To interim CMO or not? — Part I

When you should opt for an interim CMO, and when you should not.

Hello, I’m Hema, and welcome to my newsletter, First Impression. Each month, I write an in-depth post on marketing strategy and leadership for early-stage startups. Join startup founders, investors, and practitioners and subscribe to get the newsletter in your inbox.

I started working as an interim CMO in 2015. A long time before startup founders and VCs became comfortable with such a role. I was an interim CMO at Honeybook, Abstract, DocSend, Polly, and many other B2B startups. In this post, I am covering when startup founders should opt for an interim CMO over a full-time head of marketing.

This is a three-part post. Part II will cover how to interview and screen for an interim CMO. Part III will focus on the good, bad, and ugly of doing interim and how to set expectations around fractional work.

Before we begin, let’s clarify some terms:

👉🏽 Interim leader — Interim leaders take on full responsibility for a function for a short period, typically 6-12 months. These individuals are part of your core leadership team, and they actively help founders steer the strategic direction of the organization as well as manage their functional areas.

👉🏽 Fractional leader — Fractional leaders can work at two or more startups at a time, spending some portion of their time on each. These roles can be for a more extended period of time. Fractional leaders are involved in critical decisions but may not be engaged in the day-to-day operations of the business on account of fractioning their time.

👉🏽 Consultants — Consultants are project-based and tend to work on a specific project for a fixed time and fee with a clear set of deliverables. They work on multiple projects simultaneously and manage their time according to deliverables. They are not part of your core leadership team and are not involved in all your strategic decision-making.

Six signs you should opt for an Interim CMO

Photo by Ben Robbins on Unsplash

First-time founder, new to marketing

If you are a first-time founder from a technical or product background, chances are that you are not a marketing expert. As you begin to think about growth, your advisors or the board will ask you to prioritize hiring a head of marketing.

Building your leadership team should be a slow, thoughtful, and deliberate process. It can make or break your startup. Bringing someone on board too quickly and firing them in just a few months creates chaos in your startup and affects your credibility as a founder.

This is a perfect situation to bring on an interim CMO. It’s a low-risk, high-return option. Your interim CMO will hit the ground running. She can pattern-match quickly and help steer the hiring process to help you hire a head of marketing who’s a good fit for your team.

You need to pivot or have just pivoted

Pivots are like walking through a fog bank. You can’t see what’s in front of you or what will confront you around the corner.

Bringing on a full-time leader at such a time is challenging and risky. The new leader must be fully bought-in to the pivot and be willing to risk their career on a potentially failed pivot.

Bringing on an interim leader with the right experience—someone who has steered other startups through similar pivots—is a sound alternative. They will bring a depth of functional expertise and can be strategic and operational. This will be crucial since you must test, learn, and optimize quickly.

A revolving door of marketing leadership

This is a remarkably common scenario, especially with first-time founders. They have gone through a few mid-level or senior marketing leaders that haven’t worked out. This is usually because of a lack of functional fit, culture fit, poor performance, or change in strategic direction.

Bringing an interim CMO on board will hit the reset button for the marketing team that is either demoralized or frustrated by the constant change in leadership.

A seasoned interim leader can give the team confidence, provide the right coaching and guidance, advise the founders on hiring the right candidate, and ensure a smooth transition.

You don’t have a well-defined GTM strategy

This one can feel like a chicken and egg situation. Isn’t that the job of a head of marketing? To develop a GTM strategy? Yes, but.

If there is a lack of clarity around the founders’ vision, strategic direction, market positioning, or the GTM model you want to adopt, you might hire the wrong head of marketing.

For example, you might bring on a leader who excels at PLG when that might not be the right GTM model for your product. Or you might bring on someone who is great at building community when that might not be the best strategy for you.

An objective outsider, either an interim leader or a strategic advisor whom the founders trust and respect, can help you work through these strategic decisions. Some of these strategic choices also impact product, GTM teams, and operational teams, and an outsider who doesn’t have direct functional responsibilities can help bring the leadership team together and create greater alignment.

Your head of marketing quits or is on a break

This is the safest, no-brainer scenario to bring on an interim CMO. If your head of marketing is out on maternity or paternity leave, on a sabbatical, or away on a break because of some key life event, an interim CMO will ensure the marketing team gets the support and guidance they deserve during their leader’s absence.

CEOs often think they can manage the team while the marketing leader is on a break. If it’s a short break, this might work, but if they are gone for 3-4 months, the team could suffer from not getting the CEO’s time and attention.

Your marketing team needs to level up

If you have a small marketing team of individual contributors managed by a competent mid-level manager who is inexperienced as a leader, you might want to bring on an interim to help them level up. Here are some areas where this person might need help:

• Guiding strategic conversations (e.g., positioning, pricing, or brand) that have an outsized impact on the overall business

• Influencing other leaders, negotiating, and gaining buy-in

• Hiring people smarter or more experienced than they are

• Leveraging board and advisor relationships effectively

Bringing on an interim leader to guide this mid-level marketer is a good way to (a) objectively test if this mid-level marketer can take on a leadership role in the startup and (b) not lose this employee to another startup by adding a layer above them too quickly.

When NOT to opt for an interim CMO

• If you are a second or third-time founder who has seen the movie before, then your experience can guide you in choosing the right leader for your new startup.

• If your co-founder is a marketer. In this case, it’s good to make sure they surround themselves with the right advisors so they don’t have blind spots.

• If you know what you want in a marketing leader and can attract (and retain) a rockstar CMO because of your unique mission.

• If, at some point in your career, you have worked with a marketing leader you respect and whose work style highly complements yours.

Next up 👉🏽 How to interview and screen for an interim CMO.

Have you had a good or bad experience with interim leadership? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.