Marketing Strategy Consultants and Fractional CMOs work in very different ways and provide their clients with very different results. Casey Stanton takes a closer look at the differences between them and which is the better option for both the business and the marketing professional. You’ll hear about why consultants are always selling, what happens when the consultant’s playbook doesn’t fit, and who actually creates meaningful change in the business.
Takeaways:
- Many times consultants come in, do their thing, and leave. This leaves employees with more work to do and only a vague sense of the plan. Consultants that come in, prescribe a solution, and leave with the money aren’t doing that change work that’s needed.
- While consultants that come in for a specific problem can be helpful, consultants brought in for global-level marketing strategy are usually a desperate move by executives.
- Marketing strategies that aren’t implemented are a waste of everyone’s time. When consultants come in with their playbook and it doesn’t fit with the company, the consultant can leave with their paycheck without making any real impact.
- Because consultants have to give their best ideas in the 90-day period they have with the client, the client never renews with them. This forces consultants to constantly prospect, sell, and service a revolving door of clients.
- A Marketing Strategy Consultant comes up with a strategy and hopes it gets deployed. A Fractional CMO comes up with a strategy and gets it deployed by hiring, firing, training, and evaluating vendors, employees, contractors, and agencies.
- A Fractional CMO is part of the organization. They build the team that can execute the strategy. They understand the entire business and the employees within.
- While consultants may be able to charge marginally more than a Fractional CMO, they end up spending a lot more of their time and money on getting sales. Being a Fractional CMO is much more profitable because their contracts are long-term.
Quote of the Show:
- “To see results, you want to bend a client to their own will” - Casey Stanton
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