My 6 Best Tips for Building an Enduring, Resilient Fractional Practice

Ritika Strauss is a fractional Marketing and Communications leader based dually in the SF Bay Area and Victoria, Canada. You can learn more about her work via her consultancy and personal website.

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I’ve been doing the fractional thing before the word “fractional” hit the mainstream. As of this moment in time, I’ve been running my independent consulting practice since 2013.

There was no “moment” in which going independent happened for me. I did not quit a job I hated. There was no sticking it to ‘the man.’ In fact, as weird as it sounds, I loved my corporate marketing job. I had great mentors (the ‘man’ was someone who cared about my career advancement) and an unlimited budget, provided that my work created meaningful ROI. I learned how to manage a P&L, run a team, and communicate with boards. Because, at the time, the SaaS world was starting to take shape, I was in a role in which I was expected to create my own job.

After four-and-a-half years, that timeline evolved. Even though I loved my job, I was ready to take my next jump. I interviewed for full-time jobs and received several wonderful offers. But I realized that in order to reach my own potential, I would need to create my own role.

So, I became a Fractional Communications and Marketing consultant, as these two fields gave me a ton of space to be inventive and to grow.

Now, 12 years later, the workforce is totally different. There are a lot more fractional people, freelancers, and independents. In-house roles are competitive, and layoffs are running amok. It’s extremely rough out there. Here are some tactical approaches I’m leaning on, to keep moving forward in creating my own prosperity.

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The Beginning of 2025 Was Brutal

I didn’t even know it was possible to have years this bad.

I lost all of my clients at once due to budget cuts—not for the first time but for the second time since 2023. In 2023, it was because of the fundraising contractions in venture-backed SaaS. My clients were laid off and/or forced to shut down their companies. In 2025, budgets were unexpectedly cut due to geopolitical factors. Oh, politics. As much as we try to shield ourselves from policy implications, some of us can’t avoid it. I digress…

The timing could not have been worse. By any stretch of the imagination, I was not in a ‘position of strength’ heading into two cycles of concurrent implosion, following a pandemic. There is nothing more humbling than a domino effect of setbacks, especially when you’re used to booming business.

The first few months of dealing with it all were high-pressure and stressful. As weird as it sounds though, I’m glad I went through it. I feel like I’m getting a crash course in stabilizing through the ‘roller-coaster’ and have let-go of the things that used to keep me insecure about whether I wanted to stay independent or not.

Rather than hoping for opportunities, I’m focused on the true north that kept me moving forward in the first place—a firm conviction that what I have to offer brings immense value to the people who I advise, support, and serve.

Slowly, steadily, I’m rebuilding my client base. Surprisingly, these opportunities have not come through to me from my referral networks. It’s all been through chance connections and online interactions with total strangers.

I know a lot of people are dealing with the aftermath of similar economic uncertainty. So I want to share my best tips for long-range endurance that are helping me, both in this moment, over the past five years of market uncertainty, and as I adapt to what comes next.

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#1 Build a Clear, Dedicated Vision for your Practice

This is your true north. It’s less about your transactional value and what you want to accomplish. Here’s how I think about it for myself:

• Vision: Working with me accelerates growth, innovation, and progress against headwinds—I know how to create conditions for success rather than relying on chance alone.
• Transactional: I accomplish this vision through a cross-disciplinary toolkit that spans marketing, communications—particularly community-building, strategic narrative development, and message targeting.

This true north is infinitely remixable, depending on who you’re talking to (i.e. your ideal customer persona). For instance, your prospective customer may be looking for a strategic communications professional who can help with media relations…or a growth marketer who can help with finding customers.

How do I help them?

• I possess a toolbox with specific skills that are tailored to their business models. 
• I continually grow that toolbox—actually, it’s probably more like a shed by now.
• I turn those tactics and strategies into scalable engines.
• I have a track record for building scalable engines that outlast my tenure.

The TLDR bottom line: Be extremely self-aware of your capabilities. Translate those capabilities into a value-add. Care about what you want to help your client achieve. All of this will help you come into conversations more prepared.

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#2 For the Love of it, Get Out of Your Own Head

Recently, I’ve been partnering with a fellow fractional business owner. She’s exactly 10 years younger than I am.

We’ve been collaborating on business development, pitching joint projects that combine our different skillsets and sharing projects together. We were working on scheduling a meeting together. So she sent me a GIF to help make the scheduling process easier.

I responded: 

“My eyes can’t follow the speed of this. Can yours?”

Of course, her answer was yes. She can. 

That moment opened my eyes to a powerful lesson. Spending so much time in our “internet of me” echo chambers, it’s hard to remember that there’s more than one way to do something.

So, I say, “let’s do it your way.” 

She puts together a deck.

I resist the urge to ‘do it my way’ and critique.

We run with her judgments.

It wins.

Would ‘my way’ have won?

Maybe.

But personal and professional growth don’t always come from the zone of winning. When we’re stuck in our heads, it’s harder to evolve to the direction that the markets are heading. When I step out of my comfort zone, I am a better problem solver.

Stepping out of my comfort zone, and all the things I thought I knew, are what’s empowering my recovery for a brutal 2025.

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#3 Build Infrastructure as a True Business Owner.

Our fractional practices have the potential to be more than just the services we provide. If you treat your practice like a job, it’ll behave like one: transactional, unstable, and dependent on the next gig. But if you treat it like a business, you unlock space to build something that lasts.

The moments when markets are in flux are windows of opportunity. They’re a chance to make something. To work on the business, not just in it.

Lately, I’ve been using this unexpected downtime to focus on infrastructure I’ve wanted to move forward.

• Building an online course
• Designing productized coaching offers
• Exploring a small software concept I’ve had on the shelf for years

I’ve been devoting headspace to one simple but important question: How can I build things that people genuinely want to use, enjoy, and get value from—whether or not they ever hire me one-on-one?

Even when the client work slows, your business can still move forward. You’re not just a service provider. You’re a builder.

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#4 Do Not Underestimate the Importance of Consistent, Dedicated Outreach

When networks go quiet, it’s a time for reinvention. Outreach is a valuable part of that process. Yes, it can feel demotivating and demoralizing when nothing inbound is happening. It’s easy to spiral into self-doubt. I used to fall into this trap.

That’s exactly what it is—a trap.

What’s helped me most is approaching outreach as a creative discipline. It’s not about convincing someone to hire you. It’s about learning what’s out there, practicing how you express your value, and not becoming limited to an echo chamber of the world you already know.

Some things I do consistently:

• Send personal check-ins with no agenda
• Share short reflections or ideas online (even if they’re imperfect)
• Follow up with past collaborators just to reconnect
• Ask others what they’re working on, not just what they need
• Pass along interesting resources

It’s about being genuine, truly loving what I do, and valuing connection.

There’s an elegant Peter Drucker quote: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

Outreach is how we open new doors when the future feels uncertain.

Even when someone doesn’t immediately respond or the timing isn’t right, you never know who’s bookmarking your email and planning to reach out later.

That happened to me last month.

More than two years later, I heard from an amazing organization: “hey, the timing is right to finally work together.”

It definitely was.

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#5 Let the Work Speak—but Don’t Expect it to Speak for Itself

Information overload is very real, especially online.

People need to understand what you do, who you do it for, and why it works. That clarity has to be created, not assumed.

This lesson was especially hard for me to learn. I’m naturally quiet and humble. I do not want to be in the limelight, nor do I want to brag. For me, it’s not about discomfort. I am proud of who I am and my accomplishments. But they are not the basis of how I want to relate to others, even professionally.

One communication technique I’ve embraced is to approach these conversations as a guide or teacher. That means, in every interaction, wanting the other person to take away something meaningful.

I've learned to:

• Name the outcomes I drive, not just the actions I take.
• Share stories of transformation, not just deliverables.
• Make the invisible parts of my work visible (e.g., trust-building, process design, stakeholder wrangling).

Connect the dots for people, and help them envision something they may not have seen from their own perspectives.

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#6 Stay Anchored in the Decision you Already Made

If you chose to build a fractional or independent practice, there was a reason. Don’t let uncertainty make you forget that.

This doesn’t mean you can’t evolve. You can reshape your offerings. You can explore new directions. You can even step into the right in-house role if it serves your goals.

But that doesn’t make your time as an independent any less real—or any less valid. In fact, I’d argue that the fractional mindset is one of the best things to happen to the workforce. It’s adaptive. It’s inventive. It forces clarity and agency. It values results over appearances.

When things feel shaky, I return to the decision I made years ago. I didn’t leap out of burnout. I didn’t escape a bad job. I moved toward something I believed in: a model of work that centers trust, impact, and autonomy.

10 years into my journey, I’m glad I made this move.

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Final Thoughts

There’s no guarantee of what the future will bring, in any regard. It’s up to us to create it. That’s the power of the fractional career journey.

One of the biggest shifts I’ve made is learning to reshape opportunities. The perfect role may not just show up. 

That’s what I’m embracing in 2025. It’s up to me to know what I want and to create the conditions to make it all happen. Even though it took my business imploding due to forces outside of my control, in the worst economy I have ever experienced, I am glad to have discovered the best lesson of all: a sense of fulfillment in the long game of it all.

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If your company want to sharpen your marketing and communications strategy, I’d love to partner with you. Whether you need to clarify your brand narrative, build a scalable growth engine, or design messaging that actually resonates, I bring a cross-disciplinary approach that moves things forward.

Let’s talk about how we can unlock traction. Reach out and, connect with me on LinkedIn or explore more here.

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And if you’re looking for a different kind of fractional leader, that’s where Fractional Jobs can help (the site you’re reading this on). Fractional Jobs helps startups, SMBs, and nonprofits hire fractional talent across about 10+ different function areas. You can book a call with Fractional Jobs founder Taylor Crane right here to learn more.