Engagement 03 · Process overview
Who this is for
A small number of partnerships run at any one time. This is not a capacity constraint — it is a quality constraint. The founders accepted into this engagement are the ones where the work will genuinely compound. That requires a specific set of conditions to be true.
Four criteria
You are a D2C brand between $5M and $50M in annual revenue that has completed the Complete Marketing Audit — you have the diagnosis, and now you need the strategic layer to act on it and adapt as the brand scales
You have execution in place — paid, email, content, and creative are being run by someone, whether an agency, freelancers, or an in-house team — because this partnership directs strategy, it does not deliver execution
You are making or about to make CMO-level decisions — channel allocation, budget scaling, agency changes, team hires, new platform bets — and you want a senior thinking partner in the room before those calls are made, not after
You are prepared for a six-month minimum commitment and you understand why — because a 30-day engagement produces observations, and a six-month engagement produces a system
One thing that matters as much as the criteria above
You are open to being challenged. The founders who get the least from this partnership are the ones who want a sounding board that agrees with them. The founders who get the most are the ones who want someone who will tell them directly when the strategy is wrong, the brief is weak, or the agency is underperforming — and who will act on that input rather than defend the existing approach.
If all four criteria are true and you recognise yourself in that last paragraph, apply.
The premise
What this engagement actually is
This is an active strategic layer installed above your existing execution. I’m not replacing your agency, your freelancers, or your in-house team. I’m the strategic voice that tells them what to do, challenges what they’re doing, and connects the dots across every channel they’re each operating in isolation.
The foundation is the Complete Marketing Audit. Every gap we identified across paid, brand, content, and retention becomes the input for month one. We don’t start from scratch. We start from a diagnosis.
How the engagement is structured
The operating rhythm
The partnership runs on a weekly 1:1 — a 60 minute scheduled call, same time every week. This is not a status update call. It’s a working session. We use it to review what’s live, challenge what’s in progress, and make decisions on what comes next. Between calls, you have direct email access to me. Questions don’t queue until the next session.
Every 90 days, we pause and run a full-funnel review — a structured reassessment of the strategy, the channel allocation, and the growth priorities for the next quarter. This is separate from the weekly calls and treated as a strategic reset point.
Month by month — what actually happens
How the engagement develops over six months
The starting point is your audit. The synthesis document from the Complete Marketing Audit — the master priority list and the 90-day action plan — becomes the strategic brief for month one. The first session is not introductory. It’s operational.
By the end of month one, you have a clear operating system. Everyone on your team and every agency you work with knows where the strategic direction comes from.
The recommendations from the audit are being implemented. This is where the weekly call earns its value — because implementation always surfaces new questions, unexpected constraints, and decisions that weren’t in the original plan.
This is active input, not passive observation. If your agency is about to run a campaign strategy I disagree with, that conversation happens before it goes live, not in a post-mortem.
Enough has been in market long enough to read. Month three is where we separate what’s genuinely working from what looked promising. The 90-day review at the end of month three is the first structured strategic reset.
This is where the partnership pays off. The system is operating. The channels are connected. The gaps from the audit have been addressed. Now the work shifts from fixing to scaling — intelligently, with the full picture visible.
What I review and input on every month
Across every active channel
Paid acquisition
Meta, Google, and any other active paid channels. Creative strategy, campaign structure, audience logic, budget allocation, and scaling decisions. I review before briefs go out and before budgets move significantly.
Creative strategy
Reviewing briefs before they’re sent to creative teams, identifying angles your team hasn’t considered, flagging creative fatigue before it shows in the data.
Email and retention
Ongoing flow performance, campaign strategy, segmentation decisions, and lifecycle sequencing. Not executing the emails — directing the strategy behind them.
Brand and content
Ensuring your organic channels are building brand equity that lowers your paid acquisition cost over time, not just filling a content calendar.
Cross-sell and LTV
Identifying and implementing the revenue levers that exist in your existing customer base before going back to acquisition for more.
Amazon and partner platforms
Where applicable, input on marketplace strategy and how it integrates with your direct-to-consumer performance.
What happens on the weekly call
What you bring — what I bring
You don’t need a polished deck. You need a real question and the willingness to hear a direct answer.
The 6-month minimum — why it exists
The minimum runway for the return to show
Strategic compounding takes time. The first month builds the operating system. The second month activates it. Month three is the first real inflection point. Months four through six is where the growth system starts to self-reinforce.
A 90-day engagement produces a list of good ideas. A 6-month engagement produces a marketing system that operates at a higher level than when we started — and a team that understands why.
The 6-month minimum is not a lock-in. It’s the minimum runway required to deliver the return that justifies the investment.
What this engagement is not
Setting expectations clearly
Not execution. I don’t run your ads, write your emails, or produce your content. I direct the strategy behind all of it.
Not a course or programme. There are no frameworks to complete, no modules to work through. It’s live, applied thinking against your brand’s actual problems.
Not open to every applicant. A small number of partnerships run at any one time to ensure the quality of input doesn’t dilute.
Not a substitute for execution capacity. If you don’t have an agency, freelancers, or an in-house team who can implement, the partnership has no lever to pull.
After 6 months
Three paths at the end of the initial engagement
If the brand is still finding new growth ceilings and the partnership is still the right strategic layer, we continue on the same terms.
Some brands reach operational stability where they need less frequent input. A lighter-touch arrangement can be discussed at the 6-month mark.
If the system is operating independently and the team has the capability to maintain it — that’s a successful outcome. The goal was never dependency.
Ready to apply?
Complete the application. I review every submission personally.
