Wise Words - Marketer Luan Wise
After years of agency and in-house experience, Luan stepped out into being freelance. A story of spotting opportunities, maintaining relationships and self development underlines her solo career.
She shares her experience hiring coaches, writing a book, speaking, making courses by herself and alongside LinkedIn - and above all, thinking like a business.
More from Luan
Who the hell is Steve Folland?
Steve's a freelancer helping businesses use and make video & audio content in much better ways. Find out more at stevefolland.com, track him down on Twitter/Instragm @beingfreelance or lay a trail of cake and he'll eventually catch you up.
Check out Steve's Being Freelance Vlog that documents his weekly wanderings and wonderings as a freelancer.
Transcript of Being Freelance podcast with Luan Wise
Luan Wise: It wasn't really a conscious decision, it wasn't ever part of a big plan, but I was working in house, I'd been in my in house marketing role for five years, achieved huge amounts of those five years. The business itself, my own skills, what was happening and the business had grown significantly and kind of got to that five year stage and have the conversation, what next, what happens now, where do we go? And there really wasn't a straightforward answer to that. So it kind of left us pondering and thinking what would be right for all of us. And so actually the decision in my in house role was for the next six months with agreement with the shareholders was that I would stay in my current role three days a week and I would go and work in the shareholders other business three days a week. So effectively trying to do the same as I am for one organization but for the shareholders, other ones.
Luan Wise: So for six months I did that two days and three days, which actually for me was great because my career started agency side working for multiple clients and multiple accounts, so it was very much going back to that world a bit for me, which was wonderful. So I did that for six months. Then we all sat down in a rounded table for a review period and decided that actually the way forward for all of us was that I would go freelance, but I would stay working with them both as my first clients. Which was very different from a lot of freelancers. So here's two client contracts, when do you want to start? And so we gave ourselves three months for me to talk to accountants, do my branding, set up a website, get myself ready to do it, and then we announced internally and externally that I was going freelance and then it was quite simply pack up my desk one day and go from being on a payroll to be in a contractor.
Steve Folland: Wow. In your head before that point, had it occurred to you to ever be freelance?
Luan Wise: No, not really. I think I'd come from an agency background as I said, so you always had new clients and new projects on the go and actually in hindsight, every role I've ever had in my career has always been a new role. So it's always been something that I could shape or develop into something that worked and grow. So, no, but looking at my family, my late father had his own business. My brother has his own business. So mom says we're unemployable people and it was always going to happen.
Steve Folland: How long into your career was this for example, because you said you worked in agencies before that?
Luan Wise: Yeah, so I did eight years in agencies, five years in house and then freelance. And I've been doing that for six years now. So.
Steve Folland: Awesome. With that in mind, I guess you didn't necessarily have, as you say, much of a plan or anything when you went freelance, but you had to, were they like on a retainer kind of deal with those clients was it?
Luan Wise: Yeah, retainer. So I was effectively still their marketing manager. I just didn't go to the office every day. I still fulfill that marketing manager unit. And then my other clients from day one we're all that same role. They were marketing manager roles where you don't have someone in house full time because the business doesn't necessarily need it and you don't necessarily need the five day a week, the role's not that big. So it kind of works quite well as being an outsourced resource.
Steve Folland: So how did you go about funding those other first client?
Luan Wise: Other first class? Well this is all so great and you don't realize in the moment at the time, but because I was setting up the business and obviously there's a certain amount of time when you can't tell people what you're doing, but then there comes a point where you're ready enough to tell people what you're up to. And one of the first people I told was actually a very good friend now, but she was my boss on my placement year for university. And I told her and a few weeks later she mentioned that she'd had a meeting in her networks and to come across someone who needed a freelance marketer and she mentioned my name and put me forward and it turned out that actually it was an organization that I'd worked for in my summer holidays as a student in part of the building and they became my first client kind of 15 years later. So never burn your bridges, keep in touch. And so I went back to the organization where I worked in a bar and a restaurant to become their marketing consultant, which was just amazing.
Steve Folland: Wow. I mean without knowing it, you were building your network?
Luan Wise: Building your network and staying in front of your network and telling people what you're doing, that is what I've been doing without realizing it. And every single one of my clients for six years has come through a referral or someone I've met or someone I've been in front of. Nothing has ever actually been cold business development.
Steve Folland: Nice. Because I was going to say, you've spent all that time marketing and marketing for others. I was going to say how did you then start to market yourself?
Luan Wise: So from day one of starting my freelance business, I had the two contracts with my previous employer. Actually I got signed to this other new opportunity within the first two weeks of being freelance. So I was busy from day one. So it was just networking, and marketing yourself is really difficult. I'm guessing it's the same for builders in their own properties and things like that is really difficult. And last year I launched, I wrote a book and I published a book in November last year and I said to a couple of my friends, it's really difficult marketing yourself and promoting yourself and they're like, "You've been doing this forever. That's what you do." But you just don't necessarily see yourself as a product or a service when you're a freelance. So you don't always necessarily think in that way, but you need to.
Steve Folland: What led you to writing the book?
Luan Wise: A couple of things I started-
Steve Folland: And by the way, sorry. It's a social media book-
Luan Wise: It is.
Steve Folland: It's not like a novel?
Luan Wise: No, no, no, no, no, no. It's cool to relax. It's only social media, no nonsense guide to social networking for you and your business. And it started because over the past two or three years I've done quite a lot of talks and events, so I had a lot of content already and realized that I had all these presentations so I needed to repurpose it into another format. I'd started to think about, "Oh, one day I'd like to write a book as you do." And I went to a networking event and I was speaking and one of the delegates, as you did the five minute intro around the room, she stood up and she said, "I'm an author and I help other authors stop procrastinating and just get on with it." And I thought, that's the lady I need. Can we have a cup of coffee? And then basically, then I had a book writing coach and it happened in about six months.
Steve Folland: Wow. How did you actually go about it? Did you set aside a certain amount of time a week or?
Luan Wise: I think, yeah, some people say how long does it take to write a book? And one answer would be six months, and one would be the 15 years of doing the work. So it's very much about, no actually going back to marketing, who's your book for, who's your audience, what do you want them to know, what information do you want to get across? And it was working with my book writing coach on pulling together the content I've done. Everything I learned in the Q and A bit of talks to pull it together into a book format. And that happened quite quickly and I set myself a task of a chapter a week, and I'm a person that if you give me a deadline and I'll hit it, but I need that deadline to work too. So that's what I did.
Steve Folland: Interesting. Yeah. So even when it's you telling yourself your own deadline?
Luan Wise: Yes. You have to because otherwise I could still be writing it. Whereas I was like, "I'm going to do this by this day." And I just did it and I think there's also this, don't be too much of a perfectionist, be a perfectionist, but at some point you just got to do it and just finish it and get it out there.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Did you have an audience for example, ready for your book from a blog or a newsletter or from regular events I don't know?
Luan Wise: Yeah. So I'd done some blogging. Not a huge amount, but I obviously started doing more because as I was writing, I did tests and content with some blogs and I did have an audience. I do have an audience from talking at lots of events. Since I went freelance I've been a volunteer with the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I've led their Gloucestershire team and I've sat on the southwest regional board, which has given me lots of opportunity to speak to other marketers and ask questions and test the content in presentations as well. But also six months out from now when I was launching the book, yeah, I had to ramp up my own activity. I had to build my own online audiences a bit more and tell people what I was doing. So yeah, I had to do for myself what I've been doing for others.
Steve Folland: And is that an ongoing thing? So this was November. This is only like six months ago?
Luan Wise: Yeah. And that's the thing as well. And again it's still hard to do it yourself. You get these reports from Amazon and then you go, "Actually I need to tweet about my own book, don't I? And oh I haven't told anyone about it this week." You've got to just keep going and going but try not to. No, I don't want to promote it every single day because that wouldn't have the opposite effect. So yeah, there's a box of them in my room and you have to keep telling people about.
Steve Folland: You mentioned that was it the Chartered Institute of-
Luan Wise: Marketing
Steve Folland: Marketing. So that's interesting. So had you been a member of them already or what made you get involved there?
Luan Wise: There's a number of industry bodies for marketers. I was a member of the CIM, but for a longer period I've been a member of the industry of direct and digital marketing and that's actually who I did my qualifications with. But I became more involved with the Chartered Institute of marketing because that's the route in the UK to become chartered, so you can become a chartered marketer after you've achieved a certain level and it means that every year I have to submit CPD records so I have to demonstrate that I'm always learning and keeping my skills up to date. So for me that was, that was the route to do it. And going freelance I wanted to meet some other people. I wanted to meet some other marketers and have that network because I didn't have it in an office.
Steve Folland: Yeah. And that network isn't necessarily bringing you work. So it's bringing you?
Luan Wise: It brings you contacts, it brings you people, it brings you opportunities. I've met people at events, I've become friends with people on the volunteer networks, people to have conversations with, the website and all the resources and the library. So in turn yes that does lead to work.
Steve Folland: Let's talk about doing the word then. Where do you work from?
Luan Wise: For the past five years I've been working from my home office or I went from client sites or co-working locations, these coffee shops and business helps that you can just go and walk up and grab a desk and a cup of coffee. So wherever works really.
Steve Folland: How do you decide when to leave the home office? For example do you split your week up consciously or do you think, "Oh, I've had enough, I'm going to Starbucks or wherever?"
Luan Wise: That's changed over time and I think that's something that you need to be quite conscious about as a freelancer, in terms of not thinking that you've got to be at a desk nine to five and starting to get into the flow of what time of day works best for you. And where it works best for you. So obviously client meetings, we'd would usually go to them, so you're week start structured where your clients are and where you need to be for that. But it depends what I'm doing. So if I'm writing I would very much stay at home or actually I might go away for a few days and lock myself in a room or if I've got presentations to write I might go, "Do you know what I need to just get some space and focus here." And my local coffee shop is really great for that. So I don't think it's about standing one place all the time, but it's about knowing how you work and where you work best on the type of work you want to do.
Luan Wise: And I work best very early in the morning. So recording this at 3:00 in the afternoon I wouldn't be doing anything right now. Productive. I'd be shuffling paper because my head is done. But give me a couple of hours and I'll probably do another two or three hours that are really productive work, and it's about going with that flow and not thinking that you've got to sit there for this eight hours that you're structure to do from the traditional office environment.
Steve Folland: God! That's so true.
Luan Wise: I think that stands how you work with your clients as well because if you've got thinking stuff to do, you can't do it when you're getting emails and phone calls. So you structure your day around what do I need to do, when do I need to be available for clients and firefighting and responsiveness versus when do I do my thinking and writing again?
Steve Folland: Yeah, that's a good point. How many clients for example would you say you're working on at the same time?
Luan Wise: I think right now I've got eight clients that some are more involved than others. Some are at different stages of working with them, one I started working with at January. So we're doing a lot more right now. Another client I've been working for for two or three years. So it's steady, you don't need to engage too often, we both know what we're doing and that you sent a monthly the report and crack on. So it's having regular retained clients that I find is best obviously for security and just being part of the relationship is as much as anything. But then sometimes big projects might come along so.
Steve Folland: But how do you then find that you balance or manage your time and also manage the communication?
Luan Wise: Yeah, I think it's about having strong relationships with your clients. As I said, most of them might come from networking or referrals, so there's some kind of relationship there, in the lead up to actually working together. So you know each other and how you want to do. But it's setting out from the beginning, how do you like to be communicated with, how's this gonna work? And I have one client who he texts me and just says when you're free, give me a call. So we know how we're going to work together. And the other is letting people know on a Monday morning, right, this is what I'm doing for you this week and this is when you're going to get it. So you just manage yourself and the relationship rather than trying to firefight or chasing people for things.
Steve Folland: And then you say that you give them a report as well. So you'll like tracking each project?
Luan Wise: Yeah. Well a lot of the work I do now is very much setting up their activity, working with them on activity and making sure that it gets results. So you need to look at the numbers and just having that opportunity to step back and look at what's going on and what we need to do to improve is a real important part of using someone outsourced from the business.
Steve Folland: So when it comes to those projects, is that done for example, on an hourly basis or a daily basis or do you say this project is going to be this amount of?
Luan Wise: I think setting pricing is one of the hardest decisions as a freelancer. I'll say when I started it was very much, what did I own as an employee and how did that relate to a freelance day rate because traditionally things are done in hourly rates or day rates. But I don't think marketing is a commodity, so it's really difficult to say, it will take me two hours because a two hour drive you can have some amazing ideas, but can you charge a client for that? Or if I work at 3:00 in the afternoon, it's going to take me three times as long to do something that I could do it at six in the morning. So you can't expect to fill every hour of every day at a rate.
Luan Wise: So that's kind of my opinion on it and my opinion is actually it's more about remit. Something to deliver. How it's gonna work and what you need to achieve. Yes, it does relate to time, but you need to take into the client's requirements and their budgets and what the work involves and just make sure that it's fair for everyone really, it's about value and what you add to the business, not clock watching, right? She's done 10 minutes and charge that amount.
Steve Folland: No, and that's great. But also when you've got multiple clients and I have this where you got multiple clients? How do you know that you can't take on that next project which suddenly comes to your door?
Luan Wise: If I go back to my agency days, the account that I managed, we actually had over 80 individuals across the UK and they each had their own budgets and their own responsibilities. So I guess from the very beginning of my career I've been a multitasker and just can do that. I think the danger of freelancing is that it's very difficult to say no because there's an opportunity there and you think, well, how do I say no and why am I going to turn work away? But I think that's just something over time that you just know, you know whether you've got the capacity to do it, whether it's interesting and stimulating enough to want to do it and find the time to do it.
Luan Wise: But there can be such lead times, I might get an inquiry today and you kind of think today all my, my diary doesn't allow for it, but actually they don't need you to work with them for three months time or four months time when your calendar can look completely different. So I think it's about building that confidence in yourself and having the conversation with the potential customer or your customers about yes, we can work together, but this is what I've got available or this is how I work and this is how it could work. Because clients don't always know the answer to that themselves.
Steve Folland: Yeah. So really it's been a trial and error, like where you've taken on too much, for example.
Luan Wise: Oh, absolutely. Yes. I've done that. And then some days looked at my list and actually one of my pieces of advice for a freelance would be to get a coach, to get a mentor or get a coach. A good couple of years ago I got to that stage and actually phoned a friend and said, "Come round. "And I explained to her everything I was doing and who I was doing it for and what work I was doing. And it's only when you kind of explained it to someone else and look at it, you kind of go, "I don't know why I'm doing that," or why is that happening and not doing this and actually having that second person to help you plan your business and to think ahead and to almost report to in a certain way.
Luan Wise: So now I know that if I'm going to take something else when I think about can I explain this to her? What would she say and tell me to do? Because you don't always have that as a one person in your home office. So my biggest piece of advice is, yes you are a freelancer, but you're a business owner and you've got to think like a business owner and build your own resources around you and having a coach is just hugely valuable to keep you on track.
Steve Folland: So it's interesting. So that was probably what, three years into being freelance?
Luan Wise: Yes.
Steve Folland: So what was it that did you just feel overwhelmed and sunny for? Because you said a friend. So was it initially just I need to talk to somebody rather than I need to hire a coach?
Luan Wise: It was a friend in my industry that does coaching.
Steve Folland: I like this. I like the fact that, you can see you've got the book coach obviously seemed like an obvious thing today. So what was the trigger point?
Luan Wise: I had an issue with a client that I just didn't know how to respond to and needed a second opinion. So I did need someone who understood the work I did in the world rather than husband and other friends that aren't necessarily in that world. And yeah, it was just a bit of overwhelm of I just don't know how to handle this situation and I don't have a line manager or director anymore, what do I do?
Steve Folland: But that's since grown into a regular relationship kind of thing?
Luan Wise: Yeah. That was a kind of like maybe you need to think about coaching and this is what coaching can do for you. So.
Steve Folland: So how often do you see or speak to or deal with?
Luan Wise: It's quite structured. So one of the main things we've done is to build a plan for the business because obviously when I started I had these existing contracts with previous employers and I had new opportunities coming along so I just kind of cracked on with the work, but then it was do you have a plan and are you looking at the numbers and to reset your self targets? And it was all just about formalizing things a bit more. So setting up the plan and now I know to report to myself sometimes it's structured like I've got a project coming up, I'd really like a session on this. And can be plan it or other times it's a bit ad hoc, but I know that person is there when I need it and I know now when to call for help.
Steve Folland: Yeah. And how'd you find that then?
Luan Wise: Oh, it's brilliant. It keeps you on track.
Steve Folland: Because that's the thing, isn't it? Where I'm spending money basically spending your money on something isn't it? Where it can be tempting not to?
Luan Wise: Well, I think it's quite difficult as a freelancer, especially if you coming from corporate worlds and if you're going to a conference and you book yourself into a big hotel and then suddenly you've got to pay for this yourself and you've got to pay for the coffees and you kind of like, you can't do that, you know? So there's a certain part of you that makes you quite cost conscious. But then on the other hand, I think you need to look at things and kind of go, this is a business expense. This isn't a personal expense. I need this for my business and I'm running my business, but just thinking about all of that, you've got to keep the costs quite tight and focused really.
Steve Folland: That's outsourcing because you said think of yourself as a business and bring in who you need. So have you ever had to bring in other people that you might need to run your projects?
Luan Wise: I don't outsource much of the work itself, unless it was something like graphic design or web development, that's a specific skill that needs to be bringing something together to make a project happen. But for the last two or three years, I've also had a virtual admin assistant. And again, I didn't know that they existed, didn't know it was something that you could do that you could have this person that is a person that you can email and go, "Can you do this and can you have a look at this and can you take all my receipts and match them up to my accounting package every month." So yeah, I've had a virtual admin assistant, a few hours a month by just picking up those pieces and helping me take that bit of the workload away so that I can concentrate on what it is I do best.
Steve Folland: Nice. So they do like accounting type admin?
Luan Wise: She's a bookkeeper. Yeah.
Steve Folland: So that's actually part of their?
Luan Wise: Yeah.
Steve Folland: And what other kind of stuff might you ask them to do then?
Luan Wise: It can depend on the project. So sometimes it may be some background research for a project or it could be, for example making sure that all my links on my website work or if I'm traveling, can you keep an eye on my inbox for the day and let me know if this happens. I have some E-learning courses online so she'll do all the enrollments if an order comes through. So there's some kind of regular tasks, diary in time management, bookkeeping. But then if I got a big project tomorrow that required some support, she can help with that too.
Steve Folland: Yeah. When did you first get into doing speaking?
Luan Wise: About years ago it was a meeting. We were talking about planning events and I had opinions on what kind of events we could do and so we threw them around, we had some ideas and then it came back to the end and we we're like, "Okay, well we'll go with that idea that you had but we don't know a speaker," and I just kind of went, "Yeah, I'll do it, we'll be fine." I said yes. And one of my close friends says, "You just say yes and then you worry about it later." And so I said yes in about the March and then it happened in the November and I think there was about 130 people in electric theater and I did it and it was okay. It went well, but then I thought, actually if I'm going to do this, I'm going to get some presentation training.
Luan Wise: And I met an ex BBC journalist who did this presentation training and he locked me in a room for about three hours and videoed me doing short bits of talk. So then made me watch the video and I was like, "Okay, well I need to stop doing that." And literally ironed out all the bad habits of fiddling and fidgeting and umming and ah-ring and looking at slides when you don't need to. So I felt that I put a bit of thought and practice into my presenting and just kept saying yes.
Steve Folland: Awesome I love the fact that you, you've mentioned personal development a lot.
Luan Wise: Yeah.
Steve Folland: That's so cool. And so you do quite a lot of speaking now don't you?
Luan Wise: I do. Yeah. I find there's something about learning that I can't, there's that quote about if you can't explain it simply enough, you don't understand it enough yourself. So the process of putting together a presentation means you need to think about how you do things and what you know and what examples are out there to be able to explain it to other people. And then it's a group consultation approach really because I try and involve people and ask them what they think or what they're doing and then we kind of have, it's really quite a discussion around, will this organization I worked with have done this and I know someone who's done that or how would I handle it? So it's really a learning opportunity for everyone because I can take as much out of it afterwards from the Q and A and feed that into my book and future sessions. But it does take the planning to start with in terms of the content and I enjoy that bit of it.
Steve Folland: Did that speaking then lead into the coaching or workshops or your online courses or however you might?
Luan Wise: It did lead into the online courses. So someone came along to a presentation I did, who worked for an online learning company and just said, "What you need to do is take that and put it into an E-learning format so that you don't need to stand up and tell people how to do, how to change their profile picture or how to change that setting that you can essentially scale your business of one person to have the courses that do the how to stuff, but let you just do the bit that you really love and you really enjoy about the top tips and the case studies and inspiring people to do it and then they can do that how to stuff in their own time." So it's a way of complementing what I do and supporting it rather than just go away and do it online and then talk to me.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Now I'm sure because you've been, this is on your about page type thing that you were, but this is good. Oh man, what was it? Oh, here we are. One of the top five female marketers in the UK says Linkedin.
Luan Wise: Yeah. That the best InMail I've ever received. I have it pinned up next to my desk, so it was February the 19th, 2015. I got an InMail from Linkedin's UK PR company that says you've been selected as one of the best connected female marketers in the UK. Can we use you in our PR campaign for International Women's Day? So I kind of squealed a little bit and ran away and then went, "Oh, no this is real. What do I do about it?" Has that led to things? Well, yeah, putting that on your profile stands out. There's a lot of people in this industry, so anything you can do makes you stand out. And actually I work for Linkedin now.
Steve Folland: Nice.
Luan Wise: So obviously I kept in touch with Linkedin. I'm looking for opportunities and in-
Steve Folland: You say obviously, but it might not be obvious to everybody that you then stay in touch with those people. That's the thing. So you make the most of those opportunities?
Luan Wise: Yeah, absolutely. So okay. So yeah, networking staying in touch with people. My first new client was someone I'd met 15 years earlier, so you can't forget people and you can't let people forget you either. Anyway, so last year I'm in touch with Linkedin again, doing some online auditions and tests for their online learning platform, which is Lynda.com, which they had bought previously and is now integrated into Linkedin. So their online learning platform did some auditions, did some conversations, mapped out a potential course, got signed as an author, spent a few months writing the course. Was assigned to producer and each week we had Skype calls to practice, and he coached me how they do things and how you should write online learning courses and learning objectives and style and things, and then they fly you out to California to record it.
Steve Folland: Flip an egg. You'd already done your own courses before this point?
Luan Wise: I had done a couple of my courses yeah. But my end courses were text based and interactive computer tasks. Linkedin learning is videos, so I didn't do voice to camera. I did voiceovers on my first course, which I recorded in October and was released in January this year and actually I'm just two weeks back from going out, having been out there again to record two more courses which are out soon.
Steve Folland: Wow. Good for you. So that sort of comes from making the most of an opportunity, but presumably you must be pretty active on Linkedin as well for them to see you as like a?
Luan Wise: Yeah, and that's what, you've got to demonstrate this stuff, it wouldn't be credible for me to work for Linkedin or write a book about social media or talk about social media if I didn't do it all day, not all day, every day, I'd love to do that, but I've got to be there because I learn as much as information I share and I test things and I see things. So you've got to do it. You can't just read it in a book and make stuff up. You've got to be in there.
Steve Folland: So would you say of all the platforms that are available to us, but Linkedin has been really useful besides getting work from them like really useful in actually your freelance work?
Luan Wise: It has because the kind of clients I've always worked with are business to business, so I haven't worked consumer, I haven't worked FMCG or retail, so Linkedin is a business to business platform. So that's where I was and as an employee and that's where I've spent my time and like. I also really love twitter and now Instagram. I love the environment of Instagram and it's that nice social media place that is just about sharing photos and likes. There's no-
Steve Folland: Negativity.
Luan Wise: Yeah, there's no smugness or anything around Instagram it's just nice sharing. There's nothing negative or I've had a bad day or I don't like this in that world. So it's a nice place to go.
Steve Folland: Yeah. So Linkedin really for you is a great place to keep those connections that you've made alive. Just seeing what people are up to, interacting with their stuff I guess?
Luan Wise: Absolutely and Linkedin isn't this fast pace, so if you don't have it open and checking every 10 minutes, you're not missing stuff like you would with twitter. So you can come to do check in even if it was once a week you'd be okay, just do a couple of updates. You can still be active on Linkedin without spending loads and loads of times. So I think it's much more business quality focused than this is rushing to my head. I'm going to post it stuff.
Steve Folland: Do you feel like, because it sounds like it's all going really well?
Luan Wise: Yeah.
Steve Folland: Was it like a tipping point would you say? Or do you feel like it's always just been on a good trajectory?
Luan Wise: I think I thought that it was just going be having another job and do you have a job and you crack on with it. But maybe it's the kind of person I am, but it's constant change. It's constant, what am I going to do next and what we're thinking of? And after I finished, I said about the timing of my book. Well actually that was because of recording in California and everything last year was the time was in the book. But my husband came with me on the travels and the books had literally arrive the day before we flew. So I had the box of books tick, flew out to California, recorded the courses, tick, go out to dinner with my husband, it's all done. And I went, "I think I might write another book," and he kind of went, "Can you not have a night off?" And I was like, "Okay, one night."
Luan Wise: And I started planning my next book on the plane home. So maybe it's just me that doesn't stand still, but I think you've got to keep changing and you've got to stay up to date. Otherwise you just get stuck in a rut I think.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Awesome. So if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Luan Wise: From day one, think like a business owner. Don't just think this is your new job and you can work from home and you've got some freedom. It's not just about the word free in freelance, so you've got to think like a business owner from the very, very beginning.
Steve Folland: Luan it's been so nice talking to you. Thank you so much. And all the best being freelance.
Luan Wise: Thanks Steve.