How to Find a Great Chief Marketing Officer Mentor: A Complete Guide
“It’s lonely at the top”
The old adage is true for almost any C-suite role, but probably for none more than CMO.
After all, tenure rates for CMOs have been in decline for several years, holding at their lowest in a decade in 2023.
But, while the top can be lonely, you don’t have to go it alone.
All you need is a great mentor to guide you.
Finding a Mentor as a CMO
As a CMO, it’s going to be harder for you to find a mentor, simply because experienced CMOs are rare.
Thanks to this rarity, the usual route of finding a mentor through your network probably won’t work.
Fortunately, you do have other options:
Cold Contacting Fellow CMOs
This is probably the most difficult route to finding a CMO mentor. The more experienced a CMO, the busier they are, so the less likely they are to respond to your initial contact.
However, don’t let that deter you. CMOs at startups and other smaller companies are often looking to expand their networks and are therefore more responsive to messages. From there, it’s simply a matter of building up the relationship and making the ask.
But do keep in mind this route isn’t the fastest route to mentorship and, like any type of cold-contacting, it comes with its fair share of awkwardness. Fortunately, there’s another option that shortcuts those issues.
CMO Societies, Communities, and Clubs
Your next option is to join communities, clubs, or societies targeted towards CMOs, like:
You can also look to more general marketing or C-suite communities, as these may have channels or sub-communities for CMOs.
While this option is certainly faster in connecting you with possible mentors (after all, many are focused on individuals supporting each other), they can come with expensive membership fees. Also, CMOs in these communities may be more interested in finding business partners or opportunities rather than mentees.
But the fact that communities can turn what would have been a cold-contact into a warm intro may make it worth the price.
However, if you need advice ASAP, there’s one more route that will get you speaking to a mentor even faster.
Joining A Mentorship Platform
Your final option is to join a mentorship platform. This is typically the fastest and easiest way to access a mentor.
But, you have to find the right platform with plenty of CMOs to choose from.
Here are some of your options:
Mentorcruise
- Pricing Model: per session pricing + monthly fee and per session pricing for continuous mentorship, price range varies per expert and session type, starting at $39 for 20 minute intro call.
- Mentor Vetting Process: Unknown. Mentors are referred to as “highly vetted”, but the site does not outline their vetting process.
- Good fit for CMOs? Somewhat. 12 mentors list CMO experience on their profiles.
Intro.co
- Price: per session pricing, price range varies widely per expert, but is upwards of $100 per session for most marketing experts listed under a “marketing” search.
- Mentor Vetting Process: Unknown. Experts are referred to as “in-demand”, but the site does not outline their vetting process.
- Good fit for CMOs? Fairly. 24 experts list “CMO” in their profiles when conducting a search for the term “CMO.”
Mentor.cam
- Price: per session pricing, price range varies per expert, starting prices not outlined on the site.
- Mentor Vetting Process: Unknown. An application is required and mentors are referred to as “otherwise inaccessible”, but the vetting process is not outlined on the site.
- Good fit for CMOs? Not really. Only 2 mentors list “CMO” experience directly under their profiles.
GrowthMentor
- Price: $50 per month for 3 calls a month, $75 a month for unlimited calls per month, mentors who charge session fees are encouraged to set “startup friendly” prices.
- Mentor Vetting Process: Yes, and you can read all about it.
- Good fit for CMOs? Yes. 63 mentors list CMO experience in their profiles.
At GrowthMentor, our CMO mentors come from all sorts of different backgrounds. Some are former founders, others worked their way up the traditional marketing ladder, and still more have moved between multiple C-suite roles over the years.
Plus, they’re armed with a variety of industry experience from B2B SaaS to mobile apps to B2C services.
Want to see the variety for yourself? Check out some of our featured CMO mentors:
Farrah Fan
One of Farrah’s rave reviews:
Booked a second longer session with Farrah after finding her really helpful in the first. She really helped me think about what I should be looking for in a marketing hire for our specific situation. Her experience clearly shows!
Peter Murphy Lewis
One of Peter’s rave reviews:
Peter is awesome. Not only did he ask great questions allowing him (and myself) to get to the heart of the topic. He also provided specific and actionable strategies for me to move forward. I found his perspectives refreshing and valuable and enjoyed every bit of our conversation. Highly recommended.
Uri Einav
One of Uri’s rave reviews:
The value I got from just 30 minutes with Uri was incredible. I was seeking some advice on launching a mobile app, and he provided me with very great advice on the best way to do this, including which metrics are most important, especially for investors. He also gave some very sound advice on revenue models to consider. On top of that, super friendly and very knowledgeable – definitely recommend!
Shahar Barkai
One of Shahar’s rave reviews:
Awesome call with Shahar! We talked about annual go-to-market planning and we discussed how to reserve engineering what has worked before and apply it to next year’s plan, how to embed flexibility in the plan and how data can support you in any decisions you need to make with the leadership team.
Rachel Jordan
One of Rachel’s rave reviews:
Rachel has a wealth of expertise and knowledge and it was evident immediately. She shared her experience with some very similar situations to myself and provided valuable insight into actions that would help next. I was able to reaffirm my direction while also taking away several solutions that I wouldn’t have come up with on my own. Thanks for your time, Rachel!
Joey Kotkins
One of Joey’s rave reviews:
Joey was a real straight shooter while being friendly on actionable steps to take. He provided direct contacts to reach out to and gave more advice on why something wouldn’t work as opposed to providing confirmation bias. This type of insight is proving to be valuable to improve on existing systems to make a better product and service. I am looking forward to connecting with him further.
Grete Ling
One of Grete’s rave reviews:
Amazing mentorship! Grete is very objective. She quickly got into the company’s reality and by the end of our conversation, I had precisely what to try with the team to improve our engagement. I could also identify points of improvement related to my posture with the team members, and I’ll surely speak to her again once we apply these initial steps. Thank you so much, Grete!
So if you’re considering finding a CMO mentor through a platform, we think the answer is easy. Especially when we’ve already had CMOs use it to skip all the research legwork, awkward cold outreach, and get straight to talking to mentors:
Gabriel Bujold, CMO at V2Cloud.comBefore joining GrowthMentor, my plan was to just select some people on LinkedIn that had great profiles and reach out to them. But now with less money than many people spend for random SaaS tools you an choose vetted mentors without having to do any of the manual outreach legwork. And even if you want to speak with a mentor about a more specific subject and pay them, you can usually ask your boss or your co-founder to reimburse you for that.
So for access to a diverse group of ultra-vetted CMO mentors without the crazy price tag attached, join GrowthMentor.
However you find your CMO mentor, you’ll find a partner who can help keep you on the right track to the top of your field.
Keep climbing, you’ve got this.
Find Your CMO Mentor
