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I’ve had a weird career.
I’ve swapped in and out of industries: newspaper and magazine journalism, working in adland for one of the big agencies, and then switching to B2B SaaS as a marketer. I’ve been the media, the agency and the brand.
I’ve been in-house; freelance; I’ve co-founded and run a business, and I’ve also been very, very unemployed. At various times I’ve volunteered for causes or organisations about which I feel strongly and on three separate occasions I’ve formalised this by becoming a trustee or director for charities.
I always needed variety. I don’t like to feel pigeon-holed. The only thing I always knew about what I wanted career-wise was that I didn’t want to do the same day, repeated over and over.
My sassy 10-year-old daughter enjoys asking me what I do for a living because I find it so hard to articulate who and what I am in a single line; she enjoys seeing my face contort as I try to explain myself.
My brother-in-law has not had a weird career. He’s been incredibly successful in the City and had two jobs in his whole life. He’s been in his current role for 20 years.
He has a much easier answer to the “so what are you doing with yourself these days?” question, casually asked by distant relatives during the small talk stage of family events.
Basically, I’m a storyteller. I didn’t become one. I was a storyteller when I was a kid, right through school, throughout my teens and then as I jumped into journalism.
There’s an episode coming up of Do More With Less - the podcast I host for OrbitalX - with Joe Lazer, author of brand new bestseller Super Skill: Why Storytelling Is the Superpower of the AI Age. I can’t wait to meet Joe and I also can’t wait to read the book - it’s been a smash in the US but doesn’t come out here in the UK for another month.
In a recent post on Linkedin, Joe noted that Netflix and OpenAI are offering salaries of up to $775,000 per year for storytelling roles. Anthropic, he added, has hired 80+ storytelling and comms roles in recent months, many of which pay $500K+ in total compensation.
Two years ago, nobody was interested in storytelling as a skill. I’m certain I won’t have been the only one advised to stop using the word in recruitment processes altogether and to ensure it was nowhere to be seen on my resume.
While it’s lovely that we storytellers are back in fashion, I’ve seen enough turnover of feast and famine to suspect our latest golden age will be short-lived. I’d also argue there isn’t a boardroom in the world committed enough to a storytelling strategy to believe any candidate can sustain or justify these salaries past ‘year 1’. I’ll ask Joe how he sees it but for me, that gravy train will break down as soon as the trend-pendulum swings back to the harder, more tangible, measurable stuff.
What I do know though is that storytelling isn’t and never has been my most valuable skill.
The element of my professional ‘self’ that I’d price above anything storytelling - although maybe it comes more naturally to storytellers - is that I’m kind of ‘elastic’.
That’s the best word I could think of for it; (agile is loaded with all sorts of tech-bro context and flexible sounds like I lack agency).
What I mean by elastic, was well articulated last week by a marketing recruiter I’ve started following on Linkedin named Sinead Willis.
“The strongest marketers I know have the “messiest” careers,” Willis wrote. “They’ve worked inhouse, freelanced, taken breaks, been laid off, jumped into startups that blew up and startups that blew apart.
“Every one of those moves built perspective.They’ve learned to do more with less, build from zero, and fix what’s broken. But too many job descriptions still cling to linear career logic, as if the only valuable experience is uninterrupted, upward, and corporate.
“The next decade belongs to marketers who’ve done the messy stuff because they’re the ones who know what to do when the playbook stops working.”
I hope Willis is right. Not just because I agree those of us with what Sunday Times Bestseller stars Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper call ‘Squiggly Careers’, are genuinely better set up to navigate uncertainty than execs with more simple or linear paths.
But also because playbooks have and will continue to stop working. And by focusing so heavily on channels and tactics - traditionally prioritised by B2B marketing ahead of story or mission - so much marketing is as forgettable for the recipient as it is joyless for the marketer to create.
It’s work that leaves our frustrated bosses wondering why they pay for marketing that leaves their business offer and brand virtually invisible; why we literally invite our customers to disregard us.
And at that point - well, internal interest in marketing disappears. Ambition and perspective shrink; marketing strategies start being built around costs rather than outcomes. Investment is cut to a point where marketing programmes feel relatively risk-free.
Unfortunately, that’s often the point at which a marketing plan stops achieving anything even vaguely useful. Risk-free marketing is the most expensive marketing there is. You’re investing time, money and work for literally nothing to happen. Any ‘message’ simply drifts over the heads of your audience without touching them. And the worst part? Nobody cares. Sure, there are regular complaints or snide remarks from the sales team but that’s often restricted to a low-level and harmless hum. Things get done badly; with zero love or craft and nobody gets held to account.
So instead of proper campaign planning according to strategic business ambitions and targets, marketing becomes the act of ticking off busy activities on stagnant spreadsheets.
The marketing goal is no longer business transformation or growth as it once was; it’s now merely a watered-down case study or the moving deadline for ‘that blog’.
This marketing death-spiral has been a clear risk in every team I’ve ever been a part of. Even in a high-functioning set-up, it’s never more than a broken relationship or a few bad pieces of work away from being triggered.
Being elastic is what prevents it. Being elastic is the opposite of being a ‘good culture fit’ - of over compliance; of following direction from non-marketers without question.
Diversity and inclusion conversations have quite rightly focused on women, people of colour and LGBTQ employees. That shouldn’t stop - we’re far from done in that regard. But the conversations should also include people who see the world differently - the neurodiverse and the creatives. People who abhor a status quo and can barely hold themselves together if they can’t comfortably raise opposing views or ask thorny questions.
And as a leader or even just a colleague, it’s difficult being difficult. Any fool in marketing can prance about on conference stages winning applause from listeners with speeches about creativity.
Actually doing it behind closed office doors amid the stress of trying to keep a business afloat is, more often than not, painful. Hell, it’s not as if you’re telling your colleagues something they don’t know. Your leadership already understands that not all B2B marketing plans should look the same; that homogeneity stalls careers and is crushing and counter-productive to hopes of growth. But the alternative is hard. It requires stretch, empathy, big listening ears and active imagination. And the bravery to sound and look different; to take a risk.
This - this is the real job of your storyteller; your elastic colleague. They stretch and lengthen their worldviews, way past the boundaries of a functional marketing programme. They imagine and incorporate the needs of customers, partners - all the different stakeholders - and then move it all beyond commonplace business or sales patter. They’ll tie it all together and wrap it into an actual story - something memorable, powerful.
My partners at OrbitalX refer to this as a superpower of mine. It’s a relief and a blessing to find smart business people that see the value. If you’ve felt at work like I have in various jobs, you’ll know what I mean. Sometimes we’re seen as interesting misfits; ‘loved-but-not-always-understood’ ideas machines.
Other times we can, I guess, come across quite annoying. A CEO might keep you around because your constructive discontent is regularly useful but elsewhere, colleagues just see you as the person that never stops asking bloody questions.
If you’re lucky you’ll have had more than your fair share of jobs, businesses or bosses who knew your value and were determined to hold on to you at all costs. Most people in life can never say this but work is a legitimate pleasure for as long as there’s someone who needs you to keep that ideas motor turning; that understands there’s nobody else on the team with your perspective, skill-set or ability to create ‘something out of nothing’; right?
Sure, you might not always fit comfortably into how organisations have to work but it’s possible to find the right blend of compliance and defiance.
‘Compliance’ because most good changes are built on compromise, incremental steps and bringing people with you (but also ‘compliance’ because you need to keep your job, right?). And ‘defiance’ because without people like you, teams and businesses rarely improve and adapt. At OrbitalX, I’m surrounded by people like me. They’re in every function and cover every department. It should be chaos but somehow it works.
Marketing is changing and we need new thinking to address it - not new marketing skills; we should all expose ourselves to serious training and understanding of the discipline - but new approaches to meeting and exceeding expectations and sustaining growth. Competition is now greater, pressures are heavier and implosions occur much quicker.
Reduced headcount and increased investment into technology aren’t the drivers - they’re the results. The driver is an open debate about what marketing is, what it needs to be, how it gets done and what kind of people and skills are required to make it succeed.
Inflated salaries for storytelling roles won’t last; the bubble will surely burst soon enough. But for the first time in my career I don’t feel like a lone, wide-eyed ‘crazy’. Everything is on the table and up for grabs; there’s a massive opportunity for the elastic, the resilient and the versatile.
Check out Mark's Boring2Brave course on the Academy
I’ve had a weird career.
I’ve swapped in and out of industries: newspaper and magazine journalism, working in adland for one of the big agencies, and then switching to B2B SaaS as a marketer. I’ve been the media, the agency and the brand.
I’ve been in-house; freelance; I’ve co-founded and run a business, and I’ve also been very, very unemployed. At various times I’ve volunteered for causes or organisations about which I feel strongly and on three separate occasions I’ve formalised this by becoming a trustee or director for charities.
I always needed variety. I don’t like to feel pigeon-holed. The only thing I always knew about what I wanted career-wise was that I didn’t want to do the same day, repeated over and over.
My sassy 10-year-old daughter enjoys asking me what I do for a living because I find it so hard to articulate who and what I am in a single line; she enjoys seeing my face contort as I try to explain myself.
My brother-in-law has not had a weird career. He’s been incredibly successful in the City and had two jobs in his whole life. He’s been in his current role for 20 years.
He has a much easier answer to the “so what are you doing with yourself these days?” question, casually asked by distant relatives during the small talk stage of family events.
Basically, I’m a storyteller. I didn’t become one. I was a storyteller when I was a kid, right through school, throughout my teens and then as I jumped into journalism.
There’s an episode coming up of Do More With Less - the podcast I host for OrbitalX - with Joe Lazer, author of brand new bestseller Super Skill: Why Storytelling Is the Superpower of the AI Age. I can’t wait to meet Joe and I also can’t wait to read the book - it’s been a smash in the US but doesn’t come out here in the UK for another month.
In a recent post on Linkedin, Joe noted that Netflix and OpenAI are offering salaries of up to $775,000 per year for storytelling roles. Anthropic, he added, has hired 80+ storytelling and comms roles in recent months, many of which pay $500K+ in total compensation.
Two years ago, nobody was interested in storytelling as a skill. I’m certain I won’t have been the only one advised to stop using the word in recruitment processes altogether and to ensure it was nowhere to be seen on my resume.
While it’s lovely that we storytellers are back in fashion, I’ve seen enough turnover of feast and famine to suspect our latest golden age will be short-lived. I’d also argue there isn’t a boardroom in the world committed enough to a storytelling strategy to believe any candidate can sustain or justify these salaries past ‘year 1’. I’ll ask Joe how he sees it but for me, that gravy train will break down as soon as the trend-pendulum swings back to the harder, more tangible, measurable stuff.
What I do know though is that storytelling isn’t and never has been my most valuable skill.
The element of my professional ‘self’ that I’d price above anything storytelling - although maybe it comes more naturally to storytellers - is that I’m kind of ‘elastic’.
That’s the best word I could think of for it; (agile is loaded with all sorts of tech-bro context and flexible sounds like I lack agency).
What I mean by elastic, was well articulated last week by a marketing recruiter I’ve started following on Linkedin named Sinead Willis.
“The strongest marketers I know have the “messiest” careers,” Willis wrote. “They’ve worked inhouse, freelanced, taken breaks, been laid off, jumped into startups that blew up and startups that blew apart.
“Every one of those moves built perspective.They’ve learned to do more with less, build from zero, and fix what’s broken. But too many job descriptions still cling to linear career logic, as if the only valuable experience is uninterrupted, upward, and corporate.
“The next decade belongs to marketers who’ve done the messy stuff because they’re the ones who know what to do when the playbook stops working.”
I hope Willis is right. Not just because I agree those of us with what Sunday Times Bestseller stars Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper call ‘Squiggly Careers’, are genuinely better set up to navigate uncertainty than execs with more simple or linear paths.
But also because playbooks have and will continue to stop working. And by focusing so heavily on channels and tactics - traditionally prioritised by B2B marketing ahead of story or mission - so much marketing is as forgettable for the recipient as it is joyless for the marketer to create.
It’s work that leaves our frustrated bosses wondering why they pay for marketing that leaves their business offer and brand virtually invisible; why we literally invite our customers to disregard us.
And at that point - well, internal interest in marketing disappears. Ambition and perspective shrink; marketing strategies start being built around costs rather than outcomes. Investment is cut to a point where marketing programmes feel relatively risk-free.
Unfortunately, that’s often the point at which a marketing plan stops achieving anything even vaguely useful. Risk-free marketing is the most expensive marketing there is. You’re investing time, money and work for literally nothing to happen. Any ‘message’ simply drifts over the heads of your audience without touching them. And the worst part? Nobody cares. Sure, there are regular complaints or snide remarks from the sales team but that’s often restricted to a low-level and harmless hum. Things get done badly; with zero love or craft and nobody gets held to account.
So instead of proper campaign planning according to strategic business ambitions and targets, marketing becomes the act of ticking off busy activities on stagnant spreadsheets.
The marketing goal is no longer business transformation or growth as it once was; it’s now merely a watered-down case study or the moving deadline for ‘that blog’.
This marketing death-spiral has been a clear risk in every team I’ve ever been a part of. Even in a high-functioning set-up, it’s never more than a broken relationship or a few bad pieces of work away from being triggered.
Being elastic is what prevents it. Being elastic is the opposite of being a ‘good culture fit’ - of over compliance; of following direction from non-marketers without question.
Diversity and inclusion conversations have quite rightly focused on women, people of colour and LGBTQ employees. That shouldn’t stop - we’re far from done in that regard. But the conversations should also include people who see the world differently - the neurodiverse and the creatives. People who abhor a status quo and can barely hold themselves together if they can’t comfortably raise opposing views or ask thorny questions.
And as a leader or even just a colleague, it’s difficult being difficult. Any fool in marketing can prance about on conference stages winning applause from listeners with speeches about creativity.
Actually doing it behind closed office doors amid the stress of trying to keep a business afloat is, more often than not, painful. Hell, it’s not as if you’re telling your colleagues something they don’t know. Your leadership already understands that not all B2B marketing plans should look the same; that homogeneity stalls careers and is crushing and counter-productive to hopes of growth. But the alternative is hard. It requires stretch, empathy, big listening ears and active imagination. And the bravery to sound and look different; to take a risk.
This - this is the real job of your storyteller; your elastic colleague. They stretch and lengthen their worldviews, way past the boundaries of a functional marketing programme. They imagine and incorporate the needs of customers, partners - all the different stakeholders - and then move it all beyond commonplace business or sales patter. They’ll tie it all together and wrap it into an actual story - something memorable, powerful.
My partners at OrbitalX refer to this as a superpower of mine. It’s a relief and a blessing to find smart business people that see the value. If you’ve felt at work like I have in various jobs, you’ll know what I mean. Sometimes we’re seen as interesting misfits; ‘loved-but-not-always-understood’ ideas machines.
Other times we can, I guess, come across quite annoying. A CEO might keep you around because your constructive discontent is regularly useful but elsewhere, colleagues just see you as the person that never stops asking bloody questions.
If you’re lucky you’ll have had more than your fair share of jobs, businesses or bosses who knew your value and were determined to hold on to you at all costs. Most people in life can never say this but work is a legitimate pleasure for as long as there’s someone who needs you to keep that ideas motor turning; that understands there’s nobody else on the team with your perspective, skill-set or ability to create ‘something out of nothing’; right?
Sure, you might not always fit comfortably into how organisations have to work but it’s possible to find the right blend of compliance and defiance.
‘Compliance’ because most good changes are built on compromise, incremental steps and bringing people with you (but also ‘compliance’ because you need to keep your job, right?). And ‘defiance’ because without people like you, teams and businesses rarely improve and adapt. At OrbitalX, I’m surrounded by people like me. They’re in every function and cover every department. It should be chaos but somehow it works.
Marketing is changing and we need new thinking to address it - not new marketing skills; we should all expose ourselves to serious training and understanding of the discipline - but new approaches to meeting and exceeding expectations and sustaining growth. Competition is now greater, pressures are heavier and implosions occur much quicker.
Reduced headcount and increased investment into technology aren’t the drivers - they’re the results. The driver is an open debate about what marketing is, what it needs to be, how it gets done and what kind of people and skills are required to make it succeed.
Inflated salaries for storytelling roles won’t last; the bubble will surely burst soon enough. But for the first time in my career I don’t feel like a lone, wide-eyed ‘crazy’. Everything is on the table and up for grabs; there’s a massive opportunity for the elastic, the resilient and the versatile.
Check out Mark's Boring2Brave course on the Academy
I’ve had a weird career.
I’ve swapped in and out of industries: newspaper and magazine journalism, working in adland for one of the big agencies, and then switching to B2B SaaS as a marketer. I’ve been the media, the agency and the brand.
I’ve been in-house; freelance; I’ve co-founded and run a business, and I’ve also been very, very unemployed. At various times I’ve volunteered for causes or organisations about which I feel strongly and on three separate occasions I’ve formalised this by becoming a trustee or director for charities.
I always needed variety. I don’t like to feel pigeon-holed. The only thing I always knew about what I wanted career-wise was that I didn’t want to do the same day, repeated over and over.
My sassy 10-year-old daughter enjoys asking me what I do for a living because I find it so hard to articulate who and what I am in a single line; she enjoys seeing my face contort as I try to explain myself.
My brother-in-law has not had a weird career. He’s been incredibly successful in the City and had two jobs in his whole life. He’s been in his current role for 20 years.
He has a much easier answer to the “so what are you doing with yourself these days?” question, casually asked by distant relatives during the small talk stage of family events.
Basically, I’m a storyteller. I didn’t become one. I was a storyteller when I was a kid, right through school, throughout my teens and then as I jumped into journalism.
There’s an episode coming up of Do More With Less - the podcast I host for OrbitalX - with Joe Lazer, author of brand new bestseller Super Skill: Why Storytelling Is the Superpower of the AI Age. I can’t wait to meet Joe and I also can’t wait to read the book - it’s been a smash in the US but doesn’t come out here in the UK for another month.
In a recent post on Linkedin, Joe noted that Netflix and OpenAI are offering salaries of up to $775,000 per year for storytelling roles. Anthropic, he added, has hired 80+ storytelling and comms roles in recent months, many of which pay $500K+ in total compensation.
Two years ago, nobody was interested in storytelling as a skill. I’m certain I won’t have been the only one advised to stop using the word in recruitment processes altogether and to ensure it was nowhere to be seen on my resume.
While it’s lovely that we storytellers are back in fashion, I’ve seen enough turnover of feast and famine to suspect our latest golden age will be short-lived. I’d also argue there isn’t a boardroom in the world committed enough to a storytelling strategy to believe any candidate can sustain or justify these salaries past ‘year 1’. I’ll ask Joe how he sees it but for me, that gravy train will break down as soon as the trend-pendulum swings back to the harder, more tangible, measurable stuff.
What I do know though is that storytelling isn’t and never has been my most valuable skill.
The element of my professional ‘self’ that I’d price above anything storytelling - although maybe it comes more naturally to storytellers - is that I’m kind of ‘elastic’.
That’s the best word I could think of for it; (agile is loaded with all sorts of tech-bro context and flexible sounds like I lack agency).
What I mean by elastic, was well articulated last week by a marketing recruiter I’ve started following on Linkedin named Sinead Willis.
“The strongest marketers I know have the “messiest” careers,” Willis wrote. “They’ve worked inhouse, freelanced, taken breaks, been laid off, jumped into startups that blew up and startups that blew apart.
“Every one of those moves built perspective.They’ve learned to do more with less, build from zero, and fix what’s broken. But too many job descriptions still cling to linear career logic, as if the only valuable experience is uninterrupted, upward, and corporate.
“The next decade belongs to marketers who’ve done the messy stuff because they’re the ones who know what to do when the playbook stops working.”
I hope Willis is right. Not just because I agree those of us with what Sunday Times Bestseller stars Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper call ‘Squiggly Careers’, are genuinely better set up to navigate uncertainty than execs with more simple or linear paths.
But also because playbooks have and will continue to stop working. And by focusing so heavily on channels and tactics - traditionally prioritised by B2B marketing ahead of story or mission - so much marketing is as forgettable for the recipient as it is joyless for the marketer to create.
It’s work that leaves our frustrated bosses wondering why they pay for marketing that leaves their business offer and brand virtually invisible; why we literally invite our customers to disregard us.
And at that point - well, internal interest in marketing disappears. Ambition and perspective shrink; marketing strategies start being built around costs rather than outcomes. Investment is cut to a point where marketing programmes feel relatively risk-free.
Unfortunately, that’s often the point at which a marketing plan stops achieving anything even vaguely useful. Risk-free marketing is the most expensive marketing there is. You’re investing time, money and work for literally nothing to happen. Any ‘message’ simply drifts over the heads of your audience without touching them. And the worst part? Nobody cares. Sure, there are regular complaints or snide remarks from the sales team but that’s often restricted to a low-level and harmless hum. Things get done badly; with zero love or craft and nobody gets held to account.
So instead of proper campaign planning according to strategic business ambitions and targets, marketing becomes the act of ticking off busy activities on stagnant spreadsheets.
The marketing goal is no longer business transformation or growth as it once was; it’s now merely a watered-down case study or the moving deadline for ‘that blog’.
This marketing death-spiral has been a clear risk in every team I’ve ever been a part of. Even in a high-functioning set-up, it’s never more than a broken relationship or a few bad pieces of work away from being triggered.
Being elastic is what prevents it. Being elastic is the opposite of being a ‘good culture fit’ - of over compliance; of following direction from non-marketers without question.
Diversity and inclusion conversations have quite rightly focused on women, people of colour and LGBTQ employees. That shouldn’t stop - we’re far from done in that regard. But the conversations should also include people who see the world differently - the neurodiverse and the creatives. People who abhor a status quo and can barely hold themselves together if they can’t comfortably raise opposing views or ask thorny questions.
And as a leader or even just a colleague, it’s difficult being difficult. Any fool in marketing can prance about on conference stages winning applause from listeners with speeches about creativity.
Actually doing it behind closed office doors amid the stress of trying to keep a business afloat is, more often than not, painful. Hell, it’s not as if you’re telling your colleagues something they don’t know. Your leadership already understands that not all B2B marketing plans should look the same; that homogeneity stalls careers and is crushing and counter-productive to hopes of growth. But the alternative is hard. It requires stretch, empathy, big listening ears and active imagination. And the bravery to sound and look different; to take a risk.
This - this is the real job of your storyteller; your elastic colleague. They stretch and lengthen their worldviews, way past the boundaries of a functional marketing programme. They imagine and incorporate the needs of customers, partners - all the different stakeholders - and then move it all beyond commonplace business or sales patter. They’ll tie it all together and wrap it into an actual story - something memorable, powerful.
My partners at OrbitalX refer to this as a superpower of mine. It’s a relief and a blessing to find smart business people that see the value. If you’ve felt at work like I have in various jobs, you’ll know what I mean. Sometimes we’re seen as interesting misfits; ‘loved-but-not-always-understood’ ideas machines.
Other times we can, I guess, come across quite annoying. A CEO might keep you around because your constructive discontent is regularly useful but elsewhere, colleagues just see you as the person that never stops asking bloody questions.
If you’re lucky you’ll have had more than your fair share of jobs, businesses or bosses who knew your value and were determined to hold on to you at all costs. Most people in life can never say this but work is a legitimate pleasure for as long as there’s someone who needs you to keep that ideas motor turning; that understands there’s nobody else on the team with your perspective, skill-set or ability to create ‘something out of nothing’; right?
Sure, you might not always fit comfortably into how organisations have to work but it’s possible to find the right blend of compliance and defiance.
‘Compliance’ because most good changes are built on compromise, incremental steps and bringing people with you (but also ‘compliance’ because you need to keep your job, right?). And ‘defiance’ because without people like you, teams and businesses rarely improve and adapt. At OrbitalX, I’m surrounded by people like me. They’re in every function and cover every department. It should be chaos but somehow it works.
Marketing is changing and we need new thinking to address it - not new marketing skills; we should all expose ourselves to serious training and understanding of the discipline - but new approaches to meeting and exceeding expectations and sustaining growth. Competition is now greater, pressures are heavier and implosions occur much quicker.
Reduced headcount and increased investment into technology aren’t the drivers - they’re the results. The driver is an open debate about what marketing is, what it needs to be, how it gets done and what kind of people and skills are required to make it succeed.
Inflated salaries for storytelling roles won’t last; the bubble will surely burst soon enough. But for the first time in my career I don’t feel like a lone, wide-eyed ‘crazy’. Everything is on the table and up for grabs; there’s a massive opportunity for the elastic, the resilient and the versatile.
Check out Mark's Boring2Brave course on the Academy
London
Mar 10, 2026
Rich Fitzmaurice
Letters
“Dear Rich,
Quick summary. I left a Head of Marketing role eight months ago to be a fractional CMO. Before I made the move I had done my research, spoken to a few people who had done the same, and felt it was the right next step. I had strong experience, a clear specialism, and my first two clients lined up before I handed in my notice.
Eight months in, the work is interesting, but I am not enjoying some elements. Both clients treat me like a senior contractor rather than a strategic partner. They do not ask for my opinion on commercial decisions; I am just told after the fact. They do not include me in conversations where my perspective could genuinely add value. They schedule and delegate me into execution calls and seem surprised when there is no strategy.
One of them in particular books me for three long execution calls per week. When I have tried to introduce more strategic thinking, I get thanked for it and then ignored. The same tactical requests keep coming.
I do not want to blow up the revenue by resetting the relationship badly as it’s income I rely on. But I also did not leave a good salary to become a very expensive task manager. I have read about fractional CMOs who operate at board level, who are genuinely influential, who shape the direction of businesses they are not employed by. I am not sure how they got there or what I am doing differently/wrong.
How do I fix it?
Helen, Manchester
Rich’s reply
Helen, you are not doing anything wrong, you have simply walked into one of the most common and least discussed problems in fractional work: the client has hired the label but not bought the concept.
They called the role fractional because that is what they saw advertised, or because a peer mentioned it, or because it sounded more interesting than “external marketing resource.” But in their minds, they hired someone senior to help them do things. Not someone to tell them what things to do, or whether the things they are doing are the right things at all.
Being balanced, this is almost never the client’s fault. It is almost always a scoping and onboarding problem, and it starts before you send your first invoice.
You are selling access. They are buying execution.
This is the most important distinction in fractional work. When a client hires you, they have a mental model of what they are getting. Unless you actively change that model in the early days of the engagement, it will default to the most familiar thing: a senior person who does what they ask, faster and smarter than a junior would.
If you walked in on day one and immediately began executing, however sensibly, you confirmed that model. The three execution calls per week were not imposed on you. They grew because no one drew a different boundary for them to understand and agree to.
The fractional CMO who operates at board level did not arrive at board level. They established it before they walked through the door.
There is a framework I use and teach in my course on this called the Diagnostic Bridge. The idea is simple: before any fractional engagement begins producing outputs, there should be a defined discovery phase. Not weeks of auditing for its own sake, but a structured period where you are explicitly operating as a diagnostician rather than a doer. You are asking questions. You are mapping the landscape. You are building an Authority Map of who holds what decisions, what is broken, and where your leverage actually sits.
Crucially, you are doing this visibly and out loud, with the client watching. You are demonstrating that your value is in the judgement you bring before any work is produced, not in the speed at which you produce it.
If you do this properly, by the time the engagement shifts into execution mode, the client has already experienced you as a strategist. That experience is very hard to undo. The problem you have, Helen, is that you accidently skipped this phase, or were not given space for it. So now you need to retrofit it, which is harder but not impossible.
How to reset the relationship without blowing it up
You have two clients, so I will speak generally, but you will need to calibrate this for each one because the dynamics will be different.
The reset does not start with a conversation about your role. It starts with a deliverable.
In the next few weeks, produce something they did not ask for. Not a task from the list. A piece of strategic thinking that reframes something they are currently working on. A short document, maybe two pages, that says: here is what I am observing, here is what I think it means, and here is what I think we should do about it.
Do not send it as an attachment in an email at the end of the day. Request a short call to walk them through it. Say you want fifteen minutes to share some thinking you have been developing. When they read it, they will either push back, in which case you have a strategic conversation, or they will be interested, in which case you have opened a door.
Do this once and it might feel like a one-off. Do it consistently and it becomes how they experience you. You are gradually rewriting the contract in their minds without ever having to say the words “I am not just here to execute your brief.”
The most powerful thing a fractional CMO can do in the first ninety days is make one observation that the client had not made themselves. That single act does more for your positioning than any amount of good execution.
The three execution calls are a symptom, not the problem
I understand why three long calls per week feels like the wrong shape. It probably is the wrong shape. But I would not make the calls themselves the issue you raise.
What you are really trying to change is the nature of the relationship, and the most direct path to that is demonstrating that your thinking is valuable, not that your time is being wasted. The moment you raise the calls as a complaint, even a polite one, you sound like a contractor protecting their hours. That reinforces the very dynamic you are trying to escape.
Instead, use the calls to, subtly, reinforce the role of the wider internal team to focus on the execution, whilst you ask the strategic questions and enquire as to how you can help them manage upwards.
This is not manipulation. It is the job. You are reminding both of you what you are actually there for.
On the clients you have and the ones you should have
There is a harder question underneath all of this, Helen, and I would be doing you a disservice if I did not name it.
Some clients are genuinely not capable of having a strategic relationship with a fractional CMO. Not because they are unsophisticated, but because the founder or CEO is not ready to share thinking with someone who is not on their payroll. They do not trust it, consciously or not. They will always default to telling you what to do rather than asking you what to think.
I am still a practicing Fractional CMO myself, to ensure I stay current and practice what I preach. Before I take on any engagement now, I run what I call a red flags check. The questions I ask are not about the brief. They are about the relationship. Is this person genuinely curious? Do they ask me questions in the sales conversation or just answer mine? Do they talk about decisions they have made differently because of external input? Have they worked with a senior consultant or advisor before and found it valuable?
If the answers are no, no, no, and no, I still might take the work, but I go in knowing the ceiling. And the ceiling tends to be execution.
You are eight months in with two clients who may both have low ceilings. That is useful information. It does not mean you cannot improve things, but it does mean you should be building pipeline for your third and fourth engagements simultaneously and filtering harder next time.
What the fractional CMOs operating at board level did differently
They positioned the engagement before they signed it.
In the sales conversation, before any discussion of deliverables or day rates, they established what they were being hired to do. Not the tasks. The outcome. And they were explicit that achieving the outcome required them to be in the room when commercial decisions were made, not just when campaigns needed running.
This sounds obvious. Most people do not do it because they are worried about losing the client before they have them. But the clients who push back on that framing are the ones with low ceilings. Losing them in the sales process is not a failure. It is your system/filtering/funnel, whatever you want to call it, working.
The other thing they frequently do differently is price by outcome rather than by time. Day rates and hourly fees are a contractor signal. They tell the client you are selling access to your hours. Outcome-based fees or retainers scoped around a defined commercial goal tell the client you are selling a result. The psychological difference in how you are perceived from day one is significant.
I know you are eight months in and changing the pricing model now can feel quite daunting. But it is something to build toward, and it is the right model to try for the next client you bring on.
The short answer
You are not stuck. You are in a very common transitional moment where the label you have and the role you are playing have not yet aligned. The majority of fractionals go through exactly this. It’s almost like a rite of passage.
Retrofit the Diagnostic Bridge by producing unsolicited strategic thinking. Use your calls to demonstrate that your judgement is the product. Start building pipeline with better qualification criteria so your next clients come in with the right expectations from the start.
And if either of your current clients turns out to have a ceiling you cannot raise, that is not a failure of your positioning. Some clients are not ready. The skill is learning to identify them earlier.
Onwards,
Rich
Got a question for Rich? Email it to editor@b2bmarketing.com
“Dear Rich,
Quick summary. I left a Head of Marketing role eight months ago to be a fractional CMO. Before I made the move I had done my research, spoken to a few people who had done the same, and felt it was the right next step. I had strong experience, a clear specialism, and my first two clients lined up before I handed in my notice.
Eight months in, the work is interesting, but I am not enjoying some elements. Both clients treat me like a senior contractor rather than a strategic partner. They do not ask for my opinion on commercial decisions; I am just told after the fact. They do not include me in conversations where my perspective could genuinely add value. They schedule and delegate me into execution calls and seem surprised when there is no strategy.
One of them in particular books me for three long execution calls per week. When I have tried to introduce more strategic thinking, I get thanked for it and then ignored. The same tactical requests keep coming.
I do not want to blow up the revenue by resetting the relationship badly as it’s income I rely on. But I also did not leave a good salary to become a very expensive task manager. I have read about fractional CMOs who operate at board level, who are genuinely influential, who shape the direction of businesses they are not employed by. I am not sure how they got there or what I am doing differently/wrong.
How do I fix it?
Helen, Manchester
Rich’s reply
Helen, you are not doing anything wrong, you have simply walked into one of the most common and least discussed problems in fractional work: the client has hired the label but not bought the concept.
They called the role fractional because that is what they saw advertised, or because a peer mentioned it, or because it sounded more interesting than “external marketing resource.” But in their minds, they hired someone senior to help them do things. Not someone to tell them what things to do, or whether the things they are doing are the right things at all.
Being balanced, this is almost never the client’s fault. It is almost always a scoping and onboarding problem, and it starts before you send your first invoice.
You are selling access. They are buying execution.
This is the most important distinction in fractional work. When a client hires you, they have a mental model of what they are getting. Unless you actively change that model in the early days of the engagement, it will default to the most familiar thing: a senior person who does what they ask, faster and smarter than a junior would.
If you walked in on day one and immediately began executing, however sensibly, you confirmed that model. The three execution calls per week were not imposed on you. They grew because no one drew a different boundary for them to understand and agree to.
The fractional CMO who operates at board level did not arrive at board level. They established it before they walked through the door.
There is a framework I use and teach in my course on this called the Diagnostic Bridge. The idea is simple: before any fractional engagement begins producing outputs, there should be a defined discovery phase. Not weeks of auditing for its own sake, but a structured period where you are explicitly operating as a diagnostician rather than a doer. You are asking questions. You are mapping the landscape. You are building an Authority Map of who holds what decisions, what is broken, and where your leverage actually sits.
Crucially, you are doing this visibly and out loud, with the client watching. You are demonstrating that your value is in the judgement you bring before any work is produced, not in the speed at which you produce it.
If you do this properly, by the time the engagement shifts into execution mode, the client has already experienced you as a strategist. That experience is very hard to undo. The problem you have, Helen, is that you accidently skipped this phase, or were not given space for it. So now you need to retrofit it, which is harder but not impossible.
How to reset the relationship without blowing it up
You have two clients, so I will speak generally, but you will need to calibrate this for each one because the dynamics will be different.
The reset does not start with a conversation about your role. It starts with a deliverable.
In the next few weeks, produce something they did not ask for. Not a task from the list. A piece of strategic thinking that reframes something they are currently working on. A short document, maybe two pages, that says: here is what I am observing, here is what I think it means, and here is what I think we should do about it.
Do not send it as an attachment in an email at the end of the day. Request a short call to walk them through it. Say you want fifteen minutes to share some thinking you have been developing. When they read it, they will either push back, in which case you have a strategic conversation, or they will be interested, in which case you have opened a door.
Do this once and it might feel like a one-off. Do it consistently and it becomes how they experience you. You are gradually rewriting the contract in their minds without ever having to say the words “I am not just here to execute your brief.”
The most powerful thing a fractional CMO can do in the first ninety days is make one observation that the client had not made themselves. That single act does more for your positioning than any amount of good execution.
The three execution calls are a symptom, not the problem
I understand why three long calls per week feels like the wrong shape. It probably is the wrong shape. But I would not make the calls themselves the issue you raise.
What you are really trying to change is the nature of the relationship, and the most direct path to that is demonstrating that your thinking is valuable, not that your time is being wasted. The moment you raise the calls as a complaint, even a polite one, you sound like a contractor protecting their hours. That reinforces the very dynamic you are trying to escape.
Instead, use the calls to, subtly, reinforce the role of the wider internal team to focus on the execution, whilst you ask the strategic questions and enquire as to how you can help them manage upwards.
This is not manipulation. It is the job. You are reminding both of you what you are actually there for.
On the clients you have and the ones you should have
There is a harder question underneath all of this, Helen, and I would be doing you a disservice if I did not name it.
Some clients are genuinely not capable of having a strategic relationship with a fractional CMO. Not because they are unsophisticated, but because the founder or CEO is not ready to share thinking with someone who is not on their payroll. They do not trust it, consciously or not. They will always default to telling you what to do rather than asking you what to think.
I am still a practicing Fractional CMO myself, to ensure I stay current and practice what I preach. Before I take on any engagement now, I run what I call a red flags check. The questions I ask are not about the brief. They are about the relationship. Is this person genuinely curious? Do they ask me questions in the sales conversation or just answer mine? Do they talk about decisions they have made differently because of external input? Have they worked with a senior consultant or advisor before and found it valuable?
If the answers are no, no, no, and no, I still might take the work, but I go in knowing the ceiling. And the ceiling tends to be execution.
You are eight months in with two clients who may both have low ceilings. That is useful information. It does not mean you cannot improve things, but it does mean you should be building pipeline for your third and fourth engagements simultaneously and filtering harder next time.
What the fractional CMOs operating at board level did differently
They positioned the engagement before they signed it.
In the sales conversation, before any discussion of deliverables or day rates, they established what they were being hired to do. Not the tasks. The outcome. And they were explicit that achieving the outcome required them to be in the room when commercial decisions were made, not just when campaigns needed running.
This sounds obvious. Most people do not do it because they are worried about losing the client before they have them. But the clients who push back on that framing are the ones with low ceilings. Losing them in the sales process is not a failure. It is your system/filtering/funnel, whatever you want to call it, working.
The other thing they frequently do differently is price by outcome rather than by time. Day rates and hourly fees are a contractor signal. They tell the client you are selling access to your hours. Outcome-based fees or retainers scoped around a defined commercial goal tell the client you are selling a result. The psychological difference in how you are perceived from day one is significant.
I know you are eight months in and changing the pricing model now can feel quite daunting. But it is something to build toward, and it is the right model to try for the next client you bring on.
The short answer
You are not stuck. You are in a very common transitional moment where the label you have and the role you are playing have not yet aligned. The majority of fractionals go through exactly this. It’s almost like a rite of passage.
Retrofit the Diagnostic Bridge by producing unsolicited strategic thinking. Use your calls to demonstrate that your judgement is the product. Start building pipeline with better qualification criteria so your next clients come in with the right expectations from the start.
And if either of your current clients turns out to have a ceiling you cannot raise, that is not a failure of your positioning. Some clients are not ready. The skill is learning to identify them earlier.
Onwards,
Rich
Got a question for Rich? Email it to editor@b2bmarketing.com
“Dear Rich,
Quick summary. I left a Head of Marketing role eight months ago to be a fractional CMO. Before I made the move I had done my research, spoken to a few people who had done the same, and felt it was the right next step. I had strong experience, a clear specialism, and my first two clients lined up before I handed in my notice.
Eight months in, the work is interesting, but I am not enjoying some elements. Both clients treat me like a senior contractor rather than a strategic partner. They do not ask for my opinion on commercial decisions; I am just told after the fact. They do not include me in conversations where my perspective could genuinely add value. They schedule and delegate me into execution calls and seem surprised when there is no strategy.
One of them in particular books me for three long execution calls per week. When I have tried to introduce more strategic thinking, I get thanked for it and then ignored. The same tactical requests keep coming.
I do not want to blow up the revenue by resetting the relationship badly as it’s income I rely on. But I also did not leave a good salary to become a very expensive task manager. I have read about fractional CMOs who operate at board level, who are genuinely influential, who shape the direction of businesses they are not employed by. I am not sure how they got there or what I am doing differently/wrong.
How do I fix it?
Helen, Manchester
Rich’s reply
Helen, you are not doing anything wrong, you have simply walked into one of the most common and least discussed problems in fractional work: the client has hired the label but not bought the concept.
They called the role fractional because that is what they saw advertised, or because a peer mentioned it, or because it sounded more interesting than “external marketing resource.” But in their minds, they hired someone senior to help them do things. Not someone to tell them what things to do, or whether the things they are doing are the right things at all.
Being balanced, this is almost never the client’s fault. It is almost always a scoping and onboarding problem, and it starts before you send your first invoice.
You are selling access. They are buying execution.
This is the most important distinction in fractional work. When a client hires you, they have a mental model of what they are getting. Unless you actively change that model in the early days of the engagement, it will default to the most familiar thing: a senior person who does what they ask, faster and smarter than a junior would.
If you walked in on day one and immediately began executing, however sensibly, you confirmed that model. The three execution calls per week were not imposed on you. They grew because no one drew a different boundary for them to understand and agree to.
The fractional CMO who operates at board level did not arrive at board level. They established it before they walked through the door.
There is a framework I use and teach in my course on this called the Diagnostic Bridge. The idea is simple: before any fractional engagement begins producing outputs, there should be a defined discovery phase. Not weeks of auditing for its own sake, but a structured period where you are explicitly operating as a diagnostician rather than a doer. You are asking questions. You are mapping the landscape. You are building an Authority Map of who holds what decisions, what is broken, and where your leverage actually sits.
Crucially, you are doing this visibly and out loud, with the client watching. You are demonstrating that your value is in the judgement you bring before any work is produced, not in the speed at which you produce it.
If you do this properly, by the time the engagement shifts into execution mode, the client has already experienced you as a strategist. That experience is very hard to undo. The problem you have, Helen, is that you accidently skipped this phase, or were not given space for it. So now you need to retrofit it, which is harder but not impossible.
How to reset the relationship without blowing it up
You have two clients, so I will speak generally, but you will need to calibrate this for each one because the dynamics will be different.
The reset does not start with a conversation about your role. It starts with a deliverable.
In the next few weeks, produce something they did not ask for. Not a task from the list. A piece of strategic thinking that reframes something they are currently working on. A short document, maybe two pages, that says: here is what I am observing, here is what I think it means, and here is what I think we should do about it.
Do not send it as an attachment in an email at the end of the day. Request a short call to walk them through it. Say you want fifteen minutes to share some thinking you have been developing. When they read it, they will either push back, in which case you have a strategic conversation, or they will be interested, in which case you have opened a door.
Do this once and it might feel like a one-off. Do it consistently and it becomes how they experience you. You are gradually rewriting the contract in their minds without ever having to say the words “I am not just here to execute your brief.”
The most powerful thing a fractional CMO can do in the first ninety days is make one observation that the client had not made themselves. That single act does more for your positioning than any amount of good execution.
The three execution calls are a symptom, not the problem
I understand why three long calls per week feels like the wrong shape. It probably is the wrong shape. But I would not make the calls themselves the issue you raise.
What you are really trying to change is the nature of the relationship, and the most direct path to that is demonstrating that your thinking is valuable, not that your time is being wasted. The moment you raise the calls as a complaint, even a polite one, you sound like a contractor protecting their hours. That reinforces the very dynamic you are trying to escape.
Instead, use the calls to, subtly, reinforce the role of the wider internal team to focus on the execution, whilst you ask the strategic questions and enquire as to how you can help them manage upwards.
This is not manipulation. It is the job. You are reminding both of you what you are actually there for.
On the clients you have and the ones you should have
There is a harder question underneath all of this, Helen, and I would be doing you a disservice if I did not name it.
Some clients are genuinely not capable of having a strategic relationship with a fractional CMO. Not because they are unsophisticated, but because the founder or CEO is not ready to share thinking with someone who is not on their payroll. They do not trust it, consciously or not. They will always default to telling you what to do rather than asking you what to think.
I am still a practicing Fractional CMO myself, to ensure I stay current and practice what I preach. Before I take on any engagement now, I run what I call a red flags check. The questions I ask are not about the brief. They are about the relationship. Is this person genuinely curious? Do they ask me questions in the sales conversation or just answer mine? Do they talk about decisions they have made differently because of external input? Have they worked with a senior consultant or advisor before and found it valuable?
If the answers are no, no, no, and no, I still might take the work, but I go in knowing the ceiling. And the ceiling tends to be execution.
You are eight months in with two clients who may both have low ceilings. That is useful information. It does not mean you cannot improve things, but it does mean you should be building pipeline for your third and fourth engagements simultaneously and filtering harder next time.
What the fractional CMOs operating at board level did differently
They positioned the engagement before they signed it.
In the sales conversation, before any discussion of deliverables or day rates, they established what they were being hired to do. Not the tasks. The outcome. And they were explicit that achieving the outcome required them to be in the room when commercial decisions were made, not just when campaigns needed running.
This sounds obvious. Most people do not do it because they are worried about losing the client before they have them. But the clients who push back on that framing are the ones with low ceilings. Losing them in the sales process is not a failure. It is your system/filtering/funnel, whatever you want to call it, working.
The other thing they frequently do differently is price by outcome rather than by time. Day rates and hourly fees are a contractor signal. They tell the client you are selling access to your hours. Outcome-based fees or retainers scoped around a defined commercial goal tell the client you are selling a result. The psychological difference in how you are perceived from day one is significant.
I know you are eight months in and changing the pricing model now can feel quite daunting. But it is something to build toward, and it is the right model to try for the next client you bring on.
The short answer
You are not stuck. You are in a very common transitional moment where the label you have and the role you are playing have not yet aligned. The majority of fractionals go through exactly this. It’s almost like a rite of passage.
Retrofit the Diagnostic Bridge by producing unsolicited strategic thinking. Use your calls to demonstrate that your judgement is the product. Start building pipeline with better qualification criteria so your next clients come in with the right expectations from the start.
And if either of your current clients turns out to have a ceiling you cannot raise, that is not a failure of your positioning. Some clients are not ready. The skill is learning to identify them earlier.
Onwards,
Rich
Got a question for Rich? Email it to editor@b2bmarketing.com
Content
Mar 11, 2026
Content
How to's
We know many of you love them too, so we’ve got an exciting competition. We’re giving away two pairs of VIP tickets to two lucky winners to see 'W*nkernomics Just Touching Base' live at The London Palladium on Sunday 19 April 2026 at 7:30 PM.
To enter, simply subscribe to the B2B Marketing United newsletter before 10th April. Winners will be informed the following day.
Each of the winners will receive
A pair of VIP tickets
Hall of Fame Pass with VIP perks including queue skip, VIP entrance, hosted welcome and pre-show drinks
A copy of the W*nkernomics brilliant book
Enter now by signing up to the B2B Marketing United newsletter
Competition Terms and Conditions
Promoter
The "Promoter" is B2B Marketing United, Paartner Limited, Unit 115, Accounts By Simply, 40 Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 0BT.
2. Eligibility
2.1. The competition is open to those aged 18 years or over, excluding employees of Paartner Limited and their close relatives.
2.2. Valid email address details must be used and supplied.
2.3. The competition is open to residents of the United Kingdom and Ireland unless otherwise stated.
3. How to Enter
3.1. To enter, participants must sign up for the B2B Marketing United newsletter via the official entry page/form during the promotional period.
3.2. Entry is free, and no purchase is necessary.
3.3. Only one entry per person/email address is permitted.
3.4. By entering, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.
4. Promotional Period
4.1. The competition commences on 2nd March at 9am and closes on 10th April 2026 at 10am.
4.2. Entries received after this time will not be considered.
5. Prize Draw and Notification
5.1. The winner(s) will be selected at random via a random number generator on 10th April.
5.2. The winner(s) will be notified via email within 2 days of the closing date.
5.3. If a winner cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 1 day of notification, the Promoter reserves the right to withdraw the prize and select a replacement winner.
6. Prize Details
6.1. The prize is a pair of VIP tickets to W*nkernomics: Just Touching Base show at The London Palladium - Sun 19 Apr 2026, 7:30 PM, plus The Hall of Fame Pass. Winners will also receive a copy of their book’ W*nkernomics: A Deep-Dive Into Workplace Bullsh*ttery'
6.2. The prize is non-exchangeable, non-transferable, and no cash alternative is offered.
6.3. The Promoter reserves the right to substitute the prize with another of similar value if necessary.
6.4. The prize does not include travel, accommodation, or any other expenses unless explicitly stated.
7. Data Protection and Publicity
7.1. By entering, you agree that B2B Marketing United may use your personal information to administer the competition and to send you their marketing newsletter.
7.2. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time.
7.3. The Promoter will comply with GDPR/Data Protection Act regulations.
7.4. The winner may be asked to participate in reasonable publicity related to the competition. Participation is voluntary
8. General
8.1. The Promoter accepts no responsibility for entries not received for any technical or other reason.
8.2. The Promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil disturbance, or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law.
8.3. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by, or associated with, any social media platform.
8.4 The Promoter’s decision in respect of all matters relating to the competition, including winner selection, is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into.
8.5. These terms and conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales.
We know many of you love them too, so we’ve got an exciting competition. We’re giving away two pairs of VIP tickets to two lucky winners to see 'W*nkernomics Just Touching Base' live at The London Palladium on Sunday 19 April 2026 at 7:30 PM.
To enter, simply subscribe to the B2B Marketing United newsletter before 10th April. Winners will be informed the following day.
Each of the winners will receive
A pair of VIP tickets
Hall of Fame Pass with VIP perks including queue skip, VIP entrance, hosted welcome and pre-show drinks
A copy of the W*nkernomics brilliant book
Enter now by signing up to the B2B Marketing United newsletter
Competition Terms and Conditions
Promoter
The "Promoter" is B2B Marketing United, Paartner Limited, Unit 115, Accounts By Simply, 40 Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 0BT.
2. Eligibility
2.1. The competition is open to those aged 18 years or over, excluding employees of Paartner Limited and their close relatives.
2.2. Valid email address details must be used and supplied.
2.3. The competition is open to residents of the United Kingdom and Ireland unless otherwise stated.
3. How to Enter
3.1. To enter, participants must sign up for the B2B Marketing United newsletter via the official entry page/form during the promotional period.
3.2. Entry is free, and no purchase is necessary.
3.3. Only one entry per person/email address is permitted.
3.4. By entering, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.
4. Promotional Period
4.1. The competition commences on 2nd March at 9am and closes on 10th April 2026 at 10am.
4.2. Entries received after this time will not be considered.
5. Prize Draw and Notification
5.1. The winner(s) will be selected at random via a random number generator on 10th April.
5.2. The winner(s) will be notified via email within 2 days of the closing date.
5.3. If a winner cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 1 day of notification, the Promoter reserves the right to withdraw the prize and select a replacement winner.
6. Prize Details
6.1. The prize is a pair of VIP tickets to W*nkernomics: Just Touching Base show at The London Palladium - Sun 19 Apr 2026, 7:30 PM, plus The Hall of Fame Pass. Winners will also receive a copy of their book’ W*nkernomics: A Deep-Dive Into Workplace Bullsh*ttery'
6.2. The prize is non-exchangeable, non-transferable, and no cash alternative is offered.
6.3. The Promoter reserves the right to substitute the prize with another of similar value if necessary.
6.4. The prize does not include travel, accommodation, or any other expenses unless explicitly stated.
7. Data Protection and Publicity
7.1. By entering, you agree that B2B Marketing United may use your personal information to administer the competition and to send you their marketing newsletter.
7.2. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time.
7.3. The Promoter will comply with GDPR/Data Protection Act regulations.
7.4. The winner may be asked to participate in reasonable publicity related to the competition. Participation is voluntary
8. General
8.1. The Promoter accepts no responsibility for entries not received for any technical or other reason.
8.2. The Promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil disturbance, or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law.
8.3. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by, or associated with, any social media platform.
8.4 The Promoter’s decision in respect of all matters relating to the competition, including winner selection, is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into.
8.5. These terms and conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales.
We know many of you love them too, so we’ve got an exciting competition. We’re giving away two pairs of VIP tickets to two lucky winners to see 'W*nkernomics Just Touching Base' live at The London Palladium on Sunday 19 April 2026 at 7:30 PM.
To enter, simply subscribe to the B2B Marketing United newsletter before 10th April. Winners will be informed the following day.
Each of the winners will receive
A pair of VIP tickets
Hall of Fame Pass with VIP perks including queue skip, VIP entrance, hosted welcome and pre-show drinks
A copy of the W*nkernomics brilliant book
Enter now by signing up to the B2B Marketing United newsletter
Competition Terms and Conditions
Promoter
The "Promoter" is B2B Marketing United, Paartner Limited, Unit 115, Accounts By Simply, 40 Gracechurch Street, London, EC3V 0BT.
2. Eligibility
2.1. The competition is open to those aged 18 years or over, excluding employees of Paartner Limited and their close relatives.
2.2. Valid email address details must be used and supplied.
2.3. The competition is open to residents of the United Kingdom and Ireland unless otherwise stated.
3. How to Enter
3.1. To enter, participants must sign up for the B2B Marketing United newsletter via the official entry page/form during the promotional period.
3.2. Entry is free, and no purchase is necessary.
3.3. Only one entry per person/email address is permitted.
3.4. By entering, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.
4. Promotional Period
4.1. The competition commences on 2nd March at 9am and closes on 10th April 2026 at 10am.
4.2. Entries received after this time will not be considered.
5. Prize Draw and Notification
5.1. The winner(s) will be selected at random via a random number generator on 10th April.
5.2. The winner(s) will be notified via email within 2 days of the closing date.
5.3. If a winner cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 1 day of notification, the Promoter reserves the right to withdraw the prize and select a replacement winner.
6. Prize Details
6.1. The prize is a pair of VIP tickets to W*nkernomics: Just Touching Base show at The London Palladium - Sun 19 Apr 2026, 7:30 PM, plus The Hall of Fame Pass. Winners will also receive a copy of their book’ W*nkernomics: A Deep-Dive Into Workplace Bullsh*ttery'
6.2. The prize is non-exchangeable, non-transferable, and no cash alternative is offered.
6.3. The Promoter reserves the right to substitute the prize with another of similar value if necessary.
6.4. The prize does not include travel, accommodation, or any other expenses unless explicitly stated.
7. Data Protection and Publicity
7.1. By entering, you agree that B2B Marketing United may use your personal information to administer the competition and to send you their marketing newsletter.
7.2. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time.
7.3. The Promoter will comply with GDPR/Data Protection Act regulations.
7.4. The winner may be asked to participate in reasonable publicity related to the competition. Participation is voluntary
8. General
8.1. The Promoter accepts no responsibility for entries not received for any technical or other reason.
8.2. The Promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil disturbance, or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law.
8.3. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, or administered by, or associated with, any social media platform.
8.4 The Promoter’s decision in respect of all matters relating to the competition, including winner selection, is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into.
8.5. These terms and conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales.
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Mar 12, 2026
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