Somewhere between “the office manager posts on Facebook” and “we have a VP of Marketing with a team of six” is the stretch where most owner-led businesses get stuck. Marketing needs a leader. Payroll can’t justify a $150,000 one. That gap is why fractional marketing leadership exists, and it is worth understanding exactly what you are choosing between.
The full-time hire
A marketing director in Colorado runs roughly $110,000 to $160,000 in salary, plus benefits, plus three to six months to recruit and ramp. In exchange you get someone in the building forty hours a week, fully accountable, fully yours. If your marketing genuinely needs forty hours a week of senior leadership, this is the right answer and no fractional arrangement will replace it.
The fractional CMO or marketing director
A senior marketer on retainer, typically 20 to 40 hours a month, who owns strategy, budget, vendor management, and reporting to ownership. Starts the week you sign. Costs a third to half of the full-time equivalent. Scales up or down with the business. The catch: you are sharing that person with other clients, and the quality depends entirely on how many.
The question that decides it
How many hours of senior marketing leadership does your business need each month? Not execution hours; leadership hours. Setting direction, choosing what to fund, holding vendors accountable, reading the numbers. For most businesses between $1 million and $10 million in revenue, the honest answer is 20 to 40 hours. Paying for 160 is how companies end up with an expensive director who spends most of the week doing coordinator work.
When fractional is wrong
- You need someone managing an in-house marketing team daily.
- Your marketing spend exceeds roughly $50,000 a month and requires constant senior attention.
- You want a career path for the role, not an outcome for the business.
When fractional is right
- You have an agency and nobody internal to hold it accountable.
- Marketing decisions are being made by whoever is least busy that week.
- You are between $1 million and $10 million in revenue and growing.
Master of One offers fractional marketing leadership at a published rate, with hands-on execution included. If your business is past the point where fractional makes sense, that is a good problem, and we will tell you.