I began working with construction companies in 2005. During the more than 20 years since, I have watched construction marketing grow from a largely proposal-driven support function into a discipline capable of influencing nearly every important part of the business.
The industry has made progress, but too many construction companies still treat marketers as order takers. Leadership asks for proposals, project sheets, social posts, event support, and branded materials, while the marketer closest to the company’s clients, competitors, reputation, and communication is left out of the strategic conversations.
That disconnect shaped my path toward fractional CMO leadership and ultimately led me to create A/E/C CMOs.
Learning How Construction Companies Really Grow
Construction marketing has never fit neatly into a generic business-school model. Contractors operate with long sales cycles, complex buying groups, joint ventures with competitors, networks of subcontractors, bonding limitations, unpredictable schedules, and finite operational capacity. They sell trust before they build anything, and they must continue earning that trust throughout the project.
The best marketing advice accounts for those realities.
Over my career, I have worked with construction companies in different markets, at different stages of maturity, and with very different growth challenges. Some needed stronger positioning. Some were too dependent on referrals or a small group of clients. Others had capable marketing teams but lacked an executive-level leader who could connect their daily work to revenue, profitability, recruiting, retention, and long-term strategy.
I became increasingly convinced that many contractors did not need more disconnected marketing activity. They needed someone at the leadership table who understood both marketing and construction.
Moving Beyond the Traditional Marketing Department
A construction marketer’s workload can expand indefinitely. There is always another proposal, event, social post, project award, website update, presentation, or urgent request. The team can be extremely productive without ever addressing the company’s most important marketing questions.
Where should the company grow? Which clients and markets are most attractive? Why do ideal clients choose the company—or choose a competitor? How can business development become more effective? What should the company be known for? How will it recruit the people needed to deliver the next stage of growth?
Those are CMO-level questions.
A Construction Marketing Officer™ works on the business more than in it. The role connects marketing to corporate strategy and helps leadership make better decisions about positioning, market expansion, service-line development, client experience, employer brand, acquisition integration, pursuit strategy, research, and organizational growth.
This leader should not spend most of the week posting to social media or selecting giveaways. Those responsibilities may still need to be managed, but they cannot consume the person responsible for guiding the company’s marketing direction.
Why the Fractional Model Fits Construction
Many construction companies need experienced marketing leadership before they are ready to hire a full-time CMO. They may have a coordinator, manager, or director who understands the company but needs executive guidance. They may be building their first internal marketing function. They may have several brands or business units operating without a unified strategy.
The fractional model gives those companies access to senior leadership without requiring them to immediately add another full-time executive.
A fractional CMO can help leadership establish priorities, build the plan, guide the internal team, coordinate specialists, and measure business impact. The objective is not to replace capable employees or create dependence on an outside consultant. It is to give the company the leadership and structure needed to make its marketing investments more effective.
That structure also allows a fractional CMO to bring perspective from outside the company while remaining deeply engaged in its decisions. The person is close enough to understand the business but not so buried in daily production that strategic questions disappear beneath the task list.
Why I Created A/E/C CMOs
I did not want to build another general marketing agency, nor did I want to create a consulting practice permanently limited by one person selling his time.
A/E/C CMOs is a construction marketing firm built primarily around fractional CMO leadership. Its purpose is to help contractors and other companies across the built environment make marketing a more strategic and measurable contributor to the business.
That distinction matters. The company is not named after me or something tied only to my personal story because the vision extends beyond my individual career. I want A/E/C CMOs to become a platform where experienced construction marketers can step into executive leadership, build ownership, serve companies well, and help elevate the profession.
The structure also allows us to develop original research, frameworks, books, and practical resources that benefit the broader industry. Client service is central to the business, but the goal is larger than serving a collection of accounts. We want to improve how construction leaders understand, value, and use marketing.
A Better Role for Construction Marketing
Marketing should not sit at the edge of the company waiting for instructions. It should help leadership understand the market, anticipate risk, identify opportunity, strengthen client relationships, attract employees, and make deliberate choices about growth.
That does not mean marketing replaces business development, operations, or executive judgment. It means those functions gain a strategic partner capable of connecting their work and helping the company communicate and compete more effectively.
My journey toward becoming a fractional construction CMO came from seeing how much potential construction companies leave unused when marketing is treated as production support. A/E/C CMOs is the next step in that journey: creating a company dedicated to putting qualified construction marketing leadership where it belongs—at the table where the business is being built.
