Ep: 112 - Becoming Your Next-Level Self: Smarter Growth Strategies for Consultants with Jessica Fearnley
What if scaling your consulting business wasn’t just about making more money—but about making it work for you?
In this episode of Scaling Expertise, I am joined by Jessica Fearnley, a business consultant and expert in sustainable growth strategies, to discuss the real challenges consultants face when scaling their businesses. Too often, we chase bigger revenue numbers, assuming that more clients and higher earnings automatically lead to success. But Jessica reveals why that’s not always the case—and how growth can actually hurt your business if it’s not intentional. We dive into why traditional scaling strategies don’t always work for consultants, the common pitfalls of hiring and expansion, and the mindset shifts necessary for building a profitable, sustainable, and enjoyable consulting business.
If you're a consultant looking to scale without burning out, this conversation is for you.
Key Takeaways:
Bigger revenue ≠ bigger success. Many consultants increase their revenue but see little to no profit growth. Jessica explains why revenue isn’t the ultimate measure of success.
The hidden costs of scaling. More clients, more staff, and bigger contracts can sound great—but they often come with increased stress and complexity.
Hiring isn’t always the answer. Scaling doesn’t mean immediately building a huge team. Jessica shares how to assess whether hiring is the right move for your business.
Intentional growth is key. Sustainable success comes from a business model that supports your goals, lifestyle, and energy—not just higher numbers.
Mindset shifts for scaling success. Jessica discusses the biggest mindset blocks consultants face when trying to grow—and how to overcome them.
Resources Mentioned:
🔗 Visit her website at jessicafearnley.com
🔗 Avail her book - Too Much: How To Thrive Being More Instead of Settling for Less
Charity: https://baby-basics.org.uk/
Connect with Erin to learn how to Turn Your Expertise into Scalable Recurring Revenue.
Erin's LinkedIn Page: www.linkedin.com/in/erinaustin/
Scaling Expertise YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@Scalingexpertise
More About Our Guest
Jessica Fearnley
Jessica Fearnley is a business coach who helps women build seven figure consulting firms. She specializes in the transition from six to seven figures in turnover, and is an advocate for earning more by working less. Jessica has bachelor's and masters degrees from Nottingham University, and a career background in project management, business planning and business development in both the public and private sector. In December 2019 she was named as one of the LinkedIn Top Voices for Entrepreneurship and Small Business, and is passionate about closing the gender pay gap for women in consulting.
Find Our Guest
Music credit: Paphos by Mountaineer
A Team Dklutr production
Blog Transcript:
Erin Austin: Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Scaling Expertise, where we talk to experts who have scaled their expertise and can help you scale your expertise. I am very excited about this week's guest, Jessica Fearnley. Welcome, Jessica.
Jessica Fearnley: Thank you, Erin. A big fan, longtime fan of Jessica.
Erin Austin: The last time—we were trying to decide when the last time we were on the podcast together—and we think it was three years ago, but it could have been two years ago. In any case, lots of exciting things have been happening in Jessica's life and business since then, which we will get into. But before we dive in, Jessica, will you introduce yourself to the audience?
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah, sure. Well, it's wonderful to be here. I am Jessica Fearnley. I am a business coach for women consultants looking to go from six figures to seven figures. I live in the ex-industrial city of Sheffield in the UK, but 90 to 95% of my clients are actually in the U.S.
So yeah, I have been coaching for 10 years. Before I set up my business, I helped grow an occupational psychology startup—we grew it from six to seven figures and then the company was sold. That was a very exciting, exhausting chapter.
Funnily enough, I live in the same city now as someone who used to be one of my colleagues. We worked together probably 2011, 2012. I bumped into her last week in the woods. And we were like, "Oh my gosh!" It's the thing that we do—where I live is a very outdoorsy place. We all do our outdoor walking. And it was so funny because I've lived here for eight years and it’s the first time that we've actually bumped into each other. But we were literally saying, "Oh my God, wasn't that the most intense time? Do you remember how stressed we all were?"
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: I think very much that experience of growing the business, aggressively selling it, getting it ready to be sold—which I've always said to people is like selling a house but times a thousand—
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: —it really left an imprint. It made me feel, and I think this has been really foundational for the work that I do with my clients: “Let’s do it better. Let’s make it as easy as it can be. We can all do these big things, but let’s do it without you feeling like you’ve come to the brink of what you can cope with.” That’s very much been a key theme, a key priority for me in the work that I now do with my clients and have been doing for the last decade.
Erin Austin: That is wonderful. Thank you for sharing. And I will also say that Jessica's work really has been an inspiration for the transition that I made from working with big corporate clients to working with female founders of expertise-based businesses. I think you're probably the first person who I saw write about going from six figures to seven figures and really kind of like, "Oh yeah." So it has been wonderful to follow you and to get to know you over the years, so thank you for that.
Jessica Fearnley: Oh, thank you.
Erin Austin: So, as we get started—of course, this is the Scaling Expertise podcast—you have talked a bit about your expertise, how you transitioned... I’m trying to remember if I knew that you were part of an exit, which is always exciting, but that’s not what I intended to talk to you about today.
Jessica Fearnley: Exciting, yes.
Foundations, Transitions & The Road to Seven Figures
Erin Austin: I know, like I'm distracted by that now because I'm like, wait, did I know that? But let's talk about your expertise and how it has developed over the years.
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah. I mean, I started my career in project management. I did everything in a weird order. Do you know this about me, Erin? I actually had a job working for the National Health Service—the NHS in the UK—that I did out of school, which is unusual. I stayed at school until I was 18, got good grades, couldn’t quite bring myself to go to college. I applied to do English, and I was just like, I don’t know if I want to do English. I was in a rock band at the time as well—my poor parents. So I was just kind of like, "I don’t think I’m going to go to college," and they were like, "What?"
So instead, I got this day job. I was really fortunate while I worked there because they just realized quite early on— I didn’t know this about myself at the time—but they were like, "You are something special." And I was like, "Well, everyone can do what I can do. Everyone gets these kinds of grades. It’s not a big deal."
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: But they put me into a project management role before I left. So I did that job for three years, and then I did apply to college. I went to study history, and I think my parents were like, "Oh, thank goodness." But because I had that experience before studying, it meant that it was much easier to come out the other side. By that time I was 24, 25, because I stayed an extra year.
When I got to college, I loved it so much. I did a master’s degree after my bachelor’s, and I was like, “History is amazing. I don’t know why anybody leaves college. That’s crazy to me.”
Erin Austin: Oh my gosh.
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah. I mean, put me in a library reading room—I am in my element with the biggest stack of books. That was absolutely something that I really discovered about myself in that phase. But it meant that coming out of college, I did have that advantage of having really good degrees because I worked really hard. I really wanted to be there. I didn’t do it because I had to or because that’s what everyone else was doing. I went and worked hard because I loved it. It was very passion-based for me.
But yeah, I had this project management experience, so I went into an educational organization based in London. We had a wonderful office on the North Bank of the Thames. We always used to say, "If we ever get sick of this view, then we need to do something different," because you could see all of the sights of London through the windows.
In that role, I was doing business planning and business development. We had about 60 million pounds in government funding. We knew the government was going to change at the next election, and as it happened, we lost all of our funding overnight. So our job was to go around and make each part of the business self-funding, which lines up perfectly with what I now do. And I really loved that about the role. I found that a really fun thing to do.
From Passion Project to Purposeful Consulting
Erin Austin: Wow, that is so interesting. I want to go back to something that you said that you kind of glossed over—that you're in a rock band. For those of you who aren't watching this on video, Jessica has the most beautiful purple hair, and I know you're a singer, right? Because I think I've seen you, I’ve seen you’ve done release videos, you have a YouTube channel with your videos, right?
Jessica Fearnley: I do, yeah. It's very small, but yes.
Erin Austin: So don't forget to be a well-rounded business person and have that fun. And then the other thing was just this—this just struck me—as like, saying that you would study English. Which, as an American, when we think of studying English, it's something like elevated from the language that we use every day. Versus as an English person, they'd be like studying like, "I'm gonna study American." Like, what is that?
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah. That would be so funny, wouldn’t it? Well, that's the thing because we have a degree course called American Studies. And honestly, I think I would’ve loved that course. But it was seen as a bit of a—like a Mickey Mouse, kind of silly course. I could imagine that. I think at the time I would’ve loved American Studies. But yeah, I don’t know. Would you call it American literature? Because I guess it's English literature. That's what I'm really talking about.
Erin Austin: Yeah. Okay. That is so fun. Alright, so—so when did you flip into working with this—like working with B2B women and your professional services providers? When did that switch happen?
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah, I think it was funny because I came into—basically one of the—I think whenever you make a big change, like quitting your day job or starting a business, it's usually because there's some kind of milestone from life that sits with it.
So for me, I stopped working at the startup because I had a baby. I had a year of maternity leave. I was so bored, I didn't know what to do with myself. And, you know, it's wonderful to be in the UK and have semi-paid maternity leave. I found the transition into motherhood and the loss of my career— and I was fairly sure I was just going to become a stay-at-home mom. And then very quickly I was like, I’ve got to talk about some stuff. I’ve got to share these opinions. This baby doesn’t talk to me.
So I started thinking about what would that look like? And I knew I wanted something really flexible because I had this baby at home who just was completely gorgeous, but I really struggled to know what that would look like. I remember talking to a friend about it, and she was like, "You should become a business coach." And I was like, "Okay, what is that?" And secondly, like, "I can't just be like, oh by the way, I'm a business coach." But it turned out that I kind of could.
Erin Austin: Like, actually.
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah. So I started, while I was still on maternity leave, meeting up with clients just in coffee shops. And it was quite a few photographers and stuff like that in the local area. In those days, my business was very much in the town that we lived in. And I realized very quickly—there was a ton that I could do to help them make more money. There was a ton that I could do to help them work a lot less.
Probably one of the biggest things was like, "Look, you’ve got to put your prices up." Because I think all of us, if we don't know better, we tend to go in very low. But it was when I got to the end of maternity leave and was like, right, let’s do this properly, that I started to see myself more as a business consultant. And I was like, "Look, I do know quite a lot about business because of my career. I know a lot about growing and scaling because of this work that I've done with the startup." So I think it made me have that bigger vision.
But then, it was very interesting. Now that I look back, probably the first five years of my business, I was looking at these micro-businesses and really wanting to help those kinds of women grow their little tiny kitchen table business.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: But what I found is that what I wanted to charge—they didn't really want to pay. And I think a lot of us, we have that time of being like, "What is the fit for this?" And then one day it was like, "Oh my gosh, this is so obvious. It’s consulting businesses. Because that’s what I know about." That was a really powerful breakthrough, and that was kind of where my brand—which is still called Seven Figure Consultant Limited—that’s where that came from.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I went through a similar struggle about what the target would be for, you know, having worked in corporate for a number of decades and trying to figure out how to take what I know working with big companies to work with a different population. And then it's like, well, who works for these big companies? And it is experts. And more particularly for me, with that interest in having more wealth in the hands of women—working with the female expert with corporate clients—and like, ah.
But it does take some time to figure out what your niche will be.
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah, and kind of look at the landscape and be like, what is the best fit for this?
I find often for my clients, they’re nearly always ex-corporate senior leaders who are now ready to have an expertise-based consulting business. Very often, they're a lot more thought-through than I was, and they can come into it straight away and be like, "I do this, I’m going to do it at a high level."
But I think it's that definition of high level—what does it actually mean? Because usually, even with really professional, accomplished women like that—
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: —the biggest thing we need to work on is getting the price to the right level before we start. And one of my things actually that I almost insist on is that—I say to clients, "From now on, the standard thing that you offer is going to be a hundred thousand dollar consulting contracts." With, you know, the simple logic for that being, look, if you get 10 of those, you've got seven figures on 10 clients.
I actually saw an Instagram ad recently and it was kind of saying, "I'll show you how to create an expertise-based, seven-figure business with just 85 clients." And I was like, 85 clients? Joking. Wow. I should really say more about the fact that you can do it on between 2 and 10 clients.
Because that's the thing: if we can get this priced right for a corporate audience, there's no reason why you should have to have 85 clients. If you can do it on between 2 and 10, that changes the whole tenor of everything that you do.
Processing Corporate Exit & Redefining Business on Your Own Terms
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Well, I'm wondering what you're thinking. I mean, I feel like I've seen lately women who are leaving corporate, but not by choice.
Jessica Fearnley: Mm-hmm.
Erin Austin: And so either through downsizing or loss of funding. Maybe they hadn't planned it out because this was not their plan. Do you have any tips for them about how to get started? Because at a certain age, it makes more sense to go out on your own than to try to get back into the corporate world.
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah, and well, this is the thing. I would say that probably that pathway has been common for nearly all of my clients. And certainly for me, talking about these life milestones that can mean we make the big change—the reason I left my corporate career was because I had really bad burnout.
I loved the job, I loved the environment, but that kind of high-intensity commuter lifestyle for me at the time was just not a fit at all. I was aware that I had chronic health issues. I had really bad irritable bowel syndrome, but also just general exhaustion and mental health deterioration around the time that I worked in London. So at the point that I burnt out really badly, it was just like, "I can't go back and do this. It's not going to be something that works."
And it's been really interesting for me in my business, because that was a story I came into business thinking, "We probably just never need to tell anyone about that. That won't be relevant." But I remember maybe two or three years into my business, one day I went out on a limb and I told that story to my mastermind group. Firstly, everyone cried and said, "That happened to me as well." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, how have I not been telling this story?"
It is so powerful. So I would absolutely agree with you, Erin. Whether it's layoffs, being pushed out, chronic health—similar to what happened to me—or burnout or workplace bullying or just feeling like the pressure of corporate is too much… Actually, I think the pressures of corporate life in America are on a totally different scale to even what we see in London in the UK. I don't know how you guys do it. It's so intense.
I think the biggest thing is finding a way to process what has happened to us. Because when we are traumatized—and I want to use that word carefully, but also intentionally—it causes us trauma. When we've left a career feeling pushed out, feeling like we weren't good enough, feeling like we failed, all of those things can have a massive impact.
One of the things that I've done in almost every client engagement is we need to have some kind of debrief: "How are you doing? How is this huge, very negative, very traumatic event showing up in your business now?" And what can we do to mitigate it?
Because we often see all of these things that happen to women—not charging enough, not putting ourselves forward, not feeling qualified, imposter syndrome. And also overworking. As entrepreneurs we can just be like, "Ha ha ha, hustle culture—it’s what we have to do." But I think there's a significant link with not feeling good enough, feeling like we have to prove ourselves, feeling like we messed up, and now we’ve got to atone somehow for what happened to us in the demise of our corporate career.
I think it's really important to acknowledge the impact of that. Because we are often procrastinating—not because we don't have time or can't be bothered or are lazy. We attach those labels. I hear people say those things all the time as reasons why they're not doing stuff. But I think fundamentally, when there is unaddressed trauma still in our bodies, we might not feel that it's safe to go out and get clients, or put our prices up, or make significant changes.
When we feel that lack of safety, that dysregulation, we can end up in a place where it's very hard to move forward on anything. So I know it's a big thing—it’s not a quick tip—but I think we need to acknowledge: What has it been like for you coming out of that career and into your business? What things are not serving you that we can start to process and move forward?
Erin Austin: That's interesting. You're making me think about the fact that I have difficulty with time boundaries. I've worked remotely for 20 years, and I always felt like I needed to be so responsive. This was before people worked remotely. And that’s why—if you sent me something, I was here, sitting at my desk, sending it back. I needed to always be sitting here, ready to respond whenever it came.
Jessica Fearnley: It's like a hypervigilance almost, isn't it? Proving, "I am here. I’m paying attention." And you can't afford to have people think negatively of you professionally.
Erin Austin: I will say, when I get email responses—auto-email responses from people saying, "I only check email once a week," I'm like, "What?!" That’s all I do is check email. I'm just like, "How do you do it? How do you even relax into that?" Maybe that’s my unresolved trauma right there.
Jessica Fearnley: It's that kind of constant need to prove ourselves. And to be good enough. And this is a huge one for women—to avoid criticism. So much of the turmoil and the stress that we feel in business can be around not actual things that are happening, but fear of that criticism coming. Being thought of badly by the other person.
If we stop and think about it, it kicks in. You're like, "I'm not responsible for what other people think of me. I can't control that." And yet, when we haven't realized that, we spend so much energy trying to have other people not think ill of us. Anticipating that hostile response in all of our things.
What if I send an email and everyone hates me? What if I ask for a favor and people think I’m really annoying or selfish? And I think when we take the time to actually notice these thought patterns, it’s like, okay—no one is going to think that. But also: how much energy is going into trying to have other people not do something that we don’t know they’re going to do? And that’s none of our business anyway.
Erin Austin: Yeah. You know, some people don't believe in having women-focused businesses, but I think there are some things—like the ones you just mentioned: being pleasers, having difficulty with boundaries—that are not exclusive to women, but more prevalent in women. And there is benefit to having some offers, some programs, some masterminds that are female-only.
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah. Well, I think definitely for the client base that I have, most of my clients are sort of between 45 and 55.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: And a good chunk of the problems can also come from hormones. And in that phase of life. It's not that we ascribe everything to hormones, but that is a reality. People are just waking up to perimenopause and realizing, "Oh, the menopause is something that affects women." Yeah. I could’ve told you that five years ago. Because it really does start to change everything.
Things like heightened anxiety—especially if you’ve not been an anxious person before—these can have a huge impact. And it’s not that we throw our hands up and say, "There’s nothing that can be done." But we need more tools, more support, more focus so we can weather those storms that are often going on outside of our business.
Rethinking Scale: From Trading Time to Leveraging Results
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm. Right. So true. All right, let's talk about scaling. And so you, of course, say, you know, work less and earn more. Everyone seems to have a different definition of what “scale” means. What's your definition?
Jessica Fearnley: Ooh, I love that question. First of all, I am starting to prefer the word leverage to scale. Because scaling can be very—I agree with you completely. I think people have fixed ideas about what it is. And some people are like, "Scaling? Ugh, I hate that." And it's like, "Ugh, what even is it? What are you talking about?"
So for me, I like to use the word leverage because it's about starting to produce more results than I can do in the hours that I have. We have this way of making money, don’t we? And often we can run this model until we hit the low six figures—of like, I have 40 hours, therefore I shall sell my 40 hours for an hourly rate. But we hit that ceiling very quickly.
So I usually start working with clients when they're in the low six figures—sort of $200,000 to $300,000 per year in revenue. And the reason they need my help is because they're like, "I'm out of hours. I'm working 50 to 60 hours a week. I'm exhausted. I hate my life. I hate my business."
It can be that meeting fatigue—that pattern so many of us had in corporate: meetings from 8 to 6, and then trying to get your actual work done outside of those hours. I find that people completely import that and bring it with them into their business, even though they don’t think they want to. Again, it's this unconscious thing that we do—like, do you have to be at your desk at 8 or 9 in the morning?
Personally, for me—because of time zones and working with American clients—I start working at two in the afternoon, because everyone's asleep in the morning. Which has been great for my work-life balance.
I think, similar to what you were saying with remote working, Erin, you don't actually need to be accountable for your nine-to-five existence. Your clients don't need to know where you are and what you're doing, as long as you are meeting your obligations to them.
So I think the whole area of scale and leverage, for me, is about starting to do it on our own terms. And to say, you know what? It’s not about the hourly rate anymore.
Some industries—they will always want to do hourly rate and that is what it is. But I think it's about saying: what is the end result to the client? What is the value of that result to your corporate client? And pricing your work in line with that.
And that’s how we get to these six- and multi-six-figure consulting contracts.
Erin Austin: Mm. Right. I love the word leverage too. The root word is lever, right?
Jessica Fearnley: Terribly true.
Erin Austin: Yes. And that is a tool that increases force—and therefore, less input to get increased output. So I like it. It's very powerful. I do like that one as well. Thank you for that.
Wanting What You Want: The Real First Step in Leveraging Your Business
Erin Austin: And so when you are working with your clients on deciding how to leverage their businesses, what is the first step in that?
Jessica Fearnley: The most important thing is understanding: what do you actually want and why? I'm not one of those people who's like, “Your big why—your why is the most important thing.” I never say that. People are like, "My why is my children." And it's like, I love my kids. I am my own why. Of course, my children are so important to me, and a lot of what I'm doing in my business changes life for them as they experience it.
But I think feeling that connection... If you want seven figures because you want your parents—who never approved of you growing up—to be impressed, that might not be a great reason to do it. Because it can be a very hollow thing to achieve. And often with these family patterns, you could go to the moon and they still wouldn’t be impressed.
Because that is the pattern. And learning that what we do isn't going to change that. It’s something that belongs to that family member, and they’re the one who can do something about it. But I think understanding: why does this goal matter? Why does this goal feel aligned?
Once we find the alignment, that creates a lot of energy—energy that gives us the inspiration to ask, “What is the quick path to achieving this?”
Because something I notice in my work with women—and I’ve done this myself in my own business—is that sometimes there's a path I could have taken that maybe would've got me to my goal in six months. Instead, I took a three-year detour. And so often, there’s a really clear thing we could do. And this is where the safe/unsafe thing comes in, because it's like, "Oh, I don't want to do that." So we make up all this nonsense with ourselves about like, "I couldn’t possibly do that because my children need me to read to them after school."
And we make up all these justifications. Which—sometimes kids do need those things, and sometimes there are seasons where we’re more needed at home or needed to look after parents, or whatever it might be.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: But what I see is: when that’s a story we’re telling ourselves so we don’t have to face the fear of just taking a simple step forward into what we want...
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: You know, I think linked to that, there can be so many things where it’s like, “I don’t actually believe I can have what I want.” So of course it feels like the only thing I can do is take the long way. Because we’re grappling with this thing the whole time: can it really be that simple? Can I make money? Can I out-earn my old career? Can I out-earn my husband? Can I out-earn everyone on my street?
I think this feeling of plausibility is so important. Because if we haven’t understood that what we want is very normal—that’s a really big thing I want to say to all women everywhere:
Seven figures is not a big deal in business. Most small businesses in your town or city are doing 2 million, 5 million, 10 million.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: It’s a really normal thing, and we shouldn’t feel like it’s this weird thing. But I do think that online, in lots of women entrepreneur groups, it can be a bit of a taboo thing. And I’ve created quite a lot of awkward moments when I say, “Oh, my brand is Seven Figure Consultant.” Because people are like, “What? You can’t say that.”
And some people get very upset about seven figures because of all this pressure and societal programming that women go through—of like, we should be the sacrificing ones. We can’t have what we want.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: So I think there’s always a lot there. And when we can start to deal with some of these deeply held issues, actually the strategy is far less important. And I do a lot of strategy work with my clients, but I think over and above, the biggest thing is:
Making sure they can actually cope with allowing themselves to want what they want—and also receive what they want. Those are often the biggest blocks.
Erin Austin: Yeah, I agree. Mindset. I think we undersell the importance of mindset. And there are so many other things, other than just the numbers, that can get in the way of reaching our goals.
Navigating IP Boundaries in the Age of AI
Erin Austin: So let's talk about intellectual property—my favorite topic. You are someone who's very generous with your knowledge, obviously podcasting for many years, LinkedIn Top Voice. And I get too many requests, frankly, about how do I gatekeep my IP. What are your thoughts about that?
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah, I think in today's world, especially with the advent of AI, everything is shifting again at the moment. Issues like: are we happy for clients to put our call recordings into ChatGPT and create summaries of things? Because that could arguably be giving away our IP in ways that we're not happy about.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: But can we stop people from doing that?
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: I had the experience when I was researching my book of thinking, "It'd be really good to understand the landscape around some of these ideas." I typed it in, and AI pulled up one of my LinkedIn articles as the leading source. I was like, "Oh. That's weird—and a compliment—and a bit scary."
Erin Austin: That’s interesting. Considering there's billions of—
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah. I think it’s one of those moments where you’re like, “Apparently I am the authority on this topic. Great.” But I think that’s the thing. What I would say is that IP as we have come to know it—and I bet you have a ton of interesting insight on this, Erin, with your legal expertise but also your focus on AI—I think AI is changing the landscape in this area.
I don't think that we need to fear it particularly. One of the big things I’ve noticed is that AI can be incredibly wrong. I had the experience recently where I was trying to remember a book I’d read like 30 years ago—it was a novel—and I was saying to AI, “Is there a novel where the characters are called this and this, and this kind of happens—what is that book called?”
And it created the most crazy stuff. During the process we had maybe four rounds of back and forth. It suggested different books, and I was like, “I don’t think it’s that.” It actually helped me to remember what the book was called, and I said, “It’s this book by this person.” And it said, “Oh, of course, I’m sorry, I just got carried away.” I was like, “You got carried away being unfactual—that’s really interesting.”
I think it’s fascinating for all of us to be in this Wild West phase, where we’re testing these things and we’re not really sure what the risks are.
I actually said this to a client the other day—it’s almost like there’s this iceberg model we can think about. There’s the sea level, the ice sticking out over the top—that is the stuff you talk about without abandon. That’s the stuff you don’t gatekeep. You are happy to say all kinds of stuff about it. Loads of things can fit in that category.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: But then there’s this other category which is below the line.
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: I do think it’s interesting with the coaching calls and AI thing—because is that taking the content of our coaching calls, which I would consider to be below the line of what I share publicly?
However much I say on my podcast, on other people’s podcasts, and in my written content, there is so much more that I say behind closed doors with clients when we’re working specifically on their particular business.
I’ve always seen it that way—there are things we can say very openly, but then there’s also a massive expanse underneath the surface that I’d be more cautious about teaching in a public forum. Especially now that I know my article, that I happened to write myself and put on LinkedIn, is now being used as source material for a particular topic. No one has come to me and said, “Hey, can we have your permission to do that?”
I guess you could argue that the terms and conditions of certain platforms might make it clear they’re going to do that, but there’s not that direct permission in the way there would be if I’d written it in a book instead of on the internet.
Erin Austin: You said a lot—I almost want to address everything you said there. But I’ll say this: when you're recording a client call—and it will depend on which version of AI you're using—if it’s Otter, for instance, they do tell you they use it as training data. Versus if you’re using Fathom, they say, "No, we do not use it for training data." So it is important to understand the terms of use for whichever platform you’re using.
And the fact that—I don’t know if it was ChatGPT or which one, I think you said it was ChatGPT that kicked out your LinkedIn article. Was it Chat?
Jessica Fearnley: It was the Google one.
Erin Austin: Oh—Claude? Gemini, maybe?
Jessica Fearnley: Gemini.
Erin Austin: Okay, yeah. That does not make it public domain. It’s still your copyrighted material. So you did not lose any rights in that. They still need your permission to use it. I'm curious—when we get off, I'm going to get your prompt that you used and see if I can duplicate your result. Because I like that example.
Jessica Fearnley: I mean, it was a wonderful compliment. I was like, “Oh wow.”
Erin Austin: Thank you for the authority boost. That is the highest authority—considering all the billions of data points they have to choose from, they’re like, “Jessica’s got exactly the thing.”
Embracing “Too Much” — Jessica’s New Book on Owning Your Bigness
Erin Austin: So speaking of intellectual property, I know you have something very exciting happening in your business right now. Can you tell us about it?
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah. I will hold it up for the people watching the video version. My first book just came out.
Erin Austin: Congratulations. That is fantastic.
Jessica Fearnley: Thank you. So the book is called Too Much. It's written for women consultants and entrepreneurs who have that kind of spark of like, "I would like to go really big with my business. I would like to create a seven-figure business."
And this is something that I’ve really come across in the years that I’ve been speaking to women entrepreneurs, and particularly women consultants. Quite often we have felt like too much our entire lives. And there’s been quite a lot of memes over the last few years—"If I’m too much for you, you’re welcome to go find less"—you know, that kind of slightly sassy thing.
But it really lodged in my brain as just being a real kind of theme for me and my life. And when I spoke to my clients about it, they were like, "Oh my gosh, I am so too much."
There’s a complete kind of excavation in the book of what that means—how it often comes through giftedness, how it’s a good thing, and how it can be both a blessing and a source of stigma.
Are we special because we're too much and we're gifted? Or are we kind of stigmatized—slightly shunned by our peers at school and even at work? Are we the one who always kind of gets picked for stuff? It can be seen as annoying, can't it?
Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jessica Fearnley: When there's someone at work and they just—whatever they do seems to turn to gold, and they get all the opportunities. And so it’s this weird thing of like, "Oh my gosh, I’m so lucky to be gifted in the way that I am." I think a lot of women who end up being consultants—we’re the ones with that ability to just look at something and be like, "The problems are here, here, and here, and this is what you need to do about it."
But if we don’t hold it correctly—if we feel like we are to blame for that—we want to make ourselves smaller. We are having that push-pull experience of: "I want a big life. I want a big business. But I’m also scared to be accused of being too much."
And it links back to what I was saying before about anticipating that hostile response from the world. So the book is really talking through that, but it also gets really practical about: how can you hold a big business vision? How can you make sure you’re pushing toward that consistently, even when you're getting pushback internally from your inner critic?
Sometimes we’re getting the pushback from the world, from our families, from people who just don’t get it and are quite triggered by us wanting to do these things. But the book also talks about our experiences of trauma and how that can show up in business—and why we need to do that work in order to hold space for the big vision and the big version, and turn it into reality ultimately.
Erin Austin: Fantastic. Well, wonderful. Very valuable for everyone. I will put a link in the show notes. Are you selling it in all the places?
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah, we are selling on Amazon. But we have a special link we can share with you, Erin. It means that anyone from around the world can press on it, and it takes you to your Amazon—rather than like the UK one or the USA one. It means you can be geographically matched to your region.
Erin Austin: Fantastic. We will add that. Thank you, Jessica. It has been such a delight to have you back on and to catch up with you. And everyone—please connect! I know you're on LinkedIn. Where else can people find you, Jessica?
Jessica Fearnley: Yeah, I’ve been on LinkedIn for a long time. I love it on there. I’m newly on Instagram. My handle is @sevenfigureconsultant—and I’ve managed to get it all in words. I was like, "Yes!" Oh, that’s so good. So yeah, do come and find me on Instagram. I do daily content on both platforms, designed to just be inspiration for women who are going through trauma, trying to build a seven-figure business. Yeah, come and find me on those platforms—I would love to connect with you.
Erin Austin: Excellent. Well, thank you so much, and I hope we do it again soon.
Jessica Fearnley: Thank you.