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Hey there - it's Brian 👋

So I actually wrote this issue a few weeks ago.

But I’ve been holding it back.

When I wrote it, I was reflecting on how 5 changes I made to my business got so many founders emailing me for marketing help.

And also reflecting on the downside to demand:
How my business wasn’t set up to help so many people.

I’ve been holding this issue back because it’s so honest. It feels vulnerable to share the best and worst parts of my business.

But in last week’s issue, I referenced this story… and 31 readers emailed asking me to share the lessons.

I never expected so many people to ask. So I decided it’s time to release this issue.

And here we go…

Today we’ll talk about:
1) The 5 changes I made that overwhelmed me with leads
2) How you can make these changes to get more customers too
3) The 3 new parts I’m adding to the business to help more founders

This week will be a longer issue than usual.

It’s the article I wish I had when I was building my business early on.

If you enjoy this “what I wish I knew” format, reply to this email and let me know.

Your feedback helps me decide if I share other reflections (like sales and pricing).

Let’s make your business an outlier: 👇

I’m on a mission to help founders & business owners actually get customers

In 2017, I was a management consultant at Deloitte.

I wore suits and advised boardroom executives on growth & marketing.

But on weekends, I’d share these same frameworks with founders to solve their frustrations. They didn’t know these solutions existed.

I felt like Robin Hood.

The tools I developed in conference rooms were solutions to real problems small business owners had.

It felt unfair that these corporations could pay $500k - $1M to have us solve their problems, but business owners didn’t know where to start.

So I’m on a mission to level the playing field for founders around the world.

(I won’t go into detail here, but check this post for the full story).

Last Feb, I started sharing these tools online.

It took off:
• 85,000 followers on socials
• 14,000 email readers
• Featured in Forbes

But the demand for consulting was manageable.

Until I made these 5 changes to the business…

5 changes that made customer demand overwhelming

When I started out I was still consulting, so I didn’t have a formal service.

So when I was ready to make the jump, there was one thing between me and a group of happy customers…

The right positioning.

You can’t have a strong business without it.

But no one tells business owners anything about it. So they find the positioning that works… by chance. Relying on luck is a terrifying way to run a business.

These 3 questions make up your positioning:
1) Who’s the customer?
2) What’s their pain?
3) How do you solve that pain better than anyone?

Find the positioning. Craft your offer based on that positioning. Then, message the positioning in a way that resonates.

Positioning. Offer. Messaging.

Anyway.

I went through ~7 iterations of my positioning + offer + messaging.

Each iteration had some demand. But the demand was manageable.

Then on the last try…

I found the Positioning + Offer + Messaging combination that 5xed how many business owners reach out to me.

Here’s 5 changes I made (& how you can do them too):

1. Niched down: B2B, $3M - $20M

The more you niche down the more patterns you see in the problem.

It helps you understand it deeper.

• Could I help early stage founders? Sure.
• Could I help $100M+ businesses? Definitely.
• Could I help B2C businesses? Absolutely.

But between $3M - $20M in revenue there’s a very specific marketing problem that B2B businesses have.

I’ve now seen it so often that I can quickly solve or connect business owners with the right person to solve.

I’ve created a system so we don’t have to make things up as we go.

Lesson: So how do you find your niche?

I’ll share what worked for me.

I came up with a list of standards for the problem I’d solve.

The problem has to be:
• Painful
• Concrete
• Uses my unfair advantage

I offered to help a lot of businesses until I found patterns.

Then put a stake in the ground and said that was my niche.

Test and iterate. Niche’s aren’t permanent. Most of mine weren’t a fit.

Get going. Then get good.

2. Focused on my unfair advantage: Digital Marketing

I had to focus my business on one unfair advantage.

So I asked two questions:

Where did I have an unfair advantage? What part of that unfair advantage can business owners clearly see a time when they’d call me?

Luckily, I had two unfair advantages:
• Competitive strategy (Deloitte experience)
• Digital Marketing (My own brand)

But I found “strategy” was too fluffy. Business owners don’t know when they have a strategy problem.

But they do know when their ads don’t work.

So I re-positioned from the “strategy CMO” to the “digital marketing CMO.”

Digital marketing gets my foot in the door. Strategy keeps me in.

Lesson: So how do you find your unfair advantage?

The easiest way is to combine skills/experiences in ways others can’t.

Here’s an example:
Say you’re a good engineer (not 1%). And a good public speaker (not 1%).

You’re probably in the 1% of public speaking engineers!

Now that’s your unfair advantage.

3. Found an enemy: Brand Awareness

When I niched down, I saw patterns when business owners complained.

The problem:
Business owners are experts on their business. Not digital marketing.

So it’s easy for them to fall in the trap of spending money on brand awareness campaigns.

Brand awareness works well for big companies. But not when you’re below ~$15M in revenue.

But most marketers don’t share that level of nuance.

Business owners get told to make people “aware of their brand” and they waste money.

So they waste money. They feel frustrated and taken advantage of.

For my own business my marketing is on revenue. Brand awareness is a secondary effect of using socials to find customers.

I explained what I did for my own business. My anti-brand awareness stance resonated with business owners.

I confirm their suspicions. They felt understood.

Lesson: So how do you find your enemy?

Get on the phone with a lot of customers and ask them these questions:
• What’s the problem?
• What have you tried in the past to solve it?
• What went wrong?

You start to see patterns in “bad solutions.”

The bad solutions becomes your enemy.

4. Messaged the offer with words my customer understands: “Fractional CMO”

I’d always offered strategy + marketing. I still offer strategy + marketing.

But before I framed the offer as “I’ll give you growth advice.”

It was too generic.

So I re-worded it a way that actually made sense to business owners:

I’d be your fractional CMO.

Same offer. Different words. 5x the demand.

Lesson: Messaging your offer is critical. Use the wrong words and customers don’t see the value.

Package it in a way that resonates with your target customer.

5. Switched mindset from “selling” to “I just want to help people”

As sales started to come in, I worried: “how could I serve all these people?”

I only had 2 - 3 CMO slots, but I was still getting ~20 business owners a month asking for help.

So I stopped trying to sell people on calls.

Instead my mission was to make sure every person left my marketing review with their biggest problems solved.

I even told people to go elsewhere when I thought were a better fit.

And the strangest thing happened…
My sales rate went up.

That genuine approach created trust which got people excited to work with me even more.

The less I tried to sell people, the more sales I got.

Every call came from a place of “I can’t sell you anything. So I just genuinely want to solve your problem.”

Lesson: There’s nothing more important than building trust.

Prioritize solving your customer’s problems (in a way that’s best for them).

I had to change my business to take the extra sales. It’s my mission to help as many business owners as possible.

So here’s 3 things I’m building to help more people:

What am I doing going forward?

Now, I’m re-working the business model to serve as many people as possible.

But I need to build slow to control the quality. Everything I provide needs to be the best solution for business owners.

So here’s 3 things I’m building to help you at scale:

1. Agency Partnerships

Most business owners don’t need a full blown CMO.

They just need help running a few channels:
• Facebook Ads
• Google Ads
• Emails
• SEO
• Socials
etc

In this case, they need an agency.

Most agencies are not good. But the few good ones will transform your business.

And it’s hard to tell which ones are good without being deep in digital marketing.

So I’m on a mission to find the best agencies for business owners (in each channel).

Once I find a top 1% agency, I form partnerships.

This means you get exclusive deals with quality agencies, and this community gets revenue sharing.

Revenue sharing helps grow the community and serve more business owners.

Win-win.

I’ve only found one I trust (so far). It’s for Google Ads.

Check out QuickerLeads Google Ads agency here. Tell Sam I said hi and you’ll get free feedback on your landing page.

Expect each channel to take a while to find. I’m obsessed with quality.

2. Scalable Consulting

To help 1M founders & business owners, I need to give them step-by-step video guides to make it as easy as possible to get valuable guidance.

My goal is to make these video guides feel like they should be $650:
• Step-by-step instructions
• Templates
• Calculators
• Inspiration gallery etc

But I’ll only sell these guides at cost.

I’m testing what it’ll cost to run Facebook ads to this Google Ads course in a few weeks, but should be less than $85.

I don’t need to make money on these guides.

But I do need to run ads to share the messages with thousands of business owners to level the playing field.

People who sign up early get a call with me and a Google Ads expert to guide you through any challenges.

Check this out if you want early access (plus a free workshop).

3. Advisory

I can only help 2 - 3 businesses at once with the fractional CMO offer.

But that doesn’t work with my mission to serve as many as possible.

So I created less time-intensive offers to help more businesses.

1) Fractional CMO:
I build and run your marketing team ($15k / month)

2) Strategic and Tactical Advisor:
Strategic guidance + tactical feedback ($5k / month)

3) Strategic Advisor:
Guidance on what to do to get customers ($2.5k / month)

It’s turning out better than I thought. I had a client say “this one call got me more than the $30,000 I paid my marketing agency.”

I expect these prices to go up in the next few months as demand increases and I reduce advisory slots to focus on helping business owners & founders at scale.

If you’d like to chat about these options to grow marketing for your business, start with your free marketing review.

I’ll give you actionable feedback to actually get customers. No commitment to sign up.

Was this helpful?

I hope this level of transparency is helpful to you as you build your own business.

I’m rooting for you.

If this was helpful, reply to let me know. I read every email and love to make content that you enjoy.

See you next Thursday 👋

Brian
Twitter
LinkedIn

P.S. Want me walk you through these same positioning frameworks that worked for me?

I’ll give you feedback on your marketing strategy. Then, check out your SEO, ads, socials, & landing pages.

You’ll leave with a list of small changes you can make to get paying customers.

If your business is over $3M in revenue, grab time for free (no catch).

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