Business Consultant Fran Varley
Meet Fran
There’s a wide range of knowledge and expertise within the IPSE membership which deserves to be highlighted and shared. Whether it comes from working independently, or in collaboration with other self-employed professionals as in the case of Business Consultant Fran Varley.
Find out more about how working independently led to the creation of a boutique change and improvement consultancy which supports a range of clients and also collaborates with other small businesses and freelancers.
Can you introduce yourself and your business?
My name is Fran Varley, I’m a consultant, and my background is in test analysis and business analysis. My company is called Eximious Alliance, and we’re a boutique change and improvement consultancy.
We really pride ourselves on working in alliance with our clients to deliver mutual benefits, so we don’t believe in a one size fits all approach. We deliver service packages which are bespoke to our clients, and we try to work really flexibly with them to meet their needs. Rather than working with a big consultancy, we can work directly with their staff, and harness everybody’s voice and expertise.
Has working with other people, especially in the alliance, changed the way you work as a self-employed person?
Massively. It’s really changed it. And I think it’s because there is a little bit more about running a business than perhaps as an individual that we’re having to do now. And I think that’s because we’re pitching for work.
So, we’ve learned all sorts of new skills or expanded them in terms of pitching. That was something I was okay at, but I only had to pitch myself and perhaps another person. Suddenly we’re doing things in a different way, as we’re pitching how we can support the businesses who perhaps need the help.
In terms of how we work, or what we’re doing on a day-to-day basis, that’s changed. In terms of work, we’re still doing delivery for clients, but that element of support is much, much bigger. And just the fact that it’s formalised for us has made quite a significant difference.
And the third thing is being able to collaborate with others. As I said, we used to collaborate with each other and it was a relatively small pool. But actually being able to widen our opportunities for working with others, whether it be freelancers or other micro businesses, that’s changed massively. So, we’ve got people I would have never dreamt of working with before, mental health coaches for example. So, lots of different aspects we can now offer as a collective.
Have you been actively supporting any particular IPSE campaigns?
In a way, IR35, I felt less concerned about because I’d had so much support. I felt confident that I was running my business, even thought it was just myself, outside of that. But I did support the campaign, writing to MPs, and all that kind of thing. I went to chat to my MP because I think there were a lot of unintended consequences of the IR35 changes.
Regardless of them saying there should not be blanket decisions, the reality is that there were. That was, we’re just not going to talk to any small businesses at all, you know, we’re just not going to work with them. Which whilst isn’t a blanket decision we’ve decided that you’re in or out, it was in effect. It impacted a lot of freelancing businesses.
And Covid. I was a keen supporter of that, in terms of making sure that the support for the self-employed was there. I felt that was kind of obvious that was missing when those first announcements were made. For me, Covid was a worry, but ultimately an opportunity. It means I’ve got clients I wouldn’t have considered because I think for the clients, they weren’t in that space where they were comfortable with remote work. But I was really conscious that for other people, including some members of my family, that was not the case at all.
I definitely used the templates for writing to MPs, although I added my own extras, obviously. And just having the encouragement, actually, to go talk to your MP rather than just writing a letter. I thought there was loads of support there.
The other thing I haven’t mentioned is that I’m a member of the IPS member forum. So, for me, membership is not just what you can get, it’s about what you can give as well. So that’s my way of giving back. I feel like I’ve had quite a lot from IPSE in terms of support. Yeah, you have to go and ask for it, or go and find it, but it’s all there.
It’s been quite good for me personally to be able to give feedback on improvements to the IPSE website.
