The Future of Work: Why Your Business Needs Fractional Professionals

About the Author: David Lopez is the CEO of Summa, a consulting firm that offers CFO Services. Former management consultant at Deloitte and PwC, for the last 15 years David has helped startups become more profitable, increase their cash flows, and raise capital successfully. He is also a Budget & Cash Flow Coach volunteering at SCORE, an educational NGO.

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Anyone can build a house.

You can learn the process, purchase the materials, and put in the work.

Yet, 99% of people do not build their houses. They buy them!

Why?

Because it is the most effective way of doing it. Even developers outsource parts of the building process to build their own homes!

And understanding this is not easy.

It can almost be counterintuitive.

Why would a perfectly capable builder hire someone else to do a job they can do? What are businesses lacking? Or inversely: what do fractional professionals possess?

You will discover that it is nothing special. There is no magic or secret sauce here.

It just requires a shift in perception.

It has nothing to do with how the process is run.

It has everything to do with how the business is run.

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“Good at Everything.”

Think about it. If you want to build your house, you will need to invest time in learning everything involved in building a house. From roofing to electrical wiring, to pulling permits and designing, to texturing walls and installing water heaters. And then you might want to get good at each of them.

But let’s be honest: it is unlikely that you will be able to master all the skills involved in building a house. Who has the time!?

To build a standard American house, you would need to perfect fifty different crafts. That could take a while. Most likely a lifetime!

In order to be proficient at it, you might need to go through a learning curve.

And mistakes are not free.

You might need ten projects under your belt to get a good grasp of what a project entails.

Thirty will make you feel comfortable.

Sixty will make you feel confident.

One hundred will make you feel like you have mastered the skill.

But it will cost you money to learn.

The TLDR here is that it is extremely difficult (I’m avoiding the word ‘impossible’ here at all costs) for a single person to master all the skills involved in a complex enterprise.

But it is possible to orchestrate all the skills.

Enter: fractional professionals.

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It’s a Fractional World.

Every home, no matter how clean you are, gets dirty. The wind, the dirt, the pets. You could decide to do a deep cleaning yourself or you could hire someone to do it for you. Residential cleaning services is a $50 billion industry, just in the US. It is much more practical to hire someone to solve a problem that you might not have the time, will, or patience to deal with and perfect.

And since you do not need them for more than a specific process (i.e., cleaning the house), it is unlikely you will hire a cleaning team full-time. However, you might get to an agreement to have them come regularly and help you keep everything sparkling.

You can use the example above as a template of how fractional professionals might work perfectly in your organization. The only difference would be the problem being solved, like a product launch, a piece of code, or a financial management system.

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But wouldn’t partial time equal partial results?

You do not need to hire your doctor full-time to get fixed. Imagine the bill!

Also, imagine what hiring your doctor full-time would look like. She would have to sit and wait for you to get sick. Mind you, if she is on your payroll, she will still get paid. Yes, she could find projects to work on to keep you healthy, but then again you could ask her to do the same thing without having to hire her full-time.

Fractional professionals are like doctors. 

You do not need to hire them full-time to get results. Also, it is likely that they have seen your case before, even though you might feel you are the only person in the world with your problem. 

We’ve all felt this way.

The best part for both doctors and fractional professionals: you will know when the work is complete because a result will be achieved.

Because of this, fractional professionals can help you with your business as fast as a doctor can diagnose your health. It might feel expensive to pay for someone that “knows what screw to turn” but it is much more expensive to try to figure it out yourself from scratch.

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Wouldn’t it be better to hire someone to “learn on the job”?

Imagine that you are booking a flight.

There is a special discount. The airline has student pilots “learning on the job” and the ticket is discounted. Would you be willing to risk your life to save a few dollars?

Do you really want to have a business -the vehicle to achieve your dreams- that is managed by someone that will “learn on the job”?

Having someone learn on the job can be expensive. It can cost you your life!

It can also diminish your own confidence that the job will be well done.

Has it happened to you that when you choose the mid-tier or lower-tier brand you feel a little insecure? That feeling that it might not solve the problem the way you would like it to be solved? This might not happen if you are choosing a light bulb for your yard, but it might happen when you are choosing someone to help you manage your business.

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What about scale?

As you grow, you can ask fractional professionals to increase their scope of work. And the beautiful part here is that you can also ask them to decrease it.

With fractional professionals you do not need to commit to a long-term relationship. You can just ask them to increase their scope. And if it becomes too much you could hire a second fractional professional and still be more efficient.

This flexibility becomes valuable as the business changes in size.

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Conclusion

Mistakes are not free. 

To get things done the right way the first time you need to bring in the right skills. 

If you are building your dreams through your business, you need to take your business seriously. How serious are you about your dreams?

Hiring a fractional professional will bring you specialized expertise, flexibility, and scalability, and while the cost per hour might be higher, the total cost will be lower. Plus, your risk of performance will be lower too, i.e., no learning on the job.

The future has arrived.

Are you ready to join in?

Like we said in the beginning: anyone can build a house.

But those who build the house of their dreams do not build it alone.

Focus on what matters: leading, growing, and envisioning the future.

Delegate everything that supports your leadership, your growth, and your vision.

And today you can enjoy the ride at a fraction of the bill.

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‍And if you’re looking to hire a fractional leader across one of 10+ different function areas, that’s what Fractional Jobs is for (the site you’re reading this on). Feel free to get in touch at hello@fractionaljobs.io