Fractional CMO Show

Casey Stanton, Founder of CMOx and Fractional CMO, discusses the importance of focusing on supply chain issues, Q4 targets, and handling seasonal fluctuations in the marketing industry. He also emphasizes the importance of fostering relationships with team members and developing a strong marketing strategy. The podcast covers topics such as effective leadership, team management, career progression, creating a big vision, and personal growth as a fractional CMO.

Success as a Fractional CMO is rooted in having a healthy and balanced mindset throughout the ups and downs of life and business. Casey Stanton is the Founder of CMOx, a Fractional CMO, and author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, The Fractional CMO Method. This week, Casey discusses how to cultivate a balanced and mindful approach in your Fractional CMO practice, why you celebrate your success in moderation, and the importance of practicing empathetic joy.   Takeaways: Embrace the Buddhist concept of equanimity – maintaining emotional balance in the face of highs and lows. This mindset can help you navigate the uncertainties of the marketing world. Cultivate a sense of calm and levelheadedness during both successful and challenging times. This will enable you to make more rational decisions and manage stress effectively. Prepare for the highs and lows inherent in business. Recognize that being a Fractional CMO for multiple clients comes with highs and lows. Prepare yourself mentally and emotionally to handle both success and setbacks. Shift your focus from outcome-based success to the intention and effort you put into your work. This can help you stay motivated and resilient regardless of the immediate results. Celebrate your wins, both small and large, but don’t rest on your laurels. Celebrating your efforts will boost your confidence and motivation to continue pushing forward. Embrace the learning process by remaining open to feedback and refining your strategies. This willingness to adapt and learn will set you apart as a dynamic marketing leader. Practice empathetic joy by genuinely celebrating the successes of your team members and colleagues. This fosters a positive environment and strengthens team relationships. Aim to find a balance between your professional and personal life. Prioritize self-care, family time, and hobbies, which will enhance your overall well-being and effectiveness as a leader.   Quote of the Show: “Keep going and don't think that you will arrive. You're never going to be there. The moment doesn't last for long.” - Casey Stanton   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/ CMOx Website: https://cmox.co/call  The Fractional CMO Method: https://cmox.co/book/   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/xPxMCFSCmA8

Casey Stanton, founder of CMOx and author, discusses the importance of innovation for CMOs and when to start. He emphasizes the need to avoid copying others and instead emulate their thinking. Stanton also highlights the value of having a process for innovation. A case study on Pepsi's unique approach to entering the fast food market is explored.

Casey Stanton, the Founder of CMOx and a Wall Street Journal #1 bestselling author, shares his transformative journey from marketing agency constraints to entrepreneurial freedom. He emphasizes the importance of fully committing to one's goals, advocating for the metaphor of 'burning the boats' to eliminate safety nets. The discussion includes valuable lessons on overcoming challenges, proactively pursuing change, and learning from the successes of seasoned fractional CMOs. Shift focus from tasks to impactful results for ultimate success in marketing leadership.

What does it take to go from full-time employment to becoming a Fractional CMO? Casey Stanton is the Founder of CMOx, a Fractional CMO, and author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, The Fractional CMO Method. This week, Casey discusses the risks associated with becoming a Fractional CMO and the amazing opportunities that make those risks worth taking.   Takeaways: The first thing to think about when becoming self-employed is your healthcare insurance. In the United States, an adequate plan to cover yourself and your family, not to mention potential employees is expensive. Top policies can start at $600 per person, per month. As a Fractional CMO, you can choose what contract lengths to sell to your clients. You’ll start out with 3-month contracts, but as you gain notoriety and recognition, these can increase to 6 or 12-month contracts. This lessens how often you need new clients. Being a Fractional CMO is about more than just achieving the same level of income as your current job or even exceeding that. By building out your Fractional CMO practice, which is really a service-based business, you can build a company with equity. Understand that being an entrepreneur comes with struggles, however, you have control over how everything is done. While there are ups and downs, the ups greatly outweigh the downs.  Decide if you need autonomy in your career more than the safety of working for the same company for your career. Owning your own business as a Fractional CMO offers a limitless upside in terms of income, happiness, satisfaction, free time, and impact. Instead of pursuing low-profit, high-volume deals, you can prioritize landing a few high-value clients as a Fractional CMO. A small number of clients can generate a significant income. Aim to build long-term relationships with clients, renewing contracts and extending their contract duration over time. Consider specializing in a niche industry as a Fractional CMO. Look for industries where you can become the go-to expert. The early stages of these niches offer great opportunities for growth and establishing yourself as a marketing leader.   Quote of the Show: “There are so many niches in industries that are available for someone to step in and become the defacto number one Fractional CMO. If you're listening to this, you're still early.” - Casey Stanton   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/ CMOx Website: https://cmox.co/call  The Fractional CMO Method: https://cmox.co/book/   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/OgwggGLcX4Y   

In order to execute your strategy for your fractional clients, you need to build a strong marketing team within their company to execute that strategy. Casey Stanton is the Founder of CMOx, a Fractional CMO, and author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, The Fractional CMO Method. This week, Casey outlines why Fractional CMOs need to have a Marketing Technician on their team, how to mentally approach building your team, and when to hire full-time versus a contractor.   Takeaways: As a Fractional CMO, a Marketing Technician is the minimum viable you need in order to get impactful work done. The job of the Marketing Technician is to execute the strategies you develop within a fractional client, which helps you focus on solving bigger problems. One of the most important decisions to make when hiring a Marketing Technician is whether they need to be local or if they can be remote. Hiring locally limits the available talent and often costs more. Marketing Technicians also have little prior experience. When looking for the right person to add to your marketing team, make sure they fit the culture of your fractional client and can be self-directed. If you find the right person, they can grow into a mature role, such as the Director of Marketing, and manage teams. Mentally, you should always be open to hiring someone if they would be a great fit, even if they currently have a job they enjoy.  Expect the hiring process to take at least 45 days at a minimum. This encompasses every stage a candidate must work through from the interview process, giving their two-week notice, and finally starting work. For tactics such as SEO, PPC, and CRO, look to hire Tacticians that have specialized experience with their specific marketing tactic. While there is value in having full-time Marketing Technicians, it can be advantageous to hire specialized vendors as contractors. On the technical side of marketing, you would ideally have the budget to employ someone full-time. When looking for a developer, don’t constrain yourself to only hiring people from one country or who are native speakers of your language. Offshore freelancers can provide cost-effective labor that is also extremely high quality.    Quote of the Show: “The people that are available to be hired are oftentimes not the people you want to hire.” - Casey Stanton   Shout Outs: Ad Skills Ad Leaks Indeed Upwork OnePassword Superpath   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/ CMOx Website: https://cmox.co/call  The Fractional CMO Method: https://cmox.co/book/ Episode #063 - Zero Trust Environment: https://youtu.be/EuUbApppWnc   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/9u377fJ6E88   

You don’t get ahead in business by copying what successful people do, you get ahead by copying how they think. Casey Stanton is the Founder of CMOx, a Fractional CMO, and author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, The Fractional CMO Method. This week, Casey discusses how to develop a better way of thinking by using three specific mental models: The Map is Not The Territory, The Circle of Competence, and First Principles Thinking.   Takeaways: If you want to achieve the same success that someone else has, don’t copy what they’ve done or what they’re doing, copy how they think. For example, a company could copy a great ad from a competitor, but without innovating, they’re always going to follow, never lead. Becoming a more innovative company at the forefront of the market requires a better way of thinking, rather than simply copying what already exists in the market. The first mental model is “The Map is not the Territory”.  A map does not perfectly reflect every detail of a landscape, nor does your best strategy account for every nuance with your client. The simple ideas you want to deploy are not simple. The second mental model is the “Circle of Competence”. You need to know where your knowledge of a particular topic ends and higher experts in that field to do the work. It’s good to have a base-level understanding of many topics so you know what to look for. The third mental model is “First Principles Thinking”. While new ideas are extremely exciting, before engaging with them, you need to check if they align with the basic ways to grow a business. Does this new idea help you gain new customers, grow the transaction value, or increase the frequency of repeat purchases? If not, you need to focus on other ideas that will fulfill one of those outcomes.  Add these models to your mindset alongside solving bigger problems and delegating everything but leadership.    Quote of the Show: “Improving your thinking will improve all areas of your life.” - Casey Stanton   Shout Outs: Charlie Munger Jay Abraham   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/ CMOx Website: https://cmox.co/call  The Fractional CMO Method: https://cmox.co/book/   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/zaAGsnCjZBc   

Casey Stanton reveals how Fractional CMOs can achieve remarkable productivity by managing 80 hours of work with just one hour of time. He emphasizes the power of setting strategic milestones and creating a culture of accountability within teams. Delegation is key, allowing leaders to focus on high-impact decisions rather than micromanaging. The podcast highlights the necessity of building self-sufficient teams that can independently tackle challenges. Tune in for insights on maximizing efficiency in a dynamic work environment.

Casey Stanton is the Founder of CMOx, a Fractional CMO, and author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, The Fractional CMO Method. This week, Casey dives into a component of executive coaching that you should use to develop both yourself and your team.   Takeaways: When you come across a mistake, the employee who made it likely already feels bad about it, so it’s not helpful to shame them for the mistake. Once the issue has been discovered, your first step should be to “take a photograph of it”. It’s better to show your team what you saw than try to tell them a story about the problem.  The next step is to ask your team what happened that led to this issue. You don’t need an immediate answer to this, so give people a few minutes to think. The response you want to get is how this mistake happened rather than excuses for why it happened. Even when you know what the right answer is for fixing the problem, it will make a greater impact on your team if you ask them and give them the space to share the correct answer.  Every member of your team is not always going to be perfect and they will make mistakes. The people you want on your team are those that will own their mistakes and fix them.  When something breaks down, you have the opportunity to show up as the kind of leader that builds up their team and uses this mistake as a learning moment. During weekly team meetings, encourage team members to share how they fixed a problem.   Quote of the Show: “I don't tell someone what needs to change, I ask them what needs to change.” - Casey Stanton   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/ CMOx Website: https://cmox.co/invite  The Fractional CMO Method: https://cmox.co/book/   Shout Outs: The Streisand Effect - Episode #053 - https://fractionalcmo.libsyn.com/the-streisand-effect-casey-stanton-fractional-cmo-show-episode-052    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:  

Casey Stanton is the Founder of CMOx, a Fractional CMO, and author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, The Fractional CMO Method. This week, Casey shares a helpful mental model to use when joining a new fractional client and needing to clean up their mismanaged data.   Takeaways: There is a vast number of businesses that are trying to run all of their marketing through very basic tools. For example, some companies attempt to use Mailchimp, an effective email tool as their CRM. This results in poor reporting and missing crucial data. Fractional CMOs entering such a company often create a new way to organize the company’s data to make it usable. As soon as they create the new structure, they incur a “debt”; the “debt” being all of the pre-existing data that does not follow the new structure. When implementing a new data structure, “net new” refers to the records created under the new format. For example, net new customer records could have tags related to their purchases, but if those tags are brand new then none of the older contacts have them. While there is no one solution for paying off the debt in the prior example, it is still something that you as a marketing leader need to tackle. It’s imperative that you spend time thinking about how to balance the net new and debt.  When you deploy something too early without considering the potential long-term implications that can come from the half-baked rollout.  For example, if you wanted to use OAuth credentialling for customers across both Shopify and the company forum, but only rolled out the OAuth for the forum, customers would have to create a separate login for Shopify which creates friction.   Quote of the Show: “You're the Fractional CMO, but the whole organization always looks at you as the CMO.” - Casey Stanton   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/ CMOx Website: https://cmox.co/invite  The Fractional CMO Method: https://cmox.co/book/   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/usIAT9ke-C4