Working notes from an independent consulting practice, written for founders and MarComm leaders in startups and small organisations on a growth journey.
Startup branding, brand narrative, message architecture, content and media positioning.
See the practiceBuilding and restructuring marketing communications functions, operating models, and AI-enabled workflows.
See the practiceMentoring MarComm leaders, performance coaching, and lifting team craft.
See the practice
Coaching gets brought in when a MarComm team plateaus, and most of the time it moves nothing. Not because coaching is a bad idea, but because it aims at the wrong thing.
Every marketing team is using AI now. The useful question is what's left once the machine has done its part, because that's where teams actually differentiate.
A lot of founders think they have solved brand narrative once they have landed a clever line. A tagline is decoration. Narrative is the structure underneath it.
AI assistants do not rank pages, they repeat sentences. What that changes about how a brand should be written, and where most companies go wrong first.
Most founders don't realise their brand narrative has a problem. They just feel it. Five signs worth paying attention to.
A brand only travels as far as the people carrying it. What mentoring and performance coaching change in a MarComm function, and how to tell when it is needed.
First hire, first workflow, first ritual. How to structure a marketing communications function that delivers before it is fully staffed.
Most early-stage brands buy an identity before they own an idea. Here is the order that actually holds: narrative spine, message architecture, then design.