Office Hours: Fractionals Lead to the Greater Whole

One increasingly important legacy of the natural products boom is the growth of a professional talent pool that isn’t necessarily tied to any particular company on a full time basis. These experienced, fractional employees differ from pickup crews or temp employees in that they’re often doing full-time work, just for a few different brands, allowing them to focus their core skills -- be they key account calls and broker wrangling, financial and operational strategy, innovation, marketing, or even company leadership -- for a few select clients.

Some of these fractional employees use an agency model, on retainer for months or even years at a time, while others are smaller practitioners, getting the wheels in motion for a sales team, putting a fundraising scheme in place, then watching the company outgrow them. For their clients, the choice lets brands get a skill set that looks to a higher level of professionalization, often on a budget lower than a full time employee.