Fractional CMO for startups

Hire me and my agents. I lead your marketing, sales, and RevOps part-time, and I bring the systems with me. I've run all three at my own company and at someone else's.

Based in Utah, working with startups anywhere in the US.

Jonathan Engle smiling with his arms crossed in front of a stone fireplace

Your first 30 days

  1. Before day 1: the assessment

    My agents audit your marketing against your competitors before you sign anything. You get the roadmap free. If you never hire me, you still leave with a plan.

  2. Week 1: access and intake

    You give me a company email and the logins the work needs. I read what you already have, then interview your team only about the gaps, so nobody spends an hour telling me something a file already says.

  3. Weeks 2 to 4: your AI readiness foundation

    I build your company brain, with your positioning, offer, buyers, and voice written down where your team and your AI can both read it. Then I rebuild your website on top of it and train your team as we go.

  4. Day 30: the first readout

    Your company brain and your new site are live. You see what we measured and what comes next. From there, we keep measuring and adjusting.

Jonathan Engle standing in the red rock of the Utah desert

Assessment ratings

The assessment rates each part of your marketing clear, watch, or hazard, and shows you the evidence behind each rating.

Findability in searchWhere buyers look and don't find youHazard
Proof and credibilityWhat backs up your claimsWatch
Site healthSpeed, errors, and what breaks on a phoneClear
An example. Your assessment rates ten areas.

Results from roles I've held

From companies I've worked for and one I co-founded.

521% Growth in organic search impressions in one month Startup Science
10,000+ Subscribers, built with no paid marketing The Startup Stack
$430K Pipeline from 89 SAOs as the first sales hire, 90% of it outbound Everee
70 to 250+ Partners, including 90+ on revenue share The Startup Stack

How I work

Systems your team can run
I build systems and train your team to run them, so the work keeps going after I leave.
Worth more than it costs
I only take an engagement when I can see how I'll beat your status quo. If I can't, I'll say so on the first call.
AI does the grunt work
My agents handle the research, drafting, and data cleanup, so what you're paying me for is judgment.
Numbers you can see
You see what moved and what didn't. I don't hide the flat lines.
Everything written down
I document what I build as I build it, so your team can pick it up and run it.
A plan that moves with you
The roadmap is where we start. When your priorities change, we re-scope.

Who hires a fractional CMO

Startups that need a senior marketing lead before they can justify a full-time one. If two of these sound familiar, we should talk.

  • You're the founder, and you still write the marketing emails at midnight.
  • Marketing is running. Nobody can tell you what it's producing.
  • Your website looks fine, but nothing on it brings in leads.
  • Leads go into the CRM and don't come back out.
  • Whether a deal closes depends on who ran the call.
  • Your team uses AI, and everything it writes sounds like everyone else's.

Fractional or full-time CMO

Me, as your fractional CMOA full-time CMO
Schedule Part of the week, scoped to the work Every day
Cost A fixed-fee project, then a retainer A full executive salary
Getting started A free assessment, then a scoped agreement A search and a hiring process
Systems Arrives with three already built Depends on who you hire
Best when Marketing needs a leader before it needs a department There's a marketing team to manage every day

Three systems I bring

I'm also a GTM engineer: I build the machinery the strategy runs on. These three come with me, and you keep what they build for you.

A marketing diagnostic

Measures your marketing against your competitors and tells you what to fix first.

  • Scores your public marketing against your competitors.
  • Ranks what's costing you the most, then writes the fix list in order.
  • Tracks the metrics we agree on while we work together.
  • Runs again later, so you can watch your own numbers move.

A company brain for your AI

Your company, written down where your team's AI can read it.

  • Holds your positioning, offer, pricing, buyers, and voice in one place.
  • Plugs into whatever AI tools your team already uses.
  • Stays with your company when I leave.
AI implementation with Cadence

An outbound engine

Cold outbound, from building the list to scoring the replies.

  • Builds your target list from several data sources and cleans it as it goes.
  • Runs your cold email and LinkedIn outreach.
  • Scores the replies and moves the good ones into your pipeline.

The packages

A project runs once at a fixed fee. A retainer is a role, scoped and priced for what it covers.

Projects

Marketing foundations

The essential marketing infrastructure a business needs to operate credibly, built once at a fixed fee.

A company with nothing standing yet, before any retainer starts.

What's included
  • Competitive assessment
  • Marketing strategy
  • Brand interview
  • Brand guide
  • Messaging guide
  • Search strategy
  • One page built and tested against both guides
  • Custom-coded website
  • Hosting and workflow setup
  • Team training
Book a call →

Positioning and brand

The brand half of marketing foundations without the website, for a company whose site is fine but whose position and words aren't.

A company that doesn't need a rebuild but needs its story fixed.

What's included
  • Competitive analysis
  • Brand guide
  • Messaging guide
  • Differentiation assessment
  • Pricing and packaging strategy
  • Strategy stress-test
Book a call →

Inbound marketing acceleration

A lighter bundle for a company whose website doesn't need a rebuild but whose inbound pipeline has nothing feeding it.

A company whose site is fine but whose inbound pipeline has nothing feeding it.

What's included
  • Content architecture and SEO cluster
  • Lead magnet and landing page
  • Search strategy
  • Keyword research
Book a call →

AI implementation

Standing up AI-powered workflows and tools for a team that wants to work this way and doesn't know where to start.

A team adopting AI tools and workflows for the first time.

What's included
  • AI adoption audit and enablement kit
  • AI-ready knowledge base build
  • Custom internal tools
  • AI workflow training
Book a call →

Marketing diagnostic

The scored, cited marketing audit alone, the lowest-commitment entry point and the assessment every other package is scoped from.

Anyone who wants a factual read on where their marketing stands before committing further.

What's included
  • Marketing audit (scorecard)
Book a call →

Retainer roles

Fractional marketing leadership

The ongoing retainer role. Roadmap ownership, content and proof production, search and AI-visibility execution, brand and messaging maintenance, and reporting.

A company with a foundation already in place, or moving straight from marketing foundations.

What's included
  • Marketing roadmap
  • Case studies and customer proof
  • Lead magnets and sales collateral
  • Ongoing content marketing
  • Search execution
  • AI answer engine optimization (AEO/GEO)
  • Brand and messaging guide maintenance
  • AI-ready knowledge base
  • Marketing performance re-assessment
  • KPI dashboards and quarterly business reviews
Book a call →

Demand generation

Paid media, outbound, and creative intelligence for a company that has a foundation in place and needs pipeline.

A company with a foundation already in place that needs pipeline.

What's included
  • Paid media strategy and creative production
  • Autonomous paid media management
  • Ad creative intelligence
  • Cold email infrastructure and sequences
  • Cold call scripts and LinkedIn outbound
Book a call →

Revenue operations

CRM architecture, tracking, data hygiene, and lead routing for a company whose brand is fine but whose systems lose leads.

A company whose brand is fine but whose systems lose leads.

What's included
  • CRM integration and lead routing
  • Tracking and attribution
  • CRM data hygiene
Book a call →

Sales enablement

A sales playbook, case studies, cold call scripts, and CRM architecture for a company whose sales process depends on who's running the call.

A company whose sales process depends on who's running the call.

What's included
  • Sales playbook
  • Case studies and customer proof
  • Cold call scripts and LinkedIn outbound
  • CRM integration and lead routing
Book a call →

Every engagement is scoped to what it actually needs. Book a call and I'll tell you which of these fits, and what it costs.

Common questions

What does a fractional CMO do?

Leads your marketing part-time. I set the strategy, own the roadmap, and run the work or direct your team through it. I also build the systems underneath, like the CRM, the data, and the outbound. That's the GTM engineer half of the job.

When should a startup hire a fractional CMO?

When marketing needs a leader and you can't justify a full-time executive yet. Usually that's a founder still doing marketing on nights and weekends, or a team of doers with nobody setting direction.

Should I hire a fractional or a full-time CMO?

Full-time, once you have a marketing team to manage every day and the budget for an executive salary. Until then, fractional. I document everything, so a full-time hire inherits a working system rather than a blank page.

How is an engagement structured, and what does it cost?

Most start with a project at a fixed fee to get a big batch of work done, then move to a smaller retainer that runs the systems and supports your team. I'll tell you which fits and what it costs on our call.

Can I just buy the diagnostic?

The first one's free: I run it before every engagement. If a diagnostic is all you want, I have deeper versions we can scope on a call.

What do I own when we're done?

Everything I build for you. Depending on the engagement, that can include your company brain, brand and messaging guides, marketing and SEO strategy, website, and custom workflows. My own agents and processes stay mine.

What do you need from my team?

A company email, access to the tools the work touches, time for a few interviews and some training, and a regular meeting.

Why hire you over another fractional CMO?

I've interviewed dozens of fractional marketers and agencies over the last few years, and I built this to be what I couldn't find: someone who arrives with the systems already built, and whose work stays with your team when he goes.

Start with the free diagnostic

We talk while my agents dig into your business. Then I send you a marketing roadmap, free. You can run it yourself if you'd rather.

Book a call