If You’re Thinking About Cutting Your Marketing Budget, READ THIS FIRST

Laura Quick

Smart Leaders Ask These 3 Questions Before Cutting Their Marketing Budget

When revenue dips, most executive teams instinctively reach for the same lever:

Cut marketing.

Push sales harder.

Tighten spend.

It feels disciplined. It feels prudent. It’s also often the exact move that slows growth even more.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Marketing isn’t the problem. A disconnected, fragmented marketing approach is.

Before reducing your marketing budget, smart leaders ask these three questions.

1. Is Our Marketing Actually in Service of Sales?

Not “Are they aligned?”
In service of.

There’s a difference.

Is marketing showing up to sales meetings?
Do they understand the real objections your team is facing?
Do they know what questions prospects ask on calls?
Do they understand where deals stall and why?
Do they know why you’re getting nos?
And just as importantly, why you’re getting yeses?

Your sales team is sitting on your most valuable strategic data. They hear:

“This feels too expensive.”
“How are you different?”
“I need to justify this internally.”
“We’re not ready yet.”

Those aren’t just objections. They’re messaging clues.

If your marketing team is not actively studying sales friction—attending meetings, reviewing lost deals, analyzing close rates—your campaigns are built on theory, not intelligence.

Marketing should make your sales team sharper, more confident, and more effective. If it isn’t, cutting budget won’t fix that. Integration will.

2. Is Our Marketing Spend Shortening the Sales Cycle and Increasing Profit?

This is the executive question.

Not: “Are we getting impressions?”
Not: “Did engagement go up?”
But: “Is this making it easier and faster to close profitable business?”

Effective marketing:

Pre-handles objections before the first call
Clarifies value before price becomes the only topic
Builds trust before procurement steps in
Equips sales with language that converts
Attracts better-fit buyers

If marketing is doing its job, your sales cycle should tighten, not lengthen.

Your close rate should improve.
Your profit margins should strengthen.
Your team should spend less time convincing and more time confirming.

If your marketing team doesn’t know your sales cycle length, average deal size, and most common objections, they cannot strategically influence profit. That’s not a spend problem. That’s a measurement problem.

3. Are We Treating Marketing as an Expense or a Multiplier?

Every organization is a sales organization.

Whether you sell:

A product
A service
A subscription
A city
A nonprofit mission
A vision

You’re asking someone to commit.

Marketing done poorly is an expense. Marketing wired correctly is a multiplier.

It should:

Fuel your pipeline
Increase close rate
Reduce friction
Strengthen retention
Protect margin

Impressions don’t pay payroll. Revenue does. If your instinct when profit dips is to cut marketing, pause long enough to ask: Is marketing ineffective? Or is it disconnected from the revenue engine?

Because those are very different problems. And only one of them requires a budget cut.

At Good Grit Agency, we build marketing in service of sales.

We sit in the meetings.
We study objections.
We analyze friction.
We align messaging to real revenue conversations.

Because marketing isn’t meant to be admired. It’s meant to drive revenue. Always.

Smart leaders know the difference.

Before you cut your marketing budget, ask yourself: Is it an expense? Or is it a multiplier you haven’t fully activated yet?

Laura Quick, Founder of Good Grit

Laura is the visionary force behind Good Grit Agency and Good Grit Magazine, with 19 years of experience in marketing, brand storytelling, and strategic development. She has worked extensively with tourism boards, government entities, hospitality brands, and wellness industries, helping them create narratives that inspire action. Her superpower? Transforming ideas into compelling, high-impact stories that resonate with audiences and drive results. Laura is known for asking the right questions, truly listening to her clients, and ensuring every campaign is backed by a strategic plan that delivers. She also founded Les Dames, a nonprofit dedicated to reframing the childhood poverty mindset.

People-Pleasing is Holding You Back in Your Career

By Laura Quick • May 27, 2025

If you’re a woman in the workplace, chances are you’ve felt the pull of people-pleasing. Early in your career, it can feel like a survival instinct—wanting to get things right, be liked, and prove yourself. We walk in with goals for where we want to be in the future, whether within our current organization or across our career as a whole. But what happens when people-pleasing stops being a stepping stone and starts becoming a roadblock? The reality is this: People-pleasing can keep you stuck. It can create a perception that you’re someone who will go with the flow of whoever is in the room rather than someone who has a clear perspective. Over time, this can lead to a lack of respect from colleagues and leadership. Instead of being seen as a strategic thinker, you may be overlooked for leadership roles because decision-makers don’t see you as someone who brings innovation, challenges ideas, or solves problems. Why Authenticity Is a Career Advantage Leaning into authenticity at work doesn’t mean being difficult or contrarian—it means: Understanding your own perspective and being prepared to articulate it clearly. Recognizing that you won’t always agree with everyone—and that’s not only okay, it’s healthy. Knowing that agreeability in a thriving organization only works when it’s authentic. If you’re agreeing just to avoid conflict, you’re not actually contributing to the growth of your department or organization. Worse, you may be impeding progress without realizing it. People-pleasing can unintentionally send the message that you’re not a problem solver, that you’re unwilling to challenge inefficiencies, or that you don’t have the vision to push an organization forward. And when leaders don’t see you as someone who questions, innovates, or refines processes, they may not see you as someone who is ready for the next level in your career. Your Permission Slip to Lead with Authenticity If you’ve been playing small and waiting for permission to speak up, consider this your sign: Lean into authenticity. Use your voice. Articulate solutions to problems you see. Learn the skill of discerning when and how to disagree for the overall health of your company, your team, and your own career growth. The most successful women I know aren’t the ones who agree with everyone—they’re the ones who know when to challenge, when to offer a fresh perspective, and when to confidently advocate for what they believe will move the organization forward. So here’s your permission slip: You don’t have to be the most agreeable person in the room to be the most respected. You just have to be willing to show up as the leader you already are.

The Value of Clear Communication

By Haley Chambers • September 5, 2024

At Good Grit, one of our core values is being proactive communicators. But what does that really mean, and how do we live it out?

Clear Expectations = Healthy Company Culture

By Laura Quick • August 16, 2024

Audit workshops are one of my favorite team exercises, and I've been facilitating them for over a decade. At Good Grit, we approach each client as an expert in their field, positioning ourselves as learners at the start of our partnership. My role initially is to listen and ask questions, fostering an interactive environment with whiteboards and dry erase markers for all participants. The goal of these sessions is to uncover productivity and revenue roadblocks and identify where confusion may exist within the organization. This confusion often translates externally, affecting client relations and clarity.