Eliminating Your Biggest Marketing Headaches with Joshua Ramsey

Dr. Steven Kirch

Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Profit Minds podcast. My name is Dr. Steven Kirch, and I’m the creator of the Profit Minds Growth System, a unique blend of profit growth, productivity acceleration, and building business processes for scale.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Every episode, I interview entrepreneurs and small business owners from around the world with a unique story to tell. You can find the show on YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple, and Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and more.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Today, my guest is Joshua Ramsey of JRCMO, and we’ll be talking about the difference between a fractional CMO, an ad agency, and a marketing consultant. Welcome, Josh.

Josh Ramsey

Hey Dr. Steven, how are you today?

Dr. Steven Kirch

I’m doing great, thanks for joining me.

Josh Ramsey

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Steven Kirch

So all of my listeners know that I love them because my story is very convoluted. I love to hear the stories of how people got to where they are. So tell us your story. How did you get to be a fractional CMO?

Josh Ramsey

Yeah, so back in the 90s, I just enjoyed doing sales. So I got into selling media, like transit advertising, billboards. I worked for a large company doing newspaper sales, ads in the newspaper, magazines, and so forth.

Josh Ramsey

So any type of media traditional marketing that could be out there is what I did. From there, it kind of evolved because I couldn’t ever retain clients. The ads just didn’t click, and I didn’t really understand in my young career what those ads needed to be and why I couldn’t retain clients.

Josh Ramsey

So I was always selling, selling, selling, but never able to retain. Became really frustrating, so I finally moved into the world of ad agency. And in the ad agency world, it really changed my paradigm to be able to understand why we create ads and what those ads look like.

Josh Ramsey

So I went to work for a top 100 ad agency in about 2003. And from there, in the first six months, I moved from junior project manager to senior project manager. And then within about a year and a half after that, I became VP of sales and marketing.

Josh Ramsey

It just came to me. I just understood it.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Hm.

Josh Ramsey

In 2009, everyone remembers the great economy here. Oh.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Wow, yeah.

Josh Ramsey

And I ended up through just the way things work. I had to start my own ad agency. So in 2009, I started an ad agency and continued to run that and then kind of fell into what you call fire retire, where everything was set up and running really smoothly.

Josh Ramsey

So at about the end of 2018, I retired and started kind of writing a book and thinking about where I wanted to go. I looked at the marketplace and realized there was a huge gap in the market for a fractional chief marketing officer.

Josh Ramsey

There was always a fractional CFO, but I never saw anything in the way of marketing of who can come in and work with a company and how do they take that company to the next level. So that’s the gravity of my story and kind of the growth of where I’ve been and where I’m at now.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Okay, so explain to our listeners and to me, right? What’s the difference between a fractional CMO, I mean, again, everybody knows what a fractional CFO does, but a fractional CMO, what’s the difference between that and having an ad or marketing agency or a marketing consultant?

Dr. Steven Kirch

What distinguishes one for the other and why would somebody wanna choose one or the other?

Josh Ramsey

Yeah, so it’s a great question and a lot of people have that question, especially when they hear fractional CMO wondering what is this, how does it work? And the easiest way that I explain it is when you go to a company like an ad agency, the ad agency usually has something that they’re good at, let’s say it’s link building or it’s content building, they have something that they like to focus on.

Josh Ramsey

The problem is that they’re going to only sell you and give you what they’re good at. Not necessarily what you need as a company to elevate your growth and take you to the next level, they only have what they’re good at, so their salesperson will only offer that.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Or even if they offer all of that, all the other stuff, they’re really good at one thing and therefore that’s the thing that they really push.

Josh Ramsey

But right. And that’s if you go with a full stack agency, right? So a full stack ad agency has all these different offerings, and they’ll help you through it. But the majority of companies that can, can pay for a full stack ad agency, they already have a CMO on staff.

Josh Ramsey

Right? Okay, yeah. Yeah, because at that point, they have a CMO and they go, okay, here’s where we can move forward. But then you also have a lesser company that let’s say lesser as in like full size, right?

Josh Ramsey

Right. So you have a smaller company that has a marketing director. Well, a marketing director, depending on the title, could be very well versed, but maybe they don’t have as much experience. So my background is psychology.

Josh Ramsey

And it’s focused on growing an agency having lived, breathed and grown. And through that, now I offer the services typically to medium sized to small businesses to help them get to that next level for them to understand what they need to do.

Josh Ramsey

I mean, I’ll use just a quick for instance, because you just brought this up. I have one client that I’ve worked with for about a year now. And when they came to me, they had a CMO, the CMO left, they needed someone to fill the void and basically handle a lot of items.

Josh Ramsey

About eight months into working with this client, it became very evident to me that they were good at what they did, but they weren’t telling the story right. So some people have heard the statement of having had something good to say and say it well.

Josh Ramsey

And that’s what they weren’t doing. And it took a little bit of time because when I came in, they said, here’s the direction we want you to go. But as I went that direction, it became very evident that they needed to tell their story difference.

Josh Ramsey

So now we are in what I call the maturation process of laying the groundwork of saying it well. And then the next level will be say it often, right? So it’s just kind of understanding that an agency wouldn’t be able to do that.

Josh Ramsey

An agency isn’t going to be in house with the business owner to say, hey, what’s your vision? What’s your real goal? And then have that maturation process of growth to say, here are the next steps for us to get to where that needs to be.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Okay, and what’s the difference between a fractional CMO and a marketing consultant?

Josh Ramsey

So typically a fractional CMO is going to actually put their hands on things and get it done. A marketing consultant is just that. They consult. They tell you, go do this, go do that. So a fractional CMO can just be a consultant, however most people would engage a CMO to actually lay out the plan and then go execute the plan.

Josh Ramsey

So some clients will come to me and they have an ad agency. But think about this, who holds that ad agency accountable? If you have an employee, who holds your employee accountable? That they show up on time, that they get the work done, that they’re doing what they need to do.

Josh Ramsey

At the level they should do it, right? This is why you have sales coaches. They don’t do the sales, but they coach you. They consult with you. But a fractional CMO can either come in and hold someone accountable, like a sales coach.

Josh Ramsey

But oftentimes again, I’m doing it as a fractional myself. I’m coming in and doing the work, not just telling you what needs to happen. I’m coming in and actually applying the methodology. Create the methodology, apply the methodology.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I think I’m seeing the difference now. So just like with a fractional CFO, you’re going to provide what the big boys or the big companies have, right, in terms of the capabilities, but at a fraction of the cost because you’re not doing it full-time at that company.

Dr. Steven Kirch

But you hold the ad agency accountable. You make sure that the strategy is connected with what the CEO and the other members of the C-suite, what they really need the message to be, and you help them craft that, and then make sure that the ad agency or whoever it is that’s actually carrying it out does it well.

Dr. Steven Kirch

I liked the idea of, you know, you’re playing manager to those external organizations that are doing the work.

Josh Ramsey

Yeah, I mean, oftentimes, just to build on that quickly as a business owner, when I teach at a lot of conferences, I tell people, business owners don’t get in business thinking, I’m great at marketing, thinking, I’m great at x, right?

Josh Ramsey

But they don’t know how to hold those people accountable. And part of it also can be that a fractional CMO can build a team based on what you need. A consultant can kind of do that, depending on the consultant.

Josh Ramsey

But a fractional CMO can do the work while hiring the team, train the team, and then kind of push them forward into the direction they need to go.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Got it. Okay. So what’s your methodology? How did you come up with the methodology that you use for being this fractional CMO?

Josh Ramsey

You know, I think methodology always has to grow, and I hate to overuse the word, but it has to mature through a process and a time, and it’s always evolving. And what I realized here even recently is that I’ve always done some process, and there is a process that needs to happen, but one of my newer creations of programs and platforms that is a methodology and a focus is what I call the Agile Plan.

Josh Ramsey

And the Marketing Agile Plan, as I put it together, has multiple steps based on principles that buyers buy, why they buy, because I tell people in conferences often, no matter what you sell, people buy based on three basic principles.

Josh Ramsey

One of them is advantages to ownership, then objections to owning whatever you sell, and then vendor selection. So these three levels, no matter if it’s a stick of gum up to a car, a house, or anything in between, we all buy based on those items.

Josh Ramsey

Objections oftentimes is price, but it could be color. If you don’t have the car, it’s selection in the right color, you don’t want it, right? There can be a ton of things, but that becomes part of the methodology, but again, that’s psychology-based.

Josh Ramsey

Like it’s understanding that. Then you can go into different principles of the methodology, but the Agile Program is really meant to be a methodology and a focus for business owners. I literally had a meeting this morning with a new business and they are going through what we call a GTM, go-to-market strategy, because they’re rebranding, but they’re not really rebranding, they’re going to market with additional products to what they do.

Josh Ramsey

And as we were talking through it, I explained the Agile Program to them and said, listen, when you start off, what you have to do is build your keywords. What words are you trying to rank for? So this is step one, understand what people are looking for and what you need to explain to them.

Josh Ramsey

You take those keywords and you move to part two, which is your strategic message, right? Your keywords go into your message, but inside your message, I have about seven main points, but I would say one of the most important ones is what we call the USP, unique selling position.

Josh Ramsey

What is it that makes you more powerful, more strategic, a better option when it comes to vendor selection, when it comes to objections, what is it that you have that no one else has? And that can oftentimes be very difficult for someone to come up with.

Josh Ramsey

But once you go from keywords to your strategic message, now you place that strategic message through what’s called tactical marketing. That’s when you actually put ads into the marketplace and people can see those ads.

Josh Ramsey

But very quickly behind, and as you do the tactical marketing, you have to have your brand style guide, making sure that everything comes together and that your brand matches, your color scheme matches, your messaging matches, and it elevates, it grows through that process, right?

Josh Ramsey

And then we go to budget. What are you gonna spend? And that’s tied closely to tracking your ROIs and setting KPIs. Sometimes business owners, they don’t know. Even big companies I’ve worked with and do work with, they don’t know the right KPIs to have or what their budget should be.

Josh Ramsey

They’ll look at me and say, what should my budget be? You tell me, and I’m going, no, you tell me. Because if I come in and spend $5,000 and they go, I don’t have 5,000, there’s a little bit of disconnect.

Josh Ramsey

So there is a little bit of a dance there that you have to work with somebody to understand. But again, that kind of goes back to the difference of a fractional CMO versus an agency. Who’s gonna make that determination of that budget, right?

Josh Ramsey

So that’s the agile program just simplified. There’s a lot more to it, but that kind of gives you a little bit of a picture there.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Okay. Yeah. So, so what I’m hearing is, you know, it’s, it’s a three step, three step process, right? Where you, where you, you figure out what are the, what are the words, right? And then, and then it’s, you know, how do you make that into a message that resonates as they, as the, as the potential buyer goes through those, those steps, right?

Dr. Steven Kirch

And then finally, placing, figuring out how to place the ads and where to place them. And, and did I get that? Is that?

Josh Ramsey

Yeah, I mean, there’s multiple steps. But yes, those are the first parts, right? So what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it, then getting it to market, right? Right. But then once you have it to market, how do you know if it’s successful or not?

Dr. Steven Kirch

Oh, yeah, there’s your ROI, right? Then your KPI, right?

Josh Ramsey

Right. You have to set the KPIs to know your key point indicator. I mean, I’ll give you a real life, for instance, I wanted to test something on Friday and this was just three days ago. And I went out, I created a landing page with a small funnel behind it and I spent a hundred dollars on paid ads in a very small little radius.

Josh Ramsey

I wanted to see what I would get. It’s been under a hundred dollars. I got a hundred and 31 clicks or a hundred and 31 clicks and 87 people scroll further down my page. So within that, I got zero traction and I went back and I analyzed why that happened.

Josh Ramsey

What was it that didn’t go right? And there’s a lot of ways to track that, but that becomes your KPI because I didn’t really know what my budget should be, but I had an idea. I ran a small budget to identify what could be broken before spending a massive budget.

Josh Ramsey

So that becomes a new methodology called “test before you invest.” Try something a little bit before you jump all the way in and just go for it. Right. So again, there’s a lot of methodology that at least I work with that is again, psychological of just why buyers buy and why business owners need to be careful where they push their chips into trying just a little bit to fill in the water.

Josh Ramsey

Then we can come back and work at a deeper level. Right.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Yeah. Okay. So can somebody implement this Agile plan themselves without you?

Josh Ramsey

Absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s, I mean, I give it as a free resource, by the way. So on my website, people can go right out and see the agile plan from top to bottom and exactly what you should do all the way to the unique selling position to the methodology that I talked about, you know, and in every step of the way it lays it out for them.

Josh Ramsey

I’m a believer in giving people all the information and letting them do it. And, you know, for me, my best client is one that goes, I tried it and I don’t think I hit the mark. Can you help me? Then I’m like, yeah, absolutely.

Josh Ramsey

But I also believe that if someone, if I can help someone grow to that next level and they use my methodology, it’s my belief and I’ve seen it work that they’ll come back to me and they’ll go, okay, I grew.

Josh Ramsey

Now I need your help. And I’ve seen this work. And then they come back and they go, Hey, let’s do something together. Can we bring you in? And then I go, yeah, great. Let’s see what happens. You know,

Dr. Steven Kirch

Great. Now, so you talk a little bit about your ideal client. I’d like to hear a little bit more about, you know, what, what, what’s the, what’s the best, uh, what’s, what’s a great client for you? How do you, how do you, and how do you find them?

Josh Ramsey

Yeah, so the best client is a little bit of what I think every person out there that hires an agency or a marketing consultant or a fractional CMO, it’s my belief that every business owner should know enough about it and have the right KPIs that they set.

Josh Ramsey

Don’t let the agency set it for you because they’re going to control the narrative. But if you can set the right KPIs, that’s really important. So my best client and the clients that I almost, almost insist on working with is someone that understands at least the basics of what I’m doing and why, why it’s important, why it’s relevant to them and what is going to happen, what is the proper expectation.

Josh Ramsey

That’s one reason why my average client stays with me more than five years because we set the proper expectation, we understand what is going to happen and what should happen, and then we talk about what the agility is of changing the process as needed along the way.

Josh Ramsey

So that’s a little bit of what that looks like. So again, full circle, it’s just an educated person, or someone that’s willing to be educated on the core principles of what we’re trying to achieve and why. And I give that.

Josh Ramsey

I do that every single day because it’s just, to me, it’s good business practice. It’s just, let me give information. I’ll go do the work, but at least understand why I’m doing the work. And if I’m being paid, then why are you paying me, right? 

Josh Ramsey

To kind of walk down that road.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Okay. So if, if, I think the other thing I’d like to talk a little bit about is..you have a you have an ebook.

Josh Ramsey

Yeah.

Dr. Steven Kirch

What’s that about and tell us a little bit about how folks can get a hold of that.

Josh Ramsey

Yeah, so I listed the e-book for free on my website. And the book is really kind of the core points of writing marketing. It’s really for that entrepreneur that’s just trying to get their feet going. They’re trying to understand what they should do and how.

Josh Ramsey

So there’s different sections of the book. Some of it is psychology based on why buyers make decisions when they buy advantages, objections, vendor selection. Then there’s other parts of the book that talk about writing the marketing and how you do it.

Josh Ramsey

And there’s actually a template that will help you step by step write that content. Chapter 1 actually starts out and it says what to look for from an ad agency. What expectations should you have and how do you make a decision on an ad agency?

Josh Ramsey

What questions you should ask them, etc. So there’s a lot of great information, especially if someone’s trying to get it going. But I will say this. My book is about 86 pages. It’s a quick read because what I didn’t want to do is create a bunch of fluff and filler where someone’s reading a book and it takes them three days or four days.

Josh Ramsey

This is a book that if you’re a quick reader, you can read it in a couple of hours, but it does take two or three times to read to really understand how to apply the items. But yeah, that’s free on one of my websites as well.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Great. So if people want to get a hold of you, what’s the best way to reach out?

Josh Ramsey

So the best way really is to go to jrcmo.com. That stands for Josh Ramsey, Chief Marketing Officer. So jrcmo.com. And there, I offer a free two-hour consultation. So anybody who wants to chat for two hours, I ask that you fill out a short business evaluation.

Josh Ramsey

And then from that business evaluation, it gives me enough data that I can go do some quick research on who you are, what you’ve been doing, what your business is. And it just allows me to come in with a little bit more knowledge on what that looks like.

Josh Ramsey

So yeah, that free two hours, I feel like you can’t really know someone in 20 minutes. So I put two hours out there to really be able to understand who they are and what brought them to that level, that point of us having the conversation.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Wow, that’s great. Two-hour consultation, that’s a really generous offer.

Josh Ramsey

Like I said, I’ve, you know, my business since the mid 2000s, a big reason that I would say that things have grown and done so well for me has really been that I love, I love the humanity of giving back to people and helping them grow.

Josh Ramsey

That’s really where my heart is. I always ask in the conference, Hey, what does Google care about? And everyone says money. And I said, Google doesn’t care about money. They care about the user experience because they know that if you have a great user experience, what’s going to happen?

Josh Ramsey

You’re going to come back. You’re going to keep working with them. That’s why Google will probably never go away because you don’t go to Google, do a search and not find what you want. It may take you two or three times. 

Josh Ramsey

Always going to find what you’re looking for. Right. And that’s why they’ve been such a great search engine. So I’ve just modeled the common sense of helping people, right? It’s just the right thing to do to give them the information and let them make an educated decision on what’s the next step.

Josh Ramsey

What does this look like?

Dr. Steven Kirch

That’s great. And that concludes our show. Thanks to our guest, Josh Ramsey. I hope you’ve learned something about what the heck is a fractional CMO. I know I did. This is Dr. Stephen Kirch of Profit Minds.

Dr. Steven Kirch

Make sure you catch us again next time on YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple and Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and more. Of course, I’d appreciate a good review on any of those platforms. Thanks again for joining us.