Ep #128: Bonus Coaching with Casey - Part 1

Transcript:

00:00:00 Casey: All right, so in this episode, you’re going to hear a recording that I did just recently. It was early mid December. And I’m talking to folks who joined me for a special kind of Q&A call. And these are folks that are not yet fractional CMOs or a couple of them, I think, were. And they’re thinking about becoming fractional CMOs. And they have questions about what to do in order to become a fractional CMO. So these folks got a bonus call with me because they purchased a couple of things that we were selling during Black Friday. And I wanted to let you in on the conversation so you can kind of hear what we were talking about. And maybe there’s something in here for you, specifically if you’re on the fence about becoming a fractional CMO, or you’re a full-time employee, or you’re an agency owner, you don’t know how to add fractional CMO services or not. So tune in.

00:00:45 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.

00:01:41 Casey: Here’s the big thing. It’s like, want you to kind of like take advantage of this opportunity to be a fractional CMO because now is the time. And I just wanted to like create a space for us to just to chat. Maybe you know about me because you’ve read my book or listened to my book. You’ve listened to the podcast. You’ve been on some of my webinars. Maybe you’re in the Facebook group. We’ve got a big Facebook group of about 7,000 folks. Maybe you’ve heard from other people what we’re doing inside the CMOx Accelerator. But I’ll just give you like a big picture. I think what we’re doing here at CMOx is radically different than anything that’s happening anywhere else because our CMOs are winning big business and serving great clients and making a lot of money. 

00:02:18 Casey: We have a member right now, she texted this morning in our boardroom WhatsApp group. So she closed the month of November with over $50,000 in cash collected as a fractional CMO. And she’s on the beaches of Jamaica right now. And she’s just kind of hanging out and she’s doing a week long vacation. And to me that that’s it. I’m kind of surprised she’s doing it right now, because this is kind of like annual planning week. You’re kind of meeting with your clients right now to like wrap up the annual plan so that like next week and the week following you can be off. But she did her stuff early and she’s out and she’s traveling and she’s having fun. And that is like the epitome of what it is to be a fractional CMO. 

00:02:50 Casey: You work hard. Like this is not get rich quick. This is not two steps to get rich. None of that stuff. It’s you work hard to set your clients up for a strong quarter and a strong year. And once that year starts or that quarter one starts, the first two weeks, you’re all in, you’re super focused. But then when you’re like in the middle of that quarter, you just can kind of relax. Like the team’s got it, they’re taking care of all of the labor, the client pays that team member directly, you kind of chill out. And then towards the end of the quarter, you lean back in, you make sure everything, and everyone finishes strong, and then you plan for the next quarter or the following year. 

00:03:24 Casey: That’s where our CMOs are right now. I think it’s… Like this week, of Wednesday, Thursday, I think our CMOs are kind of wrapping their work for the year. And then they’ll be back at it on January 2nd and they’ll be leaning hard on their teams to push them forward. If I think, what is January 2nd? Is that a Friday? Yeah, they’re coming probably on the fifth. Most of them, they’re setting their quarters to start on the fifth. know, kind of creating rules that let the CMO have a nice lifestyle. Further, it’s my belief that I think you should have two to five clients.

00:03:55 Casey: I think you start getting to five clients and then over time you scale back on your client volume. So I have clients, I have three clients right now. I don’t want another one. I just wrapped my first 30 days with my third client and it was hard. I had to do a lot of phone calls. I actually traveled to see them, not because they asked me to, but because my wife bought something at auction and I was actually driving by their place when I was going to pick up the chandelier and chairs.

00:04:23 Casey: So I stopped in their office and saw them, just like a lot of phone calls, a lot of calls with vendors. It’s been a lot. It’s been taxing. It’s been difficult. It’s made for a busy month for me. But again, my anticipation is that I can relax as we get past January 10th or so. That second week of January, the teams are all focused on track and I can relax a bit and really just lean back in hard come late March. So this is what’s working for our CMOs. This is what’s working for me and… Three to five clients, think is where you want to be. Three is a lot better than five. If you want to make more money, I don’t think you get a new client. I think you find a way to be more valuable, solve bigger problems and charge more money. 

00:05:02 Casey: That’s a better place to be. When you start having more than five clients, your brain is just so, just kind of like mixed up. You don’t know what to do. You kind of, get people’s names wrong. It’s like, you know, if you’ve ever dated two people at the same time and you call one person the wrong name, it’s really, really bad, right? So like you don’t want to get there. If you want the technical thing, it’s probably Dunbar’s number, which is you can keep in your brain 150 people and have like a decent conversation with them. Like you bump into them at the grocery store. You can have a conversation with like 150 people. That’s meaningful. 

00:05:36 Casey: When you start working with too many teams, your brain just doesn’t have space for it, I think. So really three to five is where you’re at. Additionally, when you work as a Fractional CMO, here’s how the financial structure works. The client pays you a monthly fee. That monthly fee goes directly to your pocket. Now you might scrape 2.9% off of it for Stripe’s processing fee, or you might move to ACH or E-CHECK or whatever. it’s no processing fee. Okay. And then you might withhold some stuff for business taxes and things like that. Okay. But there is no other expense associated with your work. Maybe like a little bit in infrastructure, maybe like a proposal sending software, your ability to send email and a website, very inexpensive stuff. I’m talking less than a hundred dollars a month is like your required monthly spend to maintain your fractional CMO business. 

00:06:24 Casey: So if a client pays you for easy numbers, $10,000 a month, you put in your pocket, like $9,800, something like that, $9,700. That goes to you and whatever you want to do with it. What do you want to save? What do you want to spend? Whatever. Then when you come up with a strategy for your clients, your clients then pay for that labor to do it. So that’s you hiring a marketing technician. This is someone working 10 to 40 hours a week, contracted or full-time employee, depends on the client. And these marketing technicians do your bidding. You say, Hey, this is the big idea I want to do. I want to create these types of creatives. I need you to take these scripts that I’ve written the first two of and write 20 more. I’m going to train you then on how to do CapCut and 11 Labs voiceovers and all this stuff. And then you’re going to build this out for me.

00:07:11 Casey: And that person just does it all. And that becomes their job. And as they get that, then they figure out you tell them the next thing to do. And then they work on that one and the next one, the next one. Then you bring in another marketing technician and you bring in an agency, but that money never comes out of your pocket. That comes out of the larger budget for the client. And it’s a really simple approach, but those two things, the number of clients that you have and how you get paid and how you kind of work with the client is so critically important for the foundation of your work as a fractional CMO. So I would love to share anything you want to know about fractional CMO stuff, getting clients, serving clients. If you’ve got a current deal that you’re working on, I’d love to coach you through it.

00:07:43 Casey: I do this stuff in real time with our members all the time, but really it’s an open floor. And I just asked that we respect everyone’s time and be succinct in the questions that we ask. You’ve got a question, put it in the chat right now and we’ll just process it as a queue. Otherwise I could just give a monologue for the next 75 minutes if you want. But the idea is I really want to coach you and help you figure out what you need. And what I’d love to do is help you win your first client so that you can take that money and come join the accelerator and be around a bunch of other people that are doing it too. So that’s the self-serving part. 

00:08:15 Casey: But for you, I want you to stretch your brain on what’s possible, what you can charge, where your real value is, how you can identify the right target audience to go work and be able to win high value clients that you can serve in your terms. So with that, I’ll open the floor for any questions. And no one has one. Eric, can I just pick on you? I feel like you’re chatty. Where are you at right now with Fractional CMO Work? 

00:08:36 Eric: In the transition period. I’m chatty, that’s putting it lightly. I come from an agency mindset. You know, I led an agency up until this month, actually, a graduation at 11/30, we decided to wind it up and lean fully into this space, which is exciting. So I’ve got a couple of clients already. One is in the church. I’m still more of an implementer in that space. I’m working to grow out of that, you know, because that’s not the goal to be. I want to be doing those things. And then I have one where I’m. I don’t know that I would call myself a fractional CMO, more of a fractional kind of COO.

00:09:11 Eric: I’m doing a lot of their more operational side of things, which is working well. It’s not exactly where I want to be, but that’s where I’m at. I’m trying to figure out really what you and I have talked about before is my niche. I’ve got broad industry knowledge, which I enjoy. So it’s been really hard for me to hone in on where I who I want to be talking to and talking to the right people. Last time you and I talked, we talked about finding ones who were interesting to private equity firms. You know, that’s where the money’s in. That’s where I want to be. And I’m still trying to figure out like, “Okay. Where do I go from there?” You know, and how do I start talking about things that matter to that target audience? 

00:09:47 Eric: Cause I want to become more of a thought leader in this area and be more public, you know, on socials out in the world so that I can have that easy cloud. If somebody looks me up, they can then just start building trust immediately. 

00:09:57 Casey: Yeah. I think at this point, if you want to feed yourself, you need to go get the business and not be passive and let the business come to you. It’s great. So I think the question is like, where do you go fishing? Where’s a good place for you and what’s the bait that you use? And like, I think that some people are going to try to obfuscate this and make it harder than it is. You get business from two places, from people that you know, and people that you don’t know that exists, right? And the easiest place to get is from people that you know. So the first thing you should do is talk to people that you know. 

00:10:31 Casey: And Eric, if you just tell them the good news about what you’re doing, people want to see you successful. So just scheduling calls with people that you know and saying, Hey, I don’t know if you heard, I made some shifts in the business. I’d love to catch up, see what you’ve been doing, share what I’ve been doing. Just catch up. You talk to someone and you have that conversation. I say, Eric, dude, what’s up? I haven’t seen you in 10 years. What’s the latest? How’s the family? Yada, yada. How’s the barbecue? And then you talk and then I say, great, who can I introduce you to? I offer that. That’s a very important piece. Who do I, who can I introduce you to? And then you say, do you mind if I share what I’m up to? 

00:11:04 Eric: Yeah, please. Absolutely.

00:11:06 Casey: There you go. You share. So I left the agency, but it’s fractional CMO thing. Here’s what it looks like. I’m the marketing strategist and leader for companies. I’m really looking to get inside of companies that are looking to sell the private equity. Anyone looking to sell. Usually that means that they’re doing probably at least three million a year, but hopefully five or more. And I really just want to meet CEOs. And then you transition, say, who do you know? Who do you know that can help me? Who do know that I should, sorry, who do you know that I should meet? That’s it. Not who do know that I should meet that as a CEO, but who do know that I should meet? Let’s say, know what?

00:11:37 Casey: You know, my old friend, you know, he now runs this accelerator in Boston. You’re like, sweet. Let me, let me meet him. You just chase that for a while, Eric. And I really want you to get hungry on it. And I think you could do 25 outreaches in one day. So you can call scheduled. And I have no anticipation that those 25 can meet with you before Jan. 6. Maybe a couple will, but that’s what you want to do. You want to stack that up on your calendar and get those scheduled and then just hit the new year, just sharing the good news. And you’re never asking people to work with them. And there’s a premise here, which is like. I don’t know if I can even help you, dude, like if I’m talking to a business owner, they’re like, what are you selling? It’s like, I mean, I don’t even know. I don’t even know if I can help you. Like, let’s talk about you and your business. 

00:12:23 Eric: Yeah. And what’s going on. 

00:12:24 Casey: And this conversation is all around curiosity. I align, you know, I think you’re a little more experienced because you’ve had an agency. I like to work with people that want to accept. That’s my thing. But they don’t tell anyone that, dude.

00:12:38 Eric: For sure. Yes. So that creates scariness for them, for the people around them. 

00:12:42 Casey: Yeah, exactly. And they like literally haven’t told anyone on the team. I’m in a executive leadership team. There’s four of us. There’s the owner. There’s ops. There’s finance. There’s marketing. Everyone but finance. The three of us know that we’re exiting. Finance doesn’t. Finance doesn’t. 

00:12:57 Eric: Yeah. So that’s where I’ve been hanging up in my head. Like, how do I get in front of those people? Because I know they’re so quiet about that. 

00:13:06 Casey: So I just drop it. Yeah. You just drop it in conversation very gently. You’re like, yeah, awesome. If I’m talking to someone, like, Eric, great to meet you. Tell me about your business. And they kind of know I’m in marketing, whatever. So I just ask them marketing related questions. How big is your team? What are you guys spending? What’s working? I have a rubric of questions to ask. And then I’m like, great. Thanks. That was so helpful. I learned a ton about what you guys are up to. I’ll turn the call over to you. What would you like to ask? That’s how I transition. It’s super gentle. And then they’re like, well, Eric, oh what do you do? How can you help?

00:13:36 Casey: And that invitation of pitch me is so much better than like the caffeinated, nicotinated guy who’s just like, uh, let me ask you these questions. Great. This is how can help you. Do you want to do not? It’s like, you just calm down. You kind of step back. You’re like, what questions you have for me? How can you help you say, thanks for asking. I don’t know yet. I guess I have a couple more questions kind of specifically about where you’re investing in marketing and do you guys have any exit strategies right now?

00:14:05 Casey: Because a company that wants to exit in two years is different than one where the CEO just wants to lifestyle. And I worked with a guy, all he wanted to do was lifestyle. He wanted the nicest lifestyle you can imagine, but didn’t want to exit. He didn’t want to be the guy that people called at night. He wanted to have his apartment in Columbia and hang out and disappear. So that’s the business he built. It was awesome. But then other people will say, well, we don’t have any plans to exit. And then on your second call, they’ll be like… So we’re thinking about exiting in two years. Right. And it’s like super like private between you guys. But you can’t ask for those secrets in public. It’s like on a call, oftentimes not recorded. I don’t record the calls. Often because I forget. 

00:14:53 Eric: I’m in the same boat there, but also maybe there’s a bit more trust. Yes, exactly. 

00:14:55 Casey: So that’s the route I’d go to find those people that want to exit. And if you’re in a position to be choosy, then you wait for it.

00:15:02 Eric: And I am thankfully in that position right now because I’ve got a mix of four clients right now, but one is leaving at the end of this month because the agency wound down. So I’ll have three, not exactly how I want to be operating with clients moving forward, but I’m not in a holy shit, I’m scared mode, you know. So I’m definitely in that opportunity to be choosy. But I’ve been I’ve been hung up on that one piece of like, gosh, how do I find out where they’re at in that stage? I can talk to them. And that’s that’s just a brilliant way to do it. I’m good at building relationships anyhow, and I’m good at talking to people about business and their stuff. So I reframing it that way versus just trying to sell myself is, I think, going to be bit of a superpower there. 

00:15:43 Casey: Yeah, we don’t sell ourselves. No way. So some positioning here around price, too. Are you into any luxury things? 

00:15:50 Eric: And when you say into, how do you mean? Like in terms of past? 

00:15:53 Casey: I don’t know. Like, do you spend a lot of time on Reddit looking at luxury? 

00:15:55 Eric: Oh, for sure. Yeah. I’m one of an audio file and stuff like that. 

00:15:58 Casey: OK. So what’s like something that you’d real like? Like a Macintosh speaker set from the 60s, something like that. 

00:16:06 Eric: Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I could binge out on anything vintage electronic related. 

00:16:23 Casey: Okay, so some guy in town is selling that. Right. And you go up to him and you’re like, dude, can I like listen to that? He’s like, let’s do it anyplace like Led Zeppelin album. And you’re just like, this is amazing. You’re having like this religious experience with the music. You know, much is it? Right. And what price would he quote you for something? What would you guess? 

00:16:30 Eric: Oh, you know, it’s going to vary, but probably up in the up 800 plus in my area. 

00:16:35 Casey: So let’s say it’s it’s a thousand dollars. You’re like, OK, cool. Like, what’s your thought there? Your thought is it’s a thousand dollars. Can I afford it? Not it’s a thousand dollars, but maybe he’ll take 400 if I push it. 

00:16:49 Eric: Correct. Yep. Absolutely. 

00:16:51 Casey: Because you’re because it’s a luxury thing. That’s where I want to be. He says it’s a thousand bucks. And you say, that makes sense. Like what I saw on Reverb, right? Like that makes sense. Like I know what eBay sells for. Yeah, that makes sense. That’s a thousand–

00:17:03 Eric: Aligns with my thoughts. 

00:17:05 Casey: Yep. Okay, cool. Now can I afford it? It’s a different conversation. 

00:17:07 Eric: Correct. So it’s a soft yes. Yeah.

00:17:09 Casey: Right. Exactly. Yep. So you want to get to a process where you share your price. And you want the person to say, that makes sense that Eric would cost that amount of money. And now the question is, can I afford it is now the right time? Those are generally outside of your control. You can be playful with how they afford it. Which is generally, think you want to get your first month paid in cash because it establishes the rules. Here’s like an example. My wife and I started dating, and I was living in New Orleans and I didn’t want her to move in with me. I didn’t want my girlfriend to move in with me. I was like, get your own place. You know what mean? She had her own place. She spent one night there and that was it. And she had a lease for a year, but like that was enough to establish her independence. Do you know what I mean?

00:17:53 Eric: Yeah, for sure. 

00:17:54 Casey: You created that kind of like space of like she could go back to her place if she wanted. So that’s the idea of charge in full for that first month. Kind of do whatever you can to collect that in cash. That create that that that pegs you at a certain value. And then you can be creative thereafter. You can get deferred earnings. You can get a percentage of revenue, whatever you want. If you want to play that game and if you can stomach that. For years, I exclusively was paid in cash. And now I want to get paid as little cash as possible with this big upside as well.

00:18:20 Eric: That’s why I want to be in that upside side of things. Yeah. Long-term growth. 

00:18:24 Casey: So you’re just going to establish that price. They’re going to say that makes sense. I can afford it. I want to move forward or that makes sense. I can’t afford it. And you’re like, well, can we get creative? And there’s different ways that you get creative. And say, Eric, you say I’m 10 grand a month. They’re like, we only have five grand a month budgeted. Like no problem. So take that five grand for December, put it in the bank in January. I’m to do a 30-day consult with you and come up with a strategy.

00:18:50 Casey: So you’ll pay me 10 grand in January and then get five grand a month thereafter. Great. I’ve got a service level where I’m at five grand a month. This is you working four hours, five hours a month to support them. And then that way you can like add these great folks to the business, but don’t bend your prices. The guy’s not going to change his, price of that Macintosh gear because of who you are. 

00:19:09 Eric: Exactly. Yeah. And I’ve been in that, I’ve been in that trap in the past, you know, where somebody comes and just asks for a discount for the sake of discount. And I’ve felt like I needed to say yes. Every one of those relationships I find just continues to be nickel and dimes down the road. It just becomes a frustration to constantly have to battle for what you originally wanted. You’re probably never going to work back up to get. 

00:19:32 Casey: That’s right. I’ll share an example. So I worked with a company and we did investments into grocery anchored commercial real estate all across the United States. You would identify like the grocery stores that you all go to. You get to the Publix or Piggly Wiggly, whatever. And there’s out parcels that have a deli or a restaurant or a Chick-fil-A or whatever. We would buy the land and we would buy it from a teacher’s union that had it as part of their pension plan. They would offload it after five years. We’d buy it. We’d lease it out, you know, and we do all that stuff. And these guys, we were attracting investors and we spent a lot of money to attract investors. My fee was about one day of ad spend. So if all I did and our work every single month was make sure we didn’t have one bad day of ad spend. My fee was paid for. 

00:20:24 Casey: They were even now if I could increase leasing, you know, increase debt operating revenue, that, or net operating income, get more investors, reduce the price of investor. All that stuff is an ad onto them. And those people would rather me not feel bad. Right. We blew ads one day, dude. I blew like 20 grand in ads in a day. It was just, it was a tough day. We had a couple of screw ups that happened at the same time. And the leadership team said, Casey, have a short memory. Keep going. And when you have those nickel and diamond clients, they’re to be like, you ruined our ad budget. $200 dude. That’s my kids. You know? 

00:21:00 Eric: Oh yeah. Yeah. They panic and they don’t let go. Like you said, they don’t have that short memory. Yep. Right. 

00:21:06 Casey: Yeah. So working with more affluent clients, way better. More fun. Yep. So maybe you have to punch up a little bit because you don’t want people that just want agencies. You might be familiar with the agency world. I want people who can afford full time in-house. Even if it’s offshore, which is pretty inexpensive, you know, oh if y’all haven’t hired offshore before prices can be nuts. Right now. Africa is coming online. There’s like a million people in Africa getting online for the first time. So their rates for folks there is incredibly low, but you’ve got Philippines, Bangladesh, just a ton of great talent, South American talent, central American talent, people with perfect accents.

00:21:43 Casey: The number of people that live in Ethiopia that have beautiful accents, just like easy to listen to. They understand American like jokes and I don’t know. They’re just like wonderful people and they’re just so cheap. Full-time employees that you can get over there that could do your bidding and follow instructions and do it all. So that’s what I want you to build. You feel like that’s clear? 

00:22:05 Eric: Yeah, absolutely. 

00:22:07 Casey: Great. Cool man. Yeah. Anything else I can help you with?

00:22:10 Eric: I’m sure there’s a ton, but like you said, I’ll respect our people’s time and see if there’s some other questions that we can answer. But yeah, this is absolutely insightful. That’s very helpful. 

00:22:17 Casey: Yeah. Awesome. All right. Roxy is getting. If you guys are getting anything out of this, just like drop a chat like, like, here’s something I learned. Here’s a way that I thought I’m thinking about things that is different now. I want you to like not treat this as Netflix. Like this is not Pluribus. This has anyone seen that anyone watching it with me? Yeah. Sweet show. We’re not Netflix. I want you to learn something and then be able to apply it. So if there’s a nugget that you’re going to be able to apply, write it in the chat. I can see that. I want to see what it hits for you. Roxy, you got a question?

00:22:46 Roxy: Yeah. So I’ve been, I guess for a little bit of context, I’ve been an agency owner officially for five years. I own a creative marketing agency here in DC and I have a business partner. And I first found your book. was like you targeted me in some way with the ads. You know, so I ordered your book before even knowing that this was a program and you know, line by line, I was like, okay, this guy’s been through my experience. You know, there’s a lot… there was a lot of synergy there and it resonated with me deeply. And for the last year, I’ve just been contemplating, you know, we had a really huge year for our agency, which I’m very proud of. But at the same time, I think deep down, I’m like definitely seeking stability, consistency, the ups and downs of the agency, you know client retention and everything like that. just, it’s crazy. And it honestly has come to a head where I’m like, I definitely need to take a look at what we’re doing here. Like you said, we had almost eight clients at one point and it was–

00:23:42 Casey: At the agency?

00:23:44 Roxy: At the agency, yeah. And some really big clients too. And, and servicing all of them and giving them all, you know, they all, a lot of them want to work with you because of, because you’re the owner and you have a lot of great creative ideas and as you’re also trying to grow a team and build process and all that kind of stuff, just gets a lot. And so, to your point on five clients is too much, eight clients was too much. And I think this year for me is a very pivotal year in that I have a lot of data and clients saying the same thing to me as Roxy, not as the agency owner that I’m a really strong strategist and the strategy that I’ve created for a lot of my clients is something that they haven’t experienced with another agency before. 

00:24:26 Roxy: So it’s just gotten me really reflecting on maybe I’m really good at this and I don’t even really know how good at this I am. And maybe there’s an opportunity for me to really lean into this work that I’m doing that clients are finding highly valuable. I think I could–

00:24:42 Casey: It’s not the implementation. You’re not like creating this stuff. You’re just inventing it. 

00:24:45 Roxy: I’ve already met anybody. I do have, you know, I’m more… We do have the execution portion of our agency, which I’m involved in a lot because I have to be. And that’s also become very frustrating for me because I’m yearning to spend more time on the strategy side, but I am sucked into execution. 

00:25:02 Casey: Would you be open to talking candidly about numbers? 

00:25:06 Roxy: Sure. As far as dollar amounts go.

00:25:10 Casey: Yes. I wanna know what is the agency is going to collect by end of year.

00:25:14 Roxy: So our agency will be around 500,000 dollars [crosstalk].

00:25:18 Casey: And based on that, how many hours in a week are you working?

00:25:21 Roxy: I’m probably working around 55 to 60 hours per week. 

00:25:25 Casey: That’s a lot. I ask everyone this. But married? Kids? No?

00:25:30 Roxy: No. Engaged. And would like to have kids next year which is also why I’m trying to think about this next year as a foundational year to make sure that I can support that as a mom and… as a working mom. 

00:25:45 Casey: Yeah. So… of that half million that you’re going to bring in – which is a great number, what do you think you’re… what are you going to be able to retain? [crosstalk]

00:25:52 Roxy: For me, Roxy? I’m going to be bringing home around $130,000. 

00:25:57 Casey: Okay. So I just wanna share that if you follow the Fractional CMO Method here, one client, 10 hours a week, $10,000 a month, that brings you 120 right there at 10 hours a week. I’m not saying your model is broken because there’s plenty of people that make a lot of money with agencies. But if you want to simplify… as a mom, you’re not going to be able to work 60 hours a week. And I don’t know if you can change your agency rapidly enough in the next year to allow you to do that. You might be able to. 

00:26:30 Roxy: No, no. And I completely agree with you. I think that that it’s because we’re… the prices that we’re charging our clients are 10,000, 7,500 to 10,000 a month but at the end of the day, how much of that is put towards execution costs, operational costs, staff costs versus the take home for the owners. And we are taking home less to reinvest back into the business but to your point, it’s… I think I’m just realizing how much more my strategy work is being valued and that’s actually – this is why your book really resonated with me. That’s actually the part that I’m paid the least on. And so I’m just exploring other ways of making this work. 

00:27:10 Roxy: And I have enough data points and had enough conversations with my clients where I’m now confident in what I offer. And so that’s why this type of position has just really spoken to me. Because I think I have a lot of ideas and a lot of strategy and a lot of frameworks that I’ve built on the strategy side. And I haven’t really had time to just sit down with it and really just have that mentorship and that guide to help me figure out what I do with all of that. Where do I really lean in? 

00:27:40 Casey: Who’s your ideal client? What do they look like right now? 

00:27:43 Roxy: So right now, I would say hotels, hospitality space. 

00:27:47 Casey: Killer. 

00:27:29 Roxy: Hotels, for sure. I’ve really been enjoying working with those clients. And then, groups of… like franchise restaurants groups.

00:27:56 Casey: Love it. 

00:27:56 Roxy: We’ve found tremendous success in. So I would say those are the two industries that I really understand very well and we’ve had a lot of –

00:28:03 Casey: Hospitality, restaurant. Yeah. Love it. Great. Great industries. I like that idea a lot. I think a fractional CMO for an individual restaurant is probably a no. I think a fractional CMO for a restaurant group that has 10 restaurants is… that’s [inaudible]. Imagine your $10,000 a month, you get $1,000 per restaurant. That’s not much money, you know? It’s like 30 bucks a day for everyone to have a CMO. Killer. So I like the niche. I think it works. You’ve punched up a mettle level from not the [inaudible] but to the groups which is where you got to be. So that’s critical. You’ve already sold at $7,500 a month or $10,000 which is great. You’ve probably given your strategy away for free? [inaudible] you sold? [inaudible] billed hour? 

00:28:46 Casey: So the difference here is I create a little bit of risk if the business owner doesn’t appreciate before the [inaudible]. So I say, when you work with an agency, let’s say you have a great idea and you help make it come to life, they’re going to turn around and sell that idea to your competition because that’s their business model. If they know something that works, they’re going to go sell it to somebody that’ll buy it. They’re going to make their money and your idea’s going to get watered down in the market pretty quickly. I want us to establish an intellectual property, build it inside of the business and then keep our lips sealed. I want us to create something that’s radically unique here that’s going to increase your valuation so if you ever choose to sell it – Eric, right? If you ever choose to sell it, you’re going to have more value [inaudible] business’s IP. And they’re like… oh, that’s different. Like I didn’t consider that. 

00:29:33 Casey: And then I also say, I would say in your position… I’ve owned an agency for years – and I think an agency model can work because agencies can come in and build and deploy quickly. And if you guys ever want my agency, I can get it quote for you and we can get some other quotes, just to make sure it’s competitive and you choose the right one. However, you need someone in the company that’s defending the decision on a daily basis. The agency can come in and they can build but then after the agency builds, what are they gonna do? Their lowest priced person and put them on all the maintenance work. Why would we pay agency fees for that when we could just internalize that we’ll save that money. 

00:30:08 Casey: So over time, you guys will spend the same amount of money, maybe less than you would on an eight on me and in-house folks than you would on an agency. And I think that’s a cool, like a mental shift. And then honestly, it’s just swinging for numbers. I think you selling one client at $10,000 a month will force you to make your agency tighter. You don’t have to quit your agency like Eric shut his down. You don’t have to do that. But you can force yourself down to not have the availability because you got this one client that pays your mortgage and, you know, pays for the wedding venue that you really want. And, know, all that stuff. Right. And then come time to have a kid. You’re like the agency or one more client. What do I want?

00:30:51 Roxy: Right. Yeah. One hundred percent. The only the complication is that I do have a business partner that I’ll need to consider or not consider. I work through, you know that and…

00:31:01 Casey: This is outside of it. I just want to tell you, you being a fractional CMO is you outside of it completely. If you start up your own company and you were selling smoothies, you’re not cutting this business partner in. That’s just agency stuff and you need to have a commitment that you would never compete on an agency. That would be unethical. But if you’re selling exclusively strategy services that you’re doing, you get paid exclusively in your own new business. Nobody gets that. Nobody. And then if the agency originates the deal, your business partner originates the deal, you pay her. So you pay her 5% of the first month, you pay her 5% for three months. You pay appropriately 15%, whatever deal you want to make, but it is a transaction. 

00:31:48 Casey: And then the idea is like, I’ve got a great relationship with an agency here and they’re in Cherry Hill, just over the bridge for me. They’re a great agency. They’re in person, like in an office there. Plus they have folks overseas. They’ll call me a couple of times a quarter and say, we’ve got a deal that we’re trying to close, but they’re so far from being able to say yes, because they need you on the inside. So they’ll bring it to me. I’ll meet with them. Maybe I’ll get one of my CMOs in there. So then my CMO runs that deal for the rest of time, maybe for the next few years. But three months later, that CMO has created a structure that allows for an agency to come in and do their magic.

00:32:22 Casey: You’ve lost deals as an agency because it doesn’t matter how many leads you create, sales won’t call them. So as the CMO, you got to come in and then you got to go choke that sales later and get them to put shit in the CRM. Your agency doesn’t do that. And therefore your agency can’t work until you’re in. I do not see you at all as competitive to your agency. You’re just creating a way to get deeper with companies and create more value to bring your agency in if it’s appropriate.

00:32:47 Roxy: Sure. Sure. Yeah, definitely. And then as far as the CMO accelerator program is… this the type of coaching and mentorship that I could expect with helping me really figure out that niche and what that’s like?

00:33:02 Casey: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we have a ton of calls. So we do like 15, 16, 17 calls a month. So our calls, I mean, I’ll just give you like an example. So last week, everyone got together with me for four hours and we planned the annual plan and Q1 for their biggest client. So they came up with a comprehensive annual and quarterly plan and they’re going to deliver that to the client. A lot of them are doing it today and tomorrow and Thursday. Yesterday was a call that we call solve bigger problems. It’s kind of a hangout call. It’s kind of like this. It’s kind of like a hot seat who’s got a question. I help them with it. So we did that every other week.

00:33:35 Casey: Here’s some of the other calls. So tomorrow, cold prospecting review. That’s a call where I help people write their outreach. So, Roxy, you’re great. You might forget what you’ve done that makes you great. How do we make it so if you send an email or a cold DM or something to someone, they look at it they’re like, oh my God, this is the perfect person for us. How do we construct that? That’s the point of that call.

00:34:00 Casey: We got another one that on Thursday, we do close one clients, which is kind of like a ongoing sprint objective. What are you going do over the next two weeks? Did you do it? You kind of have the accountability there of the team supporting you. We also do boardroom, which is the private call for folks doing at least 10K a month. That’s a super fun call. We’re doing that this Thursday, Friday. We’ve got calls like the sales ready accountability group. So this is our sprint to get you sales ready. Sales ready is a binary.

00:34:26 Casey: Do you know what you’re selling, who you’re selling it to? Do you know how much you’re selling it for? Do you know how you’re going to send a proposal out? Do know what you’re going to do the first day that you start work with them? Like, are you ready to make a sale? Because you’re not going to do good at sales if you don’t know what you’re selling. So we sprint you through sales ready. I think you can get through it in two weeks. Some people take a month. Some people take three days. Okay. So sales ready. And then you’re in the road to 10K.

00:34:50 Casey: On Fridays, we also do the Road to 10K accountability group, just to coach and focus folks on that. And then the following, if you have more calls and different types of calls, but they’re all about like identifying your niche, getting the total addressable market of your niche, doing outreach to your niche, practicing sales calls, overcoming objections that you have, all sorts of stuff like that all along the way.

00:35:09 Casey: And I’ll tell you that there is one member who I had a call with, it was super fun last week. I talked to her and her husband and she wants to leave her full-time job. So she came in wanting to get like two fractional CMO clients. She’s got three. She now makes about what she made at her full-time job. And she wants to leave the full-time job and then share that she’s having a baby. So it’s like, how do we create a system so that she can be a mom? And if she does it right, she can actually take time off. And if she doesn’t go proactive and start early enough, she’ll find herself in a position where the baby’s coming in a month and she’s like, shit, I gotta work, you know, while I’m in the hospital. I don’t want you to do that. So having that kind of plan to create those systems, I think is really helpful.

00:35:54 Roxy: Awesome. Thank you.

00:35:56 Casey: Yeah. Yeah. Happy to, happy to help. I think it’s really important to be able to take Mat leave and Pat leave, you know, however long you want. And for the guys, I think, you know, I think you can take two weeks totally off. Right. And then you work one afternoon and then you take a week off and you work one afternoon, take a week off and then you can come back a little bit more. But I can crush a lot of work in one afternoon a week. You know, I can get everyone real aligned and focused and then you’re still enjoying full pay from your clients. Or maybe you pulled another CMO to take over for you, Roxy, and you just cut them in.

00:36:30 Casey: You say, Hey, I’m going to be out for a month. I’ve got these clients, I’ll pay you four grand for the month. If you host these calls on my behalf, you bill 15,000, you pay them for you make 11 a month later, you come back and you’re making 15 again. That’s totally realistic. We’ve got CMOs inside the accelerator that would like they’d hop in and support. It’s a good game. Good question. All right. You feel good about that?

00:36:56 Roxy: Yeah. No, thank you. That was super helpful. Yeah.

00:37:00 Casey: Great. All right, Paul, you’re pitching a client later this week.

00:37:02 Paul: Hi Casey, nice to meet you. I’m Paul June based in San Diego. I’m pitching a client and it’s a, I’ve been running an agency since 2009 and I’m making the shift over to the fractional CMO space. And I’m following kind of the format a little bit of but backwards of Chief Outsiders. And Chief Outsiders has recently brought on a Chief Outsiders team and that is… what I’ve had in place for a long time. So I have my implementation team.

00:37:36 Paul: And as I stepped back from it, I looked at it and said, man, I’m giving the milk away for free. I’m leaving a lot on the table right here. So I’m bringing in this fractional CMO component. I am meeting up with a potential client that I’ve been nurturing for the last year and has tried to pull me away from my agency a variety of times over the last couple of months. And I’m kind of interested to hear how you would pitch this customer. It’s a $30 million company. Okay. They do have budget.

00:38:12 Casey: What kind of company? What industry?

00:38:14 Paul: It’s a public company and it’s in promotional products. Okay. So think of premiums, promotional. Think of the hat that you’re wearing and the logo that’s applied to it. Think of, if you want to think of a whale in the industry, it’d be SanMar based up in Washington. The gentleman’s an older gentleman, his traditional structure is a W2 employee, maybe some freelance along the way. But I’m positive him and his internal team have not really thought of a fractional CMO.

00:38:46 Paul: So as I roll in there, I’m going to be basically pitching the benefits of the fractional CMO. As I look at it, I go, hey, if I’m able to lay the vision of just increasing his business from 30 million to 31 million, that covers the cost right there. If he’s working off of 50% gross margin, which is industry standard for him, that that covers the expense of the fractional CMO. But again, I’m kind of wondering how you would pitch that angle.

00:39:19 Casey: Yeah, good question. So I would just walk them through a conversation. I’m not pitching. That’s just a nuanced part of this, Paul. It’s like, I’m going to walk them slowly through enough questions for like a logical… like for the fractional CMO to be the logical best choice for them. So I’m going to ask them questions about their marketing department. I’m going to ask them about the capacity that’s available. We’re going to talk just about budget too, just high level. You guys have your budget set for the year. How’s your budget changed year over year, things like that.

00:39:47 Casey: Let’s see, what big initiatives are you guys looking to do in the next year? We’re going to wave a magic wand. Where would you be at the end of next year? What would we be celebrating together? And they probably have an idea. Maybe there’s a new product line they want to release or a new, you know, I don’t know, companies that they want to get on or there’s something that they want. So I would just get clear on that and say, yeah, that makes sense. Does your team have capacity to do it? And they would say, maybe, or we don’t know, or absolutely not. Or I don’t know if I trust the team, you know, they’ve got some kind of nuance to that.

00:40:17 Casey: And I’m just going to have that discussion and just, just ask questions, never tell them what I would do. And I would then honestly just be like, Cool. Thank you. That was really helpful to understand kind of where you guys are at. I’ll turn the call over to you. What questions do you have for me? And then I say, Paul, how can you help? You say, well, that’s a good question. And I’m kind of thinking about it in the back of my head. And I think, you know, I’ve got this agency that, you know, that I’ve built for years and everything. And I just don’t think that’s the solution for you. I think you need someone who’s in there fighting for the success of the business every day that gets paid exclusively to fight for the success of the business.

00:40:50 Casey: And like formerly, obviously that title is the CMO. I just don’t think you guys need a full-time person in that. Have you guys heard of this title of the fractional CMO? And they’re like, maybe, is it like a fractional CRO, CFO, whatever? And you say, yeah, kind of. It’s just like, I could step into your business 10 hours a week and I would lead the charge to do these things. But exclusively that, and I wouldn’t do the implementation because I’m pretty expensive for implementation. I think we can get that much cheaper by hiring someone either in-house or maybe pulling in my agency or another agency or whatever.

00:41:23 Casey: But the idea here is that you guys won’t hit that outcome without strategy and leadership and implementation. And I think it would be really fun to talk about maybe how I could be the guy that could do that strategy and leadership and help build out the implementation side. How does that sound? And it’s just kind of like a warm invitation for the conversation. They’re like, yeah, what would that cost? What’s the timeline?

00:41:46 Casey: Timeline is kind of a tricky one because it seems like it’s not fully clear what you guys want. I’ll just tell you that my fee is X a month as a fractional CMO to work 10 hours a week in the business. And I focus on coming up with some clear projects, building the team for them and getting them executed. Then obviously the benefit that you guys get is you get pretty much bare metal costs on these people. There’s no agency markup if we hire an in-house. Or if you want it done fast, I’ve got my agency and we can pull staff in. But I don’t think you need someone to force feed you an agency. I think you need someone to build marketing function for the business. And that’s what I think would be really fun to do together. It’s real casual, Paul.

00:42:22 Paul: Yeah. I like the approach. I’m already sitting at the table with them and their executive team, and I’ve already built the rapport with them. And so the trust in the rapport is there and it’s a casual conversation. My takeaway from what you said is, if I’m hearing you correctly, stick going down the passive route, asking them questions, pulling them deeper and deeper into that bond, which is going to allow them to make them feel like they’re making the decision and asking for you.

00:42:57 Casey: That’s right. The magic happens in their hands. That’s it. Yeah. And, uh, and then you have to have your fee. What would you charge them for 10 hours a week?

00:43:06 Paul: Oh, it’s $250 an hour. It’s $10,000 a month. 10 out of 10 hours.

00:43:11 Casey: Yeah. I just want you to say that’s $10,000 a month and it’s not 250. They can do the math that they want. Cause you don’t want to get, when you ever define hourly, it’s such a nuance. I’m 10 hours a week-ish at 10,000 a month. That’s two 50. But if I sell two 50, they’ll be like, we only need you for four hours this month.

00:43:32 Paul: I got you.

00:43:33 Casey: No, no, I work. I’m $10,000 a month. That’s my fee. And I’ll tell you some weeks probably going to work a lot more. And some weeks I’m to work a lot less. That’s just as what it’s going to happen. I’m not going to work hard next week. It’s Christmas. But like I worked pretty hard this week, so I kind of made up for it. That’s where you want to be. You don’t want to do time logs, sort of that stuff. It’s a vibe more than anything.

00:43:53 Casey: And then you also want to have the benefit here of over time, if you can’t increase your fees, because candidly, I think it’s difficult to increase your fees once you start working with someone, you know, like no one likes it when you’re like, I’m 10 grand a month next year, I’m going to raise that rate to 11 grand a month. You know, over time, they kind of get frustrated with that idea. Right. I think the benefit that you experience is that while your fees don’t increase, the time that you spend on the company decreases and you get that benefit. So you start off 10, 12 hours a week and a year into it, you’re working seven hours a week. That’s a pretty good raise to me.

00:44:26 Paul: I agree with that. That’s extra time for me to grab another client.

00:44:30 Casey: Yeah, right. Right. Or hang out with that cool dog in the background. So I think that that’s the plan. Take it casual. Let them kind of experience this and want it. You’re offering something that they haven’t considered before. So if we talked about Eugene Schwartz’s stages of awareness, it would be that they are solution unaware. Like they don’t, or excuse me, product unaware. They don’t know about fractional CMO. They know about agency, but they don’t know about fractional CMO. So you have to introduce it really simply in a language consistently as their strategy. There’s leadership, there’s implementation. I’ll do two of those things. I’ll do strategy and leadership. I’ll come up with a strategy and I’ll listen to you guys and we’ll all work on it together, but I’ll really lead that. And then I’ll lead the team to make it happen. But we have to build the team and where we get talent from, we can choose what’s best for the company.

00:45:19 Casey: And I think sometimes while it does make sense to bring in an agency, but personally for me, I just like pulling in up workers. I’d go find people in Upwork all the time. I just found a great video guy in Upwork. We did one test together. I’m like, you’re my guy. He’s in Bangladesh. I gave him a $10 tip. You know, he’s thrilled. I’m thrilled. He doesn’t celebrate Christmas, you know? So like he’ll work over Christmas for me. It’s a beautiful thing.

00:46:41 Paul: Yeah, I utilize Upworks and a variety of global freelancers.

00:46:47 Casey: What’s your other favorite platform next to Upwork?

00:46:51 Paul: You know what? I would probably say Fiverr.

00:46:53 Casey: Yeah. I haven’t used Fiverr in forever. You think that there’s still great quality there?

00:46:58 Paul: I still think there’s great quality there, but I’ve also settled on… I have three different Indian freelance companies that I utilize. And then I have my own US-based team as well. So really depends what the needs are and where the rates are too. And timeliness.

00:46:16 Casey: Yep. It’s such a meritocracy, isn’t it? I don’t care where you live. I don’t care if my country is at war with your country. If you’re a good worker, you deserve to get paid.

00:46:26 Paul: The world is flat.

00:46:28 Casey: Yeah, it really is. Yeah. Cool. Thanks, Paul. Good luck with that.

00:46:30 Paul: Thanks, Casey. Appreciate it.

00:46:32 Casey: Yeah. And don’t bid your fees. If they say, 10,000 is a bit rich for us. You’re like, what’s the problem worth to solve? Your fee doesn’t change. If we go back to that discount conversation. Only once in history, if I give them a discount, that was to a nonprofit. And I gave them an obligatory $500 discount on the first month because they needed it. And I was like, whatever, you know.

00:46:50 Paul: I think Eric hit the nail on the head to once they asked for a discount, it really… it kind of sets the tone for the whole relationship.

00:46:59 Casey: That’s right. Yep. Awesome. All right, Ernesto, what’s going on?

00:47:02 Ernesto: All right. So yeah, I’m also transitioning out of agency work. Well, not transitioning. I’m still stuck in it. But I am doing a lot of strategy.

00:47:11 Casey: Do you own the agency or do you work at the agency?

00:47:13 Ernesto: I own the agency. So I’m a physician by training. And then when we moved to Spain, because medical licenses don’t travel with you, I started doing what I do really well, which is grow private practices. And so I started consulting doctors. I figured at first I was going to do an online course, you know, back in the 2019. That was all the rage. But they… never… they didn’t want it. It was a $5,000 course because that’s what they were going for. But none of the doctors that I was getting on calls wanted it. They just said, like, can’t you just do this for us? And I figured, ah, how hard can it be? I’ll just start an agency. I’ll hire people off of work and Fiverr and stuff like that. And I’m still stuck in the hamster wheel six years later.

00:47:55 Ernesto: Okay. And so I found out something very similar to what other people have shared here so far, which is I really enjoy the strategy. I like getting on a call, solving a problem, getting off the call, forgetting about them until the next call. That’s the superpower. I hate having to, hey, my ads are down. Hey, my funnel isn’t converting. My button is yellow and it should be orange. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so those kinds of things annoy the crap out of me and I want out.

00:48:25 Ernesto: The problem that I’ve been having or the challenge that I’m trying to solve is… how do I or where is their strategy… And maybe you cover it over in the accelerator. But how can I start having conversations with those doctors and practice owners who want a fractional CMO, not those who need one? Because I’m currently stuck talking to people who need it and like, Oh my God, you desperately need marketing leadership. But then you have to convince them into it. Then you have to talk them into why it’s worth it. And then you have to, you know, they’re nickel and diming because they’re comparing it to a commodity or you’re… you end up being stuck doing a lot of fulfillment. So that’s currently my challenge is like, okay, what’s I’m guessing there’s something different here as to how to attract and have conversations.

00:49:19 Casey: It’s an interesting thing. So I think we’re very early still. I there’s more fractional CMOs this year than there were last year, for sure. And I mean, a lot of people just like selling fractional CMO information that haven’t played the game and never had clients and that kind of stuff that exists. And it will only get busier, especially with all these layoffs that are going to happen. What are we saying right now? 11% of the workforce is being negatively impacted by AI. And do we trust the White House’s numbers on jobs reports? You know, I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ve ever really been able to trust the government on it and the private numbers that come out aren’t good.

00:49:55 Casey: I think it’s scary. So I think we’re going to see more marketers that are going to be fractional CMOS. The benefit to us is that we’re going to see that in the lexicon more because more people are going to talk to people and be like fractional, you know, they’re going have a fractional CMO podcast or YouTube or TikTok or whatever. So it will become a thing. You have the opportunity to be early in, you know, kind of first in your space. Certainly like private practice, CashPay, Europe like that is probably an untouched.

00:50:21 Ernesto: I focus on fertility, IVF and stuff like that. Mostly because I’m familiar with the industry. I know that they’re cash only. I know they’re elective. I know they’re super expensive. I know. I mean, I know the industry pretty well. Yeah, exactly. I know the industry really well. The challenge that I’m having is that… and just to piggyback on what you just said, it is so unknown that I cannot call myself a fractional CMO with my peers. I have to refer to it and write it out as chief marketing officer because CMO in the medical field means chief medical officer. And they go like, well, I don’t need one of those. I already run my practice. I was like, we’re not talking the same stuff.

00:51:06 Casey: I find your CMO and then I had to write chief marketing officer very plainly because I didn’t want somebody to think it was a medical officer. You’re totally right.

00:51:12 Ernesto: Exactly. Exactly. So, so anyway, that is true. And I have the niche and I have all these things, but I’m still struggling to get out of the execution kind of blocks when you have the marketing conversation. Because what I find is, you’ve got these practices, they’re doing half a million a month to $750,000 a month. Their marketing is run by the girl who is sitting at the front desk. And they think that marketing is posting on social media. And so it’s still… even for medium to large sized practices, that’s still a bit of a challenge. So that’s what I’m finding at least.

00:51:49 Casey: Well, it makes sense. I think it’s a conversation. I mean, it’s a couple of things like you currently have agency clients.

00:51:56 Ernesto: Yes.

00:51:58 Casey: Okay. I mean, there’s a couple ways that we can attack this. The first one is no one can afford to use a fractional CMO unless they have multiple doctors. So I know the dental space well. It’s like you have to have multiple chairs. What is it in IVF clinic? Is it multiple rooms? Is it multiple?

00:52:11 Ernesto: Yes. Yes. You want it can be one physician, but they oftentimes have other people. And then it all depends if they have an embryologist or if they have, you know, banking or if they have all these different things. My parameters, kind like above half a million a month in revenue. And so that’s kind of like what we’re…

00:52:31 Casey: I just I worry that a half million a month could get them towards like the asymptote of what’s possible because you haven’t defined that there’s something else. Like, so I worked at a dental service organization. We acquired dental practices over COVID and we bought, I don’t know how many they have that now. We bought, I think like 15 and 18 months or something like that. And we just went to the dentist and we’re like, Hey, you shut down because of COVID. You want to retire? They’re like, yeah, maybe 750 cash. We’re like here. And then we employ them for a year and then… but we would do it only if we could break down a wall and add a second chair and really like grow the practice.

00:53:06 Casey: If there was a physical limitation to the space, it wasn’t worth it to us. So we would do like GIS stuff to find who would be a good target. You need to find people who have the trappings of growth, like growth potential. They’re in an area, they have the desire for it. Like those are the things you’re going to uncover. I’m not… if I was in a position, I wouldn’t do like any Google maps stuff. I would just talk to them all, talk to as many of them as you can and be like, Hey, I’m looking to work with a couple docs in the next year here that are really looking to blow it up, who want to impact the lives of at least a thousand families a year. You know, like you’re going to have like targets like that. And it’s not just a revenue thing, but like, you got to talk about the feel good, help this number of women, know, whatever the thing is, who are thinking of adding additional services, because I’ve got something that I think is really special.

00:53:54 Casey: I think your story’s great too. I’m a great physician, but I moved to Spain and I can’t practice. And now I’m doing the thing that I love too, which is marketing to help physicians. So you got a great arc for it. I think you just got to go talk to these people and just open up the idea. And they don’t have to know that the solution of fractional CMO exists. Like that is not a requirement for them to talk to you. You’ll talk to anybody. Because at the end of that conversation, if it’s no go, if you say, great, those are all my questions, you know, what questions you for me, they’re like, nothing, that was fun. They should let me talk, you know, you’re like, okay, then you follow up with who do you know that I should talk to? Who do you know that’s interested, who’s in the space right now who’s interested in growing? And you go get that referral and just talk to those people. That’s what I would do. And just stack yourself with calls. I mean, how many calls realistically can you take in a week?

00:54:40 Ernesto: You mean logistically or mentally?

00:54:44 Casey: Yeah, right. I don’t care. I mean, AI tools for note taking, right?

00:54:47 Ernesto: Yeah, no, no, but I just get drained when I’m on calls. [crosstalk]. Oh, yeah. At most, I try to keep them at, you know, 40 minutes. You know, let’s say 25.

00:55:02 Casey: Great. 25 you can make a sale. If you had really 25 calls with doctors, you can find someone that you could work a deal with. Maybe you need to do it for a couple of weeks to get yourself up to a level of competence to have the conversations and talk intelligently enough so they understand it and you use the language correctly and they believe you. But like 25 doctors that have real practices that they are the owners of and the decision makers of at the start of the year, you’re going to find someone who wants to move forward. I would think that’s a 4% close rate, dude. You can do.

00:55:31 Ernesto: Yeah, no, I also think that given those numbers that the… The challenge, like I said, is finding somebody who needs, who wants it, not, somebody who needs it.

00:55:41 Casey: Your job, we can’t manufacture desire, right? This is like a marketing truism. I can’t manufacture desire, but I know, and excuse me for this, cause it’s a little maybe sexist, but men want to be powerful and women want to be young and beautiful. If we take that as a truism and you identify that with the person and be like, what would it be like if you could double the practice? You start stoking this feeling of power with the guy, assuming it’s a guy, right? Everyone, right. Everyone really does want it because they want to do good or they just want to be like a megalomaniac and own an island and yeah.

00:56:18 Casey: You want to identify that and then showcase that your action gets them there. They can’t want a fractional CMO. They want freedom. They want power to get that, it’s you. You’re the bridge. So if you think of it this way, if you use a Canyon, they’re on one side of the canyon where they want to be is the other one. There’s this huge canyon in between. You’re the bridge. They don’t know what the bridge is made out of. They don’t know that it’s a marketing leader for their business at 10 hours a week. It doesn’t work. It could be an AI tool, you know? Like in their mind, it could be all these different things. Your job is to just identify where they are, where they want to be, and then bridge that gap with you.

00:56:56 Ernesto: Gotcha.

00:56:58 Casey: Yeah. Your question is, I think, wrong. Right? How do I get them to want it? No. I get them to tell me what they want and I show them that what I offer gets them what they want.

00:57:08 Ernesto: Gotcha. Yeah. My question was more, where can I find people who want it? Not, not… they don’t exist. [crosstalk] Gotcha.

00:57:15 Casey: Like where do they exist? They exist on Apple podcasts, searching for fractional CMO. Right. So maybe there’s a podcast episode. They exist on a Google search engine. Maybe they search an AI, but I don’t think that that’s like your… if your total addressable market is solution aware and product aware, that’s just so far down funnel. It’s just so limited. You just have to go one step above, is they want to grow. They’re hungry. So maybe the trappings of that person is that they’ve adopted EOS, the entrepreneur operating system inside their business. And they do their quarterly pulsing and they’re working with, maybe you find some EOS certified implementers that work with doctors.

00:57:53 Casey: There’s a gal that we worked with that was an EOS certified implementer for dentists. I can’t remember it. I can’t remember. Right. But like those people are touching those people, they’re working with them. Maybe there’s a CFO that works in the medical space, a fractional CFO that you can go down work with. Those are great, but you’re also asking at some level for even if you position it differently, you’re asking for their memory, you’re asking for their, you know, the goodness in their heart to recommend you or to pass a lead to you. I would rather go fish by myself. And then if it’s come to me, it’s great. But I can’t be like, Ernesto, hey, dude, we haven’t talked in a while. Hey, you’ve been chatting with anyone that you can send my way. At some point, you stop taking the call. Right.

00:58:40 Ernesto: Yeah, totally. Totally.

00:58:42 Casey: Yeah. So I think like the only way that I would do that maybe is if you found someone who was touching those folks and you could create a financial relationship. If you guys send me a lead, I’ll send you this amount of money. They don’t believe it. It’s the fact. I think a lot of people don’t believe that they’re going to make that money.

00:59:00 Ernesto: Yeah, I actually think that now that you are sharing this, it does make sense because the numbers don’t need to be gigantic. So just doing some good old fashioned outreach and stuff like LinkedIn or even Sales Nav or maybe not like cold emailing, but just doing some outreach should get the foot in the door and start getting some meetings.

00:59:19 Casey: And limit your audience first. So where did you live before you moved?

00:59:24 Ernesto: I’m sorry, what was that?

00:59:25 Casey: Where did you live before you moved to Spain?

00:59:27 Ernesto: California, Orange County.

00:59:28 Casey: Great. I’d start in Orange County and go after those doctors. Go to the IVF clinics in Orange County because you know it. And then the [inaudible] says, I used to live there. I don’t know. When I traveled, I never told people I was traveling. I’m like none of their business. You’re not on video. Sorry.

00:59:45 Ernesto: I often don’t share that I’m in Spain because it just adds unnecessary friction. But a lot of the times when people look at the calendar, they’re like, you’ve got some weird hours. What’s that? They’re like, well, no, I’m five time zones away from it.

01:00:02 Casey: Cool. I think you’ve got what you need to just go have these conversations and don’t think that there’s a magic list somewhere, dude. [crosstalk] just holding back on some kind of trick here. It’s consistency and messaging. Those are the most important things. Consistency and messaging. Not… I mean, the best audience is a Google search, but it’s just they’re so limited. Search volume is just like heavy competition. It’s expensive. It sucks.

01:00:27 Ernesto: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. Cool. Thank you. Appreciate it.

01:00:32 Casey: You’re welcome.

01:00:33 Casey: I think there’s probably something in here for you. Excited to hear your feedback. Please, as always, send me a note. Let me know what you’d like me to cover. Go to cmox.co/podcast. And there’s a form there for you to fill out to tell me what you want to know, what I can cover in the next podcast episode. So thanks for tuning in. And if I don’t talk to you before, have a great, great end of the year and let’s make 2026 a big year for you. See you soon.

01:00:58 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 fractionalcmoshow.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. All right, go get them.