FOR B2B FOUNDERS WHOSE GROWTH HAS STALLED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN $1M AND $15M
Fractional CMO: I Run Your Marketing Like Someone Who's Carried a Quota for 27 Years
Your marketing team reports to me. Your head of sales keeps reporting to you, and starts getting leads from someone who knows which ones get called.
I've run marketing and sales in every revenue role I've held since 1999, and I've never missed the quota. Remote, month to month, and every month you'll know what you're paying for.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
As Seen In
TechCrunch
Forbes
Inc.
Fast Company
Hired to fix revenue
It grew every time
2020
Fractional CMO & CRO
2–6×
Pipeline · 6 years
2018
Chief Revenue Officer
+300%
2 years
2015
VP of Sales & Marketing
+107%
2 years
2014
EVP Sales & Marketing
+300%
1 year
2006
VP Channel & Business Development
+600%
8 years
1999
Global Sales Director
+400%
7 years
$1B+
Revenue at companies where I led revenue teams
27 years
Carrying quota, never missed
2–6×
Pipeline, averaged across my fractional clients since 2020
Every Marketing Dollar Has an Invoice. Not One Has a Lead Attached.
You know you need marketing. You know it isn't working. What you can't tell is which part isn't, and nobody on the payroll can tell you either.
I've sat in that meeting. The agency retainer and the PPC bill are open next to a report full of impressions, clicks and form fills, every line going up, and nobody can say what any of it bought. Ask, and the agency sends another report.
Your team tells you they're slammed, and they are, but nobody senior enough to lead them has ever told them what the work is for, so nobody can tell you which of those dollars turned into a lead your head of sales would call.
You worked harder this year than last year, and made less. And the marketing invoice didn't get any smaller.
Your Marketing Is Graded on Clicks. Mine Is Graded by Your Head of Sales.
The usual fixes all add more: a bigger budget, another junior, a new agency with a sharper deck. It's more activity aimed the same way as before, and a count of form fills that goes up while the leads your head of sales accepts don't.
That happens because marketing gets measured where it's easy to measure, where a form gets filled in, an ad gets clicked or a post gets liked. Those numbers can all rise in a quarter when sales closes nothing, and a marketing team that's never carried a quota has no reason to look further down.
I measure it where your sales team does. A lead counts when your head of sales accepts it, and that one change moves everything above it: what marketing says, who it says it to, and what it stops spending money on.
That one change is part of a bigger framework. Over 27 years of running marketing and sales, I built one way of deciding what gets fixed first. I call it the RevenueEngine™: four fixes, always in the same order, so every dollar goes to the fix that comes next. I've used it in every revenue role I've held since 1999, at companies that did more than $1B in revenue while I led their revenue teams, and revenue grew in every one, somewhere between 107% and 600%.
As your fractional CMO, I do the fixing on the first two: positioning and messaging. I build the third, getting in front of buyers who don't know you yet, right up to the moment a lead goes to sales. The fourth stays with your head of sales.
Skip the first two and the third gets expensive. That's an out-of-order fix, and it's how a PPC bill grows with nothing sales will accept behind it.
Not every company I've worked for needed all four fixed. Every one of them needed them in that order.
Five Ways to Restart Growth From the Marketing Side, and Who's Carried a Quota in Each
Me
Promote or hire a junior
Keep running it yourself
Hire a full-time CMO
Hire another fractional CMO
The honest trade. If someone on your team is ready, promote them. If the company can carry a full-time marketing executive and wants one in the building, hire one, and hire them into a marketing function that already works, so they walk into a job instead of a rebuild.
I'm the answer when marketing is costing you money you can't account for, and neither of those is true yet. The full comparison with full-time →
And if you have an agency, keep it if it's good. An agency isn't a substitute for this role; it's one of the things this role runs. What changes for your agency ↓
Who Reports to Me, Who Doesn't, and the One Number That's Mine
Who reports to me. Your marketing team, and the agencies and contractors marketing pays. I direct them; they do the work. I report to you.
Who doesn't. Your head of sales. They stay your direct report and keep running sales: the process, the team, the forecast. We're peers, the way a full-time CMO and a sales chief would be.
The number that's mine. The pipeline marketing creates, counted where your head of sales accepts it, not where a form gets filled in. When it misses, you hear it from me first, with the reason and what changes next month.
Your sales calls. I listen to them, recorded or live, from the first month on. That's where your buyers say, in their own words, what marketing should be saying, and where you hear what happens to the leads marketing sends. It isn't optional, and it doesn't change who runs sales.
What marketing says, and to whom. Who you're for, who you should stop chasing, the competitors you're actually up against and the reason a buyer picks you, written down so everyone argues from the same page.
Then that story in your buyers' words, on your website, your pitch, the deck your reps open with and the first line of every campaign.
One definition of a lead, agreed with your head of sales. What counts, when it becomes sales' problem, and what happens to the ones sales sends back. Your head of sales and I agree it as peers, and we both read it off one dashboard.
How it reaches buyers, and what each dollar buys. Channels, campaigns and outbound, built and running up to the moment a lead is handed to sales. The budget and every dollar in it, including the agency retainer, and what stops getting paid for.
Measurement built into your CRM from first touch to the handoff, and the marketing slide your board reads: what marketing spent, what it created, and what changes next quarter.
The team, and what they keep. Hiring, development, and the hard conversation when one is needed, with you told before anything happens, never after. The ones who stay learn to think like people with scars; they had it in them, they just didn't have the playbook.
And the playbook lives on your systems, in your CRM, your Drive and your wiki, yours whether or not we keep working together.
Every Month Opens With a List You Hold Me To
The deliverables and the dates, agreed at the start and written down, that you hold me to. That list is how you'll know what you're paying for.
What isn't in the role
- Sales: the team and the process stay with your head of sales. If the problem is between the two teams, that's the other role, with both teams reporting to me: Fractional CRO →.
- Being on site: every engagement is remote.
- Hours: I don't sell them, count them or report them.
- Production (design, video, development): I direct it; I don't manufacture it.
- Custom code and integrations: I don't write or build them.
- Ad spend, software and contractors: billed to you by the vendors, not marked up through me.
Ninety Days, Fixed in the Same Order I've Used Since 1999
It starts after WeekZero™, once we both know marketing is the problem.
Who You're For
Day one, we agree the first month's deliverables and dates, in writing. The team and the agencies report in. I go through everything marketing spends and what each piece of it produced, and start listening to your sales calls to hear what buyers actually say.
By day 30: who you're for and why you win, written down; and one definition of a lead, agreed with your head of sales.
What You Say
The story goes out in your buyers' words: your site, your pitch, your deck, the first lines of every campaign. Measurement goes into your CRM so next month's numbers mean something. Anything marketing spends that isn't producing leads your head of sales accepts gets switched off.
Who Hears It
Campaigns and outbound built on the story, aimed at the buyers from day 30, measured on the dashboard from day 60. The budget moves to what's working. And next quarter's priorities, with an owner on every line.
Month to Month
Every month opens with the deliverables and dates we agree and closes with you checking them. The team runs more of it themselves; the playbook gets longer.
And we both know what the end looks like: someone on your team ready to lead marketing, or a full-time CMO hired into a function that already works. If it's the second, I'll help you write the job description and sit in on the interviews.
Day one, marketing and sales count leads two different ways. Day ninety, it's on a dashboard your head of sales agrees with.
I Know Which Leads Get Called. I've Been the One Calling Them.
For 27 years I carried the number those leads were called against, and I've never missed it.
Every company where I've led revenue grew somewhere in here. Where's yours today?
It's one person, with no associates and no bench behind me, so the person you evaluate is the person your marketing team reports to.
$216,000 a Year at Most. A Full-Time CMO Starts at $310,000.
A full-time chief marketing officer at a company your size costs $310,000 to $410,000 a year once bonus, taxes, benefits and the search fee are counted, plus equity. And the search takes three to six months before anyone starts, then months more before anything changes.
$10,000 to $18,000 a month.
That's $120,000 to $216,000 a year, with your marketing team reporting to me and your head of sales still reporting to you. Even the top of the range is $94,000 under the floor of a full-time hire.
Other fractional CMOs charge $7,000 to $12,000 a month for the standard role and $15,000 to $25,000 for an embedded one. Mine sits across both.
Theirs is priced by the hours a week you get, ten to twenty at the standard rate, with a bonus on top in the market's standard deal. That bonus sits on KPIs they control, and the ones marketing controls alone, like form fills and clicks, can rise in a quarter when sales closes nothing.
Mine is priced on what I own: no hours to divide it by, and no bonus, because marketing's number is mine either way.
Where you land in that range depends on how much has to be built rather than directed (whether there's a team to lead or one to hire) and how many products and segments marketing has to carry. Not on what you've raised. What moves the price →
The terms. Month to month, paid in advance. No minimum term, no notice period, no equity, no severance, no bonus.
Remote: I'm in your meetings, your CRM and your documents, not your building. Hours are never billed, never counted, and never the basis for what you pay.
If what's broken is between marketing and sales, the marketing role can't reach it. That's the CRO role, at $20,000 to $32,000 a month, with both teams reporting to me: How that structure works →
If it's your sales team that needs a VP of sales, that's Fractional VP of Sales, at the same $10,000 to $18,000 a month: your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you. Fractional VP of Sales →
If you'd rather keep running marketing yourself and want someone to tell you what to fix while your team does the fixing, that's Advisory, at $6,000 to $8,000 a month: Advisory → And WeekZero™ comes before any of it, and costs nothing.
Now price the alternative. Another year of marketing invoices with no leads attached.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
When Not to Buy This
I'd rather say this now than after you've paid.
Marketing and sales are blaming each other. If the fight has moved past lead quality to who owns the handoff, who follows up, and who gets blamed when a deal is lost, the problem may not be marketing. It may be the space between the two teams, and one role can't fix a seam it only stands on one side of.
That's the CRO role, with both teams reporting to me: Fractional CRO →
You want me over sales, not marketing. I take that role too: your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you. Fractional VP of Sales → If you'll keep running sales and want someone to tell you what to fix while your team does the fixing, that's Advisory → If the two teams blame each other, see above.
Your customers don't love you yet. If you're still finding out whether the market wants what you built, more marketing sells the wrong thing faster. Find out who it's for first.
You need hands, not direction. If you already know exactly what marketing should say and to whom, and you just need someone to make the ads, the posts and the pages, you need a production team. I direct production; I don't manufacture it.
You want someone on site. Every engagement is remote. If the situation needs a person in the building, buy that instead.
You want your plan carried out. I run marketing on data, and sometimes the data will disagree with you. If what you need is someone to execute a plan that's already decided, I'm the expensive wrong answer.
You won't let me talk to your customers. The free week includes conversations with customers you've won and lost. If that's off the table, I'm the wrong fit.
If one of these is you, the analysis still tells you what to fix first, and it's still free.
Fractional CMO Questions Founders Ask Before They Hand Over Marketing
“My head of sales won't want a marketing executive defining what a lead is.”
They shouldn't, and I won't, not alone. In this role they're my peer, and we agree the definition together, in writing, before either of us is measured on it.
What they get out of it: a marketing leader who's carried the same kind of number they carry, and who counts a lead only once they've accepted it. For a sales leader who's tired of arguing about lead quality, that's the definition they've been asking for.
I'll also be listening to their sales calls from the first month, to hear what buyers say so marketing can say it first. The calls stay theirs to run.
“Is my team being replaced?”
No. I direct your team; I don't bring my own, because I don't have one. The people who stay get a playbook and someone who's made the mistakes they're about to make. The job is to leave them able to run it without me.
“We can't afford you and everyone we already have.”
Sometimes that's right, and then it's a question of timing, not of cutting people to make room for me. I don't need a clean slate; I build on the team you have. If the budget can't carry both yet and your team can do the fixing, Advisory is the other way to work with me: I tell you what to fix, and they fix it.
“How much of you do we actually get?”
You get the deliverables and dates we agree on at the start of every month, written down, and you hold me to them. I manage my time; you manage me. What I'm working on is on that list, with a date next to each line.
“We already have an agency. Why add you?”
Because right now the agency reports to you, and you're not sure what they did for the retainer. In this role they report to me. If they're good, they get a clearer brief and a budget aimed at buyers that sales will call. If they're not, I'll tell you, and tell you why.
“We've hired people before who said they'd fix our marketing.”
Did they tell you how before they started? The order I'd fix it in is published on this site, and WeekZero™ applies it to your company before you've paid anything. If you disagree with the plan, you find out while it's still free.
“Now that we know what's wrong, we can do it ourselves.”
Sometimes you can, and the plan is yours to keep either way. But you don't know what's around that next corner, and you'll be back to where you are right now. What you're paying for is judgment when that corner comes, from someone who's already made that mistake on somebody else's number.
“Will you take a bonus on the leads?”
No. A bonus on lead volume pays me to send sales more of what they're already not calling, and it pulls me toward whatever fills the form fastest this quarter.
The number being mine means I answer for it: when it misses, you hear it from me first, with the reason and what changes next month. And you can end this at the end of any month, which is a sharper incentive than any bonus.
“What if it doesn't work?”
Then you don't renew next month. I don't work on long-term contracts, and I don't guarantee outcomes. Nobody honest does. What I can do is own marketing's number, and tell you about a miss before you go looking for it.
“What happens when you leave?”
That's the point of the whole thing. Either someone on your team grows into leading marketing or you hire a full-time CMO into a function that already works, so they walk into a job instead of a rebuild.
If it's a full-time hire, I help write the job description and sit in on the interviews, so they're hired against the real job. The playbook, the process and the dashboards stay on your systems either way.
Fractional CMOs: Who Reports to Them, What They Cost, When You Need One
What is a fractional CMO?
A chief marketing officer you engage month to month instead of hiring full-time. The marketing team reports to the fractional CMO, and the fractional CMO reports to the CEO.
The head of sales stays a peer, reporting to the CEO, exactly where a full-time CMO would sit. Before you hire one, ask two things: who would report to them, and which number they'd answer for.
What does a fractional CMO do?
Runs marketing. That means deciding who the company is for and why it wins, making sure everyone tells that story the same way, building the channels that reach buyers who don't know the company yet, owning the marketing budget and the agencies it pays, measuring what creates pipeline, and hiring and developing the team.
The good ones leave all of it documented, so the company can take it back.
How much does a fractional CMO cost?
In this market, $7,000 to $12,000 a month for a standard engagement and $15,000 to $25,000 for an embedded one, sold by the hours a week. A full-time CMO at a company under $15M costs $310,000 to $410,000 a year fully loaded, plus equity.
Mine is $10,000 to $18,000 a month, remote and month to month, with your marketing team reporting to me, priced on what I own rather than hours I attend.
What's the difference between a fractional CMO and a fractional CRO?
The reporting lines. A fractional CMO sits over marketing, and the head of sales is a peer who still reports to the CEO. A fractional CRO sits over both, and the two heads report to the CRO. Same person, one level higher.
If what's broken is inside marketing, you need a CMO. If it's the handoff between marketing and sales, you need someone over both: The fractional CRO role →
Is a part-time CMO the same as a fractional CMO?
The same idea, sold differently. “Part-time” describes the hours. I don't sell hours: the role is defined by what reports to me and which number is mine, and each month by the deliverables and dates we agree.
What's the difference between a fractional CMO and an interim CMO?
An interim CMO fills the gap while you search for a permanent one. A fractional CMO runs marketing for as long as it's needed and builds the function a permanent hire would walk into.
Mine is built to end one of two ways: someone on your team ready to lead it, or a full-time CMO hired into a function that already works.
Should I hire a fractional CMO or a marketing agency?
They do different jobs. An agency produces ads, content and design to a plan. A fractional CMO decides the plan, owns the budget, and directs whoever produces, including an agency. If you know exactly what marketing should say and to whom, an agency may be enough. If nobody's directing the agency, you need someone above it.
Should I hire a fractional or a full-time CMO?
Full-time when the company can carry $310,000 or more a year plus equity, wants someone in the building every day, and has a marketing function stable enough to hand them. Fractional when it can't yet, or when the function needs building first.
A full-time CMO hired into a working system starts by improving it instead of inventing it: The full comparison →
When does a company need a fractional CMO?
When marketing is spending money nobody can connect to pipeline. When the team is working hard and nobody senior is leading it. When you've promoted someone and they haven't grown into it. And before you hire a full-time marketing executive into a function that doesn't work yet.
How long does a fractional CMO engagement last?
Mine is month to month with no minimum term. It ends when someone on your team is ready to lead marketing, when you hire a full-time CMO into it, or at the end of any month you decide.
Can a fractional CMO work remotely?
Yes. Every engagement I run is remote. Recent engagements have been across the US and in Europe. I'm in your meetings, your CRM and your documents, not your building.
Do you take equity?
No. No equity, no severance, no notice period.
Before You Hire a Fractional CMO, Find Out Whether Marketing Is the Problem
It's called WeekZero™. Other firms charge to find what's broken. The closest published price is a demand agency's six-week revenue assessment: $35,000. Mine takes a week, and it's free.
Before you spend anything, I'll spend a week judging your marketing the way someone who's carried a quota for 27 years judges it: your numbers, your marketing spend, and conversations with you, the people who run your marketing and your sales, and your customers: deals you won and lost, and prospects who bought and who didn't.
Then an hour with you: here's what's working, here's what isn't, here's the order I'd fix it in, here's the action plan. It's yours to keep, and it may tell you that you don't need me.
Sometimes it says marketing needs a leader. Sometimes it says marketing's fine and the problem is what your sales team does with what it sends. That's the sales role: Fractional VP of Sales → I'll tell you which.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
I work with B2B companies between $1M and $15M whose customers already love them.