When we're the wrong fit · The honest list
When we are the wrong fit for you. We will say so.
Most agency websites have a page called "is this for you?" and it says yes. Ours says no — five times. The cases below are the ones where the marketing engagement is the wrong intervention, where taking your money would be a worse outcome for you than not taking it.
We will say each one of these on the discovery call if it applies. Reading them here saves you the call.
Case 1
You don't have product-market fit yet.
If your product doesn't sell when you talk about it directly with a customer who needs it, marketing won't fix that. It will make the unfixed thing more visible — to more people — at greater cost. We will say so on the discovery call and tell you to spend the next three months on the product instead. No retainer.
What to do instead: Spend those three months testing the offer in conversations. The day you get three unrelated customers to buy without your needing to explain it twice, come back.
Case 2
You expect leads within thirty days from a cold start.
Most marketing channels carry a sixty-to-ninety-day lag from set-up to compounding lead flow. Paid ads are faster; SEO and content are slower; everything else sits between. If you need customers in the next thirty days, the marketing engagement is the wrong intervention.
What to do instead: Spend that thirty days on direct outreach to your existing network plus any local events your buyer attends. Use the next ninety on a marketing engagement.
Case 3
You want a single growth-hack or one specific tactic.
We sell systems, not tricks. We don't have a viral-hook department or a guaranteed-rank tactic that worked in 2019. If a single tactic is what you want, here are three platforms and consultancies we like — go to them, not us.
What to do instead: If you change your mind and want a system that compounds the tactics into something that doesn't depend on any single trick, come back.
Case 4
You can't sustain at least £500 / month for six months.
Below this floor, the maths doesn't pencil. Spark tier exists at £500 / month because below it the agency overhead consumes the marketing budget. We can give you better value by telling you not to hire us yet than by taking a number that won't deliver.
What to do instead: Spend the budget you do have on your own time, a fast landing page, and the first ad spend on whichever channel your customer already uses. When the maths pencils for six months, come back.
Case 5
Your offer is a one-off (a single event; a single sale).
Marketing engagements work because they compound — a baseline gets set, a calendar gets paid forward, a brand voice gets sharpened. A one-off event or a single sale doesn't have the second month to make the maths work. We will direct you to a freelancer for the one-off and tell you to come back when the offer is repeatable.
What to do instead: Pay a freelancer per project for the one-off. Save us for the moment your offer turns into something you sell every month.
Why we publish this.
Two-thirds of agency engagements are dissatisfied inside the first twelve months. A meaningful share of that dissatisfaction is engagements that should never have been signed. The five cases above are the ones we catch on the discovery call; we catch them by asking the questions rather than by rationalising past them. Publishing the list out loud is the only way to credibly say we mean it.
Several of you will read this and not book the call. That is the page doing its job. The engagements we want — the ones where the marketing is the right intervention and we deliver what we said we'd deliver — are the engagements that show up when this filter has done its work.
Still here? Start with a free profile.
If none of the five cases apply to you, we are the right intervention. The free profile baselines where you stand before we recommend anything. No card; no commitment until you sign the engagement.