When is 1/2 more than 1?

When you hire a fractional professional

By John Arms

Every business owner has their own Zone of Genius. A landscaper knows how to transform a property into something inspiring. An equipment retailer knows the right machine for every customer, down to the spark plugs. But when owners step outside of that zone – into finance, operations, or marketing – they get spread thin, their focus erodes and the value they deliver can suffer. 

As Roman philosopher Seneca said, “To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” To make it more modern, economist Scott Galloway is fond of saying that greatness is found in the agency of others. One more, from Steve Jobs who said, “We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” 

Just like customers come to you for expertise, the right expert help can bring genius to your business. Business owners need better ways to address the increasingly difficult question of when and how to bring in outside help. That’s where “fractional” professional help comes in.

Fractional pros provide:

Relief: the weight you’ve been carrying alone is finally lifted by someone who has done this work before. 

Expertise: fractional professionals come from deep careers in finance, operations, or marketing and can quickly spot both the problems and the solutions. 

Momentum: once your fractional contractor is in place, your business starts moving forward again and you can focus on your zone of genius.

What is Fractional?

You can hire a finance or marketing pro, even at the C-suite level, on a contract for a few hours a week – you’re hiring just a fraction of a person. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fractional jobs were up 18% from 2021 to 2022 and 57% from 2020 to 2022. And this style of work is only increasing. Deloitte reports that 25 percent of U.S. businesses used fractional hiring in 2024, with that number projected to reach 35 percent this year.

Most independent power equipment dealers and landscape business owners could not afford to hire a full-time CFO or CMO. Searched LinkedIn for people with “fractional” in their title and you’ll find more than 100,000 professionals in North America. Yes, a lot of these people might also call themselves consultants, contractors or freelancers. Today, many go by “fractional” and the term is catching on. 

You’ll find young fractional professionals willing to prove themselves to score a full-time role with a company. And you’ll find semi-retired fractionals who want to keep working, but they also like fishing on Tuesdays or spending time with their grandkids.

Where should an owner look first? 

Several web-based services help companies find fractional help, or to help workers find fractional gigs. You can try sites such as: GigX.com, GoFractional.com, FractionalJobs.io, Voyageur-University.com and others. You can also try local recruiters or staffing agencies. The best place to begin may be LinkedIn; its robust search function can help you target professionals by title and region. And, of course, it can’t hurt to just ask around. Personal connections are still a great way to find good people. 

Once you’ve made a connection with a fractional pro, you work on a mutual agreement. It’s not about an owner dictating budget and scope, and it’s not about a pro pushing a pre-baked solution. It’s a dialogue built on listening. I train fractional professionals to hear what’s said – and what’s unsaid. Owners often can’t describe their problems well, especially outside their expertise. They toss everything into the bucket, like a “unicorn job” posting. That’s why the fractional’s role is to listen, diagnose, and prescribe – just like a doctor does. That’s a key difference between fractionals and employees. Employees require coaching, oversight and management. Fractionals arrive with wisdom and acumen already in place. They’re guides as much as doers.

These relationships start with a short, structured engagement; three months is common. That’s enough to get clarity, put solutions in motion, and build trust. But the bond isn’t built in the contract. It’s built in the value delivered. The first gift of a fractional is simple but powerful: The problem you’ve been carrying on your shoulders is now on theirs. From there, progress becomes visible and operations shift from reactive chaos to proactive flow, marketing starts working, finance gets clean.

Why not just keep doing it yourself, or hire a full-time employee? The biggest reason is relief. Owners burn out trying to do everything, and burnout – not lack of opportunity – is what causes businesses to fail. Think of a quarterback who insists on catching his own passes. It’s not heroic; it’s self-defeating. Pass the damn ball. Fractionals let you do that. Compared to full-time hires, they cost less, don’t require benefits or onboarding, and bring initiative from day one. The best employees – the proactive ones – are increasingly choosing fractional work anyway.

So for the small business owner reading this: Fractional leadership is not just a backdoor to expert help, it’s the express lane. You stay in your genius. You let someone else carry the load in their genius. And together, the business gets stronger, smarter, and more sustainable. 

John Arms is a Minneapolis-based fractional CMO, a career coach, and is the co-founder of Frak, the conference for fractional professionals. Find him at linkedin.com/in/johnarms/