Hiring a Fractional Employee is a Win-Win

Offering her services as a fractional employee proved to be the golden ticket for Business Growth & Systems Strategist Kristen Westcott.

Our heroes come in many shapes and forms.  (I know, it’s been discussed a bit lately.) What they all have in common is that they provide light where we least expect it.

As an overworked, stressed-out business owner,  any thoughts on who your hero might be?

If you’re drawing a blank, we may have some good news.

Imagine….

What if you could actually take a vacation without your laptop in tow? What if you didn’t have to feel you constantly have to miss out on family time? Imagine you didn’t have to feel guilty and frustrated that being a business owner is not quite the ticket to freedom you thought it would be? What if you didn’t have to feel like your drowning ALL THE TIME?

She probably never thought of herself in the hero-way, but Kristen might just be your gal!

Starting a Family AND a Business That Suits Her New Life

Hero in disguise, Kristen Westcott, is a self-proclaimed forever learner with a Master’s degree in Sociology and a long list of additional certifications. This endless curiosity, however, provided her with a wide skillset she now puts to good use in ‘wrangling the chaos of other businesses’.

Unusual? Yes, maybe. Extraordinary? Absolutely!

After becoming a mum who no longer saw it viable to play the corporate game without some serious backlash on a personal level, it was time for Kristen to rethink her career.

She left the job she had loved pre-kids and started a business that suited HER skillset, HER personal situation and HER values.

Like many other successful business owners on a journey, she had to tackle a few dead-ends before she found her niche. But it’s those experiences that ultimately brought all the pieces together.

These days, she calls herself a ‘Bizz Strategist & Ops Expert’ aka ‘Director of Operations’ on a mission to help you scale your business, so you can reach your goals while getting out of firefighting mode.

Hiring a Fractional Employee is a Win-Win

Kristen runs her business extremely lean. As a service-based business, she can afford to do that. And for now, because her kids are still very young, it’s how she wants it.

The only people she hires are a part-time virtual assistant and a bookkeeper. (There’s a juicy but insightful story on the podcast to justify that move. )

Anticipation is that 10 years from now, that situation will be completely different and Kristen is already tossing around ideas on what it would take to scale up her business and start an agency. The future will tell.

Until that time, she’s hyper-focussed on solving her client’s pain points, adding value and increasing buzz. Turns out it’s a win-win, because it suits the businesses she works with as much as it works for her and her family.

Kristen’s Packages

As a growing business, there are guaranteed to be certain points in time where you’ve outgrown your current boots, yet you’re not ready to take the jump towards the logical next commitment. At least not without putting everything on the line.

So far, you’ve been overlooking operations and processes yourself. But you’re at the point where you’re the victim of your own success and you find yourself increasingly stretched in all directions and at serious risk of burnout.

The solution may be as simple as bringing in help from outside. Of course, this is where Kristen comes in.

Depending on the stage you are at with your business, Kristen has two ways in which she can help.

Book a VIP Day

During an entire day, you can pick Kristen’s brain. She’ll walk you through a framework that gives business owners clarity around their strategy, processes, and systems. It’s arguably one of the most important things you can do for your business and yourself. Life on the other end is one where you slowly wake up in the morning knowing exactly what tasks lay ahead for the day, while you slowly sip your morning coffee.

It’s targeted towards the 6 figure owner-operator who wears many hats, works seven days a week and is at risk of burning out.

Hire a Fractional Employee

OR …you can hire Kristen’s expertise as a Director of Operations at a fractional capacity (say 20% or 50% of Kristen’s time), freeing up your time as a business owner to network and focus on the strategy.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, a fractional employee is someone who works partially for your business, while also being partially hired by other businesses. Unlike a contractor, though, it’s not just for a fixed term or the span of a project.

Because it offers a lot more flexibility than possible in a normal full-time or even part-time employer-employee relationship, fractional employment is on the rise. (As a matter of fact, it is said to be the hottest workforce trend of 2021. I can definitely see why.)

As a Director of Operations, Kristen, in synergy with the business owner…

• Makes sure the work is up to scratch.
• Makes sure the work runs on time and on budget.
• Manages the team.
• Looks after the team’s culture.
• Gives feedback on strategic decisions.

The Ins and Outs of Getting a Fractional Employee on Board

But of course, Kristen doesn’t just walk in to do her thing.  

A good part of Kristen’s role is understanding the TYPE of business she’s working with. Is it a brick and mortar business, a service-based business, or a product-based business? That in itself gives her a good idea of the operational issues she’s likely to encounter.

The business-specific information she gets from the onboarding process. The simple act of LISTENING  to the owner and the employees gives her insight into the strategic plan, the mission, the vision and the products. Importantly, it also builds trust.

From there, Kristen can start implementing the changes to regain control of the chaos and get stress-levels back to a manageable level. Kristen has long learned that it takes time for business owners to stop seeing themselves as freelancers, and shift their mindsets to be CEOs.

Is it a surprise that Kristen has the background to also tackle that part of being a director of operations? I guess not!

So how are you spending your days?

Does answering staff questions take up the bulk of your time? Do you reluctantly admit that you’re the bottleneck in business growth? Do you no longer have time to network and be creative?

Maybe the time has come to invest in some systems and the input of a coach?

Connect with Kristen Westcott

www.kristenwestcott.com

www.instagram.com/kristen.westcott

www.facebook.com/kristenbwestcott/