Escapee Curious? The 6 Stages and How to Get Unstuck

Brett Trainor (00:00.392)
One thing's become crystal clear to me is that there are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of GenXers stuck in corporate, but either don't think they have any other options or maybe they realize they have options but are not sure if they're qualified or even how to get started. So today I wanted to outline what I've found to be the six stages of the escapee journey and more importantly kind of outline and talk about

how to get unstuck at each of those stages. Obviously some of the earlier stages, it's much easier. You can fly by once you create some awareness and I'll get into that. But more importantly, as you start to get closer, what are some of those blockers and how do you eliminate those blockers so you can pursue it? Again, I'll preach knowledge is power. It doesn't cost you anything to learn. And if you've realized this isn't for you, then stay in the corporate, but...

The one thing that I've learned, especially from TikTok of all platforms is there is a lot of people that this resonates with and they want to figure out how they get out. I'll give you the example. Just in three months, I've gone from 10 followers, all family and friends, mostly just family, to over 20 ,000 on TikTok and that's growing rather quickly. And it's the universal theme is...

folks that want to get out of corporate but don't know their options and or don't know how to get started. So I want to use this episode to highlight some of those stages and again how more importantly to to get out of it. So depending on where you are in your journey it's going to keep like I said I'll move through this parts of it fairly quickly but spend a little bit more time and share some examples in some of the different stages. So.

With that being said, I'll outline the six stages as I see them, right? So this is my opinion. One of what I went through, but then more importantly, two, the folks I've worked with, three, what I hear on TikTok. And now from the community, we've got 250, as I'm recording this, escapees right in various stages. So I see it firsthand. I hear firsthand exactly where they're at, what their concerns are.

Brett Trainor (02:24.466)
and how they're getting through it. So with that being said, let's go to stage one, which is awareness. And that's an understanding that you have options outside of corporate, right? I think the thinking was if I'm corporate, either I've got to start a, what call it a traditional business, right? I open a cafe, a restaurant, start a software company, the Google, the fact is you have a lot more options too. You're curious, you're exploring options, but doubtful that they would actually work.

where you either don't have the experience, I don't know how to get customers. Three, where a lot of folks are is interested, definitely want to go forward or consider going forward, but are either fearful, again, not knowing how to get customers, not knowing how to get started, which is a big one, because there is a lot of different things and you just, you know, getting that one foot in front of the other can be the hardest part sometimes.

So I would label those three as the pre -escape. Because again, this is still part of awareness, curious, interested. It's still educational at this point. You're starting to build. You're starting to understand and consider what your options are. And I wrote a last newsletter. I talked about this step, if you will, between steps of stages three and four.

is literally taking action. A lot of people get frozen at interested, but never do a single thing after that to take action. So I highlight specifically taking action means, you know, talk to potential customers, test different offerings, right? There's some things you need to do before you get to that. But taking action is the single biggest difference between folks that stay in corporate and not. There's not a lot of folks that actually have taken action that end up.

going back into corporate. So I'll spend some time on that. But so the three, what I would call post corporate, even though stages four and five you can do and maybe you should do while you're still still have a corporate job is actually now starting to figure out what that post corporate life looks like. So stage four is learn and earned. Right. You're going to take your first step, sign your first customer, earn that first dollar.

Brett Trainor (04:43.314)
It's crazy how once you build just a little bit of confidence knowing that you can build somebody and they're going to pay you for it. How that helps, like I said, not only grow confidence, but your business too. So this next step after learn and earn is grow right now. You've got, like I said, you've got the confidence, you know, you think you can do this. Now you're going to go sign, you know, one, two or three more clients. You're starting to grow.

but still in this stage, you probably feel a little bit like an imposter. Like, is this really what I can do? Do people really want to hear from me? Again, I can speak from experience. That's exactly where I was. And then ultimately, you know, control and freedom, right? You know, at this point that you're not going back. You know how to make money. You know, you can figure out how to do it. And right there, the corporate world is a distant memory.

So that's where we're all striving to get to is stage six. I think I got there about six months ago, maybe 12 months ago, where like I said, I knew I had the confidence. It was beyond the grow that this is where the world that I was going to play in. So we'll get into a little more detail on that. So do I have any estimate of how many people are stuck on take action? No, but if I had to guess, it's probably gonna be more than 50%. So just wanted to re -highlight. So let's go back to.

Stage one of awareness. Again, I think I didn't realize this world was out there. Call it five years ago when I left corporate. You know, I tell people all the time, hindsight's 2020. I didn't have a plan and I really didn't build a bridge, you know, from the corporate world to the solo business world, right? Whether that's fractional consulting, combination of three advisory teaching, et cetera. The world's.

pretty wide open for you to figure out how to monetize your revenue. But like I said, back when I was in stage one, I had no idea. I thought, man, I'd have to start a company. I don't know if I want to start a company, but I knew I had to get out. Two, I went through the curious stage pretty quickly. Once I started to realize there were opportunities out there that energized me more than anything else to figure out what else I could do. Like I said, when I left,

Brett Trainor (07:08.018)
corporate, I was in management consulting and started my own consulting firm called a firm, a solo consultant. And, you know, kind of, you know, had a path from that point forward, but I really didn't know that there was another community or communities of consultants out there. I didn't realize there were communities of fractionals out there. I didn't realize there was communities of freelancers that were already in this world. So, um, maybe it wasn't as defined at that point in time.

but just realizing that there were other folks out there was super helpful. Stage three is you get interested. Again, if you have corporate, you're gonna fly through these because you have to make money. And so whether you're aware, curious or interested, you just figure it out. But if you're looking to kind of take the baby steps in what I'll call the escapee side hustle, right? Where you build and plan a lot of this before you exit.

corporate you're doing this on your your free time on the weekends and maybe 10 hours a week you can start to build what your future looks like and even pick up a few smaller customers that you can manage again outside of corporate you don't want to jeopardize conflict of interest those types of things but there's definitely work and types of work that you can do while while still in corporate I'll get into that so sorry for that little sidebar but

You know, those are the things I think a lot of people are in the interested stage, but they can't convince themselves that they can do this, right? Or they don't have the confidence or I'm not going to be able to sell. Nobody's going to want to buy from me. But the fact is, you know, I've, I've learned, um, again, doing this for four plus years now that you just have to be a step or two ahead of the people that you're going to help. And that's where you're going to provide the most value. So if you've been in corporate doing a job for 10,

15, 20, 30 years, you've got experience that others, business owners, small businesses, they're gonna want. So the first one is really just getting the confidence that you have that skill and that you can absolutely do it. I talk about courage and confidence all the time, right? In corporate, we had a ton of confidence. I can do this job. If you've moved into multiple companies, you already know, right, that...

Brett Trainor (09:30.93)
You know how to do your job. You just got to navigate through the corporate a little bit, but you don't have that same confidence when you're going solo, even though if you have the skills, you have the network, you have everything there in front of you, you may be lacking that confidence. And that's where courage comes into this, right? It's going somewhere that you may not be comfortable. But again, trusting the process and trusting what you had done. You know, I love one of our students had talked about.

He's like, the fact is at this stage, I just have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And like I said, decades in corporate teaches you how to get very comfortable. You may be frustrated, mad, micro -much, all that other stuff, but yet you're comfortable in that world. I was, right, doing it for decades. You know how that works. So it's finding the courage to take that next step and figuring out exactly how to get started. So again, those are the pre...

Action stages right awareness curious interested and hopefully that'll help you think through and get interested that there is a market for your services You can do it and the risk of you doing this can be super low, right? You're gonna have some conversations with some folks you're gonna get feedback on whatever your offer is and Again, you can do this on the side before you go full, you know full plunge into if you have the financial

runway to do it and you want to go all in, absolutely you can. But if you're a little more risk averse and you want to test it, you know, this is, this is definitely the path. So stage four is learn and earn. We're going after you want to find that first customer. And usually it's smaller engagements, but my, my recommendation to folks in this stage is, you know, kind of the one, one, one pick one customer segment, right? Cause one of the dangers we have is,

believing that we can what we can, support and provide service to a bunch of different customers doing a lot of different things. But in order to get started, to get that traction, to help your network remember what you're doing, pick one. So whether you want to go after nonprofits, so you want to be a nonprofit person that helps them grow their business from a million, I guess nonprofits wouldn't necessarily grow their business, their donations from a million to three million.

Brett Trainor (11:53.682)
and you help on the operation sites, putting processes and helping CEOs or founders or directors of these nonprofits do that. So, you know, one business, one audience, one offer, right? Keep it simple until you get the momentum. You can be absolutely opportunistic and take on other jobs, if you will, as they come to you. But I found that a lot of the folks that get stuck in this stage,

are trying to do too many things. They're not getting traction because nobody's referring them in because they don't know exactly or they don't remember what they were doing. So be super specific on this. Like I said, it's one offer, one problem that you're solving, one audience you're solving it for and start from there. If you're not getting the traction, tweak it a little bit. The beauty of going solo and being independent is you don't need a ton of customers, right? If you can get five,

customers you're gonna do really well for yourself. 10 maybe max depending on you know what your offering looks like but you're not looking for 20, 100, 1000 customers. You don't need big marketing budgets. You don't need all of this. You just need to be super specific about what you're doing and be super targeted with your networking and even referrals in some of your outreach. So that's stage four, learn and earn.

You have stage five is where the confidence really starts to grow. If you start landing multiple customers, you get comfortable on how to do the delivery. First couple, you may have a plan, but you're going to end up winging it, right? Whether it's advisory or if you're fractional, you have an outline in what you think you're going to do, but you're going to learn. You're going to learn where the value comes from. You're going to learn from what the customers really need. And...

The important thing to remember during this stage is you know more than these business owners do. And so they're looking to you and you may find it. I did find it absolutely refreshing that, you know, somebody was actually listening to you and wanted to hear from you and wanted your advice, right? That's just to change into it. So I know. And again, living through this, that stage is the imposter syndrome is real, right? Do I really know how to add the value? Am I really doing this? The fact is, yes, you are.

Brett Trainor (14:14.802)
you need this help and just keep in mind that again, if you're, you're a couple of steps ahead of whoever you're helping, they're going to find that, you know, invaluable to, to what you're doing. So like I said, this is really about growing, um, not only the financial aspect, but also the confidence. And you're going to start to figure out what you like to do, what you don't like to do. Just a quick example. I said, when I left corporate, I started consulting. I did that for about a year plus, uh, as a solo consultant.

and realize that's really not what I want to do anymore. Project plans, chasing down stakeholders, almost everything was virtual. Even though I was adding value, it just wasn't exciting to me. Then I stumbled into fractional leadership as a chief, fractional chief revenue officer. That was definitely much more appealing to me at the time because you're adding value. Like I said, I've had posts and...

podcast about fractional, but basically you are part of the team, but just on a part -time basis, but you add value. I said, it's the best bits of corporate, right? The strategy and doing the job that they hired you to do without all the unnecessary meetings, politics. You still may have a little bit of the politics, but for the most part, it's really focused on what you do best.

And from there, I expand and realize that I can monetize in other areas, right? I could actually sell and help smaller brands, either products, solutions, or services into my network, right? I'd have to have confidence in what they were doing, but I was able to make introductions and sell their services to folks I know. And again, you can get anywhere between 10, 15, or 20 % commission referral fee for helping people.

sell their products. So that was an additional revenue line. Then I discovered that the ability to coach, right? Some younger folks that were again, a couple steps behind and all of a sudden I had diversified revenue streams and my confidence was growing. That's let's go to stage six, which is the control and the freedom. That's when, you know, when the light bulb goes off and you're not chasing that fear or doubt. I shouldn't maybe not fear at this point.

Brett Trainor (16:35.954)
doubt that am I going to have to go back? Am I going to be able to make this work? Once you get over that hump, man, that's the Holy grail, right? You know, you can make money, you can test, you're starting to experiment with different revenue streams. Again, my example of right 90, you know, last October, 95 % of my revenue was coming in through the services, the fractional, the reseller, some of the advisory work that I was doing.

Uh, but then, you know, my, the passion project, which is this, the, the customer escapee or the corporate escapee, not the customer escapee, um, found some traction, right? I, it resonated with a lot of different people. And so I'm not really starting to marry what I'm super energized about and helping people and figuring out how to, uh, grow this side of the business, which is new for me, but I do know, you know, in my heart of hearts, if I need to go back and figure out how to make money.

I now know how to do that and where to find those customers, et cetera. So stage six is where we're all trying to get to. And I wouldn't say it's complete comfort and you're just gonna go on easy street. Cause I think we all still have those self doubts that what happens if this goes sideways, you know, or what are we gonna do? But I can tell you and the folks of you in the audience that are at stage six and have that know it's a...

It's a good feeling, right? It was worth it, the time, the effort, maybe a little bit of the risk to get there, but it's absolutely doable. So if you look at those, just to kind of recap those six stages, you can fly through one through three, right? Just to remind you again what they were, the awareness, curious, interested, you know, can go pretty quickly.

a lot of people get stuck in three without actually taking interest and you could be there for a year or taking action years or maybe never do anything about it. So this is hopefully a push for you to test it, right? You can always test it and you go back. There's no real rules with what we're doing. Like in corporate, it was, you know, don't take too many risks, don't make a mistake or you'll get fired, don't rock the boat. Here you can test different things and figure out where...

Brett Trainor (18:55.154)
You know, your real value lies. So that one takeaway for you on this is, is get through that interested to learn, test and learn. Think of it a number of small little experiments or just a couple of experiments to see one, if you like it and two, um, again, gain the confidence that you can actually do this outside of those corporate walls. And then five and six is really just starting to hone your skills. You get more organized. You figure out where you need to spend your time.

Again, I'm a big fan of the 80 -20 rule, right? The 20%, 80 % of your value is going to be 20 % of your actions and from your customers. So how do you spend more and more time on those 20 % to drive your business? Again, between five and six, grow and control and freedom. It's a good spot to be and you can absolutely get through that, even if you're struggling a little bit or trying to figure it out. Again, in the bottom line,

with all of this is don't do this alone. There's resources out there. Like I said, I'm happy to have the conversation. If you've listened this far, still in corporate or if you've just left corporate and you're in any of these stages, we now have a new Slack community at the time of this recording. I think we've got about 250 people. We're adding, I think 30 or 40 per week right now that it's everybody that's kind of working together, sharing their experiences.

We provide some resources, but the idea is we really want this group to help each other, support each other, and drive through these stages as quickly as possible. So again, I appreciate everybody listening. And if there are specific topics that you want me to spend a little bit more time digging deeper into, please do drop me a note in email. Connect with me on LinkedIn. And like I said, if you're curious about an escapee life,

then come join our community. DM me on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn or email and we will get you set up. Thanks for listening.