Why start here
A lower risk way to begin
The formal name for most of what this produces is commercial performance visibility and decision support: the reporting, measurement and cadence that let a leadership team see what is actually happening and decide on the basis of it. In my experience it is also the single most common thing missing in an underperforming commercial function.
Hiring an interim commercial director is a significant commitment, and most chief executives are being asked to make it on the basis of a conversation and a website. The diagnostic exists so you do not have to.
It is a real piece of work with a real deliverable, priced as a fixed fee, and it stands on its own. If you take the plan and execute it yourselves, that is a good outcome and I will say so. More often it becomes the scope of what follows, which means the engagement that follows is priced against a known problem rather than a guess.
Scope
What gets examined
Twelve areas, each of which has hidden a serious problem in at least one business I have worked in. Underneath all of them sits one question: can this business see itself clearly enough to manage itself?
- Revenue performance. Where revenue actually comes from, by market, product, channel and account, and how that has moved
- Customer concentration. How exposed you are, and to whom, expressed as a number rather than a feeling
- Pipeline. Whether it is real, whether the forecast correlates with the outcome, and what the conversion actually is
- Sales organisation. Structure, spans of control, roles, and whether accountability lands on a named person
- Team capability. Who is performing, who is capable but badly deployed, and where the single points of failure are
- Pricing. Rate cards, discounting behaviour, and how much margin leaves the business through the side door
- Incentives. What the commission plan actually rewards, as opposed to what it was designed to reward
- Forecasting. The process, the cadence, and whether anyone believes the output
- Sales process. What is written down, what is practised, and the gap between the two
- Commercial operating model. How the whole thing is supposed to work, and whether it still fits the business
- Marketing and sales alignment. Whether the two functions share a definition of a good lead and a good outcome
- Cross functional dependencies. Where commercial is blocked by product, editorial, finance, operations or data, and how long that has been true
Deliverables
What you get at the end
Commercial health assessment
A structured read across all twelve areas, with a clear statement of what is working, what is not, and what could not be assessed because the data does not exist. That last category is itself a finding.
Root cause diagnosis
Not a list of symptoms. A view on the small number of underlying causes that produce most of them, and the evidence for that view.
Key risks
What breaks tomorrow. Concentration, single points of failure, relationships held by one person, and anything quietly dependent on someone who could leave.
Priority interventions
Ranked by impact and by how quickly they can be done, so you can see what is worth doing first rather than a list of everything that could be improved.
A 90 day action plan
Sequenced, with owners and mechanisms, written so that your own team can execute it if that is what you decide.
A leadership recommendation
An honest view on whether this needs an interim, an advisor, an internal appointment, or nothing but a decision you have been avoiding.
Practicalities
How it runs
Two to four weeks depending on the size of the function and the number of markets. Fixed fee, agreed in advance, with no variation unless you ask for the scope to change.
What I need from you: access to the numbers, access to the people, and the ability to talk to them without their manager in the room. I am not useful as an observer, and a diagnostic conducted only through a leadership team tells you what the leadership team already believes.
Commercial problem, then an initial conversation, then the diagnostic, then a root cause assessment and a 90 day plan. At that point you decide whether I lead the implementation or you do. Both are legitimate endings and I have no interest in pretending otherwise.
Questions
Common questions
How much does a commercial diagnostic cost?
It is a fixed fee agreed in advance, and it varies with the size of the commercial function and the number of markets in scope. I quote it after a first conversation, once I know what I am actually looking at.
What if the diagnostic says we do not need you?
Then it says that. A diagnostic whose conclusion is always to hire the person who wrote it is worthless, and buyers can tell. Several possible recommendations end with you doing the work internally.
Do you need access to confidential data?
Yes, and it stays confidential. I work under whatever non disclosure arrangement you use, and no client figures appear in any of my public materials, which is why this website carries percentages rather than absolute revenue.
Can the diagnostic be done remotely?
Partly, but not entirely. The interviews work better in person, and being in the building tells you things that a video call does not. I travel for the on site portion and can work on UK hours throughout.