Foundations Of A Fractional Professional - Nancy Fox - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode #49

Growing a business is hard, but it does not have to be.

Once a week, we take a break from the hustle and bustle in business to talk about innovations and what's new in the C-suite. This is the Fractional C-Suite Retreat, and I'm Joseph Frost. Pull up a seat at the fire, grab a drink, smoke a cigar, and just join me as we relax, learn, and get inspired. This retreat is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow with better marketing strategy.

Welcome. I'm super excited about today's guest. She is a community builder and a LinkedIn and networking ninja. She is the business advisor to many fractional owners and fractional professionals that want to launch their careers and scale their business. She is the founder and CEO of Fractional Connections. Welcome, Nancy Fox. How are you?

Oh, I'm great, Joseph. Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to be with you. I've been waiting to have this chat with you for quite a while, and I'm very honored that you're having me.

Oh, thank you. Well, I can attest to your ninja skills on LinkedIn. I think every post that I've been on, you've tweaked, uh, or you've mentioned, and you've, uh, linked some stuff to me, and it just seems like that is, uh, a passion of yours as well as a true gift. Um, so thank you for all the effort you put into LinkedIn and our community. Thank you.

Pleasure.

So the first question I'd like to start off with, um, in your experience, what's going on today, or what's an opportunity that you see that other fractional professionals and business owners and C-suite leaders should be thinking about?

So that's a great question. Um, you know, it's incredible what's been happening in the fractional community in just a very short period of time. Now, I know that it's really been around 3 or 4 years as a under the name of fractional executive, but the real wave is just starting right now. So, um, if it wasn't for the pandemic, I don't think the wave would have been as strong and as high. Uh, but I think it enlightened a lot of people. So what's really happening now is, um, I think we are watching, and this is the most important thing for all people in the fractional community, is we have got to get the awareness of entrepreneurs up. This is our main mission there. It's trickling in. It's, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there. Um, and we do our— all of us, we all do our best to really educate entrepreneurs who are growing and scaling up. And we know that entrepreneurship is only on the rise right now also because of the pandemic. And also because, you know, there's so many young, younger people are really, they're, they're really realizing that the paycheck prison isn't always for them, right? So if we don't educate entrepreneurs, there are gonna be a lot of people who have all these skills and talents and experiences ready for them, but there's no place to use them. So I'm very clear that one of our main initiatives going into 2023 as a community has got to be elevating entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial awareness around fractional leadership. So I'm on a, what is it? I'm on a crusade. I'm on a crusade. I'm a crusader. So you can call me pioneer crusader and I'm really, really, and I'm not, this is not something of course that I'm doing alone, although I'm definitely happy to, you know, hold the flag up for everybody. But anyway, so that's one thing that's happening. Another thing that I think is happening is This is a beautiful thing. You know, when I started coaching 20 or, or 20 or some odd years ago, in the beginning when nobody was doing it and nobody even knew what the hell it was, uh, coaches were very competitive. They would, I mean, they were battling it out. They were not sharing. They were, it was very competitive. Fractional Executives are not like that. It is a very collaborative community. They are helping each other, we are helping each other, they are helping each other. We are collaborating and pods are forming, and I think it's going to be more and more like that. So pods of fractionals are leveraging their relationships with the entrepreneurial community, and I think that's going to be happening as well. It needs organization, it needs definition, it needs marketing, but I think it's happening.

Yeah, well, I applaud your crusade.

Yeah, my crusade.

I've been on this myself for the last 6 years or so, and I've seen a lot of changes just in my short time in the fractional space. But I wanna touch on the awareness that's necessary for entrepreneurs So that the fractional professionals can truly get employed or get engaged and do their work is probably the biggest challenge, the biggest opportunity right now, as you put out. But as you mentioned, it lacks some definition. So if you could be speaking to a group of entrepreneurs right now, what would you— how would you explain what a fractional professional does, what the value to an entrepreneur is, and how best they could access the right fractional professional for their team.

So I'm going to answer the question directly, and then I'm going to give you an indirect thing that happens, why I don't think that's why answering it in the normal way is enough. So, um, it was very interesting. I, back in April, I did this really short LinkedIn post about the distinction between a consultant and a fractional executive. It was like really short fractionals are on the boots, uh, their ground, their boots on the ground going into companies functioning as a leader in a particular role with accountability in a company that's, that needs that kind of, that level of expertise. They can't afford a full-time senior executive, but they needed to scale cuz they're at that point in their business where if they don't get that right expertise in there, they're going to there, it's gonna stagnate, they're going to be stuck. So they try to fix and band-aid, but it never really works. So the fractional executive really gets on the, gets really into the company, is part of the company fiber and accountability and executes results and is accountable for that. Whereas a consultant by definition advises, just goes in, assesses, advises and says, bye-bye, I, I'm not responsible. Very big distinction, right? But it's not really enough for us to say this to entrepreneurs because they're not listening from that place. The only place they listen from is when they're in pain. So it's like, oh, your sales are, you know, you can't figure out why your sales are lower or they're lower or they're stagnating and you can't figure out why. And every meeting you've had with your team, isn't producing a result, then you can explain, oh, have you heard about? But to share about this from a 30,000-foot explanation— and most fractionals do when they post, fractionals are this and consultants are that. But it's not enough. We have to really start the conversation from the point of view of the entrepreneur and the specific migraine headaches they have. And I call them the 10 migraine headaches. So the distinction is when they're not really in agony, they're not going to act. No agony, no action.

Yeah, I like that. Well, I'd be curious what your 10 migraine headaches are. If you want to share an hour later, that's—

Well, I mean, every company has a different set of migraine headaches. But what I work on with my clients is if you're a fractional CSO, sales officer, we go in and we all say, okay, what are the real migraine headaches that your potential clients are experiencing? And if they don't know what their headaches are, the assignment is go back in and figure out what they are suffering about, what they are— and I don't mean just feeling uncomfortable around, I mean really suffering about.

Yeah, I like that.

And that's the distinction. If I have a fractional CFO, And I had this exact situation happen just last week. I was working with a CFO, fractional CFO, and I said, okay, here's the assignment. Write down your 10 migraine headaches of your clients. And 2 of them were migraines. The other 8 were just little, you know, baby annoyances. Like they weren't, you know how like a paper cut is really, really painful, but it's small? Well, that's a migraine headache. It's really painful. If you just have sore muscles, you're not going to do much about it. Or if you're getting a really bad diagnosis that could be, you've got to take care of it, diabetes or something, you're going to take care of it. So that's the point. We really have to understand what their migraine headaches are from their viewpoint, not ours. And that's another thing, trying to put ourselves in their shoes. And it doesn't matter whether you're a fractional, whether you are It doesn't matter what business you're in, whether you're an accountant, whether you're a lawyer, it doesn't matter. You really gotta know what the migraines are.

Yeah, and I think that's so simple to some of us that have been in sales marketing for a long time. It's focusing on those pain points and understanding, and that's how you can provide your solution. But, you know, for a new fractional professional that is coming out of a corporate, what'd you call it, a paycheck prison, They're not used to thinking that way about— Right. I'm glad you're there helping.

That's exactly right. I mean, we've both been there. Like, I came out of corporate and, you know, everybody turned the lights on for me. The resources were all there. There was a team in place. Systems were in place. Now I have to go figure everything out myself. This is like, it's shock, you know? So, yes, you're right. And we're not used to thinking of it as if our lives depended on it. And it does if you really want to build a fractional business.

Yeah. So speaking back to that entrepreneur again, and we've shared with them that this is what the difference between a consultant and a fractional— it was a good, good discussion there. And then understanding what their pain points are, how do they go about engaging with the right fractional professional? What's the steps or the process that that an employer or entrepreneur should take to engage with a fractional professional?

So, um, that's another crux of the overall issue is, you know, entrepreneurs are very— by nature, if they're in the growth or scaling up mode, they're very, very busy and usually wearing many hats or trying to juggling a lot of plates in the air. And that's a problem, right? Because all they're doing is they often will do knee-jerk reaction. The first thing they'll do is they'll go to their friends in their networking group and say, hey, do you know, or they'll jump on LinkedIn and they'll start doing a search. And for many of the fractional executives who are posting as a fractional executive now, that's a good way of getting— attracting people. For the entrepreneur, how to figure that out is one of the reasons that we have— we, we need to have more conversations with entrepreneurs to to educate them on how to make the best possible decisions. Because bringing someone into your company is not the same thing as just hiring a consultant that you can say bye-bye to in, you know, 3 weeks. This is somebody who's going to be engaging with your people and can make a big mess if they don't— if they're not people savvy, if they don't have good people skills. So one of the first things I would say to an entrepreneur who's looking for fractional executives, ask your fractional executive prospect, how would you, how would you integrate yourself and engage with the team to have them wanna play ball with you? That was one.

That's a great question. Yeah.

Right. And let, listen, and if you are not really good with people yourself, you're behind the 8 ball as an, as an entrepreneur. So I think that's a really key thing. I think the agreement of how things are going to work, how you're going to, uh, track activity and results on a weekly basis is really important. That if you as an owner of a company are not willing to meet with your fractional executive regularly— I mean, they're willing to meet with you, I could tell you, I speak to hundreds of them— they are hungry to do a great job for your company. But if you are unavailable, you're too busy, if you don't really set the time aside, you're not going to get the best use out of your fractional, and you're going to blame it on anything but yourself. So they've really got to be willing to own it. Now, I can say this because I'm, I'm pretty straightforward. I'm a straight shooter. Um, you know, the tough love coach is the one that gets the results. But I'm— it's a difficult conversation because there's a fractional— you want to really help your clients so much, but they have to want to be helped too. So it's a two-way street. That's where the other side of the exploration comes in.

Yeah, I think that's a good, very valid point. And, you know, the last 6 years I've seen so many examples that are counter to what you just shared and generally it doesn't go well. A couple of the things that I share with, with business owners and entrepreneurs is that you also want to make sure you look for a full-time fractional. And what I mean by that is you want somebody who's committed to a fractional way of life, if you will, a fractional practice. And there's a lot of what I call, you know, there's a lot of people that got a foot in the water. Maybe they're in between two full-time jobs, laid off or otherwise, and they're not going to stay around long. And they haven't made the commitment investment in themselves to really understand how to deliver value as a fractional. So that's That's a kind of a red flag. Also, there are people that are full-time with an employer that is their prison paycheck, if you will, and trying to do this on the side part-time as a— and that's a problem because you don't get access to them. It may be to work nights and weekends, but that's not a fractional, you know, that's an off-hour, you know, consultant at the best.

That's a side hustle, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And that doesn't work well in the leadership role. That might work well to get some project work done or some tactical stuff done, but not in leadership. And then the other thing I see that's problematic is kind of a glorified fractional executive. It's somebody who took a 6-week class and is a copywriter that now puts a CMO tag on their LinkedIn profile and is offering fractional CMO services, but they've not done anything. They're a freelancer that's posing. So that's something to be aware of. And as the market matures, there are more and more people coming into it that fit that category. With our organization, all of our fractional CMOs are franchisees, which is almost, you know, like a— it's— there's a financial investment, there's a time investment, and they're standing up and saying, yes, this is my business, I am full-time, I am doing this. That's not a requirement by any means. There's plenty of other fractional CMOs and CXOs out there that have made the commitment that aren't franchisees, but that's just one of the ways that we've been able to showcase that when we meet with clients.

You know, that's an interesting thing that we're talking about, Joseph. I think that that leads us to another important, um, opportunity for the profession, and that is this certificate. Listen, I don't want to say, oh, we need another certification, but I do think that a qualification of some sort could be meaningful. It's interesting that you're bringing that up. I totally agree with everything you just said. There are a lot of people who come to me who are saying, oh, you know, I've been thinking about doing this fractional thing. And I ask them, if you had, you know, if I gave you all things being equal, you know, $300,000 a year, $300,000 a year, and you could have a full-time job, or you could build a fractional business, which would you want? And if there's any hesitation, I know they want a job. I mean, once you can sort of get this, so I think you're on the right, definitely on the absolute right path, you know, digging into that with your, with your team players and your franchisees. For you at your CMO. And I think that's absolutely right. And I think you're bringing up a really important point because it goes two ways. We need to bring the right quality to the market and the entrepreneurs have to bring the right attitude to the market. But that's as leaders in this, we can do that, we can help, we can be facilitators around that.

Yeah, I think, I think for sure. The other thing that I tell business owners that they need to look for, um, is a proven process. And you spoke to that in what your comments were. And for me, a proven process is the fractional professional has at least mapped out their approach to the engagement, their cadence of communication, and how they do things. And it's similar over and over again because it's proven and it's not just a one-off, we'll figure it out when you start paying me kind of thing. It's that proven process can come from their years of practicing in an internal organization to just bring it out. Now they do it externally. Perfectly fine. It's been proven. Or it could be their, their months or years of doing fractional work. That would work. Or it can be borrowed or supported by their company that they work for. So for your CMO as an example, because we're a franchise, we have lots of processes, but we have a proven process.

Yes. Yeah. Very, very succinct one. Very, you know, proven, tested, and very well mapped out one. And all your people go through it with, you know, extensive training.

Yeah. And then the last thing I believe is it's the most important point is that you've got to find a fractional professional that you can trust and is a cultural fit. And it's kind of a two-part one. Trust is for an entrepreneur to truly take their hat off and give it to somebody else to lead marketing or lead IT or lead whatever. Generally, it's the— because we've gotten to the stage in the business, usually at the time they're looking for fractional, that they've been the ones doing it themselves. It's usually the owner that's wearing that hat before they fractional it out. Now, in my experience, for that entrepreneur to take that hat and give it to somebody else, they have to trust them. And trust normally is easier to establish with a full-time employee. And that's why traditionally that's how it's been done. At least you feel like you can micromanage that relationship better and have the trust transition over time. Well, the fractional, that person is remote. And so the trust factor is, is much harder to overcome. So you have to find somebody that you're willing to trust, and that can come with expertise, proven processes, etc. But it normally also has to come with a cultural fit and a core values match. And that is where we all know intuitively when we hire in our companies, we're always looking for core values, right? People, right? See, kind of thing. But when we look at fractional, for some reason that gets lost in the, uh, assessment often. And so we remind our clients and we remind other business owners that you gotta have that cultural fit so that you can trust that person and allow them to really do their job. And if you don't, you'll always be micromanaging. You'll never truly leverage that relationship, and you might get better, but you won't be able to really scale like you want to with the fractional.

Yeah. And there's another, you know, another very important point to the critical issue you just raised, which is When you're hiring, when you're going through a hiring process for a senior-level executive in your company, a lot of companies take their sweet time. They go through a, you know, series of interviews and, you know, just deliberation, and it could take weeks and months. When you're engaging a fractional, the expectation is that, you know, it'll take a couple of weeks and then you'll get them in and they'll start But in that couple of weeks, how do you get to know about trust? How do you do that? It's accelerated, and yet it's a critical piece because a big mess can be made as well as it goes two ways. An enormous leap forward can be made in two weeks, and an enormous mess can be made in two weeks. So this is where I think, this is where I think company execs, owners of companies really need advisors like you, like me, to help them make the decisions about fractional executives so that they're not, you know, think they're not listening to themselves in stereo because they're obviously in a blind spot themselves. And I think also this is why the social proof and the testimonials that people get, that fractionals get, I think it's really important that they capture them and that they collect them and that they have them available to share and be able to share them with potential clients because I think it's an important accelerator in deciding. I think you need to. And then there's also personality testing. I think when you do personality testing, at least you'll know if you're a match on the DISC, on Myers-Briggs, on whatever scale you want to use. At least know that you're a relatively good match for the values of your company, but also for how you like to work. Because if it's not a match, you're setting yourself up for disappointment and upset.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's, it's an interesting community that's evolving right now, and there's a lot of opportunity for learning and building some common language and definition as well as some frameworks for success and It's fun. I'm excited about being in this space.

It is so much fun. And I will tell you that, you know, just to say, one of the reasons I'm so, you know, people, you know, they think I'm such an ex— I'm like so enthusiastic and Pollyanna about this community is because they're very smart, they're very educated, they're highly— they have great expertise, they have great pedigrees. And their networks are killer. So I mean, all of these factors and their desire to be helpful. One of the things that's a beautiful thing is when you, when I speak to fractional executives, it's consistent. They are so eager to make a difference with companies and to work in a variety of situations. Their determination and their motivation is really high. And that motivation means that they wanna help you as a business owner a lot. Not just a little, not just to get something for themselves. They really want to help. And it's a, it's a really lovely, it's a lovely thing to see and to listen to.

Yeah. I'm curious, do you find yourself coaching fractional professionals more on the client acquisition kind of side or the client service and retention side?

More on the acquisition side. And, um, there are two, two big buckets. One, acquisition. And then I work a lot with fractionals who are in scale-up mode and they are looking for solutions for it. Because once they get to full plate in there, they're looking to scale their business. Um, they don't really know a lot about how to take it beyond $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a month without working harder. And then they have just another job. So what we work a lot with scaling up solutions to, like how to really expand the business without working harder.

And what are some of your solutions there? Because that's an interesting conversation because at its core, fractional professional, you know, it's their time. That's right. They're trading for dollars. How do you scale that?

Well, the first and most important thing to recognize is that just because you're a fractional executive, and you're starting out with offering— your offer is your time and expertise— that eventually you're growing a business, and a business never has just one revenue stream. So at least 3 revenue streams is what we're teaching. And depending on what your skill set, skill sets are, it would depend on what other revenue streams we would recommend. But there's so many. There's all different kinds of recurring revenue streams, all different kinds of recurring services, all different kinds of productization, you know, and methodologies of delivering and selling systems and all different ways. So luckily, fortunately, after all these years, I've learned so many of them, both for the online world and the in-person world. And I have a lot of— I had a lot of arrows in my quiver to share with people. And that's a very creative and wonderful process. And very often I'll work with people in, uh, what I call VIP strategy days. So very often that will work a full day just on developing their revenue streams. So it's really— and, and the thing that's really interesting is teaching them how to market those VIP days with their clients.

Yeah, let's do a little, uh, if you're, if you're with me, let's do a little brainstorm. 10 ways to scale as a fractional professional. We'll just go back and forth. I'll share one idea and then you share one, and, uh, let's get to 10 for our audience. So one way I think is Speaking. I think that fractional professionals have an opportunity to not only speak about their expertise to specific audiences, but to monetize that through paid keynote speaking. And it takes time and energy, but it then it'll put you out there. It gives you an additional income stream, but it's also an opportunity to drive business. So that's one, speaking. You're up.

I like that one. Oh, I'm gonna add, this is a really fun exercise. I, I just read this book that was talking about, uh, convergent and divergent thinking. This is divergent thinking. So I would say the next one I would say is productize. Turn what you know into products. Um, the challenge is marketing them, but it— once you turn what you know into a product, it's one-to-many.

Yeah, love it. Um, a, a service line that is based on outsourcing professionals. So I'll give you an example. We, we realized that there's a lot of tactical work involved with executing a marketing plan, but the CMOs don't like to do the tactical work. So we started hiring full-time outsourced individuals from both Mexico and the Philippines and placing them with our clients. And we realized, wow, that, that works well, but they need some direction. From a CMO still. So then we created a service line where the CMO places and directs these individuals to do specific tasks. And it's an additional income stream for our CMOs because they're with a lot less of their time, but that ongoing sticky retention that they get because of that placement's pretty, pretty exciting. And we've realized that other fractional professionals can do the same thing. They can tap into a, a talent pool, help place them with their clients, manage that placement for, you know, a valuable piece of the puzzle that can be charged for.

So there's a third— I noticed that on your website. I thought that was really great. Corollary to that would be, let's say that your clients need not only your advice and your expertise in creating new results, but there's an implementation aspect to what they need. Implementing software, implementing systems, the implement— the constant continual implementation is a recurring revenue stream for them every single month.

Yeah, I like that one. Well, one that comes to mind that we don't actually do, but I know it's, it makes a ton of sense for many fractional, it's just having a group of referral partners that can provide great service complementary to yours, to your clients that pay you a fee for the referrals. At Yorkshimo, we don't take referral fees, but that's just because we want to maintain a very fiduciary relationship. I think you can still be very fiduciary and take them. It's just we, we've chosen not to. But that's certainly an attractive way for somebody who's got a group of trusted professionals that they can send their clients to. To make some, some additional income.

So yeah, um, somebody sent you a thumbs up on that one. I don't know where that came from. Um, so question for you.

I think that came from me actually. That came from you.

Well, I'm gonna say I agree with that one too. Um, I, so are you talking about like when you say partnerships, you're talking about affiliate partnerships?

That's what I was thinking of. So I, as a team, I like that one as chief sales officer or chief technology officer. That was where That was— I was going with that one.

Yeah, I agree. The other thing I think is we can create— you can slice and dice your services. And in the slicing and dicing, very often I think that fractional executives can— it's still so new that they can't see their services being delivered any other way than the way they deliver them. But if you slice and dice them, you can pull them pieces of what you do apart and sell additional services, and they don't always have to be with you being the one delivering them. So for example, right now, even though I'm a coach or a business advisor is my preferred term these days, I can choose to focus on certain, certain premium clients and then, and still offer coaching services, but loop other people in. Or I can actually break up what I coach around into different ways of delivering. So some of them would be on-site, some of them would be in a one-to-one classroom style, some of them would be recorded. So there are a lot of different ways to slice and dice your, you know, what you do.

Yeah, I love that one. All right, I'll take an easy one. I think we have 4 left.

So, um, oh, you're testing.

The easiest way for a fractional professional to earn more money is to charge more money. It's the simplest solution. It takes the least amount of time and energy. Uh, and a long time ago when I started to get the marketing space and working with freelancers, I always— and especially freelancers that were just launching their business— say, what, what's your dollar per hour you want to charge? And they'd always gimme a number. I said, okay, double it when you go to market because we always devalue ourselves. It's just natural. And so the easiest way is to literally take a look at what you're charging, whether it be by hour or by month or by project, and raise it, uh, cuz that money goes straight to the bottom line. There's no cost associated with that.

I, and you know what, I'm so down with that and that I, that's exactly what we teach, but I'm so glad that you brought that up and that's probably my favorite one that we covered today. It's really great. Um, let's everybody let that sink in. Raise your prices. But you know, here's the thing, it's tough for people to do it because they don't believe that people will. The problem with that is people believe that their clients are paying them based on they're comparing what's in the marketplace. That is not true. That is not true. They want outcomes. If you can give a high-value solution in a shorter amount of time, they will pay anything, right? That is the whole thing, is it's up here. What you think about pricing is the problem. Um, okay, so my next one will be the book that I wrote, Network Like a Fox. Write a book. Okay, it's easy to write a book. I'm telling you, I know it sounds hard. Write an ebook, right? You only need, or, you know, 20 pages. Write an ebook and then do what, what Joseph said, is go get speaking gigs using the ebook to get those speaking gigs. They buy the book, they pay you to speak, and, um, you can leverage both. And it, it's something, it definitely will set you apart, no question.

Yeah, I love it. All right, so it's— I love these top 10 lists because it's always harder with the last few.

I know, I'm mad at you. I'm angry at you because now I'm gonna have the hardest one at the end.

Yeah, so this one you kind of teed it up a bit. But I think there's an opportunity, at least I see that in some of the fractional worlds, to do group planning. So a lot of our work is one-on-one with a client. If you can find some shared clients that have maybe, uh, that they're okay working together, learning together, non-competitive, but yet in the same industry or maybe geographically disparate, there's a lot of peer groups out there. And if you can provide that service, as if it was one client, but you're, you're using it for 3 or 5 or 7 at the same time. You can basically charge the clients less each because they're in a group setting, but you will net more for the same amount of time. And I think about that. We do quarterly planning. It probably doesn't work well for quarterly planning, but we've thought about doing workshops and where that might be, where it makes a ton of sense. But let's do a branding workshop or digital marketing workshop or a How to understand your client lifetime value and enhance it workshop. Well, we can fill the room with people that, and we do that work one-on-one with our clients all the time. We could expand that into a group workshop and everybody can access it for less money as a client and we can make more money as a fractional professional.

I'm actually, that's really a good one because I'm actually, I'm actually just planning that out for 2023. Exactly that. And I think it's brilliant. I think it's really, really good. I also think that— think about it this way— if you're finding the businesses where there are partnerships, where there are partnerships, partnership retreats are constant, continual, and they happen every year. And you get in with the right niche market, I think I'm going to tie those two. Find the right niche, find a starving niche, find a partnership-oriented niche market, and deliver strategic retreats every single year and be the go-to person for that. You're in.

Do you have an example of a partnership? Because that doesn't— I, I don't immediately see what you're thinking of.

So, so let's say that you're a fractional to, um, architecture firms or law firms or accounting firms. They are constructed with partners. They're— because even some of the CFO firms that I work with now are— they have partners. Well, they have partner retreats.

Gotcha. So like, uh, like a vertical partnership. Someone in that vertical stack might host and facilitate. A lot of times that's a software provider, right? That's, that hosts these partnership meetings and collaborations. So you're able to go in with your client base and then get into the rest of their partnerships.

I like that.

Which is also bonus one, number 11. Yay. Associations. When you get in with the right, even the chapters of association, like I know you're Um, you're an EO guy, right?

Yep.

Yeah. Well, that must be a pretty, it's very, the EO is one of the most fantastic organizations for the right qual, the right caliber, the right quality of entrepreneurs, and they're positioned perfectly to engage fractional executives. So once you get in with one chapter, they start, they are the most learning-oriented association organization I've run across in my, all my years. So they're a good group of people to get in with.

Yeah, that's a great organization. I've been involved in it for a long time.

I know, they're awesome.

It's the win-win for me. It's an amazing organization of entrepreneurs that I can learn from and become a better business person. And it also just happens to be a really good target audience for the work that we do. And really any fractional does. And so I introduce— I probably introduce more other fractional professionals to EO than I do my own team. Because the, the, the audience is, is starving for CFOs and COOs and CTOs. It's, it's a nice, nice organization. This is just another one.

Another one. Yeah. I've got a list going of the ideal ones. So my point is get in with the right organizations and associations and, um, it's a, a stream, it's a pipeline flow. All right.

So what I think we need to do is we need to take this podcast. We're not gonna show it to anybody. We're gonna productize it and then we'll put a price tag on it and we'll send it out to the world to be able to figure out the top 10 ways to make more money as a fractional. We'll be millionaires. We can retire and we'll be done.

We'll have a lot of fun. We'll make money. We'll help a lot of people. I'm down for that.

Or they might just get it for free and then it will be the unkept secret of the world.

Well, they still have to learn the how. Like the what is one thing, the how is another.

Yeah, the how is the key. Like, all those items we laid out are, are all doable. Uh, it takes a little know-how to do them, and then it actually takes time and energy and money to, to, uh, to execute as well. So, and you're there for that, uh, for sure in your work that you do. And I'm so excited you came on to share your talents with us. Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me. It's just been wonderful getting to know you and your firm and a lot of your Franchisees and members and just the whole community's been really awesome.

So, and we'll have your contact information in the show notes, but what's your preferred way to be contacted if somebody wants to reach out to you, Nancy?

So first of all, um, Nancy@fractionals.ai. And, um, to let you know that we have a monthly speed networking event if people want it, it's free. Um, you just go to fractionals.ai and right on that page you'll see the networking signup sheet. And we love having fractionals and we hosted for fractionals and SMB leaders. And every month we have new people. So join us. And the idea is to get a lot of people are doing a lot of great business with each other and building good relationships. So that's the best way to reach me, Nancy@fractionals.ai and on LinkedIn.

Great. Well, thank you so much again. You, you are such a ninja. I'm so fortunate to have you on the podcast and I'm excited. This has been a— and I've never done the top 10 before on a live podcast, and it worked out pretty well. So you were my first, and I loved it. It was—

I'm glad you didn't tell me about it. I would have been so nervous.

Oh gosh, it was so much fun. Good.

You tested me. Thank you.

Yes, thank you to our audience. Uh, if you like this episode, please share it with your, your friends. Uh, make sure to follow us or subscribe to us. My producer tells me that I need to say that every time. And we look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you so much for showing up.

And that's a wrap. There's another successful episode of the Fractional C-Suite Retreat. See our show notes and more episodes at fractionalcsuitretreat.com. This podcast is sponsored by YorCmo, helping organizations grow, save time and money with better marketing strategy and fractional execution. Visit them at YorCmo.com. YorCmo.com, spelled wrong on purpose.