Alison Grade & The Freelance Bible

Alison Grade

Nigel Rawlins: Welcome Alison to the Wisepreneurs podcast. I was just wondering if you could tell the listeners a little bit about yourself.

Alison Grade: Yeah. Hi, Nigel. It's great to be here. I think you might've invited me because I'm the author of the Penguin published book, The Freelance Bible available in all good bookshops, but I'm not going to plug it the whole way through. I promise listeners. No, my background is very much university, went into film and TV production, worked my way up through a whole range of different shows very much the operational project management, organizing, budgeting side of things. And really I was freelance all the way through that. And I worked on bigger and bigger shows. And then I started looking for a new challenge. So I went to business school. I did an MBA at INSEAD. And when I came out of there, I got the really glorious strategy job.

And it was all marvellous. So I was really rubbish in a really large company, because I'm not very good in corporate environments. So I ended up back running my own business. I had a bit of an entrepreneurial moment and I was like, hang on, I've learned to ride a motorbike and it's really good fun, but the teaching was really rubbish.

So I think I could do this better. So I just decided to start a motorbike company specialized in teaching women. And I ran that for a few years, sold it in a trade sale. And really since then, in the last sort of 15 years, I've started working very much with creative freelancers, creative entrepreneurs, helping them turn their ideas into a business reality.

So I say, why do people work with me? It's because I transform creative ideas into a business reality. So hopefully that gives you a bit of a flavor of me and what I do.

Nigel Rawlins: Yes, it's fantastic. So let's just talk about INSEAD for a while. Can you tell us what that is? Because in Australia, some people would have heard of it. But, what's that about?

Alison Grade: INSEAD's a global business school. I studied on the campus in Fontainebleau, just outside Paris, in France. It's incredibly international. Some great colleagues of mine are from your neck of the woods, but generally it's no more than about 10 percent of any intake from any nationality, so it is really multicultural, really diverse.

And it is, it's a business school, so it's all about Understanding business and really delivering on corporate strategy. Finance, macroeconomics, microeconomics, like every aspect of business. I think what makes it great is it's really intense. You're there, everybody's in it full time.

You're there for a year, and it's the people, it's the discussions, it's the conversations. It's just an, it's a fantastic place. But I what I see is that I was probably a bit of an outlier. Know lots of people from FMCG, from consulting, from banking, all of those kind of things. And here I was a little person who worked in telly who was a bit of a freelancer who decided that they wanted to look at the more strategic and business side of the media industry.

And I shuffled in and shuffled out and had a great time. But I probably felt, feel like I followed a very non traditional career as far as MBA students go, but now they look at me and go... Gosh, Alison, you actually have a work life balance. You can pick it up and put it down. It's that piece.

And I think now as we're all what, like 20 odd years outside of business school, people are starting to go hang on. Is the corporate thing really what I want? How do I it's all I've known. And I think that's the really frightening bit. Is it's all people have known and that's where the challenge point comes and that's where I think our kind of stories overlap if you like in terms of freelancing

Nigel Rawlins: Yes. So that's what I want to get into a bit now then. So the book, how did that come about?

Alison Grade: The book was really interesting actually because I was working with a local university here in Birmingham in the West Midlands And I was asked to do a consulting project for them around what they were doing for their art, design and media students in terms of employability and what was the heads of departments doing.

And so I did my consulting project, like any good MBA does. And I, but I kept having all these meetings with the heads of schools and they were saying to me we do this, we do that, we do the other, and I kept thinking hang on, what if you're not mentioning all these students that are going to go and be freelance?

You're talking about the career service you're talking about services to help people start up businesses. But I was looking at stats and 70 percent of people in creative industries are freelance. Who's looking after them? And so I came away going there's a real problem in universities in that nobody's getting that knowledge.

And this was what in the UK we call vocational university. So very practical driven courses. And so a lot of the tutors were people who had come from industry. So in theory, they knew a lot about being freelance, but quite often they were there because maybe it hadn't worked out for them as freelancing.

They wanted that more corporate life. And also. If they've been there a while, they weren't really up to date in that freelancing world. So the students really had no support. They looked to their tutors, but they really didn't get it. And I was like, hang on. So nobody's talking about it. Nobody knows what to do.

Oh, hang on. I've been a freelancer for most of my career. I've hired stacks of them. I've done it in all sorts of different ways. There's no literature out there. Maybe I should just have a go and write the book. So I set myself the challenge and here we are.

Nigel Rawlins: Fantastic. How long had you been freelancing before you started writing the book?

Alison Grade: To be brutally honest, I've probably been freelance all my career because I started in TV production and I think there's kind of two parts to freelancing in the UK. So you can be like freelance in terms of your tax status and how you report to government. And that's one side of things, but in film and TV, you might get paid through the traditional payroll, taxes, deductions, but you're only on for six weeks, three months, because that's the length of the production. So you need to have that freelance mindset. So I approach it from, not what does the government say about how you pay your taxes, but if you are somebody that constantly is on a fixed time contract and has to find work for them to do next, but to all intents and purposes, you're freelancers, how there's a myriad of ways you might pay your taxes and sort that out. So in a lot of ways, I really had been freelanced throughout my career. I don't think I stayed anywhere longer than two years.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay, there's one thing that has been on my mind about freelancing. I have no idea what to call freelancers anymore because I've got this great big list and this is half the list: self employment, self employed, agile talent, on demand talent, freelancer, solopreneur, blended flexible workforce, talent cloud, independent professional, independent business owner, freelance talent, independent professional worker, independent consultant, professional expertise, consultant, indie consultant. What do we call a freelancer nowadays? Is it a freelancer?

Alison Grade: Yeah it's definitions we're struggling with here. And I can add another few to that list. Portfolio workers, side hustle, gig worker there's a whole load. And I think it's. It's very divisive. And I think we just want to all stand together. And I'm I think there's some great work coming out of the States with Matt Mottola and Jon Younger and people like that, where it's just this is an industry and they just call it and they say our industry.

And it's let's all just get together guys, because together we're stronger and actually where we've all chosen to go I'm a this and I'm a that, and I'm the other. It's hang on. then we can't have that national conversation or that global conversation.

Nigel Rawlins: I heard Matthew Mitola and Jon Younger talking about it. And I did speak to Jon Younger on one of the interviews for the Wisepreneurs. He's fantastic. I think he's 70 and he's still working. When we were speaking a bit earlier, you talked about your INSEAD colleagues who are wondering about their work and whether they would like to go freelance. Whenever I think about freelancers, I think about people writing code and doing all this sort of stuff. What would you say is in the spectrum of freelancing? They're not all coders, are they? Or what are they?

Alison Grade: Oh I think anything you want to ply your trade at, you can freelance in. I think what, when I first started writing the book, I was in my head, I was trying to work out who am I talking to? Who is my audience? And I think where I got to and what made Freelancing different from say starting a business is generally you're selling B2B services. So you're selling your services to a business And you know often it's seen as trading time for money and I really encourage the freelancers I work with to move beyond that trading time for money into the value and the impact and the outcomes you can deliver for your client because that changes your perceived value their perceived value and unlocks a large chunk of cash quite often, which is always what we want

Nigel Rawlins: Yes, now we'll have to talk about value in a moment too, because I guess when most people start out they don't know how to price their services and they just go on time, which is unfortunate, it's just not a way to make a living, because they've got to survive, and that's going to be the biggest problem in the first year of going out.

If some of your friends are from INSEAD, they've got MBAs, they've been working in a corporate environment, And, we've just had the Gallup report for workplaces come out for 2023 and saying that majority of workers are slow quitting, .

Or they're stressed out. It sounds like they're not very happy at work. For example, professionals out there, either here in Australia or in England or your friends from INSEAD, what would you advise them if they said how do I make that shift to to freelancing?

Alison Grade: Yes, so I always think that when you want to look at what makes successful freelancer. It's like there's three legs of a stool and those three legs need to be at the same length and bearing equal weight. Otherwise the stool falls over. So one of them is about your skills. What skills do you have?

What can you bring to anything? In the book I talk about skills audit and looking at where you're at. What skills do you have? And those can be like the very technical skills to do your work, but also not underestimating your soft skills, your professional skills. If you've worked in a corporate environment and things like that, the knowledge you have about how big companies work, the politics, the bureaucracy, who does what department does what, things that I run a mile from.

But if you sit in a corporate environment, you're going to understand that you're going to be able to talk that language. And your hobbies and interests, and if you're really passionate about gardening and you do marketing, well, find a company that does gardening things because you're going to bring value to that as well.

So you can mix things up. So you've got to have the skills to deliver for people. Then you've got to understand you've got to have financial drive to earn a living doing this. So what are the numbers look like? How much do you need to live on? How much what does that look like? And unlike traditional employment, you're not going to get that same paycheck every month.

So what do you need over a year? And start to think about how many days a month, a week, a year do I need to work? Or how many weeks? What does that look like? Because it's not going to be 50–52. I work on about 24 to 30. If you can make that balance, that's a really good starting point. And then you've got to have the desire, the passion to get your message out there.

If nobody knows you're available and what you can offer, why they should take you on as a freelancer, they're never going to book you. So you've got to have those three legs. And I think it's the finance piece is really scary, but when you start to break it down and realize what you add as value, especially when you're coming from that MBA environment you're highly skilled, highly valued, thinking about where in your organization do people come in?

Where are there problems that you could fix? All those nitty gritty problems that big corporates have, big companies have, that those things that never get done on the list, that are critical but they're not important enough. Freelancers often come in and get those projects moving and get traction.

So where are those opportunities? So it's about that balance. And I think the hardest bit that people have is understanding the value that they bring and having the confidence to go out and say, hey, will you take me on? Because it feels much more personal than say a traditional job search does.

Nigel Rawlins: Now that was one of the issues that I've been noticing and that's why I think it's becoming more exciting. That companies are beginning to realise it's cheaper and it's quicker to find somebody who's really talented to come in and work on a project. Otherwise they've got to go through the employment thing and all the on costs and stuff like that.

And that's why I think there's a lot more opportunity right now for people to start looking at making that shift and that's what I think. Alright. We've got somebody who's got some talent, they've recognised what it is. See, that's going to be the other issue because a lot of people are going to think I just do my job at work.

What do I really know? So how do we help them identify what those skills are?

Alison Grade: Yeah, I think you make a really good point there and one of the things I always encourage people to do when they do their skills audit and really start drilling down into it is to get some corroboration. Have you got a trusted friend, trusted colleague, somebody who knows you well, somebody who'll speak truth unto power because what happens is the things that we take for granted in ourselves are often the things that others most value in us.

But because we take them for granted in ourselves, we cannot see them we can't see them. So therefore, we can't see that as a skill or a value that we bring. I can give you a couple of examples from my work. So when I worked in TV production, my role was very much production manager.

So I had to be super, super organized. Everyone had to get to the right place at the right time. Not spend too much money. It was really fast paced, quick turnaround stuff. So when I started working as a freelancer, doing more consulting, workshops, that kind of thing, I brought those same organizational skills.

And people say to me, Alison, you're so organized. And I just looked at them. It's that sort of Scooby Doo face. Cannot compute because I was like don't you just have to be organized to be a freelancer? They're like no not like you do it kind of thing and I was like, oh, that's you know It's like your superpower thing.

It's I bring that to the table and it took me a while to go Oh people really value this is part of who I am and you have to lean into it and go, yeah, I can do that so it's trying to work that out and then we did an international project with the British Council in Sudan.

And I didn't bat an eyelid jumping on a call with the Sudanese because I'd been in this multicultural environment and international environment with INSEAD. So I dealt with people from all over the world. So it didn't faze me, but my team were a bit like. What do we say? How does it work? So that was a sense of, okay, I didn't realize until people reflected back that this was not a normal way to behave.

Like most people had not had this experience. So it's taking that step back and thinking what do I bring in that context? What do I understand? Does that make sense?

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, I think so they really do need somebody who says, but look, you could do all this stuff. I think one of the things we mentioned before was soft skills. And one of the things I was reading again, Jon Younger article, I think it was was that when a company brings somebody in. They don't want somebody brash, who can't talk or can't communicate or can't work with anyone else.

So they do need people with soft skills. And they're going to be critical, but they also need some sort of capability that they can actually do the job.

Alison Grade: Can I just bring up one thing? I'm sorry. It just went back to the value that people bring. And I think when I look at why companies bring on freelancers, I think that's always a really interesting conversation. And I have a lot in my workshops because I think what I see is that When freelancers go in and pitch, they don't really understand always why the company wants to bring them on and they can do themselves a really good service.

So I think that there's two reasons why companies will hire freelancers. One is because they have specialist skills. So that company doesn't have those skills in house. So they need those special skills or they need added capacity. Now what's really important about this is if you're coming in with added capacity, they know the skills they need you to have It's a really transactional conversation, and technical conversations. So I might go and pitch myself as a media marketing expert to a charity and they haven't really got, you know small company, they haven't really got a presence.

They don't know their LinkedIns from their Instagrams from their Facebook. So it's going to be like the nursery slopes i'm going to take i'm going to start in primary school i'm going to take them on a journey and i'm going to build up loads of trust. And giving them bespoke advice. Whereas if I come to an agency that's just got loads of extra clients, so you're not going to be asking me, should we use LinkedIn or Instagram?

You're going to be going, what are reels, hashtags? Have you done sponsored posts? Da. So it's a very different conversation, but I can service both of those. And I think it's taking that step back when you're thinking about pitching to a client and going, where is this client at on this journey? How much do I need to just educate them about my world?

Rather than selling myself and it can feel really unnatural to go back to primary school and not be like, yes, but I'm at the cutting edge of this, that and the other. And I think that piece is that psychological piece about who's this person, where are they at? What journey do I need to take them on so that they can value me and we can build that freelancing relationship?

Nigel Rawlins: Now that's a really good point because, I was listening to a chap in Singapore the other day and he calls himself a fractional CMO, Chief Marketing Officer, and he works 12 hours here and 10 hours there. And that's something that, another word, you can call yourself a fractional CMO if it's marketing or CFO if it's finance or something like that.

And that's another way of looking at it. That you're fractional or part time, but you're still selling your skills. So the biggest danger when they get called in was how to answer the money question. So how would you suggest that they handle that? Because we should talk about value and price and hourly, and how would you explain that to somebody?

Alison Grade: I guess where would I start with that? That's a big question. I've got to start with what do I need to live on? What does my life cost me to lead? I've got to know that piece. I'm a big fan of going out and doing as much benchmarking as you can. So understanding are there guidance rates?

So some sectors have unions and there's recommended rates and things like that. What can you find out? What can you find out looking across the internet for shout outs, whether that's permanent jobs, freelancing gigs, like what can you find out? What information can you get? Can you ask people not what they're paid, but can you get some insight?

And what would you pay for a freelancer? What would this rate be? Like get as much intelligence. It is a dark art pricing yourself. There's sort of two parts to looking at that. I got some really good intelligence when I was first starting out when I was trying to move to a freelance production manager role.

Somebody said to me you're not going to get taken seriously that you are a freelance production manager unless you say you're on. It was in, it was back in the day. It was quite a long time ago. Let's say I'm 500 pounds a week. And at that point I was on 330 because I'd been at the company for a long time and I'd gone sky high, but I hadn't had the money to relate.

So I went to this job interview for this production manager's freelance production manager's role. On the show and they said to me at the end, so Alison, what's your rate? And I had to take a deep breath and squeak out. And so I had to squeak out Oh, I'm on 500 pounds a week.

And then in that case, we'll give you 525 because it brought that credibility. So there's a credibility piece of knowing what that client is expecting to pay. But equally the flip side of that is I've been in to pitch meetings and I've pitched myself at a rate and the person's gone, yeah, that's fine.

And at that point, I'm not hearing the sharp intake of breath that, oh, she's pitched herself it's a little bit stretchy, is there a negotiation? And then I know that I've left money on the table. So my first thought is, okay, how do I come back and get my rate up the next time with you guys? I've definitely undersold myself.

So it's not easy when you're starting out, but you've got to look for the cues. You've got to get that intelligence from wherever you can. And then you've just got to try and piece that jigsaw puzzle together. The golden rule that I learned from my mentor was, if there's work coming out of your ears and you're too busy to service it, you've got to put your prices up.

Because if work's coming out of your ears, yeah, you probably lose a client or two, but you put your prices up, you get the same amount of money, you do less work. It's economics 101 supply and demand. There's a lot to unpack in pricing, but I think those are the sort of three key areas for me.

Nigel Rawlins: I totally agree that's the worst thing in the world when you say your rate and they just go, yep. And you use the magic word leaving money on the table. We should explain that to people. Would you like to explain money on the table? That they've got to get their head around selling and marketing

Alison Grade: Yeah. Leaving money on the table is quite frankly, the client would have paid more. They've agreed way too quickly. The flip is you go into a store, maybe you're trying to negotiate to buy a car and you make an offer and the guy accepts your first offer. It's you know, he is up for sport, is up for negotiation.

And if you're you want to be ballsy. If I'm selling myself, if I'm a highly experienced executive with highly valued skills with 20 odd years, 30 years of work behind me, like people should be wanting me because I've got a great deal of insight to bring to the table.

I should be expensive. I should be a luxury designer item. The challenge I think when we're starting out is to read who are good clients and who aren't. There will be the people out there who you just go, you're not actually a good fit.

And I've had that, we collaborate on all sorts of projects and there's clients where you're trying to put a tender together and it's like pulling teeth and I'm going, actually, do you know what? I hope we don't win this because I don't actually want to work with you going forwards because this is not working now.

I've just done a project recently. And I approached a client, this client I know quite well, but we hadn't collaborated with, collaborated on, and the whole project so far we haven't heard whether we've won it, but I'd work with them in a heartbeat we just got each other, we understood they knew what I was bringing to the table, I knew what they were bringing to the table, it was a really good fit, and there's an absolute commitment that this is the start of a relationship where we will work together. Whether it's this project that we've bid for now, who knows? But it's that, you're looking for that. It's dating it's who do you want to go out with? Who do you want to date? It's if it doesn't look and smell good, it's probably not the right person.

Nigel Rawlins: I totally agree there. Annoying clients will eat you up, I can tell you. I've worked with a few, and you end up working for nothing and you just, especially when you first start out, it's really hard to say no to a client because you're desperate to get started and get some money coming in.

And the danger is, for some strange reason, some of the tricky ones find you.

Alison Grade: They're very good at finding vulnerable people who are desperate to get started. That's actually what they're very good at. I really don't like to work for nothing. I've occasionally done that for projects with people, but ultimately they don't value me because they're not paying me. So if I send them something over, however well it is, they don't review it properly.

And it's only when it's just got to that final sign off piece. And then they go, Oh, that's 45, 000 changes because they haven't paid attention to it. They're just, there's no value in the chain. Nobody's got skin in the game. When people have been working for 20, 30 years, you've got networks, you've got people who are, know you exist, think you're credible, like start with them start small, but start with those people who are in your networks, get them to try you out, get them to give you a recommendation.

Just it's really tempting to try and sell the biggest project in the world, but actually it's much easier to get in on a really small project. Sell them a little thing. Go and do that. Whilst you're doing the little thing, look at what the next thing is you can do for them that's going to add value, make them look good, all of that.

And then slowly you find your way building that relationship. But it's very tempting at the beginning. It's Oh, we could do all of these things. We could do all of these things, but actually you can't get any of it over the line. So just try and close one little thing over the line and then keep moving from there.

Nigel Rawlins: I think the secret there is it's easier to sell into somebody you're working with than somebody you don't know. So you go put a lot of effort into trying to attract new clients. But if you're already working with a client, have a look at them. And I think that's really good advice. And your network is important because they may know someone.

And that, because I do work with older women, I don't even know what word is because I'm old too, but they will have a fairly big network.

Alison Grade: I think people don't realize the value of their networks, especially if they're going to do something else. It's we all know an awful lot of people, and actually we've just met, you came across me because I was doing a thing with Matt Dowling at the Freelancer Club, so you reach out to me, and then it's okay who do you know, and who do you know, and who can you go have a coffee with people that you know, and you've always liked working with, in any company, at any point, and just say, hey, I've gone freelance, I'm thinking of offering these services.

What do you think? I always valued your opinion. Would your company use them? Do you know anyone who'd be interested in them? Everyone's got networks, You build from there. If you say to me, oh, Alison, do you know someone in film and TV in Birmingham?

I'll say yeah, who do you want to know? Because I know most people on the ground here. And if I introduce you, they'll take that call. They'll respond to that email. So it's using those networks. I'm being curious. Just go and look and see where the problems are. What's the problem somebody's got?

Where's the opportunity? Where's the pain? Start asking yourself those questions because that's where you'll find those initial opportunities.

Nigel Rawlins: So the question there is, how can I help you? Okay, so what I'm thinking about somebody's still in work, they're working in another business where all of this stuff's being done for them, it will be a shock to go out from that where everything, you know, they just, the work is delivered to them, they don't have to go and find the work, they don't have to make the sale or anything like that.

So would you suggest that they start sounding out their network before they quit their job?

Alison Grade: It's different for everybody because it depends what you've got in the bank. What your personal circumstances are so I think it's run the numbers and see what it looks like If you've got 6 to 12 months cash in the bank then maybe you can stop straight away, but equally there's a value to continuing working and going reducing your hours So because you're also then keeping your skills up to date your confidence is better.

So There's pros and cons, but obviously then you've got less time to go and meet other clients, potential clients, and do things. So it's chicken and egg. I don't think there's one right way. There's only the right way for you. I think the other observation I've had is just some of the practicalities.

People are, who've been very much in a corporate environment are just like. I've got to look after my own IT. What computer do I buy? How do I set it up? Just like really smart people going, oh my god, I need to buy a computer. I don't know what to do. It's that kind of thing as well.

Like you're used to having, you know, an IT department, a this, that, and the other. But the challenge is when you're freelance, actually you do have to troubleshoot that. But the good news is there's always a local IT person around who's very good. And you just need to get someone on the end of a phone or a zoom call to, to assist.

It's some of those basics can be quite overwhelming and daunting for people if they've not had to do that.

Nigel Rawlins: Now that that's the sort of stuff I hear that they've come out of a corporate environment. Oh, how do I set this up? What do I do with it? Okay. So we should actually talk about I did hear Jon Younger the other day saying they've got to learn to run this as a business. You can do your work, but you're running a business.

So what would you say is involved in running a business for somebody who is freelancing?

Alison Grade: Yeah. He's absolutely spot on. When you're freelance, not only do you have to work in your business, doing the work that you do, you've got to work on it. I just break it down. You've got to be the CEO of your freelance career. What direction do I want to go in? What do I want to be doing?

Where do I want to get to? What does success look like to me? If I'm going to freelancing, it's generally because I want to achieve something that I cannot achieve, in the corporate environment, which quite often will be about personal life choices around, I want to do less work, I want to do more traveling, I want to do less traveling, I want more time at home I want to get away from the politics, the bureaucracy, whatever it might be.

What does success look like? So you've got to be that CEO and start to define what does that look like? Because if I can define what good looks like, I can then try and put a package together to go in this case, I need to offer this type of work to these types of people. So I've got to be that CEO, but equally, just like any good business, I need a finance department.

I've got to be the finance director. I've got to be the marketing director. I've got to be the operations director. So I've got to organize my time. And part of the reason that I always look to say, 24 to 30 weeks of paid work a year is to allow me that time to be the CEO, to be the marketing director, to be the finance director, to be the sales director, to be the operations director, so that I can organize my time and that's all factored in to what I charge to my clients.

Nigel Rawlins: Yes, I think that's a secret too, isn't it? That all the time you get in a week cannot just be client work. It's all this other stuff you've got to do as well. And the marketing can never stop. I've spent all day writing an article for tomorrow.

Alison Grade: I think it's also what you're looking to do. I think there's different ways of freelancing. So I don't know if you remember your electrical circuits from school where you had like series and parallel. So there are freelancers who work in like series. So film production is like that.

So you start, you do a big job, it's all hands to the pump and then it stops. And actually it's much healthier to then have a gap. And then start up again. Whereas and that's very much how I used to work. And now I have things in parallel. So I have lots of different projects going on at the same time.

But that's also a life stage thing. When my kids were tiny, I was really happy to have one or two projects, let them finish, regroup, sort life out and then come back into it. So there is. I think you can put a lot of pressure on yourself to keep it all flowing, but actually if that doesn't feel like it comes naturally to you and there's enough money coming in, it doesn't have to be like that.

You can make it work how you want to work. If you don't want to do marketing and you just want to have coffees with people and wait for the phone to ring, if you've got a good network, it could probably work for you. I spent years not marketing very much at all because you just have those conversations, but I had a good network and people knew I was around and what I could do.

So I think don't put too much pressure on yourself as well.

Nigel Rawlins: I totally agree with that. That's great. So we talked about running a business. How would you say that you structure your day.

Alison Grade: I'm not very good at doing the same thing over and over again, which is why if someone says sit in an office Monday to Friday, nine to five and be productive, it's like my least productive time. I'm quite an early bird. I like to get up early.

I'll often do a big chunk of work before the kids come down for school and things like that, because it's a really good time to just get the sort of work that you can do when the emails aren't pinging and all of that that deep work. Whether it's writing, those kind of things.

I'm quite fluid in that respect. I work a bit from home. We've got a bit of a shared office. I'll dabble between the kids and work and it's a bit more blended and fluid, which works for me because I can keep lots of things moving. Whilst not necessarily being chained to my desk.

And for me that flows a bit into the weekends, but that kind of works. For a lot of other people, they want a bit more structure, rigidity, and that's cool too. I think you've just got to know what your boundaries are. And equally, if I'm really tired and I haven't got the energy to get up and I Just don't do something.

If I've got a really hardcore deadline, of course I'll get on with that. It's, I don't get up and say I've got to be doing something at 6am because that's what I do. It's if it didn't work this morning. It's knowing like when it's right for you. And I think giving yourself permission to work when you feel like working.

So if I've really lost concentration, there's just no point. I might as well go for a walk. I might as well do something useful around the house. I might as well go and do a grocery shop. If I've lost the concentration, I can sit here and pretend, but I'm just being a fool to myself and there's other things that I can do.

So I think that's what I love about that freelancing ethos is yes, of course we get the work done, but we're output driven. It's not about presenteeism. And when I collaborate with freelancers, they're always really confused because I'll be. Like, oh yeah, just go do that thing. I know you'll get the work done.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's a really important point too, is it does go on energy. And as they say, when you're flogging a dead horse, if you've got no motivation, just go and have a nap or go for a walk, then come back to it when you have it. And that's the other danger of working for yourself too, is the burnout.

What I do notice about people who freelance, is that when they do their work, it's focused on that work and they get it done. Because I think if you were working for an organization, you've got a lot more time to do the job, plus you've got all the interruptions, so it can take two or three times as long or longer.

And that's where the benefit from freelancers and that's where I think we, or freelancers will undervalue themselves and say, oh, I'm just twenty dollars or forty dollars an hour. Whereas in fact, you're four times or five times as productive. I think there's another piece as well is like you're only charging the 20, 40 dollars or whatever it is when you're sitting at your desk. So when you've run out and we all get to those creative blocks or whatever it is, we're trying to work something out. We've got to a point I call it creative blocks, they're saying creative industries, but we all get to a point in our work where I've gone as far as I can go and I'm now scratching my head and I don't know what to do.

Alison Grade: So you go for a walk or whatever, you're going around the supermarket, you're not on the clock with the client because you're in the supermarket, but actually you have the lightbulb moment because it's all going on in your subconscious and where do you have your best ideas? Walking the dog, in the shower, cooking the dinner, when you're not trying to think about it and we did a lot of work in the UK last year around our creativity and working with people who were coming up with TV shows for unscripted and talk about brainstorming and when do people have their best ideas?

And not one person said sitting at my desk in the office. So value that time as part of delivering for the client. And that's why moving from a time based model is really important because you are, always on the clock, if you like, because if you're working on something, you're still thinking about it at the back of your mind.

Nigel Rawlins: So the point you're making there is that they need to charge for the outcome that's going to be delivered.

Alison Grade: Absolutely.

Nigel Rawlins: That is a good point, Nigel. No, you just, it just hit me because that's the hardest thing to talk to people. How much do you charge? The benefit to the client, but I guess when you're starting out, these are difficult concepts to get in your head. You're in a meeting and you're just, everything's going through your head.

How am I going to do this? You're already starting to think about, Oh, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. And then when it comes to the money yeah. But I think with experience, you get an idea of the value of it anyway.

Alison Grade: I think when you're in that meeting though, I think, and you're pitching yourself, I always encourage people to think, so if I'm in a meeting at a big company and I'm pitching what I can deliver as a freelancer, the chances are that person has then got to sell me to their boss. So I need to give them the words because what is their boss going to say?

How's this going to add value to us? How's it going to help us achieve our KPIs? How's it going to deliver our strategy? So that's what the boss is going to say to the person I'm pitching to. So I've got to give them those words, not just, this is what I'll do, but how is it going to deliver for the company?

And I think it's really hard to think about it from your point of view, but if you then go, how's this person going to sell me to their boss, and what question their boss can ask, that comes really naturally. So that's what you need to be thinking about in your pitch.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, definitely. And you've got to know that's going to occur. Who's going to make the decision. My mentor said money, authority, and need. Have they got the money to pay you? Has this person got the authority to hire you? And what's the need? Because if you can't identify the need, you can't pitch it anyway.

And you've got to have all that in your head when you're doing it. So tell me, you're doing some training as well. You're helping entrepreneurs become, freelancers. Can you tell us something about that?

Alison Grade: Yeah, I do a lot of work here in the UK with creative freelancers, a lot with further education and higher education, around, how to be the best freelancer you can be, and you're just starting at uni. Start thinking about freelancing now, use it to bring in money whilst you're studying because you don't get that hugely supported here in the UK.

So a lot more students than ever are needing to work whilst they're in uni. So rather than going for those traditional hospitality jobs, how can you get into freelancing now? It will help with your portfolio. So that piece, and then also when they're leaving, like that soft landing piece lots and lots of work in that space, working with a lot of creative community organizations.

They might have an arts community. Co creatives down the road. They've got me in for a project to help their community. So lots of that, but also I think one of the challenges certainly here in the UK, I can't speak for Australia freelancing is not part of education policy.

Young people need to know about employment and they need to know about starting a business, but freelancing doesn't fit in either of those. So really starting to advocate for change in that space, but also looking to move into that space where we upskill the educators, the teachers, the lecturers, the careers advisors the enterpriser educators all of those people to really help students embed that knowledge.

So that's a key piece that we're doing what we're also seeing is that freelancing as well skews young and old it's really interesting So I've done a lot with the younger people but also starting to now, like yourself go, okay, so where are some of those older audiences? What does that look like?

And that's certainly here in the West Midlands where I'm at. We are really looking at the skills needed in the region and how we can very much keep those older, not very old, but older in, in policy speak workers, how we can keep them creating value because actually that saves on healthcare and all sorts of things down the line because their mental health is better, which keeps their physical health better.

So there's really positives for all of that. So yeah, it's a really interesting time at the moment and freelancing's never been more on the map than it is now.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, definitely. I think we're right on a wave. I read there's 70 million freelancers in America and multiple times that across the world. So it is growing, and as you said, I think this is one thing we've got to think about is in the regions that we live in, there's a lot of work there but it's a matter of people identifying who can do it because they're not going to be able to attract full timers when in fact some of those jobs only need a day a week or a half day a week or something like that.

Alison Grade: For the same budget, you can have one person full time or somebody part time. What skills do you need? How much work is there to do? You're in Australia, I'm in the UK. Actually, as a freelancer, there is this globalization of opportunity now.

I can work with anyone, anywhere and a colleague of mine, Neil runs a company called The Audio Suite and he actually moved out to Australia and he's got the Birmingham operation. What happens is people are shooting in the UK during the day, he does the audio, they send it down the line, in Australia, he gets up in the morning, does the work.

The Brits go to bed, they get up in the morning and it's all done. So there's things like where the time zones can actually really impact and help you deliver and keep things time critical. So there's some real value points that you can bring in. So it's just, I think that the whole globalization of opportunity is there.

COVID's really brought it out. You can work with anyone, anywhere. And that's a positive and a negative. So it's what does that mean for me? Where does that work? But I think the time zone piece in certain sectors can be really valuable. If you can put that need in there.

People have never seen something be possible, but now it is.

Nigel Rawlins: I think that's incredibly important because as I run a marketing services company and I employ people all over the world. I've had a couple of guys in Spain have done work for me. I've got people in the Philippines, Vietnam. I tend to try and keep in my time zones because you can get some feedback, but the European's are good too. I've used people all over the world. And that's one issue for freelancers, you can hire other freelancers to help you.

Alison Grade: Price your time.

Nigel Rawlins: That's the main thing is don't try and do everything because You'll stuff it up if you're not good at it, especially say web work and all that. I've done lots of websites, but I don't do them anymore. My subcontractors help me do that. Is there anything else that you can think about, that we haven't touched on, that you'd like to say something on.

Alison Grade: Oh, I think we've covered so much. We have covered a lot of ground. I think for me, it's freelancing is just so liberating to have that independence and autonomy to make your own decisions. And I don't always make the right decisions as a freelancer I'll choose a client and I go gosh, I really don't think I wanna do that with work with that client again, but I can vote with my feet and things like that.

It's a two-way street. Those short projects getting started with a small project. See if you like working with somebody and. Nothing worse than walking into a corporate job and realizing that you've signed up for however long and you don't actually like the company and it's not what you thought.

That's much harder to get out of. Freelancing is much simpler but building relationships, I think relationships go such a long way in freelancing. And being a nice person to have around, it sounds really trite.

It's not going to get you through the door at the beginning, but it will get you asked back time and time again. If you're a good client to work with, you do stuff well, on time the number of times clients will phone me up and go, oh, Alison, do you think you could do this? And I'm a bit like, I haven't really done that before, but sounds doable.

So I'll just say yes. But they're ringing me up because ultimately they've had a good experience working with me. I'll tell them the truth if I really don't think I can do it and I'm not the right person. But that relationship piece means that I'm front of mind, that they will phone me up. Be a good person to work with gets you asked back time and time again And that's really what builds your client base.

Nigel Rawlins: That's so important. Now tell me, do you coach people or do anything like that?

Alison Grade: I don't do a huge amount of that if i'm brutally honest. I work generally through programs so here in the UK, there's a great organization called Creative UK that do business planning support for screen businesses and through programs like that where they pay because they're supporting the company.

I'll do a few of those, but generally I don't tend to take an individual's money. It's not a space that I sit in and alongside the freelancing workshops we do, I have a team working with me delivering a lot of screen industries training so I tend to stay a bit more in that B2B space and less a one to one thing.

But that's just where I'm at currently.

Nigel Rawlins: So they could read the book, I think.

Alison Grade: I think so. Definitely read the book and there's audio books. If you like hearing my British accent, then you get to hear me read that as well.

Nigel Rawlins: And it's on the Kindle, which is the one I bought. I found it very good. I've got the table of contents sitting up in front of me and you've covered everything in there, I think. And then people have just... If they're working at the moment, this is a good book to get hold of just to start getting their head around it.

Who else would you recommend? We've talked about Matt Dowling. He's got the Freelancer Club. They've got stuff that could help people.

Alison Grade: Matt's doing a great job. I think platforms we haven't touched on and platforms are really interesting because I think the evolution of the freelancing platforms, I likened to the high street you've got Have you got Primark in Australia or an equivalent?

We have a store Primark over here, which is like it's high fashion, really fast, like you can get a t shirt for a pound it's really cheap. So you've got that mass market type appeal on the high street and then you've got like really designer boutiques, yeah?

So that's your high street equivalent and I think freelancing is growing up and you've got those kind of primark equivalents, those real low cost pound stores, whatever. With your freelancer. com, your fiverr's, your Upworks, and all of that, where it is a commodity. And I will shop in Primark for certain things, but I won't buy everything there.

I'll go to the designer store when I want something that's designer. So it's understanding how that marketplace is evolving. And Matt and the Freelancer Club sits in a much more higher end space for creatives. So it's very different to those commodity driven, Upworks, Fiverrs, those kind of things.

Now, everything has its place, but the challenge is understanding how that ecosystem is developing and which one is right for you. In the same way that you know when you walk down the high street which store you want to go into and why and I think that's the piece that people struggle with is to understand that but they're not going anywhere these platforms.

They're here to stay. You've just got to work out like what does that ecosystem look like for me?

Nigel Rawlins: So when we're talking about platforms, we're talking about the freelancer platforms where you can sign up and where people can apply to get workers to do jobs. We've got one freelancer. com in Australia. That's an Australian one. And Upwork is the one I've been using.

Fiverr is the little cheap one. And that's interesting. Yeah, I don't use Fiverr as much anymore. I'd rather pay more, I think, somewhere else.

Alison Grade: Exactly and also there's sector specific ones is there's a million of them and it's a really complex marketplace. And I think what big businesses are struggling with is how to engage with freelancers. Because it quite often comes through this network model of, Oh me, we'll get you in to do a little project, but actually if you want to scale your use of freelancers, that network model starts to fall over quite quickly.

So how do you source freelancers at scale? And that's really the space Matt Mottola very eloquently calls it the Human Cloud and that's what we're talking about and that's the place where they're looking at what does that mean if you're talking to Microsoft or the really big boys or girls.

What does that look like? How do you bring in scale freelancers? That's the piece that is coming, but it's not quite there yet. And there's lots of people playing with that. The platforms and the marketplaces are going to keep evolving and it is there is going to be like you're going to go to different ones for different things and that's just a fact of life.

And so we just need to embrace that rather than just going Oh, there's this one platform. That's mine. That's the only way. It's just, it's never going to be.

Nigel Rawlins: Totally agree. It's coming. It's really coming. Okay, so how would you like people to contact you or find out about you?

Alison Grade: Yeah, probably my main platforms are probably LinkedIn and Instagram with a bit of X in there, but I'm a bit hot and cold on X at the moment for obvious reasons, formerly known as Twitter. Although I don't know why everyone has to keep saying that. So yeah, contact me through there.

My website's alisongrade. com. Yeah always love to hear stories. Love to hear what people think of the book. If you enjoy it, Amazon review goes a long way. So yeah,

Nigel Rawlins: Fantastic. All right. Thank you very much, Alison, for joining me and the Wisepreneurs.

Alison Grade: Thanks for having me.