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CMO Field Notes with Ant Hodges

CMO Field Notes with Ant Hodges

By: Ant Hodges
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 Field notes and insights from a Fractional CMO in the modern marketing world.

www.cmofieldnotes.comAnt Hodges
Episodes
  • Ep 10 - The Right Time to Hire a Fractional CMO

    Ep 10 - The Right Time to Hire a Fractional CMO
    Apr 17 2026
    My name is Ant Hodges. I’m a fractional CMO. I work with clients anywhere between $1m and $50m a year, under 100 employees, and they’re looking for someone to come in and take away the de facto marketing role that the CEO and founder has ended up doing. I take that away from them and bring in real marketing leadership.Fractional CMO work is one of the things I absolutely love, because it’s about connecting marketing activity to revenue. And it has to be that way round.It’s not about spending the first 90 days on vision, mission, values, messaging, branding, and positioning. That’s not what a fractional CMO should be doing. A fractional CMO comes in and connects revenue to activity. From day one.The right time to hire a fractional CMO is when you as the CEO and founder are running ragged. Every marketing person in your business is coming to you for answers. You’re the one who has to come up with the ideas. You’re stuck in that 11am Monday marketing meeting every week - and you need to get out.Because your job is to lead and steer the whole company. Not run the marketing.There’s a number showing up in several pieces of research that I think is worth explaining. The argument is that the point at which hiring a full-time CMO makes more economic sense than a fractional engagement is around $25 to $30 million in annual revenue.Below that, the maths are almost always different for fractional. A full-time CMO in 2026 is carrying a base salary of between $245,000 and $500,000, plus benefits, plus equity, plus recruitment costs, plus the six months it typically takes before they’re producing at full capacity. A fractional engagement at the same strategic level runs at a fraction of that - and it should start delivering in weeks, not months.Above $30 million, the business usually needs a dedicated full-time leader. I do work with clients up to $50m, but at that stage I’m often there to provide leadership while they bring the full-time person on board. The decisions are too frequent, the team too large, and the function too complex for a part-time engagement to carry it properly.But the number itself is less interesting than what it implies. A business between $1m and $25m that doesn’t have a marketing leader of any kind - where the founder is still doing it, or someone on the team has been given the title without the authority or the experience - that’s a real problem.I worked with a family business last year doing around $8 million. The wife of the founder had been given the CMO title because she had a marketing degree. I was brought in as a fractional CMO because she needed pointing in the right direction. No disrespect to her - she was the first to admit it. But it’s a typical story. You’ve got a solid business, a solid offer, you want to grow and scale it - and the de facto marketing person is well-meaning but not equipped to lead from that level of experience.Marketing should run without the direction of the CEO and founder. It should run with clarity, with reports that produce real accountability, and a team that knows where it’s going because it’s being led properly.The business should grow in spite of the CEO and founder not being involved in the marketing. That’s the goal.The fractional model exists to solve a specific problem. The business has reached the point where founder-led marketing is no longer enough, but a full-time executive is either too expensive or too much of a commitment given where the business is currently at. That gap - between doing it yourself and hiring full-time - is where the model earns its value.The mistake I see most businesses make is waiting too long to fill it. They wait until the marketing is visibly broken. Until campaigns aren’t converting. Until the team is wandering from AI tool to AI tool without direction. Until the founder is exhausted from carrying both the business and the marketing function at the same time. By that point, the cost of the gap is already significant.The better question to ask isn’t whether you can afford senior marketing leadership.The better question is: what is the absence of it already costing you?For most businesses between $1m and $25m, that number is greater than the cost of the engagement.And that sweet spot around $25m is also where the fractional role starts to look different - where it shifts from ongoing leadership to helping you bring a full-time person in properly. Some fractional CMOs will have my guts for saying that. But the reality is, if you’re still hanging around as a fractional at $30m, $40m, $50m without moving toward a full-timer, you’re doing the business a disservice. They need someone in full-time at that stage.If you’re between $1m and $25m, or even up to $50m and in transition - let’s have a conversation. We can have a short chat to see where the gap is and how a fractional role could help. Head over to www.anthodges.com, hit the chat button, or book a call.Let’s start ...
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    8 mins
  • Ep 9 - Will AI Replace the Fractional CMO?

    Ep 9 - Will AI Replace the Fractional CMO?
    Apr 15 2026

    There’s a conversation running through almost every forum, comment section, and LinkedIn thread I see. I hear it at events and on stages. It goes something like this: AI is getting better and faster - so why would any business pay for a senior marketing leader when they can get the same input from a tool?

    It’s a fair question. But I think it’s the wrong question.

    And most of the answers being given are defensive. Lists of things AI can’t do. Arguments about human creativity. Reasons why the role is safe. That defensiveness is very telling. Why would you get so defensive about something if you weren’t a little worried yourself?

    AI won’t replace judgment. That’s the one thing it can’t do. It amplifies whatever is already present.

    In a business with a clear strategy, a well-understood customer, strong offers, and a team that knows what it’s doing - AI is genuinely powerful. It accelerates execution. It reduces friction. It produces more output.

    But in a business without those things? AI produces far more noise, far faster.

    I’ve been watching this play out in real time inside businesses I work with. Teams are adopting AI tools enthusiastically. Output is going up. In some of those businesses, results are moving with it. In others, they’re not.

    What’s happening in the ones that aren’t moving? Everyone’s getting lost in the activity - doing things, making movement - without building momentum. We don’t need movement and action. We need momentum and results.

    That’s the real mistake in the ‘AI versus marketing leader’ framing. The right question is whether AI running on top of good strategic leadership produces better outcomes than AI running without it. The answer is consistently yes.

    Harvard Business Review published research this year on where senior leaders are struggling with AI adoption. The core finding was that the problem isn’t the tools - it’s the clarity gaps underneath them. When leadership hasn’t made hard decisions about positioning, offers, audiences, and priorities, AI surfaces those gaps rather than filling them.

    It’s like boiling a pan - all the imperfections come to the surface. That’s what AI is doing. You end up with sophisticated output that doesn’t convert, because the strategy it’s executing was never clear to begin with.

    What AI is genuinely replacing is the execution layer. The tactical work. Content at scale, campaign variations, data analysis, reporting, automation. A lot of what junior marketing teams spent their time on is now being automated. And that’s fine.

    What it isn’t replacing is the decision-making layer. What to say, who to say it to, where to prioritise, what to stop, how to read a market that’s shifting. That layer still requires someone with experience and accountability.

    You can’t build a house on sand. Build AI on weak foundations, and when the storms come, it washes away.

    The fractional CMOs who should be worried are the ones operating at the execution layer anyway - the ones calling themselves CMOs while doing the work of a marketing manager. Those carrying genuine strategic authority? AI isn’t a threat. It’s about to become the best productivity tool the role has ever had.

    So to answer the question at the top: will AI replace the fractional CMO? In some cases, yes - it will weed out those who aren’t actually performing at a true CMO level. Those who are connecting marketing activity to revenue, doing the real leadership work, they’re going to win. AI will amplify what they’re doing and make it even better.

    Everything I do as a fractional CMO starts with simplification. We start with a Simplify Day before any retainer. Then 90-day sprints over 12 months. We get into work straight away - subtracting, focusing, simplifying - to bring revenue in as quickly as possible. No pink fluffy dice. No crayons in the first 90 days. Just revenue.

    Head over to www.anthodges.com if you want a conversation. There’s a chat button or you can book a call. Wherever you’re listening to this - subscribe, comment, let me know what you think. Three of these a week. Short, bite-sized, straight to the point.

    I’m Ant Hodges. Let’s simplify.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.cmofieldnotes.com
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    9 mins
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