Amy Crutchfield is the founder of Amy Crutchfield, Executive Search. Her business is specialized in placing leadership roles within the branding, design, innovation and technology spaces. Amy has successfully built world class leadership teams in Fortune 500 companies, consultancies, agencies and start-ups for the last 22 years.
Most recently, Amy has founded The Fractional Coach. A chat-based, mobile app where you enjoy the flexibility of selecting exactly how much time you need and when you need it. Extend a session if you want more support or end the conversation whenever you’re ready.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
A typical day always starts with coffee, a dental treat for my dog, making lunch for my kids, hopefully a workout and then I start at my desk with a quick review of all of my meetings and what I need to accomplish for the day. Getting to kiss my kids goodbye and getting a workout definitely puts me in a productive mode, it feels civilized and sets me up for success for the day.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Ideas are just ideas unless you do something with them. Ideas typically come to me when I see a recurring problem or obstacle and want to figure out a solution. This was the start of the idea for The Fractional Coach. I’ve also offered career coaching in addition to running my executive search business but often when people inquire about doing sessions, they go quiet after hearing about the cost of a full session. It’s not that it’s prohibitively expensive but when you’re job hunting, you’re not always in the position to be spending money. I didn’t want money to be a barrier to people to get career coaching help so I decided to create an app that offers a pay-as-you-go type of format. The more I began to run the idea by people and saw how much they liked it and would use it, the more I knew I needed to bring it to life. Once I decided to create it, I set out to find the best developer as well as marketing experts that aligned with my philosophy and passion and helped me bring it to market.
What’s one trend that excites you?
The trend of being fractional. Fractional in terms of hybrid work environments…we can be in the office a couple of days a week and work from home on the others. We can get fractional help from experts in so many different areas without having to commit to longer term agreements. Everybody wins.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
As best as I can, I try to complete one task before tackling another one. It’s so easy to have a million tabs open on my computer..an email I was writing but then a meeting starts, a text, a post, an article. If I keep jumping to answer everything at once, I never can complete things. Finish the email, send the text, check off the boxes. =)
What advice would you give your younger self?
It sounds so cliche but don’t be afraid. Whether it’s delegating responsibilities to others, hiring others to help you, taking on a new area you don’t know much about. Fear can paralyze you from taking risks but the more risks you take, the suddenly luckier you become and that’s not a coincidence. I was always afraid to risk things where it could affect others around me so I took it all on by myself. I’d tell my younger self to trust yourself and others more, and look for people who you can do it with together.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.
I’m still very old-school in a lot of the ways that I work and it definitely stands in the face of how every trend is going these days. In a world of increasing AI, automated everything, I still do most facets of my job without all of the fancy software. Sure it would make me quicker but it can’t replicate what makes me great at my job and that’s my instinct. I write down notes in my interviews because writing it down always helps me retain the information better. I schedule my calendar by hand for the same reasons. My job relies on me really listening and getting to know people. There is no computer that is going to do that better than I can and I’m sure there’s a long line of people out there who would dispute that.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Listen to your own voice. We are all so busy so much of the time. We are always asking for and listening to advice from others but the best voice to often listen to is the one within yourself. You really need to quiet the noise around you, literally and figuratively, and allow yourself to guide you. You’ll get all of the answers you need if you can go deep down and lead with what feels true to you.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
When feeling overwhelmed or unfocused, instead of talking about it to others which is really just a form of self-induced procrastination, just start doing it. The overwhelm is usually present when we are just thinking about what we have to tackle but the minute you actually start what you need to do and begin to dig in, the challenge feels way more surmountable, the focus starts to settle in and then you get into a groove.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
I’ve always aimed to be true to my own values and ethics and lead with them in the way I show up in all of my business relationships. People want to work with people they like and they want to feel that you have shared philosophies and align with their sensibilities. Looking back at how many years I’ve worked with some of the same clients as see their level of trust in me demonstrates that these things matter and it’s a tremendous source of pride.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
When first going out on my own, for a short time I had a partner. It was very short-lived and thankfully we remained great friends but we realized quite quickly that this was a partnership that just wasn’t meant to be. I quickly pivoted and launched my business on my own and never looked back. You can be great friends and great admirers of one another’s professional success but not everyone gels well together in a partnership. Really think through partnerships, make sure you go through a lot of detail to ensure you will approach your business and outreach with a shared approach and philosophy.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
I just learned today that there’s a way to use LinkedIn with their Insight Tag, to allow you to gain insights about who visits your website, therefore allowing you to better understand what demographic is most interested in what you are offering. This is amazing information for any business especially when trying to really hone in on who their most interested users are…and no i’m not affiliated with LinkedIn, lol.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
I’m starting to use ChatGBT – not as a starting point but often to check that I haven’t missed anything, especially when planning something out. It usually offers some really good nuggets of something I hadn’t thought of and allows me to feel I’ve comprehensively addressed everything I should be considering.
What is the best $100 you recently spent?
It would have to be my handyman…there’s a lot that I try to do myself…a theme throughout this interview, but there are some things best left to the experts. I usually wait until a few things pile up before asking for help. One by one we go through the list and when it’s all done, everything feels in order and somehow it always feels quite satisfying.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?
I really enjoy NY Times best-selling author, Yung Pueblo. He’s written some books but I also follow him on Instagram and he is always providing tips on growth and relationships, two things which I’m always striving to improve upon.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
Last weekend my daughter and I rented Twisters and watched it together. We popped some popcorn, slightly burned it, but had a ball together. While I wouldn’t say the movie was a classic, it was a lot of fun and just spending time with my daughter was the highlight…having Glen Powell as the star didn’t hurt either. 😉
Key learnings:
- Don’t be afraid to tackle things alone or with others. The greatest paralysis is before we start things. Once you get going, do your research, get smart by talking to as many people as you can, you’ll be unstoppable.