How to Go Fractional
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal posted an article about how many senior marketing executives are starting to work fractionally… Huh?
If you haven’t heard this term before, it means that someone decides to work on a contractual basis for a defined period of time. Just like consultants, freelancers, and independents of all stripes, fractional executives have the ability to take on multiple clients and are more likely to work remotely today. Unlike many consultants, fractional marketing executives are often working directly with C-suite executives and tasked with implementing and driving entire campaigns through to completion.
Given marketing executives are often tasked with wildly different performance and branding goals, this shift allows for the hiring of specific skills (i.e., performance marketing, partnerships development, content strategy creation, branding refreshes) and a deadline-based approach. These parameters allow for executives to do more targeted work while often garnering a higher income than when they worked for one employer at a time. And naturally, the corporate employers can increasingly hire for target skills and results — and better anticipate campaign results. While some roles are more suited to being permanent within corporate settings, there are more and more fractional finance, general counsel, technology and other roles gaining momentum.
With the number of people starting to work fractionally — self-motivated or otherwise, in the coming year — we thought it’d be helpful to review how to make yourself stand out, how to get the support you need, and other considerations to making this a successful and long-term career shift.
Be Specific About Your (Evolving) Super Powers
Have you ever looked at public relations agency website and seen that they seem to do it all? And then immediately wondered “but what are they really good at?” And then maybe that triggered you doing a broader search of agency sites or asking for references to try to better understand their different skills?
We’ve been there. And even worked at some of those places. It’s confusing for the teams and clients alike. While we’re sure you can in fact do it all, it’ll be that much more beneficial to really think deeply about what makes you exceptional. And, even more so, what you really enjoy digging into with clients. While this initially cuts down the number of relevant clients, it also allows you to be that much more successful at the projects you take on and charge more for that award-winning work. Furthermore, it becomes self-serving in driving client referrals and return business. So, you get paid more for the work you do and don’t need to spend as much time marketing your work. Amazing.
Don’t have a super power or distinguishing body of work yet? Earlier in your career and laid off from that hot startup? No worries. Be clear about your level of experience and how what you’ll be charging is appropriately aligned.
At any stage, we all know it’s best to listen. But especially at the beginning of a potential engagement. Often clients — and likely you — are excited to win each other over and just getting going.
But take the time to hone in on some initial questions, like:
· What marketing (or other) needs does the potential client have?
· Have they worked with a marketing (or other) industry fractional support before? If so, how did that go?
· Who will be your point of contact? Do they have final decision-making authority or are they a collaborator?
· What kinds of deadlines and turnaround are they anticipating or working against?
· What do they anticipate in terms of reviews and/or editing process? Internally and/or with you?
· Is there any budget scoping they’ve started working on or have been given?
· What kinds or volume of materials will you be given access to? Are they expecting you to conduct research or have a certain level/type of knowledge?
After that first meeting and discussing as many questions as possible, commit to using your notes to work up a proposed plan of action and, potentially, more scoping questions.
You may have done this type of project before and have all the answers. In which case, go for it! Pull that contract together with all the broad strokes you’re ready to put into play. If this is a different kind of project or you’re unsure about the costs associated, this next part is written for you!
Network for Sidekicks
At some point in your independent career, you’ll likely need help in one of two ways. First, in determining how much you should charge today and, at some later point, how much you should raise your rates. And then, as you get more referrals and returning clients, you’ll want help with working on bigger projects (with bigger budgets!). Likely where you can either get a project management fee or that have needs beyond your skill set.
For either type of help, you need a solid squad.
Let’s tackle the feedback squad first. Even if you’ve been fractional for a while, you likely haven’t built enough of a feedback squad. We’re thinking everyone should have their own Queer Eye setup - a group of 3–5 people to regularly talk through pricing, raises and shifts in your industry.
Creating a squad you can call on regularly can feel awkward and vulnerable at first. That’s ok. Isn’t making adult friends always a little uncomfortable, anyway? But here’re a couple tried and true methods.
Reach out to former colleagues and friends asking if there’s anyone they know or have worked with in the past who’s a fractional or consulting resource who you should know. Set a coffee date with anyone that’s sent your way. Be candid about either being new to the business or wanting to audit whether you’re charging in the right ballpark of fees. Most people will share their rates for various types of projects and results. And then tell you that they don’t really know if that’s right either, but it’s what they’ve been charging for one reason or another. Then share your level of experience and who you’re looking to work with, and ask what they think you could be charging. Do not leave that conversation and immediately set those thoughts as your rates. Have a few more conversations and then think about where they’re netting out. It’s your rate — and you should base your decision off of a little bit of “industry research”.
The other option is exposing yourself on social media. Especially in the current market — where there’ll be exceptional people leaving companies right and left — let people know you’re new to going independent. Post about your years of experience, any cool companies or projects you’ve worked on, and ask away. Ask how much you should charge. Ask about the size of projects or retainers you should target. Ask whether anyone’s looking for someone with your experience.
Every time someone does this on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere, we’re thrilled to see just how helpful strangers are to each other. Really!
Now, for the collaboration squad. You may develop ongoing relationships from those colleague intros and social media responses. Go ahead and meet up IRL with those people willing to DM you the extra great tips. Create a reason to check in more regularly and ask whether they’ve developed any new skills or worked with anyone fabulous on a project lately.
In addition, you may be able to use newer platforms like Patreon to promote your past work or Wethos to open an online “studio” space, and gather other independents into a collective proposal. You gain the benefit of both learning from others as well as immediately partnering with their strengths on available projects or to tackle more than you can take on by yourself. And through those working relationships, you get to ensure your spot as a go-to for peers and clients alike.
Factor in Your Real Costs
So, when going fractional, you’ve gotta know everything involved in how to do your work and learn how to get new business… and then figure out how to get paid for all that hard work.
And then there’s making sure you’re making ends meet.
Having worked at a variety of different agencies and in-house roles prior to working for ourselves, we had a couple thoughts on how much to charge our clients. We were aware of what our hourly rates were in those agencies, accounting for all sorts of compensation and overhead costs. Looking at those rates, we calculated how much was overhead by taking out our annual compensation from what we would’ve cost a full-time client.
And then we started looking at what all the following elements would cost as we started paying for them directly:
· Healthcare benefits for us (and any dependents)
· A couple weeks (or more) off for vacation and sick time
· Life insurance
· Moderate to #goals retirement savings
· Regular coverage for business expenses (i.e., office space, software tools, website hosting)
· Tax withholdings
This is just a cursory list of expenses and elements to factor into what you should be considering as living expenses and baked into your fees. There are many calculators online that can help make sure you’re doing a solid top-down calculation. Once you’ve done these calculations — we recommend doing a bare bones one as well as an ideal income snapshot — run them by your squads. They’ll likely have feedback and industry-specific pointers you’ll benefit from hearing!
Finally, remember you can always start with one set of rates or fees, and then update them as you learn more about your industry, each year passes (hello, raises!), and you add skills and projects to your portfolio. We’re all learning here.
(Quick plug that once you do set your rates and start working, you should open a Lance account to capture all that income and track your expenses and taxes!)
Other Considerations
There’s a lot to consider when going fractional, as noted above. And there were a couple other elements we thought were worth mentioning.
· Save up, if you can. Independents have been surveyed many times over. While almost half of them say you couldn’t pay them enough to go back to into a full-time job, something they also agree on is that they wish they’d saved up more before going out on their own. Why? Because it can take 3–6 months to really get your business going. And there can be slow months here and there over the course of your career were you can really benefit from either having some funds in savings or saving diligently as you work independently. If you can, stay in that corporate gig a little longer — like we suggested here — and save up. Or be sure to squirrel away regularly for those rainy periods.
· Remember, retirement savings have multiple uses. Please open and start saving through retirement vehicles early and often. This is something we wish we had understood better and done more of along the way! Super important to understand is that you can borrow against your retirement funds for certain educational expenses, a first-time home purchase, healthcare expenses, and disability costs. This isn’t just about saving toward some far-off retirement. If you’re closer retirement, even more reason to go see a financial advisor and have the conversation about where you stand and what you need to start charging in order to save more.
· Market yourself far and wide. Do this. Create an alter ego for yourself that’s super confident — and pushes out regular emails to former colleagues, peers and anyone who might be interested to share any new skills, recent projects, and openings to take on more work. We promise this won’t be as awkward as you feel about it now. Just hit that send button once a month or quarter, and over the next week or two you’re bound to get a lot of “congrats!”, “oh, that’s cool” and “we’ll keep you in mind”s. The exchange will, no doubt, give you a bit of an energy boost, reconnect you with people you haven’t talked with in a while, and may even score you a couple clients here and there. You’ll even find you’re very likely to hear from old colleagues especially in the months and years to come as they become independents! This is especially true in the marketing space where the average executive lasts little more than three years.
We clearly think there’s a tremendous amount of benefit in going fractional. Many independents — and especially those coming out of executive level roles — make considerably more than they ever did working for one corporate employer at a time. And the flexibility gain is invaluable. Given that women make up more than half of the CMOs at the top 100 ad spenders and across the broader marketing industry, fractional work allows them the flexibility they often search for unsuccessfully in full-time — or even part-time — roles. And this type of work opens up new or extended career opportunities for veteran marketers while giving companies of all sizes more access to top talent.
You just have to make sure to create a bit of a niche — even as you learn more skills, gather a couple squads around you, and remember that you need to charge a livable fee for all that great work you’re doing for your clients!
