Solo Success: Referrals, Relationships, and Reframing Your Approach with Jake Stahl

Brett Trainor (00:01.305)
Hey, Jake, welcome to the podcast.

Jake Stahl (00:03.798)
Hey, Brett, thanks for having me. It's a real honor to be here.

Brett Trainor (00:07.593)
It's absolutely my pleasure and I appreciate your flexibility with me. I know I was testing your patience a little bit, but I'm so glad that we were able to pull this off because I think your background is going to be super interesting. We can talk fractional, we can talk escape, and then even a little bit about Fract 2024 that's coming up. So, I'm excited to jump in, but let's...

Jake Stahl (00:12.042)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (00:27.862)
Sounds great.

Brett Trainor (00:31.745)
for the audience, just share a little bit with what you are doing today, who you're working with, and then we'll go back in time a little bit just to talk about that escape point.

Jake Stahl (00:40.938)
Yeah, sure. So right now, Brad, I kind of serve a dual function. I act as a fractional CLO, which is kind of the fancy version of fractional head of training and development. So I work with companies to onboard their salespeople, because one of the biggest problems with salespeople, the biggest reason they quit within the first six months is that they feel they haven't been onboarded or trained properly.

And it causes a lot of turnover and a lot of stress for companies. And honestly, it's a lot of money. If you think of a new person coming on as $18,000 just for them to walk through the front door.

That's a big spend for a company to just have to give them up three months later when they're not happy. So part of it is the fractional CLO, the developing the onboarding, developing the sales training program, making sure that it flows and it helps the companies meet their objectives. The second half of what I do is I have a degree in psychology and certifications of neurolinguistic programming. So I help salespeople and executives get past those mental blocks

Jake Stahl (01:46.16)
So I do individual as well as corporate coaching on NLP. And it's really helped everybody from salespeople to even customer service folks kind of up their game. So that's my dual role right now.

Brett Trainor (02:01.889)
Yeah, I like it. And you're also doing some work with the FRAC Conference 2024 as well, right?

Jake Stahl (02:06.67)
Correct, and thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, so Frac 2024 coming up October 21st and 22nd in Minneapolis, they pegged me to be the sales officer for that, so I'm in charge of ticket sales and doing the sponsorships for the conference. And Brad, as you know, probably better than anybody, the Frac Conference is one of the only conferences right now dedicated strictly to the Fractional Executive.

Brett Trainor (02:34.377)
Yeah, and it's growing so quickly. So yeah, we'll table that till the end of the conversation because I do want to spend a little bit of time with that. But, and I'm going to take us down our first rabbit hole before we even get to your escape journey because you talked about the onboarding process being so important and I couldn't agree more, right? I mean, that's the start of, you know, from a customer's perspective and a sales perspective, it's where all the value lies, right? If you can set them up for success.

Jake Stahl (02:38.862)
Sure.

Jake Stahl (02:48.937)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (03:00.941)
it's going to carry over and there's so much opportunity at the enterprise level as well as small businesses that don't do that very well. So do you focus more enterprise with your fractional or who's your sweet spot target

Jake Stahl (03:18.178)
So Brett, I'm sorry you froze there for a second. I didn't catch the end of that.

Brett Trainor (03:23.937)
Who is I'll edit it out. So make sure to come back in. I was just asking you who is your Target market sweet spot for the for the training and development

Jake Stahl (03:25.938)
Okay.

Jake Stahl (03:34.41)
Yeah, usually, Brad, it's companies that are 250 people or less. I have found that they are the most...

Agile when it comes to making changes. And usually these organizations have a sales team of anywhere from two to sometimes 50 or 60 people that are selling in various different forms, whether it's a B2B or B2C, or maybe it's even a broker capacity. So usually it's the smaller scale business. I've done work for large corporations, and I found that a lot of times they want a training program just to say they have one.

and the content doesn't matter as much. With the smaller companies, they're really concerned about being able to keep somebody on board and having them perform at their peak. So my job is to make sure that when you spend that, let's keep using that $18,000 figure, when you spend that 18,000 to bring somebody on, that return on investment comes back in a short period of time. You're not waiting for nine months to start to see a return on that.

Brett Trainor (04:38.361)
Yeah, no, it makes sense. Like I said, I think you're gonna be as busy as you wanna be, as long as you wanna be with where you're focusing, because it is such a value add when you do it and it's done right. So, all right, so let's go back, because I'd almost consider you maybe one of the OGs of the corporate escapees, because it's been a few years since you exited. Can you talk just a little bit about why you got to the point you wanted to leave?

Jake Stahl (05:00.416)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (05:04.357)
how you made the decision and when you left, did you have a plan or did you just go, I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey.

Jake Stahl (05:08.526)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, thank you, Brett. Part of it was frustration. I had been with a company for 16 years and they had made some rough decisions and those decisions had led to waves of layoffs and I survived until the fourth round of layoffs. And I honestly thought I'd be with that company forever. I'm like, they're just gonna drag my dead body out of here one day and all the benefits will go to my wife and that'll be the way it goes. But that wasn't the way it went.

So when I was excused from the company, I did not have a game plan. I wound up taking another job. But when I did that, I started doing consulting work.

So I had a full-time job, did a consulting gig on the side to start to make money. And eventually that full-time job went away and segued completely into the consulting. It wasn't until about a year and a half ago that I realized I was a fractional. I hadn't learned about the term until a year and a half ago. So I remember going down to my wife one day and said, hey, apparently I'm a fractional executive.

and it just kind of stuck from that. But if you look at a sum total breadth, I've been segueing into this for about 10 years and I've been doing it for about five years full time in a fractional environment. And I still do consulting on the side, but yeah. So it's kind of where I went to. I had no game plan. I kind of winged it.

Brett Trainor (06:39.321)
Yeah, we share that kind of similar path. I like when I entered my first chief fractional role was, I don't think it was even called that, right? We just kind of set up what the engagement was gonna look like. It turned out to be what we call fractional now. And it was the same thing. I didn't have a plan. In hindsight, I should have had more of a plan. Started solo consulting, realized that consulting really wasn't what I liked to do. I still do some advising and then just kind of morphed into where it is today. So I think.

Jake Stahl (07:01.271)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (07:06.805)
Again, you are definitely ahead of the curve. And just curious, how did you know, just out of necessity on the consulting side, how did you find your first consulting client? Because that's one of the big questions I get a lot is, hey, I've been in corporate for 30 years, there's no way I can find my first customer. And I say, it's easier to find that customer than your next job, but we'll save that for another conversation. So just curious how you went about finding those first customers and yeah, we'll leave it at that for now.

Jake Stahl (07:27.546)
Hahaha

Jake Stahl (07:35.798)
So there's agencies out there that hire consultants for jobs. So there's a whole bunch out there that you can go to, you can put a resume into, and they will ferret your resume out to corporations looking for consultants. So my first gig was with a power company in New England and...

I got that because they were looking for somebody to do instructional design and training and development and they liked my resume and they were super flexible with my hours. I will tell you they are still a client of mine after all these years. I still do consulting work for them on the side. But yeah, Brett, there's a bunch of agencies out there that can help people actually get into their first spot.

And then it's a matter of getting your name out there to kind of build your reputation and say, Hey, listen, I can not only do training development, but I can head up your training and development department and I can help you create one and do an onboarding. So part of, in my opinion, part of doing the consulting is also new biz dev and getting out there and using that consulting work as a confidence boost, uh, to go out and be more aggressive about what you want.

Brett Trainor (08:48.805)
Yeah, I think that's so true. The confidence is huge. Get that momentum, get that first win, and then all of a sudden it can start to snowball. And yeah, I think it's funny because we see folks all the time, 20, 30 years of super successful corporate careers, right? Things that, you know, most people wouldn't be able to do, but yet you ask them to go find that first client or network to get that first gig. You know, there's no way I can do that. I'm like, man, you got to reframe this because you have everything you need in order to do this. You just, you got to get comfortable. Or.

Jake Stahl (08:56.299)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (09:18.541)
was the way I heard it. You gotta get comfortable being uncomfortable, right? If you're not comfortable doing it, nobody's gonna judge you if you have a bad sales meeting or a bad discovery session or those types of things. But it's really just taking action is one of the biggest pieces of it. So, all right, so back, you've got your consulting, you finally said, all right, I'm going all in, right? I'm not looking for that corporate job anymore. How long after you started that were you confident that you're not going back?

Jake Stahl (09:32.096)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (09:47.409)
because I get that asked that question all the time.

Jake Stahl (09:50.442)
Well, I'll tell you, it was kind of fate-break because while I was doing consulting, I still had that paranoia that I wasn't going to survive without the corporate gig, that I wasn't going to be okay outside of mom's apron. So when I was sending out resumes, I was stunned at with the qualifications that I had, I was getting letters back that said, you don't meet what we're looking for. And I...

listen this is going to sound egotistical and take it for what you will but it's like man I far surpassed what you're looking for and so I got my resumes written by a couple of professional resume writers and spent a lot of money doing it and when I wasn't getting the results Brett I said this is just the universe telling me you're not supposed to be doing this so I decided to double down on doing consultancy and fractional and

Honestly, that's when things took off. You know, you always hear about that thing that burn the ship so they can't leave the shore. After getting rejected so many times from companies, I just decided to burn the ships and it's scary. It's really scary for the first couple of months while you're trying to do that, but it's amazing what your brain comes up with when you're desperate for a solution. You come up with all sorts of great ideas.

Brett Trainor (10:48.822)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (11:02.042)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (11:10.186)
You turn the should into could, right? I should work for a corporation, but I could be working for myself. And I think when that should converts to could is when the magic happens.

Brett Trainor (11:13.166)
Yes.

Brett Trainor (11:21.433)
And I'll even take that one step further because I don't remember where I read it. Maybe it was from you, but you know, the should, the could, the can, right? You could do this. I could do this, but will you do this? And that's when you, you take that, that stuff it's, um, yeah, for me, it was kind of a couple months in found some success, but still I'm like, yeah, man, I don't know. A year in, I had some pretty good confidence that I knew what I was doing, but still wasn't a hundred percent.

Jake Stahl (11:28.141)
Right.

Jake Stahl (11:31.585)
Right.

Jake Stahl (11:42.376)
Right?

Brett Trainor (11:48.893)
sold that, right? I've got this under control. It was about a year or two that now I'm like, all right, I got this. Now I know how to make money. There's different ways to do this. Confident that I wasn't going back. And so I don't know. Do you think that's a realistic timeline for folks? A couple of months to get taste success, a year to get to pretty good mojo going, and then two years. I mean, I still have moments. I'm like, am I an imposter with this? Is this still working? But

Jake Stahl (11:51.562)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (11:58.188)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (12:16.149)
I can quickly overcome that now versus a couple years ago.

Jake Stahl (12:21.082)
I would agree with you Brett that a year is probably a good span. I see a lot of companies right now that are saying, Hey, we can help you go out on your own and we'll help you get a client base within the first three months. And I think to myself, I just don't know if that's possible. I think you could, if you had a super strong network and people were just connecting your right and left, but I think reality is after a year, you kind of come into your own.

Your network is up and going. You're starting to get leads here and there. And after a while you're asking for referrals. So, right, I think you nailed it on the head. It's almost, it's not that you can't get clients right away, but it's almost like a year for you to mature into what you're turning into. I think that's probably a fair way to put it.

Brett Trainor (13:05.477)
Yeah, you articulated that much better than I did. But yeah, I mean, I think that's right. It's and that's what I tell folks. If you're still in corporate, if you're looking for a job, do both, right? Start to explore the solo path because I think you'll be surprised at how much opportunities actually out there and still keep applying for jobs. Because I got a couple of folks that was working with them to say, hey, your background is purple, one's a chief revenue officer. I'm like, now you can go solo.

Jake Stahl (13:10.454)
Hahaha

Brett Trainor (13:34.833)
He wasn't quite ready, so he took one more swing at the chief revenue role as a full-time, but building out his network and what his world looks like when this one eventually – it's going to be sooner rather than later, whether he quits it or they quit on him – he'll be ready to go solo. So yeah, like I said, I don't advise people to take my path without a plan. It worked out, but there's better ways to do this. So, you know, awesome.

Jake Stahl (13:43.883)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (13:51.543)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (13:58.967)
Right.

Brett Trainor (14:03.949)
All right, so fractional, I know you probably get a ton of questions. What is fractional? How does it work? And I thought, man, this would be a good person for you to be on. Because one, your role is, I'm guessing many, when you have a chance to explain, I guess the business owners would understand what you do. But I'm guessing typically within their org, they don't have somebody that's doing that full time, right? So you're possessing a fractional role for something. So

Jake Stahl (14:08.133)
Oh yeah, all the time.

Jake Stahl (14:23.411)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (14:29.014)
Right.

Brett Trainor (14:32.497)
If you wouldn't mind sharing with the audience how, maybe you stumbled into the first one, but maybe how do you approach this now? That's the other question is how do I get customers? Is there a job board for fractional opportunities? It's growing, but no, there's a better way to go find it. So I'd love to hear your advice on how you trial and error it, learned it, and if you have recommendations now.

Jake Stahl (14:36.566)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (14:48.012)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (14:55.327)
Yeah.

I think the thing Brett that I learned was you have to reframe it for somebody. Um, when people typically think of training and development, and let me take a step back, my job as a trainer was fractional by nature, we were always the last to get budget, we were always the first to get cut because people don't see an inherent need for training. So that was kind of the first hurdle for me. And the second was.

Who's heard of a fractional chief learning officer? I'm like that unicorn that you can only spot in spring on a Tuesday, and I'm out there trying to push that. So I had a couple of hurdles to get through, but what I started to do, Brett, was reframe it. Because really training is offers and intangible, right? If I bring on somebody new and we spend 18,000 just for the recruiting, and then you have hardware costs and benefit costs and the first paycheck,

to factor in that if they have a $500,000 quota and they only made 100,000, that person costs you $400,000 because you budgeted for that amount. So when I started talking to people, Brad, I started to reframe it and say, think about the whole picture of this. And you're not at a position where you can afford to bring me on as a full-time person, nor do you need me that way.

So when I started to frame it that you're getting a world-class product, but you don't need that product full-time, you really only need me for X hours a month, it started to change the tide a little bit for me.

Jake Stahl (16:31.538)
I never promoted myself as less expensive because I'm still charging you a decent rate, but you need me for less time. And that leads to something your budget may not notice as much as if you were to bring me on full time. So Brett, when I start to reframe that and have people think about it a little bit differently, I started getting better results. But what I...

Brett Trainor (16:37.073)
Great.

Jake Stahl (16:54.946)
didn't get results with. The biggest mistake I made was you can get me for a less amount of time, and you can get me cheaper than a regular executive. It just, it was a huge mistake I made, and it took me a while to notice it.

Brett Trainor (17:07.457)
Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think you're spot on. It's when you can frame it as the value. And I think this goes for anybody, right? Because there's some debate about fractional having to be executive leadership. I'm like, no, man. If there's a leadership position in a company, you can do this fractionally. And yeah, I like that because people do tend to lead while it's cheaper. Yeah, don't position is cheaper. I think it's...

Jake Stahl (17:18.775)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (17:27.886)
I'm sorry.

Brett Trainor (17:29.837)
You get more value. And the way I like to tell folks is, look, you'd never be able to hire somebody like Jake full time for your business. It just doesn't make sense. It's too expensive. And if you get Jake wrong, and I'm not saying you'd be the wrong, but if you hire somebody and it's a wrong hire, it's an 18 month mistake, right? So you've, I'm boarded it, you got the wrong person, and then you got to go through all this again, it's a better way to lure your risk, get more value. And still, again, I'm, as you, you and I probably both on the same page of.

Jake Stahl (17:36.363)
Right. Yeah.

Jake Stahl (17:41.675)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (17:45.119)
Right, yeah.

Brett Trainor (17:57.581)
so optimistic about the fractional being a big piece of this future just because it makes so much sense, right?

Jake Stahl (18:04.226)
Yeah, and, Bright, I think you just hit it on the head. Is it make sense? But I think the hard part about this, and one thing I also struggled with was, I think corporate America still has this, I need to own you. I need to have you 40 hours a week and if I text you at midnight, you're going to need to get back to me. I think we're still suffering through that mindset.

Brett Trainor (18:20.441)
Yeah, 100%.

Jake Stahl (18:31.518)
And it's only when corporate America goes, hey, I don't need that ownership. I just need your skills and I need it enough to suit my needs. I think that's when the fractionals will take an exponential leap. Cause you're right, it's growing, but I see a jump to light speed in the next probably six to 12 months as corporations finally go, oh, I get it now. Yeah, I'm gonna try that more.

Brett Trainor (18:56.921)
Yeah, no, I think it's such a good point. It makes sense. And it is command and control, right? That's the other way I try to explain folks that when you go solo, fractional is a partnership, right? You're part of the leadership team. It's, it's, but it's part-time. Uh, if you do something freelance, it's more transactional, right? They, you're getting paid for putting some hours in, but if you're an employee, it's, it, there is no.

Jake Stahl (19:01.272)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (19:07.)
Right.

Brett Trainor (19:19.921)
partnership, there is no, it is right. They command and control. You know, it's interesting. I can, I, maybe I spend way too much time looking through layoffs and, you know, changes, but you know, I think Gen Z and maybe the lower end of the millennials are starting to push back on that corporate being available at eight o'clock at night. They're just saying, no, I'm like, at first I'm like, you can't say that. But I'm like, you know what? Yes, they can. They, we, I've been doing not doing that for 20 years. And you know, so I think they're helping us see.

Jake Stahl (19:21.586)
Yeah, right.

Jake Stahl (19:37.958)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (19:46.026)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (19:49.381)
how to better leverage and once the corporations, even if returning office isn't gonna get them that command and control that they were looking for. So yeah, I think, like I said, I'm so excited about where this is going and the opportunity, but all right, so back to maybe a little more tactical question on your fractional. So are you most of the time using your network, referrals? How, let me freeze that. Any recommendations for folks that are new or just

Jake Stahl (20:05.858)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (20:18.325)
you know, getting started, maybe not finding the customers, enough customers yet. How did you start to build that and there's a way you can help them reduce their learning curve, finding those next opportunities.

Jake Stahl (20:27.466)
Yeah. And this may be kind of a dangerous zone for me, Brett, because I'm super opinionated about this. And I wanna let everybody know, it's not my way or the highway, this is just my view. I get discouraged when I see people doing just solid cold outreach.

Brett Trainor (20:35.825)
I'm okay with that.

Jake Stahl (20:46.494)
Let me just take AI and I'm going to send out a million messages. And I know that for every thousand I send out, I get one hit. I get frustrated with that because my LinkedIn message box fills up with all of these people trying to sell me on the first time I've ever met them. And when I network with people, I find there's a growing discouragement starting to happen with everybody in general I talk to.

Nobody likes to read those messages. And I think it's setting a tough precedent. So the way I've always done it, Brett, is I network with other fractionals all the time. I reach out to them on LinkedIn, and my first three reach outs are simple. Hey, I see you're a fractional. Would you care to just chat and compare notes? What's your ideal customer profile look like?

and what verticals are you in and how can I help you? Those are my first three or four outreaches. Nothing about me, nothing about my business. And what I find happens, Brett, is people are very willing to talk and to network. And by doing that, I can hear what they do and add to my Rolodex. They can hear what I do and add to their Rolodex. And not everybody's gonna be a great fit.

But what I found bread over the past couple of years is that 100% of my business comes from referrals from people I meet. There's no cold outreach saying, hey, I'm Jake Stull, CLO, click this link and schedule time with me. It's let me build relationships. There was a great saying I read years ago. It says that person with 20,000 friends on Facebook still spends Saturday nights alone.

So it's not how many people you have in your network. It's not about 15 or 300,000. It's how many of those are quality that can lead to some sort of business or some sort of referral. And that number, Brent, I'd love to hear your take on this, but that number out of the 10,000 people you might have is remarkably small. It could be a group of 10. And that I have found by and large is the best way to get business.

Brett Trainor (22:54.289)
Yeah, no, a hundred percent agree with you. And it is super small. And I love that saying, I'm I'll have to borrow that because it's so true. It is, it's the quality right over quantity. And to your point, my first fractional role came from a another fractional. Again, he wasn't calling himself fractional, but he was really, um, he enjoys doing, working with small sales teams, doing the training and the development and really ramping up and I'm

Jake Stahl (23:04.587)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (23:18.942)
Nice. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (23:21.573)
That's not where I like to play. I like to play more in the strategy and making certain things aligned and the execution. And so on the surface, if you think of the two of us meeting, we're going to be competing for the same clients. We really weren't. And he was the one who actually recommended, connected with my first fractional role. So to your point, it's the network and it's okay if you're in marketing to reach out to other fractional marketers, you'll be surprised.

Jake Stahl (23:36.787)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (23:50.629)
that one, compare the notes is fantastic. The universe is much bigger than you think it is. And you're probably not hyper-focused on the same things. And so he found we did have shared values the way we approach things. And for him, it was a 20% payday for the commission. But now obviously for him, he wanted to make sure that he wasn't recommending somebody into there that was gonna screw it up or.

tarnish his name, right? But once that happens, all of a sudden it opened up a universe and I'm still referring people into him because of that because I know exactly what he does. So long winded, you know, follow on to your point. But yeah, it's the referral is so important and maybe some super targeted outreach. But even when I do outreach, it's more to connect, connect and learn versus, you know, connect and sell. I never sell. I almost make them beg me to.

Jake Stahl (24:19.67)
Yeah. Yep.

Jake Stahl (24:44.628)
Agreed.

Brett Trainor (24:49.997)
What are you pitching if we ever get to that point? And it took a long time to realize that's more effective than the thousand emails or in mails or whatever it is. It's just you're burning bridges and the effectiveness is so low.

Jake Stahl (25:07.574)
And the secret weapon you said there, Brett, is really just getting them to ask you. And this is super simple. If we just shut up and we ask them questions about them, eventually, I promise you, eventually they're gonna say, "'Wow, Jake, I've been talking for like 20 minutes. "'Let's hear about you now.'" It's the basic human law of reciprocation. We wanna give when we get. And I think the mistake

with the people I work with, the people mistake they make is they say, I have problems selling myself. I have problems telling people what I do. Well, that's the beauty of it. Don't tell them what you do. Because eventually if you serve them enough and you ask them enough questions and show interest, they're going to come back to you. And at that point, your bond is going to be so strong. You can flub the entire pitch and they're not going to care. But you hit it on the head. That

and being quiet at first.

Brett Trainor (26:09.625)
Yeah, and I'm just going to pile on with another example, even a recent one, because of the TikTok and the success, if you will, or just the number of, let's put this way, I've had probably close to 300 conversations with corporate GenX TikTokers, which you never thought you'd hear that in one sentence, or at least I didn't, but offered, to your point, just a free 20-minute mini strategy session. Ask me any questions you want, those types of things. And I said nothing returned.

Jake Stahl (26:28.706)
Yeah, right.

Jake Stahl (26:36.962)
Yep.

Brett Trainor (26:38.361)
But almost after every one of those calls, they're like, all right, when are you going to pitch me? I'm like, honestly, I'm not pitching you anything, but here's what I do. Here's what we have coming down the path. And it just took a lot of pressure off. You know, I was in sales for a long time, but it was larger B2B type of things. But this just, yeah, the go-giver methodology or mentality, I think it just, it just does pay off. So if you guys are out there listening, just.

Jake Stahl (26:58.602)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (27:04.013)
Again, reframe it. It's the other thing I like to say is you're solving a problem and there's a price to solve that problem. And if you're not the fit or the right person, it's okay. And I think once you, cause I've heard you mentioned reframe once or twice, and I love that approach that, you know, this doesn't have to be this big, scary thing, you're adding value and eventually folks are going to want you to help them. You know, find that value for themselves.

Jake Stahl (27:09.848)
Yes.

Jake Stahl (27:27.522)
Yeah, I have a very good friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, I consider him a mentor. And one thing he always says when he's talking to people is, I'm not gonna ask you to hire me. If you're interested, I'm sure you'll let me know, but I am not here to pitch you or close you. And you think about how powerful that is. You know, that almost makes the other person wanna say,

Well, what if I do want to hire you? You know, so there's a lot of power in creating that separation and also letting the other person know, hey, this is an option for you. At the end of this call, I'm not going to beat you over the head. It's going to be strictly your choice. And the psychological triggers that creates are just amazing.

Brett Trainor (27:52.675)
Right?

Brett Trainor (28:12.449)
Yeah. And like I said, I wish I would have been super intentional about it. It's just what I found after the fact, it just, you know, getting reinforces what you, and part of this is the fun is it's just, we're learning a lot of new stuff. You know, we're, we're early into this. Uh, it's going to be really interesting. I like, I think you're right on the six to 12 months. A lot of this is going to take off. It's going to be a new business model, right? More of an ecosystem than a hierarchy and just pay for the skill versus the overhead of, you know, because the other thing again, just

Jake Stahl (28:17.602)
Hahaha

Jake Stahl (28:24.087)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (28:36.875)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (28:42.565)
taking us back down that rabbit hole of the corporate, you know, to say, think about your role in corporate now, how much of your week is actually spent doing the job they hired you to do? 20%, 30%? That's what these small businesses are paying for is just that 20 to 30%. So you get the good bits of corporate without all the other unnecessary stuff. So yeah, it's like one of those true win-win-wins and it's just, it's gonna catch on. So.

Jake Stahl (28:51.794)
Oh, absolutely. Right. Yeah.

Jake Stahl (28:59.137)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (29:07.596)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (29:11.029)
Yeah, all right. So thinking about what any other advice, lessons learned or things you would have done maybe a little bit differently.

Jake Stahl (29:20.01)
Yeah, I think that I did this. I'd have to really think back through it to make sure. But referring to other people when it's not in your lane is absolutely a magic bullet, without a doubt. There is a, I'm not sure how to describe it, but there's a phenomena that takes place when I say to you, Brett,

Thank you for talking to me. I'm great. We could talk about this, but this isn't in my lane. I'm probably not the person for you, but let me refer you to somebody I know could solve the problem. The value that creates for you alone. It is astounding.

And here's a great real life example. I have a 250 year old home. So needless to say, there's always a lot of work that needs to be done. So I was putting in a high heat cement in the bottom of an oven in our kitchen. And so I went to a big box store and they said, we don't carry that. However, if you go five miles down the road and your left is a store on positive carries it, I almost looked for something to buy in a big box store.

They provided super value even though they didn't have what I wanted. And I think when I started to incorporate that more, that I'm not competing with other training and development people. I'm actually just in the mix with them and I can gladly refer to other TND people if I need to. That was really kind of a, a pivotal moment for me. And I've referred out.

Brett Trainor (30:31.944)
Right.

Jake Stahl (30:59.618)
God, probably a hundred different people today. And it's amazing how that comes back to me in different ways. Introductions, possible other business, referring me to other people or making key introductions for me. And all because I pushed you to somebody else. It's neat. Wish I would have learned it earlier.

Brett Trainor (31:19.793)
Yeah. And it makes sense. I know. Well, but again, in corporate, we're taught it's every person for themselves. And I never was really good at playing those games. But again, only one person's getting promoted. So it's not like it was an abundance mindset in corporate. It's not. It's how do you get to that next level? And the people that usually win aren't exactly the people that are winning in the fractional world, which is kind of interesting. It's a

Jake Stahl (31:25.91)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (31:37.109)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (31:46.199)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (31:46.753)
It's come, it's come full circle. Um, maybe just one or two more questions around your fractional. Just kind of curious from an engagement. What do you see as the typical, uh, fractional, how many hours per week are you working with the client? Um, does it vary in how do you kind of approach those agreements? Are they retainer? Cause again, I can share my perspective, but I'm curious to see how, how you handle that as well.

Jake Stahl (31:50.911)
Yeah, sure.

Jake Stahl (32:12.65)
Yeah, so it all depends. What I normally do is I offer an hour free consult with anybody. You wanna sit and talk for an hour, let's scope out what you're looking at, let's talk about if we're even a good fit, and if I can even help you. So during that hour, Brett, we kind of...

look at what they want to do, where they want to be. I look at their demographics for their customers. I look at the company culture and we try to sort it out. I have a couple of companies right now, I'm strictly on retainer. So what I do is I sell them blocks of hours. So I charge an hourly rate and I tell them a minimum block is four hours. So you buy in blocks of four. Because one thing I learned the hard way is giving an hour of your time and then that's it.

Brett Trainor (32:44.625)
Okay.

Jake Stahl (32:58.694)
inevitably they're going to say, well, it didn't produce the results I wanted. So, well, we only spent an hour together. So now I sell in blocks. I do that as well when I do a contract. So I will tell them I think it's going to require so many blocks of four hours in any given month. And then I tell them the week and times that I'm available and if I'm going to be open for text or emails. And we do a contract that way.

Brett Trainor (33:23.001)
Okay, interesting.

Jake Stahl (33:23.11)
One thing I do that's a little different, Brett, is I never lock them into multi-months. So I have enough confidence that if we're working together and we get to the end of the first month, that you're gonna wanna continue. And if you don't, maybe it's for the best. So I work on a month-to-month basis. So I will project out how many months I think it's gonna take, but I don't lock you into a contract. I will let my work speak for itself and...

I haven't had anybody back out yet, so it's worked well. Usually after contract is over, then people keep me on retainer.

Brett Trainor (33:55.118)
Yeah, it's awesome. I like that.

Brett Trainor (34:01.105)
Which makes sense. I think it's, yeah, I like the, it's an interesting idea in the four hours. Now, do they, do you find the client pushes back, wants you to track those hours or once you get working, they just kind of forget about it and you, you can invoice them. Cause that's one of the, the concerns I try to eliminate by, because what I did, again, it's hard to get away from the hour, no matter how, how you've, you position it.

Jake Stahl (34:22.331)
Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (34:24.921)
But I always said, it's usually between eight to 10 hours per week. Some weeks are going to be more, some are going to be less. And that's what you can expect on a monthly basis. And, you know, kind of your point after a month or two, the work speaks and then they're, they're not clocking it, right? They're not tracking what that looks like. So is that, does that become a conversation or do you just say, all right, it was eight months or eight hours this week. They know it was eight hours and they're good with it. How do you, how do you frame that?

Jake Stahl (34:30.295)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (34:40.734)
Right. Yeah.

Jake Stahl (34:52.123)
I tell them what to expect. Yeah, usually what I do is I tell them what to expect. So if I'm working with a client and I know it's gonna be eight hours, I say, you're gonna be buying two blocks per week. And what that's gonna look like for the month is it's gonna be eight blocks for the month. And I build them half upfront, and then I build them the remainder.

once that piece is over. But again, something you tend to learn the hard way is I've seen other fractionals that they say I'll bill you at the end of the month, and then the customer walks away and no payment ever takes place. So I always book for half in advance. But what I found, Brett, is that when I talk to them about the blocks, I tell them this is a commitment by you.

Brett Trainor (35:14.712)
Okay.

Brett Trainor (35:24.805)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (35:34.27)
you're not going to see any wholesale change unless we spend time together. So I will sell you these blocks of time and I will sell you in however many blocks you want. But this is what my typical customer gets and this is how we work at. And I found that when I chunk it out like that, customers are really receptive. So versus saying this month is going to cost you 10 grand.

Brett Trainor (35:59.033)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (35:59.35)
It's, I'm going to sell you eight blocks of X dollars. And that makes it almost more acceptable for them. At least that's what I found in my experience.

Brett Trainor (36:12.033)
Yeah, no, I think it's super interesting and it's something the audience out there tries to let me know, you know, what have they success here? So I like that more than just, Hey, a flat hourly, the chunks makes perfect sense. It's almost doing the same thing as a monthly retainer. Um, and just maybe close off. We share the same philosophy. I don't do extended months, maybe for the first, um, phase one, right? Cause you're validating and building out some roadmaps. Maybe I'll do a six week or two months.

Jake Stahl (36:22.955)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (36:36.299)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (36:40.053)
engagement just to make sure we get through everything. But then after that, it's absolutely month to month. And, you know, to your point of make sure it's right for the client, I had a fractional role chief revenue officer, but they just got to the point where they didn't need sales, they needed the marketing dollars, they needed to create more awareness. And so I told them, I said, look, you're I love working with you. But if you've only got fixed budget, I would invest my dollars into your marketing because

Jake Stahl (36:42.891)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (36:56.715)
Right.

Jake Stahl (37:05.848)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (37:06.969)
Whereas the sales team isn't going to hit that revenue target. So again, they really appreciated the fact that Right, you're walking away from a gig, but it was it was the right thing to do I probably could have milked it for six months But you know, I just I'm not in that game anymore and again, I think it's it suits you well to do right by the customer and

Jake Stahl (37:11.777)
Yep.

Jake Stahl (37:21.174)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (37:25.588)
out.

Brett Trainor (37:30.753)
You know, I love that. I'm going to look into that block thing because it may, I think that makes sense and people that are intimidated by a retainer and then how do I justify it? This may be a really good, um, alternative to that piece of it. So.

Jake Stahl (37:44.214)
Well, Brett, just to give you a peek into the psychology behind that, I taught negotiation skills for a long, long time, probably close to 20 years. And one of the key negotiating techniques is giving the other person a back door.

So letting them know they have an escape hatch if they need one gives them kind of the relief that I'm not going to be locked in. And this is the premise for a try it before you buy it or you can easily return it. That's the premise behind that. So when I do the blocks of time, it lets people know, oh, listen, so after a couple blocks, I have a back door and I can do this. And it's that's exactly the case. And I got the idea.

Can I share a quick story? So I got the idea for this blocks of time because my wife and I like to go to a casino on the weekends. We go there to eat and see shows. We're not huge gamblers. But I noticed that the slot machine claimed it was a penny slot. But the minimum number of pennies you can invest was 100. So it's really a dollar machine.

Brett Trainor (38:28.013)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jake Stahl (38:49.798)
And yet I saw countless people saying, thank God I found a penny slot. You can only do dollar machines around here. So I thought, well, maybe chunking that would be a better way to discuss it. So instead of nitpicking you per hour, I'm selling you in chunks of hours. And I personally feel it's worked better for me.

Brett Trainor (38:57.862)
Huh.

Brett Trainor (39:12.365)
Yeah, no, I'd like, and like I said, I'm a closet psychologist. I'm absolutely fascinated. You go look back through some of the podcasts I bring on the psychologist to talk about these things. Um, cause it makes sense because we're human and if there's ways to connect better, it makes sense. All right. So I'm not going to put you on the spot completely, but the other thing I get asked a lot is, well, how much do I charge most of the time they don't charge enough. So any rule of thumb that you go by that you can recommend to folks, right? I've heard the.

Jake Stahl (39:15.702)
Hahaha

Jake Stahl (39:32.706)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (39:40.165)
Whatever your annual salary is, drop the three zeros and that's what your hourly rate is in the book. I'm still more of a value-based person. So just curious how you approach and talk to people about pricing.

Jake Stahl (39:53.47)
Yeah, the way I originally developed my pricing, Brett, is I looked at what I wanted to make for the year. What did I realistically wanna make for the year? And then I looked at realistically how many hours did I wanna work during a given year. And I started to do the math on that. And then I factored in things like expenses, travel.

non-work time that you would actually be thinking about in and working through it. And I came up with a range. And once I got that range, when I talked to the client, I factor in what their end result is going to be. So let's say they want to increase sales by, I don't know, let's say 20%. And we decide that that's a pretty realistic goal. So when you look at the value you're providing,

I think there's a lot of value in looking at that. And let's say that you're going to give them that 200,000. So how much of that 200,000 are you worth? And how do you break that down into the number of hours that you're going to spend? And what I found after doing that with a number of clients was I actually came up with an hourly rate I'm happy with and works out really well. And that hourly rate is what I built into my.

blocks of time. And with rare exception, I will sway from that. I've already had companies say, we'll offer you equity, we'll do this, and if they do that, I may change it, but usually I'm pretty steady with what I offer. What I never do is discount it, ever.

Brett Trainor (41:28.979)
Smart. Okay.

Jake Stahl (41:29.25)
because I think that takes away from our inherent value and it devalues your brand. So if somebody wants to give me less, I'm more than content to walk away.

Brett Trainor (41:39.801)
Yeah, no, I think that's really, really good advice. And, um, man, time is absolutely flying by here. We may have to have you come back for a part two, because I think these are the discussions that are so important to hear from kind of behind the scenes, but I don't want to let you go without talking about Frac 2024. Um, it was amazing. I actually was on one of the panels in 2023 and how quickly, I don't know if you were part of the build out team last year, how, how impressively

Jake Stahl (41:45.822)
Hahaha!

Jake Stahl (41:50.751)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (41:56.246)
Yeah, love to.

Jake Stahl (42:05.064)
I was.

Brett Trainor (42:08.069)
quick that was to get people. And I think there's a couple hundred people that showed up in Minneapolis at the end of October on fairly short notice. So that told me, I'm like, all right, this isn't a fad, right? This is where we're heading. So share with the folks a little bit about 2024, who it's for, and what you take it from there.

Jake Stahl (42:18.561)
Hahaha

Jake Stahl (42:29.086)
Yeah, sure. And hats off to the committee that put together Fract 2023, because to your point, they had probably three months to put that together. And despite having that period of time, they still got, I think it was somewhere on 210 people to show up. Not only that, but the panels, the keynote speakers, all of them were just dead on. I mean, they picked truly the cream of the crop to come out there.

Brett Trainor (42:45.206)
awesome.

Jake Stahl (42:57.142)
The value that I took away, because like you, Brett, I was on a panel for that, the value I took away was the relationships that were formed there. You know, they had hives that got together and a lot of the hives stuck together for the years. So you had a built-in network already. And you got to compare notes with people that have been fracks for 10 years versus somebody who was just dipping their toe in the water. So you got to hear a lot of neat things. So this year, I'm part of the committee that put it together.

And one thing we did was we became more cognizant of our audience. Last year, there was a little bit of a desire to bring in companies who may be hiring fracks. And this year we've steered away from that. So it's strictly dedicated to fractionals and growing their business, whether you're just starting or your experience.

We're just getting the lineup for the keynote speakers and the panels. The hives are being formed, but we are expecting this year, Brett, we're expecting 600 Fractionals to show up. We're expecting 25 different sponsors. And I'm pretty excited about the goodie bags. The goodie bags are not going to have your typical journal and pen and things like that. It's actually going to be things in there that will help you build and grow your business and get your name out there.

So we've had a year to think about this and at six months out, ticket sales have been doing quite well. And if somebody's listening right now and today's date is April 18th, there is a deal going on for the first, I believe it's 100 tickets. They're discounted pretty heavily. Once those are gone, it's going to go at the regular rate for the tickets. So definitely get in there now. And if you're interested in sponsoring.

you can reach out to me directly. I'm handling the sponsorships for the entire conference.

Brett Trainor (44:41.585)
Awesome. And we'll absolutely put that link near the top of the show notes. So if you're looking for it, yeah, it's, like I said, I got a lot of value out of it. It was a quick turn for me. I think it was the first snow in Minneapolis. It was like the day before. So it was the reality. I think, what is the date of it? Do you know offhand the date of the?

Jake Stahl (44:59.974)
It's October 21st and 22nd. It's a Monday, Tuesday. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (45:02.913)
Okay, awesome. Yeah, again, I got a ton out of it. And like still, even though I was in the fractional world, it was to your point to meet a ton of other people that are different parts of the journey, a lot of value. So, well, Jake, I've kept you a long time today. I really appreciate your time and your insights. And if folks wanna connect with you and learn more about you, what's the best path for them to do that?

Jake Stahl (45:11.776)
Yeah.

Jake Stahl (45:27.094)
Yeah, they can either get in touch with me on LinkedIn. I'm Jake Stahl on LinkedIn. And if you wanna go to my website, it's jake and you'll find links. Like I said, I give an hour free. So you'll find links on there to just book an hour with me. And I coach businesses and individuals. So reach out, I'd be happy to help.

Brett Trainor (45:47.849)
Awesome, awesome, awesome. And I think as we get a little closer to Frac, we'll have you come back on, maybe we can dig into the conference and spend a little bit more time on it. Cause I think there's value to it again. First one, this will be the second one that's coming up. So, awesome.

Jake Stahl (45:55.202)
That'd be great.

Jake Stahl (46:02.262)
Well, and by the time June hits Brett, we're gonna have all of the speakers set, all of the panels set, and all the breakout discussions. So if we come back on and maybe June or July, I should be able to give you a full rollout of the agenda and who's gonna be there to give a little bit more value. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (46:18.429)
Awesome. Well, Jake, appreciate it. Best of luck, continued success and we'll catch up with you shortly.

Jake Stahl (46:21.59)
Yeah, my pleasure.

Jake Stahl (46:26.338)
Thanks for having me, Brett.