The first time I managed a marketing budget, I was handed a dollar figure and asked to accomplish X, Y, and Z with it. The following year, I was asked to do more with a slightly smaller budget. Sound familiar?
While this top-down approach is common, it isn’t the only way to budget. The opposite approach is a bottom-up budget, where each department and team proposes a budget according to their needs and goals.
This is common in large organizations and startups alike.