Written by: Kate Williams, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
As a business owner, you know your business can only be as successful as those who work for you. But hiring talented full-time employees is often an expense that small companies cannot afford – at least, at first.
So, what are you supposed to do? Forego your paycheck to hire an experienced executive? I mean. That’s one option. Or, you could forget about hiring top talent and instead pay entry-level salaries for entry-level employees with the hope that they will perform at the level of a more experienced executive without requiring a salary raise.
This may allow you to hire more than one person for the same price as an executive or to hire one person and still be able to give yourself a salary. However, it does not give you the expertise your business needs to grow.
Between these two options lies a third option – contracting fractional teams and experts who have expertise in specific business areas but don’t require an executive-level salary.
What are fractional hires?
Based on what I have seen over the last decade, fractional hires are the future of small businesses and startups. So, what are they, and how can they benefit your business? In short, fractional hires are external experts in specific business areas. They are somewhere in between internal hires and consultants.
Like consultants, fractional hires come from outside the company. They are likely to work with more than one company at a time. In some cases, they may negotiate benefits or business shares from you, making them more invested in your business than a traditional consultant.
Fractional hires often work on long-term contracts or projects. For example, a fractional CMO may sign a contract with your company for one year. At the end of that year, you might decide to extend the contract, or you may decide that your business is in a different financial situation and ready to make a full-time hire. At that point, you could extend an offer to your fractional CMO or start looking outside the company.
No real limits exist to how long a fractional team can work for you. The most important thing is to be clear about your expectations, especially if you only plan on working with the fractional team or individual for a set amount of time or until your business reaches a particular growth stage.
Benefits of hiring fractional teams
There are many reasons businesses are transitioning to this fractional model instead of building large in-house teams or outsourcing work to freelancers. Here are some of the primary reasons.
1. Get a team, not just an individual
One of the significant advantages of working with fractional hires is that they often come in the form of teams. So, instead of hiring one outside consultant to work in a specific business area, you can have access to an entire group of people who bring their varied experiences and expertise to the table.
2. Access to broad experience
Whether you hire a fractional team or an individual, you will benefit from their vast experiences. They will have experience working with companies like yours and companies in different industries or stages of growth. This is invaluable, as it can help you grow in ways your team would have otherwise not considered.
3. Save on overhead costs
Of course, every small business seeks ways to grow while spending the least money. Fractional hires give you access to experts in various fields without paying for benefits or expensive overhead.
4. Remote work friendly
The rise in remote and hybrid work in recent years is part of what is guiding more and more businesses to a fractional hiring model. You can be in an entirely different country than your fractional hire and still work with them regularly, thanks to tools like Slack and Zoom that make communication easy.
5. Hit the ground running
Fractional executives and teams are used to coming into businesses and moving fast. They are already skilled professionals with a vision for your company's needs. You will, of course, need to do some onboarding to get them familiar with your brand. Then, they can take it from there.
Examples of fractional teams
The most common fractional hires in recent years have been at the executive level. Companies can hire a fractional CFO, CMO, or COO. But there are no limits to the business areas that can come in fractional form.
For example, you can hire a fractional content team to help develop and implement a content strategy. This is a preferred alternative to hiring independent freelancers who may be inconsistent or impatiently ready to finish one task and move on to the next so they can collect their paycheck.
A fractional content team can also be more cost-effective than hiring a team of in-house writers. You will work directly with a Content Director who can help build a content strategy, then assign various tasks to their team. This is also better than working with an agency, which tends to farm out content to low-paid freelancers with little to no direct contact with your company.
Conclusion
If your business is looking to scale with experts but isn’t quite ready to pay executive salaries, fractional hiring may be the way to go. Your business will benefit from saving money while still getting the expertise and knowledge you need to grow and expand.
Kate Williams, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Kate Williams has a PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Tulsa and has been writing web content for over a decade. She founded People First Content in 2018 as a fractional content team that helps small businesses develop and implement a content strategy. She loves working with business owners and company leaders to develop content strategies that will create a lasting impact without paying for the high overhead of an in-house team.
