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#90 - Chris Brown | Advisor for People & Talent: Accelerating Growth for Startups
97 Plays3 months ago
Chris helps VC-backed Climate and FinTech startups in Europe and Germany navigate the people side of smart growth. He pecializes in clarifying team culture and building solid people foundations, tailored to your unique stage and goals. Whether you're doing it all yourself, have a junior HR team, or simply need experienced guidance, Chris willl ensure your people strategy supports your growth ambitions.
Founders love working with Chris because they get a clear roadmap for scaling their teams, without the headache of figuring it all out alone.
Shownotes
00:00 - Intro & Context
02:15 - Starting as a Fractional People Leader
15:30 - SoundCloud Experience
30:45 - Value of Fractional Leadership
Links:
Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Today's guest, Chris Brown.
00:00:06
Speaker
How do you get started as a people leader, fractional people leader? ah yeah Yeah, you have some deep reflection time on where you're going with your life. Maybe you have like a mini midlife crisis. I don't know. and For me, it was more... I just had an urge. I was thinking, look, I'm at a position now, and this was in different time than where we are now, where the market was still a little bit more buoyant. And I said, and in the back of my head, I said, if it doesn't work out, I'll go and find another full-time job.
00:00:36
Speaker
said with much confidence, like, who knows, maybe I wouldn't have got another full-time job. But I had to give myself something which which was almost like a safety net. And obviously, I was talking to my wife as well. yeah I was like, okay, this much money means I've got this much time to find something. um And I just knew that it was something I wanted to try. I would regret it if I didn't try it. And then from that, it was a case of having conversations with different people in my network.
00:01:06
Speaker
And for anybody who does this kind of work, everything is really network, network, network. So especially never beginning especially in the beginning as well. Yeah, especially in the beginning. And I can't remember how many conversations I had, I had quite a few and there was some people as well who would say, Oh, well you know, we'd like to have you full time. And I was a bit like, Oh, you know what, actually it's pretty tempting, but I was like, Oh, I'm going in this direction. And in the end, I ended up getting a ah project, my first project from, from a ah connection that actually wasn't someone who I'd say, excuse me, was very, very close, but rather someone who had had a few conversations within the past, they connected with someone who had a conversation and then it just went from there really.
00:01:46
Speaker
And that was, yeah, that was in 2020. And then from there, it was quite a roller coaster ride of just how, how many projects then came a thought from, I would say like fractional interim and then advisory and things like that. It's a point where it was, you know, I was thinking, Oh, maybe I need to actually hire someone now and I'll build a team. I actually didn't want that. I wanted to keep things manageable. So yeah, that was my route into, I would say. Cool. And I, I, I had a similar reflection then. And, um,
00:02:16
Speaker
I remember I calculated once for my first job was also five years, really valuable experience, not for the money, more for the knowledge that you got and relationships you built and in-depth knowledge as well. Because I think if you're staying there for five years at one company that is also not going super crazy, but just ambitious, the level of in-depth knowledge you get is yeah is invaluable. It's really crazy. And from that point, I calculated my hourly rate and it would be, I think, between five and six euros per hour, what I worked there. And then suddenly my first deal I got was 60 euros an hour. And I was like, wow. um And I think within three months I was up at 125 euros an hour.
00:03:01
Speaker
And suddenly, it was always happening between 125 and 150 something right in the beginning. And I was not even experienced, right? I had five, six years experience. And just did regular recruitment. Also, the market, I think, changed a bit. So that's also, I think, a dynamic. And at some point out, I felt about, OK, I'm so young still. I was 25 back then. I now want to go the next step and try to build a company from it. And besides doing interim work, I always had recruiters in my network to also join And then ah it it needed I needed a brand at some point right to also make something out of it. And I think, um as you said, this not a life crisis maybe, but when you really deeply reflect on how do you actually want to build your life, this is, I think, the important foundation you need to lay down because it will be tough. It will be hard. There are so many doubts. There are so many uncertainties. There are so many fallbacks. um but when But once you're making it and you get that momentum, I think nobody wants to go back.
00:04:02
Speaker
Chris Brown is a fractional people leader and started as a recruiter, went into people ops, led teams at two free companies, and suddenly made the decision to say, no, I want to try it this in my life to go self-employed and to interim VP people, head of people work. And we reflected a bit on why um people make this decision or why he made the decision and also um about when to hire somebody or when companies are hiring some someone like him.
00:04:33
Speaker
what are the usual problems and also about financials, about um what to consider to just be ready and learn from his experience. Then you can build trust and then you can spend less time communicating and more time just getting shit done. Then I went home and and thought about this sentence. We basically put it on the table. Hiring takes time. People are trained. How to objectively judge certain situations. It's very, very, very, very hard to change things. That was the learning. Entrepreneurs with empathy. On the people's side.
00:05:01
Speaker
Welcome Chris. I'm looking forward to this episode because I think we met already um in person and then um had catch ups. And now um we are here talking about fractional leadership as a people leader, but maybe we start with a short introduction about yourself. Sure. Yeah. Also thanks so much for having me on the podcast.
00:05:19
Speaker
ah Short introduction, it's kind of it's a difficult one. I always find this difficult. I have to jam-pack so much into into my introductions ah because every year you know you get a little bit older, you do a little few more things, but I would essentially boil it down to I'm now based in Berlin. I've been here since 2012. I came here. There's either two reasons why you move. One of them is work or one of them is love, relationship.
00:05:44
Speaker
And my wife's ah from Germany and I was southeast of Berlin. and So we moved when my boy was about 12 months old or so. like Fast forward now, I've got two kids, you know a dog now doing fractional stuff. Life's completely like changed around. But I guess my path to getting here was in the UK, I did really a whole broad range of different positions, which there was kind of a backbone through it, which was even when I was like working at UPS Supply Chain Solutions, which was like 300,000 people.
00:06:13
Speaker
And to working at some of the smaller startups it was always the name of fixing problems working with people figuring out what's going on. I saw me to Germany it was actually my wife who saw the job in the end she was like it's a job it's yeah around music and it's a startup and the recruiting thing you'll figure that out so i was like okay cool.
00:06:32
Speaker
Thankfully, I got the job at SoundCloud, started off in recruiting, then worked my way through different positions there. SoundCloud was a great place to be exposed to lots of different opportunities. so I went through the whole kind of ah people team roles there to the point where I've been there for five years, so I need to try something different. and then moved to a different company, went into ah more of a senior role there, figured out after a while that wasn't for me, then went to ah my first VP of people role, was there for a couple of years. And then at that point, that's when I made the switch over to fractional. What triggers the decision? To go into fractional? Yes. It was right about the COVID time. And I would say what for me out of this learning how this learning was,
00:07:15
Speaker
Like a lot of people at that time, I think there was a lot of people just burned out from it. There was this whole particularly in position where the responsibility is seek and taking care of people in that environment where there's a lot of uncertainty that's going on. And at at that point, it was my first head of people role or VP people role. And there was so many different learnings anyway, and then we were moved completely remote. And I was working remotely. We had two smallish kids. We were working from a, you'll probably know what a bowel bargain is, but it's like a small,
00:07:44
Speaker
A little tiny house, I guess, in in the garden, of my in-laws. And that was pretty intense in intense at times. And at the end of it, I was like, oh, I think i'm I'm done. And it was at that point, I was thinking about it then, okay, on the reflection, what are the things that I enjoy doing? but Where do I get the energy from? What am I ready to try out? Because actually prior to that position, I was already thinking, maybe I should go and do something on my own. But I was thinking, ah, one more position. You've got more of the scope.
00:08:14
Speaker
of the people team and then do it after that. I'm happy that I went for one more position. It then meant that it was much broader scope that I was responsible for, and I'd already gained some really hands-on experience in in a lot of different topics. and Yeah, that was in 2020 when I first started doing it. Yeah, that was also a step into the unknown as well. Yeah, definitely also during that times.
00:08:38
Speaker
We had a lot of turbulences on and headwinds on the market. And what is a bit interesting to me is also your journey at SoundCloud because I think that was really your um yeah first, I would say, fully in-depth people role, right? Where you really saw also maybe how good it looked like or had to build it or and yeah and ah also from different angles because you have been in recruiting and also then people ops maybe you can tell Tell me a bit more how the switch came up because I think that sometimes unusual to go from recruiting to people ops and vice versa, or what is the context to that? Because I think that's also on the other hand, um, a really valuable experience.
00:09:24
Speaker
um that you really go in depth because usually usually people jump in maybe one role to different companies, but you you stayed there for five years and four months and a lot of things happened there and I think that's so valuable if you just have the full context of a company over time transforming and also tackling different problems from different angles.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I still look back at that as well and think, wow, five years at a company, that's crazy. I think that's the longest I've ever been at a company. and But those conditions there were right. I think it was one of those things that ah people will all also know that as well. You know when you get at a company where you it's that opportunity where you've got also ah People who believe in you and the opportunities from that growth phase as well so I think it was just a bit of like great timing and I what I would say is like who watching a documentary the other day about this one hundred-foot wave and you know like these perfect conditions that you get to ride the wave that felt like my 100 foot wave that was riding where I first got there and I moved from Manchester Business School where I was doing a career management advisor
00:10:29
Speaker
Position for MBA students and a lot of that was similar a little bit of similarity of sitting down and helping them understand So how do you present yourself to companies? how How do we build relationships with all these companies to then get these and MBAs on board? So there were some similarities, but it wasn't pure recruiting But I could definitely I had a good idea from a candidate's perspective those kind of things and I guess from that it was I the moment I got there I was just so um I want to say that it wasn't overwhelmed. It was just so like in awe of this, wow, I'm working in a startup. And like if I say yes to things and actually, you know, like, Oh yeah, I'll do that. Oh yeah. Yeah, sure. I'll try that.
00:11:08
Speaker
And that's all I did. I was essentially like, yeah, sure, I'll try that. Every time there was an opportunity that came up, I was like, yeah, I feel good. or i'll I'll do that. Because also I think I felt that there was the a culture there that would say, look, if it doesn't work out, then that's fine. You know, you're doing a great job at the moment, but there's stretch opportunities there for you to do that. And so essentially, I was just like, every time an opportunity came up, I was like, yes.
00:11:29
Speaker
Definitely having the grounding in the recruiting side of things helped a lot because when I was then switching over and it wasn't so much straight from TA into the people upside of things, what I was also doing was I also started management first interns there as well.
00:11:45
Speaker
There was also a mixed bag of ad managing interns for the first time. Interns, as you know, can be um an interesting case to manage because you've only got a short amount of time with them. Sometimes it's three months, sometimes it's six months. and Also, there's a lot of just getting people on board with you know how do you use certain tools and things like that. and and From that, then there was then there was opportunity and this is after I've been doing recruiting from broad non-type recruiting to the more technical recruiting and then we were focusing more on the people analytics and technology and I think it was a bridge as well where it was like the data side of it.
00:12:17
Speaker
The data side was a link between the other side of things and the people outside of it. then Then you're able to connect the dots between, okay, this is one part of the employee lifecycle, attraction, hiring, and then the other natural part is what what happens then. Then we need to start taking care of these our new um ah new colleagues who are joining.
00:12:38
Speaker
and so I didn't really have an idea of the HR side of things, um but I had some colleagues who absolutely did know that element of it. and They were also very switched on with regards to how do we connect to each one of these different employee lifecycle stages as well. so yeah When that came up, I just signed me up. Let's do it.
00:12:58
Speaker
takes also I think um the right attitude right to do that because this can also, I think that's also really uncomfortable that you so suddenly need to also unlearn things what you did before and then also be open to something new and maybe also starting with a beginner's mindset somehow.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, it does take that as well. I would say maybe that's not for everybody, but certainly at that time as well at SoundCloud, we were talking a lot about the growth mindset and we had people as well where who were also doing some kind of trainings on growth mindset as well.
00:13:31
Speaker
I wouldn't say ah that because we had the training, then that opened up my mind to having that growth mindset, it was rather and the opportunities were there. And in my mind, why would I not if somebody was trusting me, if they believed in me, then I was thinking, well, you know, I believe in myself as well. And why is somebody hiring you now as a fractional people leader, what are the circumstances? And but yeah, maybe you can can describe the situation a bit because I think um for some companies or or individuals, it's still hard to imagine. and So maybe you see a pattern there, what worked for you at least. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's definitely, I would say now that there is more of an openness to this.
00:14:16
Speaker
There's still some hesitation for sure. and Even when I have conversations with companies, you know it doesn't always work out but for whatever reason. They might then find, they might then have the reflection on it, then think, actually, you know what, we do want to go with that permanent hire because we do want somebody that we can build the culture with from the start and we're okay to wait for that.
00:14:35
Speaker
In other instances, in a lot of instances where I do work with other companies, where there's a good click between me and the founders or whoever I'm going to be working with, there's this need of, look, we understand the importance of the people topic. We need to focus on these things to really ah get the company moving forward. And after having the conversations or going through an internet exercise with you, we believe you are the right person who can instantly come in and start addressing some potential issues that we've already got or start helping us build for the future so that when we get I don't know, like the 50 person mark or above, we're already in a good place where we're not going to then start hitting obstacles. And it's one of those things where it's typically around the founders who understand the importance of the people topic, they're kind of self aware that they're not the expert in it. And they're prepared to make that investment in somebody who can come in and start to make the changes for them.
00:15:26
Speaker
and And that's also something that sometimes people have this hesitation with as well, is this initial cost of having somebody come in on a fractional basis who where the costs do look higher. But what they're also getting from that is then the breathing space to be able to find that ah permanent hire that they want to not make a rush decision and make progress in many different fronts, not just on the people's space, but also in their space as well. So that's why I would say people work with work with me the most. It's kind of like that sense of urgency around what they're doing.
00:15:57
Speaker
In case you like my show, please subscribe. I would really appreciate it. And um what is usually then the value you can add when when entering a company at, let's say post 50 people mark. What's usually what you but you find and what you do.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah. So actually, typically at the moment what I've seen happen is it's been getting an earlier and earlier stage, which is also great. And I mean that great as in there's more awareness at an earlier point that the people topic is of such importance and the founders need to focus on other things. ah So it really depends. I mean, you you can say a 50 person organization, it's as you would imagine as well, not all not all organizations are at the same stage of 50 people.
00:16:41
Speaker
I was talking to somebody the other week where they were 250 people and they don't have they they didn't have HRIS. They didn't have any process in place around performance, performance management, feedback, the first level of people managers, training, those kinds of things to really have that whole support network in place. so I wouldn't say there's a typical case at 50. What I would say is typically Typically what you've got is either the founders who've been managing everything themselves and are now at that point where they really.
00:17:12
Speaker
stretch beyond belief. Or there's an existing couple of people in the team, maybe a bit more junior, who've started off at the beginning, who have then hit their natural ah point where they need some external support to help them navigate through things. And some companies have already got things like values in place. Some of them have got some form of structure in place and it comes through hiring as well. Maybe they've already got like, okay, this is a hiring process. We've got clear steps. We know we're asking these questions for these reasons. We've got some form of onboarding in place.
00:17:41
Speaker
But ah as you can imagine ah as well, a lot of it is, a lot of the time it's, we've done the best job that we can do with information we had at the time. But now it's, okay, we we really need to start making this, to moving it towards the next level. Yeah, but that's also what makes it interesting as well, because not all companies are doing exactly the same thing. And they're all facing, of course, the people challenge, but they're in a different kind of flavor.
00:18:05
Speaker
What I see is the biggest blocker is usually inexperienced managers that is then translating into um implications on the people side, because I think when there is no cohesiveness on how certain decisions are made in the company, then it can get really wild, especially when the company is scaling. and What is your methodology in setting a cohesive management experience within a company when a the experience and also the style of management is completely different. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, that is one of the classic cases that you see as well, which is where also the first line manager the first line managers would be that basically the people manager level that I would talk about there as well, which is there's been a lot of, I don't know, faith, trust putting in these people and they've moved now to the people manager ah position. And a lot of the time they move to the people manager position, they're just literally like, okay, you're a people manager now, you know what to do. I do a great job managing you, you do great job managing them, that's how it goes. And of course, the complexity is completely different there.
00:19:18
Speaker
and For me, what I would look to do there is really, there's different ways you can do it, but one I would say, and this would come back to some form of career framework, which is you will know this, you have the individual contributor path, and you individual contributor path, which then is the expert path, so to speak. You know, have someone who is working as a people manager path in a very simple form, those two paths. And on that, you really want to be making sure that you've got the right people on the right paths.
00:19:46
Speaker
um And when you know that you've got the right people in the right path, then you can give them the right level of support, which might come in the form of, okay, we're going to get all the people managers together. We're going to give you a playbook, whatever you want to call it. We're going to give you best practices of how you can lead the team. We will give you these parameters. So how do you run a one-on-one? These are the topics you need to cover. Of course, you might ask specific questions relating to the individual team because you tailor it a bit more.
00:20:14
Speaker
But some of the basics and ah the one-on-one I think does drive this a lot, which is how often are you checking in with your team? How are you structuring that? Also, are you spending more time with new joiners who will need more support in the initial stages versus someone who's a little bit more experienced? So you could say, actually, that person's fine. I will meet with them every two weeks or three weeks or every month versus every ah one week.
00:20:35
Speaker
asking things around, how is your development going? What are the kind of things I can do to support you? But again, this needs a bit of the structure from the organization itself, typically driven by the people team or the leadership team, which is giving people a clear idea of this is where you are, this is where you can get to, and then your manager can support you, not give you the answer that you can go there, but rather help you think about how you can get there. And the manager plays the role of the coach, I would say, as well as best as possible.
00:21:02
Speaker
I think i do like that's where i would kind of level up to getting to. I know you would need the leadership team on board with that because everything role model from the top down you can't have the first level managers doing all this and then their managers are not doing it so it's very very important that. Working with the founder of the senior leadership team everybody's on the same page when it comes to this kind of thing for consistency.
00:21:22
Speaker
And that company stage really gets expensive because I think first you really need to build this management layer and then it's maybe starts a bit lean. Um, as you said, right from, okay, you're now a manager suddenly things are not working out again because there is no.
00:21:37
Speaker
overall coordination function sitting on top of it that is also interacting with each other, that it's really building a cohesive system. And suddenly then you need the more experienced managers and you need to hire them from usually outside in. And that's first of all, usually an expensive hire where maybe startups first time um pay more than 150K a year in gross salaries. And then suddenly what they need and find is um you need a different setup to enable all the first time managers um that they can really work at one level plus that all my peer functions can be aligned. And suddenly you have overhead in the company. And um that can also take a lot of time, right, to to build that. And I think if done right,
00:22:33
Speaker
You can really scale as a company and you can really scale in a healthy way um yeah or not in a healthy way, but in a, in a maybe professional way. And um then still things can break. So on the process side, what do you usually look at that systems are there and that.
00:22:55
Speaker
The professionals, managers, employees, the HR function or the people function can do their best work. um What usually needs to be there or what do you build? Yeah. Yeah, so it's very much.
00:23:12
Speaker
It's very tempting to go in with this playbook and say, oh, these are the things I've seen work really nicely before. And of course there are some aspects where you say, look, in this is this would be a given. So trying to, as an example, everybody running their one-on-one in this kind of structured way. Again, you can have the parameters of as long as these things are covered, you can do in a specific way. But when it comes to the processes side of things, I think also you've got to be very, very careful and mindful of the specific stage of that company's app because you don't want to stop bogging the company down with okay now we've got all of this internal wiki that people need to read and you call the rest of the things i would say it's good to have that information and you can drop in overtime but i'll be very careful about and weighing companies down too much and it's a little bit like.
00:23:58
Speaker
You know that if the company and is going through a bit of a growth stage, what can you do to really help make things as fluid as possible? So now, for example, and and and I think this is where some HR teams or people teams I get bogged down a bit too much is to try and fix everything i want or they don't think through the enormity of what they're doing here so for example if you're trying to introduce a new applicant tracking system if you're trying to and this is a classic to introduce a new system that's gonna fix all our problems in some instances of course it might do it might be if you're managing everything on an email.
00:24:33
Speaker
or through Notion or something and it's a lot of manual work, then I would say, okay, that might work. But for me, I never go in and say, right, first thing I'm looking at is the ATS or the HRIS. I will have a look at it and see how bad it is. you know Is it terrible? Is it causing us problems? If it's not, I would leave that, but essentially what I'd be looking for is to is to say, okay, well, if hiring is a priority at the moment, what are those key components of hiring?
00:24:57
Speaker
that are going to make us better. So it might be, for example, are the hire managers clear about the profile that they're looking for? Do we have a hiring strategy in place when it comes to what's the headcount planning?
00:25:10
Speaker
why we're having these rules, those kind of things. And then from that, when people are interviewing, is everybody interviewing roundabout to the same standard? Are we doing debriefs? How are we making sure that the candidates are kept in touch with? Because also, you don't want to lose candidates easily through the process. Are we making sure that we're really assessing for the right things?
00:25:29
Speaker
And then from that, the other component would be, okay, so how are we then onboarding them to make sure once we've gone through all that effort, we don't lose them. And then how are we involving the people managers on this to make sure that they are aware of their role in all of this as well. So it would be the people manager side of things.
00:25:45
Speaker
keeping in touch with the leadership team and making sure that communication is one of the most important things. You can be communicating and still specifically focusing on things that are going to move the needle rather than try and fix everything at once. And then I would be looking at, okay, ah almost like ah regular intervals, how are we doing with this? What's the next thing coming up that we need to target?
00:26:04
Speaker
And it could be then around, okay, well, if we know we're at this stage now a number of employees and we don't have any kind of um structure in place and it comes to our people managers who are the main influences or multipliers within an organization, I would have that on the roadmap and say, okay, we know we're not going to run out of full program for them, but how can we also layer on what does it mean to be a great people manager at company X?
00:26:27
Speaker
and how can you support your team and what can you expect from the leadership team. So there's a good flow of information. So for example, the leadership team are very clear about the priorities, what's happening. They're in touch with that next level of people managers and not people manager in touch with their people. And there's a nice loop that goes up.
00:26:45
Speaker
I know there's a lot of talk of the products that we're building in the people's space and um the impact that we can have ah in in so many different areas. I think you really got to look at this case by case and say, we're not going to fix everything at once. We're going to focus on the things that are really going to help us.
00:27:03
Speaker
And also my role as well, was what I need to be mindful of as well is I'm not building a 12 month strategy like roadmap. That's not what I do. That just doesn't make sense because the next person who comes in might come in with completely different ideas. My goal is to create good foundations or a good launch pad that that person then can then come in and say, okay, a lot of the like say mess has been tied it up and the next person can come in and already, okay, I know now that I need to build this on and this on and this on. So yeah, it's a little bit different in my role when it comes to that. but Nice. And how do you get started as a people leader, fraction people leader? ah yeah Yeah, you have some deep reflection time on where you're going with your life.
00:27:45
Speaker
Maybe you have like a mini midlife crisis, I don't know. and For me, it was more... I just ah had an urge. I was thinking, look, I'm at a position now, and this was in different time than where we are now, where the market was still a little bit more buoyant. And I said, hand in the back of my head, I said, if it doesn't work out, I'll go and find another full-time job.
00:28:04
Speaker
said with much confidence, like, who knows, maybe I wouldn't have got another full-time job. But I had to give myself something which which was almost like a safety net. And obviously, I was talking to my wife as well. yeah I was like, okay, this much money means I've got this much time to find something. um And I just knew that it was something I wanted to try. I would regret it if I didn't try it. And then from that, it was a case of having conversations with different people in my network.
00:28:34
Speaker
And for anybody who does this kind of work, everything is really network, network, network. So especially in the beginning especially in the beginning as well. Yeah, especially in the beginning. And I can't remember how many conversations I had, I had quite a few and there was some people as well who would say, Oh, you know, we'd like to have you full time. And I was a bit like, Oh, you know what, actually it's pretty tempting, but I was like, Oh, I'm going in this direction. And in the end, I ended up getting a ah project, my first project from, from a connection that actually wasn't someone who I'd say, excuse me, was very, very close, but rather someone who had had a few conversations within the past, they connected with someone who had a conversation and then it just went from there really.
00:29:15
Speaker
And that was, yeah, that was in 2020. And then from there, it was quite a roller coaster ride of just how, how many projects then came a fork from, I would say like fractional interim and then advisory and things like that. It's a point where it was, you know, I was thinking, Oh, maybe I need to actually hire someone now and I'll build a team. I actually didn't want that. I wanted to keep things manageable. So yeah, that that was my route into, I would say.
00:29:38
Speaker
In case you have any feedback or anything you want to share with me, please send me an email on thomas at peoplewise.com or hit me up on LinkedIn. And in case you really enjoy the show, please subscribe. I would really appreciate it. Cool. and i I had a similar reflection then.
00:29:58
Speaker
and um I remember I calculated once for my first job was also five years, really valuable experience, not for the money, more for the knowledge that you got and relationships you built and in-depth knowledge as well. Because I think if you're staying there for five years at one company that is also not going super crazy, but just ambitious, the level of in-depth knowledge you get.
00:30:22
Speaker
is in value. It's really crazy. And from that point, I calculated my hourly rate and it would be, I think, between five and six euros per hour, what I worked on. And then suddenly my first deal I got was 60 euros an hour. And I was like, wow. um And I think within three months, I was up at 125 euros an hour.
00:30:45
Speaker
And suddenly um it was always happening between 125 and 150 something right in the beginning. And I was not even experienced, right? I had five, six years experience yeah um and just did regular recruitment. Also the market, I think, changed a bit. So that's also having a dynamic. And at some point I also then felt about, okay.
00:31:02
Speaker
um I'm so young still. I was 25 back then. I now um want to go to the next step and try to build a company from it. And besides doing interim work, I always had recruiters in my network to also join. And then I needed a brand at some point right to also make something out of it. And I think, um as you said, this not a life crisis maybe, but when you really deeply reflect on how do you actually want to build your life. This is I think the important foundation you need to lay down because it will be tough. It will be hard. There are so many doubts. There are so many uncertainties. There are so many fallbacks.
00:31:36
Speaker
um But when but once you're making it and you get that momentum, I think nobody wants to go back. And I see this in a lot of executive dinners I do um that people just don't want to go into the next management or executive role if they did it already three, four or five times because they know what to do, how to solve it. But sometimes there are headwinds or politics or some people that make decisions and just don't um decide for certain things or prioritize certain things that at some point you're just getting, I would say,
00:32:08
Speaker
You don't believe it anymore. you Yeah, i can I can appreciate that. I see that as well. and Also, to go back to the point of what what I was thinking about why I wanted to do this was you know I'd heard, oh, when you're doing an interim, then you can pick your days and you can have more flexibility.
00:32:27
Speaker
come on and Yeah, for sure. With the salary side of things, when you look at this when you look at your hourly rate and what what that's billed out, there's some discussions you have with companies sometimes, or you hear from people like, oh, you know that that's a high rate. then As you'll know as well, once you start, okay, 50% of that goes straight away, then ah there's all these other costs that have ah to happen. Then the realization after I've been doing this for a while was, well, when I have a holiday, it's like I'm paying for it twice because I don't get paid for my holidays, I pay for the vacation, and I'm missing out on the income when I
00:32:59
Speaker
ah going on vacation as well which obviously you don't want to be thinking like that too much but it's a bit like those are the realities as well and sometimes what I found as well is you definitely have these periods where for me what I see now definitely a trend is in the summer times the quieter times for sure And then you'll find now, around about now, again, it's time to go up again. And so end of summer, autumn, winter, into spring, typically busy times, and then the summertime. So you have to factor that out. So it might look like, yeah, you've got a higher salary, but then it goes down like that. Definitely. And I'm not quite sure people who are thinking about it realize that. And, uh, yeah, but the, the, the free, the free, having this, ah so I always said to myself is always set from the start as well. I'm keeping one day of the week free. I want to do that.
00:33:45
Speaker
And that was quite nerve wracking at first. I was like, oh my God, these companies, they won't accept that. They'll want me in five days a week. And I did have a little bit of that, but I just was very clear, like boundary setting, these are the days that I work four days a week. If you want, that can be like Monday, I'll be out Friday. I'll be out. But those are the days I can, I'm available for you. You know, I think that's so smart because also from a stability standpoint, you're not relying on just one account, right? And, um, then you also have.
00:34:12
Speaker
Or maybe sometimes it is like this, but there is a possibility that you can also do just two times two days a week, for instance. And then you also never have um the the pipeline problem. And I think what is also um important, once you did this maybe for a few, one or two years, um the money you can make with it um is really better than being employed. and But you need to be careful in managing it right. And if you once have the funds, just on the bank um for times where you say, and maybe a longer vacation or maybe at a time where a pipeline is not good or the market is not good. I think this is really making you then being able to be comfortable with the ambiguity and with the uncertainty that is there, right? Yeah, definitely. That was one thing I did as well. When I first started out this, I've had one of my pockets and one of my accounts.
00:35:03
Speaker
which was purely for my rainy day fund. It was for more pockets by then. I had one which was for my business kind of needs and then one which was for if anything happens that I don't have a project, I've got a couple of months, a few months yeah to bridge that gap. What was your rough roughly calculation on how much time of I don't know, fixed cost or whatever you want to can you can run run dry. Do you have a formula for that or some some number? Well, yeah if you ask my wife, she would tell you like six months I need to have there. I'm a bit more like, I would say three months is probably about, probably about fine.
00:35:40
Speaker
and And I think that's the advantage as well. you know If you've got a partner, then there's hopefully some income coming from there. If you're on your own, then it it can feel a little bit more. I would probably say have more money in the bank there just to be sure. Because also to go back to your point as well, it doesn't always work out where I've got two different clients at the same time. Back in 2021-22, it was a little bit more like that. 23 wasn't like that.
00:36:02
Speaker
um parts of this year haven't been like that but ah because it's also difficult to say, okay, um I've got a project now and I want to take another one. It's like, how soon do they want you to take it? Have you got enough capacity? How is it working there existing ones? so I find that actually really trying to plan for this your overlap is still one of the trickier things. I've got this client here. How do I overlap so I can still give ah what I've committed to this client as well as also giving to this client?
00:36:32
Speaker
and um And it depends on their needs. So you know I've also had that conversation, but for the new client, they needed more from me or they needed something else I can commit to. So I couldn't have that two clients at the same time. So it's never you can never bank on it. And then also really, the one of the trends I've seen as well is you have these periods where it is a bit quieter. You go through this period of, okay, I want to start being a bit more vocal now because when you're also working for a client, it's difficult unless you're working with someone external to do your social media and keep things ticking over.
00:37:00
Speaker
Then you suddenly are like, oh okay, I need to get out there and I need to start blasting. I'm here, andm I'm here, I'm here. And then typically what happens is a few months later or a month later, like through new projects come along at the same time, just like this crazy this a timing that happens where I've seen that a few cycles now, so it's something I'm aware of, but I wouldn't always bank on it. You can't underestimate when you're doing this as well how much time you have to put into the networking and marketing side of it. Also, for me as well, the admin side of it, some days I'm like, You know, I've got to do I've got to do these invoices. I've got to upload this to data But I've also got accountant as well. And then you've got the accountant stuff You've got to deal with which if you talk to my wife who's originally doing it for me to now ton of time but there's also a lot of overhead that has to go with that as well and if anybody works in this side of Fraction as well still to this day. I'm like, okay I put this money away for tax and I've got my vat and then I've got all my cost of the accountant which is that it's just like I I've got this pot of cash. I've got a rough idea of what money belongs to who, because I keep it there. But it can be quite crazy as well trying to manage that side of it, because you'll know you're paying the prepayments for the conveyor, are you paying the prepayments for the tax year? The good thing is also what I like is you can control the money flow in terms of company expenses. Plus also what I just do, I also put away a lot of money.
00:38:23
Speaker
And um I know I need to pay that. um And sometimes you just don't know when it when when is the um finance i'm coming. And then also understand you can just like lay it on an account. And yeah um it's giving you and dividends, like 4% or 5% at the moment. right And ah I was like, wow, cool. That's paying for the gym membership from that and that. So it's really nice.
00:38:47
Speaker
No, no, for that was something as well. ah For a while I had in an account where I wasn't earning anything on it and then I think it was trade Republicans. I was like, why am I not got my money in there? The tax money because it's I know that's tax money. I'm not going to put in anything risky, but now the interest rates are good. And then like you said, it's something as well. Exactly.
00:39:06
Speaker
But yeah, definitely I've been a good a system in place for making sure that you're very kind of diligent with that. That's everyone else's cash and this is what I then need for my role in expenses and those kinds of things. yeah That's also an interesting interesting one as well. The problem is when you're employed, and you you don't have any chance, you just get the net net, right? yeah and them that's that's a bit unfortunate because there are so many smart decisions what you can make by just having a choice. Yeah. But Chris, we need to wrap up. That's really a great episode for everybody that want to do this maybe at some point or just thinks about it. I have a lot of people in my network who do, so listen to that episode, really valuable. And maybe we can do another one down the road or deeper. Yeah, sounds good. I love that. Thanks, Chris. All right, Thomas.