Michelle J Raymond

Business LinkedIn Trainer - B2B Marketers/Business Owners my LinkedIn G.R.O.W.T.H Masterclass & B2B Community Builder are your secret to growth. Company Page Expert. 2XLinkedIn Author.

Are you running your company’s LinkedIn strategy in-house and wondering how to improve your results? You know your audience is here, but the advice available can be confusing or unsuitable for your business.

👉 Why Most LinkedIn Advice Doesn’t Work for B2B
Most LinkedIn advice is too generic or focused on shortcuts that deliver little more than vanity metrics. Hacks and automation will not build trust or meaningful relationships and will not grow your business. 

👉 Build a Strategy That Fits YOUR Business
Whether you’re starting out looking for more engagement or ready to turn followers into business growth, I’ll design a strategy tailored to your goals, resources, and team. 

👉 What You’ll Get When We Work Together:
• Company Page Expertise: Turn your LinkedIn page into a community where your audience engages and your brand thrives.
• Profile Rewrites That Work: Showcase your team’s expertise and attract the right opportunities.
• Social Selling Training (G.R.O.W.T.H. Framework): Equip your team to build relationships, nurture trust, and sell without sounding salesy.

👉 Who I Work With
I partner with businesses globally that are driven to lead their industry. These businesses are open to new ideas, willing to invest time, and not looking for quick fixes. If that sounds like you, we’ll work well together.

👉 The Power of Two: Build Your Brand AND Your People
Your LinkedIn strategy should grow your business and empower your team. I focus on the Power of Two: building a strong company brand while helping your employees grow their personal brands. When these work together, you get exponential results.

👉 Here’s What Makes My Approach Stand Out:
• Tailored Solutions: Every business has different goals, resources, and challenges. I design strategies that fit your unique needs because one size never fits all.
• Ethical Expertise: I don’t rely on hacks, automation tools, or engagement pods. My approach is rooted in trust, relationship-building, and long-term success.
• Proven Results: With over two decades in B2B sales and social selling, I bring practical, actionable insights that drive real growth.

👉 Work With a Recognised LinkedIn Expert
• International LinkedIn speaker.
• 2 x Best Selling Author - Business Gold (Company Pages) and The LinkedIn Branding Book.
• Host of the Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast and cohost of The LinkedIn Branding Show.

Global LinkedIn Pages Expert - LinkedIn Strategist and Trainer - B2B Social Selling Consultant

What's the secret to LinkedIn marketing success in 2026? Just so I'm clear...

First, we weren’t posting enough.
Now we’re posting too much.

First, we had playbooks to go viral.
Now we’re told to go niche.

Video will save us all. 
Video disappeared. 

You know the kind…

The problem is, shiny tools won’t fix a weak LinkedIn marketing strategy.

If your positioning isn’t clear and your message doesn’t stand out, no amount of hacks, prompts or posting schedules will save you.

This is where I think a lot of B2B brands are getting distracted.

Instead of doing the harder work on:
• Who they’re for
• What they actually want to be known for
• How they’re different from everyone else

In 2026, LinkedIn results will come from getting the fundamentals right and letting your Company Page and your people work together to build rapport first and then trust over time.

Not from flip-flopping every time someone says they’ve “cracked the algorithm." Or should I say Brew360? 

What's your favourite LinkedIn Flip Flop Advice? (yes, that's the technical term for it 🤣)

Company Page Led Growth ​> Scale with employee advocacy on LinkedIn. Work with me - Company Page Management, Page Admin Training. Employee LinkedIn Training. #Timfluencer

This one's for Page Admins, Marketing Managers and business owners who are figuring out how to get more from their Company Page. 

They, too, are impacted by LinkedIn's new algorithm engine 360Brew. 

🎤 WANTED: Someone who runs a Company Page for a global company that wants to be a podcast guest to talk about the unique challenges that come with this. It's more important that you have experience running the page than guesting on podcasts. 

Tag someone in the comments you think I should talk to.

Most B2B brands are running their LinkedIn Company Pages like personal brands. And quietly, it’s killing their results. That might sound blunt, but if

Open article: LinkedIn Company Pages in 2026 (What To Stop and Start Doing) by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

LinkedIn Company Pages in 2026 (What To Stop and Start Doing)

Are you feeling more or less confident with your LinkedIn strategy for 2026?

Over the break, I did a quick review of how I'm showing up across LinkedIn, my website, podcasts, YouTube, etc., and was pretty horrified at how much what was out there didn't reflect where I'm at now. 

Time to get focused and back on track! 

How about you?

LinkedIn changed a lot in 2025. Not surface-level tweaks. Fundamental shifts. The kind that quietly breaks old strategies while everyone’s still tryin

Open article: LinkedIn B2B Marketing in 2026: New Strategies & Changes You Need to Know! by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

LinkedIn B2B Marketing in 2026: New Strategies & Changes You Need to Know!

"If your product is the hero of the post, you’ve missed the point.” 

I want this Nancy Harhut quote on a t-shirt to wear when I'm speaking at Social Media Marketing World 2026. 

Honestly, the toughest lesson, the hardest to convince others it's the right thing to do, but the one that has the biggest reward. 

In the podcast, Nancy shares one simple language change that you can easily fix this. 

So go ahead and give it a listen and thank us both later. 

Just the tip of the iceberg, as they say....

Which insight did you find most interesting you want to try and implement?

And why most B2B content is working against the brain, not with it. If your LinkedIn content feels like it should be working but isn’t quite landing, 

Open article: What Brain Science Teaches Us About LinkedIn Marketing by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

What Brain Science Teaches Us About LinkedIn Marketing

Looking for a speaker for your community, podcast, LinkedIn Live or event? PICK ME 😀

Thanks MRxPros for having me on to share my framework, "LinkedIn in 15 mins per day". Sue Collin you have done such a brilliant job growing this community. 

Are you next?

Send me a DM and let's see if we can come up with a cool collaboration. 

Help me out and tag people you think I should be connected with who could be interested. 

Cheers

A Zoom meeting grid with 21 smiling participants, each in individual video frames. Top text reads "Pick me as your next guest speaker" in bold white letters on a pink background.

Tim Tam Tip - Unpopular opinion… Mangoes & Cream Tim Tams are a hard no from me. 🤢 I don’t care how “new” or “exciting” they are. I’m team Double Coated all the way.

This is your LinkedIn lesson for today.

Just because something is trending doesn’t mean it deserves a spot in your LinkedIn strategy.

I see too many B2B teams chasing:
👉 Every new format
👉 Every algorithm rumour
👉 Every shiny tactic
👉 Every “you must try this” post

This is the recipe for confused buyers and very little growth.

You don’t need every flavour to win. 

You need the right one for your business, done consistently and well.

Know your clients "Double Coated", and stop forcing the Mangoes & Cream.

What’s one LinkedIn tactic you’re ready to stop doing?

No alternative text description for this image

When leaders want control and employees stay silent, LinkedIn doesn't work.
The answer is not more tools or more rules. 

What is the answer to this very common situation?

Glad you asked. 😀 

My answer is in this week's podcast episode. Enjoy the overview. 

Can you relate to either side of this problem? Has it happened to you?

If your leaders want control and your employees want nothing to do with LinkedIn, you don’t have a content problem. You have an alignment problem. It’

Open article: Why Employee Advocacy Fails on LinkedIn (And How to Fix It) by Michelle J Raymond • 4 min read

Why Employee Advocacy Fails on LinkedIn (And How to Fix It)

Things that make me go hmmm 🤔 when marketing research announces what’s “new”…

After 20 years in B2B sales, a lot of the research I'm reading feels more like derrrrr I could have told you that, rather than a big breakthrough.

A few favourites:

👉 Buying committees.

Not new, they always existed.
When you actually sit in customer meetings, you see it first-hand.

Procurement, technical, finance, users, leadership… all influencing the deal in different ways.

That’s why I teach our clients to connect wide and deep inside every target account. 

👉 Buying cycles are getting longer.

I’ve worked in industries where deals routinely took 2–5 years from first conversation to signature.
Complex decisions take time. They always have.

That's why I teach our clients to nurture relationships over the long term, no hacks.

👉 It’s all about building trust.

Almost. You skipped a step.

First, you build rapport. Once they like you, we can move on to trust. 

This is what makes working with me different.

I’ve lived on both sides, B2B sales and B2B marketing. 

I understand the pressure, the politics, the reality inside real buying environments.

That means I can help sales and marketing actually work together, with the kind of commercial understanding that only comes from experience.

Curious…
Which “new” marketing insight makes you quietly smile?

🚨 Stop posting on LinkedIn. Not forever. Just until you’ve done this one thing...

Check out the latest episode of Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast for more details.

I changed my mind on this one thing when it comes to LinkedIn Company Pages. 

You see, I'm always learning, experimenting, and joining conversations with experts, so how I work with my clients is always evolving.

LLMs will continue to give generic outdated advice. As they say, it's the average of the internet that you get in the responses.

Whether it's done for you with Company Page Management or training for Page Admins, I love being the competitive advantage.  

PS I may even change my mind on LinkedIn Pages Premium, too....

Help me out - would your business refer to it as a Company Page or Business Page on LinkedIn in your conversations internally?

I'm trying to understand a bit more about which is most commonly used in meetings etc

Any further comments are welcome if they need a bit more explaining.

How do you most commonly refer to your LinkedIn Page for your business?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

Krista Mollion

Last Business Coach You'll Ever Need I 100% Activator + Rebel 💥 Blow Up Your Solopreneur Business By Joining Profitable Solopreneur/MBA/Accelerator 🚀 Free Masterclass: Path To 10k+ Months 🎯 Content AI Workshop 5/10🧠

Congrats! You built a great product or service.

You've done all the right things, including hiring marketing and sales experts. 

So why aren't the numbers adding up?

When your revenue isn't steadily growing, it is normal to blame a bad hire, coach, or agency. 

But that's not it.

And it's not your fault either.

The true issue?

Your GTM foundations aren’t built for your next stage of growth.

When GTM is broken, you don’t just waste money —you lose decision speed, momentum, and compounding progress.

That cost is invisible on a P&L, but brutal over 12–18 months.

So you hire someone new, hoping, and ... they fail again.

See the problem? It's the system, not the hires.

That’s where I come in.

I convert marketing investment into forecastable revenue by fixing the GTM systems behind it.

What I Do

I operate as a Fractional CMO with executive ownership of growth.

I don’t replace founder judgment.
I translate it into a disciplined, board-ready revenue system teams can execute and finance can trust.

I design and lead go-to-market systems that align:
	•	strategy
	•	demand
	•	sales
	•	unit economics

So growth compounds capital-efficiently — not through brute force.

My work sits at the intersection of GTM, finance, and leadership.
Silicon Valley–fluent. Operator-minded.
Low theater. High standards. Real accountability.

How I Work

I partner with founders, CEOs, and CFOs to align growth targets, unit economics, risk tolerance, and capital constraints before execution begins.

I don’t advise from the sidelines.
I take responsibility for execution by leading the system until it is operating, measurable, and ready to scale — whether that means directing internal teams, coordinating external partners, or sequencing work myself when needed.

I’m engaged as an external executive partner — not an employee — with clear scope, authority, and accountability.

I work across three engagement types:
	•	GTM Strategy (strategy-only)
	•	GTM Advisory (quarterly or ongoing)
	•	Fractional CMO (operator role)

In Fractional CMO engagements, I stay through the system build until growth is stable and a full-time CMO can inherit clarity, clean economics, and momentum — not a reset.

Execution follows the system.
Accountability stays with me.

Fit

I work best with founders who value ownership over activity, discipline over speed, alignment over consensus, and want long-term sustainable systems, not short-term fixes. 

If you’re looking for quick results or someone to “just run marketing,” I'm not it. But if you want someone to build a growth engine, let's talk.

Fractional CMO + Chief Creative Disruptor for SaaS Brands

Attention is currency and it is our mission to get you more of it. 

We design creative, AI-driven, digital and influencer marketing campaigns For micro brands with macro goals

Privately, I love the slow life.

All-day ski runs.
Long hikes.
Driving the California coast with nowhere to be.
Sailing. Boats.
Long dinners that stretch past midnight.
A good bottle of Château Margaux.
Long, lazy summers.

Very different from Silicon Valley work culture.

Everything moves fast.
Everyone is in a hurry.
Time is the enemy.

Launch faster.
Hire faster.
Raise faster.
Prove results.
Close deals.
Grow.
Hit deadlines.

Missed? You're gone.

For a long time, my weekday and weekend worlds felt completely incompatible.

And I burned out and took a break.

During my time away. I realized a couple of things:

Speed doesn’t have to mean sloppiness.
And slow doesn’t have to mean inefficiency.

What actually reconciles the two is precision.

The “slow lover” in me doesn’t hate speed — she hates chaos.
She hates half-done work.
She hates hacks, shortcuts, cheap fixes, and fragile systems.

So I stopped trying to hack my way to success via chaos.

Instead, I focused on building things that are:
• clean
• intentional
• well engineered
• designed to scale

In my work, that looks like:

• crystal-clear KPIs
• thoughtful GTM architecture
• systems designed to scale without breaking
• foundations strong enough to run fast on

That’s my beautiful way of blending speed with efficiency.

Move fast — but on purpose.
Build quickly — but with elegance.
Scale — without sacrificing quality.

And rest. We need to pause in business too and reflect. Getting away from the problem will open up the new angles like nothing else.
And when you return, you will see things with fresh eyes.

Whether you move fast or slow, excellence is always an option.

You don't have to accept chaos as the only path.

Build a revenue engine that endures
Then relax and watch it build momentum.

For me, excellence is the goal.
But I combine it with alot of hands-off time.
And it works for me while I am away.

Life is too short to settle for anything less than getting the best of both fast and slow worlds.

Founder, Unignorable Brands | Founder-Operator Fractional CMO & GTM Leader for $3–20M B2B Companies | Global Expansions | Numbers ​> Narratives

Most founders don’t hate marketing.
They hate paying for confusion.

When marketing “doesn’t deliver ROI,” what usually breaks isn’t execution — it’s expectations.

Marketing gets treated as promotion.
Promotion gets treated as growth.
And when the numbers don’t line up, pressure moves downstream to sales, pricing, and attribution.

That’s how marketing starts to feel expensive, vague, and hard to trust.

In this week’s newsletter, I unpack why marketing so often fails to deliver ROI — not because teams aren’t working hard, but because marketing is misunderstood as an activity instead of a system.

The short version:

Marketing isn’t ads.
It isn’t content.
It isn’t campaigns.

It’s the system that aligns what you sell, who it’s for, how it’s priced, and where buyers encounter it — so sales doesn’t have to create clarity from scratch every time.

When that system is missing, promotion is asked to compensate.
And that’s where ROI quietly breaks.

I published this as part of a new series on why marketing is so often misunderstood by founders — especially in the $3–20M ARR range, where growth starts to feel heavier than it should.

Read the full article here → 

Curious how this shows up in your business:
Where are you relying on activity to compensate for missing clarity upstream?

Founder, Unignorable Brands | Fractional CMO (GTM & Revenue Systems) | Fixing Growth Bottlenecks for $3–20M B2B Companies

A founder-level look at the 4 Ps — and why promotion alone was never designed to drive growth. Most CEOs don’t dislike marketing. They dislike wasted 

Open article: Why Marketing Doesn’t Deliver ROI (And What CEOs Miss) by Krista Mollion • 5 min read

Why Marketing Doesn’t Deliver ROI (And What CEOs Miss)

A quick clarification on the CMO role (especially for first-time founders and growing companies).

A Chief Marketing Officer is an executive leadership role, not a delivery function.

At the CMO level, the mandate is to own:
• Go-to-market strategy
• Positioning and market narrative
• Demand architecture and pipeline quality
• Revenue alignment with Sales and Finance
• Budget allocation and priority sequencing
• Cross-functional alignment across Product, Sales, and Finance

For this reason, a CMO reports to the CEO.

Not as a matter of hierarchy — but because marketing decisions directly affect revenue quality, capital efficiency, and long-term valuation.

What the CMO role is not designed for:
• Campaign execution
• Content production
• Tactical channel management

Those functions require dedicated operators, and the CMO requires hiring/performance authority and budget ownership over them to be effective.

When marketing leadership is placed under operations or staff functions, it often becomes activity-driven rather than outcome-driven. Over time, this shows up as inconsistent demand, misaligned incentives, and slower compounding.

This isn’t about titles.
It’s about governance.

Growth scales best when marketing has clear executive ownership and accountability.

💎 Fractional CMO for $3–20M B2B Founders | Executive GTM leadership to build compounding growth systems | Single-owner accountability across GTM, spend & outcomes | Silicon Valley–fluent, operator at heart | 3x founder

Over the years, I’ve learned that how you lead matters just as much as what you do.

So I wrote down my operating beliefs — the principles that guide how I think, decide, and build with founders and leadership teams.

This isn’t theory.
It’s how I actually operate.

If you’re curious whether we’d ever work well together, this will give you a very clear answer.

Read the full piece here →

How I think, decide, and build as a Fractional CMO and GTM Execution Partner I believe who you are and how you lead matters just as much as what you d

Open article: My Operating Beliefs as a Leader by Krista Mollion • 9 min read

As we enter a new week — and especially still in January— I’ve been sitting with a quiet but radical thought.



What if this year, we focused on prioritizing the right P in business?

Not profits.
People.

We all say people matter. It’s almost a given.
But if we’re honest, most systems, incentives, and decisions are still built around profit first.

This is normal. No profits, no business.
And yet… profits don’t exist without people.

The work is done by people.
The bills are paid by people.
Funding comes from people.
Trust is built (or broken) between people.

Somewhere along the way, many of us started viewing people through a transactional lens:
	•	What they owe us
	•	What they didn’t deliver
	•	What they should have done better

Customers become “leads.”
Employees become “resources.”
Investors become “gatekeepers.”

We see people as a means to our own end, not as real. That subtle detachment changes everything. It creates tension, frustration, and burnout — often without us even realizing it.

But what if we flipped the lens?

What if we put people back at the center — not as obstacles between us and success, but as the very foundation of it?

Because when people are truly prioritized:

	•	Productivity becomes more natural
	•	Collaboration deepens
	•	Trust compounds
	•	And yes, profits will increase

So here’s my challenge for you:

What if 2026 is the year you truly put people first?

And how might that reframe the way you think about:
	•	Your customers
	•	Your employees
	•	Your partners
	•	Your investors

What’s better: more or less?
99% or 10%?

Most people default to more.
More reach. More likes. More followers. More emails. Spam, spam, spam!

I always pick less.

Because “more” is a big business—
and LinkedIn is full of people selling it.

If you want to go viral, create content 99% agree with:

• Eye-candy photos or videos
• Personal stories
• Feel-good quotes
• Light humor
• Colorful carousels
• Big announcements

Nothing wrong with it.
It’s built for mass appeal.

But if you sell high-ticket B2B services (not generic products), here’s the truth:

At any given time, only ~10% of your network will ever need, be ready for, or be able to buy.

That makes things easier.

If you want to get paid, your content only needs to resonate deeply with that 10%.
And when you do the math—that 10% is worth millions.

The other 90%?
Colleagues. Friends. Old conference connections.

Nothing wrong with them.
They’re just not your buyers.

So ask yourself:

Are you optimizing for reach—or for revenue?

P.S.
Ghostwriters, content managers, and social media experts:
chasing views without positioning may look good on dashboards,
but it doesn’t always serve your client’s business.

Clarity beats virality.
And conversions pay more than claps.

One of the most misunderstood ideas in marketing is lag time.

Not clicks.
Not channels.
Time.

Most B2B businesses have a 60–90 day gap between the first meaningful touch and closed-won revenue. And yet we keep asking monthly marketing spend to explain monthly results.

No wonder the conversations get tense.

Once you make lag time visible, a lot of friction disappears:
Marketing looks less mysterious.
Finance looks less impatient.
And decisions get calmer.

If you know how long it takes to bake the cake, stop opening the oven for a peep, only to confirm what you already know.

It’s a small shift in reporting, but a big shift in how growth gets discussed.

Food for thought as the week wraps up:
Does your exec team actually know how long revenue takes to materialize (and are your marketing goals and reporting set accordingly)?

Everyone’s obsessed with the LinkedIn algorithm.
And yes — algo candy works.

I usually do the opposite.

I post heavy content.
Real thinking.
High signal.
High cognitive load.

The kind that doesn’t get many likes —
but quietly lands in DMs weeks later.

Here’s the truth most people miss:

The algorithm doesn’t reward depth.
It rewards ease.

Fast to consume.
Low friction.
Familiar formats.

So if your thoughtful posts aren’t performing,
you’re not wrong — you’re just asking the algorithm to work harder than it wants to.

The tradeoff no one names:

Heavy posts = trust, authority, quiet DMs
Light posts = reach, visibility, growth

Different jobs.

The real question:
Are you trying to be popular —
or are you trying to sell?

Trying to do both at once
without intention
usually fails at both.

The algorithm isn’t your customer.

Join me tomorrow - Thursday, January 8th - where I'll be speaking about LinkedIn 2026 strategy aifh the incredible Tracy Bedwell . RSVP to join live in UK time or get the replay. https://lnkd.in/gRR5iunF

Both sides are acting in good faith.
Both sides are usually disappointed.

The CMO expects a system.
The CEO expects one person to do six jobs.

Alignment beats optimism. Every time.

Drama feels productive.
It isn’t.

Calm leadership is what actually scales.

You can have the right strategy.
Strong leaders.
The right tools.

I’ve watched capable teams stall, not from lack of talent,
but from leadership volatility.

When priorities keep shifting and decisions get reopened emotionally,
compounding quietly breaks.

Adding more features
Constantly switching strategies
Priorities change with politics
Hires come and go with layoffs and churn
This is the best way to create chaos.

What does scale is boring in the best way:
clarity, trust, high retention, clear priorities, and steady leadership.

Same team.
Same talent.
Very different outcomes.

This is usually where compounding quietly breaks.

Drama feels good in the moment
but it is an expensive mistake.
Setting up calm, consistent "boring" systems and then staying disciplined and focused with a "less is more" attitude is the profitable way.

------------------------
If you're new here, I'm Krista Mollion, Fractional CMO and founder of Unignorable Brands and I talk about why growth stops compounding as companies scale. 🚀 Follow along - I aim to address real problems after working with 250+ B2B companies.

Let’s talk about engagement pods.

For anyone new to the term:
It's a group that agrees to like, comment on, and repost each other’s content to trigger the algorithm. 

Pods have always existed on all social platforms but in the past these were all simple free groups.

Today, they are hiding inside paid communities.

Pods didn’t disappear. They evolved.

Same idea, new packaging:

• Paid communities (Kajabi, Circle, Skool, etc.)
• “Optional” engagement channels
• Support threads
• “Growth” cohorts or creator challenges

But the mechanics are identical.
Drop your post. Get flooded in the first hour.

If someone’s content consistently explodes in the first 60 minutes — and their account keeps getting restricted — that’s not organic reach. That’s coordinated engagement. Even if they lie about it.

Don't believe me? Go to your biggest, most popular creators and look if they either run or belong to a best-selling course-cohort-community. I bet you the answer will be 'yes'.

Almost every course or community I’ve joined in the past two years had an “optional” pod inside it.

I don't participate in them (check my posts and you will quickly see 😉) but many do...and lie about it. They call their behavior "support one another's posts". It's not; it's fake engagement and it hurts your credibility, destroys trust, and doesn't attract your dream clients. I highly recommend you don't do it.

When you see a post that have double digit reposts and thousands of likes, unless it is a public figure, it is either boosted (paid ad) or fake engagement.

They may brand themselves as a LinkedIn or Creator community or course, but know this: there’s usually a link-drop thread somewhere.

I hope this clarifies things — for those who already knew, and for those who now do.

Now you know what’s up.

Question:
Have you joined a course or community in the past 3 years and discovered an engagement pod behind the scenes?
And if you run a community — would you be comfortable if members shared screenshots here?👇

One screenshot below from a course I bought last year to learn a new skill. Note: I have canceled and will not continue.

The irony is when you see someone post their account was temporarily restricted and they "have no idea why", I know why. And now you know too.👇

From the outside, it probably looks like a lot is happening.

Your team is busy.
Meetings are full.
Campaigns are live.
Deals are moving.

But underneath that activity, something isn’t carrying forward.

Every quarter feels like a reset.
The same conversations keep coming back.
Progress exists — but it doesn’t stack.

That’s a frustrating place to be as a CEO.

Not because people aren’t trying.
But because effort keeps getting absorbed instead of converted into momentum.

When that happens, the issue usually isn’t execution.
It’s that something upstream isn’t clear enough for work to compound.

I wrote a deeper breakdown on how to spot where momentum is actually leaking — before you add more pressure, headcount, or tools.

Read it here →

A practical breakdown of the system behind predictable growth Most founders think they have a lead generation problem. What they usually have is a GTM

Open article: What Is Go-To-Market (GTM)? by Krista Mollion • 6 min read

This is why “good posts” keep getting buried on LinkedIn.

Most experts don’t lose on social because they lack insight.

They lose because they explain too early.

Algorithms don’t reward depth at the top of the funnel.

They reward:
• Simplicity
• Repeatability
• Predictable formats
• Low cognitive load

That’s why “basic” posts spread
while better thinking gets buried.

The mistake isn’t being smart.
It’s leading with complexity
before you’ve earned attention.

Simple surface × repeatable frame → distribution.
Depth below the fold → trust and conversion.

The winning move:
Hook first. Go deep later. 💎

Where do you naturally default?

📅Want more insights on how to win on social? On Thursday, January 8th, I'll be speaking about LinkedIn 2026 strategy aifh the incredible Tracy Bedwell. RSVP to join live in UK time or get the replay. https://lnkd.in/gRR5iunF

Now Hiring! 🎉

👉 Wanted: Supernatural CMO

Requirements include:
• Predict the future
• Make us viral
• Crush the competition
• Double revenue
• Save the day

Work location: The Upside Down
Reports to: The CEO (office nickname: Papa)
Mandate: Defeat Vecna. Save Will. Keep the board calm.

Warning: The previous 4 CMOs did not survive the mission. Résumé exaggeration will be exposed immediately.

Bonus points if you can do it with limited data, a moving ICP, and
“we’ll figure the strategy out later.”

Marketing experience preferred.
Telekinesis required. 🔮

Happy Friday.

Why CMOs age in dog years 🐕

You’re driving the car.
Everyone else is in the backseat.

“Go faster.”
“Slow down—what’s the ROI?”
“Why aren’t we there yet?”
“Take a left. No—my other left.”
“Have you tried just… more leads?”

One steering wheel.
Six opinions.
Same destination: predictable growth.

If you’ve ever wondered why marketing feels exhausting, it’s not the work.

It’s the navigation.

Happy Sunday to every CMO still holding the wheel. 🚗

P.S. Will AI be the equivalent in Marketing to the self-driving car?

You can do everything right —
and still be forced to downsize.

Several exceptional people at Agorapulse  are suddenly on the market — through no fault of their own.

This wasn’t a failure of talent.
This wasn’t a failure of effort.
This wasn’t leadership “cleaning house.”

Because economics happened.

They’re proven.
They’re resilient.
They’re exactly who you want when things get hard.

If you’re a founder, hiring manager, or recruiter — or hiring soon — please take 30 seconds to look:

👉 https://lnkd.in/gxjaACQs

I’m using my platform today for one reason only:
to spread the word and help good people land fast, fairly, and with dignity.

It could be you.
It could be me.

If you can help, comment, share, or reach out directly.

Let’s turn an unfair moment into a fast, human outcome.

Hiring? Experienced marketers impacted by layoffs. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gxjaACQs

Fractional leadership isn’t a trend.
It’s a response to how executive work has changed.

After 20+ years in the game, priorities shift.
Time and judgment become more valuable than sitting in an office five days a week.

Post-COVID, many senior executives chose alternatives to full-time roles —
not out of laziness, but clarity.

Some join boards.
Some write.
Some go fractional.

What companies actually get:

A truly senior executive
(not theory — decades of pattern recognition)

Someone who operates like a full-time leader
with real scope and ownership —
without full-time overhead.

Is fractional right for everyone?
A loud no.

It works best for companies in the $3–20M ARR range,
especially remote-first or flexible teams.
(Stage matters.)

And on the executive side:
fractional only works with real seniority.
This is not a role for juniors.

A fractional executive is:
• Not a strategist
• Not an advisor
• Not a contractor
• Not full-time

Fractional ≠ temp.

When fractional is misunderstood, companies don’t just waste money —
they lose decision speed, momentum, and compounding progress.
That cost rarely shows up on a P&L,
but it becomes painfully obvious over 12–18 months.

Many of my fractional engagements last longer
than full-time CMO roles in tech
(which average ~18–24 months).

Real transformation takes at least 12 months.

Fractional can be long-term leadership for the right-sized company.
Some companies outgrow it.
Others choose sustained growth without the overhead.

Honest question:
Did you actually know what “fractional” meant before this post?

The highest-leverage leadership work often feels invisible —
until the results (or the stagnation) show up. And by then, alot of time and budget have already been wasted and missed opportunities.

Loud presence gets attention.
Quiet confidence earns trust.

The founders I respect most
aren’t trying to win the room.

They’re listening.
They’re watching patterns.
They’re deciding when to speak — not rushing to fill silence.

Attention is easy to get.
Trust is built slowly.

And the people who understand that
usually don’t need to announce it.


If this resonates, you’re probably not the loudest voice in the room.
That’s not a problem.
It’s often the advantage.

Who I Work With (and Who I Don’t)

I do my best work with calm, experienced B2B founders ($3–20M ARR).

They’re past the ego phase.
They respect marketing without micromanaging it.
They value clarity over urgency.
They run founder-led companies with low politics.
They are highly disciplined.

They want a senior operator—not a yes-man to follow commands without actual ownership—
to build a durable growth engine, not short-term spikes.

This profile isn’t arbitrary.
It’s non-negotiable.

Because it protects:
	•	energy
	•	reputation
	•	timelines
	•	sanity

And it aligns with the kind of work that actually compounds:
deep, foundational, long-horizon work.

Who I Don’t Work With

Anything outside that profile usually brings:
	•	constant urgency
	•	second-guessing
	•	blame when shortcuts fail
	•	decisions by committee

That environment doesn’t create better growth.
It just creates friction.

Alignment matters far more than simply filling a role, especially since my contracts are annual. Working together for a year means being careful to find the right fit.

Question: have you clearly defined who you work best with and who you don't?

Silence and emotion are two of the most expensive failure modes in leadership teams.

After years inside leadership teams, a pattern shows up again and again.

Not bad intent.
Not incompetence.
Ambiguity.

Two things quietly break execution:

1) Silence gets interpreted as agreement.
A leader says something in passing.
No one challenges it.
No one clarifies it.

Weeks later, it comes back as:

“I thought we agreed on this.”

Silence creates implied commitments — even when nothing was actually decided.

2) Emotion creates moving targets.
Pressure spikes.
A metric dips.
A board conversation happens.

Something gets said that sounds like direction — but is really context.

Teams either:
	•	panic and overcorrect
	•	or ignore it and hope it goes away

Both paths lead to disappointment.

The fix isn’t working faster.
It’s clarifying before acting.

Healthy teams pause to clarify:
Is this context or a decision?
What changed?
Who owns it, and what metric moves?

If none of that is clear, it’s not ready for execution.

Clarity doesn’t slow teams down.
It’s what prevents thrash, rework, and missed expectations. 💎

Execution usually fails not from lack of effort — but from decisions that were never actually made.

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The Battle

Michelle J Raymond

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Michelle J Raymond's LinkedIn Performance

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