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<title>Strategic Planning – Michel Fortin</title>
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<title>Strategic Planning – Michel Fortin</title>
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<title>Why the Best AI Strategy Is a Humanization Strategy</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/high-tech-high-touch/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:37:45 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[AI Innovation]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[AI Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Brand Authenticity]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[High-Tech High-Touch]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Humanization]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Thought Leadership]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5673</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Every wave of technology triggers a counter-demand for human connection. AI is no different. Here's the framework I use to help companies balance automation with authenticity.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every major technology wave triggers a counter-demand for human connection, and AI is following the same pattern. Drawing on John Naisbitt’s “high-tech, high-touch” thesis and three decades of marketing experience, this post presents a humanization framework built around empathy, authenticity, and transparency — arguing that companies combining AI efficiency with genuine human depth will outperform those that optimize for volume alone.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-compression-problem">The Compression Problem</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#a-pattern-ive-seen-before">A Pattern I’ve Seen Before</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-the-data-actually-shows">What the Data Actually Shows</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-humanization-framework-i-use">The Humanization Framework I Use</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-this-matters-for-revenue-architecture">Why This Matters for Revenue Architecture</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#three-principles-that-drive-humanization-at-scale">Three Principles That Drive Humanization at Scale</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-diagnostic-question">The Diagnostic Question</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In 1982, futurist John Naisbitt published <em>Megatrends</em> and made a prediction that has quietly proven right for over four decades. He called it “high-tech, high-touch.” The thesis was simple: the more technology automates our lives, the more people will crave genuine human connection.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">He was so confident in the pattern that he wrote an entire follow-up book on it in 1999, just as the internet was reshaping how businesses communicated. His timing was prescient. Within a few years, the most successful brands online weren’t the ones with the best technology. They were the ones that felt the most human.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">We’re watching the same pattern play out again with AI, only faster.</p>
<h2 id="the-compression-problem" class="wp-block-heading">The Compression Problem</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Consider how long it took each major technology to reach 25% adoption. Radio took 32 years. Television took 22. The personal computer took 15. The internet took 5. AI tools reached that same threshold in roughly 2 years.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That compression matters. When adoption happens slowly, industries have time to absorb and adapt. When it happens this fast, the gap between what the technology can do and what people are comfortable with widens dramatically. And that gap is where the demand for humanization lives.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I see this in every engagement I step into. The companies investing most aggressively in AI are also the ones grappling most urgently with a trust problem they didn’t anticipate. Their content is faster, their systems are more efficient, and their customers feel less connected than ever.</p>
<h2 id="a-pattern-ive-seen-before" class="wp-block-heading">A Pattern I’ve Seen Before</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve been in marketing and revenue strategy for over 35 years, which means I’ve lived through this cycle twice before.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first time was the rise of the internet itself. Businesses rushed to automate everything: email marketing, e-commerce, customer service. The companies that won weren’t the ones that automated the most. They were the ones that figured out how to make digital interactions feel personal.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The second time was social media. Brands flooded every platform with scheduled content, automated responses, and algorithmic targeting. The winners, again, were the ones that showed up as actual humans. Real conversations. Real transparency. Real engagement.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Cluetrain Manifesto captured this perfectly in 1999 when it declared that “markets are conversations.” That insight wasn’t a trend. It was a law of buyer behavior that keeps reasserting itself with every new wave of technology.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Now we’re in the third cycle. AI is the new automation layer, and the humanization counter-demand is already building. The companies that recognize this early will have a significant positioning advantage over those that don’t.</p>
<h2 id="what-the-data-actually-shows" class="wp-block-heading">What the Data Actually Shows</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Researcher Sherry Turkle documented this dynamic in her 2011 book <em>Alone Together</em>. Her finding was that as technology mediates more of our daily interactions, people don’t just passively accept it. They actively seek out spaces that feel more authentic and more human.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The evidence is everywhere. Community-driven platforms like Reddit, Discord, Substack, Circle, and Patreon are growing precisely because they prioritize real connection over algorithmic reach. NP Digital found that 81% of marketers are now investing in community-building, and the companies doing it well are seeing deeper engagement and stronger retention than those relying on broadcast channels alone.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">At the same time, 62% of consulting firms and 78% of their client companies already use AI in some capacity. That number will only grow. The question isn’t whether to adopt AI. It’s how to adopt it without eroding the trust and connection that drive long-term revenue.</p>
<h2 id="the-humanization-framework-i-use" class="wp-block-heading">The Humanization Framework I Use</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I work with companies navigating this tension, I use a framework I call E-A-T 2.0. Google’s original E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) was designed to evaluate content quality. My reframe applies the same logic to how companies should position themselves in an AI-saturated market.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Empathy</strong> means demonstrating that you understand your buyer’s situation with specific, credible depth. Not “we get it” platitudes, but the kind of insight that makes a prospect feel seen. AI can help you research and prepare, but the empathetic framing has to come from someone who has actually sat across the table from that buyer.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Authenticity</strong> means showing up as a real person with real experience, not hiding behind polished automation. This is where most companies get it wrong. They use AI to generate content at scale without investing the effort to make it sound like anyone in particular wrote it. The result is technically competent and experientially empty.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Transparency</strong> means being direct about how and where you use AI, and more importantly, about the human judgment that guides it. The companies I work with that communicate their AI use openly, explaining what the technology handles and where human expertise takes over, consistently build more trust than those that either hide their AI use or overclaim its capabilities.</p>
<h2 id="why-this-matters-for-revenue-architecture" class="wp-block-heading">Why This Matters for Revenue Architecture</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This isn’t an abstract branding conversation. It connects directly to how <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue systems</a> perform.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In the <a href="/authority-building/">authority-building</a> work I do with clients, the highest-performing content consistently blends AI efficiency with human depth. AI handles research, data analysis, and first-draft generation. The human layer adds lived experience, original perspective, and the kind of nuanced judgment that buyers recognize and trust.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The same principle applies to <a href="/organic-visibility/">organic visibility</a>. Search engines are increasingly sophisticated at distinguishing between content that was generated to fill a page and content that reflects genuine expertise. Google’s own E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) explicitly reward demonstrated first-hand experience, something AI alone cannot provide.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I audit a company’s <a href="/content-strategy/">content strategy</a>, one of the first things I look for is the ratio of automated output to human-informed depth. Companies that lean too far toward volume without personality end up competing on a commodity dimension where AI makes everyone equally capable. The ones that layer human perspective on top of AI efficiency create content that’s both scalable and distinctive.</p>
<h2 id="three-principles-that-drive-humanization-at-scale" class="wp-block-heading">Three Principles That Drive Humanization at Scale</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">After years of applying this across <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional CMO</a> and <a href="/fractional-cro/">CRO</a> engagements, three principles have emerged as reliable indicators of whether a company is getting this balance right.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Personalize beyond the merge tag.</strong> Real personalization isn’t inserting someone’s first name into an email. It’s demonstrating that you understand their specific industry, their specific challenges, and their specific stage of growth. AI makes this level of research scalable. The human contribution is knowing what to do with that research once you have it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Localize beyond geography.</strong> Localization in the humanization context means adapting your message to the specific community, culture, or professional context your buyer inhabits. A CFO evaluating a fractional engagement has different concerns than a founder doing the same. Your <a href="/messaging-architecture/">messaging</a> should reflect that difference, not paper over it with one-size-fits-all positioning.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Communitize beyond content.</strong> The shift from broadcast marketing to community-driven engagement is one of the most significant changes I’ve seen in three decades. Companies that build genuine communities around their expertise create a moat that no amount of AI-generated content can replicate. Community engagement generates the kind of trust signals, conversation history, and authentic social proof that <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">strong positioning</a> depends on.</p>
<h2 id="the-diagnostic-question" class="wp-block-heading">The Diagnostic Question</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s the question I ask every leadership team I work with: if you removed your company’s name and logo from your marketing, would anyone be able to tell it was yours?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If the answer is no, you have a humanization problem. And no amount of AI investment will fix it, because the problem isn’t efficiency. It’s distinctiveness.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The companies that will win the next decade aren’t the ones that automate the most. They’re the ones that use automation to free up capacity for the things only humans can provide: judgment, empathy, original thinking, and the kind of authentic connection that turns a prospect into a long-term client.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Naisbitt saw it in 1982. The Cluetrain authors saw it in 1999. The pattern hasn’t changed. The only thing that’s changed is the speed.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-does-high-tech-high-touch-mean-in-the-context-of-ai-marketing" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What does “high-tech, high-touch” mean in the context of AI marketing?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The phrase comes from futurist John Naisbitt, who argued in 1982 that every major technological shift triggers a corresponding human need for personal connection. Applied to AI, it means the more automated and scalable your content becomes, the more your audience will crave the warmth, specificity, and personality that machines can’t replicate. High-tech and high-touch aren’t opposites — they need each other.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-is-ai-adoption-moving-faster-than-past-technology-shifts-and-why-does-that-matter" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why is AI adoption moving faster than past technology shifts, and why does that matter?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users. Television took 13. The internet took four. AI crossed the 100 million user mark in about two months. That compression isn’t just trivia — it means the window for differentiation is narrowing rapidly. Businesses that treat AI as a volume play will find themselves publishing indistinguishable content alongside everyone else. The faster the technology spreads, the more valuable human voice becomes.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-e-a-t-2-0-and-how-is-it-different-from-googles-original-e-a-t" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is E-A-T 2.0, and how is it different from Google’s original E-A-T?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Google’s original E-A-T stood for Expertise, Authority, and Trust — signals primarily evaluated by algorithms looking at credentials, links, and mentions. E-A-T 2.0 reframes those letters for the AI era: Empathy, Authenticity, and Transparency. These are qualities that humans recognize immediately but that AI-generated content tends to flatten or omit. Demonstrating that you understand your reader’s specific situation (empathy), that you’re showing your real thinking (authenticity), and that you’re open about your process and limitations (transparency) builds the kind of trust algorithms can’t manufacture.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-are-the-three-humanization-principles-for-ai-assisted-content" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What are the three humanization principles for AI-assisted content?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The three principles are: personalize beyond merge tags (move past name insertion to content that reflects the reader’s actual context and concerns), localize beyond geography (reference the specific industry, role, or moment your reader is living through, not just their zip code), and communitize beyond content (build belonging, not just readership, by creating spaces where your audience connects with each other and not just with you). Together, they move your content from broadcast to conversation.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-do-you-know-if-your-content-has-a-human-voice-worth-keeping" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How do you know if your content has a human voice worth keeping?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Ask yourself this: if you removed your company’s name and logo from everything you publish, would your audience still recognize it as yours? If the answer is no — if your content could have come from any competitor or any AI tool — you don’t have a voice yet, you have a template. A genuine human voice has opinions, a distinct cadence, recurring frames of reference, and a point of view that shows up consistently whether you’re writing a newsletter, a case study, or a LinkedIn post.</p>
</details>
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</item>
<item>
<title>What AI Means for Your Next Board Meeting</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/ai-board-meeting/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:26:02 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[AI Innovation]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Expert Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[AI Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Board Governance]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Competitive Positioning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Market Differentiation]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5740</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most board-level AI conversations focus on cost savings and efficiency. The better conversation is about positioning, risk, and competitive advantage. Here's how to frame it.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards treat AI as an operational efficiency question when it’s actually a strategic positioning variable. AI compresses differences between competitors on execution while amplifying differences on expertise, trust, and brand authority. This post frames three questions boards should be asking, argues for connecting AI investment to positioning strategy, and outlines a practical agenda for shifting from an operational AI conversation to a strategic one.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-operational-conversation-vs-the-strategic-conversation">The Operational Conversation vs. The Strategic Conversation</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-ai-changes-competitive-dynamics">How AI Changes Competitive Dynamics</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#three-questions-every-board-should-be-asking">Three Questions Every Board Should Be Asking</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-positioning-dimension-boards-miss">The Positioning Dimension Boards Miss</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-id-put-on-the-board-agenda">What I’d Put on the Board Agenda</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-boardroom-shift-thats-coming">The Boardroom Shift That’s Coming</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AI shows up in almost every board meeting now. But the way most boards discuss it reveals a fundamental gap between how they think about the technology and how it’s actually reshaping their competitive landscape.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The typical board conversation about AI goes something like this: “Where are we using AI? How much are we saving? What’s our AI strategy?” These are reasonable questions. They’re also the wrong starting point for a strategic discussion.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">After sitting in dozens of these conversations across industries, the pattern I’ve noticed is that boards tend to treat AI as an operational tool when it’s actually a strategic variable. That distinction matters enormously for the decisions they make next.</p>
<h2 id="the-operational-conversation-vs-the-strategic-conversation" class="wp-block-heading">The Operational Conversation vs. The Strategic Conversation</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The operational AI conversation focuses on efficiency. Which processes can we automate? How many FTEs can we redeploy? What’s the ROI on our AI tooling investment? These questions have clear answers and measurable outcomes. Boards are comfortable with them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The strategic AI conversation is harder. It asks how AI changes the competitive dynamics of your market. Whether your current positioning becomes stronger or weaker as AI adoption accelerates. How buyer expectations shift when they assume every company uses the same tools. And what happens to your differentiation when the capabilities AI provides become table stakes.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards are having the first conversation. Very few are having the second. And the second one is where the consequential decisions live.</p>
<h2 id="how-ai-changes-competitive-dynamics" class="wp-block-heading">How AI Changes Competitive Dynamics</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most important thing I’ve observed about AI adoption is that it compresses differences between competitors on operational dimensions while amplifying differences on strategic ones.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When every company in your market can produce content at scale, automate outreach, analyze data faster, and personalize at the individual level, those capabilities stop being differentiators. They become baseline expectations. The companies that built competitive advantages on operational efficiency or execution speed find those advantages eroding.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What doesn’t compress is <a href="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/" data-type="link" data-id="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/">strategic positioning</a>. How well you understand your specific market. The depth of expertise you bring. The trust relationships you’ve built. The <a href="/authority-building/">authority and credibility</a> your brand carries. These become more valuable as AI levels the operational playing field, because they’re the things AI can’t replicate.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the conversation boards need to be having. Not “how do we use AI to get more efficient?” but “how do we use AI to become more strategically differentiated?”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve written about this dynamic through the lens of <a href="/high-tech-high-touch/">humanization and high-tech, high-touch principles</a>. At the board level, the practical implication is that your AI investment strategy should be evaluated against your positioning strategy, not just your operational budget.</p>
<h2 id="three-questions-every-board-should-be-asking" class="wp-block-heading">Three Questions Every Board Should Be Asking</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Based on the pattern I’ve seen across engagements, three questions consistently separate boards that are making good AI decisions from those that aren’t.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>“How does AI affect our positioning relative to competitors?”</strong> This is the question most boards skip entirely. They discuss internal AI use without considering how competitors’ AI adoption changes the market landscape. If your primary differentiation has been speed or volume, and AI now gives that same advantage to every competitor, you need a new source of differentiation. A <a href="/competitive-intelligence/">competitive intelligence</a> process that tracks how AI is changing your specific market is no longer optional.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>“What becomes more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous?”</strong> The answer is almost always the same: demonstrated expertise, genuine relationships, original thinking, and trusted brands. These are the things that AI-assisted companies still need humans to provide. Boards that understand this invest in building those assets alongside their AI capabilities. <a href="/organic-visibility/">Organic visibility</a> built on real expertise compounds in a way that AI-generated content volume never will.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>“Where are we creating AI-dependent risk?”</strong> This is the governance question that most boards haven’t formalized yet. If your content strategy depends entirely on AI generation, what happens when search engines change how they evaluate AI content? If your sales process relies on AI-automated outreach, what happens when buyers start filtering it out? Every AI dependency creates a corresponding risk, and boards should be tracking those risks with the same rigor they apply to financial or regulatory exposure.</p>
<h2 id="the-positioning-dimension-boards-miss" class="wp-block-heading">The Positioning Dimension Boards Miss</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I work with companies on <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">positioning strategy</a>, AI has become a variable I account for in every engagement. The reason is that AI adoption changes the positioning landscape even for companies that don’t use it extensively.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s a practical example. If you’re a consulting firm and every competitor is now using AI to deliver faster analysis, your positioning can’t lead with speed anymore. But if you’ve invested in deep industry expertise, proprietary frameworks, and trusted client relationships, those become your positioning anchors in a way they weren’t before. AI didn’t change what you do. It changed what the market values about what you do.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The board’s role here is to ensure that AI strategy and positioning strategy are connected. I’ve seen too many companies where the AI initiative lives in operations or IT, completely disconnected from the strategic planning process. The result is efficient execution of a strategy that’s becoming less differentiated by the quarter.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="/revenue-architecture/">Revenue architecture</a> in an AI-enabled company needs to account for how automation affects every stage of the revenue system, from how prospects discover you to how clients experience your delivery. Boards that treat this as a marketing question or an IT question are missing the systemic nature of the shift.</p>
<h2 id="what-id-put-on-the-board-agenda" class="wp-block-heading">What I’d Put on the Board Agenda</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If I were advising a board on how to structure their next AI conversation, I’d suggest three agenda items.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>First, a positioning audit. </strong>Have someone, ideally a <a href="/fractional-cso/">strategic leader with cross-functional visibility</a>, present how AI adoption is changing your competitive landscape. Not what AI tools you’re using internally, but how the market is shifting around you.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Second, an AI risk register. </strong>Document every place where your business has become dependent on AI capabilities and identify the corresponding risks. This belongs alongside your financial and regulatory risk tracking.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Third, a differentiation roadmap.</strong> Based on the positioning audit, identify the 2-3 strategic assets that become more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, and make sure your investment priorities reflect those assets. This might mean investing more in <a href="/content-strategy/">content that demonstrates genuine expertise</a> and less in automated content volume. It might mean deepening your <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic capabilities</a> rather than automating your delivery process. The specifics vary, but the principle is consistent.</p>
<h2 id="the-boardroom-shift-thats-coming" class="wp-block-heading">The Boardroom Shift That’s Coming</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards I work with that are ahead of this curve share a common trait. They’ve stopped treating AI as a technology discussion and started treating it as a strategy discussion. They ask about positioning before they ask about implementation. They think about differentiation before they think about efficiency.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This shift is still early. Most boards are still in the operational conversation. But the ones that move to the strategic conversation first will make better decisions about where to invest, what to protect, and how to position their companies for a market where AI is the baseline, not the advantage.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The companies that win in an AI-saturated market won’t be the ones that adopted AI first or spent the most on it. They’ll be the ones that understood what AI can’t replace, and built their strategy around it.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="why-do-most-board-level-ai-conversations-miss-the-point" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why do most board-level AI conversations miss the point?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards frame AI as an operational question: which processes can we automate, how many FTEs can we redeploy, what’s the ROI on tooling? Those questions have clear answers, which is exactly why boards default to them. The problem is that they’re the wrong starting point. AI is reshaping competitive dynamics, not just internal efficiency. The consequential decisions live in the strategic conversation about positioning and differentiation, and most boards haven’t started having it yet.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-does-ai-actually-change-the-competitive-landscape" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How does AI actually change the competitive landscape?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AI compresses differences between competitors on operational dimensions while amplifying differences on strategic ones. When every company in your market can produce content at scale, automate outreach, and personalize at the individual level, those capabilities become baseline expectations rather than advantages. What doesn’t compress is positioning: the depth of your expertise, the trust relationships you’ve built, and the authority your brand carries. As AI levels the operational playing field, those strategic assets become more valuable, not less.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-three-questions-should-every-board-be-asking-about-ai" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What three questions should every board be asking about AI?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first is how AI affects your positioning relative to competitors, specifically whether your primary source of differentiation is now replicable by every player in your market. The second is what becomes more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, which almost always points toward demonstrated expertise, genuine relationships, and trusted brands. The third is where your business has created AI-dependent risk, such as a content strategy that collapses if search engines change how they evaluate AI-generated content or a sales process that stops working when buyers start filtering automated outreach.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-an-ai-risk-register-and-why-should-boards-maintain-one" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is an AI risk register, and why should boards maintain one?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">An AI risk register is a formal document tracking every place your business has become dependent on AI capabilities, along with the corresponding risks if those capabilities change, fail, or lose effectiveness. Most companies track financial and regulatory risk with rigor but haven’t applied the same discipline to AI dependencies. Boards that treat AI risk as a governance question rather than a technology question are far better positioned to respond when the landscape shifts.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-should-boards-connect-ai-strategy-to-positioning-strategy" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How should boards connect AI strategy to positioning strategy?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most common failure pattern is an AI initiative that lives entirely in operations or IT, disconnected from strategic planning. The result is efficient execution of a strategy that becomes less differentiated every quarter. Boards need to ensure someone with cross-functional strategic visibility is auditing how AI adoption is changing the competitive landscape, not just tracking internal efficiency metrics. The goal is a differentiation roadmap that identifies which strategic assets grow more valuable as AI becomes ubiquitous, and makes sure investment priorities reflect those assets.</p>
</details>
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<title>Three Growth Playbooks That Stopped Working Anymore</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:03:18 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Strategies]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Competitive Advantage]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Content Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Playbooks]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Market Positioning]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5729</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The playbooks that drove growth for the past decade have quietly stopped producing results. Here are the three I see failing most often and what's replacing them.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Three once-reliable growth strategies have crossed an expiration threshold: volume-first content, funnel optimization without positioning, and hiring for scale before fixing architecture. AI commoditization, market saturation, and interconnected failure modes explain why all three are breaking down simultaneously. The companies adapting fastest share a common approach — positioning upstream of everything, depth over volume, and precision before scale.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#playbook-1-that-stopped-working-is-volumefirst-content">Playbook #1 That Stopped Working Is Volume-First Content</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#playbook-2-that-stopped-working-is-funnel-optimization-without-positioning">Playbook #2 That Stopped Working Is Funnel Optimization Without Positioning</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#playbook-3-that-stopped-working-is-hiring-for-scale-before-building-for-precision">Playbook #3 That Stopped Working Is Hiring for Scale Before Building for Precision</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-all-three-are-failing-simultaneously">Why All Three Are Failing Simultaneously</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#whats-actually-working-now">What’s Actually Working Now</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every few years, the growth playbooks that everyone runs stop producing the results everyone expects. It usually happens gradually. The metrics start declining, but teams attribute it to execution issues or market conditions rather than recognizing that the underlying approach has expired.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’m seeing three of these expiration events happening simultaneously right now. Each one involves a playbook that worked reliably for the past 5-10 years and has now crossed the threshold where its assumptions no longer hold. Companies that recognize this early have time to adapt. Companies that don’t will spend the next two years wondering why their growth has plateaued despite doing “everything right.”</p>
<h2 id="playbook-1-that-stopped-working-is-volumefirst-content" class="wp-block-heading">Playbook #1 That Stopped Working Is Volume-First Content</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For the past decade, the dominant content strategy has been to publish at scale. More blog posts, more landing pages, more keyword-targeted articles. The logic was sound: more indexed pages meant more search visibility, which meant more traffic, which meant more leads.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That logic started breaking down a few years ago and has fully collapsed since.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The reason is simple. AI-generated content has made volume a commodity. Any company can now produce hundreds of articles per month at minimal cost. When everyone has volume, volume stops being a differentiator. The search engines have responded accordingly. Google’s algorithms now favor demonstrated experience and expertise over comprehensive coverage. A single deeply authoritative article from a recognized expert outperforms ten generic articles on the same topic.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve written about this shift in the context of <a href="/organic-visibility/">organic visibility strategy</a>. The companies still winning in search are the ones that lead with depth, original insight, and demonstrated first-hand experience rather than keyword coverage ratios. Their <a href="/content-strategy/">content strategy</a> looks very different from the high-volume model that dominated the previous era.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The replacement playbook is what I’d call authority-led content. Fewer pieces, deeper expertise, stronger <a href="/authority-building/">author credibility signals</a>, and content that AI systems cite rather than just index. It requires more senior involvement in content creation, which feels slower at first but compounds faster because each piece carries more weight.</p>
<h2 id="playbook-2-that-stopped-working-is-funnel-optimization-without-positioning" class="wp-block-heading">Playbook #2 That Stopped Working Is Funnel Optimization Without Positioning</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The second playbook that’s failing is the relentless focus on funnel metrics without underlying positioning work.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For years, the growth formula has been: drive traffic to the top, optimize conversion at each stage, measure CAC and LTV, and iterate. Companies built entire growth teams around this model. And it worked, as long as the market was growing and competition was moderate.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What’s changed is that most markets are now saturated with companies running the same funnel playbook with the same tools, the same frameworks, and increasingly the same AI-assisted execution. When everyone optimizes the same funnel, the differentiating factor isn’t the funnel. It’s the <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">positioning</a> that determines why a buyer enters your funnel instead of someone else’s.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I see this in almost every <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic engagement</a> I do. The company has invested heavily in funnel infrastructure. The tech stack is solid. The conversion rates are “normal.” But growth has plateaued because they’re competing for the same traffic with the same message as five other companies in their space. The funnel is optimized. The positioning isn’t.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The replacement playbook puts positioning upstream of everything. Before you optimize the funnel, you need to know what makes your company the obvious choice for a specific segment of the market. That requires the kind of <a href="/competitive-intelligence/">competitive intelligence</a> work that tells you not just what competitors are doing, but where they’re leaving gaps you can own.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I build <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a> for clients, positioning is always Phase 1. Not because it’s a nice-to-have, but because every downstream metric is constrained by it. Conversion rates have a ceiling determined by how well-positioned you are. No amount of A/B testing can exceed that ceiling.</p>
<h2 id="playbook-3-that-stopped-working-is-hiring-for-scale-before-building-for-precision" class="wp-block-heading">Playbook #3 That Stopped Working Is Hiring for Scale Before Building for Precision</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The third playbook is organizational, not tactical. It’s the instinct to hire more people when growth stalls.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The pattern looks like this. Revenue growth slows. Leadership decides they need more demand gen, more SDRs, more content writers. They hire. Activity increases. Costs increase. But revenue growth doesn’t recover, because the new hires are executing more of the same approach that had already stopped working.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the playbook I wrote about from <a href="/boards-growth-strategy/">the board’s perspective</a>. The impulse to add headcount feels productive, but it often compounds a problem that was architectural, not operational. You don’t need more people running a broken system faster. You need someone to redesign the system before you scale it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The replacement playbook is what I’d describe as precision before scale. It means investing in a <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional leadership</a> model or a focused strategic engagement to diagnose and fix the growth architecture before adding operational capacity. It means being willing to slow down on hiring in order to speed up on results.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Companies that get this right typically go through three phases. First, a diagnostic phase where a senior strategist (often fractional) identifies the actual constraints. Second, an architecture phase where the revenue system gets redesigned around those constraints. Third, a scaling phase where additional headcount and budget are deployed against a system that actually works. Skipping straight to phase three, which is what most companies do, is why most growth hires underperform.</p>
<h2 id="why-all-three-are-failing-simultaneously" class="wp-block-heading">Why All Three Are Failing Simultaneously</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">These playbooks aren’t failing in isolation. They’re interconnected.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Volume-first content fails because it assumes visibility is a function of quantity. But when positioning is weak, even high-visibility content doesn’t convert. Funnel optimization fails because it assumes the problem is tactical. But when the underlying position isn’t differentiated, conversion optimization hits a ceiling. And hiring for scale fails because it assumes the system works and just needs more throughput. But when the architecture is misaligned, more throughput creates more waste.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The companies navigating this well are the ones that have recognized the common thread: in a saturated, AI-accelerated market, <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">strategic positioning</a> is the constraint that sits upstream of everything else. Fix that, and the downstream playbooks start working again. Ignore it, and no amount of tactical optimization will close the gap.</p>
<h2 id="whats-actually-working-now" class="wp-block-heading">What’s Actually Working Now</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The growth approaches I’m seeing produce results right now share a few characteristics.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">They start with positioning, not tactics. They prioritize depth over volume in content. They invest in <a href="/organic-visibility/">organic visibility</a> as a long-term strategic asset rather than a quarter-by-quarter traffic play. They use AI to <a href="/ai-marketing/">amplify expertise</a> rather than replace it. And they treat the <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue system</a> as an integrated architecture rather than a collection of departmental functions.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">None of this is revolutionary. It’s the same discipline of building from first principles that has always separated sustainable growth from temporary spikes. What’s changed is that the margin for error has shrunk. The playbooks that used to work despite mediocre positioning no longer do. And the companies that invested in strategic foundations are now pulling away from those that didn’t.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The window to adapt is still open. But it’s closing faster than most growth teams realize.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="why-have-growth-playbooks-that-worked-for-years-suddenly-stopped-producing-results" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why have growth playbooks that worked for years suddenly stopped producing results?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Growth playbooks don’t fail all at once — they erode gradually until the underlying assumptions no longer hold. The three that are breaking down right now all hit the same wall: a saturated, AI-accelerated market where volume is cheap, funnels are commoditized, and adding headcount to a broken system just makes it break faster. Companies mistake the decline for an execution problem and keep optimizing the same playbook harder, which is why the plateau persists despite doing “everything right.”</p>
</details>
<details id="why-has-volume-first-content-stopped-working" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why has volume-first content stopped working?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Volume was a differentiator when producing content at scale required real effort. AI eliminated that barrier. Any company can now publish hundreds of articles a month at minimal cost, which means volume is no longer an advantage — it’s background noise. Search engines responded by rewarding demonstrated expertise and first-hand experience over comprehensive coverage. A single deeply authoritative piece from a recognized expert now outperforms ten generic articles on the same topic. The replacement playbook is authority-led content: fewer pieces, deeper insight, stronger credibility signals, and content that AI systems cite rather than simply index.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-does-funnel-optimization-without-positioning-actually-mean-and-why-is-it-failing" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What does “funnel optimization without positioning” actually mean, and why is it failing?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It means a company has invested heavily in conversion rate optimization, tech stack, and demand generation infrastructure — but hasn’t answered the upstream question of why a buyer would choose them over five similar competitors. When every company in a market runs the same funnel with the same tools and increasingly the same AI-assisted execution, the funnel stops being a differentiator. Conversion rates have a ceiling set by positioning strength, and no amount of A/B testing can push past it. Positioning has to come first; everything downstream is constrained by how well-differentiated you are before a prospect ever enters the funnel.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-does-hiring-for-scale-make-a-growth-problem-worse-instead-of-better" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why does hiring for scale make a growth problem worse instead of better?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When growth stalls, the instinct is to add people — more demand gen, more SDRs, more content writers. But if the system itself is misaligned, adding throughput creates more waste, not more revenue. The new hires execute more of the same approach that had already stopped working. The fix is precision before scale: bring in strategic leadership (often fractional) to diagnose the actual growth constraints, redesign the revenue architecture around those constraints, and only then scale headcount against a system that actually works. Most companies skip straight to the scaling phase, which is why most growth hires underperform.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-growth-approaches-are-actually-working-right-now" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What growth approaches are actually working right now?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The companies pulling ahead share a common pattern. They start with positioning, not tactics. They prioritize depth over volume in content and treat organic visibility as a long-term compounding asset rather than a quarterly traffic play. They use AI to amplify expertise rather than replace it. And they treat the revenue system as an integrated architecture rather than a collection of siloed departmental functions. None of this is new in principle — it’s the same discipline of building from first principles that has always driven sustainable growth. What’s new is that the margin for error has shrunk. The playbooks that used to work despite weak positioning no longer do.</p>
</details>
<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","url":"https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/","@id":"https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/#why-have-growth-playbooks-that-worked-for-years-suddenly-stopped-producing-results","name":"Why have growth playbooks that worked for years suddenly stopped producing results?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Growth playbooks don't fail all at once — they erode gradually until the underlying assumptions no longer hold. The three that are breaking down right now all hit the same wall: a saturated, AI-accelerated market where volume is cheap, funnels are commoditized, and adding headcount to a broken system just makes it break faster. Companies mistake the decline for an execution problem and keep optimizing the same playbook harder, which is why the plateau persists despite doing \"everything right.\"</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/#why-has-volume-first-content-stopped-working","name":"Why has volume-first content stopped working?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Volume was a differentiator when producing content at scale required real effort. AI eliminated that barrier. Any company can now publish hundreds of articles a month at minimal cost, which means volume is no longer an advantage — it's background noise. Search engines responded by rewarding demonstrated expertise and first-hand experience over comprehensive coverage. A single deeply authoritative piece from a recognized expert now outperforms ten generic articles on the same topic. The replacement playbook is authority-led content: fewer pieces, deeper insight, stronger credibility signals, and content that AI systems cite rather than simply index.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/#what-does-funnel-optimization-without-positioning-actually-mean-and-why-is-it-failing","name":"What does \"funnel optimization without positioning\" actually mean, and why is it failing?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>It means a company has invested heavily in conversion rate optimization, tech stack, and demand generation infrastructure — but hasn't answered the upstream question of why a buyer would choose them over five similar competitors. When every company in a market runs the same funnel with the same tools and increasingly the same AI-assisted execution, the funnel stops being a differentiator. Conversion rates have a ceiling set by positioning strength, and no amount of A/B testing can push past it. Positioning has to come first; everything downstream is constrained by how well-differentiated you are before a prospect ever enters the funnel.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/#why-does-hiring-for-scale-make-a-growth-problem-worse-instead-of-better","name":"Why does hiring for scale make a growth problem worse instead of better?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>When growth stalls, the instinct is to add people — more demand gen, more SDRs, more content writers. But if the system itself is misaligned, adding throughput creates more waste, not more revenue. The new hires execute more of the same approach that had already stopped working. The fix is precision before scale: bring in strategic leadership (often fractional) to diagnose the actual growth constraints, redesign the revenue architecture around those constraints, and only then scale headcount against a system that actually works. Most companies skip straight to the scaling phase, which is why most growth hires underperform.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/growth-playbooks-stopped-working/#what-growth-approaches-are-actually-working-right-now","name":"What growth approaches are actually working right now?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>The companies pulling ahead share a common pattern. They start with positioning, not tactics. They prioritize depth over volume in content and treat organic visibility as a long-term compounding asset rather than a quarterly traffic play. They use AI to amplify expertise rather than replace it. And they treat the revenue system as an integrated architecture rather than a collection of siloed departmental functions. None of this is new in principle — it's the same discipline of building from first principles that has always driven sustainable growth. What's new is that the margin for error has shrunk. The playbooks that used to work despite weak positioning no longer do.</p>"}}]}</script></div>
]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>How to Evaluate a Fractional CMO Before You Hire One</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/evaluate-fractional-cmo/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:44:00 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Fractional Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Strategies]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Executive Evaluation]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Fractional CMO]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Architecture]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Hiring Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Leadership]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5724</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most fractional CMO searches focus on credentials and references. The better filter is strategic fluency. Here's a practical framework for evaluating whether a fractional CMO can actually solve your growth problem.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most fractional CMO searches over-index on credentials and miss the criteria that actually predict success. This post identifies five evaluation factors that matter more than a résumé: strategic range across the revenue system, diagnostic instinct over playbook reflex, AI fluency, positioning-first orientation, and evidence of architectural thinking. It also covers red flags, interview questions that reveal real capability, and situations where a fractional CMO is the wrong fit entirely.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-credentials-trap">The Credentials Trap</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#five-things-that-actually-matter">Five Things That Actually Matter</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#red-flags-in-the-evaluation-process">Red Flags in the Evaluation Process</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-interview-questions-that-actually-reveal-capability">The Interview Questions That Actually Reveal Capability</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#when-a-fractional-cmo-isnt-the-answer">When a Fractional CMO Isn’t the Answer</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#making-the-decision">Making the Decision</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The fractional CMO model has matured significantly over the past few years. What used to be an unusual arrangement is now a mainstream option for companies that need senior marketing leadership without the overhead of a permanent executive. But the supply of people calling themselves fractional CMOs has grown faster than most companies’ ability to evaluate them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve been on both sides of this equation. As a <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional CMO</a> myself, I know what makes the engagement work. And I’ve also helped companies evaluate other fractional executives when their growth challenge required a different specialization. The patterns of what works and what doesn’t are remarkably consistent.</p>
<h2 id="the-credentials-trap" class="wp-block-heading">The Credentials Trap</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first mistake most hiring processes make is over-indexing on credentials. Years of experience, brand-name employers, impressive titles. These things look reassuring in a slide deck, but they don’t tell you whether someone can walk into your specific situation and create forward motion within weeks.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A fractional CMO isn’t a consultant who delivers a strategy document. They’re an operating executive who embeds with your team and leads execution. That requires a different set of capabilities than strategic thinking alone.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The question isn’t “how impressive is their resume?” It’s “can they diagnose our specific growth constraint, build a plan around it, and lead a team through execution without a six-month onboarding period?”</p>
<h2 id="five-things-that-actually-matter" class="wp-block-heading">Five Things That Actually Matter</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">After years in this space, I’ve identified five evaluation criteria that predict success far better than a traditional interview process.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Strategic range across the revenue system.</strong> A fractional CMO who only thinks about demand generation is going to miss the upstream and downstream problems that actually constrain your growth. The best ones understand how marketing connects to sales, customer success, and product, because that’s where <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a> either compounds or leaks. Ask them to walk you through how they’d audit your full revenue system, not just your marketing funnel.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>A diagnostic instinct, not a playbook reflex.</strong> Average fractional CMOs arrive with a playbook they’ve run before and try to apply it to your situation. The strong ones arrive with questions. They want to understand your <a href="/competitive-intelligence/">competitive position</a>, your <a href="/audience-targeting/">audience dynamics</a>, and your current <a href="/organic-visibility/">content and visibility footprint</a> before they prescribe anything. If someone leads with solutions in the first meeting, that’s a warning sign.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>AI fluency that goes beyond tools.</strong> Every fractional CMO will tell you they use AI. The differentiating question is whether they understand how AI changes the strategic landscape, not just the operational one. Can they explain how <a href="/ai-marketing/">AI-amplified marketing</a> affects your positioning? Do they think about the <a href="/high-tech-high-touch/">humanization counterbalance</a> that matters as automation increases? AI fluency today isn’t about which tools someone uses. It’s about how they think about the relationship between automation, authenticity, and market trust.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>A positioning-first orientation.</strong> The best fractional CMOs I’ve worked alongside (and against) start with positioning before they touch tactics. They understand that <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">how the market perceives you</a> determines the ceiling on everything else: conversion rates, pricing power, sales velocity, and talent acquisition. If a candidate’s first instinct is to talk about campaigns and channels, they’re thinking at the wrong altitude for the role.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Proof of architectural thinking.</strong> Ask for a case study, not of a campaign they ran, but of a growth system they designed. You want to see evidence that they can connect brand strategy to demand generation to sales enablement to customer retention into one coherent architecture. The <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">FAME framework</a> (Focus, Aim, Multiply, Engage) is one example of how I structure this kind of thinking, but what matters is that they have a framework at all. Fractional CMOs without a system for organizing growth work tend to default to tactical firefighting.</p>
<h2 id="red-flags-in-the-evaluation-process" class="wp-block-heading">Red Flags in the Evaluation Process</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A few warning signs I’d watch for.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If they can’t clearly articulate their strategic framework in a 30-minute conversation, they probably don’t have one. Frameworks aren’t academic exercises. They’re how experienced operators organize complexity. A fractional CMO who can’t explain how they think about growth architecture will struggle to lead your team through it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If they immediately want to talk about your tech stack, they’re probably more comfortable with tools than with strategy. Tools matter, but they’re a downstream decision. The upstream decisions are about positioning, audience, and <a href="/messaging-architecture/">messaging architecture</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If they promise results within a specific timeframe before doing any diagnostic work, they’re selling, not thinking. The real answer is always “it depends on what the <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic</a> reveals,” because it always does.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">And if they don’t ask about your sales process, run. Marketing leadership that ignores the hand-off to sales isn’t leadership. It’s content production with a title upgrade.</p>
<h2 id="the-interview-questions-that-actually-reveal-capability" class="wp-block-heading">The Interview Questions That Actually Reveal Capability</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Forget “tell me about a time when.” Instead, try these.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Walk me through how you’d spend your first 30 days with us.” A strong fractional CMO will describe a diagnostic phase, not a campaign launch. They’ll want to understand your revenue architecture, competitive landscape, and team capabilities before recommending anything.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“How do you think about the relationship between brand and demand?” This separates strategic thinkers from demand gen specialists. The best answer isn’t that one matters more than the other. It’s that they compound each other when connected properly, which is exactly what <a href="/authority-building/">authority-building</a> at the strategic level looks like.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“What’s a growth engagement you walked away from, and why?” This reveals whether they have the judgment to recognize when the fit is wrong. A fractional CMO who takes every engagement regardless of fit is optimizing for their own revenue, not yours.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“How do you measure your own success in a fractional role?” You want to hear about business outcomes, not marketing metrics. Pipeline contribution, revenue influence, positioning shifts, and team capability growth are better indicators than MQL volume or traffic increases.</p>
<h2 id="when-a-fractional-cmo-isnt-the-answer" class="wp-block-heading">When a Fractional CMO Isn’t the Answer</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Honest evaluation also means recognizing when the fractional CMO model isn’t the right solution.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If your problem is purely executional, you need a strong marketing manager or agency, not a C-suite strategist. If your problem is product-market fit, no amount of marketing leadership will fix it. And if your leadership team isn’t willing to let a fractional executive actually lead, the engagement will frustrate everyone involved.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The fractional model works best when the company has a real growth opportunity that’s being constrained by a lack of strategic marketing leadership, and when the <a href="/boards-growth-strategy/">board and leadership team</a> are willing to act on the recommendations that come out of the diagnostic process.</p>
<h2 id="making-the-decision" class="wp-block-heading">Making the Decision</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The companies that get the most value from fractional CMO engagements are the ones that evaluate for strategic capability rather than tactical experience. They look for someone who thinks in systems, leads with diagnosis, and understands that marketing is a <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue function</a>, not a cost center.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The evaluation framework above isn’t exhaustive, but it filters out the most common mismatch: a tactician in a strategist’s role. That mismatch is expensive, not because of the fee, but because of the months you lose pursuing the wrong priorities.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="why-do-most-fractional-cmo-searches-end-up-with-the-wrong-hire" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why do most fractional CMO searches end up with the wrong hire?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most common mistake is over-indexing on credentials — years of experience, brand-name employers, impressive titles. Those things look reassuring but don’t tell you whether someone can walk into your specific situation and create forward motion within weeks. A fractional CMO isn’t a consultant who delivers a strategy document. They’re an operating executive who embeds with your team and leads execution. The right question isn’t how impressive their résumé is — it’s whether they can diagnose your specific growth constraint and lead a team through it without a six-month onboarding period.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-five-criteria-actually-predict-whether-a-fractional-cmo-will-succeed" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>What five criteria actually predict whether a fractional CMO will succeed?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The criteria that matter most are: strategic range across the full revenue system (not just the marketing funnel), a diagnostic instinct over a playbook reflex (they arrive with questions, not pre-built solutions), AI fluency that extends to how automation affects positioning and trust (not just which tools they use), a positioning-first orientation that treats market perception as the upstream constraint on everything else, and evidence of architectural thinking — meaning they can connect brand strategy, demand generation, sales enablement, and retention into one coherent system rather than defaulting to tactical firefighting.\</p>
</details>
<details id="what-are-the-biggest-red-flags-when-evaluating-a-fractional-cmo-candidate" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What are the biggest red flags when evaluating a fractional CMO candidate?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Watch for anyone who can’t articulate their strategic framework in a 30-minute conversation — frameworks aren’t academic, they’re how experienced operators organize complexity. Be cautious of candidates who immediately want to talk about your tech stack before understanding your positioning. Anyone who promises specific results before doing diagnostic work is selling rather than thinking. And if they don’t ask about your sales process, that’s a serious signal — marketing leadership that ignores the handoff to sales is just content production with a better title.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-interview-questions-actually-reveal-a-fractional-cmos-real-capability" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>What interview questions actually reveal a fractional CMO’s real capability?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Skip the behavioral questions and try these instead. Ask them to walk you through how they’d spend their first 30 days — a strong answer describes a diagnostic phase, not a campaign launch. Ask how they think about the relationship between brand and demand — the best answer is that they compound each other when properly connected, not that one takes priority. Ask about an engagement they walked away from and why, which reveals judgment about fit. And ask how they measure their own success: you want to hear about business outcomes like revenue influence and positioning shifts, not marketing metrics like traffic or MQL volume.</p>
</details>
<details id="when-is-a-fractional-cmo-the-wrong-solution-entirely" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>When is a fractional CMO the wrong solution entirely?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The fractional model is the wrong fit in three situations. If the problem is purely executional, a strong marketing manager or agency will serve you better than a C-suite strategist. If the underlying issue is product-market fit, no amount of marketing leadership will fix it. And if your leadership team isn’t genuinely willing to let a fractional executive lead — including acting on what the diagnostic reveals — the engagement will frustrate everyone involved. The model works best when a real growth opportunity exists but is constrained by the absence of strategic marketing leadership, and when leadership is ready to act on what they find.</p>
</details>
<details id="whats-the-most-expensive-mistake-companies-make-when-hiring-a-fractional-cmo" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What’s the most expensive mistake companies make when hiring a fractional CMO?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The costliest mismatch isn’t paying too much — it’s hiring a tactician for a strategist’s role. A fractional CMO who thinks in campaigns rather than systems will pursue the wrong priorities for months before the gap becomes obvious. The fee is manageable; the lost time isn’t. The companies that get the most value from fractional engagements evaluate for strategic capability over tactical experience, and they treat marketing as a revenue function rather than a cost center. That framing alone changes who you look for, what questions you ask, and how you measure whether the engagement is working.</p>
</details>
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]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>What Boards Get Wrong About Growth Strategy</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/boards-growth-strategy/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:23:24 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Expert Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Strategies]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Board Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Fractional Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Architecture]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue Growth]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5691</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most boards treat growth as a marketing problem or a sales problem. It's neither. Here's what I've seen go wrong at the board level and how the best companies fix it.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Boards consistently misframe growth as a departmental problem rather than a system design problem. This post examines four recurring errors: treating growth as a marketing or sales function, tracking trailing metrics instead of systemic signals, reaching for new hires before fixing underlying architecture, and delegating positioning decisions that belong at the executive level. The better board conversation starts with a diagnostic, not a dashboard.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#growth-is-not-a-department">Growth Is Not a Department</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-metrics-trap">The Metrics Trap</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-hirefirst-instinct">The Hire-First Instinct</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#positioning-is-a-boardlevel-decision">Positioning Is a Board-Level Decision</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-ai-question-boards-should-be-asking">The AI Question Boards Should Be Asking</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-better-board-conversations-look-like">What Better Board Conversations Look Like</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-conversation-id-want-to-have">The Conversation I’d Want to Have</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most board conversations about growth follow a predictable script. Revenue is flat or slowing. Someone asks what marketing is doing. Someone else asks about the sales pipeline. The CMO presents a slide deck full of campaign metrics. The CRO presents a pipeline forecast. Everyone nods, action items get assigned, and the same conversation happens again next quarter.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve sat in enough of these meetings to know the problem isn’t the people in the room. It’s the frame. Boards tend to treat growth as a departmental output rather than a system design problem. And that framing error cascades into everything else.</p>
<h2 id="growth-is-not-a-department" class="wp-block-heading">Growth Is Not a Department</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most common mistake I see at the board level is treating growth as something that belongs to marketing, or to sales, or to a “growth team” that sits somewhere between the two. This creates a structural incentive for each function to optimize its own metrics while the overall system underperforms.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I wrote about this dynamic in detail when I described <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a> as a discipline. The companies that plateau despite increasing spend and activity almost always have the same root cause: disconnected revenue functions that each look healthy in isolation but fail to compound when viewed as a whole.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A board that asks “what is marketing doing about growth?” is asking the wrong question. The right question is “how well are our revenue functions connected, and where are the leaks?”</p>
<h2 id="the-metrics-trap" class="wp-block-heading">The Metrics Trap</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Boards love dashboards. That’s understandable. You need data to govern effectively. But the metrics most boards review are trailing indicators wrapped in vanity packaging.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Pipeline value, MQL volume, conversion rates, CAC payback periods. These all matter. But they describe what already happened, not what’s about to happen. And they rarely surface the systemic issues that actually constrain growth.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards I’ve worked with that make better growth decisions tend to track a different set of signals. They want to know how positioned the company is within its market, not just how much activity it’s generating. They measure <a href="/authority-building/">authority and visibility</a> alongside pipeline, because they understand that a company that’s invisible to its market has to buy every conversation it gets.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I step into a <a href="/fractional-cso/">fractional CSO</a> engagement, one of the first things I do is audit what the board is actually looking at. More often than not, the dashboard needs redesigning before the strategy does.</p>
<h2 id="the-hirefirst-instinct" class="wp-block-heading">The Hire-First Instinct</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s another pattern I see repeatedly. Growth stalls, so the board pushes for a new hire. A VP of Growth. A new CMO. A demand gen leader. The assumption is that the right person will fix the problem.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Sometimes that’s true. But more often, the hire fails because the underlying architecture wasn’t ready for them. They walk into misaligned teams, disconnected systems, and unclear positioning, then spend their first six months trying to untangle the mess instead of building on it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is one of the reasons <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional leadership</a> has gained so much traction. A fractional executive can come in, assess the architecture, fix the foundation, and either stay to execute or hand off to a permanent hire who now has something solid to build on. It’s a faster path to results and a lower-risk path for the board.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The question isn’t “who should we hire?” It’s “what does the growth architecture need before a new hire can succeed?”</p>
<h2 id="positioning-is-a-boardlevel-decision" class="wp-block-heading">Positioning Is a Board-Level Decision</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most boards delegate positioning entirely to marketing. That’s a mistake.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">Positioning</a> determines how the market perceives your company relative to alternatives. It affects pricing power, win rates, talent acquisition, partnership leverage, and investor confidence. Those are board-level outcomes that deserve board-level attention.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I work with companies on positioning, the conversation always starts at the leadership level, not the marketing level. The reason is simple: positioning decisions require trade-offs that marketing can’t make alone. Choosing to focus on a specific segment means deprioritizing others. Leading with a particular value proposition means subordinating competing messages. These are strategic choices that need executive alignment.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards that treat positioning as “a marketing thing” tend to end up with a company that means different things to different departments. Sales positions one way in conversations. Marketing positions another way in content. Product builds toward a third interpretation. The market receives all three signals and forms its own conclusion, which is usually confusion.</p>
<h2 id="the-ai-question-boards-should-be-asking" class="wp-block-heading">The AI Question Boards Should Be Asking</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every board is talking about AI right now. Most of those conversations focus on efficiency: how can we automate more, reduce headcount, speed up production?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Those are valid operational questions. But they miss the strategic one.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The strategic question is: <a href="/high-tech-high-touch/">how does AI change our positioning</a>, and how do we use it to become more valuable to our market rather than just faster?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve written about the <a href="/high-tech-high-touch/">high-tech, high-touch dynamic</a> in detail. The short version is that every wave of automation triggers a counter-demand for human expertise and genuine connection. The companies that use AI to free up capacity for deeper client relationships, more original thinking, and more personalized engagement will outperform those that simply use it to cut costs.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For boards, the implication is clear. AI strategy isn’t an IT conversation. It’s a positioning conversation. And it belongs in the same strategic planning framework as market selection, competitive differentiation, and growth architecture.</p>
<h2 id="what-better-board-conversations-look-like" class="wp-block-heading">What Better Board Conversations Look Like</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boards I’ve seen make the strongest growth decisions share a few common habits.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">They discuss the company’s <a href="/competitive-intelligence/">competitive position</a> before they discuss campaign performance. They understand that <a href="/organic-visibility/">organic visibility</a> is a strategic asset, not a marketing tactic. They ask about the health of the revenue system, not just the output of individual departments. And they hold leadership accountable for architectural coherence, not just functional metrics.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">They also resist the urge to solve growth problems with more activity. More campaigns, more hires, more tools, more channels. The instinct is natural, but it usually compounds the problem. If the architecture is misaligned, more volume just creates more waste at a higher cost.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The better question is always: “What’s the constraint?” Sometimes it’s positioning. Sometimes it’s the handoff between marketing and sales. Sometimes it’s a <a href="/content-strategy/">content strategy</a> that generates traffic but not authority. The answer changes, but the discipline of asking the right question doesn’t.</p>
<h2 id="the-conversation-id-want-to-have" class="wp-block-heading">The Conversation I’d Want to Have</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If I were presenting to your board, I wouldn’t start with a campaign plan. I’d start with a diagnostic.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’d want to understand how your revenue functions connect, where your market positions you relative to competitors, and whether your growth constraints are architectural or executional. That <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic process</a> is what separates strategic growth work from the quarterly marketing review that everyone endures but nobody finds useful.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Growth isn’t broken because the people are wrong. It’s usually broken because the system was never designed as a system. Boards that recognize this, and govern accordingly, are the ones I’ve seen build sustainable, compounding growth.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="why-is-treating-growth-as-a-marketing-or-sales-problem-a-mistake" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why is treating growth as a marketing or sales problem a mistake?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It creates a structural incentive for each function to optimize its own metrics while the overall revenue system underperforms. Marketing generates leads, sales closes deals, and both can look healthy in isolation while the company plateaus. The better board question isn’t “what is marketing doing about growth?” — it’s “how well are our revenue functions connected, and where are the leaks?”</p>
</details>
<details id="whats-wrong-with-the-metrics-most-boards-track" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What’s wrong with the metrics most boards track?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most board dashboards are built on trailing indicators — pipeline value, MQL volume, CAC payback — that describe what already happened rather than what’s constraining growth next quarter. The boards that make better decisions also track positioning strength and organic authority alongside pipeline, because a company that’s invisible to its market has to buy every conversation it gets. The dashboard often needs redesigning before the strategy does.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-does-hiring-a-new-executive-often-fail-to-fix-a-growth-problem" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why does hiring a new executive often fail to fix a growth problem?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Because the hire walks into misaligned teams, disconnected systems, and unclear positioning, then spends their first six months untangling the mess instead of building on it. The underlying architecture wasn’t ready for them. The better question before any hiring decision is: what does the growth architecture need in place before a new hire can actually succeed?</p>
</details>
<details id="why-is-positioning-a-board-level-decision-rather-than-a-marketing-decision" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why is positioning a board-level decision rather than a marketing decision?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Because positioning determines pricing power, win rates, talent acquisition, partnership leverage, and investor confidence — all board-level outcomes. And the trade-offs positioning requires, like choosing which segments to prioritize and which messages to subordinate, need executive alignment to hold. When boards delegate positioning entirely to marketing, sales, marketing, and product all end up positioning the company differently. The market receives three conflicting signals and reaches its own conclusion, which is usually confusion.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-the-ai-question-boards-should-actually-be-asking" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the AI question boards should actually be asking?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Not “how do we automate more?” but “how does AI change our positioning, and how do we use it to become more valuable to our market rather than just faster?” Every wave of automation creates a counter-demand for human expertise and genuine connection. The companies that use AI to free up capacity for deeper relationships and more original thinking will outperform those that simply use it to cut costs. For boards, AI strategy is a positioning conversation — not an IT conversation.</p>
</details>
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]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>The Diagnostic Skill That Separates Strategic Hires from Expensive Ones</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:36:32 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Expert Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Buyer Awareness]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Diagnostic Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[FORCEPS]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Market Analysis]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[OATH]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Power Positioning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Proof Stack]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Sherlocking]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=5248</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most consultants start with solutions. The best fractional executives start by reading the business through three diagnostic lenses before they prescribe anything.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Growth tactics fail when they treat symptoms rather than root causes. This post introduces a three-lens diagnostic method called “Sherlocking” that identifies where a business is actually broken before any strategy gets written. The three lenses are buyer awareness (OATH framework), market positioning (Power Positioning/FAME), and proof stack (FORCEPS). The first 30 to 60 days of any fractional engagement should be almost entirely diagnostic.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-most-engagements-fail-before-they-start">Why Most Engagements Fail Before They Start</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-i-call-sherlocking">What I Call “Sherlocking”</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#lens-1-is-buyer-awareness">Lens 1 Is Buyer Awareness</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#lens-2-is-market-positioning">Lens 2 Is Market Positioning</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#lens-3-is-the-proof-stack">Lens 3 Is the Proof Stack</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-the-diagnosis-changes-everything">Why the Diagnosis Changes Everything</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-to-look-for-when-you-hire-strategic-leadership">What to Look for When You Hire Strategic Leadership</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Every company I walk into has already tried something. They’ve hired an agency. Launched a campaign. Rebuilt the website. Sometimes all three at once, and yet the needle barely moved.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">By the time they call me, they’re not looking for more tactics. They’re looking for someone who can tell them why the tactics didn’t work. That’s the part most people skip. The diagnosis.</p>
<h2 id="why-most-engagements-fail-before-they-start" class="wp-block-heading">Why Most Engagements Fail Before They Start</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve spent over three decades watching this pattern repeat. A company identifies a symptom, like declining leads or flat revenue, and immediately jumps to a solution. New SEO strategy. Rebrand. Paid media blitz.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The problem is that symptoms lie. Declining leads might look like a traffic problem when it’s actually a positioning problem. Flat revenue might look like a sales problem when it’s actually a proof problem. The symptom points you in one direction while the root cause sits somewhere else entirely.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The consultants and agencies who get fired fastest are the ones who accept the client’s self-diagnosis at face value. The ones who last are the ones who push back and say, “Let me look at this myself first.”</p>
<h2 id="what-i-call-sherlocking" class="wp-block-heading">What I Call “Sherlocking”</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Early in my career, someone told me I had a habit of deconstructing problems the way a detective deconstructs a crime scene. I’d pull apart the messaging, the funnel, the competitive landscape, the customer journey, and reassemble the pieces until the real problem surfaced.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I started calling it <a href="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/" data-type="link" data-id="https://michelfortin.com/ideal-framework/">Sherlocking</a>, not because it’s glamorous, but because it captures what the process actually feels like. You’re not guessing. You’re eliminating possibilities until only the truth remains.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Over time, I refined this into a repeatable diagnostic method. Three lenses, applied in sequence, that reveal where a business is actually broken before I write a single word of strategy.</p>
<h2 id="lens-1-is-buyer-awareness" class="wp-block-heading">Lens 1 Is Buyer Awareness</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first thing I need to know is your buyer’s current state of awareness. This comes from a framework I developed called <a href="/oath-formula/">OATH</a>, which maps buyers into four stages: Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">An Oblivious buyer doesn’t know they have a problem. An Apathetic buyer knows but doesn’t care yet. A Thinking buyer is actively researching solutions. A Hurting buyer needs help now and is ready to act.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most companies write all their content for the Thinking and Hurting stages because that’s where the immediate revenue sits. But when I diagnose a business that’s struggling to grow, I almost always find the same gap. They have nothing for the Oblivious and Apathetic buyers who make up the majority of their addressable market.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This single lens explains why so many content strategies produce traffic but not pipeline. The content exists, but it’s speaking to people who are already close to buying while ignoring everyone else.</p>
<h2 id="lens-2-is-market-positioning" class="wp-block-heading">Lens 2 Is Market Positioning</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The second lens is positioning. I use a framework called <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">Power Positioning</a> built on four pillars I call FAME: Focus, Aim, Multiply, and Engage.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Focus means narrowing what you do and who you do it for until there’s no confusion. Aim means identifying the specific audience whose problem you solve better than anyone. Multiply means building a content and visibility system that amplifies your focused message. Engage means creating the conversion path that turns visibility into revenue.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I run this lens across a business, I’m looking for the gap between how they see themselves and how the market sees them. That gap is where most positioning failures live.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A company might describe themselves as a “full-service digital agency” when what they actually do best is B2B demand generation for mid-market SaaS companies. The broader label feels safer, but it makes them invisible to the buyers who would value them most. I see this pattern in at least half the engagements I take on.</p>
<h2 id="lens-3-is-the-proof-stack" class="wp-block-heading">Lens 3 Is the Proof Stack</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The third lens asks a question most companies avoid: Can you actually back up what you’re claiming?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Many clients have told me that “great products sell themselves.” To a degree, this is true. If you have a great product and apply the first two lenses, <a href="https://michelfortin.com/quest-formula/" data-type="post" data-id="632">transitioning the audience into buyers</a> comes easier.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">But where many firms stumble is assuming that great products that sell themselves do it by themselves, when they don’t. People talk about them. Tests show they live up to the hype. Guarantees reverse the risk. Clients share their experiences. These are all proof elements. Some are explicit, others not so much.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I use a framework called <a href="/forceps-framework/">FORCEPS</a> to audit seven types of proof: Factual, Optical, Relational, Credential, Evidential, Perceptual, and Social. Each one works differently on different buyers at different awareness stages.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A Thinking buyer needs Factual and Evidential proof, like data, case studies, and third-party validation. A Hurting buyer responds more to Relational and Social proof. They want to know that someone like them solved this exact problem with your help.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I audit a company’s proof stack, I’m rarely surprised by what I find. Most businesses lean heavily on one or two proof types and neglect the rest. They’ve got testimonials but no case studies. They’ve got data but no narrative around it. They’ve got credentials but never mention them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The proof gap is usually the easiest to fix and produces the fastest results. It’s also the most commonly ignored because companies assume their work speaks for itself. It doesn’t.</p>
<h2 id="why-the-diagnosis-changes-everything" class="wp-block-heading">Why the Diagnosis Changes Everything</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s what happens when you skip straight to tactics. You build a beautiful new website that still has a positioning problem. You launch a content strategy that still targets the wrong awareness stage. You invest in advertising that still lacks proof. The money moves, but the needle doesn’t.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I walk into a <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional CMO</a>, <a href="/fractional-cro/">CRO</a>, or <a href="/fractional-cso/">CSO</a> engagement, the first 30 to 60 days are almost entirely diagnostic. I’m running all three lenses simultaneously, mapping where the gaps are, and building a strategy that addresses root causes instead of symptoms.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That diagnostic phase is where most of the value gets created. Not in the execution that follows, but in the clarity that precedes it.</p>
<h2 id="what-to-look-for-when-you-hire-strategic-leadership" class="wp-block-heading">What to Look for When You Hire Strategic Leadership</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you’re a senior leader evaluating consultants or a recruiter sourcing fractional executives, here’s the simplest filter I can offer.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Ask them what they do in the first 30 days. If the answer is a list of deliverables, keep looking. If the answer is a diagnostic process that starts with questions rather than solutions, you’re probably talking to someone who will actually move the needle.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The best strategic hires don’t walk in with a playbook. They walk in with a flashlight.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-is-sherlocking-and-why-does-it-matter-before-writing-strategy" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is “Sherlocking” and why does it matter before writing strategy?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Sherlocking is the diagnostic process of pulling apart a business’s messaging, funnel, competitive landscape, and customer journey to find where the real problem lives — not just the symptom the company reports. Most tactics fail because they treat the symptom. Sherlocking eliminates possibilities until the root cause surfaces, so strategy addresses the actual breakdown rather than a plausible-looking guess.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-are-the-three-diagnostic-lenses-used-in-a-fractional-engagement" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What are the three diagnostic lenses used in a fractional engagement?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The three lenses are buyer awareness, market positioning, and the proof stack. Buyer awareness (using the OATH framework) identifies where prospects sit on the spectrum from oblivious to ready-to-buy. Market positioning (using Power Positioning and the FAME pillars) surfaces the gap between how a company sees itself and how the market actually sees it. The proof stack (audited through the FORCEPS framework) tests whether the company can substantiate what it’s claiming to buyers at each awareness stage.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-do-so-many-content-strategies-produce-traffic-but-not-pipeline" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why do so many content strategies produce traffic but not pipeline?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Usually because the content is written entirely for buyers who are already close to purchasing — the Thinking and Hurting stages of the OATH framework — while ignoring the Oblivious and Apathetic majority. Those early-stage buyers make up most of the addressable market, but companies skip them because the immediate revenue is elsewhere. Traffic accumulates, but pipeline doesn’t grow because the content isn’t meeting buyers where they actually are.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-a-proof-stack-and-why-does-it-matter-for-conversion" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is a proof stack and why does it matter for conversion?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A proof stack is the full set of evidence a company uses to validate its claims. The FORCEPS framework audits seven types: Factual, Optical, Relational, Credential, Evidential, Perceptual, and Social. Different proof types work on different buyers — a Thinking buyer needs data and case studies, while a Hurting buyer responds more to social and relational proof. Most companies rely on one or two types and neglect the rest, which leaves a conversion gap that better execution can’t close.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-should-the-first-30-to-60-days-of-a-fractional-executive-engagement-look-like" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What should the first 30 to 60 days of a fractional executive engagement look like?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Almost entirely diagnostic. Running all three lenses simultaneously — awareness, positioning, and proof — to map where the gaps are before any strategy gets written. That diagnostic phase is where most of the real value gets created. Execution follows clarity; without the diagnosis, you risk building a better version of something that was already aimed in the wrong direction.</p>
</details>
<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","url":"https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/","@id":"https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/#what-is-sherlocking-and-why-does-it-matter-before-writing-strategy","name":"What is \"Sherlocking\" and why does it matter before writing strategy?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Sherlocking is the diagnostic process of pulling apart a business's messaging, funnel, competitive landscape, and customer journey to find where the real problem lives — not just the symptom the company reports. Most tactics fail because they treat the symptom. Sherlocking eliminates possibilities until the root cause surfaces, so strategy addresses the actual breakdown rather than a plausible-looking guess.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/#what-are-the-three-diagnostic-lenses-used-in-a-fractional-engagement","name":"What are the three diagnostic lenses used in a fractional engagement?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>The three lenses are buyer awareness, market positioning, and the proof stack. Buyer awareness (using the OATH framework) identifies where prospects sit on the spectrum from oblivious to ready-to-buy. Market positioning (using Power Positioning and the FAME pillars) surfaces the gap between how a company sees itself and how the market actually sees it. The proof stack (audited through the FORCEPS framework) tests whether the company can substantiate what it's claiming to buyers at each awareness stage.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/#why-do-so-many-content-strategies-produce-traffic-but-not-pipeline","name":"Why do so many content strategies produce traffic but not pipeline?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Usually because the content is written entirely for buyers who are already close to purchasing — the Thinking and Hurting stages of the OATH framework — while ignoring the Oblivious and Apathetic majority. Those early-stage buyers make up most of the addressable market, but companies skip them because the immediate revenue is elsewhere. Traffic accumulates, but pipeline doesn't grow because the content isn't meeting buyers where they actually are.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/#what-is-a-proof-stack-and-why-does-it-matter-for-conversion","name":"What is a proof stack and why does it matter for conversion?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>A proof stack is the full set of evidence a company uses to validate its claims. The FORCEPS framework audits seven types: Factual, Optical, Relational, Credential, Evidential, Perceptual, and Social. Different proof types work on different buyers — a Thinking buyer needs data and case studies, while a Hurting buyer responds more to social and relational proof. Most companies rely on one or two types and neglect the rest, which leaves a conversion gap that better execution can't close.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/#what-should-the-first-30-to-60-days-of-a-fractional-executive-engagement-look-like","name":"What should the first 30 to 60 days of a fractional executive engagement look like?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Almost entirely diagnostic. Running all three lenses simultaneously — awareness, positioning, and proof — to map where the gaps are before any strategy gets written. That diagnostic phase is where most of the real value gets created. Execution follows clarity; without the diagnosis, you risk building a better version of something that was already aimed in the wrong direction.</p>"}}]}</script></div>
]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>Why Most Companies Are Targeting the Wrong People (And How I Fix It)</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/audience-targeting/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sun, 08 Mar 2026 12:32:53 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Audience Targeting]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Buyer Persona]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Fractional CMO]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue Architecture]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=4656</guid>
<description><![CDATA[When a solid offer fails to convert, the problem is usually the audience. Here is The Bullseye Method, the two-read targeting model I use in fractional CMO and CRO engagements to separate where the buyer is from who the buyer is, and how to apply both before changing the funnel.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When a strong offer underperforms, the culprit is usually the audience — not price, message, or funnel. Effective targeting answers two distinct questions in order: Fit (who the buyer actually is, across demographic, psychographic, geographic, and technographic dimensions) and Placement (where that buyer can be reached). The Bullseye Method maps Placement as concentric rings — Core, Middle, and Outside, which are audience-centred, audience-related, and audience-oriented — around the same ideal buyer. Get both reads right, and downstream metrics like CAC, sales cycle, and churn fall into line.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-two-reads-most-teams-collapse">The two reads most teams collapse</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#fit-who-the-buyer-actually-is">Fit, who the buyer actually is</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#placement-where-you-can-actually-reach-them">Placement, where you can actually reach them</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-core-audiencecentered">The Core, audience-centered</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-middle-audiencerelated">The Middle, audience-related</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-outside-audienceoriented">The Outside, audience-oriented</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-good-research-actually-surfaces">What good research actually surfaces</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-cost-of-getting-this-wrong">The cost of getting this wrong</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most common reason a solid offer fails to convert isn’t the price, the message, or the funnel. It’s the audience.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When I step into a <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional CMO</a> or <a href="/fractional-cro/">CRO</a> engagement and find a revenue system underperforming, one of the first things I audit is targeting. Not tactics. Not creative. Targeting. You can have a strong product, a capable team, and a well-built funnel, and still bleed conversion if the message is landing in front of the wrong people, on the wrong surfaces, at the wrong time.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most companies think they know their audience. Very few have done the work to confirm it. Fewer still have separated the two questions that audience work actually has to answer.</p>
<h2 id="the-two-reads-most-teams-collapse" class="wp-block-heading">The two reads most teams collapse</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The mistake I see most often at this layer is conflating two questions that look like one. Where can the buyer be reached, and whether the buyer is the right buyer to close. Those are two different reads that run on different evidence and produce different decisions.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I call the first one Placement. The second one Fit. A complete audience read does both, in that order, and never treats one as a substitute for the other.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Placement asks where the buyer can be reached, influenced, and engaged. It is a question about surfaces. The channels, communities, publications, conferences, and networks where the audience is present and accessible.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Fit asks whether the buyer is worth closing once reached. It is a question about traits and behavior. The structural profile of the company, the role, the situation, and the way the buyer thinks, decides, and acts when faced with the kind of decision your offer asks them to make.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Treating Placement as Fit, or Fit as Placement, is where most targeting work goes off the rails. The teams I see running the most expensive mistakes have usually built a careful persona document, then aimed their entire budget at one ring of surfaces and called it strategy. The persona is the Fit work. The surfaces are the Placement work. The two reads compound when run together and dilute when collapsed.</p>
<h2 id="fit-who-the-buyer-actually-is" class="wp-block-heading">Fit, who the buyer actually is</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Fit work lives in the ICP (Ideal Client Profile) and the persona layer. The Ideal Customer Profile names the structural traits of the buyer your firm is built to serve. The persona names how that buyer thinks, decides, and acts inside the situation your offer addresses.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Good Fit work builds across four dimensions that show up in every engagement I run.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Demographics are the baseline. Age, role, industry, company size, revenue, geography. They tell you who might need what you offer. Psychographics go deeper. The motivations, frustrations, buying patterns, and beliefs behind the decision to buy or not. They tell you who actually wants it, and why, which is a very different question.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Geographics define where your market operates and makes decisions. Urban or remote, local or distributed, domestic or global. Technographics reveal how your audience uses technology. Whether they are early adopters or resistant to change. How heavily they rely on AI. How technically sophisticated their buying process is.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Demographics show who may need your solution. Psychographics show who is motivated enough to act on that need. Geographics and technographics tell you what the buyer’s world looks like when the decision actually gets made. All four feed the Fit read.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Fit is where Power Positioning lives. If you have not yet picked the buyer you are aimed at, no amount of placement work will rescue the strategy. The FAME pillars cover this directly, and the Aim pillar in particular is the discipline of firing at one specific buyer instead of spreading across many. I cover the full architecture in <a href="https://michelfortin.com/power-positioning/">Power Positioning</a> and the four pillars in <a href="https://michelfortin.com/power-positioning-pillars/">Focus, Aim, Multiply, and Engage</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A complete diagnostic loop runs the Fit read first. Once you know who you are built to close, you can ask the next question with any precision.</p>
<h2 id="placement-where-you-can-actually-reach-them" class="wp-block-heading">Placement, where you can actually reach them</h2>
<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="1024" height="1024" src="https://michelfortin.com/wp-content/uploads/bullseye.png" alt="Three-person strategy team mapping The Bullseye Method audience targeting framework on a glass wall during a marketing planning session" class="wp-image-4662" style="width:500px;height:auto" srcset="https://michelfortin.com/wp-content/uploads/bullseye.png 1024w, https://michelfortin.com/wp-content/uploads/bullseye-300x300.png 300w, https://michelfortin.com/wp-content/uploads/bullseye-150x150.png 150w, https://michelfortin.com/wp-content/uploads/bullseye-768x768.png 768w, https://michelfortin.com/wp-content/uploads/bullseye-600x600.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em>Audience targeting model called The Bullseye Method</em></figcaption></figure>
</div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Placement is an audience targeting model called “The Bullseye Method.” I built it inside the original Power Positioning work and refined it across hundreds of engagements since.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The model maps the market your firm is trying to serve as three concentric rings around the ideal buyer your Fit work has already identified. The metaphor is a bull’s-eye, and the rings name three different placement relationships between your firm and the same buyer.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The buyer does not move across the rings. The buyer sits in one place. What changes across the rings is the surface through which you reach that same buyer. That distinction is the single most important thing to understand about the model. If you have ever read The Bullseye Method as a way to slice your audience into types, you have read it the wrong way. The rings are about access, not identity.</p>
<h2 id="the-core-audiencecentered" class="wp-block-heading">The Core, audience-centered</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Core is where your audience is most directly reachable. Their home base. The surfaces where you can address the buyer by name, title, or role without a third party in between.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A Core placement is the buyer’s direct email, their LinkedIn profile, the trade show where their badge reads their title, the named account list inside your CRM. The Core is the ring where targeting is structurally direct. You are not waiting to be discovered. You are reaching the buyer in the spaces they occupy professionally as themselves.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Core is where most teams concentrate their effort, and where most also stay too long. A Core that has been mined through climbs in cost-per-acquisition because every remaining buyer is harder to reach, slower to decide, or already known to a competitor with a stronger presence inside the same channel. The Core has to be the anchor of your targeting plan, not the entirety of it.</p>
<h2 id="the-middle-audiencerelated" class="wp-block-heading">The Middle, audience-related</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Middle is the placement context related to your audience. Not the buyer’s home base, but the surfaces they pass through, congregate in, or rely on as part of how they operate.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Middle is the trade association the buyer belongs to. The industry conference they attend each year. The publication they subscribe to. The peer community where they trade notes with people in the same function. The platform or tool they log into to do their job.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Middle is reached by going where the audience goes rather than addressing them by name. The buyer is the same buyer. The placement is one step removed from direct contact. Your firm has to earn the buyer’s attention inside someone else’s surface rather than command it through a one-to-one channel.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the ring most teams underweight, and in most categories I diagnose, it is the most underpriced placement opportunity available to a firm that has earned the right to expand. Competitors with weaker products are sponsoring the conferences, contributing to the publications, and showing up in the communities that your Core-saturated audience is already inside.</p>
<h2 id="the-outside-audienceoriented" class="wp-block-heading">The Outside, audience-oriented</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Outside is the placement context oriented to your audience by way of identity, interest, and broader circles, even when those circles have nothing directly to do with your category.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Outside is the alumni network of the buyer’s MBA program. The non-industry publication they read for general business edification. The long-form podcast they listen to on the commute. The award show they aspire to be nominated for. It also runs through the network of people around the buyer. Board members, investors, hiring partners, and the advisors the audience relies on for professional work.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Outside is the ring most teams misread most completely. It is not a low-quality audience. It is a credibility surface, not a conversion surface. Running direct-response targeting against the Outside, treating it as top-of-funnel to be converted, produces a small trickle of conversions at a cost-per-acquisition that destroys the unit economics.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Outside is where positioning durability lives. The keynote in front of an audience that is not your direct buyer but whose attention your direct buyer respects. The bylined article in a publication the audience reads outside of work. The Outside builds, slowly, the perception layer your Core and Middle eventually run on. A firm that runs only the Core and the Middle produces conversion in the short term and nothing for the long term. Three years later, the competitor with an Outside presence is winning on perception what the firm without one is trying to win on price.</p>
<h2 id="what-good-research-actually-surfaces" class="wp-block-heading">What good research actually surfaces</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most valuable targeting intelligence does not come from a dashboard. It comes from direct conversations with the people who have already bought from you.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I push clients to interview their best customers. Not surveys. Conversations. The questions that matter most are not “what do you like about our product.” They are: why did you buy when you did? What were you using before? Where did you first hear about us? What almost stopped you? What would you tell a colleague who was considering us?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Those answers surface both reads at once. The buyer’s situation, motivations, and decision pattern feed the Fit read. The path they took to find you, the surfaces they encountered you on, the names they cite when they describe how they got to your door, all of that feeds the Placement read. A single conversation, done well, sharpens both at the same time.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Robert Collier, the legendary direct-response copywriter, wrote decades ago that the key to great marketing is to enter the conversation already happening in the prospect’s mind. That principle has not aged. It just gets harder to execute when you are scaling, which is exactly where a <a href="/fractional-cmo/">fractional CMO</a> earns their keep.</p>
<h2 id="the-cost-of-getting-this-wrong" class="wp-block-heading">The cost of getting this wrong</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Misaligned targeting does not just reduce conversion rates. It distorts every downstream metric in your <a href="/revenue-architecture/">revenue system</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Cost per acquisition climbs, sales cycles lengthen, and churn rises because the customers you acquired were not the right fit to begin with. The team then spends enormous energy optimizing a funnel that is aimed at the wrong people, on the wrong surfaces, asking the wrong questions.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The fix is rarely more spend or more content. It is a sharper, more honest answer to a deceptively simple question, asked in two parts. Who exactly are we built to close, and where exactly can we reach them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Get both right, in that order, and almost everything else in the revenue architecture becomes easier to build.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="why-does-audience-targeting-matter-more-than-the-funnel-or-the-price" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why does audience targeting matter more than the funnel or the price?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A strong offer aimed at the wrong people still fails. The funnel, the creative, and the price are all downstream of targeting. Optimizing them without first confirming you are reaching the right buyers is like tuning an engine that is pointed the wrong direction. When I audit an underperforming revenue system, targeting is one of the first things I check, because misalignment there distorts every metric downstream.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-the-difference-between-placement-and-fit-in-audience-targeting" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the difference between Placement and Fit in audience targeting?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Placement asks where the buyer can be reached, influenced, and engaged. It is a question about surfaces, the channels and communities and publications and conferences where the audience is present. Fit asks whether the buyer is worth closing once reached. It is a question about traits and behavior, the company profile, the role, and the way the buyer thinks and decides. A complete audience read does both, in that order. Most teams collapse them and treat one as a substitute for the other.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-are-the-four-dimensions-of-buyer-fit" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What are the four dimensions of buyer Fit?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Demographics, psychographics, geographics, and technographics. Demographics tell you who might need your offer. Psychographics tell you who is motivated enough to act on that need, which is a very different question. Geographics tell you where your market operates and decides. Technographics tell you how the buyer uses technology and what their buying process looks like. All four feed the Fit read, which has to be complete before the Placement read can produce anything precise.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-does-the-bullseye-method-work" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How does the Bullseye Method work?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The model maps the market your firm serves as three concentric rings of placement around the same buyer. The Core is audience-centered, the direct-reach surfaces where the buyer can be addressed by name or title. The Middle is audience-related, the surfaces the buyer passes through, like trade associations, conferences, publications, and peer communities. The Outside is audience-oriented, the broader circles the buyer moves in by way of identity, interest, and network. The buyer does not move across rings. What changes is the surface through which you reach that same buyer.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-the-real-cost-of-targeting-the-wrong-audience" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the real cost of targeting the wrong audience?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Cost per acquisition climbs, sales cycles lengthen, and churn rises because the customers you acquired were not the right fit to begin with. The team then spends enormous energy optimizing a funnel that is aimed at the wrong people, on the wrong surfaces, asking the wrong questions. The fix is rarely more spend or more content. It is a sharper answer to two questions, asked in order. Who exactly are we built to close, and where exactly can we reach them.</p>
</details>
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<p class="wp-block-paragraph"></p>
]]></content:encoded>
</item>
<item>
<title>How I Read a Market Before I Make a Move</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/competitive-intelligence/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 17:32:22 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[AI Search]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Competitive Intelligence]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Keyword Research]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Market Positioning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Organic Visibility]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue Architecture]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=4058</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Competitive intelligence isn't a research task you hand off. It's one of the most direct inputs into positioning decisions. Here's the framework I use to read a competitive landscape before making any strategic recommendation.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Competitive intelligence isn’t a research task to file away. Done well, it’s one of the most direct inputs into positioning decisions. This post covers a framework for reading a market before making any strategic move: starting with buyer search behavior to map the conversational territory, identifying who actually earns relevant attention (not just industry competitors), scanning for content gaps and trust infrastructure, and checking which sources AI tools cite when buyers ask questions in your category.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#start-with-what-the-market-is-actually-saying">Start With What the Market Is Actually Saying</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-autocomplete-technique">The Autocomplete Technique</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-specificity-beats-volume">Why Specificity Beats Volume</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#mapping-your-true-competitors">Mapping Your True Competitors</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-the-scan-reveals">What the Scan Reveals</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-the-data-is-really-telling-you">What the Data Is Really Telling You</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#competitive-intelligence-in-the-age-of-ai-search">Competitive Intelligence in the Age of AI Search</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#applying-the-intelligence">Applying the Intelligence</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most growth leaders think of competitive analysis as a research task. Something you do at the start of a strategy project, hand off to a junior team member, or outsource to an agency that delivers a 40-page PDF you skim once and file away.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s not how I think about it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Competitive intelligence, done well, is one of the most direct inputs into positioning decisions. It tells you what your market already believes, what buyers are actively looking for, and where your competitors are earning attention that you’re not. Those three things have a direct line to revenue.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What follows is the framework I use when I need to understand a competitive landscape before making positioning or content decisions. It starts with the search environment, because that’s where market conversations become visible at scale. But the output is not an SEO report. It’s a market map.</p>
<h2 id="start-with-what-the-market-is-actually-saying" class="wp-block-heading">Start With What the Market Is Actually Saying</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Before I look at competitors, I look at buyers. The search bar is one of the most honest data sources available to any marketer. When someone types a query into Google, they’re not performing for an audience. They’re asking a question they actually have.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">At scale, search data tells you what problems buyers are trying to solve, what language they’re using to describe those problems, and how far along they are in the <a href="/oath-formula/">awareness journey</a>. I use five areas within Google’s search interface to surface this: the search results themselves, autocomplete suggestions, “People also asked” questions, “People also search for” listings, and related searches at the bottom of the page.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Together, these give you a dimensional view of how your market thinks about a problem. Each reflects a different angle on the same underlying question: what are buyers trying to figure out, and how are they trying to figure it out?</p>
<h2 id="the-autocomplete-technique" class="wp-block-heading">The Autocomplete Technique</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s a specific technique I find valuable, and most people don’t use it this way.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Start typing a query and let Google surface its autocomplete suggestions. Take one of those suggestions, click it, and once the results load, place your cursor back in the search bar at the end of the query and press the spacebar. You’ll get a new set of suggestions layered on top of the first. Repeat the process. Each iteration reveals a different dimension of the same topic.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">What you’re doing is mapping the full conversational territory around a topic, not just the top-level terms. You’re finding out what questions lead to other questions, which tells you how buyers are actually thinking through their problems.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the kind of intelligence that tools alone can’t replicate. Keyword planners and browser extensions can accelerate the data gathering, but the pattern recognition that turns raw queries into positioning insight requires a strategic lens.</p>
<h2 id="why-specificity-beats-volume" class="wp-block-heading">Why Specificity Beats Volume</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A generic keyword with high search volume looks attractive on paper. In practice, it’s usually a trap. The traffic is unqualified, the competition is fierce, and ranking for it rarely moves a business forward.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The strategically valuable terms are specific. In B2B, generic category terms attract researchers. Specific, intent-loaded phrases attract buyers. And the buyers who search with specificity are easier to convert, less price-sensitive, and more likely to be the right fit.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’d rather a client generate 5% of 100 long-tail terms averaging 20 monthly searches each than generate 0.1% of a single term with 5,000 searches. The first produces 100 qualified visitors. The second produces five.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Specificity compounds.</p>
<h2 id="mapping-your-true-competitors" class="wp-block-heading">Mapping Your True Competitors</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Once you understand what your market is searching for, the next question is: who is winning that attention, and why?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The first thing to establish is what “competitor” actually means in this context. A competitor in your industry is not necessarily a competitor for the attention of your buyers. A large agency with a national brand may compete with you in the market but not rank for the same queries your ideal buyers are searching. A smaller niche player with strong content might be earning far more relevant <a href="/organic-visibility/">organic attention</a> than a better-known name.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">True competitors, for this analysis, are the sites earning the most relevant organic traffic for the queries that matter to your buyers. Those are the competitors worth studying.</p>
<h2 id="what-the-scan-reveals" class="wp-block-heading">What the Scan Reveals</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For each competitor I identify, I look at three dimensions.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">First, content gaps. Which topics and keywords are competitors ranking for that my client isn’t? These represent untapped attention that competitors have already validated. If a competitor consistently earns traffic on a topic your site doesn’t cover, that’s a positioning gap as much as a content gap.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Second, trust infrastructure. Where are competitors earning credibility that my client hasn’t? Industry associations, authoritative directories, publications, and communities where competitors have established presence. This tells you where your category’s <a href="/authority-building/">trust architecture</a> lives.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Third, brand conversations. What comes up when you search a competitor’s name directly? What are buyers saying about them? Brand mentions, reviews, forum discussions, and media coverage are all part of the competitive picture that backlink and ranking data don’t capture.</p>
<h2 id="what-the-data-is-really-telling-you" class="wp-block-heading">What the Data Is Really Telling You</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s what most competitive analyses miss. The data isn’t fundamentally about search rankings. It’s about market perception.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When a competitor consistently ranks for a category of queries, it means the market has assessed that their content best answers buyer questions in that space. That’s a signal about authority and relevance, not just optimization.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When buyers repeatedly phrase questions a certain way, that’s a signal about how they understand their own problems. That has direct implications for messaging and <a href="/power-positioning-pillars/">positioning</a>.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When you look at a competitive landscape through this lens, the questions change. Instead of “how do we rank for these keywords,” the question becomes “what does it take to own this territory in the minds of our buyers?” Instead of “how do we get more backlinks,” the question becomes “where is the trust infrastructure of this category, and are we part of it?”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Those are positioning questions. And they lead to positioning decisions about <a href="/content-strategy/">content strategy</a>, messaging architecture, where to invest in authority, and which buyer segments to prioritize.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is exactly the kind of <a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic work</a> I do in <a href="/fractional-cso/">fractional CSO</a> engagements, where reading the competitive landscape is the first step before any strategic recommendation.</p>
<h2 id="competitive-intelligence-in-the-age-of-ai-search" class="wp-block-heading">Competitive Intelligence in the Age of AI Search</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="/ai-marketing/">AI-powered search tools</a>, including Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google’s AI Overviews, are functioning as a new layer of competitive positioning. When a buyer asks an AI tool about a problem in your category, the sources the AI cites are the effective competitors for that buyer’s attention at that moment.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The criteria for appearing in AI-generated answers are roughly the same criteria that determine strong organic search performance: authoritative content, clear structure, specific and well-sourced claims, and demonstrated expertise. But the presentation layer is different. AI tools summarize and synthesize rather than rank. The content that gets cited tends to be content that’s easy to reference accurately.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Competitive intelligence now needs to include a new question: which sources are AI tools drawing on when buyers ask about our category? Running the same queries you’d use for traditional competitive research through AI tools gives you a fast read on which players have established enough authority to be recommended by AI systems. In some categories, the AI-era competitive set is quite different from the traditional organic search set. Knowing the difference is a strategic advantage.</p>
<h2 id="applying-the-intelligence" class="wp-block-heading">Applying the Intelligence</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Competitive intelligence is only useful if it changes something. The output of this process should give you a clear view of three things: where your buyers are in the awareness journey based on what they’re searching for, which competitors currently own the attention you want, and where the gaps represent untapped positioning opportunity.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">From there, the decisions become relatively clear. Where do you need to build content to fill gaps your buyers are actively looking to fill? Where are competitors earning authority that you should be earning instead? What does your messaging need to say to differentiate your position from the competitors your buyers are most likely comparing you against?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">These are not SEO questions. They’re market positioning questions. The search environment just happens to be one of the clearest places to find the answers.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-is-competitive-intelligence-and-how-is-it-different-from-a-competitive-analysis" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is competitive intelligence and how is it different from a competitive analysis?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most competitive analyses are research deliverables — a document produced at the start of a project and filed away. Competitive intelligence is an ongoing input into positioning decisions. It tells you what your market already believes, what buyers are actively searching for, and where competitors are earning attention you’re not. The output isn’t a report. It’s a market map that drives content, messaging, and positioning decisions.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-start-competitive-research-with-buyer-search-behavior-rather-than-competitor-analysis" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why start competitive research with buyer search behavior rather than competitor analysis?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The search bar is one of the most honest data sources available. When someone types a query, they’re expressing a real need, not performing for an audience. At scale, search data reveals what problems buyers are trying to solve, the language they use to describe those problems, and how far along they are in their awareness journey. Looking at buyers before looking at competitors means your intelligence is grounded in actual demand rather than industry assumptions.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-the-autocomplete-technique-for-competitive-research" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is the autocomplete technique for competitive research?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Type a query into Google and let autocomplete surface suggestions. Click one, then place the cursor back in the search bar and press the spacebar — you’ll get a new layer of suggestions on top of the first. Each iteration reveals a different dimension of the same topic. What you’re mapping is the full conversational territory around a subject: which questions lead to other questions, and how buyers are actually thinking through their problems.</p>
</details>
<details id="who-are-your-true-competitors-for-the-purpose-of-this-analysis" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Who are your “true” competitors for the purpose of this analysis?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">True competitors are the sites earning the most relevant organic traffic for the queries your buyers actually search — not necessarily the firms you’d name as industry rivals. A large agency with a strong brand may compete with you in the market but not for your buyers’ search attention. A smaller niche player with deep content might be winning far more relevant visibility. The competitor worth studying is whoever earns the attention you want.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-does-competitive-intelligence-work-in-the-context-of-ai-search" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How does competitive intelligence work in the context of AI search?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AI tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google’s AI Overviews create a new competitive layer. When a buyer asks an AI about a problem in your category, the sources cited are the effective competitors for that buyer’s attention at that moment. Running your standard competitive queries through AI tools reveals which players have earned enough authority to be recommended by AI systems — and in some categories, that set looks quite different from the traditional organic search competitive landscape.</p>
</details>
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</item>
<item>
<title>How the OATH Formula Reveals Whether Your Buyer Is Ready to Act</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/oath-formula/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:55:44 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Frameworks & Models]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Marketing Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Buyer Awareness]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Messaging Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Revenue Architecture]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=612</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Most messaging misreads the buyer. OATH reads two things, how aware they are and how willing they are to act, so your message meets them where they are.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most marketing fails not because the offer is weak, but because the message misreads the buyer. OATH reads two things at once, how aware a buyer is of the problem and how willing they are to act on it. The four levels, Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting, come from combining both. Used as a diagnostic, OATH reveals gaps in content strategy, explains pipeline stalls, and guides the messaging that moves buyers forward, level by level.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-most-messaging-misses-the-mark">Why Most Messaging Misses the Mark</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#where-oath-fits-and-the-missing-link">Where OATH Fits, and the Missing Link</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-four-levels">The Four Levels</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#o-is-for-oblivious">O is for Oblivious</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#a-is-for-apathetic">A is for Apathetic</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#t-is-for-thinking">T is for Thinking</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#h-is-for-hurting">H is for Hurting</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-to-use-oath-strategically">How to Use OATH Strategically</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-this-looks-like-in-practice">What This Looks Like in Practice</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#a-practical-framework-for-revenue-leaders">A Practical Framework for Revenue Leaders</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#oath-doesnt-work-alone">OATH Doesn’t Work Alone</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-bottom-line">The Bottom Line</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most revenue problems aren’t really sales problems. They’re alignment problems.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A prospect visits your website, reads your proposal, sits through your demo. And still they don’t convert. You assume the offer was wrong, the price too high, the timing off. Usually it’s simpler than that, and more fixable. You read the buyer wrong.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I created the OATH formula back in 2003 to solve exactly that. OATH stands for Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting. Most people treat it as an awareness ladder, four rungs from clueless to ready.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s only half of it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH reads two things at once. How aware a buyer is that they have a problem, and how willing they are to do something about it. Awareness without willingness is just trivia. A market can understand its problem in perfect detail and still sit on its hands.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The name is the reminder. The real question isn’t only how much your market knows. It’s how willing they are to take an oath and act on it. Where a buyer sits on both axes decides how you message them, what content you lead with, and how much persuasion is left to do.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Get it right and your message resonates. Get it wrong and even the best offer falls flat.</p>
<h2 id="why-most-messaging-misses-the-mark" class="wp-block-heading">Why Most Messaging Misses the Mark</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most businesses write for buyers who are aware and willing, the ones ready to buy. They lead with solutions, features, and calls to action, assuming the prospect already understands the problem, agrees it needs fixing, and has narrowed the search to a short list.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s a small slice of your market. Most of your potential buyers are short on one axis or the other. Some don’t recognize the problem yet. Some recognize it but feel no urgency to act. Some are aware, willing, and actively shopping, but haven’t chosen an approach.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If your message doesn’t match where they are on both axes, it doesn’t land. It confuses them, pushes them away, or gets ignored. OATH gives you a diagnostic lens for this. It maps your messaging to the actual state your buyer is in, not the state you wish they were in.</p>
<h2 id="where-oath-fits-and-the-missing-link" class="wp-block-heading">Where OATH Fits, and the Missing Link</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Two older models shaped how marketers think about buyer readiness, and each captured half of it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) tracks responsiveness. It follows how engaged a buyer becomes on the way to a decision, from first noticing you to finally acting.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Eugene Schwartz’s five stages of awareness track sophistication. They map how much a market already knows, from unaware of the problem to fully aware of you and your offer. Schwartz built his model around what the buyer knows.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Both are useful, and both leave out the same thing. A buyer can be fully aware of the problem, fully aware of your solution, and engaged with all of it, and still do nothing. Knowing isn’t the same as wanting to act. That gap, between awareness and action, is willingness. It’s the variable neither model isolates, and it’s the one that decides whether a deal actually moves.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH adds it. Awareness gets a buyer in the door. Willingness moves them through. Two questions sort any buyer. Do they know they have a problem? And are they willing to do something about it?</p>
<figure class="wp-block-table"><table class="has-fixed-layout"><thead><tr><th>Level</th><th>Aware of the problem?</th><th>Willing to act?</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Oblivious</td><td>No</td><td>Not yet possible</td></tr><tr><td>Apathetic</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Thinking</td><td>Yes</td><td>Starting to</td></tr><tr><td>Hurting</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Oblivious buyers are low on awareness, so willingness can’t register yet. Apathetic buyers know and still won’t move. Thinking buyers have crossed into willingness and are acting on it by researching. Hurting buyers are high on both and ready to commit.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s the missing link. Schwartz told you what your market knows. AIDA told you how engaged they are. OATH tells you whether they’re willing to take an oath and act.</p>
<h2 id="the-four-levels" class="wp-block-heading">The Four Levels</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Each level is a different mix of awareness and willingness. That combination, not awareness alone, tells you what to say.</p>
<h3 id="o-is-for-oblivious" class="wp-block-heading">O is for Oblivious</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Low on both axes. Your buyer doesn’t know they have a problem, or doesn’t know it’s solvable. Either way, they’re not looking for you.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Think how often a business owner doesn’t realize their churn is a positioning problem, not a product problem. Or a leadership team doesn’t see that stalled growth is a messaging problem, not a market problem. They’re oblivious, not because they’re uninformed, but because no one has connected the dots for them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job here isn’t to sell. It’s to educate. Surface the problem, name it clearly, and show them what it’s costing. Lead with your solution before they recognize the problem and you’ll create confusion or resistance.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Content for Oblivious buyers is educational and perspective-shifting. Thought leadership, industry data, diagnostic questions, and stories that help them see themselves differently.</p>
<h3 id="a-is-for-apathetic" class="wp-block-heading">A is for Apathetic</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">High awareness, low willingness. Apathetic buyers know the problem exists. They just don’t care enough to do anything about it yet.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the stage a pure awareness ladder can’t explain, and the most underestimated one. These buyers often know they should address the issue. They’ve probably talked about it internally. But they’ve normalized the pain, resigned themselves to it, or decided the effort of solving it outweighs the payoff.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job is to raise the stakes. Make the problem real, concrete, and urgent. What does it cost them to do nothing? What’s the compounding effect of delay? What risk are they carrying by treating this as a back-burner issue?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is where a strong business case, ROI framing, and competitive context do their best work. You’re not convincing them the problem exists. You’re convincing them it matters enough to move.</p>
<h3 id="t-is-for-thinking" class="wp-block-heading">T is for Thinking</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Awareness is high, and willingness has crossed into action. Thinking buyers accept the problem is real and worth solving. Now they’re researching, comparing, evaluating.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is where most businesses think the sale begins. In some ways it does. It’s also where you lose buyers who feel like everyone is saying the same thing.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job here is differentiation. Why your approach over the alternatives? What’s your methodology, your point of view, your track record? What makes your way of solving this meaningfully different, not just marginally better?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is where clear <a href="https://michelfortin.com/power-positioning-pillars/">positioning</a> pays off. Buyers at this stage are narrowing their options. Make it easy to choose you and hard to justify choosing anyone else.</p>
<h3 id="h-is-for-hurting" class="wp-block-heading">H is for Hurting</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">High on both axes, and ready to act. Hurting buyers have accepted the problem, decided to solve it, and are evaluating specific providers. They’re not researching the category anymore. They’re deciding between you and a handful of alternatives.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">At this stage, friction and doubt are your obstacles. A past bad experience makes them skeptical. Unanswered questions about implementation, risk, or fit hold them back. Sometimes the decision itself overwhelms them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your job is to remove those obstacles. <a href="https://michelfortin.com/forceps-framework/">Proof</a>, guarantees, case studies, clear next steps, transparent pricing, and honest answers to the hard questions all carry weight here. The desire to solve the problem is already there. Your work is to lower the perceived risk of saying yes.</p>
<h2 id="how-to-use-oath-strategically" class="wp-block-heading">How to Use OATH Strategically</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH isn’t just a content planning tool. It’s a revenue diagnostic.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When a pipeline stalls, run it through OATH. Where are prospects entering the conversation? Where are they dropping off? Are you creating enough for buyers who are aware but unwilling, or are you only visible to the few already hurting?</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When a campaign underperforms, ask which level it was written for, and which axis it was trying to move. A thought leadership piece for Oblivious buyers looks nothing like a case study for Thinking buyers. Mixing up the message for the level is one of the most common and expensive content mistakes I see.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When you build a <a href="https://michelfortin.com/content-strategy/">content strategy</a> or a nurture sequence, map each piece to a level. You want assets that move buyers forward on awareness, on willingness, or both. The goal isn’t to serve buyers where they are. It’s to meet them there and advance them.</p>
<h2 id="what-this-looks-like-in-practice" class="wp-block-heading">What This Looks Like in Practice</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A SaaS firm came to me stalled at the same revenue plateau for three years. Good product, capable team, leads coming in. They just weren’t closing.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The OATH diagnostic surfaced the problem in the first two weeks. Their positioning was built for an Apathetic buyer, someone who understood the problem but felt no urgency. Their funnel was built for a Hurting buyer who was ready to buy now: demo requests, pricing pages, hard calls to action.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The two were aimed at different levels. The marketing attracted buyers who weren’t urgent, then the funnel rushed them to decide. They stalled, predictably.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">We realigned the messaging to the buyer’s actual state. Raise the stakes first, make the cost of inaction concrete, then move them toward the decision. Same product, same price, same ad spend. Qualified pipeline rose 197% in 90 days.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The fix wasn’t a better offer. It was matching the message to where the buyer actually was.</p>
<h2 id="a-practical-framework-for-revenue-leaders" class="wp-block-heading">A Practical Framework for Revenue Leaders</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you’re a CMO, CRO, or growth leader, here’s how I’d use OATH operationally.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Audit your content library against the four levels. Most companies are overweight on Thinking and Hurting content and nearly absent for Oblivious and Apathetic buyers. That makes them invisible to most of their market.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Score your inbound leads by level. Where buyers enter your funnel tells you where your marketing is working and where it’s leaving demand on the table.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Align sales and marketing messaging to level, not just persona. A CFO who is oblivious needs something entirely different from a CFO who is hurting, even though they share the same profile.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Use OATH as a shared language between marketing and sales. When both teams know a buyer’s awareness and willingness, handoffs get cleaner, follow-up gets smarter, and deals close faster.</p>
<h2 id="oath-doesnt-work-alone" class="wp-block-heading">OATH Doesn’t Work Alone</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH tells you where a buyer is. Two other frameworks tell you what to do about it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="https://michelfortin.com/quest-formula/" data-type="post" data-id="632">QUEST handles the sequence</a>. Once OATH gives you a buyer’s level, QUEST (Qualify, Understand, Educate, Stimulate, Transition) structures the conversation that moves them forward. The level decides where you pick them up. An Oblivious buyer starts at Qualify and Understand. A Hurting buyer is already at Stimulate and Transition.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><a href="https://michelfortin.com/forceps-framework/" data-type="post" data-id="4492">FORCEPS handles the proof</a>. Different levels are convinced by different evidence. Oblivious and Apathetic buyers respond to perceptual and factual proof, the stories and plain facts that reframe how they see the problem. Thinking buyers want evidential and credential proof, the data and qualifications that hold up under comparison. Hurting buyers respond to social, optical, and relational proof, the testimonials and visible results that lower the risk of saying yes.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Read together, the three answer the whole question. OATH tells you where the buyer is. QUEST tells you how to move them. FORCEPS tells you what proof closes the gap.</p>
<h2 id="the-bottom-line" class="wp-block-heading">The Bottom Line</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Your buyers aren’t in the same place. Some don’t know they need you. Some know but won’t move yet. Some are shopping. Some are ready to sign.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">One message can’t serve all four. OATH is a simple, durable way to read both how aware your buyers are and how willing they are to act, then build the content and conversations that move them forward.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That’s not just good marketing. That’s how you build a <a href="https://michelfortin.com/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a> that compounds over time.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="what-does-oath-stand-for" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What does OATH stand for?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">OATH stands for Oblivious, Apathetic, Thinking, and Hurting. The four levels combine how aware a buyer is of the problem with how willing they are to act on it. Each level needs a different message. What works for a Hurting buyer will confuse or push away an Oblivious one.</p>
</details>
<details id="who-created-the-oath-formula-and-when" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Who created the OATH formula and when?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Michel Fortin created the OATH formula in 2003 as a diagnostic for reading how aware a buyer is and how willing they are to act. It started in direct response copywriting and now applies across content strategy, revenue architecture, pipeline diagnostics, and sales and marketing alignment.</p>
</details>
<details id="why-do-most-marketing-messages-fail-to-convert" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>Why do most marketing messages fail to convert?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most businesses write messaging aimed at buyers who are already ready to buy — Thinking or Hurting stage. That’s a small fraction of the total addressable market. The majority of potential buyers are Oblivious or Apathetic, and messaging built for late-stage buyers doesn’t reach them. Misaligning message to stage is one of the most common and expensive content mistakes in marketing.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-do-you-use-oath-to-diagnose-a-stalled-pipeline" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How do you use OATH to diagnose a stalled pipeline?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Map where most prospects are entering the conversation and where they’re dropping off. Early drop-off usually signals weak coverage of Oblivious and Apathetic buyers — the content isn’t meeting them where they are. Mid-funnel stalls often point to undifferentiated Thinking-stage messaging. OATH turns a vague “the pipeline is slow” problem into a specific content or messaging gap you can fix.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-kind-of-content-works-for-each-oath-stage" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What kind of content works for each OATH stage?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Oblivious buyers need perspective-shifting content that surfaces and names the problem. Apathetic buyers need ROI framing and competitive context that raises the stakes of inaction. Thinking buyers need clear differentiation and a strong point of view. Hurting buyers need proof, case studies, transparent pricing, and answers to the hard questions that reduce the perceived risk of saying yes.</p>
</details>
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</item>
<item>
<title>Which Pricing Model Is Best: Input, Output, or Outcome-Based?</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sat, 28 Feb 2026 18:23:42 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Business Architecture]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Growth Strategies]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Strategic Planning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Consulting Strategy]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Power Positioning]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Value-Based Pricing]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://michelfortincom.bigscoots-staging.com/?p=483</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The way a consultant prices their work reveals how they think about value, risk, and results. Here's what each model means for the buyer and which one produces the best outcomes.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<div class="wp-block-group article-summary"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">How a consultant prices their work reveals their confidence, risk tolerance, and incentive alignment. This post compares input-driven, output-driven, and outcome-driven pricing models from the buyer’s perspective, explains why tiered packaging signals strategic sophistication, and makes the case for a bounded discovery phase as a risk reducer before committing to any large engagement.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-three-pricing-models">The Three Pricing Models</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#inputbased-pricing">Input-based pricing</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#outputbased-pricing">Output-based pricing</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#outcomebased-pricing">Outcome-based pricing</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#why-outcome-pricing-produces-better-engagements">Why Outcome Pricing Produces Better Engagements</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-tiered-pricing-signals-about-a-consultant">What Tiered Pricing Signals About a Consultant</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-discovery-phase-as-a-risk-reducer">The Discovery Phase as a Risk Reducer</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-to-evaluate-a-consultants-pricing">How to Evaluate a Consultant’s Pricing</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#are-you-ready-for-your-next-step">Are You Ready For Your Next Step?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Consultants price their work in three ways. Input-based means you pay for time. Output-based means you pay for deliverables. Outcome-based means you pay for results.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most buyers evaluate consultants on credentials, case studies, and cultural fit. Those matter. But the pricing model tells you more about how a consultant thinks than any resume will. It reveals where they place risk, where they place their incentives, and whether their interests are actually aligned with yours.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Once you understand what each model signals, you make sharper hiring decisions and structure better engagements.</p>
<h2 id="the-three-pricing-models" class="wp-block-heading">The Three Pricing Models</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most consulting engagements fall into one of three categories. Here’s how they compare.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-table"><table class="has-fixed-layout"><thead><tr><th>Model</th><th>You Pay For</th><th>Risk Sits With</th><th>Consultant’s Incentive</th><th>When It Fits</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Input-based</strong></td><td>Time (hourly, daily, monthly retainer)</td><td>You</td><td>Extend the engagement</td><td>Scope is unclear or ongoing advisory</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Output-based</strong></td><td>Deliverables (audit, roadmap, session count)</td><td>The consultant</td><td>Deliver efficiently</td><td>Scope is defined, outputs are specific</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Outcome-based</strong></td><td>Results (% of value created, performance fee)</td><td>Shared</td><td>Move to the result fast</td><td>Value is measurable and agreed upon</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<h3 id="inputbased-pricing" class="wp-block-heading">Input-based pricing</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Input-based pricing means you pay for time. Hours, days, or monthly retainers billed against effort. This is the default for lawyers, accountants, designers, and many consultants. Senior strategist hourly rates typically run $200 to $500, and full retainers for experienced advisors fall between $5,000 and $25,000 per month.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It’s easy to understand and easy to justify internally. But it has a structural problem. Input pricing punishes the consultant for being efficient. The faster they solve your problem, the less they earn.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That misalignment creates friction, and experienced buyers know it. Scope creep and extended timelines work in the consultant’s financial favor, not yours.</p>
<h3 id="outputbased-pricing" class="wp-block-heading">Output-based pricing</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Output-based pricing means you pay for deliverables. A completed audit, a strategic roadmap, a restructured funnel, a defined set of coaching sessions. The fee is tied to what gets produced, not how long it takes to produce it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Mid-market output-based projects usually range from $10,000 to $75,000, with discovery or audit phases priced between $5,000 and $15,000. The risk profile is better than input pricing. If the project runs longer than expected, that’s the consultant’s problem, not yours.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Most sophisticated consultancies, agencies, and <a href="https://michelfortin.com/services/">fractional executives</a> price this way. It’s also where tiered packaging becomes valuable, which I’ll cover in a moment.</p>
<h3 id="outcomebased-pricing" class="wp-block-heading">Outcome-based pricing</h3>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Outcome-based pricing means you pay for results. The fee is anchored to the value created or the impact delivered, not the time spent or the deliverables produced. Typical structures run 10% to 30% of the quantified value, sometimes blended with a reduced base retainer to share the risk.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This is the most powerful model for the buyer, and the most revealing about the consultant. A consultant who prices on outcomes is telling you three things. They’re confident in their ability to produce results. They’ve done this enough times to forecast value accurately. They’re willing to put their compensation on the line.</p>
<h2 id="why-outcome-pricing-produces-better-engagements" class="wp-block-heading">Why Outcome Pricing Produces Better Engagements</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When a consultant’s fee is tied to the outcome, the entire engagement dynamic shifts.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The consultant becomes a partner with skin in the game. Their incentive isn’t to extend the engagement or pad deliverables. It’s to get you to the result as efficiently as possible. That alignment shows up in faster decision-making, more candid advice, and less politics.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A common pattern shows up in cost-efficiency work. A consultant audits procurement processes, renegotiates vendor contracts, and eliminates supply chain redundancies. On a $1,000,000 annual operational budget, a 15% cost reduction saves the client $150,000. The consultant’s fee is a fraction of that savings.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">But the value compounds beyond the first-order number. That $150,000 might fund a new hire, increase the marketing budget, or improve financial health enough to attract investors. A good outcome-priced consultant helps you see those downstream effects and structures the engagement around them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The key question for any buyer evaluating outcome pricing is whether the consultant can clearly articulate what “value” means in your specific context. If they can quantify it, forecast it, or point to a track record of producing it, the model works. If the value is vague or speculative, an output-based model with a <a href="https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/">discovery phase</a> is the safer starting point.</p>
<h2 id="what-tiered-pricing-signals-about-a-consultant" class="wp-block-heading">What Tiered Pricing Signals About a Consultant</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The best proposals give you three options. Not one. Not five. Three.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">After a discovery phase, a sophisticated consultant typically presents three tiers. Some call them low, medium, and high. Others use bronze, silver, and gold (call it “Olympic-Factor Pricing”). The scope, depth, and price point differ across the tiers, but each one is fully scoped and ready to execute.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In my own <a href="https://michelfortin.com/services/">fractional executive practice</a>, every proposal I send follows this structure. It came from years of watching how buyers actually decide. When you offer three options, the buyer moves from “should I hire this consultant” to “which version of this engagement is right for us.” That’s a different and more productive conversation.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Tiered pricing does three things for you as the buyer.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It gives you real choice without negotiation theater. You can match the engagement to your growth stage, your budget, and your urgency. It creates natural upgrade paths, so you can start with a diagnostic tier and move into a full engagement once both sides have validated the fit. And it lets you walk away from a tier without walking away from the consultant.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Tiered pricing also reveals something about the consultant. Building three fully scoped tiers takes real thought about service delivery, client segmentation, and the different levels of value that are actually possible. That kind of strategic thinking about their own business usually translates into strategic thinking about yours, which is the whole point of hiring them.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If a consultant presents a single price with no alternatives, ask for tiers. Their answer will tell you how carefully they’ve thought about how you actually need to engage.</p>
<h2 id="the-discovery-phase-as-a-risk-reducer" class="wp-block-heading">The Discovery Phase as a Risk Reducer</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Regardless of pricing model, the best engagements start with a bounded discovery phase. An audit, assessment, or roadmapping engagement, scoped and priced as a standalone deliverable.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For the buyer, this reduces risk dramatically. Instead of committing to a six-figure engagement based on a sales conversation, you invest in a <a href="https://michelfortin.com/diagnostic-advantage/">diagnostic phase</a> that gives both sides clarity. You see how the consultant thinks, how they communicate, and whether their diagnosis matches your reality.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For outcome-priced engagements especially, the discovery phase is where the consultant establishes the value baseline. It’s where they assess what results are realistic, what the engagement is worth, and whether the opportunity is a genuine fit. Without that baseline, outcome pricing becomes guesswork on both sides.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If a consultant skips straight to a large proposal without offering a discovery phase, push back. It usually signals overconfidence or a one-size-fits-all practice. Either way, ask for a smaller paid engagement first so both sides can validate the fit before you scale the commitment.</p>
<h2 id="how-to-evaluate-a-consultants-pricing" class="wp-block-heading">How to Evaluate a Consultant’s Pricing</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">When you’re comparing consultants, the pricing model reveals more than the price itself. Five questions to run through.</p>
<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Is the consultant incentivized to solve your problem quickly, or to extend the engagement?</li>
<li>Does the fee structure reward efficiency and results, or time and activity?</li>
<li>Are they willing to put some of their compensation at risk against the outcome?</li>
<li>Have they offered a bounded discovery phase, or are they asking for a large commitment upfront?</li>
<li>Did they give you three tiered options, or a single take-it-or-leave-it number?</li>
</ol>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The best consulting engagements aren’t defined by the lowest fee. They’re defined by the clearest alignment between what you pay and what you get.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That alignment is part of a broader <a href="https://michelfortin.com/revenue-architecture/">revenue architecture</a>. A consultant who prices on outcomes, offers a structured discovery phase, and presents three tiered options is telling you through their commercial model that they’re confident in their work and willing to prove it before you scale the commitment. That’s the kind of <a href="https://michelfortin.com/authority-building/">authority-driven positioning</a> that separates strategic partners from vendors.</p>
<h2 id="are-you-ready-for-your-next-step" class="wp-block-heading">Are You Ready For Your Next Step?</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you’re evaluating a consultant and want a second opinion on their pricing structure, <a href="https://michelfortin.com/contact/">book a discovery call</a>. I’ll review the proposal with you, tell you what their pricing model signals about how they’ll actually work, and help you structure an engagement that aligns with the outcome you actually want.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="how-much-do-consultants-charge" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>How much do consultants charge?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Fees vary by pricing model and seniority. Senior strategist hourly rates typically run $200 to $500. Monthly retainers for experienced advisors fall between $5,000 and $25,000. Output-based projects for mid-market engagements usually price between $10,000 and $75,000, with discovery or audit phases at $5,000 to $15,000. Outcome-based fees are commonly 10% to 30% of quantified value, sometimes blended with a reduced retainer.</p>
</details>
<details id="whats-the-difference-between-input-based-output-based-and-outcome-based-pricing" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>What’s the difference between input-based, output-based, and outcome-based pricing?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Input-based pricing charges for time, like hourly rates or retainers. Output-based pricing charges for defined deliverables, like an audit or a project roadmap. Outcome-based pricing charges for results, typically as a percentage of value created or a performance fee. Each model shifts risk and incentives differently between the buyer and the consultant.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-value-based-pricing-in-consulting" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>What is value-based pricing in consulting?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Value-based pricing, often called outcome-based pricing, ties the consultant’s fee to the measurable results they produce. Instead of paying for hours or deliverables, you pay for the impact created. It works best when value can be quantified clearly and both sides agree on how it’s measured, usually after a discovery phase.</p>
</details>
<details id="should-i-hire-a-consultant-on-a-retainer-or-project-basis" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>Should I hire a consultant on a retainer or project basis?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Retainers fit when you need ongoing advisory, flexibility, or a long horizon of decisions. Project-based pricing fits when you have a defined scope and a specific deliverable. If the scope is vague, start with a discovery phase rather than committing to either structure upfront. The structure should follow the work, not the other way around.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-a-discovery-phase-in-consulting-and-why-does-it-matter" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>What is a discovery phase in consulting and why does it matter?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A discovery phase is a short, paid engagement, typically $5,000 to $15,000 for mid-market work, where the consultant assesses your situation, validates their diagnosis, and recommends a path forward. It reduces risk for both sides. You see how the consultant thinks before committing to a larger engagement. They establish a realistic value baseline before pricing any outcome-based work.</p>
</details>
<details id="is-outcome-based-pricing-always-the-best-choice" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>Is outcome-based pricing always the best choice?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">No. Outcome-based pricing works when value is measurable, both sides agree on the metric, and the consultant has a track record of producing that outcome. When value is vague or hard to measure, output-based pricing with a discovery phase is usually a better starting point. The best pricing model is the one that aligns incentives for your specific engagement.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-does-tiered-pricing-tell-me-about-a-consultant" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary>What does tiered pricing tell me about a consultant?</summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">A consultant who presents three tiered options (low, medium, high or bronze, silver, gold) has thought carefully about how buyers actually engage. It signals strategic maturity, clarity about service delivery, and an understanding of client segmentation. A single take-it-or-leave-it price often signals the opposite, a consultant who hasn’t thought carefully enough about how to match their work to your situation.</p>
</details>
<script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/","@id":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/#how-much-do-consultants-charge","name":"How much do consultants charge?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Fees vary by pricing model and seniority. Senior strategist hourly rates typically run $200 to $500. Monthly retainers for experienced advisors fall between $5,000 and $25,000. Output-based projects for mid-market engagements usually price between $10,000 and $75,000, with discovery or audit phases at $5,000 to $15,000. Outcome-based fees are commonly 10% to 30% of quantified value, sometimes blended with a reduced retainer.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/#whats-the-difference-between-input-based-output-based-and-outcome-based-pricing","name":"What's the difference between input-based, output-based, and outcome-based pricing?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Input-based pricing charges for time, like hourly rates or retainers. Output-based pricing charges for defined deliverables, like an audit or a project roadmap. Outcome-based pricing charges for results, typically as a percentage of value created or a performance fee. Each model shifts risk and incentives differently between the buyer and the consultant.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/#what-is-value-based-pricing-in-consulting","name":"What is value-based pricing in consulting?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Value-based pricing, often called outcome-based pricing, ties the consultant's fee to the measurable results they produce. Instead of paying for hours or deliverables, you pay for the impact created. It works best when value can be quantified clearly and both sides agree on how it's measured, usually after a discovery phase.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/#should-i-hire-a-consultant-on-a-retainer-or-project-basis","name":"Should I hire a consultant on a retainer or project basis?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>Retainers fit when you need ongoing advisory, flexibility, or a long horizon of decisions. Project-based pricing fits when you have a defined scope and a specific deliverable. If the scope is vague, start with a discovery phase rather than committing to either structure upfront. The structure should follow the work, not the other way around.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/#what-is-a-discovery-phase-in-consulting-and-why-does-it-matter","name":"What is a discovery phase in consulting and why does it matter?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>A discovery phase is a short, paid engagement, typically $5,000 to $15,000 for mid-market work, where the consultant assesses your situation, validates their diagnosis, and recommends a path forward. It reduces risk for both sides. You see how the consultant thinks before committing to a larger engagement. They establish a realistic value baseline before pricing any outcome-based work.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/#is-outcome-based-pricing-always-the-best-choice","name":"Is outcome-based pricing always the best choice?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>No. Outcome-based pricing works when value is measurable, both sides agree on the metric, and the consultant has a track record of producing that outcome. When value is vague or hard to measure, output-based pricing with a discovery phase is usually a better starting point. The best pricing model is the one that aligns incentives for your specific engagement.</p>"}},{"@type":"Question","url":"https://michelfortin.com/consulting-pricing/#what-does-tiered-pricing-tell-me-about-a-consultant","name":"What does tiered pricing tell me about a consultant?","answerCount":1,"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"<p>A consultant who presents three tiered options (low, medium, high or bronze, silver, gold) has thought carefully about how buyers actually engage. It signals strategic maturity, clarity about service delivery, and an understanding of client segmentation. A single take-it-or-leave-it price often signals the opposite, a consultant who hasn't thought carefully enough about how to match their work to your situation.</p>"}}]}</script></div>
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