One of the most common questions I’m asked before an engagement starts is: “What will actually happen in the first few months?” It’s a fair question. You’re bringing a senior leader into the business part-time, and you need to know the time will be well spent.
I’m Glyn Hurll, and every fractional CMO engagement I run starts with a 90-day plan. Here’s what it looks like, broken into the stages I use: diagnose, plan, lead and embed.
Weeks 1–2: Diagnose
The aim of the first fortnight is to understand the business properly before changing anything. That means:
- Stakeholder interviews with the CEO, leadership team, sales, product and finance, and often board members or investors.
- Customer insight. Talking to customers (and ideally lost prospects) to understand why people buy, and why they don’t.
- A review of the marketing engine: data, channels, tools, content, team, agencies and spend.
- A look at the numbers: pipeline, conversion rates, acquisition costs and how marketing reporting currently works.
By the end of week two, you should get an honest view of what’s working, what isn’t, and where the biggest opportunities lie. It’s often uncomfortable reading in places. That’s useful.
Weeks 3–4: Plan
With the diagnosis done, we agree a focused strategy and a 90-day plan. A good plan:
- Links marketing priorities directly to the business plan and revenue targets.
- Makes clear choices about audiences, propositions and channels, including what we’ll stop doing.
- Sets a small number of KPIs that the leadership team agrees on.
- Assigns budgets and owners.
- Identifies quick wins that can show progress early.
The plan gets agreed with the leadership team, not handed to them. Marketing strategy that the CEO and head of sales don’t believe in won’t survive contact with reality.
Weeks 5–12: Lead
This is where the work happens. As fractional CMO, I’m directing the team and agencies, running a regular cadence of reviews, and reporting progress to the leadership team and board. Typical activity in this phase includes:
- Tightening positioning and messaging so sales and marketing say the same thing.
- Fixing the basics: tracking, reporting, CRM hygiene and lead handover to sales.
- Launching or refocusing priority campaigns.
- Rebriefing or restructuring agency relationships.
- Coaching the in-house team and clarifying roles.
The reporting cadence matters as much as the activity. Weekly check-ins with the team, a monthly leadership review and a clear board update build trust that the plan is working, or flag early when it needs adjusting.
Ongoing: Embed
From around the end of the first quarter, attention starts shifting to making progress last. That means putting processes, playbooks and people in place so momentum continues whether or not I’m in the room. Depending on the business, this might involve hiring key roles, setting up a permanent reporting framework, or preparing the ground for a full-time marketing leader.
What you should expect by day 90
By the end of the first 90 days, you should have:
- A clear, agreed marketing strategy tied to commercial goals.
- A marketing team and agencies working to the same priorities.
- Reporting that shows marketing’s contribution in commercial terms.
- Early results from the quick wins, and a credible plan for the bigger ones.
- A view of what the marketing function needs next.
What you shouldn’t expect is a transformed business. Some results, particularly in B2B with long sales cycles, take longer than a quarter to show up in revenue. The first 90 days are about direction, foundations and momentum.
How to get the most from the first 90 days
- Give access early. Data, systems and people. The faster the diagnosis, the faster the plan.
- Make time for the leadership conversations. The plan is only as strong as the alignment behind it.
- Be open about the problems. A fractional CMO can only fix what they can see.
Next step
If you’d like to see what a 90-day plan could look like for your business, book an introductory call. Tell me where the business is today and where it needs to be.