Fractional CMO and Advisory
Some companies need senior marketing leadership well before they need a full-time CMO. I take on a small number of fractional and advisory engagements with growth-stage B2B SaaS teams, usually where the strategy is the bottleneck and a hardworking team is pointed at the wrong things.
When this fits
When it makes sense, and how I can help.
Your top of funnel isn’t producing enough qualified pipeline.
I build the demand gen strategy, the program mix, and the stack underneath it, so volume and quality both go up.
Sometimes this happens when: the technology has moved faster than the go-to-market, or the current programs were built for an earlier stage of the company.
Your messaging doesn’t say what you actually do, or why it matters.
I define the positioning, the pillars, and the feature-to-benefit story that sales and marketing can both use.
Sometimes this happens when: the product has changed and the messaging hasn’t, or sales and marketing are telling two different stories.
Your website is confusing, outdated, or both.
I rebuild the structure, architecture, messaging, and lead magnets so the site attracts and converts traffic.
Sometimes this happens when: the site was built years ago and never revisited, or it was redesigned for looks without a plan for conversion.
Your team is capable but nobody senior is setting direction.
I provide that leadership, strategy, and accountability, without you having to make a full-time hire before you’re ready.
Sometimes this happens when: the founder is still running marketing, or the team is good at execution but has no one setting strategy above them.
Traffic converts to a form fill and then stalls.
I diagnose and fix the conversion path, the offer, and the handoff to sales, wherever the leak actually is.
Sometimes this happens when: spend has scaled faster than the conversion process, or lead volume is up while sales says quality is down.
Have a marketing problem that isn’t on this list?
Good. I like a challenge, and the problems that don’t fit a tidy list are usually the interesting ones. Tell me what’s actually going on and I’ll tell you straight whether I’m the right person to help. Get in touch.
The scope
What I take on, and what I don’t.
Ruling things out early saves everyone a discovery call. The list on the left is the work I’ve done repeatedly and can point at results for.
What I take on
- Demand generation. SEO, paid, content, and community built to work together so the channels compound instead of each carrying their own weight in isolation.
- Product-led growth. Built Implicit’s motion from zero at a pre-revenue company, to 2,100 users in six months. I’ll also say when PLG is the wrong lever and full-funnel demand gen still wins.
- Messaging, positioning, and brand. What the company says it does, who it says it to, and whether the name and category still fit. This is where the Agolo to Implicit work lived.
- Go-to-market strategy. Turning a capability into something with a name, a page, a price, and a route to pipeline.
- Content strategy. Built around real ICP pain points, so the company gets found whether someone types a query into Google or asks an LLM.
- Competitive analysis. Where the company actually wins, where it is losing quietly, and which of those gaps are worth closing.
- Conversion rate optimization. The path from first touch to signup or opportunity, including the offer and the handoff to sales.
Ruled out
- Equity in place of pay. Equity can absolutely be part of the deal. It works alongside a real budget rather than instead of one.
- Standing in for a whole marketing team. This is one senior person, not an agency. Engagements work when there are people or budget to execute against the plan.
- A logo refresh on its own. Brand work here starts with positioning and messaging, and the visual identity follows from that, the way it did going from Agolo to Implicit.
- Running social media and ad campaigns day to day. I’ll build the paid and social strategy and decide where the money goes. Living in the ad manager and the content calendar every day is a different job from this one.
How it works
Diagnose, build, then hand off.
The usual shape of an engagement. Every part of it bends to what the company actually needs.
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Step 12 to 3 weeks
Diagnostic Go through the funnel, the data, the positioning, and the competitive set, and talk to customers and the sales team. It ends with a written point of view on what is actually wrong and what to fix first. -
Step 2First 90 days
Build and run Fix the highest-leverage thing first and get a number moving that the whole company can see. Long enough to prove the direction is right, short enough that nobody is funding a strategy deck. -
Step 3Ongoing
Operate or hand off Keep running marketing, or help hire the full-time leader, get them onboarded, and step back. A good fractional engagement should be working toward its own end date.
A diagnostic on its own is a perfectly good engagement. So is starting at step two if the diagnosis is already clear.
The details
The questions everyone asks first.
What does it cost?
There’s no published rate, because there’s no standard engagement. Pricing follows the scope once it’s clear what the work actually is. A positioning sprint and an ongoing demand engine are different jobs and shouldn’t carry the same number.
How much time does it take?
Anywhere from a few hours a month as an advisor and sounding board, up to a couple of days a week running marketing directly. It depends on whether the company needs decisions made or needs the work done.
How long does it run?
Long enough for the work to show a result. A diagnostic can be a few weeks. Building a demand engine and watching it compound takes a quarter or more, because that’s how long the underlying channels take to move.
Will you take equity?
Equity can be part of the deal, and it works well alongside a real budget. It works less well as a replacement for one. I’ve done consulting and freelance marketing work many times over the years, and the engagements that went best were the ones with a real budget behind them.
The proof
Four problems I’ve solved, and what happened.
The same case studies as The Work, framed by the problem each one started with. All of it from full-time roles, which is where most of this was earned.
“Nobody understands what we sell.”
Renamed Agolo to Implicit and moved it off selling GraphRAG infrastructure, onto an AI knowledge engine for maintenance and support. Qualified leads went from one a quarter to 1,133.
“We can do this, but nobody can buy it.”
Turned CEI’s AI capability into a named, purchasable practice called CEI Clairvoyance, then took it to market across brand, web, and content. More than $1MM in pipeline.
“We get leads. We don’t get revenue.”
Rebuilt ConstructConnect’s landing page program across paid search, email, and in-app to close revenue instead of capturing form fills. $5.5MM+ in ARR.
“We’re pre-revenue and starting from zero.”
Built Implicit’s product-led growth motion from nothing, across answer engines, organic search, paid, and community. 2,100 users in six months.
"Tim is scary smart and has strong hands-on technical skills. I've seen him build marketing campaigns from soup to nuts. He genuinely cares about the customers, and the people on his team. He's a natural leader."
Straight answer
What I’m actually looking for.
The main thing I want is a full-time seat leading marketing at a growth-stage B2B SaaS company. Fractional and advisory work runs alongside that, in small enough numbers that every engagement gets real attention. If you’re hiring for either one, a conversation is the fastest way to find out whether it fits.
Tell me what’s stuck and I’ll tell you whether I’m the right person for it.
Get In TouchThe full background, for anyone who wants the long version first.
Download Resume