by Mark McClanahan
Years ago, when I was in the process of hiring a new controller for our company, I was dead set on hiring someone who could fulfill the role of a CFO and a controller in the single position. After multiple interviews with candidates, I reluctantly accepted that my vision of this combined role was not going to be realized. Often in small business, we try to have people wear multiple hats to meet the needs of the growing organization, such as our need for higher financial acumen.
When I was discussing this with a mentor of mine, he persuaded me to meet our needs by hiring a part-time CFO in addition to the full-time controller. At that point I had never heard of this, but nonetheless, it was a perfect solution. After five-plus years of using a fractional CFO, our company has developed a strong financial foundation with many levels of expertise being applied as needed.
In the wake of this successful experience, our company recently uncovered demand to expand our marketing capabilities using fractional services.
Though we have a solid marketing team in place, we lack the capacity to focus solely on high-level brand development and direction.
So now what? There are two roads to travel. The first and obvious one is to use an advertising agency. The second one is to hire a part-time chief marketing officer (CMO). Both roads have their pluses and minuses.
The ad agency choice allows for you to have a deep bench of professionals behind you, with the downside being layers of costs and lack of speed. The fractional CMO approach allows for a single accountable person who can be embedded in your team, with the downside being lack of direct resources. We haven’t made a choice, yet. However, the ability to augment your team through outside sources is an excellent option for small businesses.
Mark McClanahan (mmcclanahan@callmosb.com or 314.909.1800) is the president at Mosby Building Arts.
Submitted 7 years 4 days ago