How Do I Get My First Fractional Clients?
Your first few fractional clients will almost certainly come from your existing network. To cultivate this, you need to tell the right people about your work and stay top-of-mind. Job boards like Fractional Jobs, as well as more advanced lead generation tactics, can also supplement once your network motion is running.
NOTE: If you want a much more in-depth breakdown on how to find your first fractional clients, check out our Playbook here. This article serves as a short high-level guide.
84% of fractional leaders find their first client from their network, according to Fractional Jobs survey data. And even beyond the first client, virtually all fractional leaders get most of their clients through their network.
The best path to finding clients is making your network (1) aware you do fractional work, (2) reminded of it, and (3) understand what kind of companies are a good fit for your work.
Let’s look at how that works, in practice.
Step 1: Engage your Network Privately
Begin with 1:1 outreach to people who can vouch for you (former managers, teammates, mentors) and people who are well-connected. The goal is not “ask for a job.” The goal is to practice your pitch, get feedback that sharpens your positioning, and surface warm intros you would not get from a public post.
You might get your first client from this step alone. In this case, there’s no need to advance any further until you’re ready for more clients.
Step 2: Announce Publicly Once You’re Ready
When you have your positioning reasonably clear and you actually have capacity for new work, make a public LinkedIn announcement. Keep it simple and authentic. A single announcement rarely creates a flood of leads; but one qualified conversation is a win.
Even if you don’t get a client from announcing your work (most won’t), you’re still laying the foundations.
Step 3: Stay Top-of-Mind
After the announcement, your goal is to remind your network, consistently, about the kind of work you do. There’s many different ways to approach this, but most of them do involve posting content on Linkedin (or other channels).
You might share thought leadership content, or share case studies of your work, or be a teacher on your area of expertise. There are even common tactics to generate scarcity. We cover all this in more detail in our Playbook here.
Staying top-of-mind, however you choose to do it, is the key to sustained lead gen from your network. It’s what makes it possible for folks in your network to recommend you.
Step 4: Expand Beyond Your Network, e.g. Talent Marketplaces like Fractional Jobs
Once the above is in motion, it starts to make sense to expand your surface area through communities, events, channel partners, and more.
One great supplement is Fractional Jobs (the site you’re reading this on!). We launch new fractional roles every single week.
More Tactics: Client Referrals
As you work with more clients, the opportunity presents itself to get introductions from past clients to potential new clients. For this to work, you have to do great work. Duh! At the end of a successful relationship or after a big milestone, ask for a testimonial. And find ways to let your clients know that you’re always welcome to new introductions. Sometimes your clients just may not realize how valuable introductions are for fractional leaders, and subtle reminders may help.
More Tactics: Cold Outreach
Cold outreach is, for the most part, an advanced strategy. Especially at scale, it takes a significant amount of knowledge and effort to get right. However, if you have a REALLY dialed-in target client list, with a REALLY dialed-in value prop, it might just work.
Put together a list of your target clients and do manual outreach to the most likely decision maker, e.g. the CEO. Do this manually. Only try to automate this if you’re seeing traction (or you’re a cold outbound expert).
If It Still Isn’t Working
If you’ve run the network steps consistently and still have no traction, it usually means either your positioning needs work, or your current network is not large/activated enough to generate qualified leads yet.
In Summary
Getting your first fractional client will be very different from getting your 25th client. Your first client will almost certainly come from someone in your network hiring you or recommending you. Start with your network, and only move onto more advanced strategies once that’s already working.
If you want a more detailed rundown of everything that goes into using your network to find clients, check out our lead gen Playbook here.
Who Wrote This Guide?
I’ve helped 100+ companies hire fractional execs and other fractional talent. I also spent a year as a Fractional Head of Product.
I intimately understand how fractional work works from both sides of the table. And this guide is meant to help everyone get up to speed on the fractional world, quickly.
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