€14K a month, buying activity no one could measure.
Across the portfolio, marketing was inconsistent — no shared KPIs, no visibility, and no CMO leadership the companies could afford individually. At this company, an agency was charging €14K a month for work that couldn't be connected to pipeline or revenue. The operating partner needed consistent, investor-ready GTM without hiring a full-time CMO into every business.
Phil's readFourteen thousand a month buying activity nobody could tie to revenue. That's not a marketing spend — it's an open tap.
Embed the operator. Rebuild the engine in-house.
We embedded as the CMO function — cut the agency, rebuilt the revenue engine inside the company, and installed investor-ready reporting with shared KPIs the operating partner could read across the portfolio. Then we trained the team to run it, so the capability stayed in the business rather than walking out with a vendor.
Phil's readI'm not there to become a permanent line item. I'm there to make the retainer unnecessary.
The retainer's gone. The metrics stayed.
The €14K/month agency was replaced. The board has metrics it trusts, tied to pipeline and revenue. The system runs without an external retainer — key-person risk down, reporting quality up, and a GTM function the next investor can actually underwrite.
Phil's readLower key-person risk and cleaner numbers is what an operating partner is actually buying — not another retainer.