About Gary Rosen
I learned this inside marketing departments, not pitching to them.
I've held the marketing budget and answered for the number at the end of the quarter. I've sat in the room where someone asks why last quarter's campaign didn't pay for itself. That's a different job from recommending what a team should do and leaving before any of it runs.
Spark & Steer is what I do with that now. Companies bring me in by the hour or by the project, usually because something needs deciding and nobody is free to decide it. I'm based in Los Angeles and work with firms nationally.
Most of my work has been in financial services, where the rules are tighter and the sales cycle is longer. A firm that can't tell what its marketing is producing has that problem whatever it sells.
What I find most often isn't a team doing too little. It's that nobody has had time to look closely at what's already running. That's usually a short job.
Where I have worked
MBA, Rice University · BA Communications, New York University
What happened, and how
Programs I ran, and the numbers they produced.
In first-year sales
Took over a paid data product at American Express before a single report had sold, and ran production, pricing, and delivery. Price moved from $25,000 to $50,000 a report after a pilot.
In new client AUM
Directed a video ad campaign on Facebook and Instagram, then cross-referenced which leads became clients and what those clients were worth.
Leads over three years
Directed the lead generation strategy at Ascensus and wrote the email and webinar content myself, up from about 800 a year.
What people who worked with me say about it.
He has a great way of looking at the entire marketing process, finding opportunities to improve lead generation and marketing automation, and keeping everyone focused on what would actually help the business grow.
Gary brings thoughtful ideas to the table, while ensuring projects and events get delivered in a timely fashion. Gary helped create experiences that our clients genuinely enjoyed and talked about afterward.
He is very in tune with the customer and has the ability to establish instant credibility with external and internal customers. Gary challenges the status quo, and regularly comes up with unique ways of approaching problems.
What you're probably thinking
The questions I get asked first.
How would you work with the team we already have?
Alongside them, not over them. Usually that means I take one project end to end so nobody has to squeeze it into an already full week. Or I sit with the team on the thing that keeps getting pushed and we work through it together. Your people keep their work and their credit. I'm not another set of hands for you to manage, and when it's done I hand it back documented.
How would this work with our agency?
Your agency keeps doing the work. I've sat on your side of that table. At Evoke I directed a redesign and ran the agency building it. My job is making sure what they're recommending actually matches what the business needs.
We don't have budget for more marketing projects.
That's who I work with. Most of my clients don't have budget set aside for this either. They buy a few hours at a time and we go from there. So perhaps the better question to ask is, “What is the cost of delaying critical marketing projects?”
Is it really just you?
Mostly, and that's the point. When a project needs a specialist I bring one in: a designer, a developer, an editor, a media buyer. People I've worked with and would hire again. Their cost sits in the scope you already agreed to, and I stay accountable for the whole thing, so you've still got one person to call.
Do you understand compliance?
I've built marketing inside firms where every piece goes through review. I'm not your compliance officer and I won't pretend to be. I know how to build a program that survives review instead of one that dies in it.
Still have a question? Ask me directly.
Tell me what's going on in a few sentences. I'll tell you where I'd start and whether I can help.