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How to Make Fractional Work... Work
Why founder/ fractional relationships fail and what it takes to get them right.
Mary Alice Duff
September 22, 2025
Hey, hi, hello!
For so much of my early fractional journey, I was flying blind. I didn’t have peers to pressure-check proposals with, or anyone to sanity-check when a scope was going off the rails. I didn’t know how to push back on clients, how to close a deal without feeling gross, or even what was “normal” in this weird and wonderful world of fractional work.
It was isolating. And if I’m honest, it made me feel powerless.
That’s why I put together the Ops Clinic, a beta cohort of new fractional operators. I want to create a space where fractional operators can come together — workshop-style, sleeves rolled up — and actually build these businesses side by side. Because fractional work isn’t a stopover on the way to employment. It’s a business model. And it should be treated like one.
That’s hard to do if you’ve never run a business before, and this feels like brand-new territory, or you’ve been operating in total isolation, without peers to lean on.
Fractional leadership is tricky because it can feel like employment. You’re deeply embedded in the business. You know the ins and outs. Sometimes you’re the founder’s right hand. But maintaining boundaries, building your own pipeline, and charging like a business owner? That’s the work.
The Ops Clinic is here to help you do exactly that — so your income is reliable, your pipeline is full, and you’re working on projects that actually light you up.
👉 Last day to register: Monday, September 29.
If this speaks to you, I’d love to have you in the room. For all the details, check out the google doc here.
Now — on to today’s essay, which is all about how founders AND fractionals can make fractional work, work.
Onward,
Mary Alice
Table of Contents
How to Make Fractional Work… Work
When I was a social worker, one of my mentors — a woman at the absolute top of her field — used to say:
“The root of all disappointment is unmet expectations.”
She was right. Whether it’s a lousy meal at a five-star restaurant or a client engagement that’s gone off the rails, it’s almost always about expectations. And both sides, founders and fractionals, are equally guilty.
Founders treat fractionals like stopgaps for full-time employment or expect exclusivity while benefiting from a fractionally priced engagement. Fractionals, meanwhile, slip into employee brain — waiting for instructions, over-delivering to prove themselves, or hiding from hard conversations.
Add in a lack of shared understanding about what “fractional” even means, perceived power imbalances, and fuzzy agreements about scope — and you’ve got a recipe for disappointment.
So if we want fractional work to actually work, we have to start with the thing my mentor drilled into me years ago: get expectations clear and revisit them often.