How to Escape Corporate with Brett Trainor

This one is goooood, Friends! 

Ready to escape the 9-5, take control and find balance without sacrificing income. Learn the art of the entrepreneurial leap with Brett Trainor and embrace the power of fractional/freelance work that fits into the life you want to have.

Brett,  of the Corporate Escapee* joins us to map how to pivot out of corporate. In this episode, we tackle: 

• What's a Corporate Escapee?
• Who Should Escape? Who Shouldn't?
• The Market for Fractional / Freelance, etc
• The Money in Fractional / Freelance
• Planning Your Pivot out of Corporate
• The First Three Steps You Need to Take 
• And the Biggest Piece of Advice to Make the Leap 

Listen, we left this conversation with Brett feeling optimistic and clear about how to make this move. We hope you will too.

*We highly recommend you check out: 

• Brett's LinkedIn
• The Corporate Escapee Podcast Group - LinkedIn
• Brett's LinkTree - Join the Slack Community, Listen to the Pod, etc.  

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

Thanks for listening!

Hey! We love new friends! Connect with us!

• On The Socials! You Tube, TikTok, Instagram on LinkedIn - Mel + Francesca.
• The LinkedIn Group: We'd love to have you join the Your Work Friends Group on LinkedIn
• Drop Us a Line: Send us your ideas, questions, comments, complements, whatnot, to friend@yourworkfriends.com

Transcript

Brett: 0:00

seeing the number of solar businesses with seven figures, folks think they need to build the next Google or Microsoft. Like if I leave corporate I've got to start a company. Like not anymore.

Mel: 0:25

Well, hey, friends, this is your work. Friends, we're two HR leaders who have no filter, and we're here to expose all of the stuff that you need to know about work. I'm Mel, I'm Francesca, and with us today is Brett Schreiner, who is the founder of the corporate Escapy. You can find him on LinkedIn. He has an awesome podcast. He also just launched a Slack community. That's pretty rad. I just joined that community myself, and he's from a fun town called Wheaton who has a annual fair called the cream of wheat, in which just made my day last week when I heard this news. So, brett, welcome to the pod.

Brett: 1:08

No, it's great to be here. I'm thrilled that you asked me to come on and looking forward to the discussion. And yes, the cream of Wheaton. Never thought of it as a big event here, but it is kind of clever.

Francesca : 1:18

And they don't serve cream of wheat at cream of Wheaton, which I feel like is a miss, it's a sponsor miss, for sure, right, and they're using the name for it.

Brett: 1:26

Yeah, so funny.

Francesca : 1:27

The cocoa wheat still out there. If you grew up in the Chicago Land area, there used to be the show called the. Bozo show and it was sponsored by Cocoa Weets. You remember Bozo?

Brett: 1:35

I remember Cocoa Weets. Yeah, we went down memory lane that too long ago with some of those cereals that are no longer available, but they should bring them back. I know some people are bringing back those retro brands yeah. They went out of business or bankrupt, but the name still means a lot, so I think we're starting to see more of that.

Mel: 1:53

I just bought Captain Crunch Crunch Berries a couple of weeks ago for the first time in 15 years. Scrape the hell out of the top of my mouth, but it was delicious. It was delicious and worth it.

Brett: 2:04

I'm more of a peanut butter crunch, but I do like the crunch berries. Yeah, remember the old like Count Chocula in Franklin.

Mel: 2:11

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Brett: 2:12

Boo-Berry. Was Boo-Berry a seasonal or was that a? It was at a ongoing.

Mel: 2:18

I think it's seasonal right Boo-Berry with the ghosts.

Brett: 2:21

Yeah, so good.

Francesca : 2:23

So good it's so funny.

Mel: 2:25

Oh, look at on top of that. How do you, how do we get this? Yeah Well, brett, the corporate escapee. I love your mission, which is to help 10,000 corporate Gen Xers escape the nine to five. Tell us more about it. What's the corporate escapee?

Brett: 2:42

Yeah, it was funny because I got to that point about four, four and a half years ago after a 30-year career, mostly corporate, a couple of stints out to the entrepreneurial world and back into corporate, ended it with a year and a half running management consulting Cause that's what you should do at the end of a corporate career is go into traditional management consulting but just realized that I was just done right. It wasn't like where is this going? What am I going to be doing? Right, we don't have pensions. I shouldn't say we, the collective, we just didn't. The right corporate didn't offer pensions. So am I just going to be fighting this treadmill for the next 10 to 15 years or is there something better? And, like I said four and a half years ago, didn't have a plan High inside. I highly encourage folks if you're leaving, have a plan. Don't have to, but it makes the transition easier. And then the last year really there's got to be more of me out there, right?

Brett: 3:34

Cause for the first two years 95% of what I was doing was the fractional work, did some consulting in the B2B space, I was by myself, really didn't tell anybody that I was doing it, and then slowly gain momentum, caught up with some different folks and I'm like, yeah, the corporate escape, be that's, it's more than just work, it's the lifestyle.

Brett: 3:55

And then I just started playing with it. I decided just to have some fun, to get on Tik Tok and test cause. I'm like short attention span at 60 seconds, 90 second, and all of a sudden that took off, no idea why. But what it reaffirmed was that there is a lot of people. I think I've got like 20,000 followers on Tik Tok and to a person that I talked to it's like, yeah, I didn't know I was stuck, I didn't know there was other folks, but man, it really resonates with me. So I decided to make that more my personal mission to say if anybody's out there that wants to get out, there is opportunity, there's a path forward, there's tools, et cetera. So, even though it's been around for probably about a year I was in the last two to three months it's really found its footing.

Mel: 4:41

I will admit I found you on Tik Tok. I am a recent corporate escapee and I immediately was like, yes, let's connect on LinkedIn, join your Slack community, because I think what's really appealing for me to what you're doing is the community that you're building around. It is someone who's new to trying it out, and I think that community is so important just to help you succeed right Lessons learned, sharing. So I really love what you're building over there. Who is this for? Who is this not for?

Brett: 5:12

Yeah, good question. I say I tell everybody that if you've got 20 to 30 years of experience and if somebody's paying you to do a job, you can do it right. The can and should are two different things. I think who it's not for is if you're really risk adverse we're not talking super risky ventures, you're not putting your family's savings into a new business or something like that but what corporate does give you assuming you don't get laid off is a steady paycheck and they pay some form of your benefits, and so there's a floor in corporate that you always know you're going to have that paycheck. But with freelance, fractional what I call the corporate escapee the ceiling is much higher, the utility is much higher, but there could be lows. Right, you could have a zero month where you're not bringing any revenue in, and you have to be comfortable with that and knowing that it's not going to stay that way, but it's not for everybody.

Brett: 6:06

The other thing that I found is important is you have to be accountable to yourself.

Brett: 6:11

I really took that for granted as I transitioned from corporate into the solo space was I own the priorities, I own my schedule and for the longest time I found myself just cramming more work into the day, but I really wasn't getting stuff done until I flipped and scheduled and put some structure into my day. But yeah, if you're not accountable to yourself and you like somebody else's direction, then this may not be for you Everybody else. I think you want more flexibility, freedom, control, opportunity than absolutely you can. I had probably 120 conversations with TikTokers, genxers that have came in and more for my learning to say what else can I do or what can we do to support what I was finding is the nichiest of niches in corporate. There's still businesses that are looking for that help. I call them the SME. Small and mid-sized businesses, startups, nonprofits are looking for that type of help. If you've got experience and somebody's paying you to do a job, there's an opportunity to help free yourself from that task.

Mel: 7:16

What do you think is for folks who are successful? When they do this, do they have a specific mindset, skill set that stands out to you?

Brett: 7:24

I think, open mind, because one thing in corporate it just teaches you to go follow the rules, don't rock the boat. Incremental improvements are good and you just have to have more of an open mind. We use the cliche of Gen X, but it's released back into the wild. We grew up without the rules and the restrictions and then 20 to 30 years in the box of corporate. You have to go back and be okay with experimenting and asking. We talk about can and should and it's will A lot of people. I can do that, I can go, so I do have that experience. I can run this project, I can work for it, but will you do it? It's the people that actually take action are the ones that are successful. I know I mostly work with Gen X, but I've had some 20-somethings that are super curious about how do I do this. I said well, look, if you get your job, you do this. What is the problem that you're solving for this company? There's probably a bunch of smaller companies that have this problem. You can just restructure it. 20 minutes later he's like okay, I got this. Thanks, see you.

Brett: 8:25

He was going to go take action when I think, if we've been around longer, we like to over engineer it, we like to overthink it and we're trying to look for the perfect plan. I'm guilty. One of my colleagues in Mansion Consultant used to tell me Brett done is better than perfect. That was a harder thing for me to transition from. Just go do it, it's okay. If this little experiment doesn't work, you try something else. And it's going to be okay Because at the end of the day, if it doesn't work, you can go back and find your corporate job. If it's not for you but I encourage anybody that's thinking about it just give it a 100 percent and see. If it doesn't work, don't have acid and then, if it doesn't work, go out. Wasn't for me. If you're going to do that, then maybe it's not for you anyway.

Mel: 9:08

If this is your new business, you treat it like a business. Otherwise, it's a hobby. It's just a hobby.

Francesca : 9:15

There's something suffering about going back to thinking about your feralness as a kid or thinking about the world of opportunity that you get as a child. I remember being in college and thinking, wow, anything's possible, anything could happen, and I think you get that when you're creating your own space. I'm wondering if you're seeing that in the landscape now. What is the market for folks that want to do freelance fractional? Do you see it's picking up, it's growing, it's depleted. What do you think?

Brett: 9:45

Yeah, I absolutely think it's picking up, because that's one of the concerns I hear from folks is it's saturated. I'm like we're the farthest thing from saturated when you think about the number of small businesses that are out there and the help that they need. I think we're in the early stages of this. And what kind of opened my eyes is I was on a podcast called the Human Cloud and John and Matthew do a lot of work in freelancing at the enterprise. I have more focus on the small business and part of our conversation was me flipping out of him and asking well, why are you seeing this rise in freelance? And what he told me was we haven't seen. Even three years ago there wasn't somebody with your experience or expertise that was open to fractional work for small businesses, so small businesses have never had access. You two are a perfect example of that as well. If a small business was looking to hire you, they couldn't afford you, and so what do they do? They have to hire somebody junior just to take a chance on somebody new or promote somebody within. Not all bad choices, but if you really need help and your org's growing, this is a perfect solution. It's the rare, perfect, perfect or win-win, especially with fractional. There's other ways you can slice it, but fractional is easiest transition, I think. And so what fractional is? Basically? It's a day per week per client and most of the time it's focused on strategy work, not a lot of the tactical and the doing stuff, because it would be hard to do that one day a week. But what you will be able to do is save that business a third of the cost. If they're going to hire a full-time equivalent for that HR lead, they couldn't afford it, but with you, for a third of the cost, they can. Now they can start to build a team with a couple of other fractionals. That gives them expertise that they couldn't have otherwise had.

Brett: 11:33

And the other last piece that I encourage people to think about the business owner is it minimizes risk. If you make a higher, it's an 18 month mistake if you get it wrong. And if you're hiring a type of role you've never hired before, that's hard. And if you can bring somebody in, that's fractional. Maybe it's a three month to start, but then it's month to month and a lot of what the fractionals will do is work with that business to transition out. If they're ready for a full-time, they can help you find that full-time person.

Brett: 12:02

So I think where the industry or where the overall market's got to catch up is fractional, still in relatively new term. But when you explain it to the business owner, they're like yeah, I get it and we're starting now to actually see hey, we are actually looking for fractional CFO for this role. So you won't find it in LinkedIn job postings yet. But it's not like this is just one-sided, where it benefits the escapees because they can charge a premium for what they do. It gives them more flexibility. But the businesses are actually going to benefit from this as well.

Francesca : 12:35

Yeah, you see a lot of movement in organizations trying to outsource works or work that is not core to their competence, because they don't want to be in that business, and this is one of the ways I think that they could do that either through fractional or contract full outsource. It does seem like we're at this wave of this coming right. Business is understanding the benefit of not holding on to full-time labor because that's so expensive. It's expensive for turnover too if they don't work out and also people wanting a different lifestyle. Work to means different things and still get paid and paid well. Do you feel like in five years this is going to just get bigger, or do you feel like it's going to go the other way? My gut is it's?

Francesca : 13:17

going to get nuts.

Brett: 13:18

It's going to get nuts. I think Every last dollar I had it's going in this direction. Just because a couple of reasons, and think about it from when you were in corporate, what percentage of your week was actually spent on the job that they brought you in to do? 30%.

Mel: 13:34

It's really.

Brett: 13:35

Maybe at a high end. So you're paying 60% of overhead from the business perspective and that's where fractional is there. They're super intentional about using you only for what you're good at, because they don't want you on unnecessary meetings. It just doesn't make sense. So I think just economically it's going to make sense and that's why I think that the small and mid-sized can really take advantage of this, because the bigger orgs they're still trying to figure out sales and marketing alignment. How do we go? Digital Things they probably should have figured out 15 years ago they're still struggling with. So how do they incorporate a more flexible workforce is going to be hard. I think certain organizations or operating units within bigger companies are starting to figure out how to do it, but for the most part it's not there.

Brett: 14:19

I've used a couple of analogies that help people see it. The one is think about it as if you're making a major movie Hopefully it's a blockbuster but you got hair, you got makeup, you got actors, you got film. You got all these different, mostly small entities that come together for 12 to 18 months, build this thing. They go away and this group may work with each other here and they may work over there. And then the other one that's similar to that, if you remember the movie Ocean's Eleven.

Brett: 14:46

George Clooney wanted to rob the casino. What did he do? He needed a make disguise artist, he needed a bomb guy, he needed X-Wines. All specialists that come together, get paid for what they do, drive towards an outcome and then go back to their separate ways. I just think the Industrial Revolution pushed us into offices. There was value in having people side by side because everybody was doing the same job. You can learn now All that side by side stuff is going to be automated, and what are you actually learning? When we did answer Francesca, your question, I think it's fundamentally going to change it and it just depends on how quick. I think we're in the early stages, so it's going to be fascinating to see where this goes.

Francesca : 15:28

That's a thing for employees. I've been hearing from a lot of people that they feel they're stuck in organizations, they're at a manager plus level and they're like I thought I was being brought in for my expertise, but I'm not being listened to sometimes, and or to your very good point the majority of their day is spent on shit that is absolutely not even relevant to their job, and there's something so beautiful about having an agreement that you're being brought in for your skill set, you're being paid for your skill set and all the other minutia goes away. So from a business, this makes sense. From an employee or from someone that this is their craft, this can be a really beautiful way to work too, because you're actually getting paid for your expertise.

Francesca : 16:09

Yeah, and you can do it where you want right?

Brett: 16:12

Yeah, that's what I'm watching. These return to office mandates. I'm like you got to be kidding me. You've been in the workforce for 30 years and this is the way I love your viewpoint on this. We just talked about it, yeah.

Mel: 16:23

Yeah, yeah, feelings. We agree with you wholeheartedly. You hire adults. These are experts You're hiring to come into your organization, but you don't trust them to get the job done, and that's a larger issue we think is happening.

Brett: 16:38

If you don't trust them, they're not going to work any harder in the office and you can argue they're more inefficient at the office. I grew up in it, so I saw the value at times when having colleagues and working. I just think that those days are gone.

Francesca : 16:51

They're gone, they're gone. It's interesting because there's these decision makers that are making really regressive decisions, like we're just going to keep going back, we're going to keep going back, and it's like that ship has sailed and I think the people that are willing to think about a new way will win.

Brett: 17:06

And as long as we're on this, culture is something I've been thinking about from a pure execution standpoint, from a company, and I think culture matters for the ownership group. This is what the vision, this is the thing we want to create. And once you get below a certain level, everybody's just doing it for the paycheck. And you can tell me there's companies that believe in the mission, which I'm 100% sure there are, but I'm saying 80% of the companies, 80% of the workers, and they just want to be paid fairly, treated with some flexibility, right, and then they'll do a good job. I don't want to say culture is overrated, because it's not, but don't think the 10,000 employees are all going to buy into your culture. You're never going to get that, especially with return to office man and all that other stuff. But if you plug in specialists for a lot of these key roles that just love to do this job they like you and the company you're going to get a lot further than trying to force people into a box again.

Francesca : 18:00

My whole thing on companies right now is they are not everybody, but most of them are misrepresenting themselves in terms of what they're offering from an employee experience perspective, because a lot of organizations are we're a great place to work, we're a great place to work for mothers, we're a great diversity, equity, inclusion, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have all of these benefits, we care about mental health, we care about all this stuff, and the actual working experience day to day doesn't match the brand that they've been sold, and so there's this sense of betrayal, there's this sense of like. What the fuck you know? Excuse my French, yeah.

Brett: 18:37

I get it.

Francesca : 18:38

I'm going to get it out. To me, one of the best relationships you can get into in anything romantic friend, parent, job is when it's honest. Yeah, contracts are honest. Yeah, my dogs are honest. You know what you're gonna get. Oh, I love your point of view on this. I think a lot of employees feel like I thought I was signing up for something completely different. Then what I've been given.

Brett: 19:01

Yeah, the one-way street.

Mel: 19:04

Yeah, we're hearing that from a lot of folks who independently reach out to us to share, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, francesca, because culture is the responsibility of the organization, team and individual.

Mel: 19:15

But it takes all three of those elements for it to be effective throughout. But if at each of those levels you don't have everyone bought into your good point, brett, there there comes a point sometimes when an organization Potentially is just too large where they're not going to be able to manage all of the micro cultures that have now popped up. It's like having a core set of values and making sure that Everyone operates within that core set of values and how they work is so critically important. But if they're not really paying attention to that or have expectations around that or build performance management around those expectations and they're really measuring it, then the culture and the micro cultures get out of control. Into Francesca's point yeah, there's a sense of betrayal from people who were sold hey, this was a great working environment from others. But you know, I joined this team and my direct leader won't let me leave early to go watch my kids soccer game Then that's not a great organization for that mom, but maybe a mom on another team is getting the opportunity to do that.

Mel: 20:18

But, it all depends on your direct team. Yeah, what's?

Brett: 20:21

interesting when I was starting to have these conversations is the the relationship between, as a corporate escapee or an employee employees. Definitely, it's mostly command and control some companies to give you some flexibility. But I heard that command and control. I talked to a executive recruiter friend of mine who told me that there was a CEO, they were hiring a chief people officer and the board was basically dictating who he was gonna hire. I'm like, so he's being micro managed at the highest. And this wasn't a family-owned company. This was a pretty good-sized business and when I started to think through this, this is why I think fractional can start to even that playing field.

Brett: 21:01

So the way I think the old days of freelancer is really transactional Okay, we're hiring you to do this job, we'll pay you this. We both agree, done, done. Where fractional is more of a partnership right, I'm part of that organization just on a part-time basis. I've got to be on the same page as the owner of the sea level. That's bringing me into that organization. We've decided together what's gonna work. Right, you can't tell me what to do all the time because, one, that's not why you brought me in, but two, that's not the way our relationship is. So you got like commanding controls and employee Partner is a fractional, transactional, is freelance and there's some service Businesses in there that are definitely more transactional. But at least give the employee a leg up.

Brett: 21:42

The other thing I encourage folks to think about even if you're staying in corporate, think of it as you are a still the CEO of your own company, company of one, and your product is your expertise, and what this company is paying you to do that job is salary, benefits and the requirement of you being on site three days, five days, one day, just everything that's involved. And would you run your business that way? If this is the way the customer, maybe you would and you're willing to trade off because this is what you need, but for me, I forever I just take it All right, this is what you're paying me, this is what I get, right, this is the vacation and all those things, and just accepted it, versus thinking if I treated this as this was my company and this is my skill, I probably would have done things differently, maybe not have had as many options, but too often I think we're just way too reactive and not as intentional with it.

Francesca : 22:29

I think a lot of people think that that's the only way. I grew up thinking you're gonna go to college, you're gonna go to grad school, you're gonna get a job at Accenture and you're gonna keep on did it, did it did and this is. This is the way, this is the path, and it's not the same thing.

Brett: 22:41

It's the right thing. Right. My plan was I was the first one in my family they actually went to college, so business.

Mel: 22:48

I do.

Brett: 22:49

That was, and so my goal before I started was game warden in Wisconsin. That sounds awesome, yeah. Then, 30 years later, I'm like what the hell happened? You get into that. Somebody called it a treadmill and I think it's the perfect thing. Somebody said that salaries the drug that keeps you going. It's that next level. I just get promoted to that next position. Then I'll end up with enough money to do this. But it's never really enough, and what's happened this last year Is the fear factor against him. Yeah, lay it off. What are you gonna do? There's nothing out there, and they scare you into Staying into a job longer than maybe that you would want to, and times are changing, which is so exciting. There's enough signs that we're moving in the right direction.

Mel: 23:40

I think so. I think the sign of how many folks and younger folks who are looking at exploring this space too and not just going into corporate. There's a real desire, I think, for people to own their time and how they spend it and who they spend it with. And I think that's so beautiful about this type of work too, because you have a bit more autonomy around what you're working on, who you're working with, when, after COVID, I will say my personal experience was really reflecting on how do I want to spend my time and I tell Francesca this all the time I went to work where there's a three-legged stool of Respect, relationships and meaningful work. So in everything I do, that's what I want to do and that that's appealing to me about your messaging and going out on your own, and it seems possible.

Brett: 24:28

It's true, an author, steve Glovesky, australian guy wrote time rich and he's like look, you can always earn more money, but you can never earn time back.

Brett: 24:36

I'm like so true and you think about our corporate careers. We built our lives around those jobs, whatever it was right vacation, school Workouts. You had to get up at 6 am If you wanted to go to the gym. A little more flexibility now, but not Completely so. Our lives really revolved around whatever corporate job that we were doing and not the other way around, which, again, we're gonna look back in 50 years. You know what the heck, yeah right.

Francesca : 25:22

We talk about the money for a second, because I think this might be one of the things that People get nervous about when they think about this. Do you find in general, that the money is like net-net it's better, it's worse. I think it's better.

Brett: 25:34

You've got the risk, because when I left, it was all about the money. What had happened to me was, as a management consulting firm, I saw they were billing me out as, and I saw what I was taking home about that billable rate. I'm like this is crazy. What it did teach me is what my market rate was, and that's one thing I think we all do is undervalue what we have and what we do. Where it's definitely going and I can speak from the fractional and from the service side, because when I say fractional, it's again that on average it's a day per week, probably no more than 10 hours a week, no more than two hours per day, depending on how you spread out per client and the billable range that you can charge is between six and twelve thousand dollars per month and and what I see more consistently is between seven and ten.

Brett: 26:21

Now it's a bigger company that you're doing some work for. Maybe it's a couple more hours. It's on the higher end, so definitely outliers. In either way, this is for sales leaders, marketing leaders, customer success folks, hr Recruiting, anything that needs a leadership or strategy component within those companies. You can transition that to fractional, and this isn't just my experience. You can like voyage, or you, which works with exclusively fractionals and fractionally. United with Karina she's got six thousand fractionals in there and they just had a data Study that came out that showed wages or the hourly rate Amongst different levels of skills and what role on the organization, and it was consistent. If it's more of a less strategic role, you're gonna be down in the $150 per hour or $100 per hour.

Brett: 27:10

One rule of thumb that I think if people at home want to do the math is whatever your corporate salary is, chop off the three zeros and that's what your hourly rate. And if you do the math backwards which I'm not a fan of the public math so if you're making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in corporate, think about it is about a hundred and fifty dollars per hour. You know times that by ten hours you know per week, per client, and it adds up to being able to replace your income with two to three Clients and only working two to three days per week, and that's ideal. That's after you get running. If you don't leave corporate, that instantly happens, but it's definitely more. I wouldn't call it an industry standard yet, but it's definitely becoming accepted. And the other data point I'll share is one of the companies that I was a chief Revenue officer for. They were less than three million in annual revenue and they were still paying in that range, so it's even a smaller company is willing because they need to invest.

Francesca : 28:07

Right, and so if you do worth it, yeah.

Brett: 28:10

So that's what I'm saying, and when people say it's a tree, I'm like do you how many companies that are between two, five ten million dollars that could use your skill set for 12 to 18 months as they figure it out? The other beauty of this is you can start to think about your expertise as a service. I know we're going to level two now, but I think there's that's where I encourage folks at your new CRM specialist, maybe they're not gonna bring you on as a fractional CRM Person, but what do these small businesses need that you do really well that you could do for three thousand dollars a month. They're five thousand dollars a month. One their entire CRM, do whatever it is.

Brett: 28:48

And the other example I'll use from the design sites there's a graphic designer named Brett, his company's design join. He's been super open about publishing his track record. The last year he did two million dollars as a solo company. He does all his own design works. He charges brands, I think between 5k and 7k per month. I think the rule is you can only do one design at a time. You can't send him six design requests at once. Maybe do the math backwards of how many customers he needs he can manage that. He said to get overwhelming at that level but like well, if you don't want to do two million one, bring somebody in which he didn't want to do. We'll just reduce the number of clients you have. So that's why I said, if the rules don't exist, if you can solve a problem and add value to a customer, there's a way that you can structure that that it's gonna make sense for you and for the business.

Francesca : 29:39

I mean in two million dollars a year, is that's kind of livable?

Mel: 29:47

Right in your recent newsletter. I loved the template that you shared around what's problem Are you solving for people? What skills are you bringing to solve that problem? We'll link to that because I think it's super valuable. I'd love to talk about if you're in corporate. Today we hear from a lot of folks in high-pressure industries so think law firms, the finance world's, banking, all of that who are Looking to pivot. For folks who are in these intense industries, they're also highly regulated so you might not be able to start a side gig because it could be seen as sort of competing priorities with what you're doing. What do you recommend for them to be able to make space to plan for this kind of pivot?

Brett: 30:31

Yeah, it's a good question. It's this highly regulated, maybe a bigger issue. There's still gonna be a way around it. It's still gonna come back to what the problem that you solve you solve it for and even if you solve it for free on the side, for a few folks, you can test the idea. Target maybe a different industry.

Brett: 30:49

Because that's one thing I've found is, unless you're specific in, like a healthcare technology or whatever it is that doesn't translate, then you may be a little trickier and you may just have to get yourself set up, build some runway and say, alright, I'm going all in, I see the, the future of this. But short of that, there's no reason why you can't start to have these conversations and do some mini engagements with folks. Right, everything that we're building to go solo. You can build on the side and then just start to have the Conversations one off with people and then you get a sense of is this really a need to solve problem? Is this a nice to solve problem? Hopefully it's really the need to solve that the business has. So I think there's date ways around and that's the number of the folks I'm actually working with and I'm testing a new Offering 60 days, your first customer and it originally had the grandiose plans of you know, end to end of all the things that you should Be thinking about.

Brett: 31:46

What I found was all these folks are really smart and don't necessarily need all the pieces, but when you get down into what is the specific offering look like who is the target customer cut through all the noise because we all like To chase the shiny objects and go too many. But let's pick one path. What's the problem? What is it you want to solve and work on and then build the offer into that? Most of the people I'm working with they're still Incorporate, so it can't be just broadcast to your network that you're open to fractional and contract work. It's not gonna work. So we're gonna have to be a little more targeted with some of the outreach.

Brett: 32:20

But it's absolutely possible I think that's what we talk ourselves into that when nobody's gonna want this or we have to have a full-on marketing plan. I'm like the end of the day, for us to be successful and I say most, if you have ten customers that you're not gonna be able to service ten. So you think about it really to read if you're thinking about replacing that income and still working less. Two to three customers is all you need. That's not very many. That's super targeted and through relationships Referability of John arms talks about all the time and then just solving that problem. You got to Break the ice with the first one, but then it's much more manageable even than it was five years ago when you tried to. You almost Did have to have a marketing plan.

Mel: 33:00

It's just starting the conversation with folks and offering Advice for free to build those relationships. I've also seen this done, where folks start to have the conversation with their employer and they've turned that former employer to a client Once they've transitioned into Freelance. Have you ever seen that happen with any of your I know people have done it.

Brett: 33:20

I wouldn't be comfortable going to my most really recent employer. But if you were like me and worked for three or four or five other companies, maybe there's some folks in the past that know you, the work that you do, and need some additional help to get that going. You can be super targeted with LinkedIn and I'll give you just an example. When the corporate escapee took off, I didn't want to forget about the work that I was doing with the small business, so these corporate escapee work. So everything you see on my social and LinkedIn now is mostly the escapee stuff. But I did some targeted outreach to some clients saying, hey, I've got this full network of Estapies now misses or? Mr Business owner, are you still stuck in your traditional Recruiting ways? Are you only looking at a full-time equivalent? Are you open to ideas around flexible staffing and fractional those types of things? And I was just sending that out to Not direct connections but second-degree connections.

Mel: 34:17

Yeah.

Brett: 34:17

I probably an 80% connection Acceptance rate. Most of them would say, now, that's not my business because I was targeting too small. Then I went up the next level 10 to 25 employees and Most people accept the connection or say no, I'm not in that. But a handful are now saying, yeah, I'm interested in learning more. We're just about to that point. Again, I'm not selling anything on those things, but I've got three or four leads that I'm working. If I was still employed, they'd have no idea that I'm even talking to these companies Can't, don't do anything illegal, but you know they can't keep you from right, trying to to grow you.

Brett: 34:53

Whatever you want to do on your own, you're free time and your own time and what you want to do the future so. So the point is there's ways you can start to Identify customers, even if you're linked in. It says I'm fully employed, just have to be a creative sometimes just building relationships as key.

Mel: 35:10

Yeah, like my name.

Brett: 35:13

That's what I've found with this community. Everybody is super helpful and maybe Great myself.

Brett: 35:19

But yeah, again, everybody realizes we're breaking the mold in corporate. Where it was every person for themselves, it was the political if either be eaten and all that. We're here. Everybody's more than willing to help. And again back to the community. That's really what I want out of this group is to say, hey, this I came across an opportunity. Doesn't make sense for me, but I know somebody that was an IT that this would be a good fit for and we just start referring each other into Opportunities. All of our networks are big or big enough for us to figure out what we need to have. I've never been more optimistic about a path then, if you would ask me this three years ago. I think you get work really hard and figure it out, but now we can eliminate some of those blockers there that the traditional learning curves.

Mel: 36:02

I love your slack community. I'll keep plugging it because being a new Corporate escape me myself joining that slack community. I think it's been an invaluable experience because everyone's just wanting to help each other, learn from one another, help each other grow, and I think that's the beauty in this is that Community piece and you're sort of indirectly creating your own quote-unquote corporate culture through that community Culture of just helpers, people who are interested in helping organizations and helping each other, and it's really nice. I'm so glad you're here. I love you too. I'll see you next time. Folks don't talk about this often, but it's hard to get your first client. But how was it having to fire your first client?

Brett: 37:00

It's usually mutual. Usually If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Usually you get a sense in the first three, six months of it's going to work. And I was working with a client doing some sales but really what they needed was marketing support, some branding. They had a really good tool, really strong, competitive product, but nobody knew them. Less than 3% of the industry knew who they were and I basically said, look, take the money that you're paying me and go invest in a marketing and, more specifically, a product marketer. That's really going to help, because their entire business was contingent upon. If this one product hit the growth targets, you can understand the product from the customer research all the way to how do you position it and move it into the marketplace. Spend your money there, because it's going to be much better than me trying to help you figure out how to cold call our way to that business. And so we agreed to move on just because it didn't provide the right fit. You get a sense of the cultural fits going to be there.

Brett: 37:58

But the way I like to structure my engagement is the first ones a. Don't call it a get to know you, but as we're having a conversation and we're saying, hey, this is what I think my organization needs and I'm saying I think this is what I can deliver. Until you actually get involved into the business and know what you have, it's hard to know, so I always liked the 30 or 60 day. Let's validate everything that we thought we knew and then build the roadmap from there. Even if you're fractional, that's really what you're doing is helping them build the strategy and go from there. So I always build an out after that paid assessment period I hate that term, but I don't know a better way of a paid validation. Right, those are going to be value. We'll build the roadmap and at that point we'll know if I'm the right fit for what your business needs and if not, then we can find somebody else to go in there.

Mel: 38:48

Love the concept of a paid assessment time when everyone gets to test it out and see if you're still in alignment after that 60 day is really nice actually.

Brett: 38:56

There's a few businesses, like one guy that was working on a corporate development and really the work that he needed to do it's a six month right to do the due diligence, so he can't do that one month a month, but almost all of them you absolutely could do a trial one month, two months three months just to make sure everybody's happy. And again it takes the risk out of the business zone. It's an easier sell at that point too.

Francesca : 39:20

It's actually beneficial, Like yeah.

Mel: 39:22

Where there's an out.

Francesca : 39:41

What are the things that you want to avoid when you're getting into this space that you don't need?

Brett: 39:46

Yeah, that's a really good point. I see less of the scammy, right, they're there, right, but I think, yeah, we over complicate what we're doing and you don't need a hundred tools. The thing that I found that would have been helpful would have been how do I reduce the learning curve? Because everything I did was the first time it was on my own. There was nobody to share what was going on, and that's kind of the way I've approached that with TikTok and the newsletter. I'll tell you everything I know you know for free. And then if there's still stuff that you want help with, then fine, and that's the way that I approached with other folks as well.

Brett: 40:23

That said, hey, I really need some help, like, I've got somebody helping me on the community Never done a community. I've got an escapee that does it for me to help eliminate some of those big potholes that I don't need to hit. And so I think that's the biggest thing is don't let somebody sell you on. There is no secret sauce. If you do this one thing, you'll get 10 customers. No, it just doesn't work like that. I think it's the fundamentals. The basics. It's everything you already know, but people will tell you you have to do more than what you know, and that's just just not the case.

Francesca : 40:55

You're talking to somebody the other day and they're like I don't even know how to get started. I'm here, I know I hate my job, I'm in the muck, have the talking heads like this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful life. On repeat, right. What are the first? Like two to three things you just need to do.

Brett: 41:11

Yeah, if you would have asked me two years ago, I wouldn't have necessarily thought of this. But it's what do you really want, right when?

Francesca : 41:20

Best question ever. Best question ever.

Brett: 41:22

It's hard to answer and it might changes, but I've gotten much more settled into it because, if you can answer, that is your number one goal just to replace your double your income Cause that's going to send you down a path of doing X, y or Z. But if it's, hey, if I can just supplement my income or get 50% of it and it. But I only want to work one day or two days. I want to be able to do it from the beaches of Florida in the winter and on a lake somewhere in the summer and really think through what is it you want from this next phase. And there's no wrong answer. But having that answer makes it easier to figure out. What are the next steps that you do to drive that business Cause. Again, if you want to build the design joy with the two million revenue, you're going to have to put a little more work into. I just want to replace my income and work a couple of days a week and I'd be able to do whatever else I want on the other five or four or five days. So in the more macro sense, I think some people probably roll in their eyes and say, trust me, I was that person. But now I always encourage you to go down that path. This is personal work on it. If you've got a spouse, partner or whatever, be on the same page, because if you're not on the same page it's going to make it really difficult not impossible, but really difficult to go through this. And then from there, I would find that problem right. I tell people to go through a skills and experience inventory and if you've done something for 20 to 30 years, you'll be shocked at how many different things you have to do. But from that then think about what is it you like to do, cause you're at it now a point you get a little bit. You may have to take some jobs or a couple of projects that aren't exactly what you want to do to get started. But start to think about what that is, who you want to work with, what type of business? Right, because some of the folks I talk with they could go into sales, so they could help small business with sales. But they're also really good at software, so they understand right, are you getting at the ROI off your current software? So there's multiple paths. You just get it down on paper and say, all right, here's in, francesca. Back to your point. There's three or four main problems that you can probably solve that you've got the expertise and your LinkedIn profile will show you can walk into these small business and say, yeah, I've done this type of thing and then you can start to figure out what does that offering look like?

Brett: 43:44

I think too often we go straight from well, I've got 30 years, I want to be fractional, but make it happen now. Just take the steps to go through it. Did you maybe make it happen Again? That was part of my learning curve. Was in consulting.

Brett: 43:58

Really like man, why did I do this? This isn't even what I like to do. I like the conversations, I like the problem solving, but I don't like project management. I don't like tracking down stakeholders, I don't like recapping meetings, those types of things. So I think it's figuring out what you want, identifying that problem at the most accurate or clearest point you can from a business owner standpoint, whoever you're solving it for in the business, and then the type of work that you want to do, and then you can start to craft options again, because those $3,000 to $5,000 a month engagements add up pretty quickly and if it's in your core expertise, it's probably not going to take you a lot of time to do it either. I don't like to oversimplify it, but it's not as hard as people make it out to be.

Francesca : 44:42

Yeah, those are such important questions and things to define and I'm surprised when I talk to people and they're in these situations and I ask them what do you want, like what is it you really really want? And they don't know or sometimes they don't want to admit what they really want because it's very far from where they are today. These are really important questions to ask yourself, for you to get to a space that you are meant to play in and that it'll be easy to play in as well.

Brett: 45:11

Yeah, I get feedback from folks that said that they took me two days right, they were longer to go through and actually think through what it was. But when you think about what's next for you, we've got a lot of options and flexibility. So that was the time. Like I said, I'm planning on living a while and healthy. So what am I going to do for the next 20, 25 years? Jesse Itzler he's NetJet's guy. He's Sarah Blakely's husband. He's built a really successful business, but one of the things that he had equipped not too long ago. He's like look, I think he's a year younger than me. So, statistically speaking, I've got 23 years left to live, which means I've got 23 summers and I want to do as much in those 23 summers as I absolutely can. I'm like yes, it's so true. And again, I think we get so conditioned that we can't think like that, like that's not for me, that's only for the rich can do this. No, that's the whole point of this exercise is, you can start to define what does that life look like? And then how do you incorporate your business into it? I'll give you one quick example.

Brett: 46:16

And she was my poster child forever. She and I worked in our last corporate job together. She was training and development, just hard charging corporate. She was moving up the corporate ladder. Then after that she's like you know what I'm done? And she wanted to start a business training and development and her whole mission was I want to take the month of August off so I can go climbing it didn't matter where in the world. So when she set up her training she worked with companies and basically said I'm not working in August. So they knew up front that she wasn't available for that. From that point on she grew her business. She hired some contractor to just do some work. She ultimately lived intentionally in her van, the van life, and then I think she's been in Australia now for six months running her company. But the whole point of that is she built this, she built her life and then figured out how to work, actually fits into it and I'm like that's so good.

Francesca : 47:08

Right, we're to do it. Yeah, it's build your life and then figure out how to put the work into it. I think that is the right equation. Right, that's the right stack of that story.

Brett: 47:19

It should be, like I said, better late than never for me figuring that out now. The other thing folks think they need to build the next Google or Microsoft, like if I leave corporate I've got to start a company. I'm like not anymore, I've solo businesses. Seeing the number of solo businesses with seven figures, I mean if you start to do the math and we can do that afterward you can see it's not that difficult. With the right couple of right freelancers or VA's to help with certain tasks you can build that. So I'm like how is it possible that these one person companies are doing one million or two million in revenue but yet there's three and five million dollar companies that have 22 employees?

Francesca : 47:55

There's so much opportunity. It's very exciting to think about.

Mel: 47:58

I love that, the concept of designing your life and then figuring out how work fits into it. That's how it should be. That's a great point. The one thing we can never get back is time. Well, hey, we have something we call a rapid round. Fun questions, yes or no? Are you up for a rapid round?

Brett: 48:37

Fire away.

Mel: 48:37

Okay, have you ever regretted leaving corporate?

Brett: 48:42

No.

Mel: 48:42

Have you ever had to turn down a dream project because it didn't align with your freelance goals?

Brett: 48:48

Not yet.

Mel: 48:50

Did leaving corporate improve your life 100%. Is it easier to say no to projects now that you're your own boss? No, it is TensorFlow. Think of what you needed when you came here.

Brett: 48:59

Yes, ish, Instinct still wants to take jobs, but my getting better at saying no if it does in a line, and usually I've figured that a little bit earlier in the process than I would have before, but yet still tempting right. If they're willing to pay a certain amount of money, it's do. I want to do this, so that's a car.

Mel: 49:24

Do you attend more or fewer meetings now than when you were in corporate?

Brett: 49:30

You were much fewer Good answer.

Francesca : 49:32

Good answer.

Mel: 49:34

Do you think contracting has made you a better negotiator overall?

Brett: 49:39

That's a good question. I would say yes. You go through more negotiations with potential customers, you get much more comfortable. The first couple are like oh my God, I can't you get. You're prepared for three days, right, and whatever they say, you're going to say yes to you because you don't want to jeopardize the deal. But then, as you start to go through a few, you realize it's more of a value based exchange than it is them walking away because you wanted a few extra dollars.

Brett: 50:09

It's good to hear you got nervous on your first negotiations too, oh for sure Common thing the bigger deals that you do get nervous because again, especially if it's a project I want, then it tends to get more nervous. The more you really want something, the more you tend to get nervous for.

Mel: 50:27

Have you ever worked from an unconventional location?

Brett: 50:31

That's a good question. I can't think of what an unconventional would mean anymore. I was actually working at home for a few years prior to the pandemic, so I kind of worked where I've been. So I wish I had a more exotic answer for you Like a treehouse in Costa Rica?

Mel: 50:49

or something.

Francesca : 50:50

Not a closet.

Brett: 50:53

No, I've been on a Zoom call with some guy that was cruising down the highway at 65 miles an hour from Detroit to Chicago on a. Zoom video. I'm like dude. It's okay, you can put it down and sound. I don't need to be seeing you scooting down the highway.

Mel: 51:08

Please don't get into an accident. Do you have your midday naps taken an uptick?

Brett: 51:15

No naps. I haven't figured out the naps, but definitely more. If I want to shut it down, nice, nice, can I give you just one tip?

Mel: 51:24

that I learned from this.

Brett: 51:26

Because when I started it, everything was I'm like ah, it's your contract, I can schedule my day however I want. But what I found was it was chaotic. And again back to that book time rich. It said, hey, if you calendarize and block time, it changed my life. It really did so. If people are struggling with that, I'm not saying you have to calendar or block. Find a system that works for you, because you'll be surprised at how much more time you actually do have.

Mel: 51:53

Time blocking. I also am a fan of the time block and I love that you're building in walks because that's good. Get some vitamin D. Last question, more of like a superstitious thing Do you have a favorite coffee mug or something that you're superstitious about for your work days?

Brett: 52:08

I wouldn't say superstitious, but that's funny. I don't know if you can see, oh puppy yeah, it was unfortunately, she was 18. We had lost her last year, but she was my office mate for like five years, and so my oldest daughter got me this cup as a gift, so I keep that as the good luck cup, so not superstitious, but more of a comfort feeling.

Mel: 52:32

I love that. I love that yeah.

Francesca : 52:53

Right before we adjourn. If you were talking to your kid or a best friend who is contemplating this, what would you tell them?

Brett: 53:01

Yeah, don't wait. Right, If there's a way to take control at the big macro, and it's don't run your life around your job. You may have to in the short term, but figure out a plan to get away from that as soon as possible. Get the skills you need to pay your dues, but always keep in mind that there is another way. You just want to be in control. Easier said than done sometimes, but it comes back to that time factor, and maybe now I'm just more sensitive to it as I'm older. But the earlier you can get that that it's okay to find alternative paths. My daughter's no by now.

Brett: 53:38

That corporate I'm not a big fan of anymore. It served me well, it had its purpose. But I think there's better ways to do that. And just again, take control of your own. Figure out a way to build your life and then incorporate work into it. And the last thing I'll add to that is figure out what you want. You may not know it at 25 to 29. You may not know, but I'd still have a plan. Even if it's this plan changes, think about where you go, Cause if you're not driving towards something, then it's you're just along for the ride.

Francesca : 54:09

And there's a lot of good work to do right and a huge space like wide open spaces.

Brett: 54:13

And people that appreciate that. These business owners and business small businesses appreciate it. They're open to it. There's enough that appreciate what you can do If appreciate your point of view, appreciate your thoughts on something, and I've heard from a number of folks that said that's one of the most refreshing things is somebody's actually listening to me. They're out there and they're hungry for your expertise.

Mel: 54:34

Time to tap into your main character energy.

Brett: 54:38

I like that yeah.

Mel: 54:39

I like the main character of your story, so build the story you want.

Francesca : 55:00

Brad, thanks so much for joining us today. We'll post in the show notes your Slack channel, your podcast, tiktok and your LinkedIn, just so everyone can go out and be part of your corporate escapee community. Thank you for joining us today.

Brett: 55:14

Yeah, that's my pleasure.

Francesca : 55:34

We'll be back next week with new week, new headlines. Thanks so much for joining us today. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Thanks, friend.