Fractional
Fractional
Michael Gold: Fractional vs. Freelance: What’s the Difference and Does It Matter?
Today, we’re joined by Michael Gold, Fractional Project Manager at Gold Project Management and founder of Fractional Hub, a new community space for fractionals. Michael shares his journey into fractional work, the importance of community, and the challenges of building a fractional career.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why community matters for fractional professionals
- Defining fractional work: "Fractionally freelance" and breaking career barriers
- The Fractional Hub course and how it supports fractionals
- Starting from zero: How to find your first clients on LinkedIn
- The oddities of LinkedIn posts and how to engage
- Opportunities for junior professionals in the fractional world
Resources & Links
📌 Connect with Michael:
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Join us as we discuss the fractional space, how to build a strong professional network, and using LinkedIn to grow your business.
All right. Welcome to the Fractional Podcast. I'm Lance Robbins. I'm here with my co-host Joshua Wold and a special guest, Michael Gold today. So, Michael, great to have you on the show. Michael, you're a fractional project manager with Gold Project Management. That's your enterprise. And you're also launching a community space. It's just this is new. It's called Fractional Hub. So we'd love to hear more about that. Tell us a little bit about what Fractional Hub is and maybe a little bit about how you found your way to launching something like this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thanks for asking. I mean, I'm literally coming here off the back of an adrenaline rush, can't barely sort of feel my legs anymore today. Having after three months of dedicated work, launched it, we were up at seven in the morning, five, six hours of work, getting to the midday launch and just about made it uh and then to seeing people sign up to it throughout the day it's been non-stop don't tell my fractional clients that because i've also been working for them today uh supposedly but yeah the fractional hub it's a community space for either existing freelancers potentially fractional workers but also just really anyone uh you know You guys will know better considering I know that you've both gone back into full-time work, but you've got a passion for fractional work. I mean, there are so many people that don't even know what fractional is, so I wouldn't niche it down to anything like that. It's really just a space for anyone who wants to get involved, learn about fractional work, join a community. We've got a free forum, some free resources, which are applicable to freelancers as much as fractional in most cases. And then over time, we'll start to have some events with specialists, other fractional workers, almost like, I guess, like a semblance of a podcast, but more of like a live event sort of thing. Everyone joins, Q&As, and we'll just see how it grows. I mean, my dream long term is that it also becomes a bit of a marketplace. We have like a funnel of people coming in, learning about fractional work. having a community networking, and then we can kind of start to partner with companies and go, look, we've got a hotbed of talent here. They're all looking for fractional work and then start to pair people together. But that's a lofty ambition, I'd say, for the future.
SPEAKER_02:So you're trying something here that has, we've seen a pattern here with a lot of fractionals. You're trying to create a community. Obviously, you would hope that that helps with your own business goals. Like that's why we get into many different projects. But what's the kind of why behind wanting to build a community? I'm sure this ties into your own fractional journey, maybe feeling isolated. I'm kind of feeding you an answer here that I have felt very much myself. But yeah, I'm curious kind of the why behind getting this started. I
SPEAKER_00:think it's a few reasons. But I mean, so like, I mean, the story of the fractional hub was if we just go backwards, like in 2023, me, my now fiance and my best friend, I mean, We were in Da Nang in Vietnam, all traveling. I had ended up on a three-day-a-week contract for 20 months, which I guess is an argument. I mean, that was just part-time, but you could argue it's kind of fractional. I was a project manager in the sense of working across a week, but only three days. I just didn't have other clients. And that way of life obviously allowed me to travel and explore and it was just incredible. And then when we came back, I took my job back to five days a week and it just it's very difficult to make that that transition back
SPEAKER_02:did you feel your soul just collapse a little bit
SPEAKER_00:i i would say not immediately not as quick we were we're done 20 months of traveling and you just get homesick and stuff so i think there was all like the nuance and loveliness of and then but five months later like 100 and then it was like oh my god i've just gone back to the place i said i'd never go back to and uh it all kind of hit me and so then it's been a slow transition back into how do i take more control um and so about 13 months ago i went freelance uh bought a house a week later quit my job went freelance um you know the classic thing that everyone tells you to do and from there i just started learning about fractional and it really felt like a missing piece to my whole career. Genuinely, I'm now the number one advocate of it because I was just so obsessed of how much sense it made. From never heard it to suddenly getting involved in it, finding amazing contracts. And I guess I'm one of the lucky people who, it all kind of just worked out for me. And I got some of the best contracts that I got. And the way of working, it just kind of blew my mind in terms of, I have always tried to find what in my career could make me happy. And I even say this in our course that we'll touch on at some point, I'm sure. But things about that, I thought when I went fractional with the email, everyone says you have to niche. And I thought, well, I'm going to have to get out of my niche because my niche sucks. I don't enjoy that. How do I get into the tech industry or something? How do I get more higher day rates, whatever? And then when you move into fractional and you get that elevation of, well, now you're more strategically embedded. You're getting a much higher day rate. You're getting paid for your productivity. The whole mindset of, I was like, oh, I don't need to switch my niche. Like, actually, it's just the way I was working in that niche that was so difficult for me. And all of this kind of just blew my mind. And I went from just advocating for it. And I got over six months, more and more messages liking my LinkedIn posts and things I was saying and asking me how they get into it. And I've never heard this and talking about. It was just a natural, like, okay, well, our community's clearly needed here. This is such a fresh and new topic. Someone has to help these people. They're messaging me constantly. Why not me? And so, and fortunately, I then got Liam and my fiancee, who were in Da Nang, I got them involved. And thank God I did, because she's a designer and he's a writer. God, no way I would have done this at all without them.
SPEAKER_01:This is cool. I've got a follow-up question on something that you said here. It sounds like you were talking about a little bit of a mindset shift, maybe more than a niche shift from employee to entrepreneur. Does that kind of capture what you were saying? Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:like massively. My dad owned his own business. I was always considered to be like the entrepreneur of the family. That was the expectation. When I was really young, I... it was like 14, 15, 16, I was putting on these big like 1,000 to 5,000 people music event sort of things. I thought that would be where I went and long story, but I didn't do that. And then the older I got, the fear factor of entrepreneurship settled in. You start to realize what you're risking. And so fractional feels like that perfect balance. The risk is relatively speaking low. You know, you're not, you might put a few hundred quid up on a website or do some, you know, get your tools and stuff in place. But the risk is really a lack of money. Like if it doesn't come in, but it's not upfront costs. It's one of the lowest barriers to entry of like entrepreneurship. And so, yeah, like you said, like once I got that back, I didn't realize how much I missed it. I mean, it really powers me. Like I still think project management isn't the most fun thing ever, but I don't think of, me as a project manager anymore. I think of me more as an entrepreneur. And that has been a huge shift.
SPEAKER_02:Do you feel like... I'm going to kind of ask a question that I've thought often myself. Do you feel like you were before defined by what the market said you must be and there's limits and now the limits have kind of been removed and there's opportunity? Have you seen that shift with yourself?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Like... yeah I would say like even just jumping through different contracts that I've had so if I was full-time there was sort of I was just doing a certain set of project management or I might lead a PMO which I did for a bit or I might be a chapter lead I might do whatever whereas this is so many different companies doing so many different things so I'm working for one company where I'm just doing run-of-the-mill I work in e-learning or creative agency stereotypically and so They hire me for a few days a week. I'm just running e-learning projects, which is that's all my bread and butter was kind of like just as a project manager. But as of literally today, just to be like topical, I'm now employed at an AI company and I need to embed a brand new tool that I've worked with for ages. So I'm going into their thing to literally embed their whole project management processes, working with an old colleague or old manager of mine, but now I guess level. because I'm just sort of supporting him more as a company client relationship, which is always interesting. And then I've got like a third client who's like some$700 million huge global company. And I'm sort of the number two to the VP of transformation there. The levels of those three roles are so wildly different. The day rates are wildly different as well. But the day tasks are so wild. And so... I'm working really high level strategy to process embedding to just running a project. All at the same time, you can't get that anywhere else. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:This is interesting because we've been quite loose in the parameters we've put around what fractional means. And others have been quite stringent on the parameters of what fractional means. But it sounds like you're taking... high-level strategic and also very hands-on contributor tasks type work. Who cares what the title is, right? Whether it's executive or not. And making a, I mean, what sounds like a successful fractional portfolio out of it. So is the obsession with like defining fractional silly or is it important or how do you see it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, this is where, and I don't know if I coined the term, but if I have coined the term, then trademark and all of that, then I say, yeah, I did that. But fractionally freelance is what I like because you can, I think there's two, there's the traditional fractional. So it's that strategic and better sort of thing that you're talking about there. And then there's, working freelance, but in my mind, working freelance fractionally might not be fractional, but it's fractionally. And then you are getting into this nuanced niche difference, and it does feel like it starts to become a bit silly. But I understand why people do it, because I speak to my Rachel, who co-runs this, and she's like an illustrator. Stereotypically, she will have multiple clients always. So the idea of when I was explaining Fraction to her, she was like, I've always done that. I've always had multiple clients. I only have short-term gigs. It's so rare that I'm going to have a six-month illustration. This doesn't exist. But I think when you then say to a project manager, hey, have you ever considered just working two hours a day for three different companies simultaneously? That isn't standard freelancing. That might not be the traditional sense of what people meant by fractional, but it's still not freelancing. That's not a term or a way of working. I've heard the average project manager just sort of, yeah, I work remotely and I work for three or four companies simultaneously for a few hours a day. Like that is still new. And so the only way I can then define that is, yeah, that's a task to a freelancer, but working fractionally. So, you know, fractionally freelance.
SPEAKER_01:That's great because I think there are so many layers and wrinkles that are unique to everybody's career journey or the customer needs that they found to be a specialist for that. Yeah, it's like we don't want to preclude anybody from that conversation because I think there's a lot of value for people who are project managers right now and are thinking, I don't like this five days a week at one company all the time. You know, I know I'm the next layoff in the next year or two. How do I, you know, build something different for myself? And, you know, if they come to one of these communities that says, well, fractional is really only for, you know, C-level, you know, go somewhere else. Well, where do they go? And who do they listen to? And where can they hear stories of success that might apply to them? So, yeah, I think this is just like a really nice value add to the conversation. I
SPEAKER_00:think it's the next evolution of working patterns. And it's a huge cultural thing. like a culture, just think of a culture war. So I just briefly forgot what that phrase was. But in my head, it massively ties into the whole like remote working. And that is like a do and die place that people are really going to just like argue about forever. But if you sit on the remote side, at least, it just makes sense that you can work for multiple companies. And it works for both people. It opens up employers for, it's so ridiculous that employees have to hire people like if they needed a project manager and they had like one or two extra projects historically their choices were one or two things hire someone full-time or I guess one or three things hire an extra person full-time hire an extra person on a contract full-time or allow your team to just take on the extra work and burn out like those were the three options it's just ridiculous and so all of the advocates for the you know office work and I'm not saying it should we should scrap office work you know everyone has a place to work and that you know it's different and you can work where you want to work but for them not to be able to see the advantages or remote work does allow you if you just want to pick up a project manager for two days it does allow you to have a marketer come in for a day a week and that doesn't work most of the time if you have like office work only on the sense of like if i work for five clients And I go to a client on a Monday and I sit in their office. It's very awkward if I start whipping out my laptop and working for a different client. And it doesn't help them if I don't do that because sitting in their office on a Monday, what project has seven, eight hours worth of work on the Monday? And then you just ignore the project for four days and you just hope it's fine. And then you come back in on the Monday. So it's such an upsell for the company as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's really interesting as it relates to workforce planning. And you were kind of touching on that, right? What are the options that employers have? Because I can remember sitting at a web agency interviewing software engineers and thinking, all right, we have one project that needs attention. Are we going to ask this person who, through the courses of the interview I've learned, has a family, has a mortgage, and has a stable, steady job at a great competitor? We're going to ask them to come over to our agency to hopefully pick up more work, you know, and us knowing in the background, like if we don't close more projects, we probably won't be able to keep this person very long. And so, you know, why have the dichotomy of right? Either we don't hire them or we hire them full time. No, we're happy if you keep working there or somewhere else or for five other people. We don't care. Right. Just. We just want to give you this right here. This is what we really need. And if someone can say yes to that and it's a win for them, the risk that employers have to take is so low.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it's a win-win for everyone in the sense of why not pay someone slightly more because they're picking up the risk or whatever, but you're paying overall less than you would. So just split the difference. So rather than paying someone$100,000 a year, pay someone the equivalent of$75,000 a year, but on a day rate. rather than if they had worked four times elsewhere two days, three days a week, they might only get$50,000. Why not just give them that middle bit because they're taking on the risk. They're helping you take your costs down. It's such a mindset thing that I still think people struggle with. And I've said this a couple of times in other interviews and I struggled with the word and I'm going to give it a go. But presenteeism. Presenteeism? Mm-hmm. Still struggling with it, I think. But it's that... shift in the idea that people expect to pay for hours and they want to see that specific value and if you pay on three days a week but you're giving them what you think is the salary for four days a week there's like this internal like I'm getting ripped off kind of thing rather than just thinking no they've saved me a day a week because without them I'd have to have paid on five days a week and I'd be locked into some contract and it's still like a mindset where people are trying to just get annoyed, I think, for no reason, where they need to just be thinking, what's the value they're actually providing and are they saving me money? We go through this so often and it's why fractional work, where they try and tell you to position it as like a fixed price sort of deliverable. But I work still with quite a lot of my clients on day rates, but I think I'm quite fortunate there's a mutual understanding that, well, actually, whether there is or isn't a mutual understanding, They know that I have tasks and they know I work for other clients. And one of the nicer things about working for a fractional sort of relationship is that if I am working two days a week for one client, they don't specifically know when. They just know that I'm kind of working two days across the week, which I think shifts their mindset away from that presenteeism sort of concept because they can't time track me. So even if they think they're paying me for two days a week, I could just do 10 days. I'm sorry, 10 hours. of that 15 hours. I could do 20 hours. I could do eight. They don't have that much way of tracking me, but they will see at the end of my week because I always need to personally do a weekly report. And I say, this is what we achieved. And so they have a absolute output discussion with me. They can't really time track me. So even when I say it's a day rate, they're still not really 100% what I'm doing. But I think that's a good thing for everyone because it forces them to focus on the output alone. which I think is what everyone should do.
SPEAKER_02:And the incredible value there is a dishonest person could just lie about their hours. And what you're trying to do is move away to more about, let's look at what we're accomplishing together than the strictly trust-based, like how many hours am I doing? How many hours am I not doing? I remember years ago, I was working in an office and the people who got praised were the ones who would pull night shifts and stay late working extra. And the people who just got their work done and left at 4 p.m. would not get any extra notoriety. They would not get noticed. And if you can't measure output, what you'll measure is hours. And that's not a good metric for people who are actually trying to create creative stuff. So I'm ranting a little bit here, but
SPEAKER_00:I love where you're going with this. But it is like, I'd love someone to have done a report on those people who stayed till like 8 p.m. or something and you left at 4 p.m. And I'd love someone to say, like, definitively, did they do more work? And how much more work? Because if they worked 20% longer, but they only did 5% more, like, what was their actual metric? And I've got a really similar sort of anecdote. I say it's my first proper employment. And I think I was still on probation, which isn't ideal. So it's not that good of a story, really. But I would be doing my work, and I got through all my tasks. And there'd be these moments where I just, I guess I was like on Facebook or something. And if I'm looking at my laptop here, behind me here is literally a glass office of the CEO. And so he's like a direct eyesight run to me on Facebook. So after a couple of weeks or something, he apparently came up to my manager and was like, what the hell is this guy doing? He's on probation. He's always messing around. My manager reacted by moving my desk just on the other side. So I was then facing the CEO. So my computer wasn't in his eye line. And then I remember he came out and was like, I know you've just moved him to, you know, to stop me looking. And he's like, yeah, you're distracting him. He's a hit every single target that we've got. You know, he's going to pass probation. He's ahead of schedule kind of thing. Why do you count like stop bothering him? And that's always like, that's like 12 years ago or something. Patrick Thomas, if you ever watching this Patrick, uh, is my best, best manager. It's always stuck with me. I,
SPEAKER_02:I, I resonate with that so strongly. Because what happens is a good manager recognizes that they've got a rock star who maybe gets bored easily, but does not mess around, gets their stuff done and maybe spends half the day on Facebook. Like that's how old it was. I used to be on Facebook. Now it's not Facebook anymore. And what happens is if really good workers are not protected. then fear builds in, right? Because if you, I've had bosses who start, they don't know how to define what I'm doing. So then they're looking for vanity metrics to figure out if they can judge the value of my work instead of actually looking at output. And then I start looking for the next step, right? I have to move on because that brings in this whole fear into the workplace. I remember having one designer that joined our company and he's like, yeah, the last company, they were tracking mouse movement and taking screenshots every five minutes. so that they could measure the output. And so what you have to do is install a mouse jiggler to keep your mouse moving because he's like, as a designer, I have to pace, I have to think, I have to step away. And if I'm not at the computer typing keys, then they start to dock you. And that just feels like such a horrible world that would just destroy any creative output. So fractional is potentially an answer to that.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's a four. I do really think it forces people to focus on output massively. But yeah, I don't know. I was going to say another point, but it's the same point again. I think when you said you want to run as well, it just frustrates me as well.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm curious with yourself, you've just launched this big project that you've got the fractional hub up and running. You're fractional, you're doing different engagements. What will keep you excited to be doing this if we're talking in two or three years? And what might make you say, actually, guys, I'm out, that that burned me out. I'm just, I'm trying to figure out a little bit of the meta of how you're doing and where you see things going.
SPEAKER_00:I think the exciting thing about doing, even going fractional before the fractional hub, as in just the concept of fractional, elevate the career in the sense of if, and I keep putting it for your audience and just, I'm trying to,$110,000, I'm trying to like do some math there. But if I was like on$110,000 a year and I'm like, that's capped, in my head, I might get like a 5% raise every now and again. And then, so the idea of then going fractional and suddenly being on like 180,000 and that's like in the first year, then sort of launching the fractional hub, bringing my fiance and best friend along for the ride. And it's not all about money. And don't get me wrong, it's not about money, but it's about the opportunities and the money. I won't also lie and say it's not the money. it's the two things. And so, like I said before, I'm currently working for like a run of the mill standard projects company, a$700 million huge enterprise for VP of transformation. And I'm now working for like this AI tech company and I'm doing all of them. And so I look at the fractional hub and with the same view of like, we've got one course and it's really exciting. We've never, none of us have ever done anything like this. We've spent three months developing a website, working until midnight, like every night, like getting these things out and, There's so much more to come in terms of like events, sponsors, partnerships that I think the exciting part is where does it go? Like where could it go? And people might laugh at this because I spoke to other communities and they've got like 20 members paying a subscription a month or someone's got 50. And I'm looking at them, yeah, but what if we get like a thousand? Like what if in like two, three years we become like the dominant fractional space What if like huge organizations start taking notice of us? What if our newsletter is like 10,000 people? What if we start our own podcast one day? I spoke about like digital nomadism. We're going back again for like another 12 to 24 months, hopefully, doing this. Liam, our co-partner, he's just gone out to Ho Chi Minh. And so I think the exciting part is we just don't know. Like in a year, I had no idea what this company or my life in a fraction will be or Rachel's or Liam's. Maybe it's belly up and whatever, but even then would have looked back and gone, it was great. It was just exciting to do something different. But it also could just be like absolutely life-changing or probably more realistic somewhere in the middle where it's not really life-changing, but it's just quite good. It's quite fun. And I've always said, I hope at its minimum, it becomes a fun for me, Liam, and Rachel. I hope it benefits everyone and it's this huge community. But at its worst, Rachel's now got a beautiful website that's showcasing her illustrations. Liam's developed a course on this technical writing. I've managed it. Our name's out there. I got added by 300-odd people on LinkedIn in the last week. It's just been a fun thing and I'm just quite excited by it.
SPEAKER_02:I just have to call out, as an illustrator, Rachel's illustrations are fantastic. I was looking at the website this morning. It just makes me so happy to see that. So yeah, she did a fantastic job.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I absolutely love him. And it was just so funny to think. I'm like, I guess, the original founder. It was going to just be a thing I did. And then I got overwhelmed. And so I got Liam involved. And he's an e-learning writer. So I was like, if I tell you everything, can you just get what's in my head and do that? And that was kind of like where we started. bringing Rachel on and she basically did the whole like the brand I know it's obvious because like visual was only one part of the brand but like it really led everything so once she did the visual element it kind of we then realized who we all were so the idea that I kind of asked her as a coy little favor to my you know fiance hey can you help out to now she's like a fully fledged member like we could not have done this without her has also just been a really interesting journey I think for both of us as well. I think she begrudgingly helped me. And now is living and breathing it. She's really excited by it as well. That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:So about this course, say it's a year from now, it's two years from now. Who's the course for? What's it like? What's it about?
SPEAKER_00:So the course is, as I said, I've been... doing it for 13 14 months and it's just one of those you know i don't think it's it's particularly unique at least across other things but in fractional because it's so new i think it's unique for that space but it's very much just like how what what even is it how do i present myself how do i pitch myself i think a lot of it becomes a sort of a branding uh course and there's loads of other personal branding courses uh and that's not like the whole thing but it you start to realise because of the strategic element of fracturing, because it's not a very popular term and you've really got to go find those clients, they're not on job boards. So there becomes this whole strategic angle of how do you present yourself online? How do you explain to clients what it is? Because you are realistically pitching to people who might not have a clue what it is, which is both daunting and I think an incredible time because yes, you've got to convince someone, but once you convince them, you're the only person they're talking to. You're no longer interviewing a thousand people on a stupid job ad somewhere. You convince someone what fractional is and it's a benefit to them, they will hire you. And so it's for those people that need to know that. And as I said to that, that can be for freelancers who want to transition into a more strategic model or even just, as we said earlier, not strategic, just multiple clients with a bit more diversity at their income. It could be for people who are remote, who maybe thought freelancing was a little bit scary. And I think Fractional kind of sits in the middle of that Venn diagram of having some more structure, but still being able to work kind of like freelance. So it's really for anyone who could use help finding jobs, because even if it's like full-timers, I mean, there are other courses and I wouldn't expect them to do it, but there is no way that someone in a full-time position does our course and doesn't learn. quite a significant thing. So it really can be for anyone, but realistically, like freelancers, fractional workers, people who want to explore that. And then over the next couple of years, I would love, there's a few more modules I would love to do or some different courses. And then my dream scenario is that we get industry specific versions of it. I'd love to do like, here's the foundation course. And then here's like the CMO course. version, the CFO version, the CTO version. It's just like a, you know, the course is, well, we're selling it at the moment for£149 with a discount code. I can't remember what that translates to in dollars. And it will probably go up.
SPEAKER_02:That's okay. I love the currency conversion. You're totally
SPEAKER_00:fine. But yeah, so we're currently selling for that. And I'd love to say£149 for the course,£50 for a CTO top-up. I think like, you know, you do the sync module and it's really bespoken now. I'd probably run by a guest, you know, a guest person that we get them on to sort of attach to it. And that's my dream, but that's a while.
SPEAKER_02:So, all right, I'm going to challenge you a little bit here to see how this works. Let's say your online identity gets wiped tomorrow. There is no Michael Gold online. And you have your experience as a project manager. Yeah. And you know, you want to get your first fractional client. Where does your brain go for, you know, you've spent all this time doing this, you've written this course. So like applying to yourself, how would you go about finding that first client from zero? Because that's, I run into people like this all the time. They're like, I kind of get it. I've read a little bit about it, but I'm terrified. What approach would you take? And maybe you'd need to take Xanax first.
SPEAKER_00:God, that is so scary, waking up. But that's the sad thing. And that's also, When you go back and you look at like the fractional hub and sort of my own personal website, this is the end goal. I'm starting at the end rather than the beginning like you asked. But one of the questions was like, why am I doing it and stuff? And one of it is because something like LinkedIn can go away at any moment. And so it makes sense to have an online presence outside of it where possible. However, that's a long-term ambition for people. I would say short-term, the immediacy, LinkedIn is your home. I keep mentioning her in interviews and she'll find this funny show, Melissa's sister, Charlotte Kelly, on LinkedIn. I don't know her. She's one of those people you kind of just meet through LinkedIn and stuff. And she'd be doing this thing every Friday, reviewing different job boards and tools about Upwork, Fiverr, more bespoke ones as well. You know, do you know, like just everything and just seeing what the journey was like. And she has found a few good ones, but inevitably she goes back to, they're quite good. But I'm not sure you could probably find that on LinkedIn. Or maybe there's a handful that are useful, but then it's so complicated. LinkedIn really is, in my eyes, the home of where you need to be. It's where you get direct access to people. And the more you get to know it, the more you can get things like Sales Navigator really drill down into your target audience long term. But even if you don't, people are there. And so step one... is the most awkward part it's a bit that everyone hates me included still despise it i'm better at it though uh is that generic personal branding get yourself out there write content now just write uh that whole thing of like my friends and family will see it and all my colleagues it's embarrassing uh you realize that no one cares and then that's what is funny in both ways because somehow simultaneously no one cares and yet it helps um which is a very weird place to be, I felt like constantly all of my posts were utter garbage. And I'd get people messaging me being like, I've read your last post. It was great. It's like, what? What are you talking about? There's no way I've written something good. And over time... And you're like, can you link me to that, please?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And over time, you start to develop a bit, not a following in the sense of influences, but just a network of people And so I get people like Shana or like, you know, a guy called Tom who used to work for Dyson and other people who they might recommend you for jobs or put you in touch or say, have you spoken to people? But then you end up speaking to agency leaders and hiring managers organically in a weird way of like, you didn't even know you were looking for a job. You were just kind of chatting to them because they saw a post you got chatting. And then eventually when you do start direct targeting people, Those people have a whole wealth of knowledge of what have you been posted about, like what's your experience, what's your CV, what's your story in terms of like you're about us. There's a lot of people write bad about us sections. There's a much nicer way to craft them. And I think, yeah, just become that person. Because I said it to someone else the other day, I haven't shown my CV for a year. Like, Every job I've had, no one's asked for my CV, which I find one of the weirdest changes of Fractional. They see me posting a bunch. I message them. I get on with them on a 20-minute call. The process of hiring someone at Fractional, when you compare the six rounds of interviews for a full-time job and the CV and do this metrics test, it's been so organically simple to be like, hey, you need a PM. I'm a PM. We get along. Okay, I'll start on Monday. And then I'm there for like six months. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02:I'm glad you're reminding me of all this because a couple of years ago when I was doing fractional full-time, Lance saw someone needed help, recommended me. I got on the call with them. They were going to run through six rounds. And I'm like, well, here's how I work. It's fractional and here's my rates. And he's like, his brain paused. He didn't know what to do. But then it reset and And he basically just hired me right there. He's like, you know what? Scrap all of the process we had. Let's just start working today. And we worked together for eight months, and it was a really fantastic relationship.
SPEAKER_00:That's amazing. And then you never know. That guy, it might have ended after eight months, been a year, two years, that could come back. He's left. He's gone somewhere else. He's recommended. The network spirals out from that moment.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, the funny thing is I actually hired my full-time replacement there. He's like, hey, I want you full-time and I didn't want to do that. So it ended well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, that's the natural thing. And I know, I think Lance, is it you who's doing sort of a similar thing? You were at a startup and then they wanted you full-time. Yeah, and so you've got like one of the other two options. You either do that, you go full-time or inevitably. I've got options at the moment with a couple of companies where they're like, well, this role does need, if we grow in the way that we intend to grow, It will eventually need some full-time, but that's what fractional is. It doesn't necessarily need to be anything more than a stopgap, but allowing people to grow organically rather than this forced, oh, God, we've got to go from zero to 100 and just turn a switch. It just allows it to grow and go, oh, no, this is real. Okay, we've tested this. We do need some full-time. Yeah, I think it just makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it made a lot of sense. In Joshua's story, right, this founder could with such low risk say, OK, fine, we'll just try this out. Right. And if two weeks later he was like, this isn't working, we'll fire Joshua and move on. Right. But you didn't ask someone to commit their life to you. You didn't invest equity in a new early stage hire. Yeah. And so in Joshua's case, he was in a place to say, no, I've got a strong pipeline. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. In my case, my pipeline wasn't great and this was a cool opportunity. So I just said, yeah. And like They're both wins.
SPEAKER_02:It's funny in that case. I needed to actually work very shortly after that. So I got a full-time job like four months later. So the irony of it all is hilarious. But I loved that we could just start a role together and then work together and realize, actually, we really like each other, but maybe it's the right time. Maybe it's not. It's much more simple to do it that way than this massive bet where you're going to hire a PM maybe for$100,000 a year. And you've got to get benefits. You've got everything up and running. I think that the counterpoint I always have to say is this only works for the fractionals if you're charging rates that are reasonable, right? If you're charging rates that are so low that you're going to get screwed, don't do that, right? That's where like, look, I love that example. You said maybe it'd be 100,000 for full time, maybe 70,000 for fractional. that allows the fractional person to make up the difference a little bit with multiple clients and maybe get far ahead of a full-time salary in the right scenario.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the point is not to take on five$20,000 contracts when you could just take on$100,000. That's just insane unless you like the gamble. And I guess if you're that obsessed with the differences, which I do think is a huge benefit that I'm learning more as a PM than I've ever learned. But The idea of risking your security to have the exact same pay, saving the clients individually loads of money and taking none of that for yourself, that's not a wise choice.
SPEAKER_02:That sounds like what the kind of operation Amazon would create if they ever could with freelancers, where they're just taking everything, all the margin out, stripping efficiency. Yeah. And if you're going to go that route of five clients, you should be making double a full-time salary at least if you're going to bring on that much stress for yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think because people have to remember the burden of the accounts, the marketing itself. Even just the time, I can't remember the official scientific, but the time delay or the time switch when you go from one client to another client is a factor. You might not work as efficiently. Yeah, context switching. Yeah. context switching uh there's a few even down to like just i'm a project manager and i realize that it might be easier for me on average than say like an art director just stereotypically not to like noggin even but like just the brain you know the left right lane brain kind of thing and so i'm naturally scheduling and and doing that kind of thing and like the tasks i do are switching between multiple projects anyway if that's not what you do and you're doing like marketing and you've got to have like this whole and you're down one specific path and then you've got to suddenly do a completely you know different company that has a completely different strategy and and it's so different and you're not used to managing your schedule in that way or managing your finances in that way i think there's just part of it that i felt more of a natural fit as a project manager that other people might still struggle with
SPEAKER_02:you know i actually want to follow up on one more piece here you You're describing a world where you had been doing this for many years, right? You were a senior at this point. And so transitioning to fractional, you're like, well, I've already been doing project management on multiple projects, so why not do it for multiple clients? If you were to advise a project manager or pick a different field, if you wish, a junior, someone just coming into this field, this industry who's brand new at it, would you recommend fractional to them? Would you recommend something else how do you approach new people maybe getting into the market
SPEAKER_00:i don't want to i never like to tell like you know that stereotypical like it's gen z at the moment or whatever and there's loads of stats about how they like the biggest advocates of like remote work at the moment and they uh and i've had like posts about that they don't want to do a nine-to-five job uh and i'm i'm so behind them in so many ways but i wouldn't i i'm the biggest remote work, I'm going to go be a digital nomad again. I'm so hypocritical in any sense. But I do owe a lot to my in-office work. I do think office work has a real tiring place. That mentorship isn't impossible remote. I think the biggest thing is most companies aren't set up to give you that support remotely. I think if you do it well, and I know like HR, Reps can even clap and run this whole initiative about helping companies actually do remote work properly. So I think it's totally viable, but it's like there's an investment piece that most companies don't want to do. So I think more than likely, if you go straight off the bat and work remote, which I think a lot of people will do, and that might not even be by choice, just the companies out there, because a lot of companies work remote, I think you will be losing a lot. I think there is a lot to be said about that in office work. And then so the working fractionally is just like, I think it's quite extreme. It's quite an extreme version of worth that if you're not really good at your job, I'm not just good at your job, but good at office bureaucracy and politics and stakeholder management and just so much more that might be superfluous to your normal job that you don't even realize it's important. I think it would be challenging. That said, I don't want to tell someone, there's people who I would say have done things in their career that would be, you know, not the smartest idea and then they put a TikTok video out and they're making millions. I don't want to be, tell someone who's 21. You got a gatekeeper. Yeah, I don't want to tell someone who's 21, they think, you know what, no, I could bloody do this, I'm great at my job and I can do that, then let them, but I think the average person will find it a challenge if they haven't done like at least five years in an office, like, doing something. But I would advocate that everyone, once you do your five years, escape as quick as possible.
SPEAKER_02:And I think the really compelling piece of that is, so I have a colleague of mine who has worked with Lance, worked with myself, where she gets bored so quickly. She spent her life since a teenager doing a bunch of things all at once. And actually, I kind of recommended she get into this a little sooner than five years because I saw that she would be bored out of her mind being a project manager at one place only. Like when she had free time, she'd actually pick up spare gigs in the evenings and the weekends just because she loves the opportunity. I like that guidance though. Kind of as a general guidance, think of five years first before you do this. But if you know it's for you, then you do know, right? If you look at Michael's course and you see, oh, that excites me to dive in that deep, then go for it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, it took me, 12 years. And that's just because Fractional wasn't a thing. I happily could have jumped in. And to be honest, I would back myself to be one of the people who could do it in a year or two years if I'm arrogant in that sort of capacity. I think I could do that. But I think it's because the entrepreneurship and the management is the bit that excites me. Whereas I think a lot of other people going with Fractional will see it as a route to be more creative and have more flexibility. and stuff and they won't necessarily realize the sort of how difficult the business side is and so unless you're like really good at your job and so you've nailed all of the everything else I think doing both at the same time is difficult whereas I think I have that I was just good at the business side like it was in my sort of upbringing and stuff and so I could kind of I trust myself to learn on the job as well I have the confidence that other people might not have so I can I can jump into a random fractional role, sell myself quite well, and then just assume it's going to work out. And it always seems to. And I don't mean that flippantly, but I can rise to the next challenge. Not everyone necessarily can. And so it's hard for them to work out where their level is if they haven't done five years. If someone says, hey, we need a senior, and they go, am I a senior? I don't, yeah, I'll do it. And then they might just blow them apart and they won't have any idea. And then they'll burn out and it will be this terrible thing and they won't rise to that challenge. So I think that's the only issue. If you're really confident and you back your skills and you have a good ability not to blag your way, because I don't mean blag in a way where you're literally blagging, but blag it to a point where you then think you actually can hit the level that you're suggesting. But if you're not one of those people... I know people who will just get so insecure and freak out at that environment and they'll shrink. And therefore, I don't think that's for them until they've learned their sort of bread and butter. I
SPEAKER_02:love that.
SPEAKER_01:How can people find out more about what you're doing? Where's the best place to look for you, Michael?
SPEAKER_00:So obviously, we just launched the Fractional Hub. Very easy website, www.thefractionalhub.com. So that launched literally today. We've got about I think 50 people have signed up to the free community. So yeah, that's going quite well. Otherwise, I'm Michael Gold on LinkedIn, probably with a thousand others. So good luck finding me. I've got a feeling... I'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, okay. It'll be in the show notes, people. And yeah, goldprojectmanagement.com. But I imagine that most people don't want to check that out because that is just my consultancy. Unless you want a project manager, then
SPEAKER_01:feel free. Good. And... Great. And Joshua, what should people reach out to you for? Where can they find you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, for me? Wow. Go to joshuaworld.com if you want to see what I'm doing as a designer. Yeah, I design things. I like to build software. And also, fractional.fm. Whole story there. It's fine. Go to fractional.fm if you want to hear more about the podcast. How about you, Lance? How do people find out about you? We're actually testing this for the, Michael, like, wait a minute, we should actually share what we do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn at Lance Robbins or my website, lancehrobbins.com. If you're looking for a speaker, a workshop facilitator, an advisor to help guide your team or your organization into a better remote work or remote work leadership practices, I'm your guy. Thank
SPEAKER_02:you, everyone. We'll be
SPEAKER_01:back again next week. You can always reach out to us. Email at fractional.fm if you've got feedback. And we'll catch you next time.
