thecontribution.coKatie Tuffs

Growth diagnostic for consumer businesses

Before you hire your next marketing leader, diagnose the problem they need to solve.

More marketing. A new agency. A different leader. When growth slows, the obvious answer is not always the right one.

I find what is actually constraining profitable growth, then help you act on the answer.

Diagnose the constraint Talk to Katie
01 / The growth gapIllustrative
The gap between planned and actual growth Two illustrative growth trajectories follow the same path, then diverge. The plan continues to rise while actual growth flattens below it, opening a widening gap. PLAN ACTUAL WHAT CHANGED? THEN NOW
Acquisition cost↑ Rising
Repeat behaviour↓ Weakening
Channel mix→ Concentrating
The question is not how do we market harder.
It is what changed.

01 / Read the signals

Your business stopped growing like it used to.

The dashboard tells you something has changed. It rarely tells you which part of the business needs to change next.

  • 01 / CAC

    Rising.

    Acquisition costs keep climbing despite more optimisation.

  • 02 / Channel mix

    Concentrating.

    Growth increasingly depends on one or two channels.

  • 03 / Retention

    Under pressure.

    Repeat behaviour no longer supports acquisition economics.

  • 04 / Leadership

    Misaligned.

    Marketing, product, pricing or proposition? The team disagrees.

  • 05 / The next move

    Replace the leader?

    You are considering a new CMO, Head of Growth or agency.

  • 06 / The board

    Asking what is next.

    Where will the next credible wave of growth come from?

Six symptoms. Multiple possible causes. Find the binding constraint before committing to the fix.

The symptom is not
the diagnosis.

The expensive mistake is treating one as the other.

02 / The thesis

Most apparent marketing problems are not just marketing problems.

Media can be excellent.

A company can still struggle because customer value has deteriorated.

The hire can be brilliant.

A new CMO can still fail if pricing, proposition and retention do not support the economics.

The agency can change.

Three different agencies can still be working against the same saturated growth model.

The strategy can be correct.

It can still fail if the organisation will not make the trade-offs required to execute it.

03 / The underlying system

You see the growth number. I inspect what sits underneath.

Growth is the output of connected systems. I investigate them together so the diagnosis does not inherit the assumptions already inside the business.

Five lenses.
One commercial answer.

GROWTH ↑
  1. 05Organisation

    Who decides what, where the real disagreements sit, and what this team can execute in the next twelve months.

  2. 04Growth engine

    Acquisition, retention, channel saturation, how brand and performance interact, and whether the measurement can be trusted.

  3. 03Proposition

    What customers are buying, what they are paying, why they choose you, and whether the offer still lands the way it did three years ago.

  4. 02Customer

    Who is actually valuable, what they need, how behaviour differs by cohort, and where customer economics are strengthening or deteriorating.

  5. 01Economics

    CAC, LTV, contribution margin, payback, and which spend is genuinely incremental rather than harvesting demand you already had.

The engine that got you here
will not necessarily get you there.

Define what must change. Give the team a mandate built around the right problem.

04 / Diagnose → build → implement

Phase one / Four weeks

The Growth Diagnostic.

One answer: what is constraining profitable growth?

£15,000+ VAT · Fixed fee

£7,500 to start · £7,500 on completion

A deliberately broad commercial diagnostic that establishes the binding constraint, quantifies it, and turns the answer into decisions the CEO and board can act on.

  1. The diagnosisWhat is really limiting profitable growth, and the evidence behind it.
  2. The prioritiesThe three to five interventions most likely to change the trajectory.
  3. The economicsWhat each intervention could reasonably unlock and what it requires.
  4. The decisionsWhat needs to stop, change or be funded.
  5. The leadership briefIf a senior hire is required: the role the business actually needs, what success looks like, and the first 100-day mandate.

Phase two

Build + implement.

Three to nine months · typically 1–2 days a week

The diagnosis is useful only if the business acts on it. I stay close enough to turn the recommendations into work with real owners, measures and commercial trade-offs.

That can mean implementing the priorities with the existing team, coaching leaders as responsibilities shift, providing continuity while a search is underway, or supporting the incoming marketing leader as they take over the mandate. The aim is not to become a permanent fractional CMO. It is to make the change take, then hand over cleanly.

05 / While the search runs

“We need new marketing leadership.”Start the search. Start the work.

A new leader may well be part of the answer. But the business does not need to wait for them to arrive before changing its trajectory.

I work alongside the search to diagnose what is constraining growth, give the existing team a clear route forward, and sharpen the mandate for the person joining.

By the time the new leader starts, they inherit a business with greater clarity, work already underway, and a clear first 100-day mandate.

As the search begins, get clear on three things.

  1. What is actually constraining growth?
  2. What needs to change now?
  3. What mandate will give the new leader the best chance of succeeding?

For search firms. I work alongside the search, not instead of it, helping your client move now, sharpen the mandate and de-risk the placement.

How I work with search firms ↗

06 / Operator experience

I have sat on your side of the table.

thecontribution.co is the advisory practice of Katie Tuffs, who ran growth and marketing at HelloFresh, Eucalyptus (through its acquisition by Hims & Hers) and SPOKE.

Katie Tuffs

I have spent my career inside the kinds of businesses I now advise. It has always been about more than the Facebook account for me. From the P&L to customer behaviour, proposition to retention, I connect marketing decisions to the wider business choices that determine whether growth can compound. Now I help CEOs find an independent answer, and make the change happen.

Katie Tuffs

Connect on LinkedIn ↗
  • HelloFreshHelloFresh
  • EucalyptusEucalyptus
  • Hims & HersHims & Hers
  • SPOKESPOKE
  • DeloitteDeloitte
  • Marketing Week Mini-MBAMarketing Week Mini-MBA
  • University of OxfordUniversity of Oxford

Fit matters

For businesses ready to question the model.

Established consumer and subscription companies with real scale, slowing growth, and the data and capacity to act on evidence.

It takes a willingness to change.

The answer may involve product, proposition, pricing or economics rather than marketing. That has to be on the table before we start.

Probably not for you if the answer is already decided.

Pre-product-market-fit startups, businesses looking for outsourced performance marketing, and leadership teams that know exactly what they want and need only execution.

Start with the problem

Growth has slowed. Before you decide why, find out.

A first conversation takes 30 minutes. We will establish whether a diagnostic is useful and, if it isn't, I'll tell you.

Talk about your growth constraint

Four weeks. A clear answer. Backed by the Clarity Guarantee.