Evan Patterson 💅🏻

Hire Me & Win In The Attention Economy💥 I Help Founders & Startups Grow Audiences 🔥 Ghostwriting • Personal Branding • Social Selling • Community Marketing • Content Strategy • B2B Influencers • Affiliate Programs

👋🏻 You should really click the "...see more" button over there. 👉🏻

😉

I’m Evan Patterson.

Fractional CMO. Personal CMO.
LGBTQ+. AuDHD. Two cats who have main-character energy and paperwork opinions.
Metro Detroit-raised, Chicago-thriving, seeking a EU-husband for dual citizenship (kind of not joking...)

A small but vocal group of humans — plus my mother — call me the Joan Rivers of Marketing. I didn’t ask for that title, but I also didn’t give it back.

My work focuses on helping founders, CEOs, and operators stop sounding like they were assembled by committee. When people understand you quickly, everything gets easier: sales, hiring, partnerships, even that awkward moment when someone pretends they’ve heard of your company before.

My entire approach runs on feral specificity.
Egregiously unique. Audaciously effective.
Ideas with teeth. Narratives with posture. Writing that doesn’t need a spotlight to command attention.

I work in two lanes.

Evan Patterson Consulting
The Fractional CMO lane.

This is where companies finally get a marketing function that isn’t held together by vibes, hope, and a Google Doc last updated during the pandemic. I rebuild the structure, the sequencing, and the decisions that keep revenue steady instead of seasonal.

The second lane
The executive identity work.

Voice extraction. Narrative architecture. Brand presence that doesn’t wobble when the market does. There’s more coming in this lane; something I’m building quietly; and it’s shaping the way I help leaders show up with clarity and actual gravitational pull.

I build systems with staying power.
I build brands people remember without squinting.
I build marketing that earns attention because it deserves attention.

People who work well with me tend to appreciate speed, accuracy, and a sense of humor about the chaos they built before I arrived. People who want a polite museum tour of marketing usually exit early.

My goal is consistent: make you unmistakable.

Fractional Content & Community Marketing Leader

Ditch the gift cards, scrap the underutilized benefits package, and focus on the individuals in your organization instead.

Companies looking to improve performance and retention should care about helping people get further faster towards what matters most in their life. We make this easy with tools to create personalized incentives, meaningful recognition & self-defined benefits that help their people unlock "sacred funds" towards their personal life goals.

Employee Motivation Simplified.

The employee that posts political content on LinkedIn calling out the administration for its fascist and authoritarian maneuvers isn't the liability. 

The employee who says LinkedIn and work isn't a place for politics? That's the real liability.

And if you can't figure out why: then you're an even bigger liability.

A liability to democracy.

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92% of B2B Customers

😍 50% of B2B buyers rely on industry influencers and thought leaders to stay updated on trends, underscoring the value of personal branding and influencer partnerships.

That's half your audience you can tap into with me. ✅ I'm currently taking on full-time, part-time, content collaboration, and project-based work. 🙃 DM me!

Nick Bertolino Testimonial

"We enlisted Evan to consult our team on LinkedIn strategy, and his insights were both exceptionally informative and highly engaging. It’s evident that Evan has invested significant effort into building his personal brand and mastering strategies to enhance engagement for himself and his clients. He arrived well-prepared, with thorough market research and proven approaches that he knows deliver results. 

I would highly recommend Evan to help you and your team take your LinkedIn game to the next level." - Nick Bertolino, CEO of The Operations Company

💡 DM me for personal branding and social selling coaching opportunities for your B2B sales team. 

Social Selling & Personal Branding Coaching

DM me for social selling and personal branding coaching offers for your B2B sales team.

Open to Work

Jacob Weaver

"I recently connected with Evan on LinkedIn, and it was an incredibly enriching experience. His expertise in SaaS marketing is not just impressive but exceptional. Evan's engaging and genuine approach made our conversation stand out in the often transactional world of online networking. He generously shared his knowledge and immediately connected me with other professionals, showcasing his commitment to adding real value.

Evan's strategic insights into the SaaS marketplace are invaluable. His open, honest, and down-to-earth nature made our interaction refreshing and informative. He's not just an influencer but a true thought leader in his field.

Evan is a rare find on LinkedIn, combining deep industry knowledge with a genuine personality. I highly recommend him for his expertise and impactful approach." - Jacob Weaver, Procore Technologies

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“He’s the Joan Rivers of Marketing” - Someone Online ✨ Fractional CMO for Companies 😎 Personal CMO for the Ambitious🏆 Egregiously Unique, Audaciously Effective, Feral Specificity

When someone puts their calendar link in their “Out of Office” message for current clients or folks inquiring for services from me and you use it to book a meeting to pitch your services without me agreeing to receiving your pitch, it leads me to ask them one question. 

“Are you naturally this stupid or do you have to put effort into being this stupid? This kind of behavior only destroys your reputation as a business.”

Offense intended.

“He’s the Joan Rivers of Marketing” ✨ Fractional CMO for Companies 😎 Personal CMO for the Ambitious🏆 Egregiously Unique, Audaciously Effective, Feral Specificity

I keep saying I’m going to start making videos.

And then I don’t.

Not because I don’t have things to say, because I'm shy, or because I don’t “get” content.

It’s because I overthink the hell out of it.

How I sound and look
Whether it’s smart enough, useful enough, or funny enough.
Whether people will think it’s cringe or messy or unfocused.

Which is extra ironic, considering I literally tell people all the time that:
– you can’t be liked by everyone
– you need a POV
– you have to be willing to be misunderstood
– and your first 50 tries are basically trash

And yet. Here I am. Still stalling.

I watched a video today where someone said something that annoyed me because it was so obvious:

You don’t get good in private.
You get good in public and by doing it badly first.

And I think I’ve been hiding behind “I’m being intentional” when really I’ve just been avoiding being seen before I feel ready.

So I’m probably just going to start doing it.

One video a day.
No polish.
No scripts.
No pretending I’ve figured everything out.

Just talking.
Thinking out loud.
Documenting what it actually looks like to build something while your brain is still mid-process.

Some days it’ll be coherent.
Some days it’ll be a mess.
Some days I’ll probably regret posting it five minutes later.

That’s probably the point.

This isn’t about growth hacks or going viral or “content strategy.”
This is about getting out of my own way and building the muscle of showing up without over-curating myself to death.

So yeah. That’s where I’m at.

If you’ve done short-form video and figured out how to make the doing part easier — not the optimizing, not the algorithm nonsense — I’m open to hearing what helped.

Posting this feels mildly unhinged.

Which tells me I should probably hit post.

I'm on the tail end of having the flu...and while I have no evidence supporting this claim, I do feel having the flu while being self employed is homophobic.

Evan Patterson

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how strange it feels to be alive right now.

Not in a dramatic, end-of-the-world way.
More in the quiet way: the kind that settles in when you realize how much energy you’re spending just tracking what’s happening.

I notice patterns. Inconsistencies. When people say one thing and do another. When systems stop making sense but everyone keeps pretending they do. That’s not paranoia. That’s just how my brain works.

And lately, it’s been exhausting.

There’s so much noise. Political noise. Moral noise. Everyone arguing about what’s collapsing, who’s to blame, what’s coming next. It makes you wonder whether the ground beneath you is solid or just something we all agreed not to question.

I’ve caught myself asking:
Is this safe?
Is this sustainable?
Do I need an exit plan?

What I’ve realized is that this isn’t fear. In fact, I feel it's better described as awareness without an off-switch.

I’m autistic. I see systems. I take words seriously. If someone says, “Let’s talk later,” I assume they mean it. If someone says they care, I expect their actions to match. When they don’t, it doesn’t feel like disappointment. It feels like dissonance.

I’ve learned that many people use language to smooth things over. To be polite. To avoid discomfort. I don’t think it’s malicious, but my nervous system doesn’t experience it as neutral. White lies feel like cracks in the logic of the world.

I don’t see people as roles or resources. I see them as people. That makes me slower to disengage, and quicker to feel the weight of inconsistency.

This has mattered even more as I’ve grown into building a business and leading work that involves others. When you’re setting direction or building a team, clarity isn’t just personal; it’s structural. People take cues from what you say and what you follow through on.

That’s why this matters to me. Leadership isn’t performance. It’s coherence. It’s meaning what you say. It’s being honest when you don’t know yet. It’s not treating people’s time or trust as expendable.

There’s another layer to this that’s harder to name.

I’m told to be kinder to myself when I struggle. But when I say I’m intelligent, plainly, without bravado, I’m told I’m arrogant. I’m allowed to feel small, but not capable.

The truth is, I am intelligent. Not in a “better than” way. In a pattern-recognizing, depth-oriented way. And that doesn’t make life easier. It makes it heavier.

When you notice more, you carry more.
When you value clarity, vagueness is exhausting.

I don’t think that means something is wrong with me anymore.

I think it means I’m built for depth in a world that often prefers smoothness. And as a founder, I’m learning how to hold that without hardening, how to lead with clarity without losing care.

I don’t need perfection.
I just need people to mean what they say.

And I’m still here.
Still building.
That has to count for something.

I have a few questions for LinkedIn's product team about their roadmap and previous feature releases for this platform.

"Why?"

"For what reason?"

and most importantly,

"Really?"

If people inside your company are confused, your customers definitely are.

Confusion shows up as:
– Mixed messaging
– Inconsistent offers
– Sales saying one thing and marketing saying another
– Leadership assuming alignment instead of checking it

Scale doesn’t fix that.
It amplifies it.

Clarity is not a nice-to-have.
It’s the prerequisite.

Lately I’ve been experiencing a very specific kind of mental spiral.

Not burnout, “I hate my job,” or even fear, exactly.

It’s more like this low-grade, persistent thought that shows up when you’re building something on your own and trying to do it well.

It sounds like:
"I should probably have more clarity by now. I shouldn’t need this much help. If I were actually good at this, this part would feel easier."

Which then quietly turns into, "...maybe I’m just not as good at this as I thought."

Very fun thought. 
Extremely helpful. 
Ten out of ten for morale.

#sarcasm

What’s funny is that I hear some version of this constantly from the people I work with.

People who are smart.
People who have traction.
People who are objectively not failing.

They usually say it casually, almost apologetically. Like they’re confessing something.

“I feel like I should be further along.”
“I don’t know if I’m focusing on the right things.”
“I feel weird asking for help at this stage.”

And every time, my internal reaction is the same: "Yeah. That tracks. You’re right on time."

Because this phase always shows up right after the easy answers stop working.

You’ve outgrown guessing, brute force, and doing things just because they worked once.

So now everything feels heavier, decisions take longer, and nothing feels obvious anymore.

And when you’re inside that, it’s really easy to turn it inward and assume it’s a personal flaw instead of a normal stage.

When it’s happening to you, it feels like hesitation. Like you somehow missed a memo everyone else got.

But most of the people who never feel this aren’t actually building anything with depth. They’re just repeating what worked once and calling it confidence.

The people who feel this tension are usually the ones trying to be deliberate.

Trying to do things cleanly, not to build something they’ll have to undo later.
Which is quieter.

And slower.
And way less reassuring.

So if you’re in that headspace right now, quietly wondering if you’ve lost your edge or if you were ever that good to begin with, I don’t think that means you’re failing.

I think it means you’re in the part where things stop being instinctual and start requiring intention.

And that part is awkward, unglamorous, and deeply un-postable most days.

But it’s also usually the part right before things start to click in a different way.

Every company has an identity, whether it’s intentional or not.

It shows up in:
– The clients you attract
– The problems you tolerate
– The pace you move at
– The kind of work you’re proud of

When identity is unclear, strategy wobbles.
When identity is solid, decisions get easier.

No one wildly successful lacks haters. Even the amazing Betty White had haters.

So next time someone becomes a hater, just know it could be a good sign.

A lot of people call activity “strategy.”

Posting more.
Launching faster.
Adding channels.
Buying tools.

That’s not strategy. That’s motion.

Strategy is choosing what not to do.
What you will ignore.
What you will say no to even when it looks shiny.

Most teams don’t lack ideas.
They lack the discipline to choose one direction and live with it long enough for it to work.

Fix the damn inbox, first and foremost, Sugi Choi 🍋. It should function like an email inbox. A native update or an official LinkedIn-partnered inbox tool would be nice. (keyword: official)

This platform is falling behind on playing nicely with third-party tools that don't do scraping/reselling of data the way that literally every other major platform plays nicely with. 

The platform's feed is terrible, let users control their feeds the way Bluesky does. Let users own their followings more like Bluesky does. 

Enforce your own rules about automation: ban the companies that sell automation tools on LinkedIn: not the users that are being tricked by these companies into thinking it's safe to use them or tell their reps to use them. It is against the ToS to use automation of connection requests, InMails, and messaging and it can get you or your reps banned. It doesn't matter if your app "mimics human behavior" like HeyReach.io and others claim. It's against the Terms of Service. 

If you're the VP of Sales at a company, you know you're expected to use tools and sales practices in accordance with GDPR and other rules/laws when it comes to cold calling and cold emailing: but for some reason they're not being held responsible for knowing the ToS of social media platforms, thus putting their SDRs and AEs' accounts at risk in order to keep their jobs, which could risk them getting banned, and thus sabotaging their careers by getting them removed from LinkedIn, which has a monopoly on a lot of online networking for many industries, forever. 

Ban these companies so leaders stop putting their employees' careers on the line, especially considering a lot of SDRs and AEs are younger, biologically and professionally, than their bosses, who either don't know that their own bosses putting their team's individual careers at risk unknowingly or that they don't care.

If you don't ban these companies, then change your ToS to allow them to operate. This weird "grey area" limbo s**t is not doing anyone any favors. It doesn't matter what my opinion on third-party tools is/are, or of automation: the issue is that in the current state of affairs: peoples' careers are being negatively affected and/or put at risk.

Make it easier to report people for putting things like company names or URLs in their pronouns field because it's transphobic to let people keep doing that. 

Stop sending canned responses in response to customer complaints. 

Allow us to control the visual appearance of our experience with the platform more, especially visual personalization of our profiles and company pages. The website is boring looking currently.

Release more APIs for data so people can make use of this platform better. 

Show us more data. Why can't we see the level of analytics we get in third-party tools natively?

Product Builder @ LinkedIn | Virio | x-founder

Hey LinkedIn! I’m LinkedIn’s one of the first ever Product Builder - and I want your UNFILTERED feedback.

What do you HATE the most about LinkedIn?

Whether you’re a:
> recruiter or a founder looking for the right talent
> job seeker hunting for opportunities
> creator building your personal brand
> developer sharing your work
> or just here to network

Doesn’t matter WHY you’re here, but I wanna know WHAT frustrates you the most .

Leave a comment below, I’ll read every single one - even the spicy ones.
 
Bonus - I will give 6 month of FREE LinkedIn premium ($180 worth) to the best suggestion! 💗

Leadership isn’t charisma.
It isn’t confidence.
It isn’t being the loudest person in the room.

It’s capacity.

Capacity to hold ambiguity.
Capacity to make decisions without perfect data.
Capacity to stay steady when things wobble.

People follow calm more than vision.
They trust leaders who don’t panic.

There’s a phase of a company where founder energy carries everything.

You sell.
You market.
You decide.
You push.

It works… until it doesn’t.

Not because you failed.
Because the company outgrew the version of you that could hold everything in their head.

That moment usually shows up as fatigue, stalled growth, or a quiet sense that everything feels heavier than it should.

That’s not a motivation problem.
That’s a structure problem.

Founder-led growth is powerful.
Founder-dependent growth is fragile.

Most companies don’t need more hustle.
They need a system that lets the founder stop being the system.

Speed gets romanticized.
Scale gets celebrated.
Growth gets rewarded.

But clarity is what actually feels good.

Clarity in your message.
Clarity in your offer.
Clarity in who you serve and who you don’t.

Most burnout is just prolonged confusion.

You don’t need to sound bigger. You need to sound unmistakable.

Polish doesn’t create trust.
Specificity does.

The brands that stand out aren’t louder.
They’re clearer about who they’re for and comfortable with who they’re not.

That’s what makes them feel inevitable.

The best positioning feels simple once you see it.

That’s not because it was easy.
It’s because someone did the hard work of removing the noise.

Clarity always looks obvious after the fact.

That’s how you know it’s right.

Your brand should feel inevitable.

Not trendy.
Not clever.
Not loud.

Inevitable.

Like it couldn’t have been anything else.
Like it makes sense the moment someone encounters it.

That feeling doesn’t come from aesthetics.
It comes from alignment, restraint, and knowing exactly who you are building for.

Awareness is easy to buy.

Relevance is not.

Marketing that works makes people feel seen, not impressed.
It gives language to something they already feel.
It clarifies rather than convinces.

If your marketing needs explaining, it’s not doing its job.

More content won’t fix unclear positioning.
More meetings won’t fix fuzzy ownership.
More hires won’t fix missing direction.

Output magnifies what already exists.

That’s why slowing down to get clear often creates faster growth later.

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