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The Downside of Fractional COOs, DOOs, and OBMs:

The Downside of Fractional COOs, DOOs, and OBMs:

Why Diluted Attention Can Sabotage Your Business

A'Tondra Jones
June 09, 2023

Dear Solopreneurs,

Lemme put some brussel sprouts in your baked macaroni and cheese real quick,

Here is a list of contract positions that I believe are absolute garbage and that are complete MONEY SUCKS for any enterprise

Fractional COOs

In order to be a masterful COO you have to be so invested in the industry that the company you are supporting is in. Then you have to be heavily invested in how the global, economic, political, sociological, and technological landscape of that industry specifically affects the company you are working for. This requires a kind of hyper-focused dedication that almost borderlines mania. Why? Because the COO is supposed to be a MASTER INTEGRATOR and the ENTIRE organization is dependent upon your ability to operate the company properly. As the COO, you set the tone for how the entire company is operated and you have to be OBSESSIVELY DEDICATED to the Company’s Mission, Vision, and Values. When you have a COO that is dividing his or her time amongst multiple companies that may even be in multiple industries, there is no way on gods green earth that you are going to be able to convince me that this person is bringing masterful, God-Level, expertise to being the COO of your organization. It is simply not possible. People pay for fractional COOs because they aren’t ready to invest in a COO. And if you aren’t ready to invest in a COO, then you shouldn’t have one.

DOOs

to me, a DOO is like an OBM, who has been promoted to the position of junior COO. They like to position themselves as partners in your business, however, given the fact that most DOOs, run their businesses on an agency model, meaning that they take several clients at a time (and often service ALL their clients THEMSELVES), as the owner of a business you are simply not getting the absolute best value for what it is that you’re paying. As a junior, COO, your primary goal would be to learn how to become a master integrator for my company. Which means you would need to develop the same level of mania as it is expected from a COO, because the idea is that you would be promoted from junior COO to COO. and again, if you have four, five, six, seven, 10 clients, there is absolutely no way that you are bringing the best of your skills, talents and abilities in the realm of operations to my company.

OBMs who run their businesses using the Agency model

…meaning that they are managing multiple businesses for multiple different clients at the same time.

Businesses are complex entities. They do not bow to your idea of how much time should be spent cultivating them. That means that there may be some months where what is required to manage an online business only amounts to a total of about 50 hours. And then there are other months when what is required to manage an online business amounts to a total of 100 or 200 hours, depending on the business, the industry, the client load, etc. so knowing that this is the case, why would I hire someone who would not fully dedicate themselves to the managing of my enterprise? Why would I hire someone who would need to split their time running my business with the time that it takes to run three or four other businesses because you have multiple clients? I would rather pay a mid-to-high five-figure yearly fee to have one person who is dedicated solely to the managing of our enterprise then to pay 3 to 4 figures a month to hire someone who is splitting time amongst multiple other businesses, and is not able to make our enterprise the TOP priority.

Most business owners don’t need an Operations Manager, a DOO, a Fractional COO, or even an OBM.

Why?

Because for most of you, attempting to separate yourself COMPLETELY from the operations of your business would be detrimental to your business and to your profits.

What you need is to separate yourself from tasks and projects in your business that take up so much of your time that they prevent you from being the VISIONARY and the LEADER OF your business.

That doesn’t require a COO

It requires CLARITY, SIMPLE systems (or even A system) that can carry out those tasks and projects you’ve already CLARIFIED, and people (or even A person) who can implement those systems based on your CLEAR instructions and expectations