Hey everybody, Drew here. You know, we are always looking for more ways to be helpful and meet you wherever you're at to help you grow your agency. It's one of the reasons why we've produced this podcast for so long. And I'm super grateful that you listen as often as you do. However... There are some topics that are better suited for quick, hyper-focused answers in under 10 minutes. That's where our YouTube channel really comes in.
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Welcome to the Agency Management Institute community, where you'll learn how to grow and scale your business, attract and retain the best talent, make more money and keep more of the money you make. The Build a Better Agency podcast presented by White Label IQ is packed with insights on how small to midsize agencies are getting things done. Bringing his 25 years of experience as both an agency owner and agency consultant, please welcome your host, Drew McClellan.
Hey, everybody. Drew McClellan here from Agency Management Institute, back again with another episode of Build a Better Agency. Super excited about this episode because we're going to talk about something that is true for... absolutely every one of you. I don't care where in the world you are. I don't care how big your agency is. I don't care the discipline of marketing or PR or web or media or whatever you do.
I guarantee you that this episode is for and about you. What we're going to talk about is sort of the changing landscape of how we get work done. I can remember. Back in the day, when I started in the business, long before I even owned my own agency, when I was a kid in my 20s and early 30s, I guess I started my agency when I was 30, but in my 20s, I can remember and even early days of my own agency.
i can remember we didn't have contractors we had specialists we might hire a video company if we didn't have video in-house or we might hire a photographer but we didn't have contractors we didn't have part-time people We had full-time employees who all came to the building where we all worked together and we created our work and our culture together, all under that roof.
i've worked for large agencies and small so in some cases we weren't all in the same building because we had 10 offices across the us but we still had in our own office and in the clients that we served out of that office an intact team and everybody was together all day every day five days a week if not longer than that and it was the way we worked and
We rarely, rarely brought someone in from the outside to contribute to the work we did unless they had an area of specialty that it just didn't make sense for an agency to have in us. Then you fast forward and all of a sudden with the computer and with the internet and all the things that happened back in the day. All of a sudden, it was easier and more accessible to be able to get to people who had skill sets that didn't necessarily live in your town or your market. And many of you...
And when I bought AMI 15 years ago, many of you were still pounding your fist on the table saying, I want everybody under my roof. I don't want contractors. We use as a leverage to sell.
that we do everything in-house. And one of the things that we've seen over and over and over again in our research, in the audience audit research that we've done for the last decade, is that when an agency says we are a full service integrated marketing agency and you're 10 people or 12 people or 15 people, clients look at you and go, there's no way.
it's gotten too hard it's gotten too fragmented it's gotten too sophisticated you cannot with 10 people or 15 people be an expert in everything just can't be done Long before COVID, many of you had started to make the shift. The cost of skilled labor, the fact that you were doing more sophisticated work.
That required a broader depth of knowledge, but in many cases, knowledge you didn't need to keep in-house all the time. Many of you started turning to partners or contractors here in the U.S. 1099s.
to augment your team and we're seeing that more and more after covid for sure with the shift to a more hybrid and remote workplace it became easier and easier for people to wrap their head and heart around the idea of rethinking about how to structure your team to best serve your clients your team and the agency's bottom line And for many of you, you have found a mix of full-time employees, contractors, fractional skill sets that you're bringing in and out of the agency as you need them.
And so that's what this whole topic is today is like, how is that working? And how do you create an environment to make all of those different configurations of teams work? So we have an amazing guest. Her name is Sarah Daw. And Sarah actually owns a fractional CFO firm based in the UK. She has written a book all about this, what she calls the access economy, where you can access things that, or people, that it feels like they're yours, like they're your employees, but they're not.
and how to create and cultivate a culture that supports and allows that sort of structure to flourish. So again, no matter how you're structured today, I know you're wrestling with all the time. How do I do this better? How do I serve clients better? How do I do it in a profitable way? How do I do it and give my employees the flexibility that many of them want? And so I think this conversation is for you, whoever you are.
I promise you this conversation is for you. So let's bring Sarah on the show and dig in. Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us. Thanks very much for having me, Drew. Great to be here. So give the listeners a little sense of your background and how you have come to sort of have this perception and take on sort of the workplace of the future and how it's different and how it's working. Where did all of that come from?
Wow, that's that there. There's a lot in there. So yes, so my background is I'm a chartered accountant, qualified with Deloitte, did an MBA, held some finance, senior finance roles. And actually... got into this way of differently living and working through the fractional C-suite, through necessity, actually. So it started...
With the fact that I was a bit lost, didn't really know where I was going with my life. I'd done an MBA, I was a CA, and the only people that wanted to hire me were the investment banks and that big corporate. machine. And that was the last place I wanted to go back to. So I started thinking about where to go next. And it was actually on a plane ride. So bear with me on this. I was on a plane ride, my first solo ride with my daughter, who was one.
first daughter and I was looking for somewhere to sit on the plane. And this elderly lady took the daughter out of my arms and said, come and sit with me. And we got talking and it turns out that she had a portfolio career. She was a portfolio non-exec. of huge UK retailers, household names. And that opened my eyes to a portfolio way of working.
And I saw that this was a way that I could be a portfolio CFO, so work for a number of different businesses, be self-employed, my own boss, in control of my destiny. dictate my hours and have more agency, flexibility and control over my life, yeah, I could add enormous value. to SME, entrepreneurial growing businesses who needed my skill set, but just didn't need it full time, didn't want it full time, couldn't afford it full time.
But I could be equally committed to these businesses a day a week or two days a month. I could dial my time up and down. So that's, it was the necessity of being able to find something where I could be mum. and maybe work a couple of days a week being mom and have a career going forward. So I just couldn't see how that could happen in the corporate world. Yeah. So when, ballpark, when was that?
Gosh, that was back in the early 2000s. So quite a while ago now. So before the Great Recession, before COVID, before fractional fill in the blank, C-suite, fractional, CRO, CFO. really were common vernacular. We didn't talk about that very often. No. Back then. So when you started to propose this idea to businesses, how did they react? It's really interesting. So you're absolutely right.
No one knew what I was talking about. The only word I think that business owners and entrepreneurs had for sort of my category, if you like, back then was interim. which actually isn't what we are because interim tends to be full-time, full-on, and then a gap, and then another gig full-time, full-on. This is ongoing, permanent, but part-time or fractional.
The word that's been sort of, that's taken on and gained traction now. So interestingly, I started looking around for others that were doing this and there were, they were few on the ground at that point, but there was another individual who had. already started doing this a couple of years earlier, a guy called Colin Mills, and he had set up the FD Centre, Finance Director.
the same CFO. And I met up with him and joined and we went forward together. So he was also disillusioned with corporate life. And we started talking to entrepreneurs. And what's really interesting is once they firstly, they were intrigued by the offering. I mean, it's a good talking point. It was new. It still is new, by the way. So they're intrigued.
And they can't quite believe that it works so well. So I remember one of my first clients saying to me, you know, what's the catch, Sarah? This sounds too good to be true. I get you. You've got the experience I need. I can dial the... time up, we work together. I pay as I go. There's no long-term fixed contract. It's as good as the relationship is every day. You deliver value. And if I don't like it, I tell you to go away. And I said, yeah, that's exactly it.
And interesting enough, we've worked with that client for many, many years, growing it from one country to working in over 40 countries. So it did work. There wasn't a catch. But I can understand how, you know, on the face of it, it can seem like that. Well, especially back then, right? It was just so, it just hadn't been done enough. I think today when you talk about fractional C-suite people, I think people, whether they think it's right for them or not.
they at least understand the concept. Yes. Yeah. So how did all of this lead to, so you have a brand new book out called Strategy and Leadership as Service, How the Access Economy Meets the C-Suite. So how did the book come about? And talk a little bit about the access economy. That's a great phrase. Yes. So regarding our business model, we've grown our business now into 17 countries. We know what it does.
for actual C-suite. We know how it works, but we hadn't really focused on why it works. I'm a learner and I wanted to really get under the skin of that thought leadership space and really dig into why it worked and what... were the sort of concepts, perhaps drawing on academia and other adjacent sectors as to understand what was actually going on here. I undertook a master's with Oxford University and I should say in Paris.
And I developed my dissertation on understanding why this business model worked and drawing on academic concepts. And the ones that I drew upon were the access economy. So I saw that there were parallels. between the disruptive business models that we're all familiar with. I'm talking the likes of Netflix, Spotify, Uber, Zipcar. So these access models where instead of...
owning the goods and services. We access them and we pay as we go. Now those businesses are doing really, really well. They're a new way of going to market. Yet what I noticed with some of those business models is that For them to be successful, we needed to feel as if we still owned the service or the goods. So even though we absolutely knew logically that we don't own the music when we log on to Spotify.
It feels like we do because we have our own account. We log on, we scroll down, we curate our music. We know other people are listening to it at the same time, but it's ours and we customise it with our own playlists, etc. And they've baked something called psychological ownership into that model. So the feelings of ownership are hugely important. Our possessions are really important to us as humans. And I wanted to test, and I did through my work, my dissertation.
was to test whether psychological ownership was present in the long-term relationships that fractional C-suite individuals have with their clients. And that's what I found was that there are these things like intimacy. and psychological safety and control that if you build that into the relationship, it can still feel like the business owner employs these people, the ownership piece, even though they know they don't.
It feels like ownership and therefore the relationship can go on for a long time. And that's what I wrote about in my book. I thought more people need to know about this. So I turned it into the book. Yeah. So it's interesting when you think about like the Netflix and the Ubers. So nothing's at risk if that goes, I mean, you might be late or you might not get your movie or your playlist might get jacked up. But, you know, when you're talking about a fractional CFO or CMO or CRO.
There's a lot of trust and risk on the business owner's part of not having that person in-house 40 hours a week. So I can totally see why the hunger to feel like. You own that relationship. Like this is no different than an employee. Any one of my other employees would be critical, especially at the C-suite level, because the trust and sort of all the secrets they know.
that they have to your business. They have all the keys to the kingdom. And so you would have to build in that level of, again, intimacy and trust. In my company, we work with a fractional outsourced CFO. I have for many, many years. But they have done everything, to your point, of making me feel like... When I email my person, my CPA who works at that firm, they respond immediately like they're right down the hall from me in an office. And I've walked down the hall and said, hey.
Yada, yada, yada. And they're like right there. So they've created that intimacy, that access, that feeling of connectivity that allows me to trust that, you know, they're in my bank accounts, they're in our credit cards, they're in all the things. And I trust them as much as if they were, to your point, a full-time employee. So that's fascinating. Yeah. So this is the nub of it, I think, is I think the illusion that employment...
is the sort of gold standard and you get all this trust and intimacy and security of supply and all that sort of stuff from being employed. I think that's an illusion. It's not the employment contract that is giving us that. Of course, there are some things in employment contracts that, you know, we've got some rules in there that we have to obey. But actually, actually, all relationships, employed or not.
should have this psychological ownership and this relationship piece. And it isn't, you know, we can move on our employees at will. People can leave us at will quickly. And actually, I think it... If we think about the relationship a bit more deeply, we realize that it's far more about the relationship. than it is about an employment contract. And you're going to have quite a lot of people in businesses that are employed where you just don't have that trust. So I feel like we need to sort of...
release our shackles a bit from the employment notion that just by having an employment contract, we're all in and we're all good because we're not. And actually, I think the self-employed model... with highly committed C-suite individuals and fractional leaders who have chosen, deliberately chosen to work this way. And they've chosen to work with the businesses that they end up with.
Because there's a passion and a purpose for them. And that they sort of live and die really by their last day, you know, every day that they're in that client. They're highly accountable. You have to be used to being evaluated all the time. To deliver value. So actually, you can have a far more healthy relationship, I think, and go back to the basics of a relationship.
by stripping away this notion that employment brings all of that to us. So I think it can be quite refreshing in a way. I do understand that business owners want to have that. that sort of reassurance and trust that this person isn't going to leave them in the lurch. And I think, you know, that goes down to the relationship on both sides that are built, but there are also organized.
organizations like the one I run and others out there, where those organizations will take responsibility for making sure. that these fractional C-suite individuals are up to the job. They are... totally committed. So there's a bit of governance there, a bit of oversight and accountability at another level, which can give an extra level of reassurance if businesses want it.
Yeah. So for example, again, the fractional CFO that we work with is part of a large organization. And so one of the other things I think makes this idea of fractional. resources so interesting is, you know, if I have a full-time accountant and they give notice, all of that institutional knowledge walks out the door when they leave. Yes, hopefully they've documented their processes and their systems and all of that.
But in the fractional model where you do have a company behind that, you've got backup and you've got systems and process. And so whether they go on vacation or they have paternity leave or they leave the company. In theory, everything just keeps running smoothly. Absolutely. And there's a lot of benefits to that. So these types of organizations, I would call them organizers, not employers. They would have teams.
of C-suite individuals. So the beauty of those organizations over and above sort of working with an individual is that you're going to have access to a breadth and depth of skill set. So not everyone knows everything. And, you know, with one individual, you've got one set of skills, one set of contacts, one set of time. Whereas if you go with a bigger organization.
There's the ability to tap into more skill sets, more geographies. Someone gets busy. There's always someone else to pick up the reins, holidays. You mentioned it, all those sorts of things. There's the oversight piece. of making sure that these individuals who are contracting with these entrepreneurial businesses are absolutely committed to doing it and have the wherewithal. And the other beauty of these organizations is that they...
They look after the whole individual. So a firm might be engaging with a fractional C-suite individual for a day a week. Well, what about the other four days that they've got available? And these fractional firms will make sure. that these individuals are occupied the other three or four days if they want to. So therefore, it becomes a proper career for them. And there's a sort of security for them as well. So the whole system works. And I think it's important to think of it as a system.
Yeah, no, that's really interesting. So as you, you know, it sounds like you've been doing this now personally for 20 some years. And as you have watched. recessions and COVID and hybrid workplace and remote workers and people embracing certainly more contract labor and all of that. How do you look at the future of employment? What do you...
How do you see all of this playing out today? And what do you think it's going to evolve to? Yes. So it is absolutely, it's on the move. It's changing. So even over the... you know, the 20 odd years I've been going, you know, fractional has become. more well-known. It's still surprising me, by the way, how many businesses still haven't heard of it. So we've got a long way to go still. However, what I am seeing, the trends I'm seeing are firstly that...
Jobs are fragmenting. They're unbundling. And often, you know, we go through trends, don't we? Bundling and unbundling. I think we're going through an unbundling trend of jobs into work. So packages of work. We used to have interims to come in and fill up an extra package of a full-time role. Well, now we've got the fractional resources and individuals that can come up and pick up pieces of work. What that means is that I think in the future...
We're going to see work being done by more fractional individuals so that you get the right skill set at the right level, because it means when you're in a corporate and doing the corporate role, you often find the C-suite. actually getting drawn into all sorts of things that aren't properly their skill set just because they're there in their full time. Well, now on the fractional model.
You can absolutely get the right resource at the right level, paying the right amount. And everyone's staying in their swim lane, which is quite nice. We're also going to have automation. So some of that... job is going to be automated and some of it will be done by fractionals. So I feel that this unbundling is a trend.
And what I also see as a big trend is that if we look at the corporate world, so let's just spend a little bit of time with them. I know the audience here is SMEs, but often this trickles down. What we're seeing in corporates... is that they are having to engage now with fractionals. And if you take this to the area of AI and the tech...
All the digital nomads, they're sitting on a beach somewhere doing their digital activities and getting exposed to all the latest thinking and accumulating the cutting edge skills. And the corporates need those skills. They cannot make them in-house. Their employee base isn't getting exposed enough to the activities to be able to do this. So corporates are having to engage with these people.
And yet these people don't want to be employed. I think this is going to trickle down into more of the semi-world. We will engage with fractionals more. But then we've got the issue of a blended workforce. We've got our employee base and we've got our fractional base. I think that brings challenges because these are two different types of people. So that's one that's going to be interesting to see how.
we manage those two different types together yeah we're actually seeing it in our industry already we're already seeing for example you you might have in in the good old days you might have a full-time front-end web developer on staff but now when you look and you're looking at your payroll costs you're like you know what look we only do five websites a year we don't really need that full-time person those are not inexpensive people what if we had
access to somebody 20 hours a week, or we hire them on a contact contract basis when we need them. So I think we're already seeing that. So we need to take a quick break, but. When we come back, I want to talk about that idea of this new workforce, this mix of fractional team members, we'll call them. and employees in a more traditional sense and your thoughts about how do we create an environment where everybody feels
connected and the work gets done without hiccups and all of that. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come back and talk about that. Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening today. Before I get back to the interview, I just want to remind you that we are always offering some really amazing workshops. And you can see the whole schedule at agencymanagementinstitute.com.
on the navigation head to how we help scroll down and you'll see workshops and you can see the whole list there with descriptions of each workshop they are all in denver And we've got them throughout the year for agency owners, account execs, agency leaders, CFOs. We have a little something for everybody, no matter what it is that you're struggling with. People, new business, money, all of those things we've got covered.
So check them out and come join us. All right, let's get back to the show. All right, we are back. And we have been talking about this idea of... fractional employees and many of you already have been explore exploring this you know we've been talking more about c-suite folks or i would think of as admin people people who are not client facing, doing client work. But many of you have embraced this idea of a fractional employee or team member by hiring contractors rather than full-time employees.
by maybe having part-time employees who are in another part of the country or another part of the world. So it certainly is, we're seeing it every day in agencies big and small. So Sarah, when we think about the fact that we are, you know, Back in the day, you created culture by everybody coming into the office five days a week. We were in a building together. We took coffee breaks together. We stood around the water cooler and talked about our weekends. And we had.
physical proximity to create culture and connectivity and there was a lot of sort of eavesdropping on conversations and then sticking your head in and going oh i meant to tell you xyz so in today's world Whether somebody has fractional team members or not, a lot of us are working more remote or hybrid. We may have an office that we're only in the office three days a week. And in some cases.
Teams are rotating in and out of the office, but it's rare that they're all together. It's a very rare agency today that has all of their employees living in one city and that they're working five days a week in an office. crossing time zones. We're crossing in sometimes, in some cases, country lines. So how are you seeing, what are the best practices? If I own an agency,
And I'm doing exactly what we're talking about. I have some full-time people that are in the office a few days a week and at home the other days. I have some... part-time people and some contractors. I have some fractional people that are not my employees at all, that they are here in the States at 1099 to me. How do you create a work culture that creates that psychological ownership and the connectivity that makes it work? Yeah, it's...
It's a really interesting one. I mean, I think what was interesting for us, so we've always been, you know, the 20 odd years we've been going is that we've always had remote. relationships. So our C-suite individuals have never come into our office. We didn't even have an office until we built up a significant sort of central team. And so we're very used.
to having a dispersed geographic workforce. And what's interesting actually is that before COVID, there's always before COVID and after COVID, isn't there? Before COVID, we were the one out with our clients as well because Everyone was in the office and we were the one coming in and out. And that was seen a bit odd. But now, post-pandemic, that's normalised because...
We've moved to hybrid and remote working more generally. Obviously, it's become more mainstream to be hybrid and remote and have dispersed workforces, whether they're employed or fractional. And yet, how do you do it? How do businesses create meaningful relationships of bonded teams that work together across distance and technology? And I think the way we did it...
And we were using technology all the way through. It was Skype and the clunky video conferencing back then. But the way we did it was we were very deliberate about the times we were together. So firstly, you're very strong on culture and, you know, whole sort of movement, if you like, of our business was that we had a vision of wanting to change people's lives for the better, but also being sort of anti-corporate, if you like.
us away from corporate and also wanting to live and work differently, which united us. So I feel like... It's really important that businesses have a vision and a purpose that they can unite their people together behind, regardless of what that is and regardless of the way. you know, the way they operate and where they sit in the world. And then we were incredibly deliberate about how we communicated. So we made sure that we came together frequently.
either through technology or and physically so it was definitely an and but obviously the physical touch points and the physical get-togethers you know when you're in when you're in big big geographies were maybe twice a year. So not that frequently, but we made a huge effort to be very deliberate about when we came together and how often that was. And we also created small teams. So we wanted a level of intimacy.
with our people and realize that could be quite hard when you've got lots. So we created small cells of 10 to 12 individuals around the world. So everyone had a home. And everyone had a local base, even if they didn't see them because they were spread out around the country, they were still connected as a local team. And then we had national teams and international teams and functional teams.
And so I feel the way to do it is to design a strategy of culture and strategy of communication and togetherness. prioritize it and be very deliberate about it. And don't just assume it's going to happen and make sure that when you come together, it's the things that you can't do when you're set apart. So it's very special.
And then there's use the technology day on day to communicate for the more functional tasks. So you guys were all remote. So that was a little different, right? Everybody was in the same boat. But now when you're going into clients' offices, in some cases, they still have a physical presence or they're hybrid today, probably. So how do you, I think oftentimes the person who's remote.
or is fractional, is the one that feels a little out of the loop or more disconnected. People forget to invite them to meetings, like all that kind of thing that happens, or they don't. overhear conversations because they're not physically in the same space or whatever. So how do you navigate that as one of the folks who is not on-site, who's not full-time? How do you make sure you have the connections with the people? And how do you help your clients?
create that environment because your odds are today, you're not the only fractional employee they have. You're probably not the only hybrid employee or remote employee they have. So how are you helping them when it is a mix of in-person, not in-person? not create kind of a they versus us, you know, mentality. The locals versus the remotes. Yes. Yeah, I think. I think the way we've done that is to start off with when we start a client engagement and working with a new business.
we would try to be as on site as possible, as much as possible in the early days to get the vibe, to get the understanding of the business. So that's an investment of commitment. And actually... you know, it doesn't mean that when you turn up on the onsite that everyone else is going to be there as well. So, you know, that's the point, isn't it? But I think the first thing is to show, we show we're committed.
And we will make a big effort to understand the culture of the business. Some businesses will be more remote than others, in which case we'll slot into that. But if they do have two or three days a week, and a lot of people are adopting that as a hybrid model, we will make sure that we're in there every week. And to show that we're...
We're not retreating away. We're not just there for the work. We're there for the people. It's about, I think, to be fractional, to be honest, to be fractional. You need to be brilliant at relationships. Communication and relationships are the key things and have a curiosity about individuals. So I think we need to move away from thinking fractional is about.
delivering tasks and work. It's still about forming relationships. And this is where I fall back on psychological ownership because to create that bond, there are some key things that we can do to create the bond. One is... Both parties need to feel they have control of each other. And I mean, that sounds a bit brotherish, but what that means is accessible, available and approachable.
So the key thing is for every business that we work with, we make sure that when we're not on site for them, they can always call us. So that means that if we're on site with one business, we might take a call from another client. Right, sure. We made that open and we would expect them to call us when we're at another client. And as long as we get, we communicate and every business plays the same game, if you like, everyone wins. You're always accessible. We'll take calls.
on a weekend we'll take calls you know at 10 o'clock at night because we know things just don't pop up in a nine to a five right and so i think it's about showing interest in the client. We'll call up the client, the business owner out of the blue and say, how does that pitch go last week? Or we'll pop in or we'll spend, perhaps instead of working from home one day, we'll work at their offices. We might be working on another staff.
but we'll be there. Right, physically there. Yes. So it's about thinking about those things that show commitment and interest in the whole business, not just the bit of work that... that we're doing. We're on their journey with them. The other side of it is co-creation. That's another way of building relationships, whether you're remote or not. Doing things together, so co-creating strategies.
co-creating events and conferences, whatever it is. If you do things together, you're both self-invested. And the other side of it is intimacy. The other thing that's really important, fractional, and for employees to do is to, you know, go to the happy hour, be there on after work one day, don't rush off and retreat to your house. Spend time, or if it's hanging out in a Teams call or something, or a Google Hangouts, hang out. Show the fact that you want to get to know the whole people involved.
And be prepared to share some of yourselves. I mean, I think one of the best things I ever did really early on with a client was that they moved offices and their whole employee base went to paint the new offices. And I showed up and did it as well. I didn't have to do that. But it was one of the best things I ever did. And I really enjoyed it and got to know everyone. Yeah, I think it's those sort of marginal moments like.
the happy hours and that we're all painting. So we're talking and we're listening to music and we're ordering pizza and all of that. I think that's where sometimes remote employees or fractional employees miss out on the connectivity. Because either they think they shouldn't or they can't participate or it's, well, I'm not getting paid to do that. And I think you're right. I think it's an investment on both sides saying.
This is a relationship and relationships require commitment and time and sacrifice and all the things that we know are true, but we just don't apply it in this case the way that we should sometimes. I think it's very easy, sometimes in fractional work, to feel that it's a transaction and we're just delivering tasks and competencies. But if you think about it, anyone could do that. Right.
qualified person could do that work. To have the long-term relationship, have to think of it in a whole new dimension around a relationship. And it's about building trust and being committed and showing commitment. Yeah. So as we wrap this up, I'm curious from your perception, where does this end? Do you think? Do you think companies someday will not have any employees? Will we be a complete hybrid piecemeal, put fractional team members together to create the perfect team?
Do you envision that we'll always have a core set of employees that maybe are more client facing and that the fractional and remote employees are the support around that? As you look forward planning for your own business, but also as you think about just, you know, the work you did in your dissertation and sort of the idea of this evolution of work, because I don't.
I don't, the genie is not going back into the bottle. Here in the States anyway, and I don't know if you're seeing it over there too, but here in the States, we are having more of the large corporations go, you know what? This hybrid thing isn't working. We're back in the office five days a week. And if you don't like it, that's okay. Then somebody else will take the job. But I don't think that's going to be the norm. Particularly, I think it's one of the reasons why.
small businesses have an advantage is that they can be a little more nimble and more flexible than a big corporation. So I'm just curious what you see. If you look into that crystal ball, what do you see? happening in the next five, 10 years in terms of the workplace. Yes, I think I agree with you, by the way, what you just said around, you know, some going back into the office and, you know, full time. I don't think that's going to go.
go mainstream. I think the genie is out of the bottle. We do want more flexibility, variety, and control over our lives. And going self-employed and fractional is one way of doing that. In terms of... The erosion of employment. I think that there is going to be an erosion of employment as a notion that that's the only model. Over the next five to 10 years, will it completely collapse? No, but I do think it will.
there will be an and conversation. I think there's going to be more acceptance of the self-employment and the fractional model because it's more agile, nimble, you see. even for the corporates, is the way the corporates can have a call and then have a donut ring around it, if you like, where they can bring together the fractional skill sets. to nimbly and agilely deal with all the turbulence that's in the market at the moment.
What I interestingly saw through COVID was that the corporates were building out their C-suites. More and more CXO titles have arrived on Wikipedia. You've got families and hierarchies of C-suite titles at the C-suite level. which is rigid, costly, fixed headcount, and not going to be, you know, not going to be the sort of right setup to react quickly to things. So I feel like this is an alternative way of doing that. I think there will be a call.
And then I think there will be rings, if you like, of fractional workers at various levels who will be able to then come together. in teams and groups for long periods of time, short periods of time, on a fractional basis, to get the work done. The key thing, I think, though, is to... remember relationships in this we're humans we want to be part of communities
So I feel that even if we're fractional, we need to be, we're going to want to be part of different communities. I actually think though, the communities won't just be your own. the employed or the organization anymore. I think there'll be communities of fractionals and it'll be a much more sort of networked and fluid system, if you like, where we do have homes, but we have multiple homes.
So that's the way I think it's going to go in the next five to 10 years for sure. Yeah, I think it's a fascinating idea that you can have access when you think about it. You can have access to subject matter experts that you have no way to keep busy and employed full time. But when you need them, you really need them. And to be able to tap into that.
And like you say, nimbly sort of tap different people on the shoulder when you need them. And yet they're already a part of the organization. They already know your systems and processes. They already know how to work inside your organization. In some ways, it can be the best of both worlds if you build the infrastructure to support it. Yes, yes. So you get the relationship, but you get the work done. And I think the more...
you know, the more the world goes forward is the sort of specialisms. Being a master in a specialism, I think, is a... is absolutely key to fractional individuals. You have to be known for something and have that sort of deep knowledge of an area. I think also it's really important that fractionals are well-networked because the power of many. is going to be really, really important. And also to be a giver, to be wanting to promote.
and to give to organization rather than sort of being, you know, most interested in what's in it for me. I think those are the three big characteristics of what fractionals need. And there'll be various communities popping up to support them. And I think that's the right way to go. So organizers, not employers. And I think the other role of organizers could be...
But if you think about it, the Gen Zers, they're going into the gig economy already. They're growing up with it. Not like me as a Gen Xer, I joined late. But the Gen Zers are coming through. They want to work this way from the... from the start, but where are they going to get the experience from to give these skills back? And I think that's where perhaps fractional organizations could also do some mentoring.
to bring these communities on and help them get the skills they need to be able to keep adding value. But that's all to see how that unfolds. But I'm interested in that area particularly. Yeah, it's fascinating. I think it's a great opportunity for business owners who are open-minded enough to figure out how to tap into it and how to create a culture where it can really thrive.
Like you, I'm fascinated to watch sort of how it plays out over the next five or 10 years because I think it's going to be very interesting to see how we redefine work. Absolutely. Yeah. This has been a great conversation, Sarah. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your experience. If folks want to buy the book, learn more about the work you do.
Follow up and ask a question. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you? Great. Yes. So if you want to buy the book, Strategy and Leadership of Service, How the Access Economy Meets the C-Suite, that's on Amazon or Routledge.com. If you want to get in touch with me, I'm at the CFO Center and I'm on LinkedIn, Sarador on LinkedIn. So yes, please do get in touch. I mean, just love to hear people's experiences. It's fascinating, as you say, seeing the industry grow.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us today. I appreciate it. You gave people a lot of things to think about. So thank you. Thanks, Drew. You bet. All right, guys, this was a great episode. And just in terms of saying, well, how we're working. many of you are already working this way whether you're working with an outsourced something or you just have part-time employees or contractors we're using a lot of language for the same thing but
Many of you, most of you actually are a mix of employees and contractors in some way. So the idea of how do you create a culture where everybody feels connected, that where it doesn't feel like. oh, they're not a part of the team. They're a vendor. They're a partner as opposed to, no, they're one of us and they are part of our team. Really some great ideas about thinking about that.
Even just the idea of sort of that psychological safety and that psychological ownership, probably things that you've been doing, but maybe you didn't have a label for or something to sort of think about in that tangible way. So lots of... I would call it deep thinking homework off of this episode. Like, how do you want to build the workforce of your agency for the future? And what do you need to do to create infrastructure to support that and make it successful?
Lots of good takeaways, lots of good meaty nuggets to chew on. And I hope you take the time to talk about this with your leadership team to really give it some thought because just like... None of us are working the way we did five years ago. You got to know we're not going to be working the way we are now five years from now. So how do you begin to think about that? And as Sarah said, be intentional.
about what you build and how you put that into play so that you can be as successful as possible. So lots of good stuff there. Before I let you go, two things, a huge shout out and thank you to our friends at White Label IQ. As you know, they're the presenting sponsor of the podcast. So they are this model, right? They are an outsourced white label web design.
PPC and design team. So if you need development work or that, these guys are exactly what Sarah's been talking about. They come in, they become part of your team. They help you have subject matter experts. who allow you to offer your clients more than what you can do with your in-house team. So check them out at whitelabeliq.com slash AMI.
They have a special deal just for you as podcast listeners, as you know, because I've been telling you that for a while. And certainly last but not least, I love getting to hang out with you every week. So I don't get to do that if you don't keep showing up. Thank you for coming back. Thank you for all your feedback, for the reviews, for the shout outs in the Facebook group that tell me who you want me to talk to and what other...
topics and subjects you want to hear more about. You just help me make the show better, more fun for me, more fun for you, more valuable for you. So keep that feedback coming. I appreciate it. And I am really glad you're here with me. So thanks for listening. All right. I'm out. I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. Bye. That's a wrap for this week's episode of Build a Better Agency.
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