I went out on my own about a year ago. Since then, I've been fortunate to work with six clients, including my friends here at Hivemindd.

As I meet more people making the shift to fractional, I hear requests for honest, practical advice. Here are a few things year one taught me:

🧠 Context switching is no joke. I was used to handling multiple initiatives inside one company, but moving between different clients, cultures, calendars, toolsets, and work styles in the same week (or day) is different. I've learned to manage my schedule so that my brain has time to reorient.

💵 I was told my rate was too high. I'd researched this with pro help, so that was scary to hear at the beginning. But, I am the product now, and I’m big on product validation. So, I treated it as an initial hypothesis. (Good news: Hypothesis disproved.)

📣 No one else is doing your PR. Like many of you, I loathe all the self-proclaimed-ninja-guru-slop we see elsewhere,. But the need to tout our own achievements is real. There's no manager advocating for you, no recognition at the town hall. If the story doesn't get told, it's because you didn't tell it.

What is your fractional experience teaching you, and how can we help here at Hivemindd?