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Marketing Trends
Breaking Down Silos: The Role of Fractional CMOs in Modern Organizations
00:52:47
Tired of marketing strategies that don’t deliver results? On this episode, we reveal the three key strategies that fractional CMOs like Jadis Tillery use to drive growth in private equity-backed companies. Jadis, the Fractional Chief Digital Officer at ikwe, has worked with over 125 private equity and venture capital-backed companies, transforming their marketing strategies and driving growth. She shares real-world examples of how her approach has led to significant results and she and Jeremy discuss how to align your marketing efforts with business objectives and take actionable steps toward success.
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- [00:00]
Jadi Tillery
Fractional is such a buzzword and so many people are using it.
- [00:03]
Jeremy Bergeron
It's a new word for freelance. You're just a freelancer.
- [00:05]
Jadi Tillery
I'm like, well, actually fractional CMO is not the same as a marketing freelancer. A lot of freelancers will call themselves fractionals because they want to be working with a number of clients and have a bit of a portfolio. But the distinction is that I'm coming in as a senior level executive. I have 25 years under my belt. I am able to have conversations at a board level with an investor to a CEO. I am able to get cuts into key decision makers. Whereas a freelancer may be working on a project and coming in for a finite period of time. That's where we have some commonality. But they aren't people who can move the needle in a strategic way to grow or scale or transform a business.
- [00:50]
Jeremy Bergeron
It's about the perspective and the experience you're bringing to the table. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Marketing Trends. This is your host, Jeremy Bergeron, back in the studio, really excited and energized about this conversation. This is one that's personally interesting to me. It's professionally interesting to me for many reasons and I want to get right into it because we don't have a lot of time and Hillary always tells me, jeremy, the time is up. It's time to wrap it up. So we want to just jump in. Today on Marketing Trends, we're joined by the esteemed Jadi Tillery. Jade is a. She's many things, but one of the, one of the cool things she is, is a trailblazer in the world of fractional marketing and fractional executive marketing. She's redefining how brands connect with their audiences. She's zigging and zagging in really interesting ways. Check this out. She's worked with over 100 private equity and venture capital backed companies. So let's just say Jade will have some things to say. Jade, welcome to the show.
- [02:02]
Jadi Tillery
Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, I've got a lot to say.
- [02:05]
Jeremy Bergeron
I'm so, so excited. Like what? I, I believe you got to correct me because I know our prep conversation was a while back, but I did. I think I found you on LinkedIn. Was that how this, this conversation came about?
- [02:16]
Jadi Tillery
Pretty sure. Pretty sure. That's how I came about.
- [02:18]
Jeremy Bergeron
So fantastic. Okay, so you have a really cool track record. You've done some really interesting things and I think you're very, you're, you're uniquely positioned in this world of like fractional Chief Marketing Officer. There's a lot of interesting fractional cmo, cto, CRO. It's a big hot topic and you've been, I feel like you've been at it for a little while, which is fantastic. Before we get into kind of specifics, I want to get your opinion on just like across the PE and VC backed companies that you've worked with, the landscape of PE and VC backed companies, what trends are you noticing? What are you seeing, especially regarding their growth strategies?
- [03:02]
Jadi Tillery
So yes, I've got a lot of background and context to sort of bring to that question. I have worked with over 100, I think it's about 125 organizations at this stage. PE backed organizations. So what am I seeing at the moment in the marketplace? It's more challenging circumstances. We all know that the landscape is more challenging for businesses, for customers, you know, just across the board. And what I am finding is that I'm speaking to organizations, whether that's companies looking to fundraise or PE and VC funds themselves at much earlier stages. So before I was talking to people kind of at series A plus. So what does series A mean? Typically it means a maturity level of a company or a level of fundraise that they're going for. My last fundraise not to wow anyone was 100 million pounds. So that is typically the companies that I sort of tend to work with. But what I'm being called to do a lot now is to get involved much earlier. So I've been mentoring pre seeds and scale ups at an earlier stage because they know how competitive the landscape is and they want to have a solid foundation in place for them to be able to scale and grow when they get the investment or when, you know, market dynamics shift in their favor. So the thing that I'm seeing is being called in a lot earlier stage businesses than I normally would be.
- [04:28]
Jeremy Bergeron
Wow. Are there specific kind of sectors that you gravitate towards? I mean 120 plus, you know, businesses. That's incredible. It's got to shape your perspective and I'm assuming it's been kind of a wide range. Is it still pretty broad? Like you're not really specific or like are you just agnostic to. It doesn't matter the kind of business, like you've got your tool belt, you're going to go in and support them. Who are you kind of working with these days in terms of like sectors or categories?
- [04:53]
Jadi Tillery
That's exactly it. I'm totally sector agnostic. I think just where I am in my career now 25 years deep into marketing, 10 years within the private equity space. I'm curious about answering, answering questions and solving problems. So I'm sector agnostic, but highly situationally specific. And what I mean by that is I'm typically coming into an organization on behalf of a fund that is perhaps 18 months post investment and things haven't worked out, they haven't achieved the growth plan or the sort of investment thesis that they were expecting post investment. And so I'm being brought in to very quickly get the train back on the tracks. So doing sort of a deep dive diagnostic and radical transformation. The other side of it is looking at companies that are seeking investments is really helping them get ready to have those conversations with investors. Because there's a lot of conversations. Like it is not an easy or direct path to receiving investment. You're going to have a lot of conversations. So it's really getting them prepped and primed for not only the conversations, but once they receive the investment, really being able to action, you know, everything that they have in their growth strategy.
- [06:05]
Jeremy Bergeron
I love that. So, so it sounds like you could really bring value before they get investment, after they get investment, like you can support. It's a very interesting, like, you know, part of the journey for a brand, right? It's like they're gearing up to either receive some funding or they've already been, they've already, you know, capital's been deployed and okay, here you come to, you know, ensure that it's going to move in the right direction. You've, you've really embraced the role of, you know, fractional cmo, right? I mean, this is incredible. Why, why did you choose that path? Right? Because obviously you can. There's lots of companies and brands you could just go work for and be a CMO and make lots of money and do all the things. You chose this path. Why and how has that impacted your approach, you know, to marketing and business strategy, if at all?
- [06:51]
Jadi Tillery
So in my career, which you so eloquently put, having zigged and zagged many times, I've worked both agency and client side. I've started two agencies. I've worked in a startup, I've worked, you know, within a fund. I actually spent four years working within a private equity fund looking after their portfolio. So for me, I'm really purposeful in that I want to work with the organizations that I want to work with and I don't want to be hemmed in. And I think you just get to a stage in your career where you want to follow your passion. And you don't necessarily want to be beholden to a particular, you know, single client. And so I very consciously created sort of a portfolio approach. I first termed myself as a consultant, but that term has evolved to being very much fractional. And I really want to make the distinction because fractional is such a buzzword and so many people are using it. It's more established in other areas. Like fractional. CTO has been sort of a very established practice for a long time. But a fractional CMO is something that's a little bit new. And I want to make the distinction for everyone that, that a fractional CMO is not the same as a marketing freelancer. Okay. So a lot of freelancers will call themselves fractionals because they want to be working with a number of clients and have a bit of a portfolio. But the distinction is that I'm coming in as a senior level executive. I have 25 years under my belt. I am able to have conversations at a board level with an investor to a CEO. I am able to get shortcuts into key decision makers, whereas a freelancer may be working on a project and coming in for a finite period of time. That's where we have some commonality. But they aren't people who can move the needle in a strategic way to grow or scale or transform a business.
- [08:42]
Jeremy Bergeron
I love that. I was going to ask about that as well because I feel like some people are thinking, oh, yeah, it's just a new, it's a new word for freelance. You're just a freelancer. I'm like, well, actually there's a much deeper dive. And you nailed it. And what I'm finding as well is that it's about the perspective, the experience you're bringing to the table. You know, someone that can come in and, you know, kick up a marketing campaign, yes, valuable, but someone that can come in and be a liaison between the board and the CEO and the ELT and like, and be able to position the team to win. I mean, that's, that's a skill that again, comes with, you know, experience. And it's been pressure tested in that kind of same vein. You know, I interview a ton of Fortune 1000 CMOs and you know, you know, none of them are PE. You know, these aren't, these aren't private equity companies. Right. These are companies that are kind of standing alone, doing their thing. And, and I'm curious what your experience and perspective is around the expectation of, you know, the results that you're driving in in the world that you're in, right? Cause you're, you know, a lot of times I'm hearing that these, you know, PE backed companies and VC backed companies, like they, they don't necessarily care about brand as much. Necessarily, right. Like how do you go in? And just one, what do they care about? What do you notice when you look at like a big fortune, you know, 100 brand versus a PE back brand? Is it the same or the. Are the stakes as high or do you feel like you're stepping into a world where it's, it's much more cut and dry and it's much more like, why aren't we growing? We gotta be growing. How do you, you know, balance that and what's been your experience there?
- [10:15]
Jadi Tillery
I think there's definitely a different pressure and timeline because, you know, obviously an investor is looking for an exit after a certain period of time, right. So there is an additional time pressure that I don't think you, while you might be going through a transformation or a growth journey within sort of a Fortune 1000 company, you don't have the added pressure of time apart from, you know, what your CEO or your board sets. Well, this is the investor and they want to get their money out at the end of the day with the return. Right. So there is the added pressure with that. And the difference that I found working in that space. Space is. Okay, listen, I thought I was pretty good at marketing. I have two global firsts under my belt in the, you know, the meta universe. I've held events for 65,000 people. I've spoken at industry events. Like, I thought I was pretty, pretty special. I thought marketing was it and I knew it. And then I got in a room full of people who actually don't really care about marketing and just see it as a cost center. They don't care about it, they don't understand it unless it is doing something for the business in a really concrete way. And I would come to CFOs and I would come to investors and I'd be reviewing annual, you know, budgets or wanting to pilot something. And it was like we were literally speaking different languages. Like we as marketers are so insular and siloed and we are so in love and attached to our jargon that we have that we forget about the language of business. And fundamentally our function within an organization is to support business needs, whether that's growth or whether that's revenue. And we forget that and we get so over enamored with, you know, our little pieces of the puzz. It is Only a piece of the puzzle, and you need to be aware of the full picture. And so that is the thing that was painful. So painful for me to understand was that we were literally speaking a different language. And now the language that I speak is the language of business, and I'm solely focused on business when I'm putting together marketing strategies or recommendations.
- [12:11]
Jeremy Bergeron
If you're so, like, let's say that we're. Let's, you know, click into, let's say, a company that's maybe already had funding and they're, you know, they're. They're moving forward, but, you know, you're being called in, so you're parachuting, fix things, turn things around. How do you, like, kind of take us under the hood of, like, how you go into an organization with its own culture, its own leadership? You know, it's. They have their own opinions. And then here comes Jadi with her, you know, walking quietly and carrying a very big stick, you know, behind her. But how do you go in there? And you have a ton of experience, but you also. You've got to come in there and make changes. And also, you said earlier, look, the timelines are tight, the pressure's tight. This is real money. These are real returns. And yet you're also coming into someone's house, so to speak, right? And you're like, hey, hi. I'm here to really kind of, you know, shift some things around lovingly, but also directly, how do you go about doing that in a way that's, you know, elegant, but also respectful, but also, like, keeping in mind what's important for the stakeholders and those that are bringing you in? I imagine there's gotta be some. The word might be creative contention, right? Where you come in, you're like, hey, it's A. And they're like, no, Jadee, it's B. You know, how do you go? How do you navigate that?
- [13:22]
Jadi Tillery
I love the visual of me, like, tiptoeing in with a big stick behind my back. I promise, that is not me. Maybe a little bit. Not really. I think for me, how I approach it is really, you know, I sort of position myself as, like, in the duolingo of marketing and business because I am gently sort of guiding and testing and proking and prodding to see the state of play and the knowledge and the level and skill set within an organization's marketing team. And then, you know, being that bridge between the investor or the board or the CEO, a lot of times, you know, feels disconnected from their marketing team. But I am a marketer Like I'm a marketer first and foremost. I believe in the power of marketing. I've been doing this for such a long time. I wouldn't believe, you know, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe it. So what I really do is I delve very deeply and okay, it's a bit of a cheat cause I also do due diligence. So I literally analyze businesses prior to investment so that the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. But I go in and I look at the operations, the processes, the reporting, the personnel. I have a lot of, you know, data that I will analyze. For sure that's important because data is objective and missing data is also a big indicator of where things might need additional support and scrutiny. But I also do a lot of one to one conversations with both the marketing team, but also broadening out. Like I want to speak to the sales team, I want to speak to the customer success or customer support or customer service team. It's really important that we understand that at the end of the day what we're doing is really fundamental. We are trying to sell a product or service to a person and everyone forgets about the person in the complex, you know, campaign building and strategizing of how to reach that person. And it's really important for me to take that 10,000 foot view, pull in as many sort of data points, whether that's qualitative or quantitative. And you'd be surprised when I have these one to one conversations with people in the marketing team. It may even be fellow CMOs. There is a little bit of hesitation because it's an outside party scrutinizing what they're doing. But a lot of times they're just really grateful for a sounding board and someone who speaks on their level and their able to voice frustrations that maybe they weren't able to voice previously. Because I get it and I understand and that is really eye openening and powerful for the companies that I'm going in to support having those conversations. And then it just brings insight and a clearer picture to the people who have invested or the CEO, you know, themselves so that we can get the house in order, get the, the people and the operations and the report reporting streamlined and efficient so that we're ready and confident to move forward.
- [16:20]
Jeremy Bergeron
So some. So sometimes you'll co, you'll come in and just be like an advisor, support for an existing cmo, sometimes you'll come in and actually take over that role. Is that kind of how it works.
- [16:31]
Jadi Tillery
That is how it works. Quite often I find that a little bit more when perhaps it's an earlier stage business or a business that's looking to take on that next level. So they have a CMO or CEO rather, that's kind of doing it all. And they maybe have a junior marketing team, but they haven't committed to that senior marketing hire. Or they're taking a hybrid approach, which I absolutely advocate me and Harvard Business Review will advocate for, you know, a partnership between internal and external teams. So they have agencies that are no longer delivering the results or that it becomes sort of a strained and a fractured relationship. I fundamentally challenge the agency model. Having built two and worked within them. I think there is a lot of, you know, space for improvement and something needs to shift in the agency landscape. So that is definitely something that I help CEOs navigate is how to get, you know, more out of or even replace, you know, agencies that are in place already.
- [17:31]
Jeremy Bergeron
Okay, well, you mentioned Harvard Business Review shout out hbr because we, we had John Korpix come on. It actually was the show that got released, I think this week. We had their executive creative director come on. And, and they're phenomenal, by the way. There's just an incredible, incredible team. And I'm working on connecting with Nini, who is their, like, head of direct, Direct consumer, direct marketing as well. I mean, they're just phenomenal. So I want to talk to kind of both kind of businesses. Pre funding and post funding. Let's take, let's take, let's take post funding first. Same question for both of them. But for, you know, companies that have, you know, received, received funding, what are some of the common pitfalls that you see these companies falling into after receiving private equity or vent your capital funding?
- [18:17]
Jadi Tillery
So I see them just pumping more money into existing strategies. Like, it's just like the faucet has been turned on. What was a drip is now a steady stream. But fundamentally the system wasn't, you know, built to grow or there was flaws in the system. So putting more into it doesn't mean you're going to get more results. In fact, you're going to have more wastage. So that's a really important thing. It may be that the company sort of pitched a strategy and an approach to, you know, in order to get the funding that isn't fit for purpose anymore. The marketplace has evolved or, you know, they don't necessarily have the right people in place. And so that is another area that is, is a big area of focus and interestingly a lot of what I do is breaking down silos within organizations. So I don't know why it is that when we get the money, all of a sudden this is my big pot. And I'm so focused on my big pot of money and what I need to do with that that I forget that they're. You know, at the end of the day, I said it. There's a single customer that's going on a journey with your organization, whether that's B2B, D2C or B2B to D2C. Like, it is one customer journey, and people lose sight of that. And that's. Then when we have issues of inefficiency, lack of communication, you know, not achieving the growth targets because fundamentally they're not considering the customer. And I don't know if this is my bias, because I hold my hand up and my first degree was in rhetoric. Okay. And if you don't know what rhetoric is, it is the art of persuasion. So fundamentally, it is about knowing deeply who your audience is so that you can craft the most compelling argument to win them over to your side. Your side being buying your product or service. So what I'm finding is post investment, people are just so overawed by the level of funds that they've received and being able to execute on plans that they lose sight of the person, they lose sight of their former colleagues that maybe they were collaborating with. But walls have come up and silos have come up, and they're just not taking a critical eye over the entire landscape within the organization.
- [20:22]
Jeremy Bergeron
Yeah, and I can see how over expansion, misalignment with investors, like you said, loss of focus on the core customer. Like, what do we do? Let's remember, who are we talking to? Who are we serving? I could totally see that as being a very. I mean, you don't have an easy. You don't have an easy job, Shetty. I mean, that's. It's not easy to come in. And I. I would love to be a fly on the wall with you when you. One, when you're auditing these opportunities. But two, when you get in the things that you do first. Okay, so now let's take it to companies that are about to get funding. What are some of the pitfalls that you, you know, seeing. You're seeing them trying to avoid or just some mistakes that they're making before they get this, you know, this landfall of capital to scale.
- [21:02]
Jadi Tillery
So I think it's really not understanding the language of business, not understanding what the expectation will be from Your investment and perhaps, you know, a board that will be established or expanded. It's really not understanding how to correlate what you are doing, particularly within the sales and marketing function, to the bottom line needs of the business moving forward. And so we'll marketing love, you know, we love our vanity metrics, so we'll put in metrics that have nothing to do with what the investor wants.
- [21:32]
Jeremy Bergeron
Look over here, look over here.
- [21:37]
Jadi Tillery
So it really is about getting them to understand what is important for selling the story to the investor and also setting up a foundation of reporting and conversation that will feed the relationship moving forward.
- [21:50]
Jeremy Bergeron
Okay, yeah.
- [21:51]
Jadi Tillery
And also looking at tech stack too, that's really important is scrutinizing, you know, the robustness of their marketing tech stack, their permissions, the cleanliness of their data. Because you know, first party data is the name of the game. And there's a lot that you need to consider in that. Not only just, you know, the tools that you're using, but also the, the nuance of the tagging. I had a client who was a national airline carrier and they had 64 million records that they were trying desperately to pull some insight out of so that they could turn that into, you know, capital to go and remarket to people or you know, sell to. And it was a complete breakdown because they just didn't have that nuance. It was almost like they had this glut of information that they could, they couldn't really do anything with. So that was a different exercise. But really making sure that, that your data is in order, it's nuanced, sort of tagging and categorization of your, your customer, your client records and that you're compliant. So in the UK we have gdpr which is, is the gold standard in terms of permissions. Right. But being aware of what are the implications in your state, in your country, international markets that you're penetrating into, do the permissions that you have now allow you to move confidently in that direction or capture data from other countries? And being aware of things like the law that was passed on subscriptions. Right. We now need to tell people when our subscriptions are up for renewal. And we didn't have to do that before and now we do. So how does that happen in your system of data management, customer management, client management?
- [23:35]
Jeremy Bergeron
You also talked earlier, you mentioned this about the kind of going in and evaluating agencies. And I love this because I've talked to so many leaders that are like pro in house only. We love in house. We don't really go agencies, of course There are those that go hybrid where you have big teams internally and big agencies externally. And then there are those that just rely heavily on agencies to drive everything forward. I'd imagine that you have deep experience here and you sound like, it seemed like you have a bit of an opinion on, on this. I want to hear maybe, maybe give us an example but also just talk about yeah, your perspective on kind of agencies and yeah, the things that you're seeing them do for these pe, VC backed companies or you know, pre seed companies and what you're able to help some of these brands do regarding their agency relationships.
- [24:21]
Jadi Tillery
For sure. I mean, in terms of agencies, I, I think the death knell is coming for the full service agency. Like who needs a full service agency with high overheads, hourly rates and client billing? Their whole focus is how much they can bill next quarter annually to show growth. But that doesn't, at the heart of it, talk to the service that they're delivering to a client. And I feel that people forget that. They always forget. This is always what happens with agency. They land the client. You know, the senior team moves out. For a junior team, the junior team isn't equipped enough, you know, to their, to their credit, they aren't equipped enough to do the value added sell in of additional services. So it just becomes a monthly retainer that adds no value to anyone apart from the agency who's continuing to get that revenue. So I am not interested in full service agencies. What I am very interested in is highly focused specialized agencies. And I have a raft of agencies that I'll work with, particularly in the digital space. Absolutely. Like specialist agencies for SEO for example, or paid media or I'll work with specialist niche agencies in that area. I actually, interestingly, have a gentleman that I work with called Bidan Jamshidi. He headed up CJAM Marketing. He comes from an engineering background and he's created a business where he's essentially a broker. So he vets agencies for companies to see whether they're up to scratch. There have been so many times where I've seen, you know, clients sold a vision by an incredibly compelling pitch team that isn't ultimately the team that they're going to be working with. And that is hugely disappointing to see that both from the client side but also from the agency side because I think it does a disservice to what a relationship can be if they continue to focus on being a value add. So yes, I think there's, there needs to be a shakeup, particularly in full service agencies. But I Think agencies that a whole, as a whole, if they want to continue to be viable. When we see the rise of tools like AI that are shortcutting a lot of services, they need to be looking at how they can continue to have a two way dialogue with their client beyond the weekly catch up calls and the monthly reports.
- [26:41]
Jeremy Bergeron
It's huge. Yeah, I think it's a big, big shakeup. And you said one of my favorite words, AI. So we gotta talk, we gotta talk about that too. Before we talk about AI, I want to understand a little bit more of like your kind of how, how you're auditing these businesses. Like how what, what you're looking at. Like you're talking to a, you know, a CEO or by the way who typically like brings you in. Is it the CEO that brings you in is, or at the, is it a board? Is it, is it someone at the PE firm? Like or I guess if they're, you know, if they're being funded, who typically like is connecting with you to bring you in.
- [27:14]
Jadi Tillery
So if it's fun side, it's going to be probably an investment manager or an investment director. Maybe an investment manager who brings it Investment director wanting to impress their, you know, investment director. So that's typically, you know, the level that is on sort of the fun side. I do have relationships with managing partners, of course, but for sort of more of the inquiries I see it at sort of investment manager, investment director level. On the client side, it's always the CEO. It's always the CEO.
- [27:40]
Jeremy Bergeron
Okay.
- [27:40]
Jadi Tillery
Sometimes it's the COO who can see that actually.
- [27:44]
Jeremy Bergeron
Interesting.
- [27:45]
Jadi Tillery
You know, that is interesting. We need to have more clarity in our operations and if we're going to seek this investment, we need to be able to scale. They have an understanding of that and they know that something is currently not working within the system that will not allow them to go on that growth journey. So typically CEO but sometimes coo.
- [28:04]
Jeremy Bergeron
Okay. And so what do you want to see? If you're, if you're asking them, you're obviously connecting. You're hearing things that are interesting. Now let's move to the phase of like, okay, like Jades is one is going to take a close look at this business business. What do you want them to give you? Like what do you, do you say I want to see everything you've done, I want access to your CRM, I want to see all the data. Like what's your kind of. Yeah, like what's the scope that you need to see to take that next step to say okay, Let me audit what you're doing. Let me figure out if this is even a good fit. Yeah. What do you want to see? Top of funnel, middle funnel? Like how do you go about like exploring what they're actually doing?
- [28:39]
Jadi Tillery
I mean, if it's just on a discovery call, what I'm going to do is go on a gut feel and I typically work with mission driven businesses so that is not scientific in any way. Do I believe in this product or service? Do I believe in this individual? Do I think it's a value add not only within, you know, the particular sector but on a whole, does this business have merit? Do I want to dedicate my precious fractional time to this company? So it's really a gut feel thing, to be honest with you. And then after that, after I've said yes, you know, let's, let, let's work together. It's defining a really super tight scope of work that is focused on business needs. So if they don't have clarity on what they need or want to achieve, then it's probably not a fractional engagement that they're looking for. It's probably something that's a little bit more diagnostic and consultative and hands on and in depth than a fractional thing, fractional engagement. And it's not to say that I don't do, you know, the review process as a fractional. I absolutely do. And there's time, you know, allocated to that. It's a little bit front loaded in the first engagement because I just need to get into the detail of the data and the people and the organization structure. But if someone is just saying to me, and this is largely CEOs, not you know, investment directors who have their own theories, I don't know what's going wrong or you know, I don't have something tangible that I want to achieve. I E I like if someone's coming to me and saying we need internationalization is on our roadmap and we want to push it to China clear, You know, they might not know the ins and outs of it, but they have a vision that they're going for. If someone is just at a place where our marketing isn't working and we're losing money, that's not typically something that I'm going to get involved with because it's, there's a little bit too much that's happening there that would be suitable for me as a fractional executive to come in and support. That's a consulting piece that's a longer engagement than a fractional.
- [30:42]
Jeremy Bergeron
That's Interesting. Okay, cool. So the typical pain point is just that they don't, they, they need more clarity and they don't really know what's going on. Is that kind of the, the green light for you? Of like, okay, let me come in and help you, you know, give you visibility into what's really going on versus, hey, you know, we're spending 50 grand a month right now, and we're, you know, we're losing 30 of it or whatever. Like, that wouldn't be as exciting to you as, hey, I just want to come in and I'll, I'll kind of, of look at what's going on. I'll reveal gaps, I'll tell you what to do to fix them, but I'm not necessarily going to show you or bring someone in to help you fix your spin problem.
- [31:17]
Jadi Tillery
So I am a problem solver, but I speak the language of business, and that is my specialism. Right. Like, I work in the private equity and the venture capital space. So typically what I'm doing is I'm supporting businesses that are focused on a revenue target, a growth target, bringing a new product to market, diversifying a client base, or pushing into an international market. So all of those things, things situationally are quite similar regardless of the product. It's kind of a similar process that we're going through. So that to me is interesting, not because it's a rinse and repeat, but because I'm looking for opportunities to pull in insights from a completely different sector or a completely different situation so that I can help this company leapfrog over their competition and make a real impact. So those are the challenges that are interesting to me to take on as opposed to someone saying, we're losing money, because honestly, probably what I'm doing that, you know, the, this key strategic entry into an international market, it could have been that they tried to set up something that isn't working and they have an agency partner and they are hemorrhaging money every month because they haven't quite figured it out. So that will always be a part of the conversation. But just a simple, like, I don't know why we're losing money is like, okay, well, how well do you know your customers? Where's the customer journey map? What's your data like? Like, those are kind of just sort of of fundamental and foundational things that is better for them to have an understanding of before they engage me and my services.
- [32:43]
Jeremy Bergeron
Maybe you could also just talk about the, like, the level set on kind of the expectation of like, what an engagement Looks like. Like, how much time you're spending. I mean, you're also probably working with more than one, I would imagine, at a time. Maybe you don't. But I know a lot of the fractional ctos in our other business that I work with are. You know, a lot of them have multiple clients that they're working with. How do you. I could see just how challenging it might be because you might get pulled in and all of a sudden, like, wait a second. Like. Cause, you know, you're saying yes to this, and maybe it's more advisory, but now all of a sudden you're like, oh, no. Like, I've just. This could take up 60 hours a week. Just this. So how do you kind of, you know, get really good at figuring out, okay, what's the level of engagement? How. How can it be really effective for you, you know, CEO or PE firm or investment manager, and also give. Give, you know, Jadi the space to go do this for four or five other brands.
- [33:35]
Jadi Tillery
Boundaries, like, if you're a parent or you're in a relationship, or you're just a human trying to live in this world, like, boundaries are the center of all of it. And you need to have boundaries in your professional life as well, particularly if you are a service provider or someone like myself who's a fractional. So I set very clear boundaries. I'm also very clear in our area of focus and the scope of work. And that is literally written into the contract. And we do have review periods. You know, we check in regularly to make sure we are aligned with those. If there's an extension of, let's say, you know, the scope, then that is an extension of an agreement. Right. Because everything needs to be documented to make sure that we are aligned in what we are working towards. What is the vision and why are you bringing me into this engagement? And it can be that things are uncovered in the discovery process, or a business decides that actually this is a stronger direction to go to, and there's always flexibility to pivot and grow. That is an agile mindset. That is the nature of. Of the businesses that I want to work with. But fundamentally, it's very clearly agreeing and defining a scope of work as well as the hours that are allocated, as well as potentially, you know, specific days. But what I will say is, in terms of how my client split works, I will only take on one new client, as it were, within any given time, because that is an intensive period where I'm doing a very deep dive into all of it. I come from A due diligence background. So we set up a literal data room. I ask for a lot of documents that I'm going to review on my own, on my own time to really look at reporting budgets, contract agreements that you have in place with your external suppliers, job descriptions, organization charts. Like I really am looking at it all. And so it takes me a little bit more time, you know, to do that, to give a fair assessment, assessment of the state of play. And then where I like to get to is I typically work on a three month window. That's the speed of private equity, right? Like we need to go in and make impact really quickly. So looking then to sort of scale back and ultimately bow gracefully out of the engagement, either bringing in, you know, agency partners who I think can support, you know, a vision, helping to support senior leadership, team hires, build out or restructuring of teams. But my whole goal is for me to be able to gracefully, you know, back out having made the impact. Because the other thing with a fractional is you live and die by your success. It's not just a job for us. We need to be able to demonstrate clear, marked impact to the needs of the business, to the growth, to the revenue, to it getting to its next level. So unless I'm able to, you know, achieve that within a period of time, I'm kind of not doing my job well. Like that's what you're paying me for, is to bring in energy, vitality and change within a defined period of time.
- [36:28]
Jeremy Bergeron
I'm curious if you ever, is it, is it ever tempting to want to stay and be like, oh my gosh, okay, it's a three month engagement. But now that I've inside this beautiful brand and I'm seeing that the addressable market and like, oh my God, there's a few tweaks, like I could crush this. We could take them to nine figures. I mean, do you ever get tempted just to stay put and just be like, okay, I'm just gonna, no more work, I'm just gonna stay with you and like take it, you know, take it to the rainbow. How do you navigate? I imagine you're seeing some cool stuff and for me as an opportunist, I'm like, ah, how do you, how do you balance that?
- [36:59]
Jadi Tillery
You know, I am seeing some really cool stuff and also because I, I mentor, so I mentor with Octopus Ventures and I'm doing some mentoring with local accelerators here, both in the tech sector, but just wider entrepreneurial space. I'm currently on the west coast of Canada, so it is Very tempting. It is very exciting. I had a space AI company come to me. I mean, what's cooler than that? Doing stuff in space? I don't know that there's anything cooler than that for me.
- [37:27]
Jeremy Bergeron
That's cool.
- [37:28]
Jadi Tillery
So there certainly have been engagements that have gone on longer than that. Three months. That's typically what I want to work to because I want to drive impact and change really quickly for an organization because again, situationally, they've been going for 18 months and something hasn't worked or they really need that fundraise. So let's get them primed for that. Right. So it's typically time sensitive, but I have had engagements that have rolled on for longer than that. You know, I've embedded within clients for a period of a year, as. As long as a year, 18 months. I did that at an international business school to really undo some bad practices, reputational damage, but then also to really help them leapfrog ahead in. In a sector that you would think would be at the forefront of the digital space looking at who their target audience was, but is incredibly antiquated in terms of it's an approach and use of digital. So there have been times where I have embedded and extended it longer, but I think at the end of the day, I am where I am in my career because I'm driven by curiosity and the ability to challenge myself. So while it might be comfortable, that's not the path that I've chosen for myself. And I want to continue to add value, evolve, change, grow. It's a growth mindset. I gotta keep it rolling.
- [38:40]
Jeremy Bergeron
I love it. I love it. You said my favorite word, curiosity for the win, for sure. I feel like curiosity has gotten me into some rooms and meetings and, you know, situations where I'm like, I'm definitely this. Not the smartest person in this room. And simply just, you know, curiosity can sometimes blast open opportunity. So shout out to curiosity. So, okay, so typically you'll work with a company for three months, months, and then like, you're moving on to another company, like, typically.
- [39:07]
Jadi Tillery
Well, it could be that we've petered out. So it could be that I'm sort of taking less time because we have a sort of a. We're now in the long tail where I'm, you know, gracefully looking to exit the company. And I feel like they're in a solid position for me to be able to do that. So the time commitment is much less. I wouldn't necessarily limit myself to just three months, but typically that is the defined time period that I work within because it's palatable to the investor.
- [39:31]
Jeremy Bergeron
Okay.
- [39:33]
Jadi Tillery
And it's also, you know, for a CEO or an organization that perhaps has not worked on a fractional basis before, they're able to kind of get their head around a three month period as like a trial or see how it works as opposed to signing like a six month. I know that other disciplines, like CFO for example, or cto, they would be, they would naturally be longer engagements, but for marketing, for me personally, that is the length of engagement that I go with.
- [40:00]
Jeremy Bergeron
Okay, all right, let's spend a little bit of time. I can't believe I'm looking at the clock at 10. This is just ridiculous. This is ridiculous. Okay, let's talk about AI. Gosh, I, I mean since 2022 I've been deep down the AI rabbit hole and now I am completely lost in the best way possible to I guess two, two fold. Let's take the first, just the first part is like how. What's the utility for AI just with you and what you do, like how are you using it it day to day in transforming the way these companies are operating and growing and the way you're doing your thing. How are you using AI just as your tool belt, as the Jati power tool set? What's it doing to support you and give us an example or two.
- [40:44]
Jadi Tillery
So when it's in large organizations, really what I'm looking to leverage AI for is to streamline operations and particular facets of the market marketing process so that we can pilot things. It's a huge value add to be able to leverage these tools to create a little pilot that then proves the case for a bigger strategy or campaign or project. So that is a way that I'm really utilizing the tool within larger organizations. For solopreneurs, small businesses, SMEs, what the AI tools are doing is allowing to gap fill, to, to create essentially a marketing team without the overhead. Because I work at series A, I'm used to working with companies that are at a sort of certain level of maturity, a certain investment level that they're looking at. And cash flow, while it's a consideration, is not necessarily like the ever present worry that keeps the person up at night. Right. And I've had the privilege of working within a fund for four years, literally. Shark Tank, Dragon's Den was my real life. Like I have seen thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs come in and pitch. I am being asked now to advise and to mentor and to support businesses earlier on in their journey and really working with Companies at that early stage of solopreneur or pre seed. So before any funding has been raised was hugely eye opening to me. And I have to say that there's a lot of introspection and reflection that the marketing industry and marketing practitioners and marketing influencers need to do because I have seen things that absolutely make my heart sink and my stomach turn. Predatory behavior of marketing influencers or small agencies targeting solopreneurs and small businesses with things that I know will not lay the foundation for growth. Growth. Remember I've worked with 125 organizations now. I know the foundations and the fundamentals that need to be in place for a business to be able to grow and scale. So I was shocked and appalled and just really felt driven to focus on that area of sort of the business journey much more in the last sort of 12 to 18 months. So much so that I created an affordable online course called founderfoundations.co.uk. go check it out. It's really sort of the fundamental basis for understanding your audience. How to attract data, how to, you know, all of the sort of things that, you know, someone who has an idea and turned it into a reality and believes so passionately about it, but just doesn't have the marketing knowledge or you know, the basics that will help them realize that vision. It's really aimed at them. And through that I talk a lot about AI. There's a lot of time dedicated within that offering to how can we leverage AI for things as simple as leveraging the, you know, AI and ChatGPT or ChatGPT and Canvas integration to put up a website, create, you know, bespoke marketing. You don't need to be, you know, a Photoshop, Adobe wizard, although frankly they do. They are really trying to get engine on that market, you know, with their, their offerings. But looking at how we can leverage AI and the tools to help you bring in the insight and do some of the heavy lifting so that when you are doing all of the things, you know that you have got the assets and the tools and the processes in place that are leveraging AI to make a difference in your business, do.
- [44:27]
Jeremy Bergeron
You, in terms of just LLMs, like do you feel like you're, do you lean more towards GPT or Claude or, or some of the others? Like is there one that you're like this is my go to no.
- [44:35]
Jadi Tillery
And I think, I think I've been in AI since 2020, since the height of the pandemic. So that was one that was the engagement that was longer than should have been expected. But I had the, you know, the pleasure of working with a very large AI conference and hearing thought leaders from all around the world. They were pivoting from in person events, obviously to online events and, you know, virtual networking and that, that sort of stuff. So the AI space has been one that I've been, you know, listening actively into the conversation of since 2020. And my last five clients, although I don't peg it this way, have been in space, AI in, biotech, in health, tech, in. I have right now an edtech or language tech that are all leveraging AI tools. So for me, I'm not setting my station and in any one thing and I think that's really important. I think in general discernment is hugely important when we talk about AI. Right, sure. And so I'm leveraging a number of tools. What I am interested in though are companies that are offering AI based tools specifically in the B2B space. So they've created sort of proprietary platforms that are specifically for B2B. So that's interesting to me because I'm always curious about the niches. The gold is in the niche. Right. And so, so I'm always interested in that. I use ChatGPT, I use Claude, I'm using, it depends like the tools that I'm using and the purpose that it's for. So I sort of have a host of tools that I'm using. I'm also experimenting with platforms that are, as I said, niche sort of for B2B. There's a company out of the UK called maybe that kind of brings together, integrates both marketing and operations for businesses, which I think is very interesting to sort of streamline a number of processes for small businesses. So yeah, so I'm using kind of.
- [46:33]
Jeremy Bergeron
A variety of tools I could just see in a short amount of time. You know, I feel like there's a scenario where, you know, like you talk about these AI B2B tools where, you know, you've got, I mean, as part of your tool belt, which I know is already a potent tool belt. I mean, I could see, you know, it's not going to be very long when you've got these AI tools for Legion and AI tools for marketing, automation and like you said, operations, customer support, content creation, SEO. Right. You have all of these account based marketing, all of these things plus AI. Right. It's coming, it's already here in many ways and it's going to be fascinating to see. I think this hybrid approach of like having a human use these tools to power Some of these growth goals of these businesses. It's super interesting. And I feel like every day, literally every day, no exaggeration, I'm seeing or hearing something I know you are too, where it's like, wow. I mean, it's coming on strong and they're doing such a great job with some of these tools where it just makes someone like you really a real power player. And in marketing teams and general. Right. The ones that are really adopting these tools that are, that have a lot of ability, right? It's, it's, it's, it's potent.
- [47:42]
Jadi Tillery
I think it's, I think, I mean we all saw the meme that went around like, sell me this pen. It's powered by AI. You know what I mean? Like everyone has seen it. AI is such a buzzword, but it's like AI for what? Like AI in what context? Like that is the question that I am asking and I think you've beautifully articulated that in terms of its use for very, you know, specific elements that just like I might go out to an agency, again, agencies, you need to consider what you're doing moving forward. Just like I might go out to a special agency in a specialist agency, it might be that I'm using a specialist AI tool and I've got a raft of tools that I use because I'm a solopreneur or a small business and I don't have the cash flow to bring in a full, all singing, all dancing, you know, marketing team. I don't even have the, you know, the budget maybe for someone like me, a fractional cmo. But I do know that I need to take it seriously and so I'm going to leverage the enablers of AI with a, you know, with a little bit of discernment and look at how that can impact my business.
- [48:38]
Jeremy Bergeron
Okay. So in the last minute or so, just thinking about, like just kind of zooming out over, you know, the landscape of being a fractional marketing leader like yourself. Right. What advice do you have for other marketing leaders? I know there are many of them looking at this world that you're in that are in a full time CMO role and, and I've talked to many of them offline where they're like, yeah, like I see myself going to be fractional. So you've been in the space, you've done a ton of really cool things. What advice would you have for an existing, you know, marketing leader who's got experience, they've got, you know, they've got some, some skin in the game there Right. They've done some things, but they've never done fractional marketing exec work like you. What would you share with them?
- [49:20]
Jadi Tillery
So my piece of advice would be to get really focused on business and to start, start speaking the language of business and to be able to enter into conversations with your CFO or your CTO or your board, you know, confidently start having conversations with them that are based on business needs as opposed to your KPIs that are important to you and are a bit of vanity metrics because fundamentally they're not deeply rooted and attached to the business needs needs. So I would get in the discipline of switching from KPIs to OKRs because I think that that naturally makes us focused and think in a different way that is agile, adaptive, and if we're really focused on the objectives that are tied into business needs, then all of the vanity metrics that we have from our marketing discipline that underpin it are valid. But at least we're speaking the same fundamental language as the other, you know, members of our senior leadership team in terms of how they would pivot to, you know, working in the fractional space. I think you need to start networking, you need to start researching, you need to tune into podcasts like this one and get really current with your, with what is happening in the marketing landscape. Because, you know, when you're working within an organization, I've been there, I've been client side, it's nice, it's comfortable, I love it. You know, I've got annual budgets and money just always comes right. So it's really important that you look at what is at the forefront and the cutting edge of marketing and making sure that you're staying up to date. And what is it that's interesting about that for you? Because it may be that you need to up your skill set in a particular area, maybe that you want to do a pilot within your organization that brings in some of those marketing trends so you can demonstrate that experience when you want to strike out on your own. So it's not an impossible leap for sure. But I think for those who are within organizations in a CMO role, just know your own limitations and really try and bolster and strengthen your own wheelhouse before you take it to market. Because when you're a fractional, you live or die by your success and there's no hiding that. So you need to get really comfortable with having it all out there and being able to achieve results for a business in a tangible, concrete, and in my case, very time specific way.
- [51:43]
Jeremy Bergeron
Amazing. Jadee, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. So excited. Time evaporated as it always does when it's a great conversation. We're gonna if AI can help us like slow time down for these interviews. That's, that's what's next for us. How can people follow you, connect with you? What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
- [52:03]
Jadi Tillery
Absolutely. So I am on LinkedIn. I'm very active there so please do connect with me. There's also an opportunity to sort of book in a 30 minute inter call so I'm always happy to have conversation so do that. You know we can book it in in calendly. It's all synced. Another f fabulous tool that I love. Follow me on social I'm ja talks it's a little bit more focused to solopreneurs and small medium businesses and if that sounded like it was something that you need, definitely go check out Founder.
- [52:29]
Jeremy Bergeron
Foundations Co UK Amazing JI thank you so much. This was awesome.
- [52:33]
Jadi Tillery
Thank you so much.
- [52:47]
Jeremy Bergeron
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