Marketing Consultant Nadine Campbell
About this episode…
MARKETING & BUSINESS CONSULTANT NADINE CAMPBELL
Already established in her marketing career, Nadine went freelance in order to ‘stretch’ herself professionally. And stretch she has!
Her natural networking style served her well. Nadine has been freelancing for 10 years with big name clients and still doesn’t have a website of her own. LinkedIn and her trusty Rolodex of business cards keep her ‘booked and busy’.
And in the past couple of years, she’s decided to use her own success and knowledge to give back. Starting a community and investment fund for diverse, marginalised entrepreneurs.
Nadine loves the entrepreneurial side of being freelance. And you’re going to love her story…
Read the highlights in the next tab.
BUILDING A NETWORK EARLY ON
Nadine spent 8 years of her career prior to going freelance, building up a network through meeting and talking to people. That networking has sustained her since going solo…
“I spent a lot of my earlier career networking the old school way: going to events, collecting business cards, giving out my contact details.
When I found out what they would do, I would then start to categorise them and organise my contacts: so those I could collaborate with, those I could provide services for, those that were just great for networking.
I did that from the beginning of my career. I didn't realise how important that would be.”
NO WEBSITE!
Nadine has had 10 years of successful freelancing purely thanks to her network, LinkedIn and her trusty Rolodex of contacts.
“Booked and busy as they say! So I just never got round to it. I bought the domain, I've still got the domain. I've got a work in progress, which has been sitting in the account for about nine years, untouched with bits and pieces of work, but I just felt like I didn't need it.
I just happened to keep speaking to people and then just kept getting work.”
POSITION YOURSELF WHERE YOU WANT TO BE
From the off, Nadine called herself a ‘consultant’…
“I was eight years in to my career, I'd really done a lot of cool, interesting work that had grown my experience and I felt like if I started calling myself a consultant, that's how I'll be treated. So that's why I gave it the title….
And now, you know, I'm 20 years in terms of experience including perm. I truly am a consultant. So I think sometimes you need to position yourself where you want to be..”
LEARNING OR EARNING
Nadine works on long contracts with companies. So how does she stay motivated when she’s not working, between clients?..
“You are learning or earning. So if you are not earning money, you need to go outside and learn something else. Any time you are not in work and you're freelancing, you need to be then using that time to train, retrain yourself.
When you're freelancing, there is no training agenda. So it's up to you to go away and ensure that you are up to date and your skills are fresh.”
“ What’s the worst that can happen?
Nothing. You just go back to perm work again. So be confident, listen to what your intuition is telling you… Just try it out."
Marketing Consultant Nadine Campbell
More from NADINE CAMPBELL
Nadine on LinkedIn
ACE Entrepreneurs
ACE Entrepreneurs on Instagram
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Marketing & Business Consultant Nadine Campbell
Steve Folland:
How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Nadine Campbell:
So I started the Digital Help Desk, my marketing consultancy in 2012. I started basically because I wanted more variety in my work. I was working perm in marketing agencies for about eight years, but what I found was that I was working on the same clients for at least a couple of years each time. And I was doing very similar types of work. I was doing a lot of finance clients, I was doing a lot of direct response and I was doing a lot of work which I was giving to others to present. So I didn't really feel very stretched at that point. And I felt like I needed to do more and I wanted to do more.
Steve Folland:
So really the motivation to go freelance was to stretch yourself.
Nadine Campbell:
Absolutely.
Steve Folland:
So you're a freelance marketing consultant, but you said the Digital Help Desk. So you had a business name from the beginning?
Nadine Campbell:
I had a business name from the beginning and the main idea was that people would come to me with their digital marketing and I would help them deliver it. So that's how come I came up with the name. But in fairness, I don't have a website and I just have worked for 10 years. I've never really done anything other than give it a name.
Steve Folland:
So how did you get your first clients when you left agency life and decided to go freelance?
Nadine Campbell:
Well, to be honest, it starts a bit earlier than that. So I spent a lot of my earlier career networking the old school way. So that's going to events, collecting business cardsgiving out my contact details and marketing myself that way. But most importantly what I would try to do is find out what other people do. So when I found out what they would do, I would then start to categorise them and organise my contacts so those I could collaborate with, those I could provide services for ,those that were just great for networking. So that's the way I initially did it. And I preferred that because it was a soft sell way of building up my network. And I did that from the beginning of my career. I didn't realise how important that would be.
I think I just enjoyed talking to people. So that was how I got most of my clients and my first client, which was a lady who worked for John Lewis (a big UK chain of department stores), which I met at a wedding. So <laugh>, my best friend got married and we were all sitting around the table and I remember she said, Oh, Nadine's moved into freelancing. And the other lady was like, Oh, I need somebody. And so that was how it worked. It ended up just being networking. All of my other roles today, or at least for the first chunk of my career was people that I'd met and people that I'd networked with and people I told what I did and then they came back around to me again and asked for some work.
Steve Folland:
Cool. So you've met all those people, but when you went freelance, did you then reach out to them all and tell them? Had you logged them all in LinkedIn?
Nadine Campbell:
So I had logged them all LinkedIn and I also had a Rolodex with all my cards in it. So usually what I would do is I would put some kind of updates about what I was doing and the work and my concept and the fact that I'd gone freelance and just reaching out to some of these people. And a lot of those contacts I had early on were in recruitment so I knew if I just told them I was available at some point they knew they would have a role and they would come back to me. So that was generally how it worked.
Steve Folland:
Now I'm intrigued because you said "I had no website". You have no website, right?!
Nadine Campbell:
I don't <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
Was there a point where you thought, Oh, I should have a website but... oh I'll get to it or I don't need one. Or... where's the thinking behind no website is what I'm wondering.
Nadine Campbell:
Yeah, great question. There is no thinking behind it <laugh>. So I just never got round to doing it. I bought the domain <laugh>
Steve Folland:
I love it. Too busy doing the thing.
Nadine Campbell:
Booked and busy as they say. So I just never got round to it. I bought the domain, I've still bought the domain. I've got a work in progress, which has been sitting in the account for about nine years, untouched with bits and pieces of work, but I just felt like I didn't need it. I just happened to keep speaking to people and then just keep getting work. And I'm not trying to say I had a seamless journey where I never had to try to get jobs. That's not the case. But it just so happened that LinkedIn was doing the job for me cause I put a lot of my work up there and I briefly would say what I was doing and most people would ask me for my LinkedIn anyway. I just thought, well I don't need to to create a website. The other business I do, which I guess I can talk about another time during this conversation - that has a website and it has all the digital pages you can think of, but the Digital Help Desk just doesn't have one.
Steve Folland:
So it's basically survived off of word of mouth, meeting people in real life as well as online. And LinkedIn. But does that mean you're showing up on LinkedIn daily - is there a strategy?
Nadine Campbell:
I would say I go on LinkedIn about four times a week. I just like to see what's going on in the ecosystem of businesses and work and people that I'm connected to. So I do go on. I don't post a lot on there. I'd post maybe once or twice a week. But I think the main thing is going into those business social platforms and seeing what's happening. Sometimes it's just commenting on other people's posts with something insightful or interesting and then people will think, oh, if she's saying that then she must know about marketing or she must know about about business strategy. And then sometimes people would then contact me and try to connect with me as well.
Steve Folland:
What would you say is the secret to good old fashioned networking in person? Cause it sounds like you must have been doing a good job.
Nadine Campbell:
It's not really a secret, but the big tip I would say is it's about the other person. It's not really about you telling everyone what you do. It's listening to what other people do and then categorising them to how they fit into your world. Because you can interject to things they're saying, Oh that's interesting, I did this. You know, and it relates to their story. And I feel like people find that way more engaging than when you do a long monologue about you and yourself. It just needs to be more of a conversation. It needs to be more natural.
Steve Folland:
When you first went freelance going back to 2012, would you have called yourself a marketing consultant then? Straight off the back? I'm a consultant.
Nadine Campbell:
I did, however, I did it more strategically than thinking I was a consultant. I was eight years in, I'd really done a lot of cool, interesting work that had grown my experience and I felt like if I start calling myself a consultant, that's how I'll be treated. So that's why I gave it the title. But then in a lot of my roles I would be a business director or you know, a partner or a digital manager, etc. So I think on paper it's fine to start like that, but then you need to adjust it to what role you're doing. And now, you know, I'm 20 years in terms of experience including perm. I truly am a consultant. So I think sometimes you need to position yourself where you want to be.
Steve Folland:
So with your work would you be going in house at a company or would you be going into an agency? Like what sort of thing were you doing? And were you doing lots of projects all at once or was it, I'm gonna spend three months, six months or whatever with this one company?
Nadine Campbell:
I'm gonna answer that back to front <laugh>. So my projects generally run on their own because they're really intense projects that I get called in to do or clients that I work with are usually giant projects. So I find it's better to focus on one thing and do it excellently than try to juggle two and maybe don't do the best job you can. So in terms of the clients that I've had, it's been a mix of client side and agency side. So my first eight years I was perm in agency world. And then naturally just because of all the context I had, I went agency side quite a bit. I've worked in almost all of the big agencies in London and global agencies. So not necessarily just the UK ones. But then I started my career client side.
I was working for the government communications agency. That's way before I went freelance, but that was my first role. So I already had a bit of client side. And what happens in marketing is if you're agency, they kind of always keep you to agency and if you're client side then you can get client side, but it's hard to swap between them. But I did a long stint with Samsung as my client. So I was sitting in the Samsung office. Working directly on their project with an agency. So there's a whole different mix of the work that I do.
Steve Folland:
When you are working with a company for such a long period of time, intensively on a project, how do you line up the next thing?
Nadine Campbell:
You have to line up your new project before you finish your last one. And I've been caught out on this as well. There was a period where as much as I say this has been great and it's been 10 years and one on, there are periods that you don't work. And I think one of the biggest mistakes I made kind of halfway through after having a good stint of back to back work was not lining up a new role when I'd left another one. So when you are getting to, I would say at a minimum two months before you're supposed to leave, you really need to start looking for your next role and putting your feelers out to see what's coming up. Sometimes you know, I do a lot of maternity covers or I have done a lot of maternity covers in the past so people know when those roles are coming up. So if you are speaking to these recruitment officers two months before then that's actually a brilliant time because then they can get you in, you can do the transition, all that stuff. You know, you don't wanna leave it till to last minute.
Steve Folland:
How do you stay positive at that point? You know, that chunk of time where you've just got no work and the work has ended - what do you do, day to day at that point?
Nadine Campbell:
You have to go and learn something. There's a saying I have, it's you are learning or earning. So if you are not earning money, you need to go outside and learn something else. Any time you are not in work and you're freelancing, you need to be then using that time to train, retrain yourself. Because it's not like a normal job where there's a training agenda for the year. Some jobs don't even have that, but at least there's a likelihood you're gonna get a training agenda if you're permanently working. When you're freelancing, there is no training agenda. So it's up to you to go away and ensure that you are up to date and your skills are fresh. So that's what I do in my downtime.
Steve Folland:
So 10 years of the Digital Help Desk. But you mentioned another business.
Nadine Campbell:
I did. So I've had three businesses in total. But I'm gonna just really talk to you about two today. The second one is Ace Entrepreneurs, which is an entrepreneurial organisation for marginalised entrepreneurs, diverse entrepreneurs ,those that don't receive funding or need help with the business structure support and to grow their businesses. Now, when I finished with Samsung reluctantly because I, it was my dream job, I absolutely loved it, my dream client, but it was just really far away.
So I actually did leave there knowing I wanted to start something but not knowing exactly what I was gonna do. So I'd met a couple of women there, diverse women as well. And when I started talking to them, I thought, I don't actually know a lot of other diverse entrepreneurs. And we started talking and getting to see that we had either similar problems or issues or things that we could help each other with. So that was kind of the beginning of it. And then as I try and found more people similar to that, it just grew and grew and it turned into another business. So I know we are saying freelancing, but to me there's the freelancing self-employed slash business owner. They kind of all sit in the same group. So yeah, I started that just because I noticed that I was one of these people that would be someone that would join ACE - someone that needed a network of other diverse entrepreneurs to be around, but I couldn't find anything like that. So that's why I ended up doing that in 2020.
And of course 2020 was the pandemic, you know, just trying to take a month off work to relax and think about what I wanna do next. And then, you know, you haven't really got time to do that because the next thing that's happening, I don't know when I'm gonna be working again. So now I have to think in terms of the consultancy work that I was doing, going in house and sitting with companies and brands and doing the desk work with them. That isn't, that wasn't necessarily possible cuz the UK wasn't open to do that. So I needed to pivot and find something different to do, which is along the lines of things I've been thinking about. So that's why I started ACE entrepreneurs and yeah, it's kind of like the Digital Help Desk in the beginning when I'm doing services, you know, short term services for people. And now again it's growing in those people that have joined as members and now become clients in some cases when they need to grow or support or diversify their business. And now I'm working with one client that's literally just got off the phone saying they've got another project for me.
Steve Folland:
I see. So Ace Entrepreneurs starts in March, 2020. Was that a paid membership from the off, as in you you thought yeah, okay this is gonna be my business, what I'm gonna do.
Nadine Campbell:
So no, it was not a paid membership. What happened was it, I wanted to give back because I felt like my career was going great, I was earning enough that I was happy with, so I didn't feel the need to then take a marginalised community and make that my so income. So the membership is free on there. You've got sort of the A to Z in some cases of starting up a new company. Everything that I've learnt. So the mistakes I've made from the financial side of things and all of those kind of experiences I've now distilled into giving people the best advice to start up in the best way. So it is free, free to join and then if you want to take on services or you want to have more of a premium membership than there's a cost that comes with that.
Steve Folland:
Is it just you running that?
Nadine Campbell:
Kind of. So I have an investment partner which is a long term friend of mine from 10 years ago. we've known each other for 10 years should I say. And so he helps me with the investment side of things cause we have a micro investment fund which we try to help support a couple of diverse entrepreneurs a year. As part of the business I've had four interns, which has been really excellent because I've taken them on and now they've gone on to full time roles, four of them. And then I also had two Kickstarters come and work with me for six months as well [Kickstarter was a UK government back apprentice style scheme - nothing to do with crowdfunding].
So throughout the time, I've been doing the bulk of it myself, obviously leading the company, but then I'm fortunate enough to have found and been referred to with many people that come along and help me to sort of get things along. But I also do a lot of outsourcing. So some of the content as well, I outsource that so they can do the bulk of it and then I finish it off to ensure it's on brand, then it's saying what I need to say because to me it's all about freelancers and it's all about outsourcing. It's not about doing everything yourself because that doesn't, you know, for work life balance that doesn't work.
Steve Folland:
And so you create this as a way of giving back. You've seen a need for it. But also it coincides with the pandemic. So did you then go and get more freelance consulting work as in back with the Digital Help Desk? The the two things run side by side?
Nadine Campbell:
Yes, that's exactly it. So one powers the other and actually they're coming together now to more than likely be one thing. So everything I've learned through having the digital help desk has fueled a lot of the work that I've done at ACE. All of my career work and things I've seen in marketing and business consultancy means I've got the insight to advise people via ACE and also for me to power ACE and run ACE. So for example, right now I'm off work as I call it, which means I don't have a consultancy client but I have been working for the last 15 months. So I've been working with a Sky group for the last 15 months. And once that was sort of out the way, then that project ends and it means I can go back to ACE full time and do more work there. But I think without the Digital Help Desk it would be extremely difficult to fund ACE. I probably wouldn't be able to do it.
Steve Folland:
Obviously at the moment you've switched from one to the other, but as they run together, how do you find juggling the desire to work on both?
Nadine Campbell:
So there has to be a sacrifice I think because I have a child as well and I think it isn't really possible to do all three because you run out of time. So typically what happens is, and what's worked nicely to date is that when I've had the interns I've been working elsewhere. So then I have three times a week where I meet up with my team and we go over the work for the week and then I have my check in and I manage to work it around my consultancy work. So typically when I'm doing both ACE and I have a client, that's how I do it. And then times like now where I don't have a client, I also don't have a any employees at the company. So that's kind of the way I juggle. I try just to stick to two things like my son being one and another major work stream being the other and not all three, you just end up burning yourself out. You end up doing late nights and not enough sleep and all the rest of those things.
Steve Folland:
You mentioned your child, in fact you mentioned work life balance. How do you find work-life balance and maybe it's changed over those 10 years?
Nadine Campbell:
It has. I think half of it, the first five years I was not,.. well I dIdn't have a child - that makes it simple. The definition to me of work life balance is being freelance - because the whole point is that you can set the time, you can decide when you want to work, you decide when you want to have your free time and once you know how much time you have to work you can plan things out very well. So the first five years as well as wanting to stretch myself, I wanted to travel, I love travelling. At some point in the early years I was on three holidays a year. I managed to make it work for me. Now it wasn't like big two week holidays but I was you know, doing city breaks and things like that.
So in the beginning it was about choosing my own holidays, choosing my own clients who I work for and really just being young and having fun. That was the first five years. And then the second five years is now about being able to spend time with my child as well as do work. And it's all the other same attributes I mentioned, but the opposite of having fun. Not that having a kid isn't having fun, it's not the opposite, but just slightly different is now you have a child and have to work around that. And if I look at my days now, I tell everyone I can do meetings until three. So after, I don't do any meetings because now I have to go and get my son and then you know, we spend our quality time together. So that's the difference between the beginning of my career and now - it's still deciding what you wanna do with your free time, but now it's all around a child.
Steve Folland:
So I love that the entrepreneurial side of things - it feels like perhaps it's instinctive for you. Is that fair to say? As if maybe you enjoy running a business? Because some of us, we wanna do the thing and then oh okay if I must, I'llrun a business. But it sounds like maybe you really enjoy that.
Nadine Campbell:
I do. I think I love it if I'm honest. You can feel it. I think it's about being able to shape what you're doing because when you are working for others you are somewhat following the guidelines that have been set out. You know, whereas when you are running your own business or when you're being entrepreneurial for yourself or for others, then it becomes this is what I think, this is what I recommend, etc. So I like that side of things. I very much enjoy starting projects and seeing them to the end and I think that is an entrepreneurial thing. You know, you want to create something that's amazing and then it lives on beyond you.
And that feels very entrepreneurial even though you are working for a client and doing client work, but you're actually setting up a project and something that's gonna live on beyond you thanks to your blueprint. So when I do the work I do for ACE for example, I can see how important it is. I can also see there's a gap for it. I think you have to have that mindset of how to fill that gap that's useful for people and a great resource for people that they will come back to, to be really truly an entrepreneur. But also for times when you don't have client work, what do you do? So when, when my son was five months and I'm just a career person so that I couldn't help myself, I was like, let me start a business. This is a great idea. What what will I do during the one hour in nap times I know <laugh>, let's start an eCommerce business. Yeah. So you know, I just, I think I can't help myself and I think that just becomes a part of you and it's hard to become an entrepreneur if you don't understand how hard it's gonna be. But that also, you understand how great the rewards are gonna be. It's very hard to do that. It's hard to be an entrepreneur and I think that's where a lot of people fall down.
Steve Folland:
Did you actually start a an e-commerce business?
Nadine Campbell:
I did. What was that? So it was called Mummy Kits. It was a baby hamper basically, like an essential kit to take to hospital. But yeah at five months I started Mummy Kits and the only reason I didn't continue running it is because I had ACE and the Digital Help Desk too and it was a bit too much for me.
Steve Folland:
That must be quite tough to, to let that go...
Nadine Campbell:
It is. I kind of still wanna do it. I'd like to do it again in the future, but I think you have to make choices about how you wanna live your life and I don't think at this point I want every moment to be working.
Steve Folland:
Yeah. And also the fact that you've taken part of that time that you have available to give back to help other entrepreneurs, diverse entrepreneurs, you could have kept running that and you're like, no, I've only got so much energy, I'll go and do this.
Nadine Campbell:
Yeah, I do. You know what, it fits in better to my current experience. So I'm taking everything I've already got in terms of written down and concepts and ways of working and everything from the work I've done with the Digital Help Desk and my marketing career fits in much more easily to ACE Entrepreneurs. Whereas Mummy Kits is something completely separate. You know, it's a physical business. It's eCommerce - so you have to go and learn the ways with the algorithms and everything is that side of being a direct to customer business owner. Whereas with the marketing stuff, I've got a lot of collateral, I've got loads of experience, a lot of that stuff, I've already got it. It's just creating it and putting it onto ACE in a more simplified fashion. So those two work together and it means I'm more efficient with my time.
Steve Folland:
And so when it comes to ACE Entrepreneurs - how do people find you or you find them?
Nadine Campbell:
So I created ACE during the pandemic, so everybody was online at that period of time. And the way that I found these diverse businesses was actually through Facebook groups. So either commenting on things that I'm seeing on there or posting my own collateral in content so that people come to me or I go to them. But actually that's how I found them. And then also I did the Black Business Show last year and that was one of my most successful days in terms of meeting with new clients. I basically spent nine hours talking to people. I didn't even take a lunch.
Some random lady brought me a coffee cuz she'd been observing me. She was like, you haven't left your stand, like please just drink a coffee or something. So that was fantastic. I think ACE is very much about you need to go to where the people are and both of those are really successful in terms of finding people. And then I also use Instagram as my main communication. So while I'm on Facebook looking for the businesses, I actually do a lot of my content on Instagram because it fits the target demographic. You can visually say what you wanna say without getting lost in a sea of information on Facebook. And I wanted to add that as much as I use LinkedIn in the earlier years. I think actually when I was working with Samsung, I was first introduced to YunoJuno.
I hadn't really heard of the platform, I didn't really know how it worked. I was quite lucky that a lady from Yuno Juno came into the office a couple of times and then we figured out how to make it work. And then ever since then a lot of companies now use YunoJuno for a seamless way of paying freelancers. It's actually very good. You get paid on a good frequency, you get your contract through there. And also there are roles that come up on YunoJuno, which you can then apply for. I have applied for a couple of roles and with some new client work for YunoJuno. But usually what's happened is I am in a contract already and that contract is via YunoJuno. So I do keep my eye out to see what's on there.
Steve Folland:
So YunoJuno - how would you describe that as a platform?
Nadine Campbell:
I would describe it as initially a payment facilitation platform. So it ensures that companies can pay freelancers more seamlessly. So the client goes into contract with them and then they need to ensure that they stick to those payment terms. It's really going from strength to strength and now they have lots of different ways for you to interact. So it's not just a case that you can get paid that way, you can find jobs that way, you can refer people, you can add on other freelancers. There's lots of really good things you can do - everyone that's on there has a profile. So you can say if you're open to work or not, it's a bit like LinkedIn without all of the chatter.
Basically you can go on there, you've put your profile, you put your rate on there, you give a little bio, you can connect the companies that you've worked with to confirm that you've worked in those roles. And then you can put a bit of feedback for the clients as well. And they can do the same for you, I believe. So when the roles come, I think there's a process that they see the roles that match your experience and then they'll come up in your dashboard and you can then apply for those roles via Yuno Juno in the user interface and then they can speak to you like that and then if you're successful then you get the payment. So it's kind of like an end to end thing.
Steve Folland:
So have we reached, not the end of the story, clearly the story is always being written, but have we reached today in terms of the way you are sort of living your life and running your freelance business?
Nadine Campbell:
We've almost reached today. I can tell you the biggest thing, I think we touched on it quite quickly and the biggest and the most exciting thing is through a chance meeting. I've met the company that I'm currently working with, they're called Star Records and they're really developing their brand. It's just, just sort of started with one service and now it's going on and on. So the really exciting thing now is that when I first started freelancing in the first couple of years I wanted to have a consultancy and there was this company called, I think they're called Blurb and they would have different client briefs that would come out.
So they would just be like, here's clients that have some briefs, can you answer it? And I could answer some of the stuff but then I was like, you know what, I want a group of people around me so we can do it together. And I never really got to that, never really did it. I just ended up doing things myself. But now what's happening is I'm fielding a bit of a team to work on this client. So we kind of come full circle a little bit because the marketing services I do with the Digital Help Desk, I now need them to fulfil this client I have now and the way I see my future being, this is the first client of many clients.
Steve Folland:
So you're saying basically as a consultant it was always you as one person working with a client but you've now come across a client where actually they need more than you can give by yourself but you are thinking, no I can hire other people and and so it's almost like a mini agency - like you are bringing on the people to fulfil that role and then you can also work with other people at the same time. Is that right?
Nadine Campbell:
That's just it,
Steve Folland:
It's just an evolution of the Digital Help Desk.
Nadine Campbell:
That's exactly it.
Steve Folland:
Nice! Good luck with that. Now - Nadine, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Nadine Campbell:
Hmm, good question. I took two years to start. I took two years of thinking about it. You know, obviously you're busy with other stuff, but I wish I'd started sooner. So I would say to myself, just try it out. What's the worst that can happen? Nothing. You just go back to perm work again. So be confident, listen to what your intuition is telling you.
Steve Folland:
It sounds like everything's gone pretty swimmingly. It sounds great. Is there anything that you've found hard in being freelance?
Nadine Campbell:
Firstly, I'll say I am a positive, glass half full type of person. So if you ask me something I'm gonna give you the most positive answer. However, it doesn't mean it's all gone swimmingly. You know, I've had periods of not working. So that to me, that's the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is when you aren't organised enough. Like I mentioned very briefly earlier when I left a job and did not line up the next one and then I was off for a long time and it wasn't a pandemic or anything like that, I just didn't line up things properly and I missed a lot of windows and I ended up out of work for a long period of time and it was quite nerve-wracking cause I was trying to buy a house. So it had a big impact and also not working has a big, big impact and not having any money.
So they are the biggest things I think you need to look out for - to ensure that I don't think it's going so great that I don't need to look for a job because you really never know what's coming around the corner. On top of that, I would say in the beginning financially in terms of setting up a business and you know, getting out all of my finances in the right way, I made a lot of mistakes there.
So I'd be using one account to do business stuff and personal stuff and the first year I did my accounts, it was a nightmare. It took me basically hours and hours and hours and hours to sift through receipts and bank statement and try and figure out where I spent my money - which bit was business and which bit was personal. So these are all the things that happen in the background that you might not necessarily see. And it might sound like it's going swimmingly <laugh>, but you know, I've had a lot of bumps in the road. I've had, you know, periods of time where I feel like I should be at a higher level when I'm not. In terms of by financially being enumerated, I feel like that's been better. I've managed to get myself in a good position there. But in terms of some of the roles, I think I should have been doing bigger roles and wasn't necessarily doing that because the enumeration was fine. So there are lots of challenges you need to overcome and I think it just comes with confidence and experience and then you can avoid them a bit, but you can't stop them. You'll still get challenges.
Steve Folland:
Nadine, thanks so much and all the best being freelance!
Nadine Campbell:
Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed today's interview. I feel like I'm chatting with a friend! <laugh>.
It feels better being protected, being freelance - Search AXA Business Insurance.
And IPSE - The Association of Independent Professionals & the Self-Employed - UK freelancer? You need to check them out.