Stephanie Lam Mun Yin · Fractional CMO

Most companies optimise the two ends of the funnel. The money leaks out of the middle.

I am a fractional CMO for companies that already spend on marketing and still cannot say what a closed customer costs them. I own the number between ad spend and revenue: cost per lead, reply rate, appointment rate, close rate, cost per closed sale. Then I fix the weakest link, in the room, with the team that has to run it after I leave.

Meta Certified Media Buying Professional HRD Corp Accredited Trainer 15+ years sales & marketing leadership Pharma · Property · Tech · E-commerce · B2B English · Mandarin · Bahasa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur · Malaysia, Singapore & remote

$300 → $17Cost per lead on a client account, on one fifth of the previous monthly budget. A 94% reduction.

5× – 26×Return on ad spend across client engagements. 5× typical, 26× the highest recorded.

RM11K → RM258KMonthly affiliate GMV on one brand, three months, under a programme I led for an e-commerce group.

2,000+Marketers, sales leaders, agents and founders trained and coached, including 600+ real estate consultants.

Every figure on this page was either produced in an account I ran or reported on record by the team that produced it. Nothing is rounded up. Client names are withheld where results have not been cleared for publication.

Stephanie Lam on stage at MAREC 2024, the Malaysian Annual Real Estate Convention. — Keynote on sales and marketing systems — MAREC 2024, the Malaysian Annual Real Estate Convention, Selangor.

How I work

The five numbers I ask for in the first meeting

Advertising dashboards record the first two. Nobody records the middle three, which is exactly where the money goes. Most companies cannot fill this table in, and that gap is usually the whole diagnosis.

The Leak Audit — the diagnostic I run before recommending a single tactic.
	Measure	What it tells me
01	Cost per lead	Whether the problem is upstream of the funnel at all. Often it is not.
02	Lead to first reply rate, and median response time	The cheapest fix in most companies. A cheap lead nobody replies to was never cheap.
03	Reply to appointment rate	Whether the follow-up is a sequence or a hope. This is where B2B and high-ticket leak hardest.
04	Appointment to close rate	Whether the offer and the positioning are doing their job before the sales conversation starts.
05	Cost per closed sale	The only number a CEO should be shown. Everything above it is diagnostics.

Scaling spend on a funnel you have not measured is scaling a leak. I optimise the sales process first, then add budget. My operating rule in every engagement

Case studies · performance marketing

Accounts I have owned

Paid media, offer, follow-up and measurement treated as one system, because that is the only way the cost-per-closed-sale number moves. Engagements across Malaysia and Singapore, including high-ticket services work alongside one of Singapore's top sales KOLs.

Premium enrichment centre · Singapore

Zero to six figures, on half the ad spend the previous agency used

The incumbent agency had been running the account for months and produced no sales at all. I did not start by rewriting the ads. The enquiries were arriving and then dying in silence, so I installed appointment-setting and a nurture sequence first, then cut the unoptimised campaigns and rebuilt the offer.

Revenue followed within ten months, on roughly half the previous budget. The account had never needed more spend. It needed somebody to answer the leads it already had.

0 → 6 figuresSales, where the previous agency delivered zero
−50%Ad spend against the previous agency
10 monthsFrom no attributable revenue

Premium enrichment centre · Singapore

Cost per lead cut to a fifth, until the bottleneck became hiring

A second Singapore client in the same category. Inherited from a marketer spending several times more per month for more expensive leads. The fix was positioning and creative angle before bidding strategy: the account was paying to interrupt people who had no reason to care.

The engagement ended with the best problem a marketing lead can hand a client. They now have to hire headcount to set the appointments and close the volume coming through.

5× cheaperCost per lead than the previous marketer
−94%Best recorded CPL reduction, $300 to $17
HiringClient capacity, not lead volume, became the constraint

Real estate · competitive test

Highest lead volume and lowest cost per lead in a head-to-head

Run as a direct test against other marketers and agencies working the same client, the same product and the same market. My campaigns produced the highest lead volume at the lowest cost per lead, and came in under the industry benchmark for the category.

Being measured against competitors on the same brief is the only clean read on whether a marketer is actually good. It is also the test most agencies decline.

#1 of the fieldLead volume and CPL, same brief
Below benchmarkCost per lead against industry standard

Property · Malaysia's #1 developer

Aligning sales and marketing around one number

Engaged by one of Malaysia's largest residential developers to improve conversion and fill the sales pipeline while bringing client acquisition cost down. The work spanned more effective paid campaigns, rewritten follow-up sequences, and getting sales and marketing to share a single goal instead of two separate scorecards.

I also ran high-ticket deals myself on the same playbook: multiple six-figure property deals closed through ads into WhatsApp, several without a face-to-face meeting, with buyers comfortable enough to send payslips and pay booking fees in the same thread.

Lower CACWith higher campaign ROI
6 figures × multipleDeals closed ads → WhatsApp, no meeting
5× – 26×Return on ad spend across engagements

Case study · e-commerce

Three teams, one e-commerce group, judged four weeks later

A Malaysian e-commerce distributor and brand management group running 70+ brands across marketplaces and social commerce. I was brought in to change how three teams — performance marketing, content and social commerce, and category — actually operate. Four weeks after the programme, each team presented what they changed and what it produced, judged live on impact, innovation and result by the room plus two external coaches and the group leader.

Affiliate & creator programme · personal care brand

Affiliate GMV 23× in three months

Affiliates and brand creators were being briefed ad hoc. We replaced that with AI-assisted structured briefs built on angle, hook and pain point, then onboarded more affiliates against the same system.

The content output scaled with it: 67 affiliate videos in month one, nearly double by month three, and the wins stopped being one-off outliers. By July multiple videos were averaging 10,000+ views rather than one hit carrying the month.

RM11K → RM258KMonthly affiliate GMV, May to July
918 → 82,000Views on the best single video
1–2K → 5KBrand account followers, two months
+23.8%Brand video views; likes 1,300 → 2,200

Marketplace ads · professional haircare

Ad spend down 47%, sales down only 15%

Everything had been running inside one shop-level automated campaign with no SKU or keyword visibility. We broke it into groups by role — top sellers, hero campaign SKUs, and good SKUs nobody was looking at — added manual keyword ads on low-traffic items, and adopted a small-brand bid strategy that lets the high bidders exhaust their budget first.

Judged against a mega-campaign month, which makes the comparison harder, not easier. An invisible SKU went from 1–2 units a month to 5 — the money was already in the catalogue, not in more budget.

−47% spendAgainst only −15% sales
10.98 → 12+Blended ROI across three marketplaces
15ROI on the best shelf placement

Capability transfer

RM60,000 in sales from someone who had never run an ad

A team member whose job had been maintaining existing campaigns. After the programme she used the group's BI to find top performers, built tiered ad groups, and ran a separate growth-testing group of her own design. That test group alone produced RM60,000 in sales.

This is the result I care most about, because it is the one that survives after the engagement ends. All three teams scored above 70% with external judges (70.33 / 73.00 / 73.33).

RM60,000From a first-time advertiser's test group
3 of 3 teamsScored above 70% with external judges
27 marketersAcross 70+ e-commerce brands

Previously we get the budget from the brands and then we just spend, because we have the budget to spend. From July, we have the objective… I want to reduce my ad spend, at the same time maintain my sales. Category team member, on record at the results review

Before this, I'm very scared to try to run, because it's spending money. So for now I try to test as much as I can. Performance marketer, on record at the results review

Stages & keynotes

Where I have said this out loud

Boardrooms, sales floors, conference stages and MBA cohorts across Malaysia, Singapore, the UK and the US.

Keynote — Sales & Marketing SystemsMAREC, Malaysia's largest real estate convention2024

Keynote — International Marketing, Sales & Branding ConferenceOmnichannel marketing and systems, 40+ corporate marketers—

Speaker — Future-Ready Digital Marketing ConferenceKuala Lumpur—

Guest trainer — INSEAD MBA cohort~30 C-suite and senior executives, delivered live to Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Paris, on professional branding and business networks—

Speaker — From Clicks to Clients: How Smart SMEs Are Winning in an AI-Driven MarketKuala Lumpur, on content, automation, search and conversion for SMEs2025

Panellist — VLAN Asia Business Community Forum“Improving Customer Experience”, alongside CX thought leaders and established brand leaders2024

Appointed Trainer — HRDC National Training WeekNational programme on digital marketing trends and strategy2023

Co-facilitator — Internet Alliance of Malaysia, “Power Your Brand”AEO/SEO practice and AI-assisted content strategy for member companies2026

Guest — international personal finance and investment podcastBehind-the-scenes of property sales, marketing and project planning—

Speaker line-up board and delegates at an SME marketing summit in Kuala Lumpur. — Speaking on conversion for SMEs in an AI-driven market — Kuala Lumpur, May 2025.

A full training room of corporate marketing and sales participants. — In-house programme for a corporate marketing and sales team.

Workshop on digital acquisition tools and strategies for real estate professionals. — Digital acquisition tools and strategy for real estate sales and marketing professionals.

Scope

What a fractional CMO seat with me covers

I am not a strategist who hands over a deck. I run the budget, write the brief, sit in the pipeline review, and train the people who inherit it.

Strategy & positioning

Ideal client definition, offer architecture and outcome promise
Positioning that attracts the right buyer and repels the wrong one
Competitive and category analysis, pricing narrative
Go-to-market for a new product, market or region

Demand generation & paid media

Meta and marketplace media strategy, structure and budget ownership
Creative angle libraries and component-level testing (hook × body × headline)
Acquisition ceiling: maximum allowable cost per customer and per lead
Outbound and account-based prospecting systems

Content, brand & AI search

Content mapped to buyer-journey stage for B2B, high-ticket and B2C
Answer Engine Optimisation: entity mapping, authority signals, Share of Model
AI-assisted production systems that keep a brand's own voice
Founder and executive personal brand as a demand channel

Revenue operations & measurement

The five-number funnel scoreboard, installed and reported weekly
Follow-up SOPs, nurture sequences and CRM/WhatsApp handoff
Sales and marketing alignment around one shared number
Written rules for cutting losers and scaling winners

Team & capability

Hiring briefs and assessment for marketing and growth roles
Coaching in-house teams to run the system without me
Agency and vendor selection, briefing and performance review
HRD Corp claimable in-house programmes for Malaysian employers

Sales enablement

Consultative, non-aggressive sales process for high-ticket offers
COMPASS consultative selling framework (neuroscience-informed)
Objection handling, discovery structure and proposal narrative
Pipeline review cadence and forecast hygiene

Method

The systems I bring in with me

Named, documented frameworks rather than a general approach. A team can be taught these and keep running them after the engagement ends, which is the point.

Positioning — M × A × T.O.M

Messaging: the one opinion that runs through everything the brand says
Authority: the single thing it chooses to be known for
Top of mind: distribution, because an unrepeated position is not a position
Quality bar: if the statement could hang on a competitor's wall, it is not sharp enough

The Leak Audit

Five numbers from ad to closed sale, installed as a weekly scoreboard
Maximum allowable cost per customer, then per lead, from real margins
Written rules for cutting losers and scaling winners
Finds the weakest link before any budget decision is made

The Content–Funnel Matrix

Top of funnel for reach, middle for trust, bottom for decision
Five content pillars: pain, trust, education, proof, call to action
Format matched to stage and platform, not to whatever is trending
One source asset repurposed into nine formats

Content-powered follow-up

Pressure, information and value follow-up, and why only the third gets replies
A five-touch sequence adapted for committee buyers in B2B
Technical evaluators get proof, economic buyers get return
The money is in the follow-up, and almost nobody measures it

The Second Brain

Identity, audience and library loaded once, used indefinitely
AI content production that keeps the brand's own language
Mandatory fact-check pass before anything publishes
Built so a junior marketer produces on-voice work

COMPASS & AENC

Seven-step consultative sales system, neuroscience-informed
Built for high-ticket offers without aggressive tactics
AENC framework for answer-engine and AI-search visibility
Both delivered as HRD Corp claimable in-house programmes

Implementation over instruction

Every one of these systems is handed over, not described. Participants work on their own funnel, their own account and their own follow-up messages while I am in the room, so what leaves with them is a working system rather than a set of notes.

That is also what makes the fractional model work. A seat I hold for six months should leave a team that does not need me in the seventh.

Stephanie Lam working through an account with a participant at a laptop. — Working a live account with a participant during a session.

Engagement

Three ways in

Each one ends in a decision, not a document.

Start here

The Leak Audit

A fixed-scope diagnostic on your five numbers, your account and your follow-up. You get the leak named in ringgit and the three moves that close it.

Account, funnel and follow-up review
Acquisition ceiling calculated for your margins
Written diagnosis and prioritised plan
Credited against a retainer if we continue

Fix it

90-day intervention

I take the weakest link and fix it with your team. Measurement installed in week one so the result is arguable in numbers, not opinions.

Offer, creative and follow-up rebuilt
Weekly scoreboard and management routine
Hands on the ad account, not just the brief
Your team trained as we go

Hold the seat

Fractional CMO retainer

An ongoing marketing leadership seat: the strategy, the budget, the team, the number. Monthly, with a defined day commitment and a defined target.

Owns the marketing-sourced revenue target
Leads in-house team and external agencies
Reports to the board or owner directly
Available 2–3 days a week per client

In their words

What people say afterwards

Real life experience, not text book.

Didn't know we need to do so many things after this masterclass. Felt empowered and insightful. Now we have more work to do.

Given my non-IT background, I found the course very easy to understand. It is also highly practical, with hands-on exercises that can be applied immediately.

Many prompt templates and frameworks are prepared and shared with us.

I just love the fact that it was quite data driven, because that's what performance marketing is all about.

I finally have a clear picture about social media marketing road map and clear what to do from now on, and confident this will help me a lot on my real estate career.

Really opened my mind to how other people do marketing. I will try to apply the 7 points of contact into my current daily encounters with clients.

The guidance and materials that is relevant in this AI era.

Programme feedback, 30 July 2026 cohort: 8.3 / 10 average satisfaction with knowledge gained, 8.2 / 10 likelihood to recommend, and 17 of 19 respondents agreed the programme helped them work more effectively in their workplace.

Record

Organisations I have worked with

As fractional CMO, consultant, trainer or keynote speaker.

Sime Darby PropertyPropNex Malaysia & SingaporePropNex SarawakPropNex CREERA SingaporeNaim PropertiesHartamas Real EstateCSX PropertiesWEREG PropertiesCornerstone EstateMIEAClickAsiaWPP MediaFiuu (Razer Merchant Services)AIMS Data CentreSupplycartTrapper Media GroupAccordia GlobalPertiwi OligoInfinity Consulting TechnologyAC2 WaveDelta Sama JayaiDCP SystemsWebplus DigitalMonster InteractiveGard IncVLAN AsiaInternet Alliance of MalaysiaINSEAD MBASwinburne UniversityISUN Education (SG)English Ninjas (SG)HRD Corp

Fit

Who this works for

A good fit

You already spend on marketing and the spend is not translating into closed revenue
You have a sales team or sales process, and enquiries that go cold inside it
You want a marketing leader accountable to a number, not a vendor accountable to a deliverable
You want your own team capable at the end of it, not dependent on an outside agency
High-ticket, B2B, property, e-commerce or specialist services

Not a fit

Not currently investing anything in acquisition — there is no leak to find yet
Looking for a day rate on a course rather than an outcome
Wanting more leads at any cost, without measuring what happens to them
Not ready to change how the team actually works

Next step

Send me your five numbers. If you cannot fill them in, that is the conversation.

A 30-minute call. I will tell you where I think your leak is and what I would do in the first 30 days. If it is not a marketing problem, I will say so.

connect@risesystemconsulting.com

+60 11-2661 9834

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