Hoshin Kanri
Marketing true north statement
Marketing true north statement is licensed CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com).
Customise with AISkill file ↓1 · What it is
What it is
A marketing true north statement is the same discipline as the core true north statement, pointed at a revenue Hoshin plan's own trueNorth field instead of a shop floor's. It breaks that stated direction into real pillars and checks each against the plan's already-committed annual objectives and strategies — including, often, a pillar every current strategy quietly assumes is already solved. A revenue plan built entirely around win rate, deal velocity, and expansion can look complete while never once addressing whether the market it's selling into is actually being reached in the first place.
2 · When to use it
When to use it — and when not to
Use it when
- A revenue Hoshin X-Matrix already exists and you want to check honestly whether this year's committed strategies actually trace back to every real component of the stated direction, not just the ones already being worked.
- You want to know specifically whether market reach and coverage — not just win rate or deal velocity — has any real committed work behind it this year.
- You have a TAM coverage map or similar reach data and want that evidence connected directly to a stated pillar's gap, not left as a separate, disconnected number.
Not when
- You don't have a revenue Hoshin plan yet — build that first; this statement checks work against a direction that already exists.
- You're setting this year's specific revenue targets and strategies — that's the revenue Hoshin X-Matrix itself; this statement sits above it.
3 · How to fill it in
How to fill it in
- True north
- In one or two sentences, what's the ideal, not-fully-reachable direction this points toward?
- Pillars
- Break that direction into its real component pillars, even ones you expect have no work behind them yet.
- Initiatives
- For each initiative: which pillar it's tagged to, an owner, and — if it's real committed work, not just a floated idea — which annual objective or strategy it actually traces back to.
- Narrative
- Drafted from the statement's own computed coverage.
4 · What good looks like
What good looks like
The example below expands Beacon Analytics' already-published FY2027 revenue Hoshin plan's own trueNorth field into four real pillars, checks each against that plan's already-committed strategies, and finds market visibility has nothing tracing to it — grounded directly in the TAM coverage map's own published 25% list coverage and 42.5% Market visibility figures for this exact segment.
Same example, as a downloadable xlsx workbook.
Download .xlsxTrue north statement
Beacon Analytics — FY2027 marketing true north statement
Beacon Analytics becomes the platform mid-market RevOps teams standardize on and expand within -- not just adopt and quietly leave alone.
Renee Okafor, VP Sales · 2027-01-11
True north
Beacon Analytics becomes the platform mid-market RevOps teams standardize on and expand within -- not just adopt and quietly leave alone.
Pillars
- The platform RevOps teams standardize on, not just try
- Expansion within an account instead of stalling after the first deal
- A pipeline consistently generated by outbound, not just inbound luck
- Full visibility into who we're actually talking to across the target marketNo initiatives yet
Initiatives
A pipeline consistently generated by outbound, not just inbound luck
Roll out the deal A3's Discovery-stage multi-threading gate and the funnel VSM's pricing pre-approval tiers to close the outbound win-rate gap
Priya Anand, RevOps · FY2027 Revenue Hoshin Kanri: annual objective ao-1, strategy st-1
The platform RevOps teams standardize on, not just try
Cap WIP between demo and proposal with pull-based scheduling to cut proposal-stage wait time in half
Jordan Ellis, Sales Manager · FY2027 Revenue Hoshin Kanri: annual objective ao-2, strategy st-2
Expansion within an account instead of stalling after the first deal
Build a customer-success-led expansion playbook for accounts past 90 days
Renee Okafor, VP Sales · FY2027 Revenue Hoshin Kanri: annual objective ao-3, strategy st-3
The platform RevOps teams standardize on, not just try
UnlinkedPublish a public case-study series to reinforce that Beacon is the standard, not just an option under evaluation
Sam Cole, Sales Enablement
Narrative
Three of the four pillars are backed by real, already-committed FY2027 revenue Hoshin strategies: outbound pipeline by the multi-threading gate and pricing tiers (ao-1/st-1), standardizing the platform internally by cutting proposal-stage wait with pull-based scheduling (ao-2/st-2), and expansion by the customer-success-led playbook (ao-3/st-3). The fourth pillar -- full visibility into who we're actually talking to across the target market -- has no committed initiative tracing to it at all, and the TAM coverage map already shows exactly how real that gap is: only 25% of the segment's 40 addressable accounts are tracked in the first place, and within those, Market visibility sits at just 42.5% (17 of 40 required contact cells filled), with Procurement covered at only 2 of 10 tracked accounts and Apex Distribution fully dark. None of this year's three revenue Hoshin strategies touch that gap -- win rate, deal velocity, and expansion all assume a named account with real contacts already exists to work. Sam's public case-study series idea is tagged to the right pillar and is a real proposal, but it isn't part of the committed FY2027 plan yet -- flagged unlinked rather than counted as settled work until it's actually negotiated into a strategy.
5 · Common mistakes
Common mistakes
Assuming market reach is covered because pipeline and win-rate metrics look healthy.
Win rate and deal velocity are both measured against accounts already being worked — neither one says anything about the 30 addressable accounts nobody's tracking yet, or the buying-group roles with no named contact at all.
Counting a floated idea as covering a pillar because it's tagged to the right one.
An initiative with no real linked objective is an aspiration, not committed work — this statement flags it as unlinked specifically so it can't be mistaken for a pillar that's actually being moved on.
Leaving a pillar out because you already suspect nothing traces to it.
An unlisted pillar can't be flagged as disconnected — naming it and letting it come up with zero initiatives is exactly how this tool surfaces the gap plainly instead of hiding it by omission.
6 · What it connects to
What it connects to
upstream
Revenue Hoshin Kanri — X-Matrix
The revenue plan's own trueNorth field is exactly the sentence this statement expands into pillars, and its annual objectives/strategies are the real, committed work each pillar is checked against.
TAM coverage map
A pillar about market reach with no committed initiative behind it is exactly where the coverage map's own list-coverage and Market visibility percentages belong — real evidence for the gap, not an invented number.
downstream
7 · Where AI helps
Where AI helps
Judgement — stays yours
- Deciding whether an initiative genuinely traces back to a real commitment or is still just a floated idea
- Deciding which disconnected pillar to raise at the next catchball round
Analysis — AI helps
- Tightening an initiative's wording from rough notes into a specific, checkable statement
- Drafting the narrative from the statement's own computed coverage
Drudgery — automated
- Identifying which pillars have no initiatives logged
- Identifying which logged initiatives are still unlinked
- Exporting to xlsx in the house format
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