War Room Wisdom: Battle-Tested Marketing for Founders with Lee Pepper

🔥 Excerpt

"If you're still 'trying tactics' and calling it strategy, you're losing ground. In this episode, we translate force multiplication, the anvil-and-hammer, and commander's intent into a practical marketing playbook you can deploy by Monday."

⚡ TL;DR

Army veteran and former CIO/CMO Lee Pepper joins Rick Meekins to unpack how battlefield strategies translate directly into business growth. From repurposing content like force multiplication to wargaming competitor moves, this episode delivers a disciplined, no-fluff blueprint for marketing that actually drives revenue.

📄 Show Notes

Most leaders don't have a marketing problem—they have a strategy problem disguised as "channel hopping." In this conversation, I sit down with Lee Pepper—Army veteran, behavioral health executive, and author of Never Outmatched—to break down military tactics that work just as well in the boardroom as they do in the field.

We cover how force multiplication turns one piece of content into a multi-platform machine, why commander's intent is the antidote to micromanagement, and how the anvil-and-hammer strategy keeps you from cutting the very investments that drive conversion. Lee also shares the importance of wargaming, the danger of buying tools without training, and why pivot speed is the moat that keeps you alive in shifting markets.

If you're tired of vanity metrics and tactic-chasing, this episode arms you with tested frameworks that align teams, protect budgets, and create scalable wins.

✅ Key Takeaways

• Force multiplication: repurpose one core asset into many channels, multiplying reach without multiplying cost.
• Commander's intent: set the mission, constraints, and goals—then let your team execute. Micromanagement is attrition.
• Anvil-and-hammer: don't cut the "expensive" holding force that enables your real conversion strike.
• Tie marketing to business KPIs: focus on calls, demos, revenue—not likes or impressions.
• War-game quarterly: model competitor plays and pre-plan your counters.
• Operational readiness: tools fail without training, support, and ownership.
• Pivot by day 30–45: own the miss, redeploy, and move. Speed of learning wins.
• Partner across the enterprise: marketing should solve Finance and HR problems too.

👤 Bio

Lee Pepper is an Army veteran turned enterprise operator who served as CIO and CMO across behavioral health companies before writing Never Outmatched. His work translates battlefield strategy—force multiplication, commander's intent, anvil-and-hammer—into modern marketing systems that drive revenue. He volunteers with the Veterans Treatment Court in Nashville and speaks nationally on leadership, go-to-market, and organizational readiness.

🧭 Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Military Marketing Strategies
01:03 Lee Pepper's Background and Transition to Marketing
03:26 Force Multiplication in Marketing
06:09 Setting Commander's Intent for Business Success
09:25 Tying KPIs to Business Outcomes
10:35 The Anvil and Hammer Strategy
15:55 The Importance of Competitive Intelligence and War Gaming
17:36 Operational Readiness in Business
19:40 Evaluating New Technologies
20:44 Leadership and Team Dynamics
22:05 Learning from Historical Figures
23:43 The Importance of Pivoting
26:20 Staying Ahead of Competitors
27:45 Cognitive Biases in Marketing
29:34 Building Strategic Alliances
31:12 Fostering Company Culture
33:21 The Journey of Writing a Book
36:59 New Chapter / Close