Tim Hillison and Prakash Nagpal | Fractional CMOs & The 90-Day Win
This video is a podcast interview with Tim Hillison and Prakash Nagpal 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 aligning marketing strategies with business goals, leveraging data, and integrating into the team to drive growth. They emphasize the importance of clear communication, understanding the total addressable market, and achieving early wins to ensure long-term success.
Key points
🔍 Growth Focus: Ensuring that the company targets growth by aligning marketing with revenue generation and sales velocity.
📊 Data Utilization: Leveraging data to define the total addressable market (TAM), total relevant market (TRM), and ideal customer profile (ICP) to ensure accurate targeting.
🗣️ Consistent Messaging: Maintaining consistent and clear messaging across all channels to build a strong brand presence and avoid confusion.
📈 Early Wins: Focusing on quick wins, such as optimizing engagement across different channels, to demonstrate value and build trust with clients.
💡 Customer Insights: Conducting thorough customer research to understand their needs and how they perceive the brand.
🤝 Team Collaboration: Working closely with internal stakeholders to align strategies and improve overall effectiveness.
🚀 Execution and Resources: Developing realistic and executable marketing plans with measurable goals and ensuring the necessary resources are in place.
👥 Stakeholder Engagement: Engaging key stakeholders early on to ensure alignment with the company’s vision and strategy.
🧠 Marketing Education: Educating clients on the importance of strategic marketing and the iterative nature of positioning.
📋 Long-term Objectives: Establishing 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.
- Tim’s Background: Tim Hillison, a fractional CMO with 25 years of experience, discusses his focus on startups and scale-ups and the importance of aligning marketing with revenue generation.
- First Problem: Tim highlights the common issue of growth decline and the need for marketing to be a true revenue partner.
- Defining TAM and ICP: Tim explains the importance of defining the total addressable market (TAM) and ideal customer profile (ICP) for accurate targeting.
- Channel Engagement: Tim discusses the importance of translating marketing strategies across different channels and measuring engagement to build a strong pipeline.
- Prakash’s Background: Prakash Nagpal shares his experience as a fractional CMO, focusing on a variety of industries including SaaS, distribution, and AI.
- Finding Alignment: Prakash emphasizes the need to find alignment and drive consensus within the company, especially when dealing with different expectations from stakeholders.
- CEO Expectations: Prakash outlines the importance of CEOs being clear about their expectations and the role of the fractional CMO to maximize value.
- Preventing Failure: Tim discusses how fractional CMOs can proactively integrate with the team, build trust, and establish a cadence with the CEO to prevent failure.
- Early Wins and Strategy: Prakash highlights the importance of achieving early wins and developing a strategic plan to build credibility and drive long-term success.
Quotes - 00:54: “The first problem that I’m working with my clients in solving is about growth.” – Tim Hillison
- 01:03: “Marketing is a true revenue partner and helps to build the pipeline.” – Tim Hillison
- 01:22: “Are they using total relevant market? Did they define their ICP correctly?” – Tim Hillison
- 01:45: “How is their messaging really resonating with their target audience?” – Tim Hillison
- 02:35: “What I look for is the difference between what was stated in the SOW and what is really said to me.” – Prakash Nagpal
- 03:10: “You want to be integrated into the information flow.” – Prakash Nagpal
- 03:55: “CEOs need to come to terms with what did I hire you for? Did I hire you for a project or to fill a role?” – Prakash Nagpal
- 04:33: “What are your expectations on how much you want to dictate what the marketing person should do?” – Prakash Nagpal
- 05:45: “Determine as a CEO what are you looking for? What are you hiring the person to fill?” – Prakash Nagpal
- 06:22: “Be proactive about integrating with the team and forming part of that revenue team.” – Tim Hillison
- 06:50: “Building trust with the CEO is crucial for a fractional CMO.” – Tim Hillison
- 07:35: “It’s about bringing your process skills and expertise to really say this is how change needs to work.” – Tim Hillison
- 08:10: “One of the first things I do is ask the team to self-evaluate themselves.” – Tim Hillison
- 08:50: “Are the people currently working within these roles actually in the right roles?” – Tim Hillison
- 09:20: “Find something low hanging and fix it to build credibility.” – Prakash Nagpal
- 09:45: “Show them a roadmap of where you will go X days from now and get agreement.” – Prakash Nagpal
- 10:10: “The junior employee will start getting the big picture which is useful for their work.” – Tim Hillison
- 10:50: “Having goals, whether quarterly or annually, helps develop that person’s skills.” – Tim Hillison
- 11:20: “It’s about building that relationship, building that dialogue, and getting to know that person on a human level.” – Tim Hillison
- 12:10: “The best fractional engagements are thoughtful executions that can be planned and agreed upon.” – Prakash Nagpal