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What's the Average Cost of a Marketing Consultant?
Spectrum of Marketing Consultants Ensures a Range of Fee Levels
More CEOs are hiring marketing consultants to bring expertise to their management teams, but are they really affordable? And how should a CEO evaluate their value and the quality of work they deliver? These are really good questions! After all, there’s a wide range of skills, seniority and experience from marketing consultants, plus agencies and firms that can help a company with marketing challenges. So, as you’d expect, there’s a wide range of price points from these sources. To get started, let’s put these into a few oversimplified categories:
- “Single Shingle” Marketing Consultants
- “Loose Confederations” of Brokered Marketing Consultants
- “Professionals” who are Part of a Firm
- Senior management from a marketing or advertising agency
- Partners from an “Executives-as-a-Service” firm (such as Chief Outsiders)
- Partners from a large consultancy (such as McKinsey & Co, Bain)
How to Engage Hard-to-Reach CXOs: The New Growth Playbook
Sun, Oct 25, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Hard-to-reach CXOs engage when you provide insights connected to the business outcomes they own. Developing meaningful insights takes extra effort, synthesizing data, research, and discussions—to identify where new value can be created. The insights that matter explain what is changing and why—and where new value or growth can be created. Building these capabilities results in a more repeatable path toward achieving executive engagement, lasting relationships, and growth. This blog is part of Chief Outsiders’ New Growth Imperative series, designed to help CEOs and leadership teams engage executive decision-makers at targeted strategic accounts by turning deep insights into compelling customer value.
The CEO Dashboard Should Show Direction, Not Just Activity
Thu, Oct 15, 2026 — If your dashboard only tells you what happened, it’s reporting history. A CEO needs direction. Steps Taken Aren’t the Same as Direction I've spent a fair amount of time backpacking, and one thing becomes obvious when you've been walking for several hours: knowing how far you've walked isn't the same thing as knowing whether you're headed in the right direction. Your watch can tell you that you've taken 22,000 steps.
Vistage Chairs: The Most Dangerous Sales Answer a CEO Can Accept: “We Lost on Price”
Tue, Oct 13, 2026 — Executive Takeaways When a buyer says “too expensive,” research shows price is rarely the real reason, especially as deal size grows. Your CRM loss-reason field reflects your sales team’s view of the decision, not the buyer’s. “Price” is often a stand-in for unclear value, implementation risk, or low confidence in the outcome. A few points of win-rate improvement can unlock real revenue from the pipeline you already have.
You Can't See Growth Looking Only Inside the Business
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Turning Customer Insight into Customer Value
Fri, Sep 25, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Your next major deal may begin with a customer problem you have yet to uncover. Deep customer insight can open doors to executives—and accounts—competitors already serve. The greatest opportunities emerge when insight meets distinctive expertise and solutions. Turning these opportunities into growth requires building organizational capability. This blog is part of Chief Outsiders’ New Growth Imperative series, designed to help CEOs and leadership teams engage executive decision-makers at targeted strategic accounts by turning deep insights into compelling customer value.
Your CRM Is Already Telling You Where the Revenue Is. Are You Listening?
Fri, Sep 25, 2026 — Most SMBs don't have a data problem. They have a listening problem. Between CRM records, transaction history, and years of customer activity, most companies are sitting on far more information than they're actually using. The data isn't missing. It's just too much, too scattered, and too slow to work through manually for anyone to reliably act on it.
The Contrarian Brand Play: Why Right Now Is the Best Time to Invest in Brand
Fri, Sep 18, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Most companies are cutting brand spend to fund rising paid acquisition costs. That is the wrong response. Brand awareness now drives AI citations, and AI citations drive Day One shortlist inclusion. Google's redesign of Search makes brand recognition more important; AI systems favor brands users already know. The companies investing in brand while competitors pull back are building advantages at lower cost. Part 4 of our four-part series on the evolving AI search landscape and what B2B leaders need to know to stay competitive.
Stop Buying AI Tools. Start Asking This Question First.
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Outsider Insights | Two Accounts are Quietly Running Your Business
Thu, Sep 17, 2026 — Executive Takeaways If more than 40% of your revenue comes from a handful of accounts, a meaningful share of your company’s revenue is sitting outside your control. Your revenue growth may look healthy, but it’s at risk. Concentration risks go beyond losing a big account. It changes the leverage in every conversation you have with that customer. One key cause of concentration risk is the lack of a systematic way to bring in new logos. As a result, company growth comes mainly from current account expansion and a few salespeople. Companies need a balance of both. Diagnosing your risk is a simple exercise that you can do in a few minutes this week. Outsider Insights Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business.