FAQs

Let’s start with what an Integrator does… The Integrator is there to RUN your business, whereas the founder/CEO or Visionary is there to CHANGE their business by focussing on strategy and building new relationships.

I like to break down what an Integrator does into 3 areas:
– PEOPLE: The Integrator manages the Visionaries team.
– PROJECTS & OPERATIONS: The Integrator oversees the delivery, ensures the trains are running on time AND make the founder’s VISION become a reality.
– PROCESS Improvement: The Integrator will drive process improvement and systemize the business.

A Fractional Integrator will do this on a Fractional basis, serving you and other clients at the same time at a reduced cost, on a month to month basis, with no expectation of a stake in your business.

At a high level:

• Relieve the CEO / Visionary of daily operational management.
• Ensure the business is running smoothly, get the trains running on-time.
• Bring the team together.
• Drive Process Improvement and Systemize the Business.

Every client’s needs are different, however the initial steps would typically look like this:
– Talk to the Visionary and team to understand their challenges, diagnose any problems and set out a course of suitable action to ensure that your business will run smoothly.
– Ensure that the team has a clear view of their roles and responsibilities and determine if the current organisational structure is suitable for the needs of the business.
– Map out the repeatable processes used to run the business. In documenting these processes, work with the team to see if there are opportunities for improvement, identify who is accountable for each part and estimate how long each step takes. This is a first step to ensuring predictable repeatability and that your business is running smoothly.
– Oversee the planning and execution processes of your business and identify if improvement is needed. Provide any necessary training, facilitation and support.
– Understand the needs, interests and goals of the individuals and align the tasks that would allow the people to be fulfilled and enable the company to succeed.
– Help the company’s team define simple rules of engagement that improve teamwork, execution and reduce conflict.
– Determine the regular operational reporting that would suit you and your business.

Our services are paid in USD, month to month, and can be tailored to your needs. For more information, please see the pricing tab.

Typically a full time Operator would be 100k+ USD for a mid-size business.

Our Fractional Integrators will manage an online business of up 20 staff for $6k USD per month, on only a month to month commitment.

It’s a low risk investment to try us out, with a huge potential upside for you and your business.

A full-time Operator will charge more and expect a stake or at-least profit related pay.

– Is it a coaching engagement or are we driving?
– Number of staff and size of the team to be managed.
– Frequency of meetings/facilitation required vs what we can handle offline using Slack etc.

The Visionary and Integrator will meet weekly.
The Integrator will run a weekly team meeting and also any diagnosis or facilitation sessions.
There is unlimited access to the Integrator via offline channels such as WhatsApp/Slack/Email.
For more regular operational tasks, ticket tracking as an example, we may involve a Project Coordinator.
Lloyd (VirtualDOO Founder) and Nicky (Principle Integrator) will engage with the Visionary periodically to ensure comfort levels.

We always adjust to ensure maximum quality.

We don’t sell hours. We will do whatever it takes to keep your business running smoothly. This is performance based so we will be performing at a level where you are seeing a significant return on investment to the extent that you are delighted.

As long as you want. Cancel at any time. Our services are a low risk, low cost investment which has potential upside for your business.

The answer is No.
Firstly, the Fractional Integrator has to recognize how much change the organization can absorb and often this will be limited by how much capacity the company has to change right now.
Secondly, VirualDOO is a Service meaning that you are accessing a whole team not an Individual.

With a Service you are getting access to a whole Team.

The VirtualDOO team consists of seasoned professionals who have the experience from running other businesses. They’ve often seen solutions to similar problems.

A client will typically engage with:
1) Lloyd (VirtualDOO Founder) and Nicky (Principle Integrator)
2) A Fractional Integrator that we assign
3) Our other practitioners that we bring on when appropriate, for example a project coordinator to assist the Integrator.

Having access to a team rather than an individual is less risky. With a service, if someone is sick on holiday or wins the lotto, the trains continue to run.

Being a service, our motives are definitely different to a full-time operator.

A full-time operator with a stake in the business may benefit from entrenching themselves into the business processes and make themselves indispensable which can lead to them becoming a key person risk.

Our goal as a service is to make ourselves redundant and make it a team run business.
A team run business can be achieved when the processes have been systemized so the team can easily upskill one another and bring in others to follow the system.
If the visionary wants to bring on a full-time operator, we are there to make that transition for the new operator as easy as possible.

What is in it for the Fractional Integrator to make themselves redundant?

Our business is mainly acquired through referral.
A glowing reference from the founder sets us up nicely for further clients who understand our capabilities and know the benefits.
If the founder would like us to coach and mentor someone internal to drive, we are happy to do that.

That is not our business model.
We are there to help you realize your vision and ensure things are running smoothly.
As we are a service, we are able to dial-up capacity as required, however if you decide you want to hire a full-time operator then we can help you transition someone in.
Note that hiring a Fractional Integrator is a great way to try out the Integrator role!
Adding a Fractional Integrator is a great way to test drive both the Fractional Integrator model and a specific Fractional Integrator.
If it doesn’t work out with the chosen Integrator, you can easily end the contract OR bring in a different style of Fractional Integrator without the big investment of adding a full-time member to your executive team.

Symptoms would be:
– If the Founder/Visionary/CEO is spending their time on run activities such as executing daily operational tasks, project management and/or people management instead of focussing on implementing their vision and working on strategy.
– Is the founder looking at hiring an operator to run their business but not wanting to pay them a stake / profit related pay? A fractional integrator service may be a better option as we do not expect a stake OR profit related pay. We can help the founder phase in a full-time operator at a later point if a permanent position is desired in the long term.
– The founder does not have scope OR budget to take on a full-time operator to run their business. A fractional integrator service will be a lower cost option.