For many small or early-stage businesses, a fractional CMO is the perfect hire for experience and governance of your go-to-market strategy.
A fractional CMO is a marketing leader who has a depth of experience in a particular industry or niche, that works with startups, and smaller and mid-sized businesses that need advice and guidance around customer acquisition. These typically include marketing strategy, sales development and enablement, growth opportunities, partnerships, finances and product alignment.
They work closely with founders and business owners to help them make the right decisions but only on a limited or fractional basis. This can be one day per month or two or three, but not a full-time or part-time hire. They retain their status as an advisor or a consultant with specific goals to deliver.
With 25 years of experience in business and a skill set that encompasses marketing, sales and product growth, Paul Sullivan is an ideal fractional CMO. He has a unique vision and approach that is founder-led and budget-conscious. It was this approach that led him to develop his own ARISE methodology. He looks to extract every ounce of value from his time and his strategy and prides himself on his ability to remain neutral and retain clarity in his decision-making; separately from the founder’s team.
His fractional CMO service for startups broadly provides more value than a traditional fractional CMO as his experience around SaaS specifically, gives him unique insights and a “whole of business approach” as he is a certified product marketing leader.
Product marketers work with the C-Suite, marketing teams, and sales teams, and finance the product development team to align the business to its desired goals. That could be a sales-led top-down model or a product-led bottom-up model. Whatever your needs, working with Paul would give you a good advantage because he remains neutral in his decision-making and brings his experience of being a founder himself, working with other startups and scaleups and his enterprise experience too. Let’s not also forget that he remains tightly connected to the VC community and he can add value to the business making it more attractive to investors down the road.