If you’ve ever found yourself muttering “I think our marketing is working…?” while staring into the marketing black hole—this one’s for you.
Rajat Kapur, founder and CEO of &Marketing, recently joined forces with The Profit Recipe community for a Mardi Gras–morning session full of practical frameworks, honest conversations, and more than a few head nods of recognition. The topic? How to build a marketing strategy framework that drives predictable growth, without getting lost in the tactical weeds or stuck in strategy purgatory.
Here’s what we learned from the 40+ business leaders, implementers, and fractional CMOs who showed up and shared what’s really going on behind the scenes. Want to watch the session? It’s on YouTube here.
The Marketing Black Hole Is Real (and Common)
Rajat kicked things off with a series of prompts to see how many attendees had experienced common marketing dysfunctions:
- “We’re spending money but don’t know where it’s going.”
- “We’ve cycled through three agencies and still aren’t seeing results.”
- “Different people own different parts of marketing, but no one owns the strategy.”
- “We don’t have a documented ICP or value prop.”
Spoiler: Most hands went up. That’s not a red flag. It’s reality for many growing businesses and the default setting for businesses that lack a coherent marketing strategy framework. The good news? These issues are fixable. The bad news? It takes work. (But the right kind of work.)
Beyond Buyer Personas: Learning to Think (and Market) Like a Human
Most companies think they know their customer. Very few actually do. Raj shared three truths that will never go out of style:
- People have problems.
- They want solutions to those problems.
- They look in specific places to find those solutions.
If your marketing strategy doesn’t start with these fundamentals, you’re just guessing. To get out of the guesswork game, Raj walked attendees through a live example with a home services business, helping them identify their real customer, the customer’s day-to-day challenges (time, not price), how the business solved them (flexibility, not features), and where that customer actually looks for info (neighborhood listservs, not Google).
This kind of insight is the foundation of any effective marketing strategy and planning effort. Without it, even the best execution will miss the mark.
The Scorecard That Shows You Where to Fix What’s Broken
Talk to any CEO or marketing lead long enough, and you’ll hear the same lament: “We’re doing a lot, but I’m not sure it’s adding up.” That’s why &Marketing created the Marketing Maturity Scorecard—a 10-point framework that helps teams assess where their marketing machine is humming, where it’s sputtering, and where it’s totally missing a part.
The categories range from obvious (digital strategy, messaging) to often-overlooked (pricing, internal alignment, innovation). Attendees scored themselves in real time. The results? Most were hovering in the 20s and 30s—a sign that things were in motion, but not necessarily moving in sync.
What made this part of the session click wasn’t the scores, it was what came next: the visualization. Raj showed a real client example where current scores were mapped against desired future states. The gap? That’s the roadmap, and it’s exactly how our fractional CMOs prioritize and build marketing machines that deliver consistent growth.
Also? It’s how you keep your agency, internal team, or fractional CMO accountable. Because if no one’s looking at this scorecard regularly, you’re not running a marketing machine. You’re running a hope engine.
Favorite Quote of the Day
“You can absolutely win a football game by throwing Hail Mary’s in the first quarter. […]but you’re probably not going to.”
-Raj Kapur
Marketing isn’t about magic. It’s about consistency, alignment, and clarity.
TL;DR? Here’s Where to Start:
- Start with strategy. Stop defaulting to tactics. No amount of ad spend can save a fuzzy value prop.
- Talk to your customers. Not surveys. Conversations. Especially your best customers. Ask where they go for info and why they picked you.
- Audit your marketing function, not just your channels. Who’s owning what? How is it structured? Do you even have a clear owner?
- Create one source of marketing truth. A report. A scorecard. A dashboard. Something that shows what’s working and what’s not—and gets reviewed monthly.
- Don’t hire a doer and expect a strategist. If you’ve got a coordinator-level resource running point, don’t be surprised if you’re stuck in execution without traction.
Want to assess your own marketing clarity—or lack thereof? Our team is offering value sessions to Profit Recipe members and beyond. No pitch, just practical guidance. Schedule yours below, and watch the entire session on YouTube here.
