Weekly reports arrive. Deliverables ship. Reach is up. Pipeline is not. You suspect the relationship is broken, but you cannot tell whether the problem is the agency, the brief you gave them, or the strategy neither of you has. This diagnostic gives you a third-party read before you decide to fire, re-brief, or stay.
Built for bootstrapped B2B founders, Series B SaaS VPs of Marketing, and real estate principals carrying a marketing agency retainer that has stopped producing measurable pipeline. Honest note: this site operates in the same category label, and the point of the diagnostic is to route you correctly, not to replace the current vendor by default.
A $5,000 fixed-scope second opinion delivered in 10 business days. Produces a written strategy that you can use to re-brief the current agency, hire a different one, or bring execution in-house.
An agency that is executing without producing outcomes usually has one of three problems. Activity substituted for strategy. A brief that was never corrected as the company evolved. Or a structural capability gap where the agency cannot do the strategic work required at your current stage. The Strategy Diagnostic produces a vendor-neutral second opinion within ten business days, so you can decide to re-brief, replace, or bring work in-house.
The weekly report lists impressions, clicks, posts published, reach, engagement rate. It does not connect those activities to pipeline outcomes. When asked why a number moved, the agency reports more activity rather than a causal explanation. Activity is being tracked. Outcome is not. Over time, the team optimizes toward visible activity because that is what the relationship rewards.
Each monthly review surfaces charts and observations. Few or no decisions come out of it. The CMO or founder leaves the meeting knowing the state of affairs, not the next bet. If reports are not producing decisions, the relationship has shifted into accounting mode. Reporting is the wrong frame for strategic work. Decision inputs are the right frame, and most retainers have stopped producing them by month six.
A campaign lands, a landing page ships, a content series publishes. Each item exists on its own. No single-sentence strategic thesis connects them. When asked how the campaign relates to the ICP refresh from last quarter, no one has an answer. That is a capability problem, not an execution problem, and execution harder will not fix it. The diagnostic produces the strategic thesis the work was missing.
The $5,000 Strategy Diagnostic is a second-opinion engagement. It runs 10 business days. It examines the current agency's brief, the work product, the reporting framework, and the strategic thesis (or its absence). It produces a 20 to 30 page written strategy and a 90-minute executive session. The output is designed to be vendor-neutral, meaning you can use it to re-brief the current agency, hire a different one, or bring execution in-house.
If the diagnostic concludes the gap is ongoing strategic support rather than a one-time reset, the $4,500 per month Strategy Partnership is the named follow-on. Critically, this is optional and explicit. The diagnostic is a fixed-scope deliverable that ends whether or not a partnership starts after it.
Start the Strategy Diagnostic · $5,000 →Three tests. Were the success criteria defined at contract signing, measurable, and sales-cycle appropriate? Has the agency produced a clear strategic thesis you could restate in one sentence? Is the reporting showing outcome movement or activity volume? If the answer to any two is no, the problem is real. The diagnostic runs this assessment against the work product rather than against the relationship.
Depends on the root cause. If the agency lacks strategic direction, the relationship is rarely salvageable because the gap is capability, not communication. If the agency has direction but is executing against the wrong strategy, a strategic reset can work. The Strategy Diagnostic gives you the third-party thesis you need to decide, and to brief the current agency if you keep them.
No. The $5,000 Strategy Diagnostic is a fixed-scope engagement with a fixed deliverable. It produces a strategy document you can use to brief any agency, or to bring execution in-house. Some clients do move into the $4,500 per month Strategy Partnership after the diagnostic, but that is optional and named explicitly. This is a second opinion, not a replacement pitch.
Three recurring patterns. Activity reports without outcome narrative (impressions, clicks, posts, reach, with no pipeline consequence). Strategy shifts without diagnosis (quarterly pivots that do not reference what was learned). And deliverables produced in isolation (a campaign, a landing page, a content piece, with no framework that links them to each other or to revenue).
Interviewing new agencies produces pitches built on your current brief. If the current brief is wrong, every new agency will propose against the same flawed problem frame. The diagnostic produces the corrected brief first. Whether you use it to re-brief the current agency, hire a new one, or bring work in-house, the work is upstream of the vendor decision.
Yes. Real estate principals and bootstrapped founders often over-trust local or generalist agencies because the alternative (building in-house) feels heavier than it is. The diagnostic quantifies whether the current agency spend is producing measurable pipeline contribution or buying activity without outcome. The answer directs the decision.
Marketing Strategy Diagnostic · $5,000 flat · 10 business days · Vendor-neutral written strategy, 90-minute executive session, and a 90-day priority plan.