Fractional CMO Leadership
The senior marketing brain your company needs, at the fraction of the cost it can actually afford.
Business Consulting
Business Consulting
Before you spend another dollar on marketing, it is worth knowing whether marketing is the problem.
The Problem This Solves
Companies at a plateau usually reach for marketing first, because marketing is the most visible lever. Frequently the real constraint is somewhere less comfortable: pricing that has not moved in four years, a sales process that leaks at proposal, a service model that cannot absorb more volume, or a product mix where the fastest-growing line is the least profitable one. Marketing spend applied to any of those makes the underlying problem arrive faster.
Typical EngagementDelivered inside a Core Marketing CMO retainer, or scoped as a standalone project.
See pricingVURTX business consulting starts one level above the marketing plan. We model how the business actually makes money, identify the binding constraint, and sequence the work against it. Sometimes the answer is a demand problem and we move into the fractional CMO engagement. Often it is not, and you save six figures by finding that out in week three instead of month nine.
What’s Included
Six things that actually change.
01
Business model diagnostic
How revenue, margin, and capacity actually interact — and which one is currently the ceiling.
02
Pricing and margin review
Contribution margin by segment, product, and channel. Most plateaus have a pricing component nobody has examined.
03
Go-to-market assessment
Whether your route to market still fits the customer you are now selling to.
04
Operational capacity check
Whether the business can profitably deliver the volume a growth plan would create.
05
Competitive and market position
Where you actually sit, evidenced rather than assumed.
06
Sequenced action plan
Ordered by impact per unit of effort, with named owners and a realistic timeline.
Engagement Shape
How it runs.
Phases overlap in practice, but this is the shape of the work and roughly when each part lands.
What You Should Expect
- A written answer to what is actually limiting growth
- Unit economics visible by segment, product, and channel
- Investment sequenced by impact rather than by internal politics
- An honest read on whether you need marketing, or something else
| Phase | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| Week 1–2 | Data gathering across finance, sales, operations, and marketing; leadership interviews |
| Week 3 | Constraint diagnosis, unit economics by segment, and competitive position |
| Week 4 | Written findings and a sequenced plan, presented to your leadership team |
| Ongoing | Optional monthly advisory or a move into a fractional engagement |
Answers
Questions about business consulting
Scope and altitude. The fractional CMO engagement assumes marketing is the lever and puts someone senior in charge of it. Business consulting tests that assumption first, across pricing, operations, sales, and product mix. Many clients start here and then move into a fractional retainer once we know where the constraint actually sits.
Typically $3M to $30M in revenue. Below that, the constraint is usually product-market fit and the work is different. Above it, you generally have enough internal senior capacity that outside consulting plays a narrower role.
Both, but not in the same engagement by default. Consulting produces a diagnosis and a plan. If you want someone to own execution afterwards, that becomes a fractional engagement with a retainer and a number attached. I keep those separate so the advice stays honest — a consultant who profits from the implementation has a reason to recommend implementation.
A scoped four-week diagnostic runs $5,000 to $7,500 as a fixed fee. Ongoing advisory is priced on committed hours per month across a three, six, or twelve-month term. Fixed fee rather than hourly on the diagnostic, so the incentive is a clear answer rather than billable time.
Related
Works alongside
Interim CMO Leadership
Your CMO left. The executive search will take six months. Marketing cannot sit still for six months.
CMO Consulting
Sometimes you do not need a marketing leader. You need one hard question answered properly, once.
Next Step
Find out what your marketing is actually costing you.
Every engagement starts the same way: a straight conversation about your growth plateau, your current spend, and whether a fractional CMO is genuinely the right answer for you. If it isn’t, I’ll say so.
Free 30-minute call · No pitch deck · Direct answer either way