As a founder and entrepreneur, the list of tasks you need to complete is never-ending. Every day brings new challenges and many opportunities you need to address. Think back to this morning when you arrived at the office. What awaited you as you booted up your laptop? Chances are you’ve dealt with a task outside your specific area of knowledge or interest, for the first time. If not this morning, I bet it’s happened recently.
As founders, we must don multiple hats every day and undertake a series of tasks we’ve never considered before. Mostly we try to figure it out because that’s what good entrepreneurs do.
But great entrepreneurs don’t do this. They understand when they need to bring in outside support. They find experience in areas they lack and they want support from advisors who’ve walked before them on the path they’re on currently. Great entrepreneurs value their time and realise the opportunity cost of figuring it out is much higher than the cost of engaging with outside help.
But bringing in experts to support you is expensive and for many growing businesses, it’s prohibitive to do so. That’s where fractional leadership comes in. And if you manage this correctly, fractional support can supercharge your business.
When does it make sense to hire a fractional leadership consultant?
Traditionally, it would take a lot of work to get an expert to work with you for a small amount of time each month. But in recent years, many senior professionals have begun focusing their skills and talents outside a normal career path. Some have chosen to slow down, others have decided the race to the top, feels more like a race to the bottom. In short, many skilled people are sharing their talents beyond a single employer.
This fractional leadership or fractional consulting was once exclusively reserved for Non-Executive Directors or semi-retired business consultants. They provide strategic advice at the highest level.
Today fractional leaders are experienced professionals who can directly help you with the development and implementation of strategic pillars needed to grow and support your business. Fractional leadership isn’t for everyone, but there will be certain instances when this type of support will benefit your business greatly.
Let’s look at when this might be the case.
Lack of talent
There’s no denying that hiring today has never been harder. And hiring the right people is even more of a challenge. By utilising fractional leadership in your business, you can hire leaders for projects to check their suitability or quickly break from their service if they don’t meet your standards. Importantly you can access a level of skill that may have overlooked your business for many reasons.
Cost
Hiring a chief marketing officer might cost you around £80,000 per year. Factor in performance bonuses, pensions and other benefits and the cost of a CMO would be well into 6-figures. Bringing in a professional in this or one of many areas would be a fraction of the cost to your business. You can use their services only when needed or keep them on retainer to ensure you maximise their support for your business.
Lack of experience
It’s rare for a business to build a team with all the experience needed to meet their ambitions. Commonly there are gaps that need to be filled. Sometimes this needs to be on a full-time basis. More often it doesn’t. Fractional leadership allows businesses to bring this knowledge and experience to deliver singular projects or to share it with other team members elevating thie own knowledge levels through training or the implementation of systems and processes.
Accelerating growth
The speed at which your business grows and the process it does by is based on 3 factors: Time, money and experience. Take away any factor and the other 2 increase. Yet of the 3, experience is often the hardest to find. Either you learn through doing, or you follow the steps that someone else has already taken. Often this reduces the amount of time it will take and reduces costs through reduction in errors or mistakes.
Types of Fractional Leadership Consulting
5 years ago the term fractional leadership was uncommon. Contractual work or consulting may have been used more frequently, but by its nature contractual often had a defined start and end. Fractional leadership roles provide more flexibility to meet both the need of the leaders and the business. Fractional leaders can support your business in any business area:
Marketing
Fractional Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) can work on an ongoing or project basis to develop a marketing strategy, execute campaigns and monitor the results of these activities. Depending on the needs of your organisation and the skills of your fractional CMO, they can work to their strengths delivering strategies that meet your commercial needs.
Financial
Fractional Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) can be one of the biggest catalysts for your business growth. As with each of the fractional leaders noted, they provide a breadth of knowledge in their area of expertise. Some key tasks a fractional CFO offers include cash flow forecasting, utilisation maximisation, management accounts and overall financial planning.
Strategic growth & exit planning
Fractional leaders don’t always fall into defined roles. Our advisors here at Movet at Pace are each fully focused on providing strategic growth strategies and exit plans for your business. They advise you on the challenges you are yet to face and the opportunities you are still to find.
To arrange a discovery call to find out how our fractional leadership services can benefit your business, please get in touch.
Design
Fractional design leaders such as brand directors or strategists are one of the most common types of part-time leadership roles considered for business. Focusing on brand strategy and how this relates to commercial goals is often a second thought. However, by utilising senior design leaders on an ongoing but less than full-time basis, many businesses are able to capitalise on a wealth of experience and elevate their brand positioning.
Many fractional design leaders have experience in specific areas of design that can supportkey areas of business growth such as user experience and brand direction.
These are just a few of the most common fractional leadership consultants that can support your business. However, there are experts in every business function that can support your commercial ambitions.
Fractional leadership is here to stay. It provides businesses access to the highest quality talent and experience at a fraction of the cost of hiring these business leaders on a permanent basis. As you scale your business, using fractional leadership can accelerate your growth and do so without the cost of full-time commitment.
The question “Can you afford to hire them?” is no longer applicable to fractional leadership. It’s more “Can you afford not to hire them?”
Each of the advisors within Move at Pace could easily be defined as fractional leadership support and some of our clients are looking exactly for this service. Others define this service differently. Regardless of how you phrase this need, we provide a trusted resource of experienced business leaders to support your ambitions. Whether this is on a fractional or more intensive basis is up to you.
If you want to set up a discovery call to discuss how we might be able to help you, please visit this link. Alternatively, if you want to find out more about our fractional leadership services, please check out our Move at Pace YouTube channel.