The Digital Project Manager

How To Build A Career As A Fractional PM

• Galen Low and Kelsey Alpaio

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Fractional remote job opportunities are growing, offering professionals the chance to break free from the traditional rat race and take on multiple roles, be their own boss, and avoid the transactional nature of full-time work. But how do you get started in this new world of fractional work, and what if it doesn’t work out?

Michael Gold, a fractional project management expert and founder of The Fractional Hub, discusses the growing trend of fractional project management roles. He shares insights on how this model could become just as common as, or even replace, traditional full-time positions in the future, helping you make an informed decision about whether this path is right for you.

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Galen Low:

You've trained for the rat race your entire life, and yet the minute you started, you were told that the goal is to try and get out of it. Now might be your chance. Fractional remote job opportunities are popping up everywhere now. Your shackles of professional monogamy are loosening. You could have many employers, be your own boss, and leave behind the meaningless perks and inherently transactional mistrust of your productivity. But where do you even start? No one taught you how to set out on your own. And what if it doesn't work out? If you've been considering fractional project management work, either as a practitioner or as an employer, keep listening. We're gonna be hearing from someone who's lived it and talking through how you can make the bright decision for you. Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Galen Low with the Digital Project Manager. We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world. If you wanna hear more about that, head on over to thedpm.com/membership. And if you're into future-forward conversations and practical insights around digital project leadership, consider subscribing to the show for weekly episodes. Alright, today we are talking about fractional project management roles and whether a fractional model might start to be as common as, or maybe even replace, full-time opportunities in the foreseeable future. With me today is Michael Gold, fractional project management thought leader and founder of The Fractional Hub, a community for fractional professionals. Michael, thanks for being with me today.

Michael Gold:

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I say this to a couple of people. I've been on that podcast I told you before. I cannot do the concept of a face to dialogue type monologue, thing. And so that fear at the beginning, well done. That's a mouthful, but you've done it

Galen Low:

thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations to you as well. We were talking in the green room. You just launched a sort of more premium tier of The Fractional Hub. You were up late, you were doing the launch. A lot of my listeners can relate to exactly how that feels, but congratulations on launching that and getting it done.

Michael Gold:

Thank you so much. I apologize in advancement, if your listeners not, they would know any different because they've never met me, but I was up till three in the morning and I actually can see it in my eyes right now. So I will fry and they with it and do something coherent.

Galen Low:

It's okay. It's gonna make you hyper relatable to this audience. I think, like I was saying to you as well, like this notion of fractional work. It's not necessarily new, but I think it's been coming up in a lot of conversations in the context of project management for me. A lot of folks in my community have been talking about it, asking about it. I thought maybe we could just dive in. And I have a multi-pronged question, and I think this is the question that's that keeps coming up in my conversations because fractional used to be a term that I mostly see for like executives, right? Like fractional CFOs and fractional CMOs, et cetera. And now we are seeing it in project management. So I thought I'd just ask, what does the word fractional mean to you? And how is it different from part-time contract work or freelance work, especially in the context of project management?

Michael Gold:

Interesting question. And also just to say that you say you know about a different context of fractional you knew at CTO. I think you are already massively ahead of the curve. Obviously maybe over the last five years in the US and stuff, it is a thing like particularly in the UK, the idea of a fractional CTO is still relatively new to probably most people. We're still like on the verge of, which is the fraction hub, it's not specifically PMs or anything. But back to your actual question, I guess one of the things I think of in terms of the project management is one, like you were saying, it's executive level, it's strategic, and so obviously you can have that in project management. So whether you're saying that PMO, you're coming in to solve their processes or something specific value based, rather than just your hours to manage a project. Then it can get more nuanced than that. And I think this is where we're starting to see like loads of different definitions of what fractional means. I think people are fighting out eyesight queen in new term, and maybe John, but it's fractionally freelance. So it's the concept of freelance task-based roles, normal sort of things, but multiple part-time contracts. So it's not on a strategic level, but it's a part-time contract done in a way that historically we couldn't do. Project managers, whether full-time or in a contract, 99% of contractors are five days a week, three month contract, get the project done. So even if we're not talking at that strategic level that we associate with the CCO fractional community, we are still seeing a shift in ways of working where you've got a PM who now can do three clients a week, two, three hours a day with the whole concept of remote working. I work for at 0.3 clients, they're all on teams. I bounce around from different teams. I have all my emails in one sort of inbox. To an extent, it's like one expanded client. It's three different ones in completely different areas. So I think that's the big shift is that we're now seeing like fractionally, freelance. I think that's what's really taking off. But like I said, you can still be a strategic project manager. You can still be head of a huge transformation project and only be there one or two days a week while you've got all these other PMs maybe below you working five days a week. You don't necessarily need the head of the program management team or the PMO to be there five days a week.

Galen Low:

Yeah. And I think that's the like, interesting theme and I think that's what, don't quote me on this. But what I was seeing in the fractional, like executive area, A, it was either people who have like retired, but then they're kinda come back to do a bit of work because they loved it or they can't put it down for whatever reason. It combined with this notion that some organizations don't need or don't think they need a full-time CFO or don't think they need a full-time CMO because they've got other, senior leaders taking care of stuff. But sometimes they just need someone to come in and do the strategic thinking and leverage their experience to rally everyone together. But they're like, we don't need you 40 hours a week. And then, that exec is that's fine. I didn't wanna show up for 40 hours a week. That sort of happened, and then project management, I think it actually makes a lot of sense because I hear that a lot from organizations, especially ones who are just trying to start their project management practice. They're like, I can't hire a PM right now. I don't have enough work to fill 40 hours right now. And then I've got added head count. I've gotta pay a salary and then I'm gonna feel all the stress of having enough projects for them to work on. Because the one or two wouldn't fill a 40 hour week. And I know there's, there's a whole bunch of like sensibilities around project management as a practice and as an art form and its value in business. But I totally get that right? It's like instead of dragging your business along until you get to this point where you're like, whew, finally I can afford a full-time project manager. Now we can get serious about projects. You can actually bring that in earlier. And then what I like about what you said is like that can still be a strategic person. We'll get into that later in the conversation as well, but I think that's for me, the magic sauce. I like the word you used fractionally freelancing, because that's where it sat for me is like I know a lot of freelancers and the range is broad, right? Some folks are just like, I do task management, I just get it done. I do volume right. I can do a lot of different projects for a lot of different clients. And then there's folks who are like, I'm good at leading a project, but also giving like strategic advice. I'm almost like a consultant at the same time. And yet we use the same word for it. So yeah, exactly. It's this really interesting emerging notion.

Michael Gold:

And to what you were saying for as well though. So obviously you've got a company, you can't potentially have 40 hours a week, but also so you can bring on someone at a strategic level'cause you haven't got a PMO. You haven't got anything. So if you brought someone on a discounted rate and by discounted rate, I just mean on a couple days, the rate would still actually be good, but that person, 'cause you wouldn't wanna necessarily hire someone full time if you didn't know where you were gonna grow, but you might want that person to come in, set the structure full term to at least allow you to then start hiring freelancers because you can't just get a freelancer in. You might not feel comfortable to get a full-time room, but you can't just randomly bring in a freelance PM. There's so many examples in just that sense that it makes sense to go after a strategic fractional project manager, get them to set it up, and then if you want longer term, bring in freelance project managers or fractionally, freelance project managers. And it gets convoluted and people will laugh and say, do all these definitions about it. But I think if you do wrap your head around them, they do make sense. It's worth learning about. The only other point I would add is we're talking about the companies who can't afford it or whatever, and maybe it's their first one, but it's also, where's the tipping point in terms of, say you've got three project managers and they're all working and you've got one extra project. What do you do? Do you do the classic thing, which is what most organizations do, which is just chuck it at the person who's already super busy and they, and there's all the complications there and productivity goes down and all. Do you think, oh God, historically I can only hire a freelancer five days a week on a three month contract. This is not that a project. So now you can just get someone in on day a week and they'll be happy to do it because they're working for three other clients as well. And with remote work, there's not, I'm not gonna come in on a Tuesday, look at your project and then I'll ignore you for three days. It's, I'll do a little bit every day alongside the rest of my work. And again, we might go into this, but it, even when people get booked on a day a week, or I get booked on. I would say eight days a month or something. In my mind, that's an easy way for procurement to understand mass. Okay. He's on eight days a month, but the reality is they don't know when those eight days are gonna get done with multiple different clients. There'll be a week where I flex the three a week, I flex the one, but am I specifically always doing exactly eight, I think is the, I think it's slightly irrelevant because it forces them, they can't time sheet check on me. There's no micromanagement in that sense because Tuesday

at 4:

00 PM I have another client or I'm at the gym. The two are like the same. They literally can't tell. So all they know at the end of every week or the end of every month is, did we think Michael did a good job? And I think it's really good from a psychological point of view for them as well that it stops them worrying about feeling ripped off. They said if you are a full-timer and someone just goes on a three hour, right? Why is Jeff gone on a, you can't just do. Even if just doing everything fine and on this project they're hitting their targets, they would just say I feel like you, maybe you could have taken on more. Your reward for being efficient and amazing is more work, which is insane to me. So at least this model goes well look, we can't track them, so we're not even gonna try. We know we've roughly got these eight days 'cause that's what we think it will take. But if you are really efficient and you do it in full, they signed up to an eight day retainer who cares for both of you? Like the guy's getting rewarded, you are getting an efficient, good project manager. The argument on the flip side is what do you want him to arbitrarily take longer, which also will mean he will respond slower to client emails and everything will be slower. So I can't imagine you would encourage that. This kind of just lets them accept it. I think it stops that micromanagement, that innate thing inside you that wants to all agree. They just don't have a choice. And I think it just focuses everyone a lot better.

Galen Low:

Yeah, I like that, like the value mindset is do I feel like I'm getting eight days a month worth of value from Michael being involved with our organization? And then it satisfies that procurement box, like you said, right? It's like, how do we measure this? Okay. It's like the equivalent of eight days. Is it gonna be just Monday and Thursday? No, actually, like you said, merged inbox, you're just there. You're just treating multiple projects from different organizations like they are just the project that you're managing. Like most project managers are managing multiple projects. It's a nice way to sell it in. And then that other thing I just wanna come back to, which I thought was just so apt, is that, yes, there's a lot of organizations in growth mode reaching that point where they need a PM and they're like, cool, we'll just get a freelancer and everything's gonna be fine. But if you haven't set up that structure, or if you're not bringing someone in to set up that structure, that's not necessarily gonna succeed. And it's probably gonna fail because it's never been done before at your organization. You can't just throw a pebble in the water and just think it's gonna fix everything. It needs someone to come in and set things up, and that's where my head goes when I'm like thinking about a Fractional Hub in your community of folks who are fractional. Generally speaking, I see it as at least an opportunity for some very senior, very skilled individuals to come in and do strategic work, as well as getting the project done to help organizations with their project management practice. Not just to come in and"herd" cats, make sure things get done, move the ball forward, et cetera, et cetera. It can be more strategic than that, and the market is showing that there's a lot of like very smart professionals, very seasoned professionals doing this kind of work. It doesn't have to be just that someone to fill a gap for a little while. They don't need to be all that skilled they can be.

Michael Gold:

I think that's the whole point. Like freelancers aren't going anywhere in the sense, and they fill a gap and there are some very accomplished freelancers. And so maybe the, those freelancers might start looking at the fraction, what they're trying to distinguish, I guess the mix between. Just that task base and that more strategic based role. Because otherwise you, a freelancer is a freelancer and just because you are a senior PM it doesn't mean that you are particularly well versed in the specific thing that they need. And one of the things, in on, what it allows you to do is really draft your, and I say niche, but I feel like in the, like it's niche that, that.

Galen Low:

I say niche, I mean, I'm here in Canada, so.

Michael Gold:

Okay, we'll say niche. But yeah, really crafting that niche because there's so many people now in the marketing. So if you are making the argument that everyone's more productive, particularly with AI, everyone's more efficient. So now you've got the same amount of jobs and theory that like everyone is now able to do stuff part-time. What you are then saying is, okay, there's no need to have the jack. I don't need like the five day A weeker, who's gonna be good at everything? But I get two or three different people, one or two, then days a week, who can do very specific things. And get paid for those expertise. Let people more efficient in each department, but also, yeah, to stop using that kind of like Jack of trades. I think that's one of the other things that fractional is gonna, the future of portfolio fractional careers and very hard niches because there's just lesser the need for a generalist. I only wanna caveat my point that there is still gonna be a need for generous. I just think it's gonna become that in itself. I think that will become a niche, as stupid as that sounds. But everyone goes niche. I. Eventually the generalists, there'll be a much smaller pool of them and they in themselves will find these organizations who actually do benefit from having a generalist. So I think it will go both ways and people swing back and forth. But nicheing is the way at the moment.

Galen Low:

Let's go there because I think that where the conversation goes for a lot of the folks I'm talking to is like, what does the future hold? We're recording right now. It's April, 2025. And honestly like it doesn't take more than a minute of scrolling through anyone's LinkedIn feed to realize that there's this like diminishing trust in long-term full-time employment. And I think I'd say my opinion is that no one is under any illusions anymore about working for the same company for their entire career and getting the gold pan and getting the watch and then retiring. Meanwhile the thing you mentioned like the economy is pretty tough right now. AI is causing disruption in good and bad ways. There's like geopolitical factors and it's putting a lot of pressure on companies to do more with less. Some of these scenarios where we're like, we can't afford to hire someone and maybe we only need them for part-time, not full-time. But also like fewer roles are available. There's like layoffs happening in almost every sector. My big question is fractional a temporary answer for a temporary problem? Or do you think it's actually like the way of the future?

Michael Gold:

I've done like a fair amount of research on this, and I think something like by 2027, there's expected to be, I think it's 57% of the, thinking it might just be the US workforce, but there's plenty of other stats around the rest of the world. We'll be freelancing some form. So it's already shifting massively towards the fact that most people will be freelance, and that's not like in the last year or something. That's been an ongoing shift for a decade. I spoke to a recruiter the other day. I thought it was he said it had gone from three years. Now the average life span of a career employee's two years. So that means around 18 months in, you are looking for your next role in 10 years is when we go. So we're already at the point that a full-time job is just an extended freelance contract. We have already shifted to that, the whole then we are secure. You are not, we're all having portfolio careers, so just under a different name and so I can't see why the shift wouldn't continue. I can't see what logic anyone could have. AI's only gonna get better. People are only gonna get more efficient. The argument, the why you would wanna keep employee generalists, like it just doesn't make sense to me. You are gonna get more specialties, you're gonna get more productivity. The idea that war and the world and the economy and everything is ever gonna suddenly magically get better. It's like all of that is heading towards an idea that portfolio growths definitely gonna be like the future. And I think by 2030, 2035, it genuinely would shock me if people still thought of full-time work as like the normal thing to do, Gen Z and whatever the other young generation is forgotten. And the young people of today is no longer me. There's already studies and surveys. None of them want full-time work. Like it's the thing, and people can look at that like flippantly and go, ah, lazy or so and so's, or whatever it might be. And every generation looks at one and says the same. But the ultimate thing is that's just the way that work is going. And I'm above them and I'm going, good on them. I think, I just think the rise of technology. As well. The fact that I'm starting the Fractional Hub, the fact that you have your community, the fact that anyone can make any company at any moment that they want, they don't need. So I used to see a future where everyone has a micro business. Like why would you need to be the big players, like even like companies like ey, for instance, hundreds of thousands of layoffs at the moment. They're shifting and they're now being much more open to fractional work. And PWC as well done reports, Deloitte as well. Loads of reports about they're all gonna start using fractional work. And then I know a lot of fractional consultancies popping up. So you start to look at the idea of going, even companies like EY in a decade. I can't see why you are not gonna get another one like that. I don't know why you worked,'cause there's just gonna be so much saturation in the market, but in a good way. Everyone has this ability to go and be the next ey, but at least on a micro sale, because you get 200 grand, 300 grand a year, you don't need to be the 40 million pound company. You can quite easily scale, I think a 500,000 to a million pound little, and then you'll just get those 40.

Galen Low:

I love that statement, this notion that the big four or whatever, and we refer to them as they're these giants. They're like monoliths in the industry. They're like almost untouchable. That idea that actually you might be able to be the next one, right? Like it's just like it opens the aperture, I think a bit on what the opportunity is here. I wanted to come back to that, younger generation, about it, actually for anyone really. Because like arguably the way we train people our education model, like it almost pushes us in the direction of getting that full-time job. And I know a lot of folks who are exploring freelance or they're becoming fractional. They didn't go to business school, like they didn't think of themselves as an entrepreneur. They didn't have a contract that was like bulletproof, like in their back pocket to start going out and doing fractional work. How does someone get started? A, how do you get started? How did you get started, I guess I should say. And also for folks who are looking at this right now, no matter what generation they belong to, what are the skills that they should have? What are the resources they should have to take on what is currently "unorthodox" or non-traditional in terms of the way we look at work and yet a massive percentage of people in the workforce are actually doing this or exploring this?

Michael Gold:

Yeah, so a really valid question because I think there is a tendency for people to jump on a trend without necessarily understanding what it is and throwing everything at it. And I wouldn't advise that. And so like due diligence is cute. How I got into it, to be honest, it's such a mix of things. So like I always grew up quite entrepreneurial because you talked about that mindset. I always thought that was gonna be the type of thing I did. And then one reason or another, as I got older, that kind of got scared out of me in the sense of like the risk and like everything. So I just never quite did it. My dad owned companies and stuff, and that was always like where I thought I'd go and I didn't. And so this has like probably been the lowest entry barrier version of that. I'm not getting a big product, I'm not investing millions, it was very much me. It's a few hundred quid a month, but it is a business that I can scan and grow. It felt like a low barrier entry in that respect. But even then I had to get pushed fairly far. Like I went into this and about, I dunno what to say. The back story of this is I was a digital nomad for a bit. I did go down to three day a week contract, which was my first part-time contract. Never a known or fractional was, or fraction of these freelance. I guess it started there, did that for 20 months, came back to the UK and did the thing I said I would never do, which is get back up to five days a week and all time employment and stuff. Fairly quickly, US gave up on that dream very quickly. Did that for about nine months or promoted into a role at different company, which about five years before it would've been like the dream, like I was head of PMO, really large organization and really miserable. And so I was on a three month probation, which I passed, and they wanted to put me on three months notice. I didn't have a three months length period, do you know what I mean? As I'd get a job, but to leave I'd have to give them three months. And yeah. Yeah. And that, not the extension of promotion, but just, yeah, to give, I'd have to give three months to leave and that just freaked me out. I felt so locked into a place I really didn't know. The people were lovely and everything. I don't if anyone was listening to this, it wasn't like a personnel issue or anything like that. I just didn't enjoy it. So I basically bought a house and a week after buying a house, quit 'cause it just get out. So I was just really fortunate that I had a bit of a, everyone says have six months of finances or I knew a bit, didn't really plan it, but it was there and I had a good network and I just started freelancing and just, it spiraled and every step, it was learning more and more. And I'd find these personal branding experts and I took a course and I started learning about that and. Just found my way and then maybe six months in found the term fractional. And honestly, we spoke about this night before from where we had first spoke a few months ago to now where we are now, and the progression, because I basically found this thing that was like my core in the center. That is exactly how I wanna work. I've always wanted to work the whole notion of productivity over timekeeping. Again, I tell like an anecdote of my first ever real job and had my back to back ears, like the CEO, and I'm just like doing my job. I was on probation, done all my tasks, so he was like on Facebook a few times throughout the week and he came over to my manager to say Hey, you're new guy on Facebook. Have a word. My manager just moved my desk, like where I sat, so I then sat like on the other side of the desk, like looking at the C, so he couldn't see my computer. He came out and said I know what you've done. You know you're gonna have a word of him and in front of me when he's done everything he's meant to do, he is actually exceeding expectations. Annoying. I literally had to go at the manager, but jokingly but I was like still having it to go away. That was like 12 years ago and it always stuck with me the whole career. I like the only person I met him really stuck up for the idea of productivity and said fractional is that so I like dove straight into that. Took it on completely. But then I set up the Al Hub because as I started posting and like you described it, yeah, thought leader, like the kind of like posting on LinkedIn stuff. I started getting loads of people interested having never heard of it. People like you I know a project manager recruits are as well, who didn't understand the notion of like, how can the project managers do this? Spending so long on so many like coffee calls 'cause I didn't wanna be rude. It's nice to network but it really got a point of every day, like it was like another person, another coffee people. I just have 30 minutes and stuff. And I met some amazing people. It just ultimately in one hand became way too much. And on the other hand, it felt like an opportunity to be like, someone needs to create like a space that sort of educates people. And so that's why we initially launched Free. We had a course that you could take. The community itself is free. And then as you think that at the beginning, we've now launched like a pay ticket and it's a little bit more like we'll have some master classes and some like group coaching and a little bit more like hands on for the people who really wanna take it like quite seriously. But if you're just like, I don't really know what this is and I just check it out. It's take some free resources and meet some people and then see where you wanna go.

Galen Low:

I love that because it is like a journey and like you said, like your background is more entrepreneurial, right? You have the sort of an entrepreneurial mindset, right? And not everyone has that. And so they might want to explore first. And then the thing you said, which I don't know, I personally attribute this to an entrepreneurial mindset, but you said I learned little by little. Here and there, I like took a course and what have you basically taught yourself in quite pressurized situations where you know it is doing the work and you're like, gosh, I probably should have added a clause to my contract for this, or I probably should have taken, a course on personal branding before I did this thing. Just like these little mistakes that you kinda have to figure out yourself. But I love about the community aspect is that. We can combine that knowledge together so that we don't all have to independently learn by making little mistakes or big mistakes that we can share that knowledge. And I think that's what's really valuable is that everyone's on a bit of a different journey, starting from a different place in the path. If we're aggregating some of this knowledge and we're being clever about. Almost like creating the new model to prepare people for a career in fractional work rather than full-time work. I think that's a really cool idea. So I'll definitely link to it in the show notes. I know we're talking a lot about Fractional Hub, and I haven't really asked you to define it. I think it's how you just described, it's pretty clear. I honestly, I think it's like a really interesting, almost wave that you're riding. I think we'll head into the future.

Michael Gold:

Yeah. And we had like just alluding to that, like the helping the community out aspect that you talking about, we literally have someone today have an example of someone who and this isn't like fractional specific, but that it doesn't have to be, everyone's on a journey. Everyone's just supporting each other. Obviously we have specific forums. Okay. It's one thing, but this was just a woman who, a client who seems to have a, someone who has technical difficulty. I don't know, someone who's not particularly technically well versed, and so was on emails, struggling with the emails, shifted her to WhatsApp, and then within that, couldn't open like a document that she needed. And was basically just asking about it's feeling like her pricing's now going over what she's asked for, and it was like the kind of thing of like, how do I deal with this? My pricing's kind of escalating because the hoops of having to jump through now are like not what we initially agreed. So it was just a few people who got back and was like, talking through kind of the red flags of it's okay to step away from a client, but also at the same time. But if you're not gonna step away. This is how I would approach like the next steps and just having that sounding board and a few people to come and support someone like that was like really nice to see today.

Galen Low:

I love that. It's a situational knowledge, right? And like in the moments that I think is a great support and the fractional thing, it can be lonely, I imagine. It's just you, it's your own business. For a lot of folks, they're not orienting towards, yeah, maybe eventually I'll have a team. They're just like, I am solo. That can be really isolating. And there's already a loneliness pandemic coming out of the other pandemic, the Covid Pandemic and our ways of working are different. There's remote and I think community, it's it's such a nice thing to have that community and to have that support rather than feeling like you're alone let, like fractional means solo and alone. So I really love that. I was wondering if maybe we can talk about almost the pitch. What's resonating with me, you said it was like hard to go back to full-time work, and I've heard that from a lot of folks too. And then you describe this sort of I'm paying you for your time, so you better not be on Facebook, even if you got all your tasks done. And I think that's where a lot of the sort of attitudes and opinions on full-time work are stemming from in terms of, like maybe not necessarily opposing it, but saying that maybe it's a little bit dated now. But then organizations maybe are not prepared to either procure or think about fractional as part of their staffing model. I wonder if we could talk benefits and trade-offs. So like for employers and I guess for like fractional PMs who like need to pitch their value. What are the benefits and maybe what are the trade-offs to be mindful of for having fractional project managers?

Michael Gold:

So I guess it depends on are you a remote or non-REM remote company? So I mean, would be remote, even those full term. So I'm very much on that model, and that's a huge culture war that we're all in. And it depends on which side of the defense you sit on. If you sit in a remote world and the companies that are hiring you are remote, then I think there's very little negative because you work five days a week and you just do the work that's actually required to do, and you get paid accordingly. There's an argument to say it. If you were working two days a week, you'd probably get paid maybe what? They would pay someone else, the equivalent, like three days. A, so they would say you're only 33% more. But they're also paying, no, the other two, three days, no one's working. So they're saving three days and they're giving one of those saved three days to you. So you are benefiting, one, they're saving even if it was 50/50. The point is you've just them 20% of their costs and you've. From a knowledge point of view, I am working with multiple tools, multiple different people. My knowledge of like trends and different tools and how different people are working and how I can learn from people is so much more agile and adaptive than this idea that you work in one company and you just stagnate the same people doing this things wrong, that have always been done wrong. You just keep doing it. Like I just go and find the best bits from all these different companies, take on little bits, and then take that to the next company. Which I think is like a really fantastic way. So I'm constantly learning way more than I ever would be if I was to do just in one week I'm working for three s, like yeah. So that knowledge level is huge. So from that basis, I can't see much if you specifically need hybrid or in-person work. I do actually quite struggle with the idea of, with this, particularly in England where we've got IR 35. And so when you are like talking about IR 35, the idea is that within IR 35, what is outside? You are meant to have like control and all those kind of things. So someone telling you, you have to come in the office on these hours and immediately like how is that role? Like you are already taken away a lot of the principles and I know someone could tell me. Okay, we, this is the line that they're going at. It's on this very thin line. But even though they're controlling you, they're still technically outside IOP based science for these other reasons. But you do really walk that line. And so I think if you are going to try to take advantage of this model, I would try to be open-minded to the idea that remote is probably a more efficient model for that. But if you are not, and you are really saying that they've gotta come in, then the drawback would be that it's very difficult to work for multiple clients in the same day if you're in someone else's. So then if you three days for one company, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that Tuesday and Thursday is like a no day, and it's like, how confident are you? That's the whole idea that my upsell, so I'll keep everything spinning a little bit every day. It won't be like a black hole. And so if people have the black hole for me, it might become a little bit more, but that's, I guess I'm talking on the fractional freelance side from a more strategic point of view. The more strategic you are, I think the more, like higher up you are, it's possibly easier to say I'm working a silo, I'm working on process documentation. So like I can go in, I can make the appropriate meetings with the people I'm, and the stakeholders I need to meet. And on the days I'm not in, nothing's happening because I'm, yeah, I'm just giving them 10 days a month. But like we said I'm actually just giving them a, by the end of three months I'll deliver your process. And so then maybe the office is fine. And so again there's ways of making their very little. I've purposely not spoken about knowledge transfer because I think at some point you mentioned before we might talk about it.

Galen Low:

Maybe let's go there now, because I think that's the argument I hear a lot and I'm gonna be extreme here, but imagining almost all of the workforce eventually goes fractional. And everyone's working for multiple different companies. And then there is that argument about institutional knowledge and culture. You mentioned culture, war of remote versus return to office and what have you. And I think some of the argument is probably lease hold and rent and stuff. But also some of it is about, oh, how are we gonna have culture if everyone is like remote? Then the institutional knowledge side of thing is like we need full-time people to retain knowledge about the way we do business, because otherwise it might seem like we're assembling teams and it's like the blind leading the blind starting from scratch every time because nobody really has that institutional knowledge of how we do things. Is the sort of argument about institutional knowledge and culture, like if you were to play this out so that maybe most of the workforce in the company is actually fractional. Is that going to be a challenge? This whole who knows what about the way we do business? Who's retaining the knowledge and how do we tackle that?

Michael Gold:

I guess that, yeah, there's a couple of things on that. Firstly, if you are relying on people to be your knowledge transfer, then I think you've already failed because that's more that's the question of what are your processes, what's your sort of internal documentation and onboarding processes and all of that. And yes, you could say not everything can be put. And I think that's a weak argument because. What are you gonna do when the person who's been there for 20 years does eventually if you have an answer for that, then maybe it's better to prepare more regularly than wait for the 20 year thing. What are we gonna do now? So I think that, and then part of this whole movement I is with AI and I already, AI, is now doing most people's note take. So we've, work in companies, do your note taking. I've got some companies where it's just notes that ends up in my thing and that's for me. I work for an AI company where that's linked to their like notion account. And so it's automatically like doing loads of things in the background that they've set up loads of things. So then it's not just the call, but it's the account level of every, and basically therefore it can summarize and there's only gonna get best. And so the argument there is that AI is probably giving you way better knowledge transfer than anyone any we're getting for a better. So yeah, that would be my biggest argument there. And then on the culture side. I think a lot of people from my generation down at least, I don't know how much culture is a thing and there's all that stuff about, oh, what is culture? Is it a pizza party or a fry? I already think that we're at a point where it's not as important to people, and I think culture is more just in the way that people speak to each other and that not just comes from the owner. And if it's a positive atmosphere, culture comes from not burning out. So if you're working Ally, you've got these specialists all doing their roles, then everything's documented and stuff, people are just happy to work. I think your culture in of itself will start to be a nice place to work. But at the same time, there's new roles that are gonna come from all of this and there's things I already do. I know an HR rep and we spoke about like remote work a lot and his whole thing is huge on remote and it's this idea that remote ruins culture and he always says that's because you have a full time an in office set up and you just told everyone to go home. It's not that remote doesn't work, it's that you didn't do anything to try to make remote work. They are different things. There are ways of saving all the money that you've put on your offices and then maybe on a quarterly budgett take everyone to Spain, I don't know, and let them have a weak, intensive bonding session. And you probably find that the culture is 10 times better than it ever was 'cause they all gotta to actually hang out and maybe take a few days off work together rather than beer and pizza and ping pong on a Friday or whatever like. I think people can through a lot of that already.

Galen Low:

Yeah. And honestly we have this bad habit as humans to try and replicate something we did in one context Exactly as we have it in another context. So like during lockdown digital conferences we're like, okay, what's the booth gonna look like? Okay, just make a digital booth. And you'll walk by the digital booth and it'll be just like you were there on the floor in the conference center. And turns out that's not what people wanted at all. They wanted a digital experience that did not necessarily, was not like a literal translation of the in-person experience. And I think the same is true with remote culture. I've talked to a few organizations where I get the sense that they have. Amazing culture as a remote first organization. Some of the things you said they're very transparent about their communication and documentation. If you're on the other side of the world, you start your day, you catch up on all the notes from the meetings that happened while you were asleep and you're up to speed and there's no private conversations that nobody sees. It's like it's all in public channels. And yeah, to your point, the culture is about getting together in person or even just the way they collaborate, the energy about the work that they're doing, and not necessarily ping pong tables, beanbag chairs, and the occasional pizza Friday drinks in the office or whatever.

Michael Gold:

I literally just have a thought, which is so stupid, it could come to me anyway. But we both own communities, our own community. But the idea that we either one of us would believe this idea that you can't create a community of people and these aren't people getting paid. These are people pay in to people other, so the idea that like. People don't think that you can have a culture purely crafted online. And yeah, I a long time, I'd love to do some in-person things, the theme of from around the world and where that's gonna be and all those kind of, the point is that's not promised and they're signing up, like people sign up, 'cause they just wanna immediately. I've had so many coffee chats like I alluded to before that started this and I feel like I know these people. I've recommended women for jobs and I get on with them. I message and look them all the time. I've never met them and I, it's just the modern world. So the idea that like these people who are literally getting paid to be in a building, that's the only way that they could derive culture. They're lucky they're getting paid, be there, like they're not focused on culture.

Galen Low:

Yeah. And then it's up to the company to synthesize "culture" because they're paying these people. And yeah, I think the sort of thread of steel throat, all of this is that, there's an opportunity right now for everyone to shake off some of the like old habits or old mindsets and things that we're entrenched in and just be open to something new. And like I know the Covid pandemic was not a positive thing, but it was a forcing function for us to think about the way we do things in a different way. AI is doing the same thing right now, where it's okay, it's forcing us to think about doing things a different way remote. It's forcing us to do things a different way. Yeah, it doesn't mean that one is right and one is wrong in person or remote, but I think that whole being open to what could change rather than getting stuck in these institutions and like coming back to that question that we were just talking about. Like I use the word institutional knowledge, which uses the word institution, which already seems like an anachronism right now. Do you know what I mean? Where it's this is not necessarily, we built on these pillars that we feel are sacred and we can't change. But they might be the things holding us back.

Michael Gold:

And just on that, one of the stats and I'll get it completely wrong, but the whole idea of five day weeks was created, wasn't it for like Henry Ford or something, I don't know, like the automation industry or whatever for factory workers and then everyone went, yep. Five days a week. That's the best way to be productive. And there's so many articles even in full-time work where people have trialed four day weeks. In one sentence, productive are the arguments. It's not, but the point is, definitely possible might be possible to everyone. And that was before AI was making everyone even more efficient and productive. So again, I just can't see a way where we don't, and now start to transition away from this laser, a really outdated model. And I know that sounds crazy 'cause five years ago it wasn't date, but we are the fastest mooding evolution ever in humanity. If anything, five years feels quite slow and I'm getting forecaster in five years time. It's gonna be a decade of like remote and seven years or eight, nine years of AI. Like I think people really should be preparing for the fact that portfolio careers will be a thing, are a thing, and. I don't know. Even if you are in a full-time job, like I said, like 18 months is pretty much your time. So like you already are in a portfolio job and when you start seeing people post on LinkedIn or networking and stuff and think that you don't need to do that, I would argue you do. You are in it whether you think you are or not.

Galen Low:

I love that. I'm gonna put you on the spot for one last question, just to bring it back to folks listening who are like, yes, this is interesting. I wanna explore this. I'm a bit worried. I don't really know where to start, and I thought maybe I'd flip the question and say, what was that thing that you, the landmine, you stepped on, the thing you wish you knew as you were starting your fractional career, your portfolio career, that you're like, ah, I should have thought of this. No one had told me this. I had to figure it out the hard way. No one else should have to figure it out the hard way. Contracting rates brand.

Michael Gold:

I'm gonna start with one because it really, and this sound, it's so stupid because I'm just plugging the third party tool, but I think there are others. Honestly, when I went the number one difficult thing I found and I got to the point of burnout or close to, I should say, was working more clients and that sort of time mapping exercise that you do. And so I ended up the tool one cow, which is basically there, there are, I think I've now found a few, but I struggled originally to find a. That allows you to two way think your calendar. Obviously I can Google Calendar or anything like that. You could add them all in so they pile on top of each other. If you book client A, that doesn't automatically tell client B, Hey, at that time he's this. And so I was working, I think four clients. And then I also had like just my own, company. So people might just set up, chats I was talking about, or a bit of coaching that I would do. So it's five challenges, but then I'd also have like my personal email. It's just like my, wherever I might be doing. And so mapping those things when at that point it was one of the, it almost made me like throw everything away. No, this isn't, and then literally I've got one account and it's the easiest thing, and so I can't, how should$10 and it's not a lot. And I can now like, yeah, I book client A and it immediately goes into B, C, D and my personal account and whatever. And it just says private and in brackets, which calendar said it to say client A and all of them. And then it will say client B did this. That's been the biggest thing because as this way I specifically work, other people will say I just work the morning for one client, A for another. I work Tuesday for one client. And yeah, maybe that's not a thing. But for project managers, I think particularly the fractional freelances again, so if you do the strategy element, you might be able to time box if you are gonna be working on like actual projects and napping your availability to when a client wants a call in and it's the hardest thing. Was causing me mis honestly. So that was number one, I would say. What else is there? I guess number two, and this is a freelance thing, but I went freelance for only a few months before practic on both me both and stuff, but it's, don't panic and take on every job. Because I, I ended up with, and like I said before, as much as I have the days and the days in my mind equate to output and therefore I don't feel like uneasy about taking on more or doing less. There was a point where I had nine days of work a week, and even if you are doing like six days and you just do six days a week. And then you do the other three. Really efficient, basically it was two men that there was no way to condense that into a five or six day week'cause nine days is of absurd. So I was working like seven days and I was working like nine hours a day and made me doing eight days from getting the night day right down. Fair. And that was just like, shit, panic, I'd just gone into it. Everyone was offering me a job and everyone on LinkedIn was telling me it was the worst market ever. And yet I, I felt good and I, it almost felt like I'm grateful. This terrible time and I'm being like, and I'm no, thank you.

Galen Low:

Yeah, you're turning away work. You feel guilty about it.

Michael Gold:

And yeah, in the long run, that's just not a clever plan.

Galen Low:

I actually love how those two things plug together, and I think it's underestimated when people are entering this. We have a lot of conversations about, like legal clauses and scope and negotiation and all that, and those are all important too, but like time and capacity management. Is an art form. It's a bit different when you control it all. It's hard to say no to work when there's, people knocking on your door and you wanna help them. But you have to be realistic and look at how that's gonna fit in the time that you have allocated to work. Whether you're like, I'm a three day a week person, or a five day a week person. But to avoid that sort of nine day week, nine days worth of work a week, those are really good tips.

Michael Gold:

I guess my last one would be how important personal branding is, regardless of how sick it makes me feel. It just is how is it a quote I said in another podcast the day I haven't shown my CV in 14 months. It just isn't a thing. I have conversations with people when I've got on LinkedIn page where you can see my experience. We barely even chat about it. Honestly. I tend to just get a call and someone just says, Hey, we try, I don't know, do you want, do you wanna start tomorrow? And there's no interview, no thing. And it's based on the fact that they obviously look at my profile. I've got a bunch of posts, a bunch of followers. I'm talking vaguely like I know what I'm talking about, my experience talk, and it's just how I interact on the half an hour phone. It's only a one day a week or two day a week gig. If he's rubbish, we'll get rid of him. It's a low barrier, but I get the gig because of that. I'm not putting my CV into the, the recruiter, he's got a thousand people going through it. I, speaking to the hiring managers, it's very conversation. Obviously, there's a lot of nos if someone's just not hiring, they're not hiring. As soon as someone say, yeah, hiring. It goes from that to starting with them very quickly without a lot of background checking. It's just. They have a look at my profile. They come to me a lot of the time.

Galen Low:

I like that. It's like the asynchronous interview, right? That happens over a span of time instead of, trying to cram all the questions you have about one another into an hour or like a half day or an assignment. Like it's almost this longer getting to know each other period by looking at each other's profiles.

Michael Gold:

But that's a really good point as well though, is getting into the branding space, hating everything that you post. Everyone does. Don't worry, it's just true. You'll save stuff that makes you uncomfortable and you'll panic, but you just keep doing it. And people will talk about it gets better over time in terms of like your stats just keep posting. But I don't even know how through or how important that is. I've had posts, I've done like 120,000 impressions. A hundred. Yeah. And I've done others that do 500 quite regularly. I get posts that get really high engagement. Others that, and there's some dms, there's no way people can talk about it. And I don't believe that people can say this post generated in 10 weeks. I dunno how you equate it to that post. I. That day that had one like on it and a person who's never liked any of my posts offered me a job. So what are you looking for? So I've had posts that do 120,000 because I talked about remote. Very divisive topic, very easy. But did that help my career? I have no idea. Visibility. Maybe it's nice to get your name out there. And then I do a lot of pieces that do like 1000, 3000 impressions. Yeah, I did a million across a year impressions. But this, that is patted out by a few very high ones. And it mostly, I just like doing whatever and I don't know which one's doing it. I just know that there's a consistency in it and your name is just out there. And not to worry too much about the actual number, just to keep doing it.

Galen Low:

Human scaling things are so funny, and that becomes this numbers game. Whereas actually. The sort of human connection is just like that thing that Michael said resonated with me. It might've only taken that one post that got 300 impressions for them to be like, yeah, that speaks to me. I'm gonna reach out. And then the numbers game is, obviously statistically, you might have better ads, increasing your reach and all this stuff, but it's also what you're saying, I guess is the other thing.

Michael Gold:

Who's your market? It's gonna go to the right person. And then there's that marketing term, which I don't know if it's necessarily applicable to LinkedIn, but it's the seven touch points. It's like you need to engage us on, in seven different ways to then actually get touch with you. And so whether that's posting, liking their thing, commenting, whatever. Like a long game. So you will get people who've done it for six months and say, I've been following you for six months and they've never said anything. Apparently they have been. And so I'm just saying like it's a long game. Just keep networking stuff. Maybe I'm just lucky, but stuff just feels it just happens to me in a sense, but it doesn't, I'm obviously posting and my names out there, but it doesn't feel like this card. You like, I don't know, because clever have a networking game. Just put my name out there and just keep putting it out there, and then eventually people message me back and it's fine. I was like, oh cool. Obviously you don't have to close. That's a completely different conversation. The networking part is quite easy if you just keep putting yourself out there.

Galen Low:

I really like that. Honestly, it's such a fascinating topic. Michael, I really appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your knowledge. Congratulations again on launching The Fractional Hub and also elevating it to a place where you know, you're now developing training for folks who are entering the space of portfolio careers and fractional work. And yeah, where can we learn more about you?

Michael Gold:

So I guess it's thefractionalhub.com. Very easy website. And then I'm on LinkedIn, I've gone all in. So you'll like this. It's LinkedIn/fractionalMichaelGold. Very easy.

Galen Low:

Very nice. I will also link it in the show notes for folks listening. And Michael, thank you again for being on the show. Love to have you back and we can dive deeper.

Michael Gold:

My pleasure. It's been really good.

Galen Low:

All right folks, there you have it. As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like-minded project management champions, come join our collective. Head on over to thedpm.com/membership to learn more. And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.