WTF: What the Fractional?

Here's a problem hiding in plain sight: most growing and even many long-established companies, desperately need senior marketing leadership, but can't justify (or have been burned by) the cost of a full-time CMO. So, they muddle through. Marketing teams lurch from fire drill to fire drill, or consultants are brought in to deliver a beautiful plan that the team then must execute alone, without the person who wrote it bearing any responsibility for its delivery.  Sound familiar?

This is the gap that fractional fills. But when people ask me why I don't just call it consulting, my answer comes down to two things: commitment and belief.

Since founding A.Muse, I've made a deliberate choice: I only take on businesses that can be a true passion project. I built this career on a genuine love of great marketing, and I've approached every role as an investment in nurturing a business toward its potential. A fractional CMO isn't someone who drops off a strategy deck and wishes you luck. They stay.

So, what does that actually look like?

Phase 1: The largest fraction — Go deep into Strategy

The first phase is deliberately time-intensive, and for good reason. The best strategies only work when all stakeholders are genuinely invested in defining them. That means the early portion of my time is weighted heavily toward discovery, alignment and, often times, redefining what success actually looks like. Because what you've been briefed on at the start isn't always what the business truly needs even or wants.

This isn't consulting. This is digging deep and building something together.

Phase 2: The working fraction — Go wide with Planning & Implementation

Once the strategy is set, the focus shifts from managing upwards to leading the team that will be its engine room. This is where the real difference between a consultant and a fractional CMO becomes clear.

A consultant's role is typically finite: they deliver their findings and leave. A fractional CMO works alongside the team through planning and execution, providing top cover, fighting the battles that need to be fought, and creating the conditions for the team to meet their true potential. That means celebrating their wins loudly and, when necessary, absorbing the heat for their mistakes.

It also means ensuring the team is properly trained, and that any new hires are genuinely qualified, not just available.

Phase 3: The lightest fraction — Go steady with Sustainment & Optimisation

The final phase is about stepping back without stepping away. The fractional commitment reduces, but the function remains: reporting to stakeholders, mentoring the team, fielding the difficult questions, and ensuring targets continue to be met.

The business gets everything a CMO delivers:

·      the strategy,

·      the leadership,

·      the accountability

 at a fraction of the cost.

And this time, it actually sticks.

What doesn't show up in any phase breakdown is the relationship itself. The late calls when a campaign isn't landing. The honest conversation about whether a hire is working out. The moments where someone needs to say the uncomfortable thing in the boardroom. The critical communications advice when the proverbial hits the fan.

That's not in a consultant's remit. For a fractional CMO, it's the whole point.

If this sounds like the missing piece in your business, let's talk.

A few years ago, I used the phrase “drink a cup of concrete” in a social media post.

It got taken down for promoting self-harm.

Which says less about the phrase—and more about how poorly nuance translates when context is stripped away.

For those unfamiliar with the Australian vernacular, it roughly means: harden up.

And when it comes to B2B marketing, it’s advice more businesses need to take because If your first move in a downturn is cutting marketing:

• You’re not saving money.

• You’re handing future revenue to your competitors.

Most businesses don’t have a marketing problem. They have a spinal weakness problem.

Marketing isn’t the problem. Short-term thinking is.

If we accept that marketing’s role is to drive future demand, pipeline, and revenue, then one thing becomes clear:

It requires patience.

Consistency.

And a willingness to invest before the return is immediate.

Which is exactly where most organisations fall over. Corporate leadership must have the intestinal fortitude to stay the course if they want marketing that truly delivers over time.

Few do.

The cycle everyone recognises

You’ve seen this play out before:

• Profits tighten

• Costs get cut

• Marketing is labelled “non-essential”

• Budgets are reduced

It feels logical – especially to the finance teams.

It’s also where the damage begins, because marketing isn’t a cost, it’s an investment in your business' future.

What happens next?

With reduced investment:

• Brand visibility drops

• Pipeline slows

• Demand weakens

And something more subtle—but more dangerous—happens.

You stop building memory structures in the market.

Leads dry up, brand value goes down. The Law of Double Jeopardy means that if you are not maintaining a position of market leadership, you will have fewer new customers AND less brand loyalty from your existing base.

Which means when a customer is ready to buy…

They don’t think of you.

Meanwhile, your competitor stayed the course.

They maintained  both passive trust and top of mind awareness.

They stayed visible.

They stayed consistent.

They stayed invested.

They built their brand.

So, when demand appears, they’re the default choice.

Not because they’re better.

Because they’re remembered.

The trap: short-term marketing

Under pressure, drastically under-resourced marketing teams shift to short-term tactics:

• Campaigns designed for quick wins

• Activity over strategy

• Noise over consistency

It can generate attention.

It can even generate demand.

But it often builds demand for the general category—not your brand.

So, when the customer acts on a need recognised, they will search for the established incumbent or top of mind company when responding to a requirement that your marketing has identified.

They go with the name they know, the memory structures that were maintained.

Congratulations

You’re now funding your competitor’s growth.

And then…

Panic.

A new strategy is commissioned. Budgets are (re)approved. A long-term plan is rebuilt.

Staff is rehired.

Until the next downturn.

Rinse. Repeat.

The alternative – the ‘backbone approach’

Drink the cup of concrete.

Hold your nerve.

Back the strategy that was already scrutinised, challenged, and approved.

Because effective marketing isn’t reactive.

It’s cumulative.

Final thought

You don’t build brand, demand, and trust in a quarter or two.

But you can destroy them in that time.

If your marketing strategy only works when times are good, it’s not a strategy—it’s a luxurious whim.

At A.Muse, we help businesses build marketing systems that perform under pressure and over time.

Let’s build something that lasts.

Bye for now!

The Muse

Sales vs Marketing: What Formula 1 Can Teach us About Team Performance

Thinking about the tension that often exists between sales and marketing reminded me of a kick-off meeting with a new marketing team I was leading. I told them that it was important for every team to know their place—and that marketing’s place is firmly in the back office, engine room and even the pit lane.

Not the podium.

It’s a tough message for anyone who prefers “main character energy” in their career—especially for the charismatic ENFP marketing types in the room. But my message didn’t seek to diminish their personal impact. Rather, it was a reminder that when it comes to winning business, our role is to position the company, the brand, and the sales team as the stars.

It’s about understanding where lasting impact actually occurs.

Our job is to ensure every tool is in place, the go-to-market approach is optimised, and the sales team is set up to win.  Because when it comes to winning business, sales may take the spotlight—but marketing helps builds the machine that gets them there

As we head into the new Formula 1 season, now feels like a good time to reflect on what marketers can learn from the sport about the role marketing has to play in business success.

Who basks in the glory? Sales.  That’s the point.

Sales teams get:

• the commission,

• the prestige,

• the expense accounts,

• the recognition

• and all the associated glory.

In F1 terms, they’re the ones who get the podium finish. As they should.

We all want the sales team to win.  The whole business is barracking for them. We want them on the podium, spraying champagne and celebrating the high life. And in fairness, they live and die by their match-day performance—they deserve the wins they earn on a crowded track.

The pressure on them is immense.

And despite all the support and accolades they will sometimes still churlishly ask,

“What has Marketing ever done for us?”

But here’s the reality,  in the long term, it’s the backroom functions that determine a team’s competitiveness. Without the right positioning, tools, messaging, and market strategy, there is no win

Our job is to do everything we can to help them succeed—even when they suggest an 11th-hour “much better” campaign idea, deliver feedback two months late, or forget to update the CRM properly (if at all).

Marketing doesn’t close deals. We make them possible.

High-performing teams aren’t built on individuals

In Formula 1, teammates compete – but the team wins or loses together despite only one driver being able to stand on the top position at the podium. Teams will even sacrifice one driver’s position for another, to guarantee the best overall result for the team. Strong internal competition drives excellent performance.

Similarly in the corporate world, while sales teams report to a common leader, individuals often operate competitively—each striving to be the top performer, focused on personal targets as well as team goals. That’s part of what makes them successful.

Sales operates like elite athletes: driven, competitive, focused on individual targets.

Marketing operates differently. We see the whole system.

We understand the power of collective effort. We know we are only as strong as our weakest link. If there is a disconnect, we step in where needed to help each other. We connect the dots. We optimise the whole—we don’t live for the single moment.

For a plan to succeed, execution must be seamless across every element. Because a campaign doesn’t win on a single touchpoint.

It wins when everything works together.

The car matters more than the driver

No matter how skilled or fearless the driver, without the right car, they won’t win. At best, they limp to the finish. At worst, they crash out.

You can have the best salesperson in the world—but without the right foundations, they won’t win.

Not consistently. Not at scale.

In B2B, marketing is responsible for:

• The strength of the brand

• The clarity of the message

• The effectiveness of the go-to-market strategy

• The quality of sales enablement

• The systems that support performance

We help build the car.

Sales drives it.

Bread and circuses: you need both

In Formula One, the Drivers’ Championship is the spectacle.

But the Constructors’ Championship is what funds the future.

It’s what sustains performance over time.

In business, sales deliver the moment. Marketing builds the momentum.

Final thought

You don’t need to stand on the podium to be critical to the win. But you do need to know your role—and execute it brilliantly.

If your sales team is under pressure to perform, the answer isn’t more pressure—it’s better support. At A.Muse, we help organisations align marketing with revenue—so sales teams aren’t just working harder, they’re winning smarter.  Get in touch to see how we can fine tune your engine for the win.

Bye for now, The Muse

Marketing doesn't have a perception problem. It has a measurement problem. And until we stop presenting activity as impact, we'll keep losing our seat at the table.

For too long, marketing teams have reported on metrics designed to impress: big numbers, neat charts, easy wins. But in B2B, long sales cycles and a complex web of decision-makers mean that most of these figures are functionally meaningless when it comes to the bottom line. You can hit every KPI and still have zero impact on business outcomes.

The economic climate is demanding more. There is an inherent bias against the value of marketing at senior leadership level, and that bias doesn't dissolve on its own. It's our job to dismantle it, not with spin, but with proof.

Cost per qualified lead is one of the few metrics that genuinely resonates with the C-suite. It's the clearest way to ensure your marketing budget is treated as a business imperative, not a cost.

That means having an honest conversation with your sales team before a campaign launches. Define what a qualified lead actually looks like. Agree on criteria. Then measure against those criteria, not against the vanity numbers that make reporting decks look impressive.

We are all storytellers, or at least we should be. But the best stories are grounded in truth. Here are three areas where the B2B marketing continues to manufacture the illusion of performance.

Exhibition stand theatre

Trade shows are an easy sell internally. Sales teams enjoy them, the logic of "letting the customer come to you" is intuitive, and attendance feels productive. But look at how most events are measured:

• Click counters for foot traffic

• Boxful of business cards

• Scanned attendee badges

• Competition entries

A scanned badge is not intent. A list of competition entrants is not a pipeline. None of these indicate that a meaningful commercial conversation took place, yet they still appear in post-event reports dressed up as performance.

If there is no defined requirement, no meaningful conversation, and no agreed next step, it is not a lead. It's just noise.

Impressions, likes, and the illusion of engagement

Impressions are designed to make numbers look large, not meaningful. Content being served is not the same as content being seen, understood, or remembered.

Social media enables symmetrical communication, the opportunity for genuine back-and-forth between brand and customer. And that's its real value. But a "like" is low effort, low intent, and rarely a signal of genuine commercial interest.

Compounding the problem: corporate posts are routinely inflated by internal engagement. Employees liking leadership content out of obligation, not conviction. We have all seen it. We have all cringed at the "let's go!" responses to a post that nobody outside the company will ever read.

If your content is not driving conversation, clicks, or curiosity among prospective buyers it is not working.

Print advertising in trade magazines

In an era of hybrid working, digital-first consumption, and fragmented attention, B2B print advertising continues to be sold on readership numbers that bear little relationship to reality. Trade magazines, at best, reach a desk. In the hot-desk era, frequently not even that.

The "editorial inches" sweetener deserves particular scrutiny. If the story pitch came from a sales rep and not an editorial team, those are not column inches, they are advertorial. And nine times out of ten, you will be asked to write the copy yourself.

An advertorial is an ad. If it reads like a product brief focused entirely on your business, your offering, and your message, it is not storytelling, it is a product dump. Self-written, self-serving content does not generate demand.

A genuine corporate communications strategy, one built around compelling stories, earns meaningful coverage and generates real interest. That coverage cannot be purchased. It has to be earned.

The real cost of vanity metrics

Vanity metrics do not simply mislead. They distort decision-making at every level of the organisation. They create the illusion of performance while masking the absence of results. And over time, they erode the trust that marketing needs to be taken seriously as a business function.

When marketing reports are full of activity but light on outcomes, leadership draws the obvious conclusion: marketing is 'fluff'.

Reversing that perception requires more than better storytelling. It requires better evidence.

"If marketing wants a seat at the table, we need to measure what actually matters - not what looks good in a slide deck."

That means agreeing upfront on what success looks like. It means reporting on qualified pipeline, not badge scans. It means tracking content that drives conversation with prospective buyers, not internal likes. It means calling out the metrics that don't hold up, even when they are in our comfort zone.

The work is harder this way. But the credibility that comes from it is worth infinitely more than a headline impression number.

How your brand archetype resonates with your customer, and why it is important to walk the talk.

I recently did some work with a client whose brand archetype was The Caregiver. Now, choosing the Caregiver archetype takes courage in a dog-eat-dog world.

Why? Because, sadly, in this day and age, empathy, kindness and delivering for others can sometimes be construed as weakness.

Which segues neatly into my post for today.

But first, let me explain the 'dog tax' I chose to illustrate this post.

The handsome duo pictured are Betty and Barney. They are our family pets; one was a COVID pup and one was a rescue. One is a princess and one is a punk.

And they are both irreplaceable members of our family.

Indeed, the (adult) children of my family suggest that the fur babies may be their parents’ favourites.

I will neither confirm nor deny this.

Anyone who has pets understands what I am talking about here. Anyone who sells to pet owners should seek to better understand this. Because herein lies the secret to success.

Why an unknown (to me) company named Chewy stopped me in my tracks.

I am based in Australia, so I had never heard of Chewy. But I came across a story online that caught my attention.

A woman had a prescription dog food subscription with Chewy. Sadly, her dog died and, three days later, her automatic dog food delivery arrived.

She called customer service to see if she could return the unopened food. Expecting to have to drop the food off somewhere, incur a delivery charge or provide details to prove the subscription should be cancelled. I would say she was probably braced for the usual taxing customer service returns experience.

Instead, Chewy refunded her on the spot and asked her to donate the dog food to a local animal shelter.

Then, two days later, they sent her a bouquet of flowers and a handwritten condolence card from the customer service agent.

Having received a handwritten card in the mail from our vet when our last pup passed away, I can attest to the favourable impression that left with us. So, I can only imagine how this bouquet was received from a pet food supplier, where you would expect the relationship to be much more distant.

At this point, my interest was piqued.

People were commenting on the social media post. Some shared hand-painted pictures that Chewy had sent them of their pets, after they had included photos of their pets in feedback to the company. All unexpected, all treasured.

What was coming across loud and clear was that people felt a real connection with this company.

So I thought I would check how this manifested in reviews across the usual sites (very high) and across Reddit, the default last check for anyone wanting to do a deep dive into a company's claims.

Whilst occasionally people talked about shipping issues or prescription problems, almost universally the feedback about the caregiving nature of the company was called out and praised.

It seemed that once you were a Chewy customer, you were a customer for life.

That level of stickiness is priceless in a subscription-model business.

A few things to note

Pet owners are loyal to the brands they trust - and this is a growing market.

In a global study conducted by ADM, 71% of pet owners surveyed indicated that they actively seek out products that support their pet’s longevity. Functional ingredients are increasingly becoming the backbone of these products, supporting health and wellness.

The dogfood market itself is growing at around 5% CAGR globally. The premium segment is the fastest-growing price category, projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.51% during 2026–2034.

As Fortune Business Insights puts it, rising dog ownership and the accelerating trend of pet humanisation are fundamentally transforming the nutritional landscape. Dogs are increasingly perceived as family members rather than companion animals, prompting owners to prioritise pet health, longevity and preventive nutrition in ways that closely mirror human dietary behaviour.

In other words, the relationship has changed.

Pets are family.

And when your customer believes that, they don't just want a product. They want a brand that understands what that means.

So what is the lesson?

Understand the emotional drivers of your customer base.

People will pay a premium for products and services that matter to them. But underneath that willingness to spend is something even more fundamental.

Everyone wants to be seen.

Everyone wants to feel valued.

Everyone wants to be part of a common experience.

And if your brand archetype is The Caregiver, then make sure every member of your team understands what that means.

More importantly, give them the power to deliver it.

Don't build a Caregiver brand and then give your customer service team 17 layers of red tape and approval before they can actually care for a customer.

If you want your brand to be empathetic, make empathy possible.

If you want your brand to be generous, give your people the authority to be generous.

If you want your brand to be a Caregiver, make sure your people can actually walk the talk.

Because your brand archetype isn't what you say you are.

It's what your customer experiences you to be.