Fractional Success: Mindset, Clients, & Growth Strategies with John Arms

Brett Trainor (: 00:02

some of you may know John. If you don't know John, he, I'll let him introduce himself in a second, but I refer to him as the Godfather of Fractional, right? He was talking about Fractional before most people knew what it was. And maybe there's some others out there that have been preaching, but I think other people call you the mayor of Fractional or mayor of Fractional town. I'm sure there's a host of others. get a lot of names attached to me. Some of them are good, some not so much.

bout fractional. He runs Frac: 2023

two or three of these, so you're balancing too many at the moment, but it's good to have kind of that steady state, that one client. So I thought it would be a good time to bring John back, talk about some of the best practices, also what you're seeing in the industry now, right? Because you definitely have your ear to the ground of what's going on, and then give you guys a chance to ask questions when we get to the second part.

We've got it booked for an hour. think John's going to chat with us for 20, 30 minutes just to bring us up to speed. And then we'll do some Q &A discussions. So I don't think John anything's off topic or off limits. I appreciate your time. with that, I'm going to throw this over to you. And if I see anything coming again, guys, we can keep this casual. So if you have come just, you know, circle your hand or shout it out in the middle, we don't have to wait till the end on this one. So.

Brett Trainor (: 02:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Let's let's keep talking about it. All right, John, over to you then. Yeah, thank you. Thanks. Thanks for having Brett. I always appreciate a chance to talk about fractional and help others, you know, continue to open the curtain, look deeper behind it, see what's there, see what's there for you. And Brett and I got to know each other a couple years ago. He also was talking about fractional before most people were talking about it and saw where the puck is going, as we say here in the Midwest, and it continues to go that way. And, and

I think it's a very, very great thing for America, for you, for the businesses that you serve. It's growing. I was in a conference last night with the Fractional Leadership Alliance and we were doing some math and the CAGR on fractional compound annual growth rate. I'm not the guy who usually has conversations like that, but it is 642%.

So it is growing like mad. is chewing up market share of work that needs to get done. is clients are hiring it more. People are doing it more. It's just on this path of growth and there's reasons for that. So my interest in fractional is I believe everybody has amazing gifts. And I think if the corporate world knew how to pull those out and make use of them, they would, but they don't.

And that doesn't mean the gifts aren't there. And it doesn't mean you can't get them out of the world. And that doesn't mean there's not a great economy that can't take absolute advantage of them. So that's the passion I have. So that's me. teach and I practice fractional myself. I come from marketing. So I'm a fractional CMO. Brett and I are very similar. We have a passion to help everybody thrive out here in this world.

cover today. I'll go to about: 1130

Brett Trainor (: 04:43

you what does all that look like? So you can be thinking about that, but who's really buying it and why and how? I'm gonna talk about that a little bit. And then third, I'm gonna talk a little bit about how to position yourself in that space. So if I can do all that in a 21 minute window, I will be surprised, but I will try my best. I will try my best. So let's talk about the macro here. Two years ago, I wrote a book called, Revolt, The Rise of Fractional.

and the death of full time. And what I was interested in sharing with the world was a very big, like, why is everything changes? Why are we in such a state of change? Why are our old models of how we work, know, crumbling and deteriorating so quickly? Was it just because we had a pandemic and shut everything down or was there more to it than that? And I wanted to get into that and really understand it because we all feel it. We all know that the world is changing dramatically and quickly. And there's always reasons for that.

And I wanted to plug into that. And I got a couple of things to share about that today. But in all cases, old models are crumbling. That's why there's something called the corporate escapee in the podcast. And we talk about the crumbling of that, whether it's corporate saying, I don't care for you after 50, you cost too much. They never used to do that. Now they do.

the shareholder economy, like how far can the economy work when most of the return goes to like a very small population. These things that held up the economy for a long time are starting to crash. For anybody a fan of Scott Galloway, anybody follow Professor Scott Galloway? Yeah, wonderful. Yep. Wrote that great book, Adrift. Gosh darn it, a friend of mine stole it from me. I had it for like two days. He was over visiting. I'm like, hey, Frank, you ought to read that book.

It's America in 100 charts and he really breaks us down. But in that there's a lot of macro reasons why he's not talking about but why fractional but why the status quo is crumbling. It absolutely has to be why we're all here in this shape today called fractional. Grab the book, send it to me because I don't think I'm going to get it back from my buddy Frank, but it's a good one. It's a good one. So one of the macro reasons of course is the pandemic. know, the pandemic just lit up the world. It showed light in areas that we just did not have before. We found out.

Brett Trainor (: 07:07

We found out that it turns out that we can work remotely, that we can be very productive remotely. We found out that we like working remotely, maybe not a hundred percent, right? I mean, changing from a in office commute style for 50 years being the status quo, that carries momentum, but it also crashed. And we learned we can do this and we can be very effective. We learned the opposite of that. We learned that, hmm.

I really don't like those two hour commutes. I don't like paying for a parking spot. What I really don't like are six hours a day in wasted meetings. We learned a lot in that moment. And through that enlightenment, change, change happens. I often poll people that I teach and ask them how many hours a day did you, and be honest with yourself, did you spend in meetings when you were working for a large corporate entity?

Anybody want to take a stab? Is it four hours, six hours, or eight hours? Who would say four hours? Six hours? A day or a week? A day, a day. Six hours, eight hours. I'd go six. Okay, six is the average. Six is the average. And the question on that, pulled 500 fractionals in the...

The average answer was six hours a day in what we called wasted meetings, meaning I didn't need to be there. It could have been an email, any of those dynamics. And when you think about that, when you think about that in the context of your life, can you imagine six hours of an eight hour day just going into the wind? What it taught us was full-time wasn't full-time. Full-time was just a lot of time. It was just a tremendous amount of time. And

You know, we all nod our head, we all see that, we all feel like, Jesus, why did I spend so much of my time in that wasted bullshit? And nobody loves it. But it was just so normal and it was so status quo. And we just did it because that's just where we got. But it did not add value. did not allow us to be our maximum selves and actually put quite a lid on it. So learning that and that came out of the pandemic, we learned that full time isn't actually full time. It's just a lot of time. So that's another dimension. We can work remotely.

Brett Trainor (: 09:30

Full-time actually isn't full-time. We just call it full-time. People still fight with that. Return to office is incredibly interesting. Like everybody gets your ass back and everybody's going like, fuck you, I'm not gonna do it. know, pardon me, I swear a lot, just so you know, and Brett knows this. You know, like, no, I have a life. I'm taking care of my health now. There's no way I'm gonna give that up. I have time with my partner. I'm not gonna give that up. I go to the gym. You don't give these things up easily once you've had them.

And you also realize, I wrote about this in the book, that the status quo of work is an incredibly unhealthy state for most people, meaning physically unhealthy and mentally unhealthy. The number one cause of death in America is still heart disease. It's not cancer. It's still heart disease. There was one year when it was COVID, but it's heart disease. And the number one cause of heart disease is stress.

And the number one cause of stress is work. So you just very simple math, right? Work in its current state is incredibly unhealthy for us. And it takes a lot to stay healthy in that scenario, whether emotionally or physically, it takes a lot to stay healthy. It means you have to get up at four o'clock in the morning, you go to the gym. There's some built in things. If you're working 10, 12 hours a day downtown, chances are you're not eating that great. Chances are you're eating at your desk. Chances are your body's not moving that much.

There's a lot of things in the status quo that are very physically and mentally unhealthy. mean, who's worked in a toxic work environment? I better see every hand go up because I've never met somebody who hasn't, right? And so that's obviously very mentally unhealthy. There's actually a lot of PTSD from the last 10 years of corporateness. So all of this comes to a place where you realize

There's macro reasons why we're leaving the status quo and sort of emerging in a new space and fractional is one of the new spaces. Other contributing factors to that are the rise of AI. AI for people like me as a fractional CMO, like I have a staff of a thousand now, it's called AI. I call AI my ballroom full of Einstein's. I have thinking partners. I like human thinking partners. I like AI thinking partners.

Brett Trainor (: 11:48

We become little mini businesses now empowered with tech and AI that just wasn't a possibility several years ago. So there's all these things that are creating a new norm, old norm spalling, new norms rising, fractional is one of those norm norms. And those are the macro. Those are some of the macro reasons that you kind of see and go that all makes sense. But when you look at it, you go, huh, why didn't we see that before?

Why did we work that way? Why was that normal? Can it really be that bad? And the answer is yes, it can be. But when things are normalized, when it's just so common, when it's been happening for so long, we tend not to really poke into it and question it too much. In fact, we tend to find comfort in the stable, in the norm. But if anybody's been laid off, you know that the comfort in the norm is not comfort at all. And in fact, comfort is a very, very dangerous thing.

So that's some of the macro reasons. again, if anybody has questions, lay them on me. You have other things that you think would contribute to it? Have at it. Have at it. but those are from the John, just a couple of data points. And I know you and I talk about this all the time. I actually put something on TikTok back this morning that, you know, the modern CEO is killing GenX in corporate and.

right? CEO is up like almost: 2000

a strategic piece of it, right? They're going to take it out. I think just any way you look at it, corporates going down this path and, you know, the sooner, which I think helps us in the long run. does. It does. It does. It all works out for us if you, you lean into it and just sort of let it just allow yourself to let go of things that haven't been serving you before and you'll be okay. And I want to talk about that point Brett just made is, you know, we've all lived on a

Brett Trainor (: 14:05

you know, while CEO pay is 350 to one, executive salaries are what they are, shareholder thing is, essentially we've had an economy that says workers come third, shareholders owners first and second, and then workers are third. That's just, that's what the whole system is built around. And you're, it is, right? You can try to fight it or you can just work around it. I choose to work around it. It is unfair, but it is what it is. It is what it is. The math kind of works out for very, very few.

Imagine this. Speaking of that, okay, so one to two to 3 % raises every year, very common. That's the best we can do. That's the best we can do. That's all we can do. I see you have five yachts, a little unfair, but think about that. Like we sort of accept it as normal, right? It is, times are tough, whatever. They're not tough for everybody. Think about that in terms of your own family. Say you have a daughter and she's growing and every year you only give her 1 % more food from the year before. She would starve very, very quickly.

It is not a healthy ratio. That is not a good balance. You do not have to play in that space. I am not gonna say corporate is all bad, because it's not, but I'm also not gonna say it's not all good, because it really is not all good. What I contend and what I advocate for is there's a whole separate, different economy that you can plug into that works for you and works for them. And it is, there's 33,000,000 2,500 businesses in America.

Fortune: 2000

rket. They're not the Fortune: 2000

Brett Trainor (: 16:31

the pig in the boa constrictor. That's where the most business population is. That is that chunk of our GDP in America is I think 16 trillion. So about half of our GDP, I think we're at about 32 GDP right now. And so it's a big ass chunk population wise, it's tens of millions of businesses. Those are the ones that are looking at fractional as I need this, I need this. And there's a couple of reasons why.

One is that chunk of the economy, other than the very large chunk of the economy has a very proven model. I'm Coca-Cola, I'm on Pepsi. I've already been small. So my job now is to continue to have incremental growth and have a moat around my business to keep others out. That's the business model there. And that counts for Apple as much as it counts for everybody else. Everybody else is on, maybe on their way to that. They're trying to get themselves bigger, larger, more meaningful.

and they have less resources to do so. And because when you have less resources to do so, you do things in a certain way. You've probably all done this. In fact, I know you all have, is you put more work on the people that you do have. And oftentimes, it's not the work that they're meant to do. CEOs will carry the CFO load. Sometimes the COO load all at once, all in the same window.

CTO might also be the head of marketing. They may not have an HR person there. Maybe nobody in legal. know, every day people are trying to solve these issues and the first place people go is it's carried on our own shoulders as long as we can. That has a law of diminishing returns. How many hours can you work? How good can you be across four five different things? The model doesn't work, right? So the people who are hiring fractional are recognizing, holy shit, we have to grow.

My shareholders are telling me I have to grow and they're telling me I have to delegate or I'm telling myself I have to delegate or my people who work for me say, stop trying me the COO and the CFO on the same day. It's not working for us. We got to grow. You got to stop doing that. So then they have a choice. Well, the middle of economy doesn't solve it the way the big economy does. The middle says, how do we solve this? How are we going to fix this? They don't go right to job postings. That's big. Big goes to job posting. They start talking.

Brett Trainor (: 18:54

Who knows somebody that we can talk to about this? Maybe it's an IT problem. Who knows somebody that we can talk to about IT? Conversation starts, problem-solving starts to happen. And that is the manner in which those problems want to get solved. They do not run to job postings. If you see fractional job postings, I've looked at almost damn near all of them, they're pretty much bullshit, right? 99 % of fractional work comes from referrals. That's the math.

We've studied that incessantly. There's a path to that and that path does not go to job posting. So then what happens, right? Problem solving on the downside is that we got to solve this. We don't know how, let's start talking. And then on your side, your job is to be in that conversation. Super, super simple. But that is the nature of how, who's hiring, they're in that section. It is a cross industry. It is as much manufacturing as it is retail, as it is tech, as it is healthcare.

These are dynamics about the entire economy. They are not industry specific, which is good news for everybody. Yeah, go ahead, Greg. I just, the one term that's been resonating with folks and I used this a while ago is owners or CEO capacity, right? If you're a business owner and you're taking on those three, you're at capacity. And it's funny how just a couple of words, I've tried a bunch of different ones, but that one resonates with business owners.

They know they're at capacity and they just hadn't thought of it that way. again, just little tricks of the trade if you want, but something that could help as you're having conversation with these business owners. 100%. They may not say it outright. Some of them actually take pride in that. But once you start looking at the business, which every business does, through the lines of math, are we growing or are we shrinking or are we not moving at all? And where are we comfortable in that?

No business is comfortable shrinking. And if the CEO is wearing two hats and that's part of them shrinking, even if they don't admit it, that's not gonna last for very long. Every business wants to grow. That's how you pay your bills. That's how you become a part of your business community. No business is gonna grow by putting too much on any individual shoulders. So we're seeing this, we're feeling it. That part of the economy domestically and globally is feeling this because as goes America,

Brett Trainor (: 21:20

a shareholder led economy as goes most of the developing world. So some of the micro dynamics, those are the people who hire, they are looking for pain relief. They are looking for problem solving. They are not saying, I have a job description. Most of them, honestly, they even know how to write a job description for the thing that they don't love and the thing that just by nature they're doing. They wouldn't even know how to start. They might go beg HR to help them.

if they have HR, they wouldn't even know. And so that really is material that really, really matters. So for the last few minutes, I wanna talk about how to position yourself to be in that mix. Your best friend, all of our best friend is empathy. Empathy is a beautiful thing. We're not here to sell, you don't need to sell yourself. We'll talk about how you can get sales, but you don't wanna sell, no one wants to be sold. Great, we all agree. So how do we go forward, right? How do we go forward?

Empathy is the best thing. Going to what Brett just said, CEOs are caring too much. Do you want to go in and put pressure on them? Of course not. Understanding their plight, the reality that they're getting with, look at all of us. We've all got gray hair. We've all been around. We know what they're going through, whether you're ops or IT or finance or some other area in leadership, you have the ability to be empathetic about this and really see through the lens they're looking through. You have that ability.

So in all cases, empathy goes a long way, but how do you position yourself to be in that discussion? And there's right ways and wrong ways to do it. I have a whole two hour course on like literally how to position yourself and find out what value you bring. And that's a big thing. But in the context of the demand side, doing this thing over trying to solve their problems and looking for pain relief on the supply side, the way you enter that space comes from

what we call networking, but I'm gonna be a little more expansive about that. We call it connecting, but comes from being out in the world in a certain way. So if I'm a client and I have an HR problem and it's bugging us and it's costing us money and we know we have to solve it, right? And I start saying, hey, who can solve this? Others in the orbit are gonna say, know somebody, I know Brett. The reason they would bring Brett's name up.

Brett Trainor (: 23:41

And Brett's not even in HR. So he's just an example here. But the reason, the number one reason that they would bring his name up is how Brett made that person feel. It is not a pitch. It is not an elevator speech. It is not what he's done for the last 30s. It sure as hell is in his LinkedIn profile or his resume. All that stuff is fine. But the number one reason is how they made him feel. So when you think about networking, there's a right way to do it, making people feel good and a wrong way to do it.

which is making you feel good. Sometimes we feel good about, gotta go get with Keely and tell her all about myself. I can't wait to tell her what I do and how good I am at it and how I solve all these problems. can you connect me to somebody? God, I can't wait for that. Keely's rolling her eyes like, how can I get out of this conversation any faster? I have no interest in this. I do not make Keely feel good when I do that. And my name won't be brought forward in a conversation when I behave that way. On the other hand,

If I happen to meet Keely at a networking event, say, hey, what do you do? Where'd you get those classes? Those are kind of cool. What lights you up, Keely? I'd love to hear about that. We have a whole conversation and we're making each other feel good. And that is put your name in the place where your name is brought forward. You need three clients in a year as a fractional to have a really great, you know, quarter million to $300,000 a year. The average numbers are seven to $12,000 a year. You do the math on a client, but three clients.

This is not a volume game. This is a quality game. This is a relationship game. This is a connection game. This is a value game. It is not a CRM with 10,000 contacts. This isn't the world we're in. This is different and it's fricking lovely. As it turns out, most of us want this. We don't wanna be in this high pressure, let me pitch. We wanna actually be in businesses and helping them move forward and have impact.

and helping the leaders make big decisions to move forward and helping their team develop. That's where we all want to be. That's what we weren't getting in corporate. God dang it. I just sat in a corner at General Mills and was told on not, and this isn't me, but was told not to do anything to mess up the perfectly orchestrated, know, Honey Nut Cheerios account, because everything's perfect. Don't touch it. We don't want any ideas. We don't want any creativity. It's not actually built into the calculus. And it's not. It's not.

Brett Trainor (: 26:07

So, but that same energy and that ability that you want to deliver in a business that is not hunting on Cheerios absolutely needs all of the contribution you have, all of the wisdom, all of the leadership, all of the successes and failures you've had, they 100 % need all of that from you. That is the section of the economy we serve and that is how to position yourself in that place. There's a whole lot of other stuff. Fractional is this big.

It is this big. There is a lot of humility in here you have to get through. There's a lot of fear you have to get over. There's a lot of imposter syndrome that you can deal with all of this. There's mechanisms and find your way through that. helps you do it. I help people do it. Yes, there's a crucible you have to go through to thrive out here, but it's absolutely worth it. It's absolutely worth it. So that's a little bit of the macro, why we're here. That's a little bit of who's buying and a little bit about how to position yourself to...

to be in that space where all this wonderful work happens. It doesn't just mean three clients is all. I do a ton of project work. I love it. Everybody has their inner nerd. My inner nerd is teaching fractional and marketing. And you attract a lot of project work as well. That's fantastic. Half of the project work I do turns into fractional arrangements anyway. So, okay, that was fractional on Speed Dial. It's a big context. It's a big thing, but.

st I could, so here we are at: 1130

And I even kicked you off late. So you actually did better than promised, which is good. So John, are you seeing, what are you seeing with a hundred percent agree with you on the problem that you're solving, right? It's not features and benefits and those things. What is, what's resonating with, with business owners? mean, are your fractional is actually ever even talking fractional or are they just structuring it as how we can solve this problem for you? What's kind of. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 28:09

Your second part, your second part. They're looking for pain relief. I have this pain and I need relief and I have a high level of trust for someone who understands it, has been there and done it. They're looking for pain relief. That's the thing. You can call it fractional. You can call it whatever you want, but that's what they're looking for. Can somebody come please take this one backpack I don't want on my back and carry it for us as we move the business forward.

That's you, Nate. You can do it. Great. Get in here as fast as you can. They're looking for pain relief. It's our job to really be clear that and articulate, like, this is the problem I solve for you. You shouldn't carry this. I'm sorry you do have to carry the CFO thing. You don't even like finance, for God's sakes. Put that, put up that on my back. I got this. You're able to say that. You're able to say that because the 22-year-old version of you couldn't say that. 30-year-old version of you could not have said

The 40, 50, 60 year old version can absolutely own that stuff. Quite honestly, for you in your lane, where your internet is, it's not even that heavy of a load. Because you've been there, done that. But they're looking for pain relief. That's it. And just a follow up question to that is, are these owners, CEOs still looking, thinking they need full time, right? When they know they've had this problem. So they're already looking for ways to not.

hire somebody full-time to do this. Okay. Yeah, they've been dealing with it. They've been avoiding full-time for a very long time. I mean, they know in their head like, sooner or later, I can't keep doing this, right? But they inherently, they've been avoiding full-time because of the cost. It's what leaders do, right? We got to control our costs. So full-time is this great, big, giant, scary $300,000, all these hopes and dreams, all of that stuff and a process.

that is just insane these days, they've been avoiding it. So when an opportunity comes in that says, I got this for you, and it's gonna cost a third of a full-timer, and I am an additive ally to the team, it is very attractive. It is very attractive to people looking for this pain relief. And just to move on, sorry, one more and everybody else can answer. Yeah, no, you're right. Are you seeing the...

Brett Trainor (: 30:34

then the pushback, right? Because it's not like they're interviewing six other fractals most of the time. It's either they do nothing or hire you, right? So that's more of the competitive side of Yeah, in all cases, it's pretty small. I would say at least half the time, let's kind of go back to that. We've identified the problem and we're starting to try to find out. And here comes Maury. He's somebody that somebody said this is good guy to talk to about it. And you're in that conversation.

The reason it's not a whole lot of people in the mix is the very nature of that conversation is they're starting to feel pain relief right away. You get this. You understand what I'm going through. Boy, you've been here before. They're feeling that right away. And it's not really an interview, it's a conversation. The best way for you to succeed in that is not to talk. Hardly at all. Ask great questions. Where does it hurt? How does it hurt? What have you tried? when I've done this before, I've seen that. They're feeling all of those pains go away very quickly in that first conversation.

It might cause them to say, yeah, we actually do have to deal with this in a fractional way. Let's have a few more conversations. Usually they'll, if you're good at it and authentic in what you do, they'll probably just reach to your referral sources and go, tell me about a couple of your clients or people that you might call and ask them about you. It doesn't really usually go into a much larger, they're not really hungry to do have a three month process.

because their pains are right there at their jugular today. And it's causing them not to grow, which is a real big pain. I promise that was the last one, but I've got one more follow up to that. We've got a whole half hour here. I know, but I want other people to ask the question. But I to use that because this was an important one to me early, is folks don't have a fractional client yet, right? There's no other referrals they can talk to. And I think the benefit I've found is you can refer back if you've been doing this for 25 years, but

bigger companies and what are some of your suggestions, recommendations if you don't have a fractional yet to kind of position your, your strength. If you don't have a client. Yeah. Yeah. So you're just getting started. You bet. You bet. So I'm going to give you a couple of guides on what to do and what to avoid. So what to do is you have to get off the resume way of thinking about yourself as fat fractional is a mindset. is confidence in what you do.

Brett Trainor (: 33:01

Absolute awareness of what I call your inner nerd, what you really love. Absolute awareness of that. You have to really get familiar with that. You have to go sit on a rock and decide what you want your next 10 years to look like. You're not trying to shape yourself to a job. You're shaping yourself to yourself. What do you love? Where is your inner nerd? What do you love to do? That's usually pretty narrow.

It's, you sometimes you, you know, in the corporate world, it's sort of, I'm kind of a jack of all trades. I've done sales, but I've done ops. That's not out here. People have very specific pains. And so really get familiar with what you love, spend time and energy on it, get others in that conversation. This is not a resume world. This is a passion, what you love to do world. And when you are there, it's really hard to fail.

Because how do you fail when you really love what you do and it expresses itself, even if you don't have clients. So you have to be in that space. What you do not want to do, please do not go make a logo. Do not go build a website. Do not go mechanical. Yeah. Get an LLC, do the simple things, but this is mindset. Those other, I've seen people spend $10,000 to have a website before they even knew the clear value of what they even wanted to do.

And they use that expenditure of time building a website to help define what they want to do. When in fact, go sit on a rock in nature and think about it with a journal, you'll get there. I guarantee you'll get there. So be thinking deep mindset thoughts, functionally. It won't take care of itself. There's systems and processes to this, but do those later. Do those later. Make your game plan and then get out on the field.

Can I add to that, John? think also the flip side of that coin, which is people go sit on that rock for eight months, right? It's like, you don't, you can just decide if you're like, I'm going do this. And then you go find a job in that. And you realize that actually I don't want to do that. That's fine. Then go do something else. Like just start, right? Just anything that works. mean, obviously you can't be like, I can do everything that doesn't work. Right. The jack of all trades thing, but just pick one, go after that. You find out you hated it.

Brett Trainor (: 35:27

Great, you learned something. Now you can check them off and go do something else. Nate, if I could capture that and put it on a bullhorn and drive around neighborhoods with your very words, more people need to hear that. Corporate has taught us to hold back, tighten up, don't raise your head. And what you're talking about is the exact opposite of that. And that is inherently scary for some people, but there's no rules that say you can't. There is no rules in life that say you can't do that.

In fact, the rules of life tell you you probably should, is get out and do stuff. Don't spend eight months on the rock. We do this in a two hour class at Voyager, and then there's a lot of work before and a lot of work after, but it really is like, get there. This is mental work. This is reflection. This is valuing yourself.

That's not something that the big giants are really interested in, but this other section of the economy really, really needs you in that place. It is totally different. That world that we're used to and this new fractional world, they couldn't be more different from each other. Don't you think, Brett? I mean, they just could not.

Brett Trainor (: 36:43

Yeah, actually muted myself. No, 100 % right. And yeah, I was nodding with Nate. We do, we overthink any, that's what we're rewarded for. Over analysis, don't rock the boat, incremental improvements. And I talk to folks all the time that if you think back earlier in our career, when you just got started, you're always asking why, why do we do this? Why can't we do this? These things, but you make a couple of mistakes, you get penalized for it. And over the years, you just slowly fall back into that box and

Yeah. You know, one of the, I've been using the, the Nike, so just do it. Right. This client doesn't like it or it doesn't work the way you want it. Then guess what? The next one, you can position it differently or you can test something differently. And, know, even with, with my journey, some of these folks have heard this, so I won't do the detail, but you know, when I started, I started solo consulting. like, I really don't like, you know, chasing down, you know, virtual stakeholders and managing project plans anymore than the fractional.

And I think at last count, I figured out nine different ways to monetize what I was doing in corporate. Some for the better, some I won't do anymore because I don't like it, but that it took two years for me to get out of that mindset of why I have taken that corporate mindset, applying it to console consulting, then applying it to fractional and then realizing that to your point, there are no rules. There's no, we don't have to put a wrapper on it in order for it to work. it took a lot of time to.

break that routine. The routine, yeah. The leash, you know, who's got a dog? A couple of dog owners and you go to the dog park and you unleash the thing and off they go and it's the happiest moment of their life. That's freedom. That's freedom. You know, the same feeling is if you are, if you've been laid off or just said, I don't fit, I don't like the corporate anymore, the leash is off. I had a really interesting conversation yesterday. I can't remember who it was with.

but we were talking about AI. AI is fantastic for us in this world, this independent world. And they said they were at Thomson Writers, big, giant, Fortune 20 or 50, I think, very big company. And their rule on AI is you can't touch it. You can't open it up. You can't study it. Not here. We're not, don't, nope, the answer was no.

Brett Trainor (: 39:05

And that was sort of the corporate line, right? Because there's fear there and they don't know what it is and what it does. It's fine. It's a rule they have. I guess I get it. You have no such rule on your life. And that's not just for AI. It's for anything. It's for anything. There's no constraint. Now that's a little scary sometimes. So where should you spend your time? That's the other side of that question is where should you spend your time? And I always encourage people follow your curiosities and they always lead to a very healthy, wealthy place.

But it's interesting how normal structures sort of thwart expression, curiosity, chance taking, risk taking, whereas this structure is like, yeah, all that's off. In fact, the more of that you do, the more successful you will be and the more happy you will be.

Brett Trainor (: 39:57

John, what are your thoughts on fractional work across multiple industries? I've been in the same industry for 30 years, so which is medical device and laboratory equipment on the commercial side. Can I go do some work for a trucking company or whatever? You can and you should. You can and you should. As it turns out, the buying side could give two shits about that. Corporate loves it. Hey, Ken, do you have 700 years of medical? Love it. Get in here.

and just be a seat, right? But fractional is different. That small business is like, think about that. Let's say they're in trucking, right? And they're being the CEO and the CFO and the COO, right? One of those they're really good at. The other two they're just doing by virtue of necessity. They even don't want to do it. It's not this place that they love. Meanwhile, whatever lane you're in, you love it.

It's where your inner nerd is. You're fantastic at it. It doesn't matter if it came from a medical device or retail or someplace else, that thing. So you're not defined by the category. You're defined by where your inner nerd is. Corporate likes to define by category. You define by who you are and what you love. And because of that, because you love it, there's two benefits there. You're to go far deeper and create far greater solutions in your space. Secondly, as it turns out, that broad

Viewpoints. Now let's say you have, let's say in two weeks you have one fractional client, two consulting jobs, three different industries. What you're learning in all of that becomes value for every single one of your clients. The outside of the pickle jar experience is absolutely fantastic. You've heard it said a million times, Cobbler's kids get no shoes. You never know what you can't read your own ingredients when you're the pickle inside your own pickle jar. That outside objectivity.

is incredibly value and that's part of the value that you bring. That becomes part of your responsibility to bring that. And it's fantastic. So let's take that to a place. You're in a leadership meeting with a client and they're like, yeah, this is healthcare, right? We can't solve this. Everybody's dealing with it. They start saying things like, this is an industry problem. There's nothing we can do about it. And you go, wait, hold on a minute here. I was just with my trucking client. We were facing something completely similar and we learned this.

Brett Trainor (: 42:19

All of there's a whole other path of solutions that people can follow that would not have shown up if you were just in that lane. So yeah, it's fantastic for this segment of the market. Thanks. Can you kind of go back to sort of the question Brett asked in terms of, because I'm at a position where I feel like I'm 90%, 80 % of the way there, at least I like to think I am from a mindset shift from resume to flyer.

promotion, right? I was laid off from my corporate job in June, sometime around November, I made that switch, but I don't have any clients. And so I don't know, again, if this is just a mindset, but I feel like even when I'm talking to potential referrals, I even sometimes get that question, which is, so how is it going? Do you have any clients or like how is that part of the business going? And I try to sound positive. And sometimes people

like let that go. Sometimes they start to dig a little bit deeper and I guess, and sometimes even it feels like people try to talk me out of going down this path. Like people who are in the, like people who are consultants, who are the fractional route kind of almost seems like they're talking me out of it. Like, are you sure you know what you're doing? How do I?

And I know this is a whole, you probably teach a whole class on this, but how do I keep hearing you're going to get your first client? It's easier to get your first client than a job. like, how do I navigate that successfully? Or is it really just a matter of time? No, it's not just a matter of time. It is intentional. This is a proactive space. It is intentional and you have to give yourself some grace. Fractional for all intents and purposes was not here three years ago.

It's new and it's shaping and it's forming and it is going to continue to do that for quite some time. And there was nothing about the last 50 years of the American economy that said, get out and be your own person and set up your own thing. It just wasn't designed for that. So yeah, you have to learn a lot. There is a lot to learn in this space. And there's

Brett Trainor (: 44:41

tremendous amount of places where you can learn. Like Brett and I and Fractional Leadership Alliance, there's a lot of us who are trying to educate both sides, buying side. This is why these people are really good for you. People who do this, this is why this is good for you. But it is not a matter of time. It is a matter of learning. It is a matter of proactivity. And within both of those, there's some discipline. There's a first, second, third order of things to do here that really, really matter.

You don't have to take my class only, you know, but please go to the website and at least look at the, the way in which we teach the class. First thing you have to do is you have to increase your fractional intelligence has to happen and give yourself grace. Who even me, like I've been studying this hard for six years. I don't know everything about it. So, but you have to have a higher level of intelligence about it. Then second, you have to build confidence in it. You have to build your confidence in this space. You are completely, if you were to go to another corporate job,

100 % confident, right? You've been there, done that. You have to build confidence for this new world. Then it becomes strategy planning and client acquisition. So there's a sequence for this to work out well. And you have to be sort of systematic about it and understand that the intelligence allows you to be confident. The confident allows you to build a strategy. The strategy allows you to build a plan. That's sort of the path that has to go down for this to work. In all cases, it's proactive work.

There is no reactive. thing I've always hated about corporate is if there's so much waiting, right? Either if you're working in corporate, God, you got to wait. I have this idea and then it goes through a grind for eight months and then dies a terrible, actually just a quiet death. Or if you're looking for a job, know, five interviews, ghosted, wait, upload resumes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Waiting is terrible. Waiting is a very unhealthy thing. So proactivity is always our best friend.

But you have to be intentional of what you're proactive about. I'll give an example. Some people over network. In the absence of knowing what to do, people sort of revert to a couple of things. Like, I'll go work on my website a little bit more or my LinkedIn, or I'm gonna go lean more into networking. Those are good things to do, but you can overdo some areas. So you have to have structure to your path. Fortunately, we're at a place, know, fractional at scale is probably four years old.

Brett Trainor (: 47:05

So we have enough knowledge about what that looks like. There's also a lot of vulnerability here. I mean, it's pretty interesting is, listen, fear is a very human element. This is a new place. It is easy to say you do no growth until you get outside of your comfort zone. We all get that. It makes perfect sense. It proves itself out every single day, but it's damn hard to be outside of your comfort zone.

You know what mean? Like there's human conditions here that we deal with and fear and ego and cynicism. We have to kind of get over those and learn our way past that in order to flourish in a new world. I know I'm getting really deep into it. Like I said, I just taught my class for two hours and my brain's in class mode. But Morrie, don't, I mean, you might even say, I absolutely do not want to go back into corporate.

Good. You've taken half the world off the table. You don't have to worry about it. You might say, I encourage you to go right down exactly what you want your life to look like a year from now. To the dollar you want to earn and to the how many clients you want to have. To the amount you're going to charge them. Write that down. Just write it down. And you'll realize that you become intentional. It becomes systematic. Things start happening to you in that way. think one of the things that's both exciting and

It's more exciting than anxiety provoking, but it's like you were talking about this before too, in terms of like control over your time, right? Where it's like, hmm, do I, and I don't mean in district, in a TikTok scrolling kind of way, it's just basically, well, do I work on content to grow my network? Do I go out and try to meet with people? It's like, it's sort of deciding what to do with those hours that are non-billable to grow the business. And it's exciting.

Yeah, it absolutely is. If you haven't gone to our website, there's three downloads in there that you can, like one is I left corporate, now what? The other is it's our syllabus. And then the third is, I can't remember, because we're doing content all the time. Grab those, read those. I'm not trying, I mean, it's a hard class, no doubt. There's a lot of material, but I'm trying to give people small pieces.

Brett Trainor (: 49:31

that you can hold onto and start thinking in that first, second, third order of things to do so that you can start building your fractional world. Please use those resources. They're literally there so you guys can continue on this path. Don't take the course if you don't need it. Don't want anybody in the course who doesn't want to do it, but please, it's in all cases you have to learn your way forward. Nate, you got your hand raised.

Can you say a few words about how you define or separate project work, fractional work, freelance consulting? Like I know there are labels and some people get religious about this. I'm certainly not, but I think we will get afraid of fractional a little bit and they don't be like, Oh, I'm not ready for that or whatever. it's like, I don't think it be that way. Anyways, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, you bet. bet. So on the buying side, what it is, think of this word perpetual. Fractional is perpetual.

Those mean the same thing and contract does not mean perpetual. Freelance is not perpetual. Those are all project-based, episodic, non-perpetual by nature. I'll give you an example. I'm going to use, Keely, what's your skill? What's your inner nerd? you marketing, sales, IT? What's your inner nerd? Problem solving, base plant, fixing. And if that, what was your last job title? Project manager.

Project manager, so, okay, project manager, right? Can I call that your inner nerd for now? Sure. That's the stuff that you love, right? So that means the company has projects. Means they need to be managed, right? That means the company lives on having a lot of projects all the time, because that's how the money is made. That is perpetual work. You can't have a project manager on a Tuesday.

and not have one on a Wednesday and expect to bill for that time or have output. So perpetual is the nature of fractional. Project management fits in there. Like try getting a project done without a manager. Try just having one project in here as a business and making your numbers. Doesn't happen, right? So in all cases, it's perpetual. It's ongoing. It's continual. Freelance, please come in here, build us our website and leave. Consulting, please do a report.

Brett Trainor (: 51:54

on this part that we think we want to do and then leave. IT, please stand up our new Epicore system and then leave. It's okay. That is all okay. But it's not, in no cases is it perpetual. It's come and go. So that is the primary distinction between fractional and consulting. Now here's what you're up against with that, Nate. It's a really good question. It's something that we spend a lot of time on. You're not just up against that reality. You're up against built-in solutions that have tapped into

There is a better, more profitable market in non-perpetual work. It's just a terrible reality. PricewaterhouseCoopers, right? They're gonna put somebody in for six months, they're gonna get out, it's gonna be $400,000. That is not perpetual. And it is a ton of money. But it's not necessarily good for the company. I'm sure you've all been there. We hired a consultant. They were here for six months.

The report has been collecting dust for nine months. We don't even know what we're supposed to do with it. They left, you know, four months ago. We don't even have their number anymore. That's what we're up against. Now, their other alternative is like, mate, can you come in here and fix this? We're not going to get a big giant consulting firm to do it. We need you here perpetually living and breathing and leading this day to day. That's what companies are realizing is a better fit. And yeah, some of the things that we just call normal didn't serve us so well.

So perpetual, perpetual, perpetual, that's the healthiest way to look at it. Again, think about the buying side. I can't expect this problem to come off my shoulders in one month. It's gonna come back on unless I have a perpetual solution here. So. I think, you mentioned earlier that many of your project-based non-perpetual projects turn into fractional. About 100%. And so people would get scared. They're like, well, well, I'm a fractional. So someone wants to start with a project work. You're like, no, I'm fractional. You need me perpetually.

and then they lose the sale. It's like, just go do the project work and see what happens. So many times it's like, just, that project's done and then there's more on your plate and more on your plate and then you just turn into potential. That's my experience. It's just like, so stuck on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a child of the seventies and eighties and I used to love watching Bruce Lee movies and Bruce Lee had this great thing where he'd say, be like water, just go with the flow.

Brett Trainor (: 54:13

You know, and I know, and the fern in the corner knows this is probably a perpetual problem, but we're looking at it through the lens of a project, that's just fine. I know how to see the difference and I am happy to start this as a project. Yeah, I'll be here for a month. Let's look at it. In the course of solving that problem, two things happen. The pain goes off the shoulders. They do not want it back on. You're adding the value, you were born at value from your inner nerd place.

It moves from project to perpetual in a hurry, almost on its own, to be honest with you. The fear of losing Nate after you've been solving these problems after about two days starts to build and it gets terrifying after 30. So they're like, well, we only budgeted for 30 days. What happens if we pull the plug? We're really screwed. Budgeting is only a statement of priorities. That's all it is. It's what we prioritize, what we value. Hey, Jeremy, again.

Just another layer into that, because I think it's a great question. think where you're having a conversation with the business and deciding what that project is, they know they've got a pain, but they don't even know what the project. And so it comes down to, do you do a analysis, which nobody wants to pay for an analysis of their current state? So any suggestions or recommendations on how to start that conversation, right? Start to lead.

Yeah, listening is always our best friend. We call it, we've broken that down and kind of into three steps. And the first one is, you're absolutely right. They will not be able to define it very well. It's not even the space they're good at, otherwise it wouldn't be a problem. And so the first part is, tell me where it hurts. Just listen. And there's really good questions you can ask. We've got a whole segment on that. that first part is, how did you solve this?

And so this is, we're not trying to talk about a scope. You're even before that and you're listening and getting them to talk about and start to relieve some of this stuff. And you're good at this. None of you are spring chickens. We've been around, we know how to do this. And then that works out great. So now that pressure release starts and you're starting to gain a greater understanding of the problem, not the scope, but the problem and the pain. After that, step two is you come back the next day with an email. Here's what I heard.

Brett Trainor (: 56:34

In my experience I've done, it kind of looks like this. I would budget this amount of time or this amount of dollars. Here's the way in which I would solve this problem. Is that what you think too? Now it sounds really good, right? Now it's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They probably didn't even read half the meal. They read the meal like, you sound like you know what you're talking about. I don't. And then now you're into a contract after that. You've got contract after that. that rather than that's like a big analysis and big heavy, heavy stuff.

Small listening conversation, repeating back what you thought you heard, asking for feedback. These are very light touches, but they're very intentional. Works far better than big, I'm gonna analyze you for 30 days. It may result in part of what you do is a deep analysis, but that comes later.

No, great. Because I think at least in my early days, was the default was, well, we can build a roadmap or these things. Because again, that's consulting told you you were doing. And yeah, just listening and picking off one project or one opportunity does just makes a ton of sense, right? Lower the risk, build a relationship, and then expand. My first two years of the fractional, my contracts were 30 days cancel anytime.

And I never lost a contract because what the reason was, I knew that's very easy to buy. And I also knew that as soon as the pain comes out, their shoulders goes onto mine. They're not going to take it back. I just knew it. And so I was very happy. Nobody canceled, but now, now I'm there six months to a year. because I mean, it's just, it's just more of an awareness that,

Yes, I could do it that way, but I'm in a position where I can secure longer contracts. And that's just the nature of being a more farther along in your professional world, I guess. Yeah. I know we're super tight on time, but yeah, time for one more question. Yeah. And I'm happy to come back anytime you need me. Okay. I may take you up on that because I think part of it is structuring the deal, right? And it's

Brett Trainor (: 58:38

You know, it's hourly. I going to do, you know, if I'm doing eight to 10 hours per week, and then do I just do a retainer and there's multiple schools of thought on this and I was all for the retainer, but then some folks, I don't know if it was you Nate or somebody else who kind of convinced me that that book of hours is good and you can charge some more. So just kind of curious your perspective on right hourly versus retainer hybrid or something. not even thinking about it. Yeah, it's sort of a yes. And

Right? In all cases, in all cases know that you're being paid and your value is based on your wisdom and your leadership. It's in your acumen. That's the value you're bringing. And so you're kind of getting paid for 25 years plus, whatever time you're spending with the client, because that's what you're bringing to the table. Because you're not a machine, right? You're a collection of experiences over decades that has created a tremendous repository of wisdom for you. Some people say I'm fractional.

and I'm retainer and that's my business model. And it's this much per month and there's the basic structure to it and that works out great. Others are day parts. You know, I'm going to do it one or two days a week for you. If the buying side likes that, that's fine too. Others are hourly, that's fine too. But in all cases, in all cases, this is where you have to be careful with this. It is your wisdom and your leadership and your guidance that's where the value is. It is not in your grind. That is not how you're going to move your clients forward.

So you have to be aware of that because one danger in fractional is reverting to that norm of what we used to do in corporate. Like, I'm just going to go do some busy work. I'm going to go answer emails. going to, you know, chase a rabbit hole of something. Not the value of bringing. So you have to be very careful about how really do it if the client wants to buy it that way, but do not let it devolve into right work. You're not here for that. And your value is certainly not in

Brett Trainor (: 01:00:37

Can just go off of you

Brett Trainor (: 01:00:41

Thank you to follow up on that. So so I think I have lost a couple of deals because I've missed. I've done a poor job presenting my pricing structure, right? So in one case I thought I had the deal and I presented it two ways. One was on retainer basis and one was on an hourly basis and they were priced. To influence the way I wanted to work it right and I think it confused the client to the point that he was just like, yeah, that's never mind, right? Is it?

Is it ill-advised to offer pricing in two formats or, you know, and to go with just one? I think you're better off being very intentional and focused on what you bring to the table and be very clear about that, but be flexible when the dialogue begins. What I mean by that, someone, if you're at that stage, you've had deep conversations and you're probably pretty close to solving their problems, hopefully.

And if you go, I'm 10 grand a month, that's my normal rate. Here's kind of what that looks like. Here's the problems I'm going to solve for you. Let's go. And if you start, if people start poking at that, yeah, you might have to come down a little bit. You might have to have some flexibility. If they're like, yeah, we're kind of more comfortable with, you know, two days a week. Fine, do it. Cash is king. Cash is fantastic. It can change over time. You're not promising, you're not marrying somebody where a contract is made and you're

These covenants are bound and they can never change, right? But very good clarity helps them. It helps them. And if you're talking too much, here's a thing for everybody, myself included. If you're talking too much about rate and hours and fees, you're probably spending too much on the wrong thing. You gotta always be talking to the pain you're solving and the value that brings. That's where the dialogue really has to stay. There's no number, any of you guys.

can put as a fractional to a client, that is gonna be even a third of what their full-time solution is. And there's no number that you're gonna put to them that doesn't equal the time of pain. They've been trying to solve this for themselves. So the context really, really matters as well.

Brett Trainor (: 01:02:55

Good questions. Sorry you lost those, but go back after them.

Yeah. you share? Well, John, really, really appreciate you spending the time with us. I always learn something new every time we chat. appreciate it. Yeah. And thank you everybody for joining. I will make the recording available to folks once I can get it pulled from Zoom and structured. So. Yeah. One more offer for you yourself and everybody. We do our class every six week as a new five-week master's program.

And I always offer this to people interested in this. You can always audit our first class free. Don't have to charge for it. It is an absolute baptism in the fractional. It is hard. It is two hours long. It is not easy. That is by design. I want everybody out working, finding your wonderful self and finding those clients. I think it's good for society. So audit that.

It is February 26th. Just shoot me an email if you want to do it. You can see the data on the website. You can audit it. It's two more hours of what we're talking about here. It's helpful. It's very, very helpful.

Awesome. Julie noted. All right. Any last parting questions, folks, or we can let John go. Brett, this has been good. This is one of better ones. So thank you. Good. No, thank you, John. Thank you, John. You guys are all on the right path. Whatever Brett says is the right thing to do. Please spend time on the rock. Know that the value you have is far more than you probably think it is right now. That is for sure. For sure.

Brett Trainor (: 01:04:38

All right, everybody. Thanks for spending some time. Have a great rest of your day and we'll catch up with everybody soon. See you guys. I'll see you, Brett. See you, John. Thanks.