Marketing Framework - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode # 008

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.

Today's guest has over 15 years of leadership experience in e-commerce. He is an industry thought leader and was published in an authority magazine in 2020. As a fractional CEO at Vivid Path, he serves many clients looking for fractional support, and he's a guest on my show today. Welcome, Mark Scramenti. How are you?

I'm good, thanks, Joe. Thanks for the introduction.

Happy New Year too for all that are listening.

Yeah, happy New Year, everybody.

Yeah, great.

It's going to be a better year for sure.

Well, every year is a better year.

Yeah, that's a good attitude.

So I want to start the show with just a question I ask all of the guests, and it's a unique position that we as fractional professionals have as we go into a new opportunity or an engagement with a client. And from your perspective, what do you see as one of the, or one or more of the, of of the opportunities that the owners or C-suites might be missing out on these days? Something that from your perspective that you see often that an owner or a C-suite just might be missing out on from an opportunity standpoint?

Yeah, that— I mean, that's a great question, and you gave me a little heads up, Joe, that we'd be talking about that. So I had thought about a little bit and had 3 things come to mind. So I'll tell you what they are, and we can, we can start with one and maybe we can get to all three. The first is knowing your customers, and I definitely like to talk to you about that. I know you're interested in that, being a marketer. The second one is about applying the right frameworks to your business, so getting your house in order that way. And the third one is about culture, which is something I happen to be thinking about a lot lately. So if we have time, maybe we could get to all three of those. If not, I, you know, let's start— I would do them in that order.

We could also— let's talk about that. Yeah. So, you know, as a fractional CMO, we talk a lot about the customer. And as a fractional COO who has a good marketing background, I'm curious what your— where you see that opportunity is that might be being missed by some of the companies out there from a pers— from your perspective of what it means to know your customer.

Yeah. So, um, I think everybody pays lip service to, um, you know, being customer focused, you know, and, and everybody says, yeah, we talk to our customers regularly. But I question that, you know. Are you, are you really talking to your customers regularly? And more importantly, are you listening to them? And what are you— what are they telling you? And so, um, and that's something that you need to approach, I think, on a structured basis, not just on an ad hoc basis, but I think it needs to be methodical. And so the reason, I mean, the reason to do this, I think if you listen, if you talk to your customers, you really listen to them, they're going to tell you how to grow your business. They're going to give you innovation opportunities, opportunities for optimization, you know. Yeah, so I'm a big fan of Jobs to Be Done theory, for example, and that's something that we talked about a little bit. That's one way to talk to your customers. So explain that about that.

Yeah, elaborate on that a little bit. Jobs to be done.

Yeah, so there are jobs to be done, uh, theory. It's a framework, um, it was, uh, you know, developed by this guy named Clayton Christensen who wrote The Innovator's Dilemma. And it's a way to, um, it's a way to get qualitative research from your customers. So it's a lot of talking to customers and listening to them It's something I did. I worked for an e-commerce company, an online retail company in the music industry. So we sold musical instruments online. And I did this with customers. I talked to dozens of customers face-to-face for an hour each. And what you're really trying to do is find out why they buy from you. And if you can answer that question, like, why do you buy from us? It opens up so many insights and again, opportunities for innovation, line extensions, improvements to your product, ways to optimize customer experience or profitability. You know, and I can give you some examples. The book is great. The book is called Jobs to Be Done Theory. And he started out, he kind of stumbled upon this, this idea. The idea is that when somebody is hiring you, or buying one of your products or services, they're basically hiring you or your product or your service to do a job in their life that helps them make progress in an area that matters to them. And that decision that they're making occurs within a specific context. And there's functional components to it. You know, how does this thing work? Does it do the job? But there's also social and emotional factors as well. And so you're trying to get at those when you talk to people, you know, without leading them. You're really going in and exploring their customer journey, how do they find you in the first place? And the goal is to figure out like, why are they buying from you and not from somebody else? And why do they continue buying from you? And do they actually use what they bought from you? Or do they just buy it and it goes on the shelf? Because that's not really a success either. And he starts with this example. They went to, I think it was McDonald's. He doesn't specify, but word on the street is that it was McDonald's, some big fast food customer. And the job, you know, they were trying to sell more milkshakes. And, you know, so they keep trying to change the flavors. Let's make it, let's make it, you know, chunkier. Let's add chocolate chips, make it chewier, you know, creamier, you know, let's change the price. Like, none of that stuff worked. None of that moved the needle. So they're like, well, let's figure out why people buy milkshakes. And they just watched people for like a day, and they noticed some patterns. They noticed that there was a big spike in milkshake buying in the morning. And then these people just bought it. They went in by themselves, they bought just the milkshake, they left, and they hopped in their cars and they drove off. And then there was another spike in the afternoon with adults and their kids. And like, hmm. So then they decided, they went back the next day and they interviewed some of these people, a lot of people who were buying, you know, at each of those spikes. So the first group, you know, it turns out they all had a long commute. They were trying to stave off their hunger, like between breakfast and lunch. A shake was great 'cause it lasts a long time. It's easy to consume in the car. It's not messy like a bagel or a banana, you know? And it kind of, it just gets the job done. You can sip on it for a long time, kind of makes the job, your commute more enjoyable. And so kind of that's the job that it was doing for those people. So when it's defined that way, it gives you a whole different perspective on like the product category and who the competitors are and so forth. And, and also like, okay, well, if you're going to sell more of these, then maybe you should make it— maybe you should create a self-service machine, for example, so they can just go in and out. Because a lot of people actually didn't want it. They were kind of embarrassed, you know. It's like, yeah, I'm just, you know, you know, it's— and it's not as bad as like just eating a Snickers bar, you know. Like, it's, it's not totally unhealthy, but it's also not totally healthy. So, you know, but yeah, like ways for that, you know. Or maybe, you know, a lid that doesn't spill in the car. Like, that might be a good innovation for that product, excuse me, in terms of how people are actually using it. So that's an example. And in the afternoon spike was about parents wanting to connect with their kids. And so, you know, again, it was inexpensive, it was easy. It's kind of like your competition there is like, you know, going to the candy store, or maybe the toy store or shooting hoops or playing catch, you know, it's just another way to be with your kids after saying no all week. To your kids. It's one, one thing that you can say yes to that isn't too bad for them.

Yeah, should we go to the park and go on a nice healthy walk, or let's go to McDonald's, get a milkshake? That's, that's the choice, right? I like that. That's a, that's a great framework. Um, I love frameworks as well.

Me too.

I'm a chemical engineer by training, so I'm, I'm always looking for a good framework. The one we use, um, when we do, uh, initial work with our clients to better understand their buyer journey is the buyer personas framework by Adele Rivera. I don't know if you've seen that or come across that.

I've heard of it.

But it's a series of 30-minute interviews with customers, or ideally, it's a 30-minute interview with people that decided to work with your competition instead of you. So you're trying to understand, gather insights from a recent buyer, whether it's your customer or your competitor's customer. And what I like a lot about that framework is it starts with one question: take me back to the first time you began to look for this product or service. And so for the— maybe not as easily applicable to the, the fast food restaurant, but could be. But for other organizations, it's, uh, well, let's just use that one. So you're talking to the, the mom that's take them, talk to me about the first time you thought about coming here to get a milkshake with your kids. Oh well, and then she'll say something, and then you go back further and further and further and iterate, like, was that the first time? Was that the first time? It might be something like, well, you know what, I just couldn't figure out how to connect with my daughter again. That might be the— that might have been the impetus, right? And I knew she loved McDonald's, or I knew she loved milkshakes, and so I started thinking about where can I find a milkshake quickly with space to hang out? I don't know what the answer is, right? But yeah, when you get to that initial trigger point, that is so crucial. Then the following questions are all about just subjectively, okay, so what did you do next when you were looking for a place? How did you find a place? You know, what type of milkshakes? Was it, was it important for there to be lots of choices or just one or two choices? Did you look for a lot, large space, a closed space? Like, so you start asking for all these questions in a very subjective manner, you begin to develop the insights. And what we look for with those additional questions is, so what was that journey? So I, I asked my friends where they go with their kids for milkshakes, or I went online, I Googled milkshakes with the family, or I went online, or, you know, I just went to my neighborhood moms group and asked them, or asked my son or daughter, where would you like to go? And whatever that journey was, and the steps that someone took along the way. And then ultimately, this is where it kind of meshes up with you, or with your framework, is what was the decision criteria? Why did you choose us instead of somebody else? Or why did you choose the competitor instead of us? Right? However you get there, with that information, you can develop a really, really good marketing plan. Yeah, you know, the triggers, you know, the tactics, you know, the messaging, and it becomes super insightful.

Well, I'm taking notes. What was that called? Adele Rivera, you said?

Adele, A-D-E-L-L-E Rivera. And I can follow up in the show notes. I think we can grab it or we can send it to you later. But Buyer Personas is the name of the book. And it's— she's got a nice website. The book spells out how to do it. It's a really simple method. It's surprising how many people just don't do it. I probably tell 10 people a week about that buyer personas, 10 business owners, like, hey, you should really do this. I don't think anyone do it. It's just a lot of energy to put in place to get it done. That's why they usually hire somebody else to do that kind of work.

Yeah, I mean, and you raise a good point, you know, I love this, but like, why don't people do this? And, you know, when I say that, people pay lip service to being customer-focused and, you know, talking to customers. That, that kind of gets to what I mean. It's like, it just takes time. It actually doesn't cost you that much. It doesn't really cost you anything but your time. Like, when I did that, I mean, we gave them like a $50 gift certificate or something like that. Yeah, exactly. But, but It doesn't cost a lot, but the insights you get are just invaluable. I mean, literally, they can change your whole business, your strategy, your trajectory, and they impacted us in so many different ways across the spectrum of operations from product development, a lot of stuff about marketing and messaging, like who we're targeting, how we're targeting them, where we're targeting them. We learned, basically how people are shopping. And some of this was just incidental. It wasn't even like what we were looking to find, you know, because again, it's like an open-ended process where you're not going in with a hypothesis, you're just fact-finding. So it's like, what is that called, abductive reasoning. And then from that, you form hypotheses that you can test and you can move to the quantitative side of the organization and say, okay, this is what we think is happening. Let's test this hypothesis. So that's kind of how you do it. But yeah, I think like, why don't people do it? I think it's mostly inertia. They don't know. And it takes a lot of energy. And I think a lot— and then also people like don't know what to do with this information. So that's why you need the framework.

And to bring it back a little bit. So you said the second thing on your list of 3 was frameworks and kind of Yeah, this is one, there's an example of one.

Are there other—

when you thought of that, are there other frameworks that you were sure that were relevant?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of the, uh, like you, I'm a big fan of frameworks, and I think that's as I've grown professionally, even personally, you know, why reinvent the wheel? There's frameworks out there that do it, uh, really well, um, and there's different frameworks for different purposes, and, and the best ones are flexible and you can adapt them, and almost all of them get customized in some way. I mean, there are very few purists out there, and that's okay. You know, like Agile Scrum is one that I'll talk about that I love, and I implemented that at the online retailer because there was no structure in place. And I can tell you what that looked like when I first got there, but I mean, it's messy. And I see that as being a common issue, particularly with small businesses. And this business wasn't particularly small. It was a $40 million business when I got there, but, you know, and that sounds big to a lot of people, but, you know, you can still run a $40 million business like a startup or like a small business. And, you know, the lack of structure was keeping the business from growing to the next stage. So Agile Scrum was the first thing I implemented, but the thing I love about that, it's, you know, it's iterative, Again, like you don't have to figure it all out up front, you know, like that, that whole waterfall approach to software development, like where, you know, you've got your design phase and your, your, your, I mean, your discovery, design, development, all that test, and by the time the product is released 2 years later, it's obsolete, you know. So, you know, the whole— I'm a big fan, so going back to frameworks, like of all things lean and agile. So like The Lean Startup is one. Um, are you familiar with that? It—

yeah, I think there's a couple— Lean Startup has been used a couple different times or different methods. There's, there's the— there's a book I read by, um, Ries, I think is his last name. Eric Ries.

Yeah, yeah, that's— he's the Lean Startup guy.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so I am familiar with that. Yep. I've heard it used differently by somebody else in a different author in different contexts.

So yeah, well, it's like all these frameworks, then you get people kind of building on them and disciples and so forth. But I mean, they bring, at their simplest, they bring order out of chaos and create efficiencies.

So, like, talk to me a little about Agile Scrum because I hear that all the time and I think I know what that means, but honestly, I have no idea what that actually means.

Yeah. So, and a lot of people, I think, who even use these systems, don't even really know the distinction between like what's Agile and what's Scrum, you know, because they're actually two different things.

Okay.

But, but, um, Agile Scrum combined is sort of a thing in itself. And, and so, um, to be concise about it, you know, we use this, um, both on the development side of things. Um, so it's a project management framework first and foremost, but it can be used for all kinds of business functions, you know. It can be— and we used it for, again, first as project management for software development, but then we did it throughout the organization. So every business function was running scrums. And so a scrum is, um, you know, refers to the soccer scrum, you know, where everybody gets their little, you know, head, necks locked together.

And like, like the rugby players that just—

I'm sorry, did I say Yeah, did I say soccer? I mean rugby, yeah.

Yeah, you said soccer. I thought soccer and rugby, like rugby is Australian soccer and soccer is English football.

Yeah, right, right. There's all the verbal confusion and I played rugby for one year and I was what they call the hooker. It's usually a smaller guy in the middle, you hang on to two big pillars of guys, and you know, all you do is like they throw the ball in there and your job is to kick it backwards, you know, to get it outside of the scrum. So in any case, but it, you know, the term scrum is derived from that, but really it's a framework for project management and involves, you know, meeting cadences and work cadences, work cycles. So, you know, it's an iterative process, it's often a 2-week cycle, that's what we did. There's a planning component, So you're looking at— you're keeping a backlog of all the work that you could be doing. You're prioritizing that backlog, and then every 2 weeks you're like, okay, what's next on the backlog? You know, what's the top priority? And you're— then you're at— you're sitting down and you're estimating it. Okay, that looks like it— you know, you start out with the t-shirt sizes, you know, small, medium, large, extra large, extra small, and maybe that translates to hours in some way. But then you kind of plan and you make— you give everybody a full plate based on the estimate. Minutes once you break it down. I mean, this is highly simplified, but then, then, um, everybody commits to doing that, that amount of work in the next 2 weeks, and hopefully in, in 2 weeks that work is done and it's out. Now, that doesn't always happen, but that's the goal. And so, and it's, again, it's iterative. Um, so, you know, you put it out there, um, we would always test Again, it's, it's really easy to test things in e-commerce and anything digital. So if we were designing a new feature, for example, we'd always design multiple versions of it. I shouldn't say always, but most of the time we would design multiple versions of that and then test them orthogonally. Anyway, so, you know, and that is that design implement, test, you know, analyze, and repeat, tweak and repeat, basically.

So the Scrum is the process for divvying up work and prioritizing work on a kind of 2-week cycle in this case?

That's part of it, and the other part of it is the daily meeting. So there's a daily stand-up meeting where everybody gets together and it's no longer than 15 minutes, and you literally stand up to keep it short, and you go around the circle and the Scrum Master facilitates. I was the Scrum— the first Scrum Master. I got my Scrum Master training and then I handed that off to somebody else. But you're like, you know, what did you do since yesterday? What do you plan to do until tomorrow? And is there anything— any— are there any obstacles in the way that I can help you resolve? That's it. Okay. And then it's the Scrum Master's job to resolve that. So it works really well.

And then how's that separate from Agile?

You know, uh, how is that? I think Agile is more of a framework for development. Like, I used to know the answer to that question. Um, you know, I would have to cheat, I think, at this point to give you a good answer. I mean, literally, you know, if you Google Agile versus Scrum, it'll give you the answer to that question, and it's kind of subtle, but I think Agile is a little broader you know, and it comes from programming, and it's all about iterative development. And Scrum is a specific implementation of Agile that has some of these components that I described. That said, these things get customized. I can tell you about that too.

So we have in our world of marketing and our process, we have a weekly check-in with a client where we kind of divvy up and assign work. We have quarterly kind of planning sessions. We don't do any daily work, daily standups like that. I have other business owners that I know that do a daily huddle, like they call them, which sounds like a lot like the Scrum where the departments or the larger teams, they all jump up once a day for 10 minutes and they kind of check in and see how things are going. So it feels like there's aspects of Scrum that play out in lots of different other processes and frameworks out there.

It sounds like it. Yeah. And, and go ahead, we're gonna say something.

Oh, I was gonna say, so you're— you see there's a big opportunity there with C-suites and businesses to have more of these intentional frameworks applied to their operations, whether it be Agile Scrum or Agile or Scrum or some variation, that that's an opportunity.

Oh yeah, for sure. Again, I think that most small businesses lack for organization, and that's what frameworks bring. They bring focus, repeatable processes. I mean, if you want to scale, you absolutely need to have some kind of framework because you need repeatable processes, and flexible frameworks frameworks. Now, it's possible that you could outgrow a framework, but then there's another framework for that new phase. But the things like—

Scrum 2.0.

Yeah. I mean, things like Agile Scrum grow with you. Another one is EOS. So we've talked about that, and I'm an EOS integrator. So I'm a big fan of EOS, and that's more of a management framework. So it's more about how do you How do you run a company? And again, a lot of these things seem like common sense, and maybe they are, but things usually seem obvious in retrospect. And despite the fact that they're common sense, somebody has put them together in this system that just does the job, it works. And I think it's what people are striving to do anyway. So regardless of what you call it, and some people get hung up on the terminology, And you can tweak the words if you don't like, you know, so like in EOS they use terms like rocks, you know, do you get that? Well, you're an EOS guy. Yeah, I'm familiar. Yeah, but you can call it something else if you don't like the term rocks. And, you know, with our frameworks, you know, we had to make tweaks based on, you know, the key personalities in the company. Like if the CEO is gonna be involved in this process, then you have to accommodate that person. And, you know, a lot of CEOs are resistant to, you know, any process. I mean, they're fine with processes as long as it doesn't—

As they don't have to apply to them.

Exactly. Yes. You know, so that's a challenge. But if you've got somebody who's like very hands-on or a tendency to micromanage or get into the weeds, then you have to find a way to incorporate that person. So it may be, you know, you change review cycle times or, you know, you accommodate this person. And often that's suboptimal. But the most important thing is just committing to it. As long as you know what you're committing to and everybody buys in and you stay consistent, that's more important to me than staying, than being a purist and doing by-the-book Scrum or by-the-book EOS for that matter. Yeah.

What was the third area? So we— Yeah. Not understanding the buyer, giving it too much lip service. Opportunities to incorporate frameworks. What was the third topic?

The third one was about culture. Culture, that's right. Yes.

Yes. So that's a great one. And I haven't talked often with any guests about culture. It's so important though, right? I'll be curious what your take is on culture and what you think the opportunities are. But then let's segue and try— how can you influence or be part of a culture as a fractional?

Yeah, that's a great question. I look forward to exploring that. Um, so, um, I guess I was thinking about this in the context— I saw something on LinkedIn and it just got me thinking. Somebody had posted something about culture and improving culture. And, you know, just with, with the market being what it is, um, highly competitive, and with employers, you know, struggling to find even just adequate candidates, uh, like to find and keep them. You know, it's an extremely competitive market. And one of the things that I think is going to attract and retain people and is growing in its influence in terms of hiring decisions is culture itself. And it's probably the best thing you can do long term to make, you know, to attract and retain the best talent is to have a healthy culture. You know, um, especially if you're a small or medium-sized business and you're competing with larger companies, uh, and who have much greater resources, you're not going to be able to compete necessarily on salary or benefits. Um, although, you know, I would say, you know, if you can start out by paying people at least above the average, you know, I mean, especially now, but, you know, If you've got a great culture and you're paying them like above average, you know, like that's not usually why people leave, you know, because of the money. It's because their boss or it's the culture, you know, they're just drained, you know. It could be that they, they move on, uh, you know, for in terms of career goals. And then, and I've got some thoughts about that as well in terms of like how do you keep like your best and brightest for a long time, um,. And, you know, to me, that's about, you know, creating this sense of shared, you know, of ownership and a shared future. It's really, it's really about like listening to people. And so, so anyway, like, um, in the context of, you know, this competitive job market, uh, and in order for businesses to be competitive long term, like, creating the best culture is, is really important. And I think there's some basic things people don't do or could do or could do better in the way of culture. And it comes down, I think a lot of it, to leadership. You know, it's the kind of stuff that if you're a seasoned executive and good at what you do, you've probably learned these lessons. But once again, you know, sometimes the simplest things, the most obvious things are actually not easy, not easy to do.

What are some of those simple things from your—

Yes, thank you, thank you for cutting to the chase there. Um, for me, it's like, it's really getting to know your employees and listening to them and understanding what's important to them, because what you think is important to them may not be what's actually important to you. So it kind of parallels that thing I was saying about customers. Yeah, and I, I do think of them a lot the same, you know, in, you know, in You know, so you really got to get to know your employees and what matters to them. And if you're going to make changes, you know, solicit their input, like create, create, give them ownership in their work environment, solicit their input, you know, listen, you know, you know, if you like their feedback, and you're going to do something about them, let them know that you're going to do that. If you, if you're not going to do that, let them know you're, you're not going to do it and why. If you do do it, You know, solicit their input and see, you know, get their feedback. Okay, does that work? Because I think building that momentum and even just small wins in, you know, along that line give people hope and encouragement. Like, and if they're— if people are like, I'm not sure if this is the right place for me, it's like, oh, well, I see things are changing, maybe I'll stick around a little bit longer. So, you know, just getting the ball rolling, you know, you got to act quickly, but I think if you engage people and give them, you know, an invitation, an ongoing invitation to that kind of dialogue, I think that's really important. And I don't see enough leaders doing that. And to me, that's like what a good leader does. But, you know, like in operations, even as in this— we'll get into the fractal conversation, um, you know, and in operations, to me, like, at least half the job is people. So It's a big part of what I do.

I think that's terrific. Thinking of your customer, your employees as customers is a great way to approach that culture issue for sure. I've always thought that culture, the biggest impact on culture is core values. And yeah, an organization that's really clear, not just once again, not lip service core values, but once a company is really clear on its core values, And from top down, those become true litmus tests for the people that we hire and fire and customers and vendors we work with. If that is clear throughout the organization, that's a really strong, I think, foundation or fundamentals for a good culture. It might be not the right culture for you, but it keeps that culture in place and makes it very clear.

I agree, and you've got to communicate that, you know, over and over again. And, you know, that needs to be the basis for your hiring and, and all that.

Yeah. So as a fractional executive that comes in and begins working with an organization, whatever the size, how do you impact culture?

Yeah, I mean, I think you will implicitly impact culture just by being there. I think the important piece there is that you're aligned with whoever's hiring you, presumably the CEO. So for me, you know, as an EOS integrator, I'm looking to partner with a visionary. And so we need to see eye to eye in terms of, you know, values for one thing. We need to be able to get along well. And build that relationship. And hopefully that's an open relationship where we can do conflict together and all those kinds of things, because that's an essential part of growth, is the uncomfortable stuff. But it depends, I think, on what the engagement is. So for me, I don't think we've talked about this, but there seem to be these Oh, maybe we did. There's two different types. You know, there's like the people who just kind of want to hand off all the stuff that they don't want to do, and that's why they're hiring you like as a fractional COO, for example. I'm like, you know, that's okay, I can do that stuff, but if you really want to grow, you know, if you're— that's in contradistinction to those people who really want to grow, because if you really want to grow, that should be my primary focus, and that's— where you're going to get the most value. And if you're going to grow, and if you're going to entrust me to growing your organization, then I'm definitely going to have an impact on the culture. Like, because every step you make operationally, strategically, you know, all that stuff, you know, clarifying core values and, and vision is going to impact culture. And then, you know, the other piece is that as a fractional, you are not just working on the business, but you're working in the business, and you you probably have people reporting to you. So if you're a manager, you know, you're a leader in the organization. So that's gonna have an impact. And if you're an executive, it's a high-level impact. So it will most definitely impact culture. You know, I think that's something that anybody who's on the hiring side needs to think about. You know, does this person seem like a good fit for my culture? And if I wanna change my culture, are they a good person to help me change the culture? Culture, because, you know, being a change agent could be a big part of the job.

Yeah, for sure. I'm curious, from your pers— your point of view, how hard is it, um, or how— what's the difference between being a fractional COO brought into a company and a full-time COO hired for same company? There's a different— I know there's a difference, but from your point of view, what are some of the differences? Between pro, full-time or fractional?

Yeah, I think what one part of it is that it's implicitly temporary or interim, I would say. You know, you're there to do a job. And like I said, it's for me, preferably it's to help the business grow. And so if I do my job successfully, the business will have grown enough that they need to replace me with a full-time COO or EOS integrator. And that's, that's a little bit different than full-time. So, and, and that, that to me is success, you know. You know, there could be certain situations where like, I love this place so much and they love me, and maybe we'll just make a go of it, you know. That, that can happen. But, you know, if you're committed to the fractional I was gonna say lifestyle, but that's not quite the word, you know, profession or professional structure. Um, you know, you want to move on because it's that growth challenge that excites you. Um, and, you know, it's nice to be involved, you know, that variety is also exciting. So, um, I think that's a big difference, you know. Um, just time, you know, face time is, is going to be different, so you really have to optimize your time with everybody, and I think you have to be really disciplined about that. Um, the other piece is I think that, um, you know, ideally you're working for a company and you're helping them grow because you've done that before, and, and, um, so you've got some excess capacity, you know, like people— yeah, because that is a question that people is like, how can you— how do you think you can do that in like 1 or 2 days a week? I'm like, well, you know, I mean, if you bog me down with a whole bunch of small tasks, I'm not going to be able to do that. But if in 1 or 2 days a week, I can make a huge difference, and that's going to really matter long-term in terms of scaling your business, implementing frameworks strategically, all those kinds of things. And I guess I think I lost my train of thought.

You nailed it. I think there's a few things I've recognized really the benefits of being fractional versus full-time. And and they're not intuitive when you think about them, but it's accountable— accountability, productivity, and value. So a lot of people may think that a full-time person is more accountable. In my opinion, I believe it's the opposite. A fractional person has very specific things they're accountable to and need to do that on a monthly basis, otherwise they may not be there next month. And right, that's different than a full-time person who also has specific things to do, but they have a usually a larger amount of grace given to them if those things don't get done.

Exactly.

Productivity, because you have that experience, but also because you're sharing your time between multiple clients, you're usually as a fractional working on more productive items. You're, you're focusing on what really matters, that 20% that's going to move to 80%, right? Whereas you're full-time, you're taking on lots of different things, you're filling your plate with lots of different tasks, whether they be the right priority ones or not, or both. And then value. I think by definition, fractional is going to be a lower portion of the cost, certainly. But that flexibility that a fractional person has to kind of up and up their scale when the scope of work when they need to and lower it, move from project to project or focus to focus, that's extremely valuable for an organization, especially these days when things change so fast and Scrum and Agile environments, I mean, that's why those exist because things change at such a quick pace. So fractional allows for that kind of flexibility where full-time sometimes doesn't. So I think those are the reasons why fractional is a better choice many times for the C-suite than full-time.

And I think the other piece there is that, yeah, it's easier, like you said, I mean, if it's not working out, it's just over, you know, like, and there isn't that, you know, there isn't that emotional investment and, you know, oh no, I gotta hire someone, you know, it's just— it's efficient.

Yes, it's very efficient. What do you think when it comes to hiring, what are some of the criteria that organizations should look for to find a good fractional COO or fractional executive in general?

Yeah, um, well, I think experience, um, Again, so if they're looking to grow, somebody who's grown a business before, and it doesn't have to be in the exact industry. I think it's more important that they've taken a business from one stage of its development to the next stage of development. And again, whether that's from $40 to $100 million or $150 million, or that's $10 to 50 or, you know, 5 to 20, it doesn't matter so much. But the fact— the important thing is that they've done it before, number one. Number two, I think there are some people— you need to be entrepreneurial. Um, so it's not simply like— you don't want necessarily somebody who just comes from a bigger company. Oh, well, this person worked at Coca-Cola or Ford or whatever, so they must know what they're doing. That's not necessarily a good fit. You know, I'm, I'm Nothing against those people, and they may be excellent at what they do, uh, you know, but, um, if, if somebody is thinking— I mean, I've seen that mistake before with small businesses where they're like, oh, this person has a great resume, let's hire them, but it's not a good fit because, you know, when you're coming from a large company like that, everything is, is in place, is in order. There's a, you know, there's a job for that, there's a person who does that, there's a process for that. And when you're in a small company or in a startup, like None of that stuff is defined. You have to figure it out yourself. As you go, you have to take the initiative. And if they're not used to being in that environment, maybe they were a long time ago, but it's hard to make that adjustment. So I think, you know, values fit. You talked about values fit. I think really relationship, you know, when it comes right down to it, the relationship for me, especially between a CEO and myself, is the most important thing. Like, you know, do we, can we get along? Can we do, um, communication, you know? And, um, is there— you know, they have to be committed as well. You know, they have to be committed to making this thing work, so they're going to have to, um, be available, you know, to, um, to share what they know. But I think that you need to earn their trust. Like, they're handing over, you know, your— their baby to you. So a lot of it is establishing that up front. Um, and yeah, so I think— and then, you know, if you have industry— that if you have industry experience, that's always helpful.

Yeah, but as you said, it's more important having done something similar and taken one— a company from A to B in a different industry is probably better than just sitting at B the whole time in the same—

right?

Yeah, right. It's that growth that you're looking for. I, I see it on the, on the marketing side We like to think that having some industry knowledge makes sense, it helps a little bit, but it's more important to understand like the business model. So a retail marketing strategy is going to be similar no matter what retailer you are, but a B2B is going to be completely different. So having experience within the industry from a business, B2B, B2C, retail, SaaS, e-commerce, to me, from a marketing perspective, is more important than being in the automotive industry or the real estate industry. It's more about the business model that I think is important from a marketing side, for sure.

Yeah, from an operational standpoint too, because ultimately the operations, everything is in the service of revenue and profitability.

And growth. Yep.

And I'm always looking at that thing, at that holistically.

Well, let's talk a little bit about, uh, about what you do for fun, Mark. What, what, what outside of business do you do?

What do you like to do, um, for fun? So I like to ride my bike. I'm a bike rider. Um, I'm getting— we're getting to that time of year here in Chicago where it's harder to get out and ride my bike, um, which means I may be relegated to my, uh, my stationary bicycle in the basement, which is not nowhere near as fun. Um, so I do that. I actually hopped in Lake Michigan, uh, on December 2nd, I think. Holy cow. When it was in— it was 45 degrees or something. Um, I've never done that before, so I'm not like a polar bear.

Like the Polar Bear Plunge?

You know, it sounds crazy, but it was— it was actually amazing. It was like one of those days it was It was like 60 degrees. And I'm like, I'm going to see what the water feels like. And so that was fun for me. That was just on the tail end of a bike ride. I've got 2 kids, 2 girls, 11 and 14. Love working from home, so I get to see them. They happen to be home right now prematurely because of COVID They had to go back to distance learning for the last week of the semester. Great to spend time with them on a regular basis. I play bocce ball. It's a highly competitive sport, uh, you know. So what's bocce ball like?

I've, I've seen it, I've heard of it.

I've never—

I don't think I've actually played it. Um, I do curling with some of my friends, which is a similar thing. What's curling? You've seen, you've heard of it.

So tell me a little bit about bocce ball. Shout out to Deb Coviello.

She's a curler.

Yeah, Deb's a curler.

We talked about that.

Yeah. Um, you know, so bocce— and again, it's a great the world's simplest game, you know, simple but not easy. It's, you, you have a little ball called the pallino and you throw it into kind of a sand pit. And then, you know, you see that you have 4 balls, 2 teams, and you see who can get closest to the ball. And, and if you have, um, you know, all you get a point for each ball that's closer than any of your opponent's balls. And that's it. But, um, it's, it's real, it gets, you know, the better you, you get, the the harder it gets because, you know, everybody gets really good and you're knocking other balls out of position and you're moving the pallino and all that kind of stuff. So it's just, it's a great, it's a great casual game. You have a beer and you play with friends.

So you can, uh, so you throw the pallino out and you can move it with one of the throws so it can go somewhere else, and that just, yeah, changes the whole game because now—

exactly, the whole dynamic.

Yes.

Yeah. Now if you're good enough to hit it, um, yeah, you know, but, um, And sometimes it happens by accident. Sure.

That'd be me.

Well, and then you'd be celebrating.

Well, curling's really similar, you know, except it's on ice and you don't throw the Plinio out. It's just already there. You've got the circle in the middle, but then you're throwing your stones and you can hit them in or out of the range, but you get points for the closest stones to the center. There's no, you don't get extra for closest, but it's just the number of stones closest in. You get a point for each. Sounds like a similar game from at least one standpoint. I wonder if you could play bocce on ice. That would be fun.

Well, we may get the chance to do that as the winter comes. We're actually switching to poker and darts. I've got a group of guys that hang out. We used to be in a league, but—

So my team, my curling team has not been good the last couple of years. I think we've lost every game. For at least the last year and a half. And we were just sitting there licking our wounds last Sunday night after our last match of the season, and maybe we should switch to darts or something else because we're just so bad. Hatchet throwing? I've done that. That's kind of fun. I'd rather go play darts poker for a regular event than, yeah, hatchet throwing.

I agree. What, what's your team name? Do you have a team name?

The curling team? Oh, we've, we've changed the names quite a bit. Uh, every time we lose, we start a new season with a fresh name. Um, I'm trying to think of some of the recent names. I, I know we don't have a name that sticks.

So you have to be a good skater to be—

or no, you don't? No, you, you— so curling, it's, it's not very active. Uh, the sweeping's active. I get that. I take the back. I got a buddy who wears his like Fitbit or whatever it is while he's sweeping throughout the night, and he's like, I got you know, it's a really good workout if you are one of the main sweepers.

Right.

Um, but other than that, you're walking on, um, tennis shoes. Usually you got a little slider that you can, uh, stand on when you throw. You got to slide when you throw the, the actual stone. Um, other times you're walking. Um, it— people can slip and fall. It happens.

Yeah.

But, uh, no, it's—

there's no skating.

Occupational hazard.

Yeah, yeah, it's like I did it. This sweeping reminds me of the raking you have to do of the sand. Like, I, I did that a couple weeks ago. I actually pulled a muscle raking. That's—

don't tell anybody else that. Oh shoot, it's on the podcast.

I'm sorry, broadcast out there. It's old guy stuff, you know. You pull a muscle by raking these days. Where's my youthful athleticism?

Yeah, that's funny. My business partner Jay was just— I was talking to him yesterday. He was driving into Breckenridge, Colorado to do some skiing this weekend with his family. And he's like, there, you would not believe there's hardly any snow here. The lake was really low. And he says, but the good news is I'll be able to get some biking in. So he's a biker.

He's excited.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know Jay.

Yeah, that's cool. Well, it's been extremely mild so far, so who knows. As long as it's above freezing, I'm fine.

Yeah, it's too bad when there's not enough snow out in the mountains though. Yeah, the ski industry really relies on it, but then the rest of us do. We don't know it, but you know, that snow can turn into our water, so it's important.

That is true. Didn't you say you're a water guy?

Did you say that earlier?

No. Okay, I'm sorry, that was somebody else.

Yeah, I No, no, I, I enjoy golf when I can get out and play. I've been playing a little bit more the last couple years.

Um, world's hardest sport.

Yeah, you know, I've got— I've given up on worrying about my score. I enjoy that time to get away for 4 or 5 hours and just— which is rare where you can just not think about anything but hitting a little ball around the grass, and it's pretty fun.

They say that golfing is on the decline because people don't have 3 hours anymore to spare.

It's at least 4 if you do it right. Yeah, that was why I stopped for so long. When I had young kids, I just couldn't get away for big— my wife would kill me if I was taking too much time away from the family to go spend on the golf course. Sometimes you can work business into it and make that work, but rarely that's the case. Yeah. My big hobby now, I think it's, if you can call it a hobby, it's traveling. I'm finding ways to travel a lot more than I used to. And it's harder with the current pandemic, but I've got 4 international trips scheduled in Q1 for mostly for business, only 1 personal. So that's, That's fun. Where are you going? I'm gonna go to Cabo and Barcelona, the Dominican Republic, and the Philippines.

Awesome.

Yeah, and I'm trying to get Vietnam in the mix as well.

Yeah, that would be cool. My uncle and aunt went there, they loved it.

I've never spent any time in Asia. I think I'm excited to go and see what's over there.

Yeah, I've never been to Barcelona. I've been to Spain, but that's one big city there I didn't go to. I I'd love to go to Barcelona.

What did you think of Spain?

I loved it. I love Spain. Um, you know, we're in Madrid and, um, uh, Toledo and, um, Cordoba, and, uh, it was just beautiful. I mean, uh, a very vibrant culture. Um, the architecture is amazing, the history is amazing, the landscape is cool. Um, I loved it. And I also loved Portugal. Portugal. If you haven't been to Portugal— have you been to Portugal?

Well, I had a chance to spend 48 hours in Portugal, in Lisbon. I was flying back from Switzerland and they had one of those, um, stayover programs where you could— that the airline would let you stay over for up to 48 hours without changing your fare. And so I took advantage of it and I spent 2 nights in Lisbon. And I thought Portugal was really neat. I didn't get outside of the city. I would have liked to have explored more of countryside, but, um, it was neat where I was.

Yeah, it's kind of low-key, especially relative to Spain. It is coastal, kind of reminded me of California in a way, you know, just in terms of landscape and terrain. But, um, you know, great seafood, very friendly people. Um, Sevilla too is probably my favorite city in Spain.

Oh really? Yeah.

No, I don't know. I don't—

I haven't been— had a chance to travel that much. That's why I'm trying to take advantage of it now, like I still have time to move around and don't get hurt raking, raking and sweeping injuries. Yes, raking and sweeping to take me out of my travel.

Right, right. That's awesome that you're doing that. I can't wait to get traveling again.

That's one thing I miss.

Yeah.

Well, great. Well, um, I really enjoyed our conversation, Mark. It was, uh, good catching up.

Thank you. It's, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for, for having me. Uh, really love talking. I'm sure we could go on for a lot.

Oh yeah, we, we could. And, and I'm glad that the— for the viewers out there that had a chance to tune in and hear a little bit about, about our subject matter. So thank you, audience, as well. Um, we are— we're on this, uh, show every week and with a different guest. The last several guests have been from the Fractal Professional Association, so That's the organization that we all belong to, and excited to, to have you on that group as well. We talk, we'll talk in a couple weeks on our next regular meeting there, but thanks again for being here. Welcome. Thanks, Joe.

And the best way for people to get a hold of you is, uh, you can reach me on LinkedIn, Mark Scrimenti. Um, easy to find that way. My website is www.vividpath.com. Consulting.com. So it's kind of a mouthful— Vivid, as in the word vivid, and P-A-T-H. Um, yeah. And then you can also, uh, if you want to talk, all my information is there, free consultation, anything like that, uh, you'll find how to contact me there. Great.

And we've got all that in the show notes, so for those listening, and you can capture that information in the show notes. Well, thanks again. This has been another, uh, interesting conversation, or kind of a casual, interesting conversation from the C-suite retreat. So thanks for joining, and I look forward to catching up more, Mark. Talk to you soon.

Thanks, Joe. You too.

Happy holidays. 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 Your CMO, helping organizations grow, save time and money with better marketing strategy and fractional execution.

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