Alon Waks and Eric Blankenship | Fractional CMOs & The 90-Day Win
This video is a podcast interview with Alon Waks and Eric Blankenship discussing the role and strategies of fractional Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in achieving significant business wins within the first 90 days of engagement.
Conclusion
Fractional CMOs focus on understanding business goals, evaluating the current marketing infrastructure, and leveraging data to drive growth. They emphasize the importance of clear communication, consistent messaging, and integrating effectively into the team to ensure success.
Key points
🔍 Identify Core Problems: Address the core issues first, even if clients initially present with other problems.
📊 Data Utilization: Leverage data to understand the current state of the business and make informed decisions.
🗣️ Consistent Messaging: Maintain clear and consistent messaging across all channels to build a strong brand presence and avoid confusion.
📈 Early Wins: Focus on quick, impactful wins to demonstrate value and build trust with clients.
💡 Customer Insights: Conduct thorough customer research to understand their needs and how they perceive the brand.
🤝 Team Collaboration: Work closely with internal stakeholders to align strategies and improve overall effectiveness.
🚀 Execution and Resources: Develop realistic and executable marketing plans with measurable goals and ensure the necessary resources are in place.
👥 Stakeholder Engagement: Engage key stakeholders early on to ensure alignment with the company’s vision and strategy.
🧠 Marketing Education: Educate clients on the importance of strategic marketing and the iterative nature of positioning.
📋 Long-term Objectives: Establish both short-term and long-term goals to guide marketing efforts and ensure accountability.
Summary
- Introduction: The podcast introduces the topic of fractional CMOs and their impact within the first 90 days.
- Eric’s Background: Eric discusses his career in sports entertainment and live events marketing for over 20 years and his transition to fractional CMO work.
- Identifying Core Problems: Eric highlights the importance of addressing the core problems first, even if clients initially present with other issues, such as fixing a website before launching a Facebook advertising campaign.
- Intersection Problem: Eric explains the concept of the intersection problem, where all elements of a marketing strategy must align and arrive at the intersection simultaneously to avoid system breakdowns.
- Alon’s Background: Alon shares his experience working with startups and scale-ups, focusing on quality over quantity and building repeatable, scalable marketing motions.
- Focus and Quality: Alon emphasizes the importance of focusing on quality first before scaling and identifying the ideal customer profile (ICP) to ensure effective marketing.
- Sharing the Truth: Alon advises CEOs to share all relevant information and data with fractional CMOs and be transparent about their needs and challenges to maximize value.
- Integration and Trust: Eric stresses the importance of integrating fractional CMOs into as many organizational functions as possible to build trust and gain a comprehensive understanding of the company.
- Advice for Fractional CMOs: Eric advises fractional CMOs to gain the trust of the existing marketing team, mentor and coach them, and build relationships with other department heads to ensure support and alignment.
- Temporary vs. Full-time Roles: Alon discusses the importance of understanding the temporary nature of fractional CMO roles, focusing on empowering the team and setting them up for long-term success.
Quotes
- 01:09: “The first thing I look at is whether or not they have business goals in place.” – Eric Blankenship
- 01:32: “I have to take a step or two back and address some of those other issues before we can take a couple steps forward.” – Eric Blankenship
- 01:55: “Their website was terrible, so we needed to fix the website first.” – Eric Blankenship
- 02:30: “All these things have to arrive at the intersection at the same time, or else it’s wasteful, or something breaks.” – Eric Blankenship
- 03:05: “Before you do that, you need to make sure that that’s in place, and before you do that, you need to make sure that’s in place.” – Eric Blankenship
- 03:25: “Focus is the first problem that I come and help identify and eliminate.” – Alon Waks
- 03:45: “It’s mostly an ICP audience focus, and what I take the companies I work with on is a change journey around quality first, quantity later.” – Alon Waks
- 04:20: “Truly scaling effectively is challenging unless you go back to what is quality, understand that, build a repeatable foundational motion, and then scale it.” – Alon Waks
- 05:02: “Open up the data, open up the transparency, and come use us as people who are going to help you get to the next stage.” – Alon Waks
- 05:25: “I’ve been in sports entertainment and live events marketing for over 20 years.” – Eric Blankenship
- 05:55: “Share the truth, tell me or somebody you want to come in and say, ‘It’s my first time,’ or ‘I really know the sales motion well, but I really have no idea what marketing contribution is.'” – Alon Waks
- 06:15: “Be honest about the problem. That’s where I would start.” – Alon Waks
- 06:30: “I want to be integrated and included into as many different organizational functions as possible.” – Eric Blankenship
- 07:00: “Whatever I can do to get a pulse on the organization, to get a feel for what the culture is like, will help me integrate more with the overall team.” – Eric Blankenship
- 07:25: “You need your team to be successful, and if that’s a team that’s already in place, fantastic, but you’re going to need them.” – Eric Blankenship
- 07:50: “Gaining their trust is going to be paramount.” – Eric Blankenship
- 08:10: “Make them even better and stronger, I think is going to be extremely important.” – Eric Blankenship
- 08:35: “There will be deep scrutiny of every member, so they should really be able to tell their story of success.” – Alon Waks
- 09:15: “It’s not about me and my brand being on the picture of everything around the company, it’s about empowering the company and setting it right.” – Alon Waks
- 09:50: “If I had an opportunity to really stand up and set myself apart in front of somebody, I think there’s at least two scenarios that can happen.” – Eric Blankenship