our services

Marketing Mentoring to Build Confident, High-Impact Leaders

Our marketing mentoring service provides strategic guidance from seasoned, Chartered Fractional CMOs — helping you make better decisions, lead with confidence, and deliver measurable impact.

Marketing leadership from big brands...

Why Marketing Leaders Are Under Pressure to Deliver

Marketing leaders face rising demands: more channels, tighter budgets, and boards that expect evidence of impact. Teams need direction — but even strong leaders can feel:

  • Isolated — without a peer to sanity-check decisions
  • Overwhelmed — unsure if plans will resonate with customers or the board
  • Under-supported — stepping into high-stakes situations without experienced guidance
cost of inaction

The Risk of Going It Alone

Without structured mentoring, the risks are clear:

  1. Confidence dips and decisions become reactive
  2. Strategic clarity is lost in a sea of tactical noise
  3. Mis-hiring, budget misallocation, or misaligned campaigns erode value
  4. Career growth stalls, or the wrong leaders take the reins

For CEOs and investors, this isn’t just a people problem — it’s a business risk.

our solution

High-Impact Marketing Mentoring

We don’t offer generic “career coaching.” We deliver commercially grounded mentoring that strengthens leadership capability, aligns marketing with business goals, and accelerates results.

With VCMO, you work with a mentor who is:

A Chartered Marketer (CIM)

A SOSTAC® Certified Planner

A proven leader with real-world experience in scaling, restructuring, and repositioning marketing functions

Our mentoring sessions are designed to challenge thinking, sharpen strategy, and give you the confidence to influence boards, lead teams, and deliver commercial results.

Who Our Marketing Mentoring Is For

Our Marketing Mentoring programmes are built for:

Founders — understanding how to leverage marketing for growth and valuation
Future leaders — preparing for expanded responsibilities or promotion
Head of Marketing & CMOs — gaining external perspective to refine strategy
CEOs — developing or restructuring high-performing marketing functions
• Investors — supporting portfolio company marketing leaders to deliver more, faster

Whether you’re at the start of a leadership journey or navigating complex growth, we provide a structured path to stronger outcomes.

What's Included

✅ 2–4 monthly mentoring sessions depending on depth (90 minutes each, via Teams, recorded & transcribed)
✅ Mentee-led agendas with structured challenge and support
✅ Access to VCMO frameworks, and AI-tools
✅ Light-touch email support between sessions (fair usage)
✅ Introductions to relevant peers and networks
✅ Recommendations for training or capability building
✅ Seamless transition into advisory or Fractional CMO support if needed

cost-certainty

Pricing - Fixed Fee, No Surprises

The Marketing Audit cost is set by modules, market complexity, and operational scale.

Mentoring Plan Sessions / Month 3-Months Upfront (+ VAT) Monthly Thereafter (+VAT) Best For
Essentials 2 £2,250 £750 Founders or early-stage marketers needing accountability
Performance 3 £3,375 £1,125 Marketing leaders navigating strategy or team complexity
Executive 4 £4,400 £1,500 CMOs, succession planning, high-growth environments

Most clients recoup fees within 3–6 months through efficiency gains and better spend.

Important notes:

Scope Confirmation: Final scope is agreed following a discovery call to ensure objectives and deliverables are clearly defined.

Inclusive Fees: All fees cover discovery, diagnosis, delivery, and actionable recommendations.

Fixed Scope: A clear Statement of Work is confirmed before any project begins, giving you certainty on cost and outcomes.

Learn more about our pricing

still deciding?

When an External Mentor Makes the Difference

Our Marketing Mentoring Service is right for you if you want:

  • To be more confident in strategic decision making
  • Stronger alignment between marketing, sales, and leadership
  • Greater impact in board-level communication and reporting
  • Faster career progression or leadership readiness
  • Clearer, higher-impact marketing plans

We partner with business leaders who want clarity, confidence, and a commercial edge. Many who begin with Marketing Audit continue with us as their Fractional CMOs — embedding leadership for long-term impact.

Are you ready to be mentored?


Take our 3-minute diagnostic to assess whether our Marketing Mentoring is the right next step for you.

need something else?

Mentoring as a Stepping Stone

Many clients start with mentoring and progress into deeper engagements as confidence grows:

Marketing Advisory

You’re making a high-stakes decision and need independent, senior-level input right now.

Marketing Audit

A complete and independent review of your team, spend, channels, and results — to identify leaks, misalignment, and underperformance before you invest more.

Market Analysis

In-depth insight into customers, competitors, and market dynamics — to reduce risk and increase precision when entering markets or repositioning.

Fractional CMO

You need ongoing senior marketing leadership to drive strategy, execution, and team alignment.

Our project was to create a top-level marketing strategy which, once built, we could drive forward ourselves. And I can honestly say the work has been transformational for Yellowtail. After each workshop with VCMO, both Dennis Hall and I would be amazed at how much we'd achieved. We worked hard! But the results are worth it.

Sarah Steele
Operations Director, Yellowtail Financial Planning
Read the Case Study

Shout out to Paul Mills who bravely took on running a positioning workshop with us yesterday. Is there anything harder than doing the thing your client does for others for them?! Great work. Really thought provoking, and so important to have facilitated by someone with an external perspective!

Bryony Thomas
CEO, watertight business thinking

Paul is a professional strategic marketeer who is able to apply his expertise with marketing budgets large and small. The commercial impact of Shaw & Co's rebrand, which was initiated, designed and implemented by Paul, has been to differentiate us positively in a sector where few have succeeded. He delivers what he promises, on time and on/under budget, to a high quality. Paul made a positive impact on our business that will last.

Rod Leefe
chair, shaw & co

VCMO's audit brought clarity to a complex set of challenges. They cut through the noise and delivered a clear, prioritised roadmap that we could act on immediately. Their ability to engage across teams and translate insight into action was exactly what we needed.

Dr. Ross Burn
Co-founder, Catsci limited  
Read the Case Study

Lydia possesses a deep understanding of marketing strategies and has consistently delivered exceptional results. Her ability to analyse market trends, create engaging campaigns, and drive customer acquisition is truly impressive. Her dedication, attention to detail, and strong communication skills make her an invaluable asset to any organisation. I cannot recommend Lydia enough for her expertise, professionalism, and exceptional work ethic.

Alan Leckey
Business Consultant, CCO - the Collaboration Company  

Paul Mills wasn't just an outsourced marketing leader — he was a mentor. His support helped me enhance my technical marketing skills and shape a more strategic mindset, as well as build my  confidence with senior leadership and deliver higher-impact work. He is dependable and skillful, and his guidance has made me feel more capable and prepared for future challenges.

Caitlin Daniels
marketing manager, catsci limited
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VCMO brings knowledge, insight and practical experience to the table, but also something else, which is quite rare, the unwavering commitment to finishing the job without compromising on the quality of the output. Their work for Yellowtail has been exemplary and we're seeing the results already.

Dennis Hall
founder, yellowtail financial planning

Ruth brought great experience and insight to my firm over many years. Her considered and thoughtful approach to problem solving are a real strength and her experience of marketing and business development in the legal sector was invaluable.

Gavin Tyler
Managing Partner, Cripps

VCMO helped us think beyond our capabilities and reframe how we communicate the true value of what we do. Paul's workshop unlocked fresh ideas resulting in a more strategic approach to our content plan and go-to-market materials. The quality of the output and power of the messaging is really impressive.

Peter Ridgway
Business Development Director, Reach Separations
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VCMO has been instrumental in reshaping how we approach marketing at Lucent. Their strategic clarity, attention to detail, and ability to deliver at pace have been exceptional. Paul's embedded himself seamlessly into the team and quickly earned trust — not just from me, but from our wider staff and partners. The website and content strategy he led have already started delivering results, and I now feel far more confident in how we grow the business over the coming years.

Steven Rowe
Founder - Lucent Financial Planning
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VCMO helped me find the words and structure to communicate what I do — and who I do it for — in a way that finally connects. I’ve had more inbound enquiries since the website relaunch than in the previous two years.

Lee Spencer
aka The rowing marine
Read the Case Study

FAQ’s

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