Niche Potential Unlocked: Finding Freelance Freedom with Lesley Elder Aznar

A fulfilling freelance career in sunny Spain, all the way from chilly Scotland?

Meet Lesley Elder Aznar, a career coach and consultant, who takes us on a journey through her interesting career transitions - from teaching yoga, working in real estate, to managing projects remotely, well before the pandemic made it a trend.

Can you identify that one-of-a-kind solution which might be worth a fortune to somebody? A consultant is just someone who can help someone else, because of what they understand and do better.

Lesley shares powerful insights about locating your ideal client and establishing visibility in your chosen field with a few unexpected examples. From a sleep coach who focuses on helping new moms - to the complexities of industrial project management, Lesley and Maya discuss how each of us can find a way to make a mark in the freelance world.

Lesley describes how she cultivates a supportive yet accountable environment for her clients through a private Facebook group, and offers her own personal motivation to keep them on track. We also delve into the art of managing workloads, setting and maintaining focus in a freelance environment.

Learn more about Lesley's unique offering to freelancers at Expertise Unlocked. 

Chapters

• 0:06 Creating a Life of Freelance Freedom
• 10:02 Finding Your Niche, Building Freelance Career
• 24:09 Accountability in Achieving Goals
• 38:17 Promoting the Future Is Freelance Podcast

Transcript

Maya Middlemiss: 0:06

What's your superpower, your own unique way to add value to the world. That's what we're all about here at the Future is Freelance Podcast, the show for solopreneurs, digital nomads and slow meds, consultants, remote workers, e-residents and everybody living a life without traditional boundaries. We're here for every person who defies categorisation and makes a living in a life their own way. Every Freelance Friday, we bring you expert tips, inspired insights and stories from the frontiers of freelancing to help you achieve success with your borderless business, whatever success means to you as you live life on your own terms.

Maya Middlemiss: 0:43

And today we bring you a conversation with career coach and consultant Leslie Elder Athna, just like me, another Brit who decided to upstix and make a life for themselves here in Spain, and just like me, she had to carve out a brand new professional direction to achieve that change in lifestyle, pivoting more than once along the way. So you'll find links to all of Leslie's products and courses and books in our show notes, as well as the remote work you're at linkedin guide and supporting tools to help you achieve your own freelance freedom, just in case you're as inspired as I was by this conversation. In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Leslie. So, Leslie, welcome to the Future is Freelance. It's great to have you with us. How are you doing this morning?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 1:24

I'm doing fantastic, maya. Thanks for having me again. I'm back in my adopted home of Alicante this week, house hunting. We've been in for to Ventura for around six months. Haven't settled there, miss Alicante, so we've come back this week and I'm loving it. I've got a lovely apartment right on the beach here, just outside El Campillo, and the sun is shining. The waves are crashing onto the beach, so live in the gym.

Maya Middlemiss: 1:53

Love it. Fantastic. Thank you very much for setting that scene for us, because that's what we love about work in the way that we do. As freelancers and remote workers, we can make those choices about how and where we choose to live that life. So before we dive into how you help people create that life for themselves, we'd love to know a little bit about you how you got to where you are and your little life story about how you wound up next to that beach today.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 2:20

I decided around 12 years ago that I could no longer tolerate the rain and the cold in Scotland. I'd been working in Banking for God donkey's years, and always in corporate big banks like Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC, and I got to the point where I thought, first of all, there has to be more to life than spending 10 hours a day or 12 hours a day in an office, and also the rain. I couldn't deal with the grey skies and the rain all winter in Scotland. I'd worked in London, worked in Edinburgh, and eventually I thought, right, I need to do something different. This is just depressing, and it took about a year of planning to get myself organised to make that happen. So I had to sell my house, pack up everything, took my furniture. I don't know what I was thinking. If you're going to move to another country, you do not need to take your furniture. Trust me, don't do that. I don't know what I was thinking, but I took everything except the kitchen sink and it almost got packed, which is a big mistake. And I kept telling the bank I was working for at the time I'm going to go. In six months time I'm going to go, and they say, oh, just work another six months, just finish this project, and eventually I had to get quite strict with them and just say nope.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 3:40

In April, the day before I'm 45, I am going to Spain, I'm on a plane, my ticket's booked, everything's packed. I am going to Spain, and I did. I got on the plane the day before my 45th birthday and wind up in Alicante, where I met a lovely estate agent who found me a house for rent and came round to have a glass of wine and two days later said that if ever they'd worked out, he wanted to marry me. So that was not to expect anyone to keep to Spain. I'd been single for about five years. I want to know, and that was the last thing on my mind. And there we are, and we've been together for 10 years now, wow, you married your estate agent.

Maya Middlemiss: 4:26

That's amazing. I did, I know.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 4:28

Congratulations. He's not like the sort of traditional image of the estate agent. He's such a lovely guy and, yeah, he was true to his word. He said he was going to ask me to marry him two years after we met, and he did. He proposed exactly two years after our first date and a year after that, exactly a year after that, we got married and a beautiful finca here in Spain. So, yeah, so it wasn't expecting that.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 5:00

And the first few months I was in Spain I ran my own business. I was teaching yoga at that point, which is great, running retreats and stuff and then discovered I had fibromyalgia, which basically just makes me stiffen up when I get cold, and I was finding the yoga more and more difficult. So I started to work with my husband, helping him in the estate agency, and then decided, not, I need to get back into a proper job Not that that wasn't a proper job, obviously, but back to doing project management and change management, which is what I'd done previously. And I found a way to be able to do that remotely, working with some of the banks that I'd worked with previously, because they knew me and knew that I would do my work and stuff. So that worked out really well. I had to commute back and forward to the UK mostly every week for one or two days, which was fine. I'm cheap flights from Alicante into the UK, so can't really complain about that, thank you Ryanair.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 5:54

And then, of course, covid hit and work dried up and I thought, oh Lord, what am I going to do? Because at that point we bought a house, had a mortgage to pay and I'd adopted a lifestyle that was aligned to having a regular income. But I need to do something. And it didn't work for about six months, getting really bored. And so I decided I would write a book about project management and for beginners, an introductory book. And the purpose of that wasn't because I had a burning desire to be an author. It was more about using the book to get some credibility and to get known as an expert in my field, because there was a lot of people in a similar situation with COVID. They lost their jobs, especially contractors, and I had to find a way to differentiate myself from the other thousands Project managers going after the same jobs.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 6:51

And that actually took off. I became a bestseller on Amazon. How did that happen? It was great. It was so much fun. And so because I'd written the book, people started to ask me to help them become project managers, so I started off doing that as well. I also managed to attract more consulting work for project and change management. So I felt that the book kind of elevated my status. So not just being another contractor, but I was now seen as the expert that I wanted to be in that area. That was a great learning experience for me, the process that I went through to make that happen and then being able to develop passive income as well through doing the training courses which when I say passive income it wasn't completely passive, because no, no such thing, it wasn't completely passive.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 7:42

That's the thing. There's a big fallacy around this. It wasn't just a case of post the training course online and sell it to people. There was a lot of coaching and encouragement and dealing with problems and last minute oh, I've got an interview tomorrow sessions things like that. So it's great for generating income while you sleep, but you still need to do some work around it and I think that's a fallacy. As I say with people thinking it's all.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 8:11

The book is passive income. Don't even promote it now, to be honest. It just sells itself. But in terms of running training courses, whatever, you still need to do some work. So that all worked out really well and I became super busy doing all of that. And then that evolved more into people asking generally for career advice and how to change careers and how to become a consultant or a freelancer, and that's evolved. I've been given that advice Well, in reality, I've been doing it for over 15 years because part of the work that I did as a consultant or as a change manager previously for the big corporates was helping leaders whose roles were impacted by some of the changes.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 8:55

So a lot of the projects that I did were restructuring, redundancy programs, downsizing, and I was working with these leaders who are impacted by those changes to say, right, well, you're going to be made redundant or you're moving into a new role. Let's make this into an opportunity. What would you really like to do? Especially when they're made redundant, they've got usually a good financial cushion, so what's that dream thing that you've always wanted to try? Or you've got some financial security. Now why don't you try working for yourself, become a consultant or go freelance or whatever? So I've been doing that for a long time anyway, and over the last year I've really been focusing more on helping individuals through that journey as well, and I've created a new couple of programs. One is a career coaching program for people who want to change job, but the other one that is really interesting is called expertise unlocked, and this is the program for people who want to become freelancers or consultants, and it's really just a roadmap of all the stuff that I've learned from my journey.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 10:02

Very practical, no fluff. Here's the things that you need to do and how to get started, basically, because that's the bit where most people start. How do I find my niche? How do I support service to offer. Where am I going to find my clients? And it's just so much fun. The things that people come up with, what they want to offer as a service, close my mind. It's great, love it.

Maya Middlemiss: 10:26

I think it's fantastic the work that you're doing and it's so strongly aligned with everything that we talk about here at the future is freelance. Way back in season one, over a year ago now, we had an episode called Minimum Viable Freelancing, where I tried to drill right down into OK, if you find yourself out of a job, out of a home, whatever, overnight, what is the thing that you can do to add value to the world that somebody might pay you for? And you've built a whole program around helping people unlock that. What are some of the most unusual things that you've found that people can offer that maybe they didn't expect was something that they could build a career or freelance offering through.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 11:06

Yeah, and this is one of the things that I love about it, because you just never know what you're going to get. When people come on the inquiry calls, you think you've got an idea, you've seen their CV generally because I ask people to give me some information up front before they book the calls and you think, all right, this is a marketing person or whatever. And then they come out with this other idea. Didn't see that coming. So I had this lady join the program earlier this year and she'd been working in marketing for donkey shears and then she decided that she wanted to become a dog trainer and we actually worked through that whole offer marketing using her own skills and expertise in marketing and sales, and she's now a dog behavioural consultant and she's super busy and she teaches people how to stop their dogs from pulling when they walk. It's so simple, it's such a simple idea, but there's so many people have this problem, me included.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 12:06

I booked in, I've got a new puppy having a bit of difficulty getting them to walk nicely, and we're booked in, we're going to do the course, and that was something that she recognised as a problem that people have that she can solve, she knows what to do and people will pay her to have that solution. They pay her a lot of money and that really illustrates the nub of becoming a consultant. It doesn't have to be something that's overly complex. It doesn't have to be something that is business related as such. When you find your skill, the thing that you love to do, that you're passionate about, something that you maybe take for granted that you do really well that other people can't do, you've found something you can solve a problem for people. Then they will pay you for it. And one of the things that I see is quite often because I have a lot of projects and change managers in my network they'll come to me and say, oh, I want to be a consultant, I'm going to be a consultant in project management and that's great. Okay, we can work with that. Let's focus on what is the specific thing that's going to make you stand out. Why would somebody hire you instead of going to one of the big four or going to hire a day-rate contractor? What's special about you? And silence, stoned. And that's the first hurdle that we come to, because unless you're clear on what it is that you can do that makes you stand out, that provides that specific niche service to solve a specific problem, then you're gonna struggle to get seen, you're gonna get struggled to get visibility and struggle to get known, and so what I do is work with people to find out what's the thing within project management that you're really good at.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 13:58

Yeah, this week's a great example. So Monday morning, first thing, I'm on a call with a guy in Auckland. He's a mechanical engineer and he's got project management skills and qualifications and he wants to move more into that. Now there are a lot of companies who want project managers who have those technical skills. He just needs to find them and he has to hone in on exactly. So we've narrowed it down. He wants to work for companies who develop marine technology and that's his niche. A lot of demand in Australia, new Zealand, for people who have those skills and now he's working on getting his visibility up. So it's not just about saying he's a project manager and he's gonna apply for every project management job out there. He's being really specific. I am a project manager who helps to deliver product and product development and project management for marine technology companies, and that's his niche, it's product marketing, then isn't it Really it's finding that absolutely bespoke offer?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 15:01

Absolutely. And then, when you've got that idea, you know what your service is. You then need to find the people who have that problem and get known and build a relationship with them. Posting on Facebook isn't gonna get you the results. You need to be on LinkedIn. You need to find the people and the companies who are gonna be hiring in that space and you need to start getting visible with these people. You need to connect with them, post like their comments, comment on their posts and start to build visibility with the people who are gonna be your clients, your future clients 100%.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 15:41

So another example, yes, is a lady who's a sleep coach. I'm thinking I don't really need any coach on that, so it's not a problem. And when you run your own business, you're always tired. What she wants to do is teach other people to become sleep coaches. So we're talking about how she identifies people who are gonna be her target client. So how does she niche down? And we've actually moved away from just helping people to become sleep coaches. She's now gonna focus on the helping mom's, new mom's space. So she's teaching doulas, lactation coaches, sleep coaches, everything to do with babies and new moms, but she's teaching these people how to start a service of her two new moms. So she's really again honed in. She's identified her niche. She knows who her target clients are, she knows where they hang out, she knows where to find them and how to get visibility with these people. So it's all about finding the niche.

Maya Middlemiss: 16:48

Fantastic. Well, that's two really different examples where you can apply your same unique superpower of helping people unlock that. One of them are clearly a very distinct business niche. There are businesses out there who need that particular engineering skillset and he might have to go to Australia or somewhere to find them, whereas I'm really fascinated by the other approach of I suppose you call it business to consumer consulting finding something that real people need in the world that you might not even have realized is a business opportunity If you're the person that can always get the baby to sleep, or is the person people turn to as a new mom.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 17:26

Get the dog to stop killing.

Maya Middlemiss: 17:29

That's fantastic. How do you explore with people Because I can imagine they send you a CV that outlines their skills in engineering or marketing or things that they've been paid for in the past how do you go about unpacking those really personal experiences and superpowers that might not come to the fore on a CV but could be the key to their freelance hustle?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 17:50

Yeah. So I have a two-step process, if you like, to get clarity on what people really want to be doing, because a lot of us have this mindset of what we should be doing. I mean, I'm a great example. I left school and it's all about go to university, get a good degree, get onto a graduate scheme, stay on the same job for 50 years, get your pension. And a lot of people say, nah, I don't wanna do that anymore, that doesn't appeal to me, that's what we should do, that's what we're told to do, and what I'm trying to do with my coaching program is help people understand what is it that they really want to do, not what they think they should do, what they've been conditioned to do. And so where we start is with the career change audit. So this is a free thing. Anyone can do this.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 18:41

You answer some questions and we map those out, and I go through that with you on a short call, just to understand. First of all, are you clear on your direction, because that's the key to everything. Do you know what you want to do? And then, if you are clear, does your CV or your resume, your LinkedIn profile, all line up to help you achieve that direction. Do you know where to find your clients? Is your mindset in the right place to start thinking about your clients? And it's halting or freelance business rather than being an employee? We go through all of that and what I find when most people is, if they don't have clarity on that direction piece to start with, then the rest of it's not going to fit together. You need to be aligned in all of these different areas. It's a circle, the diagram that I use as a circle, and so what I do then is the people who don't have clarity on that direction.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 19:34

I have a mini program called Career Path Clarity, which is three short calls with me and we get into the detail there. We do some exercises that tap into the subconscious. We try to explore what would you really want to do if money was no obstacle, if there was no fear there's no fear of judgment there was no imposter syndrome, there was no time constraints? What would be that thing that you would really love to do, the thing that you're most passionate about? And when people find that passion and that thing that they love to do, they get up in the morning and they want to work. I mean, I can't wait to get on the phone with some of my clients to find out what they've done this week, what's happening, did you sign that deal and I'm genuinely excited about it and to help them to get these results. And when you find that thing that you're passionate about, it just changes everything. So it's really important to get that clarity and get that direction up front.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 20:33

And then, when people are clear, if they've decided, yeah, I still want to work, I want a job, I want to be an employee, then got the career coaching program. We go through that. How are you going to change job? What do you need to do? And then, if they've decided, no, I actually want to work for myself, I'm going to take a leap of faith. I want to be a consultant or a freelancer. I want more freedom, I want to work remotely, I want to be able to travel in Europe, I want to go to America, I want to do whatever I want to do. And then expertise unlocked. This is how you become a consultant Step by step, no fluff, get the occasional kick up the bum when you need it. That's free. Yeah, and that's really the route to success is helping people get that initial clarity, get that direction. And then when they've got that, it's a case of following one of the programs step by step. I try to make it as simple for people as possible.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 21:28

And it's great for me. We have a laugh, we have a laugh.

Maya Middlemiss: 21:31

Well, it sounds like it must be incredibly rewarding, because I can imagine going through that process and kind of seeing the light go on when you finally isolate that thing. It's almost giving people a permission slip that actually that thing you love, that intersection of your passions and experiences, that could be your business and your career. Nobody tells you that at school, do they? I mean, my daughters are still being prepared for jobs that probably won't exist in a few years anyway, but nobody ever sits down and says what do you care about? What lights you up? What difference do you want to make in the world? And that must be an incredibly powerful and liberating process for anybody, wherever they are in their career.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 22:09

You know it's quite an emotional experience and I would say 9% of the calls the early calls we have tears because it is a. It's a release for people to suddenly feel all this pressure to conform, to be something that they're not. And you know, even the guys you know men don't cry. Well, they need to sometimes. They need to let all this pressure out, all these expectations of what we should be doing with our lives and how we're supposed to be. And you know what success looks like. It's, you know, always measured by financial success or the size of your house or the fancy car that you have. And people start to realise that none of that's important. It's about quality of life, it's about having freedom, it's about having more time. All this, this weight of responsibility and expectation disappears and it's emotional. I get upset, you know I can see the change happening on the screen before my eyes and I find it emotional. And you know I always tell people at the start of the calls you have a box of tissues handy, we might need it.

Maya Middlemiss: 23:12

Yeah, it's well. It is a journey, isn't it?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 23:15

It is a journey and it's great.

Maya Middlemiss: 23:17

I suppose it must be emotional if people are. You know, maybe they're our sort of age as opposed to early career, and nobody's ever given them that opening before. Maybe they've spent decades with this mindset that work is just something you do and you don't really like very much, or you're looking forward to retire or the weekend and hasn't ever occurred to you that you could be doing something that you care about instead and that makes a difference. You have to sort of break down those barriers and those ingrained assumptions before you can build people back up into their dream of freelancing, solopreneurship, consultancy, whatever they end up doing. It sounds amazing, but you mentioned earlier about hearing what people have been up to during a week working on their project. So it sounds like you stay with them a little while on that process and help hold them accountable and build a roadmap. I mean, I think you know it's important we get real, isn't it that this stuff just unlocking that vision doesn't make it happen? It doesn't.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 24:15

you've still got a job to do, it's true, and what I find is when you give people the course material so all my courses are online there's videos, there's notes, there's work bits but when you leave people to get on with it, life gets in the way, and this is why I've moved away from that sort of passive approach to complete accountability. It's a coaching program. I will be on your case. You have calls to be booked. You have updates to send through most of them. Use LinkedIn Messenger or emails if they're sending me through documents of we're working on client proposition documents this week, so they've been coming through.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 24:58

It's having that someone who's your conscious, keeping you on track, because most of the people you write they're older 40s and 50s They've got families or sometimes they even have parent responsibilities, they're caring for older relatives and they've got busy lives. You know stuff happens and it's so easy to let this slip and to let it fall behind. And I say up front to people before you sign up I don't want you to waste your money or your time. I want you to get something real out of this and to do that, you've got to block out time. You've got to commit the time to actually make it happen, because you know it's easy for a year to go by and you haven't actually done anything.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 25:40

It's something. I've got that course. I'll get back to it, whatever. No, this is a real change. If you're going to do this, you've got to commit to it. Click on, I'm going to be there to keep you accountable. We've got a private Facebook group for people who are on my programmes and they help each other and encourage each other, give feedback. It's a safe space. But also it's that accountability Because, yeah, it's so easy to say one day I'll get around to that. Next week, I'll get around to it next month, I'll start that after the kids go back to school. That was the one recently, all these people, yeah, I'll start when the kids go back to school.

Maya Middlemiss: 26:18

There's no good time.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 26:19

So day one after the kids are back to school. I'm on the case. Right, kids are back at school. Where's your client proposition? Come on, click on, let's do that. And it works because people are like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I can hear your voice in my head when I'm thinking about putting something off. I'm just going through that.

Maya Middlemiss: 26:37

So this is basically you're the living example of this, because you're bringing project management, you're bringing coaching, you're bringing personnel management to the work that you're doing now and helping people not only with the structures and the information they need to do it, but with that personal guidance and gentle, prodding along at every stage that they need to remain accountable. And you mentioned that there's a group as well, so is this a cohort experience? Do you bring people in in batches to this process?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 27:05

They could join at any time. I did start off doing it as a cohort. Everyone joined at the same time and we'll go through it together. But do you know what? People's lives are complicated and not everybody can join and then be consistent over the same period of time, and I felt that people were pulling away because someone's come up. You know, for example, one of the ladies lost her mum in the summertime and it's taken her a lot of while to get back into the group.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 27:33

And that's fine. You know, life happens and I don't want to exclude people because of things like that. So people can join at any time. But if they've got an issue, they have to let me know and then I'll back off a little bit. But when they've said, no, I want to do this, I'm committed, then I will be gently nudging them along.

Maya Middlemiss: 27:53

Let's put it like that. No, that makes absolute sense. So you're holding them accountable to themselves and their own goals. It's not about trying to keep up with a group or where anybody else is at.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 28:02

Exactly. We don't need any more pressure in our lives.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 28:06

Right the other thing I don't want people to feel, oh, this person's getting on better than me, or this person's making more money than me, or this person's saying to client this weekend, I haven't. It's not competitive. Everybody's there to support each other. Everybody's at different stages and everyone has different degrees of understanding of the business world as well. I have one lady who's been out of the workplace for 10 years. She was trying to get back into a corporate type job. Just wasn't happening. She's an HR and she's done all her courses to get back up to speed on what's happening in HR world and now she's offering her services to small startup companies who can't afford to have a full HR person and she's doing really well and at the start she was doing the usual.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 28:57

I find this mostly with females, I have to say, the imposter syndrome or not really an expert, and what if no one? All hire me and just complete lack of confidence. And she's really smart, she knows her stuff. Now she's all up to date as well with the new regulations and whatever, and you know she's flying. I haven't heard from her for weeks and that's always a good sign because I know that she's doing what she needs to do and that's fantastic, you know.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 29:24

So if anyone's listening to this and thinking, oh, I don't think I have any expertise, or oh, people laugh at me if I say I'm an expert in my field, you have to remember that you're not comparing yourself with your peers or other people that you've worked with, because they will have similar levels of knowledge to you. You're offering services to people out in the world who have no idea what you do. They don't know anything about project planning, gantt charts, HR rules, mechanical engineering stuff, marketing, product development, the regular man on the street or who's running a small startup company or a medium-sized company. They don't have that skill and expertise. They don't know anything.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 30:10

So you are going to be an expert when you go to help them. And once you've found your niche and decided that's the thing that you want to do, then you're going to get more interested in the subjects. You're going to be doing your research, You're going to keep up with things, You're going to read journals, You're going to join relevant groups and keep your level of knowledge and expertise up to date. And that's what people are paying you for to bring that relevant and up-to-date knowledge with you. So don't fall into that trap of thinking oh, I'm not an expert.

Maya Middlemiss: 30:44

We're all at risk of that compare and despair and I love the fact that you've got people supporting each other, but they're each on their individual journey with you. We've got an interview coming up with Jenny Blake later in the series, and I love her phrase keep your eyes on your own paper. There's absolutely no point looking at what anybody else is doing. Their career is different, their trajectory is different, and what you're helping people do is create a business offering that is absolutely unique. So there's no point whatsoever worrying about what the next person is doing or whether, if you're the person who's had a 10-year career break, your trajectory is not going to be the same as the person who's just taken redundancy from a corporate career, and you're both going to end up with something that's perfect for you and utterly unique to you, and you would not be in the same place or in the same job in any other world. So that's why we love freelancing, that's why we love consulting and being solopreneurs.

Maya Middlemiss: 31:38

I have always believed, leslie, that this is the future of work I mean we're not going to get. Why would you let somebody else write that job description for you, where you get things bundled together, that some of which is spot on and some of things is just what that business needs. When you could make your own, when you could create something that at least suits you, where do you see this going in the future? Do you think everybody is a potential client? Do you think everybody is a potential solopreneur? Or will businesses continue to try and chump things out in 40-hour lumps of work? We'll have to try and fit in with that. My sense is that we're going towards a more blended and flexible approach, but what do you think?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 32:19

So one of the things that I think is most telling is Obviously I do my research on the job front what's happening with the way people work, the future of work and one of the things that I see most at the moment is the number of recruiters that have been let go by the large corporates. So Google, this week, I think it was just let go a whole bunch of people in the HR space, mostly in recruitment, and I've seen there's been a few in America particularly. They're letting them go. There's bunches of them, all HR recruitment types, and what that tells me is that those big corporates are not looking to do traditional recruitment in the way that they have been Now.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 33:05

Either they're planning for a recession they're on the front foot for once or they also see the future of work is different and they're thinking we need to hire somebody with this skill for this amount of time to do this piece of work and then, thank you very much, we don't need to hire them on a long-term basis. I might be wrong, but I see that as a trend that's emerging. Another trend that I see is older people so over 40, getting into 50s, someone work, still hugely capable of working and have vast experience, huge value and insight to add, but they're being overlooked. Now I saw a comment on LinkedIn where someone said that one of the big corporates automatically dismiss anybody who looks to be over 50.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 33:54

Now that would be illegal in the UK and I don't think it's particularly ethical. Whether it's legal in the US or not, I'm not sure, but it's certainly not ethical and it's not helpful for that company's future because they're missing out on a whole bunch of skills. Now sometimes it's a cost-based decision because the older, more experienced people might be more expensive, but in reality things can end up projects especially, can cost you a lot more in the long run when you don't have that expertise and insight because of the mistakes that are made or the delays, or the supplier that's been engaged that shouldn't have been. So I've seen all of these problems and I think that's another trend. Is this ageism thing and this is?

Maya Middlemiss: 34:38

why I?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 34:39

think my programmes are so popular with older people because they've tried to get a corporate job. They've tried to continue doing what they've been doing for the last 20 years and nobody's hiring them and the option they have is to go and do their own thing.

Maya Middlemiss: 34:53

And they've got so much to offer. It's just so bad.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 34:57

It's crazy, it's really crazy and it really annoys me. What I'm doing with these people is saying right well, you've got all this expertise, you've got this service, this problem that you can solve, so let's market to that. And the people who are going to buy your service, who have this problem they don't care how old you are. They really don't. They just want their problem solved and that's really taken off as well. I have a lot of older people who are in that position and see the value of moving into consulting and freelance work.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 35:27

And plus, they want the freedom. They want to be able to work when they want to work. And another thing is people want to work with companies that they actually want to work for. People are getting more picky. You know if you're not doing well on the environmental sustainability or the inclusivity or whatever value is important to that particular person, then they don't want to work with that company. So when you're freelance doing consulting, you can pick and choose who you want to work for.

Maya Middlemiss: 36:01

Fantastic, I think. I mean. This is incredibly optimistic thing, this vision of the future that we're creating here, and it is one that already exists. You're living it, I'm living it, and all the people that you work with are creating these blended, fractional futures where they can do the work that means something to them, for clients that align on their values and use their skills and experience. That matters. If anybody else is feeling as inspired as I am right now, Lizzie, what should they do next? Where should they go and how can you help them?

Lesley Elder Aznar: 36:34

So a great place to start, as I mentioned earlier, is the career change readiness audit. That helps to figure out if you know where you're going, what your direction is, and if not, then we can jump on to the career path clarity. I'd love to have people join me on Expertise Unlocked, the programme for aspiring consultants and freelancers. So if you're feeling inspired, as Maya says, then come and join us on the programme. Maya will post a link and if you've made it this far on the call, you get a special bonus of a 10% discount if you book today as well.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 37:10

So Maya will post all the information on how to access that in the comments.

Maya Middlemiss: 37:16

Yeah, we'll pop that into the show notes for you. So to give as many people as possible the chance to access Lizzie's experience and wisdom here, because I think this programme could be absolutely life-changing for so many listeners and it's been extremely fascinating and valuable. I'm packing all of this with you today. Leslie Eldar-Aznar, thanks so much for joining us on. The Future is Freelance.

Lesley Elder Aznar: 37:43

You're very welcome and let me just leave one last thought for people. When you said life-changing, one of my ladies has just signed her first client and is now working two days a week with that client for the same money that she was earning when she was a full-time employee. Another one, who's a coach, has signed her first CEO client. Only has to work three hours a month to pay her bills. Leave you with that thought Anything's possible.

Maya Middlemiss: 38:17

Thank you for listening to the Future is Freelance podcast. We appreciate your time and attention in a busy world and your busy freelance life. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a fellow freelancer and help us grow this movement of independent entrepreneurs. If you rate and review the Future is Freelance in whichever app you're listening to right now, it really helps spread the word and that means we can reach more people who need to hear this message. Together, we can change the world and make sure the Future is Freelance. Don't forget you can check out all our back episodes from other seasons and learn more over at futureisfreelancexyz. We're so grateful, not only for our listeners, but for the contributions of our wonderful guests and for the production and marketing assistance of coffee-like media. This is Maya Midlemish, wishing you freelance freedom and happiness until our next show.