I’ve noticed we have a habit of congratulating the wrong thing… especially in business. Someone says yes and we rush to credit the headline, the funnel, the positioning, the sly little hook we thought up in the shower. It feels good to imagine the yes was engineered, that we lined up the dominos just right and the sale toppled in our direction. But most yeses don’t behave that neatly.

Half the time people say yes not because of the marketing but in spite of it

We don’t consider the invisible space between their own thoughts, where your message just happened to land at an opportune time. And once you see that, it becomes impossible to pretend the outcome was only the result of clever copy or a polished framework.

There’s always a quieter story running underneath. People bring their own inner weather to your work… the identity they’re trying to strengthen, the doubt they’re trying to outrun, the hope they don’t want to talk about yet. They’ve already been narrating a private story long before your message appears — and your marketing is just the moment something matches what was already forming. You become the reflection, not the reason.

Of course, in our heads, we rewrite the sequence: they saw the thing, they trusted the thing, they bought the thing. Clean. Linear. Comforting. But if you sit with it long enough, you realize the human mind doesn’t move in that straight line. It moves in spirals… fragments… “maybe”… “not yet”… “I’m tired of this”… and then suddenly, almost abruptly, the yes rolls out.

The marketer thinks: I did that.
The buyer thinks: finally.

Two completely different stories.

And this is where the sensemaking kicks in: a yes is rarely about the brilliance of the marketing. It’s about the alignment between the person’s internal narrative and the moment your work intersects with it. When the product meets a need they’ve been quietly naming. When the price feels like relief instead of risk. When the message brushes against a truth they’ve been carrying. When their own readiness finally catches up with their desire.

This is why I keep returning to the Hudson Alignment Framework™ — not as a promise of perfect results (I’m not in the business of guarantees) but because when all the layers are aligned, the odds improve. When the message reflects the identity… when the offer reflects the value… when the structure supports the promise… when the work matches the way you actually move through the world… the yes becomes less accidental. Not guaranteed — just less fragile.

Because alignment doesn’t force outcomes.
It clarifies them.

And maybe that’s the real point here.

Not that great marketing makes people say yes…but that aligned marketing makes space for the yes that was already trying to happen. The rest is up to timing and interior movement, honoring the unseen in-between where decisions are actually made.

And this is why marketing can’t be an occasional performance or some one-off burst of enthusiasm — the people who need you don’t always arrive on your schedule. You have to be present in the ongoing conversation, steady enough that when their readiness finally catches up with their desire, you’re already there… recognizable, familiar, the voice they’ve been circling and needing way before they can admit it.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Before you hand your hope to another promise of “better marketing,” return to the real architecture: how your client attraction and marketing speak to each other… how sales and revenue are supported (or strained)… how retention and referrals are nurtured… and how the people doing the work understand their role in all of it. That’s where the reflection lives — in noticing which pieces are in conversation and which ones are operating on their own. And once you can see the misalignment for what it is, repairing it often gives you more lift than any quick-fix marketing scheme ever could.

About Giselle

I’m Giselle Hudson — Organization & People Development Sensemaker™, MCODE® Legacy Coach, writer and musician. I help leaders and independent professionals close the gap between strategy and execution by making invisible friction visible, so direction can finally translate into results.

If execution isn’t matching intent and you can’t quite see why, message me on WhatsApp. We’ll start with a brief Clarity Conversation to understand what you’re facing and decide together whether a focused Sensemaking Session is the right next step.