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I have a Deeply Feeling Kid (DFK).
They’re good kids who just have a hard time with their emotions. So a small thing like Legos not snapping, or unexpected meat in the soup for dinner, can spiral into a 30-minute meltdown (maybe you know what I mean?).
For a while, I didn’t get it. For, like, many years. I assumed I knew what to do.
My daughter? Totally different. I was parenting him the same way as I would parent her. I spoke the wrong language, it didn’t resonate, and it didn’t work. It came to a point where he would have meltdowns every single day. Everyone was very frustrated.
Then, I learned what was actually going on (through an app called Good Inside if you're interested). And once I understood him better (his needs, triggers, desire for autonomy) that's when everything flipped.
I could finally say the right words and take the right actions. He listened. We connected. After just a few days, I could already see how things were changing.
And so here’s the point: this is exactly what happens in marketing.
True, your prospects aren’t throwing tantrums (thankfully) but if you don’t understand them as whole people (their frustrations, desires, fears, aspirations, workarounds) then you’re speaking the wrong language. They won’t connect, they won’t listen, and they certainly won’t care.
That’s why I created the Customer Insights Roadmap, a 4-phase process that helps founders and their marketing and sales teams understand their customers deeply, translate those insights into clear and compelling positioning and messaging, and then scale growth in a way that works for your specific target buyer.
It’s the exact process I take my clients through (3, 6, 9 months+) and it all starts with the hard work: real conversations with your customers.
We run this program and it's not uncommon to see faster sales cycles and even 4X closed won deals.
Most companies think they know their customers. They assume they know the problem. They assume they know how to talk about it. They assume they know why people buy.
But here’s the truth: your lens is skewed.
You’re too close to the product, too deep in your own beliefs. And you’re not building the company for you — you’re building it for others. Right?
Unlike typical marketing strategies that start with assumptions or competitor research, this roadmap starts with the hardest work: 45-90-minute conversations with your actual customers. Not surveys. Not chatbots. Real human-to-human conversations that uncover the insights your competitors are missing.
The result? My clients increase inbounds to demos, see faster sales cycles, and see 4X more closed-won deals. Not because we're better at the tactics, but because we're finally speaking their customers' actual language.
The Customer Insights Roadmap is a proven 4-phase process that takes you from:
Let me walk you through exactly how it works. 👇
I start by interviewing your customers, 45 to 90 minutes each, digging into their world with a whole-person lens. What does that mean?
Background & context (their role, day-to-day, what else they use to get their work done)
Challenges & pain points (functional + emotional)
Current approaches / workarounds (and why they didn’t work)
Discovery & decision-making (how they found you, what mattered)
Usage patterns (real use cases, not just the ones you envisioned)
Unique benefits / outcomes (functional + emotional transformations)
Exact quotes (the sticky phrases that will resonate in-market)
I look for patterns and the weird stuff. Most people focus only on what repeats. But it’s often the outliers e.g. the unexpected use case, the surprising phrase, the strange workarounds, that unlock your true differentiation.
Customer insights only become useful when they have:
Evidence (real stories and data coming from your customers)
Meaning (Aha! moments, what it says about your market)
Action (what you’ll do with that information)
Without all three, it’s just noise.
From those customer conversations, I create a 10-slide Marketing Foundation Deck (not a bloated 50-page messaging doc that no one reads). It’s designed to be shared, referenced, and updated as the market shifts.
It includes:
Problem
Why we exist
Market category
Target buyer(s)
What is the product
How it’s different
Top unique benefits + features
Outcomes
Competition
Positioning canvas
This deck is a jumping off point to help you create/update:
The magic: I pull in direct quotes from customer conversations so the language isn’t invented internally, it’s how your customers actually talk, now. This is what helps your team rally behind one voice.
Most GTM Plans I see are overcomplicated. Mine is simple, focused, and practical.
Most teams will start at the very top e.g. let's start screaming about our product, how cool it is, the problem we solve, the new features we built, etc.
I always recommend starting at the bottom of the funnel (website copy, SEO content, case studies, testimonials, etc.). Plug the leaks before pouring more water in. Then move to middle-funnel tactics (social content, newsletter, sales enablement, etc.). Finally, focus on the net-new acquisition channels at the top.
How do you know which tactics to use? You don't, there is no playbook for any company. The only way to really know is to learn more about where your customers hang out online/offline (customer research) and it also depends on the size of your team + team's skillset.
Something I like to double check is see what channels larger competitors are on and see what's working and what's not working. I find a lot of stuff that's not working and then I like to think about why that is and if there's unique opportunity for us. That shouldn't 100% dictate what you do because the competitor is likely not the same size as you + not the same skillsets as people on your team, and their customers are unique to them.
But these principles are always the same: start at the bottom, and do fewer things, better.
Of course, a GTM Plan isn't complete without a content strategy, and for that I recommend you read this post: This Content Stratey Canvas Is What You've Been Missing.
A Marketing Foundation deck is only useful if it’s applied. Otherwise, it’s just another doc collecting dust.
In this phase, I stay on as your advisor while your team (or outside team) executes the GTM Plan. The goal is to make sure the new positioning and messaging actually make it into the wild:
sales decks
outbound emails
social content
newsletters
conferences
events
Here’s where you start to look and sound like one company. The words your customers use in research are now the words on your site, in your emails, and in your SDR team’s calls. That consistency is what builds recognition and trust in the market.
Execution isn’t “set it and forget it.” During this phase (usually 3–6 months) we review results and iterate fast. I help you answer questions like:
Are prospects responding positively to the new messaging?
Are our marketing efforts working? How do we know?
Is your team actually using the messaging in sales conversations? How's it landing?
Think of me as your market coach: keeping the GTM plan tight, removing distractions, and guiding you toward the highest-leverage activities.
After you’ve been live with the new GTM strategy, it’s time to pause and evaluate. Growth Analysis is about separating signal from noise.
We’ll review core growth metrics like:
Inbound demo requests
Pipeline health
Sales cycle length
Win rates
Just like in Phase 1, we go back to the source: your customers. This time, I interview new customers and ideal prospects. The goal is to check:
Do they understand your positioning and messaging?
Do they repeat back your messaging?
Are people continuing to invest in what you're building?
And just as important, I’ll conduct a win/loss analysis with your closed-lost prospects. Their feedback uncovers exactly why some people don’t buy, gold you can’t get anywhere else.
The beauty of this phase is that you’re not scaling assumptions. You’re scaling what’s actually working. If positioning is off, we fix it. If channels are underperforming, we shift focus. By the end of Growth Analysis, you’ll have a clear read on what to double down on versus what to ditch.
Once you’ve nailed your Marketing Foundation, executed with consistency, and validated results through Growth Analysis, it’s time to stack growth.
This is where we might experiment further by:
Adding new marketing channels
Creating new content formats
Updating positioning and messaging to reflect new learnings, segments, or use cases
Too many companies jump here first, trying to “scale” without having the right foundation. That’s how you burn cash and confuse the market. By stacking growth last, you’re building on solid ground. You know which channels are already working, you know which words and phrases actually resonate, and you know what your team can execute well.
Each new layer of growth is now an extension of proven success. That’s how companies go from a trickle of interest to sustained market dominance.
The Customer Insights Roadmap isn't another theoretical framework. It's the exact process I take my clients through over 3, 6, or 9+ month engagements.
The difference is in the details:
Companies that complete this process don't just see better conversion rates, they build sustainable competitive advantages. They speak their customers' language fluently. They solve problems their competitors don't even know exist. They scale with confidence because every growth decision is backed by customer truth.
Ready to build your Customer Insights Roadmap? Email me: anna@furmanovmarketing.com
👉 Looking for more? Subscribe to my newsletter One Insight, a new series that highlights one unique insight I’ve uncovered, been thinking about, or seen in the wild. It usually makes me go "woah."
Top 5% podcast exploring the role that customers play in helping companies build to their next level of growth. 250+ episodes, 4.8 stars.
One Insight is a new series that highlights one unique insight I’ve uncovered, been thinking about, or seen in the wild. It usually makes me go "woah."