A decision for your business
When should a small business hire a fractional CMO?
Consider a fractional CMO when marketing needs an accountable leader, the owner keeps filling that role, and a full-time hire would be more than the business needs.
A fractional CMO leads marketing for an agreed part of the working week or month. The useful question is what they will take responsibility for in your business.
Look at the decisions that keep returning to you.
You may already have someone posting on social media, an agency running advertising, and a designer making materials. You can still lack a person who decides what those efforts should accomplish and makes sure they work together.
- You keep choosing the audience, message, budget, and next priority yourself.
- Your suppliers finish assignments, but nobody owns the overall plan.
- Your team needs decisions and direction more often than another set of deliverables.
- You want experienced leadership but do not have enough work or budget for a full-time marketing executive.
Agree on responsibility before agreeing on a title.
A useful engagement identifies the business problem, who makes decisions, who does the work, and how progress will be reviewed. Ask whether the person will set priorities, coordinate your team and outside partners, manage agreed spending, and follow through when the work stalls.
At Sharp Pencil, marketing leadership means taking responsibility for the plan and leading the work. Writing, design, and website work can be part of the engagement when we agree they are needed.
What can that look like?
For Burns, Henry & Kirksey, ongoing marketing leadership includes decisions about how the law firm communicates as it grows. When an attorney joined, Micah advised telling key clients personally before making the public announcement. The sequence mattered as much as the announcement itself.
Read the BH&K client story to see the relationship behind the work.
When would another arrangement fit better?
If you know exactly what you need made and can direct it yourself, a defined creative project may be enough. If someone on your team already leads marketing and wants help thinking through decisions, an adviser may fit. If you need an executive present and responsible every day, consider whether a full-time role is the better match.
Compare marketing leadership with marketing advice.
What should the first conversation cover?
Bring one current marketing problem, a picture of who does the work now, and the decisions you wish someone else could own. Discuss the responsibility, time, cost, and signs of progress before beginning. A job title alone will not tell you whether the arrangement is right.
Sharp Pencil is Micah Voraritskul’s marketing leadership and advisory practice in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Meet Micah or send a note.