Making the leap to fractional work? Before you land your first client, you need to get your contact situation sorted—and no, your personal Gmail isn’t going to cut it anymore.
This video walks through everything you need to set up so prospects can actually reach you like you’re a real business (because you are): professional email on your own domain, picking an email platform that works for how you operate, scheduling links that save everyone the “does Tuesday work?” back-and-forth, and how to wrangle multiple client calendars without double-booking yourself into oblivion. I share why I use Reclaim.ai for syncing everything together (referral link below), plus thoughts on buffer time, business phone numbers, and making sure all your contact points actually connect instead of turning into a scavenger hunt.
If you’re prone to decision paralysis on stuff like this—hi, same—I’m also giving you permission to just pick something and go. You can always change it later.
00:00 Scheduling Links First
00:30 Contact Setup Overview
01:49 Ditch Gmail, Get Domain
03:49 Choose Email Platform
05:29 Clean Email Signature
05:59 Pick Scheduling Tool
06:57 Prevent Calendar Chaos
08:00 Add Buffer Time
08:48 Business Phone Option
09:41 Connect Every Link
10:37 Avoid Decision Paralysis
11:29 Wrap Up And Subscribe
Scheduling Links First
[00:00:00] You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to say, I wanna set up some time with you that works for me. This is all about them. So scheduling links are the thing. This is the way to go.
[00:00:12] Do not try to do the back and forth with like in a DM or an email thread where it’s does this work for you? Does this work for you? No, scheduling link is your jam. Do it. Use it. You will be appreciated for it.
Contact Setup Overview
[00:00:30] How do you set yourself up with contact information when you’re making the leap from full-time to fractional? This video is going to give you some things to consider as you’re getting that set up, so you can look professional, but also protect yourself because it can really, very much feel like once you’re fractional, you have to be at the beck and call of any potential prospect, lead, someone who can convert to a client.
[00:00:54] But you do need to protect yourself. So we’re gonna go through that today. So, as you’re considering your jump into fractional, you’re probably gonna be doing this before you make the leap, because you’re setting up clients, and -this might be assuming as well- you don’t necessarily need a website yet.
[00:01:13] It’s great if you can have one. You can look it up, my past videos in this series on going fractional on the advantage of having at least a website with a landing page, something where somebody can grab you. That does tend to take a lot of time, especially from a setting up all the assets and your brand colors and whatnot.
[00:01:29] So go make those decisions there. But the nice thing is, you actually can get away with a lot with just setting up the contact information. I’m gonna say there’s no necessarily right way or right order to go about this. Sometimes this is very organic, and you might just one day realize, oh, I need contact info. Let’s do this. Let’s go through these points.
Ditch Gmail Get Domain
[00:01:49] First of all, your Gmail era is over, and I mean that by saying your fractional professional email should not end with gmail.com. It’s fine when you’re using it as a personal, when you’re using it to apply to jobs. Totally fine, and it might stand you in good stead for now to be like, okay, at least I’ll set something up where it’s got my business name, my business name, or my fractional doing business name.
[00:02:18] Maybe that is your actual name or whatever your moniker is that you’re known as. Maybe it’s what your domain will ultimately be to have that as the first part of the @gmail.com. Sure. I have done that.
[00:02:33] But you’re basically just setting yourself up for more work later. One of my past videos talks about getting your domain. Once you have your domain, you can actually pretty easily create this email. And Gmail makes it really easy for you to go through and say, do you have a custom domain you wanna use? But use the infrastructure of Gmail to do this with Google. And you could be like, yeah.
[00:02:55] Having your professional fractional email address end in gmail.com or yahoo.com or something else does signal this might be more of a hobby, and who knows if I stick with it. But when you have it with saying like you@yourdomain.com, that screams legitimate business. Plus, you’re gonna find that sometimes, if you’re trying to register for webinars or things like that, people will block non-business emails. Some companies are doing to make sure they’re getting in good leads and not just people who are run-of-the-mill possibly interested, but also just after the free stuff or after a download, you might find that as well.
[00:03:33] So, do get your domain and set up your email. And of course, there’s all kinds of ways to do that. Honestly, a lot of these domains or a lot of these platforms, like Outlook, like Gmail, or Google Workspace, will give you how tos and have help documents to help you out with that.
Choose Email Platform
[00:03:49] Speaking of which, this takes us to number two: pick your email platform. I have used Microsoft Outlook as well as Google Workspace. Those are not the only two, but they’re the biggest two out there. This largely might matter with who your clients are and what their workspace is. And the reason I say that is because I’m embedded in two clients where I have an email address in their domain, in their operating system. I therefore I have a calendar on their work environment. I can get into their Slack. So I’m embedded basically, and both of those clients use Google Workspace.
[00:04:30] Now, that’s not to say one of them might not use Microsoft Office. I actually have both. My main software that I use for my day-to-day business is Google Workspace, but I used to use Microsoft 365, so I actually still have an email address over on Microsoft, which helps me actually see more seamlessly interact with Microsoft Teams for my one client.
[00:04:53] You need to make the best decision for you, and if you have a personal preference, please by all means use the one you like. It’s most important that you enjoy using it. Look for something that has a familiar interface for you.
[00:05:07] You appreciate the calendar features. It plays nice with all the things that you work with. Also, in case Google or Microsoft are a little bit outta your budget, Zoho is a good budget option. It’s got its own operational stuff in there. You can use that as well, but pick one and move with it and don’t change it for at least a year unless you’re just like, oh my God, I literally cannot because it takes time to do that.
Clean Email Signature
[00:05:29] Three, set up an email signature that actually works. This does not need to be a novel. It needs to be your name. It needs to be what you do. Needs to have your website if you’ve got that, even if it’s a landing page, and your scheduling link more, on that in a moment. That’s it.
[00:05:43] Do not do inspirational quotes unless you’re just like, oh my God, this is part of who I am, and this will help them like want to sign on with me. Don’t do all these social icons. You don’t need a logo that’s huge. I could take a note from this one. Clean and functional, just so they know. Who are you? How do I get a hold of you?
Pick Scheduling Tool
[00:05:59] Okay, but that brings us to the thing you do need is a scheduling link. You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to say, I wanna set up some time with you that works for me. This is all about them.
[00:06:12] So scheduling links are the thing. This is the way to go. Do not try to do the back and forth with like in a DM or an email thread, where it’s does this work for you? Does this work for you?
[00:06:24] No, scheduling link is your jam. Do it. Use it. You will be appreciated for it. The easier and the less friction you give to a potential client, the better. Now there’s a few different ones you can do. Calendly is a household name. I used to use Calendly.
[00:06:40] I actually currently use Reclaim, and I’ll tell you why in a moment. There’s also SavvyCal, cal.com, Acuity. If you’re managing multiple client worlds, I recommend going with Reclaim because
this brings us into point number five.
Prevent Calendar Chaos
[00:06:57] Your fractional life is going to lead to calendar chaos, and you need to plan for that. You’re gonna have multiple clients. Now, again, it depends on if you’re embedded in a client where maybe you’ve got your own calendar in their environment that people can schedule meetings with you with. Guess where that can run into a problem is they schedule it there, that needs in your own calendar and possibly in your other clients’ calendars, so that time is now no longer available.
[00:07:24] You won’t get double-booked. This is why I went with Reclaim. I heard about it from another freelance person. It’s very affordable, and it lets you sync up your multiple Google calendars that live in different domains. That is the key, where instead of me trying to go, where you’re manually trying to sync up those calendars together and put them all in one place, and then just copy things to each other. Don’t do that.
[00:07:46] Reclaim, will sync these all up together. It does also include scheduling links, which is something that you absolutely need. So I like it ’cause it does multiple things for me that I need in my fractional environment. So I have a referral link in the show notes.
Add Buffer Time
[00:08:00] Make sure you’re building in buffer time. Give yourself that moment. Maybe it’s a 15-minute or 30-minute, whatever. Do not do back-to-backs. And I know it can feel like I need to just leave it wide open. I don’t wanna be turning anyone away.
[00:08:14] Yes, but you need to bring your best self to everything, and you need to prep. Remember that as you’re speaking to potential clients, or existing clients, you need to have time to prepare and show up ready, because they’ll be ever more impressed with that. They’ll be like, oh, you took the time, you did the research, and you cared about talking to me, rather than coming in frazzled. And we all know calls go over, meetings go over. You wanna bake in that time as well, so that you’re not running late to anything. [00:08:43] Buffer time is golden for you. Okay?
Business Phone Option
[00:08:48] Do consider a separate business phone number. I have been considering this more and more lately. I have a mobile number, frankly, do you find that people are calling you more than maybe emailing?
[00:09:01] You can consider having a separate business phone number. Google Voice is out there. I haven’t found this to be a need because I’ve got a phone that I can call people with, but no one really leaves voicemails anymore. I always get people to text me, and actually, my voicemail prompts people to text me because I always go with a marketing thing that the open rate for text is over 90% versus emails, which is usually under 20. Do the math, send me a text. Consider it.
[00:09:31] And if you do have a separate business phone number that you have people calling in order to seek you out for your services, record a professional voicemail or professional enough, something that speaks you.
Connect Every Link
[00:9:41] Finally, make sure everything connects. That signature block in your email. Make sure that is just consistent across the board: in your LinkedIn profile, in your email signature, on a landing page you’ve set up. Maybe you set it up with Linktree, I don’t know. Or you did get your domain set up, and you just set up one page that has here’s how to contact me and here’s what I do. Just make sure everything links together. Everything points to each other.
[00:10:09] There’s nothing that’s a dead link for sure, and nothing that’s pointing to an old profile or something you no longer use. This will get more complex as you start to build out your website and have maybe more places where your contact info lives. And if you get to the point where you change something, you’re gonna need to make sure you go change it everywhere.
[00:10:29] So just keep that in mind. You don’t want any dead ends. You wanna reduce the friction. You are building an ecosystem, not a scavenger hunt.
Avoid Decision Paralysis
[00:10:37] Alright, that’s pretty much it for today. Let me know if you have any questions, especially about some of my experience with setting this stuff up. I will tell you I’m one of those people who gets into the paralysis of trying to make the right choice. I really wanna encourage you to not do that, if I’m ending on that note.
[00:10:54] Don’t freeze yourself, and it’ll be like, oh God, I just don’t. What if it should it be Google? Should it be Microsoft? I dunno what’s right. Go in a direction. [00:11:00] What do I like working in better? Go that direction. Just go, just make that direction, and make the action happen. And then later you can decide if it’s working for you, and you make the change if you need to, but just don’t get stuck where you’re like, don’t make any decisions and don’t set any of this up because you just don’t know if you’re making the right choice.
[00:11:17] That has been me, and I learned from it, and I’m like, I can’t dilly dally with this. Just go with something that I can use. And I know budget is a consideration, so hopefully I’ve given you some different options in here to think about.
Wrap Up And Subscribe
[00:11:29] Alright, good luck, you’ve got this. I can’t wait to start seeing your scheduling links pop up everywhere in your fractional work life. 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.
[00:11:48] See what I did there?
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