Strategy Skills

Build marketing strategy, positioning, personas, and action plans with mandatory gates.

The Iron Laws

1. NO POSITIONING WITHOUT DISCOVERY FIRST
2. NO PERSONA WITHOUT EVIDENCE SOURCE
3. NO NEW CHANNELS WITHOUT CURRENT CHANNEL AUDIT

Violating the letter of these rules is violating the spirit.

Positioning

When to Use

• "help me position [brand]"
• "create positioning statement"
• "what makes us different"
• "build messaging framework"

Discovery Gate (MANDATORY)

BEFORE writing positioning, ask these ONE AT A TIME:

Phase 1: Understand Brand

1. "What does [brand] sell? (specific product/service)"
2. "Who buys it? (specific role/persona)"
3. "What problem does it solve for them?"
4. "What happens if they don't solve this problem?"

Phase 2: Understand Market

1. "Who are your main competitors? (name 2-3)"
2. "Why do customers choose you over them?"
3. "What can you claim that competitors cannot?"

Phase 3: Validate

1. "Is this differentiator: Believable? Provable? Sustainable?"

IF any answer is "I don't know": That's a gap to fill, not to assume.

Quality Gates

Positioning Statement Format

📍 POSITIONING STATEMENT

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

For **[specific target audience]**
who **[specific need/problem]**,

**[Product name]** is a **[category]**
that **[key benefit - specific, measurable]**.

Unlike **[named competitor or alternative]**,
we **[specific, provable differentiator]**.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

**Tagline:** "[Short, memorable version]"

**Discovery Completed:**
- Target audience: [Source/validation]
- Differentiator: [Evidence/proof point]
- Competitor comparison: [Based on what]

Red Flags - STOP

If you're writing:

• "Innovative" / "Leading" / "Best-in-class" → Empty claims, ask for specifics
• "Businesses of all sizes" → Too vague, narrow the audience
• "Unlike traditional solutions" → Name the actual competitor
• "Saves time and money" → Generic, what specifically?

Personas

When to Use

• "create persona"
• "who is our audience"
• "buyer persona"
• "target audience"

Evidence Gate

BEFORE creating personas, identify evidence source:

Persona Format

👤 PERSONA: [Name - not stereotypical like "Marketing Mary"]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

## Profile
- **Role:** [Specific title]
- **Company:** [Size + industry]
- **Reports to:** [Who]
- **Budget authority:** [Yes/No/Partial]

## Pain Points (ranked)
1. [Most painful - specific, quantified if possible]
2. [Second]
3. [Third]

## Goals (ranked)
1. [Primary - specific outcome]
2. [Secondary]

## Decision Process
- **Researches via:** [Specific channels]
- **Influenced by:** [People/sources]
- **Timeline:** [Buying cycle length]

## Messaging

✅ **DO say:**
- [Specific message based on pain points]

❌ **DON'T say:**
- [What turns them off]

**Evidence Source:** [Where this data came from]

Persona Limit

Maximum 3 personas:

• Primary (70%+ of customers)
• Secondary (20%)
• Tertiary (10% - only if distinctly different)

More than 3 = haven't prioritized. Ask: "Which ONE drives most revenue?"

Channel Strategy

When to Use

• "what channels should I focus on"
• "channel strategy"
• "should I try [channel]"
• "audit my marketing"
• "where should I advertise"

Optimize Before Expand Gate (NON-NEGOTIABLE)

Step 1: Discover Current Investments

Ask: "What marketing channels are you currently investing in?"

Wait for answer. Checklist:

• Google Ads?
• Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram)?
• LinkedIn Ads?
• SEO/Content?
• Email marketing?
• Social media (organic)?
• Other?

Step 2: Assess Each Active Channel

For EACH channel mentioned, ask: "For [channel], what's the performance?"

• Profitable (making money)?
• Break-even (covering costs)?
• Unprofitable (losing money)?
• Unknown (not tracking)?

Step 3: Gate Check

IF any channel is "unprofitable" or "break-even" or "unknown":

⛔ GATE BLOCKED

Current channel [X] needs attention first:
- Performance: [status]
- Recommendation: [Optimize/Pause/Track]

Let's address this before considering new channels.

IF all channels are "profitable":

✅ GATE PASSED

Current channels are healthy. Now we can discuss:
1. Scaling existing profitable channels
2. Testing new channels

Channel Audit Format

📊 CHANNEL AUDIT

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

| Channel | Status | Performance | Action |
|---------|--------|-------------|--------|
| Google Ads | Active | Profitable | 📈 SCALE |
| Meta Ads | Active | Break-even | 🔧 OPTIMIZE |
| SEO | Active | Unknown | 📊 TRACK |

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

## Recommendations

### 🥇 Priority 1: [Channel]
**Action:** [OPTIMIZE/SCALE/PAUSE]
**Why:** [Specific reason]
**Next Step:** [Specific action, 5-15 min]

### ⛔ Pause/Fix First:
- [Channel]: [Why]

## Gate Status
- Channels audited: ✅
- All profitable: [Yes/No]
- Can recommend new: [Yes/No + reason]

Deflection Responses

Playbook

When to Use

• "create a playbook"
• "what should I do first"
• "marketing action plan"
• "next steps"

Task Granularity

Each task = ONE specific action (5-15 minutes):

❌ BAD: "Optimize landing pages"

✅ GOOD:

• "Identify top 3 landing pages by traffic (check analytics)"
• "Run page 1 through PageSpeed Insights"
• "List the top 3 issues from the report"
• "Fix issue #1 on page 1"

Playbook Format

📋 PLAYBOOK: [Brand Name]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

## Week 1-2: Quick Wins
- [ ] (10 min) [Specific action]
- [ ] (15 min) [Specific action]
- [ ] (10 min) [Specific action]

## Week 3-4: Foundation
- [ ] (30 min) [Specific action]
- [ ] (20 min) [Specific action]

## Month 2+: Growth
- [ ] [Specific action]
- [ ] [Specific action]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

**Based on:** [Channel audit / positioning / etc.]
**Priority focus:** [Main area]

Verification Checklist

BEFORE presenting strategy output:

Positioning

• Discovery questions completed (all 8)?
• Audience specific (not "businesses")?
• Benefit measurable?
• Differentiator provable?
• Named a specific competitor?

Personas

• Evidence source stated?
• Pain points specific and quantified?
• Limited to 3 or fewer?

Channels

• Current investments discovered?
• Each channel's performance assessed?
• Gate check completed?
• No new channel recs without gate pass?

If any unchecked: Go back and complete.