THE ENGAGEMENT
Commercial Clarity Review
Good deals go quiet. From your side, the reasons look the same.
Sometimes the buyer never quite got it. Sometimes they got it and can't get it past the people they answer to. Sometimes it was never a real deal.
The review works out which problem you've got and shows you what to change first. Fixed fee, agreed before work starts.
Start a conversationWhen this is the right engagement
- You are about to commit to a new website, a marketing programme or a sales hire, and want to know what actually needs fixing first.
- There is plenty of interest but not enough business: good conversations that do not become decisions.
- Good opportunities keep stopping between interest and decision, and the reason is unclear.
- You have launched something new and the early conversations are not converting the way you expected.
- You are entering a new market and need the commercial case to land without you in every room.
- Only one person in the organisation can explain the value properly.
- The website reflects where the business was, not where it is now.
- Growth, investment, succession or a sale means the commercial case now has to work for people who were never part of building it.
None of that means the business is badly run.
What I look at
Your audience, your offer, your proof, what makes you different, the story you tell, and how a buyer gets from interested to yes. All of it, before anything gets rewritten.
The instinct is to start with the message, because it's the part you can change. If the real problem is getting the decision through, a sharper message costs money and doesn't move the deal.
THE PROCESS
How it works
A recorded interview, around 45 minutes. I ask about the commercial move: what has been decided, what you are trying to make happen, who the buyers are and what you have learned about how they make decisions. I want the actual materials you use, not versions tidied up for the occasion. Bring the last five deals that stalled, with the trail: the proposal, the emails, what was said last.
I examine the audience, the proposition, the proof, the differentiation, the commercial narrative and the buying journey across the materials. The first question is whether there is a real buying problem. The second is which problem you've got, because they need different fixes. Sometimes the answer is that the deal was never real.
A 90-minute working session where I put the diagnosis up and we push back on it together. This is not a presentation. It is a decision session, and the point is to arrive at a diagnosis we both trust before anything gets built.
I build the commercial case. The core elements are the proposition, the narrative, the proof structure, the differentiation and the core language the business should be using. Where the constraint is the decision rather than the story, the guide addresses the proof, the ask or the buyer's approval path instead.
You receive the Commercial Clarity Guide and a market-test plan setting out what to test first and how to read the result.
Two weeks from receipt of the agreed materials.
THE DELIVERABLE
The Commercial Clarity Guide
Who the business is for. The audience defined in terms that help buyers recognise themselves and help the business stop selling to people who were never going to buy.
Why they should choose you. The proposition stated in terms that travel without you in the room.
The proof behind it. Which proof they actually need, and where the existing proof is doing less work than it should.
Core language. The phrases and framing the business should be using consistently, across conversations, materials and anything written next.
Market-test plan. What to test, how to test it and how to read the result.
Where the diagnosis finds that the story is not the constraint, the guide instead sets out where the decision is becoming difficult for buyers to progress, and what the business can do to make agreement easier.
What this is not
- Copywriting, design or production. This is a guide, not finished materials.
- Campaign delivery. Running campaigns is separate work.
- Sales training or CRM. I look at what the business gives buyers to work with, not at individual performance.
If the website, deck or other materials need to be rewritten after the review, that is separate work. Some clients do it themselves with the guide. Others bring in an agency with a better brief than they could have written before.
Questions that sit outside the commercial case, or that need ongoing strategic involvement beyond the engagement, are out of scope.
A defined, fixed-fee engagement
The scope is agreed before work starts and the fee is fixed. There are no hourly rates, no scope creep and no bill for time beyond what was agreed.
The engagement needs one senior owner on your side: someone who can speak to what you are trying to make happen and who has the authority to make decisions about what changes.
The first conversation establishes whether this is the right engagement for the situation you are facing. If it is not, I will say so.
- B2B firms turning over roughly £1m to £50m
- Owner-managed or private equity backed
- Technical, engineering, industrial, deep-tech, specialist software or complex professional services
- Firms that have made or are about to make a commercial move: a new market, a new offer or a change in direction
- Firms where the founder or technical lead is still the only person who can explain the value properly
- Firms preparing for growth, investment, sale or succession, where the story now has to work for people who were not there when the direction was set
- Early-stage firms with no paying customers, where the real question is whether anyone wants the product
- Firms that have not yet chosen a market, an offer or a direction. The engagement needs a committed commercial decision to work from
- Firms wanting CRM implementation, forecast process or sales training. Those are real problems and I do not solve them
- Firms that want implementation rather than diagnosis. The engagement delivers a guide, not execution
- Consumer businesses
Who does the work
I do. There is no team, and no analyst drafting the findings.
Most recently, commercial and investment development in B2B media, building propositions that connected SMEs with investors. Before that, the commercial side of deep tech: hydrogen coatings that had to convince engineers, investors and policymakers at the same time, without simplifying the evidence into nonsense. And for twenty-four years before that, agency work for technology, public sector and regulated organisations, where the value was real and explaining it was the hard part.
On paper that is not a tidy career. In practice it was the same job every time: work out why the commercial case was not landing, and fix the part that was getting in the way.
Common questions
Is this marketing?
Not in the way most people use the word. The engagement is about the commercial case: what the business is, who it is for, why they should choose it and how you make agreement easy. The output is not a campaign or a brand. It is the foundation a campaign or a brand would need.
How is this different from hiring a fractional CMO?
A fractional CMO runs your marketing. This establishes what your marketing has to achieve before you hire one, and it is a fixed piece of work rather than a seat on the team.
What if you tell me something I already know?
Then you have it confirmed and can stop arguing about it internally. The more useful finding is usually not the problem itself but which problem is holding the deal up.
What if I disagree with the diagnosis?
Good. The decision session is specifically for that. Every finding is marked with how strongly the evidence supports it, so we can separate what is visible in the material from what still needs testing.
Our materials are out of date. Should I fix them first?
No. Out of date materials are evidence in themselves, and fixing them before the diagnosis is exactly the spend the engagement exists to prevent.
Who needs to be involved?
One senior owner, for the interview at the start and the decision session later. Around two and a quarter hours of their time in total. Other people can be involved but are not required.
Will you write our website and materials?
Not as part of this engagement. The guide gives you everything you need to brief that work well. Some clients use it themselves. Others bring in an agency with a clearer brief than they could have written before.
Do you work alongside our existing agency?
Yes. The engagement often produces a clearer brief than the agency was originally given, which usually improves the relationship rather than complicating it.
Where are you based?
Leeds. Delivered remotely, with in-person sessions where they are useful.