My son Jake plays lacrosse. We flew to a tournament stacked with East Coast teams, the hotbed of the sport, and his hometown squad got their doors blown off. Three days straight. Demoralizing.
Packing for the airport, he tapped my shoulder. "I quit. No point. I'll never make a D1 school."
On the plane I asked him one thing. What did those kids do that you can't? He thought about it. "Pass, run, shoot. Just faster." Nothing superhuman, then. Just fundamentals, run faster. "So what happens if we get faster at the same stuff?" You could watch it land on his face. "Then I can compete."
He's still playing.
Are successful founders doing something you can't?
No. There is nothing a successful founder-led brand does that you can't do. They are not superhuman. They run the fundamentals faster, more consistently, and more accurately than you.
Twelve years in, I've worked with founders across the whole spectrum. Hyper-successful multi-venture owners. People who couldn't book a call to save their life. The only thing I've never seen the inside of is a billion-dollar startup. Everywhere else, the pattern holds. The winners aren't gifted. They're just clean at the basics, at speed.
What are the fundamentals of organic marketing?
Organic marketing is a short list of unsexy fundamentals. The people crushing it are just doing all of them, well, on repeat.
- Define your UVPThe one reason a buyer picks you over the identical-looking option.
- Understand the actual value you bring your ICPNot what you do. What changes for them.
- Build a content strategy buyers want to seeNot what you want to say. What they want to consume.
- Get consistent, then double downKeep what works, cut what doesn't, and stay in the seat long enough to know the difference.
- Tap into the voice, stay top of mind, be memorableSound like a person. Show up enough that you're the name they think of first.
So why isn't your content working?
If you're not getting traction, you're skipping a fundamental, or running it too slow, too rarely, or not sharply enough. Usually all of the above.
That's it. That's the whole diagnosis. It isn't a secret tactic the other guy has and you don't. It's reps and precision. The clickbait, the hacks, the "one weird trick" the gooroos sell you, that's the distraction. The boring truth is that you already know what to do. You're just not doing it fast enough, or often enough, or well enough, yet.
Jake didn't need a new sport. He needed to get faster at the one he already knew. Same for your content.
Want the fundamentals run for you, at speed?
I run the basics faster and more consistently than you have time to. One call to see if it fits.
Book a call