Situation
What was happening
The business had built its revenue on a single model. That model was mature, competitive pressure was increasing, and the obvious growth levers had already been pulled. Meanwhile the company was sitting on audience, data and partner relationships that were being monetised one way when they could be monetised several.
There was no marketplace commercial function and no advertising sales function. Not an underperforming one. None. The opportunity was visible to several people and owned by nobody, which is the most common way a business fails to enter an adjacent market.
Problem
Why it had not happened already
- No owner. The initiative appeared in plans as a priority without a named person accountable for it
- No commercial model. Nobody had worked out what was being sold, to whom, at what price, or how it would be delivered
- Different buyers. The new lines sold to media agencies and brand teams rather than the existing buyer, which the existing team was neither structured nor incentivised to reach
- Cross functional dependency. It could not be built without product and editorial, whose roadmaps had been set without it
- Capacity rather than capability. The people who could have built it were fully committed to protecting the core business
Actions
What I did
Defined what was actually being sold
Turned a vague adjacency into named products with a rate card, delivery mechanics and a margin, so that a salesperson could describe the proposition in one sentence and a client could buy it.
Built the commercial function
Defined the roles the new lines needed rather than mirroring the existing team, separated the account management for the new business from the core business so neither cannibalised the other's attention, and hired into it.
Opened the agency channel
Built relationships across the major media holding groups, which is a different discipline and a different sales cycle from the direct client work the business was used to.
Bridged product and editorial
Spent a substantial part of the engagement getting three functions that measure success in different units to agree what would be built and when. This was slower than the selling and mattered more.
Consolidated four revenue lines
A later reorganisation brought media sales, programmatic, cost per click networks and subscriptions under one commercial unit. I built the organisational design with named roles, a multi pillar commercial strategy, a KPI framework covering revenue, operational and team measures, and the stated values the unit would be held to.
Installed the operating rhythm
A weekly and monthly cadence, forecast discipline, and a two day cross team strategy programme in which each lead presented their own part of the plan rather than receiving mine.
Results
What it produced
+200%
Year on year growth of the new line within two years
0 to 1
A commercial function that did not previously exist
4
Separate revenue lines consolidated into one unit
13
Prioritised initiatives with named owners and mechanisms
The new line went from nothing to a material contributor inside two years, growing 200% year on year, with its own team, its own buyers and its own operating rhythm. The consolidation that followed gave four previously scattered revenue lines a single structure, a single plan and a single set of numbers.
What transfers
Why this case matters more than the growth figure
Turnaround work proves you can fix something that exists. This proves the other half: that a commercial function can be created where there was none, and then made durable enough to survive being handed over.
It is also the closest of my engagements to what a private equity backed business typically needs after an acquisition. Not a strategy document, but somebody who will define the proposition, build the team, open the channel, align the functions that have to cooperate, and leave a structure with named owners behind them.
Questions
Common questions
Why are the absolute revenue figures not shown?
No client or former employer figures appear anywhere in my public materials. Percentages carry the same information about performance without disclosing a business's revenue, and a prospective client is entitled to assume I will treat their numbers the same way.
Can you do this without an existing audience or data asset?
The specifics change but the sequence does not. What has to be true is that there is a real adjacent buyer and something genuinely valuable to sell them. Part of the diagnostic work is establishing whether that is the case before anyone commits budget to it.