Fractional Chief Marketing Officer Services Deliver High-value Results

High-performance business process outsourcing (BPO) has passed its 20^th anniversary in the annals of international business operations. It started in the early 90s when British Petroleum decided to outsource all of its accounting functions to one source in Europe. The rest, as they say is history . . . but only for savvy company leadership who set a high goal of achieving and capturing high business value beyond simple cost reductions.

What started as a process to economize on back-office processes (typically finance & accounting and human resources) has grown and evolved into a best-practices and holistic approach to front-office functions like strategic planning, marketing leadership and customer relationship management services. And again, it is that small group of self-aware and focused leadership who are reaping the measurable benefits.

In particular, C-level leaders in an array of fast-growth companies rise to their leadership positions from technical, operational or financial training and experience.

Some of these leaders, especially in technology companies, can unintentionally retard growth and market share when they try too hard to acquire talent with limited experience into marketing leadership roles only to find after a six-month onboarding process that this is a bad hire. Mistakes can range widely, documented hard costs range from $75,000 to over $200,000 depending on the company and market competition. So are there alternatives?

Yes. You can focus on core responsibilities and stay focused on sustaining the culture you know that works well for your teams and stakeholders while you move the marketing strategy ahead and commit limited assets to talent acquisition and professional growth.

Consider the advantages of fractional chief marketing officer services (FCMO). Let’s look the rationale and a process to create and deploy a valuable resource while critical changes are underway in your company. In talking with and listening to top HR talent acquisition executives and CEOs themselves several things become clear. Let’s peel back the layers . . .

• First, the challenging process of bringing on a key top-level person to the team is time and energy consuming and complex in every aspect. For both HR executive and the president or CEO time and energies are devoted to not only an effective and attractive descriptions and requirements but also to the really hard work that follows.

• Second, company leadership still must deal with and lead from a position of strength and focus in all the other aspects of the company’s operation. Obviously that includes human capital management, operations and supply chain, prospect and customer relations and the management of the financial assets of the company. Now top that with the pressure packed layer of dealing with each candidate who falls out of the 100 to 1 ratio of resumes to interviews.

• Third, now we have candidates to interview and the ultimate management squeeze of making a choice among the top 2, 3 or four candidates. Then there’s on-boarding, acclimating and training before that marketing professional even gets the saddle warm and shaped.

• Fourth, even when it’s most effective, this process can be drawn out, covering a fiscal quarter or two. So what’s happening to the refinement and deployment of an effective branding and marketing strategy while all of this is going on? Does the CEO move his or her focus away from key operational responsibilities to take over a specialized function? Or does top-level management simply try to put the marketing process and its interface with sales on automatic pilot and hope the best? These choices typically don’t fall under the category of “savvy management”.

Could the decision to engage a fractional chief marketing officer (FCMO) create two kinds of quantitative benefits for the company? Let’s take a look.

If the company has access to one or two well-seasoned and successful outside marketing executives there is the real possibility that the selected professional could be brought onto the team and begin functioning after a really short learning curve. It’s not an exaggeration to visualize that after the initial conversations and work agreements, the match-up allows the marketing professional to on-board, be involved in two or possibly three in-depth meetings with the president, review key marketing documents and budgets, and be ready to take action.

Some executive teams want a brief, highlighted synopsis of the opportunity the FCMO offering presents and delivers. Here’s the abbreviated, benefits version of the FCMO.

Major Benefits:

1. Relieve the CEO of the responsibility for managing and executing the marketing function, which is often outside of the CEO’s, CFO’s and COO’s areas of expertise.
2. Engaging a fractional CMO assures consistent strategic counsel at the executive level.
3. Your FCMO also manages marketing projects and capably sources and engages with other marketing specialists to bring the skillsets that you need to the projects at hand.
4. Tap FCMO expertise, experience and knowledge for much less than a full-time salary and benefits package.
5. Realize a fresh, market-based, third-party perspective.
6. Manage the risk a growing company faces in not having the resources or expertise to develop and deploy a successful marketing or go-to-market strategy.
7. Manage the additional risk of investing considerable time and money on a full time CMO with no guarantee of marketing success.
8. Build staff marketers’ skills and productivity through the leadership and mentoring by the Fractional CMO.
9. Gain confidence knowing that marketing priorities are being completely handled.
10. Your FCMO investment typically delivers a measurable ROI in significant multiples of actual dollars paid during the engagement.
11. Your most valuable benefit is confidently allocating human and financial capital in a trust-based relationship where there is a shared set of values, transparency and accountability.

There are additional benefits for the company as well. A fractional chief marketing officer is not on the payroll. You don’t have the 20% overhead that includes benefits and retirement contributions including healthcare and paid leave. So the company gets the benefit of top gun talent focused on their priorities and objectives who is well-paid but does not become part of the infrastructure. That also means no unemployment insurance premiums. Put those ingredients together and you have a compelling case for creating a bridge that get you to where you need to be from where you are with minimal risk of falling into the chasm.

If you have confidence in your leadership strengths, especially in your core areas, then you can now laser focus for a few minutes on a more precise profile of the right kind of fractional chief marketer for you and your culture. Much of the online positioning about engaging a FCMO comes from a few experienced marketing professionals who have spent most or all of their careers, until recently, under the large-corporation tent.

They have strengths and a record of producing results. You would expect nothing less.

But ask yourself “how does working in a structured, paced environment match the urgency of our needs to stay and become more competitive in our markets?” If it does, these are the targets of your engagement process.

And then there is another high-value, but small group of fractional marketing leaders. These come from some combination of an agency and middle-market corporate background. They consistently display the flexibility needed to hit an array of benchmarks in a wide variety of corporate structures, cultures and environments. They have little ego involvement and yet they have a high professional investment in your success because their reputation and income depend on hitting every kind of marketing curve ball.

And this is precisely why you want to invite The Slade Group to your table for a candid conversation about where you are at this moment and where you want and need to go. We have delivered measurable results along the relationship continuum of large public companies in some of the largest global markets and have done the same on parallel paths for SMBs.

Invest in marketing excellence while you grow. Call us to see how we match up as your high-value fractional chief marketing officer. 512 799 4676.

http://www.sladegroup.com