The Business of Being Fractional
You spent years getting really, really good at your craft.
Ops. Finance. HR. Strategy. Marketing. You know your stuff. You've earned the trust of founders, leadership teams, boards. You've delivered.
And then you went fractional — or you're thinking about it — because the logic is completely sound: if I do this for one company and get paid X, what would it look like to do this for several? On my own terms?
Here's what nobody told you: you're not just changing your employment arrangement. You're signing up to learn an entirely new craft.
The craft of running a business.
And that's genuinely, legitimately hard. Not because you're not smart enough. Not because you don't have what it takes. But because you spent a decade becoming world-class at this one thing — working INSIDE someone else's business. And running your own business? Completely different. With no manager to ask or peers to rely on, no performance review to tell you you're off track, and real financial consequences while you figure it out.
In this free 60-minute workshop, we're going to talk about what's actually standing between you and a fractional practice that works. We're going to name it. And we're going to talk about what you can start doing about it — this week.
This workshop is for you if:
You're a senior professional considering the fractional leap and want to go in with your eyes open
You've already made the jump but something isn't clicking — the pipeline feels unstable, the rates never feel like enough, the clients somehow take over your calendar
You have clients, but it still doesn't feel like the freedom you signed up for
What we'll cover:
Why smart, experienced people struggle when they go fractional (and why it has nothing to do with their skills)
The employee mode patterns that quietly undermine fractional practices — and how to recognise them in yourself
The actual difference between working as an employee and running a business — in the areas that matter most: how you show up in the market, how you price, and how you run engagements
Your one honest move: a simple diagnostic and a single concrete action to take this week to get your fractional practice humming
What you'll leave with:
Clarity on your next best move as a fractional leader and business owner.
Who am I and why does this matter?
I'm Mary Alice Duff — Fractional COO, small business owner twice over, and founder of Future Fractional.
I've been in the business of small businesses for over a decade. I founded a small sustainable apparel company. I've worked as a fractional COO for scrappy, founder-led businesses hustling their way to real revenue. When I say I know what it takes to build something from zero — with no VC fund, no HR department, no safety net behind you — that's not a positioning statement. It's my actual life.
Everything I know about running a business, I learned the hard way. By mucking it up. By losing money. By leaving hundreds of thousands of euros on the table. I made the mistakes, figured out what not to do, worked out what to do instead — and packaged all of that into something actually useful for people who don't want to take the same expensive detours I did.
My sweet spot — and the sweet spot of Future Fractional — isn't taking a Series C startup to unicorn status. Honestly? I wouldn't even know where to start. What I do know is how to get a fractional practice from 0 to $200K a year. How to get a scrappy founder-led business from $500K to $3M by working smarter not harder. The real, figure-it-out-with-what-you-have work of building something that actually sustains you.
I've done it. Repeatedly. And now I help others do it without the expensive detours I took to get there.
The details:
Free!
60 minutes, live on Google Meet
Replay available for registered attendees
If you're building a fractional practice and want to go deeper — Future Fractional, my 11-week group coaching program, opens for its next cohort on March 23rd. I'll share more at the end of the workshop for anyone who's interested.