Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

Understanding the Rise and Benefits of Fractional CMOs with John Jantsch

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 379

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Today I have a fascinating discussion lined up for you as I sit down with marketing expert and founder of Duct Tape Marketing, John Jantsch, to unpack the growing popularity of Fractional Chief Marketing Officers (fCMOs).

John and I explore how the pandemic and the rise of remote work have accelerated this trend, enabling Fractional CMOs to collaborate with multiple startups simultaneously and offer them critical strategic leadership. John shares insights from his recent survey on Fractional CMOs and offers a deep dive into the shifting landscape of marketing agencies. We discuss the importance of strategic thinking over mere tactics, the transformative role of AI in the industry, and the current challenges of scalability in the traditional Fractional CMO model.

You'll also hear about the advantages of a hybrid approach for businesses aiming to enhance their marketing strategies. Whether you’re a business owner considering fractional marketing leadership or a marketer interested in this career path, our conversation is packed with valuable insights. So, join us as we navigate the evolving world of marketing strategy with the expertise of John Jantsch.

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Speaker 1:

fractional CMOs You've heard of them. It's what I do as well. It's in my social media profiles, and especially with the rise of remote work, I think we've seen more of them. But do you truly grasp the transformative power that we hold fractional CMOs for your business marketing strategy? Once you understand the potential, you'll want to know how you also can strategically incorporate them into your team. We're going to dive into this and lots more.

Speaker 2:

So stay tuned to this next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing. There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schaefer is your digital marketing coach. Helping you grow your business with digital-first marketing, one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach and this is Neil.

Speaker 1:

Schaefer. Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, your digital marketing coach, and welcome to episode number 379 of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. I am glad that you can join me today. We're going to start things off with a few bits of industry news. First of all, youtube had a very, very interesting live stream where they mentioned a few new features that they're going to be rolling out, and I think if you are a content creator on YouTube, these are really exciting. For instance, they're going to have the hype system, which boosts visibility for smaller creators. You can have your fans hype up your videos.

Speaker 1:

Basically, new AI tools like the VEO, v-e-o video generator for YouTube shorts. They will also have a revised community tab, which will allow subscribers to post and have more interaction, almost like a Discord-like experience right there on YouTube. They're also going to have auto-dubbing that will let viewers understand content in their preferred language using AI voice generation. So this is not like subtitles. This is actually being able to listen in foreign languages while watching your favorite creators or videos. They're also going to have a Netflix style interface on the YouTube TV app. But all these things that YouTube is doing, it's not just for creators, it's really for anybody, for any business you can be taking advantage of this new functionality, so YouTube is becoming a more engaging place. Obviously, this is to ward off, you know, tiktok, instagram, facebook but YouTube is quite innovative and the use of AI tools like the Vio Video Generator for YouTube Shorts is a really, really exciting development that I think you should all keep your eyes on. So you know, with generative AI, we talk about the emergence of video, and YouTube is one of the final frontiers where we need to be human. And well, ai is catching up to video generation. I saw a lot of that at VidSummit as well, but YouTube is still a great underutilized place for overwhelming majority of businesses and, if not, an overwhelming majority of content creators as well.

Speaker 1:

Another bit of news so we've seen the emergence of email newsletters, but not using traditional email marketing software, but using tools from companies like Substack and Beehive, I think are the two most famous companies. Now, substack and I had a phone call with one of their advisors a few weeks ago. They already started podcast hosting, so you don't even need to have a separate podcast host. I proudly host my podcast with Buzzsprout, but not only can you host your podcast with Substack, but they just introduced live video capabilities, which enables anyone with a loose letter there to directly engage with audiences through live broadcasts. So well. Is that going to replace StreamYard, which is the software that I use for live broadcasts?

Speaker 1:

I'm really not sure, but as much as we've seen Beehive and some other companies that emerged to compete with Substack, I do believe that Substack is still the gold standard. It's something I've been looking into creating on my own, I think. Right now I have a very well-established email newsletter and I use ConvertKit for that, but maybe to reach out to new audiences on a niche subject, substack might be of interest. So it is something I'm considering, but if you're on the fence, I think this might tip the scales in favor of Substack. So definitely something to check out. And, as always, if you subscribe to my newsletter that's neilschafercom slash newsletter you'll be the first to hear all this news, including some bits of advice that I curate from the internet of latest SEO advice, email marketing advice, social media marketing advice, ai and marketing advice, as well as updates from my blog, youtube and this podcast, in case you miss one of my episodes On the personal news.

Speaker 1:

So I have been really grateful for the successful launch of a book that I really didn't talk about until very recently, which is Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth A Practical Guide to Building your Brand and Driving Results, and I think a LinkedIn post that I did today really sums up my feeling about this. And let me just read this to you and I know I talked about it on last week's podcast, obviously, but you know why did I write my third book about LinkedIn 13 years after my second? Because LinkedIn continues to evolve, but a lot of the advice I see and the way I see people use it have not. The LinkedIn algorithm, I would argue, has undergone its most radical change ever in the last few months, and the smart people know that LinkedIn is currently the most viral social media platform, when you understand how to use it. That is why I wrote Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth. And, do not worry, you're not too late to get a competitive advantage, because I just published this on September 17th. If you go to neilschafercom slash maximizing LinkedIn for growth, you'll see links to all the different ebook retailers where you can purchase this, and I do plan, at the end of the month, raising the price from its current 99 cents, so it really is the best way to take advantage of this. I hope you will and I look forward to your feedback. And if you have read it, obviously I would be so honored and grateful if you could review it wherever you bought the book and send me a screenshot. I do plan on setting up some well, let's call them LinkedIn mastermind sessions as I continue to develop content for the paperback and audio book version of this book.

Speaker 1:

All righty, so today's interview, mr John Janch, duct tape marketing.

Speaker 1:

He is someone that, if you've been involved in digital marketing, duct tape marketing he is someone that, if you've been involved in digital marketing, he really needs no introduction.

Speaker 1:

The man is a legend and what's really interesting is that our paths have merged recently because he has really been taking on the role of a fractional CMO and really, you know, yielding some leadership, putting together a survey, getting data I participated as well and really is becoming a, you know, the torchbearer for a lot of us fractional CMOs.

Speaker 1:

It was really awesome to interview him to talk about some of these emerging trends and hiring fractional CMOs. Now, I know a lot of you are very involved in digital marketing and some of you might be consultants, like me, and whenever I talk about fractional CMOs to other marketing consultants. I see a sparkle in their eye. I know it's a very exciting and rewarding job to do and I hope, after listening to this episode, either you want to pursue that path or, if you are a entrepreneur, business owner, you will look at hiring a fractional CMO whether it is me or John and Duct Tape Marketing and the fractional CMOs they have there or somewhere else. But hey, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump right in to my interview with Jon Jantz.

Speaker 2:

You're listening to your Digital Marketing Coach. This is Neil Schafer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schafer, and welcome to another live stream edition of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. So some of you may know that I am. If you were to look at my LinkedIn profile or ask me what I do when I'm not speaking or writing or teaching or doing these other things, I am what is called a fractional CMO. Now, fractional CMO is a term that I first heard, actually at a B2B marketing event in Japan in 2019. And it was a Japanese gentleman on stage who said that he basically helped a few different startups and was their chief marketing officer. These were startups that did not have big organizations, but they needed marketing help and they needed marketing expertise from a senior leader, and he worked with several companies at one time, and that's why it was fractional. He was not a full-time CMO at one company, and as I delve into my own consulting work, I realized how brilliant of a model this was and how I adopted it myself, first back in 2019.

Speaker 1:

And then with COVID in 2020, 2021, it took a life of its own, where, I think you know, we got used to remote work, we got used to remotely hiring consultants and fractional CMOs, and today it has become this mainstream word. Do a search on LinkedIn for fractional CMOs and I think you're going to find a lot of people. In fact, it's funny because I now get hit by people saying, oh, I help fractional CMOs do this, or you know the people that try to spam you on LinkedIn and try to sell you something. So it's been an interesting world. But fractional CMO is a significant development, both for those of you that might want to do this for a consulting perspective, as well as for the small businesses listening, because it can really empower your organization with senior experience and leadership in marketing to get you from point A to point B faster.

Speaker 1:

So someone that's been talking a lot about fractional CMOs lately is someone that I've been following for literally a decade and I'm gonna introduce him shortly. But I first saw him speak at Chapman University here in Orange when he came out with a book called the Referral Engine. He's most known for his duct tape framework. I'm gonna invite to the stage right now John Jantz. John, welcome my friend. Hey. Framework.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to invite to the stage right now John Jantz. John, welcome my friend. Hey, thanks, neil. I've forgotten all about that Chapman University thing.

Speaker 1:

That was more than a decade ago, I bet it was, and at the time I probably have the book here, but I handed you this big, thick copy of this book. I wrote on LinkedIn at the time and you're like, you wrote this and I'm like, yeah, so, yeah, that was probably I'm going to say, 2010, if not 2011. So it's been a while, yeah, awesome. So, john, from duct tape framework to fractional CMO, I guess why don't we start with? For those that aren't familiar with duct tape framework, I actually never heard the story of how you develop that over time and that methodology, which was one of the best-selling sort of frameworks that agencies and consultants can invest in. And I have a friend actually here in Orange County who did exactly that. He became a duct tape framework coach. So can you tell us a little bit about the story behind it? And, for those that don't know, a little bit about the framework itself?

Speaker 3:

Oh sure. So I actually started my own agency 30 years ago and, like a lot of people, I'd had a little bit of experience jumped out, thought. I'd started my own agency 30 years ago and I, you know, like a lot of people I'd had a little bit of experience jumped out, thought I'd do my own thing, no plan. I knew I could hustle work. So I hustled big projects, little projects, big clients, little clients. At some point I got to work with a couple of small to mid-sized clients and I thought, boy, I really like working with them, but dang, they are hard to work with, at least in the model I knew. You know, they had the same challenges and needs, but never the same budgets or even attention spans. And so I just one day literally said I'm going to create a process where the next person I walk into I'm going to say look, here's what I'm going to do, here's what you're going to do, here are the results we hope we get, here's what it costs. We're going to install a system and it's going to start with strategy before tactics. And after getting three clients in a row, that said when can you start? When I delivered that I was like maybe I'm onto something here and it's kind of funny. I was really trying to solve my great frustration and it seems like I tapped into what is still today, maybe increasingly, one of the greatest frustrations with small and mid-sized businesses. It's gotten very hard to buy marketing services as a small business. I mean, everybody's selling the new thing of the week, and who do you trust and where do you go, and do I need to be everywhere? So I think this idea of somebody talking about a marketing system strategy first was sort of music to their ears, and that was really the genesis of duct tape marketing.

Speaker 3:

I felt like, as a good marketer, I needed to give my system a name.

Speaker 3:

I sort of fell onto the term duct tape marketing and it seemed to resonate with a lot of business owners, and so then I just, you know, I named my business, my blog, my podcast, my first book, as you mentioned, and when all of those things started getting a lot of exposure as kind of the can I say this the dawn of the Internet was happening. I started attracting other agencies and they said the same thing like we want to work with a system. You figured out a framework that seems to work, we want to work this way, and so I, about 10, 15 years ago, started licensing this to other agencies and have about 400 agencies that have gone through our program. Wow, about probably five years ago kind of, when you were really landing on it too, I saw this kind of pivot towards the idea of fractional everything and you and people accepted that. I mean 10 years ago, if you said to a small business owner you need a fractional CMO, they'd be like I don't even know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2:

But today, not only is fractional, everything acceptable.

Speaker 3:

I think I've never seen more of a demand for people actually asking for strategy.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I think that that has really shifted in the market too, and we can blame that on the pandemic.

Speaker 3:

I think a lot of businesses got caught without one, and so, you know, I think that there's just a lot of things that have come together to make this a much more of a mainstream concept.

Speaker 3:

You know, ultimately, I look back and said you know what? That's what we've been doing all along, and so we really just kind of changed our positioning a little bit to talk about what a fractional CMO would do and maybe kind of how to democratize the idea, bring it down to a small to mid-sized business and then also create a model that could scale. Because one of the challenges with the traditional fractional CMO model is a lot of people have CMO experience. They jumped out and said I'm going to go do my own thing, and they basically sold a fourth of their time to four different companies and it's like, hey, I'm getting paid pretty well, but it's pretty tough business to scale. So we're trying to create what I would say is more of a hybrid approach where you can give that strategic advice and strategic framework that somebody needs, but also probably walk alongside with them to implement or orchestrate at the very least all of the implementation, gotcha.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a lot to consume what you just went over right there, From the dawn of the internet to the dawn of AI, really. But would you say so? I agree that the pandemic and remote work it's funny. I was talking to a friend last night and he works at one of these major health insurance companies and they just have to now return to the office. I mean, he was okay with it, but a lot of the younger staff were not, even though it's only two days a month and I'm thinking, you know, Monday through Friday, nine to five in the office is the norm. So there's obviously been a shift with the pandemic. I think it shifted a lot of things. Would you also say, John, because you started, or you said, that the duct tape marketing framework had a lot of uptake with agencies? Would you also say maybe there's also this shift from marketing, you know, outsourcing agencies versus developing more in house? Do you see that trend a lot?

Speaker 3:

I definitely see a shift in how people are employing agencies, there's no question. And I think another variable in that is there's so much pressure on pricing tactics. Now, you know people again, along with the sort of virtual you know world, are able to go get a WordPress site for 150 bucks over here. And you know, and I think that that's really driven a lot of the traditional agency services, especially people that were selling kind of the SEO package. You know that kind of thing. It's really driven it to the ground because I mean, we can argue whether or not that $150 WordPress website is any good, but the fact that somebody realizes, oh, if that's all I want, I can go get it over here, that's put a lot of pressure on the people that we're selling.

Speaker 3:

You know primarily tactics and I think you know we can get into the future of where we're going here. But I think the last 10 years marketers have gotten to be kind of lazy. Seo really worked well if you knew how to do it. Paid search worked really well if you knew how to do it, and we're going to see some of that stuff really shift and evaporate and so I think marketers better get strategic because AI will do all the grunt work. We don't need you to do that anymore, but we do need you to think and add context.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think you know, 10 years from now, someone's going to listen to this podcast and obviously, 10 years from now, the way that AI permeates and revolutionizes everything will be very clear. Right now it is not.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But we definitely know change is in the air. So with that in mind, I know that you recently did a big fractional CMO survey which I actually took part of. I know we want to go into today. So please give me sort of the background behind that survey and just a general 36,000-foot overview of why you did it and what you saw from it.

Speaker 3:

Well, the idea came around forever, and CMO surveys have definitely been around forever, but I hadn't really seen anybody do a fractional CMO survey, and so I actually partnered up with DataBox, which is an analytics firm, and ActiveCampaign, which is a CRM, and we all kind of collectively polled our audiences. We ended up surveying about 200 fractional CMOs, or people that were either actively calling themselves that or certainly headed that direction, and then likewise their clients as well. So we got kind of both sides of the equation and there were some things that just validated what I'd already seen anecdotally, but there were also some surprises.

Speaker 1:

Awesome and, yeah, I thank you for taking the initiative because you're right, we have all these CMO surveys, but not a fractional CMO survey, john, just in all honesty, I think that a lot of people before, in between jobs, they would call themselves consultants. And I'm just curious do you think and you mentioned like some were fractional CMOs, some called themselves that Do you think that a lot of people out there, out of a hundred LinkedIn profiles that say fractional CMO, do you truly believe that all 100 of them are fractional CMOs, that some of them maybe put it up as a sort of in-between, in transition? I mean, what do you see in the market?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Kind of saying I'm for hire, yeah. Yeah, you know, what I see is all over the place. I mean, there are definitely people that have 20 years of legit CMO experience that are going out there and working with big firms and helping them. One variable we haven't talked about is the CMO in the traditional manner is sort of under attack right now. The big corporate folks are pitching no, we need a chief revenue officer, not a chief marketing officer. So I think there's a lot going on there, but what I think is happening is you're seeing under $30 million businesses Now they're saying we can have one of these, we need one of these, and I think that's where a real shift is.

Speaker 3:

And, frankly, everything that a traditional CMO might do inside of a big organization is probably not needed in a lot of fractional CMO engagements. What they need is somebody that's bringing high level strategic advice. Maybe because they're an outsider is helpful with that. But also what I see is missing quite often. Even if you're running great campaigns, what I see quite often is missing is there's nobody advocating for the customer inside of a lot of organizations, and I believe that that is a role that a chief marketing officer or a fractional marketing officer can play, so that we're not just stopping at oh, we got the sale, but it's like what happened after the sale? How did we repeat and retain and refer clients and somebody who's really doing that?

Speaker 3:

And then, obviously, orchestrating all the moving parts is a big part of it as well. And then, finally, I don't see a lot of marketing agencies that are tracking what matters, and what I mean by that is we get really good at taking what Google Analytics will give us and Hotjar will give us and all the little kind of open rates and all those kinds of things. But I believe that the fractional CMO needs to actually have position at the P&L and really be not I mean, like demanding. I need to know revenue, I need to know what COGS is, I need to know what all of our marketing costs are so that I can accurately start telling you what your cost to acquire a customer is and what the lifetime value of your customer is and what the actual return on marketing investment is. And I think that that's a real gap for a lot of organizations and if you did nothing more than that, you'd be doing a huge service to a company, which brings another question in mind.

Speaker 1:

Before we get to the data, john, do you assume that 100% of fractional CMOs report to the CEO, or are you seeing cases where they are not necessarily reporting to a CEO, even though they're a senior marketing leader, maybe being paired with another internal senior marketing leader? Do you see this becoming very multivariate in its approach, or what do you see?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think it will. And I think a large part of that is some confusion in the market. A lot of CEOs, certainly business owners, don't really even understand what that role is supposed to do, and so a lot of times what people are being brought in under the banner of fractional CMO they're probably more of a high-level marketing manager in some cases, and you're right, they're not at the right table necessarily to actually provide what that role should provide.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, that's sort of what I thought as well, and I guess we'll blame confusion. It is still relatively a new term, as we talked about earlier, so let's get into some of the data.

Speaker 3:

Well, you think about some of the people that are hiring them. They've never had a senior marketing leader, right, so they're just like making assumptions, or they're talking to their friend and saying, oh, we got one of those, you should get one too, you know. So I think that's part of the problem.

Speaker 1:

Definitely and obviously, the smaller the business, the more the case. So that makes a lot of sense. So let's get into some of the data from the survey that you found. So one of the things that you found was this booming adoption and demand, and I think we already talked a little bit about that. But any other sort of trends you see in that is it. You know smaller businesses feeling more empowered, remote work. Obviously they found that at a, at a cheaper price. You know budget, especially when you compare to some. You know SEO retainers or you know pay-per-click budgets that they could actually hire. I'm assuming that's the case. But what do you? You know, what do you take from that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Well, one of the things that was really, I guess, kind of surprising. I mean, I hoped this was actually the case, but it was kind of surprising. We asked a lot of business owners you know what was the chief benefit of hiring a fractional CMO? And I just assumed price was going to be at the top of the list more affordable and it was up there. It was actually number three. I think Number one was we need more strategic thinking, which again kind of surprised me. Like I said, it's what I hoped was the case, but the fact that business owners are actually admitting that that's what they need, I think is a real breakthrough, because a lot of times I've spent 20 years bringing people strategy kicking and screaming, and so the idea that they're actually now saying, no, we need to go out and buy some strategy is pretty awesome.

Speaker 1:

And I mean before this would you say that when small business owners, ceos, wanted to quote, unquote, buy strategy, would you say that up until now, they primarily would get that strategy from their agency? Is it something that they would get in-house or something they just never had before?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it really depends on who they'd hire.

Speaker 3:

There are definitely a lot of agencies out there that skirt around like, oh, we're going to do some interviews and we're going to have a whiteboard meeting and sticky notes will be involved and then they move on to the tactics, right?

Speaker 3:

So I think there are a lot of businesses that think they have strategy, or think that they bought strategy, you know, so that it really does come down to. I mean, like in our world, if somebody comes to us and says I need a website, yes, you do. However, we're going to back up and really the only way you can hire us is if you go through this, you know process and that sort of demanding. You know that somebody sits still for that. Because, you know, I've always been amazed, like, how can an agency actually recommend what somebody needs, let alone the business owner recommending what they need, you know, without spending a significant amount of time digging into the market and digging into the existing customer base and the history of the business? I think if we just go out and start doing what they say they need, you know we'll find out in 90 days like, oops, you know we're going down the wrong path. So nobody wins in that situation.

Speaker 1:

I'm not an anti-agency person per se, but I always thought there was a conflict of interest when the agency is in charge of strategy, because it's obviously going to be written in a way that that emphasizes the tactics anyway.

Speaker 3:

So I think you agree Well, and I think another thing that's that's really happened too, because I'm not anti-agency as well. I mean, all the people we work with, you know, probably most of them call themselves an agency, but what's happened is the agency world and term even, has just gotten bastardized. You know, the I can run Facebook ads to a niche and, you know, call myself an agency and teach you how to do it for $5,000, you know is really, I think, just set the what an agency actually is or what the expectations of an agency are. It's kind of set it on its head.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then Facebook reaching out directly to small business owners and marketers and small businesses saying hey, if you need help, you can reach us directly. So, yeah, it really has changed, hasn't it?

Speaker 3:

Yes, it has.

Speaker 1:

On that note, so I want to get a little bit into more of the data from that survey. So, key skills and industries that are benefiting from fractional CMOs do you see any trends in terms of skillset?

Speaker 3:

No surprise, SaaS is number one Technology. I think there's always been much more of, just like your friend in Japan, I think that's who you said.

Speaker 1:

well, you said startups, but I'm assuming a lot of startups were SaaS. Yeah, he was formerly Amazon Web Services. So yeah, case in point it was a lot of SaaS.

Speaker 3:

That's naturally inherent to that kind of business is their market's global, and I think that adds a real challenge to anybody trying to grow a company.

Speaker 3:

It's a little what you need to do from a marketing standpoint is a little different if you're that local remodeling contractor than it is that SaaS company trying to sell globally.

Speaker 3:

So I think that has a lot to do with it.

Speaker 3:

Another trend that I really see is in this particular survey and I think at the point we were in today although that was three months ago so maybe it's changed but the point we're at today, most of the people who boldly said I am a fractional CMO and I'm going to take this survey, the average was it was over 10 years of experience and there was a fair amount of 20 years of experience, and I think that that is a little bit telling about people who said if I'm going to call myself that, it's because I've got that background right. I think the real trend you're going to see is there's definitely going to be that coming down to three and four and five years of experience, and the reason I say that is because if you start working with that smaller local company who truly needs strategy, needs somebody to orchestrate. Well, you don't probably need as much experience or maybe you just need experience in that industry to really be able to effectively give them what they need at that point in their business.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You don't need to overdo it, and maybe three years of experience in that industry is going to be more valuable to them than 10 years of broad experience, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Makes a lot of sense. So let's look at it from the business perspective. So obviously we both are fractional CMOs and we sell fractional CMO services. We're often telling businesses what these you know the benefits, the cost savings are. But I'd like to get your spin on. You know from the survey what you saw. You know according to the data. You know from the survey what you saw. You know according to the data. You know what does the data say about the benefits for businesses of hiring fractional CMS.

Speaker 3:

So we already talked on the cost one, but again that wasn't number one. One was that they felt like, hey, we need senior strategic leadership. We don't have that. It always amazes me. Some of these businesses I've run across 30, $40, and the founder has pretty much just been good at selling. That's their marketing. God bless them.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, probably bumped up against the ceiling at this point and so they're looking for now that first strategic hire. But it's pretty amazing how. I wish I could figure out how to do that. But so having that strategic senior, having an outsider, quite frankly, I think has been seen as a real benefit. And bringing somebody in that they of money in that when you bring them in and their job is to set the strategic direction, and six months into it you're like this is a disaster. That's a pretty risky proposition. I mean, even finding somebody that you're going to hire could take months. And so I think that the idea that I could go out and say I'm going to interview Neil, we're going to have a couple sessions together and I'm going to decide to hire him, because if it doesn't work out he's gone, I think that that, let's face it, that is an aspect, because they really don't know how to hire this, they don't know how to manage this position, and so lowering the risk, I think, is another real scene benefit and I actually sell that aspect.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I don't know how you structure your contracts or other fractional CMOs, but I will start with like a three-month trial and I think also for the fractional CMO they also want to decide the companies that they want to work with.

Speaker 3:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

Right, so it's mutually beneficial for that reason. So, yeah, I hope that more companies listening will start to think more about this, because I think it is, as you said, for all those benefits, especially with companies, with smaller SMB startups. To me, and to you as well, I'm sure you'd agree it's a no-brainer. So, john, where are you taking your business? So, are you scaling, like with Duct Tape Framework? Are you coming out with, like a service for fractional CMOs or a service for businesses that want to hire fractional CMOs? I assume you have something in the pipeline there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, so we have two businesses.

Speaker 3:

We have an agency ourselves that we call a fractional CMO agency, and so we are actually selling fractional CMO services.

Speaker 3:

To your previous point, the only thing you could buy initially is a 60-day strategy, first engagement, where we will run you through a process that we've done thousands of times now and you know it will probably lead to a long term retainer, but we will have the right plan and we will have established a lot of trust with you before we propose what's going to be in that long term retainer.

Speaker 3:

So that's one side of our business, but we also are, you know, those hundreds and hundreds or I don't know, thousands and thousands of consultants, marketing agencies out there that say we have to, we need to start offering strategy, you know, as part of a package, or maybe as our lead in a package like what we've done. So we actually license our entire methodology and our product, if you will, called Strategy First. All the tools and 30 years of learnings are part of that license, and so, in addition to certifying people on that methodology and kind of really putting them into the business, we also have a network then of where we mastermind and we do boot camps and things as well.

Speaker 1:

Got you. So is that strategy first? Is that the methodology then you use during those first 60 days? Correct?

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

And so do you still have duct tape framework, or has that sort of merged into the strategy?

Speaker 3:

first, it is really powered by the duct tape marketing system is what we call it. But it's strategy first. It's almost a standalone. I mean, I've been doing this so long and we've worked on it and it's evolved so much that I really do kind of lovingly refer to it as a product which, quite frankly, is very attractive to a business owner. And it's not just a cookie cutter, it's a proven framework that can be adopted to pretty much any industry any type of business, fantastic.

Speaker 1:

So, john, anything about fraction of CMOs that we didn't cover today, I think we covered a lot and I think, obviously, going further, it's going to be case by case, company by company. But any other things that you can talk about the states and players, I think it's a model that's just going to be very accepted.

Speaker 3:

I do know that you'll have some listeners here that and I catch flack from some very traditional old school fractional CMOs that say, oh, what you're doing is not fractional CMO, I just think that the world is evolving and really what we're doing is, I say, democratizing just because I want to use a big word, but what we're really doing is but what we're really doing is, but what we're really trying to do is say, look, this is a hybrid model, frankly, that will work and deliver a lot of value, the value that business owners need to, really almost.

Speaker 3:

I mean, we have some people that are doing this with million dollar businesses. I think that would have been unheard of and it's not. It's not so important that they're calling themselves a fractional CMO, it's more the expectation of the client. I mean, if you're going to hire somebody who calls themselves a fractional CMO, you're probably expecting strategy At least I hope you are, yeah, and I think that that's the big differentiator.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think you know, until now I'm just looking back at some of the startups I work with they would just start out by spending and sometimes they already had spent a lot of money on a website before the strategy and hiring high-end designers, or they were already running $10,000 a month pay-per-click with absolute zero ROI. So, yeah, I think the strategy being able to come in and say, okay, let's start with strategy, let's spend wisely and I think it takes the right person but if it's a true you know marketing, experienced marketing leader I think they will definitely bring that to the table and you will definitely get your ROI literally within the first month in some of those situations, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I was just gonna say. You know, sometimes we walk in and go, stop doing this, stop doing this, stop doing that, before we like even propose anything.

Speaker 1:

It's like wow, that was worth our money right there. And I think, john, probably you and I share a same philosophy and I think that duct tape just the branding, is that we don't want you to waste your money, right, and that's sort of been my mission. And my parents grew up in the depression, new York city, and and you know, I can only buy clothes at the bargain bin growing up and and just you know, don't spend, don't waste money where you don't need to, and there's just so much waste.

Speaker 3:

What was that Filene's Basement? Is that New York City?

Speaker 1:

That is yeah. I never went there. I grew up in.

Speaker 3:

Southern California. Yeah, exactly, oh, I thought you said New York. My parents, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, and so there is a lot of waste and I think the right fractional CMO can see that immediately put strategy in place. And I also on my LinkedIn profile for a while, because people didn't know what fractional CMO was, I added, sort of in parentheses, flexible marketing consulting. You mentioned that hybrid approach. I think that's really important because it's not. I always like to say I'm not working as a black box consultant or even a black box agency. It is, the IP is yours, I'm on your team, you treat me as an employee and I think that that does democratize consulting in general, when you have the right person with the right experience, with the right company.

Speaker 3:

Yep 100%.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, john, this has been great. So if businesses want to find out more about hiring a fractional CMO through your agency or maybe an agency is like we need more strategy or a company. I don't know how many URLs you have these days, but where's the best place to send people and if they want to connect with you as well, six billion.

Speaker 3:

I think. But I'm going to send people to dtmworld. Dtm as in duct tape, marketingworld, slash growth, and you can choose your adventure. If you're a business owner, we've got stuff there for you. If you are a agency, coach, consultant, fractional CMO you've got a path there as well. So one URL to handle everybody's needs. Choose your adventure.

Speaker 1:

All right, did I get that right? Dtmworldgrowth Awesome. All right, perfect. Do a little multitasking here. Very good, john, do you have? Obviously I really appreciate your endorsement of my book. That's upcoming.

Speaker 2:

Do you have another? I mean?

Speaker 1:

you've yourself written, you know five, six books, if not more. You have another book in the pipeline about fractional CMOs. I wonder.

Speaker 3:

You know I'm trying to like just do nothing for the next few years. I have an amazing team, amazing head of operations and I'm just doing stuff like this. I'm just the pretty talent now. You're the head of the brand then huh yeah. No, I don't have a book in the works currently and I may, I may, I think, the next book I write. I want to write, I want to write fiction. I don't think I'm a good enough writer, but I want to write fiction.

Speaker 1:

It's funny how a lot of nonfiction authors after a few books. I saw Joe Polizzi do the same thing and, yeah, very cool. Well, john, thank you so much for your time today. This was great and I hope those that are interested reach out. Once again, that is dtmworldslastgrowth. As always, this will be in the show notes, so thank you again, john.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks you.

Speaker 1:

It was great catching up. Alrighty, really hope you enjoyed that interview and hey, stay tuned, because every other episode I am doing an interview with people like John Janz. I got a man. I have so many people lined up that I really can't wait to share all this with you. Just make sure you hit the subscribe button and I think I mentioned this before but if you end up liking this podcast, you end up reviewing this podcast. Please do send me a screenshot.

Speaker 1:

I take care of my tribe, I take care of people that take care of me, and whether these are service providers that I work with for years because I know they have my back, or they are partners, other speakers, other authors who I go out of my way to help, or my fans, who I go out of my way to help as well, I would really love to hear from you. So you know where to find me neilschafer, on the socials, neil, at neilschafercom. I'm going to end it on a high note. So that is it for another episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. This is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer, signing off.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to your Digital Marketing Coach. Questions, comments, requests, links go to podcastneilschafercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your Digital Marketing Coach.