Most people who go fractional planned it. I didn’t.
In 2023, I was laid off from my role as Senior Director of Marketing at a B2B event technology startup — and within 24 hours, I was already mentally drafting my LinkedIn announcement. My plan? Find the next full-time job. Fast.
What actually happened was different. A competitor’s VP of Marketing reached out, I picked up a fractional podcasting client, then another opportunity came through my network. Add in a toxic manager at my new full-time job, 16+ years of marketing experience, and a spreadsheet that told me the math could work — and suddenly, going fractional wasn’t just an idea. It was the move.
This video shares my real, unfiltered journey from corporate layoff to running Marketing XP, my fractional marketing and B2B podcasting practice. I’m not here to sell you on fractional work. I’m here to show you what one path looked like — because no two paths are the same.
In this video:
→ How a layoff in a toxic work environment became the catalyst for going fractional
→ The first fractional client I landed (before I even knew I was going fractional)
→ How I used a spreadsheet to calculate whether leaving full-time employment was financially feasible
→ What costs fractional marketers actually need to account for (taxes, overhead, health insurance)
→ Why ageism at 49 factored into my thinking about job security
→ What I’d tell anyone considering fractional marketing right now — especially in this job market
[00:00:00] At the time, that was completely intentionally going to be full-time employment. I wanna be clear about that. I was not at the time looking to go be a freelancer, contractor, fractional, what have you. I wanted full-time employment because I’m like, I’m full-time now. That’s what I’m used to.
[00:00:20] In this video, I thought I would take a little departure from a lot of the how-tos and actually share my story of how I went fractional in this current round of having my own business. It is my third, and we’ll get into that in a little bit. But yeah, I thought I would just share my own journey. Here’s why I am sharing it.
[00:00:41] I went to the dentist this morning to get a cavity filled, and the dental assistant was just shooting the breeze and me. We were waiting for a little bit, and she said, ” Yeah, what do you do for work? What do you got going on today?” I’m like, I’m a B2B podcaster and a content marketer.
[00:00:54] And she goes, how did you fall into that? And so I told her, and I thought I should tell you all because I think it’s important to know we’re not all gonna have the same journey. If you’re arriving to fractional at some point in your career, you arrive there in your own unique way. Sometimes it is a confluence of factors. Sometimes it’s incredibly intentional, and a lot of times it’s a mix of those two or more. So I’ll share with you my journey.
[00:01:20] Might be some venting going on in here. There’s certainly gonna be curse words, but all in all, let me know if you identify with anything in here or can relate to it or commiserate or judge it. I would love to know any of that stuff. I certainly am not claiming to be perfect in my journey either. Just know, I never do that in any of my videos either because, oh my gosh, I’m so human. But I do want you to maybe understand. It’ll give you some understanding, hopefully, on how your journey can unfold. Alright, so here we go.
[00:01:50] Back in the year 2023, I was working full-time in corporate for a B2B event technology company. And they were a startup, and I’d been there for about a year and a half. And we already had some trouble because they’d been through one round of layoffs, which leaned things up, made things tougher. And it was really evolving into being a fairly toxic environment. I was a senior director of marketing at the time, part of my duties that I had evolved there, because when I started, I was mostly overseeing just the social media. But that really expanded because we also were trying to build our YouTube channel, and we had done a podcast for that business, or there had been one done by some other folks who either ran out of bandwidth to do it or moved on.
[00:02:41] And so we said, why don’t we reconstitute that podcast or resuscitate it, if you will. But one thing we did with it was a little bit different is that we were going to a lot of trade shows, as an event technology company would, trying to go be visible and do some lead generation through being at events. And I wound up traveling to a lot of those events and setting up mobile podcast studios where we did really quick, like 15-minute interviews with some different industry leaders, speakers, subject matter experts, event profs, or event professionals, what we call them lovingly, event profs.
[00:03:19] But I was interviewing them, and so we were building and generating this podcast content. And sometimes we’d do live streams, and a lot of the time it was prerecorded, and we used that and built our YouTube channel, but it was for a podcast. That’s what we did. It was called Studio Chats, for the stuff that was out on the ground. And I believe the podcast was called In Any Event. I was really proud. I was really proud of that title. Anyway.
[00:03:45] So we had those two different series, if you will, or aspects of the podcast. Unfortunately, second round of layoffs came up, and I was on the chopping block, so I was let go. I can tell you too, I know not everybody will be able to relate with this, but I was actually so relieved. When my manager at the time got on a phone a video call with me and let me know I was being cut, she cried. And to her credit, I love her. She was just really concerned for me.
[00:04:11] And so I was like, listen, I understand, I know it’s not you, it wasn’t, and I’m just like, I’m actually very grateful. This’ll be fine. I don’t know what’s next for me, but this is a relief. We are sitting there, and she’s telling me I’m getting laid off, and I am already mentally saying, okay, let me plan how I’m going to announce this to my LinkedIn network, because I knew immediately I’m going to need to put feelers out and find whatever the next thing is.
[00:04:37] And at the time, that was completely intentionally going to be full-time employment. I wanna be clear about that. I was not at the time looking to go be a freelancer, contractor, fractional, what have you. I wanted full-time employment because I’m like, I’m full-time now. That’s what I’m used to, benefits, 401Ks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
[00:04:57] Within 24 hours, I made a video, I posted it, and y’all, I’ve got a whole blog. I will link to it in the show notes. I’ve got a blog for I’ve just been laid off. Now what? I had a five-day plan, and that evolved into two weeks, where my new full-time job was finding my next full-time job.
[00:05:14] I’m very glad I did that on many fronts. One of which was that very soon after I was laid off, a competitor of ours had their VP of marketing reach out to me, and she said, hi, I saw your news. Can we get on a call to chat about something? And I’m all thinking, oh, maybe they wanna hire me, which would’ve been great, but not in the respect that I was hoping. But we did get on a call, and she said, Hey, no, we can’t hire you full-time. But you’ve been doing the podcast and live streams and stuff for that company, Hubilo, and Bizzabo was their competitor, and she’s like, and I know you’re laid off.
[00:05:54] We have a podcast that is the CMO / co-founder’s baby, but we haven’t really had the bandwidth to be able to keep it going like consistently. And I was like, oh my gosh, this would be great. And so we did some back and forth, talked about it, and I started hosting and producing their podcast, which I still do today.
[00:06:15] So they were my first. They were fractional, for sure. It was a contract. At that point, I’m like, I’m not turning anything down. And she understood I was looking for full-time work. And I said, but it sounds, and once we got rolling with it, it was like, this is certainly something I could still do in addition to a full-time job. Granted, I will make sure it’s copacetic with the new full-time job. I did, and I was very fortunate.
[00:06:38] I wanna be clear, I cannot say enough about having a healthy network. Unfortunately, as we’re recording this, on April 1st, 2026, which is April Fool’s Day, there’s nothing April Fool’s in this video, I promise you. The job market sucks right now, and networking will help you so far, but there’s just very little that can help you right now, ’cause companies are just, they’re cutting and not hiring. Okay.
[00:07:03] The jobs report just came out. It’s at 2020 COVID levels right now. But at the time, networking worked for me, and I did get a full-time job. I started working about nine weeks after I had gotten laid off, which was astronomically fast-paced, considering it was already starting to dip, as far as the job market. But I was able to maintain that client.
[00:07:28] Now, as we got further into that first year of that job, my boss, who was great, left the company three months into my employment there. And I wound up reporting to who is quite possibly one of the most toxic people leaders I’ve ever met. Someone who is narcissistic is incapable of demonstrating any empathy of any kind. Almost the entire human resources, communications, and team quit within six months after she took leadership over us. And I wound up going to therapy. I went on medication.
[00:08:06] And at that point too, so remember I’ve been through a layoff. That was the only layoff I’ve ever been through. But I had been through a layoff, and that company is starting getting toxic. And now I’m at a company again where, unless you are at the C level or on the board or an investor, you do not have a whole lot of say over what happens, how decisions are made at the top, and how they trickle down. And that was incredibly frustrating to me.
[00:08:33] And at the time, I wanna be clear here too, I had 16 years of marketing experience, and then before that I’d had about 12 or 13 years of office administration experience. I had a ton of experience.
[00:08:47] Okay. I’d been a senior director, manager, people manager, all these things. I had presented to boards. At this point, I had interviewed C-levels and VPs of Fortune 500 companies. I am not in any way a shrinking violet in the face of office dynamics or being able to present to leaders or be able to substantiate my own ideas about how to do marketing. I knew my shit, but I’m working full-time at a company for a manager who is the absolute worst.
[00:09:21] And I’m sorry if anyone else can like relate to having someone like that in your life. Instead of trying to, I don’t know, build you up like a fellow human being, they’re just like, I give no shits about you. And I only care about myself and I hope anything I say or do to you tears you down. That largely probably contributed to me being like, I wonder if I am now broken for full time. So I was looking for other employment, and I was looking for other jobs.
[00:09:45] I was applying. But keep in mind this too, I was 49 years old at the time, and ageism is real. Companies were starting to be like, maybe I will hire some more junior who’s less expensive. It’s okay. I was like, I, but I need to make a living. I need sustenance for my household. That’s a no-brainer. What happened was, I was putting feelers out and just letting people know in my network privately, ’cause you don’t wanna get fired or lose your job. And considering who I was working for, I’m like, I definitely don’t wanna jeopardize that right now. ‘Cause she totally would just fire me outta hand and be like, you’re looking, f*** you.
[00:10:21] But someone else in my network reached out and said, Hey, so we’ve got a situation at her employer. She goes, we need some content support because of stuff going on there. Would you be interested? Do you have the bandwidth to do that? I’m like, let’s talk about it. And so once we landed on what help she needed, and the scope of that work, again, contract / fractional.
[00:10:45] I whipped out my handy dandy calculating Google sheet, and I will share a template of this in the show notes for you if anyone’s looking to go fractional. But I started adding up a bunch of stuff, and I was like, okay, if I were to quit my full-time job, and I’ve already got my podcasting client, and now I add this client. What would that look like? And I was able to determine that, yes, I would be making at least what I was pulling in net from my full-time job.
[00:11:18] Now you’ll see in the spreadsheet I was calculating out everything that I would need in order to be fractional. When you’re fractional, you can see my fractional series on this. You are responsible. You are your own office. Okay? All this stuff. The power, the internet, my Mac studio, my screens, the software that I use to conduct company business for my clients. They provide some, I provide a lot too, though, and I pay for that. That’s my overhead. So you have to calculate all that stuff. And you also have to plan for your self-employment taxes, and just all of that stuff. Do you need to go purchase health insurance if you do not have someone you can be a dependent on their group health insurance? Okay. You have to think through all that stuff.
[00:12:03] But after calculating all that and having my husband check me and be like, okay, look at this. are we good? We decided it was doable. So I started working, and I did overlap there. I’m like, I’m not doing this without making sure everything’s cool with this client.
[00:12:19] So I started working for the client, and then about a couple of weeks later, I provided my notice to the full-time employer. That friends is how I went fractional. You can also watch my other videos to know that I had a lot of things in place already and I was very fortunate for that. I already had my website because this is my third foray into having my own business as someone who contracts out and has clients and things like that.
[00:12:47] My prior two didn’t work. It wasn’t the right niche; it wasn’t the right set of services. It wasn’t the right timing of my career. I wasn’t pricing correctly. There was tons of scope creep. It just all didn’t work. And it got to the point where I’m like, we either will have to sell our house or I need to go back to corporate. And then I was like, I’m not selling the house. We need to stay here.
[00:13:10] I went back to corporate, but this is the first time I’m profitable as my own business, and it’s because I think I’ve hit on the right formula of I do business podcasting. I plug and play because it’s not very often that a company has a team or a resource internally that can fully do it. I’m really good at it. I increase the performance, the metrics, and the brand awareness. I do all the things for my clients that they need done to help them get through and not have to spend on a full-time headcount.
[00:13:48] Okay, that’s how I arrived to where I am today. It’s definitely unique from being a full-time employee. Again, got a whole series about how it’s different and all the things you have to consider around doing it, but I love it. I love my freedom. I love that I really don’t have to ask anyone’s permission or worry about what anyone’s gonna think if I schedule my dentist appointment this morning to get a cavity filled. Or if I decide after I do this video, I’m like, I’m gonna need about a half hour of downtime. I’m gonna go take a walk. I’ll come back. Start my billable hours for my client and keep trucking with them. Then I might switch gears after now, say, Hey, let me go really quick, knock this out for 20 minutes for this other client.
[00:14:28] I get to decide all that, and I love what I do. I’m creative. I feel valued for knowing what I know how to do. I am hardly ever gaslit these days, which I highly recommend for anyone who has the means to be in that kind of situation where you’re not being gaslit, where you’re being recognized that you know what you’re talking about, you know what you’re doing, and you’re providing value to us. Let us pay your invoices on time as a thank you.
[00:14:59] And even more, my clients are great, where they’re very appreciative, and we have great camaraderie, and we just work great together. So that’s my story. I would love to hear more about where you are.
[00:15:11] Maybe you are not where you’re ready to, oh God, make the leap into fractional, but you’re thinking about it. Like I said, I really wasn’t thinking about it. It just evolved that way. That’s the way it went, and now I really am in the camp of I think a lot more; this is not necessarily a positive thing I’m gonna say. Particularly if you’re someone who’s a career corporate, full-time person.
[00:15:35] I think based on the news that we keep seeing, Oracle just laid off 30,000 employees this week. We’re swiftly getting to the point. Fractional might be the best way someone can say, I still need to earn money for my lifestyle and just to live, and that’s the way I can do it. That’s why I offer my journey, my story. If it’s relatable, if it helps you add any context to your own experience, makes you think more about stuff, or realize maybe there’s your own path for this.
[00:16:10] I’m open to any questions you have. Honestly, I’m here to help. And seriously, if you’re like, ” Wow, I don’t agree with how you did that, I think that was too risky or too weird.” I’ll take it. There was always risk involved with this, and there’s still risk now. Don’t think that every day, I’m not trying to be like, how do I survive and stay valuable in this age of AI and in geopolitical stuff going on and reading the writing on the wall and, okay, if all these companies are reducing costs, how do I make sure I stay so valuable that I’m not the one that’s cut?
[00:16:49] And we’re right back to where we were thinking about how do I avoid getting laid off from a full-time job? it’s very similar. A lot of those things are, but anywho, thank you so much. Hope you found this entertaining, if not informative, maybe a bit of both. But, if it was cringe at all, let me know that too.
[00:17:08] With that, I will wish you a great rest of your day, and we’ll be back with some more videos on the But Wait, There’s Moore Substack and YouTube channel.
[00:17:17] You’re still here. It’s over, but you should hit like on this video before you head out and subscribe if you wanna get more videos that’ll help you realize how much Moore there is to marketing.
[00:17:28] See what I did there?
But wait! (Yep, there’s more for subscribers.)
Exclusive content is available with Rachel’s livestream videos: Boss Level Mondays and Hot Mic Fridays. Start your week off with irreverence and real talk as you face down the work week of a marketer with Rachel at your side. Then, on Fridays, head to Hot Mic Fridays for unfiltered takes from the week, as well as podcasting and video tips you can always use. Subscribe here on Substack to access and join Rachel live!
Resources mentioned:
→ Blog post: “I’ve Just Been Laid Off — Now What?”
→ Fractional Marketing Rate Calculator Spreadsheet