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Why Growth-Stage Brands Need Wartime CMOs

Why Growth-Stage Brands Need Wartime CMOs

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Mark Gabrielli
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Why Growth-Stage Brands Need Wartime CMOs | #MarkCMO

Why Growth-Stage Brands Need Wartime CMOs

Why Growth-Stage Brands Need Wartime CMOs

Let’s get one thing straight: growth-stage brands don’t need another “brand whisperer” or a “culture cultivator” who spends more time on LinkedIn than in the trenches. They need a wartime CMO—someone who can lead with urgency, make hard calls, and turn chaos into compounding growth. In the high-stakes middle of the startup journey, where the honeymoon is over and the IPO is still a fantasy, the difference between scaling and stalling often comes down to whether your marketing leader is built for battle or brunch.

Peace-Time CMOs Are Great—Until the Market Punches You in the Face

There’s a time and place for the peace-time CMO. They’re great at building consensus, nurturing brand equity, and hosting offsites with inspirational quotes on the walls. But when your CAC is climbing, your burn rate is outpacing your revenue, and your competitors just raised $50M to eat your lunch, you don’t need a vibe curator—you need a wartime CMO.

Wartime CMOs thrive in ambiguity. They don’t wait for perfect data—they make decisions with 70% of the picture and move. They don’t just “align with sales”—they kick down the door and ask why the pipeline is leaking. They don’t obsess over brand guidelines—they obsess over market share.

What Makes a CMO “Wartime” Material?

It’s not about being aggressive for the sake of it. It’s about being decisive, strategic, and unflinchingly focused on outcomes. Here’s what separates wartime CMOs from their peace-time counterparts:

  • Speed Over Perfection: They ship fast, test faster, and kill what doesn’t work without a funeral.
  • Revenue-Obsessed: They don’t just report on MQLs—they own pipeline, conversion, and LTV.
  • Cross-Functional Killers: They don’t “collaborate”—they integrate. Sales, product, ops—they’re in all the rooms.
  • Market-Driven: They don’t just listen to customers—they weaponize insights into positioning that punches above its weight.
  • Resilient as Hell: They’ve been through downturns, layoffs, pivots—and they still show up swinging.

Growth-Stage Brands Are a War Zone

Let’s not sugarcoat it. Growth-stage companies are messy. You’re scaling headcount, building infrastructure, and trying to hit aggressive revenue targets while your product is still duct-taped together. It’s not a brand campaign—it’s a battlefield.

In this environment, a wartime CMO isn’t a luxury—they’re a survival mechanism. They bring clarity to chaos, prioritize ruthlessly, and know when to say “no” to shiny objects that don’t move the needle.

Case in Point: The CMO Who Turned a Burnout Brand into a Category Killer

One of our clients—a Series B SaaS company—was bleeding cash on paid media, had no clear ICP, and was stuck in a sea of sameness. Enter their new wartime CMO. Within 90 days, she:

  • Slashed 40% of the ad budget and reallocated it to high-performing channels
  • Rebuilt the positioning to target a niche vertical with higher ACV
  • Integrated with sales to create a feedback loop that doubled demo-to-close rates
  • Launched a scrappy content engine that drove 3x more inbound leads in 6 months

She didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t ask for a bigger team. She just got to work—and the results spoke for themselves.

Truth Bomb

If your CMO can’t make hard calls, kill sacred cows, and drive revenue under pressure—they’re not a wartime CMO. They’re a liability.

How to Hire (or Become) a Wartime CMO

Not every marketer is cut out for wartime. And that’s okay. But if you’re in the growth-stage trenches, here’s what to look for—or develop—in your next marketing leader:

  • Track Record in Chaos: Have they led through downturns, pivots, or hypergrowth?
  • Revenue Fluency: Can they talk CAC, LTV, payback period, and pipeline like a CRO?
  • Strategic Backbone: Do they challenge assumptions and push back when needed?
  • Execution Muscle: Can they roll up their sleeves and get sh*t done?
  • Zero Ego: Are they more focused on outcomes than optics?

And if you’re a marketer reading this thinking, “Damn, I want to be that CMO”—good. Start by getting closer to revenue. Learn how your product is sold. Build relationships with sales and product. And stop waiting for perfect conditions. Wartime CMOs don’t wait—they act.

Conclusion: The Market Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings

Growth-stage brands don’t get participation trophies. You either scale or you stall. And the difference often comes down to whether your marketing leader is built for war or for wine tastings.

If you’re a founder, ask yourself: is your CMO ready to lead through fire? If not, it might be time to make a hard call. And if you’re a CMO reading this—ask yourself: are you ready to be the one who leads when the bullets start flying?

The battlefield is calling. Time to suit up.

Mark Gabrielli
Founder, MarkCMO
[email protected]
www.linkedin.com/in/marklgabrielli

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