Go Fractional or Go Home ft. Karen Trickett

Speaker A: Welcome to the new F Word podcast where we cut the fluff on business finances and lift the lid on the new F Word. The fractional finance revolution. It's a game changer for small businesses. I'm your host, Colin Hewitt, co founder of Float Cash Flow Management for Xero on QuickBooks. We believe that really understanding your business finances makes all the difference in the world. And having a strategic partner like a fractional CFO is the key to unlocking that. So join us as we dive into personal stories and actionable insights from forward thinking finance leaders and seasoned entrepreneurs to discover why fractional finance leaders have become an irreplaceable part of small business leadership. So welcome to the new episode of the New F Word. We've got, uh, Karen Trickett here from Mighty Adams today. I'm really excited to get into her story. Karen, welcome.

Speaker B: Thank you, Colin. Nice to see you.

Speaker A: Yeah, and we had a conversation a while ago and it just was really interesting. You know, we've been talking a lot about the rise of the fractional positions and your company, uh, Mighty Adams now is, is very involved in, in that same world. So looking forward to getting into it with you. Why don't you give us a bit of background into what did you, how did you start out in your career? And, uh, we'll take it from there.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So I, I started off my career as a trainee auditor with Pricewaterhouse and after a year doing that, I decided that was far too much like hard work and, uh, decided that I was going to go off and look for something more interesting. So I applied for a job through the Sunday Times, believe it or not, and landed a job with Britvic Soft Drinks. Started off working with Ballygowan Water, which is a really small, or it was then small Irish mineral water and on Britvic juices. And I did a lot of work with nightclubs. We put UV labels onto the water bottles to make them really stand out in the nightclubs and then got, uh, promoted onto Pepsi, which was a joint venture between Britvic soft drinks and PepsiCo in the UK. So we worked on things like the Pepsi chart on Channel 5 and the Pepsi chart on Capital Radio with Dr. Fox. And we did things like the collect 16 ring pools and get a free Spice Girl CD. I'm showing my age now. So all that. Yeah, all that, all that good stuff. Um, and then I left Britvik to go to Hasbro Toys and there are two big toy companies in the world. One's Hasbro, one's Mattel, and I went to Join Hasbro to work on this relatively unknown entity in the UK which was launching Pokemon across Europe. M. And that was back in the days when technology wasn't particularly advanced. So we launched things like a, uh, plush Pikachu, little sort of small Pikachu plush. And all it could do was say Pikachu over and over again. So it's amazing how quickly technology, uh, has moved in that space. And I also looked after Nerf guns. So my title at the time was probably my favorite title. Senior Brand Manager. Boys Toys was my title.

Speaker A: So you moved from auditing into brand management. I mean, that's quite a big shift. What was. Did you. Are, uh, you trained in the accounting world? Is that how you started?

Speaker B: No, I joined Pricewaterhouse as a 2 train to be an accountant. Yeah. And I did business French. So I grew up in Italy in Turin. I did French at university alongside business studies. Um, did a bit of marketing at university, but really it was the senior partner at Pricewaterhouse and also senior manager at Britvik Soft Drinks who said to me, you might want to consider marketing. And so I then joined the marketing team and loved it. And that's really how I ended up in, you know, what became a very long career in marketing over the years. Wow.

Speaker A: Wow. And obviously you didn't stay in Italy, you moved back to Scotland at some point. When was that?

Speaker B: We did. Oh, I moved back to Scotland for eight schools with my parents that were out there. So, I mean, we came back to Scotland in the 80s. I mean, my career has been largely Scotland and London. I've done a couple of stints down, um, in London. So, you know, working on some, as I've said, really big brands. I went from Hasbro Toys to Agencyside where I worked for a company called EHS Bran, became Havas, um, and worked on Cadbury Chocolate and Tetley Tea and Unilever. And then I stayed agency side for 16 years working on clients, as I say, like Cadbury, Tetley, but also a lot of financial services. Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC Asset Management. So I've been really very fortunate in my time to work on some amazing brands, um, big and small.

Speaker A: Yeah. Wow, what an opportunity. I mean, have, uh, you got any? Just thinking about, like, the opportunity of working with those brands. Have you got any? Was there anything that sort of stands out to you as a campaign that really, like, knocked it out of the park or something that surprised you, that flopped, that didn't go the way you expected it to, like, be? I don't know how much you're allowed to share, but it'd be fascinating to hear from the other side.

Speaker B: No, I think my favorite campaigns were probably the ones that we did with Cadbury. Not just because it's, you know, a lovely product and a lovely brand, but what they were doing was really quite pioneering at the time. So it was at the. Right at the start of big data. They were part of a consortium of companies. So it was Cadbury, Kimberly Clark and Unilever. I think it was. It was three of them that were effectively pulling data and using it for marketing purposes. And that was both direct mail and email. So it was the start of digital marketing and they did some lovely campaigns. So they did things like Rose's end of term thank you teacher campaigns, which were all about saying thank you to the teacher at the end of term and doing that with roses and, you know, sending out some really beautiful, tangible packs with wrapping paper and gift labels and, um, you know, drawings that the kids could fill in. So I think those are my favorite campaigns because they, they were really, you know, very tangible. We've gone to the world of email, and email absolutely is, you know, it's a super medium, but there's nothing quite like getting something in the post, you know, and really being able to touch it and engage with them.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, obviously now so much of what we do is about tracking and trying to, trying to work out, you know, how do we get the affiliation of, you know, how things are, the money that we're spending. And back then did. Was that, uh, the case as well? Were there sort of sophisticated methods that smaller companies didn't know about that you guys were able to work on?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we always had, you know, whether it was direct mail or email, much the same as you do now. It was absolutely about having controls in place. So effectively a banker, if you like, both in terms of the creative but also the data cells where you would effectively do nothing with those, with those groups of customers and then you would serve up the marketing campaign to the other groups of, um, customers and look to see what the difference in behavior was. You did things like testing different calls to action, different, um, positioning of some of the messaging in the email and the direct mail pack. So absolutely. I mean, the discipline, you know, the discipline back then is exactly the same as the discipline now. That's the lovely thing about data, right? It's that you, you can track all of that. And I think, you know, marketing works at its best when you've got that blend of creativity and the data. You Know the, the analytics and the tracking. If I had a criticism's uh, too strong, I think if, um, if I had an observation now is that creativity's probably slipped in favor of some of the analytics. And actually I think that's a shame because I think it's the two working in combination. It's the creativity of the idea that stands out. You only have to look at some of the, you know, the bigger or the brands that are doing well, like gymshark for example, where actually creativity and the humanity of the messaging that they get out there is as important as the medium that they're choosing and m all the insight that they're getting from the analytics.

Speaker A: So tell us about how you went from that into what you're doing right now with Mighty Adams.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I was actually in a conversation with my business partner, Tim Gambrel, and Tim had been doing fractional marketing for a couple of years. I'd never heard of it. Uh, if I'm honest, I was like, what is fractional? And it's huge in the us Much less known over here. I think people get very confused with, is it part time, is it interim, is it the same as freelance? So I ended up in a conversation with Tim where he explained that he was doing fractional work with, uh, a number of companies and had been doing for a couple of years. And I suppose it appealed. I mean I had done 16 years working consultancy, stroke agency and then had done nine years corporate side, client side. And I just thought I could bring the experience from both of those to help companies that, you know, are looking for support at, uh, senior support and experience in marketing and sales, but don't necessarily either have the budgets or want to commit to a full time hire.

Speaker A: And how would you, how would you define how it's different? Fractional is different to the other things you mentioned, like interim or part time or what. What's your take on it?

Speaker B: Yeah. So do you know, I get asked that quite a bit. So for me, an interim position is when there's a, you know, it's full time. You're going into a business for a defined period of time, you know, sometimes six months, sometimes 12 months. But you are full time in that, that business. I, I'll come on and talk about what fractional is. Um, so I think that covers off interim. Freelance is normally around a specific project, um, or you know, again, a fixed term contract. But you're in the business pretty much full time. Um, fractional is very much about wanting to bring in senior experience, more senior Than um, you've had previously, but you don't want to do that on a full time basis. So we often work with either scale up. So companies who are scaling up, they know that they need more experience in the team to get to the next level of growth, they don't want to commit to full time salary, they maybe have a more junior resource in place, but they need somebody to help guide them for that next level of growth. Um, or we work with SMEs larger have got established marketing teams but they've either lost somebody either because they've gone off to get a new job or in the economic environment that we're in, they've had to cost cut and they then realize that they're missing experience from the team but again don't want to commit to a full time hire. So for me that's where fractional plays really well. Um, and really fractional depends on whether it's an ongoing requirement or whether it's coming in to deliver a specific project, specific strategic project. Um, but largely fractional could be a couple of days a week right the way through to a couple of days a month. It really just depends on the need of the client and the size of the client and what they already have in place.

Speaker A: Like you were saying, it's like we feel that the awareness of the fractional as an option is really starting to ramp up in the uk. Um, and I think it's still growing in the US as well from my understanding. But certainly it was already more of a thing there. Do you, are you noticing that, Is that, does that feel like you're. The awareness of what these rules are, is you're having to educate less or is education still a big part of what you do?

Speaker B: No, I think education is still a big part, but I think it's definitely growing. I mean I've seen more fractional, um, ads on the likes of LinkedIn, for example, in the last three to six, three months probably than I've ever seen before. So that's definitely happening. I think there's more discussion with some of the recruiters around fractional as well because they often get clients who talk to them about needing more experience in their team, whatever the function, whether it's marketing, sales, finance, hr, uh, but they know that they can't afford the kind of level that they might want to bring in. And so I see more understanding in the recruiter space to actually position fractional as a potential solution for them. So yeah, I still think there's quite a bit of education that needs to be done, but definitely it's growing. I think that's fueled by two things. I think, I think it's been fueled by, I suppose I've done more work in the scale up community than I've ever done in the last nine months. And um, there's a lot of innovation activity happening in the uk which is lovely to see, I have to say. You know, the likes of Barclays, Eagle Labs, Scottish Enterprise, Innovate uk, all helping to really create that ecosystem. And there's some really great organizations, particularly in Scotland, like for us for example and Tectonic, who all play a part in helping the scale up community to scale. So I think that's part of the reason for an increase in fractional because these businesses are being helped to get to the next level. So actually they need more experience to get further still. And then I think the other reason is we've all been through over the last few years the cost of living crisis and the economy being, and the uncertainty around interest rates and all that good stuff. I think that has resulted in a number of the bigger organizations cutting costs. And invariably when you cut costs you lose a lot of experience. So again, I think particularly for strategic projects for the bigger companies, they're looking around at uh, what they've got resource wise and realizing that they've got either inexperienced team or not enough experience in the team and they want somebody in to help guide them or they want somebody to work on a specific strategic project. So I think that's what's fuelling the rise. But I don't think it's a well understood term. I think it'll grow.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. So two things coming out of what you're saying there. One question is, do you think there's a risk that people jump on the bandwagon and sort of say I'm now a fractional cmo for example. And they've never been a CMO before, but that's their kind of position of that they're choosing to because they maybe feel like it's easier to, to jump in as a, in that capacity rather than as a full time. Like just. I mean, I just heard somebody commenting on this the other day from a CFO point of view saying there's no qualification, you know, in that way. So do you have. Have you seen that or.

Speaker B: I haven't seen that. I mean everybody that I have seen that uh, has ended up in the fractional space are people who've genuinely got experience and you know, a long career in whatever fractional role that they're, you know, that they're undertaking. And I would encourage anybody who's thinking about working with a fractional person to make sure that they've done their homework around their experience. Um, I'm not sure it needs a qualification per se. I think your qualification is the experience that you've already had. That's what makes you a suitable, um, a suitable fractional. I mean clearly there are some roles, particularly in the finance space where you have to be qualified. Absolutely. But um, I would encourage anyone to do their homework. I think for me, fractional, you know, a good senior fractional person in the marketing, in the commercial space, marketing and sales should be able to demonstrate a good strong career in those disciplines. And I don't see any evidence of somebody pretending to be in that space, if I'm honest. No, I haven't seen that.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's good, that's good to hear. I just, I guess it's just, you know, wondering if that could be a, uh, you know, that could be a trend that, you know, and as everything rises there's always a few people that like to take advantage of it. But I think you're absolutely right. You know, if you've got the experience there shouldn't be a problem. And that's always, that's always a place where you, you do your checks.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And really for me, the best fractionals, I mean I would say this, of course I would, but I think the best fractionals are people who think strategically. I would be worried if I saw a rise in people claiming to be fractional strategic thinkers who have been much more execution led in previous roles. I think the benefit of bringing somebody in uh, as a senior fractional person is the fact that they have been in big strategic roles and they're bringing that experience to bear in, in your organization, in your company.

Speaker A: If you were a uh, startup and you were thinking about hiring fractional, why, what would you say to like uh, a founder or a team that were thinking should we go out and make the hire of a full time CRO, CMO head of sales versus bringing in a fractional role? Like what, what's your kind of, what's your advice in that situation?

Speaker B: Uh, so I think probably for a startup, there's very few startups I think start with a really heavyweight CMO right from the outset, unless they're one of the founders, which makes complete sense. But I think once they get past the million mark, they probably start to question what they need to do to get to the next level of growth. Think My advice, as ever, is about finding the right person. So you know, if the right person is a, uh, kind of middleweight marketing manager with good experience in your industry and you think can do a great job for you in the business, that's great. Equally, I probably would advise them to be open minded and possibly look at a combination of a more junior resource with possibly a more senior fractional. Because what I would say is that senior fractionals have been there, they've got the experience, they can often avoid the pitfalls quicker and get a company further faster, albeit they're doing that on a part time fractional basis. So I think the combination of a more junior resource with more senior experience is often the best blend for helping, certainly helping ski lops get to the next level.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we used to talk, I remember being in this position before and I think certainly now my inclination would be like, look at fractional in the first instance so that you can get, you know, you can understand. Like often, you know, in a startup it's kind of you don't understand what you don't, you don't know what you don't know. So often you're hiring somebody and then it's only after it hasn't worked out that you realize that's why it didn't work out or that's why that's how I could have done a better job. And sometimes you just have to go on that journey. But I think the ability to bring fractional in can show you a little bit quicker, sort of almost like a shortcut as to why did it work. Or even if it doesn't work, maybe you've invested a lot less in the process.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's right. And I think the other thing that fractional brings inevitably is because they're more experienced, they've had um, you know, they've had long careers beforehand, they've got good connections as well. So actually they can often introduce you to people that will help further the business or they can just speed up the process of doing another piece of activity just because they know how to and they know who to call in.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Yeah, but I think once you get to a certain scale it then may absolutely make sense to have somebody on a more permanent basis. But again, a good fractional should tell you that, you know, they should be, they should be saying to you, you're now at sufficient scale that actually you should be hiring somebody full time.

Speaker A: How would you, you know, even in people you have, there must be, you must sort of think, will that person Be good for that role, that person be better for that role. Like what, what makes those different? Is it the, is the levels of experience they have? Is it the type of experience, you know, is some, are some people better suited to working with big, bigger companies that want to do brand awareness and have a bigger budget versus small companies are really still struggling to find their niche or their ideal customer? Like how do you do.

Speaker B: You know, it's a really good question. Um, I think it's a mix. So it's a mix of do they have experience in that particular industry or something that can translate well into that, that industry, um, with, with good connections to, you know, to, to inform um, their strategy and help the company can also be the type of company and the role that you're going in to do. So if it's a, you know, if it's a scale up where you've got marketing and sales really closely aligned, then somebody who's been more of a CCO stroke CRO is probably a better bet than um, than. Well actually even then, you know, a good CMO with commercial experience should be able to do that as well. So I, for me it's a mix actually. The overriding thing is chemistry. So I would never ever want to put somebody into a business without checking the chemistry. I think that's the really important bit. You know yourself, even when you go for a uh, you know, if you were going for a full time role, you know, pretty quickly, whether that's your, your tribe, you know, your, your people or not. The same applies in the fractional space. If the chemistry's there and the skill set is clearly there because they've had years of experience, then I think that's the best mix. I also wouldn't rule out putting somebody into an industry that they've had no experience from because actually if they bring lots of experience from other industries, quite often they can challenge uh, the status quo and get a better result for the company. So for me I think it's absolutely about do they have you know, good strong sales and marketing experience and uh, chemistry for that particular outfit? And probably it's the latter that would help me decide who I might speak to a client about.

Speaker A: Wow. And is that uh, is that a process that's then baked in for you guys in the business model? Like do you, do you decide internally or do you put a couple of candidates or not candidates but people in front of the, the team that you're thinking of working with?

Speaker B: No, we, well we normally decide internally because I think we've Got pretty good steer. So, you know, for example, we've got individuals who've got lots of experience in financial services, we've got individuals who've got lots of experience in fitness, um, and we've got individuals who've got lots of experience in food service and hospitality. So you kind of get, you get natural candidates based on their experience. Um, and then it becomes a bit of a judgment call on do we think the chemistry will be right with this person? But I think we, you know, we've been lucky so far in as much as our judgment call's been right. But that's not to say that we wouldn't end up in a scenario where we might put a couple of people in front of a potential client and let them choose.

Speaker A: And have you ever had to, like, jump in and I mean, do you guys, Are you, do you step back once the person's in, or do you never.

Speaker B: No, I absolutely hide myself in client relationships. I've never, I've never stood back completely. I think that's the joy of working across, you know, number of, of companies. So you, you step back to, to a degree because obviously they, you know, you've, they, they've chosen somebody or you've, you've put somebody into, to that role, but absolutely. Sixteen years in agency, I've, I built really strong client relationships. I would absolutely want to make sure that clients were happy.

Speaker A: Um, and if somebody. Are you currently recruiting for any, like, if, if somebody was looking to join Mighty Adams in terms of, uh, like thinking about moving into fractional, are you open or are you kind of, you know, is it. We. Look when you're, when you're, you've got capacity.

Speaker B: Well, it's a mix, you know, is a mix. So, um, you know, we don't employ people who don't come onto our payroll per se. If there are individuals out there who are thinking about going fractional, very happy to have a chat. If they've, you know, if they've got good experience and if they're equally prepared to do a bit of business development themselves, because that's part of the, part of the model, then very happy to have a conversation.

Speaker A: Brilliant. And if somebody is thinking about hiring in the fractional space, what's the process there just to have. Again, is it a conversation?

Speaker B: Oh, bring it, bring it on. Phone me up. Yeah, drop me, drop me a line either via the website, which is mightyatoms.com or send me a message on LinkedIn through private messenger and I'll reply.

Speaker A: And you're specifically focusing on. Like you say, marketing, sales, revenue CRO is another title that you put in.

Speaker B: Yeah. So cto, CRO, cmo, Marketing Director, Sales director. It's very much in the commercial strategy side of things. Yeah. Helping businesses from, you know, either if they've already got a business plan, helping them to actually come up with the marketing and sales strategies to execute against that business plan, or if the business plan is in their head, helping them first to decant that business plan and then to create the strategies that line up with it.

Speaker A: Karen, it's been great chatting to you and we'll drop your details in the links and yeah. Ah, thanks for. Thanks for joining us. Stay tuned for the next episode coming soon.

Speaker B: Brilliant. Thank you.

Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the new F Word. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, expert financial advice shouldn't be limited to those with just big budgets. You can access the same level of advice for a fraction of the costs thanks to this fractional revolution. I believe that every growing business needs to know how much a game changer this can be. So if you loved the episode, please consider subscribing to the show. It'll help us keep doing what we're passionate about. And feel free to share this episode with others who might find it useful. Finally, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn. See you in the next one.