Category Archives: Work Samples & Reports

Unsolicited – Not a Client – Allstate – Full Marketing Audit and Strategy Report

ALLSTATE

The Allstate Corporation  |  NYSE: ALL  |  Northbrook, Illinois

STRATEGIC MARKETING REVIEW: TEN QUESTIONS, TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX POINTS

Built from every document in this process and from the one hundred marketing suggestions produced by the reconvened focus group.

NO POSITION / NO COMPENSATION / NO MNPI

ANALYSES BASED ON PUBLIC INFORMATION. NOTHING HERE IS INVESTMENT ADVICE. 

How to Read This Document

Ten headings follow. Under the first there are one hundred numbered points, organized into eight subsections. Under each of the nine remaining headings there are between twelve and eighteen points. In every point, one to four consecutive words are set in bold, underlined and one point larger than the surrounding text. Those words are the main idea of that point, and a reader in a hurry can read only those words and still come away with the argument.

Where a recommendation takes real time to carry out, the approximate elapsed time appears in parentheses at the end of the point. Those are calendar estimates for an organization of this size and regulatory complexity, not effort estimates, and they assume the compliance review cycle described under Hurdles is not first repaired.

Every underlying fact comes from public disclosure: second-quarter 2026 results, the Form 10-Q, the proxy, trade and financial press through August 2026, and the public web presence. Nothing here is investment advice, and no valuation, price target or transaction recommendation appears anywhere in it.

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Unsolicited – Not a Client – UnitedHealthcare – the 2-page Free Read

UnitedHealthcare – The Short Version

This is an example of the Free Read document that I offer to organizations.

Two pages pulled from the full review. Public information only. Not investment advice. August 26, 2026.

The margins are fixed. The reputation is not. This company spent 2025 nearly breaking and 2026 repairing itself, and almost nobody outside the building knows how much of the repair is real. That gap is the whole job.

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Client Case Study: Software Startup Winning the Wrong Race

The client. A three-person, founder-led software company in a regulated professional-services niche. Bootstrapped, technically excellent, and quietly better than anything else in its category. The founder was licensed in the very profession he sold to – rare, credible, and worth a great deal – and he ran a second business in that same profession while building the first. He came to me because the product worked and the growth did not.

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Unsolicited – Not a Client – Chubb – Full Marketing Audit and Strategy Report

Chubb Limited – Marketing, Position & Direction

A working review built from the interview briefing, the six-lens strategic review, the marketing and growth report, the three one-page summaries, and the reconvened hundred-person focus group. August 23, 2026. Public information only. Not investment advice. No position, no compensation, no material non-public information.

How to read this. Every point below is written as something a person could start. Where an item takes real time, the approximate effort or elapsed duration appears in parentheses at the end. Bolded and underlined words carry the main idea of the point, so the document can be skimmed at speed and read properly later. Nothing here requires a rebrand, an agency review, or a campaign. Most of it requires permission and one named owner.

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Unsolicited – Not a Client – Berkshire Hathaway – the 2-page Free Read

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY — THE SHORT VERSION

August 22, 2026  •  No position, no compensation, no MNPI 

This is an example of the Free Read document that I offer to organizations.

Here is the whole argument in two pages. The long version runs to two hundred and eight points across ten headings (available by request), and if you only read this page you will not miss the thesis. The company does not have a brand problem. Its brand is probably the strongest in American finance. It has a retrievability problem and a reachability problem, and both are cheap to fix.

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Unsolicited – Not a Client – Liberty Mutual – Full Audit and Strategy Document

LIBERTY MUTUAL

STRATEGIC AND MARKETING REVIEW – TEN AREAS

Drawn from the interview dossier, the six-lens strategic review, the marketing and positioning review, the three one-page summaries, and the 100-suggestion focus group record.

ANALYSES BASED ON PUBLIC INFORMATION. NOTHING HERE IS INVESTMENT ADVICE. FOR NO POSITION / NO COMPENSATION / NO MNPI.

How to read this: in every numbered point, the bold underlined phrase is the main idea of that point. Where an item takes real time, an approximate duration is given in parentheses.

1. MARKETING AND WEBSITE IDEAS

One hundred points in eight subsections. Numbering is continuous.

1.1 The brand consolidation window – it closes around April 2027

1. Write one plain-English page explaining what happened to the Safeco name, aimed at a policyholder rather than a trade journalist, and treat ranking first for every legacy brand query as the acceptance criteria. (One week to write, four to six weeks to rank.)

2. Build a complete redirect map from the retired brand’s URL estate to the equivalent Liberty Mutual page – never the homepage. A fifty-state, four-product estate is plausibly forty to a hundred and twenty thousand URLs. (Six to ten weeks with a named owner.)

3. Publish the same single sentence on the bill, the app, the agency signage, the email footer, and the site: your agent, your policy, and your coverage have not changed. Consistency is the entire mechanism. (Two weeks.)

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The Succession-Readiness Website Audit: A Q&A Guide for Family Businesses Handing Off the Marketing Keys

Published by 1000Startups.com – built and stress-tested on real convenience store scenarios

Every family business eventually asks the big legal and financial succession questions. Almost none of them ask who has the password to the website. 1000Startups.com put together this Q&A after digging through the actual data on family business succession, convenience store operations, and small business web performance – and after running the checklist past a 100-persona simulated advisory panel to see where it broke. Below are the straight answers, with the sourcing shown so you can check our work.

Q: What is a “succession-readiness website audit,” and why does it matter?

A: It’s a short checklist that tells you whether your business’s website, domain, and Google listing will survive a change of ownership – the same way a fire drill tells you whether your exit doors actually open.

It matters because the money at stake is enormous and the planning gap is almost universal. An estimated $68 trillion in generational wealth is expected to change hands in the U.S. over the next 25 years, much of it tied up in operating businesses rather than stock portfolios (Exit Planning Institute; Teamshares, 2025). Estate attorneys and business advisors spend that money planning around buildings, equipment, and bank accounts – and routinely leave the website, domain registration, and Google Business Profile completely undocumented. 1000Startups.com built this audit specifically to close that gap for small and family-owned operators.

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