By Lori Jones, President & CEO, Avocet Communications
Key Takeaways
- Strategy debt is the accumulation of reactive decisions that slowly erode brand clarity, positioning, and performance.
- High-growth teams often confuse momentum with meaningful progress and pay for it later.
- You can’t scale chaos. Quarterly strategy resets are not optional.
- Fixing strategy debt requires brave prioritization and asynchronous team alignment, not another brainstorm.
- Eliminating strategy debt unlocks creative confidence, brand consistency, and market clarity.
A common scenario in high-growth companies, especially in sectors like SaaS, goes something like this: revenue is climbing, headcount is expanding, and the marketing calendar is packed to the brim. On the surface, it looks like momentum. But underneath, there’s chaos. Messaging becomes fragmented. Teams chase every trending channel. Creative assets lack cohesion. Ask for a brand’s positioning statement, and you’ll receive multiple decks, each telling a slightly different story. It’s not that the team isn’t working hard , they’re just working without alignment.
This isn’t a performance issue. It’s strategy debt.
What Is Strategy Debt?
If you’re familiar with the term “technical debt” in software development, that pile of quick fixes and hacks that eventually crashes the system, then you’ll immediately understand its marketing cousin.
Strategy debt is what happens when speed outpaces clarity. It’s when your team keeps executing without pausing to ask, “Are we still building toward the same vision?”
It shows up as:
- Campaigns that “sound good” but don’t connect to positioning.
- Content that hits deadlines but misses the market.
- A creative team churning work with zero conviction.
- Slack channels full of urgent requests, but no clear ‘north star.’
- Brand guidelines no one believes in or even opens.
This isn’t just inefficiency. It’s misalignment. And it’s expensive.
The Hidden Cost of Strategy Debt
The real danger of strategy debt isn’t just waste; it’s the erosion of strategic identity. Every asset that doesn’t reinforce your point of view weakens it. Every launch without a throughline fractures your narrative. Every quarter you spend “being agile” without being intentional deepens the debt.
Eventually, your marketing becomes:
- Tactical instead of strategic
- Reactive instead of visionary
- Safe instead of magnetic
And worst of all, your team knows it. They feel the drift. They start to question the “why.” And when high-performing marketers lose belief, they disengage or leave.
How to Identify Strategy Debt in Your Org
Here are five diagnostic questions I use with clients to spot strategy debt:
- Does your team know the brand’s “one thing,” and say it the same way?
- Is your campaign roadmap aligned to your strategic objectives or your calendar?
- Can your creative team explain the brand’s core narrative without a brief?
- Are you saying “yes” to everything because you don’t know what to say “no” to?
- When was the last time you refactored your positioning, not just refreshed your homepage?
If you cringed at any of those, you’re not alone…and you’re not doomed. But it’s time to act.
The Cure: Asynchronous Clarity Resets
Fixing strategy debt doesn’t require an offsite with sticky notes and an outside facilitator (although those can help). What it really requires is asynchronous, committed reflection and the courage to slow down.
Here’s what we recommend at Avocet and what we practice ourselves:
1. Quarterly Strategic Refactors
Just like product teams refactor code, marketing teams must refactor messaging, positioning, and brand architecture. At least once a quarter, carve out time (and space) to ask:
- Is our narrative still differentiated?
- Have customer needs shifted?
- Are we anchoring our campaigns to insight or instinct?
This isn’t “set it and forget it,” it’s a living strategy sprint.
2. Implement a “Stop Doing” List
Growth doesn’t just mean adding, it means pruning. Create a culture where strategic subtraction is celebrated. If an initiative doesn’t ladder up to the strategy, it’s cut. No exceptions.
3. Codify the North Star
Your “one thing,” the core belief that sets your brand apart, must be codified, socialized, and evangelized across every function. If your interns and your CFO can’t say it, it’s not clear enough.
4. Commit to Creator Confidence
Strategy isn’t just for slide decks; it’s fuel for creators. When your writers, designers, and social leads know the “why,” they produce sharper, faster, more resonant work. Clarity is creative rocket fuel.
The Reckoning
Many marketing teams eventually hit a moment of reckoning. Growth feels exciting; new wins, new clients, new campaigns. But beneath the surface, strategy debt starts to creep in. The clarity that once guided decision-making begins to blur.
We’ve seen it across the industry; and yes, we’ve felt it at Avocet too.
The most effective teams pause. They reset. They realign around purpose, not just production. They shift the focus from outputs to outcomes, and the results speak volumes.
Campaigns gain traction. Creative gets bolder. Stakeholders notice the shift and respond. Because when you stop the spin, you start to hear the signal.
Final Thoughts: Clarity Is a Growth Strategy
Strategy debt doesn’t announce itself with alarms; it sneaks in through busy weeks, shifting priorities, and calendar chaos. But if left unchecked, it will stall your momentum and erode your edge.
The antidote? Clarity. Alignment. And the discipline to pause so you can speed up again, on purpose.
Questions to Consider
- What’s the strategic debt hiding in your marketing org right now?
- Are your teams aligned on what not to do?
- When was the last time you rewrote (not just recycled) your brand narrative?
- Do your creators have enough clarity to be bold?
- What would your Q4 look like if it was driven by intentional strategy, not just campaign cadence?
Ready to Eliminate Strategy Debt?
Let’s talk about how Avocet can help you build velocity and vision. Because real growth starts with the right strategy and the courage to clean house.
