What a fractional CMO does in the first 90 days

A fractional CMO's first 90 days follow a simple arc: diagnose, plan and fix the biggest gaps, then execute and set up a reporting rhythm. Most published playbooks agree on that shape. The details below are adapted for a local trade or home-service business, where many playbooks written for software companies do not fit.

The first month is for looking, not shipping. A fractional CMO who produces deliverables in week one is skipping the diagnosis that makes them accurate.

• Talk to the owner, the team, and anyone who touches leads, quotes, or customers.
• Get access to the website, Google Business Profile, ad accounts, call tracking, and the CRM or spreadsheet where leads live.
• Audit how fast and how well new leads are answered and followed up.
• Audit how the business shows up on Google, in AI answers, and across listings, and whether the information matches.
• Agree on what success means in plain business terms: booked estimates, closed jobs, revenue per job.

Now the plan gets written down.

• A one-page roadmap: the few priorities that matter most, who owns each, and by when.
• Quick wins: fix wrong services or hours on the Google profile, speed up lead response, tighten the estimate follow-up.
• Review of offers and pricing, and of what the current vendors are actually delivering.
• A decision on which channels get money and which do not.

• First campaigns, pages, and content go live against the roadmap.
• A weekly check-in or working session keeps work moving.
• The first monthly report explains what was done, what it earned, and what comes next.
• The roadmap is revisited and the next quarter is planned.

Many 90-day playbooks are written for software companies and measure things like pipeline and customer acquisition cost across long sales cycles. A local contractor's sales cycle is shorter and the key numbers are simpler: how many inquiries, how fast they get an answer, how many become estimates, how many close. Translate the framework instead of copying its targets.

• A written 90-day plan, in plain language, with dates.
• A single list of priorities, not twenty.
• A report each month you can understand without a marketing degree.

That is how we work at WRD Media: a strategy call, a 90-day plan, then weekly execution and monthly reporting. See the fractional CMO page.

• What was done this month, in plain language.
• What it earned: inquiries, estimates, and closed work where you can measure them, and a straight statement where you cannot.
• What did not work and what was stopped.
• What happens next month and why.

If a report is mostly screenshots of activity, ask what it earned. A report that cannot answer that question is not doing its job.

• Shipping before diagnosing. Activity in week one can lock in the wrong plan.
• Too many priorities. A plan with twenty items has none.
• No owner for each item. Work without a named owner does not get done.
• Not giving access. A CMO without your numbers is guessing.
• Expecting authority to appear in weeks. Google and AI visibility build gradually.