What are you known for?
Nobody hands a fractional executive a marketing exercise, so this isn't one. Five questions about the work you have already done, and you will see what you are known for today, what it costs you, and what to fix first. No sign-up; your answers stay in your browser.
Before you start
This asks about your history, not your marketing.
Every question is about engagements you have already delivered. There is no right answer and nothing to prepare. If you have never had to describe what you are known for, that is the normal case here, not the exception.
Step 1 of 5 · Recognition
When someone recommends you, what sentence do they use?
Not the sentence you would like. The one you have actually heard, or read in an introduction email.
Step 2 of 5 · Proof
Your last engagement: can you say what changed for the client, in their numbers?
Their numbers, not your deliverables. Days, euros, percentage points, risk that went away.
Step 3 of 5 · Targeting
How sharply can you describe the company you want next?
This is the one question that is not about the past. It is also the one the Network Mirror needs, so it is worth thirty seconds.
Optional, and it stays in your browser: write it in your own words. If you go on to the Network Mirror, it comes across with you so you don't type it twice.
Step 4 of 5 · Independence
How did your last three engagements arrive?
The most useful question on this page, and the one you can answer without thinking. A referral, a platform, an agency or a former colleague who rang all count as "it came to me".
Step 5 of 5 · Pipeline
If your biggest client ended next month, what would be running?
Not what you would do. What is already in motion today, while you are all in.
You are known for what you are, not for what you fix.
That is why the calls are commodity calls.
What you are known for today
A title with a rate can be filtered and price-compared. It names no problem, so it can never be preferred. That is not a gap in your competence, it is a gap in what the market can repeat about you.
What this almost certainly looks like
- The calls arrive late, when it is already burning, and you inherit someone else's decisions.
- You get judged on the clean-up, and the next rate is negotiated on "damage contained".
- Referrals carry you, and a referral passes on your title, not your problem.
- Your profile still describes the engagement before last.
- When the biggest client ends, the search starts from zero, and the unbilled months follow.
The fix, and it takes one conversation
- Take the engagement you remember best. Not the biggest, the one you could still narrate tonight.
- Write what was broken when you walked in, in one sentence, in the client's words.
- Write what it would have cost them if nobody had fixed it.
- Do that for three engagements and read the three sentences together. The repeat is what you are the obvious call for.
The arithmetic on your pipeline
You have narrowed the field. You have not yet named the problem.
Which is why you are on shortlists rather than on speed dial.
What you are known for today
A sector plus a title puts you in the right pile. It still describes a category of person rather than a situation, so the call comes when somebody is filling a seat, not when somebody has a problem with your name on it.
What this costs you
- You are compared against three other people with the same two words on their profile.
- The comparison happens on rate, because nothing else separates the pile.
- Referrals stall: your network knows your sector, so they cannot recognise the moment to name you.
- You are brought in on schedule, not early, which is where the interesting work is.
The fix, one level narrower
- Inside your sector, list the three situations you have actually been called into more than once.
- Pick the most expensive one for the client, not the most enjoyable one for you.
- Say it as a trigger, not a skill: "when a carve-out closes and finance has to stand alone in ninety days".
- Put that sentence where a title used to be, and let the sector become the second line.
The arithmetic on your pipeline
The hard part is already done.
Now the question is who hears it.
What you are known for today
You can name the problem you are the obvious call for, which is rarer than it sounds and is most of the work. What decides the next twelve months is no longer the sentence. It is how many of the people who could act on it ever encounter it.
What moves when the sentence reaches the right people
- The call comes earlier, while the plan is still being made rather than repaired.
- Direct enquiries appear next to the referrals, from people who chose you.
- The rate conversation is about the problem's cost, not about your day.
- The next engagement gets chosen rather than caught.
The honest risk at this stage
- A sharp sentence nobody sees performs exactly like a blurry one.
- Most networks at your stage are dense with peers, agencies and recruiters, none of whom hire you.
- So the constraint moves from wording to audience. That is a measurable thing, not a matter of taste.
- Measure it before you write anything else.
The arithmetic on your pipeline
Send me my result
Your verdict and your five answers, in one mail, so you have them when you rewrite your profile. I read these too: if yours is a case where one sentence would change the picture, I will say so, once, in that same thread.
No newsletter, no drip sequence, and your address is used for nothing else.