A founder signs with a fractional CMO on Monday and books the kickoff for Thursday. Thursday's ninety minutes go to finding the analytics login, guessing at last year's revenue by channel and explaining who the customers are from memory. The real work starts the following week. A one-page packet sent on Tuesday would have saved that whole meeting.
The first meeting should be about decisions
A fractional CMO is paid for judgment, and judgment needs facts. Every minute of the kickoff spent hunting for logins or reconstructing history is a minute not spent on the question you hired them for. Most of what they need already exists inside your company. It is scattered across inboxes, spreadsheets and the founder's head.
The packet below is short on purpose. You can assemble it in an afternoon, and it changes the first session from orientation into work.
Access first, because it takes the longest
Access requests stall more kickoffs than anything else, because each platform has its own invite flow and some need a second person to approve. Send the invites a few days early so the problems surface before the meeting.
- Web analytics, usually Google Analytics, with at least read access.
- Google Search Console for the main domain.
- Each ad account you run, at manager level, so they can see history and settings.
- The CRM or wherever leads and deals are recorded.
- The email marketing tool, if you send newsletters or sequences.
- Your website platform, read only is fine at the start.
Invite them as a named user under a company account. Do not send your own password. When the engagement ends you want to remove one user, not change every login you own.
The numbers, even if they are rough
You do not need a finance model. You need a small table that answers where customers came from and what they were worth. Monthly revenue for the last year, split by how each customer first found you, is enough to start. If you cannot split it, say so. That gap is itself one of the first things a CMO will want to fix.
Add what you spent on marketing over the same period, including tools and contractors. Founders often leave out the agency retainer or the software subscriptions, and those are exactly the costs a new marketing lead will question first.
What you have already tried
Write a plain list of the marketing you have run in the last two years and what happened. One line each is enough: the channel, roughly when, what you expected and what you actually saw. Include the failures. A campaign that flopped tells a CMO about your market, your message or your execution, and they need to know which before they recommend running something similar.
- "Paid search, spring last year, three months. Lots of clicks, almost no calls. Stopped."
- "Referral program, launched in June. Two customers used it. Never promoted after launch."
- "LinkedIn posts by the founder, weekly since January. Two inbound deals mentioned them."
Your customers in your own words
Name your five best customers and say why they are the best: they pay on time, they refer others, they buy again, they are easy to work with. Then name two you would not take again and say why. This is the raw material for an ideal customer profile, and it is more honest than a persona deck because it comes from real accounts.
If you have recorded sales calls, lost-deal notes or customer emails that explain why someone chose you, include a few. Real customer language is worth more than any amount of positioning work done from scratch.
The one decision you need help with
End the packet with the question that made you hire a fractional CMO in the first place. Should we keep the agency? Is paid search worth fixing or should we stop? Why are leads up and sales flat? Which market should we enter first? Write it as a question, and write down the deadline if there is one.
This gives the first meeting a purpose. It also lets the CMO tell you early if the question needs data you do not have yet, which is better learned in week one than in week six.
What not to send
- A brand book or pitch deck as the main document. Include it if it exists, but it describes how you want to be seen, and the CMO needs to see how things actually are.
- Every report an agency ever sent you. Pick the last two and note what you did with them.
- Passwords in an email or a chat message.
A checklist you can copy
- Invites sent to analytics, Search Console, ad accounts, CRM and email tool.
- Revenue by month for the last year, split by customer source where possible.
- Marketing spend for the same period, tools and contractors included.
- One-line history of every campaign or channel tried in two years.
- Five best customers and two you would not take again, with reasons.
- A few real customer emails or call notes.
- The decision you need help with, written as a question, with a deadline.
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See Fracmo pricing →Keep reading
- What is a fractional CMO? — the plain-English 2026 guide
- Fractional CMO cost in 2026 — real numbers, including ours
- AI CMO vs fractional CMO — how the models actually differ
- Compare Fracmo to agencies, in-house hires and DIY tools
- All Fracmo blog guides