Navigating The Great Resignation and Economic Downturn with Fractional Services

Ask just about anyone running a business, and they will tell you that 2022 has been a rollercoaster of events. From what was coined “The Great Resignation”, where employers across several industries saw the exodus of key employees, to the now more recent events of a US technical recession, and larger global recession, have led company leaders to re-evaluate their hiring practices, forecasting, and risk mitigations to plan for growth and make it through a worsening recession. In previous recessions, typical behavior was to tell the c-suite to downsize product offerings, conduct mass layoffs, and put on a hiring freeze to conserve capital. In other words, burrow into a hole and wait out the storm. But what if you took this opportunity to be different, go against the tide, and instead plan for growth while there’s blood in the streets? (to borrow a saying from the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet) What if you used a combination of fractional services and an innovative marketing strategy, and trained your remaining workforce to go against the tide and thrive through the recession? Vendors are one of the first cuts to overall spending when an event of such magnitude as a global recession is knocking on the door. However, this is an antiquated business theory. Instead, an evaluation of what your vendors can bring to the table in times of pain may be in order. Strategic partnerships with your vendors could help backfill key positions, and set overall strategy, all while reducing overhead expenses such as worker’s compensation, insurance, PTO, and retirement benefits, not to mention the time and costs associated with hiring. In other words, businesses can benefit from experts at a fraction of the cost. Filling these high-level roles could help set strategy, realize efficiencies, and allow business owners to focus on core tasks. To find the right fractional services for your particular firm, you need to be prepared to:

1. Determine the outcomes by priority: What gaps does your business have?
2. Success metrics: How will you communicate what a shared vision of success that you and the fractional support will be?
3. Source the fractional support: If you don’t have the ability internally, do you need the assistance of experts to help find your fractional talent?

According to American Business Press(1979) as well as the McGraw Hill Research(1986) studies on marketing spend during recessions, companies that maintained or increased marketing spend during these times saw an exponential increase in annual sales compared to their competition who stopped or reduced marketing spend in these times. Innovation and investments in what propels your business, such as marketing, can be the difference in the doors shutting for good, and exponential growth. Company leadership should certainly use the downturn as a culminating reason to realize efficiencies in marketing, but also push against the traditional advice and maintain or increase marketing spend and use it to strengthen your brand and personalize to your ideal customer profile(ICP). Lean on a fractional Chief Marketing Officer role to help you strategize a marketing plan that empowers your sales and marketing teams to align your products and services to your customer’s needs. A strategic fractional resource will analyze your current ICPs, look at your buyer’s journey, and align your demand and lead generation efforts to personalize content to your customers. These efforts will shorten your sales cycles and get revenue in the door. Your fractional team can also be the asset that allows company leadership to keep their eyes on the end goal and work on the business versus in the business. It takes strong marketing strategy and execution to drive revenue growth, and that’s where our fractional services offerings can assist your company leadership. We can lend our years of marketing, finance, business process efficiency, and project management expertise, as your strategic resource and integral team member. We can assist with overall marketing strategy, tech debt evaluation, various marketing channels, business process evaluation, and implementations. Fractional resources can be used to fill your team on the backside of recession and when you are training up and promoting internal team members from within. Contact us for more information and realize the cost savings of hiring a fractional resource that can reduce overhead G&A expenses, payroll, and headcount.