As a Portfolio Executive, I recommend that you become very sophisticated about narrowing down the initial niche in which you work. Consider what is your best niche based on the company life stage, headcount, geography, and sector. As you build your expertise in a niche, you can get recognition from your niche as the go-to person around a particular narrow segment.
This might feel counterintuitive—why do you need your peers to recognise you? Why do you need to be more established within the professional group that you’re working in? There are several good reasons why you need recognition from your peers.
Many of the Portfolio Executives and Fractional Directors I work with have a level of personal humility that means you take it for granted that you’re doing a good job and don’t crave explicit recognition. However, as you build and develop your portfolio and want to create long-term sustainable relationships, you must get explicit recognition from your clients. How do you go about this?
I’m encountering two types of individuals keen to develop a Portfolio Executive workstyle that involves engaging Middle Eastern or Asian clients.
The other aspect of business development is growing and strengthening your value to current and potential clients. Here, I think there are four crucial areas that you need to consider.
As a Portfolio Executive, North America can be a very attractive market. The exchange rate is very favourable (June 2024) and the fee rates that people are commanding for Portfolio Executive work in North America are generally higher than we can easily achieve in the UK.
The answer to this question will vary enormously but I think for many of us, when you’ve been in full time, permanent employment in very demanding roles for an extended period, you just don’t know what you want to do with your spare time – you’ve never had any!
If you have a portfolio executive offer that has some success in the UK and you’re now thinking to develop a European presence, then it can be a great way to extend what you’re doing. But recognise some of the barriers to going beyond your existing client base in the UK and consider what tactics you want to use and the trade-offs you are prepared to accept.
One of the great things about your portfolio executive workstyle is, if you set it up correctly, it can be a really powerful platform for having different experiences of holidays and travel.
As you build your portfolio executive client base you may, from day one, want to be international. There are a number of people that I’ve worked with where, because of their existing relationships, when they step into a portfolio executive work style it makes sense for them to start with an international perspective.
For many of us, when we have been in full time permanent employment, often in demanding roles for an extended period of time, we just don’t know what we want to do with our spare time – we have never had any!
As your portfolio matures, there are opportunities to add additional elements to your offer and use that to increase your effective fee rate. So, if your primary offer as a portfolio executive is part-time responsibility for a function in a smaller organisation then that’s great, but now consider these other two offers that you can add to the picture.
As a portfolio executive, fee earning is clearly the core and the priority of everything you do, but alongside fee earning, I do believe you need to spend some time in what I would call business development or practice development..
It’s really interesting to see how as your portfolio matures, there are opportunities to add additional elements to your offer and use that to increase your effective fee rate. So, if your primary offer as a portfolio executive is part-time responsibility for a function in a smaller organisation then that’s great, but now consider these other offers that you can add to the picture.
Let’s imagine you’ve got the stage where you’ve got two or three clients. You’ve got a basic Portfolio Executive workstyle, but you want to scale this. Of course, it would be nice to have another couple of clients to move to four or five, maybe even six. It would be attractive to perhaps be a little bit busier with some of your existing clients. But my advice to people at this stage, when they’re trying to scale their Portfolio Executive business is to focus on pitching at a higher fee rate for your next client.
Let’s imagine you’ve got the stage where you’ve got two or three clients. You’ve got a basic Portfolio Executive workstyle, but you want to scale this. Of course, it would be nice to have another couple of clients to move to four or five, maybe even six. It would be attractive to perhaps be a little bit busier with some of your existing clients. But my advice to people at this stage, when they’re trying to scale their Portfolio Executive business is to focus on pitching at a higher fee rate for your next client.