Signs You Might Need An Outsourced, Part-Time, or Fractional Chief Marketing Officer

Signs You Might Need An Outsourced, Part-Time, or Fractional Chief Marketing Officer

As a business owner, are you trying to oversee your company's marketing efforts along with all the other priorities and responsibilities that you have? Do you feel like you are spinning all kinds of plates, right? If marketing is starting to feel like a chore, it might be time to look at hiring a marketing leader. But that doesn't mean you need to hire someone full time. So in this episode, I'm going to break down some of the signs indicating it might be time to hire a marketing leader and some of the tips that you might want to use to take advantage of this.


Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe you must remove your revenue roadblocks to accelerate growth and marketing shouldn't be difficult. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I really appreciate it.

I decided to shoot this episode because I come across this all the time in talking to business owners who are overseeing their marketing. I know how difficult it is when you are trying to lead those efforts and it's one of multiple plates that you're spinning. It's really challenging. And the last thing that I want to see you do is hire a full time, expensive marketing executive when you don't need it.

So just as I shoot this episode, the last time I looked to hire a Chief Marketing Officer full time or a CMO, right? Same thing. CMO, Chief Marketing Officer full time is a minimum of $200 to $250,000 salary plus benefits. And honestly, that is on the low end for larger companies. CMOs make far more than that. So it is a very expensive proposition and the last thing you want to do is hire somebody full time when you don't need it. Because what ends up happening when you hire a CMO full time and you don't need it? What ends up happening is business owners assign tasks to them that are low dollar activity. So you're paying a high dollar person to do low dollar activity because if you're a smaller company, there is not enough full time work for a CMO. You just don't need it. So hiring a fractional, part time or outsourced CMO, it's all the same thing, helps bridge that gap so that you get the marketing leadership and guidance you need until you reach the point where it makes sense to hire somebody full time. So if you're leading your marketing efforts and it's a struggle, I'm going to give you some additional signs. If you're checking some of these boxes off, it might be time to start looking at hiring a fractional CMO. I have nine things I'm going to share with you today, so I'm just going to jump into it.

9 Signs You Might Need An Outsourced, Part-Time, or Fractional Chief Marketing Officer

First sign that you might need a fractional, part time or outsourced CMO, you are having difficult troubleshooting why your marketing isn't working. You're investing in marketing. You're doing the things people say you should do, but it's not working and you don't know why. Bringing somebody in that thinks strategically, that has the capability to dig in and diagnose is really important. And that is what you will get from a fractional CMO.

Second sign you don't have a well defined marketing plan. You might be in a place where you're doing the activity, but it's more shoot from the hip, right? It's not planned. Having a well defined marketing plan is critical to your success. There is no perfect plan. I will be the first person to tell you that. But having a plan outlines your priorities. It helps you eliminate distraction and it allows you to focus. Because otherwise it is so easy to get distracted with marketing because there is information overload. There are so many people, so many gurus, so many channels, so many tactics. If you don't have a priority, what typically ends up happening is people just they're chasing different things. It's a shiny object this week, there's another one next week. Really difficult. So you've got to have a well defined, clear plan.

Third sign, you don't have the time, desire or expertise to manage your marketing effectively. And if you're in this boat, it's okay. I mean, as business owners, we can't be great at every aspect of our business. We just can't. And we're far better off focusing our efforts on where our skills lie, right? Where our special talents are. And if marketing is not that thing for you, it's totally okay. What I see a lot is business owners. Again, marketing is one of five, six plates they're spinning. They don't have the time, they don't really care for it. And because it's not their thing and they haven't spent time leveling up their marketing skills, they don't have the expertise to drive marketing efforts so that they can see consistent, repeatable results. So if you find yourself in this boat, one, just having the awareness of, man, I don't have the time, desire, expertise for this, having that awareness is critical. And saying, you know what? This is one of those things that I need to outsource. I need to bring in somebody else who does have that skill set. And like I said, if you are in this boat, it is totally okay. There are a lot of business owners that are in this boat. We can't be great at everything.

Number four, knowing that your marketing could be doing more for your business, but not knowing what to fix, you'll start to see some of these are intertwined as I start to go through these. But you're investing in your marketing, but it's not working as well as you know it could, but you're not sure what to do. Again, that's why having somebody that can think strategically, not just tactically, to really come in and diagnose is really important. And that is the kind of support that you're going to get from somebody at a chief marketing officer level. They're strategic thinkers. They're 30,000 foot level, not boots on the ground implementing tactics. And you need somebody who has that ability to come in and diagnose, hey, where are you currently? What's working, what's not, and then be able to put a plan together based on that. So that, one, you unlock your growth and profit opportunities, and then you have clear direction on what needs to happen moving forward to maximize your marketing ROI.

Number five, your revenue is plateaued or it's declined, and you're not sure how to reverse the trend. Very similar to what I just talked about before, right? But has to do with revenue overall, things are plateauing, declining. It's not where you want, but what do you need to do to fix it? Again, you need that strategic level person to come in and be able to diagnose, get a lay of the land, and then create a plan based off of what they're seeing. Okay, super important.

Number six, you lack the executive level marketing insights you need to drive results. Marketing, there are so many aspects to marketing. There are so many different metrics with marketing. In order to have the insights that we need to make good decisions, we need to identify the metrics that make the most sense for us. And a lot of people just don't identify the right metrics. They're tracking the wrong metrics. They're tracking metrics that don't mean anything. And when you have somebody, again, at that strategic level, who can really highlight what are the important metrics we need to track so that we have the data we need to make great decisions, that's what a CMO can do for you.

Number seven, you're having difficulty leading, guiding, and managing your in house or outsourced marketing team. If marketing is not your thing, it can be very difficult to manage and guide people when you're not really clear what they should or shouldn't be doing. Really difficult when you can bring in a CMO, whether it's full time or part time, they have that skill set. They've got the strategic experience so that they can guide people, keep everybody on the same page, working towards the same goal. They can help coach and support them when they do run into roadblocks and help them push through those roadblocks. They can also keep those people accountable. It's really difficult to hold people accountable when you're not sure what they should be doing and what metrics you can use to help keep them accountable. And that's where an outsourced or fractional CMO or a full time CMO can really fill that gap. So if you're having difficulty leading and guiding and managing your marketing team, that's another really strong sign that it may be time to bring somebody else in.

I got two more for you. Number eight, your marketing efforts and initiatives are scattered and inconsistent. They're just all over the place. This goes back to not having a plan, right? When you don't have a plan, oftentimes things are just they're scattered, they're all over the place and they may be inconsistent. And if you want to see consistent repeatable results with marketing, your efforts have to be consistent over time, which is really important. So if you find yourself in this boat, it's another really key sign that it may be time to bring somebody else in.

Number nine, I'm going to call this the in house and the agency conundrum. One of the when most business owners see these signs that I'm talking about, their first instincts are to bring somebody in house, hire a marketing manager, or reach out to an agency and have an agency help. And in my mind, either one of those is the wrong step because what you're doing when you do that is you're looking for strategic level support and guidance and that's not what you're going to get from a marketing manager or an agency, in most cases, I will preface that there are some agencies that are really great at marketing strategy, but they are few and far between. Most strategy is not their thing. They are great at the tactics that they specialize in. That does not mean that they are great at strategy and planning. And what ends up happening when you go to an agency saying, hey, I need my strategy, what should I be doing? And they're making money off of the tactics that they recommend, what do you expect they're going to recommend? It's like going to a fee based financial advisor versus one that's making money off of the stocks, bonds, mutual funds that they recommend. If they're making money off of what they recommend, do you really think you're getting an objective opinion? That's the problem with going to an agency trying to get strategic level guidance and leadership. The problem with hiring a marketing manager is most marketing managers are great at managing and overseeing the tactics, but most of them are not strategic, they're not executive level people. And what ends up happening there, the most common problem challenge that ends up happening is you hire a marketing manager and you expect them to do far too much. Marketing is too broad. People cannot be great at everything. But what I see with marketing managers is business owners are assigning way too much. They're expecting them to do strategy, planning and all kinds of implementation work. That's just not realistic. So that's what I call the in house and the agency conundrum. If you find yourself in this boat, which is very common, it might be time to hire a fractional CMO.

Conclusion

So those are the nine signs that you might need a fractional CMO. I hope you found it helpful. If you are checking at least one, if not multiple of these boxes reach out. I'd be happy to chat with you. If I am not a good fit for what you're looking for, I can always connect you with somebody else. But in order to get a return on your marketing investment. You got to have somebody looking out for that investment, and a fractional CMO will do that. They are an executive level person, a strategic level thinker, and they sit on your side of the table as a business owner. And they can look out for your investment to make sure that you're investing in the right areas and that you're going to get maximum return on investment.

So if you've got questions about this, reach out rialtomarketing.com. It's RialtoMarketing.com book a free discovery call. The other thing that I will make available to you too, is over at revenueroadblockscorecard.com. When we work with clients, we help them remove the nine common revenue roadblocks that exist with marketing. And if you want to know which of the nine roadblocks are slowing down your growth, you can do that in less than five minutes over at revenueroadblockscorecard.com. So hope you found this helpful. These nine signs are super common. They happen all the time. And this can be a great guidepost to help you determine whether it might be time to look at hiring a part time Chief Marketing Officer to come in and really drive your marketing efforts. So hope you found this helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I appreciate you. Until next time, take care.