The martech value assessment

Find out whether the platform is the problem before you replace it.

Usually it isn’t. Your team and I look at your business, marketing, customer experience, and technology strategies, then at how the team works and at the platforms themselves. Your team does the work with me, so they can run the next assessment without me. You get the findings in writing, with the evidence to put in front of your CEO or your board.

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Where this fits

Owning a martech stack takes 3 steps, in order: understand what you have, keep improving what you own, and build only when the evidence says so.

This assessment is step 1. It gives you and your team the facts that steps 2 and 3 depend on, and it ends with the plan for step 2.

What this answers

One question. Why isn’t the martech you own paying off?

You get the answer with the evidence behind it, written down so somebody else can check it. Replacing a tool that could have been fixed, or keeping one that can’t do the job, could cost you six figures and a year. So replace a tool only when the evidence says you have to.

How the work runs

Three parts, in a fixed order. Each one uses what the part before it found.

First, whether your business goals, marketing strategy, customer experience, and technology agree. Plans usually say everyone agrees. I check whether what people do matches.

Second, how your team works compared with how the org chart says it works. What’s working, who owns what, where work gets held up, and where people skip the official process because it’s too slow.

Third, what software you own, what’s switched on, what it costs, and what connects to what.

Together they show the one problem to fix first. Only one of the three is about software. When the stack can do the job and the team was never set up to run it, a new platform will have the same problem.

How the fee works

The fee depends on how much there is to assess and how many of your people are involved. You get the number in writing before you commit a dollar. No hourly charges.

The assessment usually takes 30 to 90 days. Longer on a large or complicated stack, and you’ll hear that from me at the start rather than at the end.

What you get
Three things, in writing. Where your business goals, marketing strategy, customer experience, and technology agree, and where they only look that way. Findings that separate what your team can’t do yet from what the platform can’t do. And a plan with the evidence behind it: what to fix first in the tools you own, and which tools look like they can’t do the job.
On the record

I evaluate technology decisions for a living, and I still hired Gene. He delivers, and he'll tell you the truth even when it means less work or revenue for him. The highest integrity I've worked with. I'd hire him again in a second.

Eric D. Brown, DSc, Fractional CTO/CIO and independent technology advisor
The detail, if you want it
What's not covered?
Implementation. Setting up and building the tools is a systems integrator’s job, and I don’t do it. Legacy systems already scheduled for retirement. Shadow IT, which shows me where your official tools and processes are failing, so I count it as evidence instead of assessing it as part of the stack.
Who is this for?

Marketing organizations spending $1 million or more a year on martech, counting license fees, the people who run it, and what integration and data cost you.

Some CMOs hire me together with their CFO, when both of them want to know whether the money spent on martech is paying off.

If you already know what’s wrong and you need it built, hire a systems integrator. That’s the right call and this is the wrong practice.

Can I read the method instead of hiring you?
Yes. Every step of this assessment is published, in order, in my book Marketing Technology Transformation® . Buy it, run it yourself, and never call me. I’d rather you did that than hired me on faith.
Why are there no case studies or client names?
You wouldn’t post your stack problems on LinkedIn where your competitors can read them. My clients feel the same way about theirs, and they hire me partly because I keep it private. What you can check instead is the method, published in full, and the people who went on the record about working with me.
Have you done this before?
Yes, many times over 30 years, from the buyer, vendor, consultancy, brand, and agency sides. The book is newer than the work: it writes the method down so you can read it and judge it yourself.
Who does the work?
I lead it, and your team does the work with me, so they can run the next assessment without me. When it needs more hands, I bring in specialists I’ve worked with for years, chosen for your problem.
How much of my team's time does this take?

It depends on how big your team is and who can make time. We work that out before the assessment starts, and it goes in the agreement.

If nobody on your team can take part, I won’t take the work. Without your team, you’d end up with a report and nobody who can run the next assessment.

What if your findings contradict my systems integrator or my platform vendor?
That’s the reason to get an independent assessment. If the evidence shows your systems integrator built something only they can maintain, you go into that conversation with it in writing instead of a hunch.
Do martech vendors pay you?
Vendors can pay me to speak at their events about the Marketing Technology Transformation® framework. I don’t speak about their products, and I take no commissions or referral fees, so nothing I recommend to you changes what I earn.
You assess, and then what?

Then you fix what can be fixed in the tools you own, and you find out which tools can’t do the job.

The assessment ends with a plan. It lists the fixes to try first, who does each one, how long each should take, and what result after the fixes would tell you a tool has to be replaced. You agree on that before the fixes start, so nobody can change what counts as success after seeing how it went.

A tool that looks broken was usually never fully set up, or the team was never trained to run it. The fixes show whether the tool was the problem. If it still falls short once they’re done, you replace it, with evidence you can show your CEO.

The fixes usually need a partner or the vendor who knows the platform. They finish the setup and train your team as they go, so your team can run the tool after they leave. That takes months of working alongside them.

I don’t do the fixes, and I don’t want to. If I earned money from the work my assessment recommends, you’d have reason to doubt it. If you ask, I can help you find and vet partners. That’s scoped and priced on its own.

I work for you, not the partner. Our agreement puts it in writing: no commission and no fee from any partner I recommend, ever. I put names in front of you and you make the decision.

How fast can we start?
Usually a couple of weeks, depending on my current workload.

An honest, confidential conversation about what's happening in your stack. If I don't think I can help, I'll tell you.

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