If there’s one thing that’s certain in business right now, it’s uncertainty. The constant shifts in markets, policies, and global conditions are understandably paralyzing to business leaders and their teams.
But uncertainty doesn’t have to knock us entirely off course, and we certainly don’t need to live in a perpetual state of anxiety. While the current chaos is unprecedented in our lifetimes, most business leaders today are no strangers to economic turbulence.
In fact, I founded Realign Consulting during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Since then, we’ve helped small and mid-sized businesses navigate fluctuating economic waters with confidence and clarity, which is why I know sustainable business growth is still possible—and perhaps more necessary than ever—through a framework I call The Alignment Trinity™.
The Alignment Trinity™:
The Foundation of Resilience Marketing
With the right alignment and tools, I’ve seen businesses build a resilient marketing strategy that thrives even during economic downturns. Specifically, when we align our people, systems, and habits, we create the conditions for lasting success that serve us right now and well into the future.
(And, if you’re not convinced that your overall business success is closely tied to your marketing, find out how values-driven marketing fuels meaningful, sustainable growth.)
The basis for The Alignment Trinity™ is the three key sustainability factors I’ve observed after over 15 years of working with business leaders and their teams:
- People must be aligned because even the best marketing strategy fails without them.
- A clear system provides direction that even aligned people need.
- Daily habits determine whether any long-term vision becomes reality.
Only when these three elements work in harmony can we create community, impact, and profits simultaneously—the ultimate goal of resilience marketing. This article provides a roadmap for aligning your people, systems, and habits for a more sustainable path forward, no matter the current economic climate.
People Alignment: The Human Element of Resilience Marketing
When small businesses compete head-to-head with corporate giants in marketing, they mostly lose. We’ve all seen the “mom-and-pop” stores pushed out by shareholder-backed big-box companies. Many of these larger businesses are driven by keeping shareholders happy at all costs.
Small businesses win by doing what their larger competitors cannot or will not: focusing on all stakeholders.
Aligning your people for sustainable success requires knowing who your people are.
Your company’s stakeholders include everyone with a vested interest in your business: employees, customers, owners, vendors, and their families. This group also includes the community where your business operates and whose resources you use.
Business is about people. Organizations that serve only shareholders will always struggle to take a sustainable approach to marketing and growth.
By aligning with your people—your entire community of stakeholders—you can start building a foundation that will sustain your marketing efforts through even the most tumultuous economic times.
How do you do that? Start with these two tools.
People Alignment Tool #1: The "Which Means" Technique
This technique, often referred to in sales as “feature-benefit statements,” proves incredibly helpful when working with anxious team members or concerned contractors during uncertain times. Here’s how it works:
- Offer a solution, feature, or possible resolution: "Team, we can help our clients save thousands on advertising with a more strategic approach to their digital marketing spend..."
- Explain the benefit using a "which means" statement: "...which means they will save money to meet their new budget cuts without reworking their whole campaign strategy."
This might seem like a small connection, but explicitly expressing the likely outcome and what it means for stakeholders helps relieve anxiety and stress by closing the expectations loop. We often think benefits are obvious, but they’re not—especially during high-anxiety times.
These alignment tools combat confusion at every level of your marketing operation, from team meetings to client presentations. However, while aligned people can more easily create a cohesive plan to move forward together, without clear marketing systems, even the most cohesive team will struggle.
People Alignment Tool #2: Heart-Focused Breathing
In our work with teams in conflict or high-anxiety groups, we often begin with this intentional pause. Based on HeartMath research and the work of long-time friend and colleague Stephanie Veraghen, this practice grounds you before tackling difficult conversations.
Right now, this pause is critical. We need to be deeply grounded in order to (as Stephanie would say) show up awesome for our people. Taking even 60 seconds to center yourself before a challenging conversation can transform the outcome—whether you’re discussing budget cuts to your marketing spend or pivoting your entire communications strategy.
Systems Alignment: Charting Your Course Through Marketing Chaos
Let’s be honest—the marketing goals and assumptions we began the year with are likely irrelevant or totally forgotten by now. That’s normal in times of heightened uncertainty. Even so, it’s critical to stop and reassess so we’re moving forward from a place of grounded strength rather than reactive anxiety.
Use the tools below to align your systems to better serve where you are right now.
Systems Alignment Tool #1: Cashflow-First Marketing
In very uncertain times, cash flow is more important than the overall sales number or growth. Before making any marketing decisions, reassess your current situation: How liquid are you?
Consider these critical questions for your marketing efforts:
- Can we reassess payment terms with vendors or clients?
- Should we change our debt paydown strategy?
- What is our cash on hand?
- Are there high-margin products/services we can double down on?
What shifts become apparent if you look at your marketing and business strategy from a cashflow-first perspective? If your industry is…
- Home services, consider focusing less on new construction and more on service work campaigns.
- Consultant work, consider focusing less on high-skill production and more on coaching and training.
- Product/Retail, consider assessing the highest margin products and trimming marketing for low performers.
This is the time to hold on to cash in smart ways, both for protection and possibility—because there will always be interesting marketing and business opportunities in times like these for those who are not so overleveraged that they cannot engage with them.
Aligning for cash flow over sales in your marketing systems is THE FIRST UNLOCK for most of our strategic planning and coaching clients to gain sustainability in their business model.
Systems Alignment Tool #2: Facilitated Strategic Planning Sessions
The second tool is more comprehensive: a full or half-day facilitated pause to realign your entire marketing and business systems. Specifically, our Do Better Business™ Strategy Retreats.
During our strategic planning sessions, we…
- Bring your team together, ideally in person
- Recap what's changed for your specific company since January 2025
- Lay out a framework for fast-moving decision making and reassessment that meets this moment
These sessions help establish…
- Clarity on the non-negotiables (i.e., values-alignment, bottom-line growth, or marketing goals)
- What's not going to happen (i.e., what marketing initiatives it's time to let go of, at least for now)
- What new opportunities are available (because your business still has something to offer your community)
Facilitated sessions like these can help you realign with your people, reset priorities, and develop concrete next steps—but true resilience requires one more element for sustainability.
Habits Alignment: Daily Actions That Build Marketing Resilience
The small things we do every day sustain our marketing efforts even when big things try to get in the way.
Habits are challenging enough for individuals to establish and maintain. They’re even more difficult to instill at the organizational level—difficult, but not impossible, because the payoff is worth it.
With consistent habits, everything in your marketing becomes exponentially easier. Focusing on habits alignment allows us to put certain marketing activities on autopilot, freeing our minds for the big-picture thinking required in tumultuous times.
The Most Important Habits to Realign When Times Are Tough...
When uncertainty abounds, one area in your business deserves particular attention: sales and marketing habits. Why? Because sales can cure everything.
The keyword here is CAN. Sales alone won’t solve all your problems. As we discussed earlier, sales without attention to margins and cash flow can actually create problems. However, when appropriately managed, sales generate the cash that unlocks solutions to many business and marketing issues.
The 3 Sales & Marketing Habits that Make Everything Else Easier
Track Your Team's Daily and Weekly Sales Activities
It always surprises me how few business owners closely track sales and sales activities. This habit is critical when times require extra marketing effort.
Why? Because what gets managed gets noticed. What gets noticed gets the follow-through.
When times are chaotic or confusing, it’s easy for prospects and referral partners to prioritize other things, waffle on decisions, or forget about the opportunity of working with you. It’s up to you and your team to stay engaged and relevant. Not to mention, if we know on the 10th of the month that we’re behind where we need to be, it’s still possible to do something to catch up.
Daily or weekly tracking takes courage. It means not hiding from the reality of what is right now. And, it’s the key to staying in alignment when the world is shifting fast.
Commit to Logging 100 Points Each Week on the VIP Scorecard
Referrals will save you (yes, I said it). When times are tight, the company with the strongest referral network wins, and focusing on existing customers becomes essential.
Curating a strong referral network takes time and attention. So, it can be the first thing to slip when day-to-day sales seem hard—unless you’ve established habits that keep your referral marketing easeful and top-of-mind.
Like an impactful exercise routine, the VIP Scorecard scoring tool helps you stay accountable. Each activity contributes to building a network that will sustain you when traditional marketing channels falter.
Aim for 100 points weekly. It’s a habit that compounds in value over time, creating a safety net of relationships that matter—a key component of resilient marketing during economic downturns.
Set Up for Tomorrow Before Signing Off Today
You might be wondering why this is a sales technique, but I am 100% committed after over 20 years of sales experience as a sales manager, trainer, and selling myself.
Here’s why: Sales and marketing activities are hard. They require courage and a willingness to feel rejected. So, most of us spend a good portion of each morning avoiding the sales stuff with the busy work we label “preparation.”
But you can trick your brain into getting to it faster each day. How? By completing the busy work at the end of the day, when you’re not so fresh for big tasks anyway. Then, stage your next day’s most important marketing tasks before signing off.
That could look like…
- Opening the first client follow-up window on your CRM on your laptop so it's staring you in the face when you unlock your screen...
- Laying a thank you card with a stamped envelope on your keyboard so you can write that note to an existing customer first thing...
- Loading the prospect route on your GPS and reviewing tomorrow's scheduled meetings at the end of the day so you can get in the truck and press "Go"...
The most critical marketing activities look different for different businesses and position types, but whatever yours are, trick your brain into clearing them as early as you can each day.
The Power of Full Alignment in Resilience Marketing
When these three elements—people, systems, and habits—work in harmony, magic happens. Your business becomes capable of weathering storms that would capsize your competitors.
Consider these scenarios that illustrate what happens when one of these key elements is missing:
- Strong people and habits but weak systems: Your marketing team works hard and executes consistently, but efforts are scattered and inefficient.
- Strong systems and habits but weak people alignment: Your marketing processes are sound, and execution is disciplined, but resistance and miscommunication create friction.
- Strong people and systems but weak habits: Everyone understands and believes in the marketing systems, but daily distractions prevent meaningful progress.
True resilience in marketing—and your business—requires all three elements working together.
Building Your Resilient Marketing Foundation
In times of economic uncertainty, The Alignment Trinity™ isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential for building a truly resilient marketing strategy. When you align your people through deep connections with stakeholders, implement effective systems with a cashflow-first approach, and establish consistent daily habits that drive results, you create a marketing foundation that doesn’t just survive uncertainty—it thrives in it.
Remember, in resilience marketing, success doesn’t go to the strongest or smartest—it goes to those who effectively align their people, systems, and habits.
Ready to weather any storm? Start by assessing your current alignment, identifying your gaps, and taking concrete steps to close them. Your business will thank you.
Partner with us
Design Your Personalized Resilient Marketing Framework
Don’t navigate these uncertain times alone. Our Do Better Business™ Strategic Planning Sessions are designed to help you integrate all three elements of The Alignment Trinity™ in a structured, facilitated environment specifically tailored to your marketing and business challenges. We’ll help you create a concrete action plan that builds true resilience into your company.
Schedule a call today to find out if we’re a good fit for you and your team!
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