Fractional
Fractional
Kim Minnick: Stop acting like human resources, act like a business
Today we're joined by Kim Minnick, Fractional People Leader, FPP Community Lead, Founder at Code Traveler HR, and Podcast host at Journey Lines.
In this episode, which is part 2 of our collaboration with the Fractional People People Community, we dove into the whims and woes of social media and how to create and post online with effectiveness toward building a brand.
We also talked about building in public, the reality of failure, and finding connection when you're struggling.
As a wrapup, we asked Kim to define fractional, where it's headed, how it can be used, and where it fits in the freelancer and W2 world.
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-minnick/
- https://www.codetravellerhr.com/
- Journey Lines podcast
- https://www.fractionalpeoplepeople.com/
All right. Hello, and welcome to the next episode of fractional.fm. This is our next installment in our collab with the Fractional People People group. And we have one of the early members there. In fact, Kim Minnick, our guest, is the one who invited me to join Fractional People People. in the early days. So excited to have you, Kim. Tune in, find her wherever podcasts can be found. But Kim, I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited to talk to you. You've been so much fun to interact with over the past couple of years. And I feel like this is overdue having you as a guest here, but welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:I'm so pumped to be here. Thank you, Lance. Thank you, Joshua. I feel like, yeah, it's long overdue, but you get to where you're supposed to be at the time you're supposed to be. So I think like the FPP collaboration, a year and change under my belt as a fractional leader. Yeah, let's do it now.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to hear about this year and change that you've had going on, what you've learned, what's been happening for you. I think one of the things that if anybody knows you or recognizes the name, it's because you're always visible in this little place we call LinkedIn. And you've done such a good job of of committing to and following through on, on publishing there. Would you tell us a little bit about like the goal that you set for yourself, how that's played out and yeah, some of like your key takeaways about.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. So if you have not seen me on LinkedIn, please go follow me. It is a fever dream of posting activity. And I have been on LinkedIn for a very long time, like a very long time and never posted. And I was, um, I was about to start my fractional journey, had no freaking clue how to like do sales or meet people or hawk my wares and happened to go on this people leaders retreat and met this gentleman named Darren McKee. And he told me he's a phenomenal sales leader. And he told me about his closed one numbers and baited me with I just post on LinkedIn every day. That's not true. He does a lot more than just post on LinkedIn every day. But I heard post on LinkedIn and you'll get work. So, you know, I dipped my toe in. I tried a couple of posts and then I was like, but that guy said post every day. And as businesses sometimes do, push kind of came to shove and I needed to figure out how to make money. And sure enough, like the one thing I knew I could control was The genuinely one thing I could do for my business was click post every day. Like, I had thoughts. I could share them. There's a bad AI bot every other post. It's got to be better than that. And that was almost a year ago. So I went from, if folks are interested in numbers, I went from 1,500 followers to about 8,000. 2 million impressions. Like, 2 million eyeballs saw my silly words? Yeah. Yeah, and just a ton of really cool things have happened since. I've met new people, been on podcasts, shot this one amongst others, but really honed my voice and my perspective as a business owner, as an HR leader, as an employee, and just kind of as a human trying to figure it all out.
SPEAKER_03:I'm curious. So I love to write. It's incredibly fun for me to put my ideas out there. one of the things I'm always looking for are feedback loops, right? To share something. And I am so excited, like I'll have buddies who will text me and say, hey, I disagree with you. I love that. I love to hear that someone disagrees with me. It's because they cared, right? Because something I said resonated with them. Or I will have you thought about this or whatever. I'm curious for you, how quickly did you start to get feedback loops in that process? And what did that do for you in your writing? Did that impact your writing?
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. About four days into my everyday posting commitment, I had a post go viral. And first off, I was like, this is so easy. No, it never happened again. I
SPEAKER_01:swear LinkedIn does that on purpose, right? You take a break, you post, they give you a little bit of the drug, and then you chase it forever. I
SPEAKER_00:mean, it was a big drug. It was like, 2000 reactions in 24 hours, hundreds of comments. And it was about compensation and performance reviews and telling folks in advance, if you get this rating, you'll get an increase in your compensation between these two benchmarks. And I used real numbers, like not real for a company, but I put in numbers and they were low numbers because you cannot sustain a 10% increase every six months for all of your employees. Anyway, people had a field day with that. There was a lot of trolls. There was a lot of hateful comments. People love to dog on HR and I understand why, but it's still annoying. And what happened was my husband is fairly prolific online and he was like, look, trolls live in the comments. That's just where they live. You can engage with them. You can give them safe harbor or you cannot worry about it. And I was like, well, if I'm going to post every day with the goal of getting my name out there, I'm going to take my own approach. I recognize that they're trolls, but I also recognize that that shitty mindset that they're bringing, other people have. So I occasionally engage So no, none of that changed my writing. It forced me to be clearer. It forced me to be quippier. I don't rage bait. I don't try and get engagement from anger. But it has made me very thoughtful in approaching hot button subjects. I make my side clear, but I try and... walk the line in such a way where it invites both sides over so we can have the right conversation around it.
SPEAKER_03:I'm curious, did that feedback drive you to write more or did it just not impact you at all? One of the reasons I'm asking, asking for a friend, is when I'm writing, often I'm just craving feedback from someone. I wrote just on my own for years, got no feedback at all, and now I'm getting a little bit, but it's not a whole lot, but I'm going to keep writing. And so I'm just For someone maybe who hasn't gotten to that next step, yeah, I'm just curious how you kind of process that and what keeps you to continue writing?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think I actually write for myself. So I am probably more hesitant of feedback loops than maybe you are. Like, if no one commented on my writing, that would be okay sometimes. But what does inspire me is I see the conversations that it brings about when you talk about layoffs or relating performance to termination or how to inspire and grow your employees to achieve goals that probably aren't achievable to begin with. But like, how do we continue to inspire our team? I think those things resonate.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And really the conversation in the comments is what keeps me coming back because I've gotten so many, I'm in HR. I have a very like HR perspective of things. And when I hear stories and perspectives of employees, it broadens up my approach, which is nice. Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I would say you said something, right? And I was listening to you and you're talking about the comments. And I'm wondering if this is also true is that maybe it's not as much about comments, engagements here within the post, right? But you're showing up every day having a sane, level-headed...
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:...volume of content where I imagine folks are approaching you as a human being, right? You're getting messages that are maybe coming into your inbox or... Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I would love that to be true because I do think like there are so many hot button issues and in the world of HR, there's so many hot button takes on social media when you're trying to grow your brand that it is like I don't want to be known for that hot button, that flare up. Like I am not your spark. I'm your like warm, cozy hearse at home. Like I want to. Yeah, I think that's it's actually a great point that you bring up my. posting habit displays who I am as a PeopleOps partner coming into your business. Like, this is folks' babies that I'm coming in to help them perform better or help them get better organized or help them try new operational practices. Like, you have to trust the person that you're handing that over to. And I hope you know a little bit about me because I... I don't have time to lie on those posts. It's just me.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah. No, you're building trust, right? I would guess that it's less likely that someone's going to say, I read your one post and I'm convinced you're the person that I want to work with. God,
SPEAKER_00:I hope that day comes. And then they write me a check for a million dollars. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:One thing I'm curious about is. You know, we're in America. We were about to have a regime change, a new president come in. And this is not a political podcast. I'm not going into anything with that. But one thing I've felt is a desire to be on social media less in the last couple of months just because there's so much polarization. So I've actually been off social media since for two months now, which is the longest period of time for me since social media existed. Yes, I'm that old. And what I've done instead is I've spent a lot more time writing. I've spent a lot more time reading other people's posts and articles and podcasts in longer forms than in short form. And actually, I'm finding more creativity, more excitement. In general, I think I'm a lot happier. I'm still getting information, but not in this hot by the second type of style, more someone's thought about it for a day, they've written, and I want to digest that. So I'm curious. I'm intentionally withholding myself from basically all social media while still trying to share things, get things out there. How do you maybe stay sane while engaging and also being someone that's creating things on a daily basis? What does that look like for you right now?
SPEAKER_00:It's not always a healthy balance. I'll be really honest about that. There is a level of toxicity. I had a personal goal to post every day for a year, 360 out of 365. And, you know, first there was a couple tiffs of like you should– Be with the people that are here. And I'm trying to figure out a LinkedIn post for the people that don't know me. There was a huge sense of like guilt and failure the first day that I missed. But it was also a moment. It was like it was it was Friday at 538 in the evening. And I realized that I hadn't posted yet. And then I realized I had nothing to say that day. And maybe it was just better to keep my mouth shut. So good. And, you know, kind of a bummer. But now I think especially like for the state of social media, one, LinkedIn isn't as bad as maybe some others. I think that there is. It's not great, but you are attached to your real identity. Your employer is typically available. So I find it's not as horrific as a Reddit or a Facebook or 4chan. I'm not on a lot of other social media. I got locked out of my Facebook a long time ago. Instagram doesn't do much for me. And then on Reddit, it's just houseplants and anti-work and LinkedIn lunatics is my feed. I got to check if I'm on there. So really, I do think that it's a separation and intentionally trying to stay away from more Yeah. And I
SPEAKER_03:mean, I'm getting a little bit older. I don't have infinite amounts of energy anymore. I still like I still run every day. But like life is too short to be mad at everything is how I'm trying to approach it now. So I like that.
SPEAKER_00:It's true. Life is too short to be angry. Like, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:One thing that I would suggest for people, if you're creating LinkedIn posts, I've found that it is not productive to talk about people in a way that, for instance, let's say you have a job and you have a boss or employee you're really mad at. Like, yeah, social media is not the place for that at all. That's just not how that works. But if you have a certain emotion you're feeling, you can sometimes channel that to create, to share. And I've had times over the years where I've been incredibly frustrated. I'll tell Lance the reason why and then I'll just tear into a certain topic. He knows the reason why. I'm not going to say why because maybe it's related to a job or something. But that emotion comes out and sometimes that's helpful.
SPEAKER_00:And I found a couple of people have asked me, how do you come up with what to post? Your friends come to you for professional advice. Whatever field you are in, your friends have come to you. Hey, can you build me an app? Hey, how do I negotiate this offer letter? Hey, you know finance. Think about those golden nuggets of wisdom that you share and then build a little story around that golden nugget because you have a story. That's why you have the wisdom. So I think that is also a nice way to spread kindness and wisdom and information on the socials instead of to complement the emotions.
SPEAKER_03:I love that. And something that always surprises me is a thing that to me, maybe a standard in my industry, someone new coming in that they don't know about these quote unquote standard things. And so they're so excited to learn. And I've often seen that people, they have more to share than they realize where you might say, oh, I'm not going to write on this. Everyone talks about this. Well, your friends are not reading everyone. They're reading you, right? They want to know how you want to approach that. And I was sharing with a friend recently, like, put yourself out there. It's okay. Maybe it's a repeat of someone else, but not for me. I'm not reading what everyone else is saying. I want to read you.
SPEAKER_00:And like some people love Pepsi and some people love Coke. Like your flavor might resonate with people that that flavor doesn't. So give it a go. Why not? It's just clicking posts.
SPEAKER_01:Still on this social media topic, right? So much of what we see is a really curated look at That life. Right. And especially like with the more the less business oriented platforms. Right. Like we see how it's such a driver for anxiety and depression and like not good enough type feelings for consumers of that content. Over on LinkedIn, you've got people that are like, my business is crushing it. I'm the most amazing consultant you've ever seen. Right. Like
SPEAKER_00:all you have to do is wake up at 5 a.m. and work out. And yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So, yeah. You have not shied away from saying, I screwed this up. Here's a huge mistake I made. Tell me a little bit about, like, is that scary, putting that out there? What did you learn about yourself or about your audience when you start saying, like, hey, want to see where Kim made a huge mistake? Here it is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. First off, great engagement. If you're looking to not get rage engagement... Talk about your failures. People love hearing about it. But no, really, I think that one, I have genuinely believed for a long time, especially in my work, like developing career levels and helping people think about timelines for promotion. You don't get real experience and real knowledge until you fail. Like there was one time I rolled out a great performance management process. It was awesome. Like sure there were hiccups, would not call any part of it a failure. And then I went to my next company and was like, well, I already know how to do this. Copy, paste, baby, let's go. Nope, nope, just a big old dumpster fire that project was. And that failure taught me the nuance. Performance programs are fingerprints. They are unique to organizations. They're unique to the the goals and the vision of the org. So all of that to give an example that when I started posting, I think like everyone else, I hate those, oh God, I'm so successful. All you have to do is wake up at 5 a.m. and go to the gym and get a$5 million endowment from your parents and then work 17 hours a day and you're golden. And like, that's one way. But also like, I... You know, I wake up, I greet the day every morning. I love going outside first thing and just taking in a little bit of nature. I don't run. I don't do scummy sales tactics. Like I just talk about my business and there is failure in it and there is mistakes. And if you can learn something from me touching the hot stove, I'll tell you. You'll still make that mistake, but you'll make it in your own way. Yeah. So I'll share that. I feel also a weird sense of accountability. They're not followers. They are people who are trying to do something with their profession. Maybe it's build their own business. Maybe it's grow in human resources. Maybe it's just understanding people's department a little bit better so they can be a better manager or business owner. So like, shouldn't we not? Look, mine's still curated. No one's seen the tears and me having panic attacks on the kitchen floor. That's not what I post. But I think it's important to tell about when you missed a financial goal or be honest when you're scared about bills getting paid. Like, that's real. Those are real parts of the business. And I think we should be honest about it. I'm rambling.
SPEAKER_03:I think in that realm... So many of us are trying to pretend that we've got it, that we're good, that everything's fine, that we're successful. And it's okay to not be. It does not invalidate your value. It may make me think differently about taking this person on for a specific role, but actually maybe in a good way. I was talking recently with a colleague about, you know, on my resume, I don't list the time I was fired. He's like, why don't you? And I explained the reason why and he's like, you should be proud of that. That was a great reason why you got fired. Why don't you include that? And that kind of stood out to me that I don't know if I'm going to go so far as to do that, but there's something in kind of walking through the transparency of who you are and people who are looking for honesty and appreciate that. They're going to be excited to see that from you and maybe that will lead to good opportunities.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I hope so. And I feel like you were saying something that the con is like talking about my failures, talking about my mistakes. Maybe it comes off as not confident and like people want to buy from a confident seller and that's not always me. So, you know, it's it's a risk, I think, but also maybe that person wasn't my client anyway.
SPEAKER_03:And there's a way of saying it in a defeatist way versus in a learning way. Like one of my favorite things to share is. is when Lance and I worked at this company, XWP, I once cost the company$25,000. And I appreciate it was about a year into the role. And the boss basically came to me and said, Hey, I've got your back, Joshua. I know that was an honest mistake. You're the one that reported it to me. You're the one that found it and you put in processes to correct that. We've got you. You're totally fine. We're going to fix that with the client. And then what I did is I quickly transitioned myself into a role where I wasn't going to have to be responsible for budgets anymore, but I could do other stuff for the clients. And the amount of loyalty I felt toward the company, I worked there for five years as a total because I knew they valued me. And ultimately, I made the company far more than that cost that they had to eat. But I was on the kitchen floor gutted or bathroom floor. That was incredibly hard for me. So I just say that that That mistake actually ended up being a really good thing for my career because I was honest. I fessed it up and I made steps to not do that mistake ever again.
SPEAKER_00:It's one of my I'm going to go on a tangent again. I apologize. It's why I started Journey Lines, which is the other podcast you should listen to right after this one. And really what I have folks do is plot their career or milestone events in their life against a line of neutrality. So we can literally talk about the ups and the downs of their career and what i have found so often is the moments that you would think people would be riding high and just feeling so great like oftentimes that is a low point in their career that causes a massive shift in their perspective and their approach again those failures those low points the the moments you think you can't see beyond like They are life changing in the best way. And maybe we should celebrate them a little bit more.
SPEAKER_03:Actually, that would be my follow up is knowing that cognitively, have you been able to either help other people or yourself be able to say, oh, I'm in a low and I'm going to embrace it? Like, have you been able to make that switch or has it just given you an appreciation for when you're in those lows that something good will happen later? I
SPEAKER_00:think so. I read a quote once or maybe I made it up. No, somebody else made this up. There is something. But right now I'm going to wallow in this mud pit and I will like make a very big mess out of a very little problem wallowing in my mud pit. But eventually, like you have a choice. You you can stay there or you can get yourself up, clean yourself off. And even if you don't feel like taking the next step, you just take the next step. And that's certainly important. has been true. I'm a very fortunate, very lucky human. I have a family that supports me. I have a spouse who is a wonderful human being who has supported my solopreneur journey. And often those folks are the folks that stick a hand out and pull me out of that mud pit. So yeah, the downs happen. They do go away. I
SPEAKER_03:think the Clear distinction there, though, and I've been through therapy and it's been very helpful for me is when you're in depression, when you're feeling that down moment, being able to say, I'm not crazy. I'm not I'm not broken. Something bad is happening to me. We're all broken. That's fine. But it's like I'm not irreparably damaged. Something really challenging is happening and I can step outside myself like a third person. It doesn't make me necessarily feel better in the moment, but it gives me a way of having a tiny bit of separation to maybe take an action forward.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what it is. Like being able to catch your breath, just catch your breath for just a split second to take that next action. Um, yeah. Ooh, this got heavy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm thinking about, you mentioned the people in your life that, that can play out from pretty low moments. Um, I think sometimes being a solopreneur is a pretty lonely journey for people. How have you found... I mean, FPP has been a great sense of community, but where do you go and where would you say to people who are kind of in this journey, like, yeah, I'm struggling too. This is hard. I'm not making the kind of money I thought I was going to be. I don't know where my next customers are coming from. Where do you... What kind of ideas do you have for people who are kind of in that zone?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's one. I'd like to validate it. It is very lonely. Like here is my office. Here is where I sit. It is an echoey white space some days. Now, that being said, like an unintended outcome of being so vocal on LinkedIn is I have made so many mistakes. genuine friends in a digital space. Some of those I've had the opportunity to meet IRL. Some of those I have had, you know, the opportunity to have regular recurring Zoom catch ups. Like there are folks I've never met in person and it's weird to remember that we're so close. So I do think like, God, I hate when people say this, but you kind of got to put out what you want to get back. So If you do start engaging with digital communities, maybe it's a Slack space, maybe it's LinkedIn, maybe it's a subreddit thread. I don't know. Go find your folks. Being able to write well and hone your voice and connect digitally with folks, whether it be screen records, audio notes, quick videos, like those are all tactics for connection. And I think as you make those connections and build those relationships, there's a few arenas to play in. Play with folks in your expertise area. Mine is HR and people ops. Play with folks who are doing the same thing you're doing, building a fractional solo business. And then play with folks who inspire you. There are sales leaders in my network that I am so grateful. There are... Strangers from LinkedIn who have reached out to me and offered help. And there are people that I know I could go back to and be like, okay, I did that thing you told me about. Now what? All of that has made me feel less alone. And I don't know. I recognize it's all kind of in my computer and digital space. And maybe it's a weird separation. Maybe it's a weird never separation because, you know, always with me. Yeah. But I do think if you search for your people, when you find them, they won't let you go. You won't be so lonely. But it's just hard to put... It's like making friends as an adult. It's hard to put yourself out there. But if you just show up to the same spot regularly, you'll start meeting
SPEAKER_03:people. One of the things that I've been curious about is... I think group chats have a lot of power and I'm talking like iMessage or WhatsApp, something where it's a handful of people that you invite one person to a group chat and everyone is allowed to invite one other person. But if they bring in someone that's a total not great person, they kind of lose their invitation credibility going forward. But there's something about a group chat where you build up a little bit of connection, a little bit of trust. And you can talk about things in a way that maybe you wouldn't feel comfortable when it's posted to LinkedIn or Instagram where everybody can see it. And so absent in real life relationships, which I think are incredibly powerful, and that's an entire other thing that is so important. I think there can be something because Marco Polo is popular for a reason. Voice memos are popular for a reason. Loom, all these apps where you can share voice and video, I think that's incredibly powerful. And I had a buddy that we would occasionally on threads or Mastodon, we would reply to each other or comment to each other. After about six months, he's like, hey, can I just have your email? So we started emailing back and forth. And then we're like, hey, how about we just chat on iMessage to the point where we're sending voice emails back and forth now. And we've built a friendship. We've never met. He's in Europe. I'm in America. But we are friends. And that kind of came from moving it out of a social media area into maybe a little bit more private zone where we could build trust.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's a very natural digital friendship progression. And certainly what's happened to me, like you'll start in like a group chat on LinkedIn or then like, oh, maybe we spin up a Slack space together and then you're a little bit more like engaged. And then it happened with a few friends. We were like, we're all going to be in Austin. Do we just throw a dinner for people ops people in Austin? And then like, You know, well, if we're going to do that, let's start texting each other. And it just and then we all met in Austin and, you know, now we're still on Slack. And to your point, like some some of the members ebb and flow and change based off of like what the group is. But it is still like such a centralized, intimate community of of folks and personal boards of advisors. You know, I have other groups that I'm just like, hey. You're going to help me be better at my business. Yeah, those relationships are invaluable.
SPEAKER_03:I'm in one group chat with a number of pretty technical people, some of them much more than myself. And it's really nice when I have a question that Google's not solving or ChatGPT's not solving. I'm like, hey, here's what I'm wrestling with. And actually, I've gotten some legitimately helpful answers that I could not find anywhere else. That's not why I'm in there. I'm in there for other reasons. But it's really nice sometimes to have that to call on.
SPEAKER_00:100%. 100%.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm wondering, Kim, if you could give us like a little bit of a snapshot of how you found your way into fractional, because I imagine there's a lot of listeners who are fractional curious if they're not yet like totally in this. And like, how did you decide that this is the path you're going to take? What are like some of those takeaways from the early, early days, right? It's not like any of us have been doing this forever, but what are some of those early days takeaways? 20 years of
SPEAKER_03:fractional experience. What are you talking about? Collectively.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, let's go back to the year of Our Lady 2022. What a fantastic world that was. There was like a moment of milk and honey in the VC funded landscape. I was working. Those
SPEAKER_03:were
SPEAKER_00:good times. Oh, God. Good times. That summer, people were getting jobs. That summer, people were getting jobs and my company was laying people off. And I was like, you should lay me off. And they were like, no, we love you. And I was like, you guys too i'll stay and so in december um we ran out of money and i was no longer staying um you know we completed laying off the company uh a skeleton crew remained i laid myself off tough times um but no worries land of milk and honey we're doing okay i'm gonna take a month off and kick up my job search in january 2023 january 2023 i kick up my job search and i'm like already in a great interview process. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to the offer round. I got this. Didn't get that job. That happened again a few more times. And then I was like, OK, well, now my severance money has run out. I'm back at zero with prospects. I have a mortgage to pay. Somebody reached out to me. Shout out Shreyas. She reached out to me for a contract for some contract work. She was like, hey, we need like 20 hours a week. And I'm like, great, great. That I can do that. And it met it. It paid the bills. And I was like, OK, well, I'm still going to interview. This is part time work. I'm going to go back in house full time. September 2023 rolls around. I'm no closer to getting a job. My contract is now ending. That's all done. And Ellis, founder of Fractional People People, rings me up on the phone and says, hey, I am thinking about starting a Fractional People Ops group. A little Slack community. There's only a few of us. We're all trying to figure this out together. Are you in? And I was like, yeah, sure. But I'm going to go back in-house. So I'll hang out. But, you know, probably not for long. And Ellis started the Slack community in September or October. And then I'm in this community where people are... Registering their LLCs and getting a website and building offerings and landing a client. And I'm like, well, hold on. Could I actually do this? Like, could I go back to the days of what that contract was and work part time and make enough money? And January 2024, a year ago, hit. I was rejected once again from an in-house opportunity contract. This one, I was going into the final call thinking that we were talking numbers and we did. And then they rejected me. It was so weird. It was the strangest rejection call I've ever had. And in that moment, I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to. I cannot get rejected anymore. Like it is harming my self-worth.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:At the same time, I have a small rental unit. My tenants told me that they were moving out. And now I was really stressed about the bills. I was really stressed about bills. This is a very long winded story. This is great
SPEAKER_01:storytelling. Keep going. I'm on the edge of my seat.
SPEAKER_00:So I am having one of those panic attacks on my kitchen floor. And I think, well, what can I do? I have to make$2,000 in a month so I can pay a bill. Pay my mortgage or whatever. And I was like, what can I do? And I was like, well, I could write a playbook. I could talk about performance management. I grossly love performance reviews and performance programs and the potential that they hold. I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to write a playbook and I'm going to sell a playbook. And then if I can sell enough of this playbook to pay my bills, then I'll try and get a contract.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I did not sell enough of that playbook to pay the bills, but it all worked out. You know, fortune smiled upon me and really it like kicked my ass into gear to take control of my business. And my husband, who, again, amazing human, looked at me one day in a fit of when I was, you know, stressed out about everything and said, I need you to stop acting like an unemployed person. people ops person and I need you to start acting like a business owner. And it flipped a switch in my brain. And I was like, OK, OK, what do business owners do? I need to get offerings. I need to get the right offerings because I want to work. God, if I got to build a damn business for myself and work so hard doing it, I only want to do the things that I love, the things that I enjoy in my profession, the things I know I'm crush that I'm just excellent at. And so around April of 2024 was when I really flipped my mindset and said, no, I am a I'm a fractional people ops leader. I am great at helping organizations maximize their performance. I can change your employee engagement strategy into a strategic organizational conversation so you can get better results from the team that is doing the work. And yeah, now I'm just on that hot shit of it. We are I landed a couple a couple gigs after I redid my offerings. I have a phenomenal client that I'm a part time head of people for now. And I get to do project based work and things that I love. I still don't have the income I wish I did, but I'm not terrified every day. And that feels like a good step.
SPEAKER_01:Feels like a huge win.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that's how I got to fractional.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Okay. So now if I am like looking at either an upcoming termination of my role and I'm thinking the next thing I want to do is become a fractional or if I'm just sick of corporate and maybe I want to do fractional because I want some freedom or whatever, like Like, what's like one or two things that you would say to someone who's just about to step in to this fractional world?
SPEAKER_03:And one question I would add to it, because I like to ask this in general to our guests, is assume if they have a long runway or a short runway, how would you answer those questions differently?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm so glad you said that because I was going to. Let's start with long runway. If you have a long runway, you really have a great opportunity to start building your brand. Whether that be, you know, what your business focuses on, what you are an expert in. And as you like build your brand and build that expert persona of yourself, take the time to really engage with your network. Like this is something I botched. Go back to those phenomenal leaders that you've worked with. Go back to those champions. Go back to those salespeople who have cashed a commission check off of your back and go talk to them about what you're thinking about doing. You know, start those introductory conversations so you don't have to jump to a cold sell, but you're really like prepping everyone for what you're about to do when you make your move. Now, if you had a shorter time frame, I would recommend the same. Like one, get on your brand and get on your network. Figure out what you want to do and figure out who you can tell. If you have the opportunity to really think about it, and I hope you do, one of the best exercises I did was thought about what I want my life, my entire life, to look like in 10 years. Where do I live? What does my day-to-day look like? Am I able to wake up in the morning, greet the day, and have my cup of coffee? If and when I work, what does that work look like? And really thinking about the perfect vision of my 10 years and then incorporating the work into it. And then from there, it took me about a month to figure out the stepping stones of like, all right, well, how do I get there to here in 10 years? Really spend time thinking about What you want your business to be, what the value is. I think a lot of folks come in saying, I can help. I can help your organization do this. I can help your marketing team do that. No one wants help. They want you to come in and fix it. So get really confident in your, to use an Alison Davis phrase, get really confident in being a painkiller, not a vitamin. Come in, know that you have the solution already. Be a little cocky about it and tell them the benefits.
SPEAKER_01:To quote your really smart husband, stop acting like an out-of-work HR person and start acting like a business owner. That was fire. I think that's such a good piece of advice to the person who has just left their job and they're trying to start Fractional.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it is a mindset switch. Like, you're not a people ops person. You come in, you help, you learn, you listen. A fractional executive is coming in to fix your shit and make you better. And like how you approach work, how you approach finding work, how you approach your network, how you approach your failures, all of that is a game changer when you flip that switch. Thanks, Brandon.
SPEAKER_01:A couple quick questions wrapping it up here. How do you define fractional? What does fractional mean when you say fractional?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I think in its truest sense, it's an executive who works a fraction of the time for a fraction of the price. I think that the work landscape is evolving. I think we'll see more folks take liberty with fractional. I sometimes do, sometimes. And I do think it will be... Almost like a tagline for those who have chosen a portfolio career instead of a singular career.
SPEAKER_01:And we've seen a big swell in people who are moving towards being a fractional service provider. I think maybe the buyers are lagging a bit. But do you predict, do you see that there will be like this is going to be a permanent fixture for kind of this like future of work conversation? Fractional is here to stay or is this going to come and go, you think?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I think fractional has always been here. Maybe it was called a different name, but I remember very early in my career, well before 2020, working with folks who worked remotely, who worked part time. Like, I don't think that this is new. I think we're seeing more of it. And I think we will continue to see more of it. I believe with this next generation, with the next two generations coming up into the workforce. With the oldest generations maybe one day actually leaving the workforce, I think some of these traditional ideas of full-time employment, long-term tenures, and singular employers, it's got to go. It's got to go. Nobody wants to do it anymore. The ways of our society have changed, so why not change the way
SPEAKER_03:we work? And we're seeing companies even that are hiring for full-time employees they're rapidly shifting their numbers. They're increasing and decreasing headcount all the time because they're struggling, frankly, with the overhead of that large W-2 salary that they're holding, right? And so they're trying to get around it in as many creative ways as possible, especially the companies that care about their people. But the last couple of years, especially in tech-related companies, it's been really hard for the employees and, of course, for the leaders, but I'm caring a lot more for the employees right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I typically try and care more for the employees, too. Yeah, I do think like, you know, I think we're kind of in some hellscape remnants of old organizational practices. Jack Welsh of GE really popularized this idea of like a rack and stack system where you cut the bottom 10 percent. But if you do that and you still need those roles, then you're just not a friend of the
SPEAKER_03:pod, by the way.
SPEAKER_00:Not a friend of the pod. Ditto.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know, I just think that's such a shit way to to think about your headcount planning, to think about your growth, to think about how you achieve your goals like those practices have to change. And I have to believe as new generations enter the workforce and loud generations like maybe not all millennials, but some of us, you know, I hope we really, you know, lay the path for that change.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:All right. I'll go with the last couple of questions. I'm messing with Lance in the doc. Okay. So if someone's a W-2 employee and they're fractional curious, but they're not going to make any change anytime soon. At least they don't think so, unless they lose their job. What advice would you give to them to maybe take some of the principles that you've been employing in being a fractional that they could maybe think themselves for what... However you'd want to answer that, because I do know people that listen to this who are employed, but they still find value in this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I would start thinking about where your interests and expertise lie. So if there's one day that you do just want to do part time work, what part time work do you want to do and how can you start today? Yeah. Yeah. That's certainly something. Start really thinking about building a network, building a strategic network. Think about folks within your career and folks who would need your services later. Start meeting those folks now. You got nothing to sell. So it's the best time to build those relationships. And then when you do have something to sell, they'll already love you.
SPEAKER_03:So it's the beginning of 2025. How are you seeing AI chatbots and tools being implemented in the type of work that you're doing? I
SPEAKER_00:am the worst person to ask this question to. I don't use it very often, if ever. I do see... And by the way,
SPEAKER_03:for me, it's not so much a trick question. It's more of a gauge, right? I'm trying to learn from different professionals in different parts of the industry. Has it been able to help you or is it not useful at all at this stage?
SPEAKER_00:I would definitely useful. Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of usefulness that is a phenomenal tool. I would be very clear that it's a tool. Some things that I have loved about it, slightly annoying, but like Leaders will chat GPT HR questions and it is so helpful that they can come into the conversation more informed. It is occasionally annoying that I have to remind them that I am a human and have more nuance than a large language model. I have seen AI do some really cool shit with like figuring out compliance nuances, doing like large data set analysis, like all of that, there is huge power in AI, especially in the field of HR, probably in the field of solopreneurship business too. Where I have decided to draw some lines, I don't use AI for writing, not even as a blank page syndrome, not even as a prompt syndrome. It's not for me. I also really don't like using AI in assessing human behaviors. Again, because of that, like, nuance of humanity that AI doesn't capture well. I personally have concerns when it's like an AI coaching program or an AI this. Like, let's use it for less squishy things. Let's use it for things that we can do. verify and double check that data and less um perspectives on behaviors because ai don't have behaviors i
SPEAKER_03:love that and yeah i want to just re-emphasize like you're looking at ways that it can help you but you're also very careful to say i'm not going to just go blindly trust this because there's people's lives who's that matter based on decisions i'm going to make And so I'm not going to just throw this into an LLM to see what their future will bring.
SPEAKER_00:And I think like it's hard for me. I don't know who built that LLM or like whatever. OK, you built it, but you didn't build what it's sitting on top of. So like what what unknown biases, what unknown, quote unquote, choices is this AI making? And I don't think we know enough about the inner workings of that tool to use it to gauge success. and correct or guide human behavior.
SPEAKER_03:Love
SPEAKER_02:that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. LinkedIn is probably the best place. I'm almost mostly responsive on there. It's Kim underscore Minick. Let's see other places you can find me. That's probably pretty code traveler. H.R. dot com. It's got two L's and traveler or just find me on LinkedIn and then click the button that says go to my Web site. And then you can find my podcast, Journeyline Pods, answering the question, how did they get there, wherever you listen to podcasts.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much for coming on. And listeners, if you have any feedback, feel free to email at fractional.fm. And I'm also testing out a texting little thing. So if you text us, Lance and I will get that. We'll roll with that. Thank you so much. And we'll be back soon.
