Why on earth are we doing this?

Ok, so we’ll level with you: we’re not sales/marketing people. In our regular emails we're always highlighting upcoming events or encouraging people to get involved in the community, but frankly, we don't always want to be plugging stuff!

So today we thought we'd share our thoughts in an off-the-cuff blog, about us and what exactly it is we're doing here.

To give you some context:

• Rachael’s an illustrator and designer, she can make things look great and understands the user experience pretty well, but she will always explain that she’s not a writer and marketing isn’t her forte.
• Liam is brilliant at writing courses, is very technically adept and is our word whizz, but he’s logical and methodical and feels a little sick in the stomach when made to sell something.
• Michael is the brains behind the whole operation and is the face of what we do, and his time is taken up with making connections and organising operations.

That’s on top of us all working for clients as our day job.

So we’re new to the community game, there’s a lot of trial and error and we’ve only been live six weeks (wild to think about considering we've already got over 400 people in the community), so of course we have to accept that things take time. Hopefully you’ll be patient with us, we’re real people who really want to help, and if you give us a little of your time we’ll do our absolute best to help you in your fractional career.

Here's what Michael had to say about why he started this thing (and why he brought us other two along for the ride): 

'I just feel really passionately about fractional work being the future. The world has changed a lot since the pandemic and remote work is becoming the norm – just that fact alone has opened up so many opportunities for job roles that have previously tied you to a desk in a specific office, at specific times. Then the other side of it is that everything is costing is much more. Lots of companies can’t afford the risk of hiring full-time roles in strategic positions in the same way. So many people are being laid off and full-time jobs aren’t secure as they once were. Companies are looking for alternatives where they can get the expertise but only for a fraction of the time, costing them less and giving them the flexibility to adapt to a changing environment.

Now you can work for multiple clients all at once from wherever you choose your office to be. I love that flexibility, the autonomy I now have over my work day or where in the world I get to be, the fact that I’m judged on output vs time sat at a desk, and I love the fact that income isn’t capped. I’ve managed to double my income in less than a year since going fractional. I’m aware that income is flexible and there will be times where I don’t have quite so much work I’m sure, but so far the outlook is good.

You do have to get out of your comfort zone working this way. I honestly find it really uncomfortable posting on LinkedIn but the one-to-one connections I’ve had since doing so regularly do give me a boost; there are so many lovely people out there all wanting to help and be helped. I was having phone calls every day with people I met on LinkedIn who were interested in fractional working, and I managed to place a few people in roles, and so that gave me the idea to create The Fractional Hub. I wanted to create a space where we could guide people just getting started, and so created a course for this purpose, and connect people at all stages of their fractional careers. Then the thing just grew and now we’re hosting live events and really trying to provide value to our members… there are over 400 people now in the community and I really want them to see positive results off the back of what we’re offering.'

Now we know we said we're not salespeople, but it would be remiss of us not to mention the cool stuff we've got going on.

As part of our Plus membership (our paid tier) we’re going to be hosting small-group workshops covering things like LinkedIn – how to make your profile work harder, how and what to post, how to outreach to clients. We’ll also cover things like pricing; one of the hardest parts of fractional work. We’re also hosting live expert masterclasses covering things from tax, how to price confidently, how to get jobs and so much more to come.

We’ll be organising member spotlights, showcasing the experiences and expertise of our Plus members to everyone in the free community, so it’s an opportunity to make real connections.

And if you’re really stuck and want a methodical step-by-step foundation for fractional work, our course The Fractional Career Blueprint is included as part of our annual Plus membership (or 50% off if you want to pay monthly).

So if all of this sounds great, you can sign up to Plus!