Grow Your Consulting Business - In Conversation with Jane Anderson

In episode 273 I welcome Jane Anderson, a globally recognised strategic communications expert, to Your Career Podcast, nine years after our first interview (ep77)!

Jane shares her journey of professional growth and personal transformation, offering valuable insights for female consultants growing their businesses.

With 20+ years of experience, Jane has worked with over 180,000 people to build trust and influence in their businesses and brands. Her achievements include:

• Top 3 branding guru globally
• 50+ industry awards
• Featured in Business Insider, Sydney Morning Herald, Forbes
• Author of 13 books
• Host of "The Jane Anderson Show" podcast
• Clients: Virgin Australia, Lego, Ikea, Rio Tinto

Jane's Journey

Jane reflects on her evolution since 2016, including winning the Australian Small Business Champion Award this year. She's successfully created a balanced business model aligned with her values, and thrives on supporting consultants to create businesses that align with their values and career aspirations.

Our conversation covers valuable insights for all consultants.

Female Business Community

Jane has created a supportive community for Australia's leading female B2B consultants, addressing isolation challenges:

"Building genuine connections and having a supportive network is essential for overcoming business growth challenges."

Mentorship Impact

"Female leaders pushed me to take on tasks beyond my capabilities. They saw potential I couldn't yet see in myself."

These experiences taught her to step outside her comfort zone to achieve growth.

AI for Small Business

Jane's practical insights for leveraging AI:

• Empower virtual assistants with AI tools
• Use CopyAI to repurpose content
• Maintain original thought leadership
• Implement effective prompt engineering

Growth Challenges

Common pitfalls:

1. Unclear messaging and positioning
2. Insufficient infrastructure
3. Underpricing services
4. Resistance to technological adaptation

Upcoming Events

• Content Creation Boot Camp: Bali (25-26 June 2025)
• Content Creation Boot Camp: Kingscliff, NSW (20-21 September 2025)

These two-day workshops help create a year's worth of content for multiple platforms.

This reunion episode highlights persistence, adaptation, and community in career building. Jane's journey shows how embracing change and continuous development leads to extraordinary growth.

Jane Anderson, Strategic Communication Expert

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 >>>  For career clarity and confidence, download Jane's career resources at janejacksoncoach.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Welcome

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

to episode 273 of Your Career Podcast. I'm delighted to welcome back to Your Career Podcast, Jane Anderson. Nine years ago, almost to this day, I interviewed Jane about her career journey and consulting business. Fast forward nine years and we catch up on all that's been happening in her world and highly successful business. Jane is a strategic communications expert with over 20 years of experience in corporate communications, personal branding, and business growth. She has worked with over 100 Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much. 13 books, including Put Yourself Out There, Elevate Your Presence and Increase Your Influence. And let's welcome the wonderful Jane Anderson to the show. Hi, Jane. Thank you for having me. We've got the Jane Jane show today. I know. How good can that be? And also, I just reminded you before we started, the last time I interviewed you was almost nine years to this day, 22nd of April 2016. You talked about your career journey and amazing business at that time. And so much has happened since then.

SPEAKER_00: 2:29

Isn't that incredible? I just can't believe that it's been that period of time. And 2016, I will always remember because it was the year that so much was happening in the personal branding career space. And that was my most hectic year that I ever had. So I have fond memories of that year. It was a crazy year. But I'm glad that you were in it as well. And then we got to catch up too and talk about all things career and personal brand no doubt at the time.

SPEAKER_01: 3:00

Oh, no, I remember 2016 fondly. My oldest daughter got married that year. That's right. And then nine years later, there are two married daughters and three grandsons. Wow. But for you, Jane, you've had a lot of amazing professional achievements and over 60 awards in lots of areas. And first of all, I must say congratulations on your latest award, the Australian Small Business Champion Award It looked like a glittering event and a lot of fun too.

SPEAKER_00: 3:32

It was a lot of fun. And, you know, my husband was with me and we didn't think they were going to read out the names because they started to read out the finalists. And I thought, oh, you know, I was like, oh, they're fascinating people. I'll just start eating dessert. I think I'm out. And then they called out and my husband and I jumped so high. I think he thought we'd won a Logie or something. It was great.

SPEAKER_01: 3:55

Oh, well, it's always exciting to see someone who puts so much Yeah. effort and energy and love into her business to be recognized for such great work so congratulations thank you award it's I wonder when the next one's going to come yeah oh who knows we'll keep doing what you do and you will but you know I just want to talk a little bit about on the personal side Jane you've had a lot of wonderful successes as well and happy things happen in your life for the past nine years do you want to just briefly talk us through that

SPEAKER_00: 4:28

oh thanks Jane yes well Well, I think if I go back to that sort of time, it was coming off, you know, during that time was so much speaking. There was a lot of I was on the road a lot back then and I hadn't. I hadn't got engaged I hadn't met my husband then actually so which was why I was on the road so much and then I met my now husband so we got married we obviously had COVID and a lot of change happened then we were supposed to get married during COVID and then had to move that out but yeah we've had a few changes of types of programs more specific type of work with specific type of people I was doing a lot of working with organizations and individuals at the time and and now I just specifically hone in on people who are experts in their field and yeah we got you know one of the dreams I'd always had is you know I said I just always would love a dog I've never been allowed to have a dog growing up no pets and so yeah we got to tick a couple of bucket list items and we we got a dog I've got the most stubborn bulldog in the world he tests all my communication skills to convince him to do what I need him to do but you know it's it's great you know that was a there was a lot happening at that time and i remember you know just a lot of late nights working really hard to to do the work we're doing and so i'm it's interesting to be on this side of all that work now to go yeah this is a bit better now like that was it was great everything was going really great but it was a lot of hard work so now it's still hard work but you know it everything's far more established now so it's uh a nice side of the fence to be

SPEAKER_01: 6:13

I think it just sounds so wonderful because having that wonderful balance in your life must just bring you so much joy because you know working very hard obviously it's very important too and you help so many people to thrive in their businesses but for you to have so much joy within your personal life and all furry friends are wonderful husbands are wonderful too yes and you know I'm a crazy cat lady but you are I know I I do admire your dog. He looks great. He's a rat bag. But a lot of fun as well. You know, Jane, let's talk through some of the things that have happened in your life and career and how it actually got you to here. Now, in episode 77 of your career podcast, you talk about your career journey. And so everyone can listen to the early days in that episode. But today, let's talk about your most pivotal moment in your career? Because you've experienced a number of transitions personally and professionally, but what would you say was the most pivotal moment in your career?

SPEAKER_00: 7:20

Yeah, there's so many pivotal moments, so hard to pick one, but I think the one that was... something that changed the course of a lot of things, I think, was really when my husband and I divorced, my first husband and I divorced. And, you know, I wasn't allowed to have a business back then. I, you know, he was, you know, while we're together, you will never have your own business. And that had been my dream since I was a kid. And, you know, so when, and I was, he was, I've no, You will always be the breadwinner. You will always have an income. I will get to do what I want to do. He wanted to do all sorts of things that were entrepreneurial things, but I wasn't allowed. And, you know, as soon as that happened, that divorce happened, I was like, right, I'm on my mission. So that was a really significant thing for me because and I you know, said no to a lot of things for some time to make sure that worked. I had to do a lot to just make sure of my independence and that I would be okay. And so I think that was probably the biggest one and that has led to where we are today. But, you know, there's lots of other things I had fantastic. I had incredible female leaders and bosses in my career who were really, they did wonderful things for me to push me into uncomfortable things and challenging things, but they believed in me You know, I think having a great leader, you know, always means the world and that you'll always do things that are pivotal and uncomfortable. But, geez, they've certainly led me down this path. And for me to have the confidence and belief because I've had great role models.

SPEAKER_01: 9:01

You know, I wonder if it's because you've had such great role models who have made such a positive impact in your life that now you're an amazing role model for all these women consultants working in business, they're becoming thought leaders through the programs and support that you provide to them. Do you think your early mentoring has really created that drive for you to help others as well?

SPEAKER_00: 9:29

Yeah, I think probably two things. One is having them as role models. I often think back, you know, there's often times I'll go, what would Tracy say or what would Fiona say, you know, if they were in this situation? So I do often think of them. But I also think of my parents. My parents are extremely hardworking. We grew up, you know, I grew up in the country and I didn't grow up with entrepreneurial parents, but they are extremely hardworking. They do not stop. They're nearly in their late 70s now and they still don't stop. They can outwork me and, you know, they'll still be doing things late at night and anyway. But so I think the work ethic I got from my parents, but the leadership skills I got certainly from my mentors and you're right, I I do draw on reflection of things I've learned from them. And if I'm thinking about, you know, I'm not sure what to do in a situation, I will always think back to them. I still have great relationships with them too. I'm still in touch with them. It's really nice to feel connected to them. And, you know, and I think you always, you know, they create a bit of a compass for you and your values because they're things that you've, you know, connected to with them. And that's why they got the most out of you. So, yeah, there's things that I'm definitely putting my clients into uncomfortable situations that they don't always, they hang on with white knuckles and think, oh my God, I hope she's right. So yeah, but you have to, you know, we're here to help transform people and, you know, they're not going to do that by sitting back and hoping that it all happens for them. Our job as a leader is to guide them and to, you know, help them go through that change that they are really looking for.

SPEAKER_01: 11:12

Yeah, I think because of your experiences too, Jane, because you have taken a leap of faith on a number of times. Okay, I don't know if I can do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. And sometimes we need that little bit of courage just to take that scary step in order to get to where we really want to be. You know, there's someone who I've always been been inspired by, and that was Matt Church, who you joined in the very early days, his thought leadership program. And that captured my attention because Matt Church in the very, very early days was a fitness leader. Yeah, in your world. That's right. Back in my days, the mid to late 80s through mid 90s, I was very much into fitness as well. And I did some of his fitness boot camps, which was incredible. And then now, going into thought leadership. What a wonderful trajectory. And so for you, Jane, you know, tell us about your experience going through the thought leadership program.

SPEAKER_00: 12:13

Look, Matt Church is, you know, someone who's changed my life. So I always admire him. So I worked with Matt for 10 years in Thought Leaders Business School. I was on faculty in there for that time. But I didn't know about Matt. It was that I met with someone here in Brisbane who was doing some work with himself and Christina Guidotti, a here up on the Sunshine Coast and I was at a stage in my growth and this was back in about 2012 and I was hitting a ceiling in my practice I just seemed to you know be going oh man like this is tough what like do I do online courses do I start speaking I don't really know what to do to get through this ceiling that seemed to be a bit of a block and and someone said to me oh you need to talk to Matt Church he does this thought leadership thing and and so that was how I met him. And as you said, he created a fantastic program, which is the Thought Leaders Business School. I was in the first group there. We had 30 of us on that first day. It was, but, you know, the things that Matt teaches and the process and the methodology around building a practice, what I really love about what he does teachers is about it's about creating a sustainable practice it's not about there's no you know awards for who does it the fastest and you know who's got the best topic or it doesn't matter it's whatever's right for you it's your journey and I love that he is able to see What I learned from him was being able to see, I learned a lot, but the biggest thing I learned from him was being able to see people's uniqueness and their wisdom and their knowledge and how to translate that into something that people will value and pay for.

SPEAKER_01: 14:09

And you do that for so many female consultants. We do now. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So very successfully, because honestly, what you've done to help transform other people's businesses has been absolutely amazing. So what would you say is your mission for your life and career?

SPEAKER_00: 14:28

Yeah, so my mission is actually, I haven't posted a few spots, but yeah, you can see a little bit of it off behind me, but my mission is to create the community of Australia's leading female business to business consultants. So thought leaders, consultants, advisors, you know, there's, I think what I have learned is that this is how it works here in Australia. It doesn't always translate globally. And because during COVID off the back of COVID, I worked with a lot of people who are overseas. I was doing some UK clients and the US. But one is we have fantastic talent here. Secondly, is that the way clients buy here quite often or the trends that are happening here are sometimes a little bit different than overseas. And that's often driven by legislation. For example, at the moment, respect at work policies that are in organisations, there's a lot happening in that space. So I I learned that actually the more relevant we are here, the better result we are. So I'm really grateful. I don't work with a massive amount of people. I work with people more intimately and I work with them for some time. I have some that have been with me for 10 years. And they're women who are, and I do coach some men as well. They come sort of one-on-one, but 90% of the people I work with are women. And you know, Jane, they are at the absolute prime of their career they've come out of this time and you see them all the time where they come out of you know they've done they've done the apprenticeship they've they've done the leadership roles they've they've done everything to the really the optimum of what is capable what they're capable of and now they've gone kids might have left home you know it's their turn now and so they're kind of going okay well how do I love what I do I don't particularly want to stop working and women are living a lot longer And so going, well, how do you have this life by design where you can do that work that, as Matt would say, you love the work that you love to do and do it with people you love working with and do it in the way that you want? So my philosophy is to help them have a lot of fun, which is about who you hang out with, the company you keep, fulfillment from the the work that you're doing and the freedom, creating the lifestyle, how you want to do it. And so, yeah, so now I think this is what I'm noticing is that they are finding a lot more fulfillment, joy, choice around how they want to live. So, yeah, it's an exciting time. And, you know, they can do it for as long as, They like, you know, we have some that have retired now. I've got one who a lady like Joanne Love, for example. So she's a Paralympics, she was the Paralympic Australian swim coach. And she built up a practice. She built up a big program that she sold off for multiple seven figures. And now she travels the world going on holidays and she speaks at the occasional swimming conference regularly. about high performance. So, you know, it's exciting when you see people make these courageous decisions and start to see the results of all their incredible work. It's really exciting. I get very excited for them. It's great. I'm

SPEAKER_01: 17:56

excited just listening to you. And also it shows that it's never really too late to begin, isn't it? No, no. Yeah, if you're a woman and you're coming into your own and now you've got the time and you might feel a little bit lost because you've always been employment or maybe you've been bringing up the children or maybe there's an area of expertise that you haven't tapped into and you think what's next going into a consulting business and then growing that and also creating more fun in your life if it's not fun I always say really what's the point because our careers are one aspect of our lives but it's such a big aspect of our lives that you've got to enjoy it and when you're successful at it as well then that makes it even more enjoyable So your mission is fabulous. What do you think, Jane, has been the most challenging for the clients that you work with?

SPEAKER_00: 18:53

Yeah, I think the most challenging thing is isolation. So it's a lonely game and it's very difficult to do it on your own and by yourself unless you have people around you who understand what you do. And that's why I created a community program. I was doing a lot of coaching and I still do that. There's the odd person who I work with who really doesn't need community. They've already got good networks around them. But more often than not, I find for a lot of women, they do a struggle. They love to get together though. They love that support network when you put it around them. So what I do is I create like an advisory board or a board of directors around each person. And so that means they've got people around them who understand what they're going through, can impart advice. It's not always just me. There's others who have experience too. And so I think when you've got that and you've got that social proof and validation around you, what happens is it changes their self-belief because they see something that one person does and they go, oh, well, maybe I could do that because I now know that person. And, you know, because, you know, you see these things on social media or they share that they've won these awards or whatever and they go, oh, they're so amazing, you know, I'm nothing like them. But when they actually know these people and they're in their community is that, you know, they go, well, how did you do that? And they're willing to share, you know, and, you know, that's what makes it a lot more fun because the confidence comes a lot quicker. But we also do things, social things, like we did a trip to New Zealand and we did a holiday thing. And so, you know, it's also what are the fun elements that it's not often you get to hang out with people who really understand what you do.

SPEAKER_01: 20:46

Yes. And being able to bring the personal side in, it means that you're not just developing business relationships, you're developing genuine friendships that will last a lifetime as well. That's fabulous. And when some of your clients are struggling, what is your process that you take them through to get to the other side?

SPEAKER_00: 21:09

Yeah, I think there's probably two different times where the biggest challenges are. One is startup where they haven't got the clarity of the messaging, the positioning, what makes them unique and just the infrastructure that goes in to making it all happen. So clarity is the first bit, you know, getting going. And then the second time where the biggest challenge hits is they're going through, they're often going through a growth trajectory. Their pricing is a to a certain extent, but now they're too busy and now they're burnt out. So that time is we have to bring in the right support, make sure that we can keep their practice progressing. And it's hard because they're heavy delivery and we're changing some of the the things happening in the practice it's quite a stressful time for them but I say it's the only time that is the there's this big speed bump that we have to get over that is at a particular time in the practice and I say this is actually the time where most people get stuck because they they don't know how to get through and get over that speed bump but we put a lot of effort into the support to get them through that speed bump systems support pricing all those things and then geez it's nice when they're on the other side of it

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

And

SPEAKER_00: 22:32

they can breathe a sigh of relief

SPEAKER_01: 22:33

until they can change things. That's it. They get to breathe. Yes. You know, with all the changes that are happening in the world at the moment, I mean, there are demographic changes, economic changes, technological changes. A big thing that has affected so many of the people that I work with, and consequently, there are redundancies and they have to reinvent their careers, is AI. Now, I always say it's important to grow and change and not stick your head in the sand and accept what's different it doesn't matter you know where you are in your career there will always be changes there will always be changes in your life and with AI affecting so many businesses some are afraid of it some are using it as a crutch now but others are learning how to use it properly as a tool what's your take on the changes that are affecting each and every one of us now because of AI

SPEAKER_00: 23:31

it's just Just incredible, isn't it, Jane? I can't believe the changes. We do an AI masterclass with the community every quarter and the things that I'm presenting is going, okay, well, here's the things that have happened in the last 90 days. It's just phenomenal. So key things are is most of my clients are solopreneurs. They have one to two staff. So we don't build big businesses. We're building very small micro businesses. So AI has been extraordinary in terms of building their capacity to get more done and not just them, but to be able to empower their support. So for many of them, they might have a VA or someone like that, a virtual assistant who helps them. Things like, for example, brand voice. So quite often an assistant might be trying to word emails or word some kind of, it might be, you know, social media posts for them. They don't know what to put in the caption. That takes a lot of legwork out of that for the expert. But what I've done for everybody is help them create their own brand voice in ChatGPT or Claude or whatever AI they're using so that it's not just them, but it's the team can tap into that brand voice, write things professionally, use the terms and the approach that they use. And the other things that we've been using is there's some great tools like copy.ai. Copy.ai is great if we have experts who have got, they might've written a book or even a whole series of blogs. And we can pull that out and repurpose that content with tools like copy.ai and it will automatically it has you know even things like a workflow you can put in you might say a chapter in a book here's a chapter and here's the Facebook post here's the LinkedIn post and it extrapolates that out of the content so the big thing is leverage and empowerment for the team and you know we've had like situations where people have been able so we're definitely what we're not saying is outsourcing the thought leadership we're definitely not not doing that, where it might be a little bit of brainstorming to come up with some prompts or ideas. But I'm still very much about it's your original IP. It's your thought leadership. You've got to know your stuff because you've got to be speaking on stage and running workshops and coaching programs and interviewed on podcasts. You've got to know what you're talking about. So we definitely have an infrastructure in place that they are genuinely coming up with their original ideas. But AI is very helpful in coming up with the research. Research was probably our biggest challenge in trying to do it quickly, but AI has also been really helpful for that too.

SPEAKER_01: 26:17

Yeah, I think the important thing is to understand how to do the prompt engineering so that it goes down the right track. And I've been experimenting recently. It's been really a lot of fun. Have you? Yeah. And I created a GPT that is based on my book, Navigating Career

SPEAKER_00: 26:39

Classrooms. So

SPEAKER_01: 26:40

I call it Jane Career Coach GPT. What it does, if someone asks, I mean, you can read the book and then you've got the information anyway. But I thought, why don't I put it into a GPT and see how it goes so when you ask it questions it pulls out the information from my book and I spent a year writing the book many years ago now and I've updated it three times since so it's still relevant but it makes it so easy for people and my mission I asked you about your mission earlier my mission is to make careers guidance accessible and affordable to everybody who needs it and so that is one way of fulfilling my mission it's like a tick off my My bucket list. And so even though I'm quite long in the tooth now, Jane, you can still teach an old dog new tricks. I love it. You're just

SPEAKER_00: 27:30

warming up, Jane.

SPEAKER_01: 27:33

Well, I'll probably go on. And as long as I can talk, Jane, I'll carry on into the 70s and 80s, I'm sure. But now, very exciting things happening for you. You've got all these events coming up, Jane. And I attended one of your fabulous events online during, I think it was January. the early days of COVID when I did a content creation boot camp. And now you've got two coming up, one in Bali very soon and one in Kingscliff in New South Wales. Lovely spot. So tell us about content creation boot camp, how it works and why we must all attend.

SPEAKER_00: 28:07

I mean, I can tell you why you must attend. It's fabulous. Yeah, you've been and we're still friends. So that's good. So people go, oh, boot camp. What are you going to do? It

SPEAKER_01: 28:16

works. It works.

SPEAKER_00: 28:18

Yeah, well, it really came about because I was struggling to get focus on my own thought leadership and IP and I would go and hide and come up with my content and then other people were struggling. Do you want me to book a room? And we started to do it together. So that's how it was born. And so we've had over 600 people go through the content creation bootcamp now. So I've been doing them since 2015 for some time. And And, yeah, the idea is we create a year's worth of thought leadership in two days. So that means we have people who get manuscripts of their books done in two days. They get all the– because building a thought leadership practice is about building out assets that can be repurposed and are commercially smart. So what happens is I find a lot of wasted content and a waste of thought leadership in people's practices. So this is about building the asset that can be repurposed into blogs, newsletters, podcasts, videos, social media posts, workshops, keynotes. So it's think once and then you can use often. And so it's all about leverage. And so the ones that we have coming up in Bali and then we have Kingscliff. So it's nice to be able to go away and have a few cocktails after a big day. So we thought we might try that this year. So, yeah, they're coming up and it's amazing. You know, I think... We work in 10-minute blocks, so they're really short, sharp sessions. And most people walk away realizing, wow, isn't it incredible what you can do with a bit of focus and to create something that is an asset that's commercial and for your business. And they can get it done in a couple of days. The beauty of it is we find, too, for a lot of women, we could do at home, but, you know, they go, but the washing machine's going, you know, kids need things, or there's too many distractions at home. So it's really nice to be able to get away and also hang out with other people who are doing it rather than sit by yourself in a hotel room. So looking forward to those. We have, and now that AI has come in, we use it to be able to help us with a couple of aspects of unpacking it. And so we've gone from actually unpacking on summer going. We've had two people break the record of 72 pieces of thought leadership in the two days now. So it's starting to pick up. But it's amazing what you walk out with. We have some people who have written their book in two days and it's all their original IP. We're not running everything through AI or anything like that it's not like if I asked you about the content could you talk to me about it you know it's not like it's all been outsourced it's all original IP all thought leadership and all leveraged yeah so it should be fun

SPEAKER_01: 31:11

it's such a powerful time going through your boot camp because I remember when I went through it initially I thought oh there's so much pressure 10 minute blocks I can't think and then you get on a roll and knowing that everyone else is doing it too I ended up with 52 wonderful ideas and And so that's a year's worth of content. Wow. Put yourself out there, elevate your presence and increase your influence. And I think for every entrepreneur, every consultant, that's what you want to do. You've got to be brave enough to put yourself out there, increase your influence, attract the opportunities you want and have a lovely life. That's the game. Yes. And, you know, it's a lot of hard work, but you know what? Hard work is thrilling too, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 32:22

It really is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love the quote from Pavarotti who said, you know, people often say to me, you're so disciplined. And he said, it's not a discipline, it's a devotion. And I think it's about your life's work. So it's more than a career, it's a calling. And it's about your impact and what you bring to the world and what you the biggest, what you can have the greatest contribution to the world.

SPEAKER_01: 32:51

And you know, you've made such a huge impact on me and so many people. So I want to say thank you so much. It's such a thrill. It really is a joy talking to you. And I enjoy it so much. And the fact that you've come back after nine years, I don't think I should wait another nine years. Thank you so much. Thank you. A wonderful Easter break too. Thank you.