Is Your Marketing Based on Strategy—or Just Hope?
Episode 2
Show Notes
🔑 In This Episode:
→ Break revenue goals into actionable marketing and sales benchmarks.
Guidepost 2: Do you have a written marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals?
→ Define your audience, messaging, value prop, and primary tactics. Get it out of your head and onto paper.
→ Learn how to align content and tactics to top, middle, and bottom of funnel questions.
→ Specificity is key. Without clarity on your target customer, you’re wasting budget and missing opportunities.
Guidepost 5: Have you talked to your customers lately?
→ Your best messaging and insight come from the people who already buy from you.
Guidepost 6: Is your marketing aligned with your internal team or external partners?
→ Whether you have a freelancer, agency, or in-house marketer, strategy gaps lead to execution gaps.
⏱️ Timestamps:
00:28 – Hope vs. Strategy
00:53 – GUIDE Framework Recap
03:34 – Guidepost 1: Set Clear Goals
05:33 – Guidepost 2: Write Down the Strategy
07:54 – Guidepost 3: Map the Buyer’s Journey
12:22 – Guidepost 4: Define Your Ideal Client
15:47 – Guidepost 5: Talk to Your Customers
18:29 – Guidepost 6: Align Your Team or Partners
20:55 – What’s at Stake if You Skip This Step
23:14 – Next Episode Preview: Upgrade Your Online Presence
✅ Resources Mentioned:
📚 Explore the Wayfind Learning Center
🔧 Learn about EOS and the Vision/Traction Organizer (VTO)
🚀 Take Action:
- Block one hour a week to work on your marketing strategy
- Revisit your customer personas or draft your value proposition
- Share this episode with a colleague or friend who leads marketing
- Subscribe so you don’t miss the next step in the GUIDE framework: Upgrade Your Online Presence
Follow Your Hosts on LinkedIn:
Episode Transcript
Steve: Is your marketing based on a strategy or is it based on hope?
Annie Laurie Walters: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Growth Minded Marketing Podcast. I’m Annie Laurie Walters.
Steve: And I’m Steve Phipps. We’re incredibly glad you’re here to join us again.
Annie Laurie: If you caught Episode 1, we introduced the GUIDE Marketing Framework—Wayfind’s system for helping B2B CEOs stop spinning their wheels and actually grow with clarity and confidence.
Steve: Today, we’re diving into the first letter of the GUIDE Framework: G. This stands for Generate Your Story and Strategy. Feels a little like Sesame Street, but this is where it all starts.
Annie Laurie: It is—because wishing and hoping and praying is not a strategy. It’s helpful, but it’s not a strategy. So why do we start here?
Steve: Great question. If this is your first time tuning in, go back to Episode 1 for the full framework. But we start with “G” because, as Vince Lombardi famously said, “Hope is not a strategy.” Yet so many companies do marketing reactively—without a mapped-out plan or clear goals. It’s like running the Barkley Marathon—lots of energy, no direction.
Too often, CEOs have spent tens of thousands on tactics like websites, ads, and emails—without ever defining who they’re targeting or how to communicate in a way that builds trust. This first step helps you figure out what to say and what to do in order to grow.
Annie Laurie: Right. So in the GUIDE Framework, each letter includes “guideposts”—key checkpoints that help you know you’re heading in the right direction. These also line up with the questions in our free online assessment. Let’s go through the six guideposts under “G.”
Guidepost 1: Do you have clear marketing and sales goals for the next 12 months?
Steve: A lot of business leaders might have a revenue goal like “grow by $500K or $1M,” but it’s not broken down. How many new customers does that require? How many leads and proposals? Without that clarity, you can’t measure success. If it’s not written down, it’s not real.
Annie Laurie: And how many people say, “Oh, it’s all in my head”?
Steve: Way too many. That’s why frameworks like EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) are helpful. They require leaders to work with their team to clarify goals and success metrics.
Guidepost 2: Do you have a written marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals?
Annie Laurie: What should someone do if they don’t have a strategy—or it’s all in their head?
Steve: Start small. Strategy doesn’t mean a 50-page slide deck. It means identifying your audience, defining your value proposition, writing a few key messages, and picking the right tactics. Even a notepad is a good start.
Use tools like the EOS Vision/Traction Organizer (VTO), or check out resources in our Learning Center. Just write down what’s essential and actionable.
Annie Laurie: It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just helpful.
Guidepost 3: Are you mapping your marketing to each stage of the buyer’s journey?
Steve: Different stages require different content:
- Top of funnel: “What is…” or “How do I…”
- Middle: Comparisons like “us vs. them” or “best of”
- Bottom: Case studies, testimonials, or how your process works
Don’t treat every visitor like they’re ready to buy. It’s like proposing marriage on a first date. Give them other actions—downloads, videos, FAQs. Build trust gradually.
Annie Laurie: And from an SEO perspective, keywords often line up with those stages. For example, “free trial” is a bottom-of-funnel keyword. Add an FAQ section to your sales pages answering late-stage buyer questions.
Guidepost 4: Do you have a clear description of your ideal client (persona development)?
Steve: Know who you’re talking to. For instance, a company selling to $100M firms is talking to a marketing director. The same company selling to a 25-person firm is talking to the CEO. Different roles, different needs, different messaging.
You need to understand their pain points—emotional and logical. The part of the brain that makes decisions is also the one that controls emotions. So your messaging has to connect.
Annie Laurie: A lot of people have this figured out mentally but never write it down. And when you try to reach everyone, you end up reaching no one.
Steve: Right. Clear personas help focus your resources and improve ROI.
Guidepost 5: Have you talked to your customers lately?
Steve: One client was shifting from B2C to B2B. We had the CEO interview prospective clients. He learned things he never would have known—like how buyers perceived their social impact. This feedback shaped their messaging.
Customer interviews provide great language, refine your personas, and surface key pain points or differentiators you hadn’t considered.
Guidepost 6: Is your marketing aligned with your internal team or external partners?
Steve: Maybe your marketing manager is great at execution but lacks a strategy. Or maybe your agency is taking orders instead of leading.
You need alignment. Whether it’s a coach, a training program, or a better partner, strategy needs to guide execution.
[WHAT’S AT STAKE]
Annie Laurie: So what’s at risk if you skip this foundational step?
Steve: You waste time, money, and energy. You miss your goals—or work way too hard to hit them. Strategy gives you direction and helps you decide what not to do.
Annie Laurie: Even setting aside just one hour a week to focus on this can make a big difference. Pick one guidepost and start there.
Steve: Yes—any forward movement is progress.
[WRAP-UP]
Steve: Join us next week for the next step in the GUIDE Framework: Upgrade Your Online Presence. We’ll talk about websites, LinkedIn, social media, and how to make sure your digital presence doesn’t suck.
Annie Laurie: We are definitely against websites that suck.
Steve: Thanks for listening to Episode 2. Subscribe and share this with someone who needs help turning marketing hope into marketing strategy!
Resources:
- Take the free GUIDE™ Marketing Assessment: https://wayfindmarketing.com/b2b-marketing-assessment/
- Explore our Learning Center: https://wayfindmarketing.com/learning-center
- Learn more about EOS: https://www.eosworldwide.com/