Fractional work is exploding — and it’s still confusing for a lot of corporate escapees. In this Featured Speaker session inside the Escapee Collective, John Arms breaks down Fractional 101 in plain English: what fractional really is, who it’s for, how to get clients (spoiler: it’s not campaigns), and what you can realistically charge.

If you’re still in corporate, recently laid off, or already freelancing and want more stability, this is the clearest “how it works” primer you’ll hear.

What you’ll learn

• The “W2 → 1099 bridge” and why more people are getting pushed across it

• Why fractional is mostly a referral-based business (and what to do with that)

• The mindset shift: conversations, not campaigns

• John’s simple relationship model: the “10-person circle” (fractionals, independents, super-connectors)

• What companies actually care about (hint: pain, not the definition of fractional)

• Typical pricing and why fractional often lands in the $8K–$10K/month retainer range

• Why fractional is proactive leadership, not “wait to be told what to do”

• The “project first” entry strategy — and why it usually turns into ongoing leadership

• How to reconnect with old contacts without being weird or salesy

• The core principle: get involved with other people’s success

Notable moments / lines you’ll remember

• “You’ll work for the people you get referred to.”

• “Referrals come from conversations, not campaigns.”

• “Fractional is leadership — solve it and keep it solved.”

• “Most barriers are fear and assumptions… it’s hard work, but it’s not complicated.”

Resources mentioned

• The Go-Giver (Bob Burg)

• The NCG Factor (Larry Kaufman — Network, Connect, Give)

And I'm going to push this out as a podcast episode too after this. we'll give you maximum exposure.

Love it. Love it. It reminds me, I got to do my pot. We did a great one yesterday at Taylor Craynon.

Taylor, I need to get back in touch with him. He's got some interesting things going, doesn't he?

Yeah, he's like, you know, all of us want this to work for people and he's is is is You know some of them just what something a lot of people just want to make money in it Yeah, we all want to make money. We all want to make money for sure, right? We do and we will but or even in many cases we are but If the motivation is money and fractional that's one thing and that's difficult If the motivation is helping people and making money on the back end of that, that's where you want to be. So he's there

Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting guy. It's been probably 18 months or longer than set up. Talk to him. So I

He's in Mexico right now.

living or

Some of these folks like to, mean, globetrotting and work from right where so awesome. I'm going to give this, see Jesse and Patty have joined us. Welcome. and again, this, this whole thing is going to be available for Max podcast. It's going out to, and then it's also the recordings available in the community afterwards. So yeah, rocking and rolling. So, all right, John, I know you have a lot to say in a short amount of time to say it and that's in

Love it.

That's mine to try to keep this to 45 minutes total. But so for today, ideally, this is, you know, Fractional 101. So if you're new to the Fractional or new to the escapee world, Fractional is definitely a what I would say a cornerstone path to this. Right. You lock in a long term client to take some stability, etc. So I thought who better to come in and talk to the folks than the godfather of Fractional, who's probably forgotten more about Fractional than most of us actually know.

in your time doing this. And so for the folks in the audience, this one is, again, we're gonna go through, I would call it 101. And the things I've kind of asked John to think about are, who is it for? What is the definition of fractional? What's the current state of fractional, right? Are small businesses starting to really embrace this? I know it is growing. How do I get started? just anything else that John can think of.

And I almost forgot the most important one is how do I think about getting that first customer? you can handle that. I'm here for you, John, but I know you like to cook and roll. so I'm going to lose. All right. Thanks.

customer.

No, I'll be here. I'll be here just taking notes like everybody else as we go through the process.

And is the environment one where if people have questions we'll see in the chat and I can speak to them and all that. Okay, great.

And yeah, let's again as long as you're good going live and interacting. Yeah, cool alright, so let's get rolling.

Ready?

Does that mean we're live?

Yeah. We've known each other long enough. We don't even follow introduction, but yeah, John, you're live. We've actually been live for about three minutes. good.

Good. Well, let's do it. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I appreciate this and I appreciate people that are tuning in and people that are listening later as well. is a hot topic. It's an important topic for people. Brett likes to talk about Gen X a lot and those of us who are a little more advanced in our career fractional is incredibly relevant, incredibly important, but it's also incredibly scary and a mystery and confusing for a lot of people.

I'm going to share as much as I can and be as helpful as I can today as you think about it. I'm to share a little visual that has become quite helpful and people like, help me get my arms around this. If you could, I would appreciate it. Let me see if I can share the right thing here. I know that's not doing it yet, but that's certainly not doing it. You see like this.

That's so ridiculous, the technology. Like really technology? Like we're still doing the twilight zone when people try to share. Like come on, better technology.

And I know, John, I wasn't going to interrupt and it only took me two minutes, but a hundred percent. Right. I just did a live last night with Luma and you know, through Google meet, it had glitches already. So AI is not ready to quite take over the world yet. It's super powerful, but we're not.

No, I know, I know, it's crazy. Are you able to see a bridge?

that you want to have happen. And in many ways, like it's, you're sort of being pulled that direction and it's a journey. It's a transition. And we know the left side of the bridge pretty well. Like most of our careers looked that way and it acted away. There were rules and norms and all of that. As most of you know, a lot of that's those things in the W2 world have diminished or corroded or not materialized, however you want to say it.

Like it hasn't been working out so great. If you follow Brett's content or my content, like we often share just how many layoffs are happening to people over 40 and it's in the tens of thousands and it's not no sign of slowing down. So one of the norms in the W2 world is you have a job, you're to be okay. Or if you're in an industry, you're going to be okay. Cause that's a healthy industry. And that just isn't so anymore. The last two years, maybe a little bit longer than that. We've been seeing companies that are

perfectly profitable, making a ton of money or laying people off. And that really never, you know, that never really happened before. Actually, it's been going on for more than a couple of years, but where it's really accelerating lately, like before 1980, before shareholder capitalism really sort of took hold, it was embarrassing for a company to lay people off. They did it because they were like they had to because they were, you know, they were suffering. There was just it was just pain in the business. That's not the case anymore.

companies that are making bank are laying off to make more bank. And that's different and that's new, but that is a normal thing on the W2 side. That's what's causing so much stress and angst over there. The left side of the bridge here is, think current data is 75 % of the American workforce is burned out. Well, I wonder why, like if there's layoffs happening, like someone still has to do the work, AI is not ready to pick it all up. And so everybody's getting burned out.

Tomorrow morning, I'm a dentist now. I didn't go to dentist school. Do want me to work on your teeth? Not ready for that. So the idea is we are as a society, as an economy shifting from the left to the right. Current predictions are 60 % of the workforce is going to be independent over the next couple of years and growing. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And I'm certainly willing to field questions on that. But right now for the time we have today, I want to share about this journey and answer some key questions as you cross over this bridge.

some key cautions as you're thinking about it. And then hopefully enlighten you on like, yeah, it is great over there, but I need to know how and why. So one of the first questions that I get on this is, hey, well, there's a lot, but one of the first one is where are the clients in this fractional world? Tell me about that. Do I need to start running campaigns? What is that? And this is really going to blow your mind. And so this is a big, most of

this new independent world is a mindset shift. the question, the answer to the question of that you're asking there is who will I work for? Who will I be providing services to? And the answer in the fractional world is absolutely this. You will work for the people you get referred to. So I'm going let that sit for a second. You're going to work for the people.

that you get referred to. Fractional is currently and has been a referral based industry. The data we've done over the last two years from the conference called Frac is we've done a really comprehensive studies and over 95 % of Fractional's report their clients come from referrals. So that challenges a lot of assumptions right there because a lot of the questions you will take over is if I'm wondering where do I get clients and what does that look like you start thinking about.

You know, how do I network? Do I do campaigns? Is it a website? You start asking these W2 full-time questions in a non-W2 full-time world. The answer to it is, you work for the people you refer to. So what does that mean? What that means is your referrals come from conversations, not campaigns. That is an entirely different scenario.

than most people think as they go over here. I need a referral. The wrong way to go about it, and believe me, most of this learning you're gonna hear from me today is because I did everything wrong so I could learn how to do it right as it comes from the mistakes, is number one, over networking. If you decide to go out and get a bunch of business cards printed and go into rooms and stand up and introduce yourself and talk about you, you, you, you're not gonna get referrals that way.

People don't want to hear about you. They want to hear about themselves. They want to get good vibes from others, but no one's waiting. No one's like, I can't wait. If I just met Brett and he told me what he does, I can't wait to go dump that information on somebody else. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. So the idea that I want to introduce you here, it is conversations, not campaigns. It's not over networking. It's not volume. It's much smaller. It's much more.

intimate, it's much more about proximity. And here's what I mean by that. And this is something that we teach in our program. And this is something you can get right out of here, out of the collective. If it's based on conversations, not that campaign, not campaigns, that means intimacy and proximity with who? Well, number one, with other fractional professionals. So you have to put yourself in a scenario and the collective is a beautiful place to do it, where there are 10 other people around you.

Not just that you know, but that you have some level of proximity with and intimacy with so that you know each other and can help each other. And it needs to be a small group. When I say 10, it should look like this. Five other fractionals. Three other independent pros that might be an accountant or a lawyer or something like that. And two other super connectors. I'm a super connector. Brett's a super connector. Larry Kaufman in the Chicago market is a super connector. We all know a lot of super connectors.

And say, hey, how are you doing? What can I help you with? What are you struggling with? Let me tell you something new about me that I'm focused on. We have to have active, good conversations. The number one reason people will give you a referral is how you make them feel. It will not be your pitch, your speech, you know, all that stuff on the left side of the bridge that probably trained you. That's what it was. Not here on the right side of the bridge.

So it will be how you make them feel. So make people feel good, help them feel good. That is so easy to do. It's almost embarrassing. Like it's a great hack. If you need a little bit of help, there's two books I recommend that you read on that. One is The Go Giver by Bob Berg, outstanding book. It really helps you orient your head to the referral based industry. And then the NCG Factor by Larry Coffin, Network Connect and Give, two great books that get your head in the right place to be on this fractional side of the bridge.

So the key there is you will, yeah, go ahead.

Quick plug that we actually, did actually have Bob Berg on the podcast a little bit ago. So if you guys listen to podcast, go back a few, it's a little bit since he's been on, but yeah, that was one of my favorite episodes. So we'll have to get Larry on the podcast at some point too.

Very well.

Get him on there. think I've connected to you. not, can certainly, he's, he's in your market. He's out in the Western burbs somewhere, I think. But, yeah, he's, his book is great. He's also a great podcast guest. you can find the wonderful, Larry Kaufman, LinkedIn, Larry, he's often referred to as LinkedIn, Larry. But what's so interesting about that and Brett, since I have you for a second is what Larry talks about, what we're talking about here, what Bob talks about. It absolutely fits in this independent world.

But it doesn't really apply as well. not. We weren't used to it in the full time world because we're competing for jobs. There's org charts. There's hierarchies. Just the nature of full time W2 work does not lend itself as well to a go giver mentality. I wish it did. I do. I really wish it did, but the evidence shows different. It shows dramatically different, so that's the first thing. Who do you work for clients? All of that you work for the people you get referred to. Now other other ways for sure.

We have this, we have an eight part program to help people across this bridge and stay there. There are other ways, but since the data is currently strong in referrals, that's where we spend most of our energy. It does mean though that people will check you out, right? They will look for you on LinkedIn and it'll matter what they read about you and what they see about you. It'll matter that you have some presence, that you're out there sharing what we call your inner nerd. But it matters that you have some presence, but in all cases, there are almost all cases.

line is the small business. know, it's a, the businesses we all love our local hardware store, our local bakery, you know, the local taco place, all that. They don't need a fractional anything, but they really, really matter. That's a big chunk. The stuff in the middle is the market that's buying fractional professional services at scale. They're in a constant state of trying to grow. And they're in a constant state of trying to solve problems. And you're in a constant state of being able to help find people that solve those problems. So they're a very active part of the economy.

And they need you. They need you. that's millions of businesses that are in this middle place. It can be a funded startup. It can be a hundred and fifty million dollar SaaS company. It's a pretty big chunk of the U.S. economy. It is also nonprofit. It is also colleges. It is also government institutions. The value of a fractional is not just for the private market at all. It's it's a it's an industrial work model.

not something that is agnostic to a specific industry or anything like that. those are the people you serve from a macro perspective. But in all cases, in order to get there, it's referral based. So that was number one I wanted to answer. The next question is, how much are they going to pay you? Give me some intelligence around that. So if you like doing math, here you go. So each client is going to pay you

between eight and $10,000 a month on a retainer. you're Chicago is a little more expensive market, so it might be higher than that. San Francisco is going to be higher. New York's going to be higher because apartments in San Francisco are more expensive. But that's giving you an idea of the rate. And here's why that is. Here's why that is. It comes down to the choices they have to get the pain relief they're seeking or the forward progress they're not able to make themselves.

So if Brett, what, what, what, before you started doing this, like, what was your thing? You come from ops. Where do you come from?

I was all in the go to market side. So sales, marketing, customer success, all that good stuff.

So perfect, right? That's something that's incredibly needed. And if a company is like, can't get there, our GDM thing is just not working, we're struggling. I call it Houston, we have a problem. And then Brett shows up from a referral and they're like, okay, well I have three choices. I could hire full-time Brett, even though Brett doesn't want to work full-time and he won't, but I could hire a full-time Brett. That's going to be $300,000 to me, benefits, insurance, all that kind of stuff.

That's a hard pill to swallow for the market that needs fractional help. That's a lot. That means it's pressure on the business that they'd rather not take on. But it's an option, right? Option two is, I'll get the younger Brett. Where's the 27 year old Brett? The one out of college. I'll get that. Cause they're going to be $95,000 for the year. But the trouble is they're giving up the wisdom, the acumen, the judgment, the leadership that the 50 year old Brett has. Brett, I'm making an assumption about your age.

That's what they're giving up. So that doesn't solve the problem either. They can spend zero dollars and keep living the way they're living and not address it at all. But in the case of go to market, they're not going to make any progress on go to market. Now here comes a fractional like I'm eight grand a month. So that's $96,000 to you or 10 grand a month. It is a third of what you're paying full time. is the exact same value from full time. just in a fractional package.

And it is three times the value you're getting from a kid out of college. So it is a very reliable resource and a very reliable solution to people who are, need problem solved. They're paying that's, that's, that's the comparative value. So sometimes fractionals get themselves into a trap. mean, most people early in, they completely under price themselves, but just cause they don't understand that.

As well, think the best they can do is $5,000 a month. Or maybe I can do three. Maybe I'm not worth seven. Like we just can't get our head wrapped around it. And then we start getting like all budget conscious. But you got to get your head out of that and think, OK, this business is doing, let's say it's doing $10 million. They're not going to get a full time or they're not going to get a kid like your rate is the right rate for them. So keep that perspective. So how much will you get paid? That's how much will you get paid? Now, the thing about being a fractional is you will get

while the middle market is pretty healthy and can pay your fee, you're going to get a $2 million company that really, really needs you. They're going to need you and they might be able to pay you $5,000 a month, but no more. But you might really want to work for these. So you take some equity or you do a little bit of change around there. You're certainly not going to put the same amount of time. This is not an hours based industry. It's the value you bring industry. So it gets kind of hard when you get down to hours. That's something I'll have to lean to class. I can't take you through that whole thing now.

If it's less than your rate, then take some equity or let's revisit after three months and bring me up to my rate. Because in all cases, your rate, what you do is reflective of the value that you bring. And if you're bringing value, their sales are going to grow and you're going to be just fine. So that gives you some lens on how much people are going to pay you, what the market rates are. I do studies on this all the time. And so this data I'm sharing with you is it's pretty reliable.

So you can count on that. Okay, so do your math around that. If you have three clients, you're doing a little over $300,000 a year. If you have two clients, but you do a couple of projects, you can kind of figure out the math on this. How do you work for them is the next question. There's a lot of questions that you have, but what does all that look like? The number one thing I can tell you here is, Fractional is a proactive industry. You're not waiting to be told what to do. You're bringing the solution to them.

You're defining the parameters. You're defining the scope. You're defining the problem solving path. That's your job. That's why you're here. That's what you're really, really good at at this stage in your career. So how you work for people is you're actually bringing a solution. When companies have a problem, they are terrible at articulating that problem. So what they do is they throw everything into it. And when it comes to like, if there's a job posting, if you look at job posts, it's like, well, we need this person to our problem is in sales.

Next thing you know, they're head of HR and they're changing, you know, they're changing the, they're, washing the toilets. Like it gets really ridiculous. So, but the, work for them based on, on your wisdom, your judgment, your acumen, you don't work for them in tonnage of time, but in all cases, you have to bring that to them. You have to define it. They're terrible at it themselves. Their pain is something you get. call it the slow Tuesday effect. Sometimes you'll look at a client and go, really? This is a struggle for you.

Like what the hell's wrong with you? There's nothing wrong with them. Clients are incredibly busy. It's really hard to run a business. And there's only so much brain space they have to do well in the areas that need good brain space. And you have the brains for that. So how you work for them structurally is high concentration, less time. So when you're bringing wisdom to the table, wisdom doesn't monetize in a series of eight or 10 hour days. Wisdom monetizes about eight or 10 hours a week.

very high concentration, high value stuff, but it doesn't sit in meetings for seven hours. It doesn't redo a PowerPoint 10 times. It doesn't occupy itself with a string of emails, 75 emails long. That's not how wisdom works. That's not how wisdom delivers value to clients. So if you're thinking about time, you need to be thinking about eight to 10 hours per week per

There's a whole structure about behavioral science that we get into in class that really helps you understand. Okay, I'm post 40. I'm post corporate. I'm not going back into corporate. I don't even want to work that way. What does that look like? There's the nature of people who are older workers or at second half of their career. The nature of you is actually high concentration, less time, but more value. I'm getting a little nerdy on the science of this, so I'll pause right there.

I think that was the education time I had bookmarked Brett, I can keep cooking, man. I can tell you what, this is my favorite subject, as you know. But for now, I'm going to stop presenting.

Yeah, no, I think that it's so helpful and it's made, like I said, a number of notes since this market is moving quickly. Maybe I'll drill down on a couple of your points because I think business owners now realize they have the pain, not 100 % sure what it is. They're good chance they still don't know what fractional means. And so I think there's a gap from, especially if I'm sitting in corporate now and say, that really would be the life.

highly concentrated, get me out of all of those crappy meetings that I don't need to be part of. It makes sense, but how do I start to think and position myself as a fractional to a business owner that doesn't know what fractional is? how do you break that gap?

Right.

This is a really interesting topic. We talked about this on my podcast yesterday with, with Taylor Crane. So for those of you listening, Taylor is on the, his job is to help people find fractional jobs is that's that. And he's as committed to this industry as Brett and I are. He's a great dude. And so I asked him, said, what are you seeing on that side of the table? Are they confused about fractional? Do they have to know what the definition is for them to step forward? What is all that like? And I learned a lot of that. I'm like,

They're not as worried about it as we are. No, there's a lot of like, well, if they don't know what fractional is, they can't buy it. That is absolutely not true. Which was really, which is really an eye opener. It helps. A lot of this market is going to understand it, but what, what they're so tuned into is the pain that they are, they are trying to solve. That's where their heads are. And if someone says Brett can solve your pain.

Brett's a good friend of mine. He's a, he's a GTM expert. Your pain is in the G go talk to him, right? You know, your job in some there is, you know, later in the conversations, I do this rationally. That looks like this. That's your job, but their job isn't, isn't, they're not thinking about what tax structure does this person come under? You know, what is the classification is like, it's about Brett. Cause you know, Mary told me Brett's awesome at this.

Right, or what?

I need to start solving this problem. So their heads are not preoccupied with the definition of fractional. Their heads are as they should be. Their heads are preoccupied. How do I solve this pain? How quickly can I get it out of our way so we can grow again? And so it's a thing. It's a little bit, but it's more a formality than it is. It's certainly not a, it doesn't prevent anything from going forward, which I thought it did, which I thought it did.

Yeah, I think that's helpful because I think too, when you're having those conversations and again, curious of your perspective, it's because I think a lot of the times, again, back to my mistakes when I started, right? Because I started solo consulting and then moved into fractional kind of by accident before I knew what fractional was. And I get trying to fit a client into my offer, right? My fractional offer.

Ha ha.

I think that's what a lot of people still get hung up is this is what I do and I don't care if it's sales marketing, finance, customer success, contracts, whatever it is, is getting through that almost more of a discovery session, right? Without getting too salesy. You really just want to listen to the problem and then either you can solve it or you can't. Ideally, and I actually did have a question leading into this. Yeah. Put some context.

What are you?

is my last fractional role. actually started it with a six week project just because I thought I understood what his needs were as the business. He thought he knew who I was, but I said, let's go six weeks. We'll verify, not just verify, they're not going to pay me for six weeks to just verify, but verify, dig and build that roadmap that said, hey, if I came on, here's where I would focus. And if I didn't come on, then you still got this little roadmap.

So a lot of context just with my history. Where do you have a recommendation or point of view on folks? Do you encourage folks to start with this shorter project? Okay.

I do. You're going to end up fractional. And here's why. When a problem arises at a business, people can look at it like a project. They can observe it that way. They can contract it that way. You might even see it that way. But history tells us a lot. And that is, that's consulting, right? I'm going to come in. I'm going to consult. I'm going to paint the problem with the best, sharper view than you can do yourself. And I'm going to give you solutions.

And therein lies the problem. I'm going to give you solutions. Well, what happens when you leave? The clock starts ticking out when the problem comes back. The second part of the word fractional is leadership. It's not fractional executive. It's fractional leadership. They can be solved by consulting, but they don't stay solved that way. They will return and that actually it becomes more expensive as you feel so good. so, but I do say, hey, listen, attack the problem.

Raise.

Right. Get in, solve it, fix it. But you need to know as a professional and you already know this, if you leave, it's coming back. Yeah. I mean, that's not kid ourselves. Like it'll come back and you can't, you just have to recognize that as a nature. And the reason it comes back, you have to have a

heavy scoops of empathy for your clients. It is hard to run a business. So even though you might articulate a problem, you might solve a problem, their ability to keep it solved is inherently bootstrapped. Like, what are going to do? Hey, CEO, start, find more time in your day to take it over from here. It just doesn't work. So fractional is the perfect answer because I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to solve it and I'm going to keep it solved. That's key, right? Business. I always talk about this. Businesses run on gears that work together.

Yeah, I like that.

You can call over many operations and IT and go to market and product and all that. Like all these gears. That's how they run. And the leader is like, I want all those gears spinning great. So now who would say, you know what? I only want this gear for a six month project. Then let's get it out. The whole thing comes to a halt. It doesn't. It's not a machine anymore. Fractional keeps the gears running without burdening the engine with more than it needs. More time.

more money, all of that kind of stuff. So that is an answer to your question.

Yeah, no, I think it's true. And the part two, like the part two, the part I also, you know, I'm bored with you is the leadership component about it. Right. Cause I think that's kind of what separates the consulting type of engagement. Right. You may need to have a database built out project, right? You may need somebody that's going to run all of your data, though it's turning into your analytics and your projects and those types that. That's going to require leadership to stand this thing up and then start to run it.

Sure.

versus just, hey, come in and solve this pain point. And again, maybe there's opportunities where, again, I've left a of money on the table where I just, if it didn't fit the fractional, then I moved on where there probably would have been some advisory smaller. But to your point, it would have led to the full fractional had I taken a smaller chunk of the vitreous smaller. So I mean, it's not a perfect

Fractional is moving fast. The economy is moving fast. It's moving pretty good.

Future I mean 100 % the future and I think you and I have talked about before the right I use the lettuce CEO I mean his first 41 staff on that high growth startup were all Fractional and in contract he didn't have a single really out of the 41 because he argued The talent density I can get with fractional is you know 10x what I would get if I had to hire all these folks full-time I couldn't have done it. I wouldn't have had the money to do that. Now. I've got a whole

team of experts, right, are pointed at the right direction. So to me, the economics of this thing just makes way too much sense. At some point, we'll figure this out. But that's down the road. That's why they small and nice companies and if they leverage and embrace this, they can grow really.

They do because they're in a constant state of growth and they're in a constant state of problem solving. That will never leave their life. Which means if they're always growing, they're always going to like, well, which means you need to have a talent model that grows with you, that you can afford and keep the problems being solved. There was a great, it was a great thing I like to share. One of the great business case in colleges and universities and in social media and on podcast is the Blockbuster.

Netflix business case, right? Netflix came in and ate Blockbuster's lunch because they had better technology. They said people are going to stream. Blockbuster said, you know, they're going to rent it. One of the unknown things about Blockbuster's success, I'm sorry, Netflix's success was actually talent density. They realized the way we're going to win this game, we cannot outdo Blockbuster with tonnage.

They will have 10 acts the amount of money currently, as Netflix did at the time, to get brains in the business. They knew that. That was a, that's a restriction. So they said, so we need to think about talent density. And they did what Lattice does and what millions of other businesses are doing now is we're thinking talent dense. We're not thinking tonnage.

Yeah, it makes so much. And I think too, I just as you were talking, I think man, SAS when the world moved to the SAS modelers started to write, just it put pressure on these legacy manufacturing distribution companies just because of the cost, right? The cost of doing the business cost of that. But now I'm starting to look at that and you probably see the same thing like that. The SAS models antiquated, right? It was a good step, right? Line with customers. Yeah, but.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

operational standpoint, it didn't go far enough. And now I think that's what we're starting to see is where do you start to plug in the experience that you need when you need it? so leaders and again, again, the more I say you can escape anybody, it's four years or four decades, but the folks that have more experience have more options because you've seen more, you learn more, you've done more. And it just creates those opportunities.

Opportunity is the right word. The graphic I brought up at the top of this, the bridge, one observation or one maybe truth about it is as you're contemplating, I do want to be independent. Quite honestly, a lot of people like it's kind of my only choice now because W2 doesn't want me anymore, whatever that is. And that's okay. But one thing I observe is as I take people into our program, as you help people like

The opportunity and the feedback for them is so positive. Because you're building, you're learning what makes me valuable. You're doing it inside of a community. It's this wonderful positive feedback loop. And we need that to thrive in life. And then the observation on the other side of the bridge, it's a terrible negative feedback loop. If you're looking for a job, you're too old. You cost too much.

Yeah.

or ghosting, right? Like you do all this effort and you never hear for months. Time passes and you're not making any money. It's this never ending cycle of negative feedback on the W2 side. Independent 1099 fractional is a never ending cycle. I call it the infinite loop of opportunity. Like it's positive feedback, whether it's a referral or whether it's you're doing that wrong, but you could do better. You know, it's, it's, it's just a whole different world, but one is negative and one is positive.

And I tell you what this job thing is, people losing their jobs and going through that. is, it's like PTSD. hurts.

Yeah, no, there's no doubt. And when you were talking about the 10 people, right, I love that. And there's a different variation, but it's so important. And I started sharing the story the first time I left corporate, left and I wasn't 100 % sure what I wanted to do, but left the corporate we were building within a bigger company, ended up getting a contract job contract consulting for a big firm, which I'm like, perfect, right? I wanted to go solo, I didn't quite know what I wanted to do.

Paid me well the work I knew really well It was gonna be a long term my like my first fractional gig if you will is is more But but instead what do I do instead of building off of that and saying? I'm gonna go start to find the next customer next I work my ass off to get them to hire me full-time back to corporate, right? I just think about the timing that that set me back. I mean everything's learning and I

It's all learning.

When they quit on me that when the consulting quit, then I'm like, I'm absolutely done. And so when you're talking, I didn't have anybody to talk to back then. it was either. Join them because my, my buddies right on that, that project were full time within that organization. I'm like, else? My wife's not getting it. I say talk me out of it or talk some sense into me or reinforce or bounce ideas off. And I didn't know you at that point, or you were.

Right.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a negative feedback loop and it really, really matters. You you've created this community. You've got the collective for the scapey thing. And if I were to tell, mean, the ingredients for success and fractional are pretty clear and one of them is community mindset. And I'm not, you know, I have a community, Brett has a community. It's the mindset that you bring.

to the people around you. So yes, have 10 other people. You have a community, make it easy, right? Like go into Bretts and build your 10. If that's not the 10 you want, find four of them somewhere else. It's a mindset of working with others and being helped by others and helping others. And that's not necessarily, it's great. It's wonderful you created a digital place for that to happen, but it has to get out of the digital pretty quick, right? Like you gotta make phone calls to people and have Zooms with them and.

but it's a mindset of working with others. We do have a, a natural state to us. So backward, all went into a building, like the community was built in, or it was built into the industry. And it was what it was. The terrible thing about that community was the hierarchy. You know, it's, you know, someone's a boss and someone's not a boss or someone wants somebody else's job. And there's some toxicity to it. Like that doesn't make for a good community. When you, a community like yours, like there's nobody in your community where one is like,

I want to take your job from the other. It's a community of support, not a community of take or hierarchy. I think that's going to define the next 15 years of how we work as an economy. That's how big I think community is.

I think you're absolutely right. Right. move from competitiveness and fighting for the two and a half percent raise because HR only gives a block of dollars to spend and the next motion or that next job. We're here again. It still never ceases to amaze me how helpful people are when you start your own thing or thinking about starting your own thing.

100%. They want to help.

people around I'm just surrounding the right with the right people. But even folks in my network that I've only known in the corporate, they'd be happy to help you try to find a job if they could do something. But if you tell them you're doing your own thing, the amount of enthusiasm and excitement just goes up. People do want to help. And again, I think that's part of trying to avoid that lone wolf syndrome that, all of us, I can do this on my own.

Yeah, yeah, there's that sort of American pluckiness. Like I can do this, I can do this on my own. And you are building your future on your own shoulders and fractional. There's no two ways about that. Like you are proactively saying, I am going to have a portfolio career. I'm going to have three clients. I'm going to work with 10 other people. Like you are deciding, you are creating a new structure on the right hand side of the bridge. You're, you're, you're doing that and that's needed and that's important, but you can't do it alone.

It's just not real. One of my students was a guest on our podcast early in the year and I had him talk about that. He said, I thought I could do it myself. You know, that sort of American, I can do this and make it on my own shoulders. And he was, he was very helpful in telling those, like, just don't even start that way. Like you, you can't do it. One of my favorite economists is Scott Galloway. I love listening to him talk about the economy. I don't love the politics so much because I hate all politics. It drives me nuts. But,

But I like the economic talk and he always says, know, greatness is found in the agency of others. You can't do yourself. You can't do relationships yourself. can't do a family yourself. can't do if a church is important to you, can't like you can't do this world yourself. So you have to get others around you to help you and you help them.

Yeah.

100 % awesome. All right, John, as we wrap up any last parting words of wisdom, like I I appreciate you spending some time and bringing us up to date on all things. Well, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The last words of wisdom, I think for today that I can share with this world is get involved with others success. And that means you have to have a community's mindset with others. Find out what others want to achieve in their life. That will bring you more success than you could ever imagine.

That is what I want to share with people. So one, have to be in a community for that to happen. You have to have a community mindset. But as we often think about, well, is there a client in the community? Where's the transaction? Don't think that way. Think about the give side of it. Go back to the books that we talked about. The more you work on somebody else's success, the more success you secure for your own self.

Yeah, call it karma, whatever you are 100 %

Whatever, right? Yeah.

All right, John, looks like we Jesse hit us with the last minute question here. Do you see the questions up there? Do want me to read it to you?

yeah, no, I got it. How do you recommend reaching out, reconnecting and establishing renewed report rapport with past contacts that may not have stayed in touch with as you start? Okay, I love this. Jesse, this is a great question. Here's the thing. This comes from our class is when you're ready, when you're ready, you send them an email and you make a phone call and you say this, Hey, it's Jesse. I've got my own fractional business now. This is what I'm doing. I'm all in. I'm an independent professional.

These are the pains that I solve for people, and I'd love to share what I'm doing, and I'd love to hear about what you're trying to do in your life as well. You're not pitching yourself, you're not selling yourself, you wanna help them, but what you're stepping into is like, this is me now. You're not in between jobs, you're not unsure of your value at all. You've got it, right? You've got it. So that is how I recommend it.

So many people do that very thing to the company that they left and find their first fractional client.

That's good. Yeah, so simple, so succinct, but well articulated. Larry, if you're out there, I see your hands raising. You got a question?

Larry.

Ha

Maybe raise the same back.

What does that hand mean? There's a question behind that hand. Let's see if we can interpret. There's five fingers on the hand. There we go. You bet, Jesse. You've got it.

I don't know where Larry was going to go with it. If you think Larry, I'll get your question answered for you after the fact. uh, if you, so like I I try to keep these to 45. We hit it 45, which I know you're rock and roll. So, uh, thanks John. I appreciate it. And, uh, you can say hello to everybody that's joining us after the fact. And like I said, we're going to, I'm going to post it out as a, as a podcast as well. Oh, no Larry's type.

Here is Larry. So Larry, type in your question. We don't have audio on you, but we can certainly see what you type in. He's typing, so we'll get to what Larry needs now. Is that okay if it goes a minute or two over? Absolutely. Okay.

We aim to please.

I wanna help Larry here add.

Something. Okay, that one. I don't think the audio thing interpreted your notes very well. Yeah, that or he's speaking German.

I have one long word.

Reach out now, even before sharing your fractional. Yes, Larry, that's it. But share it. If you are gonna do fractional, if like you're committed to this, it doesn't, yeah, I get it. I hear you Larry. Yes, reach out now.

Yeah, I think too, maybe because Larry's still in corporate. I think it's instead of I've gone all in this thing. Hey, I'm thinking about going out on my own. Here's what I'm thinking. Right. Would you rephrase

Yeah, yeah, think think about the signal you're sending. Always don't just think about the message that you're sending. Think about the signal you're sending in that message. So if you send out and say I've got my own fractional practice. I'm here to solve these kind of pains. Right, and I'm super excited about this. What signal does that send? It sends the right one. You're moving forward on your own. You put the world on your own shoulders says you're strong.

It says, I'm going into fractional, says you're innovative. Like that is an incredible signal. The difference between that and the terrible stuff that no signal any of us want to send is, do you want to have coffee again? Like there's nothing, like, know what I mean? Just like you are interesting inherently. So let people know that when you're doing this fractional thing.

And the one thing I would add to that too is most of the time when you're starting to reconnect with the network, these are the people that you actually do want to talk to again, right? Not just a, you know, if you structure your, your past network of, I actually enjoyed that. And right. would be good to reconnect even if nothing ever, it'd be good to reconnect with them. So if you start to prioritize that way, then it's even more so, um, you're going to learn about them, right? Where it's, it's way down the food chain.

you'll never get if you start having these conversations like you suggested, they're going to introduce you to other people and all of sudden where you're pulling from your past, all of a sudden it opens up to new people coming in.

Yeah, yeah. The most of the things that prohibit people from succeeding as an independent pro is it's mostly fear and preconceived notions. Yeah. There's nothing structural about fractional. There's there, there aren't the barriers you think there are in the marketplace.

I tell people all the time, it's still hard work, but it's not complicated.

Right. Yeah, that's right.

You gotta put in the effort. gotta go do it. yeah, I think part of it is we've been conditioned forever in corporate. The only way to make money is a paycheck. And it's not as hard. Again, you have to put in hard work, but it's not complicated to make the money out. mean, I see zero skills doing this all the time. And that frustrates me when I talk to a 25-year vet that has all the skills in the world, but just won't take that first step. I mean, yeah, that's exactly.

We all the time. We tell ourselves why I'm too old. Bullshit. Fucking liar. That's not true. I'm not young. OK, that's true, but that doesn't matter. Like we build walls that don't need to be there. So well, I hope this has been helpful for you.

Absolutely, and you just that sound last sound bite you gave me is gonna be the title of the episode.

Perfect. All right. Well, thanks for having me.

All right, thanks, John. We'll catch up with you. Thanks everybody for dialing in. We'll catch up with everybody later.