Beau Billington’s Playbook: Best Practices for Thriving in Fractional Roles

Brett Trainor (00:01.947)
Hey, Bo, welcome to the podcast.

Beau Billington (00:04.59)
Brett, pop to be here, man. Thanks for having me on.

Brett Trainor (00:07.611)
No, absolutely my pleasure. And again, we've got a shared passion for helping people get out of corporate, find a new path, take control of the good stuff. And you're a few, two or three, maybe four years ahead of me heading down this path. So definitely want to get into a little bit of your escapee journey and kind of where you see the future of this going. But I think a good place to start is.

share with the audience a little bit of what you're working on now, who you're working with, and then we'll take you back in time a little bit.

Beau Billington (00:38.446)
Sure, and yes, I am a little ahead of you in regards to the journey, so I'm sure I can share a lot on what not to do, because a lot of the journey has kind of been in that regard. But it's been fun. And yeah, so just to kind of share what the company, the free agent does at a high level. So we work with high growth organizations, predominantly technology -enabled companies, typically pre -Series A, Series A, Series B. But we look for companies that already have product market fit.

They're not pre -revenue. But sometimes most importantly, the founders have a growth mindset. So we look for organizations that are primed for growth and that want to grow. From a functional perspective, we still do some full -time placement, but fractional is really kind of our passion, fractional and interim, which, and I see those as two different types of roles. But the focus area, kind of three buckets, albeit three big buckets, sales and marketing, tech and product, operations and finance.

Brett Trainor (01:25.851)
great.

Beau Billington (01:35.438)
And lastly, the tech sector we've seen has been a little soft the last 15, 16 months. We're May 28th right now, 2024. And so we're starting to kind of look at other sectors as well that are primed for growth. So professional services organizations, commercial construction, et cetera, but then also like private equity and venture capital.

Brett Trainor (01:56.891)
Yeah, it makes sense and it's super cool. And maybe let's just go back a little bit to, cause you did talk about the difference between fractional interim and full time. I'd love to get your definition of it. I think we have a shared definition, but I think for the audience, you know, people like to use these terms interchangeably sometimes. So, you know, what is the difference?

Beau Billington (02:15.57)
Yeah, they do. And I'll probably get some heat from this because I feel like there's a lot of folks that are trying to put a wrapper around fractional. But to me, the very essence of fractional is no wrapper, right? Like it's extreme flexibility. And so I kind of the way that we look at the world is there's full time. And so you're a full time employee, right? And you work for one employer, maybe Moonlight, whatever, but that's a full time employee. Then you've got interim, which is going to be a contractual, you know,

type of scenario, but you're gonna be more so kind of 40 hours a week, you're all in, and there's for some finite period of time, right? Maybe it's six months, maybe it's nine months, et cetera, but you are a contractual employee working for one organization. And then fractional, the way we look at it is it's a fraction of a work week. It could be, you know, five hours a week, 10, 20, 35, et cetera, but typically you're gonna work with maybe one to three different clients at any given time.

So there's some variety to the work and there's also extreme flexibility if you're looking to kind of maybe take a month off or do some other things during that time. It's your time and you own it. Does that mirror what you think in regards to kind of your definition and thought process?

Brett Trainor (03:18.459)
Yeah, that's perfect.

Brett Trainor (03:23.707)
It does, right? You can even throw in consulting in there, which I would tell folks is, you know, fix fee, fix time, right? You're coming in to solve a specific problem. I think there's probably, I'd like your definite fractional because it does expand it a little bit. Cause one of the things I work a lot with folks is there's no rules to be kind of like you said, there's no box or a wrapper around it, which is so true. If small business needs help.

There's multiple ways you do it. And if you lead with, Hey, I'm only for action. I'm only doing eight to 10 hours per week. You're going to put yourself into your own wrapper because there's some companies that need some, some different flexibility. So yeah, I like the distinction. I think, you know, one of the other definitions, right? When you're an employee, right? It's purely one way it's one sided, right? They tell you what to do. They basically own you as far as, you know, in return for salary and benefits.

Beau Billington (03:57.422)
Right?

Brett Trainor (04:17.147)
You're going to do everything we say work on. Where fractional is more of a relationship, right? It's a two way street. If neither side's happy, both can leave. And then even down to like freelance is more of a transaction, right? We're going to do this in exchange. All are good and all are better than the employee relationship. If you ask me.

Beau Billington (04:23.726)
Agreed.

Beau Billington (04:36.206)
Yeah, they can be. And I appreciate the distinction because usually when I think of like Fiverr, that to me is more freelance, right? I need XYZ done. It's clearly defined. And here's my fee to do this work for you. Whereas, you know, fractional, we're typically more in the strategic sector. And so you're almost in an advisory capacity for a company. But the beauty of it is, I agree, it's less transactional and it's all around kind of finding that right fit from both the, what we refer to as free agents perspective, as well as the company.

You know, and what's great about it is you do put yourself in a position where you can work with the folks you want to work with. And pardon the frame here, but like I haven't known any whole policy. And that goes with both the fractional effects, but also the companies.

Brett Trainor (05:14.779)
Yes.

Yeah, it's such a good point because for the first time in my career, I was actually able to say no, right? Even partners, customers, you know, any of it, if it's just life's too short to deal with that type of crap anymore. So, no, I'm glad you, glad you mentioned it. And I'm already going to take a soft path a little bit because I do want to go back to your escapee journey, but I think, you know, what, what I get a ton of questions from is.

Beau Billington (05:23.31)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (05:31.886)
Get it.

Brett Trainor (05:42.299)
Why do I, how much can I charge as a fractional or a consulting or these types of things? So I'm not gonna put you on an absolute spot, but if somebody's got 20 to 30 years of experience, what's a good range? What are you seeing? Like I said, you've been doing this for a lot longer than I have, so I'm just kinda curious, what would you share with people as expectations?

Beau Billington (05:51.566)
Right.

Beau Billington (06:06.926)
So totally loaded question, Brett. Good question, though. And it's hard to answer, because I'm a believer that not all of us are able to do this.

consultants or fractional execs are created equal, right? It depends on the depth and breadth of your experience. What type of environments are you working at Fortune 500? Is it more kind of the SMB market? And then also how much value are you adding to the company itself? So we've seen ranges from an hourly perspective, call it a buck 50 on the low end, upwards of pushing $500 plus. And again, it really depends on the background, the skill set, but also to more importantly, the value.

Brett Trainor (06:17.531)
I agree.

Beau Billington (06:44.768)
you derive from the engagement. From a like just kind of engagement model perspective, I'll kind of share what we do and it's a hybrid of like retainer and hourly where we typically kind of have like a floor pricing like maybe it's you know eight hours a week and then we charge for overages if there's a big kind of delta right if you're working you know you say it's eight hours but you work nine hours then you know maybe you charge maybe you don't but if that creeps to 15 or plus we're gonna submit a change order.

But we typically set those up on a month to month engagement. So there's a 30 day kick out clause if needed. But generally if you do your due diligence on the front end and you kind of scope out and price out a project effectively, then those month to month engagements typically go much longer, three, six, nine months, even over a year.

Brett Trainor (07:32.539)
Yeah, I think that makes sense. And the range is important, right? Because I think, again, a lot of the folks I work with are the two decades in corporate. So they definitely have been through the battles, worked mostly with big companies. And again, setting those expectations of where you can add value. And I think, and as long as we're on this path, let's flip it over to the company side. Because some of the feedback I get is, hey, I've got to, you know, part of what I'm doing is educating companies, as well as I try to sell them on the...

Beau Billington (07:44.878)
Right.

Beau Billington (07:59.214)
Mm -hmm.

Brett Trainor (08:02.619)
the value of a fractional type of a role. So who are the companies that are coming to you? So if I'm relatively new to this and I want to target some industries, are you seeing any of the industries ahead of the curve and kind of embracing the value of this model? Or are you still kind of fighting the good fight with the education as well?

Beau Billington (08:21.13)
Yeah, so education components really, really interesting. And I've done more educating, you know, the last five, six years, and I've seen the market start to shift more so in the last six months than any time in the preceding six and a half years, which is really interesting. So I feel like companies now are starting to understand what is a fractional executive? What is the distinction between fractional and an interim, or maybe between that and a full -time? And they're also starting to see the value. So the conversations are becoming a little bit easier.

to getting somebody to deploy, which is great. But when somebody reaches out to us, it's usually for a couple different reasons. Maybe they're bootstrapped or cash flows are tight. Maybe they've acquired a company. Also, too, maybe they have a hypothesis on some blue ocean that they need to go out and tackle, and they're not ready to pull the trigger on a full -time employee. Additionally, too, a big trigger for us is that maybe turnover is really high. Sales is a great example. We'll get the call from...

CEO that's like, hey, Bo, we've gotten rid of our last eight account executives. The guys are worthless. And it's like, well, eight's a big number. At some point, maybe there's a bigger issue at hand. And a lot of times, that's a prime situation to bring in a fractional CRO to come in and kind of...

Brett Trainor (09:29.979)
All right.

Beau Billington (09:39.726)
Make sure they've got an infrastructure that's set up for success. Then eventually, they can sunset that person, they can help find their successor, and put in a full -time resident CRO. But a lot of the work we do, again, is more on the strategic side of the house. CEO, ops, CFO, et cetera, they just maybe need an outside perspective for somebody to kind of lessen the bandwidth that they kind of have on them.

Brett Trainor (10:04.827)
Yeah, no, it makes sense. And I do want to go back to one point you mentioned on kind of the model, the billing model, right? Cause I've actually softened on this because the early days, early days, right? Less than two years ago, I'm like, I was all in just on the retainer. I don't want to track hours. You get, but I'm actually seeing more and more value to doing that. And it's actually an easier sell. If you can say, yeah, it's eight to 10 hours per week. If we go over, right. I'll.

Beau Billington (10:20.814)
Mm -hmm.

Beau Billington (10:29.646)
Yes.

Brett Trainor (10:33.019)
And maybe the way I structured when I was doing fractional work was if I go over it becomes a trend and then we'll make an adjustment. But if not, I like the idea of, hey, if we don't use them, I'll just roll them over till next month. And then you get to use them. I'm actually starting to buy into that where I was fighting it forever. So I'm glad you kind of talked about that.

Beau Billington (10:36.59)
Thank you.

Beau Billington (10:40.59)
We'll dress it.

Beau Billington (10:55.566)
Well, I think it's really interesting, candidly, because the first six years, what I've realized in this whole journey is that the tough part about fractional is that it's a bit nebulous. What is it? What do I get? What's the cost? And that's really hard for people to understand. And so what we've done in the last few years is use the same terminology. We put a wrapper around.

kind of hours and engagements and we have buckets, right? It's typically increments of five, but you know, it's a weekly bill rate or a monthly bill rate, but you kind of know what type of support you're gonna get from that individual. And of course that's all backed up with like a scoping workshop and a proposal that has a lot of the deliverables, but I've...

found that the conversion rate to be higher the second we started talking about blocks of hours versus, I'll just kind of bill what I bill. And if you need eight hours this week and three next week, that's cool. We'll figure it out.

Brett Trainor (11:48.955)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. Cause I'm thinking hindsight, cause I've had three different fractional CRO roles and each of them was kind of, I knew how many hours per month and that kind of outlined the hours per month. And, you know, thankfully I was able to sell those three clients, but thinking of it more of like, Hey, if just a block of, of eight hours, we already know that these two meetings, these things are going to take up a chunk of the time. Then we can be flexible with where we use it. So,

Beau Billington (11:52.878)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Beau Billington (12:14.958)
Well, let me just add later one more thing on top of that as well. You know, what I found too, again, I figured out a lot of what not to do.

Brett Trainor (12:18.619)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (12:21.902)
And there does need to be a certain level of pain associated with the fee. And so we've had a scenario where we had too few hours within a month period of time, and this was like a $40 million company. And so each month, it was time for them to meet with the CFO, but it was easy for the CEO just to kick the can to the next month. Like, we didn't use it, but the cost wasn't high enough to really exhibit enough pain to make it a priority.

Brett Trainor (12:41.847)
you

Beau Billington (12:48.718)
And then you've put yourself in a situation where the free agent's not doing the work they wanna do. Candidly, the guy felt like he was just kinda making money and not providing the value that he was supposed to provide, right? So it was bad from the candidate side. And then the company's just not getting the value that they thought they'd get from us. And that was associated with the price, the price was too low, or the hourly engagement was too low.

Brett Trainor (12:59.579)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (13:10.555)
Yeah, no, it makes sense. I know I like it. I think it is a good distinction. Again, as we learn, we grow and not all engagements are the same, but I do, like I said, I'm starting to buy into, right? I'm not starting to, I have bought into that model. Just curious, as long as we're on this talking about, cause one of the things, I know you're more focused on the big picture strategic higher level fractionals, but one of the things I think, you know, even all companies, if you take an SMB that needs help,

Beau Billington (13:16.206)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (13:23.534)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (13:40.731)
Right. They may need a CRM specialist as that comes in as a fractional CRM leader. Right. So it's not big, it's not strategic, but it's important for this company. And I see the value of that over an agency, which you can find good agencies agreed, but this person becomes a part of your team, maybe eight hours, five hours a week that does all that work. That the fractional, you can start to plug in fractional experts and maybe there's a better term that we could come, maybe it's fractional leaders, fractional experts. And then.

Beau Billington (13:46.733)
Mm -hmm.

Beau Billington (14:08.846)
Mm -hmm.

Brett Trainor (14:09.947)
maybe everybody else that fits into this. Are you starting to see a need from these businesses into those areas as well, or are you still predominantly just seeing the leadership roles?

Beau Billington (14:21.71)
No, we're -

There's definitely a big push within, and we refer to it basically as two layers, strategic layer and tactical. That's probably a simplistic viewpoint of it, but it's the folks that we typically deploy are not doing, I think the finance function is a really easy one to kind of unpack here. We've got the CFO, that's about future looking, strategic planning, et cetera, and then you've got controller, more tactical in the numbers. And to me, that's a good distinction. While we do some controller work, that's strategic versus tactical. To answer your question, I...

I am seeing a push move more into that tactical arena and space. And it's interesting to us, but I also have a network more on the strategic side. It's the work that I personally enjoy the most. And I'm also a believer in niching down as much as possible. So candidly, I think that would just keep us a little too wide and exposed to take on both at this time.

Brett Trainor (15:17.947)
Yeah, no, it makes sense. You know, it's interesting because one of the common characteristics, the more people I talk to is even your strategic folks in a fractional role need to be doers. And even if you're bringing in doers, they need to be a little bit more strategic, right? So we are starting to see the hybrid. And I think that plays well into folks that it, I guess, maybe the question back to you, that's what I'm seeing. But I'm curious from.

the companies you work with, are they expecting the fractionals to be able to get their hands dirty just because of where they are in their journey? Or is it a hundred percent, hey, I'm just giving you the direction, the strategy in the South topic a little bit, but I'm curious.

Beau Billington (15:49.358)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (15:59.086)
No, that's a great question. And the answer is it depends. I think that's the value that an agency can bring to the house is because we're kind of running interference between what we refer to as the free agent and the fractional exec.

and the companies we represent. So part of our goal is like narrowing down on like, you know, soft skills, right? And work they want to do. Cause I'll talk to a fractional execs who are like, especially in the tech sector, they're like, no, I'm not hands on keyboard. I'm straight up strategic. That's it. And then I'll talk to others that are kind of the inverse. I've found that kind of the magic potion, if you will, is really somebody that's strategic and tactical. And most organizations do kind of gravitate towards somebody who can do both, right? They can get into weeds when they need to, but there's not necessarily.

of the expectation that they're in the weeds all the time. You know what I mean?

Brett Trainor (16:44.059)
Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah. I think that makes sense. And maybe this is a good time, even though my intent was early to bring you back in your escape journey. But I thought this was good. I thought there was a lot of value in this. And I think even going back to how you started, I think we can talk about kind of how the industry has changed in the seven years. Has it been seven years now since you've been? Okay. So yeah, talk, let's go back to your incorporate. I'm assuming you're at a breaking point or.

Beau Billington (16:52.686)
No, no.

It's like...

Beau Billington (17:05.326)
So, yes.

Brett Trainor (17:12.539)
you quit corporate or corporate quit you or some combination kind of bring the folks back to that tipping point for you.

Beau Billington (17:12.606)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (17:19.694)
Yeah, so I'd always aspired to be an entrepreneur, like since I was 16, just kind of more of like a dreamer. I don't want to say my head's in the clouds, but like I like solving problems and thinking through like what things could be, right? So I've always kind of, you know, aspired to be an entrepreneur. In fact, had a startup before with two buddies from high school, made a little bit of money, but you know, we were still in corporate America, so we just really couldn't get it off the ground.

Brett Trainor (17:32.251)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (17:44.078)
Meanwhile, I started working at a company where we were selling professional services. So like looking at one through five years, meaning with like CIOs and creating their strategic division. And I just saw how inefficient the space was, you know? And so I started doing some research and actually spent about two years doing research on the industry, on the space before jumping out. So then I find myself, you know, I had my second kid.

Yes, second kid had just built a house and I was in Toronto. And I was in Toronto because somebody told me to be there. It was two days before Christmas. About to get snowed in, about to miss Christmas with the family. And literally on the background, ESPN was on and they're talking about so -and -so's a free agent and that's where the name came from.

to be honest with you. And I thought, how cool would that be if I was a free agent? If I went out and worked for one to two to three companies, didn't find myself in Toronto two days before Christmas, could take time off, maximize life, et cetera. And went home, made it home, Christmas was great, but I could never shake that thought. I literally couldn't.

Brett Trainor (18:27.643)
Interesting.

Beau Billington (18:45.742)
And I spent a lot of time working on the business plan, realized along the way that I had no interest in being a consultant myself. Sounds like you've done some consulting work, but you feel like you can add value in other ways. And I try to look at my skillset holistically and it was like, okay, I like solving problems and I like making introductions and connections. And that's when kind of decided to be more of an agency, bringing two parties together. But yeah, it was, it was kind of one of those things where I had my light bulb moment and just literally could not shake it for two years straight.

Brett Trainor (18:57.115)
Exactly.

Brett Trainor (19:15.675)
And people are going to be curious because I think a lot of people have had those light bulb moments. So they're starting to, and from the time you had that to the time you jumped, right? Did you have your first customer or what, what was your vision for the company at that point? Kind of that thought process.

Beau Billington (19:20.109)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (19:30.19)
No, it was daunting. I mean, the money trap was real, new cars, new house. It was a difficult time. My daughter was, I think, nine months old, technically. I think it was how old she was when I jumped. I had a two -year -old as well.

It was scary. I had this hypothesis. The hypothesis was really around creating a marketplace, like LinkedIn meets a closed traded network. So I jumped out. I had my business plan, which is back here on this bookshelf. My business plan was out for about four or five months and made $0. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable, to be honest with you. And save money and budget it. I made a plan, but realized that this marketplace idea that I had...

Brett Trainor (19:58.075)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (20:18.702)
was something that could be a billion dollar idea, but just probably 10, 15 years from now. And I really had to kind of put that aside and get tactical boots on the ground and start kind of guerrilla warfare, sales process, making connections. But it was about seven months before I got my first paycheck. And so that was a bit difficult. My wife's an attorney, so she's extremely risk averse. The world's black and white. The world is not gray.

Brett Trainor (20:38.075)
Okay.

Beau Billington (20:45.454)
So it was difficult because especially too when starting a company, you think again of all the opportunity and it's infinite. It's easy to get excited. And I'm glad that I kind of picked my head up and got tactical.

Brett Trainor (20:45.595)
Right.

Brett Trainor (20:52.859)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (20:58.747)
Yeah, and is that when you kind of started the agency side of it that you could help provide the value and do the match more of a premium match?

Beau Billington (21:04.142)
Exactly. So we actually started full time, more full time work because at that time, seven years ago, people didn't know what a fractional was, right? It just didn't, it didn't make sense. So along the way, in fact, it was really full time and interim was kind of the original business play. Interim was, was kind of a little bit more known. And so I basically found myself doing like one part fractional executive headhunting while trying to evangelize this concept of interim and then later fractional.

Brett Trainor (21:12.763)
through.

Brett Trainor (21:32.507)
Yeah. And where did you, yeah, cause it's, it's the journey sounds very familiar, but I think what, what I tell people from the fractional side, or even if they want to go solo consulting, whatever they're going to do, leveraging their, their skills is, you know, you can find some success in two to three, four months, right? Meaning maybe you find your first client, hopefully you'll find your first client, a year you get a little more comfortable and you could potentially replace your income if, if,

if things go right. But I tell people it wasn't until year two that I was confident that I wasn't going back to corporate, right? Now I figured out how to make the money. There's different ways. And we still, or at least I still deal, you know, all the time with different imposter syndrome, right? You go through something, you pivot, you move into a new area, and you kind of move back to that, the stretch. But is that, does that sound like a fair number to you? It sounds like you said you didn't get your first.

Beau Billington (22:17.422)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (22:29.819)
paycheck for a bit, but.

Beau Billington (22:31.022)
Yeah, I think we were lucky. The tech sector was pretty hot. So after we got our kind of first paycheck, it was more about rinsing, repeating, right? Like doing a postmortem, what went well, what didn't go well, stop doing the items that didn't go well and focused on kind of what we could do to move the cursor. So growth growth curve was actually quite nice. Again, I could have been timing, but definitely focused on what was resonating and took out of my vernacular those things that weren't really resonating. And at the time, you know, again, like fraction,

people are like, that doesn't make sense for me, right? There's enough money in the economy, I'm just gonna hire somebody full -time, right? So we kind of doubled down on the full -time placement, the executive sector, headhunting.

Brett Trainor (23:07.547)
Right.

Beau Billington (23:13.038)
But yeah, it can take a while. I mean, it can definitely take a while, but it's really around just kind of, you know, having that, the ability to look back in the rear view and take an audit of what you're doing, what you're doing well. And this also goes back to the pricing discussion. I'm not suggesting going into the market at a low price, but your initial price may be too high and it takes reps and it takes research and it takes a post -mortem after every engagement to see kind of where you are.

Brett Trainor (23:13.563)
Makes sense.

Brett Trainor (23:38.651)
Yeah, no, I think that makes perfect sense. And I had kind of a nah -ha moment not too long ago as I was talking with folks that were laid off and so going through the job process, especially as Gen X, right? 250 resumes or app, all this time. And then I'm like, man, if we would have put that much time into our business development for a solo business that we do into a job hunt, how much better off that we would be. And even being in the solo, I know I could...

Beau Billington (23:51.438)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (24:06.971)
be more focused and drive more towards that, that, the new business side of it. So, so I think one, you can definitely get more efficient and drive it, but you know, it is to your point, it is a learning process and it does get easier as you, you go through it and you can become more selective as you go through it. So.

Beau Billington (24:13.39)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (24:26.158)
You can't, I think it was about three years in we raised our prices. Like across the board, everything we were doing, we were much more selective about clients we took on, the kind of work we were doing, et cetera. But it takes a little while. I mean, you're ultimately, it's a portfolio business, right? I mean, you're cobbling together a couple of different revenue streams. And to me, that's the essence of a fractional.

Brett Trainor (24:42.843)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (24:50.427)
Yeah, no, a hundred percent agree. And who, I think the long way, let's take this to the next step, right? So if I, I'm coming out of corporate, I want to do the fractional or some combination. What is it that, what are some best practices I should be thinking about? What are companies looking for? Right. So how to best position myself or I'll open that up just in general, right? Cause you've had a lot of conversations on both sides. So what are some things to do and things not to do if you're considering going.

Beau Billington (25:13.006)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (25:19.771)
fractional.

Beau Billington (25:20.11)
Well, we actually provide some coaching in this regard. So I've got a pretty strong opinion on what to do and how to do it. I think first, to me, at its very core, this is very entrepreneurial. And if being an entrepreneur is not something that excites you, scares the hell out of you, it should be a little scared. But I feel like there are two types of people, and I try to put them in boxes, which people typically don't like. But either you're kind of more entrepreneurial or you're not.

Brett Trainor (25:40.955)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (25:48.878)
If you're the former, then that's obviously, I think, a good skill set for becoming a fractional exec. Also, too, la familia situation. What is your family situation? It was really important for me, especially when I was six months in with zero paycheck. I was extremely transparent on kind of where things were. And seven years later, I'm still very transparent with my wife.

the state of the business. So to me, that's really important. Additionally to like, I had the nest egg that I needed to kind of go and I budgeted at the time. I was a little bullish on how long it would take, kind of like a good, best and worst or whatever ranking. I was confident I could go three months, but again, it was seven, right? But I was prepared to go a year. And I've seen a lot of folks as well that have gone a year without the first client.

Brett Trainor (26:26.427)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (26:38.222)
That being said though, I think the magic sauce is really around your profile, your presentation, and your work. And if you're an executive looking to jump in the fractional space, I always tell people, if you look back the last three, five years, what are those one to three areas in which you had a lot of value, added a lot of value to a company rather, but also that are still germane in today's environment? That's important.

And so, you know, have conversations about it, create a value proposition, and then move into ICP, which is ideal client profile. It's really important that you have that established before jumping out of corporate America. And all these items are something to change, right? Our focus is a lot different than it was seven years ago. Cross the board.

But I think it's important to kind of have those initial thoughts and initial data points and then go into the market and try to validate some of these discussions. Not with your buddies, right? But with maybe some friendlies from the past that would be a buyer. I think that's the most important thing is to have a discussion with somebody that could be a buyer of your services, buy them a coffee and have a conversation in regards to what you're trying to do, at what price point, et cetera. And that can kind of help you get your arms around the what, the who, and the how.

Brett Trainor (27:54.555)
Yeah, no, I think that's really good advice and it is important right the buddies or spouse or partner eight One it depends how critical or objective they can be but yeah No, I think that's so in the one thing right? It seems like semantics But I've been coaching people on is when you do this ask them for advice not feedback. I'm gonna give you feedback. It's gonna be less

less critical maybe, the advice to me is more forward looking. So, hey, I'm launching my new venture and the new venture is me going solo into this. What advice for you? You're my ideal client. Yeah, I think it is amazing how many people don't do that.

Beau Billington (28:36.75)
Well, but I also too, you know, in my journey, I got advice from a lot of the wrong people, right? And we just pontificate on like, what if scenarios and a lot of them are wrong.

And so I wish that I went, that I identified, you know, top 10 list of people who could buy my service and figure out a way to have a conversation with them. A, it's actually a good lead gen activity, right? But B, you're getting real data from somebody that has the problem you can solve for. And that's going to help you validate pricing, engagement model. I mean, I still do it. I've got a service offering for free agents. And I talk to a select few of people like, hey, here's what we're putting together. Does this resonate? You know, what should we cut out? What should we layer in, et cetera.

Brett Trainor (29:16.795)
Yeah, no, I did that as well with potential escapees, right? I probably had 250 phone calls. You don't have to do 250. It was just, this was new to me and it was just every, there was a volume of folks. And so it was very, it looked very different than what I assumed it was going to look like. Right. So save time, save, save money. So, all right. So one last topic I've got for you is, you know, kind of the, the future of work in.

Beau Billington (29:23.598)
Yeah.

Sure.

Beau Billington (29:33.71)
present.

Brett Trainor (29:44.891)
Why I think that's important is, right, as we become more solo businesses, right, how that that plugs in. So I've got some strong opinions, but I'm super curious, right? You've been in this a little bit even longer than I have. So where do you see this going? Right? Is this, you know, people say fractional is just a fad. I'm like, I'm not betting that way, but I'd love to hear it from you.

Beau Billington (30:00.014)
Ugh.

Beau Billington (30:04.366)
Yeah, I feel like we're just starting the journey, right? So again, seven years ago, I think I coined the term fractional. I'm sure there's going to be some haters out there that are going to disagree with it. But, you know, if I say it enough, people may believe. But I've seen it grow more, as mentioned kind of the earlier part of this conversation, last six months or a year. Now, part of that is born out of, you know,

Brett Trainor (30:17.051)
Works for me, man. I'll give you full credit for it.

Beau Billington (30:31.086)
So there have been massive layoffs in the tech sector, which has been really difficult. And people have seen this as kind of like maybe a stopgap or a way to kind of stay employed, keep your brain moving, all while looking for full -time work.

That being said, I'm confident and very bullish on the fractional space that we're just starting. And I don't know what the percentages will be in the next two, three years, but the boomers are starting to kind of hand over the keys to their organizations, to Gen X, Gen Y. And a lot of us, and I'm an ex -surf by the way, a lot of us have...

strong opinions on work -life balance now, right? And that's due to COVID, it's due to changing work population, et cetera. So I'm confident this is not a fad, it's just changing. The business model makes tremendous sense for companies that are in growth mode. Why would, like I have an opinion that if you're talking B2B SaaS, do you really need a CFO if you're sub 25 million or sub 30 million? Probably not.

Right? So why would you have somebody like that on full -time payroll? You know, two thirds of the salary could be allocated towards product build or some other functional area of the business. So I'm confident as you know, there's more retirees and there's more Gen X and Gen Ys that are moving into kind of the ranks of CEO that we're going to see even greater increase on the fractional space. And I'd love to see it where maybe 20 to 30 % of a company's workforce is fractional. Right? And that's taking the sheer contract side of the

out of the house at full time at 20 to 30 percent would be phenomenal and I think we're just getting started.

Brett Trainor (32:03.643)
Yeah, I think that 100 % agree with you. And I think it could be even more because again, living in the corporate, the big corporate world for almost most of my time, right? There's right. They've got AI coming and that's what's driving layoffs. AI is not driving layoffs yet. Someday it will, but shit, these companies can't even align sales and marketing, let alone.

Beau Billington (32:19.886)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (32:24.622)
questions.

Brett Trainor (32:25.083)
gain efficiencies through automation at this point. It'll come. So where I see the biggest opportunity is these mid -size and small companies that have the flexibility, never had access to the talent that's now available to them. And if they can build the model of the way I say it's more of an ecosystem than a hierarchy, right? So if I can plug in six people that are going to give me output and deliverables and sales marketing, right? All with based on out deliverables versus activity.

Beau Billington (32:27.086)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (32:44.206)
Right?

Brett Trainor (32:54.907)
You can build, there's a lot of work to do that, but I just think that the small and mid -size are better equipped to leverage the expertise that's going to be available to them. So like I said, like, so I like the space you're in, you're helping help these companies grow more efficiently than they could, right. Bringing all the full time. And the last thing I'll say on that is the, I saw there was an Asana work study that basically, and it was on knowledge workers, but almost all.

Beau Billington (33:21.006)
Mm -hmm.

Brett Trainor (33:22.427)
executives tend to be more knowledge workers now that you know, only 27 % of their time was actually spent on knowledge work. And I think that translates into corporate actually doing the job they were hired to do. And that's where I tell folks the value back to these small businesses. So if you're a fractional man, you're only charging for the 27 % of your expertise, you're not charging for the all the overhead that that comes with that leave that for for big corporate to deal with. And you know, that's why it

Beau Billington (33:44.974)
Right.

Beau Billington (33:49.454)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (33:50.363)
become more affordable. So I agree we're in the early stages but I'm super interested to see where this goes.

Beau Billington (33:57.262)
I am as well. I think you bring up a great point. I mean, you're hiring for expertise. And I love that stat about the 27 % is spent on your real job. And it makes sense. I mean, you'll get 100 % of somebody's expertise in this type of engagement. There's no politics. It's devoid of politics. And the last point that I'll bring up, and you kind of mentioned this a little bit, but founder -run organizations are primed for...

you know, fractional execs. So maybe the company got, you know, 15 million based upon founder led sales, they flatline, and maybe they go in the opposite way. Those companies are perfect for this type of scenario because they don't have the capital to bring on full -time employees a lot of the time.

Brett Trainor (34:34.107)
Yeah, such a good point. Man, this time is flown by a bow. I'm gonna have to bring you back on a regular basis because I think there is so much value and knowledge in just what you see and you see every day in this industry, I think is so important. So I definitely appreciate you taking the time and sharing your insights.

Beau Billington (34:38.958)
Yes, it has!

Beau Billington (34:44.59)
Yeah.

Beau Billington (34:55.246)
Push it.

Brett Trainor (34:55.259)
So if folks want to track you down, what is the, help throw in the show notes, obviously, what's the best place for people to find you and free agent. By the way, that's a cool name. I can't believe you actually got that. So.

Beau Billington (35:06.926)
It's a funny story actually how I got that. But yeah, so the freeagent .com is our URL. I'm Bo Billington, B -E -A -U Billington. I'm on LinkedIn.

Probably the two best places, but always happy to have a conversation. I live, eat and breathe the fractional space. I actually love it. I'm a fractional, so to speak, myself. And yeah, happy to have any conversations. Brett sincerely enjoyed our conversation. Would love to come on another time, maybe tackle some other topics. And just appreciate you giving me the time today.

Brett Trainor (35:40.219)
Yeah, no, it's absolutely my pleasure. And yes, we will make this a reoccurring role if you're up for it. Because like I said, I think it's great insight that you can provide from both sides of the equation. So again, thanks, Beau. We appreciate it. And we'll catch up with you soon.

Beau Billington (35:45.39)
What's your set?

Beau Billington (35:50.894)
Awesome.

Beau Billington (35:54.35)
Awesome, man. Cool.