The Next Generation - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode # 017

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 everybody.

Today's guest has a passion to learn. He believes that leadership is about investing in others, is highly skilled about industry knowledge, is the founder and CEO at Tradeon Inc. Welcome Joshua Bilesma. Joshua, how are you?

I'm doing well, Joseph. Thank you so much for allowing me to be on your show.

Yeah, I'm super excited to have you here today. So one of the questions, I just like to get right to it and start off is, you know, working as a business owner and being around other C-suite executives. And what do you see as one of the biggest opportunities today that maybe others don't see or other C-suite members might be missing out on?

You know, being a younger or newer C-suite individual, I think one of the things that has been most interesting to me has been looking to the generation coming up behind us. So, you know, as you and I were just talking before we jump on the show about our children, I think often of my own daughters and their future, and what are we doing as leaders to invest in and give opportunities and to mentor those coming behind us so we have future leaders for our world tomorrow, for our businesses, corporations, that, you know, they have the energy, the excitement, and what are we doing to help nurture that and give them those opportunities? I know One of the biggest struggles I had early on was having that opportunity to go connect with people who got the experience. And thankfully now I have individuals who have the decades of experience and background and all that, that I can leverage. But now that I think about myself and my future, one thing I constantly think about is what am I doing to invest in those coming up behind us? And so that I think is something that's important for all people in the C-suites, remember that at one point they knew nothing, right? They were green, they're brand new, they had to figure things out themselves. And so investing in that next generation and identifying those individuals and pouring into them, I think is very important for the future of any organization as well as our society.

Yeah, that's really interesting. So what are some of the things that you're doing about that?

Yeah, so I have a couple young men that personally I've been mentoring. Some have an entrepreneurial bent. And so I get together, you know, every couple weeks for a cup of coffee and just talk life, you know, share life on life, if you will. Just the reality of what it's like sometimes, the struggle, the grind, the difficulty, the lessons I learned in hopes that, you know, they don't necessarily have to go through all the same failures that we had to go through. And so very active on that side of things. And it really, anytime Anyone reaches out and connects, whether it's through LinkedIn or social media or email, says, hey, I'm just curious. So for example, I want to say about 5 months ago, a group out of, I think it was Florida State University, reached out. They were assigned a project to interview startup founders, and they wanted to kind of view it from an investor standpoint. So they have identified my company and reached out. And so I gave them like an hour plus of my time and just had a great conversation with 4 or 5 future leaders. And so I think just being intentional and not brushing them off. I know it's hard when the schedule and the to-do list is constantly growing and expanding, but taking that time to invest in them. I know personally, I walk away from those conversations super pumped and encouraged and reinvigorated about what I'm doing. So just being intentional and find those opportunities. And when they show up, taking the time to actually have the conversations and invest in other people.

Yeah, that's great. So being mindful of the need out there that the young— that younger, you know, the, the not let, you know, someone who's not yet at the leadership level you are, whatever their age may be, that their needs are there. And being mindful of that and looking for opportunities to give back, and whether that's a mentoring or coaching or just giving advice or sharing experiences. Is a way to do that. That's interesting.

Yeah, I read a book recently, uh, this past summer, and it's called The CEO Next Door. It's an interesting book. I recommend it to anyone, uh, to take a look at it. And one of the points they brought up was they found that the most successful CEOs weren't the ones with a huge amount of mentors. They had a lot of mentorees. And it's those that are always helping the next generation and pouring other people that they found would end up being the most successful CEOs in the long run. So this is a very interesting bit of information that I've worked to apply.

So let me say what I thought you said. So the most successful CEOs didn't have a lot of mentors in their organization that were doing the mentoring. They were doing the mentoring themselves. Correct. And their mentees. Okay, interesting. And that is a, you know, it's a big trade-off for someone at the C-suite, well, anyone, period. When you trade time, you're making a big decision on what you do with your time. And if you're giving it to someone that's a mentee intentionally, that may not feel like it shows up all the time in ROI or the best use of your time. But what you're saying is actually the studies show that it does. That's good validation. That's a good thing to do.

[Speaker:MICHAEL_SEIBEL] Yeah. I've found it's helped me even think through my own, if you will, the things I'm dealing with. And I've learned to be a little more vulnerable even in those conversations with the younger generation. And I found that just having those conversations sometimes helps me solve problems I didn't realize I needed to solve yet, right? So just sometimes those conversations, it is very valuable for both people, part of it. So yeah, I found it very rewarding for myself, and obviously I think it's great for the generation coming behind us.

Yeah, you know, it's not something I can say I've done a lot of. I do a lot of— I give a lot of my time to peer organizations, peer-to-peer organizations. I feel like there's some similar value to be had that way. Certainly learning and experience sharing with your peers, that is valuable in its own right. But I haven't done as much of that from a mentor-mentee standpoint. And it's not because I decided not to do it. I've just never made it an intention. But I can see how being able to be in that position, you know, sometimes you learn these things better when you teach them to somebody else. So I can see how that value would be there. And then to be able to help develop somebody and share wisdom and have them maybe avoid some of the, the problems or the challenges that, that I've faced, you know, could— I could see I'd be really valuable to that person if they were looking for that information. That's great. When did you discover that idea or what come about that?

I would say probably it's been in the back of my head for probably the last 5, 6 years, just the importance. And there's been in my life key individuals that even till today I will recall conversations with them. And they were all business leaders in their own right and had either character traits or personality attributes that I thought, you know, that's something I want to emulate.. And, um, over the last 2 years, 3 years is where I've really started to be more deliberate and intentional. And then I think that really ramped up during COVID Um, just, you know, we were all in this isolation. We're all dealing with something we've never had to deal with as a society, as individuals. Uh, the struggle was just, everyone had it. It was different in every situation, but everyone had this big struggle. And I just, at that point, started taking the opportunity. So it started with just every Saturday morning I was reaching out to my network of people and younger guys and saying, let's grab a cup of coffee and have a conversation. And sometimes it wasn't even around business, right? It was about being a husband or being a father or just life in general. And sometimes we talk business, right? We get in the nuts and bolts of corporate structure and strategy and interpersonal dynamics. And so, uh, it just turned in from there just in something I've really come to enjoy. Um, and unfortunately, I am like everyone else and my schedule gets full and then I started to cancel those meetings. And then even this week, I realize, oh, I gotta reach out to a couple guys I haven't had a chance to. And so, um, it is being intentional and it is hard, but it's very rewarding. And I believe in the long run it's very, very rewarding. And I think the other part to it for me is that it, um, it's establishing a discipline in myself to, as we build our team and we grow, um, to implement that as a part of our culture, that everyone's poured into somebody else and giving something to someone else to help them become, you know, as good as they can be? And are we doing that? And it starts with me doing that myself. So working to be— make that a big part of my habit.

Yeah, we've talked about having some sort of mentorship program inside of our organization. We've got a lot of fractional CMOs that have been around the business for a while. We have new ones that are just coming in and helping the new CMOs kind of learn the ropes, not of how to do it within our organization, but what it's like being a a full-time fractional CMO is much different than being a full-time CMO. You know, the fractional lifestyle is very different, uh, work style, if you will. Um, but I haven't really, you know, taken it to the higher level, which is maybe, you know, us the owners and founders and need to be doing some of that mentoring as well. Um, that's really— it's a nice reminder. Thank you for sharing that.

I appreciate that. Yeah, it's become a passion of mine. So something I continue to try to nurture and and develop better. So, and I do see that sometimes you need it. I need the encouragement. I need the, if you will, the young man, the young man, the youngism, right? The little piss and vinegar that comes out of just being young and like I could take on the world. Sometimes it's encouraging to say, oh yeah, you know, because the more you're in this, right, that you have the tendency, it happens to get a little jaded, right? You become a little more cynical, you become a little more guarded because that's just part of the nature of being bombarded all day and having to deal dealing with, if you will, lots of fires and work through those. And sometimes it's good to have a reminder that it's okay to approach life a little bit more optimism and excitement than sometimes we tend not to do when we're doing it for a while. So, um, yeah, I found it just beneficial on both sides. It's been great.

Great. Well, tell, tell me a little more about your business. It's a very interesting, um, organization that you've built and started to build there. So tell me a little bit about what you're doing and, and where you're going with it.

Yeah, absolutely. So at a very high level, Tradeon is a company we're really focused on bringing clean technologies to market in a way that are accessible to everybody. And so before we got into this, myself and the other founders and sort of building this, we really unraveled this big chasm So we have really cool technologies being developed around clean tech, so everything from electric vehicles, right, very practical energy storage, both on the residential side to what's known as grid level, so massive, massive systems. And we identified that there's a huge gap between these technologies and, if you will, the broader market. So for example, Tesla EVs, right? They're really expensive. And now Tesla's definitely making some changes. GM's doing that, Ford's doing that, right? We're seeing definitely a shift to where it's gonna be more accessible to the broader market, which is great. But always in the beginning, it's very expensive and becomes very prohibitive for the average consumer or individual to really engage with. And so we took this approach of how do we create and deliver technologies that make a real difference from a sustainability perspective, and then make those technologies where their price is structured to where the average consumer, the average person, can acquire or participate in them. And so that's really became the, if you will, the driving motivation of what we now have as Tradeon. So today our focus is we're building energy storage for homes that are integrated with electric vehicle chargers. So it's an all-in-one platform, which As of today, that type of solution doesn't exist, requires you kind of bring multiple parts and pieces from other vendors in to make work. And then we're delivering all that through a monthly subscription. So just to put things in perspective, the average home energy storage system installed in the United States costs right around $40,000 to $50,000. Now, yes, you can buy the hardware for less than that, but you have to install it. You have to pull permits, right? Sometimes houses can't support that type of infrastructure, so you got to upgrade the electrical services, things of that nature. So the cost gets very cost prohibitive. And so we saw this big gap. Again, this broader market doesn't have the ability to afford the technologies such as energy storage or even EV charging when consumers want to buy EVs. And so we're bringing both those technologies together as an all-in-one platform. And then really the third leg, if you will, of our platform that's very unique is that we're leveraged around second-life batteries. So electric cars, uh, only utilize about 20% of their batteries before they're being replaced. So when a lithium-ion battery starts to get old, um, the range in the car starts to drop off pretty quick, which no longer makes it really effective, right? So what happens is the batteries get replaced with brand new ones, the car can keep going, but they only utilize 20% of the actual life of those lithium-ion batteries. So it means 80%, so about 7 to 15 years worth of life is still inside those batteries if they're repurposed in a different application such as energy storage. And the other reality is that really isn't being talked about is that recycling, the recycling technologies that exist today for lithium-ion batteries isn't really viable. So it costs more to recycle. Than it does to mine new materials. And then the toxins that are created in the recycling process negate any kind of value of reclaiming a couple of rare earth elements that we do. Now, thankfully, there are really smart people working on that problem. And I believe sincerely, within the next 5 to 10 years, there will be some really good recycling processes in place. Our solution says, or our approach is, well, we could be a stopgap. We could take batteries that are once in EVs, repurpose them, as energy storage. So we're taking their natural resources that we've already mined as a society and we're reusing those and continue to use those to gain more value out of them before they have to go through recycling. And our hope is by the time we need to recycle our batteries, they already have processes in place that make it much better. So our unique approach is energy storage, EV charging with second-life batteries sold as a subscription model to the consumer. So there's no trying to figure out how to install it, know if it breaks what's going to happen, right? Eliminate all those difficulties, all those barriers to entry, and make it really simple for the average consumer to build access to these types of technologies, reducing their own carbon footprint, their own— managing their own energy within their own home much, much better. And that's our primary focus right now is building and developing that technology and go to market that direction.

All right, so there's a lot to unpack there. I want to start with maybe not the details of the business model, but more on how did you take this idea? What, you know, are you the visionary or someone else the visionary? How did you, how did the idea come about? How did you build your initial team?

Yeah, so I'm the visionary. It was my idea. Literally, I was driving to work one day. This is now almost 2 and a half, 3 years ago now, I think. And I kept asking myself, and it's probably about a month, 2-month process. I'm just like, what's next? Like, where's the world moving? What's the next, if you will, gold rush, right? And the old saying, if there's a gold rush, sell shovels, right? So like, what's the gold rush? And then what's the shovel in that context? And then what does that, you know, what's that need look like? And no joke, a Tesla drove past me and I went, oh, EVs. I mean, that the world's going that direction. At this point, it was pretty well established that EVs are no longer a fad. There is going to be an actual fundamental shift in how we do mobility, right? The cars, right? They're going to change. And so I was like, "All right. So EV charging really is the shovel, if you will." And the biggest issue with EV adoption even today is lack of infrastructure. So at that point, I had a good friend who is— I don't know how to describe him, but Let's just say he plays a level like global IT, right? He's the type of guy who's buying fiber lines under the ocean, right? So he's thinking big, big scale. So I reached out to him and we started a conversation and really the idea started to formulate. We looked at it from an IT perspective, right? So we're putting intelligent systems, the chargers, at the edge of the power grid. Why can't we do more with them? So it's an IT idea. It's distributed architecture is what they call that. And so the energy storage piece came in, and then as we're researching, understanding energy storage and battery technology, we uncovered this massive opportunity in second-life batteries and the fact that there's going to be a massive amount of them in the next 10 years and no really viable way of using them yet. So that's where it started to come together. Then we brought in my brother, who was heavy on the marketing side. Um, from day one we said, um, it doesn't matter how cool of a widget we create, if we have no way to tell that story and tell a story well, it's pointless. And so, uh, really focus heavy on the marketing side, the branding, messaging, all that type of stuff. Because let's be honest, the— again, we're talking about the next generation, they're the ones that we buying these. So I can't market to guys my age necessarily, right? I gotta think about, you know, what is My kids are convinced in their mind they're buying an EV. The first car they pay for out of their own pocket, it's going to be a Tesla. That's what they keep telling me. So that entire generation, that's what they want to do. So we're thinking already from day one, what does that generation, the demographic look like? What's important to them? This is the type of generation that's not going to want to go and buy houses, but they're going to want to rent forever and ever. So why would they want to put, again, a massive $50,000 system in their home, whether they can just do it via monthly subscription, right? So we started thinking through that. That's how the model kind of got formulated, um, and then it's kind of grew from there. So we've been able to bring on an engineer who actually has battery manufacturing, uh, experience. And then we built our team of advisors, which consists of multiple CEOs who have worked in this space or connected to it. And so, uh, we've been able to build a team just one person at a time Relationships, networking, connecting is what it's really boiled down to. And it's been fun, a lot of fun. And thankfully we have a great, great team behind us, which I'm super encouraged by.

That's great. So how are you going to go to market? Is it a consumer-driven market where you're, you're looking at homeowners and renters, and, or are you going to look for more of a partnership kind of channel where you're going through dealers or even the car manufacturers themselves? Like, what's the right way to get to market? Or, I mean, maybe you haven't figured that out yet, but what's the way you're thinking?

Yeah, so in some regards, we haven't figured it out. There is dynamics in the market from both cultural dynamics, policy, even state-by-state, region-by-region policy, things that kind of affect how we would approach this. But high level, the initial focus is we're going to market direct to customers. So we don't intend to necessarily, if you will, sell direct to customers, we market direct to customers, create that brand awareness at that level, kind of call it air war, ground war, is kind of how I approach this. The air war part is the high level market to the customers, and then more boots on the ground level is partnerships. And those partnerships are going to be different. And so we're looking at everything from the automotive OEMs, like you said, partnerships. And we've had some conversations even with GM and some other companies that are kind of interesting. Partnering with utilities. A big thing in the energy space, not to get on a rabbit trail, but utilities are a unique thing, right? Because they're technically a monopoly, but a monopoly that's highly regulated and controlled. And it has to be, right, to make it the whole power system and water systems work. The problem is that a lot of clean energy startups or clean energy companies coming on or into this, if you will, into the system are acting as competitors to the utilities. But the reality is the utilities own the infrastructure, they own the power lines, they own the transformers, they own all that stuff. And so our approach from day one has been how do we partner with utilities and be an asset for them? And so Those conversations are ongoing, but again, the US is unique because of how the power grid's segmented across the US. They call them ISOs, and each ISO has a region, and each region has their own way of doing things. And even within those regions, the utilities themselves have their own ways of doing things. And so it's a one-by-one relationship building, understanding the unique dynamics, and then kind of going from there. So It's a little complicated on that side, but it's something that thankfully I have one individual on our team that that's his world, that he understands that space and how to navigate those complexities. And so working through all that, so it's definitely multiple layers, marketing directly to consumers and then building key partnerships from OEMs to auto dealerships to, you know, electrical contractors who actually do the installation and building our infrastructure that way. As far as the go-to-market. So it's multi-layered.

Yeah. So you've got a lot of unknowns here, you know, startup, big market, new technology, clear needs, you've done a nice job of identifying the needs and the gaps. I'm curious, as a leader in the organization, how do you go about decision making? What is your process?

Lots of thinking.

I have—

I can't see it. But my office is always stacks of notebooks everywhere. I got whiteboards everywhere. I'm constantly jotting down ideas and trying to flush them out. But I've come to learn to trust my team. So from day one, I brought in guys, the first two guys that I brought in, Scott and Ben are their names. They're different. And they each have things they're really good at that I'm not good at, which is, you know, very important. I've come to learn to trust them. And so I brought ideas up and said, hey guys, what about this? And they're like, dude, that's stupid. Don't do that, you know, or they'll push back and they'll blow holes through it. And it's been great. And so that's been a big part. Um, obviously there's times where I have to make decisions because time is of the essence and I gotta just make the decision right then and there. Um, but I always, when I'm in those situations, I play through the questions that I know Scott or Ben would throw at me and try to filter through based on their— what I would think their response will be to make those decisions. And so It goes back to the whole team thing, just having those voices that you trust, people that are different, have a different way of approaching things. Having their input into the conversation is very important to making our decisions.

Interesting. Do you lean on some of the advisors, uh, first in the same way, or more the direct employees?

Uh, mostly direct employees right now, just because we're in the grind day in, day out. Um, definitely bigger decisions, I go to the advisors more for if you will, kind of big picture direction, market ideas, go-to-market strategy, product strategy, bigger ideas, I go to them and get their perspectives. Because again, they all come from different backgrounds. One's a, you know, several time over CEO who's closed deals of, you know, $1.4 billion. And so he's got big world experience, he understands what the big corporations are thinking. I got one who actually, she's a startup CEO here in the state of Michigan. And 10, 15 years ago, she had this idea. And unfortunately, the market wasn't there, the opportunity wasn't there, right? There was, at the time, I think the only EV on the road was the GM EV1, which they ended up taking back and crushing. But, you know, so I get input from her because she's super passionate about what we're doing because this was a space she was excited about. 10, 15 years ago. So I leverage them for kind of big vision input and direction and focus on my team for the day in, day out specific strategy focuses and decisions we have to make.

Yeah, interesting. That's a— thanks for sharing that. I'm always curious how people go through the decision-making process. I like that you're— you try to ask yourself the questions that, you know, people around you would be asking of yourself. That's, that's a a good way to think through that and challenge some of your maybe initial thoughts on decisions. As I continue the theme on leadership, and what do you think— and there's some questions I've been asking myself a lot lately— what do you think the real leader, the real role of a leader is within an organization?

I, the first phrase that comes to mind is Set the bar. So the leader is the one that really sets the tone, the tempo, the bar, the culture, all those different things. The entire benchmark of everything is judged on is based on the leader. Um, so am I really, you know, from a work ethic standpoint, I, and I think we've all had experience in their past, we work for companies where the leader, right, he's on his boat the entire time fishing every single summer day as opposed to in the shop working. Or flip side, I remember I worked for an organization where the owner who didn't need to work, if his guys were working on Saturdays digging trenches, he was in work boots digging trenches with them, right? So there's that crazy dynamic of, you know, if you will, how people kind of interpret that or how they live that out. But I often come back to, it's my responsibility to set the bar. Everything from how many hours I put into my work ethic to what's important. And then communicate that obviously verbally as well as with my actions to the team and model that. I think that's been critical. And I think it is critical. If I say family is important and if I got someone that comes to me and says, hey, I need to take the time off and I say no, right? Then what am I really saying? Or if I even say no to my own family and what they need of me, what am I really saying, right? And so trying to live that out, which is hard, let's, you know, be honest, it's hard to do that. And I failed that often. But to strive to set that temple, set that benchmark on what I want within the organization and modeled after my own actions and character and purpose. So yeah, that's really, that's why I come back to.

And then to add to that question, how do we establish or how do you establish other leaders in your organization? What's their role? Is it similar? They set their own bars? Or is there a different criteria for different levels of leaders?

Yeah, so for me, I look for those from a leadership standpoint. I look for those who take ownership. So within my organization, if I see individuals— if you give a task or, hey, we gotta accomplish X, who stands up and takes ownership of that responsibility? For me, it's a big deal. I love initiative. It's, it's how I've done what I've done. And so the ownership, the initiative piece is big, and I identify those individuals, invest in them. Encourage them. Sometimes it's a process. I remember conversations a while back when I was with a different organization with one of the leaders in the company, and he was having issues managing an individual. And I remember the first conversation with him was very difficult. He said, hey, you know, you gotta really— as a leader, you have to help people identify what they're good at, what they're bad at, and then support them in their strengths, and then help them in their weaknesses. And he really at the time bucked against that. It's like, no, they should just do what we told them to do. But a couple months later, after several conversations, he started to understand, oh, that makes sense. And it was exciting to see then from that point on what happened, how that transpired, and how people underneath his responsibility started to thrive because he was investing in them in the correct way. And so, so I think maybe the other part to it would be identifying leaders who are willing to be held accountable. And have those conversations and humble, right? I mean, that's a big deal. It was one thing I had to constantly learn when I go to my team with an idea and they're like, "You're an idiot." So what am I doing if I try to trump them? That's stupid. So modeling that and having guys that model that, they're willing to take input feedback, if you will, criticism that is constructive and helpful, beneficial. Those are the things that I look for. So humility, initiative, a real desire to do more and see those guys rise in service and then invest in them and mentor them and help them become what they can be in the future.

Yeah, I had this conversation with somebody just the other day on the, on the podcast, and I, I don't want to— I don't remember exactly the ideas we came up with, but I do remember a few. One was leaders need to also develop other people. Like, that was a role that we outlined, or we identified, was that she identified as something important. Also, leaders need to inspire and influence. Like, that was another statement she made. And I found, I found both those interesting and made sense, just like yours do. I mean, leadership means a lot of things. But at its core, I come back to, I think it's decision-making. And that's, that's a role that the leader needs to make. And it has to be influencing in some way through inspiration or direction or otherwise, because you got to have followers, right, in a typical leadership sense. So when you work with it, I don't know if you're working with any fractional professionals yet, but you kind of have maybe some advisors that might play that role a bit in your organization right now.

How do you—

what do you look for in an outside leader that might come in, you know, present day or in the future to help you grow your business? Kind of traits would you be looking in that person?

Yeah, that's a good question. Because I'm actually thinking through some of that stuff right now. That's a question I'm honestly wrestling with too, because it's difficult. Because on one hand, I want, I guess, to say I want perspective, a different perspective. You know, it's when you're in it all day, every day, you see the world only through your own lens, right? So the fires I'm dealing with, the opportunities I see, the product, the all this stuff, right, is one very narrow perspective. And it's very easy to get very tunnel vision, which was value in that too, right? You got to be laser focused. And as someone who has, you know, ADD, right, I'm easy to— but staying focused is important and critical. So from an outside leader coming in, perspective is a big thing, a different perspective. Two would be a set of experiences that I don't have. Dealing with situations I haven't had a chance to deal with yet would be very valuable as far as just them being able to say, you know what, I dealt with this, and this is how we dealt with it in the past, and here's the lessons we learned. Here's how it went well. Here's how it failed. I think 3 would be going back to the humility dynamic. Someone who can say, here's how I failed in the past and the areas I did and how I think we cannot go down that path, would be very important. I think some of the best leaders I've interacted with through the years so far have been ones who have a level of humility and really good self-awareness of where their weaknesses are and being able to call those out and there's value in that. There's huge value in that. So that'd be the 3 things I think I look for. Perspective, you know, the humility part, how the wounds, the experience, and bringing that into the table, into the conversation would be things I'd be looking for.

Great. Now, those are great characteristics. As a fractional professional, one of the things that I'm— I work with a lot of other fractional professionals, and one of the things that I realize is The business, the everyday business owner doesn't necessarily know what a fractional professional means, fractional CMO or CTO or CFO, um, or whatever. When did you first hear about the term fractional and what does it mean to you when you think about a fractional professional?

That's a good question. I can't recall the first time. I'd say probably been less than a year. As I've seen the term more and more being talked about, really, I guess the way I often interpret it or the way I kind of define it is individuals who got the experience that have, I guess, you know, talked about, if you will, the battle scars of life and have done it, are able to come in in a— I don't want to say part-time, so I think that really limits the perspective of the role. But in a not a 100% committed capacity to really provide just that special level of expertise and experience to an organization who doesn't necessarily have the financial means to be able to bring in someone in a full-time role in that type of caliber. And so that's what I see it as, just really that helping organizations, especially small companies like us that are upstarts, that, you know, we have limited capital and hypergrowth and we need to have good voices into the conversation and sit at the table with us as we discuss these things. Individuals from a fractional standpoint come in and do that without having to be a big line item on the, on the budget. So that's where I see the fractional come into play.

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. When we think of fractional targets for our business, like size-wise, it's not the startup, which the need is real, and it's definitely there to use it Usually it's followed by not the budget, right? But because we are fractional, it is appealing to both startups and other small, mid-sized businesses. But the other thing that I think, at some level of business, you know, maybe it's not a financial decision, you just don't need that full-time person, but you do need the expertise. And you said earlier, someone that can come in and own it. Like you need someone that can own that role. But they may not need to own it 40 hours a week. Maybe they own it 10, and that's all you need. So it might also be a financial discount, you know, reduction in cost, but also you just don't need 40 hours of it.

Yeah, yeah. Especially a startup like us and companies similar to us, right? That's pretty common because you might do whatever initiative for X number, you know, if you use the agile principles, right? You do this, um, you go all in and there's one project you have to get done and, uh, yeah, then you may not have to do it for a while. And so that'd be a big component to it, just not needing that type of expertise all the time because we just don't need it yet. Um, so that's, yeah, definitely huge. I think even from my perspective, one of the things I, I was thinking through on the fractional side of things, again, I am, I have been thinking about this, um, for our own organization recently is even getting a chance to interact with different personalities and identifying, okay, that person definitely had character traits or personalities that worked well. So when we go to hire that role out eventually in the future as a full-time role, if we need to, what does that look like, right? And so that, for me, I look at as even a chance to learn and explore different things, which is great as we grow and we know we'll have to scale at some point. So So there's one of the dynamics I've been thinking through.

Good. What are some of the roles that you're thinking of, been thinking about for fractional people?

Yeah, so it may sound odd, but honestly one of the roles I'm thinking about is the CEO role. Interesting. Yeah, it's, to be honest, a year ago if I would've said that, I actually wouldn't have said that, to be honest with you. I would be like, no way, I'm the founder, I'm the CEO, right? The little bit of pride and arrogance that comes with with being a founder sometimes. But as I come to identify even my own strengths and weaknesses, I'm starting to think, you know, am I really the best person to be the CEO? You know, what are my skills? What are— what am I good at? And is it the right things the company needs? And for me, it became— come down— came down to what do I care about most, building Josh as a brand or building Tradion as a company?. And once I wrestled through that, you know, my passion to see Tradion grow, I want Tradion to become highly successful. And if I need to get out of the way or not sit at the CEO role and take a different role because I have different abilities and someone else has got a better skillset, take the CEO role, then I need to do that. And so, um, that's a role that I've been working through, um, quite a bit is, you know, what does that look like? Uh, how would you divide up responsibilities? How does it look like from a structure standpoint? What are the things I'm really good at. And what I love doing is I love bringing products to market. That's what I've done my entire career. And so, you know, that's, that's my specialty. Well, the CEO's got a little bit different role, right? I mean, there's, there's a lot more riding on them, right? There's the investor relation component. There's, there's the creating a little more of the vision of the company, right? Which obviously I would influence because I'm the founder, but it's a different You know, the face of the company is a different set of responsibilities on that, on those shoulders. And so that's a role I've been seriously thinking about, continue to think through, like, do we need to bring in an actual CEO, you know, and then, you know, I transition to different responsibilities and what does that look like and how does it play out? Um, so yeah, that's what I'm, that's honestly what I'm wrestling with right now. Interesting.

That's a role that, you know, I don't see very often as a fractional CEO role. In the way you're describing it. I'll see it in interim, you know, so we need to bring somebody in for 3 to 6 months until we can fill a full-time role. But what you're describing is a, you know, a fractional CEO, uh, that would, that would be in the same category as a fractional CMO or CFO, just not full-time but owning the role. How much— I'm just curious, how much time do you think somebody would need to play in your business to, to do that role? And how many other clients could a fractional CEO have?

That's a very interesting thought. Yeah. So what kind of got me thinking about this is, so there's an individual I've been talking to for a while, and I think in the long run she would make a great fit in our organization. She's got the experience, the background as a CEO of other tech companies, and She talking through her experience one day, you know, she, she said she worked for an organization where she was brought in as a CEO, and the owner specifically had the mandate where she was supposed to train his daughter to come up as the next CEO. So she knew it was a short-term contract, like a couple years, or I forget exactly how long it was. So there is, I think, even opportunity in that where an individual like her might say, like, you know, I don't necessarily want to sit in the grind for another 10 years, right? I might be only a couple years away from wanting to retire, but I still have some energy and some passion in me. I want to do something. It coming in almost as a CEO/mentor to whoever the next CEO would be. So an individual like me that says, you know, there's some skill sets I need to work on, is there things I can learn from you? Or we just need an interim until we get more established and then we'll bring in someone for that role in the future, right? So There's different dynamics I think come into play there that's just been interesting. I'm trying to think through that CEO structure. We're seeing some companies now doing this co-CEOship type thing. I'm not exactly sure how that works, but different companies are taking different approaches to that. And I guess it's interesting, just kind of moving away from the single person at the point. I mean, there's no ever really any one person at the point, right? You saw the board of directors and other people influence, but It's just an interesting dynamic. I can see even companies, a lot of companies slightly adjusting like what we classify as the norm.

Yeah, I, I'm seeing it a lot being in this space that the work as we know it is changing, it's evolving. The pandemic only made it exponentially different. The great resignation made it a plethora of talent out there that was available and companies willing to accept and the virtual hybrid nature of work these days is becoming more and more the norm. So there's at the CEO— why not at the CEO level? You know, it makes sense that it would go there as well. Well, I'm excited to hear how that works out for you if you go down that route. You keep me in the loop. And yeah, absolutely, that'll be fun. So outside of work, what do you— what do you like to do for fun?

Is— you mean there's actually outside of work? I didn't know that was part of life. Um, yeah, man, I am a car guy, so, um, it's kind of ironic. Um, so, uh, outside of my lab here, um, I actually have a 1986 Jeep Wagoneer that has a big 360 motor in it. Gets probably 8 miles a gallon, maybe if I'm lucky going downhill, the winds behind me, right? It's just a big hunk of steel. So my wife bought that for me last summer, and it's a project car. I grew up, we were building old Jeeps, and this AMC 360 motor is the first motor I ever got my hands on and started understanding how, you know, motors worked. And so it's been— so that's been kind of a hobby of mine. It's been a de-stressor, go sit out there and rewire something and start working on the interior or whatever. I love building things. I've done some home flips and home remodels, and so there's just work with my hands and Sometimes I think for me, you know, again, when you're in the grind day in, day out, at the end of the day, sometimes it can be hard to identify what you accomplished, right? Because it's just, it's a lot of stuff all the time, and things, projects just don't come to end typically. And so it's hard to see that. So I love doing things that, um, I could see where it was and see it completed, right? And so whether I'm working on a project at the home or rebuild an old Jeep, or, um, those are the things that I tend to do from just outside the job type of thing. And I try to get the gym because I've learned more and more that if I'm not doing that, it really affects my ability to perform day in, day out. Just that de-stressor, the endorphin release, just the keeping the body moving has been definitely important. So those are my big things. And obviously family You know, you know, I said, you know, we have twin daughters, they're, they're 19. So that's all we have is the two girls. And so my wife and I are entering this empty nest phase of life. And so the family dynamics changing. And so my wife and I are having to relearn what it means to hang out together and, if you will, redate each other, which has been fun. But unfortunately, she also has a job that's highly demanding. And so, so nice, it's 9 o'clock at night, we both look at each other and like, Hey, how are you doing? All we've done is work all day long, you know. Um, but those are the things that I tend to do outside of the work when I get those opportunities.

Yeah, I just got a new Jeep— not a new one, I used Jeep Wrangler, uh, about 12 months ago. It was— I had a CJ7 when I was in college, high school and college. I loved it, it was so much fun. And so I've been asking for a my wife for a Jeep for a long time. And we had young kids like, nope, we're not getting a Jeep, we're not getting a Jeep, I'm not letting those kids in the Jeep. So last year, our, our, our youngest is 17, so she's a junior, and she finally said, all right, you can go get your Jeep because we need a new car. And I didn't want to buy a new car, I wanted to get a, you know, a Jeep. Yeah, so I got it, and it's, uh, it's a 5-speed, so I'm the only one actually in the house that can drive it. Because my wife's not— she doesn't like the stick shift, and my daughter never learned. So that's how I was able to get a Jeep in the house, is something that no one else could drive.

Yeah, it was funny. So the, the Wagoneer is an automatic, but it's carbureted and it's old, right? And so I'm the only one that can even start it. Growing up, you learn the tricks, you know, like how many times you got to pump the gas, and you can tell the car is— the engine's flooded or not, you know. People don't think about that. You know, my kids can't, my wife sometimes can figure that out, you know, but it's just, it's just old motors and there's something about it, there's the nostalgia. Yeah, I enjoy it. It just brings back old memories. My dad and I used to rebuild Jeeps, so CJ5s and 7s back in the day. I mean, that's how I got my, really, if you will, my affinity for automobiles was spending my weekends in the garage with my dad rebuilding something. So that was always a fun part of growing up.

It does seem like those Jeeps always need some rebuilding.

They do. Yes, they do. They're simple cars. I mean, if you— that's the fun part about it. They're not very complicated. They never had tons of stuff in them. So when you had a little problem, usually you could troubleshoot it pretty quick, uh, which made it fun. So I remember once we had this old Jeep that used to do that, uh, diesel, right? So you shut it off, but still a little bit of energy was going to the spark plug. And then my dad and I just sitting there troubleshooting late one night, and So you put a voltmeter up, and I forget how many volts was still going to the spark plugs, just enough to keep one cylinder firing. Like, hey Dad, let's just throw a toggle switch with a light in it in between that circuit. We threw the switch on, it would consume those extra little voltages that were going to that one spark plug. Sure enough, what we did, and it worked. So, you know, little things like that, it was just fun, those little troubleshooting weird things we had to do to solve problems. But, um, and those things, you know, You take those skills today and it's fun because it's part of everything I do today now. I love cars and so be a part of this industry is kind of exciting.

Yeah, well, that's great. Well, this has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed learning more about the business and learning about you and having a discussion on leadership. Thanks for doing that with me. I know that was not on schedule, but it was interesting to hear your take and I learned a lot from it.

So thank you. Yeah, thanks for the time. I appreciate the conversation, and I look forward to obviously seeing more what you guys are doing. And I definitely think the fractional model is going to be something that's going to be more widespread adopted as people have to rethink how we do business.

Yeah, just like that, to think about how do we redo movement in our vehicles and, uh, storage of electricity. Uh, so if people want to reach out to you, what's the best way to connect? We'll have some details in the show notes, but what's the best way?

Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn, so I think it's Josh B, so linkedin.com/joshb. Um, and then honestly, email is best way. So between LinkedIn, I'm on— I'm very active on LinkedIn. Um, my email address is josh@tradion.io. Um, but yeah, love to have conversations and interact with people, so by all means, reach out to me.

Great. Well, for all the listeners out there, thanks for tuning in and reach out to Josh on LinkedIn or email and we'll talk to you next, next time. 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. Visit them at yourcmo.com. Your CMO dot com.

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