Strategy

Core identity:

• Wants to become a “Category King” and boost valuation, not run marketing as a cost center.
• Frustrated that weaker competitors win because they’re louder and clearer in the market.
• They want the company to sound like them, clear, confident, and consistent, without needing to personally explain the vision every time.

Primary problem:

They need the market to understand their vision, but fear delegating the narrative will dilute the reputation they spent years building.

It’s a crisis of trust. They want to scale their business, but fear losing control or ruining what they've spent years building.

What they want:

• Demand without founder dependency
• More valuation than just more revenue
• Market recognition (“people finally get us”)
• Category leadership, not feature battles
• A brand that attracts talent & premium customer

What they fear:

• The market misunderstanding what makes them different
• Competitors taking the narrative and sounding louder than they deserve
• Marketing that boosts revenue but not valuation
• Their voice being diluted as they scale
• Staying a “best-kept secret” and missing the growth/exit window
• Brand limits in hiring A-players
• Plateauing before the next round or exit

Personality spectrum: 

Barriers:

• Fear of losing control over the company’s identity
• Fear of misrepresentation
• Belief that product merit should win the market
• Low trust in agencies after past disappointments
• High opportunity cost of their time

What success looks like:

• A brand that increases their valuation multiple
• Inbound momentum creates shorter, cleaner sales cycles
• They become the standard competitors must react to
• A reputation strong enough to attract top talent
• Sales narrative no longer depends on the founder
• A clear message the entire team can repeat

Core identity:

• An overstretched, under-resourced generalist carrying everything from strategy to execution.
• Caught between the CEO’s expectations and the CFO’s budget scrutiny, with little margin for error.
• Wants support that removes work, builds internal credibility, and helps them be seen as a strategic leader, not the “make-it-pretty” person.

Primary problem:

They’re overwhelmed and politically vulnerable. They need help, but fear the risk of choosing the wrong partner and damaging their credibility inside the organization.

What they want:

• Real execution off their plate
• Reporting that protects them in budget conversations
• A strategic partner, not a vendor
• Faster output without hand-holding
• Internal respect and stability
• Space to think instead of just react

What they fear:

• Looking incompetent or outdated
• Choosing an agency that makes them look bad
• Overpromising and under-delivering
• Onboarding that eats their time
• Losing control of messaging or priorities
• Being replaced or outshined

Personality spectrum: 

Barriers:

• CEO over-involvement in strategy
• Fear of budget scrutiny
• Onboarding fatigue (“I’ll just do it myself”)
• Limited political capital
• Past agency failures
• Fear that supporting you will create more work

What success looks like:
Transformation of Status

• Viewed internally as a Revenue Leader, not a support function
• Clear reporting that earns trust and protects budget
• A partner who executes quickly and autonomously
• Clean, consistent, on-brand messaging
• A campaign they’re proud to bring to the CEO
• A standout project for their portfolio or next promotion

Core identity:

• The protector of capacity, efficiency, and predictable revenue.
• Acts as the operational counterweight to the CEO, optimizing systems, preventing chaos, and protecting the fulfillment engine.
• Skeptical of “shiny object” marketing and anything that risks breaking the process they’re responsible for keeping stable.

Primary problem:

They view marketing as a threat to operational stability. They fear that the growth you promise will overwhelm capacity, break fulfillment, and introduce chaos into systems they’ve spent years tightening.

What they want:

• Predictable pipeline matched to current capacity
• Fewer bad-fit customers entering the system
• Shorter, cleaner sales cycles
• Less friction between sales, onboarding and customer success
• Revenue that doesn’t spike and crash
• Investments that improve long-term efficiency

What they fear:

• Growth that outstrips fulfillment
• Wasted spend
• Tech stack sprawl and process complexity
• Sales overpromising because marketing didn’t filter
• Initiatives they can’t control or throttle
• Hidden operational costs
• Unpredictable outcomes or adding chaos to their world

Personality spectrum: 

Barriers:

• Fear of running out of capacity, time, or control
• Concern marketing will break internal processes
• Implementation cost outweighing perceived value
• Aversion to testing and agility (feels like instability)
• The “hidden cost” of internal time to support an agency
• Fear of undefined or unproven outcomes

What success looks like:

• A predictable, controllable pipeline they can throttle
• Better-qualified leads and shorter sales cycles
• Fewer onboarding headaches and lower cost-to-serve
• Increased forecast accuracy
• Reduced churn via better positioning and fit
• A system investment, not a rented hack or dependency on a superstar employee

Core identity:

• The financial gatekeeper, capital allocator and protector of burn rate, CAC, and the cash runway.
• Views marketing strictly through the lens of risk mitigation and capital efficiency.
• Evaluates everything through unit economics, forecasting accuracy, and financial risk mitigation.

Primary problem:

A cost center: (until proven otherwise) something that must become a predictable, controllable financial lever.

What they want:

• Better unit economics (lower CAC, higher LTV)
• Shorter payback periods and faster cash conversion cycles
• A defensible, predictable marketing engine
• Variable levers they can scale up/down based on cash flow
• Investments that behave like assets, not recurring OpEx

What they fear:

• Running out of money
• Long-term fixed commitments
• Paying for revenue that would have happened anyway
• Forecasting variance and unpredictable results
• Investing in vanity projects or unmeasurable initiatives
• Being locked into inflexible spend during down cycles

Personality spectrum: 

Barriers:

• J-curve risk: cash out now, revenue maybe later
• Fixed cost aversion, marketing seen as ongoing liability
• Opportunity costs of salesperson (predictable) vs. marketing (volatile but high upside)
• Incremental life, paying for revenue that would have occurred anyways
• Requirement for an auditable, mathematical justification

What success looks like:

• CAC drops and payback period shortens
• Marketing becomes more efficient than sales headcount
• Forecasts become stable and defensible
• Spend becomes a variable cost, not a fixed liability
• Revenue engine behaves like a predictable math equation
• Marketing acts like a compounding asset