When I sit down with business leaders and teams to talk about marketing, I often start by pointing out the bit no one sees. The visible things—ads, logos, websites, socials—are just the tip of the iceberg. They’re the shiny elements that grab attention, but what actually holds the whole thing afloat is everything underneath. That’s where the hard work lives: pricing strategy, budgets, customer insight, market forces, and the systems that tie it all together. Ignore that, and the iceberg flips, sending the penguins scattering. It’s a silly image, but it sticks, because it captures the truth that the boring stuff is what actually keeps you afloat.
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Too many businesses rush to the sexy part—new logos, slick campaigns, fresh websites—without asking if the product is even a good fit for the market. One of the simplest but most overlooked exercises is stepping back to ask: what do we do, how do we do it, and why? Without that clarity, no campaign can land. I’ve seen businesses spend big on advertising only to realise later that their pricing structure, sales process, or customer targeting was out of step. It’s like setting off down a river without checking first whether you’re heading for calm waters or a waterfall.
That’s why I work with the Marketing Maturity Framework. It helps businesses assess where they actually are, what’s missing, and where to focus first. There are thirty-three dimensions in the full model, but even working through a handful brings powerful clarity. It pushes us to think beyond promotion and brand presence and into areas like sales conversion, operational execution, and the external forces shaping the market. When you see marketing as a whole system, not just a collection of tactics, you start making better decisions and getting better results.
A good example of this is a brewery I worked with. On the surface, the obvious strategy seemed to be chasing taps in pubs, getting cans into bottle shops, and then moving into e-commerce. That’s the standard playbook, but in reality those channels were saturated and dominated by the giants. Instead, by stepping back and looking at the market differently, we found an underserved opportunity in independent restaurants. They weren’t tied up by the big players and needed good quality kegs. By focusing there, the brewery carved out a profitable niche that bigger competitors had overlooked. That insight didn’t come from a flashy ad campaign; it came from looking below the waterline, understanding the forces at play, and testing a smarter path.
The same thinking helped an audiovisual company I worked with during the shift to hybrid work. They started as an AV integrator, dealing with projectors and copper wiring. But the market changed overnight. Suddenly everything needed to be secure, reliable, and integrated over IP. Instead of just updating their logo, we repositioned them as a workplace technology provider. That shift allowed them to meet the new demand and grow strongly through a turbulent time. The point is, strategy drives tactics, not the other way around. If they’d just doubled down on what they were already doing, they would have been left behind.
Another lesson comes from a physio clinic I’ve supported for years. They were spending money on ads far outside their service area, chasing patients who were never going to travel that far. Once we looked at the data properly, it was clear most clients came from within fifteen kilometres. Redirecting spend into that zone immediately improved returns. More importantly, it sparked a conversation about the cost of acquiring a new client versus keeping a current one. It turned out new clients were exponentially more expensive to win, while repeat business was comparatively cheap. That discovery changed how they invested their budget. Instead of endlessly chasing new patients, they invested more in retaining and rebooking existing ones.
At the heart of all this is a simple shift in perspective. Marketing isn’t just advertising—it’s the whole system of how a business connects to its market. That means sales and marketing aren’t separate worlds; they’re intertwined.
Good marketing brings in the right leads, and good sales processes qualify and convert them. When those teams work together—really together, not in silos—you stop wasting time on poor-quality leads and start building momentum.
The external environment matters too. Things like economic shifts, supply chain risks, or legal obligations might feel distant, but they shape the ground your business stands on. I’ve seen companies gain huge advantage simply by recognising these forces early and adapting faster than their competitors. One civil contracting business I’ve worked with, for example, transformed road construction by recycling pavement on site rather than ripping it out and trucking in fresh aggregate. That not only reduced cost and disruption, it carved them out a moat competitors couldn’t cross. That’s marketing too—positioning your business as uniquely valuable in a way that others can’t easily copy.
The real lesson is this: the best results come when you treat marketing as a structured discipline, not a bag of tricks. You need clarity about your market, your process, your numbers, and your people. Once that foundation is set, then the brand campaigns, ads, and creative work can really sing—because they’re backed by a system that makes sense.
If any of this resonates with you, I’d encourage you to take a step back and look at your own iceberg. What’s happening below the waterline? Where are the gaps that might be holding you back? If you’re curious to explore it further, I’d love to catch up for a coffee and walk you through the Marketing Maturity Framework. It’s a conversation that often changes the way people see their business—and it might just be the clarity you’ve been looking for.