Quick Hit 🎯

The #1 source of leads for Fractionals generally is referrals (from the FRAK ‘State of Fractional Report’ while for Fractional Sales leads specifically, the #1 source of leads was cold outbound (from this report from the legends at Vendux)…

smells like an arbitrage opportunity for you non-sales types to rev up the outbound!

Lead Gen Reality Check: The Math Behind Building Your Fractional Pipeline

Let's break down exactly what it takes to build and maintain a healthy fractional practice. No fluff, just numbers and actions.

The Core Assumptions:

• Each client takes one day per week of your time

• Average engagement lasts 6 months

• You can handle 3 clients simultaneously

• Therefore, you only need 6-8 clients total per year (allowing for a little extra slack here)

The Reality Check: Your Annual Client Needs

Here's what a typical year might look like:

• 2 existing clients rolling over

• 2 referral clients from your network

• 2-4 new clients from outbound efforts

That's it. Not hundreds of clients. Not dozens. Just 6-8 good ones per year.

Breaking Down the Pipeline Math

Let's work backwards to figure out what you actually need to do:

The Outbound Math

Here's what you need to do to build a predictable pipeline:

The Conversion Numbers

• Discovery call rate from outbound: 5% (1 disco call booked per 20 leads contacted)

• Close rate from discovery call: 20% (1 client for every 5 discovery calls)

What This Means in Practice

To get 2-4 new clients from outbound each year:

• You need 10-20 discovery calls (remember: 1 client per 5 discovery calls)

• That's 1-2 discovery calls needed per month

• Since you book 1 disco call per 20 targets contacted

• You need to contact 20-40 qualified prospects per month

• That's roughly 400 leads targeted per year

Not thousands. Not hundreds per month. Just 20-40 well-researched outreach efforts monthly.

Three Channels That Fill Your Pipeline

1. Network Activation (Your First Clients)

• Goal: 2-3 clients in first 6 months

• Action: 20 coffee meetings with your network

• Focus: No hard sell, just share what you're doing Ask for introductions, not clients

BTW Taylor Crane over at Fractional Jobs did an amazing write up on this very subject, worth a read!

2. Referral Engine (The Steady Stream)

• Goal: 2-4 clients per year

• Action: Systematic approach to asking for referrals

• Key moments: After delivering wins

• Make it easy: Write the intro email for them

3. Outbound Machine (The Predictability Play)

• Goal: 2-4 clients per year from outbound

• Action: 20-40 high quality outreach efforts monthly

• Focus: Quality research over quantity of outreach

• Tools: Sales Navigator, Apollo, good research process

Making This Actually Happen

Monthly Targets

• 20-40 qualified prospects researched and contacted

• 1-2 high-quality discovery calls

• 1 solid proposal sent

• Follow up with the previous month's prospects

Weekly Routine

• Monday: Research 10 high-potential prospects

• Tuesday: Write and send customized, tailored outreach to each

• Wednesday: Follow-ups and discovery calls

• Thursday: Proposal writing and network nurture

• Friday: Review metrics and adjust approach

The Tools You Need for Minimum Viable Outbound Stack:

• CRM (Attio free tier is awesome)

• Email finding tool and automated sequences (I like Apollo)

• Calendar scheduling tool (SavvyCal)

Turbo Boost Your Stack:

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator - expensive but very powerful

• Proposal software (Qwilr - FEC Partner!)

Key Success Factors

1. Consistency Beats Perfection

Better to send 10 well-researched outreach emails weekly than 100 generic ones

2. Track Everything

• Discovery call booking rates (target: 1 call per 20 contacts)

• Response rates by message type

• Close rates from discovery calls (target: 1 in 5)

• Average deal size by channel

3. Review and Adjust

• Monthly pipeline review (aim for 20-40 quality outreach efforts)

• Quarterly strategy adjustment

• Annual goal setting

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Overcomplicating the Tech Stack

You don't need fancy tools to start, just start emailing!

2. Neglecting Your Network

Easy to focus on new leads and forget your best source

3. Inconsistent Outreach

The feast-and-famine cycle kills fractional practices. Trust me on this!! Even if you are flying with clients and fully booked, you need to be doing the maintenance work for your pipeline.

4. Poor Follow-Up

Most deals close on the 3rd-5th touch. Be relentless! Follow up is the number predictor of success in sales. Get after it.

Remember

You're not trying to build a massive sales organization. You need:

• 1-2 quality discovery calls per month

• 20-40 well-researched outreach efforts monthly

• Consistent follow-up

• Good documentation of what works

That's it. Don't overcomplicate it. Focus on quality over quantity in your outreach, and the math will work in your favor. Godspeed!

Community News 🗞️: FEC 2.0 is LIVE 🚀🚀

Partner Spotlight: CGP's Predictable Revenue Program

Speaking of lead gen (see what I did there), this month's partner update couldn't be more perfectly timed. Just locked in a 15% discount for the community on CGP's 4-month program built specifically for fractional executives.

This ties directly into what we've been discussing about building sustainable pipelines - but instead of doing it all yourself, it's a done-for-you system. If you've been following the lead gen frameworks in this month's newsletter but thinking "I wish someone would just do this for me," well... gestures broadly

The program includes:

• Custom positioning to stand out in your niche

• Done-for-you lead lists and personalized outreach

• Multi-channel campaigns they manage for you

• A proven sales framework targeting 50%+ close rates

Best part? They're backing it with a full ROI guarantee - if you don't make back your investment, they'll keep working with you until you do.

I just recorded a workshop with David where he was kind enough to walk through in detail how he goes about it and it’s one of the most information dense discussions for fractionals I have seen, so it’s absolutely worth a watch, even if you are not planning on taking up his offer. The alpha he dropped in there is incredible, I came out inspired!

Want the details? David's offering no-pressure discovery calls specifically for FEC members. More info in the Partner Hub.

Coming Soon: Events Fractional Masterclass Series

Our first Monthly Call is coming up on Thursday 6th November, so make sure you are registered and it’s lockedin your Calendar. You can see and register for all of the FEC events here.

Kicking off 2024 with three practical workshops for fractional success:

• Structuring Your Fractional Business - choosing between sole trader, trust or Pty Ltd

• Tax Strategies for Fractionals - maximizing your tax effectiveness as a fractional

• Lead Generation Masterclass - building and automating your pipeline

Dates dropping soon. Only available to FEC members.

Join FEC 2.0 now and get:

• Founding member rates (for only two more weeks!)

• Access to masterclasses

• AI-powered member matching

• The complete Fractional Playbook

Not ready to join yet? Follow us on LinkedIn to stay in the loop.

Member Spotlight 👋 Mark Randall

"Tell us about your pivot to fractional work - what sparked the change?": A crisis outside of work caused me to quit full time employment in mid-2023. As I felt bad about leaving a new full time role early on, I offered to stay 2 days a week to help work through some challenges the business was going through. After 2-3 months my personal crisis had stabilised and the performance of the business had begun to improve. The VC investor started referring me additional companies to work with, and my network of referring partners continued to expand after a couple of big wins with my early clients by 2024.

"What's your superpower as a fractional leader?": I've had my own Startup/Scaleup so I've walked in a Founders shoes, which helps. A also drove rapid revenue growth for a couple of other bootstapped startups after moving to Australia (and they both achieved IPO via reverse listing/takeover).

At the same time I've also been first in region twice for much larger global Tech companies launching in Australia, so I would say I understand the constraints and trade-offs Founders face while also understanding what an effective revenue function looks like as you scale.

I feel I also blend good interpersonal and leadership skills with a data/analytical approach and skillset quite effectively.

"Describe your ideal client in one sentence": My ideal clients are Founders or Founding teams that are motivated to improve their go to market effectiveness, understand the complexities and experimentation that's typically required, and open to actioning my feedback and advice.

"Share one unexpected joy of fractional work": The unexpected joy for me has without doubt been the positive feedback and appreciation I get from clients, which literally makes my day every time.

"What's your #1 tip for new fractional executives?" Continuously work on building your own pipeline. Fractional work is based on trust relationships so they have to be nurtured constantly. When I started I got so busy with client work initially that I neglected this.

"What should founders know before hiring their first fractional?" Firstly, it's really not too different to hiring an employee on a part time basis. Typically it's just a lot more flexible and you don't pay for the unproductive time that goes alongside employing someone.

Secondly, and especially for early stage businesses, it's just a great way of getting experienced support and expertise that would probably be unobtainable otherwise..

"Where can people connect with you?" Please come and say hi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrandall1/

"Share a recent win or learning moment": My favourite recent win was when my longest term client (Nexl) becoming the fastest growing software company in Australia on the 2024 AFR Fast100 list. I was also delighted with another EdTech client achieved 3 back to back record quarters after I started working with them in early 2024.

It's incredibly satisfying to feel you're being impactful on these businesses that are the future of our economy and job creation.

"What's one tool/resource you can't live without?": Asana because context switching is a big challenge and strong task management is key to it. That said I'm looking forward to the Slack Tasks overdue alert feature so I can switch over to that.

"Describe your fractional work style in three words": Flexible, honest, approachable

"What's the most common challenge your clients face?": Growing top of funnel / leadgen, followed by establishing a good Go to Market plan and good sales/marketing processes.

"Share your favorite time management hack": ChatGPT is a huge time saver which also saves my clients money, especially with some of the GTM specific GPT's that are available.

🛠️ Tactical Gold: The ‘No But’ Lead Gen Strategy

Here's a counterintuitive way to generate leads: leverage your discovery calls that don't convert. Seriously. It’s a little bit of Sales Ju Jitsu for you.

The Problem: Most fractionals treat unsuccessful discovery calls as dead ends. But that initial call means they already:

• Trust you enough to book time

• Have a problem they want to solve

• Know exactly what you do

• Have seen your approach firsthand

The Solution: Turn these "nos" into referral engines with this simple script:

"Look, I hear this isn't the right fit right now. But since you've got a good understanding on what I do - do you know anyone I should be talking to? Anyone that's dealing with [specific problem you solve]?"

Why It Works:

• They're not defensive (you've already accepted the 'no')

• They understand your value prop intimately

• There's no pressure to buy

• They often know others in similar situations

• It transforms rejection into opportunity

Pro Tips:

• Ask specifically about their network

• Make it easy (write the intro email for them)

• Follow up within 24 hours

• Track which "nos" generate the best referrals

• Keep nurturing these relationships and remember to give feedback on any introductions, this is crucial people!!

Remember: A "no" just means "not now." But their network might be ready right now.

 🤖 AI Tip of the Month: Supercharge Your Work with Projects

Ever wish you had a team of specialized assistants who knew exactly how you think and work? Here's how I'm using Claude's Projects feature to essentially clone myself for different roles. (Note that ChatGPT has also recently launched projects and NotebookLM would also work).

The Problem
Context switching is brutal as a fractional. You're jumping between roles, clients, and tasks - each needing different expertise and approaches.

The Solution
Create specialized Claude projects that maintain context and "personality" for different aspects of your work. Think of it like having dedicated AI assistants for each hat you wear.

My Projects:

1. Writing Style Project

• Loaded with all my articles and newsletters

• Knows my tone, style, and audience

• Great for maintaining consistent voice across content

2. CTO Technical Advisor

• Fed with technical documentation and architecture decisions

• Helps review code and architect solutions

• When launching FEC 2.0 I was bringing together multiple platforms, so loaded up all the relevant help docs into this project and it walked me through the integration step by step. Total Game changer.

3. Client Advisor

• Stores client meeting notes and strategies. Take the transcripts from calls, feed it into the machine.

• Helps prep for meetings and follow-ups, identify agreed next steps and actions needed to be taken. Think VA on steroids with strategic chops.

• Great for maintaining consistency across engagements

4. Cooking

• Loaded with diet, tastes and preferences

• included some of my favourite recipes

• Use it for recipes, inspo, meal planning

• OK yes I know, this isn’t specifically fractional related but you have to stay healthy and well nourished out there folks 🍜

Deep Dive: Writing Style Project

Here's exactly how I set up my writing project:

1. Created new project called "Zac's Writing Style"

2. Uploaded key writing examples in a single google doc and linked this to the project including:

   • Past newsletters

   • Blog posts

   • LinkedIn articles

   • Style preferences

3. Added context: "You're helping me write in my casual, direct style. No corporate speak. Think smart friend giving advice." The actual prompt is more detailed and I used the examples of my writing with ChatGPT to come up with the exact prompt (that’s LLM inception right there, two levels deep 😎)

4. Now it nails my tone every time

Pro Tips:

• Start with one focused project

• Include both good and bad examples

• Update context regularly with new content (in Claude the google doc sync is live, which is incredible)

• Use it for review, not just creation

Cost: Free with Claude subscription, but the ROI is massive in time saved and consistency maintained.

Want to nerd out about AI workflows? Hit reply - I love talking about this stuff.

Cool Stuff Worth Checking Out 👀 

LeadGen: How To get Your First Fractional Clients - I know I already posted this above but it’s so bloody good I want to make sure you didn’t miss it! Kudos to Taylor for pulling this together.

ChatGPT just launched Tasks - this is just the beginning of how Chat can now start to interact outside of the confined walls of the app. Once it can start interacting with other apps and systems???? wwwwooow. Check out some good ideas for use cases here.

Dharmesh as a service. The legendary founder and CTO of Hubspot Dharmesh has been going deeeeeep on AI and has built a digital clone, so if you want some personalised advice from a multi-billion dollar company founder, now is your chance.

The Return of Magic - the inimitable Packy McCormick with his take on watching the hottest podcast of the moment, The Telepathy tapes. Long, cosmic and groovy, well worth a read.