I think the industry is stagnating. I think it’s been hurt and it doesn’t know

how to heal itself because I think it has the conundrum of still making loads of money. What’s the current situation with the

industry right now? Like why is the industry so obsessed with like safe bets? Today I’m joined by a former Team 17

executive and creative leader who’s now helping studios and tech innovators bring bold ideas to market and how to

scale original IPs and rethink commercial strategy. We’re seeing consumer spending increasing growth of

segmented in the industry. But then if you look at the behind the scenes like the engine house that makes the games,

publishes the games, delivers the games to market, that all feels very flat and very fractured. We talked about why risk aversion is

killing innovation in the games industry and also about her journey as a fractional chief commercial officer and

why people are the real multiplayer for growth. I think we can’t forget that you know ultimately this industry exists because

of people which are players. You know, that is why we are doing what we’re doing. I do think people are what make

this industry magic. From someone who’s relaunching the way the games industry builds, funds, and backs bold ideas, this episode’s guest,

founder and managing director of KM Consultancy, Charlotte Cook.

Charlotte, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. We’re really excited today because you’ve done so much. So, for people who

don’t know at home, very quick scan of your LinkedIn. I like to do that when you have 15 years of experience cuz it’s

quite a nice journey which we’re all going to get into today. So started back in Seager in 2010 then moved into Take

Two. I’m going to tell you the titles later everyone. Head of commercial at Genbud Digital then you moved into

Birdstat Group senior director of sales at Skybound Games. Team 17 as the global

head of commercial director and then became an angel investor. So you

throughout all of this since 2020 being the founder and managing director of Karm consultancy where you’re basically

fractional chief commercial officer and to recap everything for people who don’t know you’ve done so much at very high

levels for multiple different companies and you’ve also done this throughout the

ups and downs of the industry and I’m really looking forward to today’s topic which is about leadership and innovation

in the games industry. So, for people who maybe don’t know, I want to get

straight into it, Charlotte. Like, what’s the current situation um with the industry right now? Like, why is the

industry so obsessed with like safe bets? I think the industry is um stagnating. I

think it’s been hurt. Um and it doesn’t know how to heal itself. Um because I

think it has the conundrum of still making loads of money. Um so we’re seeing consumer spending um increasing

growth of segments within the industry. Um but then if you look at the behind the scenes like the engine house that

makes the games, publishes the games, delivers the games to market, that all feels very flat and very fractured and

um people I think would struggle to probably be looking at sort of a a fiveyear plan in some businesses because

we don’t know sort of what what we’re what we’re up against and and sort of what what’s coming next. Um and I think

a lot of that is um the COVID boom, you know, the boom and bust that we sort of had where we all rode this amazing wave

of um you know, people sitting at home playing games, connecting through games, you know, some incredible games have

been built because of these sort of social experiences that we needed in that time. Um but I think we’ve now sort

of hit this this brick wall and all sort of looking at each other a bit like a sort of Spider-Man meme of like where do

we go next? Um, and I think um, when you’re inside a big corporation um, and you’re worrying

about your bottom line and delivering your numbers, I think it can be even harder to look outside to kind of find

that inspiration, which is kind of where we’re seeing this sort of whirlpool of despair. Um, to not be too negative, but

that’s that’s sort of how it how it feels. Can you also share how you know this because you know this very much

firsthand. Yeah. Um I mean I think um I’ve worked within businesses you know I I worked in

businesses sort of at the precoid um that did see the real the real boom um

of of of that time you know I worked on um for example I I consulted with one of the biggest games on the Roblox platform

um you know which had huge uh you know success with you know kids being at home and that becoming their sort of virtual playground. Um so I’ve seen the sort of

riding high um you know of of those those periods of of time. Um and then

through you know to uh working when I was working at team 17 where you’re kind of having to re um structure this you

know sales patterns or revenue patterns or player habits that you were seeing at that time to now which is very very

different um and I think especially when you’re in a highressured role when you’re trying to deliver revenue you’re

managing a team um you have you know internal targets against you it can be quite difficult sometimes to sort of get

that wider industry picture or on there, right? Picture because you you end up in this

um in this sort of internal struggle dayto-day. You know, when you’re turning on your laptop every day, you’re you’re

looking more at what’s going on for you and your business as opposed to necessarily externally. Um and something

I’ve always tried to do, um is make sure that I have that external, you know,

visibility and um you know, set of sort of eyes and ears out there that you can kind of learn from what other people are

doing, look at what other people are doing. Um, it’s something I I was quite proud of with my team at Team 17. We

really did, you know, especially on the Steam platform. Um, we worked really hard to, you know, analyze what other

people were doing. I think a lot of people also looked at what we were doing. And I would have interesting conversations with other publishers sort of saying, “Oh, we love this thing you

did with that bundle, you know, how did it how did it work?” And then we could sort of collaborate together. Um, and I don’t think that happens enough because

I think, you know, lots of people are understandably, you know, worried about their area, their their job and their

respective business unit. So I want to get into a bit of your

story because I think it’s quite inspirational for especially the audience that I have very specifically because the gaming playbook the reason I

have named it that is I feel like I would love to have a resource where people can come learn from people who’ve

been through interesting journeys and share like what worked for them and you very specifically became a consultant

and you also did it when a lot of other people right now are struggling with that transition and I feel like you knew

how it was before co and now postco and you’re still making it work. So I’d love

to ask you like when you left team 17 and took a pause like what actually happened like what happened can you

paint a scene for me? Yeah absolutely I think there’s probably two elements to it. The first time when

I when I launched my consultancy in 2020, um I literally quit my job. I had

nothing no like a month’s runway. Um I took a plane to to South Africa cuz I

just wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t um freezing cold. Far far away. Yeah. Literally the other side of the

world. Um and uh I set it up from there on a laptop. Like I you know, and it’s

really easy to do. You know, registering a company in the UK is is is a pretty easy thing to do. Um but I didn’t really

have a plan. I just thought maybe this would be an option whilst I was looking for something else. And I really had to sort of take on whatever came my way at

that point. Um because I was establishing myself. I was you know trying to find you know earn money. Um I

was lucky that as I said earlier it was in that sort of um COVID period where

the game everybody was just all over the games industry and gaming expertise and I’d just come from a business that was

working really closely with brands and advertising agencies. So I had this kind of perfect storm of being able to advise

brands and businesses who wanted to reach gaming audiences and I sort of set myself up in in that way. So I I think

timing wise I was very lucky with how that came about this time around. Um I

got advice from somebody in the industry. I won’t name him but a good friend who said don’t close the consultancy down even when you work at

at team 17. You know you can keep the limited company there. You don’t have to to to close it down even though you’re doing something else over here. um which

was great advice because obviously it establishes the business. The business has been around for longer. It’s been

trading for longer. Um but um what I found this time around is I really

wanted to take the time to find the clients I wanted to work with and the projects I wanted to work on which I

think is a benefit of you know growing up a bit you know being a bit less more gungho and and having actually the

runway to to take the time to do that but also um protecting myself um because

you know I’ I’d come out of something that was quite stressful um physically mentally I needed the time to kind of

really reassess and I also didn’t feel like I was probably in the best place to deliver the value I wanted um for

somebody at that time cuz I was you know my cup was was half empty myself so I needed to really think about how I could

go into something you know all guns all guns blazing so it took me probably about three or four months I went to GDC

on my own dime this year I went to a couple other conferences reboot um you know which I know not everybody has the

luxury of doing if you can do that like I think if you are establishing on your own it’s so important to

how did you navigate that I ask you that with a sp a person in mind actually they

left a job because the studio closed down but they were excellent and then they wanted to basically navigate and

they were happy to have like a year of testing. So, she is also on her own dime going to conferences and I can tell

because I’ve spoken with her like it’s the first few conferences aren’t easy like how do I navigate what’s my persona

now because like who am I because you’re now just your name you’re not title

publisher everyone comes with assumptions so how did you navigate the first couple I’m wondering if you would tell yourself any advice

um it’s hard because you go from being I’ve got a friend in the industry and she always says um you know when I was

working at team 17 and the title I had. She’s like, “You’re the pretty girl in the room who everybody wants to, you

know, publish my games, sell their service to, you know, D.” And you have that, right? You have that status like

people want to talk to you. Yeah, absolutely. And my meet to match was just like ridiculous. You know, the

minute you turn it on, you just have all these meetings load up and then you you have to to sort of pair it back. Um, so

conferences weirdly felt quite overwhelming. I think when I was at Team 17, what I would say to anybody in that position and that lady in particular is

kind of embrace the lack of chaos that maybe you you would have had from before, you know, the KPIs of you need

to have x amount of meetings and there needs to be x amount of this and actually lean into it in terms of, you

know, cool, I’ve got an hour where I’m just sitting in a hotel lobby and there’s a person sitting next to me

who’s doing the same and introduce yourself and what are you here for? Where do you work? And you might have more of those sort of serendipitous

interactions that when you’re working in a in a publisher, you sometimes are closed behind a on a booth or you’re in

a you know a a a meeting room, you wouldn’t have the time to necessarily network in that way. So I think for me,

I found it quite liberating again to be on my own schedule to get to meet to pe with people I wanted to meet with and

talk to. Um, and equally, um, you know, have some of those serendipitous moments

and going to mixers and events that, you know, I always find it weird when you’re working in a big role and you get sent to these things because you don’t get to

go to the panels. You don’t get to sit and listen to things because you’re doing you’re having meetings. So, the whole kind of structure of the learning

element of a lot of these events you don’t get to do because you’re having your 50 60 meetings over the over the

course of the week. Um, so again, 50 meetings across a week. Oh, yeah. like that that would be a

normal game. But you literally just had a backtoback meeting calendar like maybe with a time

to go to the toilet, not even eat. I don’t think Yeah. Yeah. And I and I wouldn’t I don’t think I’m alone in that. I know every a

lot of people who that’s very very normal for that’s so different because I used to do

like 20 millions a day, but then I did that once and realized, yeah, I’m not doing that again. Let me do like five to 10 and be really

ruthless and then have my time to Rome and then the evening mixer. But if you’re doing 20 a day, then I’m guessing

when you come around to do the evening mixer, you just want to go rest. Like you don’t have the energy left.

And that’s the thing as well, I think you kind of learn, you know, I’ve I was representing at

Gamescom this year a couple of indie publishers who were trying to uh get sort of, you know, publishing deals. Um,

and you look at that and you think, um, you know, my advice to them was don’t do it at Gamescom. You know, the scouts

have had 20 pitches today. you know they they they don’t have the mental capacity to view your game in the way that you

know nobody does. It’s not it’s not not a reflection on that person. It’s a you know if you’re having that many meetings

seeing that many things you cannot be that effective by the end of the day on top of you know being away from home out late you know not your normal routine

has completely gone. Sometimes you’re on a different time zone. Um so I’ve always said you know send the material ahead of

time and maybe arrange a catch up there and then do the catch up catch up afterwards. you know, keep in touch, but

don’t rely on that conference as the sole opportunity to get something in front of somebody that’s you’re probably

their 10th meeting of the day and they’re looking at their watch thinking when am I going to have time to grab a sandwich and, you know, get a coffee and

and and that kind of thing. So, I think it’s um it’s it’s different for different people. Well, I think again

the more senior I’ve got, I’ve been lucky where I’ve had team members that I can bring out to these conferences who can share some of the burden in terms of

meetings and that’s always great and then you can kind of regroup at the end of the day and they’ll bring me into ones where they need, you know, somebody

maybe slightly more senior to be there. Um but yeah, I think this year I found since leaving um and doing my own thing

like the liberation of just actually better like having better networking and I’ I’ve met some amazing people that I

just just don’t think I would have had the opportunity to have met before when you were in that kind of cycle of you

know um meeting meeting which um is is the case and um you know I don’t think

it’s necessarily a bad thing. You have to obviously get your value for money if you’re sending people to these conferences, but it um it doesn’t kind

of in my opinion allow for that maybe professional development that lots of these conferences are there to to serve.

You know, that’s why they run the tracks and the panels. They do. It’s a shame they’re not attended by maybe people that would benefit from from hearing

them. I guess embracing that fact, right, where you have an more open calendar. We’re definitely going to be jumping

around today because there’s so much to talk about. I want to be spending some time um cuz you mentioned a good point

about what to do when to show your game. So the people listening to this who either have a game and they want to kind

of promote it because you’ve been through so many of these pitches have love to spend some time on what they could do. Also people who aren’t

publishing a game maybe there have some assumptions on what the process is and how it’s changed right so I’d love to

spend maybe some a few time minutes on that. when it comes to publishing a game, I guess now, like what do people

believe, but what is actually the truth? I wonder if you could like break some misconceptions right now.

Um I don’t I’m in terms of believe, I’m not I’m not sure. I think um I think the

power dynamic is still in the favor of the publisher as it stands today. um you

know if that’s the route you want to go down but I do think um the emergence of self-publishing and some of the tools out there and some businesses that have

leaned in more to self-publishing models where you can kind of tap into certain services so you for example might need

assistance with PR but you don’t need assistance with the whole scale of publishing yeah I think that’s something

that has definitely changed um and I think people’s expectations on that have changed um I think um the

biggest shift I think I’ve seen probably in the last 3 years is what a developer

is expected to bring to the table for a publisher to sign the game is pretty much a self-publishing state. You know,

I think you’re you’re kind of expecting somebody to to have selfunded it to X point where they have, you know, a

playable vertical slice or or, you know, horizontal playthrough is is another thing we’re seeing more and more now.

They’ve built a community. They have traction with wish lists and engagement, you know, social media presence. So

you’re kind of expecting um the developer to have done a lot of the heavy lifting that I think maybe two

three even four years ago that a lot of that expectation wouldn’t have been there because that would have sat with

the publisher to to help you know to to drive from the ground up. Um whereas now I think what publishers are doing is

they’re coming in they’re taking that and then they’re using their expertise to to build on that. Um, obviously that isn’t the case for every every game, but

I think it was certainly, you know, when when I was working most recently on sort of greenlighting projects, um, the sort

of standard of what we would expect to see to give us confidence to move ahead was was much more than I think um, it

probably was 18 18 years. Do the developers know that, you think? I think some do. I think probably the

more professional ones do um, you know, who are more established, maybe on their second, third game. Um, I also think

those guys are more set up to negotiate more with publishers because it’s they’ve been they’ve been there before

and they know the game. Yeah. So, I think they kind of know and they know their worth as well. And I think, you know, a lot of these games as

well um there’s high competition to to sign. You know, there’s you’ve got six

or seven publishers all all going after one game because it is hitting all of the boxes that they’re all looking for.

So, I think that puts the developer in a real um position of strength. you know, if you are lucky to have, you know,

found that sweet spot with your game and your community where you have six or seven publishers kind of fighting over you to to sign it up. Um, so I think

that’s changed, but I think um there is potentially maybe still this misconception that you can develop a

game in your bedroom, put it up on Steam, and become a millionaire overnight. You know, I think I think that there is still this this feeling

and the work that goes into getting a game to market, whether you self-publish or whether you do it as a publisher, is

incredibly hard. Um it’s not it’s not easy. Um it takes a lot of time. There’s a lot of systems, a lot of processes

that have to go into place to make it successful. A lot of it there is an element of luck in there as well. But I

think um you know I I still believe there is a slight sense of um you know

that anyone can do it which I I think you don’t want to discourage. Um it’s a hard balance. You want people to to be

creative and put experiences out there in the world and who knows you could be the next it’s like music right? Like it’s weird

for me is I don’t know if you feel this but there’s a bit more entitlement that it will work in the games industry versus

the traditional one like music. Like I feel it’s quite normal for someone to say music’s a great outlet but how many

musicians get by and how many musicians kill it. Everyone knows there’s a big disparity but music is fun to do. I feel

like with games is almost like an expectation where ah there’s these ways to get funding for my game and I spend

all this time on it. Like I get it, but like you are competing against everyone and they have

a little limitation. Like do you I wanted to talk to you about this cuz you mentioned in our

first chat which I found very interesting how people don’t understand how different you need to be right now.

Right. And I think maybe people think they have gold dust like okay but you have to compare it like you can’t just

look at it in isolation. Yeah, I think um you need to be you know the industry

has become far more financially driven. You know, I think you know you

can you can see that in some of the the closures we’re seeing, you know, impairments we’re seeing um across the

board. You know, projects being canceled. You know, these are projects that have had tens of millions of dollars invested in them, but ultimately

it comes down to a bottom line of looking at it and working out that it’s not sustainable for us to bring this to market because it’s going to cost us

another 50 million to do so. So actually we just better, you know, hedging our bets now, closing it down. And

it’s crazy as an outsider to see cuz inside this is logical, but outside like what is happening like how has this gone

on for years and years and like oh yeah, we’re not going to market this. Like what do you mean? And I feel like in the past I probably

wasn’t senior enough to see it. I think it still happened. I just don’t think it was as public as it is now. I think now

there’s far more um publicity around it. And I think a lot of that is because of the sort of consolidation we’ve seen

with M&A of of some businesses and how that’s kind of been lorded up and then it’s sort of we’ve seen the impact of

that. Um and also, you know, people are just generally I think a little bit more vocal about about it now than they maybe

they would have been maybe in the past with, you know, social media, LinkedIn, Twitter, stuff like that. Um but yeah, I

think now you you really have to stand out as a commercially strong proposition. You know, you you have to

it’s not just about having a great a great game and a great idea. it’s all the components that go into what is going to make that commercially

successful for a publisher to cut you that check, you know, so that they the risk they’re taking on is worth is worth it for them. Um, and I think, you know,

more than ever, what I hope um is that therefore there’s more of the the partnership behind it because both I

think both partners understand the risk, understand the market, understand the challenge, and therefore you have to

work together to to achieve that. So, you need a really strong developer publisher relationship to to get that

that set of results and kind of then and then build on it. Um, and I think that’s what you know I think if you’re a young

developer or somebody that’s looking to pitch your game, I think really educating yourself on it’s not the the

sexiest or most exciting piece, but the financial models around it. You know, really do a deep dive into what makes games successful on Steam. You know,

with indie in particular, it’s not always a smash hit. You know, I I’ve worked on games that had more success in

terms of revenue in their second, third, fourth year than they did in their first year. And a lot of that was down to

life cycle management, finding that sweet, you know, price point that would engage. Do the publishers know about that as

well? Like a game can make revenue in two, three, and four, and they expect that or do they always bank on like the

first year? Um, I can’t talk for all publishers. I think it would very much depend on how they’re they’re structured. I mean,

obviously, generally, when you’re managing a portfolio of games, you would have, if you’re releasing 10 games that year,

you’d probably have your two that you would think, right, these are going to be the the the breakout successes that

we’re going to hedge our bets on. And and it’s kind of quite easy to tell, you know, with how they’re trending in terms of marketing metrics, you know,

sentiment. You can kind of you can see that doesn’t always mean it’s the case, you know, it can you can have all of that and still not happen. Yeah. Um, and

sometimes you have one that you had no expectations on completely surprise you. Um but I think yeah I think most most

publishers that are doing active life cycle management which they if they’re not um I you know I don’t know how but

they they I think most of them are you can see that from sort of the Steam promotion cycle yeah would have trends and examples where they’ve had games

that maybe haven’t performed as well in the first year but go on to do well and I’ve even seen games like that go on to

receive you know subscription deals or opportunities because of the traction they build outside of

subscription deals with is like game pass and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, you it doesn’t always, you know, need to be this day one big

shiny thing, you know, it’s something you can build to. Um, and again, that’s really hard. It’s not an easy thing to

do. You need to know how to set the price right, do your promotional cadence, right? You know, get get the

right visibility on there. Um, you know, maybe do bundling with different games to to raise the profile of the game. U,

maybe work with your marketing team to do asset relaunches or asset refreshes. Um, re-engage with influencers. So, it’s

still, you know, when you sign a publishing deal, you’re signing it for a significant length of time. And in my opinion, um, you should be working

throughout the length of that deal to maximize the game for all parties or else, you know, why why sign it in the

first place? Cool. I want to understand

the maybe the green light process like in your experience. So, when a game gets

green lit, so in my research, we found like let’s say dredge for example. If there’s anything we can’t talk about,

let me know. I’m wondering like why did that get green lit versus something that didn’t get green lit and maybe we can

see some patterns here hopefully. So, I wasn’t I was there for the release of Dredge. I wasn’t there for the the

green light of Dredge. I can’t talk on on dredge um in particular, but I mean I I think again at team 17 we had an

excellent um game scouting team who were incredibly thorough in the due diligence

that they they did that maybe the developers are forgetting

about maybe like for example keeping a slide for the financial modeling definitely heard that advice and I think

people still don’t do it properly. That’s like a great example, right? I’m wondering what else could the GameSC be

looking at that maybe we’re not considering. I think obviously it was a it was having a point of difference and a hook um that

stood out um in in the marketplace. So not not copycats. I mean Dredge was a good example of after Dredge which was

sort of um uh what’s the word I’m looking for? Um sort of genre defining in terms of

created this kind of new new genre of game that hadn’t really been around before. We then started to see a lot of

dredge-like games come through because people start seeing the trends and then jump on, oh like, you know, I’m going to

make a similar a similar type of game. And I I think um that was another thing we noticed in a lot of pitch decks. You

know, the same games would be listed as, you know, the comparisons. You know, this is my game like this.

I think it’s a good I think it can be okay if you have a really standout game, but you know, quite often it can almost

be a signal of, oh, you know, here we go again. You know, they haven’t really drilled down into what makes this game different. What are the mechanics behind

it that make this different from those six games on the screen that you’re saying your game is is like? Is it truly

different? Um, and I think again I can only speak to uh my time at Team 17, but it was very much about like genre

finding those genre defining games and sort of true indie indie gems that really stood out as doing something

different, you know, bringing something new to the market. Um, I think there are examples without again naming specifics,

but where there were games we had signed that did try to do that that maybe it was too much of trying to redefine

things that it missed the mark, you know, it can go the other way. And obviously that’s the judgment call being

a a game scout in any business that you’re you’re taking that that risk. Um, but I think it was very much, you know,

did we get a good it sounds rubbish, but did we get like a good feel? Like did this make us feel like it was doing

something different? Um and again at team 17 as a portfolio business you know what was it going to bring to our portfolio but also how could our how

could we leverage our portfolio to support the game itself um you know was a was another another big thing. So if

we had sort of similar crossover audiences or crossover gameplay style um more laterally as well I started looking

you know again more on the sales side a lot at the length of gameplay replayability um you know cuz those were

things we started seeing a lot on Steam that games that had sort of um less than

averaging around seven hours gameplay or were doing pretty well. Also, we started looking at, you know, what was the

average um gameplay time? Um did it have replay-ability? Um and then pricing as well. You know, I would say to

developers, be really open-minded about your pricing. You know, these publishers know what they’re talking about when it comes to suggesting a sweet spot for

pricing. Um so, if you think your game is worth, you know, $40, and they’re saying, “Actually, we think this would

do really well at, you know, $19.99, maybe $14.99, because that’s the market it serves.” You have to trust their

their judgment on that because you know that that weirdly although it’s it’s a cut in revenue in theory and average

sales price you can make up for that with with volume supply it’s all relative especially when

we get in these games that are coming out like 10 to 20 bucks there’s a term that people are using and people I see

people arguing about the term like friend slop games that you can play with friends coming out of Sweden they’re

performing very well and like they sit between 10 and 20 bucks so Like if all the streamers are playing a game between

10 to 20 bucks and your game isn’t stream friendly or a game you can play your friends, then that’s what you’re

competing against and all the live service stuff. So I think that’s a good point and we’ve taught consumers to expect

that like you know we’ve spent the last 10 years teaching consumers to expect it

to be on Game Pass or PS+ to expect it to be 50% off maybe within its first 6 to 12 months of being out. So we’ve

we’ve encouraged that kind of consumer behavior in in gamers. So I think we have to you have to therefore then adapt

your strategies to know that that’s how people are are buying games as well. Um so I think it’s just I would I would say

to caution developers, you know, don’t go too hard on a publisher who’s, you know, genuinely looking at a pricing strategy, you know, with a with a longer

term longer term view um because they they know what they’re they’re dealing with in terms of the market.

Great. Uh I’m curious, that’s the way it is right now. I’m wondering, do you think there’s a better way where IPs can

get green lit? Like is there anything that you would change? Um, I think what one of the businesses

I’m working with at the minute is is an IPdriven business. So, we’re we’re specifically focusing on building sort

of an infrastructure layer for IP. Um, and one of the big moving forces behind that is democratizing access to IP um

that exists today. So, you know, I’ve worked with some incredible indie teams who have developed fantastic games that

have gone on to do hugely successful numbers. Um, you know, and the budgets were less than $5 million. You know,

these are these are, you know, teams that are are building, you know, amazing games on on bootstrapping small budgets and and bringing them to market with the

assistance of a publisher, but then going on to do to do incredible things and getting, you know, global recognition. A lot of those teams, you

know, when you’re looking at sort of IP based projects, they can’t afford the MGs that these some of these IP holders

are. What’s an MG? Sorry, a minimum guarantee. So, lots of the big IPs out there will require you to pay a

minimum guarantee to access their IP um just to have use of it, you know. So, you you you would need to pay to have

use of it to to layer onto whatever gameplay experience you’re making. Um, and whilst I understand that obviously

from an IP protection point of view and for big IPs, you know, that makes total sense why you need to have that sort of MG royalty structure built in, there are

some businesses out there that are sitting on tens if not hundreds of IPs that have kind of just died. You know,

they’re not they’re not doing anything anymore. Um, and because you can’t get teams to match the MG requirement,

they’re just sort of sitting there stagnating. about their IPs that have huge nostalgia factor, you know,

communities that that love them, maybe still um adjacent trans media projects or products that are still driving um

big uh audiences. It might be in books or comics or or TV or film. Um but we’ve

not opened them up to game developers to potentially use and and create cool game experiences from. Um, and I think that’s

something on the IP side that I’m I’m hoping with with what the work we’re doing at Infinite Realms, which is very much around democratizing access to IP,

but also driving efficiencies around IP use. Um, because yeah, and the negotiation part is just the thing that’s sapping everyone

because I’m wondering, this is very interesting, like if you have and the great ability to make a

core gameplay loop and all that, but you don’t have the ability to create a whole new IP from scratch cuz, you know, maybe a different skill set. I’m

wondering how many game developers are actively thinking, “Oh, let me go find a good IP for it.” Probably not that many unless they’ve got a bunch of money, but

you think maybe even like first or second time game developers could use IPs like this in the future. I think if

the gameplay loop I mean it would still follow like a green lighting process in in theory but if if we could get to a

point where because efficiencies are able to drive the and and protections

around how the IP is used which is what the tool we’re building does it creates a an LLM of that IP which means that you

can’t hallucinate you can’t work outside the parameters of it so the IP holder knows that that product is true and can

and compliant like to enforce the IP guidelines

might not be worth unless they have the minimum guarantee. And that’s that’s the big been the big problem because you know and I’ve worked

in the past on on games um that are IP based when I worked at Sega in particular and the back and forth of

approvals was a big part of the time sync of doing it. You know, you you had to, you know, constantly be be checking

in. The idea with this is that removes that because what you would be be putting in the hands of a developer, the

IP holder knows is 100% reflective and accurate of what they want it to be

represented as and therefore the developer can work within the parameters of of that that guide set of guidelines.

Obviously, there would still be checks and balances, but it would remove a significant portion of that. and and

what we’re we’re hoping to do and what we we’ve been doing internally ourselves is um is giving opportunity for sort of

what are called like below deck characters. So if you think of things like Andor or the Mandalorian in the Star Wars universe, like how do we give

rise to characters that are part of gaming experiences or or other trans media experiences that people know but

they don’t know that much about because they’re just a below deck character in the experience they’ve either played or

interacted with. How do we, you know, give access to that IP to a game developer to go and build a game around

that character or that city or, you know, you know, given a lot of this back and forth as well, right? Because you

just need to sort that one character out. Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah. So that so I I’m for me, I think

that’s where I’m hoping it goes. And I I I think we’ll still continue to see the big IP, you know, do do well and and

remaster and, you know, bring out um new games. But uh you know we’re also working with infinite realms with big

AAA projects as well to assist them on that part internally you know so how can they come up with these concepts um

internally themselves as well to keep franchises and IP fresh um so I think yeah I I hoped that we exist in a world

in the next 5 years where you don’t have to have a big checkbook to be able to play with beloved IP you know you can

you can just be trusted to work within um pre-authorized um materials that you

can build some really cool experiences from on an indie on an indie budget. Yeah, that would be very cool. It would

be very cool. I want to ask about the people side now because that’s a huge part of your role. We haven’t spent much

time talking about it. So, you’ve mentioned people are a multiplier. I’d

love for you to break that down for me like what did you mean by that? I think you you can’t you know I know

there are people out there who are individual contributors and work very successfully in that way but I have always found in my career um not only

with the teams I directly manage and and get to help me deliver what what I need to deliver on but also the partnerships

across the industry that you have to achieve something you know if you look at a um a game release the amount of

people that are involved in that from end to end is is significant you know and and I I’ve been for example at

conferences where you meet someone and they do the um you know facial mapping for the characters and they’re like what

do you do and you say I work in sales and you know there’s kind of two worlds colliding where you’re selling what they’ve worked on but they’ve never

considered like the chain of people that that you know get it to be in the hands of a player and ultimately somebody

who’s enjoying playing the game. Um and I think especially now with you know

sort of lots of concerns around AI taking jobs and you know people feeling that they’re going to be replaced and

you’re seeing sort of studios downsizing. And I think we can’t forget that you know ultimately this industry

exists because of people which are players you know that that is why we are all working doing what we’re doing. um

and that we need those people to come on the journey with us. Maybe not directly as employees but maybe as um part of our

communities, you know, engaging with community more deeply, you know, having sort of representatives within that community that we officiate to sort of

help us um have leading roles there to be, you know, moderators or um I worked on a game that uh it was a fishing game

and they called them their carp council, you know, so people that were kind of the people that would would reflect what

the community was seeing um into the business. Um and and also just making sure that we’re not going to get to a

point where we try and strip everything back to the point that we think we don’t need people because AI can do it for us and then putting people under immense

strain because they suddenly don’t have that collaboration you know water cooler

moments that you have by working but by working with people um and I think I’ve only ever worked in this industry so I

can’t really talk um to having worked in others but I do think people are what make this industry magic and you know

you know seeing ideas come together when you know you get to you have a meeting with somebody and you you know you get

to just talk about something or brainstorm on a concept and then actually bringing that to life. I think

um I think that’s hugely important. Um and I think it’s it’s it’s more than ever um making sure people are doing

obviously the right things within your business but not just thinking that they’re replaceable by a a piece of technology.

Why would you do that Charlotte? because I’ve been speaking to some people and I won’t name names all companies but like

the situations where I have a kind of personal situation here where we use AI to help us with the idea

generation for content for example. So technically that could have been an extra role where someone’s researching

the transcript and double checking stuff but that is kind of manual work and in the games industry there’s people who in

their last few months training the AI that replaces them you know stuff like that and because you’ve seen so many teams

work like this feels like a very challenging situation where AI does

exist but there’s the reality where they’re being used by people who if they

almost do them too well, would that make them replaceable? Then there’s this weird balance like we all obviously want to make the business grow and that is

all going to that direction but then how do we kind of navigate that? I’m wondering like when you look at the

teams that you’re working with like how would you bring people along to the journey? Like are you kind of team

empower them get tools or like how does the incentive structure work? I’m wondering how you would look at that.

Yeah, I I think it’s challenging and I think I think I can’t speak for every area of the games industry. I I think if

you’re working maybe in more of an art based role or a um programming role, it’s the risk is the it’s probably much

higher at the minute in terms of feeling like you know there are elements of your role that could be replaced versus you know I I’ve only ever worked in sort of

commercial business development side which is very people driven. You know relationships are what will ultimately help business get done. And I

I don’t feel like a an AI tool can replace you know a long-standing 15-year relationship that I have with somebody

that’s going to help me go to them to unlock something. um at least at the minute I don’t see how it could maybe

who knows it might be possible in the future. It definitely help preparing for a conversation but it definitely can’t

help the conversation part. Absolutely. And I think what I found it’s been really interesting coming back

into being like a a consultant and basically running my own business. Um this year I didn’t have these AI tools

in when I did this in 2020 you So if somebody sent me a lengthy contract to review, that was probably two, three

hours of my time I was blocking out looking at that, you know, going through it line by line, you know, making sure of what I was agreeing to. Whereas now,

you obviously have tools that you can ask it to summarize the key points for you. And I’m this, you know, this is I’m this person in this contract chain. Um,

so from an I I think for me and with teams I’ve worked with, it’s about driving efficiency so people can be

empowered to do more of the creative stuff, to do more of the um, you know, I

if I look back to again the team I had at Team 17, um, so much of what we did

was time spent doing um, things like promotional mapping and and planning. Um, and I think in the future there’ll

be a way that that can be more automated. And I think then that enables that team to spend more time maybe playing the games that we’re selling so

they understand them them more deeply or playing competitor games or spending more time, you know, on Steam like

looking at some up and cominging indie titles that have, you know, um, put themselves on on the platform and are gaining a bit of traction, you know. So

kind of having time to move away from doing the menial stuff that does still exist within within ROS to go and do

more that actually helps drive your business your business forward. So more of that sort of I guess strategic out of

the box stuff rather than the day-to-day. And that’s how I would definitely encourage it to be to be used. I think it should be

complimentary, not not replacing. And I think there’s certain things that can replace that unlock time for people to

go and do more exciting things or things that are going to propel your business forward more. Um, and that’s what I I

certainly think is the exciting part of where we are today. Who knows what, you know, what the future looks like. And

yeah, to hear you’ve got sort of teams of people being asked to work and train things and then they’re being told, “Okay, now you you’ve done a good enough

job. You can you can go because all the knowledge and insights exist within this AI tool and we don’t need you anymore.”

Um, I I have a feeling that we’re going to I think there’s going to be some businesses out there that lean so far

into it that they’re going to end up almost like hiring people back because they’ll realize that they they can’t

replace people completely. I think we will see see that potentially potentially happen. Um, but I think as

well, you know, from sort of if you look at like the gig economy and, you know, what I’m doing now in a fractional capacity, it also opens up, maybe people

don’t work in a full-time capacity anymore because, you know, AI is is taking over certain elements. So, you

can do more sort of fractional elements with different businesses where you go in and you assist them for maybe a day

or two. You don’t need to be there full-time because the menial stuff that you would have been doing in a full-time role isn’t isn’t required anymore. and

actually they just need your expertise or value sort of on top of what they’re able to do underneath. Um, but the I

think the crystal ball on this is so hard like you know every day it’s it’s

changing and like the capabilities are just getting more and more impressive and you know I’ve been using tools to do

decks recently and you literally it can build a a deck in 2 minutes you know it’s it’s you know it’s crazy and that

before would have again taken you two three days you know to get to that to that point. So um who who knows? But I

think my my main thing would be yeah making sure that you’re not replacing people just for the sake of you know

hitting some kind of metric you know and especially in commercial business development. I think relationships are

still going to be key um in the industry and especially because we are facing this uncertain period you know people

want to work with people they trust and like and know are going to deliver. Um so that’s that’s hugely important.

Sweet. very selfishly now I want to hear maybe about the fractional journey

because there’s definitely people listening to this who want to be on that fractional journey want to do it well so

is there anything you wish you knew when you first started doing fractional work and versus what you’re doing now

I think it’s in my case in particular it’s really easy to be you know if you

have people approach you and say hey I want to talk to you about this thing like I found like I was giving a lot of time to stuff that maybe wouldn’t ever

go anywhere just because I felt like I you know should listen to the opportunity. So I think maybe doing a

little bit more uh due diligence and background sometimes if somebody you know approaches you and says I would love to show you this thing and just

trying to work out actually you know and it is okay to say to somebody you know love what you’re doing like huge congratulations but I think actually

it’s not the right fit with what I’m working on currently because otherwise you can spend a lot of time just sort of canvasing potential opportunity. Um, and

also, you know, I’ve definitely found this year I’ve had a lot of people um that almost were expecting free advice,

you know, and there comes a point when it’s like you’re happy to get on a call and chat to somebody about something, but there comes a point of how far you can

take that without saying, you know, at this stage that there needs to be some kind of payment for this. One call I kind of like one call.

Yeah. More than welcome to borrow more of my time. Here’s how much that cost. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think but

being comfortable saying that it can feel a bit transactional but that’s what you’re doing ultimately. You know you’re

honestly I found it really hard at the start but now I found it very simple by

using the reminder saying I have clients

that need my time. If I need to take some of my week to service you it’s not fair for them.

So it will cost this much. And I found that going from 9 to5 in recruitment

where it’s like, well, this is the task that needs to be done. Go do it. We’re not counting hours. We’re not counting this. And just that that little pivot

from full-time work to fractional work. It’s like time is your resource now. Like you cannot just give it freely away

because that’s not fair to the people who you do owe the time, whether that’s family, yourself, all that stuff.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You need to make sure you’re you’re balancing it. Um, having a work life balance can also be

quite tricky cuz I think you you navigate that Charlotte cuz you can always work all day like there’s no

question anymore. Like I’m wondering cuz I’ve had my own journey the last couple years and I know it

like in in your prep like you we talked about how like burnout is a thing like I’m going up and down. I’m a very energy

driven person. I would never thought I’d say that but only because of yesterday where I had a great call to start the

day. It was just it was a sales meeting. We met in a coffee shop and it looks like it’s going ahead. I noticeably have more energy for the

last two days and I haven’t had that for like three weeks. I was like, why am I so dependent on if things go right? This

is so bad. Like but then I’m like this is so weird because doing the stuff I know I need to do then

it saps energy and I’m like okay what’s happening right now? Because I never used to have these considerations in the

9 to5 because I when I clock off I know I can I can relax. I’m wondering how

have you found the transition from like being your own boss? I think the highs are higher and the

lows are lower like exactly what you said and and I think you you have to you have to be able to cope with that. I think this why I took time

out like I didn’t start really working again until I finished it at the end of February. I didn’t really start working

properly until end of May, June. Like I really needed the time to kind of just reset. Um, and I think um, but I would

say what I love about it, like I’m not a morning person. Like it’s I’ve always struggled with being a morning person.

I’m definitely a night owl and probably come more, you know, um, effective like

4:00 in the afternoon. It’s probably when I get like my my most work done is and just having the ability to be that’s

okay. Like you know, if I my partner is a a chef, so he works long hours. So for me it’s fine because he’s not here

necessarily in the evenings which means I can sit and work actually when I’m most productive whereas before you know

if he um if I was working and yeah every I wasn’t going to sit and work till 10 11:00 at night you know when everyone

else was logging off at 6:00 just because you know it was but I couldn’t flex my day that way. So I think from it

it gives you the freedom to maybe flex your day in the way that suits you best. you know, I don’t have children, but I

think if you have children, the freedom as well around sort of school pickup, drop off and and stuff like that. Um,

I think I think it is just being disciplined. Um, you know, having if you if you you’re if you take

holiday, it’s unpaid generally because you’re taking time time off, but you know, making sure you still do stuff

like that. Um I you know again being able to work from anywhere like I bring my I was on holiday with family earlier

this year and you bring your laptop with you and you know you might have to say to them I’ve got to go and do a couple hours of calls of you know but you can

sit on a sun lounger and do it and not feel guilty you know whereas I think in the past you would have felt guilty to

your family that you were working on your sort of paid time off and you you shouldn’t have been doing that but you there’s kind of like an understanding that you know this is your business and

your hustle and you you have to um but I think it’s it’s boundary setting um having the right client I think what I

love about it as well is um if something isn’t right, you can walk away from it.

You’re not bound to it. You know, if if you’re working with somebody Yeah. You know, you can say actually,

you know what, like this isn’t working like and you can still do that in a way that you retain a positive relationship, but it is that kind of almost try before

you buy sort of setup. you know you can see if you like them if you want to work with them likewise um I always build

three month review periods into everything I do so that we can have that moment to sit down and say how is this

working you know am I delivering what you expect like a probation period when it comes to hiring you can have it when it comes to

everything I have something very sim don’t think of it like that maybe I should but it’s always an initial three-month period before we like commit

for life yeah and quite often it can be actually this is going really well and we need more of your time and then you kind of have to figure out okay you know how do

I how do I juggle that um but I think if I would I’m a big advocate for like

if you have the ability to do it do it you know and if you’re sitting there thinking I would like to go into consulting or doing more fractional

stuff um I think as long as you can set yourself up with the right boundaries you have a support network who

understand you know there will be times you know I’ve been on calls at 1 2 in the morning because I’m working with US clients and trying to set up things with

you know um people in Japan so you you know you have to work with the client time you can’t you know say no I I want

it on on my time zone, you know, you have you have to be accommodating. Um, and I think if you have that then, you

know, that’s the largely the foundation for for success. Um, but it is it is

challenging and like you said, you know, there you get a real buzz when stuff goes right and you win things and you know, sometimes I come off calls I’m

like, “Oh my gosh, you know, I’ve had that passing chat with somebody and I didn’t expect it was going to lead to this and it has and that’s amazing.” And

then other times you might, you know, put your heart and soul into a proposal or something and then somebody says, “Oh, actually, do you know what? we’ve

decided we’re not going to do that, you know, and you you kind of have to to swallow that and think, okay, but

ultimately learn from it. But, um, I think it gives people, some people need the structure of a permanent job. For

me, I think I am a little bit of a moth to a flame. And I love the the sort of and I also love the fact that I get to

see and work on things that I would otherwise never ever have, you know, come across or had the opportunity to be

to be a part of. So, I think if that excites you, then you can probably be be pretty pretty good and effective at it.

Yeah, for sure. And one piece of advice on that is definitely just speak to people who’ve done it before because

they tend to be very open. You might not be able to get time from everyone, but if you ask 10 people, someone’s going to give you some time. And yeah, it’s the

mistake I see a lot of people make, which is surprising to me because I guess I’ve been lucky. I made that very

conscious decision early that I will join a community of other people doing it. Like find that community or just

find a few other people. Like I’m sure you Charlotte have friends who are in similar positions that you can talk to

about this stuff. If you don’t, you know, please get some. But it’s so useful cuz you don’t

Yeah, it’s a big shift when you go from working in a company, you have all the social network and then you have no one.

And if you work remotely, you might not even have a local community because you moved back in with your parents, which a

lot of people are doing now. So like get some friends online who are just going in the same direction. like it

will completely change it just changed everything for me. Absolutely. And I think I’ve seen I know

you’ve done a lot of this in events and um online and there’s other people that are running sort of bisdev discord

communities and you know even just being being part of that. Um, I know a few people that have done sort of meetups in

in London, you know, where for people who do work remotely, you know, where you can go and sit in an office together for a day and, you know, at least have

that interaction because that’s the other thing that can be it can be a bit lonely sometimes, you know, if you don’t have a day where you’re necessarily

working on calls and you’re just doing projects, you know, you don’t have that sort of company buzz that even when you’re working remotely, you would have

on a team’s channel, you know, where people are asking you questions about things that are not relevant to what you’re doing that day. Like that kind of

goes because you you’re you are on on your own. Um, so I think yeah, that’s that’s a really good piece of advice and

and this industry is is friendly like you know I think for the honestly people want to help. Um, I think it like

we said earlier you have to tow the line of when you’re pushing probably for asking for too much but you know there’s

a lot of a lot of people out there that will give you guidance on their journey how they found it. And I’ve definitely

had that this year cuz a lot of people, you know, who have been made redundant or decided to move on um have contacted

me sort of asking how I went about it. And it’s it’s nice and it’s it’s also I love celebrating other people’s success,

you know. So if people are doing it and doing it well, like good for them, you know, and and like you know, let stay in touch and you never know when actually

they there’s a lot of internal referrals that happen as well where nobody’s getting any money for anything. But you

know, I have it. People will come to me and say, “Oh, we’ve got this project. We need some assistance.” I might not have capacity. it might not be my area of

expertise, but I can say, “Oh, do you know who you should speak to?” And there’s nothing in it for me other than it’s just good to refer someone that,

you know, can do a good job and assist that person. So, that definitely is sort of like the hidden undertone, I think,

that happens with the consultancy stuff in in the industry that people don’t see where everybody’s sort of referring one

another and and making recommendations, which I think is also is also great. So, if you yeah, if you get yourself in a community of people, tell them what

you’re doing, what you’re about, um then you can kind of all help one another as well. referral partners and it can be

very big part of your strategy but it can also just be a nice side bonus as well. So yeah,

um Charlotte, there are so many things we can talk about and I want to take maybe the rest of our time

to like is there anything you feel like you need to get off your chest so to speak

or is there anything that you feel like we haven’t talked about that you’d love to speak about?

Um I don’t think so. I mean, I think more generally, I think consultants or

people in fractional capacities are getting a bit of a hard rap at the minute. I’ve I’ve I’ve definitely seen

that. Um I’ve seen some people sort of making comments that, you know, on meet to match platforms or um platforms, you

know, it’s just a bunch of consultants reaching out or it’s just a bunch of consultants attending. And I think people are hoping that, you know, they

they get to meet with, you know, the big shiny publisher or or whoever they’re looking to meet with that clearly isn’t on there for them. Um and I think it’s

important to remember that a lot of you know the industry has shifted and a lot of people that have gone into this space

um have done so because you know the jobs that they were doing before maybe aren’t there at the level they were

doing them at before or they or they want to change you know they want to impact all the knowledge they built up over their career and and go and work

with smaller teams smaller businesses in a way that they they wouldn’t have been able to do before. Um, and I think it’s

important not to just discredit somebody because they suddenly are setting up as a consultant, you know, having come off

of of a big job. That doesn’t um diminish their value or diminish anything um about them um because

they’re not in a in another big job. I think, you know, they probably have a lot more time and a lot more um information that they could give than

some people that would be in in big organizations because they’re out there sort of seeing more just by the nature of the job that they’re doing.

So, you’ve seen that, right? You see three or four businesses instead of one at a time. um when it comes working on

problems. Absolutely. And and I think also those people still have really strong valuable networks that they can they can lean

into, you know, if if if you speak to them and and advice, you know, that they can give. Um and I think it’s just um I

I I had it to be honest when I first started I a few comments um around sort of being being a consultant and it sort

of being I think looked down on that you somehow weren’t worth as much as as if you were working in a in a bigger role.

And I think um it’s just important to remember that they’re people. They’re hustling. They’re doing what they can in

an industry that’s changing and evolving. Um they’re probably learning more than you in some respects if you’re

if you’re sitting in a in a singular role. You know, they they there’s a large potential. So, I think

I’d just like to see some of the negativity towards it kind of dissipate a little bit and and actually just now

they are an intrinsic part of art and they always have been, you know, it’s it’s not a new thing. I think it’s just become become more prominent. Um, but I

think, you know, just support people and don’t sort of um discredit them just because they don’t have a big name

against their uh current position anymore because you don’t actually know who they’re working with. They could be

working with some of the biggest names in the industry, but they don’t. We had someone on the podcast who had a very similar situation. So he’s probably

fine with me sharing it, but we had Marcus Walding maybe a few months after he started consulting on the podcast and

now he’s working fractionally for Blizzard and like three other huge publishers. So now he’s like the person.

But when he expanded on the podcast like how he got these projects, he was just going to conferences and just having

conversations. So I think just for the people at home here like it’s a very important point you’re

making where I truly believe like having more conversations can solve pretty much

every problem like even if it’s healthcare you need to talk to someone to get better at it and I think anyone

who has any challenges like more conversations with people who know their stuff will never hurt and I think that

is almost like a blessing where there’s more people out there who have the time to maybe have that initial chat where

you there’s just so much I guess learning and opportunity personally now that I see the people out there right

now who are you know willing to give that time or chat to you. So yeah I think it’s yeah it’s a brave new world I

guess like load loads of things are changing. Yeah. And be kind because you don’t know um when you might be finding

yourself in a similar position and you know so I think Yeah. You know be they go they go free and then they say

hey Harry any help getting a job. I’m like here’s some resources but I remember how you treated other people back then you

know. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s and people remember you know they might not say it out outwardly but they they do remember

those experiences. So I think you always this age old thing is treat others how you wish to be treated. And I think in

in this market at the minute, especially when job security isn’t necessarily that strong, you know, even more so, you know, make sure that you’re you are

building that network externally as you said, you know, those conversations so that if you find yourself, heaven forbid, in a situation where you do need

to to pivot or change, you you have the ability to do so. Um, but yeah, that’s

probably the the one thing I can think of. I think there’s so many other things that are unsaid maybe in the industry that I I I don’t want to I don’t think I

should go into but um but yeah I think you know that and I I did a panel recently so it’s out there publicly but

I think I just want to see more um less safe bets and a little bit more you

know let’s let’s get the some of the risk back into what we’re doing you know at the end of the day we’re a creative industry you know we we should be

enabling teams to to flourish in creativity and not becoming sort of um large accountancy firms I think it’s

important that we we enable that to to still be at the core of what we’re doing. Beautiful. Beautiful. Charlotte, I’d

love to know maybe a bit of color. Maybe should have led with this, but you do so

many things. So, you’re the fractional CEO of Infinite Realms, but you also do

this with other companies. So, I’m just curious like um day-to-day, what does that actually mean uh for maybe someone

listening who wants a piece of that, wants a piece of wants maybe some of your attention?

Um, so I think it in terms of day-to-day, um, so I always say when

you’re working in sort of like more commercial bisdev, it’s quite hard to structure a day is like today is this day and you know because if somebody

wants a a call with you, you kind of have to. So I I whenever I like map out time that I’m spending on a client, I

say to them like this is not going to be that I’m doing like Mondays, Tuesdays, I will work across the week as an as in

how I’m able to given given what we’re working on at that time. And there are times when you know if you’re doing a day a week for somebody um it might be

quiet one week just by the very nature of what you’ve done the week before and then suddenly you might find it it ramps up quite significantly and you’re

actually then spending two or three days you’re kind of making up that time. Um and I think that’s very much working on a trust basis with you know if they can

see the output they can see the deliverables you’re providing what they need um I think then that that kind of

exists there you know for them to feel that they’re getting the value value for money and as I said um there can be times when that um time print can change

you know it might be that 3 months in they realize they don’t need as much of your time or actually we need we need more and how do you how do you manage

that um so I think you know at the minute um I’m I’m pretty um full in in

terms of what In terms of what I’m doing, I do a couple of things on the side as well with um like I’m on the Great Orman Street um hospital gaming

board. So, I’ve got other stuff outside which is non-paid that I I love doing which also takes up time. Um but I think

I’m always interested and open to hearing you know you know because it might not be that now is the right time but you never know in in 3 months time

something might open up when I’m finishing a project when I could come in and deliver something. um or I could um

potentially recommend somebody else I know who’s starting out in in a professional capacity or or working as a

consultant or even referring them into a business that they might be able to speak to um you know to to help with it.

So, I think even though I’m kind of, you know, you’re busy, I never ever take away um the opportunity to learn about

new projects or new potential clients or partners, um because it might be that right now isn’t the right time, but you never know in in sort of six months time

where that might be or or where that project might be going and and how you can be be a part of it. Um so, yeah, and

I think I’m just excited by anything that’s kind of um you know, has high growth potential. Yeah. passionate teams

um people doing things that are a bit different and where you know they need somebody who can come in you who’s got a background in publishing in service

providers you know with a network who can look at it sort of and say right how do we take this from here to here you

know how do we how do we get this to the next level and some of the stuff I’m doing is that’s from zero to something other businesses I’ve been working with

it’s from a found you know a solid foundation to like how do we go to the the next level um you know and grow it

even further so I think ultimately with me everything’s about driving revenue continue driving growth um but in a sort

of sustainable people first way um you know it’s kind of how I I guess I pitch

myself um which is again really hard to do and I’ve been doing this for a long time and I still don’t really know know how to do it so I don’t think you ever

get that perfect um but yeah so if if anybody finds himself in with those kind

of projects I’ I’d love to hear and if I can’t help then I’ll I’ll always try my best to to give some advice or find somebody who can

beautiful how can people get in touch um LinkedIn is always good Um or um my

email is charlotte@comultancy.co.uk. Um so I think that’s on my LinkedIn as

well, but LinkedIn is probably your best your best bet where I spend a lot of a lot of my time. Beautiful. Great. Charlotte, thank you

so much. Really excited to get this out there actually. All righty, Charlotte. Thank you so much.

Everyone at home, if you’ve enjoyed this, definitely go and follow Charlotte. She does she is active on LinkedIn. does some

very nice event breakdowns as well. And yeah, maybe subscribe, send this to a friend. All righty.