Before you meet with one of the Fractional COOs on the Wolf’s Edge Integrators team, we want to share with you the answers to the 5 main questions every business owner we meet asks.
The members of the Wolf’s Edge team collectively talk with over 1,000 business owners every year. Below are the answers to the top five questions we get asked most often.
What exactly is a Fractional COO / Integrator?
To understand what Fractional COOs / Integrators are, we have to talk about the kinds of challenges you might be experiencing that they would address.
You own your business because you want freedom, control, and a good life. Things were great earlier on but because of your growth, they feel out of control. Customers are starting to have bad experiences, which is driving you crazy. You’re continually putting out fires and being dragged into the day-to-day.
So much of your team just doesn’t get it. And it’s all on you because you don’t have a right-hand leader who is a real strategic partner and knows how to make things right without your constant intervention. This is not what you got into this business to do everyday.
For example, the Fractional COOs / Integrators on our team are experienced executives who have owned or run businesses like yours before who becomes your right-hand-person on a part-time, i.e., fractional basis. They work with you and your team to create a strategic roadmap toward achieving your goals, help define the “order of operations” for tackling each of your priorities, and then drive execution on this roadmap.
They are your ongoing strategic thought partner to collaboratively identify and prioritize the top obstacles, opportunities, challenges, and issues. They are your leadership team’s mentor and resource.
How exactly does a Fractional COO / Integrator work?
You may wonder how Fractional COOs / Integrators work. Why aren’t they just like any other consultant? How can they actually make any difference if they’re not part of the business full-time?
Typically, full-time COOs spend only about 20% of their time on leading/running the business and the vast majority of their time filling another role like director of operations, special projects, or something else.
A Fractional COO / Integrator takes on the 20% of the role for which you need an experienced, strategic executive. Wolf’s Edge COOs help you give you the freedom, control, and life you want by using our in-depth Discovery Call with you to understand your business and team, your goals, why they’re important to you, what’s working, and what’s not working.
We formulate a proposal laying out exactly how we help you achieve your goals and introduce you to our proposed right-fit COO / Integrator.
If we agree to go forward, your Wolf’s Edge COO spends the first few weeks meeting with you, the members of your leadership team, and other key people.
Within 90 days, we share a proposed Chaos to Control Roadmap™ which identifies and prioritizes your top obstacles, opportunities, and challenges, including defining the “order of operations” for tackling each of your priorities. We work with you and your leadership team to get on the same page about this roadmap within 45 days.
We then drive execution on this roadmap through meetings with you, your leadership team (as a whole and 1-on-1s), ad hoc help and support, establishing/fixing key metrics, and driving strategic projects like replacing key team members, getting processes documented and followed-by-all, or rolling out a new CRM or ERP.
Just like a GPS makes adjustments in the route along the way, your Wolf’s Edge COO will work with you to refresh and reset the Chaos to Control Roadmap™ every quarter.
Getting your team able to run your business independently is our goal and it’s how we define success. When you are ready for a long-term COO / Integrator, we will help mentor and coach an internal person into that role or help you hire someone from the outside. In either case, we work to ensure an effective transition.
Engagements typically last between 9 and 18 months.
How much does retaining a Fractional COO / Integrator cost?
Many factors determine the cost, including the size of your leadership team and business, the nature and complexity of the challenges you need to overcome, the caliber of COO / Integrator you need to achieve your goals, and the speed at which you want to move.
Fractional Integrators / COOs in the overall marketplace charge between $6,000-$15,000 per month depending on the above factors.
Those on the lower end of the spectrum operate more as meeting facilitators and experts in using the EOS® tools. They typically haven’t owned or run an entire business before and come from a manager-level or project management background.
Wolf’s Edge engagements run on the higher end of the spectrum, typically between $9,000-$15,000 per month, because our clients’ businesses require the leadership of an experienced executive who has owned or ran businesses like theirs before. They need someone on their level who’s already seen and overcome what they’re dealing with to lead, manage, and support their leadership team.
How do you select which member of your Fractional COO / Integrator team is the best fit for me?
We determine which member of our team is our proposed right-fit COO / Integrator for you based on the following four factors:
- Ability to solve your specific core challenges.
- Personality compatibility
- Industry experience
If the first person we introduce you to does not feel like a fit, we discuss why and what kind of person would be a better fit and then, based on that, introduce you to someone else we believe would likely be a better-fit candidate.
Who is a Wolf’s Edge Fractional COO / Integrator for, and who is it not for?
We ARE for people who:
- Need, want, and value the help of an executive experienced at owning or running a business like theirs before
- Have at least 2 people on the leadership team besides the business owner (even if some of them are under-performing)
- Willing to be open, honest, and vulnerable.
- Can afford a $6,000-$15,000 per month retainer.
We’re typically NOT for people who:
- Only need meeting facilitators, project managers, or EOS® tool experts
- Only need someone who can blindly execute on what you want.
- Have zero or only one other person they’d consider to be on their leadership team.
We hope these answer your most fundamental questions.
Click here to book a Discovery Call with a member of our team so we can learn more about you and determine the best way to help you achieve everything you want for your business and your life:
