Frequently Asked Questions

• How is Marketing Triage™ different from a marketing audit?
  A marketing audit looks at what you're doing and grades the execution. Are your campaigns performing? Is your content on brand? Is your SEO optimized? It reviews the tactics and reports on how well they're working.
  
  Marketing Triage™ starts from a different premise entirely. The problem isn't how well your tactics are executing. It's that no amount of better execution fixes a broken, misaligned, or missing system.
  
  Where an audit asks "how are we performing?" Triage asks "why aren't people committing, and which incentive structures in your organization are hiding that answer from leadership?"
  
  The output isn't a performance report. It's a diagnosis of the structural failure and a prioritized roadmap of what to fix first.
  
  An audit tells you how you're running. Triage tells you why you keep ending up in the same place.
• How long does it take?
  This varies depending on the number of touchpoints examined, the complexity of the organization, and how siloed departments are.
  
  The diagnostic involves a primary conversation with you as the leader, followed by targeted conversations with key stakeholders. The written diagnosis, one-page roadmap, and testable experiment are delivered within 7 business days of the final conversation.
• Can I implement the findings myself?
  Yes. The one-page roadmap is designed to be actionable without ongoing support. Most organizations that implement internally see measurable improvement within 30 to 90 days. If you'd prefer support with implementation, that's a conversation we can have after Triage.
• Why does it cost $3,500--$5,000 instead of being free?
  Because free diagnostics produce free-quality results. The investment ensures your direct leadership involvement, which is the only way to surface the incentive structures and department dynamics that create dysfunction. It also ensures the diagnosis is taken seriously enough to act on. Most clients recover the investment within the first 30 to 90 days by eliminating identified waste alone.
• Do I have to be present for the diagnostic?
  Yes. Your direct involvement is required. The dysfunctions Marketing Triage™ uncovers are created by incentive structures, department silos, and budget processes, all of which are controlled by leadership. Delegating to a marketing team means the people who created the system are diagnosing it. That perpetuates the problem rather than exposing it.
• What happens after Triage? Do I have to commit to more?
  No. Triage is a complete, standalone engagement. You receive a written diagnosis, a one-page roadmap, and one testable experiment. After that, you choose: implement internally or proceed to Purpose-Ecosystem™ Design. There is no obligation to continue, and no sales pressure to do so.
• What is the opportunity cost of not doing Marketing Triage™?
  If your organization spends $50K annually on tactics and the conversion system is broken, you are likely losing tens of thousands of dollars per year in misdirected budget. Not counting reputational damage from unintentional scripts being written at every touchpoint, environmental waste from materials that never convert, or the compounding effect of a broken measurement system approving more of the same budget next quarter. Marketing Triage™ costs $3,500 to $5,000. One year of undiagnosed dysfunction costs multiples of that.
• Why do you use branded merch as a diagnostic lens?
  Because everyone is honest about it.
  
  No marketing director defends their swag strategy with the same conviction they defend their campaigns. No procurement team brags about the mug they ordered. Nobody has an emotional attachment to the tote bag. That honesty makes it the clearest window into how an organization actually makes decisions -- not how they say they make them.
  
  How you deploy a $3 item reveals how your organization deploys any tactic. It exposes whether procurement and marketing are aligned, whether brand impact is measured or ignored, whether anyone owns the bridge between attention and commitment.
  
  The $150,000 mug on this page is a story about a structural dysfunction that nobody in that organization could see -- because everyone was hitting their KPIs. We weren't working with that company. Had we been, the diagnostic would have caught it before the damage was done. That's exactly the kind of invisible compounding risk Marketing Triage™ is designed to surface.
  
  And if you don't use swag? Don't worry. It's a starting point, not the whole picture.
• Do you sell branded merch?
  Yes -- through the same company. But how we sell it depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
  
  For straightforward needs like employee recognition, client gifting, or branded merchandise sales at events and festivals, you don't need a diagnostic first. We source the product, handle fulfillment, and have in-house printing capabilities. That's a tactical conversation and we're happy to have it.
  
  Where it gets more interesting is when merch is part of a larger commitment-building system. A recognition program designed to reinforce culture. Event merchandise designed for different audience segments. Recruitment materials designed to answer questions candidates ask before accepting an offer. That's where sourcing and strategy connect -- and where the results look less like swag and more like the campaign that hired three senior engineers when the goal was one.
  
  If you're not sure which conversation you need, start with a 15-minute call. We'll know quickly.
• Is there a guarantee?
  The diagnosis is guaranteed. The roadmap is guaranteed. The quality of thinking behind both is guaranteed -- backed by 35 years of work and seven national marketing awards.
  
  What can't be guaranteed is implementation. Marketing Triage™ reveals what's broken and what to fix first. Whether your organization acts on that is a leadership decision, not a diagnostic one. That's precisely why we require your direct involvement in the process -- not your marketing team's. The leaders who own the dysfunction are the only ones who can fix it.
  
  What we can tell you is that most clients who implement the roadmap see measurable improvement within 30 to 90 days. And the clients who don't act? They already knew something was wrong before they came to us. The diagnosis just made it impossible to keep looking away.