Fractional vs. part-time vs. agency – what’s the difference?
In founding KickDrum I’ve been keen to describe what we do as providing access to a “fractional” marketing and business development team. The difference between this and the services you might get by hiring a fractional CMO, or a marketing or sales agency might not be apparent, so here’s my take on what we mean by that and the problem we’re trying to solve.
The rise of the “Fractional Executive”
What in the past might have been termed a part-time role for a senior leader, these days has been rebranded as being a “Fractional Executive”. You don’t have to look too hard now to find a fractional CMO, or indeed practically any member of the C suite, available for hire to support your business.
I don’t know how or why the term emerged, and I believe it matters not whether the executive is hired as an employee or on a contract, but for me, it implies a specific kind of relationship;
- That is a medium to long term
- Has the same degree of commitment to the business’ success as any full-time hire
- Where the individual is considered, and behaves as a key member of the team, rather than as an external consultant or service provider
But what if you need a team?
There are lots of instances though where hiring a single senior leader, fractional or not, doesn’t solve the problem at hand. Consider situations like these:
1. The CEO is also the CMO, CRO and CTO..
Let’s say you’re an early stage tech. start up. In most instances that likely means that the team is almost exclusively engineers and that the CEO (likely also an engineer by trade) is trying to wear all the other “hats” needed to bootstrap all the other functions a company needs to operate.
Just hiring a fractional CMO, for example, would be relatively expensive and is unlikely to move the needle on its own, yet equally hiring two or three more junior sales and marketing folks is also unlikely to yield results without an experienced mentor to guide them, creating yet more, rather than less, work for the CEO.
The solution is access to a ready made team, but on a fractional basis that you can flex as the business grows. All the right specialist skills with the appropriate experience and seniority, but only as much as you actually need.
2.First boots on the ground
What if you’re already revenue generating, maybe through a round or two of funding, but now you need to prove you have a proposition that can scale internationally? The traditional solution has often been to put a single sales resource on the ground, perhaps backed by a pre-sales engineer, and let them have at it. More often than not, that rep. may themselves be a sales agent, on contract, with hefty accelerators on their commission designed to reward quick wins.
The problem with this approach, especially in a channel-led and/or complex, strategic sales process, is that quick wins are rarely won. And if they are, they’re rarely repeatable and often at the expense of building long-term customer satisfaction, the agent being highly incented to do or say anything to close the deal, with little or no incentive to worry about the aftermath and/or create a referenceable happy customer.
You could individually hire a sales leader plus a fractional CMO for the region, but a far better solution is to bring in a fully formed “front of house” team, able to work with prospects, partners, local press and analysts and other influencers to build a tangible, solid foundation on which to grow the business in the medium to long term. A team incented to help build company value more holistically than just make a quick buck from a bungled sale.
3. Creating focus within a large tech. firm
Already having a multi-$Bn business doesn’t always equate to having everything you need to achieve your go-to-market strategy. This is especially true right now in the current economic climate. As we leave the post-pandemic era, many large organisations have started to cut back on the permanent headcount they recruited during that time. Many now find themselves unable to make permanent, or even contractor hires and so instead start to look for external resources able to fill the gap. Where traditional marketing and/or ISR type agencies can provide some tactical execution capability, a model like KickDrum’s offers access to a greater depth of industry knowledge and expertise that might be required.
Not an “agency” mindset
Firstly I should say, I’ve worked with great people at some great marketing and sales agencies over the years, and many are really good at what they do. In general though they tend to operate on a project by project basis and mostly operate in reaction to explicit instructions they are given. They very much operate on the outside of the organisation as a third party. If you’re not careful you can end up paying an expensive retainer for really very little results.
In my experience very few also transcend the sales and marketing boundary – thinking and acting on both as a holistic go-to-market plan.
KickDrum aims to be different
With KickDrum, our mission is to bring what is best in the ethos of a fractional approach to resourcing mid to senior level talent, but do that at a team rather than individual level.
Of course, there will be projects we take on from time to time that won’t require that, but whatever we take on, our explicit contract with our clients is that what you’re getting is an extension of your in-house team. We won’t sit on our hands and wait to be told what to do. We will work as an integrated team to identify and remedy issues, to question and challenge assumptions, and to identify and exploit new opportunities to progress your business. And, if at the end of all of that your success means you outgrow our services, that’s cool too and we’ll help you migrate away from working with us. We’re called KickDrum Partners for a reason. It’s all about partnership.
If all of that sounds like we might be kickin’ in the right direction for you, why not reach out and let’s talk.