When my daughter helps me make my sourdough, she always asks me, “How is yeast alive?” “Why does it need to eat?” “If it's really in the air all around us, why can't I see it?”

They're great questions. My sourdough starter is somehow a living microbial ecosystem, how crazy is that?

For over 5,000 years, humans have been combining flour, water, and salt together with a frothy, bubbly, slurry in such a way that it magically transforms into a loaf of bread. As I have immersed myself in this craft I have learned that the most critical success factor is actually not ingredients.

It's about process. And timing.

You must perform the kneading (or folding) to create the right structure, and you need to let the dough rest, ferment, and rise — not too little, and not too much. My signature country loaf takes 3 days:

Day 1 — I feed my starter.
Day 2 — I mix in the flour, water, and salt, perform periodic folds, and shape into rounds which go into the fridge overnight.
Day 3 — I score and bake the bread and get to enjoy it with friends and family.

Now, have I forgotten to feed my starter and tried to rush the process into 1–2 days? Absolutely. It still makes bread, but the loaves are small, dense, and lack flavor.

On the other hand, have I gotten caught up with work and kids and errands and forgotten that the dough has been out a few hours too long? You bet. Those loaves completely deflate in the oven and come out as flat, hard, hockey puck-like disasters.

But when I hit the sweet spot, the bread rises dramatically in the oven and comes out grandly rotund with a crisp crust and chewy, airy crumb.

A cross-section of a sourdough loaf showing an open, airy crumb
The sweet spot — structure, process, and timing, all in one crumb shot.

That's exactly how I think about Commercial Planning:

Structure, Process, Timing.

All the creative ideas and growth ambitions need the right steps and forums to be shared, grown, shaped, tested. The process must include the right people in the right meetings having the right conversations. Each component of the final product needs to fit together, which requires structured thinking, strategic rigor, and tough choices.

Timing is essential here too. You need to start early enough to be able to perform the right brainstorming, analysis, collaboration, iteration, and socialization. If you head into your fiscal year with a half-baked plan, you'll immediately need to play catch-up and try to layer on last-minute programs and incentives to fill the gaps. These reactionary tactics may drive some quick wins, but it is always more expensive and less effective than doing the work up-front.

But taking too long basically defeats the whole purpose and the world moves on without you.

Like when your fiscal year starts in January and in mid-March the team is still debating the commercial calendar and incentive program details.

For Alcoholic Beverage suppliers that work with Distributors, it's now too late to fully influence the distributors to execute your priorities and programs against every other brand in their book.

Any CPG company vying for shelf space and programming must also hit that timing sweet spot. Success requires pitching compelling products with impactful insights in each retailer's specific window for resets.

Commercial Planning Steps I Learned from my Sourdough

Feed — Every commercial plan starts with new energy. Brand teams bring ideas. Consumer insights bring evidence. Finance brings constraints. Sales brings reality. These ideas jump start the commercial plan, breathing new life into each brand and adding in the fuel that drives the growth.
Mix — In a multi-brand portfolio, all brands must find their right place and complement each other. It is critical to bring together all of the brands into a coherent portfolio strategy.
Fold — Commercial Plans need strength and structure, not just ideas and concepts. This step requires building all the analytics, channel strategies, KPIs, quotas, and incentives. It's the scaffolding that holds everything together.
Rise — All the plans need to come together into a neat package that can be easily shared and clearly articulated. This “fermentation” period is needed for all players to review and digest the plans before they are final and make any necessary tweaks. Organizations need this time of reflection and socialization to build buy-in and ownership.
Bake — When all the hard work is done, it's time to call it final and get it out into the world. Surprisingly, this part can be the trickiest, there's always one more thing to fix, one more analysis to run, one more person who has feedback. This is the danger zone when your plan can deflate if you're not careful.

Leadership teams are demanding growth.

Commercial Planning itself does create growth.

It creates the conditions where growth becomes possible.

Just like sourdough —

The baker doesn't make the dough rise. The baker creates the conditions where rising happens.

Does your organization's Commercial Plan have strength and structure? Have you figured out the timing sweet spot?

Blade Advisory helps companies design and execute commercial planning processes that give teams the time, structure, and alignment to make better decisions.