Two years of flying the fractional flag
Three months in, I wrote that leaving corporate felt like trading a typewriter for a tablet. Twenty-one months on, the tablet has a cracked screen, a flat battery by Thursday, and I wouldn't hand it back for anything.
So, nearly two years. What have I learnt? And would I swap it for the comfort of corporate life?
I didn't set out to be fractional
I wasn't thinking about fractional leadership at all. I was thinking about feeling alive again. About doing something that let creativity and passion course through my veins instead of through a quarterly planning cycle.
Over a long, warm New Zealand summer I weighed up the options and hit the keyboard. I wanted to back myself and roll the dice. Most of my previous roles had involved a roll of the dice too. A new industry. A new country. But always with a safety net stitched in underneath, and a paycheque that turned up whether the week had gone well or not.
Contracting didn't grab me, no offence to the contractors out there. And the word consultant gave me a twitch that appeared out of nowhere.
What I wanted was to own outcomes. To be there for the idea, not just the results readout. Somewhere in all that research I stumbled across the Fractional Directory, an organisation supporting and advocating for fractional executives, and things started to click.
Fractional isn't new
Its ancestor, interim management, took hold in the Netherlands in the mid 1970s, where employment protections made permanent hires expensive to unwind and senior leaders on temporary terms became the sensible answer. The concept hasn't changed much since. Hire an experienced leader, part time. No six month search. No six figure salary. Most fractional leaders work up to three days a week with a client, some run several at once.
The critical difference is this. They take a role, not a project. Product, marketing, revenue ops, CTO. The function, fractionally.
Five things I've learnt
Not all fractional work is fractional work. Be prepared to take projects. Some of them turn into fractional roles. Choose wisely, or one morning you'll wake up as a contractor with a fancier title.
Billable time is finite. Use it well. Build an ecosystem of tools around you. Be efficient. But remember, your true value is your experience, not your $200 Claude Max account.
Your network is your best friend. I've never clicked a banner ad in my life, so I'm not about to pretend advertising is the answer. Have a website, nothing flash, mostly to prove you're real. Then sweat your network. I've always made time for people and gone the extra mile for a colleague or a friend. What goes around comes around, and it pays better than any Google Ads campaign.
You can say no. The money can be tantalising. Look past it. You need clients who understand the assignment, and buy-in wider than the person who signed. Without it you'll spin your wheels and burn time you can't bill twice.
Feast and famine are real. Clients don't stagger their needs politely across the year. They arrive like buses. Three at once, all in a hurry. When feasting, see point 2. When fasting, see point 3.
“Your true value is your experience, not your $200 Claude Max account”
Twenty months, ten clients
Some genuinely fractional. Some just needing senior help to move something along or find better words for an idea. All of them wanted the same thing. Someone who had crossed that bridge before. Someone who'd wrestled that tiger, or flown the plane while it was still being built.
Knowledge, experience and a decent slice of luck have let me work with people I admire on problems I actually care about. It has also given me the flexibility to be present. To make my daughter's hockey games. To watch my sons dismantle another car and leave the tools strewn across the garage (deep breath). To enjoy the day.
So, would I swap it back?
No* Three months in I wrote that a fractional leader's success should be measured once you leave, not while you're there. Two years and ten clients later, I'd still put my name to that.
Is your business at the point where it needs senior capability but not a full-time hire? Or are you weighing up the leap yourself? Either way, reach out. DM me or pick up the phone. The number's on the website.
*never say never!
