Service 01 · Fractional CMO · CCO · CGO
Your commercial engine is broken. Not underfunded.
When ROI is negative or untracked, teams are misaligned and nobody can explain what the budget bought, the constraint is structural. More spend amplifies the fault. This is the work that fixes it.
In short: Commercial transformation is the diagnosis and rebuild of a commercial function that is producing activity rather than revenue. It covers attribution, the definition of a qualified opportunity, sales and marketing alignment, channel economics and operating rhythm. Typical engagement: two to three days a week over three to six months, with a written diagnosis inside the first fortnight.
You probably need this if
- Marketing ROI is negative, or nobody can calculate it with confidence
- Marketing and sales disagree about lead quality and the argument never resolves
- Budget increases produce more activity and the same revenue
- Reporting is full of channel metrics and thin on pipeline
- Several markets or segments are reported as one blended number
- Spend continues on channels nobody can defend, because stopping feels riskier than continuing
What actually gets fixed
The starting point is never a campaign. It is the definitions underneath the campaign — because if marketing and sales cannot agree what a qualified opportunity is, no amount of optimisation changes the number between them.
In practice the work runs in this order: establish what is actually happening, agree the definitions, stop what cannot be defended, then rebuild.
The counter-intuitive part
Most commercial turnarounds begin by removing rather than adding. Cutting spend that cannot be attributed improves the ratio immediately, frees budget for work that can be measured, and forces the definition conversation that everyone has been avoiding.
Proof
Marketing ROI moved from −18% to +22% in twelve months across five international markets. EBITDA grew from £1M to £5.2M. The fix was structural — two separate funnels for a two-sided business and one shared pipeline definition — not creative or channel. Read the Foodhub case study →
The sequence
How this runs
Every checkpoint is agreed before the engagement starts. You should never wait a quarter to find out whether it is working.
Week 1–2
Diagnose
Pipeline data, conversion by stage, channel economics, team structure and martech assessed. Conversations with you, sales and a sample of customers. Output is a written diagnosis and a prioritised roadmap — not a deck.
Week 3–4
Stop the leak
Unattributable spend is cut. This is where most of the early ROI movement comes from: the ratio improves faster from stopping than from starting, and it costs nothing.
Month 2
Rebuild definitions
One ICP, one pipeline definition, one set of stage criteria, agreed jointly with sales. This is the intervention that ends the lead-quality argument permanently.
Month 3+
Rebuild the engine
Channel mix reset against the corrected definitions. Attribution instrumented. Operating rhythm established. Weekly review against agreed outcomes.
Common questions
Questions about commercial transformation
How long does a commercial transformation take?
A written diagnosis lands within two weeks. Visible movement — spend rationalised, definitions agreed, metrics baselined — inside thirty days. Structural results are measurable at ninety days. A full swing from negative to positive ROI in a multi-market business realistically takes twelve months, as it did at Foodhub.
Is commercial transformation the same as a marketing audit?
No. An audit produces a report and ends. Commercial transformation includes the diagnosis but is defined by the rebuild that follows it — the definitions, the reallocation, the instrumentation and the operating rhythm. The deliverable is a changed number, not a document.
Do you need to replace the existing marketing team?
Rarely. Underperforming commercial functions usually contain capable people executing against the wrong definitions with nobody accountable for the outcome. Restructuring what they are measured on tends to resolve more than replacing who is doing it.
Related
Next step
Which of the five failure modes do you have?
Book a free thirty-minute revenue audit. I will identify the single biggest commercial constraint in your business and give you three things to act on — whether we work together or not.
Book your free audit30 minutes · No pitch · Actionable regardless of outcome