Over the past month, I’ve walked you through why conversion breaks down.

We started with the fundamentals: clarity, credibility, and consistency—the three pillars that determine whether your message compounds or collapses. You learned that marketing can’t fix what unclear communication breaks.

Then I showed you the $50K mistake: spending money on tactics—copywriters, designers, agencies—when what you actually need is to make a strategic decision. I explained why founders shop for solutions instead of committing to positioning.

We talked about why the funnel is exhausting. Why it feels like you’re pushing water uphill. Why even when you “do everything right,” nothing seems to stick. I introduced you to the flywheel—the alternative model where communication compounds instead of depletes.

Then I showed you what happens when you treat communications as a bolt-on instead of integrating it from the beginning. How reactive communication destabilizes your team, lengthens your sales cycles, and keeps you trapped in a cycle of constant explanation.

But there’s one piece missing.

You can have clarity. You can make the strategic decision. You can shift from funnel to flywheel thinking. You can integrate communications into your planning.

And you can still launch to crickets if you don’t plan your entrance.

The Undiagnosable Flop

I watched a client sit across from me on Zoom, face in her hands, trying to explain why their launch flopped.

“We did everything right,” she said. “We posted everywhere. We emailed the list. We had the ads running. We had the webinar scheduled. Everything was there.”

I asked her one question: “Where were you?”

She looked up, confused.

“I was everywhere. That’s what I’m saying. I was posting on LinkedIn, Instagram, sending emails, doing Stories—”

“No,” I said. “Where were you actually present?”

Silence.

That’s when I knew. She hadn’t planned her entrance into the flywheel. She’d just launched at it, used her team, AI written content, pre-batched and pre-scheduled posts and hoped centrifugal force would carry her message through.

It didn’t.

And now she was sitting in that terrible place every founder knows—the place where you can’t diagnose why something that should have worked didn’t. Where the only explanations available are either “we’re going to have to give this away for free” or “we’re going to have to fake the results so it doesn’t look like we failed.”

There’s a particular kind of failure that hurts more than others. It’s not the one where you tried something experimental and it didn’t work. It’s not the one where you knew you were taking a risk and it didn’t pan out.

It’s the one where you did what you thought you were supposed to do—and nothing happened.

You followed the playbook. You checked all the boxes. You showed up everywhere you were told to show up. And when you launched, you got crickets.

No one registered. No one bought. No one even asked questions.

And the worst part? You can’t figure out why.

This is the undiagnosable flop. And it cascades. (Mainly because you didn’t ask enough questions or have three clear plans… more on that in a minute).

Before we get to that, let’s look at the spiral that ensues after a ‘failed launch’. (I know, I know – nothing is a failure… so perhaps we should say a launch that didn’t hit expectations)…

First comes the financial setback. You set a revenue goal and didn’t hit it. That’s measurable, painful, but recoverable.

Then comes the psychological setback. “We set a goal and we didn’t hit it” becomes “nobody cares about us.” Self-doubt creeps in. You start questioning everything—your offer, your message, your entire positioning. Maybe you’re not as good as you thought. Maybe the market doesn’t want what you’re selling. Maybe you should pivot. By the way, this is the hidden weight founders carry that no one talks about and overtime, this is crippling.

Then comes the recovery time, if you’re able to rationalize and release the first two.

You need to evaluate: how long does it take you to bounce back? A week? A month? Six months? Some founders never do. They just keep launching different things, hoping something sticks, never understanding what went wrong in the first place.

But here’s the truth: launching to crickets doesn’t mean nobody cares about you.

It means you didn’t build the ramp in the right place, with the right people, at the right time.

You didn’t plan your entrance – and have three plans in place.

What Planning Your Entrance Actually Means

Most people think “showing up” means being visible. Posting. Publishing. Broadcasting.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

Planning your entrance into the flywheel means making four deliberate decisions about where and how you’ll engage—and more importantly, where you won’t. Running through these four decisions will inevitably allow you to land on your three-part plan… the plan that will protect your finances, protect your psyche and improve your resilience.

Decision 1:

Deciding Which Channels You Own vs. Which Your Team Owns

Some channels you might own completely—you’re the voice, the face, the energy. Some your team might own entirely—they’re managing the platform, creating the content, engaging with the audience. And some you might share, where you show up occasionally but your team maintains the presence.

The question isn’t just “who does what.” It’s “to what degree, and why?”

This becomes a risk management conversation. Not scary risk—mitigation and management risk. What happens if you’re the tip of the spear on a launch but you’re absent for two months leading into it? How does your communication contribute in your absence? What systems need to exist so the momentum doesn’t collapse when you step away?

Decision 2: Understanding Where You Have the Most Energy

This is about attunement. Where do you actually want to show up?

Some leaders genuinely enjoy showing up organically on social media. It’s not onerous for them—it’s energizing. Others find it draining. Neither is wrong. But if you’re going to show up a lot somewhere, that energy needs to be focused properly, not diluted across five platforms you resent being on.

Map your expectations to your energy level. If being present on LinkedIn feels natural, lean in. If Instagram feels performative, don’t force it. The flywheel only works when your presence is genuine, not obligatory.

Decision 3: Mapping Where Your Audience Expects to Find You—and Where They’re Actually Receptive

This is more nuanced than most people realize.

It’s not just about where your audience is. It’s about where they are when they’re receiving your message.

Example: Instagram and Facebook are great for promoting podcasts. They’re terrible for getting people to actually listen to podcasts. Too much friction. Click the link. Open the app. Maybe download the app. Click play. Most people don’t complete that journey.

But LinkedIn? People are already in work mode. They’re more likely to click through and engage with long-form content.

This is a multi-layered consideration. Where is your audience? What is their intent when they’re there? What action are you asking them to take? How much friction is involved?

Decision 4: Choosing One or Two Places to Be Deeply Present

Deep presence doesn’t mean always-on. It doesn’t mean you’re posting every day or hosting live sessions every week.

It means there’s one or two avenues where your values are accessible in the most unbarred way. Where people get to feel you, not just receive a message from you.

This could be:

• A quarterly town hall with your clients
• A speaking engagement at an industry event
• A monthly newsletter where you actually reflect on what’s happening in your business
• An annual retreat you host

Notice what these have in common: they sit above the sales and KPI expectation.

Now you’re ready to actually hammer out the true flywheel based plan – and yes, it comes as an added layer of questions.

Plan for All Outcomes

When you’re planning a launch, you need to ask three sets of questions:

Good, better, best:

• What’s the benchmark going in?
• What can we expect?
• What would be excellent?
• What would be over-the-top amazing?

What if this works better than expected?

• What additional communications are needed?
• Does it change delivery? Capacity?
• Sometimes extreme success opens up new expectations—are you ready for that?
• Where can we automate and scale next time?

This gets fun. You start asking strategic growth questions instead of scrambling to manage unexpected demand.

What if we fail?

• Where can we fail?
• If we don’t do this, what happens?
• If we don’t say this, what will they think or feel?
• You need communications plotted out for each eventuality.

Real example: I launched a test program once. Told everyone it was a test. Didn’t sell as anticipated. But I had contingency ready: “Here are your options: A, B, or C—one of which is a full refund.”

No financial spiral. No panic. No psychological collapse.

Because I’d planned for the possibility that it wouldn’t work the way I thought. You end up with a set of well thought out contingencies that all have merit and a distinct set of KPIs that let you adjust and shift your flywheel for the next entrance.

What Changes When You Do This

You stop burning out.

You stop feeling like you’re shouting into the void.

You stop launching to crickets and wondering what’s wrong with you.

Instead, you build deep presence in the places that matter. You show up with intention. You invite with confidence. You plan for all outcomes. You maintain psychological safety.

And your communication becomes a system that compounds.

The Invitation

This is how I work.

I help leaders map their entrance into the flywheel. Where to show up. How to build the ramp. How to plan for all outcomes—good, better, best, and flop. How to create deep presence without burning out. How to make communications a system, not a scramble.

If you want my eyes on your funnel, your communications, your brand essence, your launch plan—if you want to stop reacting and start building momentum—reach out.

DM me. Let’s work together.

I don’t bullshit. I see what others can’t see. And I help you build communication as infrastructure.

Because the truth is this: you don’t have to be everywhere.

You just have to be present where it counts.