A CMO crash course hidden in a binge read

If you’re not ready for a fractional CMO just yet, hand this book to whoever is in charge of your marketing.

It’s a fun read meant to show a realistic path from newbie to CMO. All of the playbooks used in the book (and more) will soon be available below.

Coming January 2026

Marketing strategy. Corporate survival. For every imposter disguised as a leader.

Intern Doc Cortez is cornered by the new Chief Marketing Officer with an unthinkable ultimatum:

“Secretly do my job on your intern salary, or I’ll fire you.”

Doc has 30 seconds to make an impossible choice: fail now, or fail later in a soul-crushing showcase of his marketing cluelessness.

So Doc becomes something that shouldn’t exist. A ghost CMO. No authority. No credit. No safety net. Just a physics grad with $40 in his bank account, suddenly tasked with a multi-million dollar marketing turnaround that claimed the jobs of the last three CMOs.

The problem? The sales team ignores marketing completely. The product team considers him the enemy. And Doc has never built a marketing plan, crafted a brand story, or run an executive meeting in his life.

The lifeline? A mysterious mentor appears in his company chat, teaching him frameworks that transform struggling interns into strategic leaders.

→ Why marketing teams fail and how to change the game

→ How to create a brand story that improves every metric

→ How to produce a marketing plan the board will embrace

→ How to gain influence when you have zero formal authority

Written by a Chief Marketing Officer with 18 years on executive teams at private, PE-backed, and public companies - filling the void between marketing theory and the messy reality.

Our Playbooks

Coming soon! Add your email to be notified as new playbooks become available. They are fun and easy to follow.

Learn how to win in a role with impossible expectations by understanding why CMOs fail
A step-by-step guide with everything you need to build your story
Connect your daily grind to the objectives that matter most the board and executive team
Keep the essential areas of marketing in balance with a priority roadmap
Align product, sales and marketing behind one clear goal
Define each funnel stage and do the math to know exactly where you stand at all times
Adapt your new story for your website, decks, docs and everything else with creative that reinforces your brand
Train all customer facing employees on the new story so they can confidently adapt it for any audience
Turn your new story into thought leadership content that galvanizes employees, prospects and customers
Gather leads as you test for quick wins and confident long-term decisions
Guidance for managing up so every stakeholder knows what to expect and when
Don’t get stuck in a tactical loop of one-off requests. Learn to build a quality library of leveraged assets.
NOT INCLUDED IN GHOST CMO
Marketing org design for newer teams anticipating the next growth stage