T2D3 Certified Coach Playbook

Phase 1 Start Here

"In the next 4--6 weeks, you'll answer the most important questions in your business: Who's your customer? Why should they pick you? What do you say to them?"

Why Start with an Assessment

You wouldn't start optimizing code without profiling first. You wouldn't refactor an application without knowing where the bottlenecks are. A marketing assessment is your profiler — it tells you…

Marketing Audit Self-Assessment

In Section 1.1.1, you learned why assessment comes before action. Now you're going to do the assessment.

Reading Your Results

You just spent 45 minutes scoring your marketing across 15 dimensions. That scorecard is data. But data without interpretation is just numbers on a page.

Deep Dive: Discovery Interviews

Your self-assessment scorecard gives you one perspective on your marketing: yours. But you're not the only person in your company who talks to customers, hears objections, watches people use the…

Deep Dive: Collecting Materials

Before you build new marketing, take stock of what exists. Most SaaS founders have more marketing materials than they realize — they're just scattered across pitch decks, email threads, old landing…

Why Customer Definition Is Everything

Everything in marketing starts with one question: Who is your customer?

Market Segmentation

You can't win everywhere at once. Not with a small team, a limited budget, and a product that's still proving itself.

TAM / SAM / SOM

You just chose your beachhead segment in Section 1.2.2. Now you need to answer the question investors, co-founders, and your own planning spreadsheet will ask: how big is this opportunity?

Defining Your ICP

A precise description of the company most likely to buy your product and succeed with it — what marketers call an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) — is the foundation of every marketing decision you'll…

What Positioning Is

You've defined who your customer is. Now you need to answer a harder question: Why should they choose you?

Great-Better-Only Exercise

You know who your customer is. You know who your competitors are. But do you know — specifically, provably — what makes you different?

Positioning Vectors

You've identified what makes you unique — your ONLY column from the Great-Better-Only Canvas. Now you need to decide how to present that uniqueness to the market.

Writing Your Positioning Statement

From Positioning to Messaging

You've done the hard strategic work. You know who your customer is (your ICP). You know what makes you different (your positioning). Now comes the question every founder asks next: "What do I…

Pain-Claim-Gain Framework

Your positioning defines what makes you different. But positioning lives in your head. Your buyers don''t read positioning statements — they hear stories. And every effective story in B2B follows the…

Value Props by Persona

Your Pain-Claim-Gain statement is your core story. But here's the reality of B2B selling: you're never telling that story to just one person.

What Brand Means for B2B SaaS

Here's a sentence that makes most technical founders uncomfortable: Your company already has a brand. The question is whether it's intentional or accidental.

Your Brand Voice

Read these two sentences. Both describe the same product:

Visual Identity Essentials

You have a positioning statement. You have a brand voice. Now you need to make sure your company looks as consistent as it sounds.

Deep Dive: Naming & Renaming

This might be the shortest piece of strategic advice in the entire playbook, and it might be the most important. Name changes are expensive, disruptive, and risky. The bar for renaming should be…

Growth Matrix Exercise

You've built a product. You've defined your customer. You've established your positioning, messaging, and brand. Now comes the strategic question that shapes everything else: How are you going to…

Setting Your First OKRs

You've defined your growth priorities (Section 1.6.1). Now you need to turn those priorities into measurable goals -- goals that tell you whether you're on track, falling behind, or exceeding…

Deep Dive: Pre-PMF vs. Post-PMF

This section goes deeper into how your growth stage should shape your marketing strategy. Every decision you've made in this playbook so far -- your ICP, your positioning, your growth priorities,…

Phase Gate 1: Foundation Review

Section 1.G | Phase 1: Foundation | 30 min | Deliverable: Self-Assessment + Mentor Prep

Phase 1 Mentor Session Prep

Section 1.M | Phase 1: Foundation | 15 min | Deliverable: Completed Template T-1.12

Phase 2 Start Here

Before you dive into Phase 2, take five minutes to confirm your foundation is solid. You built a lot in Phase 1. Now it's time to make sure you remember what you built — and why.

What a Marketing Plan Is

You've spent Phase 1 defining who your customer is, what your positioning is, and what messages will resonate. Now you need to answer a practical question: What are you actually going to do?

Your Quarterly Marketing Plan

You now know who you're targeting, what you're saying, and what success looks like. But knowledge without a plan is just potential energy. A quarterly marketing plan converts your Phase 1 strategy…

Your First Marketing Budget

A budget isn't about having money to spend. It's about making deliberate decisions about where your limited resources go. Even if your marketing budget is literally $0, you still need a budget —…

Marketing Calendar

A marketing plan without a calendar is a wish list. The calendar is where strategy becomes action — specific activities assigned to specific dates with specific owners. Without it, marketing "happens…

Channel Distribution

You have a budget. You have a plan. Now: where do you actually spend?

Deep Dive: Marketing Forecasts

You can't manage what you can't measure, and you can't measure without knowing what you expected. A marketing forecast gives you the "expected" part. It turns marketing from "let's try stuff and see…

What You Need (and Don't)

The martech landscape has over 11,000 tools. If you Google "marketing tools for SaaS," you'll find listicles recommending 30+ products. You'll see ads for platforms that promise to "revolutionize…

CRM Selection & Configuration

Your CRM — what marketers call a "Customer Relationship Management" system — is the single most important tool in your marketing stack. It''s where every prospect, every deal, every customer…

Analytics & Tracking Setup

Your CRM tells you what happens after someone raises their hand. Analytics tells you what happens before — where visitors come from, what they look at, and where they drop off. Without analytics,…

Content Strategy

Every piece of content you create is a permanent asset. Unlike paid advertising — which stops working the moment you stop paying — content compounds. A blog post you write today can generate leads…

Content by Funnel Stage

You learned in Section 2.3.1 that every piece of content needs a job. Now you need to know which content types work best at each stage of the buying journey. Getting this wrong means spending weeks…

SEO Foundations

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In plain English: making your website show up when your potential customers search Google.

Demand Gen: A Decision Framework

You've built your content engine. You've set up your tools. Now the question becomes: How do you get your content in front of the right people?

Getting Started with Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is the fastest way to put your product in front of your ICP. While content and SEO compound over months, paid ads can generate clicks tomorrow. That speed is valuable — but it's also…

Email Marketing & Nurture Sequences

Email is the highest-ROI channel in marketing. Average return: $36 for every $1 spent. Not $36 in "brand awareness." $36 in actual, measurable revenue.

Why Alignment Matters

Companies with aligned sales and marketing teams grow 24% faster and 27% more profitably (Forrester/SiriusDecisions). Companies where these functions are misaligned waste 60-70% of the content…

Lifecycle Stage Definitions

When marketing says "we generated 50 qualified leads this month" and sales says "those leads were garbage," the problem isn't the leads. The problem is that nobody agreed on what "qualified" means.

Sales Enablement Kit

Marketing generates leads. Sales closes deals. But between "interested lead" and "signed contract" sits a gap — the gap where prospects ask questions, raise objections, compare options, and decide.…

Metrics That Matter

You can track 100 marketing metrics. You should focus on 5.

Building Your GTM Dashboard

A dashboard you don't look at is worse than no dashboard at all. It gives you the illusion of measurement without the reality.

Reading Your Numbers

A dashboard without a review process is decoration. It's a screen you glance at, feel vaguely informed, and close. That's not measurement. That's the illusion of measurement.

Deep Dive: Unit Economics

These numbers tell you whether your business model works. If your customer acquisition cost exceeds your customer lifetime value, you have a math problem, not a marketing problem. No amount of better…

Phase Gate 2: Build Review

Section 2.G | Phase 2: Build | 30 min | Deliverable: Self-Assessment + Mentor Prep

Phase 2 Mentor Session Prep

Section 2.M | Phase 2: Build | 15 min | Deliverable: Dashboard + Questions for Review

Phase 3 Start Here

You've built a lot. Before you optimize, take stock.

The Optimization Mindset

This requires a different mindset. In Phase 2, the question was "is anything working?" In Phase 3, the question is "what''s working best, and how do I get more of it while spending less?"

Channel Performance Analysis

You're spending money across multiple marketing channels. Some are working. Some aren't. And right now, you probably can't tell which is which with any precision.

Conversion Rate Optimization

You''re driving traffic to your website. Some of those visitors become leads. Some of those leads become customers. At every stage, people drop off.

Diversifying Your Channels

You've optimized your existing channels. You've cut the losers and doubled down on the winners. Now you're wondering: should I add new channels?

Deep Dive: A/B Testing at Scale

You've been running tests throughout this chapter — evaluating channels, optimizing conversion rates, testing new campaigns. But how do you know your test results are real?

What ABM Is (and When You Need It)

Up to now, your marketing has been one-to-many: create content, run campaigns, generate leads, and hope the right companies are in the mix. That works — and it's the right approach at your stage. But…

Minimum Viable ABM

You don't need a six-figure ABM platform to start account-based marketing. You need a spreadsheet, a clear ICP, and the discipline to focus on 50 companies instead of thousands.

ABM Campaign Design

A target list without a campaign is just a spreadsheet. The list tells you WHO to engage. The campaign tells you HOW.

Why Retention Is Your #1 Growth Lever

A 5% increase in customer retention increases profits by 25-95% (Bain & Company). Read that again. Not a 5% increase in revenue — a 5% increase in the percentage of customers who stay.

Measuring & Reducing Churn

You can't fix what you can't measure. And when it comes to churn — the rate at which customers stop paying you — most founders are measuring either the wrong thing, or nothing at all.

Customer Success Foundations

Customer Success is the single most misunderstood function in SaaS. Most founders think CS is just a fancier name for customer support. It's not. And confusing the two will cost you customers.

Pricing as a Growth Lever

Pricing is the most powerful growth lever most founders never pull.

The Feature Matrix Exercise

Most founders design pricing tiers by gut feel. They put "the basic stuff" in the starter plan and "the advanced stuff" in enterprise. But they can''t articulate why any specific feature lives in any…

Pricing Tiers & Packaging

Your pricing page is the most visited page on your site that nobody on your team owns. Most SaaS founders set up three tiers on day one and never touch them again. That's leaving money — and clarity…

When to Hire (and What Role First)

At some point, you can''t do this alone anymore. Your marketing plan has more tasks than hours. Channels need daily management. Content needs weekly publishing. Leads need timely follow-up. You''re…

The First Marketing Hire

Your first marketing hire is one of the highest-leverage decisions you''ll make. A great hire accelerates growth by months. A bad hire costs you 6-12 months of salary, the opportunity cost of work…

Agencies, Freelancers, or In-House?

Every marketing function in your company needs to be executed by someone. The question isn''t whether to do content marketing, demand gen, or design — it''s who does it. You have three options: hire…

Event Marketing Strategy

Events are one of the few marketing channels where you get face time with prospects. In B2B SaaS, a 30-minute conversation at a conference can do what three months of email nurture can''t. Events…

Partner & Channel Strategy

At some point, your own marketing channels hit a ceiling. You''ve optimized paid ads, built a content engine, and launched ABM campaigns. Growth continues, but the marginal effort for each new…

Analyst Relations & Industry Presence

At some point, prospects will google your company and expect to find more than your own website. They''ll look for third-party validation — analyst mentions, press coverage, founder thought…

Phase Gate 3: Scale Review

Section 3.G | Phase 3: Scale | 30 min | Deliverable: Self-Assessment + Growth Plan

Phase 3 Mentor Session Prep

Section 3.M | Phase 3: Scale | 15 min | Deliverable: Growth Metrics + Team Plan for Review

Glossary: Marketing in Plain English

How to use this glossary: This is your quick-reference guide to every marketing and growth term used in this playbook. Each definition is written for technical founders — no prior marketing knowledge…

Template Library

Your complete index of every template in the playbook. Each template ships in three versions: Blank (your working copy), Worked Example (a realistic reference), and Instructions (how to fill it out).

Case Study Library

Real-world (anonymized) examples of SaaS companies navigating the same GTM decisions you're facing. Each case study follows the SDOL format: Situation, Decision, Outcome, Lesson.

Assumptions Log

Every strategic decision you make in this playbook rests on assumptions. When you define your ICP, you assume certain buyers have the problem you solve. When you pick a channel, you assume your…

Decision Log

Every marketing strategy is a chain of decisions. Six months from now, you won't remember why you picked one ICP over another, why you allocated budget to content instead of paid ads, or why you…

Recommended Reading & Tools

You don''t need to read 20 books before you start marketing your SaaS product. In fact, that would be counterproductive. This is a curated list --- not a comprehensive one --- because what kills…

Coaching Philosophy: Mentoring ≠ Teaching

The T2D3 mentoring model is built on a fundamental principle: mentors evaluate, they don't re-explain.

Session Structure & Operations

Expert evaluation at Bloom's levels 4-5. Review the deliverable the founder prepared. Use the Quality Criteria cards for the specific deliverable.

Quality Criteria: ICP Document

Test: Can you use this ICP to build a targeted prospect list of 300-800 companies without subjective interpretation?

Quality Criteria: Positioning Statement

Test: Can a stranger read this and correctly describe what you do, who for, and why it matters?

Quality Criteria: Messaging Framework

Test: Do Pain → Claim → Gain connect logically? Could a salesperson use this for a differentiated first call?

Quality Criteria: Marketing Plan & Dashboard

Test: Could someone execute this plan without follow-up? Is it stage-appropriate, not aspirational?

Common Mistakes: Phase 1 Foundation

The #1 mistake. 'B2B SaaS companies' is a TAM, not an ICP. Push founders to narrow until they're uncomfortable. A good ICP excludes more companies than it includes. If they can't build a prospect…

Common Mistakes: Phase 2 & 3