Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacy Sutton.
Hi Stacy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
There have been two constant themes in my life – marketing and helping others. On the marketing front, I’m one of those unusual people who knew what she wanted to do as a young child. I can remember hand-writing a newsletter for neighbors in our Denver cul-de-sac when I was around 6 years old, leaving copies on their front porches. I loved watching “Bewitched” as a kid, and I didn’t want to grow up to be Samantha (even with her magic!). I wanted to grow up to be Darren, who worked at an advertising agency, which was the most exciting thing I could imagine!
In terms of helping others, I think of this in two ways. First, helping people I know as well as friends-of-friends. I’m lucky to have a fairly large network, and nothing makes me happier than connecting two people who should know each other. I’ve helped a number of people find jobs, meet new friends, and get connected to resources that could serve them. I’ve joked that my spirit animal is a border collie – I’m constantly creating groups of people, herding them in a particular direction, and making sure no one gets left behind.
Second, I also feel called to help people I don’t know through volunteerism and donating to nonprofits. I’ve done everything from sorting food at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, to raising money for the Atlanta Women’s Foundation by participating in their “Inspire Atlanta” program, to making three humanitarian trips to the remote Agalta Valley in Honduras, to serving as Board Chair for Aurora Day Camp (Georgia’s only free, full-summer day camp for kids with cancer and their siblings). It brings me great joy to work alongside other people to try to make some small corner of the world better.
Career-wise, I did indeed work in advertising agencies for over a decade before learning search engine optimization (before Google was launched!) and starting my own search marketing agency, Prominent Placement (later rebranded to Big Drum). It started as just me working from my house and ended up with a dozen employees in great office space. Being a business owner was transformative – I can’t tell you how much I learned and grew through that experience.
(I also got to meet Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin during my unfortunate short hair stage – photo below.)
After 15 years, I sold Big Drum to Nebo and went client-side. I loved working at a couple of tech startups (healthcare IT and fintech), and helped spin up a venture studio before moving to private equity. At all these companies, I was in marketing and business development roles. Recently, I felt pulled to work for myself again and launched a fractional CMO and go-to-market advisory practice called Sutton Marketing.
By the way, this wonderful life that I’m privileged to live would be very, very incomplete without my two fantastic adult daughters, Cody and Katy, and my extended family, including two young grandchildren. I also feel incredibly lucky to have been with my amazing partner Benson for nearly a decade.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Is life ever a smooth road? I mentioned above how much I learned by owning Big Drum for 15 years – a lot of those lessons were learned the hard way. Launching and growing a business is definitely challenging. I mean, the agency survived the Great Recession, we worked with both wonderful and difficult clients, I hired and fired people, I struggled to make payroll at times, we won awards, we made mistakes, we generated amazing results for clients, we learned and grew. Looking back, there are definitely things I would have done differently, knowing what I know now. But, all in all, I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.
The five roles I’ve held since then have also been both wonderful and challenging. I’ve learned so many new industries, emerging technologies, different corporate cultures, and varied leadership styles. I’m convinced that most people should move around and take new roles in different companies. You learn so much, and it makes you more flexible and resilient.
Finally, in terms of struggles, the summer of 2015 is one I’ll never forget. During a three month period, my dad died unexpectedly, I got divorced, I sold Big Drum and joined Nebo, and I sold the house my daughters had grown up in and moved to a new home. I basically experienced all the major life changes that can cause major stress in a person’s life other than a significant illness. I look back and wonder how I made it through, but I did, and life has been good on the other side (other than continuing to miss my dad terribly).
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Sutton Marketing?
Sutton Marketing is a fractional CMO and go-to-market advisory practice. I work primarily with B2B services, professional services, and industrial companies that are growing but don’t yet have a clearly defined go-to-market strategy tying everything together.
A lot of companies at the $5M–$50M stage are doing plenty of marketing – running campaigns, attending trade shows, posting on LinkedIn – but no one is responsible for the architecture of the overall revenue engine. Sales is doing one thing, marketing is doing another, and customer success is somewhere else. My role is to step back and help leadership teams clarify how the entire system should work: who the company is really trying to serve, how it should position itself, how deals should flow through the pipeline, and how marketing and sales actually support revenue growth.
What makes my approach different is that I’ve sat on all sides of the table, as described above. I’ve led marketing inside operating companies, served on an investment committee inside a venture studio, evaluated companies for the private equity firm to consider investing in, and built and exited a business. That combination means I’m always thinking about what actually drives enterprise value – not just what generates activity.
Today I use the Go-To-Market Operating System developed by GTM Partners to guide much of my work. It’s a practical, 8-pillar framework that helps companies align leadership, sales, marketing, product, and customer experience around a shared growth strategy. When that alignment happens, companies grow faster, make better decisions, and build much more durable businesses.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I would call myself a moderate risk-taker. I mean, I’ve moved to a city where I knew no one twice as an adult, I’ve left a job without having another job three times, and I’ve chosen to work for myself three times. These are all scary things to do – sometimes deeply scary. But I keep reminding myself that every single time, I’ve been glad I took the risk because I’ve ended up in a better place. I have faith that will continue. I don’t ever want to look back and regret being too afraid to follow my gut and my heart.
That said, I’ve seen over and over again how much our culture and capitalism rewards those who are bigger risk-takers than I am. I’m not willing to go into debt or use other people’s money to build a business or take a risk. Those that are brave enough to do that are often highly rewarded…or they crash and burn. That’s not a rollercoaster I’m willing to get on.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.suttonmarketingllc.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacylsutton/
