I scale marketing at startups from $1M to $10M ARR.

I've seen it first hand. SSC Consulting a founder "whisper" - Shannon knows the language of founder and she knows the language of GTM. Let her be the translator if you're having any friction. If you're ever lucky enough to get her time - jump on it. GTM and PMF is too often delayed in my experience.

We worked with SSC Consulting at a point where our brand, messaging, and website were clearly lagging behind the company we had become. We knew something was off, but it was hard to step back and fix it while running the business day to day. Their fractional marketing leadership made a real difference by jumping in, asking the uncomfortable questions, and helping us get much sharper about our positioning and story. Coming out of the process, our brand finally feels aligned, the messaging is clearer and more confident, and the website actually reflects what we do and why it matters. What stood out most was how straightforward and collaborative the work was, no fluff, no overcomplication, just thoughtful guidance and execution. I would absolutely recommend SSC Consulting to other founders who need senior marketing leadership and clarity without hiring a full-time team.

Shannon was an incredible partner for us. She stepped in at a time when we didn’t need a full-time CMO but did need senior marketing leadership. She quickly felt like part of the team, helped us put the right programs and foundations in place, and then supported us in building, recruiting, and developing a strong full-time marketing team. It was the perfect way to get deep expertise without committing to a full-time CMO hire.

When we started to work together we only had concepts of how to execute founder marketing, but within a few quick turns we had a process for creating newsletters, videos, and posts that we added into our future calendar. She is also fun as hell!

SSC helped us become a consistent, process-oriented, efficient, and EFFECTIVE marketing engine. It's funny you say fractional - because it doesn't seem like SSC is fractional. The output is beyond what fractional would be, and the communication style felt like she was an FTE.

They came in and gave a fresh perspective on how to take our branding and messaging to the next level. Being the ICP themselves, they were able to help us figure out how we should GTM to reach an audience like them.

SQLs have increased well over 30% since they started.

I sincerely appreciate the feeling that they are truly on our side, in our corner, and fighting the good fight alongside us. They have a truly invested interest in the success of this company.

I would recommend SSC without hesitation. Happy to chat with anyone as a reference. No-brainer decision for anyone.

Shannon is sharp, warm, and the person you want in the room when things feel tangled. I had the privilege of working with her at ValidMind, where she came in as CMO and I was VP of Product Marketing.

She spent real time understanding us, interviewing people across the company and listening first, then worked with our executive team to rebuild a sharper brand and a clearer direction. The clarity we'd been circling for a while, she got us to.

What I valued most was how she made room for me to focus on the things that mattered. We spent real time collaborating at the foundation level, where every word counts and a company builds on what you get right. Shannon is refreshingly direct, and she treated me as the subject matter expert and worked to amplify that rather than talk over it.

She also helped me refine my own role and responsibilities, something I'd been wrestling with, and that clarity made me better at the job. When a challenge felt complicated, she had a way of cutting it down to what actually mattered. She made hard things feel simple, and she made the work genuinely fun.

In the Agentic AI Governance space, the language is nuanced and the line between competitors and potential partners takes real expertise to read. Shannon took the time to absorb it, understand it, challenge it, and then advise and coach from there. That, to me, is the difference between a top CMO and all the others.

SSC Consulting came into our early stage startup to help on multiple fronts. Most relevant to the work we accomplished together was the evolution we needed to take as a brand into a provider of agentic AI oversight.

SSC's approach was methodical. From our first meeting, we discussed our goals for the engagement and desired outcomes. Those included updated messaging, new branding, and associated assets to help enable our sales team through the transition.

Their approach wasn't overly prescriptive. Shannon wanted to understand our pain points as a marketing department. She took the time to understand what was working well, what we had tried (and abandoned), and where we felt the company needed to push with its marketing operations. From that discovery, we mapped out deliverables and a workable timeline for the rollout of the new messaging and associated marketing material.

Beyond what SSC did, however, is the deep experience and insight they were able to offer, drawing from their experience working with startups at our stage. Beyond the measurable results, which included an accelerated pipeline and a significant boost in inbound leads, we were able to draw on SSC's experience in what to avoid, where to cut costs, where other startups like us had found success in marketing investments, and how to rapidly mature, automate, and optimize our marketing ops.

An added benefit of working with SSC was that it was fun. Pure and simple. So often in our work, we're driven by bottom-lines and results. They lead with a people-first approach and they're unafraid to tell you when something's not working/not worth it, and to advocate for the ideas that are going to drive revenue.

For any founder looking to understand how to get the most out of their marketing operations, I would highly recommend SSC. The impact was immediately felt, the results were billboard-worthy, and their expertise in how to maximize marketing success for startups is unmatched.

Shannon was instrumental in helping us bring clarity and structure to our marketing at a critical stage of the company. She provided sharp strategic guidance on messaging, positioning, and how we communicate our value to the market. Beyond strategy, she was hands-on in helping shape key materials, including our fundraising announcement and broader narrative. Her ability to quickly understand the business and translate it into clear, compelling messaging made a real difference. I’d highly recommend her to any founder looking for experienced marketing leadership without hiring a full-time marketing person

Working with Shannon was a total value add for the team. She jumped right into the deep end and immediately helped us reposition our "voice", refreshing our messaging so it actually landed with our audience.

Beyond the strategy, she was a massive help in the trenches, unblocking our case studies and getting them across the finish line.

Most importantly? She got our broader team out of their silos and moving in the same direction. If you need someone to clear the fog and get your marketing engine actually running, hire Shannon.

Shannon has been pivotal in designing and creating the PR related motions to get a seed series announcement out to the media, a revised and much-improved go-to-market messaging, and a new website design.

She can steer strategic conversations with a high-touch approach, balancing what the founders´ inputs are and what is best for the project, while producing high-quality material and everything in between.

While working with her, you can tell she is a quick learner; she has a great natural feeling for how to handle VC-backed projects and all that it entails.
She is witty, energetic, and delivers on her promises. I have enjoyed greatly working with her.

Working with Shannon and SSC Consulting helped our navigate key strategic challenges and bring much needed clarity to areas we’d been struggling to prioritize. Shannon's fractional marketing leadership provided a fresh perspective and ensured our efforts were better aligned with our broader business goals. As a result, we saw a noticeable improvement in how we approached planning and execution, and our team gained new confidence in our direction. We’d absolutely recommend SSC Consulting to other founders looking to strengthen their marketing foundation and elevate their overall strategy.

Shannon has been the fractional CMO at Blue Onion for the past year. I've had the absolute pleasure working with her here in my role as the head of demand marketing (fun fact: she recruited me into this role, so don't lose sight of her recruiting skills, too). Shannon and I met while working at OpenView VC in 2021 and I've learned an immeasurable amount from her in the past 4 years. She can step in as player-coach, help navigate challenges at the exec level, and mentor and advise on career growth and team development. During her time advising Blue Onion, she has focused on organizing and aligning the exec leadership team beyond just marketing, but around our entire go-to-market strategy. She's personally helped coach me to be more impactful with our CEO, our board members, and the team overall. She's enabled my growth personally for many years, but I'm grateful she's supported me and our team across many milestones the past year–from pre-series A, through a $10M fundraise, and most recently a GTM strategy re-alignment. She is not afraid of the tough conversations, the hard work, and she's focused on impact for both herself and the teams she supports. I'd hire Shannon again and again to lead marketing, to advise on strategy, to step in and build a marketing function from scratch, and to grow the people she invests in.

Whenever I partner on a project with Shannon and SSC Consulting, I know things are going to proceed smoothly.

Shannon has this innate ability to match whatever energy a given project needs. Corporate boardroom one day, startup garage the next.

Whether you're a founder talking a full brand overhaul or a new head of marketing needs advice, Shannon can help make complex work look simple and (more importantly) the simple work stays simple.

Shannon is an incredible strategist who is able to fully wrap her arms around a business, drive strategy from a high-level perspective, and zoom into tactics that create value & ROI. The trifecta. We've worked with Shannon across several clients and she always brings a positive energy that makes work together enjoyable. Anyone would be lucky to have her as an advisor and fractional CMO!