Traction Advisory

Whenever I share that I'm a Fractional CRO/CMO, people naturally ask: "what type of clients do you work with?" I used to hem and haw in my response, worried that any sort of explicit answer would remove me from opportunity. But my indirect, generic responses meant no one knew what to do with me or who to introduce me to. Most importantly, no one could connect the dots between my 20+ years of operational GTM experience and my deep passion for supporting mission-led orgs that serve women & families. Now, I simply say: "If it has a stigma, I want to help." Ironically, turns out - this specificity makes my addressable market huge. Fertility. Infertility. Motherhood. Non-motherhood. Breastfeeding. Formula. Gender pay gap. Parental leave. Ageism. Periods. Menopause. Abortion. Childcare. Caregiving. Death Doulas. Divorce. Women's wealth creation. Mental health. And you better believe it…S-E-X I'm delighted to keep the Bay Area fundraising torch going for the Women's Health PAC by hosting an amazing event on the topic of "Sexual Wellness After 40" alongside fab co-hosts Jessica Karr, Rachel Lehmann Haupt and Jennifer Garrison. Our speakers are 🔥 🔥 🔥... ✔️ Lyndsey Harper, MD, FACOG, IF - OB/GYN and Founder and CEO of Rosy Wellness ✔️ Rachel Gelman, PT, DPT, CSC - Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist and Founder, Pelvic Wellness & Physical Therapy If you're looking to meet local movers & shakers within women's health, are excited to learn from two amazing sexual wellness experts, you enjoy delicious food & wine - AND - want to support WHPAC's incredible cause…this night is for you! (Hot tip: the gift bags are shapely up nicccccely…) Get your tickets quickly: capacity is limited to only 30 people! https://lu.ma/dnbiuso1 #sexualwellness #sexualhealth #womenshealth #womenshealthpac

Status quo behaviors create status quo outcomes. Growth doesn't always mean radical change, but it does mean stepping out of your comfort zone. As the saying goes: what got you here won't get you there. How does a team step out of its comfort zone to try new things for the business without losing ground in maintaining the day-to-day? Answer: experimentation. Here's a super distilled 3-step approach to establishing an experimentalist mindset on your team... 1. Embrace Curiosity: Start by cultivating a genuine interest in learning. Ask questions about the processes and behaviors around you, and explore relevant business data you have available. Practicing curiosity is a foundational skillset for being able to identify new growth levers versus dismissing out-of-the-box ideas as potential risks of failure. 2. Set Small Challenges: Take incremental steps outside your comfort zone. Set achievable goals that encourage you to experiment with new approaches in fairly contained environments. These small challenges will build your team's confidence, provide valuable insights, and ignite the internal behaviors required for driving growth. 3. Reflect and Adjust: After each experiment, take the time to reflect on the outcomes. Identify what worked, what didn’t, and why. Use the new insights to adjust your strategies moving forward, creating a continuous, new cycle of improvements and feedback loops. Sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective to identify the necessary shifts and help teams adopt these new behaviors. I love this part of my work as a fractional CRO; unlocking the potential in hungry teams and helping set the course of internal action toward growth. As your business digs deep to press for growth during this tight economic climate, leverage experimentation to de-risk new ideas, test outlier growth hypotheses and gain valuable new learnings about your customers. And, if your team needs help, reach out! #StartupGrowth #FractionalLeadership

Thrilled to be co-leading the Bay Area Women's Health PAC efforts! Our inaugural SF event is on September 12th; join us! https://lu.ma/cdrs38xa

Gender Fair is proud to have worked with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Accenture along with Philips, L'Oréal, ODI, Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), United Nations Global Compact, United Nations Foundation, Global Fairness Initiative and Responsible Business Alliance on developing a groundbreaking scorecard of indicators and metrics for companies to track progress and build accountability on key social issues in the workplace including maternity leave, fertility treatments and sexual harassment protocols. Gender Fair is a member of UNFPA's Coalition for Reproductive Justice in Business which launched at World Economic Forum in January 2023. See the full policy paper to access the indicators and tools here: https://unf.pa/asp Link to press release in comments below. 

Do you struggle to find time for networking? But, know you need to do more of it? Awhile back, I read a NYT article about lowering the barrier to entry for staying connected with long distant friends with an 8 minute phone call...and a lightbulb went off. Turns out, 8 minutes are *also* the perfect sweet spot for efficient and powerful first impressions. The bonus: it avoids creating the back to back zoom fatigue that virtual networking can often produce. Here's how it goes: 👋 - 2 min for intros 📝 - 4 mins of conversation with a prompt like: "What are you excited for me to know about you?"; be sure to get a TL;DR 1-liner as the takeaway ❓ - 2 mins for close, leading with the question "How can I best serve and support you these days?" Given the agreed-to short format, I've found people are surprisingly open, curious and honest in these conversations. So now, when my schedule feels jam packed - but the business requires staying active in expanding my community - I lean on the 8-minute virtual hello. 📍 *** The most important part *** 📍 Honor the timeline. If the conversation has legs and needs more time, that's great - but, schedule more time. Keep to the initial 8 minute commit; it builds trust with your new connection. Skeptical that it works? Try it...and let me know how it goes! (Thanks to Thrive Global for featuring me in this roundup and, as always, for Dreamers & Doers® for making the opportunity possible. Check out the other leaders' tips and suggestions in the article, linked in comments) 🌟 #Networking #Efficiency #TimeManagement 

Thrilled to be on the Advisory Board of this organization CareSprint, bringing much needed attention & focus to the caregiving ecosystem. As we know, what gets measured, gets managed. CareSprint can help organizations turn their talent 'care' data into a talent advantage. Some fantastic resources below; check them out!

🚨 Launch alert. Our report, ‘The Motherload: The Weight of Limited Postpartum Support’, goes live today. We joined with Motherly® to chat with over 1,000 US moms about their postpartum journeys. Spoiler—the current support systems have more hurdles than helping hands. This needs to change, and it starts here. 💪 Why? Because motherhood isn’t a solo gig—raising the next generation is a huge task, and it’s time the system got with the program. Check the report to see where the systems are holding moms up, and where they're letting them down - and how women can best advocate for themselves to navigate postpartum challenges (we know, you have to do everything around here, mamas). 👀 Ready to lighten The Motherload? Download the report now. 👉 http://spr.ly/6042wdHK4 #elvie #themotherload

Reppin' female founders all.day.long. 💫

Traction Advisory has had the honor of supporting Gender Fair: A Public Benefit Corporation these past several years - and, in particular, helped launch the Coalition for Gender Fair Procurement in partnership with forward-thinking organizations Logitech Zoetis Quinnox and Salesforce. Our goal is to leverage the TRILLIONS spent per year in corporate procurement to create greater gender equity within the supply chain. The group's efforts work alongside supplier diversity (today, only 6% of the corporate spend goes to diverse suppliers) and focuses on igniting action from the non-diverse vendor incumbents. For those looking for a new way to activate your ESG and DEI goals, reach out to learn more. https://lnkd.in/gkmVJsRT https://lnkd.in/g-GYRcg8

These are predictable moments in an organization's lifecycle... - Transitioning from Founder-led sales to a repeatable, scalable sales motion - Realizing (just when you need it most) that Marketing doesn't happen overnight - Having a long list of partners you'd love to collaborate with, but never do Which one are you currently struggling with? Or, if something else, would love to hear it! #startups #growth #growingpains