This month, we’re highlighting Stoke members Heather Steele and Randi Skinner, the powerhouse team behind VBM Strategy. With experience spanning brand strategy, messaging, and organizational development, they came together around a shared passion: helping leaders gain clarity and build aligned, meaningful growth. Their story is rooted in collaboration, purpose, and a belief that strategy should begin with vision.
Hear more about their journey into business partnership and beyond.
What led each of you into the world of strategy, marketing, and business development, and how did those paths eventually converge into launching VBM Strategy together?
We came into strategy from different but complementary directions. Heather spent years helping organizations clarify their messaging, have a website that actually helps their business, and scale through custom systems. Randi came from the world of storytelling and brand strategy—helping leaders communicate who they are, not just what they sell.
Over time, we both kept running into the same challenge: leaders were making decisions in silos. Marketing wasn’t connected to strategy. Growth wasn’t connected to people. And vision often lived only in a founder or CEO’s head. We realized that the missing link wasn’t more marketing—it was alignment. That’s where VBM Strategy was born.
What was the moment or realization that made you say, “We should build this together,” and what did those early conversations look like?
It honestly started with the simple fact that we just wanted to work together. Running a business can be incredibly rewarding—but it can also feel a little lonely at times. Having great minds around you makes the work more dynamic, creative, and fun.
We’ve always told our clients to adopt a “who, not how” mindset: stop asking how you can hustle more, and start asking who you can lean into to help make things happen. When we launched VBM Strategy, we took our own advice. We asked, “Who can I partner with to fill the gaps and make this stronger?”
It also didn’t hurt that we already had a strong business friendship built over six-plus years. We respected each others’ character, work ethic, and creative process—and knew our skills complemented each other perfectly. Once we started collaborating, it just made sense. What began as shared frustration over how disconnected strategy and marketing often were quickly turned into the spark that became VBM Strategy.
It was a collaboration that just clicked. We were both consulting with clients who needed more than a single solution—they needed someone to help them connect the dots between their vision, what they wanted to protect and how marketing can come alongside to be a change agent.
Our early conversations were all about frustration, honestly. We’d say, “Why are we watching leaders work so hard but still feel stuck?” Those brainstorming sessions turned into whiteboard sketches, frameworks, and eventually the foundation of what became the Vision Value Model™.
For those who may not be familiar, how would you describe the Vision Value Model™ in simple terms, and why was creating that framework so important for your work?
At VBM Strategy, we believe strategy should start with clarity—not just about what you do, but why it matters. The Vision Value Model™ helps business owners align their marketing and growth strategies with the bigger picture of what they want their business to do for them.
When we are working with clients on their Blueprint Marketing Strategy we take a vision-first approach.
Vision goes beyond selling more or hiring a team. It’s the integrated view of where your personal and professional goals intersect. Whether you realize it or not, you’re building your business toward a greater outcome—retiring your spouse, traveling more, transitioning to a family member, or preparing for a sale.
We begin by defining that integrated vision: What do you truly want your business to make possible for your life and family?
Once vision is clear, we identify your guiding values—what must be protected above all else to move you closer to that vision. We call this the PiPP framework, which helps define and prioritize what matters most:
People
Impact
Process
Profit
All are important, but one must lead. Prioritizing your PiPP focus ensures your marketing becomes a true change agent—not just noise.
Next, we develop goals that reflect your vision and values—not rigid SMART goals, but what we call M.E.S.S.Y Goals:
Mission-Aligned
Exponential and Earnest
Sifted from the Heap
Simple & Memorable
Uniquely Yours
Sometimes the best goals are big, bold, and a little messy. What matters is that they’re real, relevant, and rooted in your mission.
Only after vision, values, and goals are aligned do we develop the tactics—email, social, digital, web, and beyond. Because who cares about a tactic if it doesn’t move you closer to your vision or protect what you value most?
The Vision Value Model™ ensures every strategy we build drives clarity, alignment, and meaningful results—helping you grow your business and your life in harmony.
You work with leaders at pivotal transition points—scaling, leadership shifts, or even preparing for exit. What do you think most founders misunderstand about strategy during those seasons?
Many founders treat strategy as something you build after you grow, when it’s actually the thing that makes growth sustainable.
During transition seasons, the instinct is to move faster—but that’s usually when you need to slow down and clarify what still fits and what doesn’t.
Founders often underestimate how much strategy is about communication: getting your team aligned, your clients re-engaged, and your systems ready for what’s next.
Values are core to your work. What does values-driven marketing actually look like in practice, and how does it change the way a business shows up or makes decisions?
Values-driven marketing means your message isn’t just about what you do—it’s rooted in why you do it, how you operate and most important what you want to protect. It shows up in the tone of your brand, the partnerships you say yes or no to, and how you measure success.
When marketing is anchored in values, you stop chasing trends and start leading conversations that actually matter to your audience. It builds long-term trust instead of short-term attention. This is one of the key things that we address during the PiPP framework portion of our Marketing Blueprint Strategy process.
Partnerships can be powerful and also challenging. What have you learned about working together, what makes the partnership work, and how do you divide strengths?
We like to joke that we share a brain—but with very different hemispheres.
What makes our partnership work is communication, respect, and clarity. We both know where the other shines and lean into those strengths instead of competing.
People often assume we’re related—which probably says more about how much time we spend together than anything else! The truth is, we genuinely love working together. A whiteboard session with us is an hour well spent because we innovate the heck out of things. But with that creative energy comes a need for balance—especially as we grow. We’ve learned to divide execution based on strengths—ours and our team’s—and to recognize when not to both be in the room.
Two key things keep our partnership healthy and scalable:
Clarity through frameworks. Tools like The Working Genius and DiSC help us understand how we each work best and how to build balanced teams.
Alignment through values. Our VBM Values are more than words on a page—they’re our decision filters. Protecting time, honoring energy, and trusting each other’s instincts are non-negotiables.
We’ve also learned to release control when it’s not needed. If one of us feels strongly about something and is willing to lead it, the other steps back. That mutual trust gives us freedom—and it’s the same kind of clarity we help our clients build into their own teams and businesses.
Randi Skinner + Heather Steele at Stoke Coworking
Looking back, what has been one of the most defining or gratifying moments in building VBM Strategy so far?
Hearing a client say, “I finally feel clear again,” never gets old. That moment of clarity—when everything clicks—is why we built VBM Strategy. Whether it’s a founder realizing they can finally take a vacation for the first time in years, or a team seeing how their daily work connects to a larger vision, that’s the kind of impact that fuels us.
We’ve celebrated plenty of wins along the way, but the most gratifying ones are when that clarity happens inside our own walls—when someone on our team finds their own vision and feels truly aligned and integrated. Watching our framework come to life internally, seeing our people grow, and investing in them as whole humans—that’s what makes all the work worth it.
Where do you see VBM Strategy heading next and what excites you about the chapter you’re building now?
We’re in a season of scaling—taking our Blueprint Marketing Strategies and putting the Vision Value Model™ fully to work. Over the next 12 months, our focus is on depth and expansion: refining our systems, empowering our team, and helping more organizations build alignment between their vision, values, and growth.
As innovators, it’s tempting to keep creating new things (and we have no shortage of ideas!), but this chapter is about being rooted.
We’re intentionally holding space to strengthen what works—to scale with purpose and clarity. What excites us most is knowing that this next phase isn’t about doing more; it’s about doing what we do best, at a bigger impact and a deeper level.
For entrepreneurs reading this who feel “stuck” or unsure of their next move, what’s one piece of guidance you would want them to hear?
Get clear before you get busy. Most business owners aren’t lacking effort—they’re lacking direction.
If you’re feeling stuck, take a step back and revisit your vision. Ask: “What do I actually want this to look like three years from now?” The next right move will come into focus once your vision does. And of course there’s always the step of reaching out to us if you need a little help getting started.
Stoke is a big part of your work rhythm. What do you value most about being part of this community at this stage in your business?
Stoke gives us the structure and energy of a team environment without losing the freedom of entrepreneurship. It’s a space full of people who are building, creating, and dreaming—so there’s a natural current of inspiration here.
We love that it’s not just a place to work, but a community that pushes us to think bigger, connect deeper, and show up as our best selves in business and beyond.
Find out more about VBM Strategy at their website: https://vbmstrategy.com/ .