Hey all,
Happy Sunday from NYC. It's operating plan szn💀🚀
The first time I built one, I was 24. I was running marketing at Citizen: $100M+ raised, one of the most popular consumer products of all time, and we were launching an enterprise product AND govtech. My COO was a Navy SEAL and CEO was a hardcore founder (aka “get it done or gtfo” vibes).
I learned how to build operating plans 1:1s with truly the best of the best.
It's an art form, so take my word for it.
Your operating plan is the truth of what's going on with the company. It totally sets the vibe.
It's the core responsibilities your entire company will own and execute next year, and it drives how bullish people get on what’s to come, internally and externally.
THE RULES
Ambitious but possible: Don't bullshit anyone. People know when it isn't ambitious enough, and people look up to those who set stupidly high goals and figure out how to meet them after.
Everything needs an owner: An operating plan without a direct owner gets a grade “F”
Track it correctly: If you're venture-backed, people want to see significant YoY growth. That's only possible if you track it correctly with owners. Data science usually owns making sure everything is trackable.
Get opinions from across the org, not just from execs: Eng, data, mktng, customer experience, product, etc. Everyone wants to be owners of their company trajectory, so give them the opportunity to feel it.
THE PRODUCT BET (aka the most important part)
If you build a dope operating plan, it’s already going to be hard to meet it and hit your growth. The make it or break it:
If the product bets are wrong, it's very challenging to come back from.
People need to already be retentive to your core product.
Still figuring out what that is? Then THAT is your product bet.
HOW TO BUILD YOUR PLAN
Step 1: Start with the company goal
Your core milestone should be a revenue goal, a % up from last year’s total YoY revenue and growth.
Step 2: Back into it
Take the budget you're allocated and back into how marketing hits its piece.
Step 3: Give every sub-goal an owner
This MUST be an individual person assigned to the goals. People need responsibility.
Step 4: Go through your org burn and line items
Headcount, tooling, token usage, prospective hires, big bets, events, etc. Reduce and redistribute org funds to fuel bets.
Step 5: Expect budget to shift
You'll get more, get less, get moved around and be expected to how the plan grows and evolves.
WHAT'S DIFFERENT IN 2027
Marketing is more technical AND more brand-heavy.
Hire technical. Hire for foundational technical skills and teach marketing or pair an amazing marketer with a technical person.
Brand is one of the biggest drivers of product differentiation rn.
Show personality. Every team online is showing off theirs! Who cares if it’s real. People are totally making internet personalities for their team members.
Make your brand LOUD. Not guady, but everywhere! There's so much capital out there that so much of marketing is replicable. Anyone funded can build similar ads, tools, and creators.
Understand brand vs. conversion. Know what a brand vs. conversion lever is, and the point where brand awareness starts driving conversions. If you're raising VC dollars, brand def means SO much to investors.
Why it matters: Products are cannibalizing each other. There's less product differentiation than I've ever seen. Making your company stand out/interesting is the intersection of marketing, brand, and product.
Give your ICP a stage. The biggest players in every category are giving their buyers a platform to grow on. Buyers want to feel important, and now they want their own platforms to grow. Think panels and conferences, but 10x over. Remember Profound from Pick Your Poison? Zero Click Summit, Profound University, a whole new job title. That's giving your buyers a stage and an ecosystem to stick to.
Show up IRL + online, in mass. The cool young startups are doing both. SideShift beer pong tournaments, startup founders posting every day. It’s a lot to do but table stakes at this point.
PROMPT AND GUT CHECK
Run your plan against this before it goes to the board:
Would your board call it soft?
Does every sub-goal have an owner?
Is there general team consensus and conviction on the main product bets?
Are people already retentive to your core product?
Where in your plan does your ICP get a stage?
👇Paste this prompt into Claude for a marketing operating plan slide👇:
Build me a one-slide 2027 marketing operating plan for a board deck, from a CMO's perspective. Use my numbers below. Where I leave something blank, calculate it from the other inputs and show your math in the speaker notes. Never invent numbers I didn't give you or that you can't calculate.
MY INPUTS
Company: [stage, B2B or B2C, what you sell]
Current ARR (or revenue/users): [$__]
2027 company goal: [$__ ARR / users / revenue] by [date]
What the goal unlocks: [fundraise, profitability, etc.]
Average contract value or revenue per customer: [$__]
Win rate from pipeline to closed (B2B only): [__%]
Total 2027 marketing budget: [$__]
Sub-goals (list each one):
[Channel or program] | Type: [scale OR bet] | Customers: [] | Budget: [$] | Hit by: [date] | Owner: [name]
(repeat for each)
Review date for each bet: [Q_]
SLIDE STRUCTURE (top to bottom)
Company goal banner: current number → goal number by date → what it unlocks.
Marketing goal banner: new customers → new revenue, and marketing's share of total company growth as a %.
Efficiency strip with 5 tiles: total budget, blended CAC, CAC payback in months, pipeline needed at my win rate, and "Next $500K buys ~X customers" (calculate using the CAC of my best channel that scales with capital).
Sub-goal table with columns: Type, Sub-goal, Customers, New revenue, Budget, CAC, By, Owner. Group "scale" rows first, then "bet" rows with their review date.
RULES
Every sub-goal has exactly one named owner and one date. If I left either blank, flag it.
Sub-goal customers and revenue must add up to the marketing goal. If they don't, tell me the gap.
Sub-goal budgets must add up to the total budget. If they don't, tell me the gap.
Keep it to one slide. No paragraphs, just numbers and short labels.
THEN
After the slide, break every sub-goal into Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 targets (customers, revenue, budget) in a table, with the same owner. Quarters must add up to the annual number.
WELL, HOW'D I DO?
Consider putting your operating plan into Claude as a project that your whole team has access to. Then each team member can receive specific updates about progress on their operating plan goals and stay accountable.
The plan is your bible that grows and evolves as reality shapes it. If your marketing team is not crushing it, product can balance it out, and vica versa.
If both have a bad quarter or multiple quarters, it’s a hard uphill battle that you don’t want to be in.
Have a great and productive week.
Julia
