Protecting Founders from Bad Marketing Decisions, Wasted Spend & Strategic Chaos.
I help founders, consultants, agencies, and service businesses improve positioning, increase ROI, simplify growth strategy, and avoid the expensive mistakes that destroy momentum.
Trusted by founders, consultants, agencies, experts, and growth-focused businesses for over 30 years.
The Hidden Cost Of Bad Strategic Advice.
Most founders don’t realise how much momentum is quietly being lost through weak positioning, disconnected marketing, bloated retainers, conflicting advice, and strategies that look impressive on paper but fail to create meaningful business growth.
The marketing industry is full of people selling:
more tactics,
more complexity,
more tools,
more campaigns,
more “growth hacks.”
But very few people are actually protecting:
the founder,
the business,
the profitability,
the positioning,
and the long-term strategic direction.
That’s where costly mistakes compound.
Marketing teams executing without strategic clarity.
Agencies optimising activity instead of outcomes.
Businesses blending into AI-generated noise.
Founders paying for growth while quietly losing differentiation, authority, and momentum.
This is where I work differently...
I act as a founder-side strategic advisor — helping businesses simplify growth, improve positioning, strengthen messaging, increase ROI, identify hidden inefficiencies, and make smarter marketing decisions before small problems become expensive ones.
results produced
$100M+
... across private clients and programs in franchising, professional services, coaching, manufacturing, hospitality, health supplements, IT, digital courses, financial institutions, property
experience
34 yrs
... operating numerous advisor businesses incl. marketing agency, copywriting consultancy, web design busines, business planning , marketing & business coaching, and copywriting college.
businesses helped
3372
Businesses helped across consulting, SaaS, ecommerce and financial services .. via events, coaching, consulting, campaign projects, and courses plus over 30,000 via our newsletters.
What I Help With
Founder-side strategic guidance focused on protecting ROI, reducing noise, and creating more sustainable momentum.
01
Improve Positioning
Clarify how your business is perceived, differentiated, and trusted in an increasingly noisy and AI-saturated market.
02
Find Revenue Leaks
Identify the hidden strategic friction slowing growth, draining energy, and creating unnecessary complexity inside the business.
03
Increase Marketing ROI
Ensure marketing decisions, spend, and execution are commercially aligned and contributing to measurable business growth.
04
Vet Agencies & Vendors
Protect your business from poor agency fit, inflated retainers, weak execution, and expensive marketing relationships that erode momentum.
05
Fix Offer & Growth Bottlenecks
Strengthen your offers, messaging, and growth ecosystem so the business becomes easier to scale and sustain.
06
Improve Messaging & Build Authority
Build stronger trust, visibility, and category authority through clearer communication and strategic positioning.
Why Most Marketing Advice Fails Founders
Most marketing problems are caused by:
unclear positioning,
fragmented strategy,
weak messaging,
and disconnected execution.
Many founders are trapped in what I call:
The Agency Advice Trap.
Where businesses spend more, add more complexity, hire more vendors, follow more tactics…
…but never fix the underlying strategic problem.
The result is bloated marketing ecosystems that create activity instead of momentum.
That’s why I focus on strategic clarity first.
Because when positioning, messaging, offers, and growth strategy become coherent again, marketing becomes significantly easier.
Who I Work With
This Is For You If...
You’re an established founder, consultant, agency, coach, or expert
Your business has potential but growth feels inconsistent or scattered
You’re tired of wasting money on disconnected marketing tactics
You want strategic clarity instead of more noise
You feel your positioning no longer reflects your real value
You want stronger authority, better clients, and higher ROI
You’re navigating reinvention, scaling, or market change
You want an experienced strategic advisor who protects your business interests
Why Founders Hire Me
Strategic Advisor. Founder Advocate. Protector Of Momentum
Kristina Elphinstone
Fractional CMO · Former Agency Owner
34 Years On The Tools
I've spent 34 years seeing what works, what doesn't, and where businesses quietly lose money.
I've built agencies. Worked inside agencies. Written campaigns.
Led marketing teams. Coached founders. Advised businesses.
Reviewed thousands of marketing strategies.
After a while you stop looking at tactics.
You start seeing patterns.
Which agencies perform.
Which advice is useful.
Which advice is dangerous.
And which expensive mistakes show up over and over again.
That's the experience you're buying.
It's exactly why I can walk into a room with your SEO agency, your ads team, or your AI vendor and ask the questions that make them uncomfortable — because I know what the right answers look like.
Paid Media
SEO & Content
Prof. Services Marketing
AI Implementation
Brand Strategy
Go-To-Market
Social Media & Content
Sales Enablement
Web Design & eComm
Copywriting
Marketing Automation
Agency Management
What People Say ...
"The Real Deal"
JT Foxx
9 Figure Entrepreneur,
owner of over 80 companies
"Working with you has been transformative"
Steve Plummer
Marketing Strategist,
Copywriter, Author, Speaker
"Transformative"
Working with Kristina has changed me profoundly. She brings a genuinely unique combination of the esoteric ways, a sharp business mind, and next level strategic marketing skills.
What this means is that if something can’t be solved with one of her many laser-focused business or marketing solutions, she is able to move it from your field via energy work. Working with you has been transformative.”
Steve Plummer
Copywriter, Marketing Strategist, Speaker, Coach
"Focused on key tasks tha build revenue"
Kristina has the ability to make the complex simple, to keep me focused on the key tasks that drive revenue and build brand, and she keeps me motivated and inspired.
I can’t recommend Kristina highly enough to business owners wanting to achieve the fullest potential for their companies.
Richard Triggs
Managing Director – Arete Executive
Invaluable in the development of our marketing systems
You have been invaluable to the development of the marketing systems within our franchise system. And the marketing strategies you have written for our clients have also worked a treat.
Look, over the years I’ve rubbed shoulders with a number of accomplished marketing strategists, through my international business dealings, and from what I have experienced, I consider you to be one of the most talented copywriters and strategists in Australia ”
Nic Clark
Co-founder, 10x
Enormously talented and gifted
“Kris is a talented and enormously gifted person; the results she gets speak volumes. But gifted people can be difficult. Kris is anything but that-she works enormously hard to get things right and to make her gift really work for her clients. She’s a joy to know and to work with.”
Paul Dunn, Chairman, B1G1
“Brilliant success strategist”
“Kristina is one of the most dynamic personalities I have had the pleasure of working with. Her passion, vision and innate wisdom combine with a formidable life and business experience to make her the brilliant success strategist she is.”
William Whitecloud – Author, Magician’s Way
I have used many over the years and nothing compares to Kris’s writing ability and strategic marketing thinking.
Her style is punchy, direct and it works. Every time I use Kris’s services she produces results.”
Rob Nixon
CEO, Panalitix
"Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow"
"Kristina has the most amazing ability to get lazer focused on where you need to be and catalyst you forward to be seen as an authority in your field. Working with Kristina is like the rocket fuel to success, to the next level
Her intuition and gifts of the esoteric with her copy writing and market genius is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow every Entrepreneur with out of the box ideas needs."
Nyree Pearson CEO, Avatarian
"Doubled our Revenue"
” In short, our turnover has more than doubled in the last financial year, during a recession and much of that has been due to your great service.
Warwick Lindsay
CEO, MagicEzy (formerly DucoMagic)
Note: We have since worked with Warwick across multiple companies and produced results that include a 60% increase in revenue in another business within a hdandful of months.
"You managed to increase my online sales by a real 48"
After you guys re-wrote my message – You managed to increase my online sales by a real 48% and my existing customers are now recommending it to all their friends because they love it so much!
Chris Elmore – Guitar Tips
What Next?
Marketing Should Produce Revenue.
Measurably. Consistently.
To start the journey, choose the option that suits ou best, below.
SELF-ASSESSMENT - free
Take the Marketing Blindspot Test
Find out where your marketing is leaking money and what to fix first.
Get a specific picture of which of the seven reasons are active in your business right now — and what to prioritise first.
No email required. No one will call you forty seconds after you finish.
most popular
Get the Book
The exact framework, questions and checklists used to find and fix revenue leaks in real businesses. The lens to find the gap fast — before more budget disappears on the wrong strategy.
high results - paid
Work with Kristina
Want senior marketing leadership without hiring a full-time CMO? Let’s look at your business and identify the highest-leverage growth moves.
Your spend, your agencies, your funnel, your pause. An honest look at what's playing and what's missing.
COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The Things People Ask After Reading This
Plain answers. No brochure voice.
Do I still need an agency?
Yes. And they'll probably perform better once you do. The most common reason agencies underdeliver isn't incompetence — it's playing without a conductor. No clear commercial brief. No one holding them to revenue outcomes. A fractional CMO fixes that. Most agency relationships improve significantly within 90 days. The agency is usually relieved.
How quickly will I see results?
Strategy clarity and a commercial brief for every specialist shifts things within weeks. Structural fixes compound over 90–180 days. What changes within 30 days: a clear, confident answer to "what's actually working?" — delivered without the pause. For most CEOs and business owners, that changes the temperature of every conversation with their team, their board, and their agencies
What size of business is this right for?
Businesses between $1M and $20M with marketing already running but no clear line between the spend and the revenue. Below $1M — focus on product-market fit and direct sales first. Above $20M — a full-time CMO is usually right. In between — a fractional CMO is almost always the highest-leverage marketing investment available. Significantly more impactful than adding another specialist to a band that's already missing a conductor.
How is this different to a marketing consultant?
A consultant analyses and recommends. A fractional CMO leads and owns. The consultant gives you a new score. The fractional CMO stays in the room until the band is playing it. Most businesses that have tried consulting and not seen results aren't short on recommendations. They're short on someone senior enough to make them stick.
How do I know if this is right for my business right now?
Take the diagnostic. Five minutes. If three or more of the seven reasons are active — and for most businesses at this stage they are — this is the answer. If fewer than three are active I'll tell you that in the conversation. I don't take on engagements where the fit isn't right. There are enough of the right ones.
Is this right for a professional services, coaching, or consulting business?
Most of the businesses I work with are in professional services, consulting, IT, property, financial services, coaching, or franchises. These businesses have specific challenges — longer sales cycles, relationship-driven pipelines, expertise-based positioning — that most agency playbooks weren't built for. The strategy has to be built for your market, not adapted from someone else's.
What about AI - won't it replace this role?
AI is extraordinary at execution. It executes the brief it's given. If the strategy is wrong for your stage, AI runs the wrong strategy faster and more expensively. If the specialists aren't aligned, AI amplifies the misalignment. The businesses winning with AI right now have someone who governs what it's pointed at. AI doesn't replace strategic judgment. It makes good strategic judgment dramatically more powerful.
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