The problem: 

At most companies, employees, and often executives, can’t clearly articulate their business strategy or what their mission is in actionable terms. This usually indicates that key decisions have not been made about what the business should be doing and why and or that it’s too ambiguous to be actional. It manifests itself in searches for outside strategy consultants, poor performance, low morale, way too many meetings and slow decision-making, and high employee turnover, as employees don’t see the bigger picture and can’t contribute to it.

Most marketing teams can’t explain what their brand strategy is and how the brand contributes to their business, only their sales goals. This is often because there is only a brand bible with design and typography choices and maybe a market positioning for their lead product, but often lacking real clarity about what marketing needs to deliver to the business to drive company performance internally or externally. This makes it difficult for marketing teams to build true brand affinity and leaves them trying to sell products that may or may not be well aligned with long-term goals and key audiences. 

Very few companies have alignment between their brand and business goals with a clear go-to-market strategy that explains their contributions. This means it’s hard for everyone to consistently make brand and business decisions that are clearly in the interest of both short and long-term strategic goals, resulting in a lot of waste when it comes to innovation and go-to-market strategy.