A part-time CMO and COO for Ontario companies that have outgrown the owner's desk

The problem a fractional executive solves

A fractional executive takes ownership of a function, not a list of tasks. That's the difference between hiring one and hiring another agency or freelancer.

Most owner-run companies we talk to already have help. They have a web person, an ads vendor, a bookkeeper, a dispatcher, maybe an office manager. What they don't have is someone above those people who decides priorities, reads the numbers and holds the vendors to a plan. So the owner does it at 10 p.m., or nobody does.

Here is a quick test you can run this week. List every recurring decision you made in the last month, then mark each one:

• M if it was a marketing decision (budget, channel, message, vendor)
• O if it was an operations decision (scheduling, process, handoffs, capacity)
• S if only you, as owner, could have made it (strategy, money, partners)

If more than half your marks are M or O, you're doing an executive's job on top of your own. That's the gap a fractional CMO or fractional COO is built to close.

Two seats, and how to tell which one is empty

If customers can't find you or you can't predict next quarter's leads, the empty seat is usually marketing. If you win work but deliver it late, over budget or inconsistently, it's usually operations.

When it isn't clear, we start with a fixed-fee operating review so you pay for a diagnosis before you commit to a seat. Our guide on working out which seat you need walks through the full checklist.

What changes in the first 90 days

By day 90 you should be able to run a leadership meeting from one page of numbers, and every marketing dollar should have an owner and a reason.

A typical sequence:

1. Weeks 1–3: interviews with you and your key people, a read of your accounts and reports, and a written list of what's broken, ranked by cost.
2. Weeks 4–6: the first version of the scorecard and a weekly meeting that uses it. Vendors get written briefs and monthly targets.
3. Weeks 7–12: the two or three fixes that pay back fastest, done and measured. You get a short written note at the end of each month.

The 90-day guide shows what each week should produce, so you can hold any fractional executive to it, including us.

Ontario is several markets

Planning for Ontario means planning for Toronto, the 905 regions, Ottawa and Waterloo Region separately. A delivery schedule that works inside Toronto's 25 wards can fall apart on the drive from Burlington to Pickering, and a marketing plan built for a Markham business park won't fit a downtown Kitchener storefront.

We plan by region. The areas hub covers each one, including Toronto, Peel and Halton, York and Durham, Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge and Guelph.

Evidence from our HVAC work

Our longest track record is in home services, where marketing and operations meet every day. These are results from our HVAC work, shown as evidence of the measurement discipline we bring to a CMO or COO seat in any sector.

• CombiBoiler.ca reached 300% ROI and 300+ monthly leads.
• CanroHeat.ca grew leads by 250%.
• HVACDeal.ca produced 500+ leads at a 12:1 ROI.

The results page explains what each one shows and which lessons transfer outside HVAC.

Who sits in the seat

Ali Sedighi, MBA in Technology Management, is the person who fills the seat. He has 17+ years of experience, starting in 2007 when he founded ONE.ir, a full-service digital marketing agency. He later founded Conv.ca, a conversion-rate optimisation agency, and MyAutomation.ca, and he is Founder and Managing Partner of SAZ.ca. He has built 150+ live HVAC websites and worked with clients in Canada, the USA and Dubai. More on the about page.

The group behind this site includes Sedighi.ca and BusinessConsulting.ca. We are a Canadian consulting brand inside that group. We advise and manage; we don't provide HR, legal, accounting or tax services.

Cost, terms and the first call

Ongoing fractional work is a monthly retainer of $2,500 to $12,000, with no lock-in. Fixed-scope projects start at $3,500 and hourly sessions run $175 to $350. The first conversation is free. See pricing for how the hours and scope set the number.

To start, call, text or email with your company's size, the region you sell into, and the one thing you'd stop doing tomorrow if someone else owned it. The contact page has a short template, and the FAQ answers questions about contracts, access to your accounts and reporting.