apply for a job through a normal way with your CV,

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nine times out of ten, at least someone's going to look at your LinkedIn profile.

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So make sure you do that. CV has one job and that's to get your interview, so don't assume you'll

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get the interview and you'll get to give more detail. Don't try and keep it to one page for the

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sake of it looking nice. I don't get it. I don't see how people working in consultancies that

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have got a huge project experience can get that one page, like you want the story, and I get it,

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the debate I had last week with a hiring manager, he said, I really need to know what you've done

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over the last few months, and I said, there, that's not true, because you need to know

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as this person called a record, consultancy background, what types of clients have they been working with,

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all that story that whole background brings people to where they are today. So the most recent

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project might be most relevant, but what's the rest of the story? And just make sure that there's

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some context there. I mean, don't go wild, like two pages is great, three pages, okay, if you've got

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a lot to say. And yeah, I think we have the thing I would just say, keep active, you might not

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like pointing yourself out there, you don't have to guess to on people's shows, you don't have to

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particularly write posts or articles, but at least read all those and engage with those people and

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just start building out your own network. If you go to a local user group or an event,

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speak to someone, go join a group of people, speak to someone, send them their own, feedback on all

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the people's content, if you follow some of these blogs or whatever it is they're pointing out there,

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tell them what you think and why, in a kind and constructive way, of course, but that'll help

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visibility, it'll help referrals, it'll help you to start to push your network out.

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Yeah, I often see they're looking at GitHub and then I thought, oh, this is awesome product, no one

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knows it or nearly no one knows it. And then I've asked the people on LinkedIn, hey, comment in my show,

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let's talk, but there are a lot of, yeah, especially, I don't know, in that other, I come from marketing

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and e-commerce, but the intake there are, I say, a lot of introverts, people, how can these build a

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strong professional presence without really, yeah, or what tips can you give them to be more open

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or built, yeah, they're strong presence? I think if you're introvert, you know, you have to be

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careful of the energy and what, why you're focusing, you know, where you're using it or,

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I know people who are introverted, who go and just like, what a way at the end of an event,

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even when people are trying to talk to them about business, because they're just absolutely

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drained, so you do have to know yourself in your own limitations. And, you know, that's kind of why,

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I say, you don't have to create your own content if you don't want to, if that's just not in your

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interests and engage with all this, you might find that creating your own content and just putting it

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out there helps, they didn't know what you didn't have to be kind of vocally active and be at places

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and events and online with people all the time. I think you have to do what's right for you, it can,

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it can take over and I see it with many, I've been around a little while now, I've seen a lot of new

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MVPs come into their space of groups really, really hard for, you know, sometimes a year, sometimes

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three or four years, get the MVP and then they disappear because they've just gone into it, but I'm

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really in lots of groups and there's so much going on and they're trying to keep up with the admin

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of being MVP and then they just burn out and stop. So, I really think it's important to understand

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how much time and energy you've got work backwards from that. If you can manage an hour a week,

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great, if you manage like three or four hours a week and that works for you in your life, then yeah,

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go for it, but I think the first thing is burning out and disappearing because you've tried to do

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too much too quickly and it has taken over and then it fizzles out for you. I've seen it quite, quite

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quite a few times. Yeah, my last, last, yeah, linked questions, from your recruitment perspective,

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there I say, come and miss takes, you see, people do with their profile, what, what, yeah, I say,

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what's the no go for recruiters? I think looking like being negative, coming back to what I said earlier

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about the recruiters that are getting the blame for people struggling for work, I think that's

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instantly going to make you look like you're difficult to deal with and I hate to say it, but it's

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true. Like, you know, you would look and think, okay, this person is really negative,

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they're not being very constructive, this is what happens when you come into a difficult situation,

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then that might give a signal, but that's how you are to work with. And no, it sounds really

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thoughtless, but I'm hate to be honest and that's what I think. So I just say, you should struggling,

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just try and keep positive, be kind and make sure that people, when you point yourself out there,

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that people see what you want them to say and I think if you kind of, we really think about that,

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who am I, what am I really good at? And what do people like me for? What are my friends and family

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say about me? It's kind of, how do you get that across that personality across some public profile?

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I'm trying to just stick to your own values, don't like frustration, get the better of you,

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sure, certainly not publicly, you know, confide in somebody, speak to somebody that shouting to you,

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pillow in your bathroom, you know, whatever it is you kind of, you do it to a lot of events,

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and what I think doing it publicly online is not, is not going to help you look like a positive person.

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Yeah, I often have this problem there, I don't know what people they have these special kind of

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post, I don't know, and they do a lot of this, but they're really successful. What, what, what

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fish and chips told me about my career and so on, and I wonder in, yeah, the people like this kind of

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post, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, LinkedIn can be a weird place, can't it? And

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you know, the things that come up, my own very community event, having, that's a sort of thing

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that I engage in, so it's always to do with a conference or something, that sort of comes

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up on my feet, I don't get too much of the things that I would say, like, yeah, not kind of nonsense.

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So yeah, but there is stuff like that out there, isn't there? I know, yeah, and I'm Twitter as well,

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is I don't go on Twitter, X, sorry, as it is, there's some really random stuff that comes up,

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just don't read it, and I also don't read the post that start with the chat GPT type sentence,

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like most people, or you know, whenever it is, the language, it clearly looks like AI, I'll probably

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just scroll straight past it, because I think, I know, I know you haven't even written it, so don't start.

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Yeah, you have saying, you have a little bit of a big about your freelance course. Can you tell us a

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little bit about your course and why are more people considering freelance careers from your perspective?

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I think it's interesting, of course, because we've got people at different stages of their career

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and in there, so we've got people that are already open-run as freelancers, that wants to be part of

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a community because it can be quite lonely if you work in for yourself and you don't have that team.

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So we've got people from, that and already in it, we've got people that are contracting,

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we've got people that are working in permanent role and doing a side gig here and there,

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and then there are people that may be aspiring to freelancing the next 12 months onwards,

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really, and how do they start building that personal brand? So it's all about, firstly, there's a self-paced

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course which takes you through content marketing and how to create personal brand, demonstrate your

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business value in what you do. Then there's other things about being scalable. How can you reuse your

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work? Can you put it into a training, into a course? If you're building things anyway, can you then

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sell that on another way? And maybe keep your own code snippets and things like that,

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so you're reusing the work that you've done that might make the next projects much shorter.

400
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:07,200
So that's all the franco stuff that's how to build that scalable freelance business.

401
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:14,480
My side in it is the marketing and the sales side. So what does traditional business

402
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:21,360
development look like? How do you get repeat business? You know, as you kind of build that flywheel of

403
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:27,040
work, you know, it should get easier and easier as your career goes on if you keep getting repeat

404
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:34,000
customers coming back. So that's the course, and then as part of the community, we have a monthly

405
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:38,800
call where we kind of go through. So currently we're in that sales bit, so it's kind of on me to

406
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:46,640
talk through some sales techniques and the way you can pitch yourself. And when someone asks you

407
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:53,040
at a conference, so what does it you do? Answering that question with a nice clear answer that

408
00:39:53,040 --> 00:40:00,000
makes somebody consider wanting to work with you. And then yeah, we've got kind of podcast within

409
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:05,040
the course with successful freelancers. There's different levels, there's some that are running

410
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:13,040
their own practices, and there is some business of one like Nick Dolman, Parvay, so you know,

411
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,880
they want to be a business of one, they are not they're not building a business, but then we have

412
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:23,360
got all the people that run Microsoft practices talking about their journey, have they operate too.

413
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:32,720
So it's not just the one, it's not just this is how franco does it, this is how I would do it,

414
00:40:32,720 --> 00:40:37,600
it's this is how all the people have done it as well, so it gives different perspectives too. And then

415
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,520
yeah, we've got a lovely WhatsApp group where everybody's just cheerleading and supporting each other

416
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:48,320
and passing some lead song through there as well for work. So yeah, it's nice, it's something,

417
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:56,480
it's one of the things that we talked so much about last year, and we worked so hard on getting

418
00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:01,840
the content right and figuring out what we thought was right, and then like God is it just does

419
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:07,920
that believe in this or is it actually going to work? We're growing, it's growing steadily into a big

420
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:13,520
community, and I think that's going to be the most valuable thing in the end. But yeah, it's really

421
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:18,880
nice from the group starts going off and people are talking about wins that they've had, that's

422
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:24,880
really really nice. So yeah, it's cool, so it's called extra life anyway, but happy to give more

423
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:31,360
information, people get in touch. So the links are in the show notes, so that people can

424
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:41,280
check, check this out. Is there any or, yeah, any myth about freelancing, you see? People are,

425
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:50,960
well, no, I don't like, there's something, what people think wrong about starting with freelancing.

426
00:41:50,960 --> 00:42:02,640
Oh, I see, okay. Yeah, I think that a lot of techies don't like sales, and so that this part where

427
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:09,920
it came from was, okay, is a developer or an architect is going to turn into a business development person

428
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:18,640
overnight, or can they skip out that hard business development thing that the sales team

429
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:24,960
normally does for them and approach things in a different way. And so yeah, the obstacle we get

430
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:29,760
from most people is either, don't know where I find my business wrong, I don't know about

431
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:36,960
that's fair, so we're trying to teach how you do that. The other one is, I don't have a niche,

432
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:41,920
sure I don't know how to find my niche, that's another thing that we go through in the course,

433
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:54,800
and on the community course, as a misconception though, I don't know, I think that, you know,

434
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:59,920
you can kind of manage it how you want to really, it doesn't mean you have to start my

435
00:42:59,920 --> 00:43:04,480
self-practice, you don't have to build a huge business out of it, you can kind of run it how you want.

436
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:15,040
I would say taking on work that you can't do, or you shouldn't be doing, saying no is quite a big skill

437
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:18,800
to have, so that's just kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can do anything and then get into a mess,

438
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,520
and I have seen that back in my recruitment days where freelancers have taken on work, they shouldn't

439
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:30,960
have taken on, and really done some damage to the client. I suppose the one thing is the difference

440
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:35,920
between contracting freelancers in that will probably be a useful answer to this question, as I'm thinking

441
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:44,960
out loud, so for a contractor, you would have a recruiter who goes on, get your work for you to

442
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:51,280
do the business development, and then they will take it caught out of the client's budget for that,

443
00:43:51,280 --> 00:44:00,000
so if you're on £500 a day, the recruiter is probably charging £6.650 to that client, but they've

444
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,840
done all the business development that's taken all the risk on paying you, you'll definitely get paid,

445
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:09,520
especially in the UK, not sure on the laws elsewhere, but you've got that security, you're probably on

446
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:17,360
a three or a six month contract, and you will be required to be online, like a full-timer,

447
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:23,920
like a permanent employee, with the freelance side of things, you'll be charging your day rate,

448
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:29,760
you'll be putting it to your own limited company, and you have to find your own work really,

449
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:36,480
don't often have recruiters out there finding the work for you. You can, again, in the UK, we've got

450
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:43,360
IR35, the outside IR35, technically you are considered a freelancer, you have to

451
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:52,560
you manage your own time basically, which is why you can work two or three projects at any one time,

452
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:58,400
you can work weekends if you prefer, you could work at night time, and I'm work to the

453
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:04,720
the time of day that works for you all the time of year, as Franca would say, you know, he takes a lot

454
00:45:04,720 --> 00:45:12,720
of time off in the summer, but then he'll work right through when it's not in trust is in the weather

455
00:45:12,720 --> 00:45:20,080
outside, so you know, it's about freedom, for me personally, it's about creative freedom, being freelance,

456
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:24,960
not having to do just what somebody's telling me to do, rinse and repeat, do this, when you've got

457
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:30,560
all the right days, and you can see the market shifting, you can follow it, and you can go after the sort of

458
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:36,800
work that you want. Contracting's a nice step into that because you can kind of learn some skills along

459
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:42,400
the way and kind of build up a little bit of extra cash in the bank, especially if you can do some

460
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:49,280
contracts on as a side hustle, along with that dependent role. So I hope that answers your question,

461
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:56,640
I don't know how's this a bit there, but... But did you think there's a, I think, the right time moment

462
00:45:56,640 --> 00:46:05,440
to start with freelancing, have you there any idea? Do you know what, most people we interview on

463
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:11,840
the actual live podcast, we've kind of asked them that question, like how did you get into it, and

464
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:17,040
they're usually fallen into it through redundancy, they always quite wanted to go freelance, but then

465
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:23,360
we were made a dungeon and they just kind of went for it anyway. I think most people want

466
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:29,920
enough money, and I think if you can do it with enough money for six months of not owning, then

467
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:39,280
great, if you can save that up through some side gigs as a contractor, that's a good time to start.

468
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:44,000
Because you know, if you've got to pay the bills, you've got to pay the bills, so I wouldn't encourage

469
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:48,560
anybody to see it kind of just take, quickly jump tomorrow and leave if you can't afford to do the

470
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:56,880
freelance thing. But yeah, people often kind of put it off, put it off, and then it happens to them,

471
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:09,120
they do tend to look back. And I think a little about, yeah, we have to talk to all these successful

472
00:47:10,240 --> 00:47:20,960
freelancers in your podcast. What separates, yeah, successful freelancers from them, their own struggle?

473
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:32,160
I think confidence grows as time goes on with freelancers, there are some that we know that

474
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:36,960
maybe have less confidence than others. That massive ability, and they know what they should

475
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:42,080
spend, shouldn't do, but it might take them a little bit longer to kind of get there and get it done.

476
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:49,440
That there's another friend of ours, very good friend of ours who kind of spent three months

477
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:56,800
building a website, which actually, there was things wrong with it, you know, kind of, I'm going to

478
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:02,960
build this website myself, and then the feedback was not great on that, but on that person switched

479
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:10,480
into what's my story, how do I pitch myself from people ask me what I do, that totally flipped everything

480
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:19,600
upside down, and the business started coming in. So focusing on getting your message in right is

481
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:27,200
really important. And I also think that when you get busy, when you're in the doing, so you win the

482
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:32,720
work, you've got a contract running, or you've got an agreed deal as a freelancer running,

483
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:37,600
and then you're not keeping an eye on business development, you're not going out and trying

484
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:42,720
to find more work than you end up starting again, trying to find the next one when that one's ended.

485
00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:49,200
So you have to always be keeping an eye on building your pipeline of work for the next, the next

486
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:57,120
bit. I think the pipeline topic is interesting, so a lot of people have, especially when they start,

487
00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:07,280
they have no, I say, showcases. How, yeah, should they build their first client pipeline?

488
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:16,880
So I think, again, if you can get some side gigs on, you know, and I see lots of people doing this,

489
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,720
have lots of conversations about this side gig, alongside your permanent role,

490
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:29,760
definitely will start to build up a little bit of a client base for you. And case studies as well,

491
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:35,360
and you can write case study about freelancing or contract work, but there's nothing stopping

492
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:39,200
you right in the case study about something you've done in the permanent job as well, you know,

493
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:45,200
it doesn't, you can take it as private, you can take out details that would identify who the client was,

494
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:51,200
but you can still talk about, you know, what, what did you do? What was the problem? What was the goal?

495
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:58,000
What was your import? So what's the outcome of that situation? And tell that story about what is

496
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:03,520
you really good at and how you added value in that situation? So start telling stories like that,

497
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:10,400
is solving people's problems in front of them. It can be difficult for people to do side

498
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,240
puzzles alongside a permanent job, but it's definitely the best way to stop building up a client base

499
00:50:14,240 --> 00:50:19,680
if you can do that. And having a conversation, you know, if you're, if you're I have asked in people as

500
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:24,480
well, or at the end of a session, you know, I'm available to work. This is how you find me.

501
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:29,920
It doesn't have to be a huge pitch, but if you've done a good job at showing what you can do,

502
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:36,320
get your details up there, and if you're not speaking because I know that organizers are, like,

503
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:43,200
just hammered with people submitting sessions or these events, go to other people's, start conversations,

504
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:47,680
you actually don't need to be on the agenda to get some value out of these things.

505
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:54,880
And so, yeah, I'm getting some content out there again, so that can be found searchable.

506
00:50:54,880 --> 00:51:02,560
You know, by SEO, right? We've come into, if you've come from the marketing background,

507
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:04,160
so yeah, I think I'm into doing research.

508
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:13,280
Yeah, actually, I'm seeing a geo-specialised, of the amazing, of the mining for added

509
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:19,840
amps, my content, what I do, especially, and I see that's really interesting.

510
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:28,320
So, I had last week, I have one day with 30,000, yeah, answers and co-pilot in one day, so I think,

511
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:36,720
yeah, you have a lot of, doing a lot of calls for getting all these, yeah, to be, I don't know,

512
00:51:36,720 --> 00:51:43,120
to really get a part of this answers. And yeah, but there is another really

513
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:46,320
interesting topic you have, and that's the women and technology stuff.

514
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:53,760
So, we have started this podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about this podcast, and why have you

515
00:51:53,760 --> 00:52:03,040
started this? Yeah, so, I do align events, and I've always encouraged speakers, and female speakers,

516
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:09,920
I always found needed to build up a little bit of trust first, not all, is it a handful, but it'll

517
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:16,000
kind of throw the sessions, you know, but they will speak anything, and I'm really happy to,

518
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:21,680
and that's great. But then when you're fascinated by people and how they behave and why they do things,

519
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:28,640
so I kind of look for these things, and I found that there is many females that I've

520
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:32,480
get to know, and then they see, well, I really have to get into this, but they don't know how, or,

521
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:37,280
you know, even the ones that people that you wouldn't think are humble, they are,

522
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:40,960
they don't like bragging, they don't really like talking about what they've done, they feel like,

523
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:45,600
although it wasn't perfect, though, I don't know, 100% of the skills for this, so it's kind of

524
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:54,160
always been quite nice to cheerlead and can nurture people onto a platform, it feels like a safe space to talk.

525
00:52:54,160 --> 00:53:03,120
And really, it was a miss bits podcast. Me and my friends, Sophia, we met each other at Scottish Summit,

526
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:09,840
and hit it off immediately, like she was just so much fun, wanted to get involved in community.

527
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:15,440
I was like, well, with a personality like yours, it's got to be a podcast, like you've got to be,

528
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:21,840
you know, she's bubbly and fun and lovely. She also has two very young children and a busy job, so

529
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:28,640
there's no pressure on us to, we don't have a set cadence for it, we've got people that we've

530
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:34,080
interviewed like Meg Smith and Rosie Jurovitch and Janet Robb and the Sharon Smith and

531
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:40,720
Vincere to these people to help promote brilliant women and help encourage other women out of

532
00:53:40,720 --> 00:53:45,840
the woodwork that maybe don't have the confidence to come out because they're getting to know these people

533
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:51,040
on a bit more of a personal level. So we enjoy it, we love getting to do something together,

534
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:56,800
it's very much a hobby, we hope that it empowers the women that we interview, we really hope that

535
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:03,040
it empowers the women that listen and see that we're all just a bit of an aspect, like we're all a bit

536
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:11,040
bonkers and that's okay and that's where we came up with the name. So yeah, it was just a safe space

537
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:16,560
and I hope that it has positive impact on some people that certainly does on me and Sophia and

538
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:23,200
we're happy enough with that. And what channel just our women are tech and technology is still

539
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:36,960
facing today? That's a big question. I think women still look at the often look at the

540
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:46,560
board, the sea, the sea and the management as largely male. There is a lack of diversity in

541
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:55,280
these ship teams often, not always, but but often there is. And I think that's a bit of a problem.

542
00:54:55,280 --> 00:55:01,680
Women are leaving tech, they're leaving tech careers and that's the problem. And I think part of it

543
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:12,160
isn't as feeling like they're not heard. Some companies are really active in diversity and they

544
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:20,080
genuinely want to be diverse than doing the right things to promote and support people internally.

545
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:28,960
I don't believe in token, token woman here, you know, I don't believe in that. If somebody said to me

546
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:34,880
guaranteed an interview with your woman, I would be really offended and I've seen that from

547
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:38,640
the cruises and companies that are approached people and like didn't say, "Oh, you're a woman,

548
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:44,880
you're getting interview." Like, excuse me, it's quite good of them. Actually, thank you. So I think

549
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:50,160
that attitude is a bit of a box-ticking one, like, okay, yeah, we need to get our members up and

550
00:55:50,160 --> 00:56:00,000
that and match a percentage figure. If you genuinely actively treat women in a way that you want

551
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:05,520
them to succeed, you want their perspective around the table because it's different, you know,

552
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:12,560
we've all got a different perspective in the more diverse that table looks. Then the

553
00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:20,880
better the outcome, I think, for everybody. And so, yeah, I think that the companies that

554
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:29,440
kind of fudgy it by just trying to hit figures set by a head of HR is not great, I don't think that.

555
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:33,440
And somebody just totally oblivious. There are some that's still just a boys' club, you know,

556
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:41,200
you'd think it was still the 90s and this is how it's okay to behave. And so, yeah, so I see that as

557
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:46,800
as a problem. It's a huge question and there's lots that we can do. I think we need male allies.

558
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:53,600
We want men who want women to succeed without taking credit for it, you know, just actually

559
00:56:53,600 --> 00:57:00,560
being there and being supportive. But it starts at the top and I think diversity at the top will

560
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:07,520
be through businesses and make people feel more supportive. Yeah, I really felt it's really hard to get

561
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:17,840
women to my podcast, so I ask them not to say, yeah, rather, yeah, I don't know, I need to have to,

562
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:22,640
I don't know, to change something. Look at, you'll get some that I'll just say yes, like, I'm quite

563
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:26,880
happy to go and promote, you know, I believe in being out there and being visible, right,

564
00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:33,040
something that I teach, but there's many women that want to build a bit of trust first, you know,

565
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:38,400
type of conversation, it's not just, oh, hey, you're, you know, you're recording a lot of these and so,

566
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:44,480
like, keeping up with, like, you know, like guests, a lot of films must be quite hard. But yeah, I think

567
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:48,720
with women it's kind of, hey, how are you? It's having a conversation, finding out a bit more about them

568
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:57,200
and going down, going down that road, rather, they weren't often put at the hand up, it's the same

569
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:01,760
applying for jobs as well. And this is another thing, you know, again, getting women in tech, it's,

570
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:06,640
I don't hit 100% of the things on that job description, which was probably written by chat GPT or

571
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:12,800
copilot, and actually, isn't all exactly what the hiring manager would tell you if you asked them

572
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:22,160
what they want. So, but, but that's how women are. Whereas a man, a lot, and this is hugely generalising

573
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:28,240
often, men will go, I'll learn the rest on the job, I'll just go for it. It is, like, you know, quite a

574
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:36,000
common difference and women just need a bit, a bit more of a personal touch, I think, sometimes.

575
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:45,120
Yeah, thank you. So, I, in every round, I have this, yeah, every session, I have this rapid

576
00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:50,960
fire round, so I ask a question and you say, what's coming your mind? So,

577
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:56,240
LinkedIn or network events?

578
00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:02,160
So, again, the LinkedIn or network events?

579
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:03,840
Network events.

580
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:05,920
Power Platform or Dynamics.

581
00:59:06,160 --> 00:59:09,120
Dynamics.

582
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:11,840
Biggest career mistake people make.

583
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:23,840
Maybe, react, jump around too much, be flattered easily.

584
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:26,720
The best career invests under 100 pounds.

585
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:29,600
The best, what's all right?

586
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:32,720
The best career invests under 100 pounds.

587
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:39,280
Oh, wow. Possibly a LinkedIn license.

588
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:46,320
And is there one person everyone should follow, especially in tech?

589
00:59:46,320 --> 00:59:51,360
In our community?

590
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:52,560
Yeah.

591
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:54,800
Oh,

592
00:59:54,800 --> 01:00:03,680
one person. I mean, I love Charlash Johan, I think he's a great trainer,

593
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:09,440
and he's teaching a lot, he's doing a lot of things for free at the moment, around AI.

594
01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:16,160
And I think if you want to increase your skills in AI, then there's some free resource there.

595
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:19,920
And he really, really cares about what he does. So, yeah, sure, Nash, bar.

596
01:00:19,920 --> 01:00:24,080
Well, what's the best dish you can eat in England?

597
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:27,040
What's the best dish? What dish?

598
01:00:27,040 --> 01:00:29,680
The best dish of eating in England?

599
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:36,160
Do you know what? We're in good cooks in this house. I made a great roast dinner yesterday.

600
01:00:36,160 --> 01:00:45,680
And when you can travel back in time and meet your Sarah that starts their her career,

601
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:49,520
what was she most exciting about today, Sarah?

602
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:56,080
Oh gosh, you know, I've made that mistake. The advice I gave earlier,

603
01:00:56,080 --> 01:01:01,680
of reacting to just what's around, you know, maybe not planning some watch.

604
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:05,680
The advice I gave to people about planning me like two to five years, I didn't really do that.

605
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:11,840
So it's been interesting, but I think it was different if I've taken my advice back then.

606
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:19,440
Awesome. So, yeah, then my closing question is when people should remember one thing from this

607
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:20,560
session. What should it be?

608
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:32,800
I think we've all got opportunities and I remember Mark Smith saying,

609
01:01:32,800 --> 01:01:39,680
talked about rules once and following, you know, the line that the world wants you to follow.

610
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:47,120
And in their house, that is bullshit rules and it's something that we've adopted in our house is

611
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:50,960
actually why we're doing that. Is it because the man wants us to do it or actually can we

612
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:56,800
make our own choices and take control and have a little bit freedom and at 41 years old,

613
01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:02,080
I have discovered that actually, yeah, I don't have to do what some, you know,

614
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:08,000
some blowpoints me to do is making a lot of money out of me. I can actually make my own choices

615
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:13,840
and make the work I do interesting and spread some love and hopefully a little bit fun around

616
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:20,640
at the same time and the opportunity is there to do it and I think more and more than ever,

617
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:27,280
it's going to get more accessible with AI to make enough money to freelance make money,

618
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:33,040
happy lifestyle, you know, do the things that you want to really family. If it's picking the

619
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:37,280
kids up, dropping them off at school is that that's valuable, but it doesn't have to be that you're in

620
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:43,200
loads of money as a freelancer. It can be that you can just drop everything and take the kids to

621
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:49,360
the dentist or go for a dog walk or if you feel stressed, go for a run and come back and just work

622
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:54,400
a bit late that day, you know, have that freedom of flexibility and that's all that stuff that I

623
01:02:54,400 --> 01:03:00,640
didn't have and didn't think I could have. Actually, we can we can all kind of make it work and have

624
01:03:00,640 --> 01:03:08,160
the life that we want to. Yeah, then I say thank you, Sarah, for joining me today. It was also awesome

625
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:15,440
conversation and I think the biggest learning I have is the future isn't something that simply

626
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:22,000
happens to us. I think we have to act and we have a lot of people they can help us to act right and

627
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:31,600
yeah, thank you so much for being here and have a nice day. Well thank you so much for having me.