Fractionals United Blog

What is your full name? Marc Fuentes Please share a brief overview of your professional background and your current role as a fractional leader. I use my IP to help founders and CEOs of startups achieve product-market fit and execute pragmatic go-to-market plans. What do you consider your strengths? My IP. I leverage my experience working across different industries with my expertise to help organizations communicate their unique value to their niche audience. What inspired or led you to pursue a career as a fractional leader? To educate founders and new CEOs about what marketing is, why you need it, and how to unlock its potential in their business for success. How do you determine if a fractional engagement has been a success or not? Learning | PMF | Revenue Attainment | ROI Focus | Help Hire their First Marketer Fractional leadership often involves working with different industries and teams. How do you adapt to new environments, and what have you learned from these diverse experien...

In the competitive B2B SaaS landscape, engaging a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is a strategic imperative, not just an operational choice. This role goes beyond the typical responsibilities of a marketing leader. It's more of a strategic partnership that can really help guide the startup and steer it towards success. Comprehensive Strategic Oversight Fractional CMOs bring a wealth of strategic expertise that's truly invaluable. These seasoned professionals offer strategic oversight, blending analytical and creative skills to craft marketing strategies that align perfectly with the business's goals and drive scalable growth. For example, a Fractional CMO working with a stagnating HR tech company spotted an opportunity in AI for HR analytics. By leading a rebranding initiative, she positioned the company as a leader in this area and guided the startup to pivot its product. This opened up new revenue streams and reignited the company's growth. Cost-Effective Lea...

It’s 2024 and the technology, channels, and ways in which we discover and learn about products and services we want to purchase is changing constantly, nearly daily. Consequently, as businesses sprint to keep up, I see leaders and marketing teams scratching their heads or excessively pivoting when stuck at the crossroads of "What’s New" and "What Works." So it’s no surprise that as businesses strive to keep pace with that shifting customer journey, their needs, market conditions and technology, the necessity for marketing to embody flexibility with a drive towards performance is not just an advantage, it’s a necessity. Enter the concept of agile marketing :  a responsive, iterative, and customer-centric approach that has become vital for business and revenue growth.  And at the heart of this lean, mean marketing strategy is—you guessed it—Fractional Leadership. Like Swiss Army knives, Fractional Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are proving to be the perfectly versati...

Throughout my marketing career, I have met many people who are experts at developing a solid marketing strategy. They are founders, engineers, architects, physicians, restauranteurs, and when I talk to them about their commercial strategy, they can wax lyrical for hours. Of course, I am being facetious—they are not marketing experts, they just think they are.  So many business leaders I have met throughout my career mistake plans or actions for strategy. They possess in-depth knowledge about their product, industry, and maybe their customers but all too often they dive headfirst into planning and execution before addressing key strategic questions.   • What are we trying to achieve?  • Why will my customer care?  • What will make them choose me over my competition? As a strategic marketer, I often get brought into companies to help them grow their business, launch their product or to turnaround a stagnant business. Often, they have hired a junior person to mana...

Want the short answer? It depends. You hate that answer, I know.  “What does it depend on?” …that’s a better question, and one I can try to help answer! Like with any good recipe, it’s a mix of ingredients that will determine whether you’re baking a dessert pie or a savory pie. Or, in this case, a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or a full-time, in-house CMO. Why “It Depends” When triaging with a company, I look at a few different business attributes and situational details to help evaluate if Fractional makes sense: Business type (offering format, size, stage, industry, etc.) Budget (marketing, overhead, in-market, company-wide, etc.) Revenue (total, growth goal + time frame, growth legacy, etc.) State-of-marketing (status, maturity, gaps, opportunities, competitive landscape, etc.) Marketing team (composition, skill mix, gaps, maturity, efficiency, growth potential, etc.) The reason “it depends” is because it’s not just a simple answer for any of these, and the decision...