The Fractional Interview Series - Christina Garnett, Fractional Chief Customer Officer

I’m excited to introduce a new short-form interview series featuring the most successful fractional leaders. Through these conversations, the goal is for all of us to better understand what fractional work looks like when done exceptionally well.

They’re bite-sized recordings, around 5 minutes long. Rapid fire Q&A style.

Christina Garnett is a Fractional Chief Customer Officer - a fantastic use case for fractional work. How many companies have the need or budget for a full-time CCO? Exceptionally few. But Christina’s been doing this for a year already with around ~5 clients at a time.

It’s also safe to say she’s one of the most well-known fractional leaders on Twitter & Linkedin. I’m very thankful she was willing to give us a peek into what her work looks like.

‍

I asked her questions like:

1. How did you get your first client?
2. Hourly rate or monthly retainer?
3. What do you say when a client is asking for more than they’re paying you for?

‍

Watch on Linkedin >>>>

‍Watch on Twitter >>>>

‍

The Interview

Taylor: How long have you been doing fractional leadership work for? 

Christina: I left HubSpot at the end of last year 2023, so I have been doing it for all of 2024. 

‍

Taylor: How did you land your first client?

Christina: Through my network. I announced that I was leaving and that I was trying this new thing and I was basically fully booked within two (2) days. 

‍

Taylor: What does fully booked mean? How many clients did you get in those two days? 

Christina: I had about six (6). Some were consulting, some were fractional and some started off as advisory and then moved into fractional. 

‍

Taylor: What’s the difference for you between consulting and fractional work? 

Christina: I am a big fan of asking people when they talk to me about how they want to use me. And so I will ask, do you want my brain ? Then thats advisory. Or do you want my brain and my hands? Which is fractional.

‍

Taylor: How many a week do you think you spend, generally speaking on trying to generate new business for yourself? 

Christina: I would probably say about five (5) hours a week.

‍

Taylor: For a typical fractional engagement, roughly how many hours a week are you sort of dedicating to a single client? 

Christina: Its usually about five (5) to ten (10) hours a week. 

‍

Taylor: I am sure you have heard this before - a super common objection from your average founder or hirer is like, “how can you do this only part time? Like, how does that make sense?” What’s your answer to that?   

Christina: I am very particular about what I prioritize as to what needs to be done. What I think is really beautiful about being a fractional CCO is I am able to give them what they need. And they see this as an opportunity to get someone that they will never be able to afford fulltime, someone who has tons of experience that can come to the table, hit the ground running. And instead of saying, how can you only do this in five (5) hours? They are thinking, I get concentrate. I get Christina concentrate, instead of this watered down forty (40) hours worth of work. 

‍

Taylor: I like the concentrate. What’s that one thing you wish more founders and hirers knew about fractional work?

Christina:​​If you are unsure of what’s possible, ask. Ask them what’s possible. Ask them what they are willing to do. Ask them for a scope of work because my scope of work for every single company is personalized. I am not giving the same scope of work to everybody because what they need and what they don’t need is going to be inherently different. So have that conversation. 

‍

Taylor: I use this phrase often when I am talking to founders. It lets them tell you. I have a lot of founders that ask me like, is this possible or is that what is that going to look like? And my answer is almost like always let the fractional tell you what needs to be done. What do you prefer? Monthly or hourly retainer rate. What’s your preference and why? 

Christina: I prefer monthly retainer just because for budgeting I find that having that consistency is really helpful for startups and agencies. Having a retainer and having it very structured as here’s the bucket of hours you have and I can do all of these things within that time period, it just makes it easier. 

‍

Taylor: Is it true retainer where you charge upfront or do you charge after?

Christina: If I am starting a brand new client and I have never worked with them before, then I start like with them upfront paying me upfront. Once I establish a relationship and I know that we are good, then I can do after and do like a thirty (30) day. 

‍

Taylor: What do you say to a clients that asks for more than what they are actually paying for? 

Christina: I always frame it as a position of priority. So you need something, thats totally fine. I can absolutely do that. I have been working on this this week or this this month. If you want, I can shift and put my priorities on this or we can talk about if we need to add additional hours. But I always come from a place of priority because I find that most clients they are not doing scope creep on purpose. And I try to assume best intent.  

‍

Taylor: So what is your why then? Why do you do fractional work?

Christina: I really love getting able to work across multiple brands and with amazing teams that I would not be able to if I was working with one specific full time nine-to-five company. I am high-impact kind of person. I want to work with great teams. I want to do great work and I want to create as much impact as possible and Fractional offers that in ways that a traditional nine-to-five just can’t. 

‍

Taylor: Christina, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing. Where can people find you? 

Christina: I live on X, depending on who you talk - @ThatChristinaG. And if I am not there, I am LinkedIn. 

‍

‍

Fractional Jobs helps startups hire fractional talent, like Christina Garnett, across about 10 different function areas. And we help fractional leaders build a successful fractional practice through our Playbooks, our Toolkit, and then through introductions, of course, to potential clients. And that’s about it for Episode 1 of this little fractional interview series that doesn’t have a name yet!