Transcript:

00:00:00 Casey: In this episode, I’m going to walk you through the tech stack that you need and the talent stack that you need to be a successful fractional CMO. And I’m going to tell you how much those things cost so that you can really figure out your margins in your fractional CMO business. 

00:00:14 Casey: Marketers of the world, why do we work hard to solve small problems? Why do we reinvent ourselves and our clients over and over?  And why are we giving away marketing strategy for free?  With advancements in AI, we’re all seeing the marketing department shrink from the bottom up, and companies need you to serve them as their fractional chief marketing officer. It’s time to solve bigger problems and bring home a bigger paycheck. It’s time to create the lifestyle we deserve and to make a greater impact. This is the Fractional CMO Show, and I’m Casey Stanton.  Join me as we explore this growing industry and learn to solve bigger problems as marketing leaders. The Fractional CMO show is sponsored by CMOx,  the number one company to teach you how to attract,  convert and serve high paying fractional CMO clients  on your terms.  

00:01:10 Casey: All right, welcome back. This is Casey. Let’s dive in. So when we think about the fractional CMO practice, like you having your own fractional CMO practice, just remember that there’s two main ways that you can do it. Way number one is the single Pringle method, which is an awesome method. Single Pringle is like you have no excess cost, you have no office,  maybe a home office, you have no uh people that work for you. There’s no employees, none of that stuff. It’s just you showing up to be the fractional CMO for clients with businesses, real businesses that  are doing millions of dollars a year, you’re stepping in and you’re being their chief marketing officer. 

00:01:49 Casey: It’s kind of like what you would expect if someone was like a like a finance person and they were doing like your books like they’re just the bookkeeper that’s like exclusively what they do. They don’t have a bunch of other people that they pay. It’s just like them doing the work. That’s you doing the fractional CMO work single Pringle. Who’s single Pringle right for a lot of folks. Single Pringle is great for a couple things. One, it’s great if you just want to make cash and keep your complexity low. That’s cool. Like go charge high rates to great clients. Stack a couple clients three, four, maybe five clients and just make good money.

00:02:21 Casey: And that’s it. Complexity is really low. You don’t have to think like, oh, I’ve got these employees that have to pay out. have like a nut to cover every month. None of that stuff.  Simple, simple, simple. So if you just want an easy life, that’s kind of it. Another reason that you might want it is because you’ve got a project or an idea that you’re doing on the side. And you’re saying like, oh, I really have this idea. I want to like, you know, jump into AI and do this big AI thing that I’ve always wanted to do. It’s like now’s the time, but you need capital. One of our CMOx-ers joined the accelerator and then kind of waned like he went in and kind of did ops for a company and in our recent messaging I was just like, what’s up? You what’s business like? And he said that he went in and kind of like jumped into a company to do like marketing and operations kind of at the same time. 

00:03:09 Casey: And once he got into the company, he realized that they were actually pretty cash poor. And he laid himself off because it was the right thing to do. And he’s just like getting frustrated at this thing, which is like, I try to go all in with these companies full time. He’s like, so like, I’m back to the start, like I’m back to the thing, which is like, I’m going to go be a fractional CMO. And I’m going to build my own thing on the side, I’m going to build my own company. And he has an idea for let’s just say a SaaS company that he wants to build. Very capable guy, totally able to do it. But instead of him saying like, I’m to go all in on a SaaS company, he’s saying, I’m going to do like 20 hours a week on a SaaS company and 20 hours a week serving clients.

00:03:46 Casey: And that way he keeps a roof over his head, keeps income coming in and a de-risks him on the SaaS stuff. That’s a smart way to do this. You could have two clients and you you push your rates up to the higher end of rates and you can have a really great lifestyle working 20 hours a week or less. That’s totally possible. So just take that into consideration as you think about being a fractional CMO. There’s nothing wrong with being a single Pringle. And there’s others who want to do something a little bit bigger. They want to build a real brand like called a hundred year brand, a brand that’ll last for a while. 

00:04:18 Casey: And to do that, they’re gonna sell themselves as a fractional CMO, but kind of like the moment that they get it, they do it once or twice, then they’re like, well, I would rather just be the sales person that sells fractional CMO services, but I’d rather have CMOs on my team that do the work. If you wanna build that business, that’s cool too, but they’re different. And if you’re gonna build that second business where you have fractional CMOs that work for you, here’s the basic idea on how you do that.

00:04:44 Casey: You either pay the people a flat salary, which is good for like keeping your numbers kind of clean and clear. The problem  is that you have a huge nut to cover every single month kind of regardless of the client load that’s coming in. And if you have a low month, you don’t lay them off, but then you have to eat the lost fees and it just kind of sucks. So maybe instead you put them more on a contracting basis. And if there’s a deal there, then they get paid as a percentage of that deal.

00:05:12 Casey: And maybe you disclose and maybe you don’t disclose what that deal pays. So you might collect, for example, just around number 10 grand a month for the client. But because you went and caught, you know, the fish and you served it to the CMO to service, the CMO is only going to make five grand a month to  do the work. And then you’ll retain that 5000 less your expenses. So that’s a way to do it too. And you can stack a couple CMOs doing that. Let’s say you have two CMOs, three CMOs doing that, and they all have two clients.

00:05:41 Casey: I mean, pretty quickly, that’s a lot of money coming to you every single month. And you’re building a real business that would allow you to if you want to take significant vacations.  That’s not to say that you can’t take vacations as a single Pringle.  I do the single Pringle stuff. I take vacations, it works out for me.  I write it into my contracts, right? That’s just the way that I work. You can do that too. So just a consideration. So there’s two ways to build your business.

00:06:08 Casey: So the idea of this episode is like, what’s the minimum tech that you need? And it really is kind of dependent on the level of complexity in your business.  But we’ll spend the majority of the time today talking about the single Pringle approach, because everyone needs to start there. Do not and I repeat, do not go sell fractional CMO services without ever having without being in the position to actually execute the services yourself. Do it a couple times, you really got to learn. It’s like you can’t walk through the loop at once and look at the artwork and then decide that you’re going to be a tour guide and you know, walk other people through right? 

00:06:43 Casey: Like you got to do it a couple times, you got to learn this stuff, you got to like, kind of get it in your DNA, you got to understand the role of the fractional CMO as I teach on it at CMOx. And I think what I’m doing here so unique, because we’re talking about really elevating just to the strategy and leadership role, not to the implementation role. So let’s talk about what that looks like for… like your costs.

00:07:06 Casey: So remember, you sell yourself as the fractional CMO. And really, you sell yourself as the CMO. The word fractional is ultimately a relationship between you and a CEO, and like HR, and maybe like the legal team or something. But fractional, it’s like just kind of not disclosed elsewhere. You know, it’s like,  when your plumber comes to your house,  that’s your plumber, you’d say, Hey, honey, the plumber’s here, you would say the fractional plumber, right? Because the engagement that you have, it’s like, it’s,  it’s kind of private, right? It’s like, I’m paying the person, they’re gonna go service 10 houses today. I don’t know how many, whatever, but like, they’re here right now. They’re the plumber. You’re here right now. You’re the CMO. That’s how I see your role. 

00:07:48 Casey: So you come on board to companies as the CMO. And if you’re doing the single Pringle work, you’re doing strategy and leadership exclusively. So sales, know, marketing and sales, and then closing, right? Cash collecting, accounting, that kind of stuff. And then strategy and leadership.

00:08:04 Casey: So your tech stack is pretty simple. You could absolutely run this whole business on just like a business bank account. I like Relay Bank. If you want one in the US, just check them out. I just think that they’re cool. They have a nice way to kind of move money around for profit and stuff like that  in the bank into separate accounts. It’s like a profit first bank. So if you like Michalowicz’s book, Profit First, I think that they’re a good  bank for that. But your choice, doesn’t matter to Bank of America, local credit union, don’t care, just an ability to receive payment. And then clients can just wire you payment. So like you don’t need any fancy way to take payment. 

00:08:42 Casey: You can just use Google Docs, Google workspace now with Google Docs allows for eSignature. So you can even skip the whole need to have any kind of like proposal software. And then like ultimately a CRM  is nice. But if you’re like me, you’re not going to operate in the CRM. I just can’t like I can set it up and I can do it for a week or two, but then I kind of wane.

00:09:04 Casey: So for me, it’s like less the CRM and more just talking to the people that are in front of me and then setting calendar events to go back to past people and go and talking to them. Yeah, that’s like a better way to do it. If you have a CRM and you can have automations and all that kind of stuff. But here’s the problem. If you’re listening to this and you’re like, Oh, I love automations. Okay, so you’re just simplifying this and I’m going to do something so beautiful and complex. I’m going to build this Rue Goldberg machine where all of these things are going to happen so I can contact all these people.

00:09:33 Casey: That’s probably not necessary.  And you’re probably going to get lost in the fun or the joy or the interest or the dopamine  of setting up a CRM. And you just got to be super simple. Remember, your life fundamentally changes the moment that you’re making more than $10,000 a month as a fractional CMO. That point in your life, there’s like the time before that and the time after that. If you’ve never done it before, if you’ve never sold the higher ticket kind of consulting-ish services. And it’s not consulting. This is very different. But if you’ve never sold something like that before, I’ll tell you it’s just life changes. 

00:10:08 Casey: You sell $10,000 a month in a recurring business. It’s different. Because you go from zero to 10. It takes a lot of  work. Okay. And if you join the accelerator, I’ll give you all the shortcuts possible. But still, it’s like internal work, you got to commit to working with better clients charging higher prices, solving bigger problems, positioning yourself appropriately. There’s like a bunch of stuff that you have to do inside of your body. right? And then there’s like the external stuff. But really, it’s that internal stuff that can take people so in the longest time, because they have to unwind beliefs that they have about what they’re worth and what they can do and all that kind of stuff. 

00:10:40 Casey: And then those people that are after 10k a month, because if you’re making 10k a month, and you’re doing fractional CMO work, for you to go from 10 to 20, it’s like kind of a nothing burger. And then you need to go from 20 to 40. It’s like, it’s not hard to do. It’s work. And just what it is, is it’s like probably cycling out your lowest paying client or the client you like the least for a client that you like more that pays you more that you work less hours on. That’s kind of the move, right? You’re just kind of like, it’s just three to five clients, and you charge what you charge to get started. And then you start replacing clients over time. There’s a natural churn of clients. 

00:11:15 Casey: But the longer you’re in the game, the longer your commitment should be. So I’ll share with you I signed with a client last year, a two year minimum contract. So we have an agreement for two years.  And it’s a great agreement for them. And it’s a great agreement for me. And it’s two years locked in. So for two years, I don’t have to fight for that slot. Like I’ve got a great client in that space  and I get to do great work for them. I don’t have to worry about anything. I don’t have to like maintain any kind of like infrastructure to service them. Because my infrastructure exclusively is Google Docs and Zoom. I don’t even know what I pay for Zoom. What is it? 20 bucks a month for Zoom.

00:11:52 Casey: I pay for a personal ChatGPT account and Claude, I just use those all the time in my personal life, professional life, whatever. And then Google workspace, and then a domain and then like WordPress hosting for the website, you don’t even need a website, you can just redirect your domain to your LinkedIn profile. So the cost like your ongoing monthly cost your minimum cost to have a fractional CMO business where you’re bringing in $20,000 a month, 150 bucks a month, 200 bucks a month, throw in some bookkeeping software if you need that. You know, maybe you’re at 250 a month. I mean, the costs are exceedingly low. So it’s not a high cost kind of base infrastructure to be a fractional CMO in this way. 

00:12:37 Casey: Now, if you bastardize the term fractional CMO, and you go and you try to bring in marketing talent and have that work through your company and you charge the client and then you get a percentage of that as profit and you play that game, which I think is not a good game to play. Then you’re going to need more  over you’re gonna have more overhead, you’re gonna need more technology, you’re going to be able to do like our log stuff, you’re gonna have to do like, safety and security and audit trails and all that stuff. And I just don’t want you to have to do that. I don’t want you to bring in a vendor like you’re working with a client, you’re like, need a copywriter. And you’re like, well, I have a copywriter on my team, and we’re going to hire them. 

00:13:17 Casey: And this is the price they charge me. This is the price I’m going to charge the client, and then kind of service them as an agency. I don’t want you to do that. If you are an agency. I want your fractional CMO services kind of split apart from the agency, especially if you have a partner in the agency. But if you’re a single Pringle agency owner, and you’ve got people that work under you, your fractional CMO services is different than your agency. So self fractional CMO at a recurring price. Again, easy number 10k a month, and then sell agency service say like, need to bring in this talent, I got an RFP from my agency and then from two other agencies, and then you make the decision based on that. You want to keep your overhead so so so low.

00:13:58 Casey: Someone asked us recently in the in Facebook group, the fractional CMO community Facebook group, if you aren’t a member, just go to cmox.com/community. It’s a free Facebook group, we’ve got nearly 7000 marketers. And we’re really kind of stingy around who we let in. So people have to answer the questions right. If they do any self promotion, they get one warning, then we ban them. There’s just no garbage in that Facebook group. It’s it’s it’s actually like the best group around for fractional CMO stuff. I go live in there once a month, we do a live webinar.

00:14:30 Casey: So if you’re not a if you’re not a member of that, I encourage you to join. So someone asked recently like, hey, my margins aren’t as good. I’m spending like 25 % of my billables on overhead. was like, well, what’s your overhead though? Like VAs. Okay, so let’s talk about the role of a VA. If you need a VA in your life, that’s cool. I kind of thought I did for a little while. It’s just because your life is complex and you can simplify it and not need a VA. I know some of like my boardroom members have VA’s that they have on staff and it’s helpful for them and I get it.

00:15:12 Casey: You just start edging that line into providing implementation services when you start stacking up talent on your bench. And I used to have Raf, he still is with me, Rafael, he’s just the greatest. And he’s now one of our coaches, because he saw everything I did inside of all these businesses, and he can coach people. And he’s just an awesome coach. And I used to shoulder Raf’s expense. And he was a full time employee, salary, benefits, kind of the whole thing, right? In the US.

00:15:40 Casey: And that was expensive for my fractional CMO work.  And it created some tension in my life. It was like, okay, I have to bill at least this month, much a month in order for me just to cover his expenses. So I did it because I thought I needed the talent and I did early on because I oversold what I was doing and I was including implementation services. And then Raf was forced to project manage on my behalf. And it was, I didn’t know better.

00:16:10 Casey: But I’ll tell you now that that is just the wrong move. So as you know, my story about a year ago, I wrote my second book and launched it. It’s called Find Your CMO. And that’s when I decided I’m going back to the fractional CMO game as a fractional CMO. Like I’m going to go play the game out. I’m going to go win great fit clients and service them and have a lot of fun doing it. And since then, I’ve decided like, I just want this business to be high profit. I want it to be simple and high profit.  And I want to have fun doing it. So I have  meaningfully kept my expenses as low as possible, almost as a game with myself, like, do I actually need that fancy stuff? 

00:16:45 Casey: And the answer is by and large, no, I don’t need anything for my fractional CMO services. When I offer those services to businesses, I need a camera, a computer, microphone. I need Google Docs, which comes with Google workspace, which I spend what $8 a month for. I don’t use any fancy technology. You know, I have a couple free apps like I use open broadcasting software OBS for my video. That’s free took me like a day to set it up.  I’ve got some fancy lights. But I do a lot of my calls without video on because I don’t want to be on video all the time. That’s all and I’m, you know, I’m the CMO. I’m like the boss of the marketing department. So I’m just like, Hey guys, I’m just not gonna get video today. 

00:17:26 Casey: People are cool with me either. It’s fine. But like sometimes we’re on video together and everyone gets on video together. So it’s okay to not always be on video. I recently was traveling for a month to visit with my father before he passed away and then for the funeral and  then kind of like the trip afterwards, driving home from Michigan back here to Philly. And I kept businesses going. I didn’t make any mistakes. Like there’s nothing that was lost, no slip up, right? Even though it was all on my shoulders and I was operating it on my phone, very, very little, like very little input on my side. I wasn’t doing much work at all.

00:18:02 Casey: That’s what you can do. I don’t need a full time VA billing a bunch of hours. I might want a VA because I want their help with prospecting. Okay, I might want a VA because I want their help with em helping me do content creation. But that’s that’s an okay use for a VA. But that is not the requirement for the services for the client. If you want to take on some additional expenses for marketing, because you hate it, or you want someone that’s more  committed than you to do it over and over again, that’s fine.

00:18:31 Casey: I don’t want you to think that you have to do implementation services, project management services, that you need a VA, Philippines, India, wherever you don’t need them. That’s not what you’re showing up for.  I think back to something I heard a long time ago, which was Dan Kennedy.  If you don’t know Dan Kennedy, he is the classic direct response just king. Dan is like one of the guys. He’s one of the best direct response marketers of our time and he’s still alive.

00:19:01 Casey: And Dan would go and do consulting with folks. And when he would consult, he would start every new consulting client with a fresh uh legal pad, like yellow legal pad. And he would write their name and their problems, asking questions, all that stuff. And then when he was done with the session, he would put it in a Ziploc and then put it in his freezer. And that was it. And then the next time he met with you, he’d go to the freezer and take it out, grab his pen and get back to work. Dan’s a approach was not I’m going to stay in touch with you every single day and do all these check ins and make sure yada yada. 

00:19:36 Casey: It’s like, I’m going to give you the right strategy and put the right people in place and then boom, you’re off to the races. And then we’ll talk again in a week or two weeks or we’ll talk again in a month or whatever the cadence is for conversation. And then he’d be right back there to give him 100 % his attention. And he would solve the biggest problems and then he would move on to the next client. That’s the value that you can provide. counter that with what a lot of folks are doing that are coming into this world of fractional CMO. So like if you’re new here, hey, welcome.  And if you’re recently laid off, you’re thinking I want to become a fractional CMO, maybe it’s a good route for you. But there’s a race to the bottom just generally with entrepreneurship, there’s always a race to the bottom. And that race is I’m gonna do more work than the other people and I’m going to charge less money.

00:20:17 Casey: So someone’s like, I’ll do the marketing strategy and the leadership and I’ll build a team and help all even be the team and I’ll do all the work of the copywriting and the AI stuff and I’ll do all the CRM stuff and I’m going to build it all out. I’ll be the photographer and the videographer. I’ll do it all for less money than your current person is paying you at their agency. Are you paying the person at the agency, right? Like, that’s what people are pitching.  And I’ll just tell you that to the uninformed business owner, that sounds like a good deal. But to the real business owner, they’re like,  no.

Like no way. It’s like  buying a Swiss army knife that has 87 functions on it. It’s like, it’s probably not good at most of those functions, right? 

00:20:57 Casey: So business owners  of a certain size of a certain like intellect, experience, foresight, that business owner is going to say, I want a leader in this department. I can think years ago when I got hired at a private equity commercial real estate company. And these guys just wanted the problem solved of having a leader. They had no expectation that I was going to actually build the campaigns out myself. But they also did appreciate that I could build them out myself. Because that means that I could teach people but they just wanted me in the role of leader. And I joined that I did like a 30 day, it’s like a half day consult. And then I signed with them and I worked with them for 26 months or something. And we raised a billion dollars we bought a billion dollars of capital of property over the course of 26 months a billion dollars. It was amazing from 500 million to $1.6 billion in assets from the time I started to the time I left. 

00:21:53 Casey: I obviously didn’t do it all but I led the marketing department that brought in the investors  who made those allocations  and  they wanted my leadership. If I said yeah, and by the way, guys, like all like, do your podcast and I’ll also do your  we’ll write a book together and they’re like, we’ll also rebuild the website and I’ll lead all of that and I’ll actually do the design and I’ve got a designer that works for me and I’ll ask him to do the mock ups and then I have a developer that works for me and then he’ll do that stuff and maybe like, I don’t know, dude, that sounds like way too much stuff for one person to do.

00:22:27 Casey: But when I come in and say, Hey, I want to be the marketing strategist and leader. I’ll meet with you guys, you tell me what’s up. I’m going to push back on stuff that I don’t think is right. We’re going to find our happy middle ground. And then I’m going to get my team to do everything possible to make your dreams come true. They say, hell yeah, brother. And then we’re off to the races. And that was our relationship for two years. The only reason I left that company, it’s just because like the interest rates went up and it just made the business model slow down a lot. And it was just kind of getting boring, right? 

00:22:56 Casey: So we parted ways. I had a second kid and it was kind of the end of it. It was, I still stay in touch with the team today. I had a text message with a former member of the team today. They’re still at the company. So what I’m saying here is that you have to solve big problems. And big problems don’t require you to bench talent that you cover the cost of. This is not you having a project manager. This is not you having an assistant. This is not you covering the cost of Moz or AREFs or  whatever the tool is. The CMOs that I see sometimes chatter in the free Facebook community. They say stuff like, Oh, yeah, well, when I start working with a client,

I have all these tools that I use and I just like produce all these great reports for them. 

00:23:44 Casey: So the CMO covers like all those costs. Here’s what I would do. Let’s say I want those reports. Let’s say it’s important for some reason, that maybe do like a Moz report. I would say, hey, we’re going to run a Moz report. I need the credit card so I can go swipe it and get the report run. And they’re like, cool, here’s the credit card. And I swipe it and I get the report run.  It’s not on  me to do. I say, hey guys, we need to CRM.

00:24:05 Casey: I know the market. These are the three best I think for us this one’s the best one. I’m  going to meet with your tech team, we’re going to have a decision and I need to make sure that there’s budget available for this. Are you guys cool with these costs? They’re like, yeah, it’s cool. Then we’ll just choose the best one. And then I’m then I say, cool, like we need to hire a developer that’s going to come in and they’re going to roll out the CRM for everybody. And maybe you like write the job description and hand it them. And they’re like, yeah, that’s great. And then that person gets hired by HR and you meet with them. You’re like, hey, welcome on board. Here’s the outcome that we want.

00:24:35 Casey: Can you go from here? They’re like, yes. Two adults talking having adult conversations while you don’t cover the cost of these other people. Like that’s the relationship that you have. I think if they give a client that I’m working with where when I joined them, they had disparate marketing CRM and sales CRM, they weren’t sinking. So said, Well, okay, these things should sink. And they said, That would be cool. But I don’t even know how to do it. I was like, Okay, well, I’m gonna ask ChatGPT, how could this be possible? I kind of chased some rabbit holes. And ultimately, I reached out to a developer and was like, Hey, can you just like come over and can we pay you to audit this and see if this works? And they’re like, hell yeah, that sounds like fun. And they do it, they came up with the solution. And they were like, this is the solution. 

00:25:16 Casey: You know, we spent 20 hours coming up with a solution. And we know that this would work. And here’s the cost. I turn back to the client say, Hey, guys, this is a requirement for marketing. We need this. They’re like, Absolutely. Let’s go with it. And we went with it. And we got the solution and everyone’s happy. And it never came out of my pocket. So I never had any actual tangible spend on anything. I’ll tell you, I meet with a client every quarter. We meet for an offsite, we kind of meet equidistant from everyone. It just so happens that we’re nearby each other. You know what I don’t charge for? I don’t charge any extra for the day. 

00:25:48 Casey:  And I don’t charge for travel. Right? I could go nickel and dime them and make whatever 100 bucks for gas. Whatever. Honestly, I love it. I have so much fun going. I love a good quarterly planning session. And then afterwards, I take myself out for dinner and I go to the park. Bring my hand radio,  try to get a little park on the air. And that’s it. And I don’t charge them for that. So I kind of eat that cost. No big deal. If a client was like, Hey, we have this conference coming up. You coming? I’d like, absolutely. I’m coming. I would get a coach ticket. Because  my job isn’t to be fancy. My job is to be effective. I don’t care where I sit on the airplane, by and large, right? I’m like a back row aisle guy. It’s fine with me. Just like get me on the bird, fly me wherever I’m going. I got it from there.

00:26:34 Casey: So I want coach, I want to per diem, I want them to cover some basic things there. So like, I’m not losing money, but my expectation is if my client wants me on site in person, they’re gonna pay all of my costs, I’m not gonna profit on it. It’s just like kind of the relationship. Some see most are like, well, if I got to be there for two days, and I’m gonna try to charge a day rate and yada yada. I just say like, if I’m working with a client for multiple years, it is reasonable for them to expect me to come to a conference once a year, and I’ll do so. So I won’t charge them for it. I just want to keep it simple.

00:27:03 Casey: I want all of these decisions to be as simple as possible.  I want my life to be simple and stress free.  I don’t want to be like, Hey guys, so you know, the the IRS says that the per mileage, you know, I get paid at this per mile and I drove this far and you know, you guys owe me that and then for lunch, it’s like, Oh, dude, like I want to keep what makes me special as low as possible. You don’t have to treat me special. I don’t need a limo a black car that I’ll take a bus I’ll take public transit to the to the airport, if it makes sense. I’ll also take an Uber if that’s faster and more appropriate. Right? It’s like, I’m just trying to not be a burden to the business. I’m trying to be all value and I’m not trying to nickel and dime anyone. 

00:27:42 Casey: And I think if you do that, you’re going to nestle yourself in with good companies for the long haul and you’re gonna stick around for years. And imagine this, I’m telling you, you need two to five clients, three to five clients for you to be just like rock solid. Right? That’s like all of your revenue dreams come true. You can get there. You want to make 200 grand a year, you can do that with three to five clients, you want to make a million dollars a year, you can do that with three to five clients, you shouldn’t do it with 10 clients, you should do a three to five clients, you should get better about how you service those clients and how you get paid with upside. Okay. 

00:28:14 Casey: But I want you to keep your cognitive load low. On all of these things, keep your cognitive load as low as possible. I have three problems that I’m solving, it just so happens that the problems are bigger problems, but tends to be when there’s bigger problems, there’s more budget to solve those problems. So I want to go spend my time there  in these three different places. And I want to exchange kind of who fills those seats with better paying, more fun, faster moving clients. And if you do that, again, your costs drop dramatically. You have like no cost. Someone asked recently in the Facebook group, like,  do you charge like a processing fee? You know, how do you get ACH or whatever? 

00:28:53 Casey: I hate to use stripe because stripe charges 2.9% plus a half a percent for recurring, whatever the thing is. Here’s my take. When you work with a client, get paid, just get paid first. Have them swipe the card on stripe, whatever, just get the money in first. That’s good. And then two months, a month later, two months later, whatever your second, third month. That’s when you might just ask them, Hey, how do I work with the finance department so that I can reduce so that you just can pay me just the way that you pay everyone else? Like, well, we pay everyone else through direct deposit or build.com like, cool, let me set up an account and I’ll invoice you guys there. 

00:29:26 Casey: And then those things tend to have like a $5 processing fee or no processing fee, which is a whole lot better than 2.9% plus a half percent recurring. So think of that. Instead of spending 290 to $340 a month per client that pays you 10 grand, you just like after you get the deal, you just slide into their ecosystem and get paid that way. Some of you are thinking about being a fractional CMO almost as a way to trick the business into paying you it’s like your positioning is, well, there’s no way that I’m worth this. So I have to kind of like muscle my way in and I’ll only last for a little while and then they’ll find out that I’m not the right person. And then they’ll go back to the better model, which is like an agency or something. 

00:30:08 Casey: And that’s just not true. I am so committed. I believe this so,  so fully with my entire being that a fractal CMO is the best thing for some companies. For other companies, they just need a person like I talked to a company recently and they were like, Hey, we need a fractional CMO. I got on the phone with them. And they were like, actually, we just want someone that does everything strategy do or the whole thing. It’s like, great. I know a guy let me introduce you right? Boom. They got him. They’re loving him. Here’s that problem. Their problem though.

00:30:36 Casey: Now they’re saying, Oh, he, he’s great. Like, don’t get me wrong, we love him. He’s great. But because he’s so in it, he’s just kind of reactive. And he doesn’t have the spaciousness to like see what’s going on and kind of understand the market at a  larger scale. He’s just like always operating. He’s never predicting the future. He’s never kind of guessing what’s going to happen. What’s going to happen with q4 CPM rises and  offer fatigue and what a second offer is going to be like that kind of stuff. He just isn’t there  until something breaks and then you’ll figure it out. So they need a fractional CMO. 

00:31:07 Casey: But they certainly needed at start like a laborer, a unicorn that’s like very experienced can do a lot of stuff. But that unicorn needs someone in their court who’s just like, what’s a player like, let’s talk about the game. Let’s talk about your moves. Let’s talk about how we can make sure that you’re ahead. Let me pull this person in to help you out. Let me get this person let me do these things like arranging and strategizing. If you provide that effort and energy, it is unlike anything that they have. It is novel, it is new, it is value added, it is helpful. And it’s the kind of thing that they want for a long time. 

00:31:37 Casey: So my encouragement to you is to position yourself as that leader, knowing that companies want that. And yes, you got to turn away some ugly ducklings along the way. We had a member recently on a call this week tell me that he talked to someone and they kind of like discouraged him a bit. And it wasn’t like a full discouragement. So I don’t want to like characterize this improperly. But this idea that someone comes to you, you talk to someone that’s in the market or a prospect or whatever, and they’re like, this doesn’t make sense. I don’t like it. Why would I want that? That’s dumb. No one wants this. 

00:32:09 Casey: Instead of like trusting those people, I encourage you to I don’t know, trust me, the guy who’s trained hundreds of fractional CMOs and is seeing what the market is currently buying.  And I’ll tell you that this absolutely is what people want. Not everybody. But it’s the people who don’t want this are the people that are probably kind of broke. Talk to someone recently and then he said, I don’t need a fractional CMO. I need someone who just does it all. And again, sure, that does sound nice, doesn’t it? But at some point, that person who does it all loses an edge. Like they could probably get you to the next level. But the level beyond that

you need a strategist and leader above them that understands what’s happening in the market. And that can be you. 

00:32:51 Casey: That’s the role that you want to play. So the cost the overall cost for you to like shoulder to be a fractional CMO. I mean, you can do it on a shoestring budget, you can do it with auto website, you know, 15 bucks a year for a domain. Google workspace, I would do absolutely whatever that is eight bucks a month. And then 20 bucks on top of that for ChatGPT. And then if you like writing, I think Claude’s great to maybe throw another 20 to Claude. Or maybe you’re lacking perplexity these days and the perplexity browser, comment or whatever.  Maybe spend some money there. But beyond that, like  a Zoom license, do not be the person who doesn’t have a Zoom license.  I think Zoom is the most professional.  You could go with Google meet. It’s fine. Yeah, it’s simple. 

00:33:40 Casey: Like that’s your whole business. Like it doesn’t have to be hard. If you can’t operate your business from a phone you’ve created constraints that are making you lose in the short run. If you can’t like literally operate the business exclusively from your phone, and like do all the work that you were going to do while out on a walk in the woods that has good cell reception, like you’ve built the wrong business. This is ultimately the business that offers the most freedom for marketers, where your job becomes as you’re more and more successful, to tell people every day they’re doing a good job. That’s it. Like, hey, to chat with you today. What are up to? Awesome. Oh, you’re doing a great job. That’s that’s perfect. That’s great. Awesome. Can’t wait to see what you deliver next week. Alright, see you next time. Bye. 

00:34:19 Casey: Right. That becomes your cadence of conversation. You’re just doing walkie talkies. You’re not sitting at your desk doing keyboard and mouse work. You’re talking to people, you’re pushing people to do the right thing. So that’s the vision. Low cost. If you want my help, you know the deal. Book a call with my team. I’ve got this great team. We help marketers like you probably like you. Build and scale a fractional CMO practice. We can’t help everyone. We’re really choosy about the people that we offer a seat to. And  the biggest thing that people need to have is like experience it like they need to know marketing. 

00:34:54 Casey: Some people try to join and they’re like, Well, I don’t really understand marketing. Like I just have like an experience in product. Well, this is the wrong place for you. Go get five years of really  solid marketing experience like at an agency where you’re working on a bunch of projects and come to us. But if you’re the kind of person who’s worked in a company for

a decade and you really understand like how their marketing works. Maybe it’s trade shows. Maybe it’s uh print material. Maybe it’s EDM. Maybe it’s out of house marketing. Maybe it’s paperclip, whatever it is. You understand that game. 

00:35:24 Casey: If you know how to like support salespeople, and you want to be in the B2B space or work in consultative sales. Awesome. If you understand the home services space, you understand uh OEM and MSP is and like any of this stuff where you have like a depth of knowledge where you could go be dangerous for another company. That’s who I want to talk to. Those are the people that I want to help become fractional CMOs. Because I know that if you get in with a company, you’re going to be able to do some really good work with them. And that makes you look good and makes you money, right? That’s what I want to happen for you.  

00:35:54 Casey: So I’m here on a commitment on a mission to get 10,000 companies supported by CMO X’s. And we are well on our way.  Or cruising. I’m very proud of the progress we made, but I’d love to help you get up to that level of winning clients that are paying you 35 10 $15,000 a month or more as a fractional CMO. And that or more comes with upside those comes with those big fat paydays when companies exit or when there’s some other kind of liquidity event where you get to enjoy an influx of capital. And you start scheduling those out in your life, right? You got one coming in Q4 next year, you’re gonna want to come in and Q4 the following year. 

00:36:30 Casey: And those are like nice little landy apps that are going to pay you quarter million dollars, a half million dollars on top of a really strong monthly revenue that you’re living on and saving and filling out your  401k and IRA and all that stuff. If that’s what you want to do, I’d love to help you book in a call cmox.com/call. Just book in a call 15 minutes. We’ll see if we can help you. All right. Talk to you soon. 

00:36:53 Casey: Thank you for sticking around for the full episode.  As you know, learners are earners, but you’ve got to take action on what you heard today.  For more information and show notes,  visit fractional CMO show.com If you’d like me to answer your questions on an upcoming episode,  you can share your question at FractionalCMOShow.com.  And last, please hit the like and subscribe button so that I know that this content is helpful to you.  Alright, go get em!