The Creative Partner For Fractional CMOs

The Fractional CMO's Dilemma: Making Maximum Impact with Minimum Time

Ever walk into a startup as their new fractional CMO and think: "How am I going to build this marketing function when I'm only here two days a week?" You're not alone.

When Fab Dolan stepped into his role at Protexxa, a growing Canadian cybersecurity startup in early 2023, he faced that exact scenario. "When I arrived, we had no marketing foundation," Dolan explains. "Just a part-time contractor for writing and myself. We needed to build everything from scratch, and fast."

The 4 Challenges Every Fractional CMO Faces

As a fractional leader, you're juggling multiple clients while trying to deliver transformational results for each one. This creates four critical pain points:

1. The Continuity Gap: What happens to your marketing momentum on the days you're not there? Projects stall, opportunities get missed, and progress slows to a crawl.
2. Strategy Dilution: You set the strategic direction, but immediate tactical needs quickly take over. Without constant reinforcement, your carefully crafted strategy gets lost in the day-to-day rush.
3. Talent Limitations: One day you need brand development, the next day it's sales enablement, and suddenly your client lands a major partnership requiring specialized assets. How do you access the right creative talent at the right time?
4. Knowledge Transfer: You can't be in every meeting or make every decision. How do you ensure your vision translates consistently across all marketing outputs?

Solution #1: Your Marketing Engine Keeps Running (Even When You're Not There)

Unlike traditional agencies that wait for direction, Laetro became an extension of Protexxa's small marketing team:

• Active participation in weekly team meetings
• Ongoing collaboration with existing contractors
• Proactive identification of marketing opportunities
• Perfect alignment with the fractional CMO's strategic vision

This approach ensured marketing momentum continued between Dolan's scheduled days with the client. With Laetro maintaining strategic continuity, Dolan could focus on high-level initiatives without worrying about execution gaps.

How Laetro Solves These Challenges

The Laetro team understood that supporting a fractional marketing leader required more than just creative deliverables. Team Lead Amy Khan approached the partnership with Protexxa as a strategic collaboration rather than a transactional agency relationship.

Solution #2: The Right Talent at the Right Time

With over 800 vetted creative professionals, Laetro assembled a team that evolved with Protexxa's changing needs:

• Amy Khan served as Team Lead throughout the partnership, providing strategic oversight, project management, and day-to-day client engagement. 
• Dre Labre, a creative director based in Toronto, spearheaded early creative efforts. 
• Anthony Mika brought his design expertise to the table, crafting the initial visual assets that would become the foundation of Protexxa's brand identity.
• Shachar Aylon, a seasoned Creative Director, took over to work more closely with Protexxa's growing marketing team. 
• Fede Macko, a designer based in Mexico City, joined to provide additional creative support, further expanding Laetro's capacity to meet Protexxa's needs.

When specialized needs arose, Laetro tapped deeper into its network.

"When Protexxa needed PowerPoint and Word templates, we brought in Rowen Frazer, a specialist in these areas," Khan explains. "Most creatives have no desire to work in PowerPoint or Word, but we were able to find the right person for the job."

Solution #3: Build and Execute Simultaneously

Rather than forcing Protexxa to choose between immediate marketing needs and long-term infrastructure, Laetro delivered both simultaneously:

Immediate Market Presence:

• A refreshed brand identity system
• Comprehensive sales collateral for enterprise opportunities
• Targeted campaign for Canadian small businesses

Long-term Infrastructure:

• Brand guidelines and templates
• Marketing systems and processes
• Knowledge transfer to internal team

This dual approach allowed Dolan to show immediate results to stakeholders while methodically building the marketing foundation Protexxa needed.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities

A key test of the partnership came when Laetro ventured beyond digital marketing into direct mail for a campaign targeting Canadian small businesses with government technology grants.

While the campaign revealed many companies had already allocated their grant money elsewhere, Laetro demonstrated strategic thinking by repurposing the high-quality assets across multiple channels—turning a potential setback into expanded marketing resources.

Adapting as the Client Grows

As Protexxa grew and began hiring its own marketing team, Laetro adapted their role rather than maintaining a fixed scope.

"Laetro's flexibility proved crucial when we landed a significant partnership with a major Canadian grocery chain," says Dolan. "Instead of standard partnership announcements, they identified an opportunity to reach employees directly in their workplace with internal signage for break rooms and corporate offices."

Enabling Independence (Not Creating Dependency)

Perhaps most valuable to a fractional CMO was Laetro's approach to knowledge transfer. Observing the team's struggle with last-minute social media content, Laetro developed a self-serve solution:

• A Figma-based template system for quick content creation
• Brand guidelines built directly into the tool
• Training sessions for the internal team
• Regular quality assurance checks

This solution empowered Protexxa's team while maintaining brand consistency—exactly what a fractional CMO needs when they can't oversee every detail.

The Fractional CMO's Blueprint for Success

For marketing leaders managing multiple clients while driving transformational growth, the Protexxa-Laetro partnership offers a proven blueprint:

1. Prioritize Strategic Thinking Over Task Execution: Choose partners who identify opportunities and act autonomously, transforming standard projects into powerful marketing initiatives.
2. Value Flexible Capacity Over Fixed Scope: Your creative partner should scale services based on evolving needs, ensuring you never pay for excess support while maintaining access to specialized expertise.
3. Demand Strategic Continuity Between Your Client Days: Success requires partners who execute without constant oversight while maintaining perfect alignment with your vision.
4. Insist on Knowledge Transfer, Not Dependency: The best partners build solutions that outlast their direct involvement, creating lasting value and making your limited time more impactful.