Marketing, media and measurement · New York

See what a decision does to the whole business before you make it.

The media plan, the trade plan, the sales forecast and the finance model are each right on their own terms. When they still don't agree, nobody made a mistake; they were built in different rooms. Someone still has to stand up with one number.

I connect the plans your business runs on: what actually happened across every part, what it means for what comes next, and what it takes to plan from one picture. Planned, run and written down with the numbers you can stand behind. Below is how I think, what that looks like when it's done, and how it could work on your business.

Start with the thinking
How I think

Three habits behind every plan I put my name to.

01

Start with the whole business, not the channel.

A map drawn for a national manufacturer with a long purchase cycle, a dealer network and a community of owners. The whole market on the outside, paid media inside it, owned and borrowed audiences inside that, earned attention inside that, and the sale at the center. Every ring carries a target for what the plan should add. Nothing that moves the sale is left in another room.

How the parts of a business fit togetherFive nested rings: total market, paid media, owned and borrowed audiences, earned media and word of mouth, and retail. Each ring carries the lift the plan is expected to add to it.Total marketEveryone who could buy,and everyone who already hasThe plan addsreachPaid mediaBroadcast, streaming, print, display, search, socialExpected lift7%Owned and borrowedSite, email, app, dealer sites, partner audiencesExpected lift7 to 9%Earned and word of mouthCommunities, reviews, referrals, organic search, pressExpected lift8 to 12%RetailPoint of sale, dealer, onlineExpected lift10 to 15%Illustrative. Drawn from a plan for a national manufacturer with a dealer network. Each ring carried a current level and a target; the targets are shown, the levels are the client's.

Illustrative. Drawn from a plan for a national manufacturer with a dealer network.

02

Plan the year as options with ranges, and say where the growth comes from.

A retail brand's plan for the year, built three ways: the version that meets management's projection, a pull-back that leans on conversion, and a plus-up at twenty percent more. Each carries its split between building the brand and driving conversion, its reach against the goal audience, and the incremental revenue it is likely to return, as a range. Marketing's share of the growth is stated at the start, about a twelfth of sales with most of the incremental coming from distribution and other drivers, so each version is judged on what it can actually carry.

The year as three options, each with its likely rangeThree versions of an annual plan: the plan that meets the projection, a pull-back, and a plus-up. Each shows its split between building the brand and driving conversion, its reach against the goal audience, and its likely incremental revenue as a range indexed to the base plan. A side panel shows marketing's share of growth alongside distribution and other drivers.Three versions of the yearIndexed to the base plan, illustrativeMeet the projectionthe plan proposedBrand vs conversion60% brand40% conversionReach vs goal audience72% of goal, target 70%Likely incremental revenue100index vs base, likely 96 to 106Backs into management'sprojection with a modestmargin. Brand andconversion both funded.Pull backless brand, more conversionBrand vs conversion45% brand55% conversionReach vs goal audience57% of goal, target 70%Likely incremental revenue86index vs base, likely 82 to 90Cheaper in-year. Conversionrates level off in the backhalf as brand spend thins.Plus up 20%proportionally more of bothBrand vs conversion60% brand40% conversionReach vs goal audience80% of goal, target 70%Likely incremental revenue116index vs base, likely 110 to 122More households reachedand more revenue, if theadded lines absorb it.Where the growth comes fromstated up front, so nobody argues laterShare of incremental growth70 to 75% distribution and other drivers25 to 30% marketingMarketing's share of total salesabout 7.5%the midpoint of what mix modelsusually report for a brand this sizeWhat each version has to carryReach enough of the goal audienceConvert enough of them, mostly newReturn a range, not a pointHold up if a driver comes in light
Illustrative. Drawn from a retail brand's annual plan; figures indexed to the base version, no client spend or revenue shown.
03

Hold measurement to a finance standard, whatever the business looks like.

A B2B food safety business that grows by giving product away on trial: long cycles, three segments, contracts that lock accounts out for a year. Counting open trials as losses makes a good program look like it fails right before it pays. Counting mature cohorts on fully loaded costs tells the truth. The four steps are the same as for a consumer brand: measure honestly, diagnose, model, allocate.

The same program, measured two waysA B2B business growing through free product trials with long sales cycles. Counting open trials as losses shows a 17 percent conversion rate; counting only mature cohorts shows 29 percent. Beside it, the four steps: measure honestly, diagnose, model, allocate.The same trial program, measured two waysA B2B business that grows by giving product away on trial. Long cycles,three customer segments, contracts that lock accounts out for a year.Open trials counted as losses17%the standard read, and the one that gets good programs cut right before they payMature cohorts only, fully loaded cost29%the finance-standard read: honest denominator, trials given time to closeModeled business shaped like a real one; the failure mode is real, the figures are synthetic.The same four steps, whatever the business01MeasurehonestlyFully loaded costs.Mature cohorts,not averages.02DiagnoseWhat converts,what it costs,what is blocked.03ModelScenarios: mix,segment share,cycle timing.04AllocateEach dollar whereit returns most,this year and next.What changes when the business is B2BTrials and samples are the media. The sales cycle is the attribution window. Locked contracts are a calendar,not a loss. And the answer the owner needs is the same one a consumer brand needs: are we on pace, what closes the gap, where is the cheapest revenue.
Illustrative. Built for a food safety products business as a working demonstration on modeled data.

Most reports show what happened. The useful question is usually what the whole plan would look like under two or three options, and how likely each one is, before anyone commits to it.

See the work
The work

Three decisions, seen whole before the money moved.

A beauty brand, a global tea business, a subscription brand. Different sizes, different channels, the same problem: plans built in different rooms and one number somebody had to stand behind. Here is how each was connected, what changed, and what I would do differently now.

01

The whole business in one model

A retail beauty brand whose media, trade and distribution had never been planned together. Now they are.

3

marketing, sales and finance planning the year from the same model

How it was done
02

Eight years of evidence, five ways to spend the year

A global tea business planning its US media year on a decade of evidence rather than last year's plan, with more reach for less.

5

versions of the year, each with its likely return, before one was chosen

How it was done
03

One month of television, read two ways

A subscription brand spending about a million dollars a month on television, and a report that could not tell the brand buys from the response buys. Separating them changed the plan.

$118 to $108

likely cost per purchase after the reallocation, with the brand lines held

How it was done

Situations are real. Clients are not named and no confidential figures are shown; what is real is the shape of the problem, how it was worked, and what came out.

Ways to work together
Working together

The thinking, applied to your business.

A short engagement, a platform your team runs, or a seat inside the company. Which one fits depends on the decision in front of you, which is worth a conversation before either of us assumes.

01

Something is bothering you now

The Diagnostic · Two to three weeks, fixed scope

We look at how you measure today, find where it is misleading you, and hand you two or three reallocation scenarios with the likely range of each. Something you can act on straight away.

02

You want this running every month

GrowthOS · Licensed to your team, configured to your business

The platform version of the thinking on this page. One reconciled figure your whole team plans against, a confidence level on every number, and a plain recommendation each cycle on what to scale, hold, test or stop. Configured to how your business measures, plans and buys.

03

You want it inside the company

In-house · Full time or fractional

A role that owns how marketing and media dollars are planned, measured and defended together, rather than split across separate owners. Tell me the decision you are up against and I will send you my thinking on it before we talk.

Try the thinking

Three free tools. No form.

Each one uses the same rules as the work above on numbers you already have.

Your answer points you to Channel Checkup, Owned vs Rented, or Reallocation.

This is a shortcut, not a gate. Every tool stays open either way.

Free tool 01

Channel Checkup

Find which channels earn their budget.

Free tool 02

Owned vs Rented

See how much revenue can survive without paid spend.

Free tool 03

Reallocation

Test where the next dollar could work harder.

What comes next

Tell me the decision.

If you are weighing something and the numbers in front of you do not agree, write to me with the decision and I will reply directly. If you would rather look around first, the work above and the tools are there for that.

Try the free tools