Fractionals United Blog

This last week was a very eventful one for both the community and fractionals at large. For the community, we reached 5000 members just in time for the second milestone event, which was Frak 2023, the first-ever fractional conference, organized by our partner and ally, VoyageurU . Frak 2023 was an opportunity for current fractional leaders, leaders who were fractionally curious, and even some local small business owners to come together in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Many others have already posted on LinkedIn their takeaways from the conference, and I know that fractionalconference.com will be repurposed to share all event sessions and materials for those who couldn't make it, so I'm going to focus on my key memories and personal takeaways. First the memories: I loved getting to meet John Arms himself and so many others I've had zoom calls with. There's nothing like coming face-to-face with someone and deepening that bond you started on zoom. There were too many to ment...

Fee models for fractional executives is one of the most talked-about topics in fractional communities. And it makes sense, as there is no one-size-fits-all. These fees have an art and a science to them, a balance between multiple factors, and an element of as-high-or-as-low-as-desperation-takes-you. And that is not too different from the permanent job market: there are currently job postings for a VP of Sales on Indeed making $80k and $500k+ a year. But numbers aside for a moment, what are those factors to consider? Factors that hold true for both the client and the executive so that they also provide a more unbiased way to determine a fee agreeable and beneficial to both. 1. Fixed vs. Variable: Similar to traditional sales compensation, do you want to pay (or get paid) on a (1) pre-determined basis, (2) based on the outcome, or a (3) mix of both? In most discussions I have been involved in, the answer really depended on how well both parties could foresee the outcome.  Tasked wi...

Image courtesy of: https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/ Your first thought may be that actional is a mistake and should be actionable ; however that word was carefully chosen and will be explained shortly. The word fractional , in the context of this post, is a type of service provided to businesses; it is also often used as a title for those providing the services. Fractional services Fractional, as a type of service or part of a job title, is becoming more common, particularly in leadership circles. My title for example is Fractional CTO. Fractional services are sometimes referred to as pay-as-you-go, on-demand, Something-as-a-Service (CTO-as-a-Service for example), or virtual. Fractional services provide businesses with the flexibility to access expertise without the commitment of full-time employment. The services are usually part-time and provided as an on-going service to one or more clients during a given period. An example is 1 hour each month as an advisor with one client,...

It’s 8:30 a.m. on a Monday. Claire has just sat down at her desk, ready to ease into her work week. A mug of hot coffee on one side of her workspace, photos of her dogs on the other, she stretches, mentally reviewing some of her priorities for the day and the week. She jiggles her mouse to wake up her laptop and widescreen monitor, logs in, and fires up her Outlook. Claire’s inbox doesn’t look like most people’s, because she is a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) with different email accounts for each of her nine clients in professional services industries from architecture to cybersecurity. Perusing her inboxes one at a time, she notices  two messages threatening to derail the order of her day.   Client 1 is requesting an impromptu meeting at noon, right in the middle of one of Claire’s weekly standing meetings with Client 2. Client 1 just received an RFP, due on Friday, and wants to have a strategy discussion before beginning to compile the response.   ...

I’m going to be too honest here. I’ve grown weary of the modern-day concepts on how companies operate. Meetings that could have been an email. Powerpoints that are walls of text. Way, way, WAY too many backend tools that don’t play well together and are more time killers than time savers. As I’ve evolved my practice as a fractional COO I’ve found myself researching, and often times weaving in, some age old concepts into modern ones that have produced more efficient, profitable, and happy (read: positive culture) clients. Apologies in advance for getting philosophical.   The Twin Stars: Kaizen and Stoicism   Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, thrives on the mantra of "change for better." Its close relatives in the modern corporate world would be Lean Management and Agile Methodology, both of which emphasize minimizing waste, continuous improvement, and delivering the most value with the least amount of resources.  Stoicism, on the other hand, is an ...