About
I'm Liam McIlveen.
I've spent 12+ years in marketing, most of it in marine technology — Navico, BEP Marine, Vesper Marine and Garmin. Since 2023 I've run marketing part-time for a handful of businesses across New Zealand and Australia instead of one full-time.
Why fractional
One business was never getting the best of me.
In-house, most of a senior marketer's week goes on things that are not marketing: meetings about meetings, internal alignment, the politics of a budget. The actual judgement — the part you hired the seniority for — takes a fraction of the time and gets squeezed between everything else.
Working across several businesses inverts that. The week is the judgement and the work. The businesses get someone senior for a day or two, and they do not carry the overhead of a role they could not justify filling properly.
It also makes me better at the job. Five businesses a week is five times the pattern recognition of one, and the thing that solved a problem for a marine brand in March is frequently the thing a SaaS company needs in June.
Career
Where the experience comes from.
Marine technology, almost the whole way. Technical products, sceptical buyers, long cycles and a dealer network in between.
- 01
Navico
Product marketing — Simrad, B&G, Lowrance
Marine electronics across three brands, sold through dealers and boat builders. Where I learned to market technical products to buyers who knew the specification better than I did.
- 02
BEP Marine
Marketing — electrical systems
Electrical and digital switching systems sold to boat builders and OEMs. Pure B2B, long cycles, and a customer who is designing your product into theirs a year before anyone buys.
- 03
Vesper Marine
Marketing, through the acquisition by Garmin
A New Zealand company with a real technical advantage, acquired by Garmin. I went through that acquisition from the inside — which teaches you quickly which parts of a marketing function are real and which are decoration.
- 04
Garmin
Marine division, post-acquisition
Marketing inside a large, disciplined organisation after years inside small ones. The contrast is most of what I now bring to a small business: which of the big-company practices are worth copying, and which would sink you.
- 05
Deftly Growth
Fractional marketing, 2023 onward
Running marketing part-time for a handful of businesses across New Zealand and Australia, instead of full-time for one.
Proof
Brands I've marketed.
Clients
Brands marketed in-house
How I work
What you can expect, and what I won't do.
What you get
- A straight answer, including when it is not what you hoped
- Work that gets done, not just recommended
- Tool-agnostic advice — I take no referral fees from anyone
- A month of listening before anything changes
- Reporting you can argue with, because the numbers are traceable
What I won't do
- Promise a number I have no way to deliver
- Publish a claim I cannot substantiate
- Recommend a platform because I have a relationship with it
- Bill for a strategy document and disappear
- Take on work I am not the right person for
Elsewhere
Find me.
I write about this in the journal — including what startups get right and wrong about marketing, which covers the Vesper Marine story in more detail.
On LinkedIn, or by email at liam@deftlygrowth.com.
Talk to me
Half an hour, no pitch.
Tell me what's on your plate and I'll tell you straight whether I'm the right person for it.