Senior marketing leadership that joins your team part time, owns strategy and results, and costs a fraction of a full-time executive. I clarify positioning buyers understand, align marketing with sales, build the systems a board expects, and direct whoever executes. You get a CMO. Your payroll gets a line item, not an executive package.
A marketing leader, not a stack of deliverables.
This is my Fractional Growth & GTM Leadership engagement, focused on B2B SaaS. I step in as a strategic partner, not an advisor who leaves a deck behind. The work typically covers:
Positioning & Messaging
Translating deep technology into positioning buyers can repeat to their boss. I started as a programmer, so complex products do not scare me.
Go-to-Market Strategy
Who the buyer is, what the message is, which channels deserve budget, and a demand generation plan your stage can actually execute.
Alignment & Systems
Marketing, sales, and customer success pulling one direction, with the funnel, KPI, and RevOps visibility your board keeps asking about.
Team Leadership
I direct whoever executes: your in-house team, contractors, or agencies. One strategy, one accountable leader, no finger-pointing.
Built for founders somewhere between seed and Series B.
This is for you if
- You have product-market fit, but pipeline is still founder-network and referrals.
- You have marketers or an agency, and nobody steering them.
- Your positioning made sense two pivots ago.
- The board wants a marketing plan and CAC numbers you do not have.
- You know AI should be making this cheaper and faster, and it is not.
This is not for you if
- You are pre-product-market fit. Your problem is learning, not marketing leadership.
- The retainer would consume your entire marketing budget. Start smaller, perhaps with coaching or a workshop.
- You need hands for one bounded project. That is contractor or agency work.
- You are ready for a full-time CMO. Part of my job is telling you when you get there, and helping you hire that person.
A conversation first, then a scoped monthly retainer.
Fit conversation
Tell me where your go-to-market motion is stuck. I will tell you honestly whether a fractional CMO is the fix, and if not, what I would do instead.
Scoped engagement
A monthly retainer tied to scope, not a timesheet. Some clients need a few days a month of direction; others need an embedded leader running the whole motion. It scales up or down as priorities change.
Strategy, then team
Direction comes first. Then, if you need execution, the engagement can grow into a fractional marketing team: I build and direct the right mix of contractors, agencies, and in-house hires, all reporting through one accountable leader.
A fractional CMO who is also an AI practitioner.
In 2026 the CMO job includes deciding where AI actually belongs in your go-to-market motion, and most marketing leaders are guessing. I work on both sides of that line, as a fractional CMO and as an AI GTM consultant: which research, content, pipeline, and reporting work should be AI-assisted, what your team can run without a consultant on retainer, and how your company shows up when buyers ask AI tools about your market.
Teams that want the hands-on version take Crys Clear AI for GTM, my six-week program that goes from AI-curious to AI-operational. Foundations before tools, and a human in the lead, always. If a workflow would not survive your team running it without me, I do not ship it.
Questions founders ask before hiring a fractional CMO
What is the difference between a fractional CMO and an agency?
An agency executes campaigns you assign. A fractional CMO decides what those campaigns should be, and answers for the results.
The most common failure mode in early-stage SaaS is hiring an agency before anyone has set strategy. The agency does exactly what was asked, pipeline does not move, and everyone blames the agency. The missing piece was direction, not execution. Many of my clients use both, with me directing the agency work so everything pulls one way. One steers, one rows.
What does a fractional CMO cost?
A full-time CMO in the US typically costs well into six figures plus equity, benefits, and recruiting risk. A fractional engagement delivers the same seniority for a fraction of that.
Pricing is a monthly retainer tied to scope, which is why I scope every engagement in a conversation rather than off a rate card. The comparison that matters is not fractional versus free. It is fractional versus a mis-hire, a year of unfocused agency spend, or a founder doing the CMO job at midnight. The difference often funds the marketing itself.
Is “CMO as a service” the same as a fractional CMO?
Mostly, yes. It is a buyer’s phrase for the same substance: executive marketing leadership delivered as an ongoing engagement instead of a full-time hire.
Whatever name it wears, judge it on defined scope, measurable outcomes, and accountability. Ask who actually sets strategy and who answers when the number is missed. If it is a rotating account manager, it is an agency. If it is one senior person you can name, it is fractional leadership.
What is a fractional marketing team?
A working marketing function without the fixed payroll: one accountable leader who sets strategy, then builds and directs the right mix of contractors, agencies, and in-house hires.
Some engagements start with me alone and grow into exactly this. Strategy first, then the team to execute it, with everything reporting through one leader so you get coordination without the org chart.
When should a SaaS founder hire a fractional CMO?
When marketing has become the founder’s second job and revenue has become everyone’s question. That usually happens somewhere between seed and Series B.
If two or more items in the fit check above sound like your Monday, a fractional CMO is usually the fastest fix. If none do, I will be the first to say so on the call.
Let’s find out if this is the right fit.
Tell me where your go-to-market motion is stuck. I will tell you honestly whether a fractional CMO is the fix, and if it is not, what I would do instead. Either way you leave the call with a clearer picture than you came in with.
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