Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that I’ve made reference to my role as the Fractional CMO for a DNA testing company.

This is a role I took on a few months back…🔙

And it involved some money upfront + an equity stake in the company.

When the position was first floated to me, I was wary…

Simply because I’ve made the mistake too many times in the past of becoming overstretched…🙅‍♂

Of not being realistic about my bandwidth…

And then regretting it afterwards. 😞

So I wanted to be careful about taking on this new role, too.

And at first I was leaning towards not doing it…

But, after extended consideration, I talked myself into the position…

Thinking that I could just set strategy and vision, but then delegate execution and implementation outward.

And for the past few months, I tried to do just that…

But found myself feeling like this role was more of a “burden” than a passion.

The reason why is because even though this project has tremendous upside, an incredible model, and a great team…

The reality was – it just wasn’t where my main passion and focus was.

I started to realize that I’d deceived myself into thinking I had more bandwidth for the project than I actually did.

In other words…

It’s one thing to review strategy and advise on it…

Or to serve as a resource…

And quite another to architect an entire brand, including all content/copy/funnels/flows…

Especially on a “part-time basis.”

As the Fractional CMO, I was getting stuff done for the company…

But not as quickly as I wanted, and I don’t think the quality was as high as it should have been either.

All of this was weighing on my mind when I got on a call with the two primary founders the other day…

So, I did the only logical thing I could think of…

I just told them exactly how I was feeling.

I was brutally honest about it…

I told them that I’d probably overestimated my bandwidth…

And that I felt like if I remained in the CMO Role…

I would be more of a detriment than an asset.

It wasn’t easy to do this…

To admit, “hey, I was wrong”…

Or to feel like you’re disappointing people.

But, what I’ve learned from experience…

Is when it comes to ventures and business (and really, this is true everywhere else too)…

It’s WAY better to embrace some short-term pain…

Then to avoid it…

By continuing to lie to yourself and others.

Because not only is this unfair to other people…

But it actually creates significantly more stress and pain for everyone in the long run.

And guess what…

When I told the two main guys at this company how I was feeling…

They were incredibly thankful for my honesty.

They totally got it.

And it ended up being this incredible conversation…

Where we agreed that I would stay on and serve as an advisor to the company (with a small equity stake)…

But where I wouldn’t need to focus on the creation and execution of content.

So now my role is one with much more leverage.

I get to help move the needle on a really high level…

Provide them with resources through my network…

But I’m not “burdened” anymore…

Instead, I’m excited to be helping them.

The second the call was over, it felt like a 50lb weight had been lifted off my chest.

And I’m just so glad I was able to be open and honest…

Because I really think the new set up we agreed on will be much better for everyone in the long run.

So I just wanted to share, because it’s a really important lesson I’ve learned:

Honesty really is the best policy.

By avoiding the truth because we’re afraid of short-term pain…

We can end up creating such long-term misery for ourselves…

That it simply never makes sense to take this approach.

 

– SPG

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.