Fractional CMO Show

As a CMO, can you provide more value to a company by always trying to be on the cutting edge of every new marketing advancement or by mastering the slow to change principles of marketing? Casey Stanton sets out to answer that question to get you the most value from your limited time.

Takeaways:

• If you are always chasing the newest marketing techniques, you may find temporary success but in order to stay caught up on the bleeding edge tactics, you will have to constantly reinvent yourself.
• Rather than constantly trying out the latest marketing fad, invest your time and effort into becoming great at those foundational principles of marketing that are slow to change.
• There is a great value in mastering these principles. These will transcend your niche and even your industry and allow you to provide value to businesses for a long time.
• The CMO's role is not to be the person who does every little thing, rather it is to build an amazing marketing team. Each member of which is then able to specialize on the finer aspects of the solution.

Quote of the Show:

• "The solution as a CMO is rarely to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself, more often than not the solution as a CMO is to delegate it to someone else" - Casey Stanton

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co/invite

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/VmZUFNAQU0A

You don't have to worry about going all in to start out as a Fractional CMO! Casey Stanton is walking you through his own journey of taking steps toward becoming a Fractional CMO and overcoming the hurdles. You'll learn how to mentally approach the jumping off point, how to provide great values to clients, and understand what you can offer.

Takeaways:

• When starting off as a Fractional CMO, you don't have to go headlong into it with an all or nothing attitude. You can take steps and start off by just getting your first client.
• What would you think about becoming a Fractional CMO if you were able to charge a client $5,000 per month while only working a few hours each week.
• You can service clients from other timezones in order to work with them during hours that won't conflict with your full time job.
• Being a Fractional CMO is about providing value to a company that you alone are able to give them.
• Companies know they need to embrace marketing and to do that they need a marketing leader who can lead their team.

Quote of the Show:

• "This is about you offering super high value outcomes for the organization" - Casey Stanton

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co/invite

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/LdtYiPT8uss

It can be hard to do a great job marketing yourself, even if you're a great marketer. Where do you start? How many examples do you need? What tone should you use? These are the questions that Casey Stanton is answering. You'll learn about when to take credit, what to include, and how to craft a powerful narrative about you and your capabilities.

Takeaways:

• Great marketers usually are great at marketing a company, client, etc. but struggle when it comes to marketing themselves.
• Think of a few things you've done recently and try to put that into a pithy, attention grabbing headline that will convert. If you're struggling with doing this, don't worry, it's normal.
• Make a list of all of the great things you've done in your work and then narrow it down to the five most powerful examples.
• When making a claim about what you can do, you need to have overwhelming proof to support it.
• Write a throughline of your life and work and the great things that you've done. Apply your experiences to a story about you which explains, "I've done this before, I can do it for you."

Quote of the Show:

• "Your ability to market another company is not the same as your ability to market yourself." - Casey Stanton

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co/invite

Shout Outs:

• Claude Hopkins
• Gary Halbert
• Gary Bencivenga
• John Carlton

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/7t3k-VRwYM0

As a Fractional CMO, you can't do all the work yourself, so you need a good team. But you can't stop with just hiring a good team, you need to have a vision for them and help in developing them to reach that vision. Casey Stanton is giving you the keys to doing this and reaching your own vision in the process. Prepare to learn about championing the success of others, surrounding yourself with diverse voices, and solving bigger problems!

Takeaways:

• Always have an updated vision of where you see each of the people who report directly to you. What larger role do you see for them? Create a gap between where they are and where you think they can ascend to.
• You need to enroll your direct reports in the vision you have for them and push them toward it. Give them the encouragement they need
• Champion the success of the people on your team!
• Build the "dream team" for your client that you know you can depend on.
• Ask your direct reports what they need to do to get to that next step. Empower them to solve those bigger problems.
• You don't want to be the CMO of a company where everyone just listens to everything you say. You need people who will push back against your ideas, bring in new ideas, and provide their unique perspectives.

Quote of the Show:

• " You want people to start solving for their own ascension" - Casey Stanton

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co/invite

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/tieRljgOZAk

In today’s business world, there is so much pressure for marketers to drive traffic to websites and landing pages right away and in the rush to do that, companies end up relying on costly, short-term solutions. Matthew Silverman is explaining why you should ditch the high cost, short-term ad spend and opt for well-built SEO strategies instead. You’ll learn about the right timeline to expect results from SEO, where to start with your content, and how to find the right edge content for your company to drive results.

Takeaways:

• When running ads on Facebook and Google, you are essentially just renting space from those platforms, and when you stop paying for those ads, you cease to be present on those platforms.
• SEO takes a lot of time and effort to work, but for those who stick it out, the returns are well worth it. Some businesses that are doing it well, may begin to see returns in 3 months, but for most, it will take closer to 6-12 months
• For most companies starting to leverage SEO, going after their core business is the best place to start. In relation to what you do, you need to have quality content for both the end consumer and SEO.
• Once you have base content pertaining to your company’s core business, then you can begin creating content for traffic that isn’t being competed for. In doing this, you can start to pursue bluer oceans and rank higher as opposed to being buried in the rankings of a red ocean.
• In Fintech, if you are not authoring your content, it will not show up well as the search engine algorithm will discount the value of your content because your credentials are being factored in.
• When writing content for your company to help your SEO, make sure to answer the questions of what you do, what is different between you and your competitors, why your company/product/service matters, and why a consumer should engage with it.
• You have to be able to explain your business and what you do to a degree that most people can comprehend. Most people are capable of understanding the basics of most industries and if you can’t explain it to them, you may have done a bad job of explaining it or it may be too complex.

Quote of the Show:

• “Everybody can say, walk a mile or jog a mile. Fewer people can do a 5k, even fewer a 10 K. A marathon, a full marathon, now you're really dwindling down the numbers of people that can really do it. So I think SEO is the same thing, the companies that really do it well, they're in it for the long haul and they get it.” - Matthew Silverman

Links

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewsilv/

Ways to Tune In

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZdFT3VnX238

Anxiety is a natural part of business and it is crucial for you to know how to cope with it and then use it to help yourself grow. Casey Stanton shares his own story of facing anxiety when first starting as a Fractional CMO and how he used that experience to gain perspective and get stronger. You'll hear about how to prepare before betting on yourself, what to do when you find yourself scraping against the bottom, and why you need to undergo your own path to reach success.

Takeaways:

• Although you may feel like you are walking in circles around something you are anxious about, you can grow and gain "elevation" as you would on a spiral staircase to allow you to see the anxiety from a different perspective andsee it for what it is.
• Anxiety in business is an opportunity for you to solve something that obviously feels wrong.
• You will have many anxieties that will never go away in your life, even after they have peaked they will still persist. However, by going through the peak of those anxieties, you become better equipped to handle them in the future.
• When approaching the idea of becoming a Fractional CMO, you need to have a long time horizon and give yourself a runway.
• When betting on yourself, it's important to be very self-aware. Understand the risks and be prepared to face them and whatever else may come up.

Quote of the Show:

• "If you have the long time horizon and you provide yourself the runway to make things happen, it is inevitable that you'll be successful" - Casey Stanton

Shout outs:

• Already Free by Bruce Tift

Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co/invite

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/J1T69QgrKgo

When it's time to talk price, finding the right answer to get you the right compensation for the work that you do is not a clear-cut path. But that's in the past because Casey Stanton is giving you the right mindset to approach this topic and the formula to help you find the rate you deserve to be paid. You'll discover your effective hourly rate and what that says about the work you do and what you should aim for that rate to be.

Takeaways:

• If someone thinks their problem is very big and you offer to only charge them a small amount to fix it, they won't believe that you are the solution to that giant problem because to them, what you are charging doesn't match the immensity of the issue.
• As a very general rule, good SMBs to target for Fractional CMO services are those with over $1 million in revenue but under $100 million in revenue. Generally, they have under 100 employees, but that is not exact.
• What you charge a company should be based on the size of the company.
• Work out your effective hourly rate, which is how much YOU take home. This includes any prep hours, sales, follow-up, client hours, prospecting etc. Divide how much you bring in per month by the actual number of hours that you spend working.
• To be called a Fractional CMO, your effective hourly rate should be at least $250 per hour to be properly compensated. You should look at a target rate of $400 per hour.
• You should be able to do a lot in a small amount of time, so the net price to the company may be lower than you would initially expect.

Quote of the Show:

• "You have to charge the price at which the person believes the problem will cost to fix." - Casey Stanton

Links

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co/invite

Ways to Tune In

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/hpQ5FC39YyM

So much importance is placed on simply increasing the size of a company's customer pool but this can't be sustained forever. Casey is illuminating how you need to position the company for growth through gaining a deeper understanding of your customers' problems beyond those you have already solved. You'll learn the dangers of stagnation and how to avoid it, how to increase the lifetime value of a customer, and the core of the CMO's role.

Takeaways:

• Your first step as a CMO should be to establish an efficient funnel that regularly converts people into customers. Once you do that, it's not always clear what to do next. The next step is to innovate.
• You must always be looking for ways to keep moving and innovating to stay ahead of the relentlessly encroaching competition. Other companies will be able to overtake your market share faster than it took you to carve it out.
• The deeper you're in, the more the customer matters. Gaining a better understanding of the customer and their wants and motivations is what inspires innovation. Find all the problems that exist, even if you can't solve them.
• Work with the product team to either develop or find a product that satisfies those other needs. Look for ways to increase the lifetime value of a customer.
• The cost of selling an existing customer another product is very low, there's virtually no acquisition cost and they already have a relationship with the company or brand. You just need to find a way to leverage that relationship.
• The role of the CMO is to think through how to solve problems so that the business grows.
• ​​Ask yourself, "how do you get deeper with the customer to find additional products or services to extend the customer lifetime value?"

Quote of the Show:

• "The lack of innovation is the death of the company" - Casey Stanton

Shout Outs:

• Dan Sullivan

Links

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co

Ways to Tune In

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/meVx-1bubJU

Everyone has a marketing lineage and pedigree which shapes the way they view problems and the solutions to them. Casey Stanton reveals the importance of identifying your marketing lineage and pedigree and how to define them. You'll learn how lineages and pedigrees play into client relationships and what happens when people from drastically opposing business backgrounds have issues working together if unmanaged.

Takeaways:

• Your marketing lineage refers to who you learned from and where they learned from going back generations of marketers.
• Your marketing pedigree deals with where you studied, be that at a university, on the job, etc.
• Your lineage and pedigree work in tandem to influence the way you see things. For example, someone from a sales background won't look at things the same way as someone who came up focusing on branding.
• Identify the one thing that got you into marketing and what you like to get out of doing marketing. Once you have identified this, focus on doing more that is related to that reason.
• Identify what your marketing lineage and pedigree are.
• It's important to find what your client's pedigree and lineage are. This is how they will look to solve problems so it's important to know how will approach things and be familiar with their go-to solutions.
• Friction can arise when you and your client have radically different lineages and pedigree and you must be mindful of this and constantly manage it.

Quote of the Show:

• "What was that moment where you were like, wow, this marketing stuff is really fun" - Casey Stanton

Links

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co/community

Ways to Tune In

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/1Z_YOMCicb4

When you're driving new business to your Fractional CMO practice it's important to not rely too heavily on referrals. Casey Stanton is filling everyone in on why it's more important to focus on filling up your pipeline than looking for more referrals and attain the Golden Ratio.

Takeaways:

• The Golden Ratio is the idea that referrals are coming in more frequently than customers churn.
• You can not build your Fractional CMO practice solely on referrals. If you try to rely entirely on referrals, you're never in control of your pipeline and without a full pipeline, you won't be able to predict your income for months at a time.
• Referrals come from word of mouth through people who trust you. When you talk to a prospect who has been referred to you, they are likely prequalified and more likely to say yes to you based on some degree of trust built on who referred them.
• It's relatively easy to get to the Golden Ratio as a Fractional CMO. If you are serving 3-6 clients for 3-24 months you only really need to get 1 referral per quarter to maintain your pipeline.

Quote of the Show:

• "You want to get to that position where your pipeline's full, but what's better than a full pipeline is the referrals on top of it. It's kind of like the sprinkles. It's the magic." - Casey Stanton

Links

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/
• Website: https://cmox.co

Ways to Tune In

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/Xfysoa5mb88