You don’t need more doing.
You need someone in the chair opposite who’s done it before, knows your numbers, and is paid to disagree with you when it matters. Four reasons that’s usually you, and what consultancy does about it.
You're too close.
You wrote the home page, you set the prices, you picked the channel. You can't read your own marketing any more, nobody can.
Your agency does, not thinks.
They post the posts and run the ads. Nobody is paid to ask whether you're selling the right thing to the right person at the right margin.
A full-time hire is too much.
A marketing director costs £80k+ before pension. Most owners don't need one full-time, they need one's brain, twice a month.
You already know most of it.
You just need someone to sit opposite, ask the awkward question, and write down the answer. That's the job.
Eight levers. One usually does it.
Marketing isn’t a hundred things. It’s eight. Most months we work two or three of these at a time, hard. We don’t fix all eight at once, we fix the one that’s costing you the most, then the next.
The thing the receptionist says when she picks up the phone. The thing the warehouse note says. The thing the invoice says. We hold the line on it, in every channel, every quarter, every new hire.
- , Brand guard-rails doc
- , Quarterly brand-pulse
- , On-brand sign-off on big pieces
The eight to twelve touchpoints between "never heard of you" and "told a mate". We map them, we find the leaks, and we fix them in order, cheapest fixes first.
- , End-to-end journey map
- , Leak audit
- , Fix list by ROI
Per channel, per campaign, per month. Most owners can't tell you theirs. By session three, yours is on the wall and it stops being a mystery what to spend more on.
- , CPL by channel
- , CPL trend, 12 months
- , Budget reallocation plan
CPL means nothing without LTV. We work out what a customer is actually worth across all the years they buy from you and that's the number we let you spend to win one.
- , LTV by segment
- , LTV:CAC ratio
- , Spend ceiling per channel
Not personas. The three real audiences that pay you, the one you wish would, and the one you keep accidentally attracting that you'd rather not. Named, profiled, in the doc.
- , 3 named audiences
- , 1 stretch · 1 anti
- , Buying-trigger map
Where do the next thousand right-fit prospects come from? Owned, earned, paid, partnered. We pick the two channels you should be famous on and ignore the rest.
- , 2 channels of record
- , Quarterly audience plan
- , Reach growth targets
It's seven times cheaper to sell again than to sell new. Cross-sell, up-sell, referral, reactivation, win-back. Most owners leave half their revenue here.
- , Cross-sell matrix
- , Referral programme
- , Win-back sequence
The agency dashboard, the GA4 view, the inbox, the queue, the calendar. Once a fortnight we sit with all of it and decide what gets attention, what gets killed, and what gets more rope.
- , Marketing dashboard
- , Fortnightly board pack
- , Agency QA sign-off
Two Mondays. One kettle.
Sessions happen in your office, not on Zoom. First Monday is numbers and the next big lever. Third Monday is follow-up and a deep-dive. In between, you have me on WhatsApp.
08:30 · The numbers
Two hours. Coffee, the dashboard, last fortnight's deltas. CPL, LTV, leads, conversions. The honest line.
10:30 · The one lever
Pick one of the eight. Open it up. By 11:30 there's a thing to do and the person who's doing it.
08:30 · The follow-up
Did we do it? Did it work? What's next? Plus a deep-dive on a lever we haven't touched yet.
WhatsApp · the small stuff
A copy review. A campaign sense-check. An "is this fair?" from a supplier. Twenty quid questions get twenty quid answers, fast.
Whiteboards. Numbers. Decisions.
Consultancy isn’t a deck. It’s a whiteboard with your numbers on it, a stack of orange post-its with your team’s decisions, and a one-page write-up in your inbox by lunch.
We built their website. Now we run the thinking.
Midshires came to us for a B2B eCommerce site. We built it. Then they kept us on twice a month, in their office, on the eight levers. Honesty over hours. We’re still there.
Guard-rails signed Q1. Quarterly pulse on the next agenda.
Trade-account onboarding being rebuilt. Three leaks closed.
Down 31% vs. opening baseline. Paid social paused, search up.
Top-decile customers profiled. Spend ceiling raised on search.
Three primaries named, one anti. Stable since spring.
LinkedIn + trade press. Owner-led, monthly cadence.
Reactivation sequence brief due this fortnight.
Dashboard live. Board pack 1st of every month.
Got any freebies? Yes.
We’re not scared of sharing what we know. Take our advice and implement it yourself, brilliant. Watch these and think “I need someone to do this for me,” even better. Either way you’re winning, and the tools are free.
Cost-per-lead calculator
Tap in your spend and your leads. See your true CPL across every channel in seconds, the number most agencies hope you never find.
Lifetime-value calculator
Work out what a customer is worth across every year they buy from you and the spend ceiling you can hit to win one.
30 days of CEO marketing tips
A short film a day for thirty days, aimed at directors who need to understand what their marketing team is actually doing.
What are we thinking?
The real stuff. Not “10 tips to boost engagement” clickbait. We call out the BS in our industry and share what twenty years of doing this has taught us. Here’s the last few.
Why AI Tools Shouldn’t Have Paid Adverts, but they are going to…
Google’s testing ads in AI Overview results. Perplexity’s considering sponsored answers. ChatGPT’s exploring “promoted content.” We’re about to ruin AI the same way we ruined everything else. We’ve Seen This Film Before There’s a brilliant video from The Naked Brand where B. Bonin Bough – PepsiCo’s head of digital – talks about the early internet: […]
SEO is NOT dead
Ladies and Gentlemen, SEO Is Still Alive I’m writing this today because, quite frankly, I’ve seen blogs and threads sent out today that are already out of date. I’ve seen one particularly about the history of Google – how it went from 10 blue links to position zero, then moved to AI overview, and how […]
Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to… flip flop marketing
What on earth is Corbett on about now. Well unfortunately people I’m seeing this happen so much at the moment because everyone is looking for their silver bullet. Something has happened to society, personally I blame Amazon, but in reality it’s the internet and social media. We can get our groceries delivered, we can buy […]
Try it once. Or keep it monthly.
The first session is free, we’d rather you saw the shape of it before you spent a penny. If it fits, the retainer is the Midshires shape: twice a month, in your office, all eight levers across the year.
First Session
Two hours, in your office. We open one lever, usually the one you can't see past and write the doc by lunch. Then you decide.
- , One 2-hour session
- , In your office, not Zoom
- , One lever, fully opened
- , Written up the same day
- , No commitment after
The Retainer
What Midshires have. Two sessions a month, in your office. All eight levers covered across the year. WhatsApp between.
- , Two 2-hour sessions / month
- , In your office · in person
- , All 8 levers covered annually
- , Marketing dashboard built
- , Monthly board pack
- , WhatsApp between sessions
- , Fortnightly write-ups
- , 6-month minimum
The leaky one gets the first quarter.
CPL and LTV in one place, on the wall. The honest opening line.
Pick the lever costing you the most. Open it. Fix it. Measure it.
Three named audiences. The anti-audience. The stretch.
Map the journey, close the leaks, watch CPL drop by quarter end.
Two channels of record. New blood, on purpose, monthly cadence.
Cross-sell, referral, win-back. The half of revenue most owners leave.
The bits everyone asks.
Eight questions we get on every first call. If yours isn’t here, ring it in.
Because two mornings a month, in person, in your office, is a real chunk of the month and I won't take a second client until I'm sure I can give them the same attention as Midshires. One seat is genuinely open. If it's gone by the time you ask, I'll say so.
Call it that if it helps. I think of it as: the marketing director's brain, twice a month, on the eight levers that move the P&L. No team to manage, no politics, no Slack channels, just the thinking that owners are usually too close to do
I do the thinking. I have an agency arm for web, SEO, and content if you need hands but you don't have to use it. Plenty of consultancy clients want the brain and their own existing agency. That's fine. The board pack stays honest either way.
Within an hour's drive is the sweet spot, because the sessions are in person. Farther than that we can do, but it stops being twice a month and starts being once. Talk to me.
They won't, once they meet me. I've sat both sides of the table. My job is to ask the questions the agency can't ask the owner, and to translate the owner's gut into a brief the agency can run with. Most agencies relax inside a session.
Month one is 30-day get-out, no questions. After that, monthly notice. I don't lock anyone in. If the value isn't obvious by month three, I'll usually be the one suggesting we stop.
30% off the published number. Quote your charity number on the first call.
Yes. Two hours, in your office, one lever opened, written up by lunch. No retainer required after fix it yourself, fix it with me, or sit on it. Your call.
One seat. Two mornings. Your office. My kettle.
First session free. Two hours, in your office, one lever opened, written up by lunch. Then you decide if we keep meeting or you take the doc and run.
Book your FREE first session →