Why wouldn’t I just hire a full-time executive?

With VP and C-level salaries typically well into six figures, the cost of hiring executive-level positions is prohibitive, especially if you need expertise in more than one area. Because of the size of your business, you would either need to find a “jack of all trades” (exceedingly rare and expensive) or hire somebody who is a part time executive, and part-time employee. This defeats the purpose of hiring the executive; they will inevitably become mired in day-to-day activities and lose their objectivity in seeing the big picture.

How is this different than simply hiring a consultant?

In a traditional engagement, consultants are typically project oriented and normally create a report with recommendations as their “deliverable”, then collect their fees and go home. You are left with a very high up-front cost for that consulting, and a report with recommendations that may not reflect the operational and budgetary constraints of your business because the consultant has not invested the time to fully understand your company.

In addition to being harder on cash flow, the short-term nature of the traditional consultant approach doesn’t allow time to build consensus or implement recommendations. A huge number of consultant reports end up being shelved because staff weren’t engaged in the process, leaving nobody to carry the torch.

By contrast, a Fractional Executive is in it for the long term, and works beyond the recommendation phase to ensure changes are implemented, KPIs monitored, and enhancements made as required.

What are some of the other benefits?

As you can see, a Fractional Executive can offer advantages for your business that far outweigh the costs. Consider the potential benefits:

• Reduced marketing expense and increased effectiveness
• Increased sales volume without additional expense
• Identify and capture markets you don’t currently serve
• Reduce training time; new hires become productive more quickly
• Higher valuation of your business due to documented processes
• Happier staff, more consistent delivery of your product/service
• Reduce costly computer down-time and maintenance
• More time off for you: you can’t do it all yourself!

The fraction required by your company is represented as a percentage of a full time equivalent determined using an estimate of the Business Development Stage of the selected discipline at your company, and an estimate of the scope of the function. These two factors will be combined to determine the Fraction required.