Fractional executives often focus on making immediate impacts for their clients. After that initial work, how do you continue to prove your value?
One of the best ways to make sure your clients continue to see the value you provide their organization is proof through data. When leveraged correctly, data can help you become “sticky” with your clients, building long-term, loyal relationships by consistently demonstrating your value.
We explored these five Sticky Strategies in a recent webinar. Summarized below, they’ll help you use data to strengthen client relationships and ensure your success as a fractional executive.
Understand Your Client Through Data
One of the biggest challenges for fractional executives is to get up to speed with a client’s business quickly. That’s where data comes in.
Consider this fractional Chief Operating Officer (COO) example: Using customer ranking data from sales records, they were able to get a clear picture of the client’s customer base, including 1) who their top customers were, 2) who was driving revenue, and 3) where the operational focus should be. By diving into the data right away, this fractional COO hit the ground running and started delivering data-informed strategies immediately.
The same approach works in any fractional role. Data is your fast pass to mastering the ins and outs of your client’s business.
Leverage Data for Rapid Value Delivery
Once you have a feel for your client’s business, the next step is to deliver value. Data provides clear, actionable insights into problem areas, opportunities for improvement, and places where you can make the most significant impact.
Take, for instance, a fractional Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who used profitability data to understand which product categories were most and least profitable. Armed with this information, the CFO quickly identified strategies to boost profitability, such as focusing resources on high-margin products or sunsetting underperforming ones.
Data was the key to diagnosing issues and executing fast and effective solutions.
Prove Progress and ROI with Data
Data is the perfect tool for proving progress and demonstrating ROI on your initiatives as a fractional executive.
In one example, a Chief Sales Officer (CSO) used data to measure the impact of a new top account growth strategy. By tracking metrics like pipeline value and revenue growth, the CSO could clearly demonstrate the initiative’s success, reinforcing the value of their contributions.
Transparency like this builds trust with clients and ensures they see the return on their investment in you.
Use Data to Build Consensus
As fractional executives, your ability to drive change depends on building consensus across your client’s leadership team. Data is one of the most effective ways to align different stakeholders because it provides a common, objective foundation for strategic decision-making.
For example, consider a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) using data to build consensus around a new marketing channel strategy. The data revealed which channels were most effective, making it easier for the CMO to convince the leadership team to support the plan.
Data not only drives decision-making but also helps ensure that everyone is on the same page and moving toward the same goals.
Diagnose Issues with Data
Data analysis can uncover the root causes of your client’s business challenges – whether those issues are operational, financial, or stemming from other departments. It can even reveal unseen problems and turn them into opportunities.
For example, market analysis can reveal reasons for customer churn, such as competitors offering better prices or products. Once identified, companies can implement strategies to counteract those causes and reduce churn.
Bad data (or “dirty data”) can also serve as a diagnostic tool. For example, if a fractional executive discovers duplicate companies in a CRM, they can trace it back to a poor data entry process. By identifying and resolving the root cause, the executive can clean up the data and improve operational efficiency.
Data is much more than numbers in a spreadsheet. Data is a tool that fractional executives can use to prove their value and build long-lasting relationships with their clients.
To better leverage data in your client relationships, contact infoFluency. We work alongside fractional executives as trusted partners to deliver better outcomes for the clients we serve together.
Schedule a call to get started today.
