BrandBossHQ
10
CAC
GPM
Ten years in business. A financial setup that hadn't kept pace.
BrandBossHQ is a brand strategy agency with a genuinely rare offering: in-house strategy capability that most agencies their size simply don't have. Co-founders Rachelle Harper (COO and Director of Strategy) and Bill Harper (Visionary and Head of Sales) built the business over a decade, serving ambitious small and mid-sized businesses looking to grow. Their flagship Brand Story service, a deep, research-backed brand strategy engagement, had become the core of what made them distinct in the market.
But 2025 had been a testing year. A combination of macroeconomic headwinds, a temporary pivot away from their core service offering, and significant investment in new sales and marketing channels had put pressure on margins and cashflow. Rachelle was managing the financial complexity largely on her own, building spreadsheets, tracking cashflow manually, and trying to hold together a picture of the business that the books alone weren't giving her.
Like many founder-led agencies, BrandBossHQ had financial support in place: a bookkeeper, a controller, and eventually a fractional CFO. The books were kept and the reports were delivered. But the strategic layer Rachelle was looking for, someone who could say here is what it means and here is what you should do, wasn't part of the service. After terminating that relationship, Rachelle found herself managing the books on top of everything else, with a growing backlog and no financial direction.
"I've been paying them this much for years and I didn't feel like we were in really any better of a situation. Even with a fractional CFO, the monthly close was really just reporting. 'Hey, you're not hitting your numbers, maybe go revise your budgets.' It was always getting kicked back to me. I wanted someone who could say: if you want to hit these margins, here's what you need to be paying attention to."
Rachelle Harper, Co-Founder and COO, BrandBossHQ
Before and After Visory
- Books managed in-house by the COO alongside a growing backlog'
- GPM well below target with no framework to understand why or fix it
- Cost to acquire a client never calculated, Bill's time not factored in
- No service line profitability visibility, pricing set by feel
- Monthly reporting with no actionable direction or recommendations
- Personal and business financial goals not being met
- Cashflow managed reactively, line of credit without a repayment plan
- Books cleaned up and simplified, unnecessary accounts removed
- Chart of accounts restructured for true GPM visibility by service line
- Framework established to calculate true CAC, including Bill's time
- Strategy sessions that speak directly to the business model and numbers
- Clear roadmap toward profitability with a partner who understands agencies
- Rachelle's time freed from financial admin, back to running the business
- A financial team that proactively surfaces insights without being asked
Four things Visory established for BrandBossHQ
A chart of accounts that reflects how the business actually works
Visory restructured from the ground up, removing unnecessary accounts and building a framework that gives Rachelle genuine visibility into what each engagement costs to deliver and what it returns.
A real cost-of-acquisition picture, including the founder's time
Bill's time (content creation, speaking engagements, proposals, follow-ups) was invisible in the P&L. Visory built a framework to properly account for that investment, giving BrandBossHQ an honest view of true CAC by channel.
Strategy sessions that actually move the conversation forward
Working with a dedicated Performance Partner who understands agency economics, the conversations now focus on what the numbers mean, what's driving them, and what specific actions can change them, including GPM improvement and pricing strategy.
The financial admin off Rachelle's plate, for good
The backlog is cleared, the ongoing bookkeeping is handled, and she is back to running strategy and operations. The shift from reactive to proactive financial management has been immediate.
"The books have been cleaned up. My previous setup had a lot of accounts that just felt unnecessary. Visory made it very simple, which is great. We had our first strategy session last week and it went great. Similar to how Dev had been speaking with me at the start, you guys are talking about our business in a completely different way than any of our financial partners ever have. Which is just really refreshing. I wanted someone who could say: if you want to be hitting these margins, here's what you need to be paying attention to. Here are some things we could change. I never had that kind of partnership before. At every monthly close it was just reporting. It always got kicked back to me. I'm much more willing to pay for somebody who can be a strategic thinker on our behalf and be making recommendations. Until now, I hadn't found that."
Rachelle Harper, Co-Founder and COO, BrandBossHQ
The right foundation changes everything that comes after it.
BrandBossHQ is a business with a decade of experience, a genuinely differentiated service, and founders who know exactly what they want to build. What was missing wasn't ambition or capability, it was a financial partner who could reflect the business back to them clearly, and turn that clarity into a plan.
The work Visory has done in the early months (restructuring the accounts, establishing the CAC framework, building out GPM visibility by service line) is the foundation. It doesn't produce results on day one. What it produces is the ability to have a completely different conversation about the business: one grounded in what's actually happening, and oriented toward what needs to change.
As BrandBossHQ returns to its core Brand Story offering and builds the sales machine it needs to grow without founder dependency, Visory is the financial partner in the room for all of it: tracking the numbers, surfacing the insights, and making sure decisions are grounded in a clear view of what the business can actually support.
"All this sounds amazing. I've never had anybody look at it this way. I am ecstatic."
Rachelle Harper, Co-Founder and COO, BrandBossHQ
Running a creative agency and still waiting for your financial partner to tell you something useful?
Book a 30-minute discovery call. We'll review your current financial setup and show you what Visory could do for your business. No pressure, no obligation.