You've heard the term floating around, but what's a 'fractional', and why is it so popular?

An analogy, starting with the demand side

Let’s say you’re a family of four. Dinner time is a considerable stress, so you decide to hire someone to cook dinner for your family.

Now, ideally, you’d have someone grocery shop, cook, and clean the kitchen for you every night, but that’s really expensive.

Instead, you hire someone to shop and come once a week to cook all your meals, which you reheat throughout the week.

So, you’ve found an option that gets you:

• The majority of the utility of a private chef
• At a fraction of the cost.

You’ve essentially hired a fractional private chef.

Welcome to the bourgeoisie. 💅

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Now, let’s look at it from the chef’s POV.

You love cooking for families in their homes.

You could find a family that is looking for a full-time private chef.

But you have certain income goals, and have struggled to find a family who needs a daily chef and could afford you.

Even if you could find one, you’d have to commit all your working time to one family.

This caps your revenue potential and removes optionality.

Plus, you’re exposed to unemployment risk if they decide they no longer need you.

So, you position yourself as a fractional private chef — offering to shop and cook weekly meals, once per week at, say, 40% of your full-time weekly rate.

If you can find 5 clients, you’ve:

• Achieved 2x your total revenue as a fractional vs. a full-time private chef
• De-risked your portfolio (even if 2 of your clients drop, you’re still ahead)
• Increased your network & referral base
• Accelerated your expertise loop by having multiple clients
• Introduced the flexibility to downshift the # of clients as desired

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So, where’s the downside?

For one, the work is different:

• You’re shopping and cooking 5x as much
• Though you’re not plating, serving, or cleaning
• (Perhaps this mix shift is a welcome change for you)

But more importantly, you’ve entered a different market:

• Your deliverable is now a product (meals) vs a service (help with dinner)
• The market is flooded with other fractional chefs who’ve seen the same opportunity
• Combined, this has commoditized you, which:
  • puts downward pressure on your rate
  • and/or forces you to find other ways to differentiate

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In short, it’s easy to see why there’s a sudden explosion in supply in the fractional consulting market.

It’s a clever evolution in the expertise economy away from the full-time employment model.

But the path is not without risk & challenges, and supply today glaringly outweighs demand.

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Whether you take the fractional path or pursue a signature service, it’s essential to be intentional about:

• The actual work you want to do
• Your personal and business goals
• Your path to differentiation

💡

-Wes

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