Fractional
Fractional
Lindsay Rios: Fractional Pricing Formula
In this episode, we’re joined by Lindsay Rios, a Fractional Revenue Leader who helps early-stage startups. Lindsay shares her journey into fractional work, the mindset that’s drives her, and her perspective on the startup world.
We discuss what it means to be a fractional leader, why some founders hesitate to hire one, and how to navigate those conversations.
Lindsay also breaks down how she prices her services, including a formula that works well with clients.
Topics Covered:
- Lindsay’s journey into fractional work
- The “chip on your shoulder” that fuels her
- What’s happening in the startup world right now
- Defining the role of a fractional revenue leader
- Misconceptions founders have about hiring fractional talent—and how to handle them
- How to structure pricing as a fractional
- Why LinkedIn is more than just a platform—it’s a business advantage
Connect with Lindsay:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Fractional podcast. We have another guest with us today, Lindsay Rios. Lindsay, thanks for joining us. Lindsay's a fractional revenue leader working with early stage startups. So this would be kind of a new angle on fractional for us. I know we've had had revenue leadership here before. So awesome. Yeah, Lindsay, over to you. Maybe tell us just a little bit more about what that means for you in practice and in reality and a little bit more about yourself. It'd be great.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. So most of my background has come from being in early stage startups. And so, you know, obviously, when I went fractional, I presumed to want to keep in that focus. But What I found was that I was also then talking with a lot of more small business companies, SMB size companies that have the same exact struggles and pain points and kind of inflection points that you get when you're, you know, an early stage company that worked really well. And so I realized that I wasn't just a startup fractional leader anymore, but, you know, more about the pain points that companies have trying to get to a certain kind of stage, which is usually past that 10 million ARR mark. So it really seems to be more of the profile that fits versus just saying startup. But collectively, it's been over a decade that I've been doing the startup life. And a lot of the communities and coaching and stuff that I also do, it stays and lives within you know, the startup world. I also do coach founders who are in their founder-led sales motion. And that keeps me really close to as early of a startup stage as you can get. So that's, you know, usually my focus is. But right now, my two fractional clients, one is a marketing agency. Well, it was an SEO boutique agency. And then we got acquired. And now we joined I call it a larger marketing agency, but we're still about 30 people now altogether. So we're still, you know, what you consider, I say, small in terms of size of people. And then my other one is so out of my wheelhouse in terms of an industry, but it's a major lighting and installation company. And it's been really fun. I've been there for about five months. And again, it's like the problems that they needed, you know, support with were things that I do and focus and specialize in. And so it worked really well. But I have had some people approach me like, how did that one come about? And I'm like, it was posted. I talked to them and it worked out. So that's been where I've been spending some time for a while.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it sounds like there might be this underlying truth that there's principles that are going to apply to businesses at a certain size, right? So industry, Startup, small business, local business, global business, those things are kind of flavors, right? But what you're dealing in are, here's a set of principles that through your experiences you found to be true and how those get applied in different scenarios, maybe change or adapt a little bit, but you've kind of figured out like, here's the set of keys that everyone needs and you can help businesses with those, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that's kind of what it really is. And I do... respect and think that there could be scenarios where having someone that is like a super industry expert on top of the problem solving expertise could be really, you know, important. But across the board, it tends to not matter very much, you know, in my opinion. And I think the thing is, is that how many how many options are you going to have as it is for someone who is from the the lighting and installation, you know, corporate space to start with? I mean, fractional or not? Because I'm the fractional CRO over there. So it's like, how many of those types of people do you have to choose from as it is? And then secondly, how many of them are going to be any good? So would you rather have someone who's really good at solving your problems and is going to have maybe a little bit of a learning curve into your industry? Or would you rather have maybe one of the few industry experts, but they could not be as That's great. Right. And if you find the both, you hit the jackpot. But
SPEAKER_00:yeah,
SPEAKER_01:that's the unicorn. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's basically the plot of Armageddon, right? Do you go with one and train him or the other? I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Joshua and I both worked at a WordPress web agency for a long time, and I ran their talent acquisition. And what you're describing is really kind of what we're up against. The WordPress pool is relatively small. And then when you get into like senior expertise, it's even smaller. It's like, all right, here's a dozen people out there. If we could get one of them, that'd be great. But the reality is we're probably going to have to think outside the box on how this works.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And I might be a little bit one of the like, everyone has kind of their sticking points, some chips on their shoulder. That's what they've been calling it lately. And I actually really like that they're changing the connotation of it from being like what we would all think of to almost being like the thing that actually usually drives you to do something even better. So I see it a lot now. It's like, what's the chip on your shoulder that, you know, has gotten you to your next step? You know, mine used to be a million years ago. You know, when I started sales, I started in automotive. You know, I was selling cars. And when I wanted to get out of the automotive industry, purely because I would like to now work Monday through Friday and not unknown hours because I was having a baby, I You know, I was up against the time where tech was still very, oh, well, you know, we really need like five years of relevant tech selling experience, you know, for you to be an AE. But you could be an SDR. And I'm like, not that I have an issue with that. But I'm having a baby. I need money. And I can do that job, actually. Thank you very much. And so I got, you know, lucky to have a great referral into a company. to become an AE instead of that. But even then, they were opening up their minds to people that weren't coming from five-ish years of it because they had some aggressive hiring goals. So they were open to it. But I even got some things in the interview. I remember like, well, we use this software called Salesforce as if it was going to be like a challenge for me. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure we're going to be fine. I don't, I think that's the least of our worries here when it comes to relevant experience. So, you know, for me, it was that I was the, not the outsider, but the not typical hire, you know, getting in there. And then I've always had a soft spot for that. So when I scale teams too, I'm always the one where I'm like, I could care less about, you know, if you've got an MBA or even a degree at all, or, you know, I care more about, are you going to be amazing at this job? Period. So
SPEAKER_01:you have a lot of confidence. You're willing to bet on yourself. You know, you're going to succeed if you just get the opportunity. And you're trying to you're trying. You were trying to break into a new space. Do you feel like you got a lot of missed opportunities just because you're a woman and maybe expecting a baby?
SPEAKER_03:I'm trying to remember if I even disclosed that, to be quite honest, when I was interviewing, because this is 11 years over 11 years ago now, but. Gosh, I can't remember because strangely, I was actually having most of all my interviews over Skype.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yes. I remember Skype.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No longer supported.
SPEAKER_03:They couldn't
SPEAKER_00:see,
SPEAKER_03:you know, if I was pregnant or not. And I did actually have like maternity leave and everything while I was still at the dealership. So that by the time I had some in-person interviews, you know, I don't think I was sitting around saying like, I don't think I brought it up. And I probably wouldn't have because unfortunately. No,
SPEAKER_01:yeah. Yeah, no, I just, I asked that because I think the mindset that you talk about, which resonates for me, like, all right, I haven't necessarily done this in this industry, but I know I can, right? Just give me the chance. I'm going to crush it. How many people with that, that kind of killer mindset are getting passed over for stupid reasons? Like, oh.
SPEAKER_03:Well, especially these days, a lot, right? I mean, with this job market, which is, part of why there's so many fractional people these days
SPEAKER_00:right that's actually leads into a question i've been wanting to ask you which is you've ridden the tech market up and down right lance and i both have as well um it's been over a decade what where do you see things going in what this is now early 2025 um i'm just curious your meta view of the market for fractionals full-time employees within tech what are you seeing right now
SPEAKER_03:i think that there's a um There's a large pool of people who are fractional who are still probably looking for their full-time role that makes sense for them. And I know that there are some fractional people, especially who've been doing it a very long time, that don't love that because it is saturating the fractional market. But I got to say, you know what? People need to make a living, period. So that one doesn't, I don't care about that part as much. I think it's more about if you're going to become a fractional leader, Are you are you really going to do it right while you're going to do it? Are you going to really go all in and be amazing and committed during the time you're doing it? And if you find something that's better for your life, then you should go do it without without issue. And so because of that, I think we're going to see less fractional people in the next couple of years because this kind of wave is going to start to to go down after people find some opportunities. Fractional life is not for a lot of people. You know, just like running your own business, period. It's not super stable most of the time. You know, you don't have freaking health insurance. You know, just things that make life easier, you know, and consistent. So I do think that there will be people who go out of this pool and it'll kind of even out. But I don't see it happening this year, really. I mean, I think it'll start to maybe happen in the next couple. But I do think that it's also... beautifully kind of welcomes people into starting something on their own that they never would have otherwise done and realize how much they love it and never want to go back. So on the flip side of what I was just saying, like, I think that there's something really cool about that. But I think we're going to probably talk about this and just kind of what we're defining as fractional.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let's jump into that now. How do you define fractional? What are you seeing?
SPEAKER_03:For me, and I don't know about you guys, but it's constantly an educational conversation when you're talking with a potential new customer. making sure we're on the same page about what it is we're talking about. And so I'm, and in my one pager that I also have, I have like resources that kind of separate definitions of things. I mean, Karina, you know, the founder of Fractional, has really great resources that you can just use that I do to help kind of define like a fractional versus a contractor versus a consultant. So I really just, I steal that and put it in there, look it to the site. But really for me, the end of the day I think anyone who's fractional is a person who's coming in for a fraction of the time
SPEAKER_02:but
SPEAKER_03:is actually embedded within the organization so not only are they there and they're potentially creating strategy or bringing their expertise and insight but they're doing it too they're executing on it right they're they're in the slack channel they're in the meetings they're managing people potentially if that's the role versus an advisor or even a consultant who's is more of a, I might be building you a strategy or I might be advising on something. And then it's on you, company or founder or whomever, to execute on that. And I might still give you guidance, suggestions, but you need to be the one to do it. And you're also not holding me accountable. And I think that's the biggest piece that I kind of explain to potential customers. Do you want to hold me accountable? Because if you do, I need to be fractional. I need to be embedded. You know, all of those things versus if you want to talk about advising, it'll be on you. And I don't even know if that's going to be enough for you to do it.
SPEAKER_01:You talked about like you have these educational documents that you share and you try to like prepare people to understand what it is. So like that's one part of the answer to this question that I'm coming up with. But I think it's a good one for our audience to hear. But like what are some of those misconceptions that you hear from prospects about what they think it means? When they come to you saying, I want a fractional and then they say something that you're like, wait a minute, let me help you understand.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think there's I think it might. Well, I don't know if this is actually true. I was going to say it might depend a little bit on potentially like the industry or stage of company that you're speaking to. But a lot of times you're seen as a contractor, first and foremost. And there are such slight differences between like having a contract role and being fractional that it almost doesn't matter, I feel like. And what I mean by that is like you are probably signing a contract that says that you are contracting with us, right? For some amount of money, some period of time, and probably some sort of deliverables. And this is the rate. Same thing, like it doesn't matter, right? But the thing about contract mentality, and I think that's where the education is, it's the mindset. You're coming in and I'm accounting for like every maybe like minute slash thing that you're doing and I'm paying for it. Kind of like when you rent a home, it's like you're renting for what you get, you know? It's like, and that's it. When you buy a home, you're investing in a property, but then it's all yours, right? And it's a whole different mindset. So I think it's the same thing. It's like contractor is, you do these things, I pay for these amount of hours. It could be flexible. It could be like, I'll pay you as many hours as it takes to finish this project. And it typically is project based or something. Fractional shouldn't feel that way. It shouldn't feel like you're just going to make a project happen. And then when we're all done with that, you go away. You know, you should feel like this is an embedded role. We need this role in our company, period. But I don't think we need this role forever. I just think we do it for probably at least almost a year. Right. Six to 12 months easily. We need this expertise. And then we get to a place in the business where we don't need it anymore. Thank you so much. Right.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and what you're offering there is a little more stability for the fractional as opposed to a contract. Right. Because or a freelance. I'm actually I'm finding myself appreciating this definition because I have done lots of freelance over my career and it is at the 100 percent complete behest of the client to drop it at any moment. I had a project recently that I put some energy into. I was hoping it would go into other projects and they're like, ah, things pivoted. I don't even know what pivoted. I have no idea. I'm not even privy to those conversations. And so, yeah, in that case, there is no fractional conversation going on. And what you're saying is you get to move up a little higher in the chain to be impacting the organization to maybe be part of those conversations.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, like for one of mine, well, I mean, for both of them, I mean, I'm I'm in the leadership team, right? Like we are making decisions together. It would be weird if one day they were like, we're going to have to end a relationship. Like we would be talking about that as a plan together. In fact, one of mine is literally the goal of success is that I leave because you now are in a place where you need someone full time and probably not like a CRO level person, probably like more director level. level person to now take what we've built out together and then and from the industry, because this is the lighting one, to then take off. Right. But like they don't need a CRO, you know, like long term. They're not a company of that stage of that size or the necessity to do so. So they just need someone who can do that for the next one to two years because we're doing some major changes and rebuilding and overall strategies. So I think that that's Some people ask me, they're like, how long is this going on for? And I'm like, there's no end date in sight necessarily. I mean, again, I've been with my other one for over a year now. So it's different. But I think what's also important to distinguish is not it's not interim either. And so sometimes people go, oh, well, I need a BPSL ASAP. So like, can you come be my interim BPSL? Like, there are people who could do that. You could do it as a fractional, but that means it's going to take up all of your time. It's a full interim is pretty much full time. It's just not.
SPEAKER_00:It's temporary. Right,
SPEAKER_03:exactly. So that's also different. And I also kind of remembered, I think one, I don't personally really feel this way, but one thing that can be quite a sticking point for some fractionals out there is that it should be actual leadership for it to be considered fractional, like exec level leadership versus...
SPEAKER_00:That's my next question, yeah?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, versus like, now it's very loosely turned out, oh, I'm going to be a fractional salesperson. And there are some people who go, that's not a thing. And I personally... But I explained to a friend recently who is a really fantastic community builder, like social media manager and community person. And he kind of got convinced like, well, you should do this fractionally. And I was like, well, so he asked me, he wanted to know the good, bad, the ugly. And I was like, here's the thing. In order to make a really great living as a fractional, the rate that you charge needs to be So much so that it like represents this incredible value that you're bringing to this company that they wouldn't otherwise like be like. That's why it started with like C-level leadership back in the day, like CFOs being, you know, because it was like a lot of companies don't need a CFO for a super long time. But there's plenty of times in their business where they're like, we really need the expertise of someone who's done this to help fix this. Right. Or help build this out for us. So if you got able to charge like that sort of rate, then you need to get a ton of clients to make it worth it for you to financially have enough that would be as if you had this role full time. And then that's very tiring. And then it's unstable because you're just trying to get more, you know, and I personally can't do more than two fractional clients at a time for my brain to do a really great job. I'm too embedded. And I almost did a third one recently. And then I was like, are you nuts, Lindsay?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely not going to happen. So I think that's the other thing is that when you're more of a contractor or any of those things, you're more balancing different projects and things. Fine. Being really embedded in a company and not being there five days a week, that's a challenge in and of itself. So I think that's another distinction where if you're not at the leadership level, then it turns more into, I have to have like five or six of these to make it financially okay. And then is it really worth it?
SPEAKER_01:and you'll bear all right yeah well and you're bearing more risk right like you said so yeah one it's it means a lot and it's hard to replace um and yeah fractionals obviously we're going to charge more than a part-time employee because we're taking risk right we're not getting the benefits we're not getting all these other things so yeah
SPEAKER_03:Yep. We're getting a portion of my brain is actually how I see it. And that's the other thing. And I think we're going to talk about this later, so I don't want to get too jump too far ahead. But when you think about pricing too, it changes from when you're a contractor. It's like, what's your hourly rate? I'm like, it's not an hourly rate. It's a portion of my brain that you're paying for.
SPEAKER_00:That's actually where I would like to go with this. So let's say we can use hypotheticals, you can use real numbers, but let's say if you We're going to charge$100,000 a year to be a full-time employee in a leadership role. How do you divvy that up as a fractional? How do you kind of think of that equation to make sure it's worth it for you and for the company that you're working with?
SPEAKER_03:So this is an aside, but for any people who use Cricut machines, like it's a die-cut machine and do a lot of crafting, I'm like one of those, I'm a crazy Cricut lady. I make everything with it. There will be someone out there that's listening who'll know exactly what I'm talking about. When I was trying to explain it to my sister, she was like, so it's a printer. And I was like, no, it doesn't print anything. It cuts stuff into whatever design or shape that I tell it to. And then I take that material and I do something with it, like iron it on a shirt.
SPEAKER_00:All right. This is amazing. I'm Googling this.
SPEAKER_03:I can show you. You know what? I have a LinkedIn post of me doing it because someone wanted to know really bad. So I can send that to you.
SPEAKER_00:We'll put that in the show notes. I love that. That'd be great.
SPEAKER_03:But then she's like, okay. Because she was interested in maybe getting one. So I'm trying to explain it to her. And she's like, so it doesn't print. Okay. Because she kept saying that three times. And I got her finally go, okay. But I said, however, you can have these special pens that then go into part of it. And then it can write literally anything you want in the font we're saying. And she's like, so it does print. And I'm like, so take that analogy. And it's like when I tell people, it's not an hourly rate. It's not a contractor role. However... You have to start with like a unit of hourly rate in a sense to know what you're probably going to then charge. So I was taught and I now and what I've been told by other great fractionals is this is kind of the general rule of thumb that you use when you're either a contractor or a fractional or like an advisor, things like that. You take what your normal hourly rate would be in the role that you would have full time. So if I'm normally like a VP of sales, I would take my entire OTE. So including my commission that I would get in an OTE for market rate. And I would divide that into that. I would know what would that be if I got paid hourly.
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_03:then I take that number and I multiply it by 1.5 to 2X, depending on how much I'm deciding I would like it to be. And that's my hourly as a fractional. And then from there, I say, now that's my hourly unit of time as a fractional leader. But I charge for percent of time. in a month week, essentially. So if someone's like, so I give 20% of my time to one of my clients, I, it's basically works out to about a day a week, but no one's, I'm not clocking into something. I'm not having to fill out, you know, it's not, if I happen to do something too, that only took me three hours one day, that would take someone else normally way more time. Because again, this is my, this is my expertise. I have, Resources and playbooks that I've built out now to make things faster. Like you're you're paying for that no matter what. It's not the time. It's the percent of my my effort, my knowledge, my brain, all of that. And so I go off of kind of a day rate to say it would be X amount a day. So if we're doing 20 percent, that's basically four days out of a month. And that's the monthly retainer that we're talking about. That's how a lot of fractionals do it that have been doing it for a while. I didn't always start out that way. I was starting with just day rate, which was fine. But moving more towards a monthly kind of like percent of my time retainer, not only do it, it was actually better for me because I would start to honestly feel guilty because I was like one day I was like, I don't have eight hours to like dedicate right now to this. I used to be very strict, like, okay, Tuesday's your day. And I was like, oh, I could find something to do, but that's not the point. When I changed to this percent of time, it also helped me realize like, You're not paying for my hours and my minutes. That's not what it's about. So you might get your rate kind of from the contract hourly like format. But once you're actually really selling it, positioning it to people and what they're paying for, it really should be thought of more as this person got fantastic expertise to solve the problems that that we have. We're going to pay for a percent of the amount of kind of time, brain space that they can allocate to us to do it.
SPEAKER_01:And how much of your total brain space do you allocate to customers versus working on your own business?
SPEAKER_03:I right now have it about 60% of my time is probably to my fractional clients. And then another 20% of it's probably to my coaching slash advising. Yeah, yeah, I'd say probably that. And then The rest of it is for cricketing. No, I'm just kidding. Actually, not really. Sometimes it is. It's
SPEAKER_00:therapy. That's free therapy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well, because then like, you know, frigging baseball started recently. So we made sweatshirts and we made undershirts and swag and all that. And then my son's birthday party is this weekend. You
SPEAKER_00:got to pull out the cricket machine. I
SPEAKER_03:could be a normal person and just like go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of crap to give to them. But no, I make them custom crickets. jerseys at the basketball party because i'm a psycho but um but yeah i i don't think i want to go unless it's it's a it's a customer that i really really really you know love or financially i need it you know i don't really want to go above the amount i'm giving to fractional um
SPEAKER_00:i'm curious do you track your time internally do you log your hours you don't okay
SPEAKER_03:no i mean in my brain i do um No, I actually have been thinking about trying it out a little bit. I just started working with BeSolo. I don't know if you guys have.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Let me do a little plug because I think they're just wonderful humans. The founder, Mark, is just one of those people you're like, I want to like not like you, but you really are that nice and wonderful. So he and the other founders, they have a company where it is for solopreneurs specifically. If you have a S Corp or LLC company, It's great because it takes all of the accounting, invoicing, tax stuff, getting your S-Core, getting your LLC, staying on top of all the things I have. All of it is all in this platform. And then depending on the state you live in, it also can be like a like a PEO for insurance so that you can get better insurance rates and coverage. So it's your all in one. It'd be like if I work full time somewhere, it's my Rippling. It's my Trinet. It's my, you know, one of those. They didn't have it for people with an LLC till recently. Until this year, it's their big launch. They've been doing S-Corp before. So they have a thing in there where they can help you track time. And I think I'm open to doing it now because it's all in one place that I'm living from and operating from. So therefore, that sounds like reasonable, but I'm not going to be super religious about it. It's just more so to make sure I'm kind of prompting myself on how I'm doing and things like that.
SPEAKER_00:So early on when I was in my fractional journey and now out of it, but that's a whole other story. We've talked about this ad nauseum. I decided to start logging my time and I found that if I logged 25 hours of client time in a week, I was completely tired. I was exhausted. I had nothing left in me. And I found the 15 to 20 hour spot was a lot, but doable. I had a couple of weeks with 30 hours and I was completely shot. So there was a little value in just recognizing that client billable time, even though I never told them the hours,
SPEAKER_03:helped
SPEAKER_00:me to figure out how much capacity I had. And
SPEAKER_03:I think that's the most valuable thing. I actually was speaking with a founder of another company for some feedback, and they're specifically trying to solve for that kind of problem for people who are independent or contractors. And I'd like to help with fractional, but it's harder. It's a harder part. I said, for me, the hardest problem to solve is that like, what is my capacity? And they're trying to make it so that it could tell you even ahead of time. If you were considering working with another client, it could even tell you like, mm-mm, like not a good idea or go for it, you know? So- I'm really curious to see how they progress because they hadn't really spoken with a lot of, I don't know if I, maybe any yet. And when I'm, the first thing they're helping is all the calendars.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Share a little bit more about that because that is an absolute problem I
SPEAKER_03:encountered. Yeah, I know. It doesn't sound like it should be and yet it really is. And there's some cool apps or software out there that kind of do it already, but No one can figure out how to combine Outlook with Gmail calendars all into one. And unfortunately, sorry, not sorry, I have to work out of Outlook for now. Well, it used to be just one of my clients now.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_03:I know.
SPEAKER_01:And this is why I was late to the recording today.
SPEAKER_03:Seriously, though, I was late. two minutes late to every meeting yesterday because I can't even use the calendar. It's just ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00:All right. I just want to say this sounds like a silly thing. It is not. It is ridiculous because when I was doing fractional, I was invited to three different clients calendars all through Google, which kind of helped a little bit. But then I had my personal calendar with all me and my family's events. So my wife and I. And then how do I make sure that it's all up to date? And then also my wife needs to generally know when I'm available, not available because we have kids. And then the clients can't conflict with each other. And then the client invites you to a calendar that you cannot modify. You have no ability to change the date. So you have to then put your own hold and say, this is the actual date until they modify. It is ridiculous. It is so crazy.
SPEAKER_03:It's the mental load of the context switching, which never gets better in fractional life. That's what I've been told. Because I was like, cool, maybe after like a year or three, you know, and people like, yeah, no, that doesn't ever stop. There's things you can do to make it better. Right. Like what we're talking about. But. So they they are initially going with how to solve for having your all in one calendar. OK. People that have multiples like that's cool. You know, have the single meeting link that that's not unique to some other places out there that have been doing this. But that's why, again, they're going for this bigger picture of like your capacity and all of that kind of stuff. But there's I the one thing that I ended up doing that is. That is helpful is I have different Google profiles for
SPEAKER_02:each
SPEAKER_03:client. That at least is useful so that I can have my different bookmarks, my different and also even just helps me compartmentalize. Sometimes I'm living between all of them and then I have to be like, stop, exit out. You're not even working with them right now today or for the next half of the day. Get rid of that Google profile and just have up the one you're working on today.
SPEAKER_00:At one point, I had the luxury of two laptops. So I was able to have one laptop per client. And that helped me to like manage
SPEAKER_03:a little bit. Yeah. No.
SPEAKER_00:Close this one. Pick this one up. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Compartmentalization. That works. Yeah, for sure. So I think that's that's one thing that sounds small, but has been really useful for me is just that even just literally I color coded like the Google profile for my personal one is, you know, just the Google background colors and stuff like just little mental cues. But you have to go blocking out the days that... So what I do do, which is helpful, is while I will be fluid throughout the week with my time with my customers, there are still dedicated days that I am mostly going to be working with them. So that way they know. Like Wednesday's my day for my one where if you needed to book time with me, that day is up
SPEAKER_00:to date. That's their
SPEAKER_03:day. Grab it, whatever. Most of my recurring meetings will be on that day. When I'm working on your stuff, it's mostly that day. And then it's like Slack combos in between. Or if we have to do a meeting like on another day, no problem. That way, it gives myself some focus too on kind of cadence of what I'm doing and when I'm doing it. And it gives a good expectation to the customer. But I don't think that works unless you still offer a fluidity of asynchronous communication in between. And
SPEAKER_00:the only way you can guarantee that is by not having too many clients. Right. It's like, hey, I'm still available for you elsewise.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Because for a little while, my CEO, for once you go, I know it's not your day to day. You don't need to respond. I'm like, that's not it's OK. We're not we're going to keep you know, we can we can keep talking. And it also gives that feeling, not just the feeling, but it also creates the ability where since I'm not here full time, I'm still available. I am still here, right? Like I'm present. I know what's going on. It's not like I have to go and catch up now, Wednesday morning, because I haven't looked at anything for the last week. So it's going to be helpful for that, especially when you manage people, which I do at both of them. So I can't be like, sorry, you can't ask me anything for a week. Like that would be silly.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm curious, what right now is the equation for you? If someone were to say, here's your dream job, full time, And it's the amount of money that in your brain you believe you could make in the marketplace. What's the equation you'd go through in your mind? Well, actually, I still want to keep fractional. Or no, this would tip me over the edge for winning that full time. How do you debate that? Because Lance and I, we've talked about this a lot personally and interviewed people where they come to this decision and they have to decide where to go.
SPEAKER_03:How funny you ask that because I'm kind of in the middle of it right now.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, perfect. Well, I've kind of
SPEAKER_03:been in the middle of it the whole time, I guess I should say. So what I mean by that is, I've not shied away from ever being open to a conversation for a full-time role. There's a good amount of people out there that never want to go back to a full-time role and for really good reasons. Never want to work for another person, only want to work for themselves, you know, things like that. I didn't go fractional because of that. I
SPEAKER_02:have
SPEAKER_03:loved every company I've ever worked at. really, really, really like loved my jobs. And, you know, people there's, you know, there were certain couple ones where there was times that weren't cool. But overall, like I've loved my my career and my and my places. So I don't have that feeling of like, you know, screw the man. And I am, you know, I'm never working for anyone ever again. But
SPEAKER_00:I'm glad to hear that. That's actually relatively. I know that's
SPEAKER_03:fantastic to have that. I actually did. It's so funny. You never know is LinkedIn, which is also, by the way, a thing I never did until I went fractional. I literally tell people, like, stupid, don't go on there. It's a waste of time. Can't believe I said that. Literally about a week or so ago, I went on a little walk because it was so beautiful outside. You know, we had a break from our rain and all this stuff going on in wintertime. And I went outside and I was like, oh, my God, it's really nice out here. So I took a little walk. And then I just had this kind of thought, which was what we're talking about here. Like, not enough people get told or get the opportunity. to love their job. And so I just was walking, you know, just blah, you know, about you deserve to love your job. You deserve to be happy. Like you deserve to stick to your non-negotiables. And not enough people have probably ever told you to do that. Or you might be in survival job mode right now. And that's fine too. But if you get to a place where you can stick to your non-negotiables, like stick to them, right? And it went viral.
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_03:it was it was so touching because it's something that I've been telling people for years. You just don't hear it enough. So all that to be said. That's for me where it's like it's all just about meeting my non-negotiables, whether I'm fractional or full time. There are certain life scenarios that happen that require certain different decisions. And that's fine. Financial things are huge. Right. I mean, I have three kids. We live in the Bay Area. Right. So. money matters for sure a lot of the time. But for me now that I've been able to be so lucky building out the business I have as quickly as I have, it gives me the ability to really sit comfortably and be like, yeah, you're going to have to be really amazing for me to ever consider stopping this. But in my head, I don't think of it as stopping forever because I know I can always come back to this this world in this kind of setup that I've done too. And I don't know that everyone feels that way. I feel like they kind of think, oh, I got to end it or throw it away. No, you don't. Like, because that's the beauty about fractional business is you've made a business out of yourself of what you do already. Be different if I like owned a physical store or something and then I'd be like, well, I got to shut the store down and, you know, whatever. So I think taking pressure for anyone in that situation right now, like just take the pressure off that you can't ever go, you can always come back to being a fractional leader. But for me, it's always about all the things I want to never want to do again in my career. And so makes it pretty limited to find a company that's that's going to do it. But they're out there and sometimes I talk to them or even like I've had fractional clients be like, would join us full time. We can talk about it. Right. But for me personally, I know it just comes down. Well, I always have to be remote first. And that was that's a tough one. right now with this whole return to office
SPEAKER_02:crap
SPEAKER_03:that's going on out there. And I'm not sorry about it. I ain't doing it ever. That
SPEAKER_01:makes three of us right here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And I was lucky to work at HubSpot remotely before COVID even happened. So I got my eyes open to what that could be. And I was like, never going back ever again, right, to a mandated job. office situation. I don't dislike going to the office. It's that I don't want to be mandated in that way. And I don't want to hire only from people who are local because there's wonderful humans everywhere.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think that's why the show The Office resonated with our generation so strongly because a few of us, we got a few, I got my couple of years in an office and so much of it is just straight up out of reality. Office space as well. It's a little bit older, but Where you're watching the clock to see, can you leave before or after the boss? You're hoping to get this best spot in the office where your monitor is not being watched by the boss because maybe you might want to get on Facebook. But that was the thing back in the day. Facebook was the thing. And it's like it's all just such ridiculous stuff that has nothing to do with the value that you're employed to create. That said, I'm not opposed to the office for a lot of people, but I do not like it being mandated for people who know that it's not needed for them.
SPEAKER_03:That's exactly what it is. And then I also just don't like the implication of you having to live in a certain place in order to be able to get certain jobs. And it is hard times, you know, and living somewhere that is more affordable should be allowed for people to have a good quality of life and have a wonderful job and do a really good job. So that eliminates a lot of full time positions that I'm ever remotely interested in talking about, especially because I'm in the East Bay of the Bay Area. I am not going into San Francisco.
SPEAKER_02:It's
SPEAKER_03:not happening. And, you know, you get a lot of people who who do do it and they give in like, well, it's only three days a week. And I'm like, only three days a week of four hours, probably of your life per day of it, like being stuck, just the commute, let alone. I'm just like, no. And it's it's just really not possible. My husband doesn't have a job that can be. There are places where in professions where you have to do it in person. So it's also not going to be possible otherwise. My kids don't get to do kid life, right? Sorry, you can't, you can't do sports, right? Sorry, I can't pick, you know, like, no, we're not, it's not an option in my eyes. So the remote thing's a biggie. But then there's also the whole cultural thing, you know, and I've worked at some of the best, like I've worked at companies where people say this is the best company I've ever worked for. So my standards are bananas high about, you know, the culture and how they view diversity. I'm very, very vocal and passionate about women in leadership and sales and just diversity showing up, period. And there's a difference between, yeah, we love diversity and we support it versus, yeah, we actually make intentional decisions around that. And then at the end of the day, it comes down to the founders and that eliminates a lot, right? I don't ever want to be a founder. I'm as close as that as I want to get. I don't want to do it. But because you make a lot of dumb decisions because there's a lot writing and you don't know what you're doing because it's probably the first time you're doing it and whatever. And it's like, so it's hard to find the founders that are genuinely people first and making sure they do what they can to level themselves up, have their own, be in the right communities to avoid making some mistakes.
SPEAKER_00:Because the dumb decisions is built into being the founder. So you're making sure the other things are there to support them.
SPEAKER_03:Make sure you do what you can to reduce the amount of those decisions that are going to happen. And that magic combo, it's tough to find.
SPEAKER_00:One of my favorite founders made a really dumb decision that ultimately cost a bunch of people a bunch of problems. But I love this person because of the humility and the willingness to just juggle through it. And I would absolutely go work with this person again because of the way this person thinks, not so much the actions I disagree with.
SPEAKER_03:Yep. I'm totally with you. But unfortunately, those are just pretty hard to find. So that makes it so that there's not a whole lot of times that I'm willing to really chat about an opportunity. But I don't think enough people get, again, the permission to be that firm in whatever is the non-negotiable for themselves.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Yeah. We're getting short on time here, so Lance, I'll let you wrap it up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay. We may have to have you back, Lindsay, because I know we wanted to talk about equity as part of compensation for fractionals. We're not going to get there. No,
SPEAKER_03:I could give a spoiler on it, though.
SPEAKER_01:Go for it. Yeah, tease it for a future opportunity.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Don't ever accept equity only as a form of payment as a fractional person. That's my opinion. Don't do it whether you're fractional or full time, unless it's your passion project and you just really want to do it. But that's my opinion. That's the spoiler.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I love it. Awesome. Cool. Well, Lindsay, thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing so much. This is awesome. If you ever want to get in touch with us, you can email at fractional.fm. But if you want to get in touch with Lindsay and follow her stuff, obviously you said LinkedIn, but where else should people look? How can they find you? How can they follow your work?
SPEAKER_03:LinkedIn. That's the best place. Perfect.
SPEAKER_01:We'll put that in the show notes. All right. Awesome. So, yeah. All right. Well, we'll catch you next time. Thanks so much.
