Wendy Serafin: FinTech Comms, Brand, IPOs and Fractional Communications

There are so many talented folks like us that can bring so much to companies particularly startups that let's be honest. I mean they're brute-strapping a lot but they need that high-level talent and for us it's fun to be able to spread that across. Not just being one company one time you can do that for three and three different industries which is really interesting. So for me it's a great way to take all the transferable skills, all the learnings, all the experiences and then be able to share that with more than one company. In doing that you're everyone's kind of winning in the end. Welcome to the Commerce Coffee Club podcast where we bring you fascinating insights and conversations with communications leaders from across 14500 to C100 and leading global financial and professional services firms. I'm your host Max Forsyth, founder and managing director of Commerce Search and selection specialist in house communications executive search and recruitment firm based in the UK, but covering the UK and US markets. So Wendy Sarifin welcome to the Commerce Coffee Club podcast. Hello thank you thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to stick to Max. Oh it is indeed isn't it? And with that should we get straight into it? Absolutely. Alright so winding the clock all the way back. How did you get into communications? I was a good question. I wanted to think through that a little bit. Actually I was in a marketing type role and at the time marketing comms were kind of integrated into. They weren't as separate or broken out as you might see now and there was a tech transformation that needed to happen at this large company and they needed a communications dedicated role which was very new. So it was kind of almost a special assignment that I wanted to kind of that I wanted to get involved in and that was my entry into communications both internal external just how that's a key component when you work through like change management transformation and then that kind of led me to that area of communications and then building it from there. And just to bring the audience up to speak quickly do you want to give us a very quick. Potted career history and then we can get into the detail. Yeah sure so that that role or special assignment I called it then really entring me into my career is a little bit different because I actually did fractional work kind of early mid in my career. Primarily for personal reasons I was a young mom I wanted more autonomy more flexibility but you know you work really hard in your career you want to continue to have one foot in to that as you continue to build skills but you also want to be you don't want to choose between working families. So for me I ended up doing my own thing and it was a fractional PR role with a CTO and what I found was is there was a lot of need for a thing thought leadership with not to sell the CEOs but the next C-suite down primarily because they were struggling with hiring and talent management and getting great talent to pay attention to companies that aren't like these big brands like a Google or a meta. So really kind of leaned into external brand building thought leadership for executives which you know as part of comms as we know today. Did that for several years and then one of my clients I had the opportunity to then go back jump and back into in house so I kind of went the other way and led media relations and reputation for that for a large financial services company that serves the credit union industry and what I loved about that and it was timing was was right is that I was able to then get back deep into one company and really build and grow skills not only from like pitching and PR and your typical comms functions but there was a government affairs component there was a union communications component there was a crisis communication component because your financial services and you needed have some very specific things in mind for that. So it helped me kind of broaden and then get real deep in communication beyond just pitching that leadership pitching some great articles some columns you name it. So did that for several years and then ended up a lot helping them launch their ventures fund which was really when FinTech and insurance tech was really starting to take hold and loved that and ended up jumping to a FinTech myself because I wanted to be part of the mix and was able to then again come in build a comms department from scratch they didn't have one prior to that they wanted the function and the the team to be able to tell their story before it was told for them and so built that up sooth to nuts internal external on-boarder PR really got their narrative up and tight got the CEO really tight in terms of speaking and really telling the story which then set them up very nicely for an IPO in 2021. So went through that IPO SPAC July of 2021 which was a wonderful career milestone for any comms person to be able to kind of see that from the beginning to the end and it was exhausting along the way but it was amazing then ended up jumping for a little bit to take some time and doing a little consulting on my side and then ended up jumping to the mom project so completely shift in industries but yet transferable skills large brand very much a mission that was near and dear to my heart because it was what I did when I was early on so not choose career and family but be able to help moms really be able to have both so ran their communications brand department and that was very fun because that was a very high profile feel good brand that you had to be very careful with because we were we were at a higher standard it's an amazing mission the founder Alson Robinson is an amazing speaker resonates with so many people she is such a good connector with folks and so really harnessing that and getting her out there and getting the mission it's telling that story time and time again so that so let getting back to the in-house so and then from there I've kind of jumped back into the the fractional work now so kind of a full circle just digging into a little bit more detail there so you mentioned you led all the PR and comms for three-stage ventures obviously you then when took the guys had up five public and then even when you were at the mom project you also looked after one of their little kind of venture arms as well and grew that out so I think what would be really useful is you know for everybody who you know perhaps is going into a company that's at an earlier stage or you know perhaps is launching a venture arm how do you go about building a comms and PR strategy for that right I really for me and each of those have been a build from scratch a zero to one if you will the biggest thing you can do is tighten that narrative or create that narrative that is very clear and I do it in a very simple way I call it a message map other people have different tools in which they do it but really getting crisp on the why we why this is why we're here why we exist why is it important why are we listening and then basically kind of craft that story that goes around to the how and then to the payoff and people listen to stories people remember stories people remember the narrative that you say they don't hear about the boilerplate or the the fact the figures that you spout off about you know that you kind of put in a boilerplate and it press release they want to hear about the the why the struggles the challenges what's happening in the economy what's happening to this consumer what's happening to this market and really kind of pull on that interest and wanting to know more so getting really tight in that and that could be very simple in terms of like how you do it and it could be a very simple circle that you kind of wrap around your your different narrative components it could be very intricate but the goal is to be very simple and very clear on what your headline is and then you talk about your story so that's always I always come in doing that first thing because once you have that then everything else can kind of fall into place you can you can use that for your media strategy it's good for internal communications so that they're consistent with what we're saying it's good for if you do have like government affairs or other external components or functions that are talking to customers or stakeholders everyone's kind of speaking off of the same book if you will so I would say that's the first thing you need to do and then really do an audit on where the priorities are and it's really got to align with what the business is trying to do and the business strategy that they're trying to what they're trying to accomplish so you can't do all the things all the time so social might not be the first thing that out of the gate that needs to happen it really needs to be while we need to get our story out there before it's told for us in my case it was that was with that fight where we really needed to get out there in front of it before others were starting to tell it and probably not in a way that we wanted to be told so that was media first so there's some priorities there depending on what the business is dictating at that time and that could be more heavy external have heavy external narrative to talking or it could be more internal like there's a lot of things we need to get the employees on board on and really kind of rally around because this is what we want to do in the market XYZ so a little bit of an assessment but that narrative map is like the core to what you can do and what kind of pulls it all together and how do you get stakeholders on board internally who most likely up until that point, until they brought you in, are very either product or service focused. So they're very much focused on the what, rather than as you say the why, how do you get them on board and how do you take them on that journey? It's a fun journey and a lot of it is asking a lot of questions, sitting down with them and kind of listening to where they're coming from. Now in some situations, if a product is really talking about feature function, technology, the different shiny new things and the whizz bangs, it may be appropriate for certain audiences that they're talking to. And so just giving grace to where they're coming from, who they need to communicate with, how does that connect back to the overall company narrative. There's some flexibility there, but I think really explaining them to the purpose of the kind of overall corporate narrative, how that kind of sets the stage. And then you can kind of do some offshoot. So if there's specific audiences that may need a little bit more granular, or they need to get a little bit more into the, I would say, inside baseball. That's okay. As long as we're all kind of laddering up to that same core message, I ask a lot of questions, I identify a lot of gaps, if there's changes in terms of our challenges in the messaging in terms of like we say this, but are we really doing this? Are we saying this? Are we really delivering this? And that's very helpful to kind of get different functions on board too, because they also want to know that if we say this externally, it is true. And if it's not, when can we make it true? Or when will it become true? So it's a lot of human relations, it's a lot of collaboration, it's a lot of understanding perspectives, and then trying to bring that all together so that we all feel 80% there, that we all feel good about this moving forward. It doesn't have to be 100%, it may never be perfect. It will evolve as the company evolves, but at least it's a starting point that we can all at least jump off, I could say, yes, this feels good to us at a high level. And as you're going through that journey, what can some of the common hurdles and potential stumbling blocks be? I would say the one that's really interesting, and I like this because it pushes me as well. I think communications folks were very good about cutting through the jargon and the words that may not really mean anything. You can get caught into that really quickly, but there was a CTO that I worked with, and it was very funny. We went back and forth on the message. He's like, I just need this to be something that I could say at a cocktail party, and it doesn't sound like corporate jargon. And I was like, I that make absolutely like we can't have this be this like spouting thing that just really has no soul or no depth to it. So for me, that was always pushing a little bit further on making it authentic, maybe natural, making it something that you can just blow off the tongue, and you can talk to your neighbor who asked you, tell me about your company, or you can be at a cocktail party and be like, this is what our company does, and people like that make sense. And it's interesting, tell us more, then you can get into the narrative. But if it is this very stale type of wording that doesn't really have any soul or depth, that's where you would get some pushback because I agree, it's unnatural to spout off something that doesn't feel authentic in nature. Yes, absolutely. And guess where you want to get to is you want to spend that time media training them as it were, but you don't want what comes out of their mouth to sound like it's been media trains. And you know, you've just given them loads of lines to take that don't have that authenticity to them. Right, and it's a challenge. I mean, it's you write it down, you read it, it sounds interesting, but then when you say it, you quickly can realize that's probably not the best way to say that, or that feels very stale. So there is a balance there, and that's why media training is so important, because you don't have to say it word for word. It's just let's get it to the essence of what the message is and what the narrative or what the answer is. But in a way that it's still human, you know, versus it sounds like chat GBT just wrote it for you and you just basically read it from the script. Yeah, and I think, you know, it's funny you mentioned chat GBT, and we're all probably aware, you know, not just my LinkedIn feed, my own inbox, you know, I've got salespeople from all sorts of businesses trying to sell me stuff constantly. And the amount of stuff that is clearly chat GBT or one of the other AI tools plugs into whatever their sales outfries is. And you just think, oh man, it's yeah, it's you can see through it comes, comes folks can point to it right away. I mean, it will get better, but at the end of the day, you still need that human element as we all agree on, but to just rely solely on that as a content builder is risky and it's you lose, you're going to lose opportunity, you know, lose sales potential because people can read through it. But I do think for like low risk things or things that are very repetitive that you need different versions of it. It could be helpful again, but a final human needs to take a look at it. Yeah, and that's certainly a risk isn't it at the moment. I think, yeah, lots of companies looking at streamlining their workforces is probably the PC way to put it, but yeah. And I would say on that, I've been talking to a little bit about that is where my concern is. And again, we've all we see this through different careers, you know, as new technology comes on, what does that mean for people's careers and their expertise and how do they grow those skills and will it get replaced? And I think my concern with this is a little bit different in that we're chat GBT and some of these AI technologies, which is amazing. It's amazing. There's a lot of a potential, but where could impact the entry level folks starting out in their career, you know, needing to kind of work through copy or needing to work through a deck. And what because it's not the actual like putting the deck together, it's the it's the thought process of like the narrative, like how does this flow from side to side? And are you really, is it a compelling story that we're saying? And some of that learning in and just thinking, which is strategic, but you need to build that muscle. And if you don't have it, and then you have a chat GBT that can just do it for you, you know, it's just like you're always constantly tying your child's shoe. Well, at one point, they have to be able to learn how to tie the shoe. And I think there's a little bit of risk there, this particularly I think in communications, where, you know, the entry level roles, copyrighting, design, social media, there is that thinking muscle that we need to help coach and grow for folks. And we don't want chat, GBT to kind of take that away because you have to kind of learn it as learn it in the moment. And so it's just something I've been thinking about that as somebody that's been in my career for a while and obviously, you know, have gone through the learning of the strategies and learning the copyrighting and learning things and how flow and messaging and connection. Will we do a disservice for helping that next generation learn that muscle? Because chat GBT could actually take, you know, close that or basically take that over. So just being mindful of it, I think embracing it, I love it. There's a lot of synergies and productivity can bring. It's just that strategic muscle that you need to learn to build and grow early in your career, you know, being cognizant of that. Having the ability to be able to cut through the noise, even more important than ever, we are constantly bombarded with content across multiple channels, whether as you say it's social, written, video, you name it. Having the ability to be able to write or script organically and think of something that stands out from the crowd is almost even more important than it used to be. Exactly. Exactly. And if everyone's using chat GBT, everyone's using the same thing, we're all the same. And now we're at, we have a different problem. And what are you finding with your current clients in terms of their adoption of using AI tools, etc. Is that something you're seeing or is there still some reticence to it? You know, I see it in different ways. I would say, you know, as there are ways to kind of leverage it when you want to just do things quicker, faster, more. So for example, if it's repetitive or low risk comes potentially like if it's responses to reviews and you just need different versions of similar sentiment, you know, that helps you kind of get some new versions that you can then tweak. So you're getting that done quicker. I think what's interesting is folks that are not in communications and are in other disciplines look at it as like this is just an easy check the box. So it would be very easy for a sales person to develop. But as you're seeing with all these these outreach, all these different emails, they're just spouting it out. They're not reading they're not reading them. They're just using them because it's easy. It's quick. And that's kind of what they're, that's what they do. You know, that's the more outreach, the better chances of sales leaves, the better chances of closing deals. So from that standpoint, it's more of the efficiency, but you really need to also look at the content and make sure it's valuable. And I think that's where we come in. And I think educating the non-coms functions on just be careful. It's very efficient. It's very quick. Awesome stuff. But are you getting the results you need? Are you getting those leads? Are they coming in? Or is it just basically going into a black hole? Product. Are you communicating with the product? Is it really communicating with the features? So the person really understands, or is it just more product type speak that no one's really understanding in the end? So for me, it's more of a communication, how to use it and embed it. Don't just solely rely on it because now it's a check the box and you're done. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And spending that time with the go-to-market teams in many respects said that they understand. Because I think also, particularly if you're leading comms and you also have brand-und your remit and you've spent a long time developing a tone of voice and coaching the, you know, and coaching all the senior execs. And yeah, you're starting to get a bit of a good reputation with that and it's all landing. But you end up with a sales team who are using, you know, sort of chat, GBT, generated icebreakers and the icebreaker is, as one I got the other day, was, oh Max, I, how did you get on with your house music competition at school? What? I don't play an instrument. So just random stuff like that. I get all of those sorts of icebreakers and yeah, I guess you have actually just brought something to my mind that, yeah, actually there are going to be lots of companies out there who, yeah, have got a brand-und comms team who have done all this work at the top level and then they're going to have fairly junior salespeople sending out crap. Right. Right. And that's, yeah, it's very disconnected and again, you know, it's the check the box type of mentality and you just have to be really careful. So that makes our jobs even more important in terms of not only just making sure you're communicating and you're working with the teams across because it will, it just gets that much faster and more content can get produced that much quicker. So just building evenly awareness of such and the collaboration between teams is super helpful and very important. Let's draw down a bit into, because I noticed one of your, one of your pin posts on your LinkedIn profile, you're very proud of helping up by get through to listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Tell us about that and tell us if you can about from when you join and how you help to take them on that journey to listing, because there's a lot of stuff involved, right? There is. I need to kind of re-remember all of it. I did actually write an article for Pierre Adely on it on some, you know, Pierre lessons that I learned through that journey because there was just so many that you wanted to make sure you captured it. So we can put the link in the bio if people want to check that out. But I would say what's interesting about that IPO is that we went and BS back and what's different is when you go BS back, you can be very vocal and very outspoken and you can communicate the more communication the better, the more Pierre the better, versus a traditional IPO where there's a quiet period and you have to be very in a thoughtful and when you can communicate, when you cannot. So that was a very different, that was a huge learning in terms of as much Pierre as you could do, as quickly as you could do for as long as you could do because it was a sprint and a marathon at the same time, until you get to that listing day and you close. What else was interesting with the Op-Fi is the SPAC company, which was actually owned by Joe Moglio, which was, he is the former American CEO and chairman, and he was an amazing media asset. He's been in the media a ton and so what was interesting as well, we're trying to build the story for Op-Fi, we were also very privileged to work with him and he was also our spokesperson in a way about the need for small dollar lending and credit access in America and the ability to help 70 million Americans get access to credit who couldn't normally. So we were kind of having two different audiences, two different spokespeople to kind of put this entire narrative together and the one thing we learned is we did a lot early on before we went to an IPO to build that rapport. It's a scrutinized industry, we needed to really kind of talk through the positives of this industry, why we're good at, why we're not a bad actor, we were part of the solution, not the problem. And building a lot of that positive press up before we went IPO was very helpful because then we had some buffer investors now can refer to some of that and that really helped us then really take it to the next level. But as much content it was we could do whether it was PR, whether it was podcasts, whether it was op ads, whether it was LinkedIn content, we really just need that study bandwidth and we're talking like two, three times a week constantly for the next six months, which was a very exhausting and thank goodness for the agency that was partnered with me and they were in it to win it. So we were just constantly turning over different opportunities. But in doing that we were able to secure the closing and they closed in July and had some really great press and really great storytelling and really kind of elevated the need for what we did and why we're doing it, very mission driven. So there was a lot in between that, there was a lot of internal education we needed to do for me it was very important that you bring employees along while the CEO and the executives are talking to investors and really busy with that we still needed folks to kind of talk through with the employees like what does this mean and how does this work what's going to happen and you know it was excitement, anxiety, all of the things so there was that was a very important audience, media was a very important audience, investors were a very important audience and they all required storytelling across. So that was basically the biggest thing that I've done in my career was amazing and was really needed to be best friends with legal because they were going to help you get things that you needed to get across and everything had to be reviewed by them. But it was a great experience and I'm very proud of what we did and how we kind of really showed up and off I really shined in that moment. Yeah nice and for anyone potentially going through that at the moment whether it's an early kind of talk of an IPO or maybe they're bored of talking about it, what advice would you give to them? So I would say particularly to the board and CEO please bring your communications leader and as soon as possible, sooner the better there's only so much that someone can do to kind of really ramp this up because there's a lot that needs to happen even when you're going to announce externally and there's just not enough hours in the day. So get them a seat at the table, they will start to help you mitigate pros, not pros cons in terms of if you're going to do it. But things to think through, things that we're seeing in the marketplace, if it is a you know interesting industry, things to be aware of seeing around corners, what happens, what would happen with this or that? Who's going to be our spokespeople? Do we have our messages clear? Do we need to update the narrative? Who's the media that we're going to go after to kind of either do an exclusive on the story or give them kind of first right for this news because that will then help pave the way for longer term if you want to do another follow up or whatnot. So the more the faster they're involved, the faster they can start to put things in place that will really help out for the long journey going forward. It's kind of where my biggest advice on that and make sure that everyone is media-trained that needs to be talking to externally. I would say the whole C-suite should probably go through media-training at that point because you never know who they're going to be talking to at any given point. Yes. And I'm also assuming making sure that they've been slightly read the riot acts when it comes to non-media engagements as well. Right. That was another challenge too because in this world of personal brand and thought leadership and anyone can post what they knew on LinkedIn, we see it all the time. We had to be very clear on what employees could do and probably not do given where we were at in this journey and not saying you couldn't do podcasts for your discipline. So if a developer was doing a tech podcast, that's how you could do that. We just, unfortunately, we just needed to have a little bit more vetting and just awareness of it because we needed to know everything that was going out externally because it could be need, you may need to file it. It means there needs to be some documentation on it. It doesn't, you know, it can't be forward thinking, you know, market types of work, you know, driven. So there was some education on just, we're not saying no, we're just saying here's there's just a few more things we need to kind of vet through before if you do want to do that podcast. So that's That was a learning as well that we wanted, that I would say get it front so employees understand the expectation of what they can and cannot maybe post or, you know, when, when is it appropriate? Or where can they find content and things that they can post that's vetted and approved and we did create that process as well? Once we kind of got things through the first announcement, we were able to kind of give them a cadence of things that they can post because they were proud. Employees are proud. This is exciting moment. You know, you want to share, you want to share your network and we want to be able to do that for them. And there's nothing like seeing your, seeing your company ring that bell. I mean, that is, that was amazing being on the floor and, you know, being able to see them and the pomp and circumstance around it. And, you know, the New York Stock Exchange team doesn't look at all the screens up, don't they? With your logo everywhere and, right? And they do it right. That team is amazing, you know, duty that runs the PR in that world. She's amazing. She's, I think, met everybody who's anybody at some point in time. But they really do make it special and it really is a mark the moment. We all know that then obviously the next day there's a scoreboard that you need to watch and there is the day after. But, you know, enjoying that moment when you can is amazing. You know, if people have the opportunity to do it, it's a lot of work. But believe me, it's something you'd want to put in your, put in your career cap. Yeah, no, of course. Yeah. And, and fingers crossed, it's not the only time you get to do it as well. Right. Well, depends. Some people might be like, I'm good. I, I don't, that was exhausting. There, it's, it's not for the fainted heart. I mean, it's definitely a marathon, but at a sprint pace. No, yeah, that's very true. And, um, and also probably explains why a lot of the financial comms, consultancies charge a lot of money. Right, right, right. Yes. Yes. It's amazing, though. Great. Um, who's been your favorite CEO to work for in terms of their communications and why? Oh, that is a tough question because I would say I, each of them are special to me. I would say at Q and mutual group, which is not true stage, it was Bob Trunzo. He was such a wealth of information, but also was just continuing wanting to learn and just how do I do better, Wendy? How did I do? How did I do? And just a true partner in growth and being able to really just be open and, um, authentic in terms of how he can do better and how he can present the company. So I love that he was such, he was so easy to work with. Jared was, was also my favorite because he also wanted to learn and he's the one CEO that actually loved media training. He thought it was fantastic. Most people do not like media training. It's uncomfortable. It's hard. You, it doesn't feel like the real thing, even though it needs to feel like the real thing. And he just, he just was all in. And I love that about him. And he was the best storyteller. He knew, he stayed on point. He knew his, he knew his points and he truly did it in a way that it wasn't like we talked about before scripted or felt in an authentic. So he was, and he was just a big ball energy. So for anyone that's going to take, uh, fight public, he was the perfect person for that. And then Allison Robinson is just somebody, she's on a different level. Um, she is a woman that just brings this energy connection to anyone she speaks with. And it's just a very empathetic heart story teller that really truly believes in what we were doing with our mission with the mom project. And there was just nothing like it when I saw her talk to media and I saw her interact with folks. People just gravitate to her. They want to hear more. They want to know where they can help. And just, it was just that X factor that she had. It was, I was awestruck every time I sat next to her. You know, when we were, we were out in New York, we were talking to, you know, fast company in Bloomberg and she just captivated everyone that she talked to. And, um, so she was all, so they were all through my favorite in different ways. And it was perfect for those different roles. Makes our jobs so much easier. Yeah. Having someone who genuinely really believes in the cause, what they're doing, like loves the company. That's an absolute dream, really, isn't it to media train in many respects? Because that's most of your job done. Yes. Yes. It doesn't feel like work to them. It's truly part of what they're trying to accomplish and where they're trying to take the company. So, um, that is something that if you are CEO and your comms and, you know, be nice to the comms person, they're the one that has to say the tough stuff. They have to say the things that no one else wants to say. And they have to say it because they're protecting the brand, the reputation and the CEO at the time, you know, in that position. So, you got to say the stuff, the tough stuff. And the ones that welcome it and actually encourage it and give you kind of full, you know, okayness that that's okay. I want you to hear it. Like tell me that I really, you know, bif that answer or how can I do better or, um, you name it. I think that's, um, use that, use your comms person as your, your, your partnership and just in making it better. So be nice to them. Well, yeah, no, quite. And don't do what the CEO did that I found about the other day. And the name of the company, the CEO and the comms person will go to my grave with me. But they gave them some very polite constructive feedback. And the CEO's response was to remove them as a connection on LinkedIn. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. That's probably not what not to do. Yeah. I know. Right. Don't do that. And any CEOs, even if you're not particularly pleased with what your comms person said to you, be better. Yes. They're just protecting that's their job that literally is what they're supposed to be. Oh, that poor person. Oh, just crazy. I know. I know. And we had a good laugh about it. So don't worry. Um, it's all good. Okay. Do you want to bring us up to speed with what you're up to these days? You're, and they're your full time sort of fractional career. It's a hot topic. It is a hot topic. It's a cool. It's a cool term. And like I said, I didn't know I was doing fractional before it was a thing. So I feel very trendy. It's amazing. I think there are so many talented folks like us that can bring so much to companies, particularly startups, you know, that let's be honest. I mean, they're bootstrapping a lot. And, but they need that high level talent. And for us, it's fun to be able to like spread that across. So not just be in one, you know, one company one time. You can do that for three and three different industries, which is really interesting. So for me, it's, it's a great way to take all the transferable skills, all the learnings, all the experiences, and then be able to share that with more than one company. And in doing that, you're, everyone's kind of winning in the end. So for me, it's been really interesting to work with different companies, particularly, I've been doing a little bit more with AI companies, which has been interesting. I still am working with the founder, Alison, on her personal brand, and then just kind of building out work in areas that I really want to work at, work at, and really feel passionate about. And it's really about the interesting work, the really great people you get to work with. And just helping them elevate it and getting some great expertise that they may not be able to have access prior, and it's a win-win for both of us. So I have a couple, couple clients, you know, continuing to kind of expand that out, but, you know, all really interesting things that I'm, that I'm working through. And then in terms of the kind of what you're going in and doing, you know, for them is it very much sort of high level strategy work for the client? Is that what you go and do, or do you do a bit of the implementation as well? Yeah, it depends on where they're at. I think what I do is I come in and assess. It's usually a combination of both. It's usually more tactical because they just need to get as many startups do. We just need to get stuff done. We just need to write that process at least. We need to, you know, engage with some reporters. We need to get our social content out and running. But if you do it in a way that you also are looking at it from the long-term perspective and strategy, you're kind of building the plane as you fly it. That's usually what's happening, and that's kind of that added value that you bring, you know, in some in our position. So you kind of, the strategy kind of comes along naturally because that's what we know, but we also know like you need to get these five things done. Someone who is, who is potentially thinking of moving into more of a fractional career, what are some of the nuts and bolts that they need to do, you know, kind of, how did you go about building it? Yeah, I would say talk to some of your, your, your, treasured and very valued network folks that are in more of a C suite or maybe have gone, maybe have started their own thing. The best way to start it is work with someone that you maybe worked with before and you have kind of this relationship with. So someone that knows your work, knows your value, knows kind of what you bring to the table and can really let you flourish quickly. That's how it happened to me, all my leads have been from folks that I've known. So they know your work, they know the value you bring and so they kind of take that kind of stress off the table and then you can just focus on the work. And then once you kind of build that portfolio up, then you can kind of expand from there and then you get references and things like that. So most fractional comms, people, do they tend to charge on an hourly basis? Do they do it on a project basis? How does that tend to work? good question. It depends on the client as well. Ideally, retainer is best and the reason I say that is because all the work you're doing builds one month to the next. You need to do, you know, month one needs this in order to do month two, month three. So for me, I would advise a retainer. Ideally, six months is a good time because you start to really see some results, you know, in the second month. First month is usually building blocks. That project base is fair. I think it depends on where the client is at, maybe where their casual situation is. But being flexible, I think, and being open, especially when you're starting out, and not being tied to one or the other. But really, if the work is really interesting, the people are very interesting. You think it's going to kind of build you for the future in terms of potential career, potential work that you can talk to future clients about. You know, think about that when you're pricing it out. I'm not saying you shouldn't charge what you're worth because you absolutely should do that. But there's some flexibility there too that I think people need to kind of think through too when they're looking at different projects and things. Yeah, size of the client, how long they've been going, et cetera. And just being reasonable with it, I think as well, right? Yes, and that's the thing. I mean, no one is looking out to try to get, you know, take advantage of something, especially if it's people that you've worked with or, you know, you're very high respected. So as long as you can get to a good spot, and if that's a retainer model, if that's a project based model, if it's an hourly model, you just know that, you know, that client best. But retainer is probably more typical for a lot of the work that we do. Super smashing. Well, look, that's been absolutely fabulous, Wendy. Yeah, kind of really enjoyed your insights, been super. Have you got anything that you'd like to plug? Kind of working people find you? Have you got any events coming up, speaking with gigs? I would say you can find me on LinkedIn, you know, connect, have always willing to build that network out. Share share ideas, share, you know, thoughts. I'm always a great sounding board for folks if they want to chat through things. So that would be my, that would probably be the best bet. LinkedIn. I do have a website, nifers.work, that is also something that kind of showcases, you know, what we've done, what I've done, and but more so, you know, give you some ideas of the breath and depth of which, you know, you could bring to a fractional role. So, but yeah, that would be the best thing. I don't have anything in the moment because it's still summer and I think everyone's still summering, but looking forward to fall and, you know, speeding up. I hear a lot of noise on, you know, potential fundraising efforts. I think people are very hopeful this fall, which is good to hear on all, all friends. So, yeah. And I think on both sides of the pond, yeah, we're very much waiting for the Bank of England to make their first rate cut. Yes. Yes. And you are still waiting for the fair, aren't they as well? The timber. Yeah. Yeah. So they're the same way together. Exactly. And so what do we do? We are, we have the Euro Cup and the Copa Cup to distract us, right? So I'm assuming I know who you're rooting for for the final. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm obviously not Spanish and I'm definitely not supporting Spain. Right. It's very great to see them go out and get into the finals because it was a little, it was a little scary in the beginning. Yeah. And I, and I must admit, I'm actually not up to speed at all with the Copa America. How the US doing or how did they do? We were out. There was a lot of controversial, um, roughing, I guess. So, but unfortunately, we are, we are out. And, um, I think the coach got fired. Oh, wow. Oh, so we're starting from scratch. Yeah. Oh, cool. Well, you know, I made, yeah, I made you look at David Beckham taking over his coach. I don't know who knows. Right. Exactly. He's bringing everybody to Miami. So I think that's the reason he's the thing. Well, I couldn't, I couldn't end without not talking about that. So no, no, smashing. Well, look, look, it's been, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. And I hope everyone listening really enjoys your insights and takes a few bites away as well. So thank you once again. And, um, yeah, I'm sure I will see and speak to you soon. Enjoy your weekend. Yes, you too. Thanks, Matt. Smashing. Love us. Cheers, Wendy. [BLANK_AUDIO]