Fractional COO
The one you call when something’s wrong and you can’t say what.
I’m a fractional COO for founder-led businesses, pre-start-up to £100m. I find what nobody in the business is saying out loud, then I fix it. Leader first. Then the team. Then the process.
The plain version
What a fractional COO actually is.
A chief operating officer runs the business so the founder can run the company. A fractional one does that without being on the payroll. Part of the week, part of the year, or a line kept open for when it goes sideways.
A GP for your business.
You call a GP when something’s wrong and you can’t say what. You do not turn up with a diagnosis. You turn up with a symptom and a feeling, and they work out the rest.
That is the job. You do not need to know what it is before you ring.
A full-time hire you cannot unwind.
A COO on payroll is a big hire, a long notice period and a bet on one person. Most founder-led businesses need the judgement, not the headcount. Not yet, anyway.
Fractional gets you the judgement now.
When the thing has moved.
I find the roadblock, name it, and fix it. Then I leave. Some people keep a line open afterwards. Nobody sits on a retainer they have stopped needing.
When you call one
You know the feeling. You just can’t name it yet.
Five of the ways it usually shows up. Pick the one that made you wince. It is normally connected to two of the others.
Deals are slowing.
Nothing dramatic. Just longer, quieter, and more of them going nowhere. Everyone has a reason and none of the reasons add up to the number.
The team says yes and nothing changes.
Meetings end early. Plans come back approved. And the same problem turns up again in slightly different clothes, because it is being worked round rather than raised.
Cash is tighter than anyone knows.
You know. Maybe one other person knows. Everyone else thinks it is fine because you keep saying it is fine, and that sentence is getting harder to say.
A website that brings nothing in.
People have been on it and still cannot tell what you do. Every deal is you, one meeting at a time, and it has been that way for years.
Running a function you’ve never run.
Finance, ops, sales, people. You are the most senior person in it and you have never done the job. Everyone assumes you have. You are not going to tell them otherwise.
Somebody asks how business is, and you say fine.
That is the actual symptom. The rest are where it shows.
How I do it differently
Most operators start with the process. I start with you.
Because the process is the bit you can see, and a team is never more honest than the person running it. A new process never survives old thinking. So the order is fixed, and it is not the order most people expect.
The leader.
You first. The thing you can’t say in your own meetings, the decision you keep circling, the bit where you are not sure whether the problem is the business or you. You leave with it named, and the first move made.
Then the team.
Every person who matters, one at a time, alongside you and never as a separate stream. You get what I am finding. Never who said it. They need the same safety you do or none of it works.
Then the process.
Follow the treacle back to the decision nobody made. Make it. Then rebuild how the place runs around the new answer, instead of bolting a fix onto the old one.
Hand you a document and leave.
The work ends on a difference, not on a deck. Logged, tracked, shared. I stay until it has actually moved, and I chase you until it does.
Tell you what I think.
Calls you out when you need it. Talks you up when you have earned it. I am not from your industry, not on your payroll, and not attached to how it has always been done. That is the only reason you can believe a word of it.
The proof
I have run the job. That is the whole credential.
Sixteen years of P&Ls, boardrooms, payroll and contracts. I have sold, hired, fired, launched, scaled and closed, and lived with what happened next.
Before you book
The ones people ask.
If yours is not here, ask it on the call. Nothing is a daft question and none of it will offend me.
What does a fractional COO actually do day to day?
How is that different from a consultant?
How much of your time do I get?
Do you take a title in the business?
Who is it for?
What does it cost?
Will any of this get back to my board?
Related: how the work runs, when your team stops telling you the truth, and what actually moved.
Where to start
You do not need to know what it is. That is what the twenty minutes is for.
Free. Video or phone. Nothing to prepare. If I am not the right person I will say so, and I usually know who is.