Ep 10 - The Right Time to Hire a Fractional CMO

My name is Ant Hodges. I’m a fractional CMO. I work with clients anywhere between $1m and $50m a year, under 100 employees, and they’re looking for someone to come in and take away the de facto marketing role that the CEO and founder has ended up doing. I take that away from them and bring in real marketing leadership.Fractional CMO work is one of the things I absolutely love, because it’s about connecting marketing activity to revenue. And it has to be that way round.It’s not about spending the first 90 days on vision, mission, values, messaging, branding, and positioning. That’s not what a fractional CMO should be doing. A fractional CMO comes in and connects revenue to activity. From day one.The right time to hire a fractional CMO is when you as the CEO and founder are running ragged. Every marketing person in your business is coming to you for answers. You’re the one who has to come up with the ideas. You’re stuck in that 11am Monday marketing meeting every week - and you need to get out.Because your job is to lead and steer the whole company. Not run the marketing.There’s a number showing up in several pieces of research that I think is worth explaining. The argument is that the point at which hiring a full-time CMO makes more economic sense than a fractional engagement is around $25 to $30 million in annual revenue.Below that, the maths are almost always different for fractional. A full-time CMO in 2026 is carrying a base salary of between $245,000 and $500,000, plus benefits, plus equity, plus recruitment costs, plus the six months it typically takes before they’re producing at full capacity. A fractional engagement at the same strategic level runs at a fraction of that - and it should start delivering in weeks, not months.Above $30 million, the business usually needs a dedicated full-time leader. I do work with clients up to $50m, but at that stage I’m often there to provide leadership while they bring the full-time person on board. The decisions are too frequent, the team too large, and the function too complex for a part-time engagement to carry it properly.But the number itself is less interesting than what it implies. A business between $1m and $25m that doesn’t have a marketing leader of any kind - where the founder is still doing it, or someone on the team has been given the title without the authority or the experience - that’s a real problem.I worked with a family business last year doing around $8 million. The wife of the founder had been given the CMO title because she had a marketing degree. I was brought in as a fractional CMO because she needed pointing in the right direction. No disrespect to her - she was the first to admit it. But it’s a typical story. You’ve got a solid business, a solid offer, you want to grow and scale it - and the de facto marketing person is well-meaning but not equipped to lead from that level of experience.Marketing should run without the direction of the CEO and founder. It should run with clarity, with reports that produce real accountability, and a team that knows where it’s going because it’s being led properly.The business should grow in spite of the CEO and founder not being involved in the marketing. That’s the goal.The fractional model exists to solve a specific problem. The business has reached the point where founder-led marketing is no longer enough, but a full-time executive is either too expensive or too much of a commitment given where the business is currently at. That gap - between doing it yourself and hiring full-time - is where the model earns its value.The mistake I see most businesses make is waiting too long to fill it. They wait until the marketing is visibly broken. Until campaigns aren’t converting. Until the team is wandering from AI tool to AI tool without direction. Until the founder is exhausted from carrying both the business and the marketing function at the same time. By that point, the cost of the gap is already significant.The better question to ask isn’t whether you can afford senior marketing leadership.The better question is: what is the absence of it already costing you?For most businesses between $1m and $25m, that number is greater than the cost of the engagement.And that sweet spot around $25m is also where the fractional role starts to look different - where it shifts from ongoing leadership to helping you bring a full-time person in properly. Some fractional CMOs will have my guts for saying that. But the reality is, if you’re still hanging around as a fractional at $30m, $40m, $50m without moving toward a full-timer, you’re doing the business a disservice. They need someone in full-time at that stage.If you’re between $1m and $25m, or even up to $50m and in transition - let’s have a conversation. We can have a short chat to see where the gap is and how a fractional role could help. Head over to www.anthodges.com, hit the chat button, or book a call.Let’s start connecting your marketing activity to your revenue.I’m Ant Hodges. Let’s simplify. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.cmofieldnotes.com