Spending leftover budget before I quit - smart or shady?

growthgeek

So here's the deal. I run the marketing budget and team, but I'm off to a new role in a few months - they just don't know it yet. I've been underspent this year, still hitting all KPIs, but getting zero recognition. Hence the exit.

Now, I've got roughly £200k sitting in the budget that needs burning before I go. I could just let it sit, but where's the fun in that? The question is: where do I deploy it for maximum personal upside? Things like attending a conference I'd never normally get approved, or running a wild, experimental campaign that looks brilliant on my CV. Maybe some flashy influencer deal or a big outdoor stunt. If it flops, who cares - I'm gone.

I know someone in the thread said I should use it to benefit the team - software, bonuses, whatever. But let's be real: that helps them, not me. I executed the vision that saved the money in the first place. Why shouldn't I reap the reward?

So, fellow growth addicts - what's the most self-serving, resume-padding, fun-as-hell way to blow £200k in two months? Don't hold back.

metricsmadness

If you're going to play the conference game, treat it like an investment portfolio-diversify your exposure. The real dividend isn't just the handshakes; it's the macro signal you pick up by watching which booths are busy and which panels are empty.

For the second part of your thinking-sinking company money into a medium you've never touched, like billboards or influencer audio-that's a smart hedge. Most affiliates stick to what they know until the algorithm changes and wipes them out. Getting your hands dirty with a new channel (even with a small test budget) gives you a feel for where the market is flowing before the crowd catches on. AI credits are the same; a small pilot now beats scrambling later.

No question needed. You're just playing the long game while the short-sighted ones are burning through their entire training budget on overpriced webinar tickets.

ctrjunkie

Honestly, this is a smart move. Invest in your team for one big push - that swing really depends on what industry you're in. Level up your skills and theirs while you prep to leave. But here's the key: only use half the budget.

When you hand in your notice, show them the stack of cash you saved. Tell the company and your team to use it to hire an interim. How you leave matters more than you think - it hits your team hard, and those people will be your connections and job leads for years. Leave well.

nightowl

Look, I get the impulse - you cut costs, you want to pocket the difference. But I've seen enough businesses implode when founders forget who actually keeps the lights on.

That saved margin isn't yours alone. It belongs to the people who translated your vision into execution. Treat it like a tax you pay for having a functioning team, not a windfall you're entitled to.

I've done exactly what you're describing - taken the cash we freed up from operational efficiencies and funnelled it straight back into the people. Better tools they actually asked for, proper bonuses tied to impact, even letting them run their own small experiments that don't serve my resume. The macro trend here: talent retention through recession cycles is brutal, and nothing builds loyalty faster than feeling the upside of your own labour.

You're not the hero of this story. The people doing the work are. Share the bounty accordingly.

coopplayer

Slap a slick, AI-branded finish on that resume as you exit.

neonlights

Love this thread because it forces you to think about ROI in a non-traditional way. Two angles from my own playbook:

Focus on activation, not vanity. Find a bottleneck that's killing a key metric. HR struggling to fill a senior role? That's a conversion problem. Throw your budget behind shortening that time-to-fill by 30 % - your internal NPS and next role's compensation will thank you.
Build an asset that compounds. Do something so odd that it becomes your career's activation event. Doesn't need to be practical - just needs to generate a measurable spike in your share of voice across future hiring managers. Seen it work twice this year alone.

buggedout

From a pure mechanics standpoint, starting an LLC and hiring it as a contractor is a known workaround. Not recommending it - purely observational. Enforcement data suggests low risk for small setups, but that's not a green light.

backlinker

Absolutely. AEO is where the real fight happens now - getting your structured data right for Google's featured snippets and AI overviews. Every local biz client I work with is panicking because their organic traffic is getting swallowed by zero-click results. The 'why'? Google rewards entities that directly answer queries, not just rank for keywords. If you can show an interviewer you know how to map schema.org types to user intent (e.g., LocalBusiness + FAQPage + HowTo), you'll stand out. It's not unethical - it's just adapting to the death of the ten blue links.

brandvoice

Honestly, I get the temptation - sometimes it feels like you need to fake it till you make it. But running pilots on something you've never actually used tends to backfire, especially with AI tools. The moment a client asks a detailed question or you need to show real results, you're sunk. That 200k would be far better spent on properly vetting a product through free trials or a small test account first. At least then you're speaking from genuine experience, not just hoping the tech works as advertised. The slight unethical edge might save time now, but it'll cost trust later - and trust is the only thing that keeps campaigns running.

pixelpusher

Team meeting at a cool destination? That's the kind of shallow band-aid that looks good on the LinkedIn feed but doesn't shift anything real. If you're trying to dodge an ethical decision, a glossy offsite won't fix the underlying rot. Spend that budget on actual structural change rather than wining and dining people into compliance.

marketingmule

Honestly, this is exactly what I'd do. If you've already got the KPIs locked in and budget left over, the smartest move is to channel it into one big, clearly ownable project you can put front and centre on your CV.

Something visible like a video series, a micro-influencer push, or even a small community activation that actually gets people talking. The exact shape depends on your product and audience, but the principle's the same: make sure you can say "I controlled £200k, here's what I delivered from scratch." That kind of claim carries way more weight than a list of routine campaign optimisations.