S2E23: You've Got Brand Debt. Here's What It's Actually Costing You.
In this solo episode, Stacie Sussman — Founder and CRO of RevUp Advisory — breaks down one of the most expensive problems hiding in plain sight across mid-market B2B companies: brand debt.
This isn't just about having weak messaging or a tagline that needs a refresh. Brand debt is what happens when your story doesn't keep up with your business — and your buyers feel the disconnect long before you do. It shows up in longer sales cycles, deals that go dark after the second call, and a pipeline that's colder than it should be.
The fix isn't better copy. It's building a system.
What We Cover
The Brand Debt Diagnosis
Why asking five people at your company "what do you do?" will get you six different answers
How brand debt compounds over time — just like financial debt
The warning signs hiding across your org right now
Why This Is a Revenue Problem, Not a Marketing Problem
What the Interbrand research actually says about brand value (your CFO will care)
Why unclear storytelling is costing you deals you don't even know you're losing
How buyers experience the disconnect — even when they can't name it
The System Behind the Story
Why a great brand story sitting in a Google Doc does nothing for revenue
How to build messaging that travels coherently from first touch to signed contract
Why every channel has its own funnel logic — and what happens when you measure them all the same way
Brand Debt in the Age of AI
Your buyers are researching in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude before they ever fill out a form
Why a broken brand story doesn't just cost you human attention — it makes you invisible to AI
What AI tools actually surface (and what they ignore completely)
3 Things to Do Before the Next Episode
Run the five-person experiment — cross-functional, no briefing, just ask
Map your content by channel and be honest about what role each one is actually playing
AI yourself — search your category and see if your company shows up the way you think it does
Up Next Stacie sits down with Lauren Warnick, CEO of Villain Branding, to go deep on solving the brand story problem at the mid-to-enterprise level. Lauren's working with billion-dollar companies and has a methodology that is equal parts clever and genius. You won't want to miss it.
Connect with Stacie Sussman
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