A CMO on your team.
A system behind them.
I embed in your business one to two days a week as your most senior marketer; owning strategy, budget and the revenue number. The difference from every other fractional CMO you'll meet is that I arrive with an execution engine already attached.
Guest lecturer at London Business School and the University of Sydney. Agency years at OMD, Icon and iProspect. Startup team member through acquisition by an ASX-listed company.
The job is the same. The invoice is smaller.
A chief marketing officer owns the strategy, the budget, the team and, ultimately, the revenue line. A fractional CMO carries identical accountability across fewer days. You get a senior operator inside your leadership meetings, on your email domain, making the calls a $225,000 hire would make, for a fraction of the cost and none of the recruitment gamble.
Where I differ from the consultants wearing the title: I've spent fifteen years across global agencies and a startup that exited to a listed company, and I run Compound Growth, an agency built around AI-driven revenue systems. So when the strategy says "we need this built", it gets built. Usually by the following week.
"Most fractional CMOs hand you a deck. I hand you a working system, then teach your team to run it."
Run the diagnostic
If three or more of these land, we should talk.
You're spending five figures a month on marketing and can't say with confidence what it returns.
You have marketers, agencies or freelancers, but nobody senior holding them all accountable.
Growth has stalled at a plateau that tactics alone haven't broken.
You've been burned by an agency that pitched strategy and delivered activity.
You'll need a full marketing function within two years but can't justify the executive salary today.
The remit
Strategy and positioning
A marketing strategy tied to your revenue targets, in language your board understands. Who you sell to, why they choose you, where the money goes and what it must return.
Budget ownership
I hold the budget and answer for it. Every dollar allocated against expected pipeline, reviewed monthly, reallocated the moment the data disagrees with the plan.
Team and partner leadership
Your marketers, agencies and freelancers report through one senior operator. I set the standard, run the cadence and remove the excuses.
Revenue systems
AI lead qualification, appointment setting, database reactivation and automation, designed by me and built by the Compound Growth engine behind this page.
Reporting that means something
A dashboard measured in pipeline and revenue rather than impressions. You'll know what's working, what isn't, and what I'm doing about it.
Six weeks. Fixed scope. Fixed price. Then you decide.
Committing to a fractional CMO before you've worked together is a leap. The Growth Sprint removes the leap. It's a fixed-scope engagement where I embed for six weeks, audit everything, rebuild the strategy and ship the first systems, then hand you a decision: continue fractionally, take the playbook in-house, or walk away with everything documented. There's no retainer hiding inside it.
Diagnose
Full marketing and revenue audit. Customer and positioning review. Competitor teardown. Quick wins actioned immediately rather than saved for a slide.
Build
Positioning and messaging live. Funnel architecture rebuilt. First AI systems configured: lead qualification, follow-up automation, reactivation of your dormant database.
Prove and hand over
Optimisation against real data. Dashboard stood up. A written playbook your team owns, plus a recommendation on exactly what marketing function you need next, whether that includes me or someone you hire.
Positioned below one month of an ongoing engagement so the sprint reads as a low-risk trial, not a discount product.
Weigh your options honestly
| Criteria | Full-time CMO | Agency retainer | Fractional CMO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $225K+ before super, bonus and recruiter fees | $60K to $180K, scope-dependent | A fraction of the executive salary, scaled to days per week |
| Time to impact | Three to six months to hire, longer to ramp | Fast start, shallow strategy | Working inside your business within a fortnight |
| Accountability | Owns revenue, eventually | Measured on deliverables | Owns revenue from week one |
| Execution capability | Depends entirely on the individual | Strong on activity, thin on leadership | Senior strategy with the Compound Growth build engine attached |
| Exit risk | Notice periods, payouts, morale damage | Contract lock-ins are common | Scale down or wind up at month's end |
A full-time CMO is the right call for some businesses. Part of my job is telling you when you've reached that point, then helping you hire them. More on that below.
Hiring, done by someone who's held the roles
Recruiters match CVs to job descriptions. The trouble starts when the job description is wrong, which it usually is, because it was written by someone who has never done the job. I scope your marketing roles off the back of your actual data and growth plan, interview candidates on craft rather than charisma, and onboard them into systems that already work.
This is deliberately the opposite of dependency. The engagements I'm proudest of end with a capable in-house team, a documented playbook and my seat handed to a permanent hire I helped you choose. A fractional CMO who plans to stay forever is just an expensive employee with worse availability.
Who you're actually hiring
I'm Ben Myatt-Bocarro, founder of Compound Growth. Before this I spent years inside OMD, Icon and iProspect running strategy and performance for brands with budgets bigger than most of my clients' revenue, and I was part of a startup team through its acquisition by an ASX-listed company. I've guest lectured on marketing at London Business School and the University of Sydney, which mostly means I've had to explain this discipline clearly enough for very smart people to poke holes in it.
The thesis behind everything I build is in the name: marketing should compound. Every campaign, asset and automation should make the next one cheaper and more effective. The fractional CMO seat is where that thesis gets applied with full authority rather than from the supplier side of the table.
Asked by every sensible sceptic
Some are, and the market is thick with them, which is why the scepticism is fair. The filter is simple: ask what they've shipped in the last ninety days, who executes their strategies, and whether they'll be accountable to a revenue number. My answers are on this page. If a candidate's answers are a framework, a referral list and "brand awareness", keep looking.
Yes, provided the days are spent on leadership rather than labour. The leverage of a CMO comes from decisions: where the budget goes, what the team builds, which channels die. Those decisions don't need forty hours a week; they need the right twelve. Execution happens continuously between my days through your team and the Compound Growth systems, so the business never idles waiting for my next visit.
The deck-and-dash is the industry's worst habit and the main reason founders on forums warn each other off this model. My engagements are structured so strategy and execution overlap from week one; the Growth Sprint exists precisely so you can watch the working style before committing to anything ongoing. If nothing has visibly shipped in the first month of any engagement with me, fire me.
We agree the commercial targets before I start: pipeline, revenue, cost per acquired customer, whichever numbers your business actually banks. Those go on a dashboard we both see, reviewed monthly. Vanity metrics can attend the meeting, but they don't get a vote.
Only if they deserve it. Part of the role is auditing your current partners on output rather than politeness. Good agencies tend to improve under senior client-side direction because they finally get clear briefs and honest feedback. Underperformers get a defined improvement window, and if that fails, I run the transition so nothing drops.
Engagements start at $[X],000 per month + GST for one embedded day per week, scaling with days and scope. For calibration, the average Australian CMO salary sits around $225,000 before super, bonuses and a recruiter's clip. The Growth Sprint is a fixed $[X],000 + GST if you'd rather test the model before any ongoing commitment.
The sprint is six weeks, full stop. Ongoing fractional engagements run month to month after an initial quarter, because meaningful strategy needs at least ninety days to show its workings. No lock-ins beyond that; the arrangement survives on results or it doesn't survive.
My client base spans construction, property, professional services, trades and B2B tech. The pattern that matters is stage rather than sector: established businesses doing roughly $2 million to $50 million who've outgrown ad-hoc marketing. If your situation sits outside that, ask anyway; if I'm the wrong fit I'll say so and point you somewhere better.
You keep everything: the strategy, the systems, the dashboards, the documentation and, if we've run the hiring programme, the team. Dependency is a design flaw. The handover is planned from the first month, whether that handover is to an in-house leader I helped you choose or back to a leaner arrangement with me on call.
Seat and accountability. As your agency, Compound Growth executes against briefs. As your fractional CMO, I sit on your side of the table, own the whole marketing P&L, and direct every supplier, including my own agency, which I hold to the same standard as anyone else. Plenty of clients use one without the other; the combination simply removes the gap where strategy usually falls over.
Ready for marketing that compounds?
A thirty-minute call. You'll leave with a straight read on your current marketing and whether this model fits, whichever way that lands.
Direct with Ben. No SDR, no qualification quiz, no fourteen follow-up emails.
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