How B2B Startups Drive Growth

Episode 117

Have you ever wondered, how B2B startups drive growth?

Today, you’re in for a treat as we welcome a veteran in the marketing space. Amanda Rabideau is a Fractional CMO who has built her career growing businesses using effective marketing, strategy and sales practices. 

Over the past 15 years, she has worked with large organizations like Dell, Microsoft and CoreLogic.Amanda served as a trusted advisor to entrepreneurs throughout her career as they launched and expanded their businesses. This passion for helping entrepreneurs led Amanda to start Arch Collective. 

She now dedicates her career to empowering entrepreneurs and business leaders, showing how B2B startups drive growth through effective marketing and commercialization. 

Tune into this episode for Amanda’s insight into why she believes there’s a better marketing model for startups to grow without full-time, expensive marketing hires. 

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the complete episode:

1. Discover what a Fractional CMO is, who Amanda serves and why there’s a demand for what she does.
2. Find out why you should ditch the idea of a traditional CMO if you want to scale quickly as a startup.
3. Amanda discusses the biggest pain point for tech startups: FOMO on revenue.
   
   

Episode Highlights

Who is Amanda Rabideau

• • Amanda has built her career growing businesses using effective marketing, strategy and sales practices.
  • Over the past fifteen years, she has worked with large organizations like Dell and Microsoft and tech startups including Arturo, Flyreel, AdAdapted, and Venteur.
  • Amanda’s passion for helping entrepreneurs led to starting Arch Collective; she now devotes her career to empowering entrepreneurs and business leaders.
  • Amanda has her MBA concentrating in Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets.

Her background

• • Amanda started her career in sales at an orthodontic technology startup company.
  • She had majored in marketing in college and moved into a client-facing marketing role, which combined sales and marketing.
  • She left that startup, got her MBA, and went to work for a digital marketing consulting firm.
  • Amanda enjoyed interfacing with big tech companies such as Dell and Microsoft.

From corporate to entrepreneurship

• • As Amanda progressed through her career, she moved further away from startups.
  • When deciding to leave her marketing leadership role at a Fortune 1000 company, she focused on CMO roles at San Francisco based startups.
  • When interviewing with four different companies, all Post Series A, she had an idea of the possibility of working for all of them.
  • She comes from a family of entrepreneurs, so she felt that the bug was in her as well, and this is how Arch Collective was born.

What is a Fractional CMO

• • A Fractional CMO is a Chief Marketing Officer who is working with multiple companies instead of working for one dedicated company at any given time.
  • Amanda typically works with two or three companies at a time.
  • There’s a growing need for Fractional CMO’s, especially with tech startups.
  • She plans to expand so that Arch Collective can help and support more entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Who she works with

• • Arch Collective handles all marketing strategy and execution for Post Series A funded, B2B, tech startups.
  • Helping them go from achieving product-market fit to acquiring more clients, securing Series B funding, or possibly an acquisition.
  • Post Series A funded startup companies face the challenge of closing on their first round of outside funding, pressure to grow aggressively, and with few marketing resources. 
  • This is how B2B startups drive growth quickly by utilizing this unique marketing model.

Why do they need someone like her

• • Startups need a strategy, someone who can see the big picture.
  • In most cases, startups don’t have a full-time Chief Marketing Officer budget.
  • So for what they need, Amanda believes Arch Collective is a perfect fit.

Her playbook

• • Amanda has developed a playbook that includes her formula, frameworks, and systematic thinking to achieve results for her clients. 
  • Each startup has its nuances, and the playbook can flex accordingly to cater to these.
  • Great marketing is a recipe that you can apply to a product or service.

Perception versus reality

• • Founders believe that their business is special and unique.
  • Founders often tell her that there is no one like them when it comes to competitors.
  • Amanda says that the status quo is often the most challenging competitor to beat out, especially when trying to sell something new as a startup.
  • It’s not necessarily what you think; it’s what your audience thinks, perception versus reality.

Expectations of the consumer

• • Amanda works with B2B tech startups and these businesses consist of consumers.
  • Whether it’s a book ordered, downloading software, or getting a response to a business question, consumers want things quicker and have high expectations.
  • The expectations that the consumer world has certainly changed the way the business world or B2B businesses need to be thinking.

Pain point in tech startups

• • A conversation that Amanda has had to have with every client is the prioritization of their target audience.
  • Amanda likes to call this FOMO on revenue, fear of missing out on revenue.
  • A narrow focus is better when it comes to an understanding your audience’s behavior.
  • Walking away from other segments to hone in on one target audience is the main pain point of Amanda’s experience.

The Collective

• • In the initial stages of Arch Collective, Amanda was doing everything.
  • She had a distinct moment when she was creating an email campaign, realizing that she shouldn’t be doing this as it’s costing the client more than it should.
  • With over 15 years of experience, Amanda has built a solid network of creatives and marketers that are eager to tackle any project. 
  • She, in turn, created this unique offering called The Collective, which is composed of people who worked for leading companies of all sizes.
  • She handles the strategy and selects the right team for the execution depending on the project’s needs. 

Biggest high as an entrepreneur

• • Amanda’s high came at the beginning of her journey when she got her first clients as the pandemic hit.
  • Amanda had to re-engage and almost resell to keep them on.
  • She knew that she would be okay if she could get clients, almost lose them, and get them back again amid an unheard-of event like the pandemic.
  • This high moment was comforting, and she knew she had made the right decision to start Arch Collective.

How she stays motivated

• • Amanda stays motivated by the results that she can deliver to her clients.
  • She feels lucky to work with amazing people; this includes founders and team members.
  • She says that she has hit the jackpot by working with awesome companies. 

Her vision for the future

• • Amanda is curious to see how the world evolves, given the record-breaking numbers of venture capital investments in 2021.
  • This, along with the great resignation and people moving toward the freelancing world, will create opportunities for fractional executives.
  • She wants to train other potential fractional CMOs to execute against her playbook so that she can begin to work with more clients.
  • She has started investing in companies and wants to do more of this.

How does Amanda Rabideau want to be remembered?

• • She wants to set an example for her two small children, showing them that it’s possible to follow their dreams and make a difference in a way they think is important.
    
    

3 Powerful Quotes from this Episode

13:58 – “You may not think you have competitors; the people who are buying from you may have competitors.”

20:36 – “…I’m making it more cost-efficient to acquire customers, and then I can leverage those learnings for other audiences, rinse and repeat.”

23:07 – “It’s good business to be cost-efficient.”

About Amanda Rabideau

Arch Collective handles all marketing strategy and execution for Post Series A funded, B2B, tech startups. These startups can go from achieving product-market fit to acquiring more clients, securing Series B funding, or, possibly, an acquisition.

This is how B2B startups drive growth quickly by utilizing this unique marketing model. As your Fractional CMO, Amanda Rabideau will design a 12-month marketing roadmap that is custom-built to achieve your goals. Arch Collective will conduct a marketing audit, interview stakeholders, clients and experts, and dive deep into your industry. Once approved by the CEO and other stakeholders, they’ll bring in The Collective for execution while the Fractional CMO ensures a seamless and flawless delivery. All for the price of a full-time CMO!

Connect with Amanda Rabideau

Website 

Linkedin

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Thanks for listening,

Darrell