How do I become a Fractional Leader?

More and more people are changing their LinkedIn headline to include the word "Fractional" and those of us who have been operating in the space are getting the same questions.... what's the deal with this title? How did you get started? How do I transition from <full time employee, consultant, advisor, virtual leader> to Fractional?

To scale some of the coffee chats that I know many of us are having I'm going to share below the steps I tend to suggest when someone is "fractional curious" and looking for advice.

If you're an experienced Fractional, share this around and add your own steps in the comments!

? I want to become a Fractional Leader... how do I go about It?

Step 1. Figure out your Niche

The word "domain expertise" comes up a lot when you read about Fractional executives. This is the area of a business that you are you an expert and experienced leader in. If you've led cross-functionally, consider keeping it simple to start, and put yourself in one of the major categories: Fractional marketing, operations, sales/revenue, finance, legal, engineering/technology, people/HR Leader. (Or: Fractional CEO or GM if you're an ex-Founder, GM or CEO.)

Remember: the closer you fit into a major business category, the easier it often is for businesses to understand and hand over their organisational strategy to you.

If you're not a generalist, do choose a sub-category (ex: Fractional: revenue operations, devops, or recruiting leader) but only if you truly prefer to work as a specialist, and are okay with potentially reporting into the generalist role as a company grows and scales.

?? Questions to ask yourself:

• Am I happiest reporting into a generalist or a specialist function? (If generalist: this tends to be the "Fractional Executive" rather than "Fractional Leader" title)
• What stage of company do I feel like I can impact the best? (Consider: early stage start-up, scaling start-ups, small to medium businesses, established enterprises)
• What industry, or industries do I have the strongest domain expertise in?

^^ All of this determines your "market positioning" - how you talk about yourself to potential clients, how you filter in and out companies that might be right for you to work with

Step 2: Choose your Hat(s)

Just because you want to take on a Fractional client or operate Fractionally doesn't mean it has to be your only gig. I wrote an article about the various non-FTE hats HERE and Zac King wrote an article about "Fractional moonlighters" and some of the nuanced ways you can be Fractional HERE.

The key decision with Fractional, is do you want to operate in a model where your client capacity is limited?

The majority of us who operate Fractionally do so in 2-3 clients max in a week - call it 1-3 days per week at each client. If you are a consultant, advisor or virtual leader, you could have half a dozen or more clients running at the same time - especially if you are sub-contracting operational work. Fractional Leadership doesn't scale in the same way, as the expectation is that you are the de-facto leader for the client, and you're engaged in the business at more depth.

?? Questions to ask yourself:

• If I take a Fractional gig, do I want that to be my primary focus? And if so, what does "full time" mean to me? (Ex: fCMO or fSales Leader at a company, 3-4 days per week on a retainer?)
• How many Fractional gigs do I have capacity for to work within my ideal cadence? (Ex: 2 clients x 2 days per week, 3 clients x 1 day per week etc.) < This takes experimentation before you figure out your own sweet spot, and also is influenced by the needs of your potential clients.
• If I still want to do consulting or advisory, how will I time box my Fractional work to make sure it doesn't overflow? (ex: I personally dedicate specific days a week for my Fractional clients, and specific days for consulting projects and advisory work to keep them separate)

Step 3: Find your Tribe

There is a flourishing community of Fractional and Fractional-curious across the globe, and I can personally vouch for Fractionals United The Fractional Exec Community and Wizly as three hubs I've seen attract the largest groups of Fractional people/community. (Though I know there are many more popping up regionally, so link yourselves in the comments!)

If you're new to Fractional or still considering it as a career path, it's great to join these groups to join the meetups, read the message boards and conversations people are having within each region / domain and to ask questions of more experienced fractional leaders. I can't say enough about how open, caring and collaborative most of the Fractional Leaders I've met through these communities are... you really figure out more about yourself by bouncing your skillset off of other people in your "work tribe"!

Step 4: Formalise your engagement model

Once you've done your thinking about who you are, your niche, and then bounced your ideas off of your peers in the community, it's important to define a clear engagement model for yourself so you can translate your skillset to the CEOs and Founders who you'd like to be hired by.

??An engagement model means the following:

• How many days per week/month (if you're on retainer) are you available to a client, within your capacity
• What title and scope makes sense for you to go by within a company, as their fractional leader (write a short paragraph describing your title, skillset and scope and have that ready to share when people ask!)
• Do you charge on a day rate or retainer, and what specifically is that range if someone hired you? (Decide, and if you want to know some of the going rates here in NZ as a baseline - check out our directory at fractional.co.nz )
• What contractual process do you use - do you have an SOW? A standard work agreement? There is great dialogue in the communities I mentioned above around best practices in this area
• Do you have your own company set up with a business name someone can hire you under, or are you going to operate as a sole trader / proprietor? (Or equivalent for your market?)
• Do you need to build a website or any marketing for yourself, or will you operate entirely through your network to find clients?

Step 5: "Date" some CEOs and Co-founders

This is the most important step of the process and the hardest... is building relationships with the leaders who are going to trust you as their Fractional.

Just like getting hired for a full-time job, it's critical you align to the company's values, strategy and executive leadership to be effective as a Fractional - especially since your scope and capacity are always going to be limited to a FTE and they need to truly be ready to operate in this model to set you up for success.

??Questions to ask yourself to find the right company(ies):

• What are my values as a leader? (Plug again for fractional.co.nz directory to see what some of our leaders have chosen)
• What qualities am I looking for in a Leader that I am running a strategy for? (Think: experience, operational style, communication style, etc.)
• What stage company do I want to be operating within (REALLY important to nail this down as it's more challenging to market yourself as a generalist here. Ex: early stage start-ups need a very different leadership skillset than often more change averse enterprises)
• Why does my specific skillset allow me to be switched out for a FTE and still produce the same value to a company? << This is KEY! It's what everyone is thinking. Practice this, be ready to have a compelling pitch.

Step 6: Secure your first client - and you're in!

If you truly follow all the steps above, I'm inclined to think you'll filter your way into some good people. At least that's how it's happened for me... working with people like Chris Simmons , Heidi H. David Inggs Evo Leota-Tupou (+team) in Fractional capacities have all come about through the process I described.

So good luck - and please do share your own advice here in the comments, so we better scale this knowledge!