If you are a senior executive and wrap a full-time role, you’ll often hear from your network “You should go fractional”. We find people just leaving an executive job often get this advice.
This article provides a deep-dive into the considerations around “going fractional”. It is part of a broader series by Whispered on Career 2.0 options.
What is a fractional executive?
Fractional executives are senior leaders who share their expertise across multiple client companies. There are many different flavors of fractional executive… we’ll use the term “fractional” to refer to all of these in the article.
Chart credited to fractionals united
This article focuses on executives looking for a long-term Career 2.0 as a fractional executive. You can also leverage the fractional approach to “try before you buy” a full-time role. This can be particularly effective for roles where personality match is so critical (i.e. CMO working for CEO) For strategies on your next full-time executive role, visit Whispered’s Career Guides.
“For me personally, doing consulting and fractional work is really great and enabling the flexibility of taking on other projects, but it’s also affording me the chance to look for the right next operator role.” Brandon Bussey
Considerations on the role
“Well, it is not all chocolate and rainbows. As is the reality of most things, it [being a fractional executive] is way harder than it looks (most businesses are).” Neil Weitzman, as written with Scott Barker in GTMNow
Pros:
There are a number of reasons why becoming a fractional executive is attractive:
Control of your own destiny: Nobody can fire you, you can build equity in something you control
No Assholes: You get to choose who your work with
Bye bye bureaucracy: No need to spend time on politics, process and driving cross-functional change
Pattern Recognition: Build frameworks from seeing many different businesses and models and apply those
Higher (potential) compensation: Imagine charging a high-hourly rate and keeping all of it. In addition, there are the potential tax advantages (writing off expenses….)
Giving Back: Share the deep insights you’ve developed over your career
Cons:
A few challenges people don’t realize with fractional executives
You are the product: It is very different to sell a piece of technology vs to sell yourself.
You have to sell: You need to sell to eat and fractional execs can spend 50% of their time on business development rather than projects. If you don’t enjoy selling, think hard before going fractional.
Unpredictable nature of the work: You don’t know how busy you will be 3 months from now.
Limitations on driving impact: You aren’t fully part of the team and don’t get to build the deep relationships needed to drive success. So either you are just advising and not implementing OR you are working to implement without the deep cross-functional foundation.
You only make money when you are working: You sell by the hour / week / project now. At the exec level, we recommend selling on a monthly retainer basis.
Skills and Experience Get Stale: You aren’t getting your hands dirty with current technology and tactics. Companies will focus on hiring people with the best / most relevant experience.
“When you're doing fractional work, you have projects slip, people who don't pay you on time, and that sort of stuff, so staying focused to the point where you're overbooked is really important.” Fractional Exec
Ways to Get Fractional Work
Before you go fractional, make sure you have enough of a brand and experience to be valuable to clients.
“You can’t just say this is what worked for me one time. Get to at least a VP level position first and then repeat your role across enough instances so that you can provide the pattern matching.” Elena Verna
You have to have a funnel to generate new work. If you don’t, fractional will be tough and the selling becomes a bigger and bigger part of the role:
Convert your full-time recruiter inquiries into fractional “I’m not looking for full-time but would you consider fractional” 10%+ will say yes
Speaking at conferences and on podcasts
Writing and creating content. Build a content loop. Give away your knowledge and monetize operationalizing it. Make sure you reply to every comment… it provides more content ideas
Customer Referrals: Deliver amazing value, especially early and customers will share
Freemium Offering provide one hour workshops or webinars. These drive a lot of word of mouth and venture firms will often promo you to their portfolio
VC relationships where you have a strong dialog with a partner and nourish it can often lead to regular work
Consider Joining a Marketplace: Marketplaces take a decent cut but can provide leads. Some good marketplace examples include: GigX, FractionL
Cold Outreach: Unless you build a great funnel, you’ll have to do warm/cold outreach
Consider Joining a Brand: Unlike solopreneurs, teams can help you with the top-of-funnel for a fee (typically 33%). There are teams for almost any speciality for example: Sales Xceleration, yorCMO
Setting Yourself Up for Success
Qualify the work:
Make sure you are taking clients (especially early) where you are confident you can provide value. It will drive word-of-mouth
Watch out for project scope creep. Companies will want to use you as much as they can. Especially if you are good at what you do. Making sure you align up front on deliverables and how to measure success.
“Charge at least 2x your regular base pay today because you won’t have bonus, benefits….” Neil Weitzman
Be clear on your super-power and build your brand:
Stand out by niching down on your value proposition
Build your brand and network
Understand your target ICP deeply
Additional Resources
Some additional resources on fractional careers
A great article on “How to become a fractional executive” by Scott Barker & Neil Weitzman from GTM fund
2 terrific podcasts from Elena Verna on the business of being a fractional exec:
Elena on Unsolicited Feedback - talks about pattern matching, how to differentiate
Elena on Behind the Craft - talks about content loops, different consulting package types, workshops
Some good fractional communities
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