Navigating Self-Employment in L&D: Jane Hudson’s Success Story

Nigel Rawlins: My special guest is Jane Hudson. She was guest number five and now returns for the 55th episode, marking a milestone in our journey together. Jane is an expert in learning and development with a niche focus on regulatory training. In this episode we'll catch up on what's transpired over the last 50 episodes, delving into the evolution of her career as an independent professional. We'll explore the intricacies of how she manages her business. The projects that she's currently working on and her tips on running a successful L and D consultancy. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or you're already a professional in the learning and development field or any other field, Jane's insight on self-employment, remote team management and effective pricing strategies, will offer some practical guidance and inspiration. So get ready to learn a little bit more about running an independent professional business.

Welcome, Jane. You were my guest number five and now you're my guest 55, so we're going to do some catching up.

Jane, can you tell us something about yourself and where you're from?

Jane Hudson: Okay, so I work as a learning and development consultant and my background, my first career was a professional freelancing musician in Sydney. I did that for about 10 years and then, moved to Melbourne and then decided to get a day job, mainly because I've become a sole supporting parent, so I, oh gosh, I've got to actually pay the rent for two now, I'd better do something about that.

So I landed in government and spent about 20 years working with different government regulators, and then moved from being a government employee to running my own business. Basically doing the same kind of work, but doing it for me as opposed to being an employee.

Nigel Rawlins: And where are you based?

Jane Hudson: So I'm based in central Victoria. Moved up here six years ago, tomorrow being the 1st of August and spent the first year commuting back down to Melbourne running J Bass Learning as a side hustle and still having full time employment. And then after the first year, I got a really good project offer and I went, you know what? It's now or never. Let's just take the leap and accept the project and leave the day gig and see if I can make this business pay for Jane, basically.

Nigel Rawlins: So let's talk about where you live. You moved from Melbourne, which is the capital of Victoria in Australia, to a country town. The benefit I know because we spoke on episode number five is that you're on a rail line.

That commute to Melbourne, how was that?

Jane Hudson: It's easy. It's an hour and a half. So I live in central Victoria, about an hour and a half north of Melbourne. So we do have good regional train services. And I work from home. So it's a really great environment. It's a great town. I don't feel like we're cut off from the city and all the work I do is online.

And that was pre COVID and then COVID really cemented that and changed people's understandings of how online work can work. So I don't travel to go and meet clients. The advantage is I get to work with people from all across the country and not so much around the world, but sometimes.

So the project I'm working on at the moment I've got a team of five working with me based in Brisbane, the Blue Mountains Melbourne, New Zealand, Adelaide. So it makes it really interesting. You get to work with some really amazing people and it doesn't matter where they live, you can all come together have fun, if that makes sense in a work context.

Nigel Rawlins: I guess in many ways, since COVID, we've got used to online meetings and connecting in that way. Now, just before we go on with a little bit about that like you, I'm a hundred kilometres southeast of Melbourne we're on a train line too, but I've got to catch a bus to get it. But the benefit of living out in the country, I guess housing's a little bit cheaper, but also it's lovely and quiet.

Like I can't hear any car noise from you, and I haven't had a car go past since about seven o'clock this morning, I think.

Jane Hudson: Yeah, I think, and there's a real it's big skies and lots of space. Yeah so yeah, it works for me. Our town is a very active, vibrant town.

It has a really strong arts community. They run an annual jazz festival, we have the amazing Theatre Royal, with all sorts of bands and concerts coming through, so it's not like we're missing out on, the benefits of being in a big city, but we have the advantage that we're not living an urban life anymore.

Nigel Rawlins: I just like my quiet little town with a couple of supermarkets. All right. Let's go back to what we were talking about.

The fact is that you can work anywhere in the world or connect with anyone within a team. Now this has happened since COVID hasn't it? Can we talk a little bit about that? Has your work changed since COVID as a result?

Jane Hudson: I'm going to actually say not really, I think what I was doing it before COVID, I think what COVID has done is shown people different ways of working that it can be done effectively online, depending on the work that you're doing.

Sometimes you do need to go and be there in person. I tend to avoid those types of jobs. That's just a personal choice. But so I think what COVID's really done is it's really made it a lot easier for people to understand how it can be done. And it's, look, it's better for the environment.

Why would I fly around and drive around when I can do it online? Why would you? Unless you're an extrovert and then you really want to be in the same room with the people. Fortunately, I am not. Online works.

Nigel Rawlins: Now the other interesting thing you were talking about is generally we don't record, but we can see each other online.

And you were concerned that I could actually see the environment behind you, that you like to blur out the background. Tell us something about that. You don't like people seeing into your place?

Jane Hudson: No, I think it's more, it's about distractions. Like one person I work with her eye for detail, I blows me away.

So I'm talking to you now and I don't have the background blurred.. She would get distracted and go, Oh, I really like that painting. Oh, do you have a piano? So if I blur it out there's not that distraction. And it's a weird thing to say, but it's also it depends how well I know people, whether I feel I want to blur the background or not.

Yeah, it's a bit of a privacy thing around, look, you're new to me, if you're a stranger, it's a professional relationship, but you don't need to see the pile of washing on the couch that needs folding or whatever it happens to be.

Nigel Rawlins: One of the things about that, though, is you do get to see the whole person, whereas that's the danger of just meeting online is, if you just see the person, you don't see anything about their life. Like I don't hide mine, but I do keep it really tidy.

Jane Hudson: It's interesting about getting to know the person because I take your point, but if I was meeting with you physically, you wouldn't see my home and I wouldn't see yours. We would be in a business setting, focusing on the business stuff we're doing, trying to act professional and generally failing, but giving it a go.

Nigel Rawlins: The issue there is that when you're meeting somebody , you're actually looking into each other's eyes . With our cameras, I don't even know if I'm looking at you. My camera's up there. And I'm looking down there, so if I'm looking at you and I took a picture, I'm probably not looking at your eyes.

So that's the difference. You can get cameras now that it's like I'm looking into your eyes, but I don't know how that affects our communication. We're not actually looking into each other's eyes as we talk, like we would if we met.

Jane Hudson: Yeah, it's an interesting one. I don't know. Yeah, I do know that I'm much more conscious as I've been doing more and more of these online meetings.

I'm much more conscious of if I'm wanting to talk to you, like I actually want to make a point to you directly looking in your eyes. I'll look at the camera because I figured that's how I'm looking into your eyes, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I've had to work on that.

Nigel Rawlins: There are cameras now that are at eye level and it looks like you're looking at you.

And there's also software that makes your eyes look like you're looking at you. All right. Let's go into L& D, learning and development. You've probably been in the learning and development field for quite a number of years. How do you think it's developing? What are your thoughts about learning and development today?

Jane Hudson: There's the technology side of course, a lot more e learning, a lot more online workshops, , and that also was another impact of COVID, where companies really had to pivot how they were supporting their staff's capability with learning and development, because they couldn't run in person workshops, and things like that.

What I'm noticing, which I think is quite interesting, is now that COVID has passed, I'm working with a client and they said we want e learning modules, we want online workshops. So we're like, oh, okay, cool, we can do that. And it's a long time, it's a big project. It's a 12 month project. And over the time, they've shifted.

They're going We don't want the workshops to be online anymore. We want them to be face to face. Everybody's crying out for the face to face experience again, which I thought was super interesting just because they're a National organization and they have an office in every capital city and territory in the country.

So that means I have 10 offices around the country and they actually see the benefit in flying trainers to the local office to run training face to face, which technically is going to cost a lot more than if they ran it online. But they're saying the benefits of that extra cost of flights, accommodation, the time it takes a trainer to travel.

They still think that is going to give them a good return with their learning development. So they'll do the face to face. They'll run them, I'm just designing it and I give it to them. But I thought that was interesting, even though online is great and it's really opened up all sorts of opportunities like we talked about earlier.

You can work with people from all around the country or internationally. At the end of the day, humans are still just humans. And people like to be in the same room together. It creates a whole different feel and energy and connection. Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: Oh, it's definitely an energetic thing. So let's just go into that a little bit.

How do you design for a live session now, as against for the online one? So for the online one, I guess you would have designed everything just to run. Whereas a live one would be quite different, what's the difference in design for those two?

Jane Hudson: Activities and timing is really the key difference. So your learning outcomes don't change. You still know what you need to achieve. If you run a workshop online, you need to treat time differently. Online learning is a much more intense experience. So you generally make the workshop sessions a bit shorter. You have much more flexibility, you can actually get people physically standing up and moving around and moving into groups and working on whiteboards and flip charts and having conversations. And it's really different, like in online, what can you do?

A breakout room. So you send them off to do small group activities in the breakout room. Most of the technologies like whiteboards and Miro boards and things, I work with government. Government can't access any of those extra technologies. They're restricted to MS Teams, which is really limited. So you're very narrow in what you can do in an online workshop for the activities.

But face to face, it feels like you'll be more adventurous and have more options for how people learn and what you get them to do.

Nigel Rawlins: That's really quite interesting because one of the issues about learning that I understand is, you can do an online course and do a quiz and you can tick the box and you can assume you've got some competency,

Then the issue is, can you actually do that? Which is capability. So with the live classes or learning, I would assume that they get a sense that the learning is actually occurring whereas, we can only do a tick the box when it's online. And I've done online learning before, and if I can't remember something, I'll go back or I'll take copious notes so I can tick the box.

What about recall then? You're following that in terms of, is one better than the other, do you think?

Jane Hudson: I think with online learning, the risk is exactly what you described. It can be quite easy to skate through, make sure you've ticked all the boxes, and potentially be more focused on getting that piece of paper at the end, like a credential. Oh, I did this, I can put it on my LinkedIn profile, I can put it in my resume.

So there's more risk, I think, of that sort of approach happening when people are doing online learning, also known as self directed learning, so they don't have a facilitator or anyone supporting them. But outside of that, for either option, whether you're online or face to face. there's always a challenge about, you asked about recall, how the learner who's done the workshop either online or in person, to take that learning and apply it in their job.

And that's something that in the learning and development community we wrestle with all the time. And for me, because I work in more organizational learning settings, I'm not just designing a workshop. It's a workshop as part of a bigger program. So one of the things we're working on at the moment, you come in, you do the e learning module that gives you your underpinning knowledge.

There's some practice questions and scenarios, so that's useful. And then you need to come and do a half day workshop. That's where you're going to practice and use scenarios to apply the learning, and then we connect it to their manager and team leader, and basically the manager's role is to support their staff members to take what they've learned in the e learning module and the workshop, and make sure they're applying it on the job.

So support them, check, answer questions, nudge, and if it goes on too long, like they've done the training, but they're not doing it in their work, you go from nudge to push to performance improvement, but that's how we address it. Yeah. So everything is in context. It's not just do this e learning module.

It's always making it link into what are you going to do with this in the job and how will we see, or how would your manager see that you've taken that learning on board and you've made any changes and you're doing your work in inverted commas better, more efficiently, more confidently.

Nigel Rawlins: And I guess we should say that your niche is regulatory learning.

Is that the context we're talking about?

Jane Hudson: Yes, government regulators. So I live in a world where I work with government regulators to help them improve their capability to go out and regulate. The community for whatever it is. I worked with WorkSafe Victoria. So their mandate was protecting OH& S, protecting workers from harms and risks at work.

So I worked with their inspectors and investigators, they developed the skills and knowledge they needed to effectively interpret the legislation, go out and inspect the premises, understand what is the legal entity, the duty holder is doing right, and what they're not. And then give them advice.

I use that word carefully because regulators are not consultants, but guide them with, hey, this isn't compliant with legislation. You need to do X. So yeah, government regulators, Environment Protection Authority, mining, child protection disability sector. Yeah, so different things that they're regulating but the principles underneath are the same.

So that's my niche, I'm not just L& D, I'm regulatory L& D.

Nigel Rawlins: That's really important because we're going to talk about business a bit later because one of the problems a lot of people have is being really clear about what they're doing and who it's for, which is, positioning in many ways.

So your niche is regulation. Now you mentioned the word self directed learning just before. Can you tell us something about that and how does that impact your own learning?

Jane Hudson: Self directed learning is when someone's doing an e learning module and the module's completely self contained and there's no human who's going to, guide them, remind them and it's just up to the individual to say, I want to do this course, I'm going to do it.

That's self directed learning and it takes quite a lot of self discipline to continue to the end. So the problem that e learning faces is very poor completion rates. I'm thinking like 20–25 percent completion rates on online courses. Because people lose interest, get distracted, they don't have the ongoing discipline to come back and finish the course and do the activities and answer the questions.

On the one hand we say e learning is great, it's flexible, people can do it in their own time and it's a really viable option for large organisations with, dispersed workforces. The downside is that people find those courses quite hard to see through to the end, unless they have a manager saying, have you done this? Or unless maybe they get together with a group of friends and they all say, let's do it together and we can help each other, so that's a nutshell for self directed learning. Good thing, but easier said than done.

Nigel Rawlins: For the self employed keeping up to date. For example, for me, I've paid for a number of online courses.

Some I paid for them two years ago. I haven't yet started them. I am working through them and I think I've mentioned it on the podcast before. I've got a desk that rises up and down and I've just bought a little under desk treadmill. So what I do now is, because I need to move more because I'm getting a bit bigger in the middle, I get on my treadmill and that's when I'll do my online learning.

So I'm actually starting to get through it a bit.

I was thinking, you're not treadmilling now are you Nigel, because you're not moving.

Nah, you'd hear it. No, I've already walked about 4k this morning. I went out early. Oh wow. Did a long walk. this is the problem with working from home. it's too easy to sit on your bum all day.

As humans, we have to move. I've paid for lots of online learning and some I go on and it's just totally boring, and it's just so badly done. I've spent too much money on it, but I am working my way through them.

And that's my little excuse getting on this treadmill a couple of times a day that gives me half an hour and I don't go too fast on the treadmill. It just gives me some more moving and getting off the seat. And that's one of our issues, as we're older and working for ourselves, it's just keeping our mind active and not getting burnt out.

All right, so what do you like to learn about for

Jane Hudson: yourself to keep yourself up to date?

Okay, at this stage, for this year, I'm saying I'm learning on the job, basically. So this project I talked about earlier is seven E-learning modules, four face-to-face workshops, five subcontractors and a whole implementation plan, a comms plan.

So I'm learning on the job. I've learned a ton about, producing e-learning modules, like not just writing the content but the actual production. I've learned a lot about, how random people can be. As a learning and development project manager, which is my thing, I do design, but I project manage, I am a professional cat herder, but this project is really testing my cat herding .

For example, Module 3 has been approved. So the process is we send the software package to the client, it is now theirs, they put it on their system, everybody's happy. And the client came back yesterday with more feedback.

None of it was needed, but they're just having more ideas. So I've literally, just before meeting with you, I sent you the email saying, so just let me confirm. Do you want this change or not? We're going to have to go backwards and forwards to accommodate the change, but as I'm writing it, Nigel, I'm going, Why? Why did you think this now? I wasn't expecting you. And you've signed it off. And then you go, Oh, one more change. No. I don't think so. And that I've learned too, how do you politely say to a really enthusiastic, meaning client, how do you politely say, do you know what, the door's shut on that one.

We're finished. Move on.

Outside of that conferences, professional memberships are a useful thing, so I'm a member with Australian Institute of Training and Development, and the Institute for Learning Professionals. So that keeps me in touch with just what my learning and development peers are thinking about, debating, what new trends may be coming.

There's a big flurry around Chat GPT when it first really hit, everybody's saying it's going to change the whole world. It's going to change what we do in learning and development. We won't need instructional designers anymore, which is all just rubbish. And people have settled down and gone it's a tool.

Yes, it's useful. So that seems to quietened off. And like I said, what I'm learning is technology is great. Online learning has it's place but at the end of the day, we're just human beings

and we really like getting in a room solving problems basically.

You've

Nigel Rawlins: just said is that the client is outsourced completely. They're getting you to project manage and you've got a team together. So they're not trying to have this in house anymore. I do know that some organizations have, in house training and all that to try and do this.

So why couldn't this organisation organise that themselves? Or is this project you've been working on so specialised that they haven't got the capability in house?

Jane Hudson: It's all of the above and some. So this particular one, they don't have internal capability and they knew that. This is where it gets awkward because I'm going to sound like, I think I'm so special.

I'm not, but what I do is really quite unique. And so the person who engaged me, this is networking and marketing in action, right? The person who engaged me to do this piece of work, I was her training manager with another regulator about seven years ago. So she reached out and said, I've just moved into this new role.

We have a massive need. There's no learning and development happening for our regulatory staff. Our time is of the essence. We don't have the internal capability. What could you do? So what I've pitched to them, which they've accepted, it feeds into your comment about outsourcing. it's a partnership approach.

So I think of it like Star Trek. So you have a spaceship voyager, big spaceship cruising through space. That is my client. I'm the little runabout that pulls up beside them and hooks on for 12 months. I do the build outside with them on the inside. So they also have a team on the inside.

And the idea is that as we're doing this together, that's building their internal capability. And then once the project is finished, they have the ability to implement the e learnings, the workshops, the whole internal program, and I will detach and sail off in a different direction. So it is a slightly different role and it's the first time I've done it this way and been able to convince someone this will work because most people will come to you and go, just do it for me. No, that won't serve you in the longterm.

Nigel Rawlins: Jane, there's a couple of things I heard in there. One is they're augmenting their team by finding you. And you're not trying to, override them or run them. You've said, I'm going to collaborate with you.

You are now working on a project that you are saying is 12 months long, 'cause I was gonna say, what is the process to ensure good learning and development?

So is it normal to do a 12 months project?

Jane Hudson: It's just a big one because we're implementing their entire learning and development approach and strategy at the same time, and we are doing a number of e learning modules and workshops.

But if you look at an individual e learning module, and these are 30 to 45 minutes long. To make one of those end to end takes four months. It's a long process. So we start with the client provides the materials that they have available. We have a content discovery workshop with the nominated subject matter experts. And from there, the Instructor Designer writes an overview, like a high level overview, how they see the module working. These are the learning outcomes, these are the topics, this is a sketch of the activities, and we get the client to sign that off.

Once they've signed off the overview, they're ready to go. we go on to write the storyboard, and that's all the detail. Every single word, interaction, image, instruction, everything goes in the storyboard. And I'm finding those storyboards are taking 10 days to write and they're averaging around 10,000 words, for a 30 to 45 minute module. Storyboard goes to the client for review and feedback. It comes back. We take in their comments. We send version two. They sign off. Then we go into development in the software, our developer creates us two versions. There's alpha, which is the first version where the storyboard's being converted from the Word document into the software.

That goes for checking. It comes back. We take in their feedback. Next stage is what we call beta. We're getting close to the finish now. Beta is where all the final images. Interactions are all in there. They check. It comes back.

Then we do the final updates and we send it to them for QA and accessibility testing. A couple of weeks after that, if they're happy, they sign off. So it's an amazingly detailed process. it goes through many hands. the client's really happy with the process.

They have maximum input co creation, we're doing the updates and guiding and controlling the direction of the module. By the time it gets finished, I've got to say, I'm lucky I've got a really good team they look really schmick. They look really sexy.

So we want them to look sexy because then people want to do it, right? But it's a real process. So an e learning module, four months. A workshop is much quicker, To, yeah, write it, go through the checks and balances and get it approved. Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: So when you say you use software, is there a particular software that you use to feed it into or do you have to create it from scratch?

Jane Hudson: No, the common e learning software packages are either Articulate Storyline or Articulate RISE 360, which is a simpler version, or Adobe Captivate. And the client told us they wanted us to use RISE. So RISE has less functions available than Storyline. Storyline in Articulate is like the big, fancy, you can do anything you want, software package.

RISE is a simpler, quicker version, that was the one they said they wanted to use. That's because that's what they're used to and they have a license. So when we transfer the source files over, they have the capability if they want to make future updates or changes. Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: You also mentioned that you've got a team.

Did you choose the team or how did that come about?

Jane Hudson: I chose and it was evolutionary. So when I put the proposal in, I thought, oh, one instructional designer, one e learning developer and me. This is going to be great. But then when I looked at, so their procurement took six months longer than they'd intended, but they still wanted the deliverable at the same timeframe.

So we started off thinking we had 18 months, took them six months for their procurement. So we came down, we have 12 months. So when I did the schedule, I went, we'll never do this without an additional instructional designer. And then I went, Oh my God, now I've got three subcontractors. So I roped in cottage industry, I roped in number one son to do the books, because now I've got like people sending me monthly invoices that all have to be processed and accounted for.

And then I started to I've involved a couple of extra subject matter experts. to make these videos, which then meant I had to find a videographer. So it was evolutionary and I was just lucky that in my network, people could make good recommendations. So the videographer was one of my instructional designers.

I spoke to Diana and said, Hey, you don't happen to know anyone. She said actually I do. Talk to Dan. He's been great.

Nigel Rawlins: The difference is in episode five, you were working on your own and here you are now project managing. So you've moved up the tree a little bit. And you're managing a team. So that's a big shift from when we first talked in episode 5 and we're up to episode 55. So we've talked about your steps, we've talked about tools, we've talked about self directed learning.

Let's talk about being self employed being in business for yourself. Now, you had a corporate career for many years. So you went from, let's just say 10 years, you were a self employed musician, or gig musician. Now that was for big musicals. that wasn't just going off and doing gigs in a bar or something.

This was no pubs. And so now you're self employed. Let's talk about. we talked a bit before we started this that you were still working and you had a side gig. So let's talk about the evolution from the side gig through to today. Tell us about that.

Jane Hudson: Okay, sure. so I did the side gig for about five or six years.

And like I said earlier, I got an offer that was one of those sliding door moments. It was a project with Caterpillar, it was big enough for me to really have to think, can I take on this project and fit it in around my day job? And I just made a decision and went, you know what, I've always wanted J Bass Learning to become independent, like the thing that I do to generate income.

I've had enough of this nonsense working as a government worker, so I just took the leap, let's do it. But I did that I've worked towards it for some years, so from a business perspective, I could afford to take the risk. Gradually moving myself further and further out of the city to this regional area where it's cheaper to live, mortgages are not as large, the environment's fabulous, and I'm only an hour and a half from Melbourne if I have to go.

So then it was just me trundling along, taking work that I could do myself. I'll take this job, I'll do it. I'll take that job, I'll do it. And it was like that until November last year when this client that I'm working with now finally sent their, requests for quote through, and I looked at the size of what they wanted.

We talked, and I knew, but when I saw it written down, I went, Oh my God, I'm going to have to get people in to help. So I went and found this team. The difference, like I've managed people when I was in corporate world, I had teams and I managed them, and I've got to be honest, it's not something I really enjoy doing.

But this time it's different because they're all subcontractors, right? So we're here to do a job, we're here to be professional, they're great to collaborate with, but I don't have to performance manage, I don't have to do any of that stuff, right? There's a deliverable, we work together, we get it done, we move it on.

Yeah, so it's good. I've got one who is a bit over enthusiastic and that's all good.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay. So what have you learned about business in this time?

Jane Hudson: That's a good question. Take care of it, I came to this one with a bit of a business head, because I think it's, it can be really romantic to go, I'm going to be self employed. I'm going to ditch my day job. I'm going to forge my way in the world. But there's some really practical stuff that needs to be considered.

Cashflow. Have you got enough to keep you going between when your clients are going to pay you? Tax. I know these are not very interesting things so I think it's just understanding what your obligations are, what your risk appetite is. Are you going to be a complete stress head if you finish one job and the next one hasn't turned up?

Are you going to sit in your land room and fret about, why hasn't the phone rung? The phone hasn't rung. I don't have a job. What's going on? Can you live in that sort of more uncertain uncertain world? I'm doing that now. I've had this 12 month project, Nigel.

It's August. And I'm already going, Oh my God, what am I going to do next year? I don't know what I'm going to do. And I have to say to myself, stop it, Jane. Sometimes you need a split personality and I only mean that like I'm self employed and I'm a company, but I'm self employed.

In effect, I'm a sole trader. So I am my manager. So I get it. The giggles sometimes when my employee being me, it's, being difficult or bolshie. And then the manager, who is also me, needs to take her employee out for lunch and go, Settle, Petal. You've got this. It's good. You can have fun in that space.

It means you're running from one side of the desk to the other, right? Jane, the manager. Now Jane performs a fluke and complain, Oh no, what are you going to say to me? Yeah, so I think there's a real practical thing to this. So the romantic side is great, the forging your own way, being your own person.

But don't forget to take care of the business side of things. Be aware of what your needs are, what kind of personality you have, and whether working from home is going to suit. Are you going to get lonely, twitchy, bored, distracted? Because it does require some discipline.

So I always make sure I'm in the office, which is where we are now, by about 8. 30 in the morning. Not every day is like we're sitting at a desk all day. But that kind of discipline, and how are you going to make your weekends feel different if you're working from home, living from home, how is the weekend going to feel different?

Doesn't sound like a big thing, but it actually really is. Otherwise, you feel like I'm locked in this building seven days a week. Working. yeah, so one of my strategies on the weekend is I don't set the alarm. Sounds like a really simple thing, but it feels amazing if you don't wake up until eight o'clock on a Saturday morning.

Oh, it's the weekend. Look at me. Yeah, look at me. I'm on a weekend. Yay. So I think be realistic and really understand what your obligations are, what insurance, what you're paying for. I'm a company so I have to do things like work cover , so you don't get undone along the way and end up having to go back to full time employment.

Yeah, would be my thoughts.

Nigel Rawlins: One of the things I guess we need to consider there is once you've got to a certain age in Australia, you could probably retire and have your superannuation, but if you've got a bit of a brain or you're a professional in your field, you don't want to necessarily give up.

So it sounds like you're still working reasonably full time hours.

You going to back off at some stage and, do less?

Jane Hudson: Probably. I do think next year might be a little bit less for a while because this has been ridiculously intense. So this project, I started working on it at the beginning of January, and this is not about, oh, it's not playing the martyr.

But I have literally done six to seven days a week since the 3rd of January. So I am getting a bit tired, and I do think I want to slow it down a bit. But it depends what work comes up. Interesting work with interesting people. If an interesting job turned up I wouldn't say no and in terms, we are in a age where we could look at retiring,

But what are you going to do? There's only so many overseas trips, so many gardens, so many lunches you can go out for, and you talk about keeping your brain going. This is where I think, the risk is for people of our age if we stop doing things that require us to think and solve problems and be creative. Okay so I'll be 64 next month. I've set this up, that I could potentially be doing this for another 10 years.

Nigel Rawlins: Yep. I think that's the thing is to work out, to keep yourself intellectually engaged in the world, design the life.

But one of the things we did talk about is, making sure your financials are correct. That you have got a bit of a buffer. This is not something you jump out and do if you haven't got a reasonable place behind you or some sort of assets. One of the things I was going to talk about in terms of the business, now that you're running a team, that makes things quite different, doesn't it?

You've actually got to get them paid because they're depending on you to put your invoices in on time and for them to get paid.

Jane Hudson: So what I did, you're completely right, and that was the cashflow comment. That was the biggest risk. With a project of this size, and my size as a company, that was my biggest risk.

So I just said to the client, you pay 25 percent up front, full stop. And they went, Oh, okay. That put the cash flow into my business. It's like an installment and that gives me the buffer. Because, yes, all the subcontractors invoice on the first of every month. I've asked them to send that and then they send them to Will, who is doing the bookkeeping and managing in the background.

He processes and checks them. So we've got budgeted checks of the number of hours we were expecting that subcontractor to spend on this piece of work. He does all that checking. And then he lets me know. And then it's I just pay everybody. But yeah, there's a process that goes into that.

There are some tax implications in that space. So I asked the team that they all had to have their invoices in by the 25th of June so we could pay it out before the 30th. Otherwise, the money I'm holding to pay them looks like profit when, it's not. So it's just those sorts of things you need to be more alert to.

And you get lots of questions every day from all these different people. So I've tried to be quick and responsive. So if one of them comes back and says, Oh, I'm not sure what to do here. Or I've got this idea, we talk and we work it out so they can keep doing their work because they are subcontractors.

So they're not employees. It's not a matter of, we need you to do this work by X date. They'll do it to the standard they can based on the support they get, but it's not an easy thing to say can you add an extra week? No, they have other commitments. They have other clients. It's a tight ship and the schedule is ridiculous.

Like in terms of this, from a project's perspective, there's almost no slack in the schedule. That's the biggest risk we carry is if someone gets sick or can't quite get something done in the timeframe we've asked, it makes it a little bit more challenging. Cause then I'm talking, the client understands what I'm going by saying, hey, can we you Wednesday? That's how tight the schedule is.

Nigel Rawlins: Now, that's interesting because what I'm hearing is you've not only got to manage yourself, you've got to manage your subcontractors and you've got to manage the client.

Jane Hudson: Yeah. This might be the only type of project I do because I'm the only one. Yeah, might be the only one because yes, it takes a lot of time and energy, but we're lucky.

No, I'm not so lucky because there's a lot of talent that I'm working with. What we're producing is making everybody super happy and super excited, which is what we wanted. So yes, it's a lot of juggling and corralling and, but if we're getting the outcome, then I go, okay, it's worth it. Yeah. But we're getting there, Nigel.

We're delivering, nothing's falling over and we're not beating up on each other. So I figure it's a good day.

Nigel Rawlins: The one thing I can see there, and obviously people are probably thinking about it in terms of running a business. How do you figure out how to charge?

For a project like that?

Jane Hudson: I started with my first instructional designer and I just asked her to give me an estimate, to say help me here, I've got to write a proposal. How long would you estimate to write a 30 minute e learning module storyboard because that's what she would do. She said I'd do an overview that would take two days.

I would then get that approved. I've got the storyboard that would take me nine days. Okay, fine. And then I went to the e learning developer and said, okay, so what would you be thinking? And out of all that, I just pieced it together. And then it was interesting because, What you charge the client is different to what you're paying your subcontractors.

And then I had to engage in that. Okay. So my subbies would charge me X. But what's my actual charge out to the client, right? Because that's where I sit. Yeah. So it was just four days. It took me four days to write this proposal and work it all out. And even now, and I know what a learnings that I've had over the years, and I think all consultants have this challenge.

I chronically underestimate how long things will take. Yep. This project has been okay, but if I did it again, I know where I would need to be more realistic. This will take this long and cost this much. So there's a few little cost blowouts in amongst the budget that I've just had to absorb because I miscalculated.

Yeah, so if you're doing quotes, I think you and I have talked about this in the past, write it, then add 50%, you're guaranteed going to be underestimating the effort that you're going to have to make.

Nigel Rawlins: Most people underestimate how long projects take, especially learning and development projects.

Jane Hudson: Yeah, I had another client, a state based client, Write me an induction program. It's really urgent. Do it as quick as you can.

But when I sat down and just did a bit of a quick reconnoiter, how did we go? On that particular project, I ended up spending twice as long as estimated. Yeah but there's nothing you can do about that.

Except learn from it and get better at setting expectations up front with the client about what you are there to do, how long it will take, and what you're not there to do, and how if they don't cooperate in terms of doing their role, then that cost becomes theirs.

Nigel Rawlins: That's a wonderful conversation. At that point, we've probably been going for about an hour now, so let's start finishing up. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Jane Hudson: I don't think so. Just that I made that comment earlier, but it's not for everyone. But I've got to say, if it is for you, it's fabulous. We talk about the challenges and things, but would I go back to being a worker for someone else? No, not in a million years. Hell no. Would I like, so I think that's just it. Don't be afraid. Just Plan it. Understand what the risks might be. Know your target audience, and go for it. Do you know what I mean? And don't don't, I spend a lot on overheads, so I don't have a lot of overheads. I'm not hiring a shop or, and don't even worry about getting into, paid social media marketing or any of that stuff yet.

Leverage your network and have fun.

Nigel Rawlins: And that sounds wonderful. Jane, thank you very much. How would you like people to contact you or find you?

Jane Hudson: My email address is probably a good place to start. So that's jane@jbsselearning.com au or the website, JBass learning.com au. Or I'm on LinkedIn, you can find me there as well.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay, and I'll put all of that in the show notes. So thank you, Jane. It's been wonderful speaking to you again. 50 episodes later.

Jane Hudson: Thanks, Nigel.