📎 Why You Need a Corporate Strategy Summary (& Template)

The one doc I use to get stakeholders on the same page.

This week, I’m borderline hate-watching The Perfect Couple…anyone else miss Big Little Lies? I did very much enjoy “The Junkification of American Life” by David Brooks on NYT Opinion. I know “-ification” is everywhere right now, but it’s pretty spot-on.

We hit 1,000 subscribers last week, which is pretty amazing for being 8 weeks into this newsletter. 🎉 Thank you so much for being here. I’m in the weeds writing a couple of deep dives that I’m excited to share soon…but still baking! So for today’s post, I’m trying out a new format—laser focus on a specific artifact that I’ve relied on (a lot) to gain exec alignment and set marketing up for success. Let me know what you think.

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Today’s post focuses on a framework/template that’s repeatedly been a lifeline 🛟 as a marketing leader in fast-growing (also, fast-changing, fast-devolving-into-chaos) companies. I call it the “corporate strategy summary” (to avoid running into any internal allergy to the word brand; it’s basically a brand strategy summary). You could also call it a “brand narrative one-pager,” a “core positioning doc”; it can flex into multiple formats. I’m sharing what’s worked for me; you should tailor it to your company’s needs.

It’s a text-only doc on purpose, intended to be a plain but effective tool to align your leadership team on core brand principles:

• Business goal or north star and mission/vision

• Core audience

• Essential positioning

• Your company’s unique approach—the who, how, and why of what you do.

It merges elements of brand strategy with the most vital elements of product marketing. I prefer it to 25-page product messaging/positioning frameworks that teams (often PMMs 😅) spend weeks on and then no one else ever looks at again (sorry, but it’s true).

I just used it while consulting with SurveyMonkey, a 25 year old brand. I coach all my Maven students (from Walmart, Calendly, Figma, Typeform…) through it. I used it when I joined Notion and was ramping up global, 8-figure brand campaigns. I first created it (a worse version, I’ll note) at the hairy start of Brex’s rebrand…after Brex’s co-CEOs asked me, and my manager at the time, to fire the first agency we’d brought on board.

You’ve probably been in my shoes. Work being totally derailed or feedback thrown in at the eleventh hour that sets fire to the entire process (there’s a reason it’s called burning out).

Derailment, delays, change in direction; the root cause is always lack of alignment. We tend to assume cross-functional (and leadership) alignment on the most important aspects of our brand—who we’re building for, what’s unique about our approach, how we articulate what’s unique about our approach, why anyone but our team should care.

But when I give clients this template, they usually struggle to fill it in right off the bat. They look at it and realize they haven’t thought deeply about some of the elements in…too long. Or they realize their answers would be completely different from their CEO’s. Alignment is often assumed, when really, it should be forged, and confirmed, again and again.

I developed this approach because it’s a fast track to alignment. It acts as a forcing function for leaders to articulate the most important aspects of their company’s strategy. It quickly reveals gaps and/or opportunities where further discussion or workshopping is needed.

If you’re the marketing leader on your team, the primary goal is filling in the template, period. Even if no one else sees it, it will help you clarify your perspective. In some cases, it makes sense to fill it out together with cross functional leaders and executives in a workshop setting (like if you know you have gaps or the strategy’s changed but it hasn’t truly been documented anywhere).

For alignment work, I recommend a doc format, not a slide deck—just words on a page, no visuals, no colors or imagery or anything else to distract from aligning on the most fundamental aspects of your business. You can do that later (or don’t, really, it’s okay. KISS! 💋).

Documenting each element helps drive other brand and business decisions forward. They’ll be the building blocks of later, richer brand development (tone of voice, visuals, experiences). Think of this as an ever-evolving draft, something you can revisit over time as the org and product and competitive landscape change.

A lot of valuable brand work gets endlessly put off because it feels too “squishy.” (Whatever that means.) This approach delivers a tactical, no-frills way to making sure you have the most foundational level of alignment before moving into more complex, nuanced brand decisions or more advanced expressions of the brand (holistic website copy, ads, content, etc.).

I’ll also note—if you’re the brand operator, this template may seem like it glosses over the nuances of your brand strategy. That’s okay. Its purpose is to highlight and organize the key truths that leaders need to be aligned on, and serve as a reminder of what you aligned on when key decision points or disagreements arise later. Your strategic nuance can be fleshed out in other documents, briefs, and formal brand guidelines.

When disagreements or sudden direction changes arise (and they will), you can go back to this document and say “Remember, this is who we said our audience is. This is our mission, this is why our approach is what it is. Has that changed? If so, we should revisit this holistically.” 🥝

Paid subscribers get access to my paid Notion templates, some of which I publish to the Notion template gallery (there you can also find some of my free templates, or buy/expense one-off templates as you need them).

Paid subscribers will see a button below to open and duplicate this template to their own Notion workspace. If you’re not a paid subscriber, you can check out this template on the Notion gallery.

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