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09 The Secret of Fractional Hiring with John Arms
216 Plays2 years ago
What is Fractional talent and why is it growing in popularity? How do you know if fractional talent is right for your next chapter, or for your business?
Learn how to hire or explore a career as a fractional executive with special guest John Arms of Voyageur U. Sometimes you don't need or want to hire a full-time executive for a specific need. Whether it's a CFO, CMO or head of operations, seasoned pros are making themselves available for a fraction of their time at a fraction of the cost. it's a win-win!
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- Dial It In Podcast is where we gathered our favorite people together to share their advice on how to drive revenue, through storytelling and without the boring sales jargon. Our primary focus is marketing and sales for manufacturing and B2B service businesses, but we’ll cover topics across the entire spectrum of business. This isn’t a deep, naval-gazing show… we like to have lively chats that are fun, and full of useful insights. Brought to you by BizzyWeb.
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Website: dialitinpodcast.com
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Connect with Dave on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dave1meyer
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Transcript
Introduction to Dial It In Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk with interesting people about the process improvements and tricks they use to grow their businesses. I'm Dave Meyer, president of BusyWeb, and every week, Trigby Olsen and I are bringing you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
00:00:24
Speaker
So Trigby, it's a fractional kind of day today. I feel like half-assing it all day. I think that would be brilliant, but it's one of those things where I'm hearing fractional quite a bit and I don't know what the deal is, but I feel like we need to get an expert online where we can actually see
00:00:45
Speaker
what this fractional movement is about. Is it just that we're going further away from the metric system and we're just going to keep on fractions or what's the deal? I don't know. Well, I think that's three-fifths of a good idea, but we definitely need to investigate it a little further. Maybe seven-eighths. Well, and that leads me to our intro for today's guest. I am delighted to
Introduction to John Arms and Fractional Executives
00:01:10
Speaker
introduce all of our listeners to John Arms, who is the lead
00:01:15
Speaker
marketer and owner of Voyager U. He runs it with a wonderful guy, Jason. And I've had the distinct pleasure to run office hours with John for most of the past year. And there's no better person to talk about this new upswell in business for marketers, for people that need executive suite,
00:01:43
Speaker
talent at a fraction of the person for a fraction of the price and for fractionals to themselves get a chance to work with three, four, five different companies and do better than they ever did in corporate world while flexing their creative muscles. So I'm not giving it enough benefit. So I want to hand it right over to John. John Arms, welcome to today's dial it in podcast.
00:02:09
Speaker
Thank you. The Dial It In podcast. I like it. I like it. Thank you for having me, you guys. I appreciate it. And as you know, this subject and category and emergence of all things fractional is
00:02:24
Speaker
It's what I wake up every day for. Hopefully, I can be helpful in unpacking what's happening here to you guys. Absolutely. We're super excited to have you, John. Can you tell us a little bit about where you've come from so that we have the backgrounds on why you're the foremost expert in fractional executives?
John's Journey to Fractional Executive
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah. It's a funny story. What's the trigger point? I had a company that I had built and run for about 15 years and I sold it.
00:02:54
Speaker
And with the intent to be independent, you know, just, I did not want to be part of a company, even my own company. So I wanted to really embrace independence and it really was that.
00:03:06
Speaker
I guess vague, right? And I come from marketing, you know, my, my agency was a marketing agency. My upbringing was in advertising and marketing agencies. So that's, that's where I come from. But I also come from, I'm glad you asked it that way. I come from a kind of an entrepreneurial family. So maybe we didn't always fit in corporate buckets. That's certainly true for my family. So, so as far as, you know, sort of foundational things, but when I went independent, I thought, well, the, uh, what I wanted
00:03:35
Speaker
was not really out there. What I wanted to have was three or four clients where I was their chief marketing officer. I knew that there was millions of clients out there that just couldn't have a CMO, but I didn't want to do it for one. And so you look at consulting, you look at freelancing and none of those fit.
00:04:00
Speaker
It's fractional is now a different thing. So I pursued it. I got into it. I stubbed my toe. I failed. I succeeded. I did all this stuff to get to the place where I am now, which is a fractional advocate and, you know, pilot and priest and everything that comes with what this fractional is. And we'll pick it apart a little bit. But that's where I come from to your question there, Dave.
00:04:27
Speaker
Let's start with an easy one. What's the difference between a consultant and a fractional officer?
Freelancers vs Consultants vs Fractional Executives
00:04:35
Speaker
For sure. There's three things out there in the market that we're kind of used to. Fractional is what we're not really used to, but it's emerging, as you guys said earlier here. You've got freelance and consulting, and you've got fractional. The best way to distinguish between the three
00:04:52
Speaker
is fractional, when you bring on fractional or you become a fractional professional, you are a gear. Think about yourself as a gear in a business, right? So businesses run on gears. They have sales gears, ops gears, IT gears, marketing gears. They run consistently on gears. That's important, right? If the plane is gonna, if the business is an airplane and it's gonna fly, we're gonna have to have these gears kind of going at all times. Freelance,
00:05:21
Speaker
And consulting, those are great, but those aren't gears. Those are projects. Those are additive to the business, but they're not gears in the business. So if you're going to build a social media program, for example, or if you're going to launch a new product, that's not the lifeblood of the business. It's additive to the business, but it's not a gear. It's very important. So freelance, or if you're going to build a website, right? These things are episodic.
00:05:48
Speaker
and have usually a beginning, middle, and an end. Now oftentimes there's a tail, but they're not those critical gears. So fractional are those gears that every business needs to go.
00:06:00
Speaker
and improve and fly and not crash the airplane. There is a distinction right there. Probably another way to say that might be that for this and for Voyager U, fractional executives are truly those C-suite level people that are coming in and providing true expertise.
Expansion of Fractional Roles
00:06:22
Speaker
Yes and no. It's interesting, Dave, because I thought so early when I started Voyager U.
00:06:27
Speaker
I thought fraction and we use the term fractional executive quite a bit. You know, what's interesting about that is
00:06:34
Speaker
when people choose to go fractional and be independent and self-determined and that sort of thing, oftentimes they want to, they love that their experience gets them to be that fractional CTO, CIO, but they often don't like to think of themselves as executives because that's sort of a past they're trying to walk away from that sort of. So that was, that was a big aha moment for me. It fits, it makes sense, but
00:07:00
Speaker
They hold on to their executive learning to apply as a good fractional. But then the other dimension of that is fractional is turning out to be more than just, you know, executive roles. There are fractional product people. There are there are fractional, you know, growth officers.
00:07:18
Speaker
So the gearing of business, although there's some basics, there's some additional gears in some businesses that really suit well to fractional. So it's, as you know, it's a growing and changing economy kind of in a hurry. So, yeah. So it's more strategic than tactical. It really is, you know, it's guidance, you know, what I tell people who are going fractional and businesses who hire them is,
00:07:46
Speaker
before you do anything in any category in any major seat in your business, I hope you have a good strategy. I hope you have a good plan. And if you don't either have one or have the ability to do it, it is the wisest thing you can do is go get it and have that. And but the trouble with that is, well, how is that going to happen? I'm a CEO, for example, I got a 20 million dollar business. And am I supposed to find time to write that?
00:08:14
Speaker
That's hard. Or am I supposed to person who has to actually, once it's written and created, I have to be the one who, let's say it's a marketing plan or an ops plan. It gets very hard, very quick because the natural state of small and growing businesses, there's never enough people around. That's my fractional, such a beautiful solution for them. So yes, it's very strategic. Here's the thing. It also gets very action oriented quick, quickly. There's no sense in having a good plan.
00:08:42
Speaker
until you can pull the trigger on some things. So the tactical approach should always come after planned strategy. What we've learned is you have to have that fractional pro attached to see it through and ensure that it hits what it needs to hit. One of the big mistakes when bringing on a fractional anything is you're going to write the plan and go away.
00:09:07
Speaker
That is the fastest way for the plane to crash because they own it, right? They have responsibility for it. They're accountable for it. They have to be around to ensure that it gets taken care of and developed. I would think that's the initial point of clash, right? With the company is as you come in and you do write the plan and then a lot of that they want the ownership wants to just completely ignore and say, no, no, no. Well, that's that's we've always done it this other way.
00:09:34
Speaker
And your response is, that's why I'm here, right? You really hit it on the head. The reason businesses bring on fractionals is because they have an absence of something in their thing. It might be the CEO wearing two or three or sitting in two or three of the seats on the plane, and that's a problem. When they get to the point when I need help,
00:09:57
Speaker
Which that again, that's a natural state of growing businesses. They have to get good at recognizing they need help. They're actually pretty, it's funny you say that, they're not really resistant. They're kind of relieved. Like, oh my God, you know, I haven't had time to develop a plan for this or really think through the implications or even how to do it. The CEO is thinking that way.
00:10:19
Speaker
And all of a sudden here comes this fractional with all their experience and they figure all that out and they're ready to deploy it. The relief that ownership feels is so palpable. They're like, you would think, right? Like we haven't done it that way. Well, here comes this wise person who illustrated in a way that's different and it's going to make good sense and it's going to have the right effect. It's such a relief to growing businesses as opposed to an obstacle. Sometimes people in staff struggle with fractionals a little bit. Sometimes.
00:10:48
Speaker
Like who's this person? They're not, they haven't been here for 20 years, that sort of thing. But again, if you do not have fresh thinking, if you're just stepping and repeating,
00:10:58
Speaker
You're not going to get ready to go. No business does. I met with a friend of mine who's a fractional sales officer at a company. He just started a couple of weeks ago. And this is a tie-in to what you were talking about, about the employee clash with the fractional. And he's instituting a CRM for the sales people, which all of them are immediately rolling their eyes. And what he told me was, they're waiting me out.
00:11:26
Speaker
They're waiting to see when I leave. Ah, gotcha. So, yeah, that's not good, right? I mean, that's the intent. And I would imagine that the owners who brought in the fractional would not be happy to hear that.
00:11:43
Speaker
because they're trying to keep the plane flying, raise the elevation, grow all these things. And if the approach to that entity they chose in that case of fractional
Challenges and Benefits of Fractional Roles
00:11:57
Speaker
is we're gonna wait it out for it to fail, it won't be the fractional who fails in that scenario. It'll be the unwillingness, it'll be the desire to conform to what was and the unwillingness to accept
00:12:12
Speaker
the changes and the strategies that that person is going to bring in. And that's too bad, right? Because that's not obviously not the approach. If you think about this for a second, let's put in the context of an NFL team. And you just drafted a new player. They haven't been on the team. You want to get that player on the field, let them take leadership. You want to use that asset.
00:12:35
Speaker
not wait it out until they get injured. So it's unfortunately I think that way. I wouldn't say that's super common in our world. We've got over 300 members now and mostly we hear the relief.
00:12:46
Speaker
And I kind of want to pick all those dimensions apart a little bit. Well, in defense of my friend, I think he's got a lot of old tales people and he's trying to institute new technology. And his response was great, which was I asked him, I said, well, what are you going to do? And he said, well, I'm going to do this thing. And then one of them is going to say, I'm not going to do it. I don't want to do that. And then I'm going to say, well, we're sure going to miss you.
00:13:11
Speaker
That's kind of it. You know, that's change, right? That's just change. Yeah. This is the, he's identified what needs to happen and kind of put the RX there. He's prescribed the medicine. Yeah. If, if, if the, if they don't want to take it, then that's, that's sad.
00:13:31
Speaker
So in my world, John, I always look at things in sort of a three-step process. The first is sort of identification and validation of the problem. So if I'm a hypothetical company owner or president, what are some of the things that I'm seeing and hurting that would lead me to hiring a fractional person? Yeah. So I think the first indicator is either the CEO or the leadership or the board, whatever.
00:14:00
Speaker
is recognizing we're beyond our skis. Our plans to grow and advance, we're not going to get there as we are. And as we are, it might be our person in the sales seat is too junior or doesn't exist, right? Or the COO is also doing the CFOing.
00:14:23
Speaker
Or the CEO is doing a great job with the visionary stuff, but not really getting involved in some of the other leadership things. So what people realize, we can't keep doing this in a bootstrap way and grow. Bootstrap has an end. So that's usually an indicator where it's like, yeah, we want to get to, let's say, a 5x sales, right? Well, you're going to have to bring in new people and do new things. So that's one of the things that
00:14:49
Speaker
that is a trigger for people to say, I should bring in fractional. Historically, historically, people have made some some interesting decisions there. You guys have probably seen this. Let's say sales are down. Right. Sales are down. And the best thing to do in most people minds was you go get the best salesperson and pay them whatever they need, because you need a key player in there. Right. Often decisions made is go get somebody out of college. We'll just grind them to death and they're just going to hammer the phones. There's no strategy there.
00:15:18
Speaker
Um, but those, that kind of decision happens. So, um, anyway, it kind of comes down to businesses like it's not working. I want to either go hire somebody to kind of make this problem go away. And am I going to hire someone who's really expensive and good or really cheap? Cause I don't want to go with the downstroke or, you know, I don't want to spend too much money. Both of those, um, quite honestly don't fit in most growing business scenarios. Like if I want to have a full time, awesome sales pro, I'm going to have to pay a lot of money.
00:15:47
Speaker
It's going to cost me some cash or an IT pro or an ops pro or a finance pro. The business probably doesn't even require full-time of that person. We think it does, but it doesn't. We've already proven in the fractional world that what we thought used to be was like full-time absolutely is not. And there's dynamics that are related to that. I need your butt here full-time in order to get this done. Absolutely not.
00:16:16
Speaker
Everything went away and everybody went home and guess what? I don't need your butt here. Productivity went up when we went remote during the pandemic. So that tells you, okay, I don't need your butt here. Now how about time? So all the fractionals who are doing fractional works like, well, they're not commuting. They're not in toxic meetings. They're not in wasted meetings. They're not spending time.
00:16:36
Speaker
Most people say when i was in corporate i imagine i was probably working one of the five days i was paid for was actual product of work the other five was garbage so those dynamics are coming into play in the fractional world and i think i'm taking a long way around the bar. Just answer which is i need new talent as a business as a ceo.
00:16:57
Speaker
but I can't pay the full thing, but I need all the thinking. So it's, I'm going to pay 60, 70, 80 grand a year for a fractional versus three or $400,000 for a full timer. So that math, and I think that math is really going to come to the, uh, it's going to hit the ground now in this month and next month as people are budgeting for the year and say, are we going to bring in a full timer at X or are we going to bring in a fractional?
00:17:23
Speaker
And what's our budget, right? So we don't have a $300,000 budget. So let's go get a fraction and we'll pay a fraction of that. Or are we going to say, well, I'm just going to go really low and I'll go get a junior. And, you know, maybe there's going to be the same cost as a fractional, but they have a fraction of the experience that, you know, the seasoned fractional pro has. So those are the decisions that are going to be made in the fractional world and those who hire it in the next few months as people plan their year. So the budget thing is very easy. You know, it's like, well, I can't afford it.
00:17:53
Speaker
I need it. I think the concession has always been a concession. Well, we can't afford it, so we'll just keep doing it the same way. Hire cheap or just do both, right? I'll be the CEO and the chief sales officer. Well, that's probably not going to get you to the big goals you set for the next year.
00:18:11
Speaker
Okay, so I've identified I need this strategic thinker. I don't have the budget to pay them full time. But I need somebody who's going to do the work. How do I find it? How do I find somebody who knows what they're doing? Well, it's funny, you should ask. So in our world, we've recently just in the last 10 days created something called the fractional exchange, which is a place for people to do that.
Voyager U's Fractional Exchange Platform
00:18:38
Speaker
It's where you go become talent and you find talent.
00:18:42
Speaker
This is a new world. Places like that are not pervasive out there. If you were to try to find fractional talent, it's just now coming. Let's say you went to a recruiter and said, I need a fractional person. That industry isn't quite perfect at it yet, although they're getting there because they make their money off of full-time placement. So there's some answers there, there's some not. There are what I call benches. There are companies that deploy fractional people
00:19:13
Speaker
which is fine but they are as well. It's a good model but at the same time it's not so great for the fractional pro because all of a sudden you have to pay a middleman some money. So things like ours are coming and that's the same thing like you can look at Upwork and Fiverr and other places and you might be able to find fractional people but there's going to be a percentage taken.
00:19:36
Speaker
things like the fractional exchange, that's a no fee place. We just connect. We just say, hey, entity A and it's fractional and people looking for them. Here it is. Go to the exchange, find each other. We're out because our art, we chose to, when we started Voyager, we said we're going to enable fractional in America as an industry. That's what we're going to do. And the first thing we're going to do is going to go for self-determination
00:20:04
Speaker
I'm not smacking corporate America. I'm just saying there's a lot of people who are stuck there that want out. So we want to enable a fractional path for them. And so we created the exchange where they are all the tools to get out there and do it because it's very hard to just say I'm fractional now it's a process. And then we created the exchange so that they could connect without anybody in between. So because we're committed to the people, the people side of the equation, we're deliberately only creating the exchange and I think it's the only
00:20:35
Speaker
and those connections can be made and there's no money involved and there's no people in the middle. And I think that's very helpful for both sides. What are some things people should be looking for when they're evaluating a fractional talent? So probably the first thing they have to do is search internally. I think it's very important
00:21:01
Speaker
If I'm thinking about a fractional, which means I'm thinking about my talent, which means I'm thinking about getting to my goals, and I think they have to look internally and am I ready to let go? Now that's true for both bringing in full-time or fractional. But are we ready to let go? So are we actually able to say, you can do the CFO now, I'm done doing it. I'm going to go back to being COO and do that part of the business. Or I'm going to just stick with COO, you do the sales. So are they really ready to let go?
00:21:30
Speaker
so that they can grow. Now, any business book and any business will tell you that one of the key things is, you know, I think Professor Scott Galloway says it all the time, you know, greatness is in the agency of others. Well, there comes a point where you have to come to terms with that and let go and give somebody else responsibility and actually let them fail. So when you're evaluating a fractional, I think that fail part is why fractional is growing so much. It's like, well, if I'm going to let go,
00:21:57
Speaker
Well, I'd rather let go and give it to somebody who's got some gray hair, a man or woman who's been doing this, who's been in this category that we need help with for 25 or 30 years. It's pretty easy to let go to those people because it's not as scary. They're very, very skilled and they've been there and they're not going to let you down in that area. So are they willing to let go? Secondly,
00:22:18
Speaker
What they should look for yeah, and so you know internally kind of let go to is really examine where their core pain is I've had a lot of people think they need a CMO when in fact they actually need a fractional salesperson and Vice versa so really get to what is the core problem here sometimes, you know, you know that old thing, you know What's the question sales is the answer?
00:22:40
Speaker
those of us who are, have done sales or in sales, like sales doesn't solve anything. Sales isn't going to solve an operations problem or a finance problem. So really know the problem you're having before you bring in the fractional. And then last but not least, and, you know, you know, have good conversation with those fractionals, talk about what you need to go learn what they're good at. But think about the nature, the nature of fractional pros, at least in our fractional exchange, the fractional exchange.com there.
00:23:11
Speaker
And in our community is they are by virtue, everybody's over 40 years old. You know, some are 60, some are even older. Like these are seasoned people. You're not going to surprise them. They're going to bring you ideas, not the other way around. So, uh, you know, the nature, at least of our community is you want seasoned, smart, experienced people.
00:23:32
Speaker
that's who you need to bring in. So I guess maybe be aware of imposters. If there's a 25 year old person out there who says they're a fractional and they can bring in 30 years of experience to a problem, they would have been negative five years old when they started their career. So you got to watch out for some of that, but I don't see a whole lot of that. You know, fractional is, it's full of really, really good people who just kept tapped out. Like I was limited in what I could do at my last place.
00:23:59
Speaker
I didn't want to do that again at a new place. I want to kind of open my ceiling above me. So that's this group. That's what you want.
00:24:08
Speaker
Got it. So for businesses, we understand why go fractional and why to consider fractional. Let's flip that for a second and talk to potential fractionals. Yeah. You have a community of fractionals. You've just mentioned over 300. Congrats. That's amazing. Thank you. And it's an easy to find spot, but how are you fostering or how do you know
00:24:33
Speaker
if it's time to maybe consider hanging your shingle on your own and then tell us how you're able to support or what the life of a fractional looks like.
Motivations for Becoming a Fractional Professional
00:24:43
Speaker
Those are two really good questions, so I'm going to pick them apart both. Maybe remind me of the second one after I get into the first one. So I think the first, quite honestly, was really, if you really dig, right? And what is the core reason to do this?
00:24:55
Speaker
when you start digging and unpacking. And we do this, by the way, in our fractional boot camps, we get really into the day. You really what happens is people are like, I want some self determination. I want some control. I want to expand on my own. You know, there's this, I really wouldn't even call it an entrepreneurial spirit. I think it's I need to have that. And
00:25:23
Speaker
And that is what really drives a lot of people into this. How you do it is what voyager use all about, but I think that's usually some of the surface level things is I want to make more money.
00:25:35
Speaker
there, which is great. That's noble. And you definitely want to do that. I want to get out of toxic environments. That's great. That's noble. Definitely do that. Um, sometimes it's just practical, right? I got laid off and I don't know what to do next, or I've been out of a job for awhile and nothing's happening. So some are very practical, but at the core of it, at the underneath beauty of the whole thing is I want to take the cap off of me that is, was sort of put there by our work culture.
00:26:02
Speaker
And I want out, I want to self-determine. I want to, I always say it's the most beautiful, it's like the American way, right? I want to self-determine the rest of my career. And I think that is really, really at the core. And that's pretty magical when you think about it. When, when that starts to happen at the first client or even at the first bootcamp, when you're learning about this stuff, all of a sudden you, all of these things that have sort of been
00:26:29
Speaker
bothering you for maybe decades. I just haven't been able to get there in my career because the structure of the way our culture is, it just caps too many people. Relief and just hope.
00:26:41
Speaker
that comes out of that is so palpable. So that is a big reason to do it. Right. Other reasons, you're going to make good money. Sure. You have a lot more time for health and family. You are going to be respected and you're going to be accountable. Like there's no hiding in this fractional world. You're like, yeah, come here and fix this, strategize it, make it work. Well, that's what people want. That's at least in our world and this growing fractional world.
00:27:09
Speaker
They're dying to have that level of commitment and input and risk even. And in fact, it's interesting when we say the word risk, right? Because when you're a fractional, you've got three or four clients. So the risk level is actually lower than a full-time job where you get laid out. Right.
00:27:27
Speaker
So that's, that's part one, right? And that was, that was why. And the second one now is how, and I want to phrase this or post this in a specific way because fractionals cover an entire gamut. And so for marketers or for fractional salespeople, we get it. And we understand how to do biz dev and how to find our own clients, but post that say, say I'm a fractional CFO.
00:27:54
Speaker
I'm a spreadsheet guy and I've never picked up a phone in my life except for to talk to the CEO about some numbers related thing. So how do you get started and what are the things that you need to know in order to build your own business if maybe you've never done that before? For sure. For sure. So the first thing you have to come to grips with and really fall in love with is in all cases, no matter what kind of fractional you are,
00:28:22
Speaker
You are starting a business. You are starting a business and every business, this is universal, every business operates on some pretty, pretty specific things. You have a value proposition. You have something you're very, very good at. You have a method for getting clients. You have a method of serving clients. You have a method of operating a business. So regardless of what fractional category you are, the first thing people have to have to really understand is
00:28:51
Speaker
You are starting a business and there is a way to do that, that is fractional. That is its own thing. Again, regardless of, and this is what our boot camps and our coursework and our community is all about. There is a process now for launching a fractional business. And a lot of people think, well, do you mean, is it, you know, making my website or doing an LLC?
00:29:12
Speaker
and things like that you get there but you begin with really peeling back and understanding your value proposition the wonderful thing that you're good at so that process of starting that fractional business at this point you guys it's been what's the word i don't know if it's supposed to codified or codified but there's a manual for it was new and fresh three years ago.
00:29:33
Speaker
It's baked now. So, but you have to kind of follow the process. One of the biggest mistakes people make is just them fractional now. I just got laid off and now I'm fractional. No, you are not. Not unless you've gone through the steps of understanding your value proposition, knowing who you're going to market to, how you're going to do that. Do we have training for all this? Absolutely we do. We just finished our second bootcamp just the other night.
00:29:57
Speaker
And I think we work people out. I guess that's why we call it a boot camp. But they just massively and intensely learned that to do a fractional business is a specific thing. And you can be will. And once you go through those steps, you're going to love it, right? But it is a process and a systematic approach. And there are parts to it that are different and unique. And you really have to embrace that. So the how, I think I've already talked about it a few times, but it kind of like every business, right?
00:30:25
Speaker
What do you do? What's your value proposition? What are you going to charge? What's the entity? All those things. Do we have a package for that? A business in a box? We do in our boot camps and our online learning. Part of that is just making the time to network, making the time to reach out, right? So what's funny you say that. So one of the things we did in our boot camp this week was we actually have a fractionals calendar. We get the beauty of
00:30:51
Speaker
three hundred people who have done this for some three years now and just a second we talk to our members all the time like what are you doing what are you doing and like what is that calendar look like. And it's interesting you know how many hours of working for clients you're going to be doing what's your fractional take a guess like let's say you have three clients right three retain clients how many hours do you think a week is working for those clients or with however you want to put it.
00:31:20
Speaker
20, 30, 22, 15, 22 hours, doing that two hours a week, operating your business. You're at a 24 hour week. There's a few more hours on honing your skills and things like that. So you're well under a 40 hour week with three clients and three clients on it. Yeah. It's going to be about a quarter million dollar business, give or take. If you have a side hustle and some other revenue streams, that's fine. So, um, the, it's it, that's what a lot of people like, wait a minute, what?
00:31:50
Speaker
I included in that week you know you have to skip when you do your hobby right you need a hobby because that's what keeps you fresh when you come back to your fractional stuff. What what people are having doing this realize is.
00:32:02
Speaker
I am here for my brains and my thinking. I am not here for grind. The company doesn't need me to be another person grinding hours out. That's not going to create value. I have to think through this. So a lot of people have to come to terms with like, yeah, the time I spend with my client, it's going to be, it's going to be leadership meetings, guiding people, I'm going to be writing strategies, and then making sure that it gets executed right. So it's very rich, rich time, but it's not grind time. It's thinking time.
00:32:29
Speaker
What then that returns to you is many hours in a week and none of us work. I have worked for your week since i can remember back when i was corporate was always sixty seventy airplanes vacations and all that kind of stuff that's out that's out of the fractional equation and a lot of people are like that's different that's new i have to get used to that. It sounds great doesn't it but it's not easy because it's changed.
00:32:52
Speaker
Um, even the, the, the, there's a lot of folks who are like, well, what should I charge per hour? We recommend don't you charge by month and it doesn't anchor to hours and anchors to value. And that is in the contract that you signed, which by the way, we have a, we have a template for all of those. So, sure. Yep. Yep. So did I get to the nugget of the question there? Yes, for sure.
00:33:18
Speaker
What's the craziest thing that you've been asked as a fractional to help fix? Oh boy. So let's see. Actually, okay. So I think the answer for this is oftentimes when you come in as a fractional, and so I'm going to come in as a fractional chief marketing officer or marketing leader, whatever you want to call it. And things often bleed out.
00:33:48
Speaker
into other areas that are not my zone. So if you're doing your job right as a fractional, you're leading and guiding. And that means you're using your experience in that, sometimes not just in marketing, in my case, or ops or IT. And sooner or later, sometimes you can find yourself doing things that you weren't brought in there to do, but there's nobody else doing them. And so there has been some clients where I'm like, oh my God, I'm
00:34:15
Speaker
I'm doing like ops here. I'm doing a little bit of finance here. So I sort of, you want to help, but I've sort of have to stop myself and go, okay, hold on a minute. You're small. Let's bootstrap. I got to stay in my lane. Let's get somebody else in those spaces. So it's things outside of my core skill, marketing strategy and planning that I've done. And then I wouldn't really call that crazy. I think the craziest thing is I have been asked to deal with HR issues.
00:34:45
Speaker
because I had a company and I dealt with those things and it's like clearly I must elicit that I've dealt with this before. Hey, can you go talk to these two? They're fighting.
00:34:59
Speaker
So I have had to do that at a time or two. And so I think that's pretty crazy. There weren't physical fights, but some of that HR stuff, you know, you kind of reach the leaders around you to solve that. And so over the three, four years I've been doing this now, I've had a couple like that. So but it's right now at this point, I have things down to such a tight
00:35:23
Speaker
what I do and how I help, but it ties to the business growth that it's pretty focused. It's pretty focused now. And I would say that's probably true for 90% of the people in our community. How long does a fractional stay with the company? A very long time. And it's usually years, quite honestly. I mean, we haven't been fractional for years, so it's hard to say that, but I've got clients that go back a couple of years.
00:35:53
Speaker
it's a while. And the reason it ends is the company gets acquired or sold or goes the other direction where the company is not doing well and they start to shrink and sometimes go out of business. So those are the reasons that they don't last very long. And the reason is
00:36:16
Speaker
is almost too easy, right? Like, well, you come in and you solve a thing that they haven't been able to solve themselves, and you keep it solved. So that is extremely hard to let go. And in the process of doing that, you become a trusted ear, you become part of the guidance, you become a board member often. So you start taking on roles that are really, really important to clients, and you celebrate that. So it's really hard to let go of fractionals once you've got them in.
00:36:46
Speaker
They'd say a lot of that transition for fractionals is often where they will transfer into a board membership or something else or maybe. Yeah, that comes a lot. Board members, sometimes equity in the business, that is a natural transition. I have two clients that I have served as a fractional CMO in the past and I'm off of that now and I'm now a board member.
00:37:09
Speaker
So that is a natural transition, which is great. There's a different economy with that, which is fine, but that is definitely a natural transition. So what's the biggest thing that somebody needs to think about in this realm, John? The biggest thing people need to think about, everybody, is where are we going as a country as it relates to how we work?
Impact of Fractional Work on the Economy
00:37:32
Speaker
And what effect is that going to have
00:37:35
Speaker
on how we grow as a country and a society. So that's pretty big thinking, right? So let me unpack that a little bit. So here's John's dream. Here's John's hope and vision. And this is why I really get up in the morning. So we're kind of not having the best time in our country right now. And it just is what it is. There's a lot of issues that we wish could be better.
00:37:57
Speaker
So the thing that I think, and some of those relate to fractional, right? There's a lot of people that are really good at what they do, but they're stuck in our corporate culture. There's a lot of money made in the economy and it tends to filter to the top. There are things that are not so hot for society. And I'm not, again, I'm not bemoaning all of that. I'm just saying the way we are right now isn't ideal for millions of people.
00:38:22
Speaker
and millions of small businesses. So I get up in the morning and I think of Fractional and I think of two things. Fractional allows people who are awesome, and most people are, people who are awesome but stuck to get back out and do their very best work and be prosperous and happy and respected in ways they haven't been able to for a very long
00:38:45
Speaker
And that is a beautiful thing. That's great for community. That's great for families. That's great for them. They make good money. All of that. That is so beautiful. So we're unleashing all of this talent into the world. And these are our people. They're doing great. And that's awesome. They're no longer stuck. How great is that? And guess where they are? They're in the middle of America. No fractionals.
00:39:10
Speaker
None of us are gazillionaires. We're not the billionaire class. We're in the middle. We're maybe higher in the middle, but we're there and that's good. We've always said a stronger middle class is one of the best things for America. There we have that. Then you got the other side. You got businesses that fractional serve, businesses that hire fractionals. You got all these great ideas and these innovations and just wonderful capacity.
00:39:37
Speaker
But it's hamstrung by the very nature of small business, under budget and understaff. Those are the natural states of bootstrapping and small business. And now all of a sudden, in the last few years and going forward, all of a sudden they can have access to talent they couldn't get before because they were stuck somewhere else. And that talent has access to businesses they couldn't help before because they were stuck somewhere else. And all of that
00:40:05
Speaker
is going to create trillions of dollars of GDP. There's 30 million small businesses in America, and now they can tap talent like they've never go before. So that small business, and that's up to $200 million in revenue, all of a sudden, up and to the right, they go in ways they couldn't before because they have gas in the tank
00:40:24
Speaker
I'll call that fractional they just couldn't have before. They have emotional relief because they don't have to feel like I have to carry this business that far and that high. And I'm going to just struggle my way all the way there. I can get the help I couldn't get before. So I look at that and I'm like, what a boon for the middle class of America. Because guess where all that money goes? It stays right there. And again, I'm a capitalist, right? But Musk and Bezos, you can't have it all.
00:40:52
Speaker
You got a lot of it. You know, the top has a lot of money. We got to get more into the middle and we don't need to do it in some sort of, you know, political way. We just have to create the economic engines that do that. And I truly believe that fractional on the practitioner side and the businesses that hire them side is the key to that.
00:41:12
Speaker
I know I've heard you share some statistics about small business before in the US. That really is the economic driver of the country. 90% of our workforce work off the Fortune 500. Wow. Wow. What a fascinating statistic. Okay, John, where can people find you if they want to learn more about the fractional lifestyle, if they need to hire a fractional, if they want to hire you?
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the first place to go is to www.voyageru.com. And that's where you can find all things fractionally. And that's the letter U, right? Yeah. French spelling. V-O-I-A-G-E-U-R-U.com. The reason we chose Voyager, it's a whole new adventure. It's a whole new journey. Kind of makes sense, right? We're on a new path.
00:42:07
Speaker
But so you go there and that's where you can join our community. That's where you can sign up for a masterclass or a bootcamp. That's where we've got a book. That's where you can buy our book. Very soon, that is where you will go to get into the fractional exchange. We're tying those two together right now. If you want to either find people in our fractional exchange or become one, you go to the fractionalexchange.com.
00:42:38
Speaker
And that is where, and it'll guide you, okay, if you want to look for fractional, go here. If you want to be a fractional, go here. And so that is where you tap into. That is where you tap into it. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me there. And then I guess last but not least, you asked where do people find me if they want to hire me. I believe, and Jason, my partner in this place too, is we believe a big part of what makes us good and true to our mission is that we always remain as fractional professionals ourselves.
00:43:07
Speaker
And so I love clients, I love new clients and I serve clients. So that is at myjparms.com. If you are short of a fractional CMO, that's where you can find me if I'm not able or a fit or whatever, I've got, you know, hundreds of fractional CMOs behind me. And there's other reasons to do that. So those are where you find me, right? But the fractional community is interesting because it's not just
00:43:35
Speaker
the business, the people who go fractional, who are influential in business growth, and it's not just the businesses who need them. Some of the magic, at least I think of what we've done is we've said this community is bigger than that. There are others in this ecosystem that are influential to growth.
00:43:52
Speaker
quite honestly, BusyWeb is one of them. BusyWeb is a wonderful business that when plugged into that community, just supports everything that we're about. And there's other things inside of there too. Businesses that are not fractionals, but they help the mission just by bringing the skills of what they do. And we've got legal people, marketing people like you. We've got ops people, finance people, and businesses that are part of that ecosystem too that have recognized that the
00:44:23
Speaker
the market and the category of fractional is important to them and we think we can help it so we're in the community. I'll jump in on that and say, one of the best revenue partnerships we've made in the past couple of years has been with VoyagerU because we make connections with fractionals who need help on, guess what?
Collaborative Growth in the Fractional Ecosystem
00:44:43
Speaker
Doing all that stuff that they're thinking about. Absolutely. We come in and we help fulfill. Exactly. It's true.
00:44:52
Speaker
You can't do all the tactics yourself, nor should you. And so the wonderful, synergistic and harmonious relationship of those who want to serve the middle and are good at it, it's just so efficient, right, to have busy webs and legal shields and these other entities that are around it because they're really additive to what the fractional economy does for the businesses and those who practice in it.
00:45:21
Speaker
You know, it would be, what do you think about that, right? It doesn't make sense for a, I don't know, in a fractional, it doesn't make sense for somebody to be in the community if they have a $10 billion company. This isn't for you. You play on the Fortune 500. This isn't your place. You don't want to be here. So we're very careful about the people who are in the community really aren't able to serve the community at the level and price and everything that makes sense. So it's a beautiful thing, isn't it? This whole fractional deal.
00:45:49
Speaker
That's true. It's a different mindset, and it certainly is an interesting bridge between the freelancer and the full-timer. It's all evolution, right? We evolve as a species. We are forced into moments where we need to change. We don't always know what exactly that looks like, but we know looking back
00:46:12
Speaker
isn't the direction we want to go. And that's quite honestly, I can't even tell you how much, how good I feel every day by hearing the stories of members who are like, I'm doing this now. I did that. I thought I was looking for a full-time job, but I didn't really want a full-time job because I was going to get stuck like I was before. And just for people to feel like I have hope again, like, Oh my God, I'm doing my best work. And for this little
00:46:38
Speaker
20 million, 10 million, $5 million business startup with no money. I got passion again. I am passionate and that's unleashed. You can imagine how good that feels. It's unbelievable. It's about a classic of a definition of dialing it in as I think I can think of, Dave. Absolutely. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for teaching us a little bit more about the fractional world.
00:47:08
Speaker
Yes, I hope I hope this was helpful. And thank you very much for having me. I love I want to learn more about dialing it in what you're thinking about here and what this is all about because dialing it in is something that I'm really intrigued by your title, because I think some people say that our workforce has been sleepwalking for quite some time. And repeat, step and repeat, you know, and do that.
00:47:33
Speaker
That's different than dialing it in. Think differently, get focused, change, whatever you're up to here, I'm a big fan. Perfect. Well, I can't wait to see more and I smell a part two coming up where we start talking about some of the actual tactics that we've seen and that we've done. Yeah, exactly. In fact, as a practicing fractional CMO, I just launched a new product.
00:48:02
Speaker
Oh, well, you got to tell us about that before you go.
Introduction to the Bang Book
00:48:05
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm good. I got the time. So I created something called the bang book, a marketing playbook for the rest of us. And, uh, I think you guys specifically interested in this is over my years of being a fractional and, and, uh, you know, serving clients on strategy and execution, I've been able to sort of track how that goes and what are the consistencies and can there be a manual was my question I asked about a year ago.
00:48:31
Speaker
And throughout the year, I've been sort of collecting my notes and thoughts around that. And sure enough, here we are in December, and I went, it can. It can be a manual for marketing, and it can be a playbook for the rest of us. The reason I say the rest of us is there are businesses that this isn't, it's probably helpful for most, but there are businesses that have teams of 20 and 30 and 40 working on various parts. There are businesses that are just too big for this.
00:48:58
Speaker
But if you are not that, if you are, like most businesses, you're struggling with marketing and maybe you're doing tactic first, this is an RX for that. So I launched it. It's actually just yesterday. It went online on my website. Ooh, at my JP Arms. At my JP Arms, yep, it's purchasable. And my big mission was how do I take... So my superpower in life is snack-sizing big ideas. So how do I take all of the complexity that businesses do
00:49:27
Speaker
and get it digestible and snack size so they can actually operate. Observing businesses trying to grow and having 30 page decks and 50 page plans and things that get done and spend a lot of money on it but then sit on a shelf and I went no more. No more, we gotta pull all this together. So I created Bain in order for all that to live in one place. All the important stuff is there so people can make good decisions and smart decisions and guide their steps right
00:49:57
Speaker
so that when it finally comes down to execution, right, all the questions, when I was in your shoes, one of the most frustrating things was, you know, somebody wants a website, or somebody wants a social campaign, or somebody's thinking about a CRM, and you guys being good practitioners, you start asking really, really good questions. And oftentimes,
00:50:19
Speaker
at least when I was doing the kind of work you do, oftentimes there were no answers. There was no place to go. You would have a meeting and someone would share what they thought episodically at that time. Oftentimes there wasn't. For example, I'll take a simple one. Guys, I would like a website. Great. First thing you guys might ask is, who? Who's your target audience? Everybody with money.
00:50:41
Speaker
That's not a target audience, right? So the idea of bang is to get all those critical, not just questions, but that thinking down so that never, if you're talking about printing a business card or doing a website or doing a 12 month campaign with SEO and PPC and CRMs and all that. I created bang as the book that a person, a business can use.
00:51:04
Speaker
to at least get most of that down, if not all. Now, I know they're going to be struggled. That's why I have a job. You know, I am the guy who can really help you author it, but I really say try to use it yourself. I try to make this as something like I think
00:51:20
Speaker
So that is what I created with Bang. And that is my hope, again, is to help the middle, all the businesses that struggle. And quite honestly, companies that serve them like you, like, oh, the key things are often they just haven't had time to really think about it and put it down. And the worst thing is to try to do it when you're doing a tactic. I see so many people running social media campaigns now because it's a big thing, right?
00:51:44
Speaker
Like, what are you doing? I don't know. We're just throwing content out there. It's all about the birthdays and the holidays and the national holidays and all that. Like, how in God's name is that relevant to their business mission? It's not, but, you know, I'm getting paid and there's that. Like, that's ridiculous. You have to have a mechanism where that doesn't happen. And that's what the bank moves for. Well, and I don't know if I've ever had a chance to say this before, but you're giving us a good chance to go out on a bank.
00:52:13
Speaker
Thanks, John. Look at that.