If you have read how to leave corporate and start consulting, you already know the 90-day structure for going out on your own. Fractional work is a cousin of consulting with a different center of gravity, and the difference matters enough to decide before you print a business card.
What does “fractional” actually mean?
It means a company gets a fraction of an executive instead of the whole one. A $20 million company that cannot justify a full-time chief marketing officer can justify one for six days a month. You are not a vendor to that company. You are its head of marketing, with a seat at the table, authority over the budget and the team, and accountability for the result. You simply hold the same role at two other companies on the other days of the week.
The model exists because a lot of growing companies need senior judgment they cannot afford full time, and a lot of experienced executives want to keep using that judgment without one employer owning their calendar. Both sides of that are more true after 50 than before it.
Who does it suit?
The people who do well at it share a few traits.
- They miss operating. If the thought of writing a recommendation and leaving before it is executed bothers you, fractional fits. If you are tired of owning numbers, consulting or advising fits better.
- They have a function, not just a title. “Fractional CFO” is a job. “Fractional executive” is not. The market buys finance, marketing, operations, sales, people or technology leadership. Pick the one you have run for a decade.
- They can context-switch. Monday at a software company, Tuesday at a manufacturer, Thursday at a professional services firm. Some people find that energizing. Others find it exhausting. Be honest about which you are.
- They can sell without flinching. This is the one that ends most practices. The work is familiar. The selling is new.
How is it different from consulting and interim work?
| Fractional | Consulting | Interim | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you own | The function and its number | The recommendation | One full-time seat for a fixed period |
| How many clients | Two or three at once | Several projects, often in sequence | One |
| Typical length | Six to eighteen months, often renewed | Weeks to a few months | Three to nine months |
| How you are paid | Monthly retainer | Project fee or day rate | Day rate or salary equivalent |
| Who you manage | The client’s team | Usually nobody | The client’s team |
| Main risk | Overcommitting across clients | Feast and famine | The gap between engagements |
Many people blend them. A fractional practice with one consulting project a quarter is common. What does not work is drifting into the middle without deciding, because the pricing, the pitch and the calendar are different for each.
How do the money and the time work?
Fractional work is sold as a monthly retainer for a fixed number of days. The retainer is lower than the executive’s former salary divided by twelve, and higher than the day rate would suggest, because the client is paying for continuity and for the fact that you carry their problems between visits. Two clients at two days a week each usually replaces a corporate salary. Three is a strong year. Four is a mistake.
The time is harder than the money. Two days a week per client sounds like six days of work across three clients. In practice the two days become three, because the client calls on your off day and you answer. Set the boundary in the first week: which days you are theirs, how urgent something has to be to reach you on other days, and what the overage costs. Clients respect a boundary that is stated before it is tested.
Income arrives unevenly in the first year, and the gaps between the first client and the second can be long. How much runway you need before leaving a corporate job after 40 covers the planning; the short version is that a fractional practice needs the same cushion as any other business. That is general information, not financial advice.
How do you land the first client?
Through someone who has already seen you work. In 27 years in technology, through Buddy Media’s $689 million acquisition by Salesforce and then building and selling my own agency, every meaningful engagement I have taken on came from a person who could vouch for me. Fractional work is no different, and the playbook is simple.
- Write one paragraph. The function you run, the size and kind of company you run it for, and the result a client should expect in the first 90 days. No adjectives.
- List 30 people. Former bosses, direct reports who have moved up, clients, vendors, bankers, lawyers, accountants and anyone who sits on a board. The network you already have is the asset here, and most people underestimate how large it is.
- Send the paragraph with one question. Who do you know who is running a company that needs this but cannot hire it full time? Ask for a name, not a job.
- Offer a 90-day first engagement. A defined start, a defined set of outcomes and a decision point. It lowers the risk for the client and gives you a story to tell the second one.
Platforms and agencies that place fractional executives exist and can be useful for a second or third seat. They are a poor way to find the first, because the first client is buying trust, and trust travels through people.
What goes wrong?
- Taking a full-time job on a part-time retainer. The client expands the scope, you say yes, and six months later you are working five days for two days of pay. Fix it in the contract and in the first week.
- Stopping the selling once you have a client. Engagements end. If you stop building the pipeline when the first retainer starts, you will have a gap when it finishes. Keep one conversation a week going at all times.
- Underpricing to get started. A low first retainer is hard to raise and attracts clients who buy on price. Set the rate you intend to keep and shorten the first engagement instead.
- Trying to be fractional at everything. The market wants a function. One function, deep, sells. A list of six does not.
- Treating it as a holding pattern. Clients can tell when you are waiting for a full-time offer. If it is a bridge, say so to yourself and run it as one. If it is the destination, build it like a business.
How do you decide?
Three questions, answered honestly.
Do you want to run things or advise on them? Can you carry two or three companies at once without resentment? Will you sell, every week, for as long as the practice exists?
Three yeses and fractional is a strong path for an executive over 50, because the thing the market is short of is exactly the thing you have. Two yeses and you probably want consulting or an interim role instead. One yes and the question underneath is bigger than the job format, and that is the conversation coaching is built for. The longer argument for making the decision deliberately rather than by default is in There Is No Tomorrow, and the prompts for researching target companies and drafting the outreach paragraph are in ChatGPT for Profit, Volumes 1 and 2.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between a fractional executive and a consultant?
A consultant advises and hands over a recommendation. A fractional executive takes the seat. You hold the title, attend the leadership meetings, own the number and manage the people, on a part-time schedule for several companies at once. If you want to keep running things rather than writing about how they should be run, fractional is the closer fit.
- How many clients can a fractional executive handle at once?
Two or three is the usual range for a sustainable practice. Each client typically takes one to two days a week. More than three means you are stretched too thin to hold real accountability for any of them, and fewer than two means one client controls your income and your calendar. Most people start with one and add a second within the first six months.
- Do companies really hire fractional executives over 50?
Yes, and age is usually an advantage in this market. A company hiring a fractional chief financial officer or chief marketing officer is buying judgment it cannot afford full time. Twenty-five years of pattern recognition is the product. The founders who hire fractional leaders are often younger than the people they hire, and they are paying for exactly the experience a full-time job market sometimes discounts.
- How do you find your first fractional client?
Through people who already know your work. Make a list of 30 former colleagues, clients, vendors and board contacts, tell each one in a single paragraph what function you now run on a fractional basis and for what kind of company, and ask who they know. The first client almost always comes from a warm introduction, not a job board or a platform. Platforms can fill a second or third seat later.
- Is fractional work a bridge back to a full-time role or a destination?
It can be either, and you should decide which before you start, because the two versions are run differently. As a bridge, you take one client, keep the job search alive and accept that the engagement may convert to full time. As a destination, you build toward two or three clients, set a rate that supports the business, and treat selling as a permanent part of the job.
Deciding what your next chapter is for?
Chris works with executives over 40 on the decisions that define a reinvention: what to leave, what to build, and how to make an existing strength visible.
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