If You're Looking for a "Yes Man", Stop Reading This Right Now and Go Find One.
It'll be easy, they're a dime a dozen.
Here's what I mean...
A yes man doesn’t drive $100M+ in career revenue impact by challenging old assumptions and connecting marketing activity to real business results.
A yes man doesn’t connect marketing activity to sales reality, save tens of thousands in wasted spend, and help capture hundreds of thousands in new revenue.
And a yes man doesn’t build marketing teams from the ground up and aim them at revenue, profit, and execution.
Someone Has to Say the Thing Everyone Else Won’t
And it has to be someone leadership will actually listen to...
Hard truths are useless if nobody can hear them.
I’ve built my career around being direct without being reckless, candid without being theatrical, and strategic without turning everything into a corporate exercise.
Leadership does not need another person nodding along.
They need someone who can challenge the assumptions that no longer match reality, see what is making growth harder than it should be, and help turn uncomfortable answers into work the business can act on.
That is where I do my best work.
Eric does an exceptional job developing and implementing innovative strategies that solve complex business issues. His diligence and professionalism is highly regarded.
- Amy Penny
More Marketing Won't Make Growth Make Sense
If you’ve spent real money on agencies, campaigns, tools, ads, content, and advice, but still cannot clearly see what is making money, what is wasting money, and what needs to change, the business probably does not need more marketing noise.
It needs a clearer read on the path from attention to revenue.
This usually happens when everyone owns a piece, but nobody owns how the pieces connect.
The ad person sees ads. The SEO person sees rankings. The email person sees campaigns. The agency sees deliverables.
Leadership is left trying to figure out what it all means.
That is where expensive marketing starts to feel random.
More activity will not fix that by itself.
The work already happening has to make growth easier, clearer, and more profitable.
Working with Eric has been a fantastic experience on many levels.
First he is an exceptional digital strategist. He approaches all client issues and challenges with deep thoughtfulness and applies best in class tactics that truly move the needle.
Secondly, he is generous with his time and talents which brings an incredible level of learning to those around him.
Lastly, his work ethic and tenacity are characteristics that help him bring results when others might give up. I hope to have the chance to work with him again.
- AnnMarie Wills
You Can't Outspend Bad Economics
Ever look at a competitor and wonder how the hell they can keep running that offer?
Or how they keep buying traffic that would never make sense on your side of the business?
Dan Kennedy had a line that stuck with me: whoever can spend the most to acquire a customer wins.
That sounds obvious until a competitor keeps showing up everywhere and you can’t figure out how they’re making it work.
Meanwhile, your team is staring at the ads, the website, the agency, the CRM, the reports, and the sales feedback trying to figure out where the math is going sideways.
Sometimes the competitor is just burning cash.
But if they keep doing it, there is usually something underneath giving them more room to move.
Better margin. Better conversion. Better follow-up. Better customer value. A cleaner read on what is actually producing revenue.
That is the part I learned to look for while owning Digital Marketing P&L, managing acquisition spend that reached $1M+ a month, and working under enough pressure that bad assumptions got expensive fast.
When the money, tracking, and customer path got clearer, digital marketing moved from negative territory to $2.6M+ in annual profit.
That is why I care about the space between marketing activity and actual revenue.
It is where one company finds room to keep pushing and another company quietly runs out of it.
Eric always had unique, innovative solutions to present and which worked magic for clients. He could see every step from start-to-finish which equaled easy execution for my team... and lower stress for me!
- Erin Calvin
Fixing the Parts Between Marketing Activity and Actual Revenue
That’s the simplest way I know to describe the work.
Most companies do not feel a growth problem as one clean, obvious issue.
They are usually making money. It is just getting harder to make the next dollar make sense.
Acquisition gets expensive. Profit gets thinner. Follow-up gets loose. Messaging gets muddy. Teams stay busy, but leadership still has to guess what is actually moving revenue.
That is when companies usually start looking at one channel at a time.
The ads. The website. The CRM. The emails. The agency. The sales team.
Look at any one of them by itself and you can miss what is making all of them harder.
Industry matters. Sales cycle matters. Buyer trust, price point, margin, team, and timing all matter.
"My business is different" is usually true.
It just means the math hides in different places.
Different industry means different buyer behavior, different friction, different proof, different handoffs, and different places for money to get lost.
It changes where you have to look.
I look across the path from marketing activity to revenue, find what is making growth harder than it needs to be, and help fix what matters first.
That work has included:
Driving $100M+ in career revenue impact.
Managing acquisition spend up to $1M+ per month.
Owning Digital Marketing P&L.
Moving profitability from negative territory to $2.6M+ in annual profit.
Helping build the growth foundation behind a $14.1M acquisition.
Building marketing departments from the ground up.
I had the good fortune to work with Eric Laune on a number of digital strategy projects at Kinetic Supply Company. He is insightful, innovative and is a great collaborative partner.
He has the ability to quickly assess a situation, visualize solutions, and acts to get meaningful results. And the best part - he enjoys what he does, and it shows. I'd gladly work with him again.
- Leslie Quillen
Here's My Damaging Admission
There’s no way in hell I did all of this by myself.
I didn’t improve profit margins from 29.79% to 58.14% in 15 months by sitting alone with a spreadsheet.
I didn’t steer the creation of a custom CRM solution by pretending I was the programmer, designer, salesperson, strategist, and operator all at once.
I didn’t help boost sales in a critical channel by more than 21% because I had some magic marketing trick nobody else knew.
The work happened because the right people got involved, the right problems got named, and the team had enough buy-in to actually move.
That part matters.
A strategy that nobody understands will not survive.
A decision the team does not believe in will stall.
A plan that ignores the people doing the work will fall apart.
My job is not to be the hero of every piece.
My job is to help figure out what matters, get the right people involved, and keep the work moving until the business can actually feel the difference.
Here's What To Do Next...
At this point, you probably have a pretty good feel for how I think.
If that sounds useful for the role, the company, or the growth problem in front of you, connect with me on LinkedIn.
Send over the role, the situation, or the context that matters.
We’ll have a candid conversation, figure out if there’s a real fit, and go from there.
If there is, great.
If not, no hard feelings.
Eric possesses a great work ethic with an attention to detail that is very rare.
He continually demonstrates a keen perspective on the Digital Marketing industry and possesses that rare but valuable insightful balance between 'executive demands' and the reality of what the marketplace would react to.
He would prove to be a valuable asset to any company or organization.
- Angela Hamdorf
I got an immediate ROI from working with Eric, and now everyone in my firm, especially me, wouldn't make a marketing decision without consulting him first.
He became a trusted part of my leadership team and an advisor in not only our marketing efforts, but in running my business overall.
With every suggestion he makes, we see both an immediate improvement in the KPIs that we measure and a longer-term improvement in top line revenue, client satisfaction and retention, and profitability.
I can honestly say he has had a multimillion dollar impact on my firm.