Sam Altman and his associates reportedly have a betting pool about when there will be a $1 billion company staffed by a single person. The premise, of course, is that AI agents can carry out all the other functions that companies would ordinarily need, so the company itself can be run by a singular human being who has created or purchased custom agents to complete said functions.

This has obvious and wide-ranging implications for business leaders around planning and strategy. Should business leaders be thinking about new sets of business tools and vendors? Should business leaders be thinking about new operational models? Should business leaders be thinking about new organization charts? And maybe most obviously, and starkly, how should business leaders be thinking about their current staffing needs and capacity?

Sam Altman is a genius and far be it for me to argue with him. On this point, however, he is wrong, and here’s why. Sam (Yes, I’m on a first name basis with him even though he does not know who I am) is looking at companies in terms of how we define and understand a company today. However, as soon as the development of AI tools allows people and companies to automate today’s functions and turn their focus to new functions, ideas, and ways to service customers, people will optimize themselves and companies will look very different than they do today.

Let’s look at this another way. Human Resources does not have a long history; it’s existed for a much shorter time than you think. But over time, companies started to make more money, and people began to find new ways to exploit companies. Companies became more efficient through automation and technology, and therefore more protective of their money, property and the status quo. They also had more money around because of said efficiency, and built HR teams to protect themselves legally.

Of course, HR teams have evolved to do more than that, but the basic function of an HR team is to protect a company, legally, and the need for that functionality only exists because it can exist. In other words, greater efficiency has led to the ability to add functions that are now necessities, but would have been seen as luxuries in the past.

It’s similar to Parkinson’s Law, which states “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” In his 1955 essay, historian C. Northcote Parkinson also talked about the idea that the number of workers within public administration, bureaucracy or officialdom tends to grow, regardless of the amount of work to be done. This he attributed mainly to two factors: that officials want subordinates, not rivals, and that officials make work for each other. As our corporate environments continue to look and feel more bureaucratic, we can clearly see the crossover between the public domain discussed by Parkinson, and the private corporate domain.

I gave the example of human resources above, but let’s also look at customer success teams. The customer success function, like HR, did not exist in the not-too-distant past. Organizations had product, sales and administration departments/areas, and sellers dealt with clients, so there was no need for a dedicated client success or service function, specifically in the B2B world.

Over time, as markets became more congested and fragmented, and switching costs decreased, it became easier for clients to churn, so it made more sense for companies to start hiring more people and spending money to keep clients around. As the technology fueled competition, and made room for more slices of the pie to be cut, it also grew the size of the overall pie, and therefore freed up money for businesses to focus more on interpersonal interaction and relationships. In other words, more technology made it so that companies could find a competitive advantage in spending more time on the non-technical pieces of their business in order to differentiate.

We can argue about whether this is good or bad for business, or for clients, or for the economy, but the point is that, historically, step function leaps in technology have not led to smaller workforces. In fact, they have led to larger workforces once the market has adjusted and companies have figured out what to compete on. Sure, Sam may be technically correct in a kind of transition period, as there may be companies who find efficiencies before the overall market adjusts. Once we reach economic equilibrium, or anything close to it, companies will find something to compete on, or something to leverage for efficiency, and will therefore not want to cut resources. It will be more efficient and profitable to add resources to improve their abilities in these areas, and that will include adding people.

Let’s look at another historical example for fun: spreadsheets. Electronic spreadsheets vastly diminished the amount of time that an accountant needed to spend building reports. Could you imagine writing numbers into graph paper every time you needed to build a revenue model? However, the advent of Excel and Google Sheets did not lead to smaller accounting teams, it led to more historical modeling, and the need for higher levels of certainty and greater reporting detail which has led to larger accounting and finance teams, and the proliferation of forward-looking modeling and financial analysis. Reporting that was unimaginable 40 years ago has become table stakes for any business.

“I get it,” Sam might say, “but AI is different because it can do anything that humans optimize themselves to be able to do.” In other words, we no longer need an accountant to run that report, because an AI agent can do it. So we are in a fundamentally different place in terms of technology development. He has a point here, but let’s clarify.

As it stands now, we don’t have Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and we won’t have it until mid-century at the very earliest (according to the most recent predictions). AGI will conceptually be able to ingest wide arrays of inputs and act with human levels of expertise across many areas of function as opposed to what we have now which is limited by task and breadth of function.

But even as we develop AGI, assuming it plays out as we expect it to, AI already is, and will always be better than humans at many things and not as good as humans at other things. The most successful companies will know how to leverage comparative advantage. AI models will have to compete with other AI models and there is a significant cost to customize and host, so humans are likely to retain a comparative advantage in the areas where we are more efficient, like human interactions, judgement and planning.

Think about it: as AI models continue to improve, and are forced to compete against each other, we will need humans to build those ever-improving models, so at a certain point, it will make more sense to find the jobs that humans do best and and focus the AI on the things it does best rather than continually iterating on new AI models for each and every function. This is what mature markets will bring to AI development, when we get there.

We can also look at this from a very human perspective. Fads tend to change over time to reflect what is hard to acquire. We see this with the retro bespoke style movement. We can also see this, interestingly, through sociological studies on skin color treatments. In most northern European and North American countries, historically, tanning and skin darkening has been a sign of beauty, while in tropical countries it has been much more likely to be the case that skin lightening treatments have been signs of beauty. Simply put, things that are harder to come by are seen as valuable for the very reason that they are harder to come by.

So, it is very likely that over time, as it becomes increasingly easier to execute on functions and outputs that differentiate businesses today, it will end up being the things that businesses cannot do today, that new technology will eventually allow them to do, that will be competed on most fiercely. Those new functions and outputs will be harder to execute on, and therefore more valuable to customers. Those new functions and outputs will be at the cutting edge of technology, and therefore necessarily need human input and humans to work alongside the technology. And because those new functions and outputs will be harder to compete on, businesses will look for ways to gain an advantage. And that will often mean hiring more people to perform in very different-looking roles, but nonetheless, hiring people.

This will mean that in the not-to-distant future all the functions that we currently understand that need to be accounted for in a company may be able to be executed on by one person and a cadre of AI agents. However, the new frontier in business will be the functions and outputs that differentiate one business from another in customer service, in efficiency, and in product-to-market capabilities. These things will always exist at the vanguard of technological improvement, therefore always necessitating some level of human involvement and teamwork between humans and technology.

So, what does this all mean for planning and strategy decisions in the coming years? We don’t know exactly what the world will look like once AI tools are more ubiquitous, but it seems a safe bet to assume that it will be very important to focus resources on how to build productive relationships between AI tools and highly skilled workers. In many cases, this will mean investing in people and processes that focus on how to input information into tools, and how to extract information and usable outputs from those tools that can be leveraged by those highly skilled workers in order to make themselves more efficient.

Thinking about the problem from this angle can help business leaders think about tools, operational models, and organizational charts in a way that supports the world as we know it and the potential future world that is still unclear and evolving.

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Canopy Expert Advisor Dan Greenberg is a revenue leader with general management background and an outstanding track record of growing revenue organizations through thought leadership and operational rigor, as well as developing internal and external relationships and partnerships.

Interested in bringing top-tier fractional experts like Dan into your organization? Tell us about your project here.

The post The AI Economy: Why The Reality Is Likely Different Than the Hype appeared first on Canopy Advisory Group.

For companies in the $5 to $25 million revenue range, and especially those selling services, there are many ways to manufacture growth. Healthy and sustainable growth, however, requires the right structure, the right people and the right mindset, as well as the ability to seize the opportunity when presented.

In this article, I share my thoughts on what it really takes to scale a business. My goal is to move beyond generic tips and Silicon Valley platitudes, offering real-world insights for founders and leaders facing the practical and often personal challenges of growth.

Growth Requires Letting Go

Let’s start with the hardest truth: if you want to scale, you have to stop doing everything yourself. In a service business, that means giving up billable hours, handing off client relationships, and delegating decisions. It often means making less money personally, at least for a while.

Many founders wrestle with this, and rightly so. When you’ve built a business around your own expertise, it feels counterintuitive to step back. But it’s the only way to create leverage, because scaling is contingent on your ability to enable others to do what you do well.

One example that has stuck with me came from a conversation with a leader selling his business. His secret to success? Growing by trial and error and experimentation. 

This leader invested heavily in a team of young salespeople during a high-growth push, and he got results fast. He knew that an investment in a salesperson wasn’t their annual salary and bonus, because within three months he would know if he had the right resource. If he needed to, he could cut his risk and his costs at any time.  

But the real key?  This leader wasn’t afraid to turn over staff for non-performance.  He treated hiring like a growth experiment, not a permanent commitment. That mindset: decisive, data-driven, risk-forward, and detached from ego, is what allowed him to scale.  

Healthy business growth rarely happens by accident. It usually requires a decision to invest in something that seems risky, whether it’s people, technology, geography, or a new vertical. According to Salesforce’s 2024 State of Sales Report, 79% of sales leaders reported increased revenue after making strategic investments in people, enablement, or tools. The businesses that grow most rapidly aren’t simply doing more of what they’ve always done. They’re betting on something new. Those that don’t, stagnate.

Processes Will Evolve. Values Shouldn’t.

As your business grows, your processes will evolve. And they should. What worked for 10 employees won’t work for 50. Over time, your culture will shift too, especially as you bring in new leaders and teams. That’s normal.

But your values? They are the bedrock of your organization. Use them in hiring, feedback, and even in client selection. Talk about them at company meetings. Collect the stories of cultural heroes and villains and make them part of the lore of your organization. 

Take the time to define your values clearly. Your values are the glue that holds your company together during the messiness of growth, and they tell people how to behave when you’re not in the room.

Seize Your Breaks. Then Leverage Them.

Every company needs a break. If you grow, you will get your stroke of fortune.  Maybe it’s a marquee client. Maybe it’s a game-changing project. Maybe it’s a big-name hire.

But the mistake is treating the win like a destination instead of a launchpad.

When opportunity knocks, your job is to turn the win into a system. Serve the big client well. Use their name in your marketing or for a reference and understand what was done to win and how you can repeat it. Build a process to win similar clients and projects and embed those lessons into your organizational DNA. 

Strategic leverage is what separates growth spurts from true scale. Don’t just land the big fish. Build a fishing fleet.

Set Real Goals, Not Hollow Ambitions

A line I hear all too often: “We want to be a $100 million company.”

There’s nothing wrong with big goals. But “$100 million” is often a round number masquerading as a strategy. It sounds impressive, but it’s usually untethered from reality.  

Why $100 million? And how? What needs to be true to reach that level?

If you want to transform this statement from a dream to a goal, start by imagining what your organization looks like at $100 million:

• What markets will you need to play in to win?
• What kind of team will you need? 
• What do your clients and offerings look like?

Then, work forwards and backwards:

• What must change in the next 12 months?
• What do we need to invest in? Where will the money come from?  
• How will we know if we’re successful? Do we have intermediate milestones?
• How does the team at $100 million look different than the team today?
• What are the hard truths about us or our business that we need to face and change?

Set goals based on what you can build, not just what you want to be.The risks of not doing so are real: 44% of growing small businesses report cash flow challenges, and 58% cite rising costs as a major barrier to scaling. And even more daunting, only 0.4% of startups ever grow beyond $10 million in revenue within five years.

Scaling Isn’t Doing More. It’s Doing Differently.

Early-stage businesses succeed through hustle. Mid-stage businesses succeed through systems, and it’s a shift that can be jarring.

As you scale, doing more of what already works is often not the answer. Instead, you need to:

• Replace ad hoc workflows with documented processes
• Move from founder decisions to delegated authority
• Upgrade your tech stack to match your complexity
• Create and communicate the [your company name here]-way

If your answer to growth is just “work harder,” you’re not scaling. You’re stalling.

Scaling means shifting from heroic effort to organizational capability. This requires strategy. Do the hard work that comes from honest reflection of your organization’s strengths and weaknesses.  

Don’t Outgrow Your Ability to Deliver

It’s easy to get caught up in chasing revenue goals and new logos. But if your ability to deliver lags behind, you’ll burn client trust faster than you build it.

This is especially risky in service businesses. Every new client stretches your team. Every overpromise chips away at morale. And I’ve seen too many firms “negotiate with themselves” by cutting corners, lowering prices or bending commitments to land a deal, only to regret it later.  

Growth should feel uncomfortable. It shouldn’t feel chaotic.

Protect your delivery capability. Price based on the value you create. Hire just ahead of the curve. Invest in training. Say no when you must. Scaling means growing your operational backbone, not just your top line.

To Be a Leader, Build Leaders.

You can’t scale if every decision flows through you. Your real job as a founder or CEO is to build other people’s judgment. That means:

• Coaching, not just managing
• Letting others make (and learn from) mistakes
• Delegating outcomes, not just tasks

If you build strong leaders, they’ll build the business for you. It will feel and be slower at first. But it’s the only way to scale sustainably. And according to surveys of scaling entrepreneurs, three of the top factors they cite for meaningful growth include:

1. Investing in talent and leadership development
2. Adopting digital tools and automation (89% say this is crucial)
3. Focusing on high-margin client segments

Growth invariably brings new challenges for the CEO. A few I’ve seen stump even the most effective leaders at high-growth companies include:

• A sales leader who delivers the goods but leaves a trail of bodies behind them. They’re unpleasant or arrogant or worse and the organization resents that leadership doesn’t address it. 
• The people who were with you from the beginning who now feel disenfranchised because they haven’t grown with the company. They feel that they have been pushed down into the organization and further from you as others are hired above them. 
• Replacing B-players with A-players. That’s a good thing, right? Beyond bringing new talents and skills, A-players can be motivated, vocal, and sophisticated, and bring with them a whole new set of expectations around compensation, responsibility, and advancement.  

Your job is to figure out how to handle these new challenges while staying true to your values and enhancing your culture. 

This is What Scaling Really Feels Like.

Most founders don’t hesitate because they lack ambition. They hesitate because they’re smart. Scaling introduces risk: financial, emotional, and reputational. And when the business carries your name, every decision feels personal.

But here’s the truth: trial and error is a scaling strategy and most of those bets pay off, or fail, much faster than we expect. Hiring a senior leader feels like a year-long financial gamble, but you’ll know within months if they’re the right fit. Expanding into a new market may seem risky, yet early feedback can validate, or challenge, your assumptions quickly. And handing over operations isn’t just a symbolic move, it’s a strategic shift that often becomes necessary long before it feels comfortable.

Knowing this means understanding your limitations. You may be the visionary, the rainmaker, the cultural anchor. That doesn’t mean you’re the best person to run daily operations at scale.  Knowing  know when your role should evolve is a strength, not a weakness.

And successful founders know something else: it’s lonely at the edge of growth. The bigger the bet, the fewer people understand it. So if you feel fear, hesitation, or doubt, you’re probably doing it right.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, scaling requires the courage to act even when the path isn’t perfectly clear. Your team, your clients, and your investors need you to make decisions. Sometimes you’ll get it wrong. That’s okay. Make the call, learn from it, clean up the mess if you have to, and move forward. 

Rob Novick is a Canopy Business Strategy Expert with more than 20 years of experience in management consulting, acquisition integration and business planning and ownership. Interested in bringing top-tier fractional experts like Rob into your organization? Tell us about your project here.

 ¹ Entrepreneur 2024
– https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/over-half-of-small-businesses-are-struggling-to-grow/482623; Salesforce 2024
– https://www.salesforce.com/blog/15-sales-statistics; Chase Business Survey
– https://media.chase.com/news/us-small-businesses-change-strategies-chase-survey

² Source: Entrepreneur, 2024
– https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/over-half-of-small-businesses-are-struggling-to-grow/482623

 ³ Source: EY Entrepreneur Ecosystem Barometer, 2025
– https://www.ey.com/en_us/newsroom/2025/06/entrepreneurs-are-confident-their-business-will-grow-this-year

  ⁴ Sources: Entrepreneur HQ
– https://entrepreneurshq.com/small-business-statistics/; and LinkedIn commentary
– https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jennscilabro_quick-question-so-forbes-reported-this-activity-7201968692987899904-z74b

The post Scaling Your Business: What Every $5–25M Leader Needs to Know appeared first on Canopy Advisory Group.

On the surface, though, the concept can seem counterintuitive. Why wouldn’t an in-house team, made up of people who are often experts in their own right and who have a much stronger sense of the business and brand, be set up well for success without considering expert help? Taking the question further, couldn’t an outside expert actually have a detrimental effect on a project due to disruption of team dynamics and a lack of organizational knowledge?

And yet, it’s a fact that many of the projects in which organizations choose to hire an external expert are deemed successful, and especially relative to what in-house teams internally may have been able to achieve in the past. Why is this the case?

Organization-Wide Investment in Project Success

It’s an uncomfortable truth that, in many corporate environments, being on the same team doesn’t always mean being on the same team. Certain people in certain roles may stand to benefit if projects fail, and they often act accordingly. 

More often than not, projects are not killed in one fell swoop, although that does happen. Instead, failure comes from a thousand different cuts, including unnecessary bureaucracy, last-minute stalling on reviews, sidebar conversations and sudden shifts in prioritization. Regardless of the reasons a person may have for slowing down or upending a project, it can be an incredible source of frustration and affect even the most talented and high-powered in-house teams.

An engagement with an outside expert can eliminate a lot of that bureaucracy and politicking for a simple reason: the money for the engagement is coming from a line item and not from people costs. 

This may not seem like a big difference; in many companies, however, it means that the project receives far more scrutiny. And by extension, there are more internal team members who are invested in its success due to their responsibility for the budget, the referral or a variety of other factors. The organization is paying directly for a positive outcome on an important project, and that alone makes the project more likely to get the resources and support it needs from leadership.

For the fractional expert or freelancer, the investment in success is more obvious. The value of their work, what it’s like to do business with them and their overall reputation is on the line. It will either earn them more business and future clients or it won’t; even an engagement that is “fine” but not Earth-shattering is likely more of a negative than a positive.

And for the internal staff that’s not on the company’s leadership team, while they may truly be invested in the success of the company long-term, their surface-level investment in an outside engagement is more tactical. If a fractional or freelance project fails, it means more work on their plates, which, in the age of ever-leaner teams, is something most employees are desperate to avoid.

Access to (Real) Experience at an Affordable Rate

You can have the world’s most capable in-house team, and they will still struggle without the necessary resources, budget and support. Too often, leadership’s response when looking at an area that’s not performing as well as they had hoped is to assume they don’t have the right people or that their people aren’t working hard enough. While either could certainly be the case, it’s more often that the in-house teams don’t have what they need to be successful. As of August 2024, only 33 percent of U.S. workers in Gallup’s Engagement Survey strongly agreed that they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day, and only 46 percent strongly agreed that they knew what was expected of them at work.

Even if you’re the type of leader who understands your team needs help, you still face challenges. Most notably, adding headcount is one of the most difficult processes in any organization, and for good reason. According to the Paycor, labor costs can account for as much as 70 percent of total costs for a business. Thus, even if you are somehow able to get new headcount for your team approved, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to free up enough budget to hire top talent.

Paradoxically, cost is an area where engaging an outside expert can be extremely attractive. Yes, these outside parties are paid at a higher rate that represents their experience and expertise. They are also paid on a time-bound basis, either by project or hourly, and are not paid benefits like insurance or bonuses. As a result, organizations can afford to bring in higher-level experts at a lower overall cost than a mid-range full-time hire. 

Importantly, if your company works with an organization like Canopy Advisory Group who heavily vets every fractional expert in its community, your company will be bringing on an expert with actual experience in the problems you’re trying to solve. If you choose to scroll through LinkedIn to try to find an “expert,” you risk ending up with a consultant who is good at selling themselves but who has never executed anything at the level you need. 

The best experts will provide value well above their overall cost, in both the work and in their impact longer-term, supporting your in-house team with the guidance and in-the-weeds help that they need to make real progress on key projects.

A Blend of Strategic and Tactical Support

Many in-house teams are composed of employees who are meant to play extremely specific roles. Leaders create strategy and manage large teams, specialists support platforms and operations, junior team members focus on blocking and tackling work – you get the idea.

Once again, there are a lot of reasons for this, and it’s not necessarily the wrong approach. It can, however, hamstring in-house teams when it comes to agility and execution. If, due to hierarchy, approval process and extreme specialization, a team takes three weeks to complete a project that should take one, you have a big problem.

Unlike traditional consultants, fractional experts bring a blend of strategic acumen and execution ability, meaning that they can become a contributing member of the team almost immediately. What often helps in-house teams most is working collaboratively with fractional experts and seeing the output, which then helps them adjust and improve their work. This is the longer-term value of fractional engagements that isn’t talked about enough; the impact of ideas, concepts put into practice and inspiration often lingers long after the fractional expert has completed their project.

Outside Support is Often Necessary Due to Barriers Facing In-House Teams

For the most part, organizations don’t need to bring in consultants because in-house teams are incompetent. They need to bring in outside experts because of how hard it can be for in-house teams to get things done.It’s not an indictment of organizational structures and processes as much as it is a fact of life within many companies. 

Organizations look at hundreds of different metrics to determine business health, prioritization, and the success or failure of projects. Smart business owners and leaders are greenlighting fractional engagements to help solve key business problems for a wide range of reasons. The one that will almost always matter most is better outcomes.

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Are you looking for a better way to get your projects across the finish line, on time, and under budget? Canopy can help you find the right fractional expert, onboard them quickly, and ensure a speedy and successful engagement. 

Tell us about your project today at canopyadvisory.com. 

The post Why Does Adding Outside Experts Help Teams Deliver Better Outcomes? appeared first on Canopy Advisory Group.

In business, however, and especially when it comes to different ways of working, myths can be more dangerous. They can set us down a certain path, false assumptions held tightly in our hands, without the benefit of real experience and knowledge.

The reason myths persist, however, is that there is some level of truth in them. If they were wholly unbelievable, they would slowly fade. Many of the myths about fractional work and consulting fall into this category. Someone, somewhere had an experience with fractional work or consulting that spawned the idea that “every fractional and consulting engagement is or will be just like this.”

In reality, these outlying experiences tend to be more exception than rule. To help us layer reality on top of some of the biggest myths about fractional work, we asked our Canopy expert advisors for help in identifying those they hear the most (and what the actual truth is in nearly every case).

MYTH #1: “Fractional hires are too expensive for non-profits and small businesses.”

THE REALITY: Interestingly enough, startups and early-stage companies were among the first to embrace fractional work. The reason? Because hiring fractional team members is often the more cost-effective option than bringing on full-time employees. In some cases, those savings could be significant, with Forbes estimating that the fractional model could cut employers’ payroll costs 30-40% vs. full-time employment. For organizations with tight budgets like many small businesses and early-stage companies, and those who need to keep overhead minimal like non-profits, fractional can be an extremely attractive option precisely because of its cost-effectiveness.

MYTH #2: “Fractional experts run up big bills and don’t deliver results.”

THE REALITY: This myth is derived, whether right or wrong, from a negative view of the value of consulting at a general level. While consulting and fractional work are similar, there are critical differences. Most notably, while all fractional work is consulting, not all consulting is fractional work. True fractional experts offer a “best of both worlds” approach between high-level consulting and freelancing in that they provide both strategy and tactical execution; consultants generally offer only strategy while freelancers generally offer only tactics.

Due to the nature of the work, both the perceived and actual value of fractional work is likely to be more in-line with expected outcomes and results. In terms of the “big bills” myth, while it is true that many fractional experts are paid at significantly higher hourly rates than freelancers, because fractional resources primarily work on a project basis, the costs for an organization remain far lower than other options, including hiring full-time staff members. Organizations hiring fractional resources get access to the very best in expert talent without paying benefits, longer-term salaries or bonuses, driving better results at a much more reasonable cost.

MYTH #3: “Fractional experts don’t care about the company they’re working with.”

THE REALITY: In a recent survey of our community of experienced Canopy fractional experts, this myth came up in many of the open-ended responses. Fractional experts want companies to know that, although they are often working for a limited time or in a limited capacity, this does not affect their interest in integrating themselves completely into organizations. Most take pride in learning company core values and becoming a true part of the team during their engagements. There may be isolated situations where a fractional resource remains detached from a team or organization throughout a relationship, but that would be the rare exception.

MYTH #4: ”This fractional resource will solve all of our problems.”

THE REALITY: The “fractional expert as business panacea” trap can be surprisingly easy to fall into. After all, you’ve chosen and vetted an elite expert to come into your organization and you want to believe that pulling the fractional lever is the one thing you need to do to get your business moving in the right direction or growing faster.

Make no mistake, if you bring in the right fractional expert and set the right expectations, a single project can have a tremendous impact on your business. That said, one of the things that makes fractional work so valuable is that a fractional resource is brought in to solve very specific problems based on their expertise. Imagine that it’s the heat of the summer and you’ve inflated and filled up a kiddie pool. Unfortunately, the pool is leaking. If you’ve identified a single hole in the fabric of the pool, there’s a good chance that you could stop the leak by plugging that hole. If there are multiple holes, plugging one might slow the leak, but will not solve the overarching problem.

The point being that it’s important to look at the value of fractional work for what it’s meant to do: solve specific problems with project-based work (not magically cure every organizational ill in a six-month timeframe).

MYTH #5: “They create a plan then leave chaos in their wake.”

THE REALITY: The “drop a 50-slide PowerPoint deck on the team and leave” myth about fractional work is another that is a result of poor consulting practices. As noted, the critical difference between consulting and fractional work is that most fractional resources participate in the execution of the strategy vs. providing only recommendations.

Beyond the fact that this provides better value for most organizations, the greatest benefit often comes in the positive impact of fractional engagements on internal company staff. Because fractional experts are both creating strategy and implementing it, most make a concerted effort to coach and train employees in their clients’ organizations to ensure that those employees can take the strategy and run with it when the engagement is complete. Watching how a fractional expert works in-real time can provide an incredible amount of value from a development perspective.

MYTH #6: “They use generic playbooks for every engagement.”

THE REALITY: There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a playbook. Every consultant, fractional expert and freelancer is likely to have one, as they need to have a framework or model to be able to articulate and sell their services. The issue arises when a consultant keeps the playbook at too high of a level, providing a generic framework that doesn’t customize to fit the true needs of a business.

That’s precisely how this myth was born, and it’s one of the most common complaints from clients of some of the large consulting shops. For fractional experts, it’s about providing a balance between having a strong framework to apply to organizations and ensuring that they’re providing differentiated value within that framework that the client couldn’t get anywhere else.

MYTH #7: “Being an outsider means they can’t understand our problems.”

THE REALITY: This extremely common myth is a function both of poor experiences with consultants and the resentment that can arise when an organization brings in an expert from the outside to look at any part of a business. Sure, there are likely situations where a consultant or a fractional expert doesn’t do the work to really get to know a business, and those relationships are doomed to fail from the very beginning. In most cases, however, understanding the root business problems, what’s been tried before and the overall dynamics of the business are all implied in the mandate of a fractional expert. It’s part of what they’re paid to do.

In our survey of Canopy expert advisors this year, our fractional experts told us that bringing an outside perspective is often precisely what does help solve problems that may have been difficult for internal teams to see or execute against given their other responsibilities. So this myth can be flipped on its head; an outside perspective can be the most valuable part of a fractional engagement.

MYTH #8: “They’ll just tell us what we already know.”

THE REALITY: Is there an outside chance this could happen? Sure. But the odds are extremely low. While every recommendation may not be brand new, the role of a fractional expert is to provide the right guidance needed to solve business problems. If they’re doing their jobs, known issues will certainly be a part of what a fractional expert uncovers. Fractional experts are paid what they’re paid for a reason, and as a result, what an organization gets back will go far deeper than a surface level.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to bring the right fractional experts into your organization, check out our guide, Making Fractional Work for You, or send us a note here.

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