EP036 - What is fractional leadership with Karina Mikhli of Fractionals United
About the episode
This episode focuses on fractional leadership. What is a fractional leader? How does it differ from a consultant or a part-time leader? Can you make an impact if you are fractional? Will this be the future of work for leaders? To discuss, I have Karina Mikhli, who founded a growing community of fractional leaders, the Fractionals United. She is also a fractional COO for growing companies.
About the guest
Karina is a fractional COO and workflow consultant who recently became the founder of Fractionals United, a fast-growing community for current and wannabe fractionals.
She had been a fractional COO before it was called that and had gone full-time with a previous fractional client. They parted ways at the beginning of this year, and she returned to a very different fractional climate.
On the one hand, it's more popular and well-known, and there are more like her. On the other hand, it's harder to get leads and, therefore, feels lonelier.
Since she had joined so many great online communities in the past 2 years, she started looking for one for fractionals and didn't find one that was community first. Like many founders before her, she built the thing she couldn't find, and here we are 10 weeks later with nearly 700 members. The community has almost 2,000 members at the time of our recording (May 2023).
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
Quotes from the show
Nobody goes into business to run a business. You have an idea, a passion, a purpose, and then when there's any modicum of success. You get overwhelmed with the day-to-day. You don't want to deal with the people, the systems, the operations. That's when a fractional COO can help.
Consultants are project-based, even if it's a long-term project. You don't represent the company, sit on the org chart, or have people reporting to you. You are external and meant to be external, which is the opposite of a fractional. A fractional is a part-time leader.
A dirty little secret no one wants to discuss is that very few full-timers work full-time. If you're good at your job, you are not putting in 40 hours. I almost think fractionals can be more efficient and effective because they don't have to deal with much politics and bureaucracy.
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Welcome everyone, yet another day to talk about the future of work and the future of leadership. Today we will talk about the fractional job market. What does it mean to someone is available only on a fractional term, how can fractional executives contribute to businesses? And what is fractional anyway? To talk through the ins and outs of fractional leadership, I have Karina Mikhli, founder of the Greatest Community for fractional executives, the Fractionals United, who is also a fractional COO by trade. Welcome on the show, Karina, how was your journey from, you mentioned Precall that you were also a full-time member of other teams, but now you are a fractional leader for others. What was the journey? How did you became fractional leader?
Yes many years ago. So I started out actually as a teacher and then spent two decades in the publishing industry working my up the content operations ladder at various publishers. Once Amazon and digital became a thing and I went through one too many reorgs and layoffs, I realized that I could work in other industries and still love books. And that was a challenge, like, I have to say, I went through many, many reorgs and layoffs cuz I did not wanna leave this industry that I loved. I was an English teacher. And then when I burned out on that, I decided I would make books. But I had to realize I could love books and not make them because I was done with the industry. I fell into consulting at first and then what became, or what would now be called fractional, but wasn't a thing back then. The way I described it to people is that nobody goes into business to run a business. You have an idea, you have a passion, you have a purpose, and then as soon as there's any modicum of success, you get overwhelmed with the day-to-day or the founder gets overwhelmed with a day-to-day. They don't wanna deal with the people, the systems, the operations. So they would hire someone like me to run the business for them. And at any given time, I was running three to five, small to mid-size businesses. My son was actually the one that pointed out the pattern to me, and that's how my brand right size COO came about because fractional wasn't a term back then. Fast forward I also do workflow consulting on the side, which is come in either optimize workflows automate, integrate new tools, et cetera. I had a workflow client that was recruiter. Happened to mention passing that I was a fractional COO. The next week she started referring to me as her COO without any conversation. It just happened. I'm like, okay. And we worked really well together. So over time I gave her more and more of my time and things out of other clients till I went full-time with them. And it was really interesting because if you, you know, for all the small time COOs out there, you recognize that you do everything and anything that's needed. So I sent myself an offer letter. I registered as in all the states you know, very interesting things. It was really, I literally was laughing out loud as I was sending myself the offer letter and drafting it and signing it cuz it's ridiculous. But it's what you have to do. Fast forward again. As also often happens when you're a COO of a small company at some point you work yourself out of a position because they're too small to need a full-time COO once everything's in place. And it's interesting because before I started this community, I thought it was something unique to me because if you look at my history, I know now I know that if you look in my history every nine to 12 months, I would either get promoted, get let go, or leave. And I thought it was just me and it was horrible explaining this in the past to recruiters. But now I realize it's not a me thing. It happens to people that are really just good at their job or work for companies that are too small. And I will pause there cuz I see you're nodding your head.
Sorry. If that comforts you or anyone who's listening that's like hundred percent of any kind of operational consultant, fractional leader in almost any given scenario of industry that they're working in. If they are working for growing companies and if they are there for like a part-time fractional consultant, we will discuss what the difference between the three, by the way, because that's super interesting, roles if they are good at their jobs, yes, they usually work I never expressed this this way, but yes, they work their way out from the organization within at least three months or nine months between that period or so, because three months is enough to actually show some results and lay out some foundations. And the nine month period is usually when everything is like super streamlined that you literally are just there to pushing the buttons and that's it. So yeah.
I do tend to stay on maintenance level with some of my fractional clients because like that I can still manage the team and the systems and the CEO can focus on their areas of strength. But I know that there are some fractional COOs that prefer not to do that, and they just replace themselves and move on. So it varies. So in the beginning of the year We parted ways and I came back to fractional work in a very different landscape than two years ago, which is the last time I was looking for work. On the one hand, it's way more popular. Everyone is talking about it, writing about it. There are a lot more of us. On the other hand, it feels lonelier and harder. It's still hard to find the work. Not everybody knows about it. My previous source of leads Upwork was actually my major source of leads two years ago.
Wow.
It's no viable.
Sorry. Is it still?
It exists. It exists, but it's no longer a good source of leads.
Interesting. Because sorry to stop you here, but I never been active in Upwork and I always thought that it's mainly for junior or that kind of a level job or like gigs or whatever it is. But it's truly not for any kind of senior or leadership roles. But you're saying otherwise, so I'm like all ears now.
Yeah. I'm not sure what's changed. I have some theories or people have told me there are theories. Let me correct that. But two years, two plus years ago, there were a lot of high level positions. Some even charging more than me, and that seemed to be getting I don't know how frequent, but they were getting, you know, they were getting roles and I saw at any point, I saw a bunch of C-level or executive leadership level roles. Now there are fractional COO jobs or COO jobs out there, but one of two things. Either they're looking for people who are like, I literally just saw this yesterday. COO slash executive assistant. The same person, you know, so they're looking for like this hodge patch that doesn't exist because they don't wanna pay for a COO, so they're hoping to get this fictitious unicorn. Or people do know what a COO is, but aren't willing to pay more than $50 an hour, you know, which is ridiculous, at least in the US. So it's just, I maybe check it every two, three days. And even then, it tends to like, honestly nauseate me because the level of positions on their like yesterday there were a bunch of COO jobs and maybe one of the five or six was actually willing to pay, you know, what a COO should be paid.
But interesting that there is at least some source there. I never considered it. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't wanna stop you there, but ...
No, no, that's fine. That's fine. And I don't know how many people are applying for it, right? Like the couple that I've applied for, I haven't heard back, so I don't know if they're putting it out there and then getting people of all levels and all rates and going with the cheapest, right?
Sure.
I don't know what's happening. It used to be that if there were enough good jobs that if I apply to enough that were of interest, I would hear back and I would have interviews and I would get roles. Now, I maybe apply to one a month if I'm lucky and hear nothing, so I don't know if I hear nothing, because I'm the most expensive. If I'm not a good fit. If this is just, you know, a bait and switch, I have no idea what's going on. You know what I mean?
Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. But you started the whole fractional thing back then when the fractional term hasn't even existed as you said, right? So when, now, now it is kind of like, I wouldn't say popular, but it's well known, considered to previous years or something.
You would be surprised how many people still don't know it. Thinking a nonprofit accelerator managing director and she didn't know what fractional was, which nearly made my head explode because she lives in the startup world.
Just to finish off your story, that's how you founded the Fractionals United, right? Sorry. Because, we'll discuss what the fractional is because that's like super important.
Yeah. So, yes, so I came back to a very different landscape realized it was harder and lonelier. Had joined a bunch of great online communities in the last two years. So I wanted a community for fractionals and I thought it would exist. I couldn't believe, you know, I had this idea on Saturday, January 7th, that evening I was googling, fully expecting to find something I would join but didn't find anything. I found a couple of platforms that supposedly help you find the work. I found one or two communities on the other side of like a paid program, but no community for the sake of community. So I decided to start it, or I decided to put up a free Slack, message a bunch of my communities and see if there was even interest. And by the end of that first weekend, so I did the Saturday night into Sunday. By the end of that first weekend, I had over 50 members and everybody was like, yes, please, yes, please, yes, please. By the end of the first month, we were at 200, 2nd month, 500, third month, a thousand, and now fourth month, 1750. So obviously I wasn't the only one looking for that community.
That's just to confirm it's an insane growth. And the very reason why we are talking just to let the audience know is that I joined your community in March or so, not sure. And at that time you had around 500 people or so. I think we celebrated the 500 once, and that's how I remember the 500. So I probably joined before that. And now you have more than, more than 1700 people. So it's an insane growth. You, I'm not, I'm not saying that you're doubling the digits every month, but it's an exponential growth.
Yeah.
And why do you think, is that, is it because of community need from others or good timing, maybe because of the massive layoffs that we had. What do you think, or both?
I think it's a combination. It is a free community, so it's an easy pitch, right? Fractionals are looking for that connection. Others are considering going fractional because they have been let go. And it's whether it's something they do long term or short term, they've heard about it, they wanna learn more about it. And I've worked hard to make Fractionals United inclusive and not exclusive. So as long as you are either a current fractional leader or leader considering going fractional, you are welcome. And I've worked hard with my now the help of Tammy, my community manager, to make sure that it is a supportive, welcoming, safe place. And I think people see that. So they also refer others and are happy to refer others because they want to share. The community is free and I haven't monetized yet, so I do have limited resources I need to be cognizant of, but I was gonna be offline for a couple of days and I realized I can't disappear without someone taking my place. Yes. You can't run an online community and then be offline for three days. That just does not work. No. I had to get a part-time community manager to fill in the gap and actually I have a couple of fractional community leaders in the community and they helped me find Tammy because they posted the job rec in other places that I don't belong to, and that's how Tammy heard of us and joined. So it was, it's awesome cuz the community helped me find a brilliant community manager for us.
A fractional community manager or part you, you said part-time. So let's discuss the terms because, okay. I agree that not many people know what a fractional means, but I also think that people kind of like misunderstanding it and let me be the devils advocate here. So a fractional, if you're a fractional, are you a consultant? Are you a part-time manager? It's less than part-time or you know, what do you think? What are the terms between the three?
So let's first do fractional to consulting and then I'll do fractional to part-time. So the biggest difference, there are many differences between being fractional and being a consultant. First, I wanna just clarify neither is better. I'm not saying one is good or the other is bad. They're very different. Consultants are project-based, even if it's a long-term project. There is an implied end date, and you're never a fully embedded part of the team. You don't represent the company. You don't have a seat on the org chart. You don't have people reporting to you. You are external and meant to be external, and then you leave. Which is the exact opposite of a fractional. A fractional is a part-time leader. You know, we have a fractional COO in the community who only does two fractional jobs at any time. And his teams, his teams don't know he's fractional. So there really is no difference between a fractional CXO and a full-time CXO except that you're part-time in doing something else. And to clarify, that means there is no end date. You are hired to be part of the team. You are fully embedded leader with a seat on the org chart with people reporting to you. You can represent the company. You don't have a project, you have accountability, you have responsibility. So those are the major differences. Part-time. You know, a fractional is part-time, but a part-timer isn't necessarily fractional. Fractional implies a part-time leader, and that is the biggest difference. So a part-time leader is fractional, but a part-time individual individual contributor is not fractional.
So it just to clarify for everyone, sorry to be like teacher, like here. I hate terminology because everything is so fluid, so people can make up stuff on their own and you know, the only thing that matters is just to get the job done. But in this case, I think it's important to get the, the terminology a little bit right. Fractional anyone is a, is a leader who is providing leadership for a company on a part-time basis. It can be half full-time. It can be just one day per week. You know, it obviously it's negotiated through the hiring process of course, with the executives. And and by the way, just to quickly clarify that too most of the people who are part of the Fractional United community, they are, almost everyone is a C level. So it's usually it's like CROs, CMOs, COOs VPs ish, and anyone who is in or was in a leadership role and aspiring or currently doing any kind of fractional leadership. So that's clearly a trend.
Yeah. There are other communities that are exclusive to C level, fractionals United is not. We do have, you're right in that the executives are the majority, but there are some directors and VPs in the community too.
I had a podcast episode with one of the members of the Fractionals United before, and I had this question to him as well, he's a fractional marketing leader. And I think it's important to discuss that again because it's also something that those who are hiring fractional leaders are not very well aware of that. How can someone provide any kind of leadership if they're not fully there at a team level.
So because you know, we kind of touched on this earlier, but I think a dirty little secret no one wants to talk about is that very few full-timers actually work full-time. If you're good at your job, you are not putting in 40 hours. And therefore, if you're especially. I almost think that fractionals can actually be more efficient and effective because they don't have to deal with a lot of the politics and BS and bureaucracy. And it's recognized because you're part-time. You want to let them do the job, you're hiring them for not deal with all this other stuff, and you'll have someone else deal with this other stuff. Yes. So that's number one, right? Like you can actually really focus on what matters as a fractional. And number two, there's a difference between coming up with a strategy and executing it. There's a difference between being a leader and the person doing it. And unless you're a Fortune 500 or 1000, chances are you don't meet a full-time leader. And we're talking about like small to mid-size businesses. We're talking about funded startups, probably up to a hundred employee mark. It varies like, I don't know that there is a one answer, but I would say like up until the point where you have a hundred employees, do you really need a full-time, you know, CMO, CFO, COO, I don't know. Some may, but most don't. And especially if you have a good fractional who is really focused on the strategy and leadership who can build out a really effective team to be on the ground doing the work, that is such a competitive advantage for any small to mid-size company because you are paying, like I've been a COO for a small company and they paid me like more than they should to do ar chasing and all this other low level things, which is really not smart. Like you don't want someone at my level doing that. You much rather want a junior person doing that and have me manage them and make sure that, you know, they are doing what they should be doing. So that's why, like I think you want a fractional leader rather than a full-time leader until you are at that level where you really need most of their time. Because I can tell you, otherwise, you're just wasting money.
I'm not here to pitch my services, but I want, but first of all, why not? So this is actually what I usually suggest to any kind of clients I have. You don't need a full-time VP of marketing or marketing director or CMO. No. Yeah. You, you have 30, 50 people on your team. You are trying to grow. Do you really want to spend 200 grand for a big shot CMO to run your 200 grand total marketing budget? Right. It's just stupid. Why not hire two to three different marketers, you know, people who are doing the job and hire someone who's leading them, but not for full-time. They don't need that. They don't need that handholding. So I definitely understand the business model. But ideal clients and maybe hiring people so recruiters who are finding these people, do they reach out to because of the biggest benefit is, is, and sorry for our word, simplifying it, being cheaper a little bit. So we don't have the money for the full-time, whoever let's bring in someone part-time. Maybe we will see if he or she can grow full-time internally later on. Or we just don't give anything and, you know, stay part-time infractional because it's just more cost effective for the company, which is by the way, on the track of saving money and making money, right?
So first off, there aren't many recruiters yet who hire fractional, which I don't understand honestly, if I were a salesperson or a recruiter, I would be all over this. Like, there is so much potential here. It is mind boggling that there aren't more people trying to fill this need. And just to demonstrate, I own fractional job board.com. The fact that it was still available is also mind boggling. It's like there's so much potential here. I don't understand. People are asleep at the wheel. I think for recruiters, honestly and as I mentioned, the company I went full-time with was a niche recruiter, so I was just recently running a recruiting business. So I get that it's, they make their money by a percentage of salaries, so if you're fractional, it's, yeah, it's not as clean and they're making less, but obviously any fractional you know, like, multiply that by two or three. So you make it up in volume, it's gonna happen there. Like, I've seen a few starting to go there. We have a community member who's now doing fractional agency, which, which is something like I was talking about, and I'm glad somebody started doing it, which is like representing the talent, just like authors and actors and models have, you know, representing us, not the employers. So one of the fractional HR members actually realized that A, she enjoys business development and B, she has a recruiting background. So she's doing that now for the community. But I think there will be others. I'm having conversations with other potential partners and people trying to solve how do we get the leads and how do we source the leads. So I think in five years it's not gonna be a problem. It's just going to take time to a first, educate everyone. B. You know, get the salespeople and the recruiters behind this and then, you know, then it'll be no different than looking for a full-time job.
I agree because I also speak a lot of about, you know, future of work and what's the future for leadership. And one of the big thing that that happens right now is, is obviously the even more prevalent AI adaptation which drives well some of the cleansing of the mid-management layer from enterprise companies, right? And. But there is no demand to rehire these people yet. And that's what I see, at least for now. But I'm a hundred percent sure that within one or two years so many people will be out of their jobs and so many companies really realize that they still need these people in some way. And, and one other thing that I want to add quickly is that I get to speak with a lot of, well, more and more people who officially laid off but retained on a consulting or a fractional engagement with the same company. Yeah. Interesting. Because, these are people, so it's really hard to, to talk about these situations in a very blunt and spreadsheet like way, but they wrote up the books from that people, right? But they made it an expense and retained them in a consultant or any kind of like fractional leader role. So that also happens, and I think that will be even more prevalent later on. Because they still, they still need them. Yeah. What I'm saying, and also removing these, I mean like imagine you are an enterprise. You have, I don't know, a thousand people, at least at the hq, you are running a team of hundred people. You need to fire like at least the mid management layer. Who's gonna run the stuff, right? You left two or three people there. But the other 10 that you fired are out of the window. But the team is misaligned every, I mean, obviously if you lay off people, everyone gets freaked out and stuff like that.
Absolutely.
I mean, those who are still staying, yeah. Yes. So what are, what you're gonna do? The best option is that yes, that person is out of the like payroll, but they're still there in the expense sheet. So they're still with the company in a way. So I think that will also be more prevalent for fractionals.
Yeah. So part of the cost savings, most fractionals there are exceptions, most fractionals tend to work 10 99. Which means that not only are you saving, not paying full-time, but you also don't have the overhead of an employee. Which is a huge saving, especially in the us. Which is something like, so we have a member source blog at Fractionals United and I occasionally chime in. I did that on purpose because I didn't want it to be just my voice and I didn't wanna have one more thing I had to do on a weekly basis. So I wrote an article, or I wrote a blog post a couple weeks ago on the challenges of becoming fractional because I wanted to make sure that people didn't just like see the glamor and potential and like, you know, go into blindsided. There are challenges. If you've only been a w2, you're gonna have to learn how to run your own business, do your own taxes, take care of all these, you know, solopreneur logistics you may never have done before. Obviously we've talked about like how hard it is getting the work, so business development and that is a huge challenge. And then there's time management becomes more challenging. Like obviously we all have to know how to manage our time within the job, but then if you have to do it across two or three clients, all who wants your availability, you know, you available and think they're the most important, how do you manage that upfront? So, it's very different than being a full-time employee. And there could be things that those who have never worked for themselves need to learn. Which is not to say it's not doable, I just wanted people to be aware of it.
It's so important. Again, just my personal experience. I personally never felt the running of the business from a bureaucracy part is hard. I kind like winged it all the time. Also, it helps if your business is is fully digital, so obviously that helps. But still, I always struggle, for example, the client acquisition. And it's really hard, really hard to do. And the mindset, I think not just for me, but for everyone who was an employee before, that you don't have the salary and a paycheck now. It's really hard to have a client now. Then you don't have client, then you have two clients, then you have no client, then you have three client and, you know, it is like a rollercoaster. And if, if I can give any advice to anyone who's listening, don't look at the monthly income. It doesn't matter at all. Well, it matters a little, but if you trying to get a reminder your own success or growth, look at the annual figures, because even though, if you don't have I dunno how others wing it by the way, but I usually tend to have fewer clients during the summertime because everyone is vacationing right, and then, then everyone literally like roaming through my door on September. And then I'm just like, I don't know what happens until Christmas time because I'm working so much. And then again, another backdrop. So what I'm saying is that embrace when work is coming in, but be okay when it's not, because overall on the annual sheet the work is growing, the income is growing, it's there. You just need to make the switch from the salary to the income, shall we say, revenue maybe.
When you do have the work. You know, obviously depending where you are, you know what your expenses are, but save what you can't. Cause you don't know hypothetically fractional is supposed to be long-term, but just like you can be let go from a full-time, long-term job. You either, you know, have done as much as you can and they don't want maintenance or you don't want maintenance. But even, you know, or things go badly, right? There's someone new is hired and you can't get along and you choose to leave whatever it is when you have the money set aside what you can for rainy days because they will happen. But ironically, what I found recently is that given what the economy and climate and world is like now, you would think being full-time W2 is more stable, but it's not. When I was full-time fractional, I could predict 90% of the time when I was transitioning out or going to walk away from a client. So I had a gap, you know, to fill. A finite gap, which is a lot easier than where I am now, which is starting over from zero because I had gone full-time and given up all but my full-time work. So ironically, and it's funny because I'm risk averse, so I always liked stability and, and it's one of the reasons I, one of the few reasons I decided to go full-time with this client, not the only reason. So it's very ironic that now it's more stable being fractional or flexible or consulting or non full-time than it is full-time.
Yes. And one other thing that might be comforting for anyone, if that comforting as all. What I see personally is that usually what happens is the older generation is totally misaligned on what the younger generation is doing in terms of work-wise. Right? But now what I see is really weird is that now everyone is doing the same like gig style economy. So what we are doing in a fractional leadership role, I'm not saying it's the same, but like, it's very similar how current young people approach the job market. They usually don't want the full-time job. They work on projects, gigs simultaneously, multiple at once. They're very well okay with the solopreneur stuff. So it's really interesting to, I think one of the key trends that we will see is that, The fractional leaders will learn a lot from younger generation and vica versa. They are learning from the fractionals, the leadership skills that they are lack of sometimes. So interesting that it's like balancing up now.
Yeah. That is interesting. I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. And I know there are several older fractionals in the community who see this as a great way to phase into retirement or, you know, they wanna keep a client or two, they don't wanna be working full-time any longer, but they still have what to offer and aren't ready to fully retire. So this is a nice way to ease into it and have, you know, one or two clients at X hours where they contribute. And I've seen this like my father when he retired really quickly, so I think it's really healthy to stay mentally engaged as long as you can.
Yes, I hundred percent agree. I wouldn't recommend working full-time till you'll die, but but I would recommend working something until you die because it keeps you healthy and engaged. And, you know, sharp a little bit or like sharper considering the age factor as well. Yeah. How do you see the future then in the next one or two years? For fractional as well, or for the future of work as well?
So I do think that there will be a time, I don't think it'll be in the next two years, maybe five years, maybe 10 years. I'm not sure if I have a say I'll make it happen faster, but I think there will be a time where most executives will want to be fractional because it makes sense for us. We get the variety, we get the flexibility. There was another trend, or there was something I learned, I've learned a lot from running this community, so it's really cool. I may have built it for myself because I wanted the community, but it's validated a lot and taught me a lot. One thing I realized, because we had this conversation in the early days of the community, is that you get respected more as a fractional than as a full-timer. And it's subtle. It's very subtle. So I only realized it after we had this conversation, and others were like, yeah, I saw that. Or Yes, this happened to me. Something about being full-time makes the CEO treat you like you belong to them. Whereas as a fractional, you are more of a peer and true partner. And I think that's very important at that level to be as effective as you can be. And I don't even think it's something conscious. I think it's that subtle and it's just some kind of like an unconscious bias that as soon as you're full-time and this is all you do, you belong to them and they treat you differently.
You're on my payroll.
Yeah. This is all you do. Yeah. You know, you are dependent on me for your income. So do as I say.
Yes, I wasn't part of that conversation, but a hundred percent agree. And I also experienced that same thing. By the way, this is the, the very reason why I'm doing this. So I always felt a little bit awkward working full-time for others because at that point we usually arrive to this point that you said that, you know, okay, I know that you have so many great ideas and whatever, but I'm the boss. So you do what I, what I say, and you know, you cannot really walk. I mean, you can, the only thing that you can do in that situation is to walk away or, you know, or don't walk away and, you know, shut up and take the money. But yeah that's the other discussion, but that can go for so long, so, oh, yeah.
Yeah. And Cause they're paying, you know, most fractionals make more per hour because again, we're fractional and we have to pay, you know, you, we pay for our own benefits and et cetera. You're considered an expert, and most people are smart enough, like if they're going to hire an expert for X amount of hours, I don't wanna generalize. There are probably people who still think that they're the boss and therefore do, as I say. But I remember when the first time when I actually fired a client, it was. It was a wonderful experience and it felt so liberating. And you don't do that as a full-timer, right? Because you can't afford to.
Highly agree. Yes. I had the same experience too. And also by the way, if you are doing fractional roles, multiple fractional roles, it's also really great that you can fire someone off. Yeah. That You have another leg. Or you will have another leg shortly. So it, if you are in a full-time position, you know, if you walk away, you are suddenly on the job market. You need to job hunt again. It's so tiring.
We've had conversations in the community about red flags and what to look for when you are having conversations. So yeah, there I would say follow your gut. You know, listen to your guts. Chances are if you get a bad feeling, it's not gonna get better. It's only gonna get worse.
And it's so hard. By the way I was part of that conversation I can remember now. And yeah. I think I contributed with a comment as well, but it's so insanely hard to follow your gut. Because you cannot actually rationalize why you are feeling this. But I guarantee that like 95% of the time you are right. And that 5% when you are not, it's not worth the effort or the risk. Yeah.
So, yeah, every time I've ignored my guts, I have regretted it.
Yes, me too. Me too. No matter how big is the paycheck. If you are fractional or you're considering to become a fractional leader, how can you start where people can find you?
Oh, fractionals united.com. We have a simple form to join. It shouldn't take you more than a minute to fill it out. And we're pretty responsive. And yeah, and if you're looking to hire fractional, we have a simple form on the website as well. So fractionals united.com is a good starting point either way.
Thank you for joining and thank you for coming today. It was so inspiring. And thank you for building the community. Seriously. It's super inspiring to have
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
I hope you're enjoying the, the community building as we are enjoying it, being part of it. Yeah.
And I wish you the very, very best with it.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
