A CMO, for a season
Some companies don't need a whole marketing department yet. They need one senior person who can read the room, make the calls, and leave the team stronger than she found it. Here's how a season with me works.
Who it's for
- Founders whose growth has stalled or gotten expensive. The product works, customers like it, and the next stage needs someone who has scaled a team before.
- Companies opening a new market. Especially across borders, where what customers believe about you is still blank.
- Teams between marketing leaders, or teams that have never had one and are ready to.
If what you need is one campaign or a full-time hire, I'll say so on the first call and point you somewhere better.
Three ways to work together
Slide from just me to a whole team. The middle is the one most people don't know they can ask for.
Just Claire
I join as your CMO, part-time and ongoing, or interim for a defined stretch. Your team does the work, and I lead it.
Pick this if your team can do the work and needs a senior leader.
Come in, build, fix, transfer
I lead, and the Rarecraft team builds alongside your people. When the season ends, we hand everything over: the plan, the systems, and the skills.
Pick this if you want it built properly, then owned in-house.
Full-service marketing
Rarecraft runs your marketing on an ongoing basis, with me leading: research, positioning, campaigns, paid media, martech, and content.
Pick this if you'd rather not build a marketing team yet, or yours is stretched thin.
All three run through Rarecraft, the firm I co-founded, so you can move along the slider later without starting over.
What just Claire looks like
I join your leadership team and lead the people you already have. A typical rhythm, over one quarter:
Every week
I run the marketing meeting, coach your leads one-on-one, and clear what's blocking them.
Every month
The numbers on one page your board can read: what we learned, and what we're changing.
Every quarter
The plan, reset with you and the leadership team, so the bets keep up with what customers are telling us.
Interim works the same way, with more days each week, a set end date, and a clean handover to the leader who comes next.
How a season runs
Every company is different, but most seasons move through four phases. Each circle fills as the work moves from me to your team.
- Weeks 1 to 3
Assess
Customer conversations, the data, the budget, and the team. What do your customers believe, and where do they get stuck?
- Weeks 4 to 6
Strategize
A few bets, not twenty. What we'll stop doing as well as start, with measurement your finance lead trusts.
- Weeks 7 to 12
Build
Run the tests, fix the funnel, and hire or coach the people who'll carry the work.
- As the season ends
Transfer
Your team owns the plan and the numbers. If you're ready for a full-time CMO, I help you find them.
What you have when the season ends
- A growth plan your team owns and can explain without me in the room.
- Numbers you trust, and a habit of testing before spending.
- A team that runs without you, which is the part I'm proudest of from MPOWER: one part-time MBA student grew into a team of 10.
What the whole team looks like
Rarecraft is a full-service marketing team, and you only use the parts you need. Start with one or two, and add more as you grow.
I set the strategy. My Rarecraft co-founders run the technical build and the operations, and specialists from the Guild step in when the work calls for them.