Ambitious Los Angeles businesses often find themselves with marketing that is busy but not accountable. Campaigns ship, agencies invoice, and growth still stalls because no senior operator owns the plan. The traditional answer, a full-time CMO, is a $250,000 line item and a months-long recruit — a lot to commit before you know it will work.
The fractional model solves both problems at once. You bring in an executive-caliber marketing leader part-time — owning strategy, managing the team, and reporting to revenue — for roughly a third to a half of a full-time CMO. For most Los Angeles companies, senior leadership stops being a someday hire and becomes something you have now.
The job is to own marketing the way a full-time CMO would. That is strategy and positioning for your Los Angeles market, a demand engine that produces qualified pipeline, attribution that ties spend to revenue, and the hiring and process work that leaves you with a functioning department, not a dependency.
A clear go-to-market for the Los Angeles market and beyond — messaging your whole team can repeat.
Channels and campaigns that produce pipeline, measured to revenue instead of clicks.
The right hires, tools, and SOPs — a marketing department that runs itself.
Honest reporting that ties every dollar of spend back to pipeline and closed revenue.
A marketing budget allocated by someone accountable for the return on it.
Marketing that sales trusts and the board understands — one shared number.
The timing is usually obvious once you see the signals. You have product-market fit and revenue, but growth has plateaued and no one owns the plan to restart it. You are spending on marketing and cannot say what drives pipeline. You are preparing to raise and need a credible growth engine. Any one of these is a good reason for a Los Angeles company to start fractionally.
Weeks 1–2: understand your funnel, goals, data, and the gaps holding Los Angeles growth back — talk to sales, customers, and the numbers.
Weeks 2–4: lock positioning, choose the channels that fit your motion, and build a 90-day roadmap tied to revenue targets.
Weeks 4–8: install the systems, make or manage the hires, launch the channels, and start producing measurable pipeline.
Weeks 8–12 and on: attribution to revenue, cut what is not working, and double down on what is — then keep compounding.
The comparison is simple once you frame it. Full-time CMO: maximum leadership, maximum cost, slowest to onboard. Agency: maximum execution, minimal ownership. Fractional CMO: executive-level strategy and accountability on a part-time retainer, with the flexibility to scale up or transition to full-time when your Los Angeles business is ready.
Fractional CMO rates work as a flat retainer billed monthly and scoped to your needs. A company that mainly needs strategy pays for fewer days; one that needs building pays for more. Either way it tends to run about a third to a half of a full-time CMO’s cost, which for most Los Angeles, California businesses is leadership that comfortably pays for itself.
Brennen has run marketing from the operator’s seat, owning outcomes rather than opinions. For a Los Angeles company that means senior judgment applied hands-on, a team and system left behind that keep producing, and a leader who treats your number as his own — not a consultant chasing the next deck.
Brennen ran our marketing like an owner. He set the strategy, built the team, and the pipeline came.
Client, B2B SaaS — CEO
A fractional CMO is an experienced chief marketing officer who leads your marketing on a part-time, ongoing basis instead of as a full-time employee. You get executive-level strategy, team leadership, and accountability for growth — at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire, and without the long recruiting cycle or equity package.
Yes. Brennen Lesser works with Los Angeles, California companies as a fractional CMO — both remotely and on-site as the engagement requires. That includes founder-led startups, funded scale-ups, SaaS businesses, professional-services firms, and established B2B companies across the Los Angeles metro.
Most fractional CMO engagements run at roughly 30–50% of a full-time CMO salary, billed as a flat monthly retainer with no equity and no long-term contract. The exact number depends on scope and how many days a month you need. For most Los Angeles companies that is a meaningful saving versus a full-time executive who would command $250,000 or more in total compensation.
An agency executes tactics — ads, content, email — usually against a brief you provide. A fractional CMO sits a level above that: they set the strategy, decide which channels to invest in, hire and manage the people (or agencies) who execute, and own the results. Think of it as renting a marketing leader, not renting a marketing vendor.
If you have the budget, the workload, and the revenue to support a $250k+ executive full-time, hire one. If you need senior marketing leadership now but can’t yet justify that cost — or you want to de-risk the decision before committing — a fractional CMO gives you the same caliber of leadership scaled to your stage, and can help you hire your eventual full-time CMO when the time comes.
Most Los Angeles engagements ramp in about two weeks. You skip the four-to-six-month executive search entirely — after a short discovery period, Brennen is embedded in your business, auditing the funnel and shipping a strategy while a full-time search would still be scheduling first-round interviews.
Typically seed-to-Series-B startups, SaaS companies, and growing B2B firms in Los Angeles, California doing roughly $1M–$50M in revenue — companies large enough to need real marketing leadership but not yet large enough to justify a full-time CMO on payroll.
Clear positioning your whole team can articulate, a demand-generation engine measured to pipeline and revenue, honest attribution so you stop wasting spend, and a marketing team and set of systems that keep producing after the engagement scales down. The goal is a self-sustaining function, not dependence on a consultant.
Both. Brennen works with Los Angeles, California teams remotely day-to-day and comes on-site for kickoffs, planning sessions, and key moments where being in the room matters. Modern marketing leadership doesn’t require a desk in your office five days a week.