f you’ve ever called yourself a “consultant” and then had to explain what that actually means, this might hit home. I mapped out the mess of titles and labels — consultant, freelancer, advisor, coach, fractional, etc. — and what they signal to clients. It's part taxonomy, part rant. Hope it’s useful to others trying to describe what they do.
sure - but that's _your business_ not their's right? you align with them while they need it, and realign when they dont.
and this is a value item - so if you, for example, have a client that says "we need to you look exclusive. can you pull <your practice> off your linkedin while we're working together and just show as the VPoE for us?" you say "yes and!"
and charge for it.
:)
you're not taking down your website, or shutting off your marketing - you're just tweaking one visible presence to align with a valuable customer.
but of course, they might not need you to be exclusive.
A short piece I wrote after a conversation with another fractional leader. It’s easy to forget that while we might not care much about titles, clients often do — especially in fundraising or external communication.
Curious how others have handled this. Do you ask what title they need you to carry?
ah a cute but soon-to-be-dead project, since they apparently are intentionally breaking the macos experience. either support your users or remove support for your users - shipping them an intentionally broken experience is a bad move.
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I wrote up how to avoid getting pulled back into your old job — with worse terms and no leverage — and how to offer something cleaner instead.
Includes real-world structure, pricing, and terms.