We Will Help Predictably Scale Your Business By:
Build a compelling personal brand that sets you apart in your industry and also creates a flywheel effect for attracting customers and A-Level talent like a magnet.
Reduce your lead costs by a factor of 5-10x by implementing our content advertising strategies and building systems with the right people managing those systems inside your company.
Without new clients, there is no growth. But you don’t want the penny pinchers and tire kickers. Rather financially qualified & motivated prospects that are ready to buy.
No one can grow a company without a team. But you don’t want just any team…you want the best. One A-Level talent can replace 5-10 people that are “just doing their job”.
CO Consulting offers nine fractional CMO and marketing services: strategic leadership (Fractional CMO), AI search and AEO, SEO, paid advertising, content marketing, funnels and email automation, AI services, business automation, and growth consulting. Most clients start with one service tied to their biggest bottleneck, then add others once that channel is measurable and producing qualified conversations.
I built this menu around the problems I see most in professional-service firms and 7-figure service businesses. Every service sits inside one system: a clear offer, traffic you can measure, a follow-up path that does not leak, and a reporting loop that tells you where the next dollar should go. Here is what each piece covers.
Senior marketing leadership on a part-time basis. I own the plan, the budget, the vendor and agency relationships, and the weekly scorecard, and I manage whoever is executing, whether that is your team, freelancers, or agencies. This is the right starting point when marketing has no owner and the founder is the bottleneck.
Answer engine optimization for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. The work covers entity and brand signals, answer-first page structure, structured data, third-party mentions, and tracking whether AI assistants actually name your firm. Buyers of advisory services increasingly ask an assistant for a shortlist before they ever open Google.
Technical fixes, site architecture, local search, and commercial service pages that match what buyers type. SEO and AEO now share most of the same foundations, so every SEO engagement includes AI search optimization rather than treating it as a separate project. See exactly what is included, the first 90 days and market pricing on the SEO services page, or read my thinking in the SEO guides.
Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, and YouTube campaigns built around qualified pipeline, not clicks. I have managed millions in ad spend, and the biggest gains usually come from tighter targeting, offer and landing-page fixes, and feeding real lead quality back into the platforms, not from bigger budgets.
Founder-led content systems: articles, video, LinkedIn, and newsletters that build authority and generate demand. Content systems I have built generated more than 200M organic views. For a service firm, the goal is narrower: content that answers the exact questions your best clients ask before they hire someone.
Landing pages, lead magnets, booking flows, and email or SMS nurture sequences that turn interest into booked consultations. This is where most firms leak the most money: leads arrive, wait two days for a reply, and go cold. Fast response and structured follow-up are often the cheapest win available.
Practical AI implementation: content and research workflows, AI-assisted intake and lead qualification, internal assistants trained on your own material, and staff training. The focus is hours saved and output quality, with human review built in where accuracy or compliance matters.
CRM setup, pipeline stages, task routing, reminders, document collection, and reporting dashboards. Automation removes the repetitive admin that eats your team's week and makes the rest of your marketing measurable, because every lead and every stage lives in one place.
Advisory work on positioning, offers, pricing, sales process, and growth planning. This suits owners who have a capable team and need direction rather than hands: a clear plan, a prioritized roadmap, and an outside operator to pressure-test decisions.
Start with the service that fixes your tightest constraint. If you have no marketing owner, start with a Fractional CMO. If leads arrive but do not book, fix funnels and follow-up first. If you are invisible in Google and AI assistants, start with AI search and SEO. Adding traffic to a leaking funnel is the most common and most expensive mistake.
| Your situation | Start with | When it does not fit |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing has no owner; the founder approves everything and vendors are unmanaged | Fractional CMO | You already have a strong in-house marketing leader who needs execution help, not direction |
| Prospects say they found a competitor through ChatGPT or Google; your firm rarely appears | AI Search and AEO | Your website has almost no content or service pages yet; build the foundation first |
| You need leads within weeks and have a proven offer and budget to test | Paid Advertising | Your landing page and follow-up are not ready; ads will only amplify the leak |
| Leads come in but few book a call or show up | Funnels and Email Automation | Lead volume is near zero; there is nothing to convert yet |
| Referrals are drying up and nobody outside your network knows your name | Content Marketing | You cannot commit any founder or expert time to review or record content |
| Your team spends hours on intake, follow-up, and data entry | Business Automation | Your process changes weekly; standardize it before you automate it |
| You want AI to cut workload but do not know where to start safely | AI Services | Regulatory rules in your field prohibit the specific use you have in mind |
| Growth has stalled and you are unsure whether the problem is offer, pricing, or sales | Growth Consulting | You already know the plan and simply need people to execute it |
The services work best as a sequence, not a bundle. A typical order is: fix tracking and follow-up, then add one traffic channel, then build compounding assets like content and AI visibility. A Fractional CMO ties the pieces together so each channel is judged on booked consultations and revenue, not vanity metrics.
Three combinations I use most often:
Above all three sits strategy. Without someone owning priorities and budget, firms tend to run several half-finished initiatives at once. That is why many engagements begin with a fractional CMO or a short growth consulting sprint before any channel spend increases.
Every engagement follows the same path: a diagnostic call, an audit of your current marketing and numbers, a prioritized 90-day plan, then execution with weekly check-ins and monthly reporting. You see the plan and the scope before committing, and each phase has a clear decision point about whether to continue, expand, or stop.
Fractional CMO and marketing consulting services are usually sold as monthly retainers, fixed-scope projects, or hourly advisory. Published market ranges for 2026 put fractional CMO retainers around $4,000 to $20,000 per month, projects around $15,000 to $50,000, and senior hourly advisory around $200 to $500. Your scope sets your actual fee.
| Model | Typical market range | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Fractional CMO retainer | Roughly $4,000 to $20,000 per month, commonly $5,000 to $8,000 for firms in the $1M to $5M revenue band | Ongoing leadership, budget ownership, and managing execution across channels |
| Fixed-scope project | Roughly $15,000 to $50,000 depending on scope | A funnel build, CRM and automation setup, website or AI search overhaul, or go-to-market plan |
| Hourly or advisory | Roughly $200 to $500 per hour for senior strategists | Owners with an execution team who want periodic strategic input |
| Retainer plus performance component | Base retainer with a variable piece tied to agreed, measurable milestones | Mature channels with clean tracking where outcomes can be attributed fairly |
These figures are typical ranges published by fractional CMO marketplaces and consultants, not a CO Consulting price list. Ad spend, software, and production costs sit on top of any fee. No honest provider can guarantee rankings, AI citations, or a set number of leads, and I do not either. What I commit to is a clear scope, transparent reporting, and decisions based on your data.
CO Consulting focuses on professional-service firms where trust, compliance, and long sales cycles shape marketing: CPA and accounting firms, tax planners, financial advisors, estate-planning and other law firms, exit-planning advisors, capital raisers, and business coaches, plus HVAC contractors. Each industry has its own playbook for the same nine services.
A marketing agency mainly supplies execution, an in-house CMO supplies full-time leadership at full-time cost, and a fractional CMO supplies senior strategy and accountability for part of the cost while managing whoever executes. Many firms in the $1M to $20M range get the best return from fractional leadership plus a small, focused execution team.
In practice I often work alongside an existing agency or a single in-house marketer. My role is to set direction, hold vendors to measurable targets, and close the gaps between marketing and sales that agencies are rarely paid to fix. When the business outgrows a fractional arrangement, I help hire and onboard the full-time leader.
For deeper reading, see the fractional CMO guides, the growth consulting articles, and the lead generation guides. To see how this work plays out in practice, browse the case studies or read more about Christoph Olivier.
Not sure which service fits? Book a free consultation and I will tell you where I would start, what it would likely cost, and whether you need me at all.
Fractional CMO and marketing services give a business senior marketing leadership and specialist execution without a full-time executive hire. A fractional CMO owns strategy, budget, and reporting part-time, while services such as SEO, AI search, paid ads, content, funnels, and automation deliver the channels. You pay for the leadership and the work you need, not a full department.
Published 2026 market ranges put fractional CMO retainers at roughly $4,000 to $20,000 per month, with firms in the $1M to $5M revenue band often paying $5,000 to $8,000. Fixed projects commonly run $15,000 to $50,000, and senior hourly advisory around $200 to $500. Actual fees depend on scope, hours, and how much execution is included.
Marketing consulting services focus on direction: strategy, positioning, budget allocation, and deciding what to do next. An agency mainly executes: running ads, writing content, building sites. A consultant fits when you have people to execute but lack a plan. An agency fits when the plan is set and you need hands. A fractional CMO often manages both.
Start with your tightest constraint. With no marketing owner, start with a fractional CMO. If leads arrive but do not book, fix funnels and follow-up. If prospects cannot find you in Google or ChatGPT, start with AI search and SEO. Adding traffic before fixing conversion usually wastes budget, so the order matters more than the menu.
Yes. Many engagements start with one fixed-scope project, such as a funnel build, CRM automation, or an AI search audit, and stop there or expand once results are measurable. A retainer makes sense when you need ongoing leadership or continuous channel management. The first consultation is where we decide which structure fits your stage and budget.
No. Nobody can honestly guarantee rankings, AI assistant mentions, or a fixed number of leads, because search engines, AI models, and buyers are outside any consultant's control. What I commit to is a clear scope, a prioritized plan, transparent weekly and monthly reporting, and decisions based on your own data, including recommending we stop if a channel does not work.