Did you build your marketing strategy to impress leadership in a meeting, or to actually use it?Deep breath. Be honest.Most marketers rush through building their strategy, cramming in everything leadership asks for so they look good in the presentation. Then it gets filed away, never referenced again, and you're back on the task wheel wondering why nothing's working.📚 Get the Strategic Marketer Kit mentioned in this episode: https://b2bjade.myflodesk.com/wlihflj5vm Join the FREE Live Strategy Clinic - Thursday 30th April: https://b2bjade.myflodesk.com/strategyclinicB2B Breakthrough Academy doors open 28th April (closes 7th May, we start 11th May): b2bjade.com/breakthrough-academyIn this episode, I'm walking you through my Strategic Marketer Prep Kit - the exact workbook every student completes before starting B2B Breakthrough Academy.Why prep before building your strategy?Think of it like clearing the ground before you build a house. You need to understand where you actually are right now, where you want to be, and what's really going on with your business and leaders before you can build something solid.Part 1: Get honest with yourself (the uncomfortable bit)Write down words to describe where you are as a marketer right now - overwhelmed? scattered? invisible?What does a typical day actually look like?How do you respond when leadership asks for something?Can you explain your current strategy in 2-3 sentences without looking at the document?When was the last time you actually used your strategy to guide your activity?The big one: Did you build this strategy to impress leadership or to actually use it?When you look at your strategy document, what do you feel? (Excited? Overwhelmed? Confused? Like burning it?)Part 2: The leadership conversation (I've written it out for you)Schedule 30-45 minutes with your leadership team and ask:Where is the business trying to get to in the next 3-5 years?What's currently standing in the way of hitting these goals?Who is our best customer? (The one who's easy to service, profitable, and you'd clone 100 times)What does strategic marketing mean to you?If marketing could solve one problem for the business this year, what would it be?Part 3: Complete the workbook using their insightsWhat's working, what's not, who your ideal clients actually are, who your competitors are.Why this process matters:You can't build a strategy leadership will back if you haven't taken them on the journey with you. After this one conversation, many leaders already start seeing you as more strategic - because you're being proactive, not just pushing back or firefighting.Also in this episode:I'm introducing AI Jade - she's been fully trained on my brain, the B2B Breakthrough Academy framework, and hours of my consulting calls. Unlike ChatGPT which pulls from millions of different approaches and might send you off course, AI Jade only knows my specific framework for building simple B2B strategies that get leadership buy-in.Students tell me this programme is better than their degree and any course they've taken combined. Not because I'm amazing, but because I built what was missing - simple strategy with no jargon that leaders can understand and you can actually deliver.The plan:Spend April getting honest with this workbook. Join me 30th April for the Live Strategy Clinic to reflect on what you've discovered. Then if you're ready, doors open 28th April to build your complete strategy with me starting 11th May.Stop building strategies to impress. Start building strategies you'll actually use.Jade x#b2bmarketing #marketingstrategy #strategicmarketing #leadershipbuyin
