If I see another LinkedIn post headed "What's a fractional marketer?" I think I might...

The debate shouldn't be "fractional vs. full-time." (Sorry, fellow fractionals)

It should be: "What does optimal resource allocation actually look like in 2025?"

CFOs and CROs don't need another explainer post. They need to make a decision: keep burning cash on premature full-time hires, or start thinking like capital allocators.

🚩You wouldn't keep a full-time data center when cloud computing exists.
🚩You wouldn't lease permanent warehouse space for seasonal inventory.
🚩Yet when it comes to human capital, often the largest line item on the P&L, the default is still binary thinking. Full-time or nothing.

🚀 Here's what separates companies scaling efficiently from those stuck:
- They've built blended workforces. Full stop.
- They stopped treating workforce planning as an HR problem and started treating it as what it actually is: a capital allocation problem.
- They're not asking "what's a fractional CMO?" They're asking: "For each function, what's the ideal mix of institutional knowledge vs. specialised expertise vs. execution capacity?"

💡 The blended workforce model isn't complicated:
Some functions need deep organisational context and continuity, your full-time core that drives daily operations and owns customer relationships.

Others need world-class expertise for a defined period, building revenue operations, implementing financial systems, pivoting into new markets, and establishing demand gen infrastructure. These are better served by someone who's built this system 15 times, not someone learning on your bottom line.

💰 Let's talk about the real cost:
Every full-time senior hire is a bet that the business will need that exact skill set, at that exact level, for the next 3-5 years.

In a market where strategies pivot quarterly and business models evolve constantly? That's not financial prudence. That's ego.

🧮 The maths isn't subtle:
- A fractional CMO or VP of Revenue Operations at 15-20 hours per week delivers senior-level strategic leadership for a fraction of the fully-loaded cost of a full-time hire.

- That's not a marginal difference. That's the difference between accessing the expertise that drives growth and settling for whoever you can afford, then watching them learn the role while your burn rate climbs.

🚀 Here's what nobody's saying out loud:
The companies still hiring full-time for every senior role aren't being strategic.

They're being traditional.
And traditional is expensive.

The blended workforce model isn't the future. It's already here. High-growth companies have moved on from debating whether it works.

❓ The only question that matters:
How much runway is your business burning while you wait to figure this out?