Douglas Growth Consulting
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Mary Douglas

 "I'm not competing with AI. I'm building the community it can't touch — a boutique, a shelf, a brand I believe in, a human standing right there. This is the space people will need when the dust settles." 

Fractional Regional Leadership

Chief Execution Officer

I help founders, brands, retailers, and agencies uncover what they're not seeing.


When sales slow, execution breaks down, customer behavior changes, or one market outperforms another, the reports rarely tell the whole story.


I bring real-world customer intelligence back into the decision-making process.

Through customer conversations, employee engagement, and consumer intelligence, I uncover the blind spots between strategy and execution and help leaders understand what is actually happening in the market.


FOR CEOS & FOUNDERS

Gain experienced regional leadership, field visibility, and customer intelligence without the cost of a full-time regional team.


FOR BRANDS

Understand how customers experience your products, where execution is breaking down, and what opportunities are being missed at the point of decision.


FOR MARKETING AGENCIES

Extend your visibility beyond reports and campaign metrics. Gain direct insight into how messaging, execution, and customer behavior align in the real world.


FOR RETAILERS

Identify customer friction, uncover operational blind spots, and improve the experience where purchasing decisions are actually made.


The question is rarely whether a strategy exists.

The question is: What are you not seeing?

Who We Work With

Start-Ups to Mid-Sized Businesses. Your team did everything right. 

You are exactly what you say you are. (Truth Marketing.)


So why isn't it moving the way you expected? What's the challenge?


We work with brands that are done guessing and ready to know.

Those brands we fight for all day long. 

Why The Work Exists

You shouldn't have to worry.

You shouldn't have to wonder if your brand is being represented honestly.

You shouldn't have to guess what customers are actually saying when nobody from your business is in the room.

You shouldn't have to watch your product or service stagnate while the person speaking on your behalf doesn't even know what sets you apart.


That's my work.


I've spent decades learning this space — what makes brands survive, what makes them die, and what the difference almost always comes down to: integrity and a voice.


People gravitate toward brands that stand for something real. 


And once they encounter that brand inside the environment where it lives — and someone is there to illuminate what makes it different — they don't just buy. They come back. They tell people.


Most brands get lumped together because nobody's out there pointing to what makes them distinct. A great hairstylist with extraordinary technique gets lost in a sea of hairstylists until someone says this one is different and here's why.


That's what I do. I find what makes you different. I make sure the right people know it. And I make sure it's told truthfully.

Details of the work

TGP is designed to be the brand's fractional regional leadership - without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire - managing one region at a time with full accountability for growth.


Full Brand Execution: 


  • Market adaptation. We're the eyes and ears of your brand — feeding corporate leadership real-time information on local market conditions and competitor activity.
  • Retailer relationship management. We build real relationships with store managers, buyers, and department leads — an infrastructure that compounds over time and benefits your brand long after the activation.
  • Customer satisfaction leadership. We address and escalate customer complaints in the moment, and implement initiatives that improve the overall consumer experience.
  • Team leadership within the markets we land in. When applicable, we train store teams so they can keep educating customers after we're gone — sustaining performance goals and a positive brand experience long after we leave.
  • Operational oversight. We monitor inventory levels and ensure every location meets your brand's expectations.
  • Placement and shelf health. We assess shelf placement, facings, pricing accuracy, and signage compliance in every store we enter.
  • Sales performance. We drive measurable sales and growth in the boxes you live in.
  • New account prospecting. We identify and qualify new retail opportunities within the regions we cover — expanding your footprint as a natural byproduct of being in the field.
  • Market intelligence and strategy. We analyze local market trends and develop strategies to boost visibility and expansion.
  • Competitive intelligence. We capture what competing brands are doing at the shelf level — how they're positioned, what their velocity looks like, and what customers are saying about them directly.
  • Distributor relationship support. We identify friction points, delivery gaps, and relationship issues at the store level that corporate never sees from the top.
  • Custom consumer intelligence, delivered at scale. Tell us the questions your leadership actually wants answered in each region or district. We capture those answers directly from real customers, in every store we activate, at the frequency you choose. That's direct communication with your customer base — multiplied across every market we touch.
  • Educational video content. We create videos for your customers and for the teams at the stores we activate — deeper, lasting education that extends beyond the conversation we're having in the moment.
  • Brand consistency. We drive the customer experience and protect your brand's core values and quality standards, everywhere we go.
  • Independent Retail Growth - From the street to the shelf. Helping independent boutiques become more compelling destinations, stronger community businesses, and better retail partners for emerging founders.
  • We represent every category. Food. Health and wellness. Beauty. Clothing and softlines. Hardlines. Vitamins and supplements. Pet. Home. Outdoor. If a real conversation can move it, we represent it.
  • We carry our own insurance. Because we're a real company, not a freelance table-sitter. No liability conversation, no excuse for a store to turn us away.
  • For food and beverage brands, we carry our own manager's food handler's card — even though we never touch an open product. We remove the objection before the store ever has a chance to raise it.
  • We are the infrastructure of detail. Consistency, accountability, and follow-through — whether we're representing your brand directly or supporting your existing demo team to raise the standard.
  • We will always tell you the truth. How your product sits on the shelf. How your brand is being experienced inside the stores it lives in. How your distributor is showing up — for you and for others. What customers are saying about your brand, and what they're not saying. Most people in the field will tell you what you want to hear. We'll tell you what you need to know. That's what makes us a real partner.

How We Work

Most organizations have data. What they often lack is context.

At Today's Growth Partners, we work where brands, employees, and customers meet in the real world.


We observe customer behavior.
We listen for confusion and objections.
We test assumptions.
We evaluate trust signals.
We assess placement, messaging, and employee confidence.
We capture the voice of the customer and translate it into actionable intelligence.


Then we bring those insights back to the people making decisions.

Our role is not to replace data. Our role is to connect data to reality.

Because growth happens faster when decisions are informed by what customers are actually experiencing, not what we assume they are experiencing.


Technology can analyze information. Only humans can observe what is happening in front of them. The future belongs to organizations that can do both.

Experience Intelligence

What your customers actually think and feel, captured in the moment it happens. 

We know because we're standing next to them, asking the questions - what do you think of this product? Tell me more.


Our Nationwide reach is based on your needs. You can send us wherever you need us.

THE EXPERIENCE GAP

THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE HAS SHIFTED.

The customer experience in the United States has shifted, and brands are feeling it at every level. 86% of consumers say human interaction remains an important part of their experience with a brand. Yet most brands are investing more in technology and less in the human moments that actually determine whether a customer comes back.


The gap between what a brand intends to deliver and what a customer actually feels is where loyalty is won or lost. That gap is rarely visible in your data.  But it shows up every day on your shelf, in your store, and in your community. I've spent decades in real-world environments observing what makes people choose one brand over another and what quietly pushes them away.  The difference is rarely the product alone. It's whether the customer felt something. That's the gap. That's where I work. That's what I help you close.

Brand Education. Team Connection.

Because the team selling your brand needs to believe in it first

You can have the best product on the shelf and still lose. If the people working that floor don't know your story, don't understand what makes your brand different, and don't feel connected to what you're offering, they won't sell it. 


When we are in your businesses, we don't just activate for customers. 

We take a moment with your team. We tell them what the brand is about, why it matters, and why their customers will love it. 


We make them part of the story. That's how an activation becomes something that lives beyond the visit.

Mary Douglas • Built In The Field

Mary Douglas brings more than 30 years of leadership experience across retail, service businesses, sales, operations, human resources, business-to-business partnerships, nonprofit organizations, and executive leadership.


Her experience spans the sales floor, regional operations, team development, customer engagement, organizational growth, and the executive level, including serving as a CEO. She has worked across grocery, specialty retail, big-box environments, boutiques, service businesses, community organizations, and regional markets throughout Northern California, Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Midwest.


Mary has walked hundreds of retail floors, engaged thousands of customers, trained and led teams, built business relationships, and reported directly to founders, brand leaders, and executive teams.


Her authority was built through direct experience: observing how people behave, recognizing where operations and communication break down, understanding what customers and employees are actually experiencing, and translating those realities into information leaders can use.


Over the course of her career, Mary began to see a consistent gap between what a business believes it is communicating and what people actually perceive, understand, trust, and respond to.

That gap became the foundation of her work.


Today, Mary helps founders and organizational leaders bring their brand into the human world. She examines how a brand is experienced within the specific environment where the relationship occurs—whether that is a retail floor, grocery aisle, service business, restaurant, nonprofit organization, community event, or regional market.

Her perspective is grounded in a simple truth: every environment changes how people receive information, establish trust, and make decisions. A message that works in one setting may fail entirely in another.


Mary helps leaders understand those differences without losing the truth of who they are.


As founder of Today’s Growth Partners, she brings together executive judgment, operational experience, field visibility, and human understanding to reveal where strategy, execution, and lived experience are no longer aligned.


She does not study a business only from a distance. She enters the environment, speaks with the people involved, observes what is happening, and brings leadership a clearer view of what their customers, employees, and partners are actually experiencing.

Mary Douglas

Mary Douglas provides fractional regional leadership for startups and growing organizations that need experienced market visibility, field execution, and consumer intelligence before investing in a full regional infrastructure.
 

The outcome:

She helps leadership understand what is actually happening in the market, correct what is blocking growth, and make regional decisions with evidence rather than assumptions.


Mary fills the space between several traditional roles:

  • regional executive 
  • field marketing leader 
  • market researcher 
  • sales operator 
  • customer-experience strategist 
  • trainer 
  • founder advisor

Find out more

Voices from the field

Mary discovered me and my business at a trade show, and everything changed from there. She saw me. Since working together, my business has taken off. We now have solid plans to expand into multiple new locations. Mary helped us redesign our logo and implement grassroots marketing that’s truly expanded our reach. She’s not just a consultant; she’s become my new best friend. Thank you, Mary. You are incredibly gifted—and now I understand exactly why.
- Founder & Business Owner 

Mary brought a different approach she helped me get out of my own way. Processes really don't change in business. It's how you do those processes that makes a difference. I was selling a product and Mary showed me a way to sell a service. She developed a CSR program for us and began to synergize us in the community. Customer service improved and sales went through the roof. 

- CMO 

Mary opened my eyes. She helped me realize that all the reasons I was holding myself back were just excuses. Her insights around money and mindset completely shifted how I think—and as a result, how I operate. At first, I thought she might be a bit too 'woo-woo' for me, but she challenged me in all the right ways. It was exactly what I needed. Thank you for an incredible month of transformation.
- CEO & Founder 

Mary told me from the jump what was going on and I refused to see past my ego. I lost my startup and looking back I know why. I was not honest with myself. I will always be grateful for my coaching calls with Mary.

- CEO

I worked with Mary on several Leadership projects. We came together in such a light of newness and love for others in the communities we served. I was elevated, I grew , and I became a better leader because of Mary.

- CEO & Founder

Mary started with our Fortune 500 retail organization and quickly became sought after.  She managed people, operations and sales like a champ. Her teams' results were consistently above expectations. I flew her out to our corporate offices to get to know her and how she was so successful. I learned all the different things she had implemented. They became company directives.

-  CEO

Mary brought the word focus to another level. When the entire project was in full swing and we had so many moving parts to manage Mary was the go-to-person for facts, figures and details. She led my executive leaders through a praise training and the shift was outstanding.

- President

Mary pulled me in, coached me and listened. She really heard me. Someone finally saw me. Thank you for leading our Bee Hive of Consultants to an amazing level during Covid. Without your guidance I would have given up on my dreams. 

- Mother and CEO

Mary brings it. She give 100% and receives 100% back from her teams. She showed seasoned leaders how to pivot, grow, and deep dive their "whys". She rallies people and people respect her unique way of being with them. Mary doesn't play. But she sure does care. Her results and metrics were always something to chase after. 

A true Leader in the business.

- VP Operations

Mary hired an entire team and trained all my leaders how to manage all HR processes. She set our business up for success. Mary has a way to bring the unexpected hire onboard that is the perfect fit. She sees things in people that I would have overlooked. A top notch consultant. 

- CEO 

No one on our executive team ever thought of turning our bike shops into indoor cycling studios using our own equipment. Mary did. Her vision transformed our slowest season into one of our most profitable. In some locations, winter now outperforms summer. She didn’t just improve the business. She saw what it could be.
— East Coast, Executive Team Member 

Mary, Sam, and I met yesterday to better align. 

In our alignment call, Sam and I wanted to support the "biggest mission" in our community, where we can drive the greater good. 

Mary helped drive Sam's alignment, utilizing me on his leadership team to delegate the account management, revenue planning, and other specialties so we can focus on launching X, driving strategic partnerships, and gaining the confidence to work on this full-time. We will continue to seek alignment calls with Mary on building operations with Z and B, as we envision a virtual XYZ.

CRO -

Fractional Regional Leadership Powered By Tactical Activation & Consumer Intelligence.

Copyright © 2026. Today's Growth Partners. A service brand of Douglas Growth Consulting LLC - All Rights Reserved. 

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