There's a moment that happens on almost every strategy call I get on.

I ask someone to tell me about their brand - what they do, who they serve, what makes them different - and they answer pretty smoothly. It rolls right off the tongue because they've said it a hundred times already and it's basically down to a script.

And then I ask "why?" or "can you explain that differently?" or just "what do you mean by that specifically?"

And they pause. It's like their brain just hit a loading screen and has to recalibrate because they're being asked to think about something they've only ever said on autopilot.

That pause is genuinely my favorite thing that happens in my work.

Because what comes out after it is almost always the most honest, most compelling, most *specific* thing they'll say in the entire conversation. It's the version of their brand that hasn't been smoothed down by repetition yet.

And it's usually the thing that's always missing from everything I'd seen of them online.

Here's what I've come to understand after doing this long enough: at the core, most brand problems aren't actually a messaging problem. They're a self-awareness problem.

Not in a "you don't know yourself" way but more like the thing that makes you genuinely different from everyone else in your space has just always felt so obvious to you that you never thought to say it out loud. You assumed everyone worked that way. You assumed your clients already knew. You assumed it wasn't worth mentioning.

Spoilerrrr it's worth mentioning.

And it's the primary objective I'm trying to solve when we dive into The Groundwork.

Before we ever get on a call, I send a questionnaire designed to pull your brand brain chaos out of your head and onto paper in a way that most people haven't actually done before. I read through everything before we ever talk, so by the time we get on the strategy call, I've already built a rough hypothesis about what I think your brand is actually trying to say - where it's landing, where it's getting muddied, and what's getting left on the table.

Then on the call, we test it. I tell you what I think I'm hearing and you tell me where I'm right, where I'm off, and where something I said cracked something open that you've been trying to articulate for two years. (That last one happens more than you'd think. I have a reputation for making people go "oh my god, that's exactly what I've been trying to say!!" lol)

After the call, I get to work building three things.

A brand strategy overview - who you are, who your best-fit clients actually are based on how they think and what drives their decisions, what makes you the specific and obvious choice for them, and how to position all of that so the right people recognize themselves in your content immediately.

A content strategy - what platforms make sense for your audience, what content types will do the actual work of moving someone from stranger to client, and what you should be saying consistently to build trust over time.

And a month-one content plan - not lame vague topics, but every single asset mapped out with specific concepts rooted in your brand (what I like to call brand-led content). That way, instead of being like 'okay, I have a plan...now what' you know what to make, why it matters, and what it's supposed to do.

The thing I want most for every client who goes through this process is for their content to stop feeling like a performance they're putting on for an algorithm and to start feeling like a natural extension of how they already talk about their work when they're not overthinking it.

Because that version of your brand? The one that comes out when someone catches you off guard and asks more about what you do is almost always more compelling than anything you've carefully crafted.

My job is just helping you make that the default.

If that sounds like exactly what you need, The Groundwork is where you should start. You can learn more and apply here.

Catch ya next week,

Marissa

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