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 what to change first.
Your marketing is busy, but growth is disappointing. Depth & Direction helps B2B SaaS founders and CEOs identify the priority problem and build a focused 90-day plan. Start with a four-week Growth Constraint Sprint.
01 / THE SITUATION
Marketing activity should lead to customer 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
Paying customers. Growth below expectations.
You’re a leader in a B2B SaaS business with paying customers and an existing marketing effort. You need to understand what is holding back growth and decide what to change first.
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
A focused sprint, then support to deliver
Begin with the diagnosis and plan. Choose ongoing leadership at the end of the sprint if your team needs it.
01
Four weeks
Growth Constraint Sprint
For B2B SaaS leaders who need to know where growth is being held back and what to change first.
You leave with
An evidence-backed diagnosis, one agreed priority and a costed 90-day plan with owners, measures, initial tests and activity to stop.
Fixed scope and fee agreed before work starts
02
Three-month initial term
Fractional Marketing Leadership
For teams that need senior marketing leadership to implement the plan and make performance decisions.
You gain
Steve leads priorities and reviews, coordinates your team and specialist partners, and keeps delivery accountable to commercial measures.
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 useful growth plan makes the priority clear, names who will act and shows how we will know whether the change is working.”
05 / SELECTED EXPERIENCE
Strategy connected to revenue
Selected results from Stephen’s work across global B2B SaaS and technology businesses.
AWS Skill Builder
7% to >35%
Trial-to-paid conversion
Rose from about 7% to more than 35% within roughly three months. Steve created goal-led onboarding journeys with data science and marketing automation teams for global individual learners.
QuickBooks APAC
65% to 77%
90-day paid retention across APAC
Rose from about 65% to 77% over roughly three months. Steve owned onboarding journeys, behavioural messaging, reporting and optimisation. Separately, 93% of new Australian customers reached five money-in or money-out transactions within 30 days.
These are results from Steve’s roles within Intuit and AWS, delivered with cross-functional teams. They demonstrate relevant experience; 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 does the four-week sprint deliver?
An evidence-backed diagnosis, one agreed priority, specific changes and activity to stop, and a costed 90-day plan with owners, measures and initial tests. We also record unresolved evidence gaps and agree what support implementation needs.
Is implementation included in the sprint?
The sprint delivers the diagnosis and plan. Implementation follows over the next 90 days. Your team can deliver internally or engage Steve for fractional marketing leadership. Any production or specialist implementation is scoped explicitly.
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?
We agree a fixed scope and fee for the sprint before starting. Fractional leadership is priced around the capacity and responsibilities required. A first conversation establishes whether there is a useful fit.
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.
In a 30-minute conversation, we’ll explore what is happening, what you have tried and whether a Growth Constraint Sprint would help.
Book a 30-minute conversationPrefer LinkedIn? Send Stephen a message.