In this solo episode of the Everyday Business Problems podcast, Dave Crysler tackles one of the most common questions growing companies ask: should we hire a fractional COO or a full-time COO? His answer might surprise you; you're asking the wrong question entirely. Drawing from nearly 30 years of operations leadership and his own evolution from traditional consulting to an Operations on Demand model, Dave breaks down why defining the problem you're actually trying to solve matters far more than filling a predefined role on your org chart.

What You'll Discover:

• Why "should I hire a fractional or full-time COO?" is the wrong starting question for most growing companies.
• How predefined roles and titles lead to compromises that don't actually solve the real problem.
• The difference between what a fractional COO actually does versus what most people marketing themselves as "fractional" deliver.
• Why the COO role looks completely different at $800K, $8M, and $80M in revenue, and why that matters for your hiring decision.
• How companies end up swapping tools (HubSpot to Salesforce, etc.) when the real issue is planning, people, and process, not the technology.
• The shipyard story: what a ball-peen hammer and a $15,000 invoice teach us about the value of experience.
• What "Operations on Demand" means and how it differs from fractional leadership or traditional consulting.
• How to use a crawl-walk-run approach to diagnose what your organization actually needs before making a hire.

If you're a growing company debating whether to bring in outside leadership help, this episode will reframe the conversation and help you focus on the problem first — before the title, the role, or the org chart.