Independent consultancy
Build a media company without becoming its full-time manager.
Your Fractional Head of Content.
I help personal brands, business owners and creators build the strategy, team and systems behind a media company, then lead it, so you aren’t the one making every call. With particular depth in finance, investing and education.
Not ready for anything ongoing? Start with The Signal Scan, a fixed-price review of what you already publish.
Who I work with
Creators
You built an audience on your own. Now it needs a team, a structure and someone making the calls, so it can grow beyond what one person can make.
A good place to start: The Content OS
Personal brands
You’re known for something and already publishing. You want it turned into a proper media operation with a team behind it, without the content becoming your second job.
A good place to start: The Signal Scan
Business owners
You might not call it a media company. You want an audience that makes it easier to sell, hire and raise, and you know that takes more than a social media manager.
A good place to start: The Playbook
The gap
Making content isn’t the same thing as building a media company.
Without someone senior directing the content, the same things tend to happen:
- A capable, expensive team making content nobody has set a clear direction for
- Every creative decision waiting on you, so you become the bottleneck
- Results that swing from week to week, with nobody able to say why
- Another hire as the answer to a stall, while the real problem stays put
- Ideas picked in the moment rather than from evidence of what works
None of that means anyone is doing a bad job. It’s what happens when nobody owns the decisions.
The services
Diagnose, decide, build, lead. Full detail on each page.
- 01The Signal ScanDiagnose what needs fixingAn expert read on what you already publish: what’s working, what isn’t, and what to fix first.For: Creators, brands and businesses already publishing, with results that have stalledView details and price
- 02The PlaybookDecide what to make and whyDecide what you should be making, and why, before you spend a year finding out.For: Anyone starting a media company, or restarting one, who needs a direction to commit toView details and price
- 03The Content OSBuild the team and processHire the right people and set up how work gets briefed, made, reviewed and measured.For: Creators and founders ready to build the team behind their contentView details and price
- 04The Head of ContentLead it, week to weekOngoing senior direction for your content team: what gets made, the standard it’s made to, and what to change next.For: Businesses and creators with a team producing content and nobody senior directing itView details and price
How I work through a problem
Four common content problems
How I’d approach problems that come up a lot. These are examples, not client case studies.
Views have been flat for three months, even though the videos are better made than ever.
- What I’d look at
- Split each video’s performance into click-through and retention. If people who click still watch, the content isn’t the problem. Then compare the titles of your top tenth with the rest: winners usually promise an outcome, while flat ones describe a topic.
- What I’d change
- Stop polishing the videos. Agree the title and thumbnail before anything is scripted, and drop ideas that can’t be packaged well.
- Why it matters
- It fixes the actual cause instead of spending more on production that was never the issue.
Ideas get picked in a weekly meeting, and every idea sounds good in the room.
- What I’d look at
- Find videos in your niche, and one or two neighbouring ones, that beat their own channel’s average by three times or more in the past year. Note which topics, angles and formats keep repeating.
- What I’d change
- An idea needs evidence of demand before it’s approved. The meeting becomes choosing between proven angles, not inventing from scratch.
- Why it matters
- It doesn’t remove the risk of making something nobody wants, but it cuts it a lot.
Long-form videos get the clicks, but most viewers are gone within the first minute.
- What I’d look at
- The retention graph for the first 60 seconds across your last 20 videos, and what is on screen at each steep drop. The graph shows where people leave; rewatching those moments usually shows why.
- What I’d change
- Deliver the first payoff early, cut the preamble, and brief the opening separately from the rest of the video.
- Why it matters
- More of the people who already clicked stay to watch, and that tends to lift reach as well.
You hired two more editors. Output went up. Results did not.
- What I’d look at
- Where work waits (briefs, sign-off, thumbnails), how much of what is published actually meets the standard, and what the team is measured on in practice.
- What I’d change
- Fix the brief and the review step before adding anyone else, and judge the team on results per piece rather than pieces published.
- Why it matters
- Adding people to a process that isn’t working usually just makes it more expensive.
Want this applied to your own channels? The Signal Scan does exactly that.
- Six years in content strategy
- 100+ creators worked with
- Contributed to content generating billions of views
YouTube
Long-form strategy, packaging and retention
Short form
TikTok, Reels and Shorts
Finance and investing
Trading, markets and investor education
Educational content
Explainers and education-led channels
Creators
Turning a one-person channel into a team
Personal brands
Building a media operation around a person
Creative direction
Ideation, titles, thumbnails, hooks and retention
Creative teams
Briefing, reviewing and raising the standard
How working together works
Written first, so you can decide in your own time.
- 01
Choose a service
Each service page has the full scope and price. Not sure which fits? The 8 Ball will suggest one.
- 02
Send a short request
For the Signal Scan, you get a payment link back. For everything else, a written price and terms. Usually within a working day.
- 03
Pay and onboard
A structured questionnaire covering access, goals, context and who I should speak to.
- 04
Start
On the agreed timeline, through your existing tools. Calls happen when they help the work.
Start with the problem you have now.
Diagnose it, decide what to make, build the team, or have it led. If you aren’t sure which, ask a question and you’ll get a straight answer, usually within a day.