I have a playbook that I developed. And I execute against that playbook, and of course, there's nuances or, in fact, I was on a call earlier with a client and we had to sort of, you know, rejigger how we organized and did the process, because he had some opportunities coming up and we wanted to take advantage of that. So having the process that can flex, but also that playbook
to go by. And you're absolutely right, you know, and I would also say that those founders, of course, it's their job in a way to think that they're so special and unique, and, and I hear it a lot when I ask about, Well, who are your competitors? Especially at startups, and they're like, There's no one like us. And it's like in other people's minds, there very well, maybe. But that's also part of why I'm
there too. To help them understand that we do need to position you because there might be things that you don't think are competitors, but the marketplace who's buying your service or product, they think that they're competitors.
This is The MindShift Podcast where we share real stories, real strategies, that will help you find real success. This is the place to hear from people just like you who have taken their ideas, goals and dreams from a point of inspiration to realization or when life knocked them down, from a point of breakdown to breakthrough. I'm your host, Darrell Evans. Let's get started with today's episode.
Hey, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of The MindShift Podcast. First and foremost, I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to spend some time and learn. To understand the mind shifts that are necessary in this journey we call entrepreneurship. And if you enjoy today's show, please do us a favor, hit the follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening to the show so that
you never miss an episode. And I got to tell you that, in advance, I'm excited about this show, because I get to sit down with a veteran in the marketing space. And I guarantee we're going to geek out in a way that might sound a little foreign to you, but we're going to break it down very simply. Today, my guest is Amanda Rabideau. She is a Fractional CMO who has built her career growing businesses using effective marketing strategy and sales practices.
Over the last 15 years, she's worked for large companies like Dell, Microsoft and CoreLogic. Throughout her career, Amanda has served as a trusted adviser to entrepreneurs as they've launched and scaled their businesses. This passion of hers to work and help entrepreneurs led her to start her company Arch Collective. She now dedicates a lot of her time and energy to work with these entrepreneurs and business leaders to help them grow their companies through effective marketing, and
commercialization. Amanda, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. And excited to geek out with you too.
Let's do it. First of all, let's jump in with a very basic definition for those who may not be familiar, what is, in your words, a Fractional CMO.
So a Fractional CMO is a chief marketing officer who, rather than working for one dedicated company at any given time, is working for multiple companies, and multiple companies for me is two or three at the most. But it's a growing need and something that a lot of, especially tech startups, are looking to use.
Your company specifically focuses on, post A seed round. Let's go ahead and do some basic definitions. Can you break down, what is the A seed round? Why is it important that you come into the picture and your firm comes into the picture after that seed round?
Yeah, and I'm going to caveat this answer with, in 2021 the rules around investing and what Series A means and how much it is, has gone completely out the window. So I'll share with you how I think about companies, because it's probably something I should take off my description of who I work with.
Okay.
But I work with companies who have product market fit. So they have a few customers, they probably have $1, $2, $3 million in revenue. And why I say Series A, it's that round of funding where basically it's, it's their first significant round of funding. It's not friends and family. It's typically coming from venture capitalists or outside investors. And what's key is that it's that point where they get this money and all of a sudden, the expectations on the rate at which they need to grow,
get really intense. And so it's not that there's a bunch of low hanging fruit out there that they can just grow their business a little bit and the investors will be happy. They need to typically double or triple their revenue and so they need marketing support at this point in order to do that.
Yeah, I like the distinction. I work with a, an
Yeah. angel investor group and the angel side of it, as I understand it, is more of that let's work towards better product market fit. And you're saying you're coming in right after that. And it's time to really grow this thing and put some accelerant on the process.
In your opinion, like when you're coming in, and the right client is there, what's the percentage if you will, of the investment that has to go into the ramp up?
So I'd be hesitant to put a percentage on it because it really depends on the types of clients that you're acquiring. So for example, if you're looking for big banks or tier one insurance companies, in order to grow your business, the percentage would need to be higher than if you're looking to acquire other startups in the insurance or FinTech space or, you know, other smaller companies, not the big whales,
if you will. But what I will say is when it comes to budgeting, I have yet to have any client that has said, Oh, hey, Amanda, glad you're here. I've already allocated marketing budget and here's the amount. All of them when I say, Hey, do you have a marketing budget or some idea? No, that's what we need you to do. So, do create budgets. And I did, you know, say at any given point, what the percentages of the funding that they got. But it really does vary depending on who you're targeting.
Yeah, I love the question when you ask them, and they say, Well, what do you recommend?
Yeah. I had one company, and they're like, no, really any number, like, we need you to tell us. And so I went in, and I was like, $5 million. And I had a reason for all of it. And they're like, well, that's definitely higher. And it's like, Well, you told me to come in with anything, you know.
You said, Give me a number, right? It's funny. I remember years and years ago, this is early in my sales training. You've got a sales background, you might get this, right? The idea is, when you ask someone about marketing budgets, it's they never have an answer. They may if they can look in the rearview mirror, tell you what they have spent, and not gotten results on. We'll talk about that as we go forward because I know I want to talk a lot about that. But it was interesting.
Someone told me they said, well just ask them this question. If they just tell you they don't have a budget, or it doesn't matter. Just tell us what we need. And I'll say some a ludicrous number that is so far out of the budget and they'll be like, Well, I don't have that kind of money. Well, you asked me to give you the number. So it's funny, you just said the same thing.
Yeah.
Amanda, talk about your background that has gotten you here. Let's get a little bit about your backstory. How did you first into the world of marketing, and I want to take it down the path that made you fall in love with tech.
So I got the tech bug early, because my first real job, if you will, or you know, full time career role was working at a startup company. And at that time, I actually was chomping at the bit to get into sales. And so I started off selling a disruptive technology in the orthodontic industry, and was in sales, actually, for the first few years of my career. And I liked it. And I did well at it. I was number one, in several of those years. And at a point I thought, okay, I kind of
got this figured out. And I had majored in marketing in college. And so moved into more of a client facing marketing role. And why I think that's so important is cut to where I am now and how I view marketing and why I love it, is that I call myself a client centric marketer, where I don't think marketing is just living in the dashboards, living in the spreadsheets or doing the creative or however you want to
imagine it. I think it's really important for marketers to get out there, get the voice of client, get the voice of customer. And that was established earlier in my career and blending the sales, and then of course, my marketing. And then after I left that startup, I got my MBA, studied Marketing again. And then went and worked at a digital marketing consulting firm, which, you know, so we have that in common.
And, you know, enjoyed interfacing with the clients and building plans and working with a lot of different companies at the same time. And those were the big tech companies that you mentioned. So Dell, and Microsoft, and some of those big companies. But as I continued through my career, I got further and further away from the startup that I had started at, and I come from a family of entrepreneurs. So I think I have that entrepreneurial bug in me
as well. And when I was looking to leave CoreLogic, living in San Francisco, of course, the Silicon Valley is the heart and soul of startups here in the US, or it has been. And so I looked at opportunities for CMO roles
at startups. And, you know, in, in short, I at one point was interviewing with four at the same time, post Series A, in the similar spaces to my background, and, you know, was like, wow, I could really be efficient and helping all of these companies if I worked with all of them at the same time. And then that was like, oh, that's kind of an interesting concept and Arch Collective was born, and here we are.
So I'm gonna play devil's advocate on the other side. Someone is listening to this. And they are saying, but there is no way Amanda, you can serve my company and three other companies at the highest level, because everybody wants the talent for themselves. What do you say to that person when you know that . . . I think I know some of the answer but talk to the person who says, yeah, nah, I don't see how you're going to just be a part time person for me and give me the best result.
I'll be curious what your take was on it, because there's a couple of reasons why I would argue that I can do a really good job and that I have done a good job for the clients that I've had. And one is that, at the very beginning, you asked me why do I work with this particular group or define this audience you work with. And at that point in time, startups, they need strategy. They need someone who can see the big picture and isn't just throwing the proverbial you know, shit at the wall and
seeing what sticks. But they also probably don't have the budget and they don't necessarily need full time chief marketing officer. And so for what they need, I feel like I'm exactly the right fit, where you get the strategy, you get the execution from either my collective or for the team that they have in place, or I build a team, and you get the results. And so you know, that's part of it, like the clients I work with
at that stage. And then the other half is that I mentioned too, that I only work with up to two to three clients, because I do agree there is a point where it is just mentally taxing to have to be bouncing around from company to company. And even though most of my companies fit into the FinTech by umbrella, but PropTech, InsureTech, FinTech or the mortgage side of FinTech, you know, it's still like, they're not all exactly
the same. And so, you know, I think, if you're a Fractional CMO, or you're a company looking for one, understand their business model, and how many clients they take on, and you know, how they approach your business, because, you know, some people may have a different approach than me, but the final piece would be just call up one of my clients. And, you know, I think that they would all say that, they were excited by the results I got and the attention that they felt that they were receiving.
Yeah, thank you for the breakdown. What I was going to add, and I'll add this, even if you didn't say it, and, um, if you disagree with what I'm about to say, feel free to let us know. I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs or founders, principals, executives who are bringing someone in from the outside, they somehow think that their thing is absolutely 110% unique to everything else in the
world. And the issue is, is great marketing, there are some nuances, but in most cases, great marketing that delivers great results is a recipe slash formula, or strategic framework that gets applied over your product or service. But because we sell to humans, until and unless we stop selling to humans, now if we sell to aliens, I don't know how it works but . . .
I'm not familiar with that persona, either.
Right! But if we're selling to a human, we have tendencies, right? So the tendencies don't change. How we align that with your product and your service and the journey with which that person will take to acquire it, buy it, consume it, is going to be the nuance right? And so my answer is, I get it all the time, because I get companies come to my agency, and they're like, well, we want to be the only client in this space that you work with. Let me ask you what your budget is. Is
it like $4 billion? Because if it isn't, how in the world are you going to make us be exclusive? You know what I'm saying. So that was my take on it, is that . . .
100%
. . . you've got frameworks and systematic thinking, that leads to the result. And then the the nitty gritty nuance is applied to that product, that particular space that you're in. Do you agree?
100%. I have a playbook that I developed. And I execute against that playbook, and of course, there's nuances or, in fact, I was on a call earlier with a client and we had to sort of, you know, rejigger how we organized and did the process, because he had some opportunities coming up and we wanted to take advantage of that. So having the process that can flex, but also that playbook
to go by. And you're absolutely right, you know, and I would also say that those founders, of course, it's their job in a way to think that they're so special and unique, and, and I hear it a lot when I ask about, Well, who are your competitors? Especially at startups, and they're like, There's no one like us. And it's like . . .
Nobody
. . . in other people's minds, there very well, maybe. But that's also part of why I'm there too. To help them understand that we do need to position you because there might be things that you don't think are competitors, but the marketplace who's buying your service or product, they think that they're competitors.
Amanda, say that one more time. If you're listening right now, she skated right by it, we got to stop. This is one of those geek out moments. But listen. There is millions of dollars in what she just said. Say what you just said one more time about what the market thinks.
Right. Well, you may not think you have competitors, the people that are buying from you may have competitors. And one that, I'm sure Darrell you know this, but the status quo is often the hardest competitor to beat out, especially with a startup when you're trying to sell something that's new. But yeah, that's the essence. It's like it's not necessarily what you think. It's what your audience thinks. Perception versus reality.
We needed a pause to let that sink in. Because listen. I'm a fan for entrepreneurs. I support, I've been working with entrepreneurs, I've been growing businesses, you must understand that while your product is unique, and I get it, you've been putting your blood, sweat and tears in it, the marketplace has already judged who's doing the best job in that place right now. We got
to respect what they think. And I just wanted you to spend another second on that because it's so important with getting an understanding as to where you can get in and find scale, is recognized. And man, I'm going to throw something out. We've been saying this for about seven or eight years now in our agency, and that is, you're also competing with your consumers buying behavior in other verticals that don't even involve yours. Here's what I mean. We tell our clients that
Amazon is their competitor. Now, we generally only work with professional service providers. So they can look at us, like, What are you talking about - Amazon is our competitor? And here's what we mean. And I'd love your feedback on this. What is the buying experience like when they go to Amazon? What is the delivery process like when they go to Amazon? What does Amazon focus on as one of their core mission statements obsessing over customer
satisfaction? So while you're not selling eCommerce, perhaps, or a product, perhaps, or a book or a tangible good, your buyer is buying through that experience and so if you're a service provider selling something else, you're still in competition with that delivery process. What are your thoughts?
Well, you know, at the beginning, too, I said, I work with B2B tech startups. And those B's, the businesses, are made up of the C's, the consumers, you know, and that world of B2C, and the expectations of what you get there being different than what a B2B experience should be, 100% aligns with what you're saying. That's not the case. I mean, now, it's like if you have to click multiple times, or you have to wait more than a day for something to be delivered, you're like, Oh, my gosh, what
world do we live in? I mean, I think the pandemic really highlighted that, when delivery times were delayed. And for one, Amazon just was able to capitalize on that, because they were for the most part able to continue their very speedy delivery. But you know, others were held up. But we have really highlighted the fact that we all expect things immediately today.
Yes.
And whether it's your book that you ordered, or whether it's downloading your software, or getting a response to a business question. So you're absolutely correct that the expectations that the consumer world is setting has certainly changed the way the business world or B2B businesses need to be thinking about it.
That was the point I wanted you to make. I mean, it is a challenge in my discussions, I'm sure it's in yours, you're in the software world, and you're working with tech folks. So there's a little bit more of that immediate gratification, being able to get in and get tangible with the product and get hands on so to speak. I want to ask, from your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges you're seeing that tech startups are having, that you're having to
face? Maybe across the board, or a two or three of those big challenges that you're always facing that you have to overcome with these companies when you first come in. What are the two or three big pain points that you got to help out?
Yep, the first is around prioritization of your
Yeah. target audience. And so I love to call this FOMO of revenue, or
. . . if you said, let me take all that like fear of missing out on revenue, in that, you know, especially at the beginning, when they're trying to get to product market fit. And I appreciate this. You're like, Okay, who is my real client? You know, who is it that is going to
find the most value? So you take all different shapes and sizes of companies and industries and then you sit down and as a marketer, when I come in, I'm like, Okay, who are your clients, and you've got a big company and a small company, you know, a company that's doing X and a company that's doing Y. And then you're like, here's your $5 budget, go get us a lot more of these. And it's like, well, if I have $5, and they're going after five different audiences, I can spend $1 on
each audience. And I'm simplifying it too, right? But . . . money, all those $5 and I'm going to go after this one segment, and I'm going to go hard and fast and I'm going to, you know, we're going to build our business there. And yes, you have to do the market research and, you know, dive into some, you know, qualitative and quantitative information to figure out which audience to go
after. But that's something that I have that conversation or a form of that conversation with every single client or company that I do work with. So I would say FOMO of revenue or being able to, you know, walk away from other segments, and really focus on your target audience would be one of the main things.
I couldn't agree more. In most cases, you can focus on one solution. One problem, one solution, one channel, largely until you get to $3 to $5 million, in my experience. And I know that scares people because they think they're leaving money on the table. And in most cases in our work, we are usually saying no, no, no, let's focus on the most profitable opportunity as well as the one that converts because
we have to deliver ROI. I want to talk about results because they only care about the results right? The result is all that matters. But yeah, it's counterintuitive, but this is what great marketers know. See great marketers know, narrow focus is better. I call it in my world, the lean marketing system. It's, let's do almost minimal, viable activity, so long as we can validate that there's enough of our folks there and let's do that first.
Let's figure out how we can do a little great before we start doing a lot mediocre. Right?
100%?
And some people they wrestle with that, right? Is that what you see sometimes?
Oh, definitely. And when we were talking about how do you decide what's a good marketer? Who's a good marketer? What is good marketing, you know, versus bad? There are
things that you can measure. And so if someone says, Well, that's not a good enough answer, like quantify that for me, and said, Okay, well, then, if you give me those $5, I can go out and I can understand a lot about that one audience that I can measure, I can report on, I can understand behaviors, and then I can use that so that instead of it taking me $5 to get a customer, it's then $4, and then $3, and then $2.50, and then $2.30 and then all of a sudden, I'm making it more cost efficient to
acquire customers. And then I can leverage those learnings for other audiences, rinse and repeat. Now, it's always not, you know, one to one learnings. It's also simply just more cost efficient if you're going out and building a business, and you don't have a ton of money, or you have money from investors to be able to say, Okay, I know it's gonna take me $75 to acquire every customer. So I need a budget of X to get X
number of customers. And that's a really strong story to go and tell your investment team. They're like, Oh, okay, we know if we give them more money, this is the ROI, or these are the results we're gonna see.
That's right. I tell everybody, if they don't get it, understand one thing, watch one episode or two of Shark Tank, and you'll hear it right out of the gate. Tell us what it costs you to acquire a customer, not all of them, a customer. And you'll hear almost every shark push back whenever the person starts saying, Well, what are you going to do with the money? Well, we're going to do this, and we're going to do this, and we're going to do
this, so we're gonna do this. I don't know if you watch the show. But it's hilarious to me. It's no, we got to stay focused. I love the points that you're making about this and how you approach it. I want to make sure that we talk about this idea of the Collective.
Okay.
Because you're not doing all of the execution on the back. Talk a little bit about the fractional CMO plus the Collective and how that dynamic plays together.
Yep. Well, you know, very early when I started Arch Collective, and I was working on my first clients. In fact, there was this distinct moment. I was creating a bunch of email campaigns in HubSpot. And I was thinking, Oh, my gosh, this is costing this client a lot of money, like I don't even feel comfortable charging, because you don't need a CMO to go into HubSpot and write emails
and do all those things. And so I have an amazing network of people that I've either hired as contractors in previous roles or worked with in previous companies or, know personally. So I started tapping into that, because going back to the reason why I even started this is I truly love helping these businesses grow. Like, it excites me as much as them when I'm like, Wow, these are the
numbers. We've driven 300% growth, or we've doubled the number of leads coming in just in the last month, or whatever the number may be. And so, to me, it's good business to be cost efficient. Like, if I'm your CMO, I need to be spending your dollars wisely. And I didn't feel good about me being
the one doing all the work. And so essentially, now it's become this really amazing model, because I have - you get the strategy and all the things that you need from me but then you also have access to this amazing group of talent. They've been vetted by me, I've worked on them, you know, they go through
a rigorous process. And so you're getting great results, you're getting the strategy that you need, and you're not having to spend all of your hard earned venture capital money that you just, you know, were able to raise on only marketing, because you obviously have money that needs to go to other places, too.
Yeah, it's so good. And I get it. There are certain scenarios where hiring someone on the team. But at the end of the day, you get a lot of leverage when you work with Amanda and someone like Arch Collective, because you get senior leadership from a strategy standpoint, who can call the plays, who can see the vision. And a good marketer doesn't just deliver executional items, right? Those items are
relative to an end result. And that's sometimes what I see a lot of companies do whether they're tech or not, is they'll hire someone who can do the execution but they have little understanding on the strategy.
Yep.
And they'll do all the things, like ALL the things. I hear it all the time. And they haven't gotten the result. The founders will say, or the owners will say, the CEO. We haven't gotten the result but we've been doing it for two, two and a half years. And they don't know what to measure. And a lot of times it's they didn't have a strategy to begin with. Right? And that's what you get when you have someone like Amanda who's
got this experience. And then she can pick the people who can execute because she knows who's good, who's not good. We were talking about this offline. I want to talk about it a little bit here because it just bugs me and I know you're a veteran in the industry. And that is there's a challenge with what entrepreneurs can understand from a marketer who approaches them as whether or not it's good or bad. And we were talking about the low barrier of entry to folks getting in this space.
You've got an MBA. You have an undergrad and an MBA, and you've got 15 years. But it is true that someone can go online to one of the various websites, we're not knocking the websites, but they can take a class for $199, start on agency, so to speak on Monday. And they may not have any experience other than the fact that they now understand theory in the vernacular. And I think there's a lot of it going on. In my 11 years, it's hurting our industry. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, I always say like, more power to anyone who's trying to better themselves and get an education, I believe in all that. But I certainly have had those questions myself, where it's, Why should I hire you? or tell me like, What is good marketing? I don't understand it. It's not clear. Or, and I think this is what I'd mentioned to you before is, you know, there's sort of this, maybe marketing needs a rebrand, right? It's not the arts and crafts department, we don't just make things look
pretty. In fact, one of my clients, one of the product marketers is like, nothing bugs me more, and we all had a good laugh, but it's unfortunately, still quite true. And so, and I think that's where having the results and being able to talk about it, and, you know, even the conversations that I have with potential clients going into an engagement, to me it's important for them that they understand what I do, and that, you know, this isn't worried.
Like you told me, you need a blog, and I'm going to write five blogs, and there are those people. In fact, I have contact people that do that, where I'm like, Hey, this is what I need, this type of content. But you know, when bringing in Arch Collective or other agencies where there are more experience, it is like, we also have an idea of what you need and it's really
a partnership. And that's why I am a Fractional CMO, where it's like I'm coming in and just like you'd hire a CMO, you do need to interview me, you want to vet me, but I also, I have a process, I have my playbook and I've done it time and time again at these companies. And I have the results that speak to that.
I love it. I need you to vet me. But when you vet me, you're gonna hire me, just so we're clear. No. No, but it's true. I love the approach, right? It's like, you should be asking me the tough questions, because we need to be in partnership together. And I use that word a lot. And I think there's a lot of vendors in the space of marketing that offer great services. And you're right, we're not knocking, those
who are just getting started. I am knocking those that, who are just getting started who don't understand the path that you're taking a hard entrepreneurs dollars. And if you don't have a way to get a return on those dollars, I just don't love when I see that. And unfortunately, I've been in the chair for 11 years, talking to entrepreneurs, probably more than 1000 at this point, where they don't come to my chair happy. They're not coming to talk to me because
they're happy. They're coming to talk to me because it hasn't gone well and a lot of it is because they didn't know what they didn't know. And that's one of those things. And by the way, this isn't just in our industry, it's in every industry.
Right. One last comment on that, if you don't mind is that like, I have certainly faced that. If I ask, I say, have you ever worked with a fractional executive CMO or not? They're like, yeah, we worked with someone. And it's like, they had a couple years of experience. I'm like, they could do everything. And I was like, that was probably more of an agency, you know, and not that there's anything wrong, you know, with agencies per se, but I was like, that's not a Fractional CMO. That's not my
model. And so sometimes there's a re-education or repositioning of what a Fractional CMO can be and what they can do. And so I've certainly faced that where you're like, Okay, I've got a little bit of an uphill battle, because I've got to overcome this bad taste that they have in their mouth about the previous fractional executive that they worked with.
I want to ask about your entrepreneurial journey. What made you make the leap from corporate to entrepreneurship?
I mentioned that, you know, I was having these conversations, and I, I was like, I should work for all four of them at one time, and I would be so efficient and all those things. And the minute I had the thought, and I said the sentence out loud, I couldn't let it go. And so it was, I had to do it. And you know, that was just over two years ago and . . .
Nice.
. . .I'm still here. So yeah, it's it's definitely a leap and it's scary. I had just had my second child and I you know, had a mortgage in San Francisco, which is not a small thing, but I did it and I'm here to tell the tale.
I love it. What's the biggest high you've had as the entrepreneur now in the last couple years?
Well, anytime you know, I'm sharing results and the client's so excited or I delivered or over delivered on what I promised, those conversations are awesome. And that's fun. But I think that my big high came at the beginning. So, and I started our Collective November of 2019. And so I was getting my first clients right when everything was coming up with the pandemic. In fact, I was in the Philippines in
January of 2020. The first time I had to like, fly with a mask and all that and I had a couple clients that came on board and then March 17th, or March 13th, right around there hit. And they were both like, I don't know if we know what we're gonna do with marketing. And so I had to re-engage them and almost like resell them on keeping me on. And they both stayed on as
clients. And I think at that moment, I knew this was something I could do, because I thought, okay, if I can get two clients, and kind of lose them, and then get them back again, because of a unheard of event in my lifetime, a pandemic, I'm going to be okay. And so that was to me, it was a high and also very comforting that I had made the right decision.
I love that, how do you stay motivated as an entrepreneur?
I think it goes back to the results and the client relationships. I always say I'm like, I'm so lucky to work with some really amazing people. And, you know, I get excited about the results that we get. And when I say really amazing people, I want to make sure I call out it's not only the founders and my clients, but the collective members in the
team. I mean, we have as much as we can over zoom, because that's where everything's getting done, or, you know, whatever Google Hangouts, I really got to know and these people on a different level, and they're my colleagues. They're who I work with on a day to day basis. And so you know, we win together and when things don't go right, you know, we're in there rolling up
our sleeves to fix it. And so it's both the collective members, and then these really brilliant founders, and their co founders, and the executives and the team members. And I just think I've hit the jackpot when it comes to awesome companies to work with. And so it's easier, you know, we all have our days. In fact, you know, small anecdote aside, I was up really late last night working on this deliverable for a client. And there's always and I think everyone has that one thing that
they have to do. And it's like, they just, it's not their favorite part. And for me, it's this marketing audit presentation, I'm not going to go into the details. And so I was up late doing it. And you know, kind of procrastinating at finalizing all of it. And so I didn't really feel super motivated. But when we had the presentation, and we were talking through and the client, and like we had a great dialogue around it, it makes some of those times where it's like, I've really got to push myself
to finish it, worth it. Because I know I'm providing good results for that person on the other end, the company on the other end.
There are certainly things in the work that we have to do that we just don't love but we have to get it done.
Yeah.
And it's the work that you can do, right? That it's the brilliant work that has to get out on paper, right? So I know the feeling. I can second that all day, I know exactly what that is in my world. So, Amanda, what are your big visions over the next three years or so? Obviously, we are still tailing out of a pandemic, you have a virtual work team, I'm imagining. And how do you see your business growth over
the next several years? What do you think the demand is going to look like for Fractional CMOs and the type of work that you do? Because obviously, marketing is, everyone needs it. But I think the world is becoming more keen to the idea of Fractional CMOS, and the leveraging component they can get from working with a company like you. What are some of those three year visions look like for you?
Well, there's a couple of different things. And one, you know, I am curious to see how the world evolves, you know. In 2021, there's two things that made it unique on top of the pandemic, and one is staggering, record breaking numbers of venture capital investment. So, you know, in the first quarter of '21, 2X the investment of the first quarter of 2020. And, and so obviously, I always say like, well, who the heck is going to work at these companies that they're funding.
So what an opportunity for fractional executives. And then on top of it, you know, in this summer, we had the great resignation that began and we're still seeing parts of it, and a lot of people moving into the freelance world. And so you know, something I think about is, well, what happens when the venture capital money subsides a bit, or people are going back
into working full time? And so being able to build a business that can flex with the way that the world will change, because we didn't expect this and you know, there's things that are going to come up that we won't expect down the road and making sure that it's stable and can go with what the ebbs and flows of the industries. But to be more specific, I mentioned that I
have a roadmap. And I'd like to start being able to train other potential Fractional CMOS to execute against this playbook, so that I can begin to work with more clients. Like I said, it's important to me that I have a limited number myself, and that's something that, yeah, maybe I could have another six clients. But if I'm not doing the great work, I don't want to be involved. The other piece is that I'm beginning to sit on boards of companies and invest in companies and partake in that
world. And that's really exciting. And I want to do more of that. And then beginning to offer services that are a little bit earlier and a little bit later in the funnel, like we talked about that post Series B timeframe. Well, you know, there's certainly ways that with my experience and my team, we can help startups on either side of that as well. Maybe not in the Fractional CMO model. So looking at expanding and I've already expanded in some ways to help out those kinds of
companies too. So a lots of different things, Darrell, you know. We'll touch base in a few years and see what happened.
You know, I love it, right? That the reality is your skills aren't just made for post Series A, it's just the niche that you've chosen to going back to the earlier part of the conversation, right? You've done exactly what you want your clients to do. Like I only work in this particular area. I choose to work with you at this stage, because I know that this is where we can make the best impact, or the most impact. It isn't that you can't help at the beginning level or
when they're further mature. And that is that expensive journey, right? So I love what you're saying, as far as that narrow focus. I know that when we saw your, your team's invitation to come on the show, I mean, I was like, Yeah, I know exactly who she is. I know exactly who she's doing it for. I know exactly what it is. And I'm like, That's what I love about growing businesses. I hate to say it, but I played sports growing up,
and I use the word playbook. So I'll go back to your work, because I call it a playbook all the time.
I play sports too. So I love it. Yes.
I mean, so the fact of the matter is, is
Yeah, well, in, you know, in your question, you business is all about your playbook. Succeeding in just asked around motivation. And you'll appreciate this, businesses playbooks. I didn't know it at the time of playing that, as an athlete, you aren't motivated every day. As an sports, it just primed me for being an entrepreneur, right? And it also primed me to lose a lot. Like, you understand that entrepreneur, you are not
motivated every day. But it's we win games, we lose games, but most championship teams don't go the fact that, I was a tennis player, so you still go out onto undefeated. So the fact of the matter is we get used to running the reps, we get used to practicing, playing, looking at the court, and you still practice that serve, and you do the results, and then redoing
it. And I'm sure in your the things even if you don't want to, because you know that playbook somewhere, there's this iterative process of how you do it's what you have to do. In the same way, I'm like, I have to do things. And that's what we've done as well. So you played sports as well. So the playbook is that, was that the tie into your? the marketing audit. And I did it. And I did a great job.
Because it's like, I've got like, that's just the schedule that I've set, the routine that I have, it builds it in so that motivation isn't the only reason I'm getting it done. You know, and going back to sports and tennis, one of the things that, and I love that you talked about the importance of losing, because to touch back to when I was 16 and I wanted to play singles and I'd been on the doubles team and I'd gone to all the camps and did the lessons.
But I read a book about the mental game of tennis and that book changed my life not only for tennis, but also as an adult now, and I still refer back to it. And it's the idea that up here is so much more important than anything else. And it's like if you can get your mindset straight, you know that that's really going to make the difference between the winning
and the losing. And if you can handle losing a point, you walk away, you figure out like what do you need to do to manage the lows and to like, manage the highs too. And so you can continue to go through the day to day. And so, you know, to me, sports is a huge part of why I think I'm even where I'm at today.
Yeah, I'm certainly not going to tell everybody to drop what you're doing and try to relive your teenage years and go back and play sports. That's not what I'm suggesting. However, if you're an entrepreneur, and you're in some sort of funk, right now, think back to your sports playing days if you played sports. Because the reality is, I didn't love practice. I love what Muhammad Ali actually said about this. And there's a quote floating around the internet. And he goes, I hated every
single day of training. But I showed up because I wanted to be great. And so you have to understand the why. And those who do break through those hurdles. They just do what they're supposed to do, consistently over a long period of time. And Kobe Bryant, one of my favorites, said it this way. He put so much work in behind the scenes that no one saw. And he created an exponential gap in how people showed up on the court. So for example, he talked about this after he retired.
There were two practices a day, if my memory was correct. I'm going to call it seven in the morning and three in the afternoon. Well, he'd go to the gym first at four, come back home at six, rest for an hour, go back to the real practice at seven, come home rest at nine and go back to the gym at 10 or 11. He'd have five workouts in, in one day where everybody else
had two. He goes, Now when I do that for five years, it doesn't matter what you do over the summer break, you'll never catch up to me.
Yeah.
And entrepreneurs are in very much the same thing. We work long hours at times. I call it work life integration. A lot of people say I'm always trying to get work life balance. I'm like, Yeah, give that up. I say it's work life integration.
Good luck.
Good luck with that, right?
Yeah. Someone wants explained because I have children too. And they said, you know, and maybe it was someone on the internet but either way, I love the analogy that work and life and family and all those things. There's glass balls, and
there's rubber balls. It's juggling all of them but it's knowing which ones you can drop and those are the rubber balls and it's like you're not going to get everything right but if you drop the things that kind of don't matter, you know, that's fine, but it's when you drop the
glass ball. That's what you need to focus on, is keep making sure those stay in the air and the rubber balls are the things that you drop and I, I love that because there's never going to be able to do it all and I, you know, would be miserable if I thought I could, but it's like figure out like, prioritization.
Yes, my coach probably 18 years ago now, maybe 17. And he gave a talk. I say he was my coach, but he was really teaching from a mastermind stage. But he was hired by the coaching company. And he said, it's about work life integration. There are going to be seasons when you're going to be extremely unbalanced to the business side. And you're doing that so you can have extreme balance in your life in the long run. But you can't get distracted by the fact that I
can only do this. It's not 'either-or', it's 'and'.
I like that. Yeah.
Right? It's 'and' and figuring out what that 'and' process looks like for you. And it was just one of the most pivotal programs that I was a part of, because it made me do a whole bunch of work, that got me to think way beyond the immediacy of deliverables. We'll just use that phrase for today. And once you have that, then you're like, oh, it's not 'or' because that's where life breaks down, right? I can go to the gym, or I can work on my business. No, I can play with my
kid or I can work. No, it's 'and' right? You got to compartmentalize it all. So I've learned this 'and' philosophy, and it just completely changed a lot. So anyway.
I like that. That's good. Very good.
Yeah. It's good. It's not binary. There's a lot of stuff in life that's binary.
This is the mind shift part of The MindShift Podcast, huh?
I think so. But you know, I've had enough reps now with humans. I've become a psychologist by life experience,
Not aliens, though.
Not aliens. I'm not good with aliens. But what I have learned is we think certain ways and there are certain things that are binary. Here's one other one really quick. I'd love to get your thoughts on this because you balance (a) yourself, a family, and a team of freelancers who are experts. And I know what that looks like, because I run an agency. That's why I wanted to talk with you, because it's always great to talk about how people do this. We have a lot of things pulling
at us on a daily basis. Every entrepreneur has a lot of things pulling at you on a daily basis. And it wasn't until I learned this concept that I finally felt some sort of relief in how I make decisions. Because when you're a results driven person, you likely want to please people. You likely want to help people get the result because you know you can. Back down to that sort of narrowing down, niching down and being lean. But here's the concept that got
taught to me. And it was like, when someone presents you with an opportunity, it's either hell yes or no. And the distinction word is 'hell yes' or 'no'. If it's maybe, it's a no. And once that decision framework started sinking in, it was like, oh, then you don't over commit. It's not because you didn't want to do it. But you simply say, you know, I'd really love to participate but unfortunately, if I say yes, I will be at risk of letting down other folks who've I've already committed
to. And it's just saying, I've already committed to some other things. So I would probably let them down. And I can't do that, because I give my word. And so it's just an interesting way of handling all of the things because the more successful you get, the more people want things from you.
Yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, it kind of even just sounds like the, you know, going back to Economics 101, your opportunity cost
curve, right? Where, if you're spending time doing the things that you don't want to, shouldn't be doing, or however you want to categorize them, or that aren't value added, or however, like I said, you want to categorize, then if you're doing those things, you're not doing the things that are value adding, that are with the people you want to spend time, that do help you get the deliverables or the commitments accomplished that you've already committed to. And so that makes a ton of sense.
That was a great way to put it. There's an opportunity cost in every decision you make.
Yes.
But the issue sometimes is we're afraid to make the decision because we're afraid to let somebody down. I've been this person.
Oh, I've had that too. I have.
This is my hand raised. And so now when I say no to things, I'm saying no, because it's not a hell yes. And the reason I can make that distinction is, Who am I going to let down if I say yes to this? And it could be that I'm letting me down, because I'm going to give up sleep. Right? Anyway, I don't want to dovetail on that conversation. Amanda, you are doing some amazing things. Thank you for your leadership in the marketing space and in the world of
entrepreneurship. I'm going to live and die for life helping entrepreneurs. It's been my jam for the last 17 years, roughly. And I just want to applaud you for the work that you're doing. And I know what it takes, we didn't really get too much into team building and how you vet your team, maybe I can have you back in the future.
Happy to talk about that.
Because there's an art and a science to that, especially when they're freelancers and they're not necessarily on your payroll. There's a whole dynamic to building culture around your leadership, which I can already tell you if you use the word collective, it tells me that there's something special around that phrase. So I'd love to have you back. But before I let you go, where can people find you?
Well, there's a few places. Obviously LinkedIn, you can find me there and you can find the Arch Collective website to set up time to chat with me. There's a form you can fill in and schedule time. I'm on social media. So lots of ways to reach out to me and you know, I'm always happy to meet entrepreneurs and founders and hear their stories and I always say like, if I can't help you then and I know someone who can. I'm always happy to make that introduction.
Last question before I let you run, and that is, if for whatever reason today happened to be your last day on Earth, what would you want everyone to remember you for?
Wow, that! I should have prepared an answer to that one. Oh, man, I mean . . .
I wasn't gonna tell you what it was. Just let it sit, we'll let the pause sit there. It's perfectly fine. Yep.
I'm lost for words here. I mean, I think ultimately, I'll go back to one reason I didn't talk about which is you know why I started Arch Collective is that I mentioned, I'm a mom, I've got two small children. And I left just a few months after my second was born.
And to me, it was really important to be setting an example of, if I'm not going to be around them, I'm going out into the world to do something positive to, to follow my dreams, to pursue something that means something to me and to build a life that I'm proud of. And I'm not just going there to collect a paycheck or to work for the man or however people feel about their quote, unquote, job. I mean, I truly love this.
I'm passionate about it. And I think that, you know, if I set an example for my children, to go out there and do what they can to change the world and make it a better place in the way that they think is important, then I'd hope that that's what they'd remember me for doing.
I love it. Amanda Rabideau. Thanks for being on The MindShift Podcast.
Darrell, thank you so much for having me. And I'd love to come back anytime. Absolutely. We'll stay connected. All right, thank you.
Hey my friend, thanks again for listening to today's episode of The MindShift Podcast. Listen, let's not have the conversation in here. Connect with me on social @MrDarrellEvans on almost all the platforms, with the exception of Facebook. My Facebook fanpage is @DarrellEvansFan. Until next week, remember you're just one shift away from the breakthrough you're looking for.