Scale Your SaaS
Scale Your SaaS
319: Is a Fractional Sales Leader Right for Me? - with Mike Malloy
EPISODE SUMMARY
Software companies are increasingly looking for innovative ways to scale their operations while maintaining flexibility and cost-efficiency. Enter Mike Malloy, founder of Malloy Industries Consulting Group. With over 15 years of corporate experience and a stellar track record, including helping entrepreneurs secure deals on the popular show Shark Tank, Mike is at the forefront of a transformative approach to business growth: fractional executives. Read more about his story as he shares insights with host and B2B SaaS Sales Coach Matt Wolach.
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach
Episode: Episode No. 319, “Is a Fractional Sales Leader Right for Me? - with Mike Malloy”
Guest: Mike Malloy, Founder & CEO at Malloy Industries Consulting Group
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS Sales Coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Sponsored by: Leadfeeder
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
- Integrating Fractional Executives with Existing Sales Teams
- A Winning Strategy
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- What is a Fractional Executive?
- The Benefits of Going Fractional
- Misconceptions About Fractional Executives
- Why Fractional Executives Choose This Path
TOP QUOTES
Mike Malloy
[05:23] "Fractional executives bring a wealth of experience and a fresh perspective to companies, often delivering results much faster than traditional hires."
[10:45] "Many leaders think that fractional executives are just temporary solutions, but in reality, they can provide long-term value by building robust processes and mentoring internal teams."
[21:05] "Effective communication is crucial. As a fractional executive, I prioritize transparency and collaboration to foster trust and drive results."
Matt Wolach
[12:30] "To optimize the sales process, it's crucial to map out the buyer's journey and align your sales strategies accordingly."
[23:50] "Effective leadership involves not just guiding the team but also fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement."
[34:30] "Sales efficiency isn't just about closing deals quickly but ensuring that each interaction provides value and builds towards a long-term relationship."
LEARN MORE
To learn more about Malloy Industries, visit: https://malloyindustries.com/
You can also find Mike Malloy on LinkedIn: Mike Malloy
For more about how Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com.
Head over to leadfeeder.com and sign up for a 14-day (no strings attached) free trial: https://www.leadfeeder.com/
Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:
Hello, and welcome to Scale Your SaaS. Thank you very much for being here. I am delighted that you have joined us today because on Scale Your SaaS this show, what we're doing is we're helping you understand how to generate a whole bunch of leads, how to make sure you know how to close those leads, and then how to build a team that is really effective and doing all that stuff for you so you can scale your company. And one of the ways to do that we're going to discuss in depth today with my awesome special guest Mike Malloy. Mike, welcome to the show. How you doing?
Mike Malloy:Thanks, Matt. I'm doing great. I'm excited to be here today.
Matt Wolach:Well, I'm excited to have you as well let me make sure everybody knows who you are. So Mike, he's the founder of Malloy Industries Consulting Group. Malloy industries Consulting Group, This is a firm that helps B2B SaaS companies scale their operations with the support of fractional executives and effective lessons in leadership. And for the last three years, he's been helping at the do this stuff at the forefront of executive matchmaking. He's doing some amazing things. In fact, he has 15 plus years of corporate experience behind him. And as a, as a strategic adviser. He's helped three entrepreneurs successfully pitch and secure deals on Shark Tank, the famous show, which is really, really cool. So that's a really fun tidbit. But Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Mike Malloy:Thanks, Matt. I'm delighted to be here. And looking forward to diving into some great topics on how to help your audience, increase their sales and extend the runway.
Matt Wolach:I love it. I love it sounds great. So tell me what have you been up to lately? And what's coming up for you?
Mike Malloy:Yeah. And so recently, we actually just onboarding three new people on our team of project managers kind of helping on the customer success side as our portfolio of b2b SaaS companies that we're hoping has been growing in our kind of core business, as you hinted at is matching fractional sales executives that help the CEOs to kind of buy back their time and take some of the sales hat and sales activities off of their plate, give it to a vetted expert who has 10, 20, 30 years of experience, so that they can see that kind of up into the right graph continue while they focus on what matters most to them, both professionally and personally, as well. You know, a little bit more family time, if you don't have to be on every single sales call making it rain all day, every day.
Matt Wolach:Yeah, so true. How did you how did you come up with this business? Where did this come to be for you? Yeah,
Mike Malloy:absolutely. So I have previous experience as a Deloitte consultant, and I was a traveling sunglasses, salesman and startup CEO in my 20s, ran an incubator program for five years supporting early stage social entrepreneurs, and actually served as a entrepreneur, president and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. And so little bit of my background, and I'm passionate about being relentlessly generous, enthusiastically fun force for good in the world. And by the way, man, I'm gonna slip in if you dad jokes in this call, hope you don't mind. All good with that. So my son the other day said, Hey, Dad, can you tell me about a solar eclipse? Like, what is it exactly? And I looked him I said, No, son.
Matt Wolach:I love it. I am all in for the Dad jokes.
Mike Malloy:And so, you know, I love helping entrepreneurs buy back their freedom and time to focus on what matters most. And I guess a little bit the origin story, you know, there's a small global pandemic, a few years ago, you may have heard about. And so during COVID, my wife and I left DC, where we've been for almost 15 years and migrated to the beach in Delaware, and was there for about nine months, eventually the incubator, so they might come back to DC, we need you to run the program in person. And I was like, Hey, I think I'm gonna do my own thing. Take another entrepreneurial leap at 35, quitting, quitting your job at 35. And married very different than 25. And single, just, you know, for those thinking about entrepreneurship. And so I started helping entrepreneurs, one on one, and for about four months was going great, and then just be a little vulnerable Matt, my mom passed away. And number 21, and kind of shock the system wasn't expecting that. And the same week that that happened, my wife and I found out she was pregnant with our first kid, and a lot of emotions and changes and took a month off to kind of grieve and process and I went back to work in October. So I made $0 in September, and this business will industries, which didn't have the consulting group, part of it at the time, wasn't scalable and sustainable. If I wanted to take paternity leave and spend time with my newborn son, and so I kind of realized that I couldn't be the change alone and found myself at the forefront of what I think is the future of work during the Great resignation, kind of quiet quitting. Like I'm all in that fractional is the future of work. And so my industries creates more time and freedom for CEOs by given their undesirable hats to vetted fractional executives. And so CEOs who want to scale their b2b sales, from one to 2 million to 10 to 20 million in annual revenue with the ones that benefit the most from the Malloy match. We're, you know, we'll kind of scope out a project understand what problems they need solve, what are their objectives, the end in mind, how are we going to measure success? It's And then ultimately recommend three of our, as of this recording 249, fractional executives, so they can interview them, pick the one that's the best fit for them. And for any reason they don't like the three, we'll give them another three, three for free. Although knock on wood, we are undefeated at making matches with.
Matt Wolach:Very cool. So if you're a leader, why might you feel like okay, I need to go fractional versus a full time hire? What are some of the benefits or advantages of doing that?
Mike Malloy:great question. And I think the biggest benefit is the flexibility. And the cost effectiveness, where you don't have to invest a six figure salary and benefits and hope that they stick around for four years to you know, get the most of it. There's no long term commitment. And you only pay for the expertise, you actually need some weeks that might be 10 hours a week, maybe it's 20 hours a week, maybe the next month, you actually need their help at all. But then two months later, like, hey, actually, let's bring him back in, we do need help. So the ability to kind of ramp up and down on a month to month basis. It also brings in a new, unique perspective, like the entrepreneurs have been in the business since you know, since it was born, and they think about it all day, every day. And they think, Oh, we have to do it this way. Because this is the way we've always done it. You get in that new perspective and kind of look at things through a new lens that often creates innovation, better ways of doing it. And potentially even better ways of pricing or selling the product or service, as well as think about is there a tangential market that you can tap into that you're not currently selling to? And I'll throw out another benefit of fractional as well is that they come with rolodexes, you know, these aren't kids that are college, these are folks with 1020 30 years of experience, often who have been selling in the same industry similar, you know, products or services. So they have phone numbers that they can call up. And you know, all things being equal. People do business with people that they like, or things even being unequal. They still do business with people they like and so being able to leverage that, in a cost effective way can also kind of speed up the sales cycle.
Matt Wolach:Oh, no doubt, no doubt, I think that that's really impressive that somebody can come in and jump in and kind of help that business move forward, even at just a fractional case. But I've seen it happen over and over. And sometimes we feel like, oh, we definitely need a full time hire, we actually don't You're right, I love the flexibility of that I love that you can have somebody come in and not have to make that long term commitment that a big time executive hire would require.
Mike Malloy:And sometimes man is actually on a sales call earlier today. Like they want to hire a full time sales executive, but it's going to take three to six months. Whereas you need to be selling tomorrow and certainly next month. And one of the things that we bring the speed where we can typically meet with an entrepreneur, scope it out within two to three weeks, you will have interviewed candidates pick two you want to work with and get started. Doesn't mean you can't do the large kind of hey, let's put all the job postings out there. You know, get a giant stack of resumes. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna tell this joke. And you're too. For anybody hiring full time. Let's say you got a stack of 50 resumes, take half of them and just throw them out. Because you don't want to hire somebody who isn't lucky.
Matt Wolach:Very true. Very true. Now from a from a I want to shift the perspective. Now, if you're an executive, why might you want to do this and be a fractional person versus getting a full time job?
Mike Malloy:I'm all about autonomy, and the flexibility and kind of being able to do what you do best. And also, I mean, I'm an entrepreneur like I Yeah, once you get the bug, like you can't go back to thinking like, oh, yeah, I would love to sit in a cube for 40 hours a week. And then when TPS reports, you know, like, yeah, there's more risk as the fractional, but there's so much more upside and the ability to work on interesting things, perhaps across three to five different companies. And if you do one day, a week and each of them, it also means that you can increase your impact and extend both the financial as well as the kind of social positive impact in the world. If you're reaching more people, because you're selling something, you've got to believe in your heart that like, Hey, this is a valuable product or service. And my future customer would be a disservice if they didn't, you know, go home with it today. And so with that in mind, you want to be able to serve more people, and also potentially train more salespeople to work under you, you know, a lot of our fractional sales executives, they're not the just individual contributor, they helped build out teams of STRS and account execs put together either audit, update or create from scratch the kind of sales playbook, you know, what are the different activities at the stages of the funnel? How are they you know, able to help these companies move more future customers through that funnel at a faster rate. And you make more money and everybody makes more money you know, it's kind of a win win win all around by being fractional.
Matt Wolach:Fantastic, so well, they might take like 1, 2, 3 Different companies on at a time is that how?
Mike Malloy:Yeah. So typically The fraction of seconds we work with, will work between four to 32 hours a week with a client. And so let's just call it eight hours a week. It's basically a debt. So like, hey, Tuesdays, I have this client Wednesday, this client, there's this client, it doesn't mean you don't ever look at messages or interact, you know, with the clients on the other days, but it's like, this is probably when I'm going to do my weekly check ins, you know, and this might be when we scheduled a sales team meeting with the check in with the CEO. And I mentioned like, one of the important things about working with fractional executives is the communication cadence. And making sure there's clear expectations on AM, I'm here for eight hours a week, I want to be in a meeting with you for 30 to 60 minutes a week, I'll be in a meeting with the sales team for 30 to 60 minutes a week, and I'm gonna do a bunch of other stuff, you know, but you don't need to micromanage the fractional executive, it's not again, like a 22 year old figuring out their first job, and you know how to do it, they're gonna go out and be productive at a much faster pace. Once they get up to speed, you know, I would say the first month, there is a lot of learning more digging into everything that currently exists, you know, like understanding, do they have a clear business model? Who's their ideal client profile? What's the pricing model? How was that all built out? And then looking at what are the lead generation strategies for the top of the funnel? How are we optimizing middle of the funnel to get at the bottom of the funnel? And are these things documented? You know, if some clients, some companies that you know, entrepreneurs, if you've only ever done founder lead sales, you're going to need to make some changes to those sales processes, when you're bringing in humans who don't have the charisma and the origin story and the zest for it? To the extent that you do, and that's okay. And then that's like, should be the expectation that oh, you know, they might, you know, have the pitch a little bit differently, or, you know, ask a few different questions. Another thing that we look at early on with clients, too, is just the CRM and like, what's their CRM hygiene? Do you actually trust the data that's in there who's been putting it in? How are you leveraging the data. And we've helped several clients transition from one outdated untrustworthy garbage in garbage out system to a brand new one that you get buy in from the stakeholders across the organization. And then you train people on how to use it. And it transforms the whole business, when you actually have a single source of truth.
Matt Wolach:It makes it so much easier to manage, I mean, not only for the people doing their jobs and sales reps, but having a strong CRM makes it just so much easier to see and identify where the issues are and where we need to manage where we need to focus. I totally agree. I want to ask you this, because I think some people have their their perceptions of fractional. So what are some of the misconceptions out there that some leaders have about fractional executives?
Mike Malloy:Yeah, great question. I would say one misconception is that it's too expensive, and that they can't afford it. And oh, you know, somebody with 30 years of experience, there's no way like, why would they waste their time with us? piddly little, we just did our first million in sales, and this guy is doing, you know, you know, hundreds of millions of sales? Well, you'd be surprised, especially the second half of people's careers, there is an interest in both diverse businesses that want to work with as well as paying it forward to the next generation. The other thing I'd say there is that, yeah, it would be way too expensive. If you had them as a full time employee, and we're paying them, you know, $400,000 a year, but for 20 bucks an hour, you know, maybe you can budget like five grand a month, and you just get the expertise you need. And it also who don't always know, like, how long does it last? Like? Is it you? Is it me? Like we took that we start with three months, like let's work together for three months, figure out how it goes. And then from there, it's a month to month basis. It's like, Hey, do we do we both want to do it again, because at some point, you know, we have had the occasional PETA or you know, pain in the ass client that is not worth renewing, even though they want more than just the way they treat us. And one of the things that I have found is like the number one characteristic to avoid is like how frenetic is the founder, if they're all over the place, and rescheduling meetings and change they set a meeting one is really different from two and three that's going to continue throughout the whole project and we're never going to meet their unrealistic expectations. So it's just something we keep an eye out for.
Matt Wolach:Yeah, that's I think that's really smart because that can create some some friction and some nastiness as well as it's going to be really hard to understand what the what the true goals are and if the fractional actually met them. So I love that you've identified who that right person to work with is I want to know so this fractional comes in. How do they complement existing teams? So maybe there's already some salespeople in there, how does that all work? Yeah,
Mike Malloy:I mean, first we say Hey, Matt, your hair looks really nice today. And yeah, I love that shirt.
Matt Wolach:I get it, compliment.
Mike Malloy:And part of it is understand like, what are the strengths that the team already has? And like let's build those people up. You know, everybody worked with are pretty good leaders and you know, you praise publicly you reprimand privately. And so when you see someone doing something great, Hey, call that out, you know and tell the CEO, hey, Joe, you know, I know you think he's just an SDR really, he's actually doing an awesome job, I'm really impressed with the templates he's written. And there is a level two of like understanding people's egos you know, if you're a full time employee and they're bringing in a part time person to manage you are for you to report you, like spending the time to get to know people on a personal level. So like, we'll typically when we're doing sales team meetings, and one on ones with sales reps working with, we'll check in personally and professionally, the beginning of each meeting, like hey, one through 10, how are you doing, like, how's life outside of work, start with that kind of trip report. Because that creates the psychological safety and rapport. So that when you're doing a shitty job, like we can call you out on it, and you're okay with it, and it doesn't mean like, you suck, and you just have a sucky week, like, you know, let's see how we can bounce back. The other thing to note too, is that will come in, and usually the CEO knows one to three things that they're struggling with, and like, hey, we really need to fix, you know, maybe it's the CRM or the metrics, like we're just like, I don't have a clue what our customer acquisition cost is, or our LTV lifetime value. And so like, if that's a known unknown art, great, we'll work on that. But there's also usually one to three things that like the CEO doesn't realize it's an issue with the sales team. So like one client we worked with, they brought us in about a year ago, last April, they've missed their monthly sales quota, January, February, March, we started that April, they had nine sales reps, they had no data in the CRM that they trusted, there was no way for the CEO to even know which of the nine was performing great, doing pretty good. And ultimately, there were two that they let go of with three months into the engagement because they finally had clarity into like, how poorly they were performing. Because we built some kind of custom dashboards and data visualization to look at the accounts by reps and what were they selling all these things. And so that's, you know, is, can be a little awkward, you know, that a, not everybody who's on the bus now is going to be on the bus in six months. But you're probably burning a lot of cash and wasting time, attention, money, energy and effort with these underperformers. And then when you let one or two B or C players on the team, it brings down the average of everybody. Or it's like we're bringing in a player who can recognize other A players build them up. And then as needed, identify outside New A players to join the team to maybe replace some of those empty seats. Yeah, I
Matt Wolach:think that's critical. And sometimes having that additional set of eyes on the team helps you identify, Okay, yeah, this is an issue, we need to make a move here. And I've seen it many times where that new set of eyes almost speaks to the leader, what they were already thinking, like, they already kind of had an idea that there was some issues. And just hearing it from someone else kind of confirmed that and makes it easier for you to make a move on the team. Have you seen that?
Mike Malloy:Yeah. 100%. And a lot of times to like some of the challenges that the CEOs face is some level of like, impostor syndrome, or like not always feeling worthy to lead this business or be this like super successful entrepreneur that folks on social media think, Oh, I'm crushing, I'm killing it. But like, do, you have 17 hair on fire problems, you're up in the middle of the night, you're stressed about all sorts of stuff. And a lot of it has activity, like you're doing things you've never done before. Like nobody taught you how to be an entrepreneur and a leader of a multimillion dollar business. There's not like accounting one on one class for that, you know, and the diversity of skills needed. One of the best skills is knowing what you don't know and leaning on people that are smarter than you and like not having your ego be like, I must be the smartest person in every room, like not if your smartest person in the room, like leave and go in another room where they're smarter people hang out with them, take some of the knowledge and then bring it back and you know, teach it distill it to others. And so are fractional executives become a trusted adviser, you know, somebody that they can lean on and help coach and support them, as they're leveling up on their own leadership journey, and building a better company and, you know, not needing to fear about like losing control, either of the overall business or even losing control of individual responsibilities or tasks. You know, like, it's a great quote from Dan Martell. 80% done by somebody else is 100% frickin awesome. And so the idea that like you have too much on your plate, you need to identify the things that are not in your strengths, not your zone of genius. And oftentimes, entrepreneurs have limited sales experience. They were not a card carrying salesman for two decades when I started this like, now I work for somebody was like, got their PhD in biotechnology, and like was it a lot like I was a computer science nerd for a long time. I happen to spend six years in a band driver on selling sunglasses listening to all these Zig Ziglar sales tapes, everybody else. Automobile university like I learned all this stuff in my 20s I'm 37 now and I'm pretty good at idea about how to go through the sales process. And you know, the importance of a Matt, do you know what a BAMFAM is?
Matt Wolach:absolutely BAMFAM, that's something we teach very heavily.
Mike Malloy:Love it. For the listeners at home that is a book a meeting from a meeting. And the goal of every meeting is to get the next meeting. So make sure you save one or two minutes at the end, hey, let's just pull up our calendars real quick. Get something on the books, you know, before we wrap, even if it goes over a minute or two to the next meeting, you always want to get that continuity. And also identifying who are the other stakeholders involved in the decision making process who weren't in this meeting? Hey, do you have a visibility to their their calendar? Like, are they free, you know, next Tuesday at Two, three or 430? Let's just go ahead and get in by now.
Matt Wolach:It's super critical to be able to do that. It's something we work on we roleplay that within our sessions in our in our coaching groups. But yeah, I think some of those tactics, you're right, the founders often don't know, we get a lot of them that come to us, because they've built this product. It's amazing. They're starting to see growth. Now they want to scale it. That's one of the reasons why they they come to me. So this fractional executive thing I think is really critical. Mike, I'm really grateful that you've been able to come in.
Mike Malloy:Sorry, can you go ahead and tell me a little bit more about like the role playing and coaching that you do, because that sounds pretty impactful and helpful for for your eyes?
Matt Wolach:Yeah, we have a we have a group we call leader circle. And it's basically a roundtable of software leaders, founders, who've built amazing companies, they love the product, they're just struggling to get to the growth levels that they've wanted to get to. And so we do a whole bunch of stuff around training, I have a sales process that I've developed to help me get three exits that I basically share with everybody else on how they're able to do it. And it's it's a pretty fun experience. So they basically get some, some group roundtables with other people of their size and, and focus as well as they get one on one coaching from me and, and they have a curriculum they go through to implement the process. So it's a lot of fun, that's for sure. And people get some great results.
Mike Malloy:I love it. And I will add on there too, as an entrepreneur myself, like, I'm in three different group coaching programs, like the idea that you would know how to do everything in your head is baloney. You know, I have one that meets every Wednesday, one that meets every other Wednesday, one that meets once a month, and the learnings, the seeing what other people are doing in their businesses, and they're like, oh, I can just apply that thing to mine. And I tweak a little bit of the language or like, oh, that marketing strategy, crush it for you when you went to a trade show, or I'm gonna do that thing at our trade show, you know, is super valuable. I also find that just like having the accountability of some sort of coach or mastermind that I have an accountability buddy I knew with the last Friday of every month, and we list out four things we're going to do by the next time we meet, and like, I make sure I get done especially a couple days leading up to that, because I know I'm gonna be with Raj and I don't want to let him down. He was gonna let me down. So true. Yeah, setting up those external things can really help make the difference as well.
Matt Wolach:Yeah, that accountability buddy thing is like a hack. It's something that not a lot of people do. But it's really, really powerful. Mike, this is awesome.
Mike Malloy:I got one more bonus on the accountability in my weekly thrivers accountability group. If you make a commitment, you don't do it. You could donate 50 bucks to charity. It's like I have donated to charity the past couple of years. But like, couple weeks ago, I was like I need a an appointment with a dietician of all things. And I like had been crushed. And it's like, I'm gonna do it by next Wednesday, I booked it at like noon, two hours for the things they want to pay 50 bucks. And then I remember there and it was great, and maybe a little bit healthier. Now, my family is as well. And, you know, you just have to be professional support you get in these groups. It's also, Hey, how are things with your partner at home? How are the kids doing? Like, how are you able to find some level of work life balance or at least compartmentalization. And, you know, one night a week or one or two weekend days, God forbid, you know, you're just off from work and you're present, you know where your feet are with the kids and the wife and partner. So I think that's important.
Matt Wolach:I totally agree that that's important because as leaders we're so focused on on building this company that we've built over the years and we started we want to make it just take off. And sometimes it's on our mind always but getting it off our mind for even an hour or two every now and then is is critical for our mental health and for our our focus and keeps you from being burned out which happens a lot in this industry. So I think that's that's awesome advice. Mike, this is phenomenal. You gave us all kinds of great stuff. I really think that our audience has learned a lot how can they learn more about you and Malloy industries? Yeah,
Unknown:Yeah, absolutely would love to connect on LinkedIn. Mike Malloy, you can also email me at Mike@Malloyindustries.com. If you go to malloyindustries.com/pod For podcast, we have a nice landing page there with some resources and links to places you can learn more. But yeah, love serving the community and helping entrepreneurs build impactful businesses and just Animal lifestyles as well. So thanks, Matt and Matt, I gotta ask to do you want to just know what a giraffes favorite fruit is?
Matt Wolach:Oh, I'm afraid to ask.
Mike Malloy:It's a nectarine.
Matt Wolach:nectarine. We do need a little drum set with you. King of the dad jokes. He's Mike Malloy. Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show and explaining all this for us. It's been really helpful and funny.
Mike Malloy:My pleasure, Matt. Thanks a lot.
Matt Wolach:Absolutely. And everybody out there. Thank you for being here. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss out on any other amazing tidbits and tactics just like Mike just shared. Hit that subscribe button. You'll get all of those updated every week. We have a new amazing guest. So we will see you next time. Take care and bye bye
