What Is a VCMO & When You Might Need One?
TL;DR
By having a VCMO on your team your business can achieve its growth objectives in a very cost-effective way.
Imagine money being no object to your business and having a dream team work with you to achieve your vision. What would that look like? How much faster or smoother would progress be?
What's stopping you?
This post explores the value of having a part-time (virtual) Chief Marketing Officer on YOUR team and when this might be a good move for your business.
What Is a VCMO?
A VCMO is a 'virtual' Chief Marketing Officer' sometimes known as a 'fractional CMO', although each has a marginally different definition.
Literally 'virtual' denotes remote; 'fractional' denotes part-time, a 'fraction' of a full-timer; although they are often used interchangeably.
The phrases are well used in American business blogs, podcasts and literature, but are slightly less familiar in NZ, although the 'virtual CFO' concept might be known by some of you.
This blog aims to be a bit of an explainer, plus identify when one might be useful for your organisation and when not so useful!
Oh - and the reason I am writing it? I operate as a VCMO myself, but I know that not everyone understands the concept.
When I am defining the roles I describe it as:
A senior marketing leader, who sits as part of your SLT (senior leadership team)
Works part-time for your organisation
Will have a portfolio of clients, including you
Is on contract to you, i.e. is not a full-time employee on your payroll
Is treated as and acts as one of your team - they ARE your in-house CMO
What Does a VCMO Do?
Most scaling tech companies with growth ambitions will have identified that they need some marketing expertise in-house. This person / team is normally operating on day-to-day, task-orientation activity.
A VCMO is not there to do the day-to-day activity, they come into your team as a leader, for example:
Aligning your business goals & strategy with the outputs of the team
Creating a marketing strategy and plan; providing oversight to ensure it is delivered
Team leadership, coaching, capability building & direction
Budget setting & management
Reporting
Customer insights
Aligning sales & marketing activity to support growth
Working closely with product management to ensure the delivery of customer-led products and services
Agency & vendor management
Directing specific projects to ensure strategic alignment and successful activation
What Are the Benefits of a VCMO?
You know that time at the start of your business when there was one name against every job-title, from sales to product manager, accounts to procurement - and it was all your name!?
As your business has grown roles have changed, new people have been added and you are no longer doing it all?
Bringing in a VCMO is often a good choice for businesses that have growth ambitions. I'm obviously biased but I have also seen the reasons play out with a number of my clients.
Here are some of the benefits of having a VCMO in your business:
Cost-effective:
You get a senior member of your team without having to wait for your business to be able to afford it. Having a full-time senior marketing leader may be something your business can't afford just yet, but it doesn't mean you can't benefit from having this thinking in your business today.
Also, don't tell too many people but you can turn the resource on & off again with relative ease. You remain in control!
Strategy & direction:
Your marketing team are often doing a great job at marketing activity on a day-to-day basis. A VCMO brings strategic thinking and direction to this activity, ensuring your team are doing the right things at the right time, aligning with your business objectives and ensuring all the 'activity' is advancing the waka towards your goal.
They set the direction, enabling your team to get on with delivering what they do well. Their role is also to hold people to account, understand what the blockers are and help your team overcome any hurdles to achieve their objectives.
Identify your needs & recruit:
Having a 'plug-in' VCMO work in your business for a period of time helps you to identify what your resource needs are for the next phase of your business growth. A VCMO can then recruit and train up new members of the team, or find other cost-effective ways of delivering the same outcome for you, for example through bringing in contract or agency expertise.
Best practice & value add:
By the very nature of being part-time, with a portfolio of other clients and lots of experience, your business gets the benefit of someone who can bring in best-practice approaches and suggestions, or who can introduce you to others in their wider network to bring increased value to you.
This is not always limited to the marketing function, a VCMO brings broad business experience. The VCMO can be your outward market intel and customer voice and knows how to bring that to add value to business decisions.
Confidence-building & a trusted advisor:
Not every business leader understands the marketing discipline, we all have our own areas of expertise. A VCMO can give you confidence that you have the right activity in place and that your team are receiving the right support and direction.
Your team also benefit from building skills and capability with guidance from someone who has experience. A VCMO who can act as a sounding-board and trusted advisor to you as the CEO/Founder of the organisation.
When Do You Need a VCMO?
Not every business is ready for, or needs a VCMO, but some of the signs for having a part-time plug-in resource might be good for your business are if:
You are looking to scale your business & have growth ambitions, but don't yet have the funding to have a full-time senior marketing leader.
You don't have marketing expertise yourself, or around your SLT and your marketing team / person is not being given the direction or leadership they need.
You need marketing to do something different. Your growth may have plateaued; you are entering new markets; have a new product; you're changing direction.
Your business is operating at a tactical marketing level, with no strategy to pull it all together and align it directly with the overall business strategy.
You can't really articulate the value marketing brings, even if you think it is the right thing to be doing.
Your marketing activity is not delivering what you want it to and you don't really know why. What you have tried before hasn't worked and you are a bit cynical about trying again.
Your messaging is inconsistent and isn't building towards your unique brand positioning, leadership thinking or "what you want to be famous for" even though it might look visually professional and 'on-brand'.
You and your team are struggling to consistently articulate your customers' real needs and your messaging is still product/feature-led.
Marketing and sales are not working in alignment; they don't have shared goals; individual sales reps are creating their own presentations, proposals etc. which are inconsistent, and this is an ineffective use of their time.
Your SLT are not discussing customer insights, or what is happening in the broader market.
Do any of these sound familiar to you? Get in touch for a FREE chat about whether a VCMO might work for you
When is a VCMO Not for You?
Typically, the converse of any of the above, especially:
You have not got any ambitions to grow your company beyond where it is today and are really confident the market is not going to change around you.
You have marketing expertise in-house at a senior level and have the time to provide guidance and leadership to your team.
You have a clearly defined business strategy with a well-articulated link to the marketing strategy and the plan is being efficiently executed.
Marketing and sales are truly aligned and both teams are being used effectively to deliver results.
