Curate your career - Motion Designer Hayley Akins

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Hayley felt trapped working in-house on projects that didn’t inspire her, and although she moved from a sports broadcasting company to work with Google’s internal production team, she didn’t quite find the spark she was looking for.

Since going freelance, Hayley’s found a way to attract the kind of projects that matter to her, and she’s produced work for both the Bill Gates Foundation and the United Nations.

She’s also found time for her own projects, including Motion Hatch, a podcast and online learning hub for freelance motion designers and animators.

“When I was younger, I felt like I didn't have as much control over my own destiny as I do now,” says Hayley. “Now I know that I can do anything I want if I try hard enough.”

TRANSCRIPT OF THE BEING FREELANCE PODCAST WITH MUSICIAN RACHEL MASON AND STEVE FOLLAND

Hayley Akins: Basically, how I got into motion design I guess is because I wanted to be in a band. I feel everybody says this, on my podcasts, they come on as well, they're like, "I wanted to be a musician, but I realized that wasn't a good creative direction, so I thought, you know what, I'll just do something else creative instead." So that's kind of what happened to me as well. I basically just applied to loads of universities to do philosophy. God knows what I would be doing if I actually did a philosophy degree, but instead I did film production and music tech and then realized that the music tech wasn't about being in a band and it was quite technical and the film was more fun and creative.

Hayley Akins: So I kind of got through that and then, like most people, I just thought, "Okay, now I'm going to be in the media industry." I apply for jobs in Manchester and in London. Turned out that I got a job in Linden obviously, because back then when I graduated, it was quite a while ago, we didn't have the BBC in Manchester or anything like that. Yeah. So I basically ended up working for a sports broadcasting company as a junior graphics operator. I hated that. So now my advice to people would be don't take jobs that you hate just out of desperation, try and curate your career a bit more and things like that.

Steve Folland: So what were you doing at the sports place? Putting graphic overlays over saying, "This weekend, boxing."

Hayley Akins: Yes. Yeah, we did actually do some boxing. We sort of did that. Boxing was always hard cause it was in America. So it was always in the middle of the night and you'd be doing live boxing graphics and doing live graphics is extremely stressful. That's why I hated it. I hate sports, so I hated it because of that. I don't mind doing sport. Now I'm running and stuff like that, but I hate I'm not watching football and stuff all the time. But I was back that.

Steve Folland: It wasn't your thing.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was super boring. I hated it.

Steve Folland: So how long did you stick that out?

Hayley Akins: Yeah. So I stick that out for three years, another mistake. I'm basically going to say all my mistakes and then hopefully everyone can learn to do different things to me and not do that. Because when you start working you kind of feel like, "Oh no one's going to hire me." So I actually got a junior motion designer role at that company because it was more creative and we're actually designing the graphics. And then I felt like I was trapped because I felt like no one's going to hire me as a freelancer or as a full-time person anywhere else because all I know about is how to do sports stuff, on my reel. Where now I think I would tell people you have spare time, your weekend, stuff like that. You can make your own projects.

Hayley Akins: I feel like when I was younger I felt like I didn't really have as much control of my own destiny as I do now. I don't know, maybe I just think about it more.

Steve Folland: In what way?

Hayley Akins: I sort of wanted other people to give me permission to do stuff, if that makes sense. Whereas now I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to do this thing. I can totally do anything I want if I try hard enough." And this kind of mindset and also thinking about stuff like lifestyle design... I know gets banded around a bit too much probably, but what do you want your life to look like and how does your business fit into that? I like to think about that kind of thing. And so I try and make my work and my business work around me rather than when I was younger I think I just felt like, "Oh I need my boss to give me permission to do a project."

Hayley Akins: I can't just kind of make what I want myself. And I kind of got into that in my second job too. So eventually, trying to move on through this story. I ended up looking for other jobs and because I wasn't very confident, I just went for junior motion design roles, even though I'd had three years experience already. I saw this ad, a small company looking for a junior motion designer so I was like, "Cool, I'll apply for that." They said, "Oh. Come in for an interview."

Hayley Akins: They gave me an address and stuff and I basically turned up at this place and it was a really lovely building, really intimidating glass doors kind of thing in London. And I walked in, I was like, "Hey, I'm here to see Across the Pond, blah blah blah." And she was like, "Oh cool. Yeah, just head over to the Google offices." And I was like, "What? Google, why am I going to Google?" So you're going for an interview and then all of a sudden you find out you're going to an interview at Google. And that was pretty intimidating. So I got there and it turns out that they were actually the internal production company there at the time.

Steve Folland: So your second job was doing in-house animation at Google?

Hayley Akins: Yeah. So I really, I enjoyed that and I stayed for far too long though. So I kind of got stuck in that thing again where... I don't know. I used to manage freelances and in the end, I was a senior motion designer. So I felt all these freelance motion designers are coming in all the time and I'm kind of managing them but I didn't feel confident enough that I could do that kind of thing as well.

Steve Folland: I guess also though that your skills must've been developing, both at motion design and also managing people and things like that. It must've felt like you were progressing.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, definitely. But I feel like I... I don't know. You end up getting pigeonholed into a certain type of role or doing certain sorts of jobs. So at Google they do a lot of UI-based stuff. So we would recreate Gmail inboxes and then animate them coming on and stuff like that. That's not doing character animation as I feel like, again, I sort of pigeonhole in myself. When you're in these jobs, I feel like everyone's always very into the politics and everything like that.

Hayley Akins: I noticed that when I made the switch from full-time to freelance that I felt like it was a weight off me of office politics, really feeling more of a victim of what your kind of boss is giving you, the kind of work and that kind of stuff. Whereas when you're freelance I feel like you take a lot more ownership of your work and things like that, which is nice and it's kind of freeing.

Steve Folland: So was it after that time at Google that you're seeing all these other freelancers coming in and you having to manage them, that you eventually went freelance or did you move on to somewhere else?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so it was after that I kind of just... I'd been working as a full-time motion designer for about seven years at that point, which is a long time considering in the motion design industry. I think that most people probably are freelancers. So yeah, I was like, "Okay, I've just got a suck it up and I've just got to try and go for it." But luckily I met a lot of producers and stuff like that that would come in and then they would move on and go freelance or the motion designers. So it wasn't actually as hard as I thought and I sort of wish that I did it earlier really.

Steve Folland: So how did you go about it then? Did you just reach out to all of those people, build yourself a website and off you went? What did you do?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so what I did was I... Because I think I had about two years, the latter of two years of work in there, I would just collect everybody's emails and stuff that I met and keep them in a big spreadsheet and be like, "Okay, keep tabs on everyone and sort of see friends with them really," like all the producers and stuff like that. And because people liked working with me, I felt like when I eventually went freelance and they'd be a different company than I could just be like, "Hey, I'm freelance now."

Hayley Akins: So I didn't really do that thing where people do a lot of freelance work after work. We're talking about like a good four, maybe nearly five years ago, I don't think doing remote work was as much of a thing as it is now. So I felt like it was harder to... If they were going to get even to do freelance stuff, they'd want you to come unhouse and then you can't do that while you're working at another job. So that was kind of what I came up against. So I sort of just had to dive in. But I had a lot of contacts because of working full time for a long time.

Steve Folland: So when you handed in your notice at Google, did you have a client lined up?

Hayley Akins: So what happened was when I hadn't mind notice and I didn't, but then I kind of said like, "Hey, in four weeks I'm going to be available," to all these different companies. And then" one of my favourite animation studios contacted me and they were like, "Oh, we've got this job, we really want you to do it. It starts in two weeks." I was like, "Oh." And I was like, "Damn, I'm still working full time then." So then I tried to negotiate with my company to leave earlier. And luckily... Because you feel desperate, you're like "Oh my God, this could be my only chance." Which obviously it isn't.

Hayley Akins: So then I did that and I negotiated with them and they were like, "Yeah, that's fine, you can leave a bit earlier," and stuff. And then the client came back and they were like, "Oh, the job's got pushed back actually." And it's like, "Oh my God." That's so typical. But yeah, I wasn't aware that how I guess jobs can go and come. They go away as quickly as they come at you basically sometimes.

Steve Folland: And so, I mean, you mentioned not working remotely, as in it wasn't such a thing. So does that mean that at first you were going into people's offices, into production houses or agencies or what did freelance life look like for you?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so when I first saw it I was obviously living in London and I used to just go to ad agencies, production blazers. I actually worked for my old company quite a bit, which was nice. And yeah, just loads of different places kind of. It's very easy I think when you live in a hub like London, or something thing to get work because there's always someone who's going to ring you at 6:00 PM the night before and be like, "Oh my God, we need a motion designer. Can you come in?" Where I think it's harder to build a solid client base when you're kind of working more remotely or you want to do jobs from start to finish.

Hayley Akins: I feel like it's easier in my industry, at least to get these kind of jobs where maybe you just go into an ad agency for a day and they get you to make some Iceland ads or something. That kind of stuff that is not that desirable, but when you're first freelance it's kind of nice to be in a hub or somewhere because you can make a lot of connections fast and you can kind of just pick up these little jobs and then maybe after a while you gain more trust with companies and they let you do the more fun projects or get you in for longer and stuff like that.

Steve Folland: Were they, as you say, day projects or month projects? What sort of work were you getting and how... I guess that thing where you're also having to look for the next job or schedule things in, how did you cope with that if it was quite bitty?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so I think it's... So my sister is a fashion designer, She was freelance for a while and I think that was actually harder because they work on seasons. So you're either booked for a season as a freelancer or you're not, if that makes sense. Like autumn, winter, stuff like that. And I always quite liked at the beginning of my career when, when it was a day here, a day there, blah blah blah. A week here, a week there, sometimes a month here and there.

Hayley Akins: Because I felt like that was quite freeing in a way because yeah, the projects could kind of come and go very quickly. And then sometimes you'd be pencilled for seven jobs and none of them would come through. I don't know. Maybe that's an over-exaggeration, but you know what I mean? But I always felt like I knew that I could always get work. If one kind of dropped one day someone will be like, "Oh, do you want to work tomorrow?" It wasn't... So I kind of felt like that was quite nice in a way. I quite enjoyed it. But it is stressful to go into different places every day and not know anyone and you're like, "Oh my God, where are the toilets?" Stuff like that.

Steve Folland: Yeah. Did you go in making an effort to then make more connections knowing that that could lead elsewhere or to fit in and avoiding the politics as you put it earlier?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, I think it's nice as a freelance because basically you could just go in somewhere, you could do one day make a little animation for someone. If you decided you didn't really like the people, they just don't go back. When they asked you next time you just say, "Oh sorry I'm booked." Or you've made the effort if you liked the people and you kind of say like, "Oh yeah, just let me know if you have anything else." And you're like, "Oh yeah, I like them. They were good, they paid on time, they seemed like nice people and they have better projects," or whatever, that kind of thing.

Steve Folland: And how did you cope with the business side of things as you were starting out?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so I think that when I first started out, basically what I did was I just went round to all my freelance friends and said, how much do you charge? Basically just took them to the pub for a beer and was like, "Tell me how much do you charge? How much do you think I should charge?" That kind of thing. And they were kind enough to tell me, but at the end of the day I felt like it's kind of risky. Because you're just asking some people what they charge and maybe they don't really even know what they should be charging. I guess if you ask enough you could still gauge an average. But I always just felt like that was a bit funny. And then when I first started out I would meet other people that I considered better than me, that are animators and stuff and they would be charging much less than me.

Hayley Akins: And I'm like, "Why? Why are you charging that? You should be charging more." And I just felt there wasn't... People just don't know what's charge. They're just scared to negotiate and stuff like that. And I don't know why, for some reason I always quite liked that side of it. A bit like the negotiation and the getting the money in and stuff. I felt like... I didn't know why. I think it' because it sort of feels a bit like a game. That's how I feel about business now as well. It's like a fun game of how can we get more money and, how can we make fun things? And all that kind of stuff. I had recently someone on my podcast was saying that he would sort of say a really ridiculous big number sometimes to times to clients when he didn't want to do the project.

Hayley Akins: If he was really busy it just be like, "Oh yeah, say a number that you thought they would just scoff or whatever." And then they would say yes and it's like, "Well why don't we just do that more as freelancers?" But when you coming from a place of sort of desperation you don't think to do that because you're like, "Oh my God I need this project, I need the project." But when you don't need it, that seems to be when more stuff comes to you or you can charge more and things like that. So I just think trying to cultivate more of a mindset of abundance I guess, rather than desperation from the beginning. I feel like that was something that I did do a little bit and I wasn't really frightened to say no to things. I think it's just because of experience being in the industry for such a long time before I went freelance.

Steve Folland: And so as you're playing the game.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, the game of freelance, isn't that what we're all playing, Steve?

Steve Folland: As you're playing at it and you seem to be winning at it as well. How did it all evolve from there? How did it change as one job turns into another as the laps of the board game of freelance carry on?

Hayley Akins: Yeah. So after a while, I started to think that I wanted to do more projects that had a positive impact on the world. So kind of tried to gravitate more towards clients like that. My sort of favourite client was a Data VIZ studio that they kind of do stuff for the Gates Foundation and the United Nations and we do animations about sustainability and stuff like that. I really, really liked working with them. They're super fun.

Hayley Akins: And I got to a stage where I was leading a lot of their projects and things like that. And I feel that was better because I had a recurring client that I really liked to work with and they really liked working with me. And then I managed to kind of negotiate working remotely eventually, and was kind of able to move up to Manchester and stuff. I think that was really nice. It's kind of that thing is of gaining trust with your clients and then you can negotiate stuff basically.

Steve Folland: So when did you start Motion Hatch? How did that come about?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so it kind of plays back into what I was saying about me in different freelancers and people being like, "Oh, I'm just charging this," and stuff and I'm like, "Oh you should be charging more." And just feeling kind of frustrated that there wasn't anything online where you could kind of find out about how to run your business as a freelancer and stuff like that. I mean, now there's so much more and especially in my industry there just wasn't anything there really. I think later on, after I'd been freelance for a while I became aware of things like the AOI, the Association of Illustrators and stuff like that. But I'm not sure what that was... It probably was around a bit, but it's just not really for motion designers and stuff.

Hayley Akins: So I felt like, I was like, "Oh, someone should do this. Someone should make a website or something for people where they can learn how to be freelancers or get into the industry and stuff like that." But then I just kind of let go and I was like, "Someone should do that. Someone else should do that." You don't feel like you should do it because most of the time you feel like a fraud when you're doing your work and you have imposter syndrome and stuff like that. I definitely still had that. And there's so many great animators and motion designer is other. I just thought, "Why? Why would anyone want to listen to what I have to say?" So anyway, the time kind of went on and then I got more interested in travelling and stuff like that. And I found this online community called Location Indie.

Hayley Akins: They basically taught people about how to be entrepreneurs, make online businesses and be freelance and travel around, and this kind of digital nomad movement. And I was never much of a digital nomad. I did go to Thailand and Myanmar and that's how I found out about Location Indie and joined their membership. But the thing that I like the best about that was they were teaching people business skills and stuff and entrepreneurial skills and that was actually what I was more interested in than doing tons of travel. And so yeah, I was like, "Oh someone should do this for the motion design industry." And eventually. because of what they were teaching I was like, "Maybe I could do something." I felt like I was not very good at writing and stuff like that. So I decided to start a podcast because someone convinced me, it's actually my podcast editor now. Maybe it was just trying to get me as a client. I don't know.

Steve Folland: That's a good tactic.

Hayley Akins: "You should make a podcast." And he was saying that he knew this guy who was in doing kind of video stuff, teaching people about business of making a video company. He Was like, "Why don't you do a podcast about the business of motion design?" I was thinking about doing a blog or something, but like I say, I'm not very good at writing stuff. So I was like, "Oh, maybe." And I was like, "But everyone's going to hate my voice." And you kind of get used to after a while. But yeah.

Hayley Akins: So anyway, and I kind of feel like everything after that is bit of a blur. I don't know if you feel like that about starting your podcast. I can't really remember the time between someone saying you should start a podcast and then podcast being out. I was kind of like, "Now I have a podcast."

Steve Folland: When was that?

Hayley Akins: That was November, 2017 it came out. So it's almost two now. And it's just been a bit of a whirlwind really. It's completely changed my career and probably my whole life really.

Steve Folland: Wow. How did you approach it then? Because you are obviously learning these business skills as you mentioned from the digital nomad guys. And it sounds like you went and got yourself an editor, did you? Pretty swiftly.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, from the first episode I was like, "Oh I don't have time to do this." Because I was doing full-time freelance stuff. So I was like, "Well if I'm going to do this," and you know how hard it is to make a podcast, I was like, "If I'm going to do this, I just need to pay someone to help me to edit it."

Steve Folland: But that's the interesting thing because that's an investment, that's quite a lot of money that you have to... That you're suddenly putting into something.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, it's like a very expensive hobby. That's why not many people survive more than 10 episodes or something. Because they're either editing themselves or they're paying someone and it's a lot of money. And obviously paying for microphones and stuff like that. I don't know. I think it just because there's not many podcasts in the motion design industry. That's one of the reasons why it took off a little bit. And also just because we're talking mainly about the business side of things. And there's not a lot of UK people talking about stuff in the industry, kind of on a global level. So I think that kind of helped it stand out a bit too.

Steve Folland: So it must've really helped your profile. Did it? As a freelancer. Not just as a podcast host, but as a motion designer, did it help you in that respect?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, definitely. Like I say, not that many people are doing this sort of thing. So obviously if you're doing something that's quite niche in your industry, you're kind of going to float to the surface a little bit more I think. And that's what I try and recommend people to do now, when I'm teaching them stuff, is to do more content marketing and stuff like that. Because I think that it just helps you stand out because it's still quite a new thing in our industry. And we did talk a bit about that on the podcast as well, about content marketing and like how to attract your clients rather than just kind of going out there and just sending cold emails all the time and stuff like that. It's that thing of becoming sort of someone that people know in the industry. I started doing this a long time ago, even before Motion Hatch.

Steve Folland: And as the podcast grew... I know that you've been doing, speaking for example, did that come about because you started to put yourself out there and approach people? Did people start to gravitate towards you?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, I think people started asking me because I had the podcast, and because they'd heard me speak and stuff like that before. I mean, I don't do a ton of speaking, but I've done a few things. I've actually decided that I'm more interested in doing more online stuff than kind of speaking on stages. I don't know. I just kind of like doing videos and podcasts and stuff like that. I find it more enjoyable. And having conversations like we are now rather than doing more formal speaking, I think I will still carry on doing that. But I think it definitely helps because you're showing yourself as an authority in that industry.

Steve Folland: Yeah. And so Motion Hatch, did you sort of approach it as just a side project, an expensive hobby, Bit like I did or did you go at it like, "No. Do you know what? I think this could be an additional way to bring in revenue alongside my freelance work"?

Hayley Akins: So originally I think it sort of felt like an expensive hobby, but then it became more of like a side business that had some alternative revenue. So the first product that I came out was called the Freelance Contract Bundle. And basically I thought, "Oh, no one's using contracts. This actually solves most of our problems as freelancers because if we give people terms and conditions upfront, then everybody's on the same page."

Hayley Akins: They understand what is going to happen going into the project, you can do things like say you're going to charge for project files, which you obviously can't do that after the fact, because then they're going to get upset about it and things like that. A lot of the problems that I was seeing from people could be solved with this thing and kind of when I started making that, didn't really realize how hard it is to work with lawyers who make contract templates. But I like to make things hard for myself. So I worked with a lawyer in the UK and the US, well, a solicitor in the UK and we made that and so that was my first product that kind of... Yeah. So that just sells in the background now, which is amazing. And obviously I do a bit of promotion and marketing, so it's passive income, but you still have to work hard to promote it and get it out there.

Steve Folland: Again, that must've taken quite an investment and belief in itself if you're suddenly hiring solicitors and lawyers in order to put that forward.

Hayley Akins: Yeah. So the UK solicitor made the first set for the UK first and I put quite a bit of money down for that upfront. Yeah. I don't really know what my thinking was. I was like, "Yeah, people want this. I'm just going to make it." And made contract templates isn't the most attractive product either. But I don't know, I just get an idea in my head, I think, "Can I just go for it?"

Hayley Akins: So I did that and then I wanted to make one for the US because I've quite a big US audience and a lot of motion signers there. And I was like, "Okay, well I'm going to pre-sell this." So that's why I should have done with the first one too. But what it did was pre-sold the US one before I made it. So I said, "If we get like 30 animators to this and we'll have enough money to pay the US lawyer." So that would be what I would recommend people to do.

Steve Folland: Which again, plays to this you enjoying the whole business side of it. So did you learn... You initially were learning business skills as you put it through the digital nomad people, but did you continue to do that elsewhere or were you sort of just experimenting as you went along?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, a bit of both. So I really, really like listening to a lot of business podcasts, like particularly entrepreneurial and online business ones, which plays into a lot of freelance stuff because obviously as a freelance you have an online portfolio and more and more using social media and content marketing. So I learn a lot of stuff from those kinds of places. And then I try and apply it to the motion design industry in my business, in Motion Hatch, and also to teach people about how they can run their freelance businesses as well.

Steve Folland: Yeah. How did that then change? So you keep ticking over the podcast, which it's every couple of weeks, isn't it?

Hayley Akins: Yeah. Every other week.

Steve Folland: So were you also nurturing the audience? Were they turning into a community? Because there's a difference between just people listening and that people who will buy your product, for example.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so one thing I did, which I'm really glad I did was start a Facebook group. I feel like that has really, really helped. Now there's about 5,000 motion designers and then it's really engaged and really, really helps people because they know to come in there and ask the kind of business-y questions. I feel like it's really, really helping a lot of people. And that's just a free Facebook group.

Steve Folland: And then you now do Masterminds as well.

Hayley Akins: Yeah. So I don't know whether everyone will be aware of what a Mastermind. So I guess I'll explain. A Mastermind is like a peer group. So you meet... You can meet weekly, biweekly, monthly and... Yeah, we have a Mastermind group together but we don't meet that often. Right, Steve?

Steve Folland: Yeah. I don't even know... What's ours? Every three months maybe?

Hayley Akins: I think it quarterly or something. But yeah, so there's kind of different ways that you can do it. So there's a lot of stuff where you can pay to be in a Mastermind, which is obviously like what my program is. And I've always felt, because I've been in some free ones too, our one, we obviously just met at a conference and we decided to make one. And then I've been in ones where I've kind of been part of the membership, like the Location Indie one where we were in a Mastermind. I always feel like people putting money on the line, saying like, "I'm paying to be in this Mastermind," helps quite a lot because then you have more commitment from people, if that makes sense. So I kind of... I think that's a good thing. And especially what mine is is an eight-week thing.

Hayley Akins: So it's more like an intensive thing rather than it going over a long period of time. So yeah, basically you meet up and you brainstorm ideas about your business. So what we do, we have mentors. So we've got me, Jess Peterson, who runs a studio, an animation studio in New York. And then a guy from San Francisco who's a motion designer, he does a lot of events over there. And we basically split... Have groups of four animators and then we talk to them every week about their business. And we set a goal for them. Obviously we discussed with them about what they think their goal should be and everyone kind of brainstorms together on any struggles they're having. And I think it's really nice because everyone's kind of motion designers in there and they're all helping each other and they're kind of facing the same things.

Hayley Akins: And we try and put people together with the people that are either close to them location-wise, but also people who are kind of going through the same sort of things. So even when it's not your kind of turn to talk or to go through your struggles, you're getting help and information from other people all the time. And I think it's just really nice because, as freelancers as well, I feel like we get super lonely. And when I started I didn't know what to charge. I didn't know what I was doing really. And just kind of trying to get people in pubs for private conversations. Whereas this you can have a private conversation with four other people who are kind of in the same situation as you and it's a bit more like you're getting a more well-rounded perspective of maybe your work, your website, where you are in the industry, that kind of thing.

Hayley Akins: I really, really like doing it because I could just talk to people, creatives about their businesses all day and all night. And sometimes I do. It's just really fun for me because it's that thing where you just get to know the people very well. So there's people in these groups together for eight weeks kind of intensively talking to each other every week. And we have a Slack channel where we interact with each other as well and you just get to know each other really well. And it almost becomes like a little family. So it's just really, really nice for people who are spread across the world and maybe they don't have a lot of motion designers in their area or they're quite new to the industry. And the big part of in a Mastermind is the accountability. So we're there every week been like, "Have you achieved your goal? Have you done what you're going to say... You was supposed to do this week?"And all that kind of thing.

Steve Folland: So presumably Masterminds have really helped you as well then.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's why I decided to make it for Motion Hatch because I thought this is the thing that's helped me the most in my business and my career, so why wouldn't I bring that to my community? It feels like it's almost what you have to do, when you feel like, well, this is actually the thing that's really, really helped me. I'm in a mastermind with my podcast editor as well through Location Indie group. And that's kind of what started this whole Motion Hatch thing for me, what completely flipped my whole business and my whole life and kind of gave me a perspective on what, where I want my career to go how I want that to play out. And recently been hiring people to help me and stuff like that and I didn't think I'd have the confidence to do that without having a mastermind group behind me really.

Steve Folland: I was going to say, how are you managing to do all of this? Because obviously there's a lot.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, well, it's still... We don't have a massive team or anything, but I have a couple of virtual assistants, which is a massive help, just working part-time and then obviously the podcast editor, but I'm still doing an awful lot myself. But I'm working on Motion Hatch full-time now. So being brave enough to transition a bit out of the freelance work too, is I think was a big thing for me as well. I got a new accountant and she had to be like, "It's okay, you can do this." It was almost like going through that from that full-time to freelance thing. Going from the full-time work to just building Motion Hatch, but it feels like much more... What's the word? It feels more meaningful to me I guess because I'm having more impact on more people's lives than I was as freelance. Like how I said to you earlier how I was trying to transition more into having a positive impact on the world. This is what I see as me doing with Motion Hatch now, is doing that.

Steve Folland: But man, that must have meant there was a phase where you had to start saying no to the people who would have been coming to you.

Hayley Akins: Yeah, I still do. I'm still saying no and I still... I'm not saying I'm never going to do freelance animation work again. But yeah, at the moment I'm saying no to my clients, which is tough. It is really hard because you're like, "Oh, okay, this is..." That's the quick, kind of easy money. Once you're established and you have good clients that you like working with, it's really, really hard to say no to them. Very, very hard actually. That's been one of my struggles and that's why I had to have a new accountant tell me that it was okay to do that. Because it is hard and you're building a business and it's the same thing really, what I'm doing now as I was doing before, it's just now I have customers instead of clients. And I'm really grateful that the customers I have are actually people in my community because I really like them and I understand what their problems are and I really, really want to help them.

Steve Folland: Yeah. Are you someone who's a planner?

Hayley Akins: So this is my... Actually this week, this is what I've been struggling with so much is. I always feel you teach the things that you struggle with. So I'm always talking about planning and productivity and things like that because I'm always learning about it because I'm always struggling with it. It's ridiculous. So stuff like content calendars, stuff like that, planning your week. These are all of the things that I'm starting to teach people about and I think it is because I struggle with it the most too. So I'm always like, "Okay, how can I learn to do this better?" So then I'm like, "Oh that's really cool. I've learnt to do that in a better way." So then I try and pass it onto other people.

Steve Folland: So are you get better at it?

Hayley Akins: Yeah. Yeah. I think that I am getting better at it. So I've been doing lots of different things lately. I literally just did this thing where I've printed off some calendars and I'm planning the next two months on a wall instead of it hiding in my Google calendar. I kind of live and die by my Google calendar. But I'm also trying some different ways to do that and came up with a system that I've been teaching people in the Mastermind too but how to prioritize tasks and stuff like that. So I feel like that is really helpful. It's basically like you're doing a brain dump of everything that you can think of because most of the time it just sits in our heads and then we're just thinking about it all the time and I'm terrible for switching off my business brain and relaxing.

Hayley Akins: So you make a brain dump and then you number all your tasks, like one to five and then only the fours and the fives, you move along to the next kind of sections. So they're the priorities. And then you say like, "What would help me make the most money? What would be the most beneficial for my clients or customers?" And ask yourself questions like that. And then that's how you know what will have the biggest impact on your business long term instead of kind of just doing the busy work all the time.

Steve Folland: And so how is your work-life balance, if you find it hard to switch off?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, it's okay at the moment. I'm really, really trying very hard to have a schedule. So I normally try and work from about 8:00 till 17:00 or sort of 9:00 till 18:00. Sometimes it's 8:00 till 19:00 which isn't great. But I really do try hard to do that. I feel it's because when you really care about what you're doing and especially now I feel Motion Hatch is... You're like, "It's my baby." It's a really hard to put it down. And especially because we have people in our program at the moment, I want to be there for them. And some of them are in the US so sometimes they might ping on Slack when it's my evening and it's really hard to just not reply, even though I know I don't have to instantly reply all the time.

Hayley Akins: And obviously we have the mentors in the US, one of the big reasons why they are mentoring people as well as, because sometimes the groups, the ideal time for them to do the Mastermind calls would be in the middle of my night. So the other week I had to get up in the middle of the night to do a call where it was me and the mentor on the introduction call and then they're going to do the rest of the calls for the session. But I wanted to meet everyone so I had to get up at half one in the morning. So yeah, it's still a challenge.

Steve Folland: And there was obviously, a lot of your freelance career was spent going into other people's offices rather than working from home. Now that you're spending so much time working on your own stuff, what have you decided to do? Are you working from your house, are in a co-work space? What are you doing?

Hayley Akins: Yeah, so when I was in London I actually had a shared office space. I really liked that. I recommend that to people. I think that was really good. It was me and another animator and an illustrator and that was awesome. But now I'm doing a lot more videos and podcasts and stuff like that, I'm just working from home because then I have everything set up the way I want it and I'm not disturbing other people, apart from my boyfriend because he also works from home.

Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?

Hayley Akins: I think I would tell myself to not be scared. And just kind of go for it. And also to be more involved with the online community and try and make friends and just be a genuinely nice person to work with.

Motion designerSteve Follandnetworking, work-life balance, connections, pricing, motion design, freelance motion designer, building a community, podcast, podcasting, mastermindsComment