A CMO told me once that “agencies are great at making dots, but very few are good at connecting them.” This is why I embrace the hub-and-spoke model where everything is executed from a central theme and ties together, like the wheel of a bike. The extensions can be tactics like media relations, email marketing, content marketing, events, speaker platforms, advertising, social media, etc. But they all live out on a spoke, tied back to the central concept, and they play off of each other around the wheel as you build momentum.

The most stable skyscrapers are built on rock-solid foundations, but no one talks about them much because foundations serve their purpose out of sight. Brands are the same. In order to properly execute any marketing or business development efforts with resonance, every brand should know and live out its vision, mission, purpose and core values. Do you feel your brand has evolved beyond the existing brand foundation? Are competitors starting to sound just like your company? We can find your meaningful differentiators and bring them to life again. This will make everything you do more effective.

You can’t be everything to everyone, much as you may like to be. So, who is most likely to buy from you? What types of buyers have historically been your most consistent? What client or customer situations are best solved by your offerings? What types of buyers feel your brand resonates with them most? In my experience, the target audiences companies should be going after usually aren’t the ones they think they are. This can be a big cause for growth stalls.

It’s like conducting a symphony. Getting the right people in the room is just the first step. Managing the dynamics of the room, allowing each person’s strengths to shine and ideas to flow steadily is harder. But where the magic really happens is when you see a group dynamic form. People’s eyebrows lift. They get delightfully animated. They build on other people’s ideas. They create something together infinitely better than the sum of its parts. It’s amazing to see. And I have done it for countless companies.