Navigating Business Ownership and Career Growth: From Solopreneurs to Fractional Executives (5/9/24)
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​[00:00:00] 

Isaiah Hankel: yeah, I got about 30 today, but so the big thing is just catching up. And so I liked, I love talking to business owners like you, because everybody is an owner I've ever talked to. I'm not talking, I'm not talking about people that are like at some giant organization, but 

Donna Serdula: yeah, 

Isaiah Hankel: they're always like, Oh, if I just had, if I could just your way so much better, Oh, this looks like, could you, cause I look at it and I'm like, Oh man, if I was just.

I was just by myself, just me again. Like when you start first start to free, whatever, because you don't have to deal with a lot of different things. I think there, and then you're always chasing a dream of being able to replace yourself, which never happens. I actually get pissed off when I hear this dream. Now, if people talking about it, you go to these different events on straights, they're just like, replace yourself. Just get somebody to do what you can do. And I'm like, 

Donna Serdula: and what I always say to that, Isaiah is. If I could find [00:01:00] someone, they'd have their own business and they're looking for a replacement.

Isaiah Hankel: Like 

Donna Serdula: That's the problem. If you found someone who could replace you they're working on their own business. 

Isaiah Hankel: Marketing for sure. Yeah. They're not 

Donna Serdula: looking to, they're not looking to work for you. They're doing their own thing. They're building their own business. That's, that's the crazy bit.

I always remember years ago when I first started the business I was talking to this architect who I had worked with before in my previous life, when I was selling AutoCAD software to architects and engineers, and when I started, Yeah. Yeah. And then when I started my own business I started to do the whole networking thing and the chamber of commerce and ran into him and we, he recognized me.

He said to me it's great that you took this step, into, business ownership, being your own person, your own boss. That's great. He said, but I got to tell you, he said it doesn't ever stop. He said, I was at a wedding. And I was sitting there in the pew watching this beautiful wedding.

And I [00:02:00] kept thinking, how am I going to make payroll? How am I going to make payroll?

Isaiah Hankel: Oh yeah, it's true. You don't turn it, you can't turn it off because like we were saying, the buck, the kind of the buck stops with you. Yeah. But I think it's this, and it's this weird thing because For some reason, especially today, if you're a business owner, people automatically assume Oh, you got it.

You got it. You got it made figured out. Like you, you actually owe everybody around you a lot of stuff because you're a business owner. You must be, I don't know what they think. They automatically assume all business owners are deck of millionaires or billionaires. I'm serious.

If you talk to non entrepreneurs, non business owners. They just assume because you have a business, like you don't have the same, like rights as a regular employee. You don't have the same rights as a regular person of society. No, I really think they 

Donna Serdula: think in your mind, is it that they assume that you're privileged that you're coming with so much more.

Isaiah Hankel: And I'm like, first of all, if you look in the U S the [00:03:00] average salary that business owners pay themselves is about 65, 000 right around there. I think most people assume it's like At least hundreds of thousands, most people don't understand the difference between like revenue or profits or paying yourself a salary.

They just have zero ideas. They're like, you run a business that's been around for more than six months. You must be, so you're caught in this kind of weird place. And and the only reason I bring that up is because there's, and there's two trains of thought on business ownership, and I think a lot of people are interested in doing something on their own now, at least on the side.

If you see the data of a lot of people that have a job, but then they're doing like a. A side thing or the 

Donna Serdula: side gigs and side hustles. It's growing and the fractional work. Oh my goodness. 

Isaiah Hankel: Fractional that's yeah. That's the big buzzword now. So I think, but I think there's a lot of, and I'm sure you've seen these books too, like the original, or at least for our kind of generation was like the four hour work week, but there's like company of one, there's the a hundred dollar startup.

So it's like basically be one person and then connect through to a lot of contractors, et cetera. That's one mode. And then there's the [00:04:00] other. That's like the E Myth. And the, the books like Traction and Scaling Up where it's get employees to replace yourself, SOP, everything, standardize it and replace it extremely hard on both ways.

Cause as soon as you create an SOP, when you're a business owner starting out, that SOP is out the window because you've had to adapt to the market. And change so quickly that I know it doesn't work. And then if you're by yourself, you're, you haven't, it's really tough to ever replace yourself.

Donna Serdula: But don't you also feel I feel like it's not like one or the other because for me, it was just me for a long time and it and it was hard. It was great. It was wonderful, but it was hard. It got hard. And then it got to the point where then I'm suddenly I went from the four hour work week to, whatever it was.

And then it very quickly became the E-Myth and then suddenly I'm like, I got to teach someone else how to make these blueberry pies because I just, I cannot keep making blueberry. I think [00:05:00] that was the example of the E-Myth so I think it's almost like you, you take one to as far as you can and then you have to transition.

And I did, but when I transitioned, it was, I never brought on employees. I brought on, the 10 99, and that was smart for me, but I do wonder, Should I have gone more to the employee? That, the true having employees that, that could, that's not a bad way of going either, but that's hard.

Isaiah Hankel: It's cost benefit. Yeah. It's, you end up having both eventually, especially with an online business because you almost require contractors at a certain point. So it all just, it depends. There are advantages I think of having a W2 employee, there's advantages of having contractors, usually much more specialized.

Whereas the W2, it all depends on the type of role, if you're doing customer support and you can do it hourly for a set number of hours and that's it. And you're clocked off because also the market expects to [00:06:00] only hear from you from eight to eight or eight to five, whatever. Or if you can get somebody salaried, that's more of a higher tier that can really do a lot of it.

Just that every business is so different. So I agree with you. I think everybody takes it as far as they can with the. "THe COmpany of One" "Four Hour Workweek". And then they typically get into the E myth, the SOPs and they take it as far as they can. Then it's just a decision on where you are and what you want to do.

And it's just a, it's, I honestly think it's just a fight of creativity and response to what's out there because you got to structure there's high level business models that you can learn and get inspired from, but every business is so different and move so fast. Now, at least for the online stuff, I don't know, if you're packaging a product.

Selling books, supplements and sure it's way different, but I think in the informational space where you're selling,

Donna Serdula: I also feel that there's a point where you yourself as the owner say, I'm happy, do I keep wanting to pushing it?

Do I want to keep pushing it? Maybe some don't, but also sometimes the nature of your business is such that you've [00:07:00] taken it to where it needs to be. And it doesn't make sense to become an Amazon. It's maybe it's not even in the cards to become an Amazon.

Isaiah Hankel: For sure. Like I think eventually you have to realize that there's some kind of, uh, number one, you have to realize that there's a very different game of being a small business owner versus somebody who takes on venture capital or any type of stuff.

A lot of those companies, not Amazon, but if you look at other ones. Some of the biggest in the world still haven't turned a profit. Like they're just, it's a totally different game. They're playing kind of a high level kind of tax game and venture capital game and whatever.

So you can never, and I think a lot of small people, the real only reason I mentioned that, cause you brought it up. A lot of people compare them to I could do this. And I'm like That's a very different path than being a small business owner right of the prototypical type that most people are that used to be classified as mom and pop or whatever.

But now it's like the online small business owner. I don't think there's a way I would actually, I would argue strongly against a way of ever achieving some place where you're like, this is as far as going to go, because as soon as you stop innovating or pushing in any [00:08:00] way. You'll eventually, somebody's going to take over that market.

Donna Serdula: There's always that attrition. Yeah. Yeah, that's the 

Isaiah Hankel: hard part. So I think you can get happy at a level of innovation that you have to constantly do to adapt and whatever, but what most people don't realize and what you've done, that's extremely special that I don't think a lot of business owners take.

Credit for, and myself included is if you make a business survive for more than 10 years, the amount of adaptation that you've had to do, people can't even fathom like how different your business is today than it was 10 years ago or mine in terms of just offers processes. I you could, you can be out of business in two to three months, no matter how good you're doing, you can really be because it doesn't, yeah.

Clients can just stop coming. And you've seen those shifts over 10 years. Like all of a sudden it's Whoa, what's going on? And you have to react within a matter of a couple of months to be able to turn that around. And a lot of people, I don't know, I don't think they can, they don't [00:09:00] understand that kind of process.

Donna Serdula: I think it was the E-Myth itself that said five years, most small businesses survive for five years and that's it. And we're hitting 15, 15 years. So definitely proud of that. 

Isaiah Hankel: Exactly. Lean. 

Donna Serdula: Lean. Mean. Sure. 

Isaiah Hankel: Sure. 

Donna Serdula: And I've always believed in the just customer service. Absolute customer satisfaction and like you said, constantly pivoting and looking to see what, what the market wants.

Isaiah Hankel: Yeah. The pivoting thing is a big deal. And I've been fascinated with that recently because I, When you try to communicate, it's hard to communicate that the risk of not pivoting to somebody, because as a business owner, I don't think most people can process the risk of, because it's one thing to lose like a job.

It's another thing to lose like your business, anybody else that you've been employing through contract or otherwise, and have the swings be so big because like you brought up [00:10:00] at the payroll example. Like it's not just losing your business, it's like, Oh, I could go into massive debt within a couple of months if I don't manage my stuff correctly with the business, because you create this engine that of expenses and at the engine of revenue stops.

But the engine of expenses keeps going. 

Donna Serdula: Yeah. Yeah, 

Isaiah Hankel: there's no training on that. 

Donna Serdula: I, at the same time, it's, I think for a business owner it becomes the fuel that keeps that, fire burning. And I remember someone had said to me do you ever dream about going back OK.

And being an employee and it's true, I do but then, I wake up from that nightmare, 

Isaiah Hankel: it's what day are you talking to talk to me at the end of the day versus right now where it's the beginning. 

Donna Serdula: But to me, it's a nightmare. It's yeah, I dream about it. I wake up screaming from that nightmare.

Like I don't. As much as there's something beautiful about the idea of going to work and coming [00:11:00] home, I don't know if that's something that I want. 

Isaiah Hankel: It's easy. It's funny how your brain can play tricks on you. So the one that I'll think we, and we brought up this before is I'll think about, Oh, if I could go back to being the company cause you just you had that nostalgia when you're talking about it was beautiful and amazing.

And it was just me. I had those thoughts too. I'm like, I just remember it was just me on a laptop doing this. Obviously, but the world's changed now. Like everybody has An Instagram account or videos or online. Like it's really so much different than it was, but also I've had to go back. Like sometimes in business, you have to go back and I have to go back to doing something I didn't do because you lose a contractor, you lose whatever else.

And you have to step in and make it happen. And I'm like, Oh my God, I cannot go back to doing this. If I had to go back. To doing this SOP that I had for somebody else, it's it's like an existential, you almost feel like you're dying as a business owner. Cause you're like, I'm back here now doing these same taglines or these same final blog edits, or [00:12:00] I'm the person putting into WordPress or whatever.

I'm like, what am I doing? Cause you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Once you've expanded past that, it's, You have such a desire for growth. You feel like you're, you do, you can feel like you're like an existential death doing that. So I don't think you can go back. 

Donna Serdula: So what do you think would a person have to say to themselves to recognize that their future is potentially that side gig, that side hustle that turns into more of a full time thing or deciding to go more fractional and, getting clients rather than employers, like in your mind, what do you think?

A person would have to say to themselves to really know that this is a path that I can go down. 

Isaiah Hankel: I would say, I'm a big fan of just ignorance is bliss and to just go early, because if you try, if I, if you knew everything that was going to be required, and this is actually a problem that I have now is I, what it takes to do this.

So when you think of starting, like you probably have a lot of ideas, like all entrepreneurs are like, Oh, if I could go into this market, this vertical or this thing where you're like, Oh my God. And you [00:13:00] also get a bit more realistic. I know what it takes to do that. And I'm also I've had enough of I've been taught enough lessons and humility to know that I'm not, I can't just magically say, oh, I'm gonna be amazing in this market.

Now, I'm gonna be amazing. And I know how much it's going to take if I would have known how much it's going to take. Now, I think you start second guessing yourself and doubts your biggest enemy. So I think you have to just go and start creating and use that energy, that fire of creation, that something I think creation and ownership, and a lot of people don't talk enough about the second one ownership.

What sucks about working for somebody else is you got to do whatever they say, you're fulfilling their vision, but having a side job, the fact that you can build something yourself, I think it's a blog, if it's a little product or something that you could do, I don't care if it's something on Etsy or whatever to start.

But if you can create something. And own it and learn as you go and be excited about the learning process. That's what gets people to start doing it. And then you just have to get smarter and look at the [00:14:00] numbers and the data. I don't think a lot of people look at the numbers enough. Okay, I really love this, but am I selling any of it?

If I am selling, what are my expenses going into it? So that was a big turning point for me where I'm like, okay. I'm funding this thing and I enjoy it and it's giving me freedom, but you have to make this pivot eventually from it being a hobby to actually bringing you in income and then replacing whatever current income you have or adding like a legit second stream to it.

Donna Serdula: And all this AI, it's this new added level of expense. Have you noticed that as well? It's like suddenly I need all of these new tools and it's like now. It's one thing to, 20 bucks a month for chat GPT isn't bad. But then you start to think of all of these other tools that you need.

And that's something that I've been really looking at. It's this space too. Yeah. What do we really need? What's really the because the line has moved, the line has moved in the sand for what you need to do business. 

Isaiah Hankel: I agree. How do you differentiate yourself is what I think [00:15:00] about more than that.

Because I'm like, okay, every time I log on to a LinkedIn or a different site, like I see a new AI tool where it's already crafting messages for me as I start to type 'em to somebody, right? They can do resumes, they can do profiles, whatever else, and I'm just like, okay, this is concerning. So it's just like we were talking about with pivoting, like how do you pivot and add more of a human factor to whatever it is?

I had, I read this article about the, AI is leveling the playing field with like resumes so much that people I talked to, I've never heard in in, for over a decade, I've never heard it this bad where everybody talked to is like silence, automatic rejections, not even coming out of the 2008 recession.

I didn't even hear it this bad. And. And I believe I'm believing more and more. It's because AI has allowed everybody to get up to the 80 percent level of a resume. And and hiring managers don't even know they can't, you can't differentiate. They're really, there used to be like 80 percent of them are just complete garbage resumes, like awful.

You could instantly tell it's awful. Now you get all these [00:16:00] resumes and nobody can make sense of what is a good resume bad. Everybody's up to. Here. And so employers, they're going to have to figure something else out. It's going to have to be video. It's going to have to be something else. 

Donna Serdula: Even video. You can't trust.

Did you see how some guy in Hong Kong wired like 25 million because of a AI, CFO fake 

Isaiah Hankel: deep, deep fake. Yeah. 

Donna Serdula: Yeah. It's crazy. I don't know about that. Exactly. In terms of the resumes, because I am seeing a lot of these AI generated resumes and they, when you first read them, Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There, there is a beauty to them. You're like, wow, this person writes really well. They're using some pretty high quality 50 cent words, but then when you really dig in, there's no accomplishments, there's no dollars, there's no true impactful quantifiable successes.

And I do I've always been scared, since chat GPT came out in November of, two years ago now. It's. [00:17:00] It's going, it's really hard to cut through the fluff, to find the core, to find the value, to find that truth. And in some ways it's, yeah, it's leveling the playing field, but you know, who has something to say, who has real vision, who has the results?

It's the brand is still important, but if you've got a brand that's built on sand, Doesn't matter. 

Isaiah Hankel: Sure. Yeah. It's going to, but that's the entire point is that you're getting, you have to rise above even higher now because some people will just skim the resume and say, it looks good or the AI.

And then there's AI detection tools, AI detection tools. So there's a lot of different, it's the wild West now, right? So it is, Oh, it's such, it's nobody knows where it's, but that's why I think a lot of employers are. I just think there's more resumes that appear high quality at first being submitted than ever [00:18:00] before.

That's what hiring managers, at least that I've talked to have said is they're having a hard time differentiating compared to what it used to be. And then the, the voice of the. The job applicant is silence rejection. 

Donna Serdula: Yeah, it is. It is true. There is so much of that going on and it's really it's sad because these are people who for the most part are in a vulnerable situation.

And what do they do? Are they waiting? Are they not waiting? Are they being ghosted? They don't know. So it's, it is a sad. sad situation, but I do believe, I've, I try so hard to hold onto that level of positivity where I believe it's all going to level out. It's going to work out for us and we're going to love it.

We are going to say, thank goodness. And I already say, thank goodness for it because it's, it is amazing what you can do. You can do things so much faster than ever before, but we'll see what happens.

Isaiah Hankel: Depends on what you want. There's this great article I read 10 years ago. At first, I don't really understand it.

It [00:19:00] was from James Altucher said everybody's, in 10 years, everybody's going to be an entrepreneur or a temp staffer. And I'm like, holy crap, this is actually what's happening because the only skills that are going to be the most human for the longest. Are sales and marketing if you look right now, the data says the number one job wanted right now is inside and outside salesperson.

Number one job is everything else that's administrative is replaced by AI. And by replaced, I don't mean fully replaced, but where one person can manage the AI. And do what 10 people used to do before. Yeah. And I think anybody that denies that is they're going to miss the boat. They're blockbuster in a world of Netflix period.

And so if people don't start learning how to, and selling yourself in terms of your candidacy, like people before, they don't think they have to make calls to talk to employers or reach out and sell themselves and pitch themselves. How do you bring that up? When you, when I tell somebody they have to do this, they look at me like I got three heads, they're like.

I can't do that. I'm not that I can't sell myself. I won't. I can't reach out. [00:20:00] And so you have all and you and I work mainly with like high level professionals people that could get into executive positions. Whether they see themselves or not, we don't do a lot of the stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong, but.

A lot of we're not talking about part time jobs usually at the mall or whatever, like we're talking about full salaried positions typically that we help people get into these people are the most at risk and I'm not going to be, I can't be fake positive about it because I'm seeing what's happening.

If I'm getting out right now with an advanced degree or anything else, or I'm there, I'm actually, I'm feeling a sense of urgency that I've never had before, because. Like I'm banging on the phones. I'm reaching out and I'm going beyond reaching out and even on LinkedIn messenger because the same AI stuff's happening.

They can click that button on LinkedIn, writes a whole AI message. Everybody's doing that. So now they don't have to write it themselves. There's no barrier to entry to even sending a LinkedIn message. Everybody's being spammed. You got to pick up the phone, hustle, go, even go there on site. Don't you 

Donna Serdula: feel like it's going it's getting more local.

It's getting more in [00:21:00] person. Like it's the only way it's the only way because you're right. Everything's click a button, generate something that I also feel that we're going to find that the content is going to have to become even more succinct. I just got an email. From a guy who was canceling an appointment with me, or he wanted to reschedule the appointment with me.

Yeah. And it was this, three paragraph essay of thank you so much for your consideration. I, unfortunately I have been called to another meeting at this exact moment that we had already and reading it, I'm like, this is chat GPT. Like normal, any normal person would have said, Hey Donna, can we reschedule for tomorrow?

Something came up. This was three paragraphs 

Isaiah Hankel: that could be. And I think of people, a lot of professional training, sometimes, people think that they're more, if they add more, just like to resumes, I'm sure you've seen I think they did just add more. It's going to be more professional or more whatever, but it's actually the opposite [00:22:00] always.

I think less and more succinct. But I 

Donna Serdula: think that's going to be the other piece. It's going to go more human. It's going to become more, less content, more succinct, more impactful content. Yeah. And yeah, because at one time only people who had the talent, who had the education to write, could write.

Everybody can. 

Isaiah Hankel: If you look at the data that came out almost all of the job gains over the past few months, We're either part time or government jobs, all of the jobs that were gained, none of the stuff that we typically do. No, you got to look at it. It's actually pretty crazy. So you have, and then you look at all the job gains and other of the other data shows that all the job gains were in the same household as people that were already employed.

So people are just getting second and third jobs. Oh, wow. Nobody. I think a lot of people don't dig into this data and they just keep. I think you have to understand what's going on contextually. You can't hide from it because it's like different or scary. Like you gotta be like, wait a sec. Most of the jobs that are opening now.

Otherwise you're confused [00:23:00] because you're like unemployment's only 4%. Like, why is it so hard? Something's wrong with me. You're like, you don't really understand. You don't think you have to rise above. But once you realize, oh, that's just because there's never going to be enough manufacturing or retail or fast food jobs again, right?

They're just going to they're automating all those. And but if you realize for our position, the people that are at the most risk right now are. Educated people and or executives by far, because companies are not going to pay these salaries for any type of administrative work. If you can come in and sell, if you can come in and market and help me grow our revenue, whatever, there better be a direct link to let that or you better be the best in the world class.

You better be in the top, not just 10 percent now, but the top 1 percent of a researcher or of a manager or whatever for you to get hired. I think that's really where we're headed. Anybody else who's in the middle, it's going to be. Part time and that's what the temp work means. It's going to be like part time work, contract work, the fractional work.

Yeah. We'll come up with all these terms, but, and maybe that's okay for some people, but [00:24:00] not again, not if you're being realistic with prices of things and different stuff like that, because the whole point of the part time work and the fractional work is you're not getting paid what you get paid when you're doing the full time work.

Maybe you could piece together three or four of those. Maybe that's what it will work out to be. 

Donna Serdula: That's what it seems like from the fractionals that I'm working with they're aiming for three, three to four fractional assignments and not assignments, but long term, long term gigs.

That's what they're looking for. But it's certainly just a fraction of their time 

Isaiah Hankel: that entrepreneur tempting was like a prophecy. It's fractured. It's just a different name. Seriously, Tim, the fractional stuff is temporary work by nature. Yeah. Or part time. So you have the people who will have the business that will hire the fractional people or that they're the ones being hired.

I guess it's sometimes it could be the same thing. 

Donna Serdula: I have heard some fractional CEOs, but on a whole, it's more like fractional CFO, fractional COO even general counsel it's crazy. 

Isaiah Hankel: But are they hired [00:25:00] as employees or they hired as their own business owner?

Donna Serdula: They're hired as a, like a contractor or, it's definitely more of a vendor. No, the thing is when they're brought into the organization, they're issued an email there. They act as if they are an employee, but they're not paid as an employee. 

Isaiah Hankel: That's fascinating. There's gotta be that.

That's, it 

Donna Serdula: was a beautiful thing for startups. My gosh, you can get a, you can get a great leadership team, vast, experienced. 

Isaiah Hankel: We have a lot of people that would classify as fractional. It's just a new way to classify. So basically it's a contractor, but who gets added to your organization.

Now, the only problem with that is, is that traditionally depending on states, whatever, if somebody has to show up at a certain time and if they have a company email, you have to make them a W 2. If you're really small, they'll overlook you. But if you get to the point where a certain level of revenue, whatever, that's where they typically put pressure on businesses to make them W 2s.

So it'd be interesting to see how this, but that we see that with Uber and contractors and stuff, right? [00:26:00] Already. But 

Donna Serdula: It's a different way of looking at it because what the government is protecting is this idea of, that indentured servitude or something where they think, Oh, we have to protect the worker.

The worker deserves to be an employee, but in this situation, it's the worker who's saying, I don't want to be an employee. That's not what I'm after. I want the freedom to, to have a number of jobs, to work with a number of companies, to have the freedom to not have to do the busy work and the meetings, but really come in and get my Portion done and off I go to another company to to fly in and do impactful work and move on.

Isaiah Hankel: And then I think that's just going to be, that will become more competitive too. There's companies like this one company I've been looking at. It's called support shepherd. I see a lot of these companies pop up. They hire for fractional people, but in other countries that are like a fifth of the price.

They're a high level executive headhunter. Yeah. They're a high level executive headhunter that hires fractional people. Out of India or Bangladesh, [00:27:00] but they get like the best of those and create relationships so you can get somebody for a thousand dollars a month instead of 5, 000 or whatever.

So this is a big thing. It just got a bunch of I don't, I think it might've been that company that just got a huge hundred million dollar investment or whatever. And so I think it's all, it's all the same stuff. And then how do you classify? So if you have a entrepreneur. Who's brought into companies to do stuff.

What makes them an entrepreneur and not just a fractional worker themselves. 

Donna Serdula: Yeah. 

Isaiah Hankel: See what I mean? That's it's hard to classify. If you're, you 

Donna Serdula: know, that's an old term that I used to run into quite a bit years ago, like back 10 years ago, it was that let's find entrepreneurs, put them into the organization, let them roam around and figure out what innovative things can happen.

And they were calling them in-trepreneurs. 

Isaiah Hankel: Yeah. That was a big thing. That 

Donna Serdula: was a big thing. I haven't heard that in ages. That's been a while since that was a popular thing. [00:28:00] 

Isaiah Hankel: Yeah, I don't know where it's headed. I, with all of this happening though, I don't see. I don't see a lot of the prototypical people I'm talking to right now.

It's not like I get on calls with half the people and they're like, oh, I got this fractional job opportunity. I don't hear that. I just hear them trying to get full time roles and not getting into that.

Donna Serdula: I think there's a shift happening right now.

I think there is a bit of a revolution taking place, through, in, in corporate America, because I'm seeing, I am seeing a lot of people saying, I'm leaving the executive space as a full time employee. And I want fractional work and they're landing it. They're landing it.

There's a lot of people, but if you're doing it smart, if you're doing it in a manner where you're really looking at yourself as I'm selling myself, I'm going to sell these skills. How much harder is it to find a client than it is to find, full time, work, it's a lot of, it's a lot of effort either way.

So which route do you want to take? 

Isaiah Hankel: Yeah. And what do you have to do? I think it's just going to keep being the person who can develop the kind of sell selling and marketing skills, selling [00:29:00] yourself. Or your services is the same thing. I really, I think people that can't do that are going to be in a very tough spot.

And I would argue tougher than it's ever been in history. I think for decades, there's been books about you got to sell yourself be better. Yeah, but it's never been like where I can do administratively across the board, 

Donna Serdula: but don't you also feel that if with that now suddenly coming up, like this is this new thing, you've got to sell yourself.

This is coming up at a time where they haven't had to do it and kids haven't even gone to really school for it. They like, it's not, it's coming out of the blue,

zero experience. 

Isaiah Hankel: I talked to so many people who are like, I can. I have, I write every day. I have this content. I've created these courses. I've done this. I have my services. I've gained these skills that I can teach people like basically everything that you would do for fractional work or whatever across the board.

I another person's I've done business development for 40 years. I'm trying to put it. [00:30:00] I'm like, you can build anything right now. And it's. I can go to chat GPT, like if I could, if I would go back and talk to myself 10 years ago, when I was like writing blog articles, like all day long or whatever else say, okay, you're going to have this tool that can write all your blog articles, all your sales pages, everything else up to the 80, 90 percent level, and then you just have to come back on top of it.

I wouldn't have been able to fathom it. And so I tell these people now, I'm like. All that stuff you just said can be done in like days now where it would have taken you months to build up the content library, your offerings, everything. That doesn't matter. Now, all that matters is your ability to go out there and sell it to people.

Can you pick up the phone and call? And give them a pitch that gets them interested. Can you even get there? Can you even say anything that gets their interest above the noise that's out there? That's what people need to be taught. There needs to, that's, that's what should be taught in school, but you're right there's nothing out there like that because most people think that they can just build and they're [00:31:00] going to come, they can make a video on Tik TOK and they're going to come or whatever. Yeah. But I think the selling of a product or a service or a person is the, 

Donna Serdula: And this is from a generation that's been raised on the phone. Their eyes have been down and they're not really used to talking to people. So it's an interesting time.

Isaiah, this was fun. 

Isaiah Hankel: Always good to see you again. Thanks. Thanks for making time. Okay. All 

Donna Serdula: See you next week. 

Isaiah Hankel: Bye bye. 

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