As established over the last decade (and accelerating over the past three years since the beginning of the pandemic), online advertising drives sales across multiple channels. In our two-decade career as Consulting CFOs, we have witnessed ineffective and high-expense marketing spending cripple brands (often times permanently) with extremely bright futures. As a result, in our preliminary financial statement analysis and discussions we rapidly transition from our initial assessments of COGS and Gross Margins to a Net Margin focus spanning “Discounts & Promos” as well as “Sales & Marketing”. 

To provide deeper insight (further information available upon request), in our practice we like to request clients respond to a group of laser-focused questions to initiate the process of discovering & implementing cost-effective omni-channel marketing as follows:

• Please delineate your current “customer journey” (to all sales channels) and how it compares to current trends by competitors and the marketplace;
• Please outline your inter-sales channel marketing by process, impact and expense (specifically including recent trends);
  
• Please present your sales & marketing ad spend (including ratio analysis (to total revenue)) by sales channel and the anticipated time frame to trend to industry standard ratios;
  
• Please describe your ranking of sales channel marketing impact (including projected growth trends).
  

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How do you feel about your (potential) answers?  In general, we have found the responses are derived from several interesting financial assumptions which were pertinent for quite a while in business history but are, increasingly, less so in the current marketplace. 

Recently, we have expanded our practice services to include premier marketing talent and established a tangential brand to manifest this journey for clients (Grow Outside The Box). Please Contact Us for further details and information.