The Future of Marketing is Fractional

Bold statement, I know. I mean, no one can predict the future, right?

I don't have a crystal ball. What I do have is an eye for patterns.

And in today's day and age, we're facing a bunch of BIG problems. Or as my friends over at the Strategic Doing Institute call them, "wicked problems".

Problems we've never experienced before.

Problems we don't have solutions to today.

Problems that take a bunch of small solutions to solve.

And those "bunch of small solutions"? They can be found TODAY in individual people, individual companies, and individual organizations.

The secret is in brining those resources - those INDIVIDUAL resources - together, and igniting them to bring shared valued to the world.

But those people, companies and organizations AREN'T connected today. And no one else is going to wander around your industry creating those connections for you.

There are people who are CATALYSTS for this connection.

And these catalysts are the key to making this work.

Catalysts in Marketing

So what does a Catalyst look like when it comes to marketing? There are a couple of things Catalysts are good at doing:

1. Identifying necessary ecosystem resources,
2. FINDING necessary ecosystem resources,
3. Creating a common narrative, and
4. Bringing people together

Notice how there isn't anything in there about a specific marketing SKILL. Nothing about graphic design, or video editing, or knowledge about digital ads.

Not that those resources aren't necessary for the ecosystem to work.

They just aren't the job of the Catalyst ??

Now, wouldn't you rather have an expert Catalyst, an expert graphic designer, an expert video editor AND an expert digital advertiser all working TOGETHER to move your brand forward? I mean, that seems like you get a LOT more value than having a single full-time person who can "kind of" do all of those things.

The Costs of Fractional

There's probably a few of you who read the paragraph above and thought, "I can't afford full time experts for all these things! That's out of the question."

And you'd be correct. Because hiring all those people on a full time basis would be crazy. And also unnecessary.

But the power in fractional is that you DON'T have to have all those people full time. They just need to come in and do what they do best...aligned towards a common goal.

Which means, you could actually end up spending LESS to get ALL those resources...

IF, if course, you can get them all aligned.

Igniting Fractional Resources Towards A Shared Goal

When I originally wrote that title, I used the phrase "common goal". But I changed it for one important reason.

Just because something is COMMON, doesn't make it SHARED ??

When it comes to igniting ANY resources, including fractional ones, it's SUPER important to find ways to ensure that there is a SHARE that happens when the team achieves success.

I come back to your Catalyst here.

This is NOT the easiest thing to accomplish. Nor is it "common" for people to have this skill set.

This is a specialty. A specialty that, to be honest, I haven't seen on ANY senior marketing job posting (that I've seen).

If the goal can only be accomplished by aligning the resources, then you need someone who has a track record of aligning resources. AND achieving goals.

Do you have one of those?

If not, this is a great place to look from a fractional perspective ??

The Death Of The In-House Marketing Team (for small business)

If you're the size of Coca Cola, or Apple, or Disney, then YEAH, you have enough things that need to be done on a day-to-day basis WITHIN a specialty for you to have an in-house marketing team. And YES, I believe that brand building activities always make sense to be driven by the internal team.

But that DOESN'T mean it's a "Marketing Team" (by today's standard definition).

It's The Team. The Company (as a whole). The Business. The Vision.

Business success is dictated by more than one team.

It's a group effort.

And it creates the MOST success when the RIGHT people are in the ecosystem...for what THEY need to do, for the amount of time THEY need to accomplish it.

It's not dictated by strict corporate structures that tell us, "we need to hire full-time people so they can focus on JUST US".

That mindset is hindering you from reaching YOUR greatest potential.

So, if your strict corporate "roles" haven't delivered to you the results you're looking...maybe, just maybe the "roles" are the problem, and if they were re-defined in terms of what's needed to reach the goal, then there's a LOT more opportunity for you to ACTUALLY move towards success.

If you're looking for a Catalyst to come and ignite your Marketing Team, we should probably chat .