Marketing consultant
A marketing consultant who ends the engagement with decisions, not a deck.
I'm Janie Windmiller. I work with US businesses that have capable people, real revenue, and no clear read on which marketing move matters next. Every engagement is scoped, priced from published rates, and closes with prioritized decisions that each carry an owner and a date.
What working with a marketing consultant gets you
Not a strategy binder. Five things you can point at afterward, each of which changes how the next quarter gets spent.
One position your whole team can repeat
What you sell, who it is for, and why it wins, settled once so campaigns, pages, and sales conversations stop describing three different companies.
A channel mix chosen against evidence
Spend pointed at where your buyers actually decide, informed by win rates and sales calls rather than a best-practice list borrowed from a different market.
A plan with owners and dates
Each initiative gets a named owner, a start, and the number it is expected to move. A plan nobody owns is a document, not a plan.
Sales and marketing telling the same story
Shared definitions, a working lead handoff, and enablement built from the questions sales fields on real calls.
A scoreboard leadership can read
One page of numbers with a plain-language narrative, so the marketing conversation in the leadership meeting stops being a debate about opinions.
How a consulting engagement runs
The order is deliberate. Diagnosis before position, position before plan, plan before spend. Engagements that open with campaigns spend month four undoing month one.
One: read the business, not the marketing
Revenue by segment, win and loss patterns, pipeline sources, sales call recordings, and the last few quarters of spend. Most marketing problems are misdiagnosed because the numbers and the sales conversations were never read side by side.
What it produces
A written diagnosis naming the constraint, with the evidence behind it.
Two: settle the position and the message set
One position, the reasons to choose it, and the proof under each. This is the decision every page, campaign, and deck inherits, so it gets made before anything gets built.
What it produces
A position statement and message set your team can repeat the same way twice.
Three: build the plan and the budget
Channels, sequencing, and allocation, with the tradeoffs explained in plain terms before they are made rather than defended afterward.
What it produces
A quarterly plan, a budget allocation, and a one-page scoreboard.
Four: run a review cadence that holds
A standing working session and a monthly review. The cadence is what turns a plan into shipped work, and it is the part most stalled marketing functions are missing.
What it produces
Monthly reporting, a quarterly reset, and documented decisions.
Most businesses already own the pieces. What they need is an outside read and the discipline to decide.
- $125
- Published hourly consulting rate
- 2-3
- Weeks for a scoped marketing audit
- 3
- Prioritized decisions every audit ends in
- 15+
- Years across software, manufacturing, and services
Consultant, agency, or a full-time hire
These solve different problems, and buying the wrong one is expensive in a quiet way. The honest version of the comparison is worth reading before you sign anything.
A consultant fits when the question is what to do
You need a diagnosis, a position, and a prioritized plan. The engagement is scoped, the output is a set of decisions, and your team or your existing vendors execute them.
An agency fits when the question is who ships it
The strategy is settled and you need production capacity against a brief. Agencies execute a scope well, and they execute a weak brief just as efficiently as a strong one.
A full-time hire fits when the work is permanent
The function is large enough to need daily ownership and a team to manage. Until then, an executive salary buys less judgment per dollar than a few days a month of it.
Fractional leadership sits between them
When you want a consultant's judgment plus ownership of the plan, the budget, and the vendors, that is fractional marketing leadership rather than project consulting.
Consulting work you can look at
Three engagements where the first deliverable was a decision about positioning, and everything visible came after it.
TEDDYco Media
Positioning and a rebuilt site for a media company that needed its offer legible in one screen.
Read the case studyHostly
A review and reputation product taken from an idea to a live offer with a message set behind it.
Read the case studyBio Ag Management
Technical agricultural science translated into language growers and distributors act on.
Read the case studyCommon questions
What is marketing consulting?
Senior outside judgment applied to a specific business problem: what you sell, who it is for, how it is described, and which channels are worth funding. The output is a decision with evidence behind it, not a longer to-do list.
What does a marketing consultant cost?
My consulting rate is $125 per hour, and every project is quoted as a fixed fee before work starts. Audit engagements typically run $2,500 to $5,000. Monthly partnership ranges are published on the pricing page, and the estimator will scope a range without a form or a call.
How do I evaluate a consultant and the return on the work?
Ask what decision the engagement ends in, who owns each recommendation, and which number it is expected to move. Agree on the baseline before work starts, so the result is measured rather than argued about afterward.
Which industries do you work in?
B2B software, manufacturing and distribution, professional services, media, and mission-driven organizations. My background spans SaaS, media sales, gaming, and manufacturing, and learning an unfamiliar industry quickly is part of the job.
Do you work remotely or on site?
Remote by default, with US clients across time zones. On-site work happens where it earns its keep, usually for leadership workshops, sales team sessions, or a trade show.
How long does an engagement run?
An audit runs two to three weeks. A strategy engagement usually spans four to six weeks. Ongoing consulting is scoped monthly against an agreed hourly commitment so it stays proportional to the work in front of it.
If you would rather see numbers before a conversation, the project scope estimator asks a few questions and returns a range, and pricing publishes every rate behind it.
Next step
Bring the marketing decision you keep postponing.
An hour on where things stand and what the next move should be. If a scoped consulting project is the right answer, you will leave the call knowing what it covers and what it costs.