I’m writing this one a little road-weary and mentally exhausted. The last two weeks took me from New York to Miami with a plethora of meetings in between focused on our 2027 budgeting and planning. And now I’m sitting in a beautiful Starbucks at 6:00am MST writing this, waiting for the sun to slowly bathe the majestic Red Rocks of Sedona, AZ.

I’m tired, but I can’t complain. I’m lucky to have the opportunity to travel and also spend time with my family in some of the more beautiful parts of the world. But it’s kept me from writing recently, until inspiration hit me this past week.

Two topics for today’s newsletter: 

• The three words I’m focused on to live a healthy, productive, and present life. 

• How I’m thinking about budgeting in 2027 and tips you can use for planning tomorrow. 

Alright. Let’s go all Tony Robbins and talk about success using meaningless mantras. I’m ignoring the fire walking atm… (or you can jump down to the budgeting fun, but it’s not as fun as mental health…. I promise).

I was in New York to attend Pavilion’s annual GTM Summit. I’ve been part of this community for close to ten years, and I could write a novel on how beneficial it has been for me. The programming is great, but the people are why I keep coming back. You cannot put a price on the ability to hang out with people going through the same trials and tribulations you are.

From there, it was down to Miami for Pantheon’s conference on the future of digital marketing and how websites actually get built now (spoiler: it’s changing fast).

Travel is one thing, but I’ve also been deep in ‘head trash’ work thanks to my consistent work with Michael Brabant. Outside of the IFS (internal family systems) work we are doing, he’s had me deep in The Presence Process by Michael Brown. It’s a 10-week practice where you sit down twice a day, about 15 minutes each, and do connected breathing (in and out through the nose, no pauses between breaths) while reading a simple statement that pulls your attention back to right now.

I know it sounds a little woo-woo. But the point is to train yourself to notice when you’re reacting to an old story instead of what’s actually in front of you... to actually be PRESENT.

So, lots of mental work over the last two weeks, which has led to less writing BUT a realization that has inspired me to write today.

And it started in an Uber in Miami. I had just finished a super difficult OrangeTheory workout, and despite all the sweat… I had an epiphany. I’ve been searching for the right way to explain what I’ve been working through over the last year. And it comes down to three words:

Consistency. Compassion. Clarity.

Consistency is about putting in the work, no matter how small or large. It matters most when things get difficult... when you don’t want to get up for that workout, when you’d rather read a good book than work on a budget (hi, FY27 planning), when you fail miserably and keep moving anyway. 

At Docebo, we call it “progress over perfection.” 

At Lessonly, we called it “share before ready.” 

Compassion is giving yourself a break when you miss. It’s empathy for others. It’s taking the time to understand what actually motivates people, whether that’s a teammate, a peer, a partner, or a kid who just wants you to pay attention.

Clarity is knowing what actually matters right now, so you know where to put the work and who deserves the patience (including you). It’s about being honest with yourself and others and being CLEAR on what you need and when you need it.

Here’s why all three matter. Most of us are either reflecting on the past or projecting into the future... and neither one is reality. 

Consistency keeps me moving forward. 

Compassion keeps me connected to the people around me. 

Clarity keeps me pointed in the right direction. 

Put them together, and I’m actually here. In the moment. And speaking of which, as I was writing this, a tropical storm has hit Sedona which means I’m imagining the sun rise kissing the rocks instead of actually witnessing it. 🙂 

Okay. Now that we’ve talked about living our best lives and working through the head trash, let’s focus on the second best thing: budgeting.

♥️ kyle

A Guide to a Marketer’s Favorite Thing: Budgeting

I despise nothing more than budgeting season. Well, okay, I’m being overly emotional right now (thanks for nothing Michael Brown) but it’s never been my strongest ability in my CMO Dungeon Cralwer inventory (yes, I’m also deep in Book 1 of the Carl Dungeon Crawler series).

But, I’ve been doing it for a long time. So, I thought, what better way to exorcise my budgeting demons than to share guidance and a template to help everyone else dealing with their same demons and issues.

I’ve written about budgeting before. Back in the Don’t Get Fired series, I broke down how I split brand budget using the 80/20 rule. This one goes a layer deeper... how we actually build up to the number and the push to tie every dollar spent to a business impact metric.

I’ve always built the marketing budget in two ways. 

The first is top-down. RevOps + Finance leads the process of setting bookings and pipeline targets and everyone else works backward. Try to answer: 

• What pipeline do we need to hit that number? 

• What win rates, deal sizes, and sales cycles are we assuming? 

• How much of that pipeline does marketing need to source, and through which channels?

The second is bottoms-up. Leadership spend the time with each other to figure out what they actually need to deliver on the number. This tries to answer:

• Where do we need more coverage for the reps? 

• Which events matter in the region? 

• Where are we potentially wasting money and where can it be reallocated? 

And guess what happens? Those two processes rarely match. EVER. 

The top-down number tells you what the business needs. The bottoms-up number tells you what the people closest to the work believe they can deliver (and the money they need to do it). 

And this is how I’ve tried to fill the gap this year. 

Tag every budget request line to a success metric, even if it’s not pipeline. And if you can’t tie it to pipeline, describe how you tie it to the business. 

How do we do that? I’ve tried to tie every dollar request to four modes of spending. PS: I hate the term ‘modes’ if you have any additional ideas please let me know. 

  DIRECT  : A measurable path to pipeline exists (paid media, demand-gen programs, field events, ABM). This should mostly be the Inbound-sourced channel. 

  INFLUENCE  : Moves deals already in motion but are not tied to a direct-sourced pipeline-$ number (video, content, research, PR, analyst relations). The benchmark should be 10-20x return for each $1 spent. If you can't tie to pipeline, describe the evidence instead (assist rate, engagement, sales-cycle acceleration).

  ENABLEMENT  : Makes everyone in revenue GTM better, faster, or more credible… competitive intelligence, sales enablement content, the martech/ABM tooling that powers Direct or Influence work.

  INTERNAL OPS  : The fixed cost of the department existing, independent of any specific program (AI/token spend (Claude, ChatGPT, Lovable), database/infrastructure, team culture, compliance, professional development)

This is how it would look in practice (dummy content) whether you are using a spreadsheet or a skill or an agent. 

The Risk If Cut column is my favorite edition this year. It will force your team to document what will actually break if something isn’t funded. 

Every submission should include some funnel math. Plan every metric using one of the following: historical data, an external benchmark, or a judgment call.

PS: Yes, there are a few line items that will need a judgment call because they can’t be tied directly to historical data and an external benchmark. That’s why you have a badass team and leaders. Let them make judgment calls on some of the spend, and follow up regularly on whether those calls are working.

There is never a perfect process for budgeting because everyone does it slightly differently. But no matter the process, there are a few things to remember:

Pick one attribution model before anyone submits. If one team uses first-touch, another uses last-touch, and a third does some blended thing they built in a spreadsheet at midnight, this process is useless. Agree on the model up front, write it down, and make everyone use it. Boring? Yes. Necessary? Also yes.

Define the influence metrics together. Assist rate and conversion rate might sound precise until two teams measure them differently. Get the owners in a room (or a Slack thread, I’m not your mom) and agree on what counts before the numbers come in.

Treat benchmarks as a starting point. That 10-20x return on influence spend is a useful guardrail and one I’ve used for a long time, but it’s a benchmark. If you have your own data, use it. If you don’t, label it as a benchmark and revisit it once you do.

Decide who breaks the tie on modes. Some lines will live on the edge. Is that tool Enablement or Internal Ops? Hear the team out but it’s your job to make the call and move on.

Build the dashboard before you promise monthly. Measuring spend month over month sounds great in a planning meeting. It’s a lot less great in February when nobody can pull the data. Work with RevOps and Finance now so the reporting exists before the first month closes.

None of this is complicated. Honestly, the whole process is pretty straightforward once your team gets the hang of it. The hard part is the discipline to actually do it every month, not just in October when everyone’s paying attention.

Budgeting season might still be my least favorite time of year. But I’d rather spend it with a team that can tell me exactly why every dollar matters... and what happens if it disappears.

Happy Budgeting!