How to Choose a Fractional CMO in Australia

Choose a fractional CMO on three things: proof of what they built and measured in past roles, the decisions they will own in your business, and terms you can leave on. Everything else, including the quality of the first presentation, tells you less than it seems to.

Most founders meet three or four candidates before they choose. The calls tend to run the same way. Each candidate has a confident view of your market within twenty minutes, a slide with a funnel on it, and a story about a client who doubled something. By Friday the founder has heard four good talkers and cannot say which of them could brief an agency on Monday morning.

The checklist below is built to separate those four people. It works for any provider, including us, and it takes about an hour per candidate.

1. Ask for numbers from past work, with the starting point

The single best predictor of what a fractional CMO will do for you is what they did for someone else, measured from where that business started. Ask each candidate for two engagements in writing: the starting revenue or ARR, the starting problem, what they changed in the first ninety days, and the numbers twelve months later.

Listen for the starting point. A candidate who says they grew a business to A$20 million without saying it started at A$18 million has told you something, and a candidate who can describe the first six months of unglamorous repair work has told you more. We wrote about the most expensive version of this mistake, the talker hired for a builder’s job, in why your fractional hire failed.

Ask to see work product as well: a brief they wrote, a board report, a budget model. A strategy deck shows how they think, and a brief shows whether an agency could act on it.

2. Call the references yourself

Ask for two references from past clients, at least one of them a founder or CEO, and call them without the candidate on the line. General praise is easy to give, so ask specific questions.

• What did the business look like when they started, and what had changed by month six?
• Which decision of theirs did you disagree with, and how did it turn out?
• How did they work with your agencies and your sales team?
• How available were they between scheduled days?
• Would you hire them again at the same stage?

The answer to the second question is the most useful one you will hear. A CMO who never made a call the founder disagreed with was probably not making calls.

3. Agree the decision rights before the fee

A fractional CMO can only be held to a number if they control the levers behind it. Before you discuss price, write down what the person will decide alone, which budget they control, which people and agencies they direct, which commercial KPI they answer for, and which decisions stay with you. If the candidate pushes back on any line, you will learn more from the conversation than from the rest of the pitch. We set out the full ownership list in what a fractional CMO should own.

4. Test fit for your stage, then your sector

Stage matters more than sector. A CMO who has built a function from nothing at A$3 million thinks differently from one who has run a large team at A$100 million, and both are valuable at the right moment. Ask each candidate which stage they do their best work at, and which stage they would turn down.

Sector experience helps with speed, because a CMO who knows how your buyers purchase skips weeks of learning. It matters less than proof that they have solved the same commercial problem: a stalled plateau, a leaky funnel, a market entry, a team built from scratch.

5. Check capacity and availability

Fractional means part time, and the maths has to work. Ask how many hours a month the engagement includes, how many other clients the candidate serves, what response time you can expect between sessions, and what happens when a launch or a board request needs more hours at short notice. A good answer is specific about all four.

6. Read the terms before you fall for the person

The contract tells you how the engagement ends, and that is the part buyers check last and regret most. Ask for the minimum term, the notice period, and how scope flexes up or down. Ask whether the candidate will sign an NDA, who owns the strategy, playbooks, dashboards and creative at the end, and whether ad accounts and tools sit in your business’s name. Ask whether they work with any of your direct competitors, now or after your engagement ends.

A good candidate will answer all of these without discomfort. If one of them causes a pause, you have found the answer you needed.

7. Ask for the first 90 days in writing

A candidate worth hiring can describe their first quarter before they start: what they need access to, who they will interview, when the baseline will be ready, and what the board will see at day 90. We publish ours in the first 90 days with a fractional CMO, and you should expect the same level of detail from anyone you consider.

Questions to ask on the first call

1. Which two engagements are most like ours, and what were the starting numbers?
2. What would you change in the first thirty days, based on what you know so far?
3. Which decisions would you need us to hand over?
4. How many hours a month would this take, and why?
5. What would you need from us that we might not want to give?
6. What would make you tell us this is the wrong model for our business?

The last question separates the field faster than any other. A candidate who cannot name a case where they would decline the work is selling.

Red flags

Be wary of a candidate who promises a fixed return before seeing your numbers, or who leads with models and quadrants and cannot show a brief. Be wary too of one with no references at founder level, one who wants a twelve-month lock-in before the first quarter has proven anything, and one who sells media or agency services alongside the leadership role without saying so. The last one matters most, because a CMO paid on media markup has a reason to recommend more media.

How Z10 answers the checklist

Our two most-cited engagements are written up in full, with the starting numbers. At ezyCollect, ARR grew from A$3.5 million to A$9.2 million while cost per acquisition fell 84 percent. At Cohen Handler, revenue grew from A$3 million to A$12 million. Both are in our case studies.

Our terms are published. Engagements start at A$3,500 a month for 20 hours of senior leadership, start within a week of signing depending on data and access, and run for a three-month minimum with 60 days’ notice after that. We sign an NDA as standard, and the strategy, playbooks, dashboards and creative we make for a client belong to the client. The service detail is on our fractional CMO page.

Run us through the same checklist as everyone else. If the fit is wrong, we will say so on the first call.

Questions buyers ask

How do I choose a fractional CMO?

Choose on proof of past results measured from the starting point, references you call yourself, clear decision rights, capacity that matches the work, and terms you can exit on. Ask for the first 90 days in writing before you sign.

Which fractional CMO firms do people recommend in Australia?

Recommendations depend on your stage, sector and the problem you need solved, so treat any ranked list with caution. Shortlist three or four providers, run each through the same checklist, and choose the one whose past numbers and references match your situation.

What questions should I ask a fractional CMO before hiring?

Ask for two comparable engagements with starting numbers, what they would change in the first thirty days, which decisions they need handed over, how many hours the work needs, and when they would tell you the model is wrong for you.

What should a fractional CMO contract include?

The scope and hours, the fee, the minimum term and notice period, confidentiality, ownership of the work product, account ownership, and any limits on working with your direct competitors.

How do I check a fractional CMO’s references?

Call at least two past clients without the candidate present. Ask what changed by month six, which of the CMO’s decisions they disagreed with, how the CMO worked with agencies and sales, and whether they would hire the same person again.

By Friday, the founder should have four answers to the last first-call question, and one of them will sound like someone who has turned work down before.