Fractional Executives: A New Engagement Model with Nancy Fox

Speaker A: The Virtual CMO podcast is sponsored by the Strategic Marketing Advisory Services of the five Echelon Group. If you'd like to work directly with the five echelon Group and discuss how fractional CMO services can help optimize your business, enhance marketing effectiveness, and grow revenue, visit 5echelon.com. That's F I V E E C H e l o n.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation.

Speaker B: Today.

Speaker A: I'm excited to have guest Nancy Fox on the program. Nancy is the co founder of Fractional Connections, an association of fractional executives and SMB owners who come together to share opportunities and insights as a network builder. She has also authored the book Network Like a Fox. Love the name Nancy. Welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Oh, uh, thank you for having me, Eric. I'm so excited to be with you.

Speaker A: I, I'm excited to have you here because I love what you're doing in this space and I'm really interested to dive into some additional details, but the introduction I gave was short. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to co found Fractional Connections.

Speaker B: Um, it wasn't a straight path, I'll tell you that.

Speaker A: It never is.

Speaker B: I'll tell you. A lot of, um, uh, fractional marketers came through the marketing leadership pathway that really, it really wasn't exactly my pathway. I'm a former corporate executive and I came out of the women's underwear business. I was in women's underwear for a long time. I was product development and, uh, marketing, but more on the product development and design side. And so I was in charge of getting, conceiving, strategizing and getting products into stores. So interestingly enough, um, when I left the industry and left corporate life, which many, many people are doing now, yep, it was my choice, but it wasn't my choice. I had been thinking about it and wanting to do it for about four years, but at that time, people weren't jumping ship. They weren't escaping the corporate jungle. It wasn't really done. People didn't start businesses back then, but I knew I didn't want to work for anybody anymore. And that was really a challenge. So I started doing a lot of executive coaching and training. And I was astonished because I didn't realize how much about business I knew generally. I thought I only knew underwear, but it wasn't true. It wasn't true. And I found out that business is business. And, uh, I quickly developed, uh, uh, a cadre of clients in pharmaceuticals, in telecom. I think my first client was Verizon. And, uh, you know, uh, and the city of New York, real estate, uh, Detroit industry, all these different industries. Really fascinating. And then, um, I started doing a lot of work with professional services, law and accounting firms. And that became a very consistent niche. I was teaching them business development, and eventually I became a fractional chief business development officer. And I was training all of these accountants and lawyers how to network, how to attract clients, how to land clients, how to talk to clients, how to build, built, you know, build their businesses. And, um, I loved it. It was so much fun. But as, you know, things, you know, business goes in cycles and in professional services, when it's almost like, you know, there was this big swing where they needed, you know, rainmakers. So they, what, they invested a lot in that, and then all of a sudden they had so much business, but, uh, they couldn't get talent. So then it swung to recruiting. And when I started to watch what was going on with that, and then the pandemic emerged. I sort of took a step back to see what new trends were emerging. And I noticed in my own networking, in my own interactions with business people and leaders, that this, um, trend was starting around fractional leadership. And I said, what's this fractional thing? And I didn't realize that I was a practical. Just didn't have the name for it. We used to call this part time. We used to call this outsourced. But what's different now is that, uh, leaders at very high levels, C suite, E suite levels, um, are choosing not to go back into getting another job. They're leaving by their own choice. They are, um, wanting more variety, more freedom, more autonomy. Ah. And while money is important to them, it's not number one on the list anymore. It used to be. They really want more time, you know, to, uh, they want more variety in their challenges, that they want to be able to contribute without being in a box. And I think a lot of leaders have so much to bring to the table that they felt stifled, they felt squashed, and it was intolerable to them. And so this. The Wall Street Journal did a very interesting article. They talked about the, uh, rise of the white collar gig economy. And when I started to see that happening, I got very intrigued and I started interviewing hundreds of fractional executives. I started reading, uh, there was, there were a couple of books out on it. Uh, very few, very, you know, they're really, I think, um, Ben Wolf wrote a book called Fractional Leadership, uh, aimed at the business owner. But I was intrigued by what was going on with fractional executives themselves. So fast forward, as a networking ninja and as somebody who loves to put people together, um, I, my colleague Angela Finlay and I started to work on putting the networking endeavor together. And we started inviting business owners to meet up with fractional executives. And it's taken off. The thing that's so incredible about when you, when you have um, conversations and network with people, if you really listen, it's like the best market research in the world, isn't it? Like you're just really listening to what's really on their plate, what's really bothering them, what are they worried about, what do they want? What are they hungering for? What are they willing to pay for? What are they not willing to pay for? And we started to realize that while they were, they want clients, of course, um, everybody wants to have more clients. But as soon as you start to get clients, you don't have any time to market anymore. And it becomes this roller coaster of, you know, feast or famine. You get clients, then you have, then you have to start from scratch and start networking again and start, you know, prospecting it. So it went like this. And so we decided to put together a complete curriculum for fractional executives for how to build a real business out of this. And we call it the Fractional Operating System. And so now we're putting together an entire training, uh, and curriculum for them, supporting what they already have going, but really helping them to build a thriving, um, look, how to launch, grow and scale a fractional business. But we're also the other part of the other side of the equation. And I want everybody to hear this. Like, I know how the struggle is that SMBs, small to medium sized business owners, they need talent, but they don't know the fractional talent at this caliber is really available to them. Not across the board, it's little bits here and there, right. So we want to show them through workforce planning where their skill gaps are and how fractionals can fill them beautifully and perfectly and cost effectively.

Speaker A: You've mentioned a couple of things here. I want to drill down into a little bit more because I've certainly seen it, I'm certainly on this path myself. But there are a lot of people, whether they're part of the great resignation or they just have decided that their time in the corporate world is up and you know, they want to focus on a different way of working, helping different kinds of businesses. And so it seems like from that half of the equation it's pretty clear, right? There's been a lot of opportunity for people to Go out, become solopreneurs or join a small consulting partnership and offer these kinds of fractional services to small businesses. But I think what you've articulated and is so important is a lot of businesses don't really know what to look for. They're not necessarily looking for somebody that's a uh, fractional chief revenue officer or fractional chief marketing officer or whatever title it is. They know they maybe need some help, but they're used to that help coming in the form of just sort of a complete outsourcing to a consulting practice. Right. Or to a full time hire. So it's interesting to me what you're doing in terms of your training development to really helping those companies understand that there is another option. And that option is fractional executives coming in.

Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And here's the other thing that when they hear about fra, when business owners hear about fractional leadership, um, they're hearing about it from their friends. And because their friends have done it, sort of seat of the pants, not really knowing exactly how to onboard the right people, how to even select the right people. Sometimes the results are great, sometimes the results are okay and sometimes they're not good. So you know, we're presenting an entire webinar and a training to small business owner groups, uh, like EO and Vistage, and sharing with them the uh, the advantages around fractional leadership and the pitfalls to avoid and why they're m. You know, and so then we have can have a conversation with them to look a little deeper and how it would really apply to their business. One of the companies that we spoke with uh, is uh, fascinating. Their core business has been going like this and they started to watch this, the trend happening. So as this business was going down they bought another company and they started a new division to sort of balance that. But now they want to have fractional leadership in there to help them grow those two new areas of their business. They have an idea about whether I need a CRO, I need a cso, I need a COO or a cfo, what do I need first? And they really need to have some direction about which ones to bring in first, second, third and so on. Um, and you're right, you know, the knee jerk reaction is to do a full time hire or nobody, you know, and that's not good solution. So we have choices to take. But here's the beautiful thing. This is no longer just taking a body to put into a company that like do the work. These are incredibly talented, highly skilled, highly great uh, expertise, uh, top Notch people at the highest levels eager and willing to provide their expertise to growing companies. So it's really cool.

Speaker A: It's interesting too when you were talking about how you present this training and going to networking groups that already exist. So even that implies that people aren't necessarily knocking on the door saying explain to me what this whole fractional model is about. You sort of have to put it in front of them to help them understand uh, the capabilities of it. I know that when I see jobs posted on LinkedIn or other places many times I look at those and I say this is a perfect opportunity for somebody to come in on a fractional basis. Does this size company really need a full time person to do this? Knowing that they're probably going to have to outsource some of that work anyway because they don't have enough talent internally to uh, execute the tactics that they might want to do, but they just don't know to ask for it.

Speaker B: It's, they don't know what they don't know.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And our, our, our mission, we have two, a uh, twofold mission. One, we want to help fractional um, executives who have, remember these are executives who have not been in their own business ever. It's like I, like me, I, I didn't, I, I had sought out help. I uh, knew I needed help. But a lot of times they don't know that they need this kind of training. They, they think that they're going to go into a firm that's going to give that, match them with assignments and then they won't have to worry about that because enough and that'll be it and it's not the way it goes because uh, even the matching companies, the recruiting ish companies that are doing this for fractional, they can't always guarantee that you're going to get assignments because they have a lot of fractionals to serve. So um, we want to support both sides of the equation. We want to support the business owners to really learn how fractional leadership is like it's the answer to their, you know, to their big pain, biggest pain point which is, you know, because after all when you bring a full time employee on it's not just you know, the salary, it's the entire package. It's the investment in recruiting and to, if they leave, you know, the cost is immense. So it's a big, it's a big undertaking and it's a huge cost situation. So we see the equation on both sides as being, the timing is essential. Now this is where the just at the tip of the iceberg. So it's very exciting when I talk to these folks, they're so smart and they're so motivated and they have so much to bring to the market and so many ideas and skill sets. You know, because we're not, we're, we are skill, uh, agnostic. We work with fractional CSOs, sales officers, CFOs, GCs, we work with marketing people. We work with all different, you know, HR people. We work with all of them. Um, so it's not really about what your skill area is. It is really about, you know, how are you positioning yourself in the market.

Speaker A: And I think that's one of the real benefits to many of these small businesses is you're getting a seasoned professional who has years of experience and has worked with some of the best names out there in the industry and now can apply some of that knowledge to a business that candidly probably couldn't afford them on a full time basis. Uh, so you're really getting that up leveled skill and at a fraction of the cost. One of the challenges that I think we have and being a marketer, this is very apparent to me, is that many small businesses would never hire these C level titles. Right? That's just not something that exists. It's mostly a Fortune 500 kind of, uh, a titling. But it's really meant to represent a concept of leadership of a certain role within the business. But it does present challenges because a small business who maybe just has a founder and a dozen people working is probably not hiring a cfo, a cmo, a coo. So that's just not in their repertoire.

Speaker B: It isn't. And they don't know. That's the thing. They don't, you know, uh, I. And by the way, it's not only just super startups, you know, that are thinking like this. I had, I worked with a 40 million, $43 million company. It was okay. I, when I saw this, I went, I almost couldn't believe it. That company didn't have an HR department. And that part, the company didn't have, uh, a CFO or even a controller. And the owner of the company said, uh, I asked him, I had a whole strategy, was working with him and the entire team and I said, okay, let's work on your numbers. Every single week we're gonna have a weekly. He goes, I hate working with numbers. I hate, I just leave that to the accountants. He just like the sales part. And that's what entrepreneurs are really like. They focus on the stuff that they're, they focus on primarily two things. They focus on sales and they focus on sales. That's what they focus on. They were like focused on. And then they're put out fires. You know, they just really love. I want, I want more business, I want more orders, I want more clients. I want, you know, that's what they really. Because they're focused on revenue because that's what's going to keep the company surviving. But you have to really, you know, you have to start looking, you have to build a company for not just today but, you know, tomorrow. And, and they don't know exactly when they're supposed to start looking at tomorrow. And you're supposed to start looking at tomorrow, today. But you need to have. That's why I said it. Even startup companies, it's not too early to have a workforce planning session. Let's show you how to plan your workforce. So you're not going to hire, you know, maybe you're not going to hire your full time person today, maybe not even in six months. But let's discuss what fractionals you need and when you should bring them in and how they should work together with you and what you should, how you, how to onboard them, how to get them to work with your people. So it's so many different things to learn. How do you put. And uh, you know, business owners are so distracted, they only, they're so busy trying to put out all the fires that how do they work with a fractional executive? The fractional needs their attention in order to get his or her work done. How do you do that? All these different questions and issues. And that's why, you know, we love to have these um, strategic uh, sessions with people because it makes a real difference to, to accelerate the results, to avoid the pitfalls and accelerate the results. That's what we're there for.

Speaker A: Well, I like the way you look at both sides of the equation too, because you talked about this earlier. Many people who are coming in to do this role have been used to working in that corporate environment where they've got uh, their business plan for the year. They sort of know what their marching orders are. They don't worry about lead flow for themselves or anything like that. And what I've noticed is that many people who enter this space, their first couple of clients may be their previous employer or maybe some people that they had very strong relationships with when they were still in the corporate world. And so everybody kind of starts out with a bang, right, because they've got these relationships. They get Those early clients. But it's the second and the third and the fourth client that are a little bit more challenging because then you're having to do your own marketing. You're having to generate your own leads, you're having to bring people in from a network that's now growing a little bit more distant from when you were in the corporate world. Do you see that as well?

Speaker B: Absolutely. It's incredible. You're absolutely right. And, you know, it's like, as I'm saying, you know, at first, um, a fractional will get your first. That's what that. In your launch phase, your whole main thing is, I've got to get clients. I got to get clients. I gotta get clients. How do you grow? How do you grow up? Because they stop after. Oh, okay. Because they're only thinking in terms of one or two steps in front of their, you know, right in front of them. They're not looking at, you know, month, 6, 7, 8, 9. And so there isn't a real plan for how to keep that going. And secondarily, they really leave a lot of chips on the table because they're not, they're not distinguishing themselves. They're not positioning themselves with any unique value propositions. They're calling themselves a fractional sales officer, a fractional marketing officer, without really, you know, uh, niching their business or distinguishing it. And so they become part of the pack. And that's not even in their. There's not even in there. You know, forget the rear view mirror. It's not even in their front mirror. You know, they're not even looking at that. So. So we help them. That's a huge thing. I can't tell you how many fractionals. I look at their LinkedIn profiles, I have conversations with them, and the things they say about what they do and who they do it for are so formulaic and so common. There's no distinction. So people would never. I had a client who had a specialization, um, in, uh, in particular kinds of companies in a particular niche, um, market, you know, in food and beverage. And it was nowhere to be seen on his profile. No, but nobody would know. He was like a master at it. He turned a lot of companies around in food and beverage. And nobody knew why, because he, it was nowhere to be seen. He was marketing, a general. I'm, uh, a fractional marketing officer. I'm a fractional sales officer. I'm a fractional, you know, cfo. Uh, there's no distinction.

Speaker A: Hey, it's Eric here, and we'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to grow, scale and take your marketing to the next level? If so, the 5Echelon Groups virtual CMO consulting service may be a great fit for you. We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution step by step. We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads, how to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers, how to strategically package and position your products and services, how to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business. To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule, uh, a consultation, go to 5echelon.com and click on Services. Now back to the podcast. Well, one of the things that you mentioned earlier too, that I think is interesting, and I see this is the future as well, is for certain size businesses, there are multiple slots that could be filled by fractional executives.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And I think once you're sort of working in this space or once you've accepted that this is a strong value proposition, you may say, well, I need a chief, uh, revenue officer to come in and fix some problems on our revenue side. And that person may come in and say, okay, well, as part of that we need some marketing support. So let's bring in a fractional chief marketing officer. And all of a sudden you could find two or three or more maybe roles being filled by these fractional executives. Because one of the things is these aren't necessarily meant to be permanent roles. Right. Sometimes it's just getting the business to a point where maybe a full time hire makes sense. Or you could bring in somebody that's a little bit more junior or less experienced. But I see this happening a lot and that's one of the things that really made me intrigued with fractional connections. And the whole idea of networking is because when you bring people together who serve different roles potentially within the same company, that's a great opportunity for people to collaborate and to look for opportunities to work together. Was that part of the thinking behind it?

Speaker B: Well, you know, I'm going to be really honest with you. It wasn't my idea. But as, again, as the intel that we get from you guys is fascinating, you started to share with us that you wanted to go in in pods of people. And um, that is something that we are in talks with people about right now. And how do we, how do we create this initiative where there are going to be pods of, um, talent, pods of fractional talent going into companies as they are growing and evolving? It's definitely in our plan. Um, and that's where I think, also to your point, Eric, the network is really so powerful because, um, without it, you know, we can get so much more done together than we can individually. And so I have found that the entire market of that's aiming at, uh, fractional executives, leadership talent. We're collaborating, we're not finding that. We're uh, you know, we're not looking at our, and our approach as competitive. We're really looking to collaborate with each other and to add different pieces to the pie. Our sweet spot, our superpower, is educating and training and developing, um, talent on both sides. We have regularly connected opportunities with fractional executives. It's just not in our monetization structure. It's not in our business model. We don't get paid to do that. Um, it's just what we like to do. But there are firms who do an outstanding job of that, bringing the right people with the right assignments. And that's great. There's a need for that. But we, we just focus on professional and business development. That is our superpower. That's our sweet spot.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it would be helpful for the audience to understand a little bit more about what fractional connections is. So it's, it's a LinkedIn group, but then you also do, uh, speed networking, uh, meetups and uh, you're regularly sharing information, doing webinars, talk a little bit about sort of what the structure is of fractional connections and why that may be of to people listening.

Speaker B: Um, it's so funny. Uh, I want to tell you guys just in all transparency, um, we've gone full circle. When we first started, we thought it would be a training company. Um, we always knew that networking was going to be a very, very big part of the equation. I'm just very passionate about it and I know how much opportunity gets, you know, comes out of it. And I also am just personally enjoy it so much. I love connecting people. So we knew that networking was going to be a big part of the, um, rollout for us and to get known in the market that there is this thing that you can be part of and join us in this. And so we created, um, the fractional connections virtual speed networking. We do it once a month. We're not charging you for it. And what's great about it is we break fractional executives together. We do have business owners and investors who come too. It's only an hour. We get a lot done in an hour. We've enjoyed it a lot. People have been loving it. We get a lot of we get probably, I don't know, 60 people every time. Something like that. You don't have to be a member. And it opens up the dialogue for us with so many more people. And then on the uh, on the other side of the equation, we've also created a LinkedIn group, private group for fractionals. It's called the Fractional Connections Group. We're also doing, we'll do some webinars as well. I've done a lot of trainings on um, different topics like how to build a pipeline, how to build a floating pipeline that's free webinar. We've done one on how to do VIP strategy days as a really great revenue generator for your fractional business. It's an add on to your business that is not only excellent for your clients because they get a lot done in one day, but it's very lucrative for you and it's a great opportunity. So we've done a lot of trends just. And I'm doing, every Monday I'm doing LinkedIn lives for everybody. So, um, jump on for 15 or 20 minutes and give you some tips. So we have a lot, you know, we have a lot to offer. Uh, we're also doing, and I mentioned this before, we're doing um, work, ah, workforce planning sessions with SMB. So if you have a colleague, you know, or a possible uh, prospect that you would love to have them see more about what fractional opportunities, um, are available. We love to deliver the, you know, the lunch and learn to them. We've been doing lunch and learns and it's free, so they get to learn. And it really supports your effort to um, gain visibility, credibility, encourage your potential clients to see fractional leaderships as a benefit to them. So without pitching them right, that's our aim.

Speaker A: No, I love that. And clearly networking has transformed your business. It is sort of your superpower. Right?

Speaker B: Well, you know, I have to say one little other thing. I know I've shared a lot with you guys, but I will say one thing if I could tell you that there is one, um, nugget, one hug, uh, that made such a difference and that was LinkedIn. And um, using LinkedIn with the right messaging, with the right consistency, with the right hashtagging and with the right profile structure and presentation, it transformed. We were able to uh, in two months we were able to generate a very huge following. That's pretty, we doubled our followers in, you know, two months. So. And I. It's doable. Not, it's, we're not just, you know, we're not special. It's you guys too. So you need to use LinkedIn differently. So we've added. We're just about to post this on our website. We're going to be adding LinkedIn profile renovations for Fractionals. So, um, because they're leaving a lot of chips on the table, some people want to, they want to redo their own, uh, profiles. That's great. But if you don't want to do it yourself, we will do it for you. We'll even do. We have services for posting, uh, for, you know, for fractionals, because we know that there's land. Special needs. So we're doing some different services for people to help grow their businesses faster, get the traction that they want. Um, and feel that, you know, because it, it takes a lot, you know, where do you, what do you do first? Right. Yes, it's so much. So we, that's why we've set up an entire structure and a sequence and a curriculum so you can follow along. It takes a lot, we know, but we want to be there to help you along the way.

Speaker A: Well, I love your enthusiasm. You know, we've been connected, I think, for a couple of months now. And the quality of content that you're putting out there, I think is fantastic. It's serving kind of this unique, a niche of the, uh, the fractional marketplace. Like I said, so much of the content that you make available is for free. There are great networking opportunities and we've covered a lot of things here. And so as we kind of bring the podcast to a close, if you would just repeat sort of where people can find you and your business and some of the training opportunities that you've talked about, as well as where they can find some of these great resources on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Okay, great. So first of all, thank you everybody for, you know, just bearing with me. I know I shared an awful lot. So the first thing is if you, uh, would like to come to our complimentary, uh, virtual networking, um, it's every month and you would go to, uh, Fractionals AI forward slash networking and just sign up. It's very easy and it's free. And then, um, if you are a fractional and you would like to join our complimentary LinkedIn group, um, you would go to LinkedIn.comgroups forward/fractional connections, group. And each of those words, fractional connections and group is capitalized. But if you do a search, you'll find us. Um, and then also if you would like to go to Fractionals AI on our website, we have a free webinar that you can. That you can go to, um, on pipeline building. Uh, and we have other resources. We have the IP day, uh, the IP day information. If you want to be, uh, if you would like a VIP day for your business, we could talk about that. But if you want to learn how to do VIP days with your clients, we would love to show you how to do that. If you want to get more information about having your LinkedIn profile match your unique value proposition, definitely reach out to us. We're going to be happy to share about that as well. And you can reach me at NASI Fractionals. AI. I know a lot of links, right?

Speaker A: Lot of links. We'll make sure we put all that in the show notes so that people can find them. But you know, Nancy, I really do appreciate all you're doing for the community. There are some great resources here, some great networking opportunities, and some great training that you're putting together as well. Thank you for your time here today. This has been a great conversation.

Speaker B: Well, Eric, I wanted to say I've listened to a lot of podcasts and shows on Fractionals. I think what you're doing is just so superior. I think the quality is evident. And I really want to thank you for having me and your listeners, not just one little nugget out of today. It'll make my day. Thank you, Eric, for having me.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Virtual CMO podcast. For more episodes, go to 5echelon.com podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice. And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit 5echelon.com to learn from more about our virtual CMO consulting services.