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Fractional CMO

A CMO on retainer.
Without the full-time hire.

You've outgrown "a marketing person," but a $250K full-time CMO is a stretch — and the wrong risk for the stage you're in. We plug in a senior leader in two weeks, own the number with your team, and stay until an in-house executive is ready to take the seat.

Apply to work with Chris→See the plans
Every engagement is led by Chris personally — there's one CMO seat.
By application · we keep a small number of seats open.
Marketing Scorecard
Q3 · Board Review
On Track
Pipeline created
$2.4M+38%
Cost per acq.
$214−31%
MQL → SQL
34%+11pt
Blended ROAS
6.2×+1.8×
Pipeline by month
7 mo · trailing
20+ yrs
Senior marketing leadership across B2B, B2C, and dealer
1/4 the cost
Of a full-time CMO — and you can scale up or down
Owns the number
Pipeline, CAC, LTV — measured monthly, not annually
By application
Limited seats — every engagement is led by Chris
Why this exists

Plenty of activity.
No one steering, and nothing compounding.

Most growth-stage companies don't have a marketing problem — they have a marketing leadership problem. Channels run in silos, agencies optimize for their own scorecards, and the CEO becomes the de-facto CMO because nobody else can read the funnel.

A Fractional CMO fills that seat — at the level of seniority you need, and the fraction of cost you can defend.

01
"We have five marketers and no one telling them what to do."
CEO · $25M services firm
02
"Every agency optimizes their channel. Nobody owns the whole funnel."
President · multi-location retailer
03
"Our last full-time CMO cost us $400k all-in and lasted 14 months."
CFO · B2B platform
04
"The board keeps asking for a marketing plan. We keep showing up with a tactics list."
Founder · growth-stage SaaS
What we own

A complete marketing department head.
Strategy, demand, team, and the number.

Strategy & roadmap

The annual plan tied to revenue — not a tactics calendar.

  • Annual + quarterly plan
  • Monthly KPI scorecard
  • Budget approved by CFO
  • OKRs your team can run
Explore in depth →

Demand & pipeline

Full-funnel accountability from click through closed-won.

  • Channel mix + budget
  • Full-funnel attribution
  • Sales–marketing SLAs
  • Weekly pipeline review

Brand & positioning

The story your sales team wishes you'd already written.

  • Positioning + ICP
  • Messaging framework
  • Competitive narrative
  • Voice + visual system
Explore in depth →

Team leadership

1:1s, weekly stand-ups, hires, and the hard vendor calls.

  • Manage your marketers
  • Write JDs + interview
  • Agency + vendor oversight
  • Mentor the team you have
Explore in depth →

Budget & vendor mix

Right-size spend, consolidate vendors, and negotiate the contracts.

  • Zero-based budget review
  • Vendor consolidation / re-bid
  • Contract + SOW negotiation
  • Media buying oversight

Performance & reporting

One scorecard, monthly — built for the board, not vanity.

  • Board-ready dashboard
  • Pipeline + CAC + LTV
  • Leading + lagging indicators
  • Monthly executive readout
Explore in depth →
Meet your fractional CMO

You get Chris.
Not a rotating bench.

Chris Wielinski
Chris Wielinski
Managing Partner · Fractional CMO
By application · limited seats

Chris founded Think Cre8tive in 2011 and has been the strategist behind every long-tenured client since. Seventeen years running senior marketing programs across B2B, B2C, and automotive — for founders who need a real plan, teams that need a real leader, and boards that want a real number.

The Fractional CMO seat is intentionally rare. Chris personally leads every engagement, which caps how many companies we can serve at once. You get the executive who built the agency — not a rotating account director behind a slide deck.

Recognized for it
USA Today
Top CMOs to Watch
TIME Magazine
Recognized in industry coverage
Marquis Who's Who
Honored listee · Marketing
Netty Award — Top Marketing Agency 2× Web Excellence Awards Top Automotive Marketing Provider AgriNext Dubai 2024 11× Best Advertising Agency · DFW
Why fractional

Executive leadership, right-sized.
The senior brain without the senior salary.

Fractional CMO
Think Cre8tive
Full-time CMO
In-house hire
No marketing lead
Status quo
Senior strategic leadership
Owns the number + reporting
Time to start
2 weeks
3–6 months
—
Annual cost
$60K–$120K
$220K–$400K+
Varies
Leads your in-house team
Multi-industry pattern library
Scales hours up or down
Long-term equity + benefits

Illustrative annual cost. Full-time CMO figure includes base, bonus, equity, and benefits load; fractional figure reflects our Growth-tier retainer over 12 months. Actuals vary by market and scope.

Leadership in the wild

What it looks like
when we own the marketing.

B2B SaaS

Northmark Platforms

Series B · 42 employees

Inherited three agencies and a marketing team with no lead. Rebuilt the plan, consolidated vendors, and installed a pipeline scorecard in 60 days.

$2.4M
New pipeline in Q2
6.2×
Blended ROAS
−31%
Cost per acquisition
StrategyTeam leadershipVendor consolidation
Multi-Location Retail

Ridgeline Group

8 locations · $60M

Owned marketing through a rebrand and website relaunch. Held the CMO seat while an in-house VP was hired and ramped.

+38%
Organic leads YoY
8 mo
To in-house handoff
34%
MQL → SQL rate
BrandWebReporting
Automotive Group

Southgate Motors

3 franchise rooftops

Sat as the group-level marketing head across three OEM programs. Consolidated agency spend and rebuilt the reporting stack for the ownership group.

12.8×
Avg ROAS across stores
$1.1M
Vendor spend reclaimed
4.7
Board-report score / 5
StrategyVendor mixOEM
How we work

Embedded and leading in two weeks.
Here's the ramp.

  1. Step 01Week 1

    Onboard & diagnose

    Access, interviews with your team, review of last-90-day performance, and a written diagnostic of where the funnel is leaking.

    Deliverables
    • Stakeholder interviews
    • Access to platforms + reports
    • 90-day performance diagnostic
    • Findings memo
  2. Step 02Weeks 2–3

    Draft the plan

    A defensible 90-day plan tied to a real number. We name the bets, name the KPIs, and name what we're going to stop doing.

    Deliverables
    • ICP + positioning refresh
    • Channel mix + budget
    • 90-day priorities + owners
    • KPI scorecard v1
  3. Step 03Week 4

    Take the seat

    Formal handoff of the marketing operating cadence. Weekly stand-ups start. Vendor calls come to us. The board deck is now our document.

    Deliverables
    • Weekly team stand-up
    • Vendor + agency review
    • Sales–marketing SLA
    • Board deck template
  4. Step 04Month 2+

    Lead + report

    We run the cadence, mentor the team, and show up to the board meeting with a scorecard tied to pipeline — every month, without fail.

    Deliverables
    • Monthly board readout
    • Quarterly working session
    • Hiring + vendor changes
    • Rolling roadmap
Standards · built-in

The unsexy stuff we get right so your board doesn't ask twice.

Board-grade reporting
One scorecard, monthly, tied to pipeline and payback. Your CFO won't argue with the math.
Attribution you can defend
Server-side tagging, CRM-matched conversions, and a written methodology your finance team can audit.
Data + privacy compliance
Consent, GDPR / CCPA, and platform-side privacy hardening reviewed as part of onboarding — not after.
Vendor & contract hygiene
SOWs, MSAs, and change orders reviewed and re-bid on a schedule. Nothing on auto-renew that shouldn't be.
Plans

Senior leadership, by the month.
Sized to your stage.

Starter

Starter · 16 hrs / mo

Starts at
$5,000/ month

The strategy seat. Right-sized for early-stage teams that need direction more than execution oversight.

  • Annual + quarterly plan
  • Monthly KPI scorecard
  • Weekly 1:1 with founder/CEO
  • Agency & vendor oversight
  • Quarterly board readout
Apply for a seat→
Most popular
Most popular

Growth · 28 hrs / mo

Starts at
$7,500/ month

Strategy plus active team leadership — the right fit when you already have marketers and agencies but no one running them.

  • Everything in Starter
  • Weekly team stand-up + 1:1s
  • Hiring support (JDs + interviews)
  • Full-funnel attribution build
  • Monthly board readout
Apply for a seat→
Full

Full · 40 hrs / mo

Starts at
$10,000/ month

For companies in a real growth or repositioning moment. We're in the operating cadence as much as a full-time CMO.

  • Everything in Growth
  • Co-own pipeline with sales leadership
  • Brand & positioning refresh
  • Vendor consolidation / re-bid
  • Active CMO succession plan
Apply for a seat→

Hours reflect senior leadership time. Custom scopes available for multi-brand or complex programs. Initial 90-day term, then month-to-month with 30 days' notice. Media, tools, and vendor spend billed separately and paid directly to the platform — no markup.

FAQ · Fractional CMO

The questions every founder
asks on the first call.

Real answers. Anything we miss, get on the phone with us.

Book a strategy call→
A consultant gives you a plan and leaves. A Fractional CMO owns the plan, runs your team through it, and shows up to the board meeting when it works and when it doesn't. We're accountable for the number — not the deliverable.
Apply for a seat

Apply to work with Chris.
A limited number of CMO seats, by application.

The seat is intentionally rare — we cap concurrent engagements so Chris can be present for every board meeting. If we're a fit, we'll respond within two business days with a first call and a draft 90-day plan.

  • Every engagement is led by Chris personally.
  • Limited concurrent engagements — we don't overbook the seat.
  • Honest fit assessment on the first call.
  • Draft 90-day plan if we're matched.
Tell us about your company
The short version — we'll ask the rest on the call.
Your information is used only to evaluate fit. No newsletter, no sales sequence.