The Most Rewarding Aspects of Being a Fractional Executive
Ever wonder what fuels the drive of fractional executives? Dive into the personal motivations and...
By: Fox Fractional on Jul 16, 2024 2:27:17 PM
In the dynamic realm of fractional executives, measuring success is crucial but often complex. We've gathered insights from seasoned professionals, including Founders and CxOs to share the metrics they rely on. From evaluating EBITDA and business health to tracking marketing reach and creative impact, discover the diverse strategies used by eight experts to gauge their achievements.
As a fractional Chief Financial Officer/part-time Finance Director for growing, ambitious companies, I measure success in my role based on the increase in EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxation, Depreciation, and Amortization. This is a key metric for all businesses and shows the profitable cash generation from operations while ignoring the capital/funding and tax structure.
It allows for comparison between different accounting periods and also between businesses. It is usually EBITDA that is used to determine exit value.
In terms of success and related to EBITDA, the cash and working capital facilities position is vital, as if I am doing my job well, the business will have adequate funding to meet both its day-to-day operations as well as its future growth. The business should not be under cash stress.
The final metric for me is intangible: a happy business owner who is no longer stressed and able to take holidays without checking in. We build the right team and the right funding structure to allow that. That is success.
Craig Alexander Rattray, Growth Strategist, Know Your Numbers
I measure success in any client engagement—primarily as a fractional content strategist—by how well my efforts contribute to the client's “big KPI.” This is something we always establish out of the gate in any new fractional working relationship.
The big KPI is the one key performance indicator that the client wants to see met no matter what, and it varies by the maturity of their content operation and their marketing efforts. Usually, it's something like leads generated, but in other instances, it can be greater awareness, an increased social media presence, or a more well-refined and mature marketing funnel.
I've found that the most successful relationships are built on the backbone of a mutual understanding of this big KPI, and without that, things can get disjointed and disorganized too quickly and too often.
Kris Hughes, Founder, Zanate Ventures
My success meter? It's a two-dial system, client-powered from the get-go. Dial one tracks exceeding their expectations – the higher their bar, the sweeter the victory lap when we smash it together. Dial two, well, that's fueled by client retention – repeat business is the ultimate high five. Fancy metrics and jargon are great for some, but seeing my clients win (and come back for more) is the real trophy.
Jake Stahl, Fractional Chief Learning Officer and Certified NLP Practitioner, Jake Stahl Consulting
We think about evaluating the success of our client engagements in two unique ways: first, we measure the career progression of our clients, and second, we measure the economic opportunity we create for underrepresented folks included in our teams.
As a collection of fractional executives, we uniquely understand the top-line metrics of our work associated with business outcomes. Day-to-day, we look at increases in revenue, registrations, conversions, sales, efficiency, or sentiment, as a few examples. However, the more interesting metric we observe is the career advancement of our clients as a result of our partnership. In six months, does Amy get a promotion from Director to Senior Director?
As a group made up primarily of caretakers, women, and underrepresented talent, we ensure our teams better represent the customers and the broader community our clients aim to serve. Over time, we measure the amount of economic opportunity we've co-created with our client leaders thanks to our flexible consulting model.
Brea Starmer, CEO & Founder, Lions & Tigers
I was recently Fractional Head of Content at EarlyNode (a SaaS media publication). For me, success meant two things:
A secondary goal for me was to increase key metrics like MoM subscriber growth, website visits, etc. But the primary goal was making sure that whoever comes on full-time is set up for success and able to hit the ground running.
Lade Falobi, General Manager, ReleaseLog.io
As a fractional Chief Well-Being Officer, many of my success measures are tied to employee data relative to providing new wellness programs or enhancing current ones. For example, employee satisfaction scores, retention, attrition, and participation in employee benefit and wellness programs are some of the metrics used to evaluate my performance related to the services I provide my clients.
Allison Jackson, Fractional Chief Well-Being Officer
As a Fractional Chief Writing Officer, both marketing and creative metrics are measures of my performance.
To grasp the reach of our press and off-site efforts, I track the domain authority of the given company's website, especially if I created it from scratch for that brand.
When I want to show the creative impact of my work, I will lean into visual and messaging transformations that have been achieved, including the conversion of paid media and organic content.
When considering metrics related to lead generation, which is not always the biggest interest of clients but a measurement I consider important, I track site traffic, conversions, and highly qualified leads.
I consider these metrics the bare minimum for my role—to prove the value of changes we've mapped and get the whole team on board with a brand's evolution.
Nadine Heir, Chief Writing Officer, Write Wiser
Scaling a company involves operational excellence at its core. Personally, I have a multi-dimensional approach to operations that looks at a company holistically through people + process + product + pricing = profit. This pattern is repeatable! So often, pricing is an afterthought, a margin, and is led by a salesperson's gut decision. This is not a strategy; it's emotional.
When you layer a company through a people-first mentality, everyone buys into the process and product to sell a complete solution. Human connection and understanding the value that you sell is an impactful mindset for operations to realize the impact that they have on an organization.
One metric that I use to define success in operations is pricing overrides. In any quote system or ERP, there is a system-generated price. The sales team will either trust the auto-price, or they will override the price. These overrides are a direct hit to profit in most cases, and analyzing the behaviors behind these decisions helps rebuild pricing algorithms to build trust in the system.
In a fractional capacity, building scalable operations is about having the "P-formula" in perfect unison. A leadership team can rebuild the foundation by assessing the team and skills, what the process and flow are, and how sales work with the pricing team. From there, you can dig deep and connect the dots for companies on topics that can be seen as emotional or that create conflict.
Fractional support often breaks down those barriers and gets to the root cause of the issue. From there, we can have real impact through the operations of the organization and build confidence in the team to have both upstream and downstream conversations that lead to scalable results and more profit.
Empowering a team is the part of fractional work that I love the most. While operations is a pivotal role in any company, and often not outsourced, a fractional approach can take, for example, my 20+ years of experience and pay it forward to a company that needs a layer of structure to move forward effectively and grow. This infusion of fractional expertise can be a monumental growth moment for a company—for any fractional expertise that the company decides to outsource.
While there are pros and cons to fractional and outsourcing, the expertise you infuse into the company pays dividends to the bottom line in most cases. You are only as strong as your weakest link.
Michelle Pecak, CEO & Founder, Simple Smart Consulting
Understanding the key metrics for a fractional executive’s success is essential for driving impactful results and achieving organizational goals. The insights shared by these 8 experts highlight the importance of focusing on metrics such as EBITDA, customer retention, revenue growth, and marketing reach. By monitoring and optimizing these metrics, fractional executives can ensure they are delivering significant value to their clients. Of course, the metric varies depending on the role and industry.
We hope you found these expert insights valuable and that they provide you with useful considerations for your fractional executive journey.
Ready to elevate your performance as a fractional leader for nonprofits or higher education? Interested in becoming part of our fractional talent pool? We're always happy to discuss your fractional aspirations and how we can grow together.
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