Enterprise Consultant Adrian Ashton
Meet Adrian
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After more than 18 years in self-employment, Enterprise Consultant Adrian Ashton has a wealth of knowledge and useful insights for anyone looking to build a sustainable, long-term career.
Can you introduce yourself and your business?
I’m Adrian Ashton. And I work in a freelance self-employed capacity as an Enterprise Consultant. That means I work with universities, developing curriculum materials. I work with local businesses, I work with national sector bodies and charities, and social enterprises and government support programs.
How do you define what you offer as a business?
Part of the accepted wisdom of being self-employed is that you have a clear niche. You say, I’m Adrian, I help people grow pot plants. OK, that’s maybe your thing, that’s what you become known as, and that’s fine.
But I never meant to be self-employed, I fell into it by accident. And one of the things I was brought up by my parents remembering was that, if people asked you nicely, try and say yes. And if people enjoy what you’re doing, try and do more of it.
So, over the last 18 years, I’ve been approached by different bodies, different industries, to get involved in all sorts of weird work – from policy development, to feasibility studies, to training courses, to data analysis, and all sorts of things. And that makes it messy.
But actually, it’s worked to my benefit, because not having a niche means I’ve been more adaptable, more flexible. When one industry hits a slowdown, I can pick up work elsewhere. And it helps me form connections in really creative ways. Because I’m being exposed to different industries, sectors and people, it means I’m seeing patterns and coming up with new ideas and creative approaches.
Working across different industries and projects, do you have a set framework for how you work with clients?
I use a lot of enterprise development approaches, with a wide range of different groups, sectors and industries. And people seem to get me in because they say “We’ve got a problem”. We need to understand this market opportunity. We need to pivot. We need to develop our governance. We need some training for our people.
They don’t know who else to turn to, and I come in with an enterprise-based approach. That’s not enterprise to say “Let’s help you make more money from this”. But the traditional route of enterprise which is “What if?” and “Why not?”
Let’s look at creating change in a way that people feel is exciting, and helps them enjoy working and doing things more.
With the challenges you’ve faced, how have you built up your resilience?
There are lots of ways we can build our resilience to shocks professionally, and personally, because they’re both mashed up together in the way that we work. What works for me won’t work for everyone else in the same way because our brains are different, and we have grown up in different ways. Some of it may be useful, though.
What I focus on is trying to be modest in my own aspirations. All I need to do is make sure the bills are paid. That’s my number one goal. Are my bills paid, and my kids supported and cared for, to the best of my abilities.
There’s also a sense of that resilience of the playfulness as well. None of us are getting out of this life alive. So ultimately it doesn’t matter if we get it right or wrong. It doesn’t matter if we lose a contract. It doesn’t matter if we looked silly to that person at that time. I got divorced a while ago and I remember at the time, someone sharing with me something I found really encouraging. What they said was “In 50 years from now, no one will be talking about it or care about it. Because in 50 years from now, no one will even know who you were or what your name was”. So that was incredibly liberating. So actually, just do it.
In terms of resilience, being honest and open with people. If you think something is going to go wrong, be honest and say “I think this could be a concern” before it all goes bad. So in January 2020, when this thing called Covid was starting to appear in the news, I talked to all of my clients and said what can we do? How can we think about how we’re working on these pieces of work together, to mitigate the impact it’s going to have. And they all said the same thing, which is very British, it’ll blow over, don’t worry about it.
And then March 23rd happened, and in the week that followed 95% of all my client work was cancelled. But the week after that, nearly everyone came back to me and said, we remember you were asking about how we could change what we deliver and work together. So you seem to have some ideas we could look at in terms of really restarting work. And I’ve built my business back, because I’ve laid this foundation.
I used to joke that in my head I have a paranoia chip, that sense if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. But I do something with it. Because I’m always thinking what’s the contingency for this? If the laptop blows up, is there a spare? Where’s the escape route?
Those are the sorts of things that for me have worked well. Having a breadth of clients, as well. Those perspectives from different industries are brilliant.
And then it turns out that I can grow plants really well. Give me some seeds from the leftover stuff you’ve bought from the supermarket, and I’ll probably be able to get you something to harvest from them later in the year. If I can just water some plants, plant some seeds or stroke a leaf somewhere, that seems to help me stay happy.
