Private equity
A fractional CMO for PE-backed portfolio companies. One operator who runs the same diagnostic across every company in the book, takes the CMO seat where it is needed most, and stays through the work.
Track record
$2.5B+
Across four exits
$425M+
Raised on behalf of clients
1
AT&T acquisition
25
Yrs, startups, Google, AT&T
The problem
It shows up as a stalled pipeline. A sales team that rebuilds the pitch on every call. A customer acquisition cost that will not come down no matter what you spend. A diligence process where the buyer cannot summarize what the company does. By the time it is legible in the numbers, it has been compounding for six quarters.
That gap between what a company actually does and what its market believes it does is narrative debt. It carries interest, and the balance comes due at exit.
Where it surfaces in a hold period
The growth plan gets built on a story the market has not agreed to.
A pipeline plateau that operations cannot fix, because it is a positioning plateau.
Two go-to-market stories bolted together, neither one retired.
Buyers underwrite a category position. A feature list gets a feature-list multiple.
Why this page exists
Same discipline, different purchase. Most fractional CMO offers are written for one company and one founder, which is why they rarely survive contact with a portfolio.
The founder buy
The sponsor buy
How it runs
Three phases, run in order. The first one is cheap on purpose, because you should be able to see the ranking before you commit to the work.
30 days. Four dimensions, scored one to ten. Positioning clarity, category position, go-to-market infrastructure, and proof structure. Every company in the book is scored on the same scale, by the same person, in the same thirty days.
Output is a ranked list. Which companies carry the most debt, what it is costing in pipeline and in multiple, and which ones repay fastest.
90 days to 12 months. The seat is taken in the companies at the top of that list. Positioning, go-to-market architecture, the lead engine, and the sales tooling that survives turnover.
One strategist across the engagement. No junior account manager, no rotating team.
Ahead of the process. The investor narrative, the category position, and the three-tier proof structure a buyer repeats back to you in the second meeting.
This is the phase four exits totaling over $2.5 billion were built on.
Positioning clarity
Category position
GTM infrastructure
Proof structure
The obvious question
In most cases I am not replacing them. The diagnostic scores the company, not the person, and often the marketing lead already knows exactly what is wrong and has not been able to get the room to agree. My job in those companies is to make the case they have been making, with an outside voice and a scored framework behind it, and then to hand them the architecture.
Where the seat is genuinely empty, or where the person in it is a strong executor without a positioning background, I hold the seat until you have hired the right person, and I write the hiring brief and run the interview loop. That is a stated deliverable, not a favor.
I will tell you which situation you are in after thirty days, in writing, per company.
Proof
$375M+
Flock Freight. Named the pooled-freight category, then raised into it. Valued at over $1 billion.
AT&T
Cricket Wireless. One narrative across every channel, $80M+ in eCommerce revenue, and a 71% improvement in traffic acquisition costs.
99%
MGO Global. Net profit margin improvement year over year, by separating a portfolio of brands that had been marketed as one funnel.
A note on the proof above. None of those three was a sponsor-backed company. What they have in common is a hold-period shape: a fixed window, a board that wanted a number, and an outcome that got underwritten by somebody at the end of it. Cricket was acquired by AT&T. MGO Global was acquired for $318 million. Flock raised $375 million and crossed a billion in valuation. If you want the diagnostic run against a company in your book before you decide, that is what the first thirty days are for.
Most books on go-to-market describe the destination without giving you the map. This gives you both. Jeff has spent 25 years inside the problem he’s writing about, and it shows on every page. I’ll be handing this to every founder I work with before they spend another dollar on marketing.
Renny Smith, Managing Partner, Staley Capital, on Nobody Knows What You Do
Commercials
The same published tiers apply. Engagements running concurrently across more than one portfolio company are scoped together, because the diagnostic work compounds rather than repeats.
Start here
Every company scored on one framework and ranked by revenue impact. Fixed scope, thirty days.
Scoped per book by number of companies
Then
Four published tiers, from 6 hours a week to full-time equivalent, held in the companies that need it.
From $6,000 per company, per month, at the published rates
Advisory
Not every portco needs a fractional CMO. Most need someone who keeps the founder’s story honest between board meetings.
Two ways I do this for funds. Per-company seats: $2,500 a month per company, three hours of calls, advice only, same terms as any advisory client. Or a fund-level arrangement: a block of seats across the portfolio, plus narrative diligence reads on deals you’re weighing. Send me the deck and the data room story. I’ll tell you what an acquirer or a lead investor will actually hear. Scoped to the fund.
Fit
If you cannot tell which list a company belongs on, the diagnostic is built to answer exactly that.
