Why hire fractional talent? Solving the #1 Challenge w/ Hiring for Small Businesses
Fractional Talent provides the solution to hiring challenges faced by small businesses, balancing the choice between experienced leaders and eager junior talent in a competitive talent market.
What Is Fractional Talent?
Fractional Talents are professionals from mid-level to senior level who work flexibly for a business under an agreement for a predetermined period of duration.
They are usually Senior executives and managers who provide their knowledge to large or small businesses on part-time schedules without the long-term commitment that is usually required for a full-time position.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/645cc8b7829d835501243b7d/66b54851efba504506d1a409_659abf3a0437b9d2706d674a_Hiring%2520for%2520small%2520businesses.jpeg)
The Challenge of Hiring For Small Businesses
As a small business, every dollar spent is crucial.
The biggest investment you will make is in hiring your first few teammates. Not just in real cost but opportunity cost.
Hire the right person, and they can provide 3 - 5x or more value than they cost, but hire the wrong person, and you are out all of the money you invested in them, their benefits and taxes, and the missed opportunity!
The challenge with hiring for an early-stage business is whether to hire a more experienced person who can lead the way and manage themselves or hire a less expensive junior who is ready to hustle.
A lot of the time, you need both. You need someone who can come up with the strategy and who can perform the strategy.
Those are two different people at bigger companies, but we don’t have the luxury that big businesses do.
It's hard for small businesses to attract the best talent. They all go to the big companies like Facebook, Google, or the Turner Corp.
Why can’t small businesses get access to the same highly talented people?
They usually can’t afford it and don’t know how to recruit these people.
BUT what you can do, is hire these talented folks fractionally.
Fractional Talent allows you to hire Senior executives and managers for small businesses to provide strategic leadership at a fraction of the price.
How to get the Talent You Need to Grow
The right talent is the difference between an average business and a great one.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/645cc8b7829d835501243b7d/66b54851efba504506d1a3f9_65a18c225bbf4a3995904810_Image%25207.jpeg)
The best combo of senior and junior talent is hiring a fractional leader and then hiring junior talent or specialists to handle each part of the strategy.
For example, one of the main problems with B2B small businesses when hiring their first salesperson. The business owner hiring them usually isn’t a sales professional so they don’t always know what they need.
Some people hire a Head of sales or a VP of sales for 150k+ as their first sales hire. The problem is that that person is costly, and they haven’t been selling. They probably haven’t made an actual sale themselves in years!
The other way of doing this is by hiring a junior person who is smart and ready to hustle. But, they lack the years of experience and knowledge. Most business owners don’t know sales like a professional does. They can’t set a proper strategy or train and manage a salesperson.
Even if they do, it won’t be nearly as effective as a strategy set by a professional
Sales is a skills game, and salespeople with the right strategy and skills make 3-5x more than those without skills & strategy.
So if you hire a junior salesperson, make sure you also hire the coach who can train and manage that salesperson into making more for your business than if you were training them.
This is why the future of talent for small businesses is hiring fractional talent.
With Ideal Rev, you can hire a fractional leadership that grows with you. We get to know your business, set the strategy, and then loop in the proper experts as needed.
Understanding Your Market
The success of any startup relies heavily on understanding the market it operates in and identifying the ideal customers within that market. Understanding your customer and becoming a subject matter expert is key, especially at the formidable stages.
By having insight into potential customers, you know what problems you should be solving with your product and how to communicate in a way that appeals to them.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/644f6fd7f671a4740291859d/644f9898f671a4145193ea48_9dc938_5ae8a9073d874c66b633bdd163d5b9a7~mv2.png)
The market is the broader industry that you serve. The ideal customer dives deeper into who your product is the best fit to serve. It's a way to segment your customers.
You might not know who your product best serves yet, and that is okay, but it's important to hypothesize and test who is.
Make some assumptions about what would make a customer a good fit for your product and test those assumptions otherwise, use your current customer base and data to guide you.
Here are some of the key steps to understanding your market and identifying your ideal customers:
Understanding Your Market
1. Research industry trends and news: Stay updated on current and emerging trends in your industry. Search Google news, read articles and follow the right people on social media to gain insights into customer preferences and potential opportunities.