You own the growth decision
A founder or CEO sponsors the work, with revenue and marketing leaders involved in the decisions.
B2B SaaS growth strategy and leadership
Understand what is holding back growth and decide what to change first.
Not sure what is holding growth back or where to focus next? Depth & Direction helps B2B SaaS founders and CEOs identify what is limiting growth, agree priorities and build a practical plan of action.
01 / THE SITUATION
Busy marketing. Disappointing growth.
Turn more of your marketing effort into paying customers who stay.
We examine who you target, how you explain your value and what happens as prospects become customers. Together, we agree where to focus and which activity to stop.
- 01 Revenue or pipeline is behind plan, and sales and marketing disagree about why.
- 02 Several customer segments or propositions compete for investment, with no clear priority.
- 03 Trials and new customers arrive, but too few reach value, convert or stay.
- 04 You need to decide where the next marketing investment will make the greatest difference.
- 05 The plan needs senior leadership to coordinate your team and delivery partners.
02 / WHO WE WORK BEST WITH
For B2B SaaS leaders making growth decisions.
We work with founders, CEOs and senior leaders in B2B SaaS businesses with paying customers. You need clearer priorities, a practical growth plan or senior marketing leadership to move the work forward.
There is a reason to act now
A missed target, investment decision or weak customer conversion or retention makes the problem urgent.
You can provide the evidence
Your team can share customer insight, sales evidence and performance data, including gaps and uncertainties.
Your team can act on the plan
You can assign owners and delivery capacity to the priorities agreed during the sprint.
03 / HOW WE HELP
Two ways to move from uncertainty to action
You do not need to arrive with the answer. Come with a defined growth question or simply know that performance is falling short. We help you find the priority, make the decision and move it forward.
01
Staged project · approximately two to six weeks
Growth Strategy Sprint
A focused project to understand what is holding growth back, decide what deserves attention and create a practical course of action. When the priority is unclear, start with a bounded Initial Review. When the question is already clear and deeper work is required, commission the full Sprint.
You leave with
The Initial Review provides a decision brief, ranked explanations and a recommended priority. The full Sprint adds deeper evidence, one agreed strategic focus and a costed 90-day plan with owners, measures and initial tests.
There is no automatic commitment to continue.
View a fictional sample Initial Review02
Ongoing · reserved monthly capacity
Fractional Marketing Leadership
For businesses that need senior marketing ownership over time, rather than just a plan. Steve can begin by diagnosing the situation, then set priorities, align the team and lead progress against the commercial goal.
You gain
Continuity from strategy through delivery: leadership alignment, clear priorities, an operating rhythm, coordinated teams and partners, and regular performance decisions as the evidence changes.
What we examine
- Target customers
- Positioning and value
- Conversion
- Onboarding and retention
04 / APPROACH
Diagnose. Decide. Plan.
Customer behaviour connects the commercial question to changes your team can make.
-
01
Diagnose
Uncover what’s really happening
We bring together leadership perspectives, customer evidence, commercial performance, sales insight and market context.
OutputA shared diagnosis of what is holding growth back.
-
02
Decide
Where should we focus?
We make the choice: market, ICP, proposition, demand model, customer behaviour or route to market.
OutputA clear direction and conscious trade-offs.
-
03
Plan
What happens next?
We turn the decision into priorities, owners, measures and a practical operating rhythm.
OutputA costed 90-day plan with owners, measures, initial tests and review points.
A growth plan makes the priority clear, names who will act and shows how we will know whether the change is working.
The depth of work depends on the engagement. The Initial Review provides a decision brief and recommended next steps. The full Growth Strategy Sprint develops the detailed, costed 90-day plan.
05 / SELECTED EXPERIENCE
Strategy connected to revenue
Selected experience from Stephen’s leadership roles across SaaS, technology and consumer subscription products.
Performance Lab Technologies / Podium
Brand & launch
Building a brand and growth engine under pressure
ChallengeLaunch a consumer subscription app while product development continued.
Steve’s roleAs Marketing Director, Steve led positioning, market focus and launch planning. He coordinated creative, media and PR agencies and connected acquisition with onboarding and paid subscription journeys.
OutcomeA coordinated approach to bringing the product to market, connecting the brand story with the journey from first interest to paid subscription.
AWS Skill Builder
7% to >35%
Turning learning goals into paid subscriptions
ChallengeHelp global individual learners progress from a free trial to a paid subscription.
Steve’s roleSteve designed onboarding around each learner’s goal, from gaining a certification to building a new skill. He broke goals into practical steps, introduced exam vouchers triggered by progress and worked with data science and marketing automation teams to scale the approach.
OutcomeTrial conversion rose from about 7% to more than 35% within roughly three months. Results were sustained, with later work extending into retention and personalised learning journeys.
Intuit QuickBooks APAC
65% to 77%
Building product habits that support retention
ChallengeHelp new small business customers use QuickBooks in their daily finances and remain paying subscribers.
Steve’s roleSteve owned onboarding journey design, email copy, reporting and optimisation. He combined behavioural messaging across email and in product, tested motivation and ease, and improved customer success handoffs when customers struggled with setup.
OutcomeAcross APAC, 90-day paid retention rose from about 65% to 77% over roughly three months. Separately, 93% of new Australian customers completed five money in or money out transactions in their first 30 days.
This experience comes from Steve’s roles at Performance Lab Technologies, AWS and Intuit, working with internal teams and partners. These are not Depth & Direction client results. Future results depend on the client’s context and implementation.
06 / FOUNDER
Commercial judgement grounded in customer behaviour.
Stephen Dodd
Founder and Fractional Marketing Leader
A growth advisor with more than 20 years of experience across SaaS, technology, financial services and advertising.
Steve has led APAC customer marketing for Intuit QuickBooks, AWS Training and Certification marketing in ANZ, and marketing for a SaaS startup. His career also includes 20 years in advertising agency strategy.
His strongest work connects targeting and positioning with onboarding, product adoption and retention. He combines commercial diagnosis with journey design, behavioural messaging and leadership of the teams delivering the work.
View Stephen on LinkedIn07 / COMMON QUESTIONS
Before we
begin.
A few practical answers about choosing the right engagement and how the work fits into your business.
What if we do not know what is blocking growth?
That is a valid place to start. The Initial Review examines one commercial question using leadership perspectives, commercial performance, sales and customer evidence, and the current journey. It distinguishes symptoms from likely causes, makes evidence gaps explicit and recommends where effort should go first.
What does the Initial Review deliver?
It is a €3,600 fixed engagement comprising three delivery days over approximately two weeks. It produces a concise decision brief, up to three ranked explanations, a recommended priority, explicit uncertainties and a practical next step. A 60-minute decision workshop and one consolidated factual-correction round are included. You can stop there, act internally, continue into the full Sprint or discuss Fractional Marketing Leadership.
Is implementation included?
The Initial Review and Growth Strategy Sprint cover the agreed diagnostic and strategic work. They do not include an unspecified implementation programme. Production, channel execution and specialist implementation are scoped explicitly. Once the priority is clear, you can implement internally, agree focused support or move into Fractional Marketing Leadership.
Do we have to complete a sprint before fractional leadership?
No. If you need ongoing senior marketing leadership, we can begin there and include diagnosis and strategic prioritisation within the agreed remit. Steve then stays to align the team, guide delivery and adapt priorities as the evidence changes.
Will Steve work with our existing marketing and sales teams?
Yes. Steve works with leadership, marketing, sales, product and customer success to understand the evidence and agree the priority. He can coordinate existing agencies and specialist partners where included.
How much does an engagement cost?
The Initial Review is €3,600. A full Growth Strategy Sprint is €12,000 in total, including the review, or €8,400 if you continue on the same scope after the review. Fractional Marketing Leadership is €5,600 per month for four days or €10,400 per month for eight days, with a three-month initial term.
Can you guarantee a revenue uplift?
We commit to the agreed diagnosis, decisions and plan. Revenue outcomes depend on the starting position, product, sales cycle and implementation. We agree measures against your baseline and review progress as the work develops.
08 / CONTACT
Discuss where growth is falling short.
You do not need to know the answer before we talk. In a 30-minute conversation, we’ll explore what is happening, what you have tried and whether the Initial Review, a full Growth Strategy Sprint or Fractional Marketing Leadership is the right fit.
Book a 30-minute conversationPrefer LinkedIn? Send Stephen a message.