Our 3-tier fractional officer program provides best practices, training and implementation

How did you become a fractional officer, someone asked me the other day?

Well, it’s of course what I went to school to get my degree in, I joked.

Who knows, maybe that will be a degree program one day, but I  landed on making fractional work my focus because I saw a few needs from media companies that I thought I could help with:

• Key roles going dark for too long when someone left that I had deep experience in and could fill in for.
• Teams missing critical expertise and digital skillsets they didn’t have in-house that I could help develop.
• Companies realizing a need for a new kind of role but needing the right scope for the job and groundwork already laid to make it successful.

Our fractional program is one of our most popular, because it provides the guidance, expertise and best practices that I know publishers are seeking in those bullets noted above, but also helps ensure they are getting work over the finish line. Tying both of these things together has been key.

I’d like to dig a little deeper today on how fractional works:

1. What are the programs we offer?

We have three tiers, but I would tell you that these are really just conversation starters with a media company. That’s because every fractional program we have is significantly customized. 

That touch has been critical to provide something the media company needs and gets value from.

But this is generally how we approach the tiers:

Tier 1: Content Support Manager: We roll up our sleeves to handle the day-to-day of managing your website, creating a web schedule, posting and engaging on social media, reviewing and optimizing for SEO and keeping an eye on analytics. 

Tier 2: Growth Consultant: We focus on four major areas, usually over a four-month timeframe: Reviewing your content plan and web posting, SEO training and review, improving newsletters and shaping social media strategies. Often content creation is part of this. 

Tier 3: Executive Strategy Partner: We act as an extension of your leadership team, starting with a full audit of editorial, sales and design. From there, we set quarterly roadmaps, develop new revenue programs, and teach the latest skills in AI, SEO and storytelling. 

2. How do you function with teams?

In most cases, there is some form of a roadmap established with the media company once we start the engagement. It doesn’t take us months to create this but our goal is to have alignment with the publisher on what these goals should be.

Once we have that, we start working with managers and their team members to implement the changes. There are cases where we are fully running and managing teams and in other cases we’re working with staff on strategy and implementation.

Either way, it’s a very collaborative process but our job isn’t to just advise but lead people through the changes and evolve our original roadmap with new ideas.

An interesting fact: Normally our fractional service lasts for at least a year and that’s because the majority of our clients who use this service extend with us. There are a few cases where we have continued for more than two years. I think this speaks to the fact that those companies found the skillset we brought to their company so valuable that they asked us to just run their operations longterm.

3. What does this all cost?

The best way to think about this is if you were to hire any of these positions that we provide fractional services for, our monthly fees will be around that cost, if not a little cheaper. 

This makes it easier for a media company to take advantage of our services. If they have an open position or are planning to bring on a new role, they can simply use that budget to help pay for our services.

The way I see clients thinking about this is if someone leaves their company, they may be better off bringing us in for a few months to address areas they know needs improvements, so when they are ready to hire someone, things are in a better position.

But I also see publishers who are ready to make an investment in a position or area of the business and find a ton of value in bringing us in to be the bridge to that new position for a few months (or even help hire that position).

There are others that don’t fit either of those boxes and view this as a needed investment in their company. They know that their company isn’t going to advance without assistance addressing the most pressing growth areas of their organization. They simply can’t wait any longer and shouldn’t.

Why we are uniquely positioned to help

My background, specifically in content, audience and revenue development has made this program a success, based on all of the companies I have been around through corporate roles, associations and now all of the clients we get to work with. We have a huge library of best practices, expertise and know how to get things done.

It’s exactly why I wanted to partner with Penny Riordan, as she brings a very complimentary skill set to the table to help us support more companies through our fractional programs. And it’s why I recently promoted Tara Jones to help lead our branded content so we have the systems already in place to help publishers with their revenue growth.

I’d love to tell you more about any of these services and how we can help you. Because I truly believe we can. Email me today at David@davidarkinconsulting.com or call or text me anytime at 832-407-0188.

Here is a flyer that summarizes our services that you can download.