Fractional Teams—An Effective Approach to Specialty Marketing Needs
What is Fractional Hiring?
Fractional executives (also known as part-time executives, interim executives, or temporary executives) are not particularly new in the business world. However, in the past ten years, fractional hiring has become more defined and more common.
Fractional management are part-time talent that fill key roles within a business, and that talent tends to be highly skilled and very experienced. The idea is like using a specialized, expert freelancer. But unlike a freelancer who tends to be ancillary to a project and a company, freelance management sits at the heart of the work—defining new processes, teams, and growth.
Fractional hiring can be an excellent response to an unstable market, talent shortage, and the need for scalability and flexibility. If done properly, this is a great way to get the experience and direction a company needs at a fraction of a full-time executive budget.
The New Path of Fractional Teams
Fractional teams are a newer pathway in fractional hiring. Traditionally, fractional hiring has been focused on the individual—usually high-level management roles like a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), or Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In a fractional team approach, organizations are hiring a team of specialists, which they can scale up and down as needed based on the stage of a project they’re in.
This new form of fractional hiring is proving to be effective for multiple reasons. Specialized workers have sought out higher salaries and more flexible work styles, which fractional work offers. For companies, they gain access to higher-quality talent that costs significantly less than full time hiring. Additionally, everyone is tired of the mass layoffs and big hiring cycles. It’s unstable and hard on companies and individuals alike. In 2021, in a survey of U.S. independent workers, 68% of them said that they feel more secure working independently than as a full-time employee.1 That’s up dramatically—it was only 32% in 2011 and 53% in 2019.1
Fractional Teams versus Freelance versus Consultant
There are similarities between fractional team members, freelancers, and consultants—but all serve a different set of functions and goals.
Freelancers tend to be brought in for execution. They have a very specific execution-oriented skillset, and they’re hired in to execute. Usually mid-level positions, freelancers frequently work very independently and have less team and company engagement than full-time employees.
Consultants are less tacticians and more strategists. Within a consultant role, individuals provide guidance, problem solving, and high-level strategies instead of execution of specific tasks. Unlike freelancers, consultants are typically senior-level experts who are brought in to help achieve a specific goal. Another common aspect of consulting is a retainer structure, where a consultant has a small retainer for consulting hours when needed.
Instead of living entirely in an execution role or a guidance and strategy role, fractional positions fill a combination need between high-level strategy and tactical execution. They are expert positions who tend to fill specialty roles or gaps, and they work very closely inside an organization and a team. Fractional teams also offer the benefit of having outside and fractional strategy from higher-level, higher-paid positions, but they are also closely aligned with mid-level tacticians who execute under them. This team dynamic is cost-effective, scalable, and productive.
Cimarron Winter at the Intersections of Marketing, Technology, and Business Teams
Although the term “fractional team” has gained significant momentum in 2022 and 2023, Cimarron Winter has been working with enterprises providing fractional martech team support since 2010. We work at the crossroads of big strategy and solid execution.
Our core competencies cover technology solution design, complex systems integration, globalization, search engine optimization and marketing, as well as content strategy and development. Our best-in-class experts provide services that are tailored to your business needs and goals. As extensions of your team, we supplement your existing marketing and IT departments with our expert areas of focus.
If you are interested in talking more about our digital marketing and martech services or our fractional approach, contact us. We’d love to talk about how we can help.
References
1. https://hbr.org/2022/03/workers-dont-feel-like-a-9-to-5-job-is-a-safe-bet-anymore