Efficiency gets work done faster. Leverage multiplies impact. Strategic leaders know the difference, and it changes how they design workflows entirely. In this episode of This Is Strategic Marketing, I break down how to shift your workflow design from efficiency to leverage. When you optimize for efficiency, you speed up execution. When you design for leverage, you create systems where one action generates multiple results, and impact scales without adding headcount. The question isn't whether your workflows are efficient. It's whether they're creating leverage.

Most marketing leaders ask: "What should we do?" But strategic leaders ask a different question first, one that reframes the work and unlocks strategic thinking. In this episode of "This Is Strategic Marketing," I reveal the question that separates tactical execution from strategic leadership: "What would need to be true for this to work?" This one shift forces clarity, surfaces assumptions, and moves you from reactive execution to intentional strategy. When you ask this question consistently, you stop reacting and start leading strategically.

Every marketing team has bottlenecks - places where work slows down, stalls, or gets stuck. But the bottleneck that's costing you the most isn't always the one that's most obvious. It's the constraint in your workflow that you've normalized, accepted, or stopped noticing entirely.

In this episode of This is Strategic Marketing, I walk through how to identify your real bottleneck by mapping where work actually slows down. When you identify and fix the root cause, one process change can eliminate multiple downstream problems. The best process changes don't add complexity; they remove it.

Strategic thinking isn't a skill you turn on during planning sessions; it's a practice you build through the questions you ask every day. The difference between reactive leaders and strategic leaders is access to information or experience - it's the questions they habitually ask themselves and their teams. In this episode of This Is Strategic Marketing, I break down three strategic questions to build into your daily practice. These questions don't take long to ask, but they fundamentally change how you think and how you lead. They shift you from reactive to strategic, not just in planning meetings, but in the daily decisions that shape your team's direction.

Management and leadership are not the same thing. But most marketing leaders spend far more time managing than leading. They manage projects, timelines, stakeholder expectations, budgets, and resources. All of that matters, but none of it is leadership. In this episode of This Is Strategic Marketing, I break down the difference between management work and leadership work and how to protect time for both. Leadership is about direction, building capability, and creating the conditions for your team to do their best work. When you distinguish between the two, you can lead intentionally rather than default to management by necessity.

Every workflow eventually breaks down. When workflows start showing cracks, most leaders either patch the problems with minor tweaks or blow everything up and start over. But the real question is whether your workflow needs simplification or a complete rebuild. In this episode of This Is Strategic Marketing, I walk through three diagnostic questions to help you identify which approach will actually solve your problem. When you diagnose correctly, you fix the right issue. Simplify when the workflow is sound but cluttered. Rebuild when the foundation no longer serves how you actually work.

Execution is not about working harder. It's about thinking differently. Most teams approach execution like a checklist: Complete the tasks, hit the deadlines, move on. But that mindset creates activity, not progress. In this episode of This is Strategic Marketing, I break down three questions to help you build an execution mindset that prioritizes clarity, alignment, and intentionality over speed and volume. When these questions become standard practice, your team stops executing blindly and starts executing strategically. That's the difference between being productive and being effective.

Most marketing teams are executing campaigns. Campaigns are live, content is going out, and deadlines are getting met. But execution and impact aren't the same thing. You can be busy and still not be moving the business forward. In this episode of This Is Strategic Marketing, I break down a three-part check to help you evaluate whether your execution is creating real impact or just expensive activity. Learn how to connect your work to specific outcomes, identify the right leading indicators, and adjust based on what you're learning. When you can answer yes to all three, your execution has quality.