As a Fractional CMO, or part-time CMO, you ARE effectively the CMO of a company.
You’re not a consultant, who comes in once a week and gives advice to the CEO.
No, you’re part of the company, and sit with them in the trenches of the daily grind.
You are the CMO and responsible for everything that comes with it: Strategies, budgets, and execution.
While you can outsource some activities to your team, or freelancers, you’ll also need to get hands-on.
Several years of experience in a leading marketing role, industry/marketing knowledge, business savviness and a growth mindset are of the essence. But there’s more….
In this episode of the CMO CHAT, we’ll be sharing the 4 most important character traits and assets a Fractional CMO needs to succeed.
Can’t watch it right now? No problem, there is a full transcript of the video below.
Tan
All right, welcome to another episode of CMO Chat. I'm Tan.
Tanja
And I'm Tanja.
Tan
Okay, Tanja.
If I'm interested in becoming a Fractional CMO.
What kind of skills should I start to develop? How can I become an effective, Fractional CMO?
Tanja
I think the most important thing is that you have to be more of a generalist than a specialist. I mean, you might have your one or two specialties within marketing that you're really good at. For me, for instance, it has always been content. I’ve always loved content and the other things I'm outsourcing. So because, as a Fractional CMO, you are essentially the CMO of our company, and that's why you have to have an around perspective and experience.
And it might take you some years to have this experience, but being a generalist is one thing and then also being an essentialist. What I mean by that is that you have to have the capabilities to bring structure into chaos. So you have to be able, like very often you come to a company, and it's a little bit messy, and you just have to stay cool and know the priorities and bring a structure into the operations.
Tan
So both of those things you're talking about, are more soft skills.
Tanja
Yeah, yeah. It's all about understanding people, and also understanding yourself. And if I think about when you work as a Fractional CMO, it is very important that you have a framework and a method as well, because if you just start, if you just do work like randomly on the go and try to figure out as you move along, it will be very difficult for you.
Tan
So have a method, have a framework in place that you can of course adapt to every company, but then you can also reuse and repurpose for every client that you start working with.
Tan
Great. Be generalist, essentialist and have a framework.
Tanja
Yes. And one more thing is to have a network because you won't be able to do everything on your own because you're just one person. You might have one or two specialties and the rest need to outsource. So having a network of other marketing contractors, having a network of other fraction, same CMOs that will really help you in your career as a functional CMO.
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