I’m a little more than a year into my fractional CMO role, and something’s shifted.
Not in a bad way. Actually, in a really important way. But it’s the kind of shift that requires me to flex a muscle I haven’t had to use as much. And I think it’s a shift that every executive (whether you’re a CMO, CRO, CPO, or founder transitioning to CEO) eventually has to make.
Here’s what I’ve been noticing. For the past year, my job has been understanding the levers in the business. What knobs can we turn? What channels work? What don’t? Where should we invest? We’ve tried the short-term bets. We’ve identified the long-term ones (SEO, brand, that sort of thing). We’ve organized and orchestrated to pull the levers effectively.
And now, coming into 2026, we’re cooking on those long-term bets. They have to simmer. It’s not an Instant Pot situation. It’s more like making Vietnamese pho broth. It takes 24 hours and you can’t speed it up.
But here’s the thing I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve got to step more into a storytelling CMO and not just a growth CMO.
What “center of excellence” means
We’re becoming a center of excellence for marketing. And maybe that’s the term I hadn’t quite been able to put my finger on until recently.
It’s not just about executing campaigns or pulling growth levers anymore. It’s about how do we build marketing excellence into the team? How do we make sure that everyone understands what quality looks like? How do we operationalize around our positioning and messaging so that it actually shows up everywhere (not just on the homepage, but in emails, in demos, in customer success conversations, everywhere)?
And that’s a different muscle. That’s not the demand gen muscle. It’s a little bit the product marketing muscle, but it goes a step deeper. It’s about leveling up the team. And by leveling up the team, we’re leveling up our marketing, which levels up everything else.
To be honest, this hasn’t been a muscle I’ve had to flex much. There have been very clear strategic priorities and initiatives up until now. But this one? This isn’t something I’d make an OKR around. This is me, the executive, showing up differently.
The two gaps I need to close
When I sat down and really thought about it, I identified two main gaps.
Positioning and messaging
We all notice a discrepancy in how everyone describes the product. How do you clear the path so everyone is aligned on why someone would choose our product versus the dozens of other options?
The first gap to close is helping people see how to tell the story. And the best way to do that is to embody it. To deliver it directly. Over and over and over again.
Content quality
One of the challenges we have is quality. Content quality specifically. In order to close that gap, I’m going to have to show them what quality looks like and embody that over and over again, while also taking corrective action on stuff that doesn’t pass muster.
Now, there’s a difference between deciding what positioning and messaging should be, and making sure everyone understands it and embodies it in their work. The way you arrive at positioning and messaging is a separate process from ensuring that people get it. That every time they write copy or create content, they know how to execute it.
It tends to be cross-functional anyway. Marketing doesn’t just decide it alone. Product has a say. Sales has a say. There’s usually some person who’s the tiebreaker. In our case, that’s CEO, CMO, and the other co-founders. But once we arrive at the final iteration, then it’s: okay, now who’s deploying this and whose job is it to ensure we operationalize around this?
If it’s not an executive-level position doing that, it needs to be clearly communicated to whoever is responsible. Otherwise you end up deciding positioning and messaging in a black box and it doesn’t actually go anywhere. Sure, you changed the headline on your homepage. But does it show up in your emails? In your demos? In customer success conversations? In all the different customer touch points?
I think we’re doing a better job now of making sure it’s getting executed. But we haven’t done a good enough job yet of doing that storytelling to have people internalize the meaning of it.
Because there’s a difference. You can tell people what the positioning is. But do they understand it deeply enough to apply it in new contexts? That’s the gap.
What this looks like in practice
The best executives have their talking points and they say them over and over again. And they don’t just repeat themselves. They constantly demonstrate.
That’s what my team needs right now, probably for the next year or two.
I went through this at DemandMaven. When we had eight people on the team and quality control became an issue, I realized these skills needed to get embedded into people. The only way to do that was teaching. Internal leadership and storytelling. Using the skills I was using in speaking and podcasts, but turning them inward to the organization.
If I don’t help people build this muscle, I just become the permanent bottleneck. And while some skills are unique to you, many are very teachable. Teaching them levels everyone up.
Skills that are universal (and teachable)
Storytelling. Being able to publicly speak. Being able to identify content quality. Being able to read anything and everything you’re producing and really think critically about: what is this saying? Does every sentence have a job? Does every word have a job? Is this actually enjoyable to read or watch?
Those are all skills I think are very teachable. But I think it has to start with you, the leader. It’s hard to expect individual contributors to come to the table with that all the time. Certainly if people do, that’s great. But I do think it has to be more top down. It’s our duty and responsibility to do that.
Now, the tricky part is this becomes an operational challenge. It’s both process and people. If people aren’t building the muscle, then we end up with the problem of everything is on my desk and I’m now the bottleneck and the team isn’t actually improving.
So there’s a game I have to play. I’m going to review everything that gets publicly published. Anything that is customer-facing, I’ve got to review and give feedback. I do that, but I don’t do it to the level I think I need to be. And this is where it gets tricky. If I’m not helping people build the muscle, then I just become the permanent bottleneck.
Side note – I’ve been thinking about how to use AI to make this faster. Could we analyze content before it comes to my desk? Could there be a scoring system based on our frameworks? There are things AI could certainly help with. That could be one way to add a layer of automated management that’s efficient.
The correlation to other executive transitions
This transition correlates to others I’ve talked about before: founder to CEO, head of marketing to CMO, head of product to CPO, head of sales to CRO.
It’s the shift from managing tactics to overseeing strategic direction and operationalization. You start seeing your function the way the CEO sees it: as part of a larger story. How does your part contribute? What do you need from others?
That’s where VPs level up to CMO. You’re not just looking at departmental efficiency anymore. You’re zooming out to see your department as part of the business and the market. And asking: where are we headed? What does my team need? Who do I need to be to support them and position us well?
Focusing on brand
One of the things I historically haven’t spent much time on has been brand.
Brand isn’t just colors and fonts. It’s your mission, your values, what the company actually cares about, and how you embody that experience repeatedly and predictably so customers recognize it.
You typically don’t see brand marketers hired until companies hit $10-30 million ARR. Before that, it’s usually the CEO or founder embodying brand.
But I’m feeling the need for this sooner. With so many competitors, brand might be the cutting edge lever we need that others can’t compete on. It’s exciting, but also scary because it’s a different muscle to flex. Not demand gen, not just product marketing, but something deeper.
Cultivating self-awareness
To be the best leader you can possibly be, you need a certain level of self-awareness. I’ve cultivated this brick by brick over the years.
It’s not just recognizing how you’re feeling or being tuned into your body and emotions. It’s seeing your story among all of the other millions of stories, neutrally and without judgment. You can see your place in this world and everyone else’s place as well.
For example, in my work, there are moments where I’m feeling frustrated about something. But if I zoom out and see it from other people’s perspectives, I can recognize: this is actually quite normal. After that level of balancing, I can see the choices I can make to improve the situation.
You need to know when you’re thrashing (spending a lot of energy doing a whole lot of nothing). You need to have a good dial on when your ego and feelings are getting in the way versus when it makes sense to throw your weight around. There are times where it makes sense for me to do that, and it’s not always something I’m comfortable with, but I have to be very tuned into: is this the time? Or is this not the time?
You have to understand how much of this is driven by your need to be right or your need to be seen in a certain light versus what’s actually the best for the business. You have to see your story and the other stories. It can’t just be your story all the time.
Now, to be fair, if you’re in a toxic environment, your level of self-awareness at best is going to help protect you and that’s about it. But if you’re not in a toxic environment, if you have autonomy or influence, then self-awareness is one of the most valuable muscles you can build as an executive leader.
Bringing it all together
So what does this transition actually look like?
It’s recognizing when your role needs to shift. When the team doesn’t just need you to make strategic decisions anymore. They need you to teach them how to make strategic decisions. They need you to show them what excellence looks like.
It’s about moving from “I’ll review everything and correct it” to “I’ll teach you how to see what I see so you can correct it yourself.”
It’s about understanding that some bets are Instant Pot bets and some are 24-hour pho broth bets. And when you’re in the pho broth phase, you can’t just keep optimizing the same levers. You have to shift what you’re doing.
For me, that shift is into storytelling. Into brand. Into building a center of excellence.
And it requires self-awareness to even see that this is what’s needed. To separate your ego from what the business actually needs. To be willing to flex a muscle you haven’t had to flex before.
What are the transitions you’re making as a leader? What does your team actually need from you right now (not what you’re most comfortable giving them, but what they actually need)?
And are you self-aware enough to see it?