Dive deep into business, brand and strategy.
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The Day I Stopped Believing in Product Superiority
What would you have to believe for positioning to be more important than product? I’ve been asking this question for 20 years. To Fortune 500 CEOs. To startup founders. To myself. Most people think it’s a ridiculous question. Of course products matter more. Products are real. Products solve problems. Products create value. Positioning? That’s just……
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How to get clients (A system)
(Note: This is from the Digest newsletter I send out every Tuesday. Sign up below.) Stop Building Websites. Start Building Relationship Capital. Relationship Capital is the only growth system that matters in service-based businesses (consulting/advisory). Not leads. Not traffic. Not brand awareness. Relationship Capital is the compound value of trust, proof, and access you’ve built…
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Air India’s Performance of Safety
This post is about the gap between what companies say and what they do. I wrote it to help you see the difference between a polished crisis response and a real commitment to change. You will get a look at the mechanics of corporate messaging versus the reality on the ground. We will use Air…
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The Lego turnaround story gets told wrong
The Lego turnaround story is often told. It is rarely understood. Most see operational discipline. Cut costs. Focus on the core. CEO saves company through efficiency. That reading mistakes tactical fixes for strategic architecture. 2003: Lego bleeds $1 million daily. Specialized pieces overflow warehouses. Star Wars sets rot after movie hype dies. Classic turnaround setup.…
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Great Jeans, Not Great Genes
American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign triggered outrage, applause, and (crucially) 700,000 new customers. Everyone thinks they know why. They’re wrong. In this moment, we’re going to do three things: 1) The Hook: “It worked because celebrity + controversy” American Eagle hired a famous person, made a cheeky pun, Twitter exploded, and suddenly:…
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Why Most ‘Positioning Experts’ Don’t Actually Understand Positioning
Let’s break down what’s really happening here, because Sara and Fletch have fundamentally misunderstood positioning while claiming expertise in it. What Sara Thinks She’s Describing Sara believes she’s making a sophisticated critique of strategic narrative. She thinks she’s being practical and buyer-focused by saying companies need to explain “what you are” and “what your product…
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The $50B Homepage Optimization Scam Destroying B2B
The Beautiful Lie We’ve All Agreed to Believe Last year, B2B companies spent approximately $50 billion on website optimization, digital marketing platforms, and homepage redesigns. They hired consultants who promised “positioning breakthroughs” that mysteriously always culminated in a new hero image and a rewritten H1 tag. They ran thousands of A/B tests on button colours…
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Brand: Where Executives Hide from Hard Decisions
When Tribune Publishing renamed itself “tronc” in 2016, the internet collectively cringed. But the real tragedy wasn’t the name it was what the rebrand concealed: a newspaper empire bleeding $14.8 million quarterly while its CEO had secretly paid $2.5 million to hide a racial slur scandal. The rebrand lasted two years. The fundamental problems outlived…
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The Autopilot Corporation: Eight Warning Signs Your Company is Drifting
Your company’s doing fine. Revenue’s up. Stock’s steady. Everyone’s busy. So why does it feel like you’re all just going through the motions? I’ve spent years studying companies that seemed invincible, only to find out they weren’t. Kodak. Blockbuster. Sears. General Electric. Nokia. They didn’t fail overnight. They drifted into irrelevance while looking successful. I…
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The Autopilot Corporation: Why Most Companies Drift (And How to Take Control)
Most businesses run on autopilot. They hit their numbers, serve customers, and keep busy. But they’re drifting, optimized for what worked yesterday, blind to what’s needed tomorrow. This isn’t about bad execution. It’s about something deeper: companies that mistake motion for direction, tactics for strategy, and busy work for meaningful progress. They don’t own anything…
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Becoming: The Architecture of Identity-Driven Positioning
Becoming is the quiet engine that moves every person and every company. It begins as tension: “What I am now” pulls against “what I could be.” When that tension is acknowledged and addressed, growth begins. But this tension is more than discomfort. It’s the fundamental force that drives all meaningful transformation. In individuals, it manifests…
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Beyond the Positioning Facade: Why 95% of Companies Stop at Level 1
The Great Positioning Delusion We live in an era where every marketing consultant has become a “positioning expert.” LinkedIn overflows with thought leaders coining new terms for old concepts, calling storytelling “narrative positioning,” rebranding customer segmentation as “micro-positioning,” or confusing brand messaging with strategic positioning. The result? A marketplace drowning in positioning theatre while missing…
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