Surfers don’t own one board. They own a quiver, and they pick the board that fits the day’s conditions. DRIVE is how we read your conditions — your market, stage, and budget — and pick the right play, instead of running the same playbook for every client.
Read the conditions. Pick the board. Ride.
What are the five stages?
Check the Conditions
Detect
Audit the market, competitors, data, tech stack, team, and current performance. You get a clear read on where the business stands.
Pick the Board
Rank
Prioritize the plays that fit and decide what not to do. You get a prioritized roadmap with owners.
Paddle Out
Inform
Align leadership, sales, and marketing on ICP, messaging, and plan, and equip the team. You get messaging, enablement, and a shared plan.
Catch the First Wave
Validate
Pilot the top plays, set KPI baselines, and read early signals. You get proof of what works, before the big spend.
Ride and Repeat
Engage
Scale what works, report against KPIs, reallocate quarterly. You get compounding results and a living roadmap.
Engage loops back to Detect. Markets, competitors, and your business keep changing, so the read gets taken again.
What happens in Check the Conditions (Detect)?
We audit before we prescribe, usually in the first 30 days. That means your market and competitors, your funnel and conversion data, your CRM and martech stack, your team and vendors, and how marketing performs today. We also talk to sales and, where possible, to customers. You get a scored read on where marketing stands and the KPI baseline everything else is measured against.
If you want this stage on its own, it’s our 30-Day Marketing Diagnostic, a fixed $5,000 review. It’s the same review that opened our equipment financing engagement, which went on to quote $600K+ across 13 organic deals.
What happens in Pick the Board (Rank)?
We turn findings into priorities. Every possible play is weighed by expected impact, confidence, and effort, and the plan names what we’ll do first, who owns it, and what we won’t do. Deciding what to drop is half the value. Most growing companies don’t lack ideas; they lack a short list.
What happens in Paddle Out (Inform)?
We get leadership, sales, and marketing working from one plan. That includes the ICP, positioning, and core messages, plus the lead stages and handoffs between marketing and sales. Sales gets the materials it needs, so it stops building its own. Agencies and freelancers get clear briefs tied to the plan.
What happens in Catch the First Wave (Validate)?
We pilot before we scale. The top plays run as tests with a defined budget, a timeframe, and a KPI to beat. Early signals tell us what earns more budget and what gets cut. You see proof before the big spend, not after.
What happens in Ride and Repeat (Engage)?
We scale what worked, report against the agreed KPIs every month, and reallocate budget each quarter. Then the cycle starts again with Detect, because markets, competitors, and your business keep changing. The roadmap stays a working plan, not a document from the first month.
How is DRIVE different from a standard playbook?
A playbook applies the same tactics to every client. DRIVE applies the same process and lets the conditions pick the tactics. A founder-led services firm and a scaling B2B software company will both go through Detect and Rank, and end up with very different plans. The method stays fixed; the plan doesn’t.
How does DRIVE change by tier?
| Tier | Cadence | How DRIVE runs | Monthly retainer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | Weekly check-ins | Focused Detect and Rank; a lean plan your team runs | From $7,500 |
| Growth Track | Bi-weekly strategy sessions, quarterly planning | The full cycle across every channel, with marketing, sales, and product coordinated | From $10,000 |
| Embedded Executive | Weekly executive syncs and team mentorship | The full cycle at the organization level, tied to board priorities | From $15,000 |
Every tier runs month to month, with no minimum term. See pricing and what a retainer covers in what’s included in a fractional CMO retainer.
Bottom line
DRIVE makes a fractional CMO engagement predictable: audit first, a short list of priorities, one shared plan, pilots before spend, and monthly reporting that feeds the next cycle. More on the model itself in the guide to fractional CMOs, and the work behind the numbers in results.
