THE STORY
Why we built Trifecta
We've been in too many meetings with companies burning cash on consultants that left the team with a glossy deck and no clearer path forward. There's a point where you stop tolerating the broken model.
Gary has spent decades leading revenue organizations, as an EVP with full P&L accountability over 60 people, as a founding VP who built and sold a company to the category leader, as an operator who sustained 8 consecutive years of double-digit growth with forecast accuracy at 95 to 105% every single year.
Brian has spent over 30 years inside marketing and GTM organizations, from global enterprise brands to a decade as a Fractional CMO, measured every time in named revenue outcomes.
Trifecta is the consulting alternative. We don't sell advice. We diagnose, direct, and deliver at the marketing and sales execution layer. We install the operating system your team uses to run the business every week, with named owners, live scorecards, a decision log, and a cadence that holds accountability. Then we build ourselves out of the picture, when your team is ready to go on your own.
THE PARTNERSHIP
The gap between marketing and sales is where revenue disappears. We closed that gap 15 years ago.
Most marketing and sales partnerships exist on an org chart. Two executives running separate functions, measuring separate outcomes, managing the gap between them in every leadership meeting. That gap is where revenue disappears.
Gary and Brian operate Trifecta as a unified marketing and sales operating system because they've done it long enough that the silos don't exist. There is no handoff problem because there is no handoff philosophy. Just a shared operating model based on results and refined over fifteen years of working together.
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No Handoff Problem: Marketing and sales run the same play, from the same pipeline standard, against the same revenue outcome.
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One Accountability Model: Both operators share one finish line: the number moving.
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Pattern Recognition at Scale: Decades of experience means Gary and Brian have seen the same constraint patterns across more company types and revenue levels than either would have seen alone.
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Speed to Impact: A partnership that's been tested doesn't need calibration time. Your business benefits from that in week one, not month six.
Two Proven Experts. One Shared Goal.
GARY RUST
Gary's defining belief is that forecast accuracy is a discipline problem, not a data problem. Eight consecutive years of 95 to 105% forecast accuracy at McCoy Rockford proved it. Not with better software, but with operating rhythms, named accountability structures, and CRM discipline that made the number predictable whether he was in the room or not.
Gary spent 14 years at Wyeth (Pfizer), advancing from sales into a large-area District Leadership role, with stops leading Rheumatology specialty sales for the company's first biotech drug and managing major hospital accounts. He then became founding VP of Sales at Decision Critical, a healthcare SaaS start-up, building the sales engine that led to its acquisition by HealthStream within four years. He spent the next decade as EVP at McCoy Rockford, building its 60 person Austin business unit with full P&L responsibility. Prior to Trifecta, Gary built and ran Organic Growth Advisors, installing his growth operating system inside PE-backed companies. He also served on the Board of Any Baby Can and as a Strategic Advisor to Neurawear, a healthcare technology start-up.
"Accountability is the mechanism that converts a framework into results. You don't need a better strategy. You need named owners, a decision log, and a weekly cadence that forces the conversation without anyone having to be reminded."
Named Operating Outcomes
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$50M top-line: McCoy Rockford, 8 consecutive years of double-digit YOY growth
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$2M → $4M per rep: Doubled rep productivity through operational restructuring and cadence install
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95 to 105% accuracy: Forecast discipline sustained over 8 full years via CRM-driven operating system
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22% cash flow gain: $4M in margin improvement through operational efficiency
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300% customer growth: Decision Critical, built to strategic acquisition by HealthStream
BRIAN TALBOT
Brian's operating philosophy starts with a question about the market. Too many people think marketing is paid ads and email campaigns. Without knowing your best buyers and building messages that land with them, marketing execution becomes an expensive exercise in random acts of marketing.
What he installs is a market position the company can sell against and a demand system that runs on it. One message, carried the same way by marketing and sales. MQL to SQL conversion built into the pipeline architecture. Market, message and map run as one system instead of three campaigns owned by three vendors. Across global enterprise brands and a decade in the owner's seat as a Fractional CMO, he has been accountable for what the market did next.
"'We need more leads' is the business equivalent of taking ibuprofen for a broken arm. It feels like action. It sounds like leadership. But it is neither."
Named Revenue Outcomes
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$3.5M → $9M: Professional services via MQL-to-SQL optimization and pipeline architecture
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$3M → $8M (266%): Commercial roofing through digital demand gen rebuild
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2× revenue growth in 29 months: Industrial services through market segmentation and demand framework
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87.5% annual client retention: Professional services through positioning and sales motion alignment
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$8M → $12M in 10 mo.: Residential services via operational build and leadership mentoring
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64% rev. / 5× profit: B2B tech consulting, with 170 new clients, 86% avg. annual client retention over 4 years that made the number predictable whether he was in the room or not.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Our Core Beliefs Are Operating Principles, With Receipts.
Six claims. Six proofs. No hedging.
1. "We build capability. Not dependency."
Brian built a company-wide marketing framework at a national B2B firm, designed from the start to outlast his tenure.
Gary's McCoy Rockford operating system held 95 to 105% accuracy year after year without him in the room.
Every engagement is designed to reduce reliance on us.
2. "Senior operators only. Not junior analysts."
Brian: accountable for the revenue number from the marketing seat across enterprise and SMB, and 10+ years in the owner's seat as a Fractional CMO.
Gary: EVP with full P&L ownership over 60+ people, built and guided a software company through acquisition, 8 years of double-digit growth.
There are no juniors at Trifecta.
3. "We install systems. Not slide decks."
Every engagement ends with named owners, running scorecards, a live decision log, an operating cadence calendar, and a 90-day rolling roadmap.
The most important metric: whether your team runs the system on their own after we leave.
4. "We find the real constraint. Not the presenting symptom."
Diagnose, Direct, Deliver is one method worked from two directions. Brian comes at the break from the market and the message, Gary from the pipeline and the forecast, and they usually find the same one.
What it consistently surfaces is fragmented ownership, undefined pipeline standards, and accountability that exists on paper but not in practice.
5. "We give you the diagnosis no one inside will."
"Ugly baby honesty" is not a brand claim. It is why owners have brought each of us in over our careers, instead of promoting someone who already knew the answer but could not say it out loud.
6. "We've done this before, at scale."
$3.5M → $9M. $3M → $8M. 87.5% retention. $8M → $12M in 10 months. $100M to $164M revenue / 5× profit over 4 years. $50M sustained top-line with 8 consecutive years of double-digit growth. A software company built and sold to the category leader.
Three Questions That Make Most People Uncomfortable. We Ask Them Anyway.
1. "When was the last time a consultant's report actually changed your Monday morning execution?"
If you can't name the date, the report did what most reports do. It confirmed what leadership already suspected, got filed in a shared drive, and changed nothing about how the team runs the week.
2. "If your consulting firm is sticky, are you paying them to stay or paying them to win?"
Retainer structures that reward ongoing engagement are the consulting industry's most enduring business model. Built for their revenue, not your success. We optimize for becoming the last engagement. Not the next one.
3. "Are you being advised by someone who has actually met a payroll?"
The gap between operator judgment and analyst judgment is substantial. And it shows up in the diagnosis, in the prioritization, and in what gets recommended when the comfortable answer isn't the right one.
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