Resources · Guide · Sent by email · Updated
DO YOU NEED A FRACTIONAL CMO?
Sometimes a fractional CMO is exactly right. Sometimes it is an expensive way to avoid a decision. Work out which before you hire anyone, me included.
What's inside
- 1
Three honest lists, hire full-time, go fractional, hire neither
- 2
A true-cost comparison worksheet, cost per senior day, not headline salary
- 3
The 90-day standard to hold any candidate to, in writing
If you would rather have this done with you than to you, this is the work I do. See services
A guide that will talk you out of it
About half the businesses that ask me about fractional leadership do not need it, and this guide is built to find that out before anyone signs anything. The core test is whether your gap is in deciding or in doing. If decisions get made and then nothing happens, you need delivery capacity, and hiring a strategist will produce better decisions that still nobody acts on.
The commercial question underneath
A lot of what gets scoped as fractional leadership is really a three month project with a clear end: fix the reporting, sort the stack, rebuild the plan, hand it over. That costs less and finishes cleanly. The guide includes the questions that tell you which of the two you are actually buying, and how the arrangement works in practice.
COMMON QUESTIONS
How do I know if I need a fractional CMO or a marketing manager?
Look at what happens after your meetings. If people leave unsure what to prioritise, that is a leadership gap. If they leave with clear actions that then do not happen, that is a delivery gap, and a manager or an agency is the better answer.
How many days a month does the arrangement need?
Around one day a week is where advice becomes leadership. Two days a month can be a useful sounding board, but at that level the person does not have enough context to hold vendors or decisions to account.
Is this guide biased, given you offer fractional work?
It is written to disqualify as much as to qualify, because a badly matched retainer is worse for me than no retainer. The sections on when a project beats a retainer, and when to hire hands instead, both argue against buying the service I sell.