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Eike Post posted in the group The Community
Thanks to TCP and the group discussions we had, I started asking the question if I should launch a portfolio career. I wrote down my analysis and share it here with the community. Excited to hear your thoughts.
https://focuscycles.medium.com/should-i-start-a-portfolio-career-59541fadf85a
15 Comments-
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I actually think a well-structured portfolio career is the safest option. It just takes a few months to build it thoughtfully and make it resilient
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Good point! The more clients you have the less you depend on a single one. What I still see is that for a portfolio career you have to incur costs to find clients and this might bring you in the negative, at least you will not be earning anything.
Also, what I have seen from friends how do have a portfolio career is that they are spending 50% of their time in work that is not paid, especially talking to potential clients, and then in the paid time they make LESS per hour than they would in one long term contract.
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I have also seen that too Eike – especially for the first few months. However, if you have a distinctive, well told offering and keep your clients happy, much new work will start coming inbound from referrals. This should start happening at the 4-6 month point.
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Successful portfolio professionals also often have the opposite problem – too much paid work. That allows them to put their rates up, reduce the % of unpaid work they do and outsource some tasks to other portfolio professionals (at a lower rate). Several people from the last cohort of our Catapult course are already getting into this situation
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Wow Eike! What I wouldn’t give for just 10 minutes inside your head! This is very well written and incredibly well thought out. You probably know after two short sessions with me, what i’m going to say… Think about what you feel… what do you want from your life, what is important to you? There is sooo much information in this about the what and the how, but if I were you I would take it back to the ”Why” I think how we feel is just as important as what we think and how we analyse. I would also argue that at times, its quite black and white…. having to do time consuming admin and not being able to manage people are not (for me anyway) reasons alone not to do something. That can be either learnt (in my case the marketing side, and just enough to get me by for now) our outsourced, in the case of admin by a very capable but cost effective VA. I also agree with Ben that nowadays particularly, there is not much stability in full time employment and it really is a case of putting all your eggs in one basket! On a personal level, if I had half the brain power and amazing productivity systems that you have, I would want to share that with the world, in my own way, under my own terms, not beholden to anyone else for credit and profit!! The other parts that come with it can be figured out along the way. I have massive respect for your approach. For me personally, giving something this much thought would overwhelm me. You have a talent – put yourself out there and live your best life doing it. I have no doubt with your capability you won’t make a huge success of such a niche area and I look forward to seeing your name in lights! Very best of luck.
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On your other point, I also think you need to build in non-productive time into your hourly rate as not all hours you work will be billable and this forms part of your pricing strategy. When I worked out mine, from a full time week only 2.5 days are billable hours and that’s what I worked out my rates on. I believe that clients will not go for (and will be fearful of) the cheapest service provider.
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There was one more thing that I thought of when reading your sentences: I would want to share that with the world, in my own way, under my own terms, not beholden to anyone else for credit and profit. The reason is also this: Do you have something to offer that works or something that sells? For example, there are many gurus that I have studied, that sell extremely well but most of their ideas do not work in practise. Others are less known and have things that work, but they are not necessairly appealing to the masses. Also, ideas can not be copyright protected. So you could take anybody´s ideas, and bring them to world in a great way as you ahve a gift to connect with people. So maybe you are far better suited to become a productivity guru than me. It is not about who develops the best strategies but who can sell them.
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Great point – but again, I would say that no wo(man) has talents in every field – so if I were you I would focus on what I did best, in developing the systems, and if I felt I could not sell it, I would collaborate with someone that could! As for selling, for me that’s down to belief and passion for what you do. I would not consider myself a sales person, but my passion for people and hospitality seem to do the selling for me.
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Thanks for you analysis! I agree with it.
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Great article Eike – really well framed insights and some helpful points to consider, thanks for sharing.
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One additional ’con’ regarding Contracting (and another ’pro’ for the Portfolio model) which some may not be aware of is the impending IR35 tax legislation due April next year. As a result many firms are no longer hiring contractors or interims due to a poor understanding of their operating model. For me this could provide an excellent opportunity for the Portfolio Careerist to jump into the gap left by contractors and interims in these companies. For further discussion perhaps…
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Very interesting. The first company I established was in the UK and I was consulting contractors on IR35. 🙂
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What a brilliant thread and discussion and impressive article Eike Post. All the graphs! I’m with Lucy in that you’ve take a very logicall stance on things, and I would open yourself up to that why and also look at what option would make you grow personally too. You could be a contractor or employee and be bored crazy teaching the same things within 2 years, so the other options give you more creative freedom. I would argue marketing and sales will weave in many places – in a company you’ll just be playing it internally to get to the exec levels. A portfolio option could be the perfect place to explore both the SaaS and agency options a little to test how you like them before you dive in. Assume that you can be successful in it all, so it’s a case of what you might enjoy the most in terms of the journey rather than the outcome.
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A very thoughtful article Eike Post – well laid out. However, one thing you kept stating was that a full time job is safer than a portfolio career. I disagree. If you only have a full-time job with no paying side hustle, then lose it, you are in big trouble – there are six times as many unemployed people as open positions, so your odds are very bad for finding another role. However, as a portfolio professional, if you lose your biggest client it is the equivalent of a 30% pay cut, and you already know how to go and find another client because you have done it many times and there is plenty of portfolio work available.