Five Use Cases for Fractional Enablement
With the increased use of sites like Upwork and Freelancer, an increasing number of businesses are using fractional talent to complement their teams. As a business owner, I consistently outsource projects that I don’t have the time, expertise, or desire to tackle. These are all projects I could muddle through. It’s been an enormous boon to my productivity to keep projects moving and to work more efficiently. After these experiences, I’ve become an evangelist of expert labor for my business. The concept of fractional talent has crept into the enablement space to great effect. The use cases are manifest and endless when a CRO is under pressure to hit their number.
SKO
Each year (or more often!) a Sales Kick Off rolls around and the enablement team is tasked with putting together the event– logistics, content, collateral, entertainment, etc. It’s an enormous endeavor when done properly. Sadly, this planning often falls when teams are busy closing out the previous quarter or year. So most companies procrastinate and miss the opportunity to have a massively successful event. With fractional talent, you can bring in a person who is an SKO expert having run them across multiple companies over the years. These people can be deputized to work with your team to identify key priorities and themes while they handle all the heavy lifting turnkey. This not only frees up your team for other projects; but yields a better event for the team.
Onboarding
Far too many companies send their incoming sellers through an onboarding program that’s suboptimal– or even worse–outdated. It’s comparable to sending a pre-med student through a medical school curriculum with textbooks from the 1970s. Yes, it’s medicine and the best thinking from that era; but the discipline and teaching best practices have evolved. And as companies invest in cohorts of new sellers, it’s essential that they ramp quickly. If they aren’t productive fast enough, forecasts crumble faster than a stack of Pringles in my kids’ backpack. A fractional resource who is an expert at onboarding can be leveraged here. Whether you’re building an onboarding program for the first time or revising an existing one, an expert can ensure that every seller is productive quickly.
Soft Skills Training
For many CROs, there’s a small list of sales skills they’ve identified that are mission-critical to the team’s success. It might be discovery, getting to power, demonstrating ROI, negotiating, etc. But something they know will improve the close rate. Almost universally, they’ll look to their head of enablement to build a class given the expertise in-house. After several months of research, interviews, asset building, curriculum design, pilot testing, and rollout, the class will be launched. However, doing this sacrifices both quality and time. The alternative is to bring in a fractional enablement person who’s already created this course and run it across multiple companies. They can tweak the materials/examples to fit your own company, but it already exists and is proven effective. When the stakes are high (it’s mission-critical, remember?), you don’t have the luxury of a mediocre or unproven initiative. And rarely will you have the time. Fractional expert talent solves both.
Extra Hands
In times when enablement staffs are leaner than ever, sometimes you just need additional hands for projects. They’re not always glamorous or strategic but they need to be done. Think of those CMS content projects, video editing, asset creation, etc. Clearly, you’re not going to have your team leave priority projects to work on these; but you want them done. Bringing in people who are experts at these tasks has an easy ROI in their efficiency. In my business, I use an integration tool to connect systems. I taught it to myself and can use it, but I’m horribly ineffective. I now bring in an expert at that tool and it’s the best check I write a few times each year.
Methodology Training
Sales methodologies can be like expensive health/exercise equipment: expensive, bought in a flurry of inspiration, but don’t change behavior for very long. Peloton, P90x, rowing machines, juicers, and thigh masters were all bought with the best of intentions. But alas they’re all collecting dust while we munch bonbons on the couch. Sales methodologies are often purchased and poorly rolled out. As such, no lifestyle changes happen and everyone reverts to their old habits. This is borderline tragic given what you pay for a methodology. What if there were experts in re-implementing the methodology? I’m referring to people who understand the behavioral change component, the CRM integration component, and the deal review component needed to make the methodology stick. This is a cost-effective way to recoup your investment in the methodology and realize the benefits of why you bought it in the first place.
Fractional labor with expert talent is the enlightened way to augment your existing staff for strategic projects. When speed, cost-effectiveness, and quality are the priority, fractional enablement talent becomes a company’s competitive advantage.
