Insight into Fractionals United

Throughout my professional life, I learned that by asking questions (especially the right ones) one can learn a lot. This article is what I hope is the first of a series of interviews I plan to do, focusing on interesting people doing interesting things.

This one is focused on Karina Mikhli who is the founder of the rapidly growing Fractional United community. In less than 10 months, its reached close to 5,000 members.

After joining the Fractional United community, I was quickly impressed by Karina's visionary leadership, the value this new group provides, and how skillfully it is managed under her direction.

Karina is a fractional COO who optimizes workflows and leverages her CEO experience.

As a Fractional COO (focusing on professional services, community, and SaaS and Workflow consulting) she excels at optimizing systems and focusing teams and loves to help companies run efficiently and scale smartly.

As the Founder of Fractionals United, she has built a community for all current and aspiring fractional leaders to connect, collaborate, and learn from each other.

You can find out more about her on her LinkedIn page. https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/karinamikhli/

Karina, the first question I have is what inspired you to create Fractionals United?

I had been doing fractional work for years before it had a name, went full-time with one of my fractional clients, and came back to fractional work at the beginning of 2023. But the fractional landscape had changed a lot in the 2 years since I last looked for fractional work: on the one hand it was more popular and therefore being discussed, written about, and way more leaders were considering or going fractional; on the other hand, it felt a lot lonelier and harder.

When I realized this, I started looking for my “tribe” since I didn’t want to do it alone or figure it out all by my lonesome. I made this realization on Saturday, January 7th, madly Googled that evening for such a community, and when I couldn’t find it, decided to build it myself, not knowing if there would or would not be interest. Given how quickly we’ve grown, I’d say there was plenty of interest and I wasn’t the only one looking for such a community.

What would you say are the biggest challenges that fractional leaders face?

The biggest current challenge for fractional leaders is finding the work, and the reason for that is that only a tiny fraction of the companies (SMBs, startups, and scaleups) that could benefit from hiring a fractional know that it’s an option.

We’re trying to spread awareness, as are other fractional community leaders, but change takes time and until there is a wider understanding and awareness, the only way to find the work is to network your way into opportunities or to convince someone that fractional is what they need and to hire you in that capacity.

So, how does Fractionals United help fractional leaders overcome these challenges?

We’re actually not helping that challenge directly. We’re a community first, so we cannot guarantee leads but members do share opportunities, and we occasionally get people posting them directly to us. But what helps more is that fractionals can connect with those adjacent to what they do, either functionally or industry-wise, and create their own referral networks.

What are the top benefits of being a part of the Fractionals United community?

The main benefit (besides that it’s free) is that it’s a large, engaged community of current and aspiring fractionals to connect with, collaborate, and learn from. For those new to being fractional, or fractionally curious, it’s a great way to learn the ins and outs and pros and cons. For those doing the work, it’s a great way to expand your network and find your tribe—which is so important in this new age of work!

And then there are the events, resources, and other benefits and partners, of course.

Is there an accomplishment of that the group is most proud of?

We’ve had several members who have shared wins and learns, and many of the wins are directly thanks to members they met in the community.

I’m also proud that we’ve reached 4800 members in 9.5 months.

If someone were considering being a Fractional Leader what is the best advice you could give?

I actually wrote a blog post on the things those considering fractional should consider, but in brief, know you need savings to tide you over, you’ll need to handle your taxes and other logistics you didn’t have to as a W2, and you’ll always have to network plus juggle a lot more. It’s worth it for most, but don’t go into it blind or with rose-colored glasses.

How do you see the fractional employment trend evolving in the future?

I believe that this will continue to grow and at some point, in the future, this will be the default for SMBs, startups, and scaleups, as well as for most leaders at a certain point in their career—because it makes so much sense. Not sure when this inflection point will happen, but it’s coming.

What are the biggest misconceptions about fractional leadership?

Too many still do not understand the differences between fractionals, consultants, and interim employees. They say a picture (or graph) is worth a thousand words, so I’ll share the one that’s on our site and that I refer people to.

Karina, thanks for your time!

For those interested in learning more about Fractionals United, where can they find additional information?

“My pleasure and they can go to https://www.fractionalsunited.com/ to learn more.”