Summary

Growth adds complexity across markets, teams and decisions. What was clear can tangle in shifting priorities. The answer isn’t doing more; it’s a 90‑day decision lens, with leading metrics for alignment, execution and external proof. When everyone sees the same picture, decisions move faster and the pipeline steadies.

→ Watch more videos in this playlist on YouTube

Our Perspective

What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.

Context Sets Return

Leaders ask for the return on investment (ROI) of brand as if it were a single number. It isn’t. In the first 90 days, what matters is whether brand creates the conditions for revenue to arrive predictably later: shared choices, coherent execution, and signals that the market is starting to believe you. LinkedIn notes that roughly 45% of business-to-business budgets now back longer-term brand building, reflecting guidance that brand and activation work best when balanced. In our experience with growth-stage leadership teams, the quickest commercial lift comes when the strategy is made operable inside the organisation before it’s amplified outside.

Signals Of Clarity

Start by proving the strategy is understood and used. These are simple, leading indicators that remove ambiguity and reduce rework. They won’t appear in a dashboard by magic; you instrument them.

• Alignment score across the leadership team ≥80% on positioning and priorities.
• Decision speed improving for proposals tied to the brand strategy.
• Priority spend share flowing to the top two or three strategic bets.

If those three trend up together, you’ve converted positioning from language into choices, which is the foundation for any later revenue effect.

Execution You Can See

Next, verify that teams use the brand to make better moves, week in, week out. Keep the checks light and regular; the point is pattern-spotting, not auditing.

• Message adherence in campaigns and calls; sample ten sales conversations weekly.
• Enablement completion for new narratives, tools and talk tracks.
• Qualified meetings by stage-fit; tag movement reasons by message fit, not only product need.

What you’re looking for is steadier progress through early pipeline stages and fewer defaults to generic messaging under pressure. Trend, not perfection, is the signal.

External Proof Builds

Finally, look for early-market validation. The first quarter won’t deliver full-funnel transformation, but it should surface small, compounding signals that confidence is rising.

• Branded search and direct visits edging up by 5–10%.
• Reply rates and meeting acceptance improving on the new narrative.
• Stage-to-stage conversion lifting and fewer price objections in proposals.

These are modest, but they’re leading indicators of pricing power, partner confidence and talent interest. Treat them as waypoints that de-risk bigger brand and demand investments in the following quarters.

When 90-day metrics link clarity, execution and external proof, brand stops being a belief system and becomes a management system—one that turns strategy into momentum that compounds beyond the quarter.

Sources:

• The key principles of marketing growth — LinkedIn

Further Resources

1. Understanding Brand ROI: Balancing Leading and Lagging Metrics
2. Brand’s Role in Driving Strategic ROI
3. Maximising Brand ROI Through Strategic Positioning

Curious how this applies in your market? We’re speaking with leaders across industries every week. Let’s talk.

Back to top