I watched a brilliant messaging framework die in a Google Doc because we tried to develop it "the right way."
We followed the best practices. We did customer research first. We workshopped positioning statements. We created a messaging hierarchy with primary value props, supporting benefits, and proof points all neatly organized in a table.
The document was beautiful. It had 47 comments from stakeholders. Everyone had approved it. We'd spent six weeks developing it.
Nobody used it.
Sales kept pitching the old way because they didn't understand the new messaging. Marketing wrote launch copy that completely ignored the framework because it "didn't sound like us." Product complained that the positioning didn't reflect what we actually built.
The messaging was perfect. The process was broken.
I've since learned that the "4-week messaging development timeline" everyone talks about is fiction. Real messaging development is chaos. It's iteration disguised as process. It's managing stakeholder opinions that directly contradict each other. It's rewriting the same value prop seven times because someone finally read it carefully and realized it makes no sense.
The teams that ship great messaging don't follow a cleaner process—they just know how to navigate the mess without getting stuck.
Week 1: Research That Actually Matters (Not the Research You Think)
Most messaging projects start with customer research. You interview 15 customers, synthesize insights, identify pain points, and build messaging around what customers said they care about.
This is exactly backwards.
I spent the first week of a messaging project doing exactly this. I interviewed customers. I asked them what they valued about our product. I compiled their language into themes. I built messaging using their actual words.
When we tested it with prospects, it fell completely flat. The messaging was accurate but had zero punch. It sounded like every other vendor in our category.
The problem: customers are terrible at articulating why they bought you. They give you post-rationalized explanations that sound reasonable but miss the emotional truth of why they actually made the decision.
I learned this by accident during a win/loss interview where I asked a different question. Instead of "Why did you choose us?" I asked: "Walk me through the moment you decided the status quo wasn't working anymore."
The customer told me a story about a board meeting where the CEO asked for a metric they couldn't produce. They described the panic. The scrambling. The realization that their current approach was embarrassing them in front of leadership.
That story became our opening hook: "The moment your CEO asks for a number you can't produce, everything changes." It resonated because it captured the emotional trigger that creates urgency, not the rational benefits they evaluated later.
Week 1 isn't about interviewing customers to collect feature preferences. It's about finding the trigger moments that make your solution urgent. Talk to recent customers and ask them about the moment they realized they had to change. Record those stories. The emotional truth lives there, not in their post-purchase rationalization.
I also learned to interview internal teams during week 1—not to get their opinion on messaging (that comes later), but to understand the political landscape. Who will fight you on positioning? Which stakeholder believes the product does something it doesn't? What's the one phrase the CEO uses that everyone else hates?
Knowing this upfront lets you navigate the chaos instead of being surprised by it.
Week 2: The Draft Nobody Likes (And Why That's Good)
Week 2 is when you write the messaging framework. And here's the uncomfortable truth: your first draft will be terrible and everyone will hate it.
This is exactly what should happen.
I used to spend week 2 trying to craft the perfect messaging framework. I'd write and rewrite. I'd polish every word. I'd make sure it was defensible before I showed it to anyone.
Then I'd share it with stakeholders and watch it get torn apart. Product would say it doesn't reflect the roadmap. Sales would say it's not how they talk to customers. The CEO would say it's missing the vision.
I'd gotten the sequence wrong. I was trying to create perfect messaging before I understood what stakeholders actually cared about. I was solving for elegance instead of alignment.
Now I intentionally write a rough draft in week 2 knowing it will be controversial. The point isn't to get it right—it's to surface the disagreements that have been lurking underneath every conversation about positioning.
I worked on messaging for a product where Product and Sales had fundamentally different views of what we sold. Product thought we sold workflow automation. Sales thought we sold compliance risk reduction. Both were right, but those are different categories with different messaging.
That disagreement had existed for months, but nobody had forced the conversation. When I wrote a draft positioning statement that said "workflow automation platform," Sales exploded. When I rewrote it to say "compliance risk management," Product lost their minds.
Perfect. Now we could actually have the conversation about what we were building and who we were selling to instead of pretending those decisions were already made.
Week 2 is about creating a forcing function. Write positioning that takes a stand. Make it provocative enough that people have to respond. The disagreements you surface are more valuable than the messaging you write.
The other thing that happens in week 2: you realize your value props are generic. Every first draft I've written includes value props like "increase efficiency" or "reduce risk" or "improve visibility." These are placeholder phrases that sound good but mean nothing.
I know they're generic, but I write them anyway because I need something on the page to react to. Then I schedule working sessions with Sales and CS to pressure-test them.
I ask: "If we say 'increase efficiency,' what does that actually mean for a customer? Give me a specific example."
They'll tell me a story about a customer who reduced month-end close from 10 days to 3 days. That becomes the value prop: "Close your books in 3 days instead of 10." Specific. Measurable. Different.
This process is messy. You'll write bad messaging and watch people explain why it's wrong. But their explanations contain the insights you need to make it right.
Week 3: The Rewrite Where Everything Changes
Week 3 is when most messaging projects fall apart or suddenly come together. You've collected feedback. You've uncovered disagreements. Now you have to make decisions.
This is where strong opinions become essential.
I worked on a messaging project where we'd collected feedback from 12 stakeholders. We had 87 comments on the messaging doc. Many of them directly contradicted each other.
Product wanted us to lead with AI capabilities. Sales wanted us to lead with ROI. Marketing wanted us to lead with category disruption. The CEO wanted us to lead with the vision.
If I tried to incorporate all the feedback, the messaging would become a Frankenstein monster that satisfied nobody and resonated with nobody.
I had to make a decision: who is right?
Here's what I learned: nobody is fully right, but someone's perspective matters more for the goal you're trying to achieve.
If you're messaging for a product launch to existing customers, Product's perspective matters most because you're explaining capabilities to people who already understand the category.
If you're messaging for new customer acquisition, Sales' perspective matters most because they talk to prospects every day and know what resonates.
If you're messaging for analyst relations or fundraising, the CEO's vision matters most because that's the audience for those conversations.
We were messaging for new customer acquisition. I rewrote the messaging to lead with ROI and customer outcomes, not AI capabilities or category disruption. Product and Marketing were annoyed. Sales was thrilled. Win rates improved 12% in the next quarter.
The rewrite also forced me to kill my darlings—the clever phrases I'd fallen in love with that didn't actually work.
I'd written a tagline I thought was brilliant: "Make uncertainty measurable." I loved it. It was punchy. It sounded smart.
When I tested it with customers, three out of five asked me what it meant. Not because they were dumb—because it was vague. I was optimizing for cleverness instead of clarity.
I rewrote it to: "Turn market signals into revenue decisions." Less clever. Way more clear. Customers immediately understood what we did.
Week 3 is when you stop trying to make everyone happy and start making decisions based on what will actually work in market. This requires confidence and data. Test your messaging with real customers, not just internal stakeholders. Their confusion or clarity tells you everything.
Week 4: The Polish That Actually Matters
Most people think week 4 is about wordsmithing. It's not. It's about adoption planning.
Perfect messaging that nobody uses is worthless. Week 4 is when you figure out how to get Sales to actually say these words, how to get Marketing to use this framework, how to get Product to stop contradicting your positioning in release notes.
I learned this the hard way when I shipped messaging that Product Marketing loved and Sales ignored. I'd spent four weeks developing it. I'd gotten executive approval. I'd created a beautiful slide deck explaining the framework.
Sales took one look at the deck and went back to pitching the old way. Why? Because the new messaging required them to lead with a pain point they weren't comfortable diagnosing. The old messaging let them lead with features, which felt safer.
The messaging was better. But I hadn't done the work to make it adoptable.
Now I spend week 4 building adoption infrastructure:
Sales call scripts that show exactly how to use the messaging. Not a 30-page deck explaining the framework—a one-pager with the opening question, the transition to pain, and the value prop delivery. Something they can use tomorrow.
Email templates that make the messaging copy-paste easy. Sales will use your messaging if it's easier than writing their own. Give them templates for every stage of the funnel.
Launch copy that demonstrates the messaging in action. Marketing needs to see how the framework translates into actual webpage copy, not just understand the framework conceptually.
Talking points for executives. If the CEO keeps describing the product differently than your messaging, Sales will follow the CEO, not your framework. Get executive talking points aligned.
I also learned to build feedback loops into week 4. I schedule a 30-day check-in before the messaging is even finalized. I tell stakeholders: "We'll ship this, run it for a month, and adjust based on what we learn."
This does two things. First, it reduces stakeholder anxiety about getting it perfect upfront. If they know we'll iterate, they're more willing to ship something good instead of holding out for perfection.
Second, it acknowledges the truth: you won't get messaging right on the first try. Customer language evolves. Competitive dynamics shift. New features change positioning. Messaging is never finished.
The teams that ship great messaging treat it as a living framework, not a finalized document.
The Chaos You Can't Plan For
Even with a plan, messaging development will surprise you.
The executive who approves messaging in week 3 and contradicts it in week 4. This happens constantly. They approved it conceptually but didn't imagine what it would sound like in practice. When they see the launch email, they panic.
Solution: Show them finished assets during approval, not just frameworks. "Here's what the webpage will say. Here's what the pitch deck will sound like." Get approval on execution, not just strategy.
The competitor who launches messaging eerily similar to yours right before you ship. I've had this happen twice. You spend a month developing differentiated positioning, and three days before launch, your main competitor ships a campaign using nearly identical language.
Solution: Have a backup positioning angle ready. Don't panic and rewrite everything—but be prepared to emphasize a different aspect of your value prop if the market suddenly gets crowded.
The customer quote that undermines your messaging. You build messaging around "speed and efficiency," then your best customer case study talks about how they chose you for "comprehensive capabilities" and doesn't mention speed once.
Solution: Interview customers specifically for messaging validation during week 3. Don't rely on existing case studies—get new quotes that reinforce the positioning you're building.
The sales leader who says the messaging is "too complicated" without offering alternatives. This is code for "I don't understand it" or "I don't want to change how we sell."
Solution: Ask them to describe how they'd pitch it. Record their answer. Pull the best parts into the messaging. They'll adopt messaging they helped create.
What Actually Ships
After four weeks, you won't have perfect messaging. You'll have messaging that's good enough to ship and a plan to make it better.
The document will have rough edges. Some value props will still feel generic. The competitive differentiation will need strengthening. That's fine.
What matters is whether the messaging:
- Leads with a customer problem, not your solution
- Uses language customers actually say, not vendor jargon
- Gives Sales a clear path from opening question to value prop
- Differentiates you from alternatives in a way prospects can verify
- Gets stakeholder buy-in from the people who have to use it
If you have those five things, ship it. You'll learn more in one month of using it in market than in another two weeks of internal wordsmithing.
I used to think great messaging came from brilliant insights during research. Now I know it comes from shipping decent messaging and iterating based on what resonates.
The 4-week timeline isn't about perfection—it's about moving fast enough that stakeholders stay engaged and slow enough that you build something that actually works.
The chaos never disappears. You just get better at navigating it.