“What’s your ROI?”

A founder recently asked if I’d be open to being paid on commission instead of my usual retainer for my strategy work.

I get why they asked. It’s tempting to want everything to tie back to a clean ROI metric — especially when budgets are tight and results feel urgent.

But that question misses how growth actually works.

My work sits upstream of conversion. It’s the part you can’t easily quantify — the “connecting the dots” and “driving clarity” that make every channel work harder because they’re grounded in what the consumer actually needs and feels.

It’s not about pulling one lever. ​​I speak all the levers — brand, innovation, content, retail, lifecycle, paid, pricing, profitability — and make them move in sync. Because when those parts disconnect, awareness leaks, messaging loses power, and campaigns stop compounding. 

That means:

• Haloing DTC and retail so both sides grow together.

• Bridging brand and performance so awareness turns into sales.

• Aligning media, promo, and retail timing so spend actually drives velocity.

• Syncing acquisition with retention so growth sticks.

• Turning insights into systems — so growth stops being episodic and starts being repeatable.

You can’t pay for that on commission because it’s not a transaction. And let’s not forget: real brand building takes time. It’s the operating system that makes every transaction possible.

So when people ask, “What’s your ROI?” It’s this:
The engine that makes growth compound.
The clarity that makes every dollar work harder.
And the story that keeps customers coming back long after the campaign ends.

And when that founder asked if I’d take commission?
The answer was a hard no.

Because brand building isn’t soft work. It’s the infrastructure of performance and the reason anything else works at all.