The inventory bet is locked before marketing sees the plan.

This is how most brands operate. Finance sets a top-down revenue target. Ops translates that into units and submits the PO. Then marketing inherits a number they didn't build.

When the launch misses, everyone has an excuse.

“The Take” is the complete insight. Read this and decide if the details are for you or better forwarded to someone on your team.

Most founders blame marketing for not committing to a forecast. But marketing won't commit because you already committed their budget before asking what they could move. You locked 60% of your cash in a single PO, then asked them to reverse-engineer a plan that hits the target. Marketing hides behind "too dynamic to plan" because the alternative is owning a forecast they had no hand in building. When you inherit the plan, you don't own the outcome. You defend your corner of it.

The fix isn't better forecasting. It's flipping the sequence: marketing builds the revenue plan before ops places the buy. Not because they're better at forecasting, but because the team spending the money should own the outcome.

Last fall, a brand we work with restructured how GTM and merchandising review new products.

Before: Merchandising would present SKUs and colorways. The team would debate aesthetics and "gut feel." Marketing would nod along. Finance would set a revenue target. Ops would place the buy.

After: Marketing presents first.

They show up with CAC assumptions by product line. ROAS floors by channel. The maximum units they can support at break-even. The content and creative budget required to move the volume.

Merchandising still owns the final buy. But now the buy reflects marketing's read on what the business can actually support.

Launch quantities are tied to marketing capacity, not revenue wishes. Color splits are backed by which variants can actually scale spend, not which ones "feel right."

The result: Marketing owns the revenue plan because they built it.

When the product launches and it's not hitting, no one points fingers. They adjust. Because everyone bet on the same plan.

The shift exposes something uncomfortable: most brands don't actually want marketing to forecast.

They want marketing to deliver on their forecast.

That's why the planning process is structured the way it is. Finance sets the target. Ops commits the capital. Marketing is left to make it work.

But when you ask marketing to own a number they didn't build, you get exactly what you're seeing now: hedging, finger-pointing, and heroics instead of systems.

The brands that grow profitably do the opposite. They make marketing build the revenue plan before ops places the buy.

Not because marketing is better at forecasting than finance. But because the team spending the money should be the team that commits to the outcome.

If you're running a physical product business and your marketing team won't commit to a forecast, ask yourself this:

Did they build the number, or are you asking them to defend yours?

If it's the latter, you don't have a forecasting problem. You have an accountability problem.

And it's not marketing's fault.