Chief Outsiders Fractional CMOs have been helping companies build their engines for growth since 2009. Recently, we sponsored a study with The CMO Council to uncover stakeholders' satisfaction with their marketing organizations, and where fractional CMOs are the best fit. The full study can be found here.
This C-Suite Scorecard from the CMO Council brings compelling insight to a growing phenomenon in enterprise-class marketing organizations. Not everything is getting done. With an internal Net Promoter Score of -46 from C-Suite marketing stakeholders (extrapolated from Q2), it’s no wonder the fractional CMO solution is exploding to fill the gaps and holes of critical expertise and leadership. Demand for our firm alone from enterprise businesses has shot up over 150% this year.
This report shows the higher expectations on Marketing organizations to deliver not only a powerful brand and sales leads, but to drive overall revenue growth, plus profitability and retention (Q6 and Q10). That’s a tall order. The need to augment enterprise marketing organizations surfaces most often when there is a re-organization of the team, and empty CMO or Vice President level chair, or when facing market expansion projects (Q9)
Savvy marketing leaders are used to tapping the latest SaaS offering to bolster their MarTech capabilities. Similarly, senior marketing talent can now also be sourced on-demand. You get exactly the resource you need, deployed immediately, on an interim or fractional basis. And that’s a good thing since more than half of the CMOs surveyed in the recent CMO Council “Scaling the Value of the CMO” study say they are challenged by the time it takes to properly recruit and onboard senior functional leaders on their team, saying the process takes three to six months. With a fractional CMO resource, months turn into days. And the resource can scale up or down, even on a monthly basis, as needs change.
With thousands of fractional CMOs to choose from in the marketplace, how does a business leader pick the right resource for their situation? C-Suite stakeholders are looking for highly experienced talent, individuals who can inject new thinking, bring ideas and innovations to bear along with proven methodologies and best practices (Q8). This suggests your fractional hire should have specific operational executive experience on their resume in a company of your size and complexity. The benefit of working with a firm such as Chief Outsiders is that we only hire experienced CMOs and VPs of marketing from large companies. Less that 2% of fractional executive applicants met our standards last year. Our clients benefit from the high standards we’ve set for our CMOs, both in experience and organizational savvy.
Marketing executive needs vary by organization and within an organization. One size does not fit all. You want to have choices when you’re looking for complementary skills to your existing marketing teams. That’s where our roster of over 80 Chief Marketing Outsiders comes in. Find exactly the talent you need, quickly. And get strategic initiatives underway. Selecting proven, senior marketing talent for your team not only delivers functional value quickly but lowers the risk of a bad hire - or worse - a failed strategic initiative.
Bottom line? The expectations from C-Suite stakeholders on marketing organizations is increasing. That’s not a bad thing. Corporations are counting on Marketing for delivering more growth, more of the sales function, with more accountability. The problem is keeping up with the demands for talented leadership. Leadership requirements that also change over time. That’s precisely why more enterprise marketing organizations are seeking fractional executives to complement their existing teams. To fill a role on an interim basis. Or to lead a strategic initiative such as a product launch or market expansion. They need to get more done. And now they can. Find out more here.
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