Agency or owner
Fractional chief growth officer vs a growth agency
An agency executes a channel. A fractional chief growth officer decides which channel deserves the work, and holds the commercial picture.
| Growth agency | Fractional chief growth officer | |
|---|---|---|
| Sells | Delivery capacity inside a channel or a campaign | Ownership of priorities, rhythm, and the commercial decision |
| Brief | Usually arrives from the client | The brief is part of the work |
| Best when | You already know the channel and need hands | Several plausible channels are competing and nobody owns the choice |
| Risk | Activity without a shared definition of pipeline | Leadership with no one left to produce the work |
| Together | Useful after the constraint is named | Often the person who briefs the agency |
A growth agency is built to produce. Outbound, paid media, content, lifecycle. The good ones are specific about the channel and honest about what they will not decide for you.
A fractional chief growth officer is hired because that decision is the vacancy. The founder is tired of being the person who translates an agency report into a sales priority. Marketing has a plan. Sales has another. The agency has a third, written as activity.
What each is allowed to change
An agency can change the message, the list, the cadence, and the creative inside the scope you gave them. They should not be asked to fire a channel they were hired to run, or to rewrite how the CRM defines an opportunity, unless that authority was explicit. Most briefs do not give it.
A fractional lead is there to use that authority. Stop the work that is plausible and mistimed. Make one definition of pipeline. Put an owner on the handoff. Then, if a channel still deserves production, brief an agency or an internal team against that decision.
Steven founded Growleady and still runs it. That is outbound delivery, attributed to the company, not to a personal fractional engagement. The personal offer is the leadership seat, described on the fractional chief growth officer page. If you already know the channel and only need capacity, do not buy the leadership seat to get production.
The decision
Choose the side that matches the constraint.
01Should I hire an agency or a fractional growth lead?
Hire an agency when the channel is chosen and the missing piece is production. Hire a fractional chief growth officer when the company cannot yet say which work should stop, or when sales and marketing are executing different plans.
02Can you replace our agency?
No. Steven is not a delivery agency. Growleady, his company, does outbound execution as a separate offer. Fractional work on this site is leadership. If specialist production is the need, he will say so.
03What does an agency still need internally?
Someone who owns the commercial picture, the definition of a qualified opportunity, and the decision to continue or stop. An agency cannot supply that from inside a channel brief.
Other comparisons
- Fractional CFO vs fractional chief growth officer
- Chief growth officer vs chief marketing officer
- Fractional chief growth officer vs a full-time hire
- Fractional CMO vs a fractional chief growth officer
- Fractional CRO vs a fractional chief growth officer
- Freelance growth vs a growth agency
- Growth consultant vs a fractional chief growth officer