You keep finding marketing problems you can't fix for your clients.

If you advise founder-led companies, you've probably hit this wall.

You spend 2 or 3 years inside a company. You get the operations running and the finances telling the truth. The business is healthier than it's been in years. Then you look at marketing: an agency on retainer, a freelancer or two, money going out every month, and nobody inside the company who can say what any of it produces.

The work is getting done. Nobody owns it. Fixing that isn't your job, but every month it stays true, it drags on the results your work gets measured by.

“When I refer a client to someone, my name is attached to it. Duct Tape Marketing gets it.”Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit First

I'm Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing. John Jantsch founded the company 30 years ago and wrote the book it's named after. Our framework is Strategy First™, and a network of certified consultants runs it worldwide.

If you're a Profit First Professional, an EOS Implementer, a Scaling Up coach, or you run a fractional CFO practice, you'll recognize how we're built. A method, a credential, and standards behind it. Closer to your world than to an agency's.

John Jantsch

Founder
Author of Duct Tape Marketing

Sara Nay

CEO
Author of Unchained

Whatever you fix for clients, the marketing gap shows up the same way.

Different frameworks, same gap: marketing that gets done but never owned. The audit below is how we fix it, starting with a diagnosis instead of a pitch.

A Marketing Audit and Plan. 5 weeks, 5 meetings, $5,000.

Fixed scope, diagnosis before prescription. Your client gets:

• A scored diagnostic of the whole marketing and sales system, including the agencies and freelancers already doing the work, ranked by what to fix first
• Strategy First™ direction: ideal client, positioning, customer journey, channel priorities
• A team and budget recommendation with real numbers: fractional CMO, internal hire, or a hybrid
• A 90-day roadmap the company can start on Monday
• 3 to 5 quick wins delivered along the way: a key page rewritten, a follow-up sequence fixed

At the end of week 5, your client knows exactly what to do next and who should do it. Sometimes the diagnosis points to an internal hire, and we say so in writing. Most often it points to ongoing leadership, and we stay on as the company's fractional CMO: we own the strategy, direct the agencies and freelancers worth keeping, and report numbers the owner can finally trust.

That's how it has gone every time so far. Every client an advisor has sent us started with this audit and kept us on as their fractional CMO.

The fee is $5,000, paid once. No monthly commitment gets created, and the budget your client leaves with reflects what the company can actually spend. If you've put them on a strict allocation discipline, this fits inside it.

How the 5 weeks run

5 weeks. 6 pieces of work, each one feeding the next.

You stay the trusted advisor. We do the audit. You get the credit.

A referral puts your standing with your client on the line. Here's how we protect it:

Whatever level of involvement you pick, the client relationship stays yours.

Most firms send one client to test us. Then it becomes a standard play.

Growth stalls the same way in almost every founder-led company your team serves. Which means the marketing gap your people found in one client is sitting inside the rest of the roster too.

Two advisory firms already run this model with us. The pattern looks the same at both: the first referral is a test. Once the firm has seen the deliverables, the handoff, and how we treat their name, the audit becomes something every advisor, coach, or CFO on their bench can prescribe. Same fixed scope every time. Same short updates back to your person on the account. And each client company ends up with a fractional CMO who stays, at a fraction of what the full-time hire would cost.

For your firm, that's a marketing arm without hiring one. Your team keeps diagnosing. When the diagnosis says marketing, there's finally a standard answer that carries your standards.

If you're thinking about this for a bench of 10 advisors rather than a single client, say so when you book. That's a different first conversation, and we're glad to have it.

Do we pay referral fees?

No. And that's deliberate. The moment we pay you for an introduction, your recommendation turns into a transaction, and your client can feel the difference. What you get instead: a stalled client who starts growing again, credit for the introduction, and a standard answer to the marketing gap across your whole roster.

Here's Mike Michalowicz, founder of The Prosper Group, on referring clients to us:

“When I refer a client to someone, my name is attached to it. That's the part most marketing agencies don't get. Duct Tape Marketing gets it. They started every client with an audit and a real strategy, they kept us in the loop the whole way, and our clients came back thanking us for the introduction.”

Mike Michalowicz Author of Profit First · The Prosper Group

Your name is attached to every client you send, and we know what that costs you if it goes wrong. If a client you refer doesn't get what we promised from this engagement, we make it right, with them and with you. And you'll hear about a problem from us before you hear it from your client.

Founder-led companies in the $2M to $40M range. B2B, professional services, and the trades: we've spent decades with contractors, builders, remodelers, and home services companies. Complex sales, where marketing is already being handled by agencies or freelancers and nobody inside the company owns the results.

If that sounds like people in your world, let's talk. Bring a real client situation and I'll tell you straight whether the audit fits and how the handoff would work on your side.