yorCMO

10/21/2026

CEO, if marketing only moves when you review every draft, answer every question, and decide every priority, you are still the default marketing manager.

A strong strategy meeting can create clarity. But the plan often loses momentum once the week begins.

Sales needs support. Customer issues arise. Internal requests pile up. Without clear ownership, the decisions come back to you.

That is usually not a strategy problem. It is an operating problem.

Marketing needs a weekly cadence that establishes:

• A small number of active priorities
• Clear ownership for every next step
• Regular coaching and decision-making
• Visible reporting tied to growth
• Permission to reprioritize when conditions change

Your role is to set direction and make the decisions that truly require CEO involvement. Your marketing leader should turn that direction into action, manage the tradeoffs, and keep the work moving.

You should have visibility into marketing without having to manage it.

Our latest blog explains how a weekly operating cadence turns marketing from a collection of projects into a reliable business function.

Read the full article: https://yorcmo.com/why-marketing-stalls-after-the-strategy-meeting/

10/12/2026

Agencies are excellent at ex*****on. The problem is what happens when the people who build your strategy also sell your tactics.

Every recommendation that comes back is honest, well-argued, and points toward more scope. Not because anyone is cynical. Because that's the structure. A vendor whose revenue is tactics will produce a strategy that needs tactics, and they'll believe it while they're saying it.

Most CEOs we talk to in the $5M to $50M range have already run the loop. Hire the agency. Fire the agency. Try to hire one manager who is somehow both a strategist and a doer. Then default to doing it themselves at 10pm between everything else. Three options, all tried, none trusted.

The missing fourth option isn't better ex*****on. It's fiduciary marketing leadership in the room, someone whose only product is your judgment, who can brief an agency, grade the work, and say no to scope without losing anything. Ex*****on you can buy from a lot of places. Someone to own the decision, you can't.

Read more on our recent blog 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟯 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗱-𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗖𝗘𝗢𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 and
if you’re ready to connect your marketing to a clear set of outcomes, a 30-minute call with one of our Fractional CMOs is a practical place to start.

Read the blog here: https://yorcmo.com/agency-unicorn-or-yourself-three-marketing-options-mid-market-ceos-try/

10/09/2026

Your marketing may not be failing. It may be drifting.
Content is published. Ads are running. Events are sponsored. The team stays busy. But the pipeline is thinner than it should be, and no one can confidently connect the activity to revenue.

That is strategic marketing drift: the gradual shift from purposeful, goal-aligned marketing to activity that looks productive but does not move the business forward.

🔎 Ask four questions:
• Does your team have a specific, measurable marketing goal?
• Can you trace last quarter’s spending to business outcomes?
• Do you know why your best customers bought, in their own words?
• Are sales and marketing pursuing the same target?

If the answers are unclear, more activity will not solve the problem. You need visibility, alignment, and marketing leadership.

Our latest blog, “The $100K Leak,” explains how to audit your business for strategic drift and reconnect marketing investments to measurable growth.

Read the full article: https://yorcmo.com/auditing-your-business-for-strategic-marketing-drift/

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09/08/2026

Meet Kelley Carroll, a seasoned Fractional CMO, global marketing leader, and brand builder who helps businesses connect marketing strategy to measurable growth.

Kelley has led marketing and branding initiatives for iconic consumer brands at three major video game publishers, building go-to-market strategies, strategic partnerships, product launches, and omnichannel campaigns that move businesses forward.

If your marketing feels disconnected from your growth goals, it may be time for strategic leadership that brings clarity, alignment, and momentum.

Book a 30-minute intro call with Kelley: https://bit.ly/3UAW91v

09/03/2026

You know what your company sells. But do you know why your customers actually choose to buy it? The answer may not be exactly what your leadership team thinks.

Buyer interviews give businesses a direct look at what really drives purchasing decisions, from the problem that started the search to the concerns buyers had along the way and the factors that ultimately influenced their choice.

Those insights can help sharpen your messaging, improve lead quality, strengthen positioning, and create more relevant sales conversations.

Our latest blog explains how buyer interviews work and why they can be such a valuable input into B2B marketing strategy.

Read “Buyer Interviews: The Strategy Behind B2B Marketing” https://bit.ly/3UR1jX5

09/01/2026

What happens when you spend $500 on AI in one weekend? 🤖
You learn pretty quickly that using more powerful AI doesn’t necessarily mean using AI more intelligently.

Our owner and co-founder, Joseph Frost, recently shared that experience in Inc Magazine along with some important lessons for business leaders trying to integrate AI into their organizations.

His takeaway goes beyond controlling AI costs. The bigger opportunity is creating systems that help teams use AI purposefully.

That means knowing which tools to use for which tasks, automating routine follow-up and accountability, and using the information your organization already has to make leadership work more efficient.

The goal isn’t AI for AI’s sake.

It’s using AI to give leaders and their teams more time for the work that still requires human judgment, critical thinking, and experience.

Great insights from Joseph on what practical AI adoption can look like inside a growing company.

Read his latest article in Inc.: I Spent $500 on AI in One Weekend. Here’s What I’d Do Differently: https://bit.ly/3SKQ95F

Organizations can use AI more strategically to save time, reduce costs, automate routine work, and free leaders to focus on decisions.

08/26/2026

Are you investing in marketing, or simply paying for marketing activities?
There’s an important difference.

Businesses often spend money on social media, advertising, events, agencies, and other tactics without having a clear strategy connecting those activities to growth.

That’s when marketing starts to feel like an expense.

Marketing becomes an investment when there’s a clear goal, a plan, accountable leadership, and a way to measure what’s working and adjust what isn’t.

Discover how to approach the marketing budget and what “investment-grade marketing” actually looks like.

Read the full article: https://bit.ly/4y1OKqa (https://bit.ly/4y1OKqa)

08/14/2026

When a Fractional CMO visits a forklift telematics company for an all-day Foundation Session, sometimes “understanding the customer” gets very literal. 😄

Sonja O'Brien and Joseph Frost, MBA traveled onsite to work alongside the client, dig into the business, and get the full immersive experience.

And Sonja took it one step further: getting behind the wheel of a forklift for the first time and experiencing the product from the perspective of the company’s ideal customer.

Because great marketing leadership doesn’t happen from a distance. It starts with understanding the business, the customer, and the real-world experience behind the product.

Kudos to Sonja and Joseph for going all in.

That’s the yorCMO difference: we don’t just learn about our clients’ businesses. We get
inside them.

07/20/2026

A confident answer looks like a decision. It isn't one.

Ask AI what to do and it'll tell you. Fast, fluent, sure of itself. But it can't decide the things that actually run your marketing:

➡️ Who your ideal customer is.
➡️ What you stand for.
➡️What a good lead really looks like.

Those are judgment calls. Someone has to own them. Most growing companies never put anyone in that seat.

This isn't a marketing problem. It's a leadership gap. And it has a name: the empty CMO seat.

Who owns those decisions in your business?

Check out our newest blog here: https://bit.ly/4fL9M6c

07/08/2026

For years, marketing ex*****on was the expensive part: writing, designing, targeting, testing. That's the part AI just made almost free.

Here's the twist most owners miss. When ex*****on is cheap, output stops being the constraint. The scarce thing becomes judgment. The decision about who to target, what to say, and what a good lead actually looks like.

Most growing companies never built that seat. Tools and junior hands filled in. AI didn't create the gap. It exposed it.

Everyone can produce more marketing now. Almost no one has someone whose judgment is worth multiplying across it.

AI executes. Someone still has to decide. Who owns that call in your business?

Read the full piece here: https://bit.ly/4byUu1Q