Revenue Diaries Entry 40

It’s 1:30 am, and the gate wouldn’t open. 

I’m sitting in a rented car, headlights bouncing off the reflective tape of a closed date. No entry. Not tonight, Kyle. You will NOT enjoy the soft sheets and pillow of the TownPlace Suites at ATL. 

Also… I was nervous. The area felt a little sketchy. I was tired, frustrated, and dangerously close to screaming out loud in this poor rental car.

I pressed the intercom. Nothing. Pressed it again. Fuming because I’m ego-centric and expect immediate service. Like, now. 

Finally, the gate lifted. I parked, walked into the lobby pissed, and was greeted with something completely unexpected…. 

But let’s go back to the beginning. It had been a long day.

I was flying into Atlanta for our Summer Party with the Atlanta and Athens teams. We were getting together for some in-person time and a few rounds of pickleball. This is what we call a “lay-up” trip. Simple.

HAHA, Delta and god had other plans. 

I boarded my flight in Indianapolis at 4:50 pm. I stepped off the plane in Atlanta after 1 a.m.

Delays. Weather. Refueling in Augusta, GA. More delays. Circling. Turbulence. No food. Just time stretching into oblivion while I sat there eating my weight in pistachios. 

By the time I got the rental car and made it to the hotel, I was done. The gate situation nearly pushed me over the edge.

And then I walked into the lobby. 

Standing behind the front desk was a woman who, for all I know, had been working all night. But you wouldn’t have known it. She smiled like it was 1:30 in the afternoon and I was her first guest of the day.

And in an instant, my mood shifted toward the positive. It completely changed.

She didn’t do anything extraordinary. Just treated me like a human instead of a walking storm cloud. No “sorry you had a rough night” script. Just kindness.

That small shift completely changed my attitude and my night.

We underestimate how much power we have to impact someone else’s day, especially when we don’t feel like it, especially when no one’s watching, especially when we have every reason to match someone’s bad mood with our own.

It reminded me how powerful a small act of care can be, especially when someone has every reason not to give it.

♥️ kyle

On How We’re Rewriting Our Core Narrative (and You Can Too)

One of the reasons I started writing on the weekends was to give people a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to run marketing (and for my sanity).

It helps me work through all my emotional bull shit, but also to further strategic thinking around all things marketing. Especially now, as agentic AI tools shift entirely the way we think about production and strategic guidance. 

And lately, it’s been one thing: our Core Narrative.

Put simply, a Core Narrative is how you position your company in the market or… 

A Core Narrative is your company’s strategic story, one that explains why you exist, what problem you solve, what makes you different, and where you’re leading your customers.

It’s not a tagline or a campaign. It’s the foundation that aligns your messaging across teams, guides your marketing, and gives customers a reason to believe, buy, and stay.

And most companies don’t know how to build a core narrative. They have dozens, and dozens, and dozens of messages, decks, one-sheets, websites… floating around, but no REAL story. 

Everyone is out there saying slightly different things. And the worst part? Most teams treat messaging & positioning as a static, once-a-year exercise, which is insane when your market is shifting monthly.

Insane.

I’ve lived that life. It’s exhausting. It’s why building an evolving, fresh Core Narrative is so important because when you get it right:

• Sales sounds more confident

• Marketing stops reinventing the wheel every damn day

• Customers start repeating the narrative

• And the company finally starts rowing in the same direction

And, of course, like any marketer, I’ve been piecing together a lightweight framework to help put into words what is in my head. And to help the team understand the direction. It’s not some big proprietary process. Just a repeatable, practical method to get your story straight.

How We’re Building Ours 

The process starts with a simple truth: context matters. If you want people to care about your story, you need to root it in what’s actually happening in their world. That’s why the first step is identifying the shift.

What’s changing in your market? What are your buyers struggling with? What old assumptions are they still holding onto that no longer work? Your job is to find the tension/the opportunity in a single paragraph that frames the story. 

From there, you define the Core Belief, the rallying cry that runs through everything. This isn’t just a slogan. It’s your company’s take on how the world works now and how your customers can win. It should challenge conventional thinking. It should be inspiring enough to unite your team and distinct enough to differentiate you in the market.

An easy way to think about it?

It should read like a letter to the market. Something your CEO could publish on the homepage, in the Wall Street Journal, or a full-page print ad, signed with confidence.

If it doesn’t feel bold enough to stand on its own, it’s not ready yet.

Once you’ve got the belief, the next move is to bring it to life through Messaging Pillars. These are the big, strategic points you want to be known for. They reinforce the belief, tie directly to your product and culture, and give your team real language to use across marketing, sales, CS, and beyond. They are chapters of your Core Narrative, each one with its point to make, but all adding up to the same big idea.

Now here’s where most narratives stop, but yours shouldn’t. You need to map those pillars to real people and real outcomes. That means aligning each message with the buyer personas it speaks to, the use cases it supports, and the outcomes (both qualitative and quantitative) that matter.

Finally, you’ve got to bring the whole thing into the real world. Decks, campaigns, website copy, sales talk tracks, your narrative should show up everywhere. That means translating each part of the story into usable, repeatable messaging for the teams who need it. The outcome here is what I call a Narrative Reference Guide (more on that later).

Once you’ve built the foundation, you need a place to house it all. I recommend a standard structure everyone can use and refer to:

• Core Belief – The headline message, rooted in your worldview and advantage

• The Shift (Why Now) – The context that gives your story urgency

• Messaging Pillars – 3–5 key messages that bring your belief to life

• Pillars → Personas Mapping – Real-world alignment with buyers, use cases, and outcomes

• GTM Activation (Optional but powerful) – Examples of how the narrative shows up across your channels

Your Core Narrative isn’t fluff. It’s not just a marketing exercise. It’s real strategy. When it’s strong, teams are excited. They are united under one mission, message, and position.

And no, you don’t need an agency or a consultant to build it. You just need clarity, your customer’s voice, gut instinct, and a framework to follow. 

How to Get Started

If you’re ready to build your Core Narrative, don’t start by writing. Start by listening. You need a mix of internal insight and market truth to build a story that sticks. Here’s your ideal input stack:

• 15–20 internal interviews (founders, execs, sales, CS, product, marketing)

• 15–20 customer interviews (new, mature, churned if you can swing it)

• Gong call analysis across prospects and existing customers

• Market surveys using tools like Wynter to test clarity and resonance

This is your raw material. Without it, you're just guessing. Whether you're running interviews or surveys, here are questions worth asking:

• In your words, what is our mission, and how do you describe what we do to others?

• What is the #1 problem we solve for customers, and why now?d

• What do you see as our biggest differentiators?

• Where do we win, and who are the best-fit customers?

• Where do we lose and why?

• How do customers perceive us today—and how do we want to be perceived?

• What companies do you admire for how they position or communicate?

• What parts of our story feel outdated or inconsistent?

• What’s changing in the market or our product that messaging needs to reflect?

• If this project works, what’s different six months from now?

Even if you just start with a handful of interviews, you’ll be miles ahead of the “let’s brainstorm in a Notion doc” approach.

What’s Next?

In the next edition, we’ll walk through how to connect your Messaging Pillars to Personas and the exact AI prompts you can use to build a Core Narrative agent that helps you process and evolve your story over time.

Stay tuned.