Questions we get asked.

We install a marketing operating model for today, building on what you already have. We assess your function against 36 capabilities, then work out what to hire permanently, what to borrow from the Crew, what to automate with the Engine, and what to stop. Then we install it. We don’t stop at a report.

Most others sell one answer: the one they happen to sell. A recruiter says hire. An agency says outsource to them. A platform says buy the licence. A consultancy delivers a recommendation and leaves. We supply all three answers, hire, borrow and automate, so the evidence decides rather than our revenue model. And we say when to stop. The Stocktake is a fixed fee with no hidden work programme, so telling you to stop costs us nothing.

A capability assessment built on four evidence streams: a review of the work your function actually produces, an audit of what your systems are used for, what the market and AI assistants can see from outside, and an anchored survey of your team. It gives one score out of 100 against 36 capabilities, with every gap mapped to Build, Borrow, Bot or stop.

A one-off diagnosis, delivered in five working days from the scoping call. We ask AI assistants, repeatedly and cold, what they say when a buyer in your category asks for a recommendation, and we report how often you are named against the competitors you choose. You get prioritised fixes and a readout, and a re-measure after 90 days is included. It needs no access to your systems. See the Visibility Snapshot.

Our decision model for every capability gap. Build: hire permanently, for strategic, constant, differentiating capability. Borrow: bring in skills from our Crew, typically one to three days a week. Bot: automate repeatable, rule-based work with governed AI agents. And a fourth answer that few who bill for the work will give: stop doing it, because the work is a relic of a constraint that no longer exists.

We work with ambitious companies of every size that want more value from their marketing functions. We work directly with CEOs and other C-suite leaders, with CMOs and marketing leaders, and with private equity operating partners across their portfolio companies.

Yes. The Crew places skilled marketers into your function against a specific capability gap, typically one to three days a week. Where the answer is a permanent hire, we write the role brief from the evidence and run the search. Where the work is repeatable, a playbook may be the better answer, and we will say so.

No. A small crew does the work that needs judgement, taste, relationships and accountability, with the Engine running the repeatable work underneath. Every playbook has a named human owner and approval gates. Anything a playbook sends to a customer was written or approved by a named person before it could go out. How we use AI sets out the standard.

Every deployment has two named owners, one for the machinery and one for the outcomes. Every playbook begins by proposing, and a person decides. We measure how often it was right across real work before it acts on its own, and a gate widens only through a change a named person signs. We publish what we do and what we refuse on how we use AI.

The monthly subscription that keeps a deployed playbook working. We operate it, watch it for drift, cost and errors, apply upgrades, and report each month on what it did and what it was worth. A named person stays accountable. For the visibility playbooks it is monitoring: the Snapshot’s measurement, repeated every month.

Yes. The Stocktake is how we choose playbooks, not a gate you have to pass. If you already know the gap, we start from that, and we write down the gap, the owner and the measure before we configure anything. If you are not sure which work to automate, the Stocktake is the better route. More questions about the Engine.

Only what a step needs leaves your systems. Each client has one isolated container in a UK or EU region, and only the fields a step needs go to a model provider. Provider agreements exclude the use of API data for training. The three visibility playbooks need no access to your systems and hold no data of yours. The full data posture is available on request. How we use AI sets out our wider standard.

We quote every engagement in writing before any work starts. The Marketing Stocktake and the Visibility Snapshot are each a fixed fee. The Crew is charged for the days you use. The Engine is a one-off set-up plus a monthly subscription for each playbook. If the answer is a permanent hire, the search is a separate fee, disclosed before the work begins. There is no annual lock-in, and we never take a share of your media spend.

The Marketing Stocktake takes two to eight weeks, depending on the size of your company. It is a fixed fee, and it ends with a start date. After that, fractional operators from the Crew are typically embedded within days, and each playbook starts by proposing while a person approves every decision, until it has proved itself.