Interview with Joe Buchanan, CEO and Founder of FractionL
There’s been a lot of buzz around fractional executives recently. We decided to catch up with Joe Buchanan, Founder and CEO of FractionL, the leading fractional executive placement firm that matches executives with part-time jobs. Joe gave us some background on the industry and its current state. Our interview is below.
Craig
Hi Joe, thanks for the time. Reditus has been working with FractionL since our conception–about a year or so now. How about starting off telling our readers a bit about FractionL–who are you, what do you do, and how you’re positioned in the fractional executive market? And, for that matter–what is a fractional executive?
Joe
Next to the Remote Work revolution, the emergence of part time or fractional knowledge workers was one of the biggest positives to come from the COVID pandemic. CEOs realized they had senior team members that were not truly productive 40 hours a week, and that they often gave these team members tasks below their pay grade. FractionL was the first community of executives who thrive working for 2-4 companies at once. It is a lifestyle with great pay and flexibility. Startups and SMBs are fast adopting the practice of hiring part time executives with deeper experience than competing with big companies for top full-time talent they can’t afford anyway!
The community has one big common need, business development. 25-35% of a CXO’s time is spent prospecting for their next client. FractionL has become the leading source of business development for CXOs. Unlike marketplaces for part time or consulting talent (which require the participants invest huge time and energy to start a relationship), FractionL is more like a traditional recruiter who provides vetted, high-performance candidates directly to CEOs.
Craig
How about a quick history lesson on the fractional market–how old is it, and what does its trajectory look like?Joe
While consultants and advisors have been around for hundreds of years, the first Fractional Executives were often CFOs working at startup companies who needed deep capital market experience for a few days a month. This emerged about 20 years ago. COVID made great talent in marketing, sales, operations and HR available on a remote basis, as these executives did not want the full time grind anymore. Affordable fractional talent makes such great sense for early stage and SMB companies.
Craig
And how long have you been doing this?Joe
FractionL will be 3 years old in June 2024.
Craig
Reditus works exclusively with FractionL, and we’ve definitely benefited from your background and expertise in lead generation. I know how many messages you’re sending out weekly on our behalf, and how many meetings we get each week as a result. Before we start asking for your insights into the fractional executive market, maybe you can give us some overall stats so we understand how deep you are in this specific market.Joe
Typically we promote our members to their individual target clients so results vary by market. We send as many as 100 messages a day on behalf of each member, with a read rate above 50% and reply rate which varies by channel. On LinkedIn we see a 5% reply rate and CEOs schedule meetings about 2-3 times weekly. Roughly 1% of messages result in scheduled meetings.
Craig
Since you represent C-Level executives, I suspect you talk to thousands of CEO’s each year while placing your CxO’s. What do they tend to think of fractional executives? What do they like about the model, and what are their concerns?
Joe
Most CEOs start out loving the concept and their fractional CXO, and quickly realize that they have to manage the executive differently. The CXOs don’t respond 24/7 nor are they available at the CEOs immediate request. So it requires adaptation by the CEO. The challenge all CXOs have is demonstrating and documenting the value they create, which is easier to see when an executive is full time and onsite with a company.
Craig
So what’s the current state of the fractional executive market? What types of fractional CxO’s are getting jobs? Which roles are harder to fill, and why?
Joe
CRO is the fastest growing and most popular fractional category at 65% of our requests. The market in general is in a slow period as funding has slowed so much, but the demand for affordable sales activity remains strong. The hardest roles to fill are operations and HR, as there is no clear demand for the role until a company reaches escape velocity. They usually go full time at that stage.
Craig
Any other observations or trends you care to share?
Joe
The barriers to fractional executive expansion include a lack of accessible talent/skills on a part-time basis and the managerial skills required to lead a hybrid team of full and part-time execs.
Craig
In case we have any CEO’s reading–what’s your pitch? Why should they consider a fractional exec?
Joe
Fractional executives, the deeply experienced CXOs, can see around corners and will point out pitfalls many young CEOs miss. That can be game changing. They also can tell if your idea has legs pretty quickly.
Craig
If someone is interested, and wants to explore hiring one of your fractional executives, how do they do that?
Joe
www.fractionl.us has case studies, pricing and “How to’s” available to help CEOs make a good choice. The most helpful tool is the comparison chart here: https://www.fractionl.us/chart-comparison-page
Craig
Awesome. Thanks, Joe. You are in no small way responsible for Reditus’ growth–we appreciate all the support, and your time here today.
Joe
Reditus has a great model for building sustainable sales activity for the long term, great for long sales cycle businesses.
