Sally Burtt-Jones had many successful years at the Guardian and Huffington Post in her twenties and early thirties after which she took some time out to re-think the way that she works. She now lives in Whitstable by the sea, often working from home and visits London for meetings. At the time of interview, Sally was in full time employment with messaging app Viber - a consultancy client of hers for over two years.

What was the trigger point for you to make the transition from full-time big job to freelance consultancy?

I spent a long time working hard to get my career to a good place, good job title and salary. But when I got there I realised that money and job title aren’t the most important things in life. I ended up continuing to work really hard for a further eighteen months but then decided to take some time out. I then went back home to Wales to contemplate and make some big life decisions and decided that living in a big City and being in full time employment where I had to be in in an office from 9-6 every day was not for me.

At the same time, Faith from Spark Escapes introduced me to her coach, Marietta Birkholtz who over two months took me through a process called ‘What Colour is Your Parachute?’, which I fully recommend. Marietta and that system asked me many questions I’d never asked myself before e.g. how much money did I really need to earn to be happy? Where did I want to live? how much responsibility did I want at work? She really helped me hone a vision of a life that would make me happy… and it changed everything. I’ve set myself up with a lifestyle that is downsized;I bought a tiny little cottage by the seaside with a small mortgage. My strategy is to have at least one client who I can do 2-3 days a week for and know I’ll be ok financially, and if other work comes in, that's holiday money.

My motto is 'good work with good people' and if something doesn’t tick those two boxes, I’m not interested. You've utilised all the skills and lessons from your employed career for life as a consultant... Yes, I realised there was a lot about the work that I loved. I was selling big branded content ideas for newspapers and I was in it at a time when it was growing really quickly and I was one of the few people in London who knew a lot about it. I felt confident that I could move forward to freelance. I wasn’t ready to change everything but wanted to change enough to make myself happy without making myself too vulnerable.

How did you go about generating clients when you decided to go solo?

Someone said to me in my twenties that the most valuable thing you will have is your 'little black book', your network. So I took advantage of that; I met lots of people for coffees and whilst I didn’t ask directly for work, I asked people what they thought of me creating a consultancy and there was resounding yes, go for it.

I wrote a partnerships strategy for Viber which was well received and it turned into a long project together which is still running.

What was your biggest fear when you set out on your own?

I was scared of going back to full time employment in a London office five days a week and feeling trapped again; I kept that as a motivation.