MARKETING PERFORMANCE DIAGNOSTIC

Find the move most likely to improve commercial performance.

When marketing should be producing more - or you're approaching an important decision about an agency, a hire, budget, positioning or where to invest next - the right answer is not always the most obvious one.

Over 21 days, I investigate what is actually driving the situation, identify where the greatest leverage sits and turn the evidence into a clear decision about what to Stop, Keep, Change and Increase next.

You leave with the decision, the evidence behind it and a focused 90-day sequence for acting on it.

Discuss a Diagnostic→

21 daysEvidence-ledFocused on one consequential decisionStandalone engagement

WHEN TO USE IT

Use it when the next marketing decision could materially change what happens next.

You do not need a Diagnostic every time marketing could be improved.

It is designed for situations where there is a meaningful commercial outcome at stake, more than one credible path forward and enough uncertainty that making the wrong change could send time, money or people in the wrong direction.

Pipeline or commercial performance should be stronger

Marketing activity is substantial, but qualified demand, pipeline or revenue contribution is not where you expect it to be.

The question is whether the biggest opportunity sits in demand generation, customer selection, positioning, conversion, sales - somewhere else.

You're deciding what to do about an agency

You may be replacing, expanding or reassessing an existing relationship.

Before changing suppliers, you want to know whether changing the agency will actually improve the result, and what the relationship needs to accomplish.

You're considering a significant marketing hire

Perhaps you're considering a Head of Marketing, demand-generation hire or another material addition to the team.

You want to know whether more capacity, different capability or stronger leadership is really the next move.

You're deciding where additional budget should go

You are prepared to invest more, but there are several credible places to put the resources.

The question becomes:

Where is the next dollar most likely to create commercial leverage?

You're approaching a strategic marketing shift

A new market. Different positioning. A change in customer focus. A major channel decision. A restructure of the marketing function.

Before committing the organization to the change, you want greater confidence that the change is pointed at the right opportunity.

The cost of getting one of these decisions wrong is rarely limited to the decision itself. It is the spend, people, complexity and future decisions that get built around it. Get it right, and the next resources can compound a stronger direction instead.

THE ENGAGEMENT

A set of executive decision assets, not another marketing report.

The Diagnostic is not packaged as a long audit followed by a presentation of everything that could be improved.

Across the 21 days, the investigation is translated into a set of practical assets designed to help leadership reach and act on one consequential decision.

Commercial performance map

Defines:

What the business needs marketing to contribute
What is actually happening today
Where the meaningful gap or opportunity sits

It establishes the commercial question the rest of the Diagnostic needs to answer.

Evidence & cause review

Shows:

Which plausible causes or strategic options were investigated
What the available evidence supports
What the evidence makes less likely
Why the final conclusion is stronger than the obvious alternatives

You can see how the conclusion was reached.

Highest-leverage finding

Identifies the issue, condition or opportunity currently most likely to change the commercial result.

things that could be betterfromthe thing that deserves attention first.

It also identifies the important dependencies around the decision so leadership understands what needs to become true before other investments make sense.

Marketing investment decision map

Translates the finding into a small number of explicit resource decisions.

STOPWhat should pause or go.Unjustified, distracting or reinforcing the wrong problem.

KEEPWhat should be protected.Functioning sufficiently well and not worth disrupting.

CHANGEWhat needs to work differently.Direction, targeting, ownership, structure, measurement or connection.

INCREASEWhere more is supported.Now or once a specific dependency has been resolved.

The Map is deliberately selective. It is not an inventory of every marketing activity. It contains the handful of decisions that materially affect where money, people and attention should go next.

90-day priority sequence

Defines:

What happens first.
What should be stabilized or stopped.
Which change deserves priority.
Which investments remain conditional.
What leadership should monitor.
When the decision should be reassessed.

NOWFirst move

NEXTAfter dependency

LATERKeep visible

NOT NOWDeliberately defer

“We agree with the recommendation. Now what?”

Executive decision session

The engagement culminates in a leadership working session rather than a presentation of recommendations.

We review the evidence, challenge the conclusions where necessary and answer:

What are we going to do differently because of what we now know?

The purpose is to leave the room with a decision, not simply with information.

30-day performance checkpoint

Thirty days later, we reconnect to review:

What was actually implemented.
Whether the expected early signals are appearing.
What has changed since the decision.
Whether the original diagnosis still appears to hold.
Whether anything now needs to be adjusted.

The Diagnostic therefore does not end the moment the readout finishes.

The engagement in one lineCommercial objective → performance gap → evidence → highest-leverage finding → Stop / Keep / Change / Increase → 90-day sequence → decision → observation

Investment: a fixed fee, from $5,000, agreed before we start. The final fee depends on how many parts of the business the decision touches.

THE PROCESS

Focused on one decision. Flexible about where the evidence leads.

The Diagnostic starts with the commercial outcome you are trying to improve or the decision you need to make.

From there, I investigate only the areas that could materially change the answer.

That may involve reviewing existing commercial and marketing data, current strategy and plans, agency or team responsibilities, customer and pipeline evidence, previous decisions and relevant performance information.

I also speak with the people closest to the issue where their perspective is needed - often across leadership, marketing and sales.

The investigation then moves through four stages:

Define the commercial question

What are you trying to improve?
What does marketing need to contribute?
What decision are you currently considering?

Investigate what is driving the current situation

Which parts of the operation could realistically be influencing the result?
What does the evidence tell us?
Where do leadership assumptions, data and stakeholder perspectives agree or conflict?

Identify where the greatest leverage sits

Which change is most likely to improve the result now?
What should stay untouched?
What dependencies need to be resolved before additional investment makes sense?

Turn the finding into a decision

The conclusion becomes:

THE CONCLUSION BECOMES

StopKeepChangeIncrease

→

NowNextLaterNot Now

The work follows the evidence rather than a predetermined checklist. If the investigation shows that the issue sits somewhere different from where we expected at the beginning, I follow it there.

TIME TO VALUE

The picture should start getting clearer during the engagement.

You shouldn’t have to wait three weeks while the work disappears into a black box.

The final recommendation still comes after the evidence has been properly investigated.

But you should begin making a better sense of the situation well before the final decision session.

CLIENT INVOLVEMENT

Serious enough to reach a credible answer. Light enough to run alongside the business.

I work primarily from evidence your company already has.

You do not need to build new reporting specifically for me, prepare a giant strategy document or pull your leadership team into weeks of workshops.

INDEPENDENCE

The recommendation
does not have to become another engagement with me.

The purpose of the Diagnostic is to help you make the right decision, not manufacture the next project.

If additional work with me would genuinely help, we can discuss it afterward.

If it would not, the Diagnostic has still done its job.

01Keep the agency.

02Change what the agency is being asked to do.

03Hire a particular capability.

04Defer the hire.

05Reallocate the existing budget.

06Invest more behind something already working.

07Change positioning or customer focus.

08Let your internal team handle the solution.

09Bring in another specialist.

10Address a temporary senior marketing-leadership gap.

11Or conclude that marketing is not currently the primary constraint.

The recommendation follows the evidence. Not the service I happen to sell.

My independence policy
1. The Diagnostic is a fixed fee. I earn nothing from what I recommend you do next.
2. I take no referral fees, commissions or payments from agencies, freelancers, platforms or software.
3. If the findings point to work I could do, I will say so, and will describe what a capable alternative would look like. You are free to hire someone else, including your current agency.
4. If I recommend an agency or specialist, I will tell you whether I have worked with them and anything that could affect my objectivity.
5. The findings are yours. You may share them with anyone, including other providers, at no charge.

21-DAY MARKETING PERFORMANCE DIAGNOSTIC

Put the next marketing resources behind the move most likely to improve performance.

If marketing should be producing more - or you're approaching an important decision about an agency, a hire, budget, positioning, channels or the structure of the marketing function - we can start by understanding the situation and what is actually at stake.

The first conversation is simply to determine whether the decision is important enough, uncertain enough and economically significant enough for a Diagnostic to be useful.

30 minutes. No audit. No predetermined solution.