The Marketing Diagnostic Clinic
Live Examination Sessions

When marketing isn’t producing the expected commercial result, how do we establish what’s actually causing it?

Join Qallann for a live facilitated examination of a real business problem chosen from your applications. See how we question the explanations, examine the available evidence and establish what it supports doing next.

  • Thursday, 29 October 2026
  • 12:30pm to 2:30 pm EAT
  • Live on Google Meet
  • Limited to 5 organisations (Up to two registered representatives per organisation)
  • KES 7,500 per selected organisation
Apply for a place

Applications close on: Friday 23 October 2026.

This session is for founders, CEOs, COOs and marketing leaders responsible for business performance. Places are selected based on the problem submitted.
The application is free. Payment is required to confirm an offered place.
Places are selected following a review of applications. Applying does not guarantee a place.

Your marketing results are disappointing. Everyone has an explanation. How do you know who's right?

Your marketing team says you need better leads. Your agency wants to change the strategy. Sales says the leads aren’t qualified. AI has recommended a new positioning strategy, a different website and a more aggressive acquisition plan.

Your competitors seem to be doing all sorts of things you could try, too.

Everyone has a plausible explanation. Every explanation comes with a recommendation. And the business still needs results.

But what if you’re about to invest in solving the wrong problem?

Join Qallann for a live examination of a real business problem. We’ll take a result that isn’t where it should be, work through the competing explanations, and examine what we’d need to know before deciding which intervention makes sense.

You’ll participate in the examination, challenge the explanations and see how evidence changes the decisions available to a business.

You’ll also apply the same approach to a problem in your own organisation.

One business problem. Multiple plausible explanations. A live examination of what the evidence can actually establish.

The problem with having too many answers

You probably don’t need another list of things your business could try.
You already know about SEO, paid advertising, positioning, content, lead generation, sales enablement, new websites and CRM systems. Your team can debate them. Your agency can recommend them. AI can explain why each might work.

The difficult part is knowing which problem you’re actually dealing with.

Consider a familiar situation: you’re getting leads, but revenue isn’t growing as expected.

You could have a lead-quality problem. You could have an offer that doesn’t give buyers enough reason to choose you. Your positioning could be attracting the wrong audience. Your sales process could be losing qualified opportunities. Or you might not be generating enough demand in the first place.

These explanations point towards different decisions.

If you assume the problem is lead quality, you might change your targeting. If the real constraint is your offer, you could spend months attracting more of the same people to something they don’t have enough reason to buy.

Here is an example of Qallann’s diagnostic reasoning in a private engagement. The Clinic is a facilitated group session and does not include a written diagnostic report.

Example: why the first explanation may not be the right one

The recommendations can be perfectly reasonable. The explanation behind them can still be wrong.
The question is how to distinguish between the possibilities before committing to a course of action.

That’s what we’ll examine at this Marketing Diagnostic Clinic.

Apply for a place

Come and see how a business problem is actually examined.

This is a working session built around a real commercial problem, not a presentation of marketing best practices.

We’ll begin with a disappointing result and a question: What needs to change to improve it?

Then we’ll examine the possible explanations.

01. Establish what we're trying to explain

Before recommending a solution, we need to understand the result itself.

  • What was the business expecting?
  • What’s happening instead?
  • What do we know about the gap between the two?

We’ll examine how to frame the problem precisely enough that it can be investigated, rather than jumping straight to the first explanation that sounds convincing.

02. Put the explanations to the test

We’ll consider several plausible causes of the same problem.

For each explanation, we’ll ask:

  • What would need to be true for this explanation to hold?
  • What evidence would support it?
  • What might contradict it?
  • What other explanation could account for the same result?
  • What would we need to examine to distinguish between them?

You’ll see why a team’s confidence in an explanation isn’t the same as evidence that it accounts for the result.

03. Follow the evidence towards a decision

We’ll examine what the available evidence establishes, what it doesn’t establish, and how that changes the options available to the business.

Perhaps the evidence supports a change in marketing. Perhaps the problem lies elsewhere. Perhaps there’s an important question the business needs to answer before making a significant investment.

We won’t assume the answer in advance.

The aim is to understand what the evidence justifies doing next, and where further investigation is needed.

You'll work on a problem from your own organisation, too.

Watching someone else examine a problem is useful. Applying the same reasoning to your own situation is where it becomes personal.

During the session, you’ll work through a structured exercise using a real problem you’ve submitted.

You’ll identify:

  • The result: What isn't happening as expected?
  • The explanation: What do you currently believe is causing it?
  • The alternatives: What else could account for the result?
  • The evidence: What would help you distinguish between the explanations?
  • The question:What do you need to establish before deciding what to do next?

You don’t need to arrive with the correct question or know the cause of your problem. That’s what we’ll work towards.

You’ll leave with a more precise way to frame the problem, a clearer view of the explanations worth examining and an understanding of what evidence could help you make a better-informed decision.

This exercise is not a full diagnostic of your organisation. It gives you a structured way to approach the question and identify what needs further examination.

Is this the right session for you?

You may be preparing your 2027 marketing budget. You may be trying to understand why this year’s investment hasn’t delivered what you expected. Or you may have reached the point where the next proposed intervention feels less certain than it should.

This session is designed for you if:

  • You're spending on marketing, but the commercial results aren't following.
    Activity is continuing, yet revenue, qualified demand or conversion remains below expectations.
  • You've tried several things without resolving the problem.
    You've changed channels, messaging, suppliers or tactics, but the underlying result remains disappointing.
  • Your team can't agree on what's wrong.
    Marketing, sales and leadership have different explanations, each with a different recommendation attached.
  • You've received plenty of advice, including from AI, but aren't sure which recommendations fit your business.
    The answers sound convincing. You want to understand whether they address the actual problem and whether the context behind them has been properly considered.
  • You're watching competitors and wondering what you should be doing differently.
    You can see their activities, but you don't know whether the same decisions make sense for your business.
  • You're about to commit more money, time or organisational capacity.
    You want a stronger basis for deciding what to increase, change, stop or investigate before the next commitment is made.

You don’t need to have tried everything. You don’t need to know whether the problem is marketing, sales, positioning or something else.

You do need a real business problem whose cause isn’t yet clear.

Apply for a place

Who should be in the room?

We’re selecting five organisations for this session, with a maximum of one or two representatives from each.

We want people who are close enough to the problem to discuss it meaningfully and responsible enough for the outcome to matter to them. That might be a founder or CEO accountable for growth, a marketing leader responsible for performance, or a COO dealing with a problem that crosses functions.

You can apply alone or with a colleague from your organisation. In some cases, having two people who see the problem from different perspectives will make the examination more useful.

We’ll review applications before confirming places. We’re looking for real business problems that can support a useful examination, with several plausible explanations that could lead to different decisions.

You don’t have to know what’s wrong. You do have to be willing to examine what you currently believe is wrong.

Who will run the session

Lorraine A Founder and Principa Strategist at Qallann Marketing

Lorraine has worked with 50+ businesses to establish what is driving a marketing or commercial problem before recommending what to do about it.

She brings business and marketing strategy, research, commercial reasoning and execution experience to that work.

Her starting point is the business result and the question that needs answering. She will examine the available evidence in the context of the organisation, its customers, its commercial realities and its constraints.

Because the same disappointing result can have different causes, the appropriate intervention depends on what is happening in that particular business.

The Marketing Diagnostic Clinic gives you an opportunity to experience that approach directly.

Event details

Date: Thursday, 29 October 2026

Format: Live, facilitated examination of a real business problem, with a structured exercise for participants to apply the approach to their own situations.

Capacity: 5 organisations (Up to two registered representatives per organisation)

Fee: KES 7,500 per selected organisation.

Application: Free. We review applications and contact selected organisations with an invitation to attend. Your place is confirmed when you accept the offered place and complete payment.

Applications close:  Friday 23 October 2026.

Selected organisations contacted by:  Tuesday 27 October 2026. You will receive an invitation with payment details and a confirmation deadline. Your place is confirmed once payment is completed.

Preparation: Bring a real business or marketing problem, your current explanation for it, and the decision you’re considering.

*Confirmed participants will receive access to the session recording for 7 days after the session. The recording is for participants only and should not be shared outside their organisation. Because this is a live group session, Qallann may withhold or edit sensitive portions from the recording if needed.

What happens after you apply?

  • Applications are reviewed.
  • Qallann selects five organisations.
  • Qallann identifies one common problem pattern from the applications.
  • The session examines that shared problem through competing explanations and evidence.
  • Each organisation also works on its own submitted problem using the same diagnostic structure.
  • Payment is only required if selected. The payment is per selected organisation and not per representative
  • Once confirmed, Qallann will request the name, role and email address of any second representative from your organisation so they can receive the session invite and recording access.

Apply for a place

Tell us what’s happening in your business, what you currently think is causing it, and what you’re considering doing next. We’ll review your application and let you know if there’s a place for you.

*Applying is free and does not guarantee a place. Please don’t submit confidential customer information or commercially sensitive documents through the application form.

We’ll review your application and contact you if selected. There is no charge to apply.

Need a private examination rather than a group session?​

You don’t have to wait for a Clinic date to examine a problem in your organisation. The Marketing Diagnostic provides a focused, private examination of one business problem, with a tailored evidence review and written findings.

Find out about the Marketing Diagnostic

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Not fully. The session demonstrates how a business problem can be examined by testing plausible explanations against relevant evidence.

You’ll also work through a structured exercise using a problem from your own organisation. This will help you clarify what you’re trying to establish, which explanations deserve consideration and what evidence could help distinguish between them.

A full Marketing Diagnostic is a separate engagement focused on examining one consequential business question within your organisation.

We’ll review the applications and identify one common problem pattern that will be useful for the group to examine.

The session will use that shared problem to explore competing explanations, the evidence each would require and how the available evidence changes the decisions available to a business.

Each organisation will also apply the same diagnostic approach to its own submitted problem during the session.

Bring a marketing or commercial problem where the result is disappointing, but the cause isn’t clear.

For example, you might be generating leads without seeing the expected revenue growth, investing in marketing without sufficient commercial returns, struggling to convert qualified prospects, or considering a change in positioning because your current approach isn’t producing the expected results.

You might also have several competing explanations within your team or be unsure whether a recommendation from your agency or an AI tool addresses the actual problem.

You don’t need to know the correct diagnosis. You should be able to describe what’s happening, what you currently believe is causing it and what decision you’re considering.

No confidential documents or commercially sensitive data are required for the initial application.

If your organisation is selected for the live examination, we’ll discuss the case with you beforehand and agree on what information can be shared. We won’t assume that permission to attend means permission to disclose your organisation’s sensitive information to other participants.

For your own exercise, bring enough context to work meaningfully on the problem without disclosing information you’re not comfortable sharing.

Not a full one. This is not a strategy workshop or implementation planning session.

You will leave with a clearer understanding of how to examine the problem behind the decision you are considering: which explanations may be worth testing, what evidence would help distinguish between them and what question needs to be answered before committing to a strategy, campaign, supplier, budget or tactic.

In some cases, that may clarify the next sensible move. In others, it may show that more evidence is needed before a responsible recommendation can be made.

Neither.

The session is a facilitated examination of a real business problem. We’ll explore competing explanations, consider what evidence would support or challenge them, and examine how that evidence affects the decisions available to the business.

You’ll participate in the process and apply the approach to your own situation.

We’ll explain how Qallann’s Marketing Diagnostic works, because it is relevant to the method being demonstrated. However, the session itself is designed around examining the problem, not presenting a predetermined solution or delivering a sales pitch.

Not necessarily. The purpose is to examine what the available evidence supports, not to manufacture certainty.

You may leave with a clearer understanding of the problem, a stronger basis for a decision or a more precise question that needs further investigation. The outcome depends on the problem and the evidence available.

The aim is to help you distinguish what you have established from what you still need to establish.

Yes. Each selected organisation may attend with up to two registered representatives.

You can apply alone or indicate that you would like to attend with one colleague. If your organisation is selected and your place is confirmed, we’ll ask for the second representative’s name, role and email address so they can receive the session invite and recording access.

Both representatives should be close enough to the problem to participate meaningfully.

Because this is a small selected session with only five organisations, payments for confirmed places are non-refundable.

If one registered representative can no longer attend, your organisation may nominate another suitable representative before the session, provided they are close enough to the problem to participate meaningfully.

Recording access will only be provided to confirmed registered participants. Any additional access requests must be made to Qallann.

Yes. Confirmed participants will receive access to the session recording for 7 days after the session.

Access will be restricted to the registered email addresses used for the confirmed participants. The recording is not open for general circulation within the organisation.

If someone else in your organisation needs access, they will need to request it from Qallann.

Because this is a live facilitated session involving business examples and participant discussion, Qallann may pause the recording or exclude sensitive portions where confidentiality requires it.