Building Marketing Waiting Rooms™ - Join the community 🦄 | Content | Demand-Gen | Inbound

I practice the art of staying top of mind 🧠 This means I help brands clarify their message and bring it to life in unforgettable social content and ads.

Justyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan

When I was a marketing intern I’d drink beers with our sales director and write ad copy on the back of a napkin.


Those napkin scribbles outperformed 80% of the campaigns I agonised over with the marketing team.

I honestly got along better with sales than my marketing colleagues.

Their world just made more sense to me LOL.
The sales floor was my church.

I'd lurk in the hallways, eavesdropping on reps pacing back and forth with their headsets on, totally in their flow.

I got to hear bizarre customer objections they handled.
I got to observe them close a deal everyone else had pronounced dead.
I got to know our customers so much better thanks to them.

And I think it’s beautiful 🫠

No grand revelation today. 

Just this:
Go grab a drink with your sales team.

They'll make you a better marketer.

What's the best thing you've learnt from your sales colleagues?

Justyna Ciecierska, MSc

Founder @ Marketing Waiting Room - Messaging & creative strategy

I stopped dumping detailed buyer personas docs into ChatGPT. I replaced it with 3 sentences. Content gets DRAMATICALLY better.


When you vomit a 20-page document into AI, it doesn't magically cherry-pick the most important things.

It sees 47 different directions it could take, and it tries to lump it all together into one generic, illogical content sludge.

If you want AI to generate HYPER-RELEVANT content that attracts your IDEAL buyers, you need to strip your targeting down to its essence.

You only need three elements.
Three short sentences.
That's it.

1. DREAM OUTCOME: What are they trying to achieve?

2. PROBLEM: What's getting in their way while chasing that dream?

3. PSYCHOGRAPHICS AND BEHAVIOUR: How are they wired? What makes their situation unique?

So for example:

Imagine you are a business coach helping people get their first customers.

Here's your audience:

DREAM: "They want to start their own business or are in the early stages."

PROBLEM: "Terrified of losing stability and wasting lifetime savings."

PSYCHOGRAPHICS AND BEHAVIOUR: "Perfectionists. Not business-savvy. Overwhelmed. Overthinkers. They think they have to have a perfect product before selling."

Now here’s the thing:

Two people can have the same dream, and even the same problem.
But if one is business-savvy and the other is an overthinker paralysed by perfectionism, they will be interested in different content.

See the difference:

Overwhelmed perfectionist: "How do you know your offer is good enough before you start selling?"

Business-savvy doer: "Here’s the fastest way to sell your offer so you can find out if it's good enough."

See the nuance?

AI needs explicit, non-ambiguous guardrails to know exactly who it's writing for.

And yeah, I know, stripping everything down to its core is annoying, uncomfortable work.

But trust me - once you do it AI content gets waaaaay better and you stop prompt-wrestling.

This is literally what I do when I set up an AI Content Brain for my clients:
I turn their messy targeting and messaging into something AI can easily use.

Want me to do the same for you?

Go to: marketingwaitingroom.com and book your intro!

Founder @ Marketing Waiting Room - Messaging consultancy

How this truck salesman uses a BIZZARE playbook to hijack your brain in 120 seconds.


You might think this sh*t is chaotic, super random and silly.
But it’s actually well thought-out.
Masterclass in attention and memory encoding.
Let me explain

1/ CURIOSITY GAP
The video starts with a man telling a woman:
“Lean back. Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.”
You immediately want to see how this ends so you keep watching.

Attention? Check.

______

2/ SHOCK AND PATTERN INTERRUPT

→ He lets her fall.
You feel shock. Confusion. Surprise. This breaks your expectation. Your brain is now more receptive to the message that follows. 

→ That's when he delivers a life lesson: “Don't trust anybody.”
Your brain assigns him authority and credibility. Then he adds: "Except when buying trucks - trust me". That’s his bridge to the product.

(btw notice how he uses that gigantic comb for no good reason to keep your attention).

______

3/ SHOWMANSHIP + NOVELTY BIAS

The guy doesn’t list features.
He PERFORMS the features.

→ He measures the truck’s length by doing mid-air splits
→ He pretends to be a doctor while “diagnosing” engine power

You might think it’s silly but it’s actually genius for two reasons:
1) The weirdness keeps attention high
2) The showmanship bypasses sales resistance

When people realise they’re being sold to, they instinctively put up mental defences and stop processing the message.

By wrapping the pitch in weird, entertaining behaviour, he prevents your brain from labelling it as “advertising,” so those defences never activate

______

4. MEMORY HOOKS

While you’re entertained, he casually encodes the USPs in your brain:
→ Engine power
→ Cargo box size
→ Comfortable interior

He uses memory hooks to ensure you remember the most important things:
→ The brand name
→ The product and its USPs

Dude keeps saying:
“Jerry… Jerry… Jerry…”
Jerry is the company name.
He repeats it so often that it burns into memory.

And the weird acts (doctor, splits, comb) act as memory glue.
Your brain links:
Jerry → weird doctor → powerful engine
Jerry → splits → long cargo box
Jerry → comfort → funny guy

After watching the video, your memory is left with the most important keywords:

Jerry
Chinese
Great trucks

NOW CHECK THIS:
Next time you need a truck, your brain will remember these keywords, and you will Google the,m and you will find them.

The reason AI content sounds generic has nothing to do with AI.

It's you.

You're dumping 20 pages of audience research and 47 pages of transcripts into ChatGPT hoping it will do the hard work of figuring out whom you're actually talking to.

It won't. That's your job.

AI doesn't need all that information.

It needs clarity.

Three sentences.

If you can't explain your audience in three sentences, your problem is not generic content.

Your problem is targeting.

Clarity in, clarity out.

Want me to ruthlessly clarify your targeting and messaging and set up an AI content assistant that writes hyper-relevant content?

Go to marketingwaitingroom.com and book your intro.

The term “long-term marketing” is misleading. It suggests that results take years to appear, but that’s not true.


We praise direct response marketing for its quick and measurable results:

> Show an ad
> Customer clicks
> Customer takes action

But there’s another part of marketing that feels more ambiguous.

It’s often labelled as “long-term,” “brand awareness,” or “brand marketing.”

But not many people understand its mechanics.

A good way to think about it is indirect-response marketing.

(Or how I like to call it - Marketing Waiting Room™) 

It works differently.

The purpose is to build something deeper: memory structures in the buyer’s mind that can be retrieved when a buying trigger hits.

These memory structures are what drive people to come directly to you or make your direct-response marketing efforts perform better.

This type of marketing is often lumped into the “long-term” category, making it seem vague and uncertain in its ROI.

The real issue is that many marketers don’t fully grasp how to make it work.

It requires a different set of skills, thinking, and approach.

It’s about creating a resilient and valuable asset.

One that lasts beyond any specific channel or campaign and doesn’t show up neatly on a dashboard.

But that doesn’t mean it takes years to see results.

If someone is exposed to marketing your assets that build memory structures and then experiences a buying trigger just days later, that memory will activate, driving action.

Over time, this memory structure gets stronger, and these effects become even more visible.

I’ve built an AI content system that doesn’t just generate content, it follows your strategy. And OMG, it works ridiculously well!

If you’ve followed my work, you know I’m annoyingly picky about content.

I care about relevance, nuance, originality, and quality.

So I’m not interested in cranking out more AI slop.

For me, it’s all about using messaging, targeting, content strategy and internal expertise to create on-brand, original content across channels.

I pre-package and pre-chew it for AI.
I call it the “AI Content Brain” and it works like a charm!

Why?

Because I strip down the strategy to its essentials and structure it in a way that AI knows how to use it when creating content.

To be clear, it’s not something I whipped up quickly overnight.

I've been obsessing over this since 2022.

Testing, breaking, refining.
Figuring out exactly how to make AI finally *get it*.

I’ve been offering this as a productised service for a few months now, and I'm opening new slots today!

In 3 weeks, you get:

→ Your positioning, messaging, targeting, and content strategy defined and compressed into a clear doc AI can follow, no 20-page-long pdfs

→ Your internal expertise, product info, opinions, stories, and IP extracted and structured so it can be easily reused across content

→ A Content Brain that gives AI the exact context it needs to stay on strategy and stop hallucinating

→ AI content assistants that turn any raw input, ideas, notes, transcripts, conversations into on-brand, high-quality content across channels

All set up for you in a tool of your choice: Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude - you name it.

So if you want to scale your content creation without losing your soul and substance, I would LOVE to build this for you!

Head to marketingwaitingroom. com and book your intro.

The future of AI content creation is: 'interview me until something worth posting comes out.’

Let me explain:

I worked with 7 clients last year.

I helped them define their positioning, messaging and content strategy and built an AI content system that creates on-brand content across channels.

But there was something I didn't expect…

These people are incredibly smart.
Brilliant at what they do.

They'd tell me stories that made me go "Wait THAT'S a post."

And yet they kept struggling with content creation.

How’s that possible?!

They had the expertise. They had the stories.
So what was missing?

It became clear when they tried the "Interviewer" feature I built into their content system.

An AI assistant that:
- Understands their audience and strategy
- Asks targeted questions
- Pulls out stories, opinions, anecdotes
- Surfaces angles they didn't know they had

THEY LOVED THAT FEATURE THE MOST!

That’s when I realised they didn't have a content creation problem.
They had an insight extraction problem.

All they needed was buried deep in their minds.
And they couldn't access it on demand.

The Interviewer changed that.

They kept telling me that this made them think in a completely different way.

It sparked ideas they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Opened doors they didn't know were there.

THAT’S WHAT MAKES CONTENT INTERESTING!

That's when I understood what content operations should actually look like:

→ LAYER 1: Extract insights from experts through a natural conversation with an interviewer AI assistant 

→ LAYER 2: Process it through an “AI Content Brain” trained on positioning, messaging, and audience 

→ LAYER 3: Remix into different formats and channels.

The expert's job is to think and talk. 
AI’s job is to turn that into original, on-brand content assets.

So if you want your expert team to create content stop asking them to write LinkedIn posts.

Start building systems that pull the best of what they know and then let the “AI Content Brain” do the rest.

Would you like me to create such a system for you?
Book an intro via the link in my bio!

B2B marketing has a technical addiction


Growth hackers
GTM engineers
Frameworks
Automations
Ratios


We treat marketing like an engineering challenge.
And we don’t want to admit that it’s mostly a communication challenge.

I came across this quote lately:

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, 
and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, 
and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, 
and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, 
and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

Bill Bernbach figured this out decades ago, but somehow we convinced ourselves that B2B marketing works differently.

We’re excused from clarifying our message and allergic to a little art.

Is it because we think our products speak for themselves?
Or is it because we don’t feel like doing the difficult work?
Or is it because martech has led us to believe that we don’t need clarity and creativity if we have a good tech stack?

I don’t know.

But I do know this: clarity and creativity in marketing aren’t optional.

They’re THE job.

POV: LinkedIn Ads perform at Got Talent...

I wish more B2B marketers and founders knew that…


1. Brand is your silent salesperson

2. Having no competitors is usually a bad sign

3. Signing up to a newsletter doesn’t mean someone is in "consideration stage"

4. Building brand awareness means building mental availability (buyer memory)

5. A marketer’s job is to make the brand easy to recall and easy to buy

6. You shouldn’t “scale marketing” before you’ve decided on positioning and messaging

7. Good advertising kills bad products

8. Creativity in marketing isn’t optional. It’s THE JOB

Couldn’t come up with 10. Help? 😅

My content workflow lately: I talk out loud to my “AI Content Brain” for 15 minutes on Monday mornings. Then it remixes my answers into endless posts.


That’s it.

Since I built my AI Content Brain in Claude, my content workflow got 

SO.
MUCH. 
EASIER.

And weirdly, way more fun.

Here's what I do now:

STEP 1: I start with the "interviewer mode"

Claude asks me questions as if it were my ideal buyer.
I just answer out loud (I use WisprFlow)
Casually. No writing. No pressure.
You would not believe what comes out of your brain when you're not trying to "write."


STEP 2: Claude remixes my answers into endless content pieces

It doesn't just summarise. 
No, no.
It does something more sophisticated.

It filters my rambling through my specific Targeting, Messaging & Positioning rules.

This means it knows what I sell, my unique PoV and what my target audience is interested in.

The Result:
→ 15 minutes of talking = 5-10 high-quality LinkedIn posts.
→ It’s not "AI-generated." It’s "AI-extracted."
→ The thoughts are 100% mine. The typing is 0%.

So here’s my advice to you:

Stop trying to create content from scratch.
Start having conversations and let AI do the remixing.

Want me to build your AI Content Brain for you?

Go to: marketingwaitingroom (dot) com and book your intro.

How to deal with messaging and content in an emerging vs. a mature market
TLDR: 

- Emerging market: your goal is to make your brand name = category. Which means your messaging and content should be category-focused. Not differentiation-focused

- Mature market: your goal is to communicate why your solution is better than the default. Which means your messaging and content should be differentiation-focused. Not category-focused.


EMERGING MARKETS:

Context:

→ Few competitors and no clear category leader yet
→ The real race isn’t differentiation. It’s becoming the obvious choice for the category
→ Low and uneven buyer awareness: many don’t know the category exists or don’t understand it
→ Buyers feel the problem but lack the language to describe it 


Messaging & content goals:

→ Create category awareness
→ Associate your brand with the category
→ Establish shared language: Frame and name the problem and the solution
→ Proprietary naming helps create associations (e.g. GTM engineering, Clay tables)

MATURE MARKETS

Context:

→ Many competitors and a clearly defined category
→ Buyers understand the problem and the available solutions
→ One or more strong leaders already exist
→ The game is differentiation

Messaging & content goals:

→ Clearly articulate how you are meaningfully different from the default options
→ Justify switching
→ Question what the category has normalised, or what is outdated etc. (e.g. Basecamp's calm work philosophy)

If I were Head of Marketing with a $300K+ budget, the first thing I'd do is:


Decide what our brand should be known for.

Don't forget this:

You're not investing $300K+ in channels.
You're investing in spreading a message.

TAKE THAT SERIOUSLY.

It's what makes your big girl budget deliver big girl results.

Pretty please, don't reduce yourself to 

a traffic factory 
a leads generator 
an ROI calculator

You're the architect of the big idea.

The thing people remember. 
Repeat. 
Talk about at dinner. 
Mention to their boss in every Monday check-in.

You're here to create something people are impressed by. 
Inspired by. 
Attracted to.

That's your real job.
The clicks and leads will come... wait, scratch that... they'll POUR in as a result of that.

Brands people can't stop talking about stand for something and own it:

→ Basecamp: "It doesn't have to be crazy at work" 
→ Gong: "Sales call reality over opinions" 
→ Intercom: "Marketing is conversational" 
→ Miro: "Where teams think together" 
→ Lovable: "Build something lovable"

So tell me - what's the one thing you want living rent-free in your buyer's brain when they finally have the problem you solve?

Why your “TOFU” or “demand” or “brand” campaigns are not working.


Because you’re trying to run them before you’re clear on what they’re meant to do.

Not many people realise that these campaigns are supposed to achieve mental availability.

Which simply means that your brand is top of mind when buyers realise they have specific needs and wants.

Like: When I need to decorate my house and I want it to be stylish, but also functional I think IKEA.

Or: When I need to improve how my sales team performs and I want clear, objective insight into what actually closes deals, I think GONG

This should be your starting point.

If you don’t define the needs and wants that your brand satisfies in one sentence like above, you don’t have the foundation for demand gen.

You end up with Frankenstein ads communicating everything and nothing.

They are hard to understand.
And therefore are hard to remember.
And therefore they will not work.

This gets especially painful in B2B software companies that kept adding features, use cases, integrations, and personas…

…until nobody can explain in one sentence when someone should think of them.

When this happens, the smartest thing to do is to hire an expert to help you boil it down to one simple message.

Otherwise you’re setting your marketing budget on fire.

Most B2B brands don’t have a visibility problem. They have a clarity problem.

They’ve grown through referrals. They do good work. People trust them once they’re in the room.
But outside that room?

- Their messaging blends in.
- Sales conversations feel harder than they should.
- Marketing efforts feel disconnected.
- The website sounds “fine” but doesn’t land
- And growth starts to stall.

That’s the gap I help close.

I’m a positioning and messaging strategist, copywriter, and keynote speaker who helps growing B2B brands clarify what to say, who to say it to, and where it actually matters—so trust doesn’t break the moment referrals run out.

My work is based on real buyer insights, not assumptions:

- Customer interviews
- Discovery call and sales conversation mining
- Competitor and category analysis
- Pattern recognition across what buyers say, hesitate over, and actually respond to

Because knowing who your audience is isn’t enough. You need to understand why they buy, what makes them pause, and what finally tips a decision.

That clarity becomes the foundation for everything else:

🧭 Positioning that holds up as you grow
💬 Messaging your sales team can actually use
✏️ Website and sales page copy that sounds like you and converts the right people
🌟 Content that builds credibility instead of blending in

I don’t hand you a strategy deck and disappear.

I work from strategy through execution, supporting:

Positioning and messaging strategy
Copywriting for websites, sales pages, and key brand assets
Strategy sessions and copy audits for teams who need sharp, objective feedback
Ongoing messaging support as your business evolves

Clients have told me:

✔️ “Sales conversations got easier almost immediately.”
✔️ “We finally stopped rewriting everything.”
✔️ “It sounds like us, but clearer.”
✔️ “This helped us get out of the comparison pool.”

If you’re a B2B brand that’s tired of competing on sameness and ready to be remembered for the right reasons, you’re in the right place.

🎤 And if you’re looking for a keynote speaker who can challenge how founders and teams think about messaging, trust, and buyer psychology, I do that too.

If you’re not sure what’s breaking down in your messaging but you know something is, let’s talk.

www.stacyeleczko.com • hello@stacyeleczko.com • send a DM

When I’m not working: I’m reading, getting outside, eating ginger molasses cookies, parenting a teenage son, and dreaming of where I’ll travel next.

Stacy Eleczko🔅

“You drove 3 hours to meet someone for coffee? That seems like a complete waste of time.”

Let’s set the record straight:

We had lunch too. 😉

But yes, on Monday, I spent 3 hours in the car for 3 hours of in-person connection.

And I’d 100% do it again.

When I first joined LinkedIn and had no idea how to navigate this space, I started looking for people nearby who were doing similar work.

At the time, that meant copywriters.

One of the first people I reached out to was Madeleine Nance. 

We hopped on a casual coffee chat, and I instantly liked her. We stayed connected.

During a recent conversation, we realized we’ve been making a lot of the same shifts in our businesses, and moving toward almost the same goals this year:

✅ Less copywriting, more high-level messaging strategy
✅ Scalable offers built from our best thinking
✅ Speaking + workshops as part of the ecosystem
✅ More impact, fewer hours in front of a screen

So we decided to do something most business owners talk about but rarely prioritize:

We booked a monthly CEO day for just the two of us.

I suggested kicking it off IRL, and this week, we both drove to meet halfway.

The result?

Three hours of connection, strategy, and clarity (and bellies full of seriously good Peruvian food).

If that’s a waste of time, I’m happy to waste it again next month. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maddie is even more brilliant in person—not that I had any doubts.

If you’re a nonprofit, follow her immediately and ring the bell. She’s got 20+ years of experience in emotive writing that actually increases donations, and she’ll teach you how to do the same.

Who’s someone in your network you’ve been meaning to connect with more intentionally?What’s stopping you? 👇🏻

#SpotlightSeries

Tired of competing? Referrals built your reputation. Messaging that earns trust builds your reach. 🎤 Keynote speaker + positioning & messaging strategist for B2B brands ready to own their category.

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I didn’t take a cold plunge at 5 AM. But I did bundle up in three layers to see the monks off as they began today’s leg of their Walk for Peace.

It was pretty cold, and absolutely worth it.

There are worse ways to start a day. 

#gratitude

I love our Content Circle members, but there is one place we don’t see eye to eye.


What they love the most? 

The support and accountability.

What I love the most? 

The wealth of expertise, both within the group and from the guest experts who come in to host workshops.

They’re for the members, but I’ve also learned a sh*t ton to complement what we teach inside, and we’re not slowing down in 2026.

There will be one change though. 

We’ve opened the workshops to the public for paid registration each month. Starting in April, they’re for members only.

Except for this month’s. That’s just for members too.

So if you’ve been thinking about joining, you may want to check out who’s on deck. 👇🏻

Most members join for:

🟡 strategic prompts (not generic templates) that decrease overwhelm AND writing time 

🟡 weekly co-working/writing, guidance, Q&A

🟡 real access to me and Wendy

🟡 coaching and feedback

But we wouldn’t blame you if you joined just for the expert workshops either.

Oh yeah, and we’re adding in quarterly events like masterminds and networking, and pop-up events like open office hours.

One thing that’s not changing? The 30-day money-back guarantee.

If joining’s been on your mind, now’s the time to raise your hand.

10 people are about to get weekly support, strategic prompts, and hands-on guidance. If you’re still doing this solo next month, don’t say you didn’t know. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Got questions? I’m happy to talk through whether it’s the right fit.

We’d love to have you in the room.

https://contentcircle.org

P.S. Every system, every improvement, every shift that made things click came from listening to the people inside.

The reason it works? We’ve built it with the people who use it.

Well this is awkward.

My business partner just got shadow banned on LinkedIn.

It wasn’t for breaking a rule or being spammy, but for reporting spam. 🙄

Someone was running shady ads under her account, so she reported it. And how did LinkedIn respond?


Total invisibility. 👤

There was no warning, but you can’t tag her, can’t search her… She’s literally vanished from the platform.

And right in the middle of a launch. You’ve got to love the timing. 😩

So now, instead of promoting Content Circle together, Wendy Shore (my co-founder & the brains behind half this thing) is stuck in algorithm jail.

Is it ironic that we teach LinkedIn content and Wendy’s currently invisible?

Yep.

But Content Circle isn’t just a “write better posts” club.

It’s strategy, live support, real-time feedback, guest experts, Q & A.

It’s what helps you grow a business on LinkedIn, even when it’s acting up. 

Because showing up here takes more than just a post; it takes a system.

So I’m doing what LinkedIn won’t: Making sure you actually see this. 🤞🏻

🟡 Enrollment is open
🟡 10 spots
🟡 Closes in 6 days

This is only the second time we’ve opened it to the public (and won’t again until May).

We help business owners write content that connects and converts, not content that sounds fine but goes nowhere.

You know the drill: 

overthinking every post, radio silence, wondering why nothing's turning into actual sales. 

That's exactly what we fix inside Content Circle.

Strategy to get started, support to keep you going, and accountability when you need it.

I’d tag Wendy, but LinkedIn says she doesn’t exist right now, so...

The link’s in the comments. If LinkedIn lets you see it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

What do you do when the space you need doesn’t exist?

You build it.

Every week (okay, most weeks) I highlight someone who makes my network a better place just by being part of it.

This #SpotlightSeries is long overdue.

I met Angie Brandt  when our kids were in middle school, right around the time she launched Both Worlds Travel. 

I was immediately struck by how smart, passionate, and philanthropically fierce she is. 

Naturally, we asked her to plan our family trip to Spain and Portugal in 2022. (It was literally perfect.)

And when I started my own business shortly after, we found ways to support each other’s work—me with copywriting, her with generous feedback and insight.

Since then, she’s launched a second brand, Go There, a women’s travel group. But that’s not why I’m writing this post.

Last year, Angie faced a trifecta of major life changes, including an unexpected, life-changing breast cancer diagnosis.

While she had an incredible support system, what didn’t exist was a space where women truly got it: the fatigue, the grief, the invisible load.

So she created one.

After Estrogen: Women Navigating Hormone-Reactive Breast Cancer is a space that offers real support, real understanding, and space to be seen.

You and I might notice how brave, strong, and resilient she is. 

But what she really wants?

Is for women to be able to talk about what they’re going through without having to be anyone’s inspiration. 

So here’s my ask: let’s help get this into the hands of the women who need it.

If you know someone who works in or around:

- Cancer survivorship
- Oncology care coordination
- Women’s health advocacy
- Caregiving advocacy 
- HR/benefits & employee wellness
- Mental health support for patients and caregivers

Tag them or send this their way.

(And if you’re dreaming of a luxury European vacation? Ring Angie’s bell for that too.)

9 tiny things that made yesterday feel like enough

When the world feels like it’s unraveling, I’ve learned to pay closer attention, not less.

Because the bits of goodness? They compound.

- My dog saw a horse for the first time. She was perplexed then captivated.

- A spontaneous pillow fight with my 17 y/o

- The smoothie + lunch waiting in the fridge (My husband does this daily, even though he leaves for work and I don’t.)

- Listening to a few chapters of my audiobook

- Multiple full conversations with my son. In one day. If you have a teen, you know.

- The WhatsApp thread that’s equal parts support, insight, and straight talk

- A lovely shoutout in a client’s LI comment

- A warm intro to a referral from someone I deeply respect

- Curling up on the couch with my cat and favorite, snuggly blanket 

It’s not about making the good stuff happen, but  about not missing it when it does.


A friend of mine shared her “bits of goodness in an awful world” this week, and it was exactly what I needed to see.  If things feel heavy right now, maybe this will bring you some light.

The smarter you are, the easier it is to miss what’s actually keeping you stuck.

Because once you’ve been inside your business long enough, your brain gets too good at explaining things the wrong way.

Here’s what I see all the time:

People come to strategy sessions for a tactical fix, but what they actually need is a strategic one. And a lens shift.

Copy problems are usually messaging problems...

Messaging problems are usually positioning problems...

And even when you’re right about what layer the issue is on, you’re usually wrong about why it’s not working.

That’s not a dig. It’s psychology.

We’re wired to confirm what we already believe.

And the more context you have, the harder it is to see what’s actually breaking down.

So you end up trying to fix surface symptoms:

→ A sales page that checks all the boxes, except actual conversions
→ A pitch that gets polite nods but doesn’t lead to next steps
→ A website that technically makes sense, but leaves people asking what you actually do

That’s exactly what I ran into myself.

I thought I just needed to talk more about my strategy sessions and copy audits.

But then three different people, in the same month, asked me the same question:

“What’s the difference between your strategy session and a copy audit?”

All three had read my website.

One told me, kindly, that it made things more confusing.

(Not great for someone whose job is literally clarity.)

So I practiced what I preach.

I didn’t jump in to rewrite the copy—because I know copy problems are never just copy problems.

I did a deep-dive analysis of 10 strategy sessions to find the real disconnect and tweak the positioning first.

And here’s what I realized: This is exactly what happens on these calls.

People come in thinking it’s a copy problem, a messaging tweak, or an offer that needs reworking.

But the thing actually keeping them stuck? It’s always a layer deeper.

They leave knowing exactly what the root of the problem is, and what to do about it.

- Clarity on why their message works in a referral context, but breaks down with cold leads.
- Clarity on what’s actually blocking sales, even if their funnel looks fine.
- Clarity on what buyers need to hear to say, “Oh. That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

That’s why I renamed them.

They’re not strategy sessions anymore. They’re Clarity Calls.

And this year, I’m offering them more intentionally. Because they work.

If you’ve been stuck on the same problem and it’s taking up too much mental space, DM me and we’ll see if a Clarity Call makes sense.

Your referrals trust you. Cold leads? Not so much.

That disconnect’s easy to ignore—until it starts showing up in lost leads, long sales cycles, and “almost” clients.

Justin Vajko invited me on his podcast to talk about a mistake I see all the time, especially in referral-grown businesses.

Most businesses don’t have a content problem. They have a messaging problem.

And most messaging problems?

Well, they’re actually insight problems.

We got into:

➡️ Why client interviews are the foundation of useful personas 
➡️ What actually builds trust with people who’ve never heard of you
➡️ How referral success can cover up deeper marketing issues
➡️ And what to do when your team sounds like they’re marketing 3 different companies

This conversation went deeper than the usual marketing advice and tackled the real reasons messaging breaks down.

I’m curious. The last time you picked a new service or product without an intro or referral, what made it feel chooseworthy?

🎧 Listen in: link in comments

🙌🏻 Big thanks to Justin for asking smart questions and making this such a fun conversation.

Do you ever hear someone talking about their problem and just want to shake them while yelling:

“I can help you fix it. For crying out loud, please. Just let me help already!”

But you can’t because:

A. That’s messed up
B. You don’t really know them
C. They don’t realize they need your solution yet

It happens to me all. the. freaking. time. 😅

💬 “I post and nothing happens”
💬 “It takes me hours to write one post”
💬 “I keep rewriting the same damn thing”
💬 “I have so many ideas and zero clarity”

I smile and nod, but inside I’m screaming: PLEASE LET ME HELP YOU.

So when people ask why I co-founded a membership to help people write LinkedIn content?

This is why.

Because content problems are rarely content problems.

They’re usually positioning problems. Or messaging problems.

Not “I’m a bad writer” problems.

Let’s get real for a second.

👉🏻 No one cares how well you write. They care whether:

you understand them
you can solve their problem
they can trust you

That’s not about wordsmithing. That’s about strategy.

So while this may not be the smoothest segue 😅…

If you’re overthinking every word, spending too d@mn long on every post, and getting zero return?

📣 I can help.

That’s exactly what we do in Content Circle.

Yes, I want you to join for you.

But also? It’ll help me sleep better at night if you do—because the voice in my head will finally shut up. 😆

And in case you’re wondering, we’re a supportive bunch. We’ll tell you like it is, but always with love.

How was that for a sales pitch? 😂

Enrollment is open for 3 more days, or until spots are filled.

There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee. So honestly? Nothing to lose.

Just clarity, strategy, and a much smoother content process to gain.

You in?

🟡 https://contentcircle.org 


Just for fun: What’s the phrase that sends you into quiet professional rage because you know you could solve it?

If warm intros are the only thing converting, you don’t have a conversion advantage. You have a proximity advantage.

A warm intro comes with borrowed trust because someone else has already done part of the belief-building for you.

They convert easier.

And that works… until it doesn’t.

Because a referral doesn’t mean prospective buyers understand what you do or why they should choose you.

It doesn’t differentiate you. It just gets you in the room.

That’s when brands start chasing fixes like more content or better content buckets.

(You know… the stuff that feels productive even when it’s not.)

Most brands don’t have a content problem, but a clarity problem that their content is accidentally amplifying.

Your content will never fix unclear positioning; it will only expose it.

When you don’t know exactly where you fit in the market or what makes you the obvious choice, your content starts to sound like everyone else’s.

You’re being seen, but not understood.

And when someone doesn’t know you personally, they rely on your content to figure out whether you’re competent, credible, and aligned with what they need. 

Trust at a distance is how buyers learn how you think, what you stand for, and whether working with you is the right fit for what they need.

It’s how they decide if you’re the obvious choice before a conversation ever starts.

Referrals get you in the door. Your positioning and messaging show people why they should choose you once you’re there.

And your content builds the trust required for all the times when referrals don’t exist.

If your growth only works when someone else is talking about you, that isn’t a strategy. It’s luck.


Justin and I are talking about how to build trust with thought leadership content on Feb. 4th: https://lnkd.in/e4-BWuAh

There are 2 massive mistakes B2B brands make when it comes to their positioning.


1️⃣ Not doing competitor research. 

These are the 3 most common reasons I hear:

💬 We don’t have any competitors.

Hate to break it to you but um, yeah, you do. More on that below.

💬 We don’t want to sound like the competition.

Exactly! That’s why you need to know what they’re saying. Otherwise, how do you know you’re not saying the same thing?

💬 We already know what sets us apart from the competition. We hear it all the time in sales and discovery calls.

Think about that. People are telling you why they’re looking for someone new to help them. That means whoever they were working with it isn’t cutting it. 

You may be comparing yourself to subpar competition or the brand they needed for a prior stage of their business. 

2️⃣ Only looking at direct competitors 

Your biggest competition is usually not that. There are 3 indirect competitors who are actually a bigger threat.

- inaction (yep, sometimes it’s easier to do nothing about the problem)
- [redacted]
- [redacted]

Want to know what the other 2 are and what to do about them?

My subscribers will find out Tuesday. Join them here: https://lnkd.in/e63iKyrW

Is LinkedIn hard because you don’t know what to write… or because you rewrite the same post six times?

Our founding members joined from both places.

They’ve gone from:

“I don’t have all d@mn day to write posts”
→ “My posts are done for the week and scheduled!”

“I joined because I hate creating content for LinkedIn. I don’t know what to write about and it takes forever.”
→ “I’m actually enjoying writing my LinkedIn posts. 🤯”

“I post but nothing ever happens.”
→ “This is the most impressions I’ve ever had!”

“I have good intentions but never seem to get around to posting.”
→ “This is EXACTLY the support and accountability I needed.”

Yep, those are actual quotes from our members.

And yesterday, one told me someone said to her:

“You’ve really leveled up your LinkedIn game. I’m noticing a huge difference in the content you’re posting.”

That’s not about posting more.

It’s about having structure, direction, and support so posting doesn’t feel like a mental obstacle course.

If this sounds like where you are and where you want to be, today is the last day to enroll in Content Circle. 

Not sure it’s a fit?

You literally have nothing to lose.

We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. No hoops.

All we ask is that you fill out a short questionnaire so we understand why it didn’t work for you.

(We’ll have to create it though. No one’s actually asked for a refund.)

Inside, you get:

🟡 Live weekly writing + Q&A sessions with real-time feedback
🟡 Two strategic, guided prompts each week (not templates that make you sound like everyone else)
🟡 Member and guest expert workshops that go beyond “just post more”
🟡 Full access to our library of past workshops and resources

Plus the support and accountability that makes all of this actually work.

If you want your time back, want to feel confident posting, and want LinkedIn to stop feeling harder than it needs to be, you know what to do.

Be honest. If nothing changes, will LinkedIn magically get easier next month?

👉🏻 Grab your seat today: https://contentcircle.org



(Image snagged from Pinterest)

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Justyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan

Stacy Eleczko🔅

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The Battle

Justyna Ciecierska-Göçeryan

Stacy Eleczko🔅

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