FOR B2B FOUNDERS WHOSE GROWTH HAS STALLED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN $1M AND $15M
Advisory: Ask What to Do Next in Marketing and Sales. I'll Tell You, in Order, With 27 Years of Quota Behind Me.
Your team can do the work. What's missing is someone who's done it telling you what comes next. Ask me, and I'll tell you what, in what order, and why. Then bring me the big calls before you commit: the plan before you fund it, the leader before you hire them.
I've run marketing and sales in every revenue role I've held since 1999. When a decision can't wait, phone me, and I'll ring you back within ninety minutes.
Your team keeps reporting to you, and the number stays yours. Remote and month to month. If it isn't working, don't renew.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
As Seen In
TechCrunch
Forbes
Inc.
Fast Company
Hired to fix revenue
It grew every time
2020
Fractional CMO & CRO
2–6×
Pipeline · 6 years
2018
Chief Revenue Officer
+300%
2 years
2015
VP of Sales & Marketing
+107%
2 years
2014
EVP Sales & Marketing
+300%
1 year
2006
VP Channel & Business Development
+600%
8 years
1999
Global Sales Director
+400%
7 years
$1B+
Revenue at companies where I led revenue teams
27 years
Carrying quota, never missed
Everyone Has an Opinion About Your Marketing and Sales. Nobody Tells You What to Do Next.
You know you need marketing and sales. You know they aren't really you.
You have a team that can do the work. What they're waiting on is you: what to do next, and in what order. Ads or outbound? A new hire or an agency? Fix the message first, or the website? Nobody expects a founder to have answered those before.
So you ask around. Your board, your investors and the agency pitching you all have an answer, and the agency's comes with a retainer. Each one tells you what to do. Nobody tells you what to do first, and you're the one who pays when the order's wrong.
Before you hire anyone or buy anything, find out what comes first.
What Comes First Isn't a Guess. It's the RevenueEngine™, and I've Run Revenue by It Since 1999.
Over 27 years of running marketing and sales, I built one framework for deciding what comes next. I call it the RevenueEngine™: four fixes, always in the same order, so every dollar goes to the fix that comes next. I've used it in every revenue role I've held since 1999, at companies that did more than $1B in revenue while I led their revenue teams, and revenue grew in every one, somewhere between 107% and 600%.
Most of the expensive mistakes I see are out-of-order fixes. For example: an agency hired before you've decided who you're for, or more ads while the message isn't landing. The money goes into a leak you can't see yet.
Positioning comes first: who you're for and why you win.
Not every company I've worked for needed all four fixed. Every one of them needed them in that order.
In advisory, I help you work out where you are in it and what to fix, tell you what to do, and look over what your team has done before you commit. Your team does the fixing. If you'd rather I did the fixing, that's a role: Fractional CMO for marketing, Fractional VP of Sales for sales, or Fractional CRO for both.
Ask Someone Who's Run Both What to Do Next
Me
Keep deciding alone
Ask your board and investors
A CEO peer group or coach
Another advisor
Bring me the questions that are expensive to guess at: what to do next, and the calls that cost real money. And if the work itself isn't getting done, none of these five will fix it.
You need a leader: one you hire or promote, or me: Fractional CMO if it's marketing, with your marketing team reporting to me; Fractional VP of Sales if it's sales, with your sales team reporting to me; or Fractional CRO if it's marketing and sales, with both heads reporting to me.
If you'll keep running sales yourself, bring me those decisions too. Not sure whether you need advice or a leader? Get WeekZero™ →
Ask Me What's Next. Bring Me the Plan, the Leader and the Board Slide Before You Commit.
What to do next, in what order. Ask me what you should do about marketing or sales, and you get an answer: what to do, in what order, and why, measured against the four steps. Your team builds it.
Each big decision gets my recommendation and my reasons before you commit. You still make the call. Bring me your plan before you fund it, whether it's marketing's, sales' or the one your agency just sent, and I'll check it against the order the fixes go in and tell you what I'd change and why.
When you hire a marketing or sales leader, I'll check the job description and sit in on the final interview. Before the board slide on marketing and sales goes out, I'll check that too. I've run the board meeting as a chief revenue officer.
Marketing, sales, or both: whichever side your big decisions land on.
A direct line, for you. When a decision can't wait for the next meeting, pick up the phone: a deal you were counting on slips, a leader quits, a competitor raises a round, a campaign falls over. I'll ring you back within ninety minutes, and answer email within a day. Responsive, not on call.
The line is yours as CEO. Your leaders get me in the leadership meeting, unless you want them on the line too, which moves the price.
A strategy session with you every month, and a leadership meeting every other week. The leadership meeting is you and whoever runs your marketing and your sales. That's how it usually runs. I'm there so your team hears what I'd have them build next. They still report to you.
Every quarter, we read your plan against what actually happened: what held, what didn't, and what changes next quarter.
After Every Meeting, the Decisions and My Recommendations Go in Writing
That's the only paperwork. I don't send reports or decks.
Decision
Hire a demand-generation agency this quarter?
My recommendation
Not yet. Fix who you're for first.
Why
An agency will buy clicks for the message you have, and it isn't landing.
An example, not a client.
What isn't in Advisory
- Anyone reporting to me: your teams and agencies stay exactly where they are.
- A number: none on your board slide is mine.
- Doing the work: I tell your team what to build; your team builds it. I don't configure the CRM or write the sequences.
- Being on site: every engagement is remote.
- Building it: when advice turns into building something, that's work for your team, or for a leader who owns it.
- Hours: I don't sell them, count them or report them.
If your team can do the work and what you need is someone to tell you what's next, this is enough. If the work isn't getting done, advice won't be enough: When Not to Buy This ↓
Ninety Days to Your First Quarterly Read
It starts after WeekZero™, once we both know advice is what you need. Then you pick the term, paid in advance: month to month, which you can stop at the end of any month, or a quarter or half a year at a lower fee.
The First Big Decisions on Your Action Plan
The first strategy session, and the leadership meetings start. We start from the action plan WeekZero™ left you: the first big decisions on it get my recommendation, and so does any decision that can't wait.
Where Your Plan Should Change
Once the first results are in, I tell you where your plan should change, and the decisions that were waiting on them get my recommendation.
What Your Plan Got Right and Wrong
The first quarterly read, and why. I go through the board slide before it goes, and we line up next quarter's big decisions.
The Next Quarter's Big Decisions
Advice carries on for as long as your team is doing the fixing. If that changes, I'll tell you. You can hire a leader yourself, and I'll go through the job description and sit in on the final interview.
Or, if you'd rather I did the fixing, that's a role: Fractional CMO, with your marketing team reporting to me; Fractional VP of Sales, with your sales team reporting to me; or Fractional CRO, with your heads of marketing and sales reporting to me and me reporting to you. You can switch at the end of any month, and what's left of a prepaid term goes toward the role.
If you already know the work isn't getting done, don't start here.
Advice From Someone Who's Carried a Quota for 27 Years and Run the Board Meeting as a CRO
Early in my management career, a senior executive chased me down a hallway to tell me the executive team could spot a “Perry-hire” a mile away. I took it as a compliment. In hindsight, I was building clones.
I've watched a lot of founders who can sell do the same with their sales teams since: hire mini-mes, keep doing the selling while the mini-mes watch, and hire more of the same when the number doesn't move. It's why the leader you're about to hire is one of the first calls I want to see.
I've built or rebuilt the sales organization at every company that's employed me, and I've run marketing and sales in every revenue role I've held since 1999.
It's one person on both sides: no associates and no bench, so the person you're talking to now is the one in every meeting.
$8,000 a Month at Most. A Leader Starts at $10,000, and Only If the Work Needs One.
$6,000 to $8,000 a month.
Month to month, or paid in advance for less:
A quarter: $16,200 to $21,600 (10% off).
Half a year: $30,000 to $40,000 (six months for the price of five).
Nobody reports to me: your team keeps reporting to you, and the number stays yours.
Growth-stage advisory in this market runs $5,000 to $15,000 a month.
Where you land in the range depends on which decisions you bring me (marketing, sales, or both), how many products and segments they span, and who besides you gets the direct line, not on what you've raised. What moves the price →
Paid in advance, whichever term you pick. No minimum term on the monthly option, no notice period, no equity, no severance, no bonus. Remote: I'm in your leadership meetings and your documents, not your building. Hours are never billed or counted.
Advice costs less than hiring a leader. If your team can't do the work, you'll pay for both.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
When Not to Buy This
I'd rather say this now than after you've paid.
The work isn't getting done. If there's no team to do the work, or they can't do it yet, advice won't fix that. You need someone to own it.
If it's marketing, that's Fractional CMO, $10,000 to $18,000 a month, with your marketing team reporting to me and your head of sales still reporting to you: Fractional CMO →
If it's marketing and sales, that's Fractional CRO, $20,000 to $32,000 a month, with your heads of marketing and sales reporting to me and me reporting to you: Fractional CRO →
If it's sales alone, that's Fractional VP of Sales, $10,000 to $18,000 a month: your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you. Fractional VP of Sales →
Marketing and sales are blaming each other. A leadership meeting every other week won't settle an argument between two people who both report to you. Someone has to be over both. In Fractional CRO, both of them report to me.
You want someone to answer for the number. In advisory, nobody does but you. If you want it to be someone else's, you need a role.
Your customers don't love you yet. If you're still finding out whether the market wants what you built, what to do next is upstream of marketing.
You want someone on site. Every engagement is remote. If the situation needs a person in the building, buy that instead.
You want a yes. I'll give you my reasons, and sometimes they'll disagree with you. If what you need is someone to approve a plan that's already decided, I'm an expensive way to get one.
You won't let me talk to your customers. The free week includes conversations with customers you've won and lost. If that's off the table, I'm the wrong fit.
Not sure whether one of these is you? WeekZero™ tells you whether it's advice or a leader before you've paid me anything.
Marketing Advisor Questions Founders Ask Before They Ask Me What to Do Next
“My board and investors give me advice for free.”
Keep taking it. Some of it will be the best advice you get.
What they aren't there to do is go through your marketing plan before you fund it, sit in your leadership meetings, or tell you which of the four steps you're on. I do all three. And if one of them has run marketing and sales at a company your size, ask them first.
“Won't your advice always end with me hiring you for the bigger role?”
No. I can't make you hire anyone, and I won't try. If advice stops being enough, I'll tell you, and why.
Whether you hire a leader, and who it is, is your call: someone you promote, a full-time hire, or me. WeekZero™ says advice or a leader before you've paid anything, and if your company should stay on advisory, I'll say that too.
“How much of you do we actually get?”
Me, on what to do next and on your big decisions, whenever they come up. The meetings on this page are how the month usually runs, and a decision doesn't have to wait for one. After each one, the decisions and my recommendations go on a list. You hold me to the list, I'll manage my time.
“Can I pick up the phone whenever something comes up?”
Yes, when it's a decision that can't wait for the next meeting. I'll ring you back within ninety minutes and answer email within a day. That's responsive, not on call. If you're phoning about running things rather than deciding them, that's the sign you need one of the roles, and I'll say so.
“What if your advice is wrong?”
Sometimes it will be. You get my recommendation and my reasons before you commit, so you can argue with it before any money moves. Every quarter we read the plan against what happened and change it. And when I don't know, I'll say so, and tell you what I've done in the past to find out.
“Now that we know what's wrong, we can do it ourselves.”
Good. That's what advisory is for. You do the work, and I tell you what's next and check the big calls before you make them. The action plan from WeekZero™ is yours either way. But you don't know what's around that next corner. What advisory adds is judgment when that corner comes, from someone who's already made that mistake on somebody else's number.
“We've hired people before who said they'd fix this.”
Did they tell you how before they started? The order I'd fix it in is published on this site, and WeekZero™ applies it to your company before you've paid anything. If you disagree with the action plan, you find out while it's still free.
“What if it doesn't work?”
Then you don't renew. On the monthly term, that's the end of any month. I don't guarantee outcomes. Nobody honest does.
Marketing Advisors: What They Do and What They Cost
What is a marketing advisor?
Someone who tells you what to do next in marketing and sales, and checks the big decisions before you make them, while you keep running the team. An advisor owns no function and carries no number. Before you hire one, ask two things: whether they've run marketing and sales themselves, and who in your company they'll meet with.
What does a marketing and sales advisor do?
A good one works with you and your leadership team on a regular rhythm (mine is the one on this page), tells you what to do next and in what order, goes through your plan before you fund it, and gives you a recommendation on the big decisions before you commit: the senior hires, the agencies, the budget, the slide your board will see.
They'll also tell you which problem comes first, because money spent on a later step leaks away while an earlier one is broken.
How much does a marketing advisor cost?
Growth-stage advisory retainers in this market run $5,000 to $15,000 a month. Fractional CMOs and CROs also sell advisory tiers by the hours a week, from $3,000 to $8,000. Some early-stage advisors are paid in equity.
Mine is $6,000 to $8,000 a month, less by the quarter or the half-year, remote, with your team still reporting to you and nothing billed by the hour. No equity, either: my advice isn't tied to your cap table.
Do you advise on sales alone?
Yes. If you keep running sales, I check your sales decisions before you make them, and your team builds what I recommend. If your sales team needs a VP of sales, that's a role: your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you. Fractional VP of Sales →
What's the difference between an advisor and a fractional CMO?
The reporting lines. A fractional CMO sits over marketing: the marketing team reports to them, the head of sales keeps reporting to the CEO, and marketing's number is theirs. An advisor sits over nothing. You keep running it, and the advisor tells you what to do next and checks the calls.
If your team can do the work and what you need is direction, you need an advisor. If the work isn't getting done, you need someone to run it, and an advisor is the wrong buy at any price: The fractional CMO role →
What's the difference between an advisor and a consultant?
A consultant does a defined piece of work to a finish line: a strategy, an audit, a deck. An advisor stays alongside while you do the work yourself. If you need one thing built, that's work for your team or a leader. If you need to know what's next, and your calls checked as they come up, that's advice.
Is a marketing advisor the same as a business coach or a CEO peer group?
No. A coach works on you as a leader, and a peer group gives you other CEOs' experience across the whole job. A marketing and sales advisor works on the marketing and sales decisions in front of you. Some CEOs have both, because they're different jobs.
Should I get an advisor before hiring a full-time CMO?
A full-time CMO at a company your size costs $310,000 to $410,000 a year fully loaded, plus equity, and takes three to six months to find, so it's worth checking the job before you fill it.
An advisor can check the job description against the job you actually need done, sit in on the final interview, and tell you whether marketing is ready for a full-time leader or needs building first: The full comparison →
How long does an advisory engagement last?
Month to month if you like, with no minimum term, or a quarter or half a year at a lower fee. It ends when you stop renewing, or when you'd rather I did the fixing and switch to one of the roles.
Can a marketing advisor work remotely?
Yes. Every engagement I run is remote. Recent engagements have been across the US and in Europe.
Before You Hire a Marketing Advisor, Find Out Whether You Need Advice or a Leader
It's called WeekZero™. Other firms charge to find what's broken. The closest published price is a demand agency's six-week revenue assessment: $35,000. Mine takes a week, and it's free.
Before you spend anything, I'll spend a week judging your marketing and sales the way someone who's carried a quota for 27 years judges them: your numbers, your plan, and conversations with you, the people who run your marketing and your sales, and your customers: deals you won and lost, and prospects who bought and who didn't.
Then an hour with you: here's what's working, here's what isn't, here's the order I'd fix it in, here's the action plan. It's yours to keep, whether you hire me or not.
It ends on one of three answers: your team can do the work and you need someone to tell you what's next; the work isn't getting done and you need a leader, whoever that turns out to be; or you don't need me at all.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
I work with B2B companies between $1M and $15M whose customers already love them.