Fractional CMOs may be generalists—but they should also be specialists
Advisors have to be generalists across channels and disciplines. That's exactly why you need a specific market, or you'll be interchangeable.
Kevin C. Whelan
Yesterday, I wrote about how fractional CMOs and marketing advisors are generalists by nature. We have to be.
We need to be able to combine business acumen with marketing skills across a wide range of channels and disciplines.
And that’s precisely why it’s so important to build your business for a specific niche as soon as you can.
When you intersect your generalist abilities with a specific target market’s challenges, you have a chance at becoming a deep specialist in that area—allowing you to create a competitive moat.
**The more general your horizontal skillset, the more niche you want to be with your target market.**Otherwise, you’re back to doing everything for everyone.
And maybe you can help anyone with anything. But it won’t help you grow a profitable marketing advisory practice.
Without focus, you’ll be interchangeable with literally anyone else. You’ll lose deals to people more specialized. You’ll have a hard time standing out or becoming ubiquitous to any single group. You won’t be able to build repeatable assets and one-to-many offerings.
In short, you’ll own a job. And not a very good one.
Be specific about what you do or who you do it for.
Ideally both. But not neither.