Senior marketing leadership in your business, for the days a week you need it.
A Gully Sales fractional CMO sets your marketing direction, owns the budget and the agencies, runs the weekly rhythm and reports to you in revenue terms, without the cost or the wait of a full-time hire.
- One senior person accountable for what marketing produces, not just what it spends.
- A 30-day diagnosis, then priorities your team and agencies work to every week.
- A board-ready marketing report you can read in ten minutes.
Gully Sales Private Limited runs marketing functions for Indian SMBs, so the leader we place has done the job rather than only advised on it.
In one paragraph
What is Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)?
A fractional chief marketing officer is an experienced marketing leader who works inside your business part-time, with real decision authority over marketing direction, budget, team and agencies. Gully Sales places one in your operating rhythm: a first-month diagnosis, agreed priorities, a weekly and monthly cadence, coaching for your team and a monthly report that reads marketing in revenue terms.
The problem
Marketing is busy, and nobody senior owns whether it is working.
Most growing Indian businesses reach a point where marketing has a team, an agency or two, a budget and a calendar of activity, but no leader. The owner approves campaigns between other decisions. The agency reports on what it did. The manager in charge is capable but has never run marketing at this scale. Nobody is at fault; the role is simply empty, and the cost of that shows up slowly.
You will recognise it as
- You approve marketing spend yourself, but cannot say what pipeline last quarter's spend produced.
- Your agencies report clicks, reach and impressions; your sales team reports that the leads are weak.
- Marketing plans change each month depending on who spoke to the owner last.
- A good marketing manager is doing a CMO's job without the authority, the experience or the budget to do it.
- You have interviewed for a full-time CMO and either could not find one or could not justify the cost.
- Brand, website, campaigns and content are each run by a different vendor, and no one joins them up.
What it costs the business
- Spend goes where the loudest vendor points it, so the budget produces activity in many places and pipeline in few.
- Sales and marketing argue about lead quality every month, and the argument never reaches a decision because no one owns the answer.
- Good people in marketing leave or stall, because there is nobody senior to learn from or to fight for their priorities.
- The owner stays the marketing head by default, and the business grows only as fast as the owner's spare attention.
Why it persists. A full-time CMO is expensive, hard to find outside the metros, and a gamble for a business that has never had one: you do not yet know what the role should contain. So the gap is filled with agencies, who execute but do not lead, or with a promoted manager, who leads but has not done it before. Both keep marketing moving. Neither gives you a senior person whose job is to decide what marketing does next and answer for the result.
If it stays unresolved. Marketing stays a cost the owner tolerates rather than a revenue function the owner trusts. Budgets get cut when cash tightens, because nobody can show what they produce. And when the business does hire a full-time CMO, that person inherits a team, a vendor list and a budget with no plan, no baseline and no history to build on.
What changes
Marketing gets a leader, a plan and a number it answers to.
In the first weeks
- A written diagnosis of your marketing after thirty days: what is working, what is waste, what is missing and what comes first.
- A leadership mandate everyone has seen: what the fractional CMO decides, what needs your sign-off and how the team and agencies report.
- A short list of priorities for the quarter, each tied to a pipeline or revenue outcome rather than an activity.
In how the work runs
- A weekly marketing rhythm with your team and agencies, so plans stop changing between meetings.
- One budget view across all vendors and channels, with spend moved to what produces pipeline.
- Your marketing team coached by someone who has run the function, so their decisions improve without waiting for yours.
In sales and marketing
- Marketing-sourced pipeline reported against sales targets, so lead quality becomes a number, not an argument.
- Campaigns planned around when sales needs the pipeline, not around the agency's calendar.
In what management can see
- A monthly board-ready marketing report that reads spend, pipeline contribution and forecast in the same terms as your revenue plan.
Over the longer term
- A marketing function with a plan, a baseline and a history, ready for a full-time CMO if and when you hire one.
Gully Sales controls the diagnosis, the priorities, the cadence, the coaching and the reporting. Pipeline and revenue depend on your market, your offer and how sales converts what marketing brings in. We report those honestly; we do not promise them.
Who it is for
When marketing needs a leader before the business can hire one.
The businesses it suits
- Founder-led Indian businesses with a marketing budget, a small team or agencies, and no senior person directing them.
- Mid-market companies whose marketing manager is capable but is being asked to do a CMO's job without the experience.
- Businesses that have tried to hire a full-time CMO and could not find or justify one.
- Owners who are still the effective head of marketing and want to hand that role to someone accountable.
- Companies launching a product, market or channel that needs senior marketing judgement for a defined period.
- Businesses whose sales and marketing teams disagree about lead quality and need one person to own the answer.
What usually prompts the call
- Marketing spend has crossed a level where 'let us see how it goes' no longer feels responsible.
- An agency relationship has gone stale and you cannot tell whether the problem is the agency or the brief.
- The revenue plan for the year assumes marketing will produce pipeline it has never produced before.
- A marketing head has resigned, or you are about to promote one, and you want the role defined first.
- Investors, a board or a bank have started asking what marketing actually contributes.
What Gully Sales does
The work, component by component.
Leadership mandate
Before the fractional CMO starts, we write down the role: what they decide alone, what they recommend for your approval, who reports to them, which agencies they manage and how their time is split each week. You sign it, and so do they.
- Why it matters:
- Fractional leadership fails when authority is vague. A leader who must ask permission for every spend decision is an adviser, not a CMO.
- You receive:
- A one-page leadership mandate signed by you and the fractional CMO.
- Business value:
- Your team and agencies know who decides, so marketing decisions stop waiting on the owner.
First-30-day diagnosis
The first month is spent looking, not launching. We review your positioning, channels, spend, agencies, team, website, content, CRM data and sales feedback, and sit with your sales team to hear about the leads they receive. The output is a written view of what is working, what is waste and what is missing.
- Why it matters:
- Every decision after this depends on a shared, evidence-based picture of where marketing stands. Without it, priorities are guesses.
- You receive:
- A 30-day marketing diagnosis with a scored channel, spend and agency review.
- Business value:
- You see, in one document, where your marketing money and effort actually go and what they return.
Quarterly priorities
From the diagnosis we agree three to five priorities for the quarter, each with an owner, a budget and a pipeline or revenue outcome it is meant to move. Everything else is explicitly deferred, so the team knows what not to do.
- Why it matters:
- Small marketing teams fail by doing a little of everything. A short list with named outcomes is what lets them do a few things properly.
- You receive:
- A one-page quarterly priorities document, refreshed each quarter.
- Business value:
- Marketing effort concentrates on what the revenue plan needs, not on what is easiest to show.
Operating cadence
The fractional CMO runs a weekly working session with your marketing team and agencies, a fortnightly pipeline review with sales and a monthly review with you. Each has a fixed agenda, the same numbers every time and its decisions recorded.
- Why it matters:
- A plan without a rhythm decays within weeks. The cadence is what keeps priorities alive between the owner's check-ins.
- You receive:
- Meeting agendas, a running decision log and a shared marketing dashboard.
- Business value:
- Marketing runs on a schedule you can see, not on whoever raised an issue last.
Team and agency coaching
Your marketing team and agencies are coached in the room, on real decisions: how to brief, how to read results, when to stop a campaign, how to talk to sales. The aim is for their judgement to improve, not for them to depend on the fractional CMO.
- Why it matters:
- The engagement should leave your people stronger than it found them. Leadership that only issues instructions leaves nothing behind.
- You receive:
- Briefing templates, review checklists and a development note for each marketing team member.
- Business value:
- Your team makes better decisions without waiting for you, which is what a marketing function needs in order to grow.
Board-ready reporting
Each month the fractional CMO produces a short report in revenue terms: spend by channel, pipeline sourced and influenced, coverage against next quarter's target, forecast and what changed. It is written for an owner, board or investor, not for a marketing audience.
- Why it matters:
- Marketing keeps its budget when the people who fund it can see what it produces. Vanity metrics do not survive a cash crunch.
- You receive:
- A monthly board-ready marketing report and a quarterly review deck.
- Business value:
- You can answer 'what does marketing contribute?' in ten minutes, with numbers you trust.
Implementation roadmap
The diagnosis and priorities become a quarter-by-quarter roadmap: which campaigns, systems, hires and agency changes happen when, what each needs from you and how you will know it is done. It includes the handover plan for when you hire a full-time CMO or the engagement ends.
- Why it matters:
- A fractional role must leave a function that runs without it. The roadmap is how the business, not the individual, owns the plan.
- You receive:
- A dated implementation roadmap with a handover plan.
- Business value:
- Marketing has a path a future full-time leader can pick up, instead of starting again.
What you will have at the end.
- Signed leadership mandate: authority, reporting lines, agency ownership and weekly time commitment.
- 30-day marketing diagnosis: positioning, channels, spend, agencies, team, data and sales feedback, scored.
- Quarterly priorities document with owners, budgets and the pipeline outcome each is meant to move.
- One budget view across channels and vendors, with reallocation recommendations.
- Weekly, fortnightly and monthly meeting agendas with a running decision log.
- Shared marketing dashboard reading spend, pipeline sourced, coverage and forecast.
- Agency briefs, scorecards and review notes for every external vendor.
- Coaching notes, briefing templates and review checklists for each member of the marketing team.
- Monthly board-ready marketing report and quarterly review deck.
- Dated implementation roadmap with a handover plan for a future full-time CMO.
- Anonymised sample page from a monthly marketing report, available on request.
How it runs
The engagement, step by step.
- 1
Discovery and mandate
We meet you and your senior team, understand the revenue plan, the marketing budget, the team and the vendors, and agree what the fractional CMO will decide, recommend and report. The mandate is written and signed before day one.
- You provide:
- Revenue plan or targets, current marketing budget, team and agency list, and two hours of your time.
- We produce:
- Signed leadership mandate and an engagement calendar.
- Done when:
- You and the fractional CMO have signed the mandate and the first month is scheduled.
- 2
30-day diagnosis
The fractional CMO reviews every channel, campaign, agency, asset and data source, sits with sales to hear about lead quality, and scores each area. Nothing is launched or stopped in this month unless it is clearly wasting money.
- You provide:
- Access to analytics, advertising accounts, CRM, agency reports and your sales team.
- We produce:
- Written 30-day diagnosis with a scored review and recommendations.
- Done when:
- You have read the diagnosis and agree with its picture of where marketing stands.
- 3
Priorities and budget
From the diagnosis we agree three to five priorities for the quarter, move the budget behind them and write down what is deferred. Each priority gets an owner and an outcome measure.
- You provide:
- Decisions on priorities and on any budget change above the mandate's threshold.
- We produce:
- Quarterly priorities document and a revised budget view.
- Done when:
- Priorities are signed, budgets are moved and every owner knows their outcome measure.
- 4
Cadence set-up
The weekly team session, the fortnightly sales and marketing pipeline review and the monthly owner review are set up with fixed agendas and one dashboard. Agencies are rebriefed against the priorities and given scorecards.
- You provide:
- Attendance at the monthly review and your agency contract details.
- We produce:
- Meeting agendas, dashboard, agency briefs and scorecards, and the decision log.
- Done when:
- Two full cycles of each meeting have run with the numbers in the room.
- 5
Run and coach
The fractional CMO leads the function week by week: directing the team, managing agencies, making the calls the mandate allows, escalating the ones it does not, and coaching the team on real decisions as they come up.
- You provide:
- Timely decisions on escalations, and honesty about what is and is not working.
- We produce:
- Weekly decision log, coaching notes and the monthly board-ready report.
- Done when:
- Marketing runs to the cadence and the monthly report arrives without being chased.
- 6
Quarterly review and roadmap
Each quarter we review attainment against priorities, refresh them, update the roadmap and revisit the mandate. The review goes to you and, if you want it to, to your board or investors.
- You provide:
- A half-day each quarter with your senior team.
- We produce:
- Quarterly review deck, refreshed priorities and an updated roadmap.
- Done when:
- Next quarter's priorities and budget are agreed before it begins.
- 7
Handover
When you hire a full-time CMO or the need reduces, the fractional CMO hands over the diagnosis history, the roadmap, the cadence, the dashboard and the team notes, and overlaps with the incoming leader if there is one.
- You provide:
- Notice of the change and the incoming leader's time for the overlap.
- We produce:
- Handover pack and overlap sessions.
- Done when:
- The function runs under its new leader without a drop in cadence or reporting.
Ways to work with us
Choose the leadership time your business needs.
One day a week
The fractional CMO leads marketing for one day each week: the weekly team session, agency management, decisions within the mandate and the monthly report. Suited to businesses with a small team and two or three active channels.
Two to three days a week
For businesses with a larger team, several agencies or a launch under way. Adds the fortnightly pipeline review with sales, closer coaching and time to build the systems the function is missing.
Interim CMO
Full-time cover for a defined period while you recruit or through a launch, with the same mandate, cadence and reporting, and a planned handover to the permanent hire.
Advisory retainer
For owners who already have a marketing head and want a senior sounding board: a monthly review, quarterly priorities and a report format, without day-to-day leadership of the team.
Why Gully Sales
What you are actually choosing when you choose us.
We have run marketing functions, not only advised them.
Gully Sales works across marketing, sales, channels, customer success and revenue operations for Indian SMBs, so the fractional CMO arrives knowing what sales needs from marketing and how the two are read together.
The CMO reports in revenue terms.
Our reporting reads marketing the way an owner or board reads the business: pipeline, coverage, forecast and contribution, not reach and impressions. That is what keeps a marketing budget intact when cash gets tight.
What the marketing leader may decide is settled first.
We do not begin without agreed authority. Both sides know what the fractional CMO decides, what you decide and how disagreements are settled, which is what separates leadership from advice.
Agencies are judged on pipeline, not on activity.
The fractional CMO's job is to judge your agencies and channels on what they produce. Where an agency is doing good work, the diagnosis says so; where it is not, you hear that too, in writing, with options.
We build the function to outlast us.
The roadmap, the cadence, the dashboard and the team coaching are designed so a full-time CMO can take over without starting again. The engagement has done its job when you no longer need it.
We are built for Indian SMBs.
We work with owner-led businesses across India and know their constraints: small teams, regional agencies, tight budgets and an owner who has been head of marketing by default. The engagement is shaped around that, not around a corporate template.
Where it applies
The same service, in different businesses.
Manufacturing and industrial
- The situation:
- A component manufacturer sells through distributors and a small direct team. Marketing is a catalogue, a website and exhibitions, run by whoever has time.
- How it applies:
- The fractional CMO diagnoses which channels reach specifiers and distributors, sets priorities around dealer enablement and inbound enquiries, and puts a cadence around exhibitions and their follow-up.
- Likely benefit:
- Marketing effort points at the buyers who specify the product, and enquiries are tracked through to distributor orders.
Healthcare and clinics
- The situation:
- A multi-branch clinic group spends on digital advertising through an agency and cannot tell which branches or services the spend actually fills.
- How it applies:
- A diagnosis of spend by branch and service, priorities around the services with spare capacity, and a monthly report that reads enquiries and appointments by source.
- Likely benefit:
- Spend follows capacity, and the owner can see cost per appointment by branch.
B2B software and services
- The situation:
- A software company with a two-person marketing team and a revenue plan that assumes inbound pipeline the team has never produced before.
- How it applies:
- The fractional CMO sets the pipeline coverage requirement, prioritises the two channels most likely to meet it, coaches the team on briefing and measurement, and reports coverage to sales fortnightly.
- Likely benefit:
- The revenue plan's marketing assumption is tested and managed rather than hoped for.
Consumer brands and D2C
- The situation:
- A food or wellness brand grows through marketplaces and its own site, with four vendors for performance, content, design and PR and nobody joining them up.
- How it applies:
- One budget view across vendors, a mandate that puts the fractional CMO in charge of all four, a weekly rhythm and a report that reads contribution by channel.
- Likely benefit:
- Vendors work to one plan, and the owner stops being the integration point.
Education and training
- The situation:
- A training institute's admissions depend on seasonal campaigns run by an agency, and the owner rebriefs them from scratch every season.
- How it applies:
- A diagnosis of the last two seasons, a priorities and calendar document that carries across seasons, agency scorecards and a report that reads enquiries through to enrolments.
- Likely benefit:
- Each season starts from last season's evidence rather than from a blank brief.
Professional services
- The situation:
- A firm of consultants or architects wins work by referral and wants a marketing function without hiring a marketing head it cannot keep busy.
- How it applies:
- A one-day-a-week fractional CMO sets positioning, a content and referral programme and a monthly review, and coaches the partner who owns marketing.
- Likely benefit:
- The firm gets senior marketing direction for a fraction of a hire, and the partner learns to run it.
Questions buyers ask
Before you enquire, the answers you will want.
How much of my time and decision authority does a fractional CMO need?
Plan on a monthly review of about ninety minutes, a half-day each quarter and quick decisions on escalations in between. The mandate sets what the fractional CMO decides alone, typically day-to-day direction, agency management and spend within an agreed envelope, and what comes to you, such as new vendors, hires or budget beyond that envelope. The more authority you delegate within clear limits, the faster marketing moves. We agree those limits before day one, in writing.
How long does a fractional CMO engagement last?
There is no fixed term. The first month is the diagnosis, and the first full quarter is where priorities, cadence and reporting bed in. After that, most businesses continue quarter by quarter until they hire a full-time CMO, the need reduces to advisory, or the function is running well enough for the internal team to lead it. We review the shape of the engagement every quarter and plan the handover from the start.
What inputs do you need from us to start?
Your revenue plan or targets, the current marketing budget and vendor list, access to analytics, advertising accounts, CRM and agency reports, and time with your sales team to hear about lead quality. If some of these do not exist yet, that is useful information in itself and becomes part of the diagnosis. You do not need to prepare anything polished; we work from what is actually there.
How is success measured?
Against the baseline recorded in the first thirty days, on the metrics in the monthly report: revenue attainment and marketing's contribution to it, pipeline coverage, forecast accuracy, sales productivity on marketing-sourced leads and execution velocity. We also track whether the cadence is holding and whether the team is making more decisions without escalation. Success is a marketing function that produces pipeline the sales team accepts and reports on it without being chased.
What is excluded from scope?
The fractional CMO leads and directs; they do not personally run campaigns, write all the content or build the website. Execution stays with your team and agencies, or with an outsourced marketing department if you need one. Sales leadership, pricing decisions and customer success sit outside the role unless the mandate says otherwise. If the diagnosis shows that execution capacity is the real gap, we say so rather than stretching the role to cover it.
How is this different from an outsourced marketing department?
An outsourced marketing department gives you the hands: people who plan and run campaigns, content, design and channels. A fractional CMO gives you the head: someone who decides what marketing should do, owns the budget, manages whoever executes and answers for the result. Many businesses need both, and the two can be combined. If you already have a team or agencies and lack direction, the CMO comes first.
How is a fractional CMO different from a fractional CRO?
A fractional chief revenue officer leads sales, marketing and customer success together and owns the whole revenue number. A fractional CMO leads marketing specifically: positioning, demand, brand, budget, team and agencies, and reports marketing's contribution to the revenue plan. If your sales function already has a capable leader and marketing is the gap, the CMO is the right role. If both need leadership, a CRO is usually the better first step.
Will the fractional CMO manage our existing agencies?
Yes, if the mandate says so, and we recommend that it does. Agencies do better work with a senior client-side lead who briefs clearly, reviews results properly and makes decisions quickly. The fractional CMO rebriefs each agency against the quarterly priorities, gives them a scorecard and reviews them in the weekly rhythm. Where an agency is doing good work, you hear that. Where it is not, you hear that too, with evidence and options.
3 more questions
Do you replace our marketing manager?
No. A capable marketing manager is the person the fractional CMO most wants to find. The role sits above them, gives them a leader to learn from, takes the decisions that were above their level and coaches them on real work. Many engagements end with the marketing manager ready to lead the function, which is one of the better outcomes. If the manager is not the right person, the diagnosis will say so, privately and with reasons.
Does the fractional CMO work on site or remotely?
Both work, and most engagements mix them. The diagnosis month benefits from time on site with the team and with sales, and the monthly review is better in person where possible. The weekly rhythm runs well remotely. We serve businesses across India, and we agree the split of on-site and remote days in the mandate so there is no ambiguity about what you are paying for.
What happens when we hire a full-time CMO?
That is the planned end of the engagement, not an interruption. The fractional CMO hands over the diagnosis history, the roadmap, the cadence, the dashboard, the agency scorecards and the team notes, and overlaps with the incoming leader for an agreed period. We can also help you write the role and assess candidates, because by then we know what the function actually needs from its leader.
Talk to us
Give marketing a leader before you give it another budget.
A free audit conversation about where your marketing stands and whether a fractional CMO is the right shape of help. No deck, no pitch, and if the answer is a different service or none at all, we say so.
- No obligation and no sales script
- A reply from someone who does the work
- Your details are never sold or shared