Fractional COO Natalie Hoop on the operational clarity that lets founders finally let go — built for founders feeling stretched, startup operators hitting a ceiling, and senior leaders going fractional.
GROWTH PILLAR: Leadership & Ops
WHO THIS IS FOR: Founders feeling stretched / Startup operators hitting a growth ceiling / Senior leaders considering the fractional model / Solopreneurs building for scale
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: A clear framework for finding the real bottleneck, practical steps for building business systems that run without you, and an honest map for launching a sustainable fractional practice.
Most founders don't realize they built the problem. Every decision runs through them. Every approval needs them. Every strategy lives in their head. And then the business stops growing — not because the market dried up, but because the founder became the ceiling.
Natalie Hoop is a fractional COO who works with Seed to Series B startups at the exact moment chaos starts costing money. She steps into founder-led businesses, finds the root cause of stalled momentum, and rebuilds the business systems that let everything move without the founder in the middle.
Her results speak plainly. A 238% increase in sales. A 68-point margin improvement. Four months.
In this episode Natalie covers:
She also walks through the Founder Operations Audit — a four-week structured review that surfaces the real gaps before your next big hire or strategic move.
Connect with Natalie:
— PARTNERS ON THIS EPISODE —
Profit10™ — Take the free Profit Snapshot and find out what's really holding your business back. Ten questions. Plain language. Real clarity.
Notionhive — Websites built to perform, not just look good. If your site isn't generating leads, Notionhive can fix that.
Profit10™ Partner Program — Coaches, consultants, and fractional advisors: the Profit10 partner program gives you a structured diagnostic to turn discovery calls into paid advisory conversations.
Next Steps
Bernie (00:22)
Question for the audience: Why does your business feel stuck, even when you're working harder than ever? That's the question our guest answers.
She helps founders stop being the ceiling in their own business by replacing chaos with structure, clearing bottlenecks, and rebuilding the systems that actually let growth happen. If you're a founder, a startup operator, or a senior leader, wondering whether the fractional model is your next move, this episode is your roadmap. Our guest today is Natalie Hoop. She's a fractional strategic operations leader who partners with Seed to Series B startups.
At the exact moment chaos starts to cost them money. She goes inside their founder led businesses, removes the bottlenecks slowing growth, rebuilds revenue and delivery systems, and creates the kind of operational clarity that actually unlocks scale. Her results speak plainly a 238% increase in sales and a sixty eight point margin improvement within four months. Natalie's philosophy is simple.
Resilience in the business comes from structure, not chaos. And that belief shapes every system she builds and every leader she works with. For senior leaders ready to launch their own fractional practice, she created the Fractional Launch Lab, a coaching program designed to help them do sustainability and on their own terms.
Today she joins us to talk about what it really takes to turn stalled momentum into measurable results. Natalie, absolute pleasure having you here today. Welcome. Do you have a favorite quote or saying?
Natalie (01:50)
Yeah. one of my favorite ones is that clarity creates momentum. I I really have found that one of the biggest issues companies and individual people even face is that they stall when they really don't understand where what their main north store star is, what their goal is, and they can't make the right decisions to get there. So it becomes this chaotic mess that.
really just causes a bottleneck. So if you want your company to move, we gotta get clear on things.
Bernie (02:19)
You have a tagline you work with too?
Natalie (02:21)
Yeah, helping founders scale without stalling or burning out their team.
Bernie (02:25)
That's nice. I hate falling. It always hurts. So what what what was the moment that made you realize, hey, the founders are their own roadblock? Like yeah.
Natalie (02:35)
Yeah, yeah. It, you know, honestly, I it's always been a pattern, but it's not one that I understood until I really had my first fractional client. And what I realized was, you know, he brought me in specifically because he couldn't do everything. You know, he had a team, he had a ton of contractors as well. And the opportunity he kept having was he was working like 80 hours a week and he still wasn't seeing the results he wanted.
So as I was digging in, I just found that every decision ran through him. Every meeting had to happen through him. Every strategy decision was through him. Every approval was through him. And he hadn't realized that he had built the processes and the company to operate that way. specifically because he didn't know another way to do it. He just had a vision and didn't know how to make it happen. So the way that he was able to control that.
ended up becoming the bottleneck and they were missing deadlines and projects were overdue and they weren't hitting their targets.
Bernie (03:36)
So it sounds like micromanagement is the not ego necessarily. Ego helps because you have to have that if you're if you're launching, but the micromanagement piece. When you say fractional, what does that mean to to the audience as opposed to like fractional sounds I'm breaking like I'm fract fracturing something as opposed to what it actually is. What's fractional mean?
Natalie (03:56)
So it's it's a term that's existed for decades, but it's honestly just become really more popular since COVID happened. The idea is when you're a small business and so resources are really tight and you need someone to come in and help you. So the trade-off is, I'm gonna hire somebody that's at a really junior level. They come in, they work full time, and we'll get where we need to go. The opportunity though.
Is that they don't know where they need to go and they don't have the experience to create strategy or coach or help the founder get where they want to be. But of course, you know, you don't want to bring in a $200,000, $300,000 salary. On top of that, you get time off and benefits and all your company can't afford it. So what a fractional does is it's somebody that comes in and helps part-time.
Who has done this for a living for decades? And so for me, companies bring me in. I usually work, you know, 10 hours a week. I could go up to 20 depending on the company. And the idea is that I go in and I actually create the strategy for operations. And then either I execute it or I also help the team execute it. So you get everything all in one. And what should happen with fractional employees is the company should graduate.
So you shouldn't need me forever. The goal is at some point, I've either trained your team or gotten your company where it needs to go. And then you can hire a junior level person to just focus on executing it.
Bernie (05:26)
It sounds like you this is all based on personal experience that you've encountered in in your own life from like whence you came. What's the backstory in that?
Natalie (05:36)
So my background's really unique. I love kind of giving the whole picture. So I actually started my career in retail as a store manager and multi-unit manager. And the reason I always bring that up is it allowed me to have the great experience of understanding the whole ecosystem of a company. So everything, how sales and operations and inventory and customer satisfaction and how everyone needs to work together. I loved it.
but then I got bored after a couple of decades, decades. And so I moved into startups. I fell into a startup. I never knew what a startup was, never had any friends that work for startups. And I loved it. But when I went in, most people that join don't have that really full experience. And so they're very siloed. They're only focused on their team or their company or their their department.
And what ended up really happening was I'd go in, somebody would talk to me about something, and I'd be like, that's great. Have you thought about A, B, and C? How are we doing that? And they'd all be like, What do you mean? What's A, B, and C? We've never done that before. And I'm like, I've done it before. Like I can help you. We can talk about it. And so it really became this understanding of one of the biggest, I just shouldn't say challenges, but one of the things I saw as a pattern was I was going into these companies.
And really aligning the departments, getting clarity, and really getting us all on the same page. And loved it, but then found after a couple of years it wasn't a challenge anymore. So I kept switching companies, which led to me saying, how do I help multiple companies at a time, stay really engaged, make a huge impact, and then be able to go find my next challenge? And that's where I learned about fractional.
Bernie (07:19)
As as we were describing the in the intro, we said something about chaos. And when you first start something out, there's always a little bit of chaos. So you figure out, you know, w where where the boundaries are of the guardrail, so to speak.
How how do you go from chaos, cause if something's not a hundred percent yet, if you've never if you've never seen an elephant before and you're building one, right? What does the elephant look like? no idea. You know, except it's very, very large and heavy. How do you assemble where you're going from the the chaos to the structure? Like how how what's what are the steps involved to bring that to
because I think this brings you to the standard operating procedures that have to be in place so that you're not always having to make the decision but someone can. How how do you get from to to the
Natalie (08:04)
Yeah, so there's two kind of aspects there, right? There's the answer to your question. And then the first thing I think even needs to happen before that, which is what are your OKRs? What are your goals? Where do you see the company in one year? Because you can bring anyone into the company and they can make changes and align and but if it's not going to help you get to where you want to go, then it's pointless. You've just wasted a lot of money.
So before I even do anything, I go into a company and I really need to understand if everything's running perfect, if you've got no money issues, no personnel issues, everything's perfect. Where are you one year from now? Where do you feel like your company's going to be? And a lot of times they know exactly I feel this, like I'm not working 80 hours. my team's making decisions without me. But a lot of it's like, I need revenue.
Or I need to do a fundraising in one year. And so I need to have all this stuff set up in order to close that fundraising. So it's like items like that. So once I know that, then I can go and say, okay, in order to get here, these are the three biggest projects we should work on to get there. And at that point, then it's okay, how do we fix it? What really is the root cause? What's causing it?
And so the first is scoping. I've got to pull whatever I can pull. So if there's reporting and data, I've got to talk to the people who are living and breathing it. I've got to hear from their side. And then I kind of go through the process. Like I walk myself through it as an external user, usually like your customer or client. And what ends up happening is everyone kind of knows what the root problem is and the root cause, but there's too much other noise in the way.
So they don't really talk about it. It's like, if I could just fix this one thing, it'll all go away. No, there is a root cause. So once I identify that, then I create a very basic process that we test, we try, it's very short-lived. Great. Once we know that that solves the root problem, then we optimize it. AI, automation. How do we remove it? So no, it doesn't come back every five minutes. And I that's how I look at everything when I go into companies.
Bernie (10:13)
When's the best time? Is is the best time when it's the planning stage, I haven't started the business or I've started the business and I've gotten to a point where I'm I'm you know, it it's sort of like growing into your clothes at a certain point in time they're not gonna fit so well. You know. when's the best time to cross connect? And when you do that, how often do you come back and revisit to make sure you're on they they themselves are on target?
Natalie (10:37)
So I believe the best time is what you said when the clothes are no longer fitting. And my hesitation, like my soul always says, go in and build the ops first. You need the foundation. And I believe that. But especially with companies, there's a lot of pivoting. I mean, I I have worked for, I have been a fractional 1099 person for companies, multiple.
where they think they know where they're going. And then six months into the line, they're like, we're gonna change our product completely. So too early is bad. Like you have to have a main understanding of who your customer is, the product you're gonna sell, you have to understand your product market fit enough that it makes sense to start putting these processes in place. So I like that analogy of, hey, like you like that shirt, you know the style that fits you, it's just too small now.
Great, that's where you bring me in. Because now I'll set all of that up and that you should be able to scale. In terms of bringing me back, it depends on the company. So some bring me back when they're adding a layer to the organization. So it could be something as simple as we have a new product that we're adding, or we have decided, you know, one company I was talking to the other day, they've decided to bring their entire outsourced engineering team.
in-house. Okay, great. This might be when you know you need me to kind of set this up because there's a big transition. but again it depends. If if they're large enough that I've installed the right people and they have the finances for that, they won't she shouldn't need me again. Sometimes they'll just have me come back as an advisor. I'd give them some advice and then their team goes and executes.
Bernie (12:16)
So operational clarity. What does that mean? Is it is it like e everybody knows the role to play or is it is it some confusion or is is it the forecasting or is it like day-to-day stuff?
Natalie (12:29)
I think I think operational clarity is how does your organization function at its core? So I would even remove product, operations, engineering, like remove all of it, sales. The idea is how do you function? Do you collaborate? Are you siloed? Do you do cross-functional teams? Does your company function to that point where everyone's got to approve everything and it takes six months to get anything across the line? Because
You know, everyone's got to redo it. It's understanding how do you function as a company, which is how does your company operationally function. Once you know that and get that clarity, you give a lot of freedom to your employees to just go without. The concern usually happens with employees is they don't know what you're okay with. And so they're afraid to go this way, they're afraid to move that because they don't have that.
Clarity on what is okay, what needs approval. So then they overcompensate and push everything to the founder or their boss because they're just so concerned about getting reprimanded. So to me, the first part of operational clarity is how do you communicate with each other? How do you move projects through? How do you set goals? How do you communicate with each other? And
What are the things that are not important to the company at all and they do not care how you do it? Or these are the things that are so important that we need to make sure we get them right on the first trend.
Bernie (14:00)
How does it how long does it take a person to you know the habit's been formed, they they've built the company up, maybe a a couple of years in, and how long does it take to let go and just, you know, relax? 'Cause literally it's like it's either that or you know, you have to take medication, either recreational or otherwise, to to let go. So how how long does it take to typically to let the rains let let things flow accordingly?
Natalie (14:27)
It really depends on the founder and it depends on how much they want the control. So there are some founders who say, I don't want any control, but deep down they want that control. Like they may not think they do, but they just cannot let that go. And then there are other founders who really do not want control at all. But there's a trust issue. So in that case, it's how soon can we show trust exists and build that trust?
So that they let go. I find that with most founders, it usually takes about 90 days. And that should be enough to go in, build the communication strategy, or at least build a few high win items that they understand. this does work. I don't need to be involved.
This is is successful and I already see needles moving. So if that's what's happening, then they're much more apt to just keep letting go and letting go, letting go. but as I said, it really does depend on a founder. I have one client. She called me up on a Sunday. And no, I normally don't take calls on Sundays. She was like hysterical. She broke the system, she went in trying to help out. It wasn't her forte, but she just felt
guilty and bad about throwing more work on anyone. So she went in and she broke it. And she was like in a panic. And I said, yeah, I can fix this. But before we even talk about that, let's go back. Why did you do this? And again, it was a lot of guilt and this needed to get done and everyone's doing too much and everyone's over like the whole, you know, the whole like going down the rabbit hole in her head, right?
And I said, yeah. And I said, but something that for you, like we all have our zone of geniuses. So I can do that and take care of it in 30 minutes. You spent six hours and broke something. Is was that a really good use of your time though? And we talked about it, we went a whole bunch of stuff. And I said, I need you to read this article. And I swear, I talk about this article all the time. It is called give away your Legos.
By Molly Graham. Search it on Google. It is fabulous. But I sent it to her. And it really is this conversation of if you want to keep growing as a leader, you have to let go of things and really truly let it go because you only have capacity to do so much. You'll never grow and get all the stuff up here if you are focused on this. And she said, you're right.
Like she read it, she wrote a LinkedIn post about it. It was great. And she said, Yeah, you're right. And I haven't, she hasn't had that. So she's very apt to give away things. And like even yesterday, she sent me something and she said, I got this email. I feel like this is something you should be taking care of. Do you want to take a look at it? And I was like, Yeah, I got it. Great. No problem. So like in her head, it's not the I gotta do this. It's this isn't my zone of genius. Should I really be the one doing that?
Or should I be trusting my team to take care?
Bernie (17:29)
You find that if the person has some understanding but doesn't have the zone of genius in that particular space, that they're they're more likely to release it once they know that it can go to somebody as opposed to someone going, you know,
You're talking about tax planning, et cetera. Yeah, there's numbers involved. And I can't read a a PL statement for love or money. You know, it i i I there's numbers there, that's me. and there's you know looks kinda good here at the end, but everything in between is like, huh? Is it is it that level of discomfort for them for them to let go? Or or they have if they have a bit of knowledge that they're
They so they understand what's going on but they don't have to put their finger in in the in the in the they don't have to be the cook in in the in the recipe of the whole thing.
Natalie (18:15)
I would say it's definitely the like finance is a huge one. It's I hate it, I don't like it, I don't have the skill set. Like I'm totally okay letting that go. The where it gets messy is where trust is broken before, even if they hate a task or don't like it. So there are a lot of founders that you know I've worked with that they don't want to let go because they've gotten burned in the past. Like I
And again, I'm using this as an example. Like I don't like customer service. So I immediately let go. And then I found out that no one was answering calls. So now I can never let that go because I've been burned. So it's the two-factor there. So they could still hate finances, but if they've gotten burned by it, they really hold on tight. but to your point, if they hate finances and there's someone that will take it on, they're like, please.
You know, I'm talking with a potential new client and she's 100% said to me on on our second call, like, I know my zone of genius is sales. I know it. That's what I'm good at. I don't want to do anything else, not because I don't want to do it, but sales are what I can do and what I need to do where my company is at right now. I need these other pieces taken over by somebody, either in my team or hired or what, because those right now are stopping me from the sales, which is what I need to work on.
It's very I mean that's that's great, but a lot of founders don't have that insight.
Bernie (19:39)
You may have an instance as you were just talk talking about the person goes, I'm really good at sales. But if the company scales up, right, at a certain point in time, you can't be the it's like owning a garage if you're the mechanic, right, and your garage is growing, or you're the the dentist and your your c your clinic's growing. yeah, yes, it's good that you keep in touch with your roots, but you now have to evolve into another position. Or do you hire that position out?
you see it in in in an institutions like large corporation, like in healthcare, there's a board and they'll hire the CEO. The CEO's not a doctor. Well, sometimes they are. Who knows? But you know, you know, on on average, no, they just have an MBA and they have some other worldly experience. How how do you get the person to even let go of what they their zone of genius and then realize they either have to evolve or do you do you evolve them with somebody else to help them so they have a happy state?
Natalie (20:32)
Both. And so let's go into that. So one, that is the whole giveaway your Legos, which is exactly what you said. You have to let that go when your company hits a certain point. One of the things that I find with founders a lot, and this is the same with small business owners or anyone, is the idea of letting go is scary. The idea of someone else doing something that you know you're good at is extremely scary.
But if you don't get coaching as early as possible, if you don't get training and development, you not only become a bottleneck in your company, but your company will never evolve past the stage it's at now. And what happens a lot in the cases is they don't realize it. And in startups, you see this a lot with the board, who you have a founder that's created the company, they get to a series B.
And then the f the boards come in and said you need to be replaced because you're not gonna you can't grow us. This is what happens. The board's not trying to be mad. They're trying, they're not trying to be mean, but you at one point hinder your company because you were so focused on that one part, you don't look at all of the new work that comes down from being a CEO. Things you didn't have to do when you were a seed or series A. And
This is one of the things I talk a lot about. So there's, I mean, I do coaching for some founders, but there is just like everyone, you outgrow. You need to keep getting executive coaches. So I do have a lot of people that I will refer people out to, depending on the stage, and say, okay, you are at the stage you need this person. I also think this is when your board of directors really is important because if you have the right board of directors.
They will also be helping you coach and grow. but you have to be open to it. And I think a lot of founders have a lot of ego in it because again, it's their baby. They created it, but then it stays a baby. It doesn't get to adulthood. And that's the whole goal. You want it to get to adulthood so you can exit or whatnot and reap the rewards.
Bernie (22:35)
Do you find the two things that come come to mind as to help release the release the the child to grow, so to speak. Dashboards and almost like doing operant conditioning, you know, there there's a reward cycle. It's it's working out well. You know, we eat, we satiate our our our stomach, you know, carry on if it tastes good and you know, it's a lot of positives regardless of what we're dieting on or not dieting on.
Do you find that in the f for the owner or operator to relax a bit, they have to trust the dashboard that not that it could be messed with, but the the the dashboard will give always a a truth. And and then like you've you had that two hundred per two hundred percent increase, right? I mean that like wow. If that doesn't rock your socks, nothing will. Are those things then that just you know
puts that person at ease and having the dashboard and having that type of uptick on on business activity.
Natalie (23:33)
Sometimes yes, and again, sometimes no. I have you ever read the book, The Four Disciplines of Execution? I want to say it's by Stephen Covey, but I could be wrong on the author. So please forgive me. But it really explains a lot. It was a training that I went through, it was fabulous, but it it talks a lot about how companies, what they do is everything is urgent and important when it comes to a dashboard. So
You a company will sit there and say, we need to have a 90% customer satisfaction score. Well, everyone focuses then on hitting that number, but no one focuses, it's too reactive. At that point, it's already happened. So you need to figure out what are the levers you need to change in order to adjust that total number to get the result you want. In addition, the company can't do everything.
The recommended is two or three big goals. Anything past that, you can't do well as a company. And I think it's a really great tool, and it's one I talk a lot about because sometimes with dashboards, even if they trust the numbers, they look at everything to a point. And sometimes a number is just a number. It doesn't actually tell you the real story on what's going on. So I like looking at
dashboards as a tool in addition to other things. So it should be a piece of information. It shouldn't be everything. And yes, there are a lot of clients and founders who only rely on dashboards, they do themselves a disservice. And others who never look at a dashboard and also do themselves a disserv a disservice. It's it is a mix. You got to use it. You got to look at it. You got to understand it.
But you have to understand that by that point it's the numbers too late. You got to figure out what is causing this cycle.
Bernie (25:19)
I believe the the four disciplines of execution is written by Chris Ma Machenzi.
Natalie (25:25)
Probably right now.
Bernie (25:26)
No, I'm I'm looking at it right now. I did a I did a quick research. The fractional launch lab. What's that all about? Are you are you are you fracting for oil or what?
Natalie (25:35)
Well, okay, let's be honest. we all live in a world where we're told security is your career ladder. You want to keep going up and up and up. And usually what happens is somebody goes through some type of life transition and they're like, I really don't want to work for anyone. I want to work for myself. But there's no real kind of educational system in how to get you there.
So you do what I did, which is you learn by trial and error and make a ton of mistakes that cost you a lot of money and a lot of heartache and a lot of mental exhaustion because you didn't know what you didn't know. And so I started doing fractional in 2023. That's when I took on my first client. And I talked to a hundred fractionals, you know, asked them for tips and tricks and whatnot, and found that in a lot of cases,
They all had the same opportunities I did. So I I just realized that I needed to have a blueprint for people. I needed to have a blueprint print for people who had fallen into fractional or wanted to become fractional and didn't had no idea where to start. So they could skip over my first year and a half of mess that I put myself through because in my head, I really believe that independent.
entrepreneurship is going to keep growing, especially as the employer, employee landscape is changing. And so the more of us that are successful, the better it is for everyone.
Bernie (26:55)
So do you is this like a a session you hold for people or how how do they how do they kind of tune into this this experience?
Natalie (27:04)
Yeah, so I do offer free workshops all the time. So feel free to follow my LinkedIn for those. But in this case, the Fractional Launch Lab is a one-on-one coaching program. It's one hour of coaching each week for 10 weeks. And then you get homework. I know, but I give you homework and templates. My goal is you shouldn't need me after you've done that. So if you'd want to change your business, just use all those templates again and everything you've learned to redo that.
and then if you're an existing fractional, I have a shorter program called the fractional reset, where we're just resetting your business and that's four weeks. And again, one-on-one. And I'm there async through emails and answer all of your questions. And the goal is you walk out and you're like, okay, I have a solid business plan. I know where I'm going. I know how to get clients. I know how to get off the feast and famine side.
Bernie (27:54)
Sustainability. We've we've touched on it before in the hi here's my client and work it and but also for the fractional person. So what is sustainability and what does that mean? Does it mean I'm I'm buying plastic Tupperware or or am I using glassware? I I I'm joking around there but
Natalie (28:12)
I
know you are, but I laugh because it is true. Like I wish I operated in a environmentally sustainable way, but no. No. look, being a founder, being a business owner, being anyone is hard. Life is hard. You know, it's never gonna be all rainbows and unicorns and kittens, right? But the idea is that if your life is hard all of the time.
Then there is something operationally wrong. There is a structure that is missing. And we have heard so much about this hustle culture. And even for fractionals, I hear so many people that say to me, I've got to work a hundred hours a week and underprice myself and really do that because it's the only way I'm if I'm not doing it, then I'm not an owner. It's not sustainable. You break down, you
You end up having poor service with your clients. You don't live the life you want. You're never with your family or your friends or doing your hobbies. Why are you doing this to yourself? It beats the purpose of doing this on your own or having your own company. The purpose of doing that is so you can live the life you want. And I think that that's why I say sustainable a lot is because it is not sustainable to work 80 hours every single week for months on end.
It is not sustainable not to stop and actually eat for lunch. It is not sustainable not to go take a walk when you want. It is not sustainable to miss every kid event that your kids have because you have a client meeting. That's not building a business. That is honestly building a structure that is just going to put you in servitude. And that's that's not good for anyone. So my goal for both companies.
and and fractionals is you build something that is sustainable, that you can keep going for years and years and years and keep growing and be happy with it and filled with joy and and get what you want.
Bernie (30:03)
Someone who is working corporate right now, they have a certain skill set. It almost it almost sounds like it's one of the movies. I have certain skills. and you're on the phone, right? how do you take those skills if someone's looking to exit stage left? either you know voluntarily or there's a restructuring happening, which seems to be happening.
How do you realize, listen, I'm really good at this, whether, you know, whether you're in finance, marketing, manufacturing, logistics, all these different areas. There's really, you know, you've you become a seasoned professional inside a corporate space. I've worked in a corporate space, you know, my my back backstory is business development. How do you how do you get the person to come up and they say, Natalie, you know what? I'm looking to exit stage left, or it's happening.
What do I have to do next? What what are the pieces? what what do they inventory about themselves and what do they have to realize about themselves that's not going to be there? Because the corporate email is not going to follow them, right? Yeah, there's a whole bunch of core yeah. over to you.
Natalie (31:01)
Yeah. The first thing is you've got to understand that your mindset has to completely change. Being a business owner is being the CEO of your own company. No one tells you that. No one talks about it. but what happens, I did it, is that you keep acting like a W-2 employee, except you have contracting clients. You're you're gonna burn out. It's never gonna work. and so the first is okay, are you of the mindset of being an owner?
If you're not, it's time to start getting in that mindset. The second is
When people start a business, they usually are like, I'm great at X. So therefore, that's naturally what I have to do. The point of starting a business is do something you actually like, work with people you actually enjoy, and be paid for it. And so I always tell people they have to figure out who they want to work with, who are the clients they actually enjoy, and what type of work do you want to do. And then once you do do that, it's
Why would I hire you to do that over anyone else? And it's usually the easiest thing that comes naturally to you that you just assume everyone else can do. it's a lie. If it's really easy to you, chances are no one else can do it. And so you have to explain that's why you bring you in. so I have a client right now, she's actually a former business owner who's decided to change her business over to fractional. and
We went through this whole like I go through all this coaching. We went the whole thing. and we came out and it was that she loves psychology, sloves it, and uses psychology in every single marketing decision she makes because she looks at conversion psychology. I said, Do you think every marketer uses psychology when they're making she's like, they don't. I'm like, there you go. You know, I had another client who just graduated and hers was data. She was a marketer.
And we were talking and she she was telling me something about building her own reporting. I was like, you do know that's extremely uncommon for marketers to actually go in and build their own data data room, right? She was like, No, that you have to. And I was like, No, you don't. I said they know how to review reports, but they don't build them. And I was like, that you are a different type of marketer. That makes you unique. And you have to know that.
So people can know who you are, how you work. And that's what I need. I need somebody who is a data marketer who can come in, build all the reporting, tell me where we're going wrong, and make decisions on database because that's as a founder, that's what I need. And so it's really again, it's figuring that piece out. And then after that, there's a ton of op stuff, but we can skip over that. You can learn ops. But the last is really your value.
your worth and building trust with your partners. And I mean your contacts, your network, your family. Your entire business is based based off of relationships and trust. So you've got to know that's there's not an AI software you can buy that's going to bring clients to you, no matter how much everyone wants it to be that way. If it was, I would have bought it earlier.
Bernie (34:00)
So if someone says, listen, I'm a fractional, I'm an expert in the it in a has a good fit in almost any industry, how do they get their word out there? Because you know what? you know, t if tomorrow I planted a corn stalk in my backyard, the only way I know it's there, all of a sudden going, My gosh, that's a tall one, you know, jacking the beanstalk. How do you get the word out that, hey, I've I've I've I've got a I've got a corn stalk. I am or I I am, you know, I'm
This persona and I've got this skill set. How do you how you get them to found?
Natalie (34:32)
I call it visibility. And visibility is going to be what works for you. obviously the most common is LinkedIn. You post, and it doesn't mean you have to keep posting of I'm here. Like it could be thought leadership, it could be articles, it could be, you know, getting people to know you and what you do, right? but visibility could be being on a podcast, it could be speaking events, it could be writing a newsletter, it
I know some people that just love in-person networking events. And that's what they do. They just go meet people and then it naturally comes in conversation. And that's there is no one one right way. It's visibility though. You have to figure out what's natural for you, what's authentic, because everyone can smell a salesy, like icky, that's not right a mile away. You have to feel comfortable and be you.
And be like, I like to do this and this is how I'm gonna get my visibility. Great. One of the things I do is free workshops. I am a talker, can you tell? So I like to get up and give people a bunch of information and say, here you go. I want to help you. And by the way, if you need more help, I'm over here. Ha. And it works great for me. And you know, my contacts love it and whatnot. And it helps spread the word.
Bernie (35:43)
I love it. Do you find that sometimes this is driven by culture, how people operate? Or or even by you know, culture and country usually are hand in hand, but not necessarily so because I I could I could immigrate or migrate to another country and you know bring my culture with me. Is is there a place where you find that the market needs more more Natalie?
And versus, you know, they got it and they you might come in and just tweak them a little bit versus someone going, my gosh, let's get you dressed first before you go out out the door.
Natalie (36:14)
Yeah, it's interesting because Harvard Business Review did a study in 2024, and they predicted that 50% of the global workforce will be fractional consultant freelance contractor by 2030, right? So now again, the study was globally. So I do believe globally in certain countries.
This is a hat that everyone hears about. It's much more open. I think in other countries it's newer. You know, I think maybe in bigger cities, you know, even in the US, like a lot of people in New York and San Francisco might hear about it, but maybe not in Columbus, Ohio. That being said, I think it's more of just a knowledge base. You know, there has always been this belief.
That the people that are going to work hardest for you are the ones that have the dog in the fight and are full-time. And as we know, that's not true. That that's it's not true. Just because you're full-time doesn't mean that you are that passionate and loyal. and that's not a knock. Like, I don't think people have to be to be employable. I just think that that is just a story companies have told themselves. So they have leaned more toward full full-time instead of
part-time or fractional, which is in some cases really what they need. And this is what leads to layoffs and downsizing and reorgs, because they don't set up the company for sustainability. They set it up for I need rapid growth. And then a year later they realize they grew too fast and now they've got to right size. And even in retail, when I worked for one company, I was there for six and a half years, we right sized every six months.
It was a clockwork. You knew it was coming. There was no shock. Every six months we'd right sized. It was just who was gonna get on the chopping clock. It's not a way to live. It means you're not being sustainable.
Bernie (38:01)
So if I'm looking to f hire somebody to be fractional, is there a place that gives me kind of a reference guide? Like, you know, the the reviews you can get online, you know, there's you know, if you're going for a restaurant, you know, the the Michelin star, which is an odd odd name considering it's a tire company. but you know, and I know where where the story came from. Is there some way to have a discernment going, yeah, this person is
Good good for the good for the business. I should hire them. is yeah. Is there a way to kind of yeah sort that out?
Natalie (38:33)
Yeah, absolutely. So there are two, there's a ton of marketplaces, a ton of them. but there are two that I think do this really well. the first is called Venturis. It is a marketplace for fractional work. They have a ton of fractionals. What's really interesting about them is they are very selective of who goes who gets into their program, but they also do assessments on you. And so when I
Entered, there were three different assessments. It provides an entire personality assessment to the business, but it also lets them know what type of businesses I work well with, you know, what type of work I don't do well. And so it's very psychological how they're looking at it to make that pairing, right? Very interesting. And of course, there's videos and to your point testimonials and a bunch of other things. There's another organization called Nex, K-N-E-X.
And they also are a marketplace. And similar, they use AI to help match you know, the companies with who they need, but they also offer a guarantee. So in addition to the testimonials you can review and the videos and all of that, they actually guarantee, and I don't know if you remember the exact guarantee, but it's helpful. So like if it's not a like they'll fix it for you. And again, with most hiring, you don't get a guarantee. So it's a really easy way to start. That being said though.
a great way to just from fractional perspective that somebody is fractional in the country you're in. So if you are looking for X, you just need to go to your network and say, I am looking for X. Do you have anyone you recommend for the situation? Trust always wins.
Bernie (40:04)
You have a founder operations audit. What's that all about? And that's something you're offering as as a service.
Natalie (40:11)
Yeah, so Founders Operation Audit is it's a four-week audit. and it starts with an intake and recommendation. But at the end of the day, I basically go through your entire policies, procedures, I go through all of your operating systems and I tell you where all of your gaps are. that's it. Like you pay for that, you get the recommendation. So if you have a company that can handle and shape, you know, decide what to do, great. But in a lot of cases,
The companies that I talk to don't even know that these are opportunities. They don't know that this gap exists. They don't know how to fix it. So it's really interesting to have an outside person come in and say, you know, the reason your sales funnel is not working is because all of your qualified leads have already told you at the very beginning of your process that they aren't willing to buy. And you start having your sales team talk to all of those people.
Whereas if we fix that and adjust this, you know, now they're talking to people who want to buy and they have the time to talk to them. And that's where you see a 238% increase.
Bernie (41:12)
So Natalie, if someone goes, Hey, listen, I like what I'm hearing, how do they dial into you? And where can they come from? who what areas do you service?
Natalie (41:20)
Yeah, so I do service the North Americas. So United States and Canada. Hi. but in general, the easiest way is you can just shoot me an email directly, nataliehoop.com, or again, the website. Those are the two. So it it's the easiest way. So just go to my website, you can fill out a form there.
For operators, fractional people, you can set up time to talk to me about coaching or even fill out an app location to see if it's right for you. For founders, you can set up a free 30-minute session with me right on my website that works for your calendar. And we'll start solving problems for free right on your right up during that time. No cost for your first 30 minutes.
Bernie (41:59)
Natalie, I want to say thank you so much for being a guest here today. And you, the Knack 4 Business listeners, I appreciate your time. So if if Natalie's story is kind of hit home and you're going, hang on, I could use some fractional service and fractional help, or I want to become fractional, and Natalie's the person to reach out to. Because, you know, being a founder, you've already invested the energy or you've been trained up. And, you know, sometimes you just need that guiding help because you can't
Can't know all things. And if you did, then you probably wouldn't need help and you wouldn't be listening to the podcast. So in which case, hey, nothing's ever perfect. And if it is perfect, it's usually a lie somewhere in the story. Just don't want to lie to yourself. So reach out to Natalie. And if you want to reach out to us, it's info at creative insight.com. Our website is knack4business.com and we have a chat bot.
called a web indexer that's on there and it can help you research out other podcasts have come out.