"damn, we've been funding the wrong thing”

Jun 15, 2026

Brought to you by The Art Of Positioning Podcast

It's an easy hole to fall into.

You've got a brand story. It's on the website. Hecks, the deck sounds good. Maybe you've even had someone help you nail the messaging.

And everyone online is telling you that's the work. Story-led brand strategy. Narrative as the engine. Get the comms right and the rest follows.

Except... does it though?

Because I had two calls last week that are making me question how much of that conversation is leaving out the most useful part.

First one.

The owner of a HR tech training business came to me with a full list. Ya know, things like community building, social content, a brand ambassador program she'd just launched the week before. She was freaking stoked.

And about 15 minutes in I asked her who was actually losing sleep over the problem her business solved.

She'd been thinking student side the whole time.

Finding them, converting them, chasing them through the funnel.

I get it though, it’s a natural connection made by everyone else in the industry.

But the companies hiring those students, whelp, they’re drowning.

What I mean is 300++ CVs for one role.

No real vetting standard.

Five-round interviews going nowhere.

Budget burnt on people who looked right on paper and finally didn’t have the right fit.

One question. Other side of the table.

She started sketching a completely different model before we finished the call.

Things like specific roles. Employer-funded. Recurring revenue.

A niche she could actually own, staying in the known, instead of the wide net she was exhausted by.

The ambassador program didn't disappear. But half her activity list suddenly made no sense for where she was going. And the half that was left had somewhere to go for the first time - Ie marketing finally started being effective.

Second one. 👇

A second brand. A new offer. Another location. It all looks like momentum until the original thing starts cracking with confused customers, divided staff, and a message that doesn't know what it's saying anymore.

Amanda Green, award-winning journalist and business newsroom systems builder, and John Hanrahan, franchise strategist and the man who's 4x'd EBITDA on a multi-billion dollar automotive portfolio, get into exactly where it breaks and what to do before it does.

We cover:

The first signs that show trouble (beyond financials)
How internal communication become a public brand problem
What it takes to keep things pulling in the same direction when scaling across offers, locations, or audiences.

If you're sitting on a growth decision right now, this The Art of Positioning Podcast episode one's perfect timing - listen here.

The founder of a tech consulting company knew what worked. And he'd known for years.

When he got in a room and walked business owners through his framework hands-on, he closed almost every darn time.

His other activities like events, content, podcasting, digital outreach, a couple of partnerships were just ticking along.

Essentially providing just enough results to avoid the hard conversation.

About 20 minutes in of poking and pulling threads he stopped.

"Who gives a damn about any of this if it's not actually producing?"

He wasn’t angry at me, rather he was already mentally reorganising.

So, there’s one thing about that moment, and it hurts. For real I’ve had more calls with owners swearing (in recognition) than not. And it because it feels like a loss.

All that time, all that budget, those things you said yes to.

But it's the opposite. Because now you know what to stop. What to double down on.

What to build in a real system around, instead of just doing more of.

He's planning to sell the business in 5 years.

A business built around his personal conversion rate isn't sellable.

A business built around a replicable framework, with a clear positioning that the whole team understand and use? That's an asset.

If you’re like me you’ve probably seen a shit ton of content around story-led brand strategy. But there’s it’s a conversation that stops short.

Your story matters. Your message matters. The way you show up in the market matters.

But good positioning isn't a communications job that ends when the website's done.

It's a filter. For everything.

Every activity your business is currently running.

Every channel you're funding.

Every program you launched because it seemed like a good idea at the time and nobody's had the uncomfortable conversation about it since.

Where you ask:

Does this make sense given who we're specifically for?

Does this make sense given what we do better than anyone else in our space?

Because the businesses that get this out stop spreading themselves across 10 things that kinda make sense and start building real weight behind the 2-3 that do.

The ones that don't? They keep producing. Keep showing up. Keep wondering why the ceiling won't move despite doing everything right.

That ceiling isn't a marketing problem.

And a better story won't shift it.

Let's fix it👇

🏏 Badass Tip

Take your current activity or actions list, everything your business is running right now to grow.

For each item, note down a sentence.

Not "it builds awareness."

Not "it keeps us visible."

One sentence that connects this specific activity to the specific people you're for and the specific thing you solve better than anyone else in your space. Why is it relevant to them? How does it convert them? Does this follow the overarching goal?

If you can't write it, the activity is running on habit, sunk cost, or the fact that nobody's questioned it yet. And from those you can reclaim your time, budget, and energy.

The rest - Resource them properly. Back them.

So, how much are you funding the wrong thing right now?

🦘 B

Often, I see businesses hit a growth wall when their offers and brands don't complement or build on each other (to the point they end up unintentionally cannibalizing each other), so I put together two decades of knowledge from serving brands across various industries and built a tool intended to find the best solution for your brand mix and business goals.

It's a honed-in set of questions where you get direction right up front (best use of 10 minutes): Align your offers and brands today.