A defined operating rhythm, not a vague retainer.
Fractional engagements fail when nobody defines what happens each week. This is the cadence: what gets decided, when, and by whom — designed to run 100% remotely with high leverage.
From first access to compounding growth.
Phases overlap in practice. What does not change is the order: understand, direct, rebuild, operate, compound.
The full audit
Channels, spend, funnel, martech, team structure, and agency contracts. I get access to everything and form an independent view before recommending anything. This is also where the uncomfortable findings surface — broken tracking, wasted spend, contracts that quietly renew.
The 90-day growth plan
A prioritized plan with KPI targets, budget reallocation, and a quick-win list. Every initiative has a named owner, a deadline, and one primary metric. You approve it; then it becomes the operating document everyone works from.
Rebuild the foundation
Channel restructuring, tracking and attribution rebuilt, agency scopes reset, and funnel gaps closed. This is the least glamorous month and usually the one that produces the largest measurable gain.
The leadership cadence
Weekly 45-minute growth meetings with the CEO and execution teams. Quarterly sprint planning against target CAC, ROAS, MQLs, and brand reach. Asynchronous creative and strategy reviews so calendars stay clear.
Raise the ceiling
As the fundamentals stabilize, the work shifts upward: brand authority, category positioning, organic compounding, and lifetime value expansion — the assets that lower blended acquisition cost every quarter they run.
High leverage, low calendar drag.
Three mechanisms keep a remote engagement genuinely senior rather than gradually turning into a status meeting.
Weekly Growth Meeting
A 45-minute sync with the CEO and marketing execution teams. Campaign performance, funnel conversion, decisions needed this week. Agenda published in advance; no status theatre.
Quarterly Marketing Sprints
Every 90 days we set KPI targets — target CAC, ROAS, MQLs, brand reach — and commit to the initiatives that move them. What is not in the sprint does not get worked on.
Async Strategy Reviews
Creative assets, landing pages, and campaign performance reviewed by recorded video walkthrough with shared dashboards. Detailed feedback without another hour on anyone’s calendar.
Frequently Asked Questions
Retainers run on a three-month minimum and most continue between nine and eighteen months. Three months is the honest floor for judging whether strategic changes are working, since most marketing changes need a full buying cycle to show up in the data. The Growth Audit is a discrete two-to-three week project.
Access to ad accounts, analytics, and CRM; recent financials at the level of revenue, margin, and marketing spend; recorded sales calls if you have them; and roughly two hours of the CEO’s time in the first two weeks. The audit quality depends heavily on how honest the data access is.
A complete audit of channels, spend, funnel, martech, team, and agency contracts, followed by a 90-day growth plan with KPI targets, budget reallocation, and a prioritized quick-win list. You will usually see wasted spend surfaced and stopped inside the first month.
After the three-month minimum, retainers run month to month with 30 days’ notice. I do not use long lock-in contracts. If the work is not producing, a contract should not be the reason you stay.
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