Start with the revenue. Work backward through every system that touches it.
I learned it working for the marketing and business strategist Jay Abraham in the early nineties: start with the revenue and work backward through everything that touches it. I still do it that way. When a CEO tells me what the company is doing, I ask the same four things I ask everyone. Tell me a little more about what you're doing. What have you tried? What were the results? Why? Then we look at where the answers stop lining up. I do that as an outside advisor, alongside the team you already have. Clients call me Kirker; by the second week, so will you.
Rarely is everything covered.
When a CEO tells me they have it covered, I don't argue. I ask. Are you sure? How do you know? When was it built, or last audited? Who built it, and what were they focusing on when they made it? I want them curious, not defensive. Three places I usually find what wasn't:
Attribution gaps
Marketing reports one set of numbers and sales reports another. Neither is wrong, and both are incomplete, so the true cost of winning a customer often hasn't been added up.
Disconnected systems
Tools bought over the years, each doing its job, few of them talking to each other. Every team works hard with its own version of the truth.
Decisions without evidence
The data to make a better call usually exists. What's missing is a way to put it in front of the right person at the moment they decide.
None of these is a failure of the people involved. They live in the connections between teams, which is where I spend my time. The Terminix and home services case studies show the first two patterns fixed; VPI shows the third.
What the work has looked like.
2008, a shrinking market, $160,000 a month on advertising, and no idea what was working, what wasn't, or what to do differently.
Tracking, a CRM and call center software, created with the company's team, plus a full revenue architecture around them.
A site that described the product and didn't sell it: $330K a year from 1,355 applications.
With VPI's team, a rebuilt ecommerce pipeline: separate portals for pet owners, policyholders, veterinarians and breeders, plus payments, renewals and retention.
A heat map: enter a zip code, see where termites were being reported. Easy. Then I asked whether they had a database of the homeowners nearby.
A closed-loop system connecting each mail piece to a personal web page and call center routing, with individual-level attribution.
How an engagement starts, and who does what.
You give me access to your numbers and the people who own them. Your team keeps running the business. I bring the diagnosis, the priorities and the plan, and I say plainly which pieces your team should build, which we should buy, and which I should build myself.
Your business, your team and your numbers, in that order. I read everything and talk to everyone who touches revenue.
My first findings, in writing: the specific gaps and what each one is costing you. You hear the big ones now, not at the end.
The full diagnosis, with the fixes I find ranked by revenue impact, an owner and a next action. It's yours whether or not we continue, and this is where we both decide.
If you continue, the plan goes live with owners and dates and your team starts building. At the end of month three we compare what changed with what we expected, and adjust.
The diagnostic is a fixed fee and ends at day 30. The retainer starts only if we both agree working together longer term makes sense. You can say no, and so can I. It runs twelve months at minimum, and the diagnostic fee is credited toward it if you start within 90 days of the readout.
You get me, not a team you've never met.
One or two clients at a time, and that's on purpose. The work only goes well when I understand your business almost as well as you do, and nobody can do that for a dozen companies at once.
What's mine
The diagnosis, the plan, the calls on what matters most, and the conversations with you and your team. Nothing gets handed down to someone junior.
What does the heavy lifting
Over thirty years I've built systems that do the work of a team: Rathvane for research and competitive intelligence, and tools for tracking, attribution and analysis. They do the reading and the checking. What it means, and what you should do about it, stays with me.
Who builds it
Usually your own team, with me alongside. When a piece needs a specialist you don't have, you'll hear that up front, along with what it'll take and who I'd trust with it.
If I can't give it the time
Then I won't take the work, and you won't pay for it. You'll hear that from me in our first conversation, not three months in.
How much of your time do we get?
One or two clients at a time, and that's on purpose. The work only goes well when I understand your business almost as well as you do, and nobody can do that for a dozen companies at once.
Who builds what you recommend?
Usually your own team, with me alongside. When a piece needs a specialist you don't have, you'll hear that up front, along with what it'll take and who I'd trust with it.
Do we have to sign up for a retainer?
No. The diagnostic is a fixed fee and ends at day 30. The retainer starts only if we both agree working together longer term makes sense. You can say no, and so can I. It runs twelve months at minimum, and the diagnostic fee is credited toward it if you start within 90 days of the readout.
What if you can't give us the time?
Then I won't take the work, and you won't pay for it. You'll hear that from me in our first conversation, not three months in.
Where do we start?
With a free fit conversation of about 30 minutes. If there's a fit, the next step is the one that matches the question: a Strategy Session for one decision, the diagnostic for the whole revenue picture, or Market Entry Intelligence for a new market.
Do you work outside Orange County?
Yes. Sessions run on video, or in person in Orange County by arrangement.
Four ways in.
Each step has one purpose. A free fit conversation decides whether there's an engagement at all. The rest are for a decision, a diagnosis, or the years after.
Fit conversation
You describe the situation, I ask questions, and we decide together whether there's a worthwhile engagement. If there isn't, I'll say so.
Strategy Session
You don't need thirty years of experience. You need it for ninety minutes. One decision, opportunity or problem, with a written summary afterward. You pay after the written summary, and if it wasn't worth it, tell me before the charge and you won't pay. The fee is credited in full toward any engagement that follows.
What to expect, and the termsRevenue Architecture Diagnostic
A diagnosis of how your strategy, technology and revenue connect, with fixes ranked by revenue impact. Credited toward a retainer if you continue within 90 days.
What's examined, and the termsAdvisory Retainer
I work inside the decisions that matter most, with your executive team: weekly sessions, access at inflection points, a monthly competitor watch, board-meeting prep and a quarterly performance analysis.
What's includedMarket Entry Intelligence
For a funded startup, or an established company entering a new market or launching a product. Two packages: a Market Read from $12,500, or the full Market Entry Plan from $25,000 with a fielded customer survey and the go-to-market plan. Researched through Rathvane, with the sources shown.
What's included, and the termsCompanies at an inflection point.
Most of my clients arrive through someone who knows me. If you found this page cold, that's fine, but you should know what you're joining: long relationships, a small number of them, and a straight no when I can't help.
- $10M–$100M in revenue, with a growth ceiling the numbers don't explain
- Preparing for an acquisition and needing a system that holds up in a data room
- Entering a new market, or migrating the technology the business runs on
- Buying AI and wanting to know it will pay off
Tell me where growth stalls. Ten minutes to describe it.
I read every note personally and reply within five business days with a time for a fit conversation of about 30 minutes, at no charge, or a straight answer that I'm not the right person.