Your Marketing Can't Fix a Mixed Message From Leadership

At Beholder we spend a lot of time making sure a client’s message is consistent everywhere it shows up: the website, the ads, the social posts, the sales deck. That’s the whole idea behind connected growth marketing. But on the latest Sales & Marketing Playbook: Unleashed, leadership coach Devi McFadden reminded Evan Polin and me of something that comes before all of it. If the message coming from leadership is inconsistent, no amount of marketing polish will hold it together.

Mixed messages create churn, and customers feel it

Evan asked Devi what happens when a leader says one thing on Monday and something else on Thursday. Her answer was one word: churn.

When employees are busy figuring out what the boss actually wants, they aren’t doing the work customers pay for. “The more churn there is happening internally,” Devi said, “the less we are delivering the results that we’re trying to deliver to our customers.” People end up shipping “good enough” instead of great because they’re worn out from changing direction.

From a marketing seat, that’s a promise problem. Your brand tells the market what to expect. If the team behind it is confused, the experience won’t match the promise, and that gap is where reviews, referrals and repeat business go to die.

Your employer brand is public now

Devi made a point every marketer should take seriously. You can have a beautiful website and a polished careers page, and it won’t matter if the real story is on Glassdoor, or one LinkedIn message away from a former employee.

“What you’re offering your employees has to align with what you’re saying you’re offering your employees,” she said. That’s brand consistency, just pointed inward. The same rule we apply to digital marketing(say what’s true, and say it the same way everywhere) applies to how a company presents itself to the people it hires.

Trust comes before the hard conversation

I asked Devi something we deal with all the time as outside advisors. How do you tell leadership that something is off when you can’t always get to them?

Her answer: build the relationship first. “Coming in right away with ‘here’s everything that’s wrong’ is a good way to not be invited back in.” The trust has to exist before the hard conversation does.

That’s how we try to run a marketing consultation. Listen first, understand what the business is trying to do, and earn the right to say “this part isn’t working.”

Defining “clear,” three ways

“Get clear” is advice all three of us give, so we defined it on the spot.

• Marketing (me): clear on your objectives, who you’re talking to, the outcome you want and how you’ll get there.
• Sales (Evan): clear on your ideal client, the problems you solve, and what’s in it for them. In his world that’s the value proposition.
• Leadership (Devi): clear on what you want to accomplish for customers, and how you want to do it through your team. Organizations call that the employee value proposition.

Same idea, three chairs. When all three line up, the message your customer hears is the one you meant to send.

Good vs. good enough: where AI fits

We closed on AI, and Devi gave the most useful test I’ve heard in a while. Before using AI on something, ask whether it needs to be good or good enough. A quick image or a rough edit? Good enough is fine. Anything going in front of clients goes to her people.

“AI is not innovating,” she said. “AI is spitting out what we’ve already told it.” That lines up with how we use it in marketing consultation work. The human part, actually talking to the ideal client and learning how they want to be spoken to, sets the direction. AI makes the execution faster.

The takeaway for marketers

Consistency doesn’t start in the content calendar. It starts with leaders who are clear on what they want and who follow through on what they say. Marketing amplifies whatever message it’s handed, so make sure it’s the right one.

🎧 Watch or listen to the full conversation with Devi McFadden on Sales & Marketing Playbook: Unleashed.