I can't believe I've made it this far

Celebrating a year of Fractional Fridays

Happy…Thursday, friends!

As those of us in the US head into a long holiday weekend, I’m celebrating one year of building Fractional Fridays - I published my first post on July 5, 2024. So today, I thought I’d share what I’ve learned along the way, a breakdown of newsletter growth and revenue vs. time spent, and a few favorite posts. And if you’d like to join me as a paid subscriber for Year 2, I’m offering annual subscriptions for $50 (usually $80) for the next two weeks.

How we got here

I started Fractional Fridays with zero planning - I’d been kicking around the idea of a newsletter for my fellow fractional leaders, independent consultants, and portfolio careerists for a while, and when I found myself with a bit of free time, I decided to just do it. I had no idea whether I’d actually stick with it, and came up with the name to give myself at least a little bit of accountability to stick with a set publishing schedule.

To my surprise, I haven’t run out of things to talk about and I’ve managed to publish nearly every week - this is post #48. 🤯 Equally surprising was that people quickly started to subscribe and read!

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a Substack strategy for one of my clients, and it’s been fun to realize how much I’ve learned about this platform as I’ve slowly built here.

Let’s talk about growth

I haven’t put a ton of effort into growing this newsletter thus far - I’m very inconsistent about posting notes on Substack and sharing Fractional Fridays on LinkedIn. Here’s what the growth curve has looked like over the past year:

→ Those two initial bursts of growth in July and August came from announcing Fractional Fridays at the quarterly(ish) Q&A sessions I host for other fractionals and consultants. I remember at the first one (just a couple of weeks after launching), I suddenly started hearing my inbox pinging with new messages and couldn’t figure out why - it was people signing up for the newsletter! 🥹

→ The gradual growth between those bursts came from sharing links to specific posts when answering questions in different Slack communities (part of why I started Fractional Fridays was because I was spending SO much time sharing advice in communities and via coffee chats), as well as from reader sharing (you know who you are - THANK YOU!).

→ November’s growth spurt came from Becca Freeman linking Fractional Fridays in an IG story. She had posted asking if any of her followers had projects her community could support, and after a quick round of overthinking, I decided to reply - and was once again surprised by the response. (Lesson: Ask for help. People like to give it.)

→ Since then, growth has been fairly steady - I started sporadically posting Substack notes in January (they do seem to make a difference), asking for likes on my posts (also makes a difference, both for growth and my ego), and have also shared a few posts on LinkedIn.

→ That bump in early June is from Emily Hollender sharing Fractional Fridays as a resource in her Maven course - or at least I think it is, based on the timing. (Thank you, Emily!)

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that it’s not that much growth - but if I were talking to a room full of 500 or so people every week, I’d feel like that was huge. So perspective is helpful. 🙂

Turning on paid subscriptions

After a lot of waffling, I turned on paid subscriptions at the beginning of April. As Fractional Fridays grew beyond my immediate network, I decided that sharing the inner workings of my business with a smaller group felt right for me.

Transparently, paid subscriber growth has been slow, and an apparent byproduct of turning on paid has been a dip in open rate. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here - the vast majority of subscribers (usually around 97%) read in email, and I don’t think there’s any indicator that a newsletter is paid vs. free before it’s opened (my initial theory was that people thought all the content was paywalled).

Part of it is probably just that my earliest subscribers are my most engaged, so I’m naturally seeing open rate adjust with growth. And as a marketer, I know that open rate isn’t the most meaningful metric these days, so I primarily look at it as directional.

Does it bug me that this is happening and I can’t figure out why? OMG, yes. It bugs me so much. But I know my open rate is still very healthy, so I try to let it go and move on each week (because yes, I obsess over the metrics with each send).

Time vs. money

I always find it so interesting when other people post about this stuff, so here’s my breakdown of time spent vs. revenue generated:

I spend about three hours writing, formatting, editing, and QA’ing each week’s newsletter - that’s around 8-12% of my working hours (depends on whether I’m counting billable hours or total hours), and doesn’t include whatever time I spend promoting Fractional Fridays or prepping and hosting my quarterly(ish) Q&As.

I always think it will take less time, but it’s consistently been three hours for at least the last few months. Seriously, even this week as I mulled over what I’d write for this very section, I thought “oh, this will be a quick one…” and here I am approaching the three-hour mark. At some point, I’ll learn to plan accordingly. 🫠

Looking across paid subscriptions, affiliate revenue, and product revenue (like from my pipeline workshop) attributed to the newsletter, Fractional Fridays accounted for under 2% of my total business revenue in Q2. So the balance is not quite where I’d like it to be, but this is still a passion project for me and I see long-term potential.

(Also worth noting: I didn’t start this as a revenue generator, and it wasn’t a major factor in turning on paid subscriptions. But as I spend more and more time on it, the trade-off between time spent here vs. on billable or revenue-driving work is something I need to be aware of as a business owner.)

What’s next?

For most of the past 12 months, this newsletter has existed on a week-to-week basis - there hasn’t been a ton of planning involved, and as much as I keep thinking I’m going to get ahead on my production schedule, I tend to do most of my writing on Thursday evenings, then finish editing and do my final QA pass on Friday mornings.

Over the past six weeks, I’ve gotten better about planning topics in advance, and I even have a bunch of content outlined and drafted (though nothing I’d count as a complete newsletter) - it feels good.

I’m contemplating hiring an editor to help hold me accountable (in terms of getting my writing done a bit further in advance) and be a second set of eyes before I send my writing out into the world - not gonna lie, I sometimes read other Substacks and feel like mine could be more polished.

I’m also exploring hiring a designer to help me build some brand assets to support Fractional Fridays - it feels like it’s time, especially as I think about growing this more intentionally (I still have my wild goal of hitting 2k subscribers by the end of the year).

And I want to create a home on my website for all things Fractional Fridays - my workshops, group mentoring program, and a bunch of other resources I’ve been contemplating building.

So, you know, just a few things. 🤪

Some favorite posts (mine and yours)

I’ll wrap this up by sharing a few favorites from the past year:

→ How I set my rates - this is my most-viewed post to date, and also a top driver of new subscribers.

→ Where I’ve found my clients - this has driven more new subscribers than any other post I’ve written, and it was helpful for me to look back at how my approach to business development has evolved over the years (sometimes I forget that it wasn’t easy and organic - I hustled hard).

→ Everything I’ve learned about LinkedIn - honestly, this one was just fun to write.

→ “Should I just give up and go back to corporate?” - lots of new subs, lots of clicks, and a high open rate. Because honestly, I think we’ve all had this thought at some point.

→ What’s working, what’s not, and what’s next - this was such a helpful forcing function for me to actually sit down and reflect on 2024 and set my priorities for 2025!

That’s all we’ve got for today. Whether you’ve been here from the beginning or found Fractional Fridays more recently, I’m so glad that you’re here. Have an amazing holiday weekend and I’ll see you next Friday!

P.S. Want to support Fractional Fridays? Here are a few ways to help:

• Join me as a paid subscriber - you’ll get access to the full archive plus subscriber-only content, including a behind-the-scenes look at how I run my business

• “Like” this post (down at the bottom if you’re reading in email) - this is really helpful in terms of growth

• Share Fractional Fridays with other fractionals and consultants who might find it helpful

• Buy me a coffee (or fancy Swedish candy, which is what actually fuels this newsletter)