Back in 2012, I did a 35-mile charity bike ride my company was hosting.
It was the longest ride I'd done at the time. But I'd done long rides before. I knew 35 miles would be a challenge — just one I could handle.
Except early into the ride, something was wrong.
The bike felt heavy. Sluggish. Like I was pedaling through resistance that shouldn't have been there. Like I was moving in slow motion while everyone around me was not.
So I did what most of us do when something isn't working.
I tried harder.
I pedaled faster. Stood up to get more momentum. Shifted gears. Pushed through it.
Nothing worked.
And somewhere around mile ten, I started doing what a lot of marketers do too — I decided I was the problem.
Maybe I hadn't trained enough. Maybe I just wasn't strong enough for this. Maybe I had overestimated what I could do.
By the time I hit the halfway point, I was frustrated, a little defeated, and running on sheer stubbornness.
There was a check-in station there — snacks, water, and a quick bike tune-up. So I had someone take a look at mine. He checked it over. Then looked up at me and said:
One of your tires doesn't have enough air in it.
Excuse me, sir?
He filled it up, made a few quick adjustments, and sent me on my way.
And just like that — everything changed.
The bike moved the way it was supposed to. The resistance disappeared. I stopped fighting and started riding.
I wasn't the problem.
The system was.
I think about that ride a lot when I'm working with brands on their marketing performance.
Because this is what so much marketing looks like right now.
You're pushing harder. Spending more. Testing new tactics. Optimizing campaigns. Briefing agencies. Running A/B tests. Trying to squeeze more out of what you already have.
And something still feels… off.
The numbers aren't where they should be. Certain audiences aren't converting the way you expected. The work is coming back technically correct but somehow not landing. And the instinct — the completely human instinct — is to keep pedaling.
But what if the effort isn't the issue?
What if it's the input?
Because just like that bike ride — when something foundational is off, everything downstream becomes harder than it needs to be. You can push with everything you've got and still feel like you're going nowhere. Not because your team isn't capable. Not because your agency isn't talented. But because the system they're working from isn't set up to perform.
In marketing, one of the most common flat tire problems is one most teams never think to check:
The buyer persona.
When personas are too generic — when they're built on demographics and assumptions instead of real identity-level insight — everything built on top of them underperforms. The creative brief. The messaging. The campaign. The results. All of it is downstream from that one foundational input.
And here's what makes it so easy to miss: the work looks fine on the surface. It checks the boxes. It goes through the right process. It just doesn't perform the way it should for the full range of people you're trying to reach — because it was never built with the full range of people in mind.
You're not the problem.
The persona is the flat tire.
Fix the input — and everything else gets easier. The brief gets sharper. The creative gets more specific. The campaigns reach further. The results reflect the audience you actually have, not the average one you assumed.
Just like that ride did — once someone took thirty seconds to look at what was actually wrong.
I've dedicated a full four-episode series to exactly this — what's broken in most buyer personas, why it's shrinking your market, and how to fix it.
If your team uses personas to drive any part of your marketing — briefs, campaigns, content, creative — these are worth your time.
Ep. 209: Why most buyer personas lead to an underperforming growth marketing strategy — and how to fix them Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Ep. 210: Most brands' buyer personas are shrinking their market — how to fix yours Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Ep. 211: "Our personas are fine" — and 7 other reasons brands don't fix what's costing them growth Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Ep. 212: How incomplete buyer personas show up in your marketing — and limit brand growth (real examples) Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Talk soon,
Sonia