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Hosted by Steve Phipps of Wayfind Marketing, The Growth-Minded Marketing Podcast simplifies marketing for B2B CEOs ready to grow with confidence. Each episode offers real-world strategies, step-by-step coaching, and inspiring CEO interviews—all designed to help you align your marketing with your business goals, stop wasting time and money, and scale without the stress. If you’re a growth-minded leader tired of vague advice and underperforming tactics, this is your next step.
Steve: Here's a question that I get
from business owners and CEOs regularly.
The conversation goes
something like this, Steve.
We have a website we're
posting on LinkedIn and.
It might even be posting
some articles to the website.
In some cases, they've hired an agency.
In others, they've hired an
in-house marketing manager.
So the question is, why
isn't our marketing working?
AnnieLaurie: And honestly
the answer might surprise.
You.
Steve: You might be doing marketing.
That doesn't mean you have a
marketing system, and those
two things are not the same.
AnnieLaurie: Welcome to the
Growth-Minded Marketing podcast.
is a show for B2B CEOs and
marketing leaders who are serious
about growing their business
and wanna do it the right way.
I'm Annie Laurie Walters.
Steve: And I'm Steve Phipps, the CEO
and founder of Way Find Marketing.
In every episode we dig into real
conversations around marketing strategy,
what works, what doesn't, and what
most business owners and leaders are
getting wrong without realizing it.
AnnieLaurie: Today's topic is honestly
one of the most foundational conversations
that we can have on this show.
We are talking about what a marketing
system actually is, not marketing
tactics, not campaigns, a system.
And Steve, I know you are
fired up about this one.
Steve: Absolutely and it's because the
distinction between having marketing
activity and a marketing operating
system is the difference between.
In companies that grow consistently
and the companies that get stuck
on the hamster wheel, and this is
something that I talk about regularly.
AnnieLaurie: So Steve, let's start with
the problem itself, because I think a
lot of people listening already feel it.
the picture of a company that
doesn't have a marketing system.
What does that actually look like?
Steve: I can paint this one quickly
because I've seen this and experienced
it with clients scores of times.
a typical scenario is you have a
CEO and their companies do anywhere
between five and 10 million a year.
So in this case, we'll say
it's a service-based company.
They have technology services
or maybe some sort of financial
or accounting services.
Their business is growing and
things are going reasonably well.
But they're saying to me, we're
doing a lot of this marketing stuff.
Or in some cases we want to
do the marketing stuff, but we
don't know what's working it.
We can't draw a clear line between
our activity and our results and.
What they're not saying out loud,
but what they're thinking is, Hey,
we're spending real money on this,
but I don't know if it's working.
And as a CEO, that's, that's
a hard spot to sit in.
AnnieLaurie: Uh, yeah, I bet a lot of
people just nodded their heads to that.
Steve: And so if you look at
what they're actually doing.
In some cases they have a
website that looks okay.
You know, sometimes it's been redone.
Recently they might be active on
LinkedIn because they heard somewhere
that that's where they should be.
They might even be sending out
email newsletters or, and in some
cases they've hired an agency.
They might be running some ads or
they might be doing some search
engine optimization, and in some cases
they might have somebody in-house
who's even writing some articles.
So they get this mishmash
of marketing activities and
these activities are isolated.
Everything's on its own island.
And so you get this
disconnected marketing activity.
AnnieLaurie: So there's no thread
running through it to connect at all.
Steve: Exactly.
There's no thread.
The website talks about the
company differently than the sales
deck, the LinkedIn posts, or you
know, based on whatever somebody
felt inspired to post that week.
The agency that's doing SEO, they're
doing their thing over here, but
they're disconnected from the sales and
the questions that the prospects are
actually asking.
and so you have all of this activity
and it feels good at some point because
you're seeing metrics, you're seeing
numbers, but at the end of the day,
it's expensive, it's exhausting,
and it's just disconnected activity.
AnnieLaurie: And I am guessing
when you ask what's working, nobody
really has a confident answer
because nothing's really working.
Steve: Well, you're right and it's hard
to answer that question, and usually
there's not anybody on the team who
is owning all of these things, and so
nobody really knows the answer and.
If you're a growth oriented
leader, that's really frustrating.
You're stewarding your business
and you know that marketing
matters, so you're investing in it.
But if you don't know what's working,
and that's a really bad feeling.
The good news is that's fixable Now.
AnnieLaurie: So what's the root cause?
What's actually missing
when you see the pattern?
Steve: There's a variety of different
things that, that can influence and
impact that but the most consistent
root cause that I see is they've gone
to tactics before they went to strategy.
And that is, it's an expensive
mistake, especially in B2B marketing,
but it's an easy mistake to make.
And so this isn't the fault of anybody.
It's just this is sort of
how it works quite often.
They go to execution.
Maybe it's the agency.
You have the ads.
And again, depending on
context, you've self-educated.
We should be doing this piece.
We should be doing this over here.
So we've got somebody doing
SEO, we have somebody doing ads.
We have somebody on our team who's
doing social media, you know, find
the Gen Z 'cause they're active
on social media so they can do a
good job of our social media and.
They never asked the
foundational questions.
It's left to assumption who
exactly are you trying to reach?
What are the problems that you're.
That they're trying to solve.
What does their buyer
journey actually look like?
What are the steps involved and how do all
these things work together from reaching
somebody for the very first time, somebody
who's never heard of you, all the way
through building trust and credibility
until there's an assigned agreement.
There's a lot that happens in there.
And when it's left to.
Chance you get this disconnected
marketing that rarely gets the
results that the CEO's looking for.
AnnieLaurie: I like to cook
and it kind of reminds me of
you buy all these ingredients.
That, you know, go in a dessert, but you
don't know what dessert you're making yet.
So you might have all these great
ingredients, but you can make cookies.
You can make a cake, you can do a lot
of things, but you don't know, and you
haven't decided what you're actually doing
with all the ingredients that you have.
Steve: Well, my wife and I like
to watch the Great British Baking
Show, and sometimes they do
these blind challenges where.
All of the cooks and the bakers
have a very specific thing that
they've been given, but they're
given the ingredients, but they
don't always know the proportions.
And so, they're having to figure
out, they, they have some guidance,
but they don't know how much of the
flour do I use, how many eggs, it's.
They have to figure it out.
And so that's a great analogy.
You might have fantastic ingredients.
So your content might be really good.
You might have a really
nice looking website.
Maybe you've got a fantastic sales team.
But without having a recipe, without
having something that brings it all
together and holds it all together
over the course of time, really, it
just comes down to hoping and wishing.
And as we say, a lot,
hope is not a strategy.
AnnieLaurie: Yeah, write
that one down folks.
Hope is not a strategy.
So what does it actually look like when
a company does have a marketing system?
What changes?
Steve: So when I talk about a
marketing system, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna borrow some of our listeners
are gonna be familiar with EOS.
It's the entrepreneurial operating System.
It's based on the book
Traction by Gina Wickman.
A system gives you structure, it
shows you how all the pieces in
this case of marketing fit together.
EOS is for running your entire business.
When I'm talking about a marketing
system, it's that same type of structure.
It's the tools, it's the systems, it's
the processes, it's the frameworks
it's the organization, it's the
direction, the strategy, the plans,
all of these things working together.
And just like EOS runs on a 90
day cadence of planning out your
rocks, identifying the issues.
A good marketing system is going to
have a similar type of cadence where
you're identifying priorities, adjusting
based on what's happening, what's
working, what's not, what's changing
in the marketplace, how is technology
influencing all of these things.
So that everybody is
operating towards something.
So now SEO is working in tandem with
the content being created and there's
alignment with what's on social media.
So we're saying the same things
across the various channels and it
breaks down a lot of those barriers.
And another key part, especially
because we do a lot of work in the B2B
space, is getting marketing and sales.
Company leadership together consistently
so that there's conversation and we
don't have everybody functioning in
their silos because that's a breakdown.
And that's very common.
So a marketing system gives
you a variety of things.
It gives you a toolkit so that you
can run marketing in a way that is
consistent, principle based, and it
allows you to scale for the long run.
AnnieLaurie: So Steve, this all
sounds really great and it might be
a little bit of a shift in thinking
for some people, but tell me what do
you think is the biggest benefit to
running your marketing like a system?
Steve: If you're running the system,
it means you're paying attention to the
metrics and it starts to improve itself
over the course of time because you're
developing a rhythm, you're developing
a cadence and marketing isn't just that
thing that somebody's doing from the
hip, but there's a structure to it and.
Really one of the things that's really
important to keep in mind here is that a
marketing system isn't a one-time thing.
It doesn't stop.
And that really creates a
fundamental difference between
a campaign and a system.
A campaign has a start date.
An end date a system is, it's
an ongoing operating rhythm.
And so that's why I like the
phrasing of a marketing operating
system like this is operational.
Yes, it's tactical, but
it gives structure to it.
And whereas a campaign a lot of times is
time bound and it, a lot of times it's
linked to a specific ad budget at some
point that stops that, that's gonna.
B that's gonna change based on
seasonality and what's going on in
the marketplace, whereas the system
that keeps going, it doesn't just
stop because somebody leaves the team.
Because we're involving multiple
people, it just keeps running.
AnnieLaurie: No, I think that's where a
lot of people may get a little hung up
on all of it, is that they think about
marketing like campaign, as a system that
once it's set up right and everything's
fueled the right way, it kind of just.
itself.
Steve: And so I think part of what
underlies that one is the approach is
we're gonna project manage this and we're
doing it at a micro level because there's
not this overall comprehensive strategy.
And a couple of things that I
see that underlies that one is.
Most CEOs that I interact with might
be familiar with marketing, but if
they've not come out of a marketing
background, they're not the ones who
have the capacity or the bandwidth to
build out a strategic marketing plan.
And so that responsibility either is
assumed when a marketing manager comes
on, and now often that person is tactical.
Or it's assumed that the agency that's
brought on will build that out and
in some cases they can and they will.
There are some really great
B2B agencies out there that
will build a solid strategy.
But oftentimes what ends up happening
is well campaign that's easy to do and
some, you know, easy being subjective,
but it's clear what we need to do.
I can do that in the next 30, 60 days.
I can read some articles.
Claw or GPT can help me
put together some ideas.
So marketing lives there because
that's more manageable but the
problem is every time the campaign
ends, you start a new one.
You're retooling, you're
figuring out your messaging.
And again, there's not a benchmark
to go back to that is kind of
creating the structure overall.
And you're not getting compounding results
from that start, stop approach momentum.
Scalability requires consistency
over time, and so it's not really a
marketing thing, it's a physics thing.
You want to get the momentum going and
maintain it, get the flywheel spinning.
AnnieLaurie: I've heard you say
that tactics are an expense,
but a system is an investment.
Can you explain that?
Steve: So I think this reframe is
helpful for business owners especially.
You know, when you run a campaign,
you spend the money, you get some
results, hopefully, and the campaign
ends and the results go away.
So in that regard, it's an
expense, whereas when you are
building this library of content.
You're educating buyers.
Your sales team is using this content.
It's more of a capital investment.
You're building a library of assets.
And so those things don't disappear.
It's not that you just
do one and not the other.
It's something that works
together . But those types of
investments are creating content
that work for you around the clock.
And you know, a good example of an
investment is building a website
that is functioning as a salesperson.
You're equipping it with the information
that your buyers are looking for.
It's not just a static brochure.
And so.
Having a marketing system that's
built on a framework or built on
frameworks that ultimately are about
educating the buyer, makes your
website a tremendous asset that you've
invested in as opposed to an expense
that's just taking up space online.
AnnieLaurie: That's a really
useful way to think about it.
Now that we know what a system is,
if I'm a business owner and I wanna
understand what actually goes into the
system, what are the building blocks?
Steve: The way that I would
define a system is accounting
for five core components.
Number one is strategy.
Two is your website.
Three is content, four is sales
alignment, and five is reporting.
So you think about these as
being five parts of the engine.
You take one out and your engine's not
gonna work the way that it's supposed to.
Every single piece of this matters.
AnnieLaurie: So.
just go through 'em one by one.
Start with strategy.
Steve: Strategy's the foundation.
So again, if you're thinking about
your system, this is the framework
within your system that helps you
identify the flow of your activities.
And so.
Strategy is absolutely critical.
Without it, nothing else works
properly, and I'm not just talking
about our goal is to grow 20%.
Strategy gets into defining
who is your audience?
Who are you clearly trying to reach
and getting that defined and tight?
What problems do you solve?
How do you solve it differently
than your competitors?
What does the buying journey look like?
What are the steps they take, the
questions they ask, where are they
going to get that information?
What does success look like?
How do you know it's successful?
You've gotta answer those types
of questions and more before
you start spending on execution.
AnnieLaurie: And oftentimes I
think a lot of companies might
just skip that part entirely.
Steve: They, they do, they go straight
to tactics and oftentimes it's
because it's assumed that everybody
knows who the target audience is.
But if you were to ask the salesperson
and the CEO to describe who.
Their ideal customer is you're
gonna get different descriptions.
If you were to ask them how
they communicate their value
proposition to the buyer, you're
gonna get two different answers.
And so what a lot of companies do, because
it's easy, is they hire an agency, they
launch ads, and they start posting.
And you know what?
In some cases people are gonna see
results, but especially in these
spaces where there's more complexity
to it, oftentimes six months from now
they're looking around the room trying
to figure out why isn't this working?
Well.
It's not working because it was
never anchored to a strategy.
You're just building it on.
You're building it on sand and
strategy first isn't optional.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
Strategy is the foundation.
what's next?
Steve: What's next is the website.
This is your digital foundation.
This is your online presence.
This is or should be your 24 7
salesperson who is gonna educate
your buyers, build trust, and
help qualified folks move forward.
And I, I wanna be super direct here.
Because I find that companies either
over index on the website and think
that's all of marketing or they
under index it, they undervalue
it and put it on the back burner.
And so the truth is for a B2B
service-based company, your website
is, it's a hub of the marketing system
because it's where your buyers are going
to go to get educated or nowadays it's
where AI is going to come on their behalf
to get educated about your company.
All the other components are gonna
connect and link back to it at some point.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
That all makes a lot of sense.
But why is the website a hub?
Like what specifically makes it a hub?
Steve: Well, because typically
it's gonna touch everything.
Your content, your social media at some
point is gonna drive traffic to it.
Your ads, if you're running
those, you're gonna send people.
If people are referring you, people
are gonna end up at your website.
And especially in the space
of referrals, people want to
go and find out who you are.
They wanna learn about your
business before they call you.
And we know today that most of the
research buyers do, you know, in some
cases up to 80% of the, the research
and the buyer's journey happens before
they reach out to a company, before
they ever talk to a salesperson.
So your website is, is critical.
And you know, one of the things that we
always encourage our clients to do is
have content that your sales team can use.
So you're sending prospects there to,
to read articles, to watch videos.
And again, we have all of these touch
points that go back to the website.
So it needs to clearly communicate who
you are, who you serve, why you're the
right choice, always positioning your
buyer as the hero, not your brand.
And.
Then every other piece of your, your
marketing is working from there.
AnnieLaurie: I think a lot of people
want a website that looks nice and
that's the priority, and they kind
of just let it end at looking nice or
looking cool, or whatever bells and
whistles that you know, appeal to them.
But a website doing its job
has a much deeper meaning.
It means earning the trust of the
people who are on your website.
Talk a little bit more about that.
Steve: Oh, absolutely.
You know, and, and especially for
the clients we work with, they're
not just selling a wed widget selling
expertise, judgment, outcomes.
So a buyer who lands on your website
needs to immediately feel that you
understand their problem and that
they believe that you can solve it.
And if that doesn't happen in the first
10 to 15 seconds, it doesn't matter
how good your service actually is.
The sale going to start on the website,
it either starts well or it starts badly.
AnnieLaurie: We've talked about this
a lot in other podcasts, but you know,
you make the point about, you know, they
need to, they need to know right away.
Give them a quick tip on, on how
they can test their website to
see if it clearly communicates.
What they're trying to
convey to their customers.
Steve: So, so the key thing here is you've
gotta view your website as your buyer.
So if you're.
Having difficulty with that, have somebody
that doesn't know what your company does.
Go to your website and see if
they can answer these three
questions in the first 10 seconds.
What do you do?
Why does it matter to me?
What do I do next?
If they can't answer those three
questions in the first 10 seconds,
you're losing people because they don't
have clarity, they have confusion,
and that shuts the brain down.
They're gonna go where
they can understand it.
AnnieLaurie: That's a great tip.
Thank you, Steve, and we'll link
some other resources that will help
you evaluate the effectiveness of
your website and to know whether
or not it is doing its job.
We'll link some of those in the
show notes, more resources for you.
Okay.
So we've got strategy,
we've got a website.
Steve, walk me through
component number three.
Steve: So now we're talking about content.
So strategy, website, and content.
That's an overused term, content
marketing, but here, what I want you
to understand is, is what it does
inside of a system, because it's,
it's a lot more than just posting
on LinkedIn or the occasional blog.
In, in, in our world, content is
how you demonstrate your expertise.
It's how you answer the, your
buyer's questions and, and
ultimately it's, it's building trust.
And, and a key part of it is it helps
your buyers qualify or disqualify
themselves, and that creates a lot
of efficiency for your sales team.
And so, again, your content's
gonna be on your website, which is
why your website is so important.
But ultimately, the goal is
you wanna become the most
trusted voice in your industry.
AnnieLaurie: I love that phrase, the
most trusted voice in your industry.
What's that mean?
Steve: Well think about your
buying behavior when you're
the one who is in buying mode.
So think about something recently
where you were researching.
You're gonna read articles, you're
gonna go to AI for summaries,
you're gonna watch things.
You're, you're looking for someone
who understands your situation.
They have an unbiased perspective.
'cause let's face it,
everybody, we can sniff out bs.
You sniff it out when you're the customer,
your buyers are gonna sniff it out.
So what great content does is it
educates your buyer before your sales
team's ever having a conversation.
It's gonna pre-qualify them
if it's done correctly.
It can help address objections
and, and so it's building trust,
it's creating a relationship before
there ever actually is relationship.
In a lot of cases, your best prospects,
they've been consuming a lot of your
content for weeks, in some cases, if
not longer, before they ever reach out.
AnnieLaurie: And how does AI
search the importance of content?
Does content play a bigger
role or a different role?
Tell us about that.
Steve: Well, it's, it's an
enormous role right now.
And you know, if you were to go ask
one of the AI tools, perplexity,
Gemini, JGPT Cloud, take your pick.
What's the best.
Accounting firm for
professional service companies.
Well, how does that AI
decide who to recommend?
Because AI is built to
function like a human.
It's looking for trust, authority,
it's looking for content that
actually answers people's questions
without being a complete sales pitch.
And so it's gonna
surface that information.
It's not just looking at your
website, it's looking across the web.
So if you don't have that content
that's answering those questions.
Your site's gonna be invisible to ai,
and more and more people are using that
to gather their information, to filter
out their short list before they ever
start going to the websites themselves.
And, and in some cases, the rules
haven't necessarily changed, it's
just accelerated significantly.
AnnieLaurie: Okay.
We've got strategy, we've got
a website, we've got content.
What's the fourth thing
we need in our system?
Steve: Sales alignment, and, and
again, because we do a lot of work with
B2B, I see this one left out probably
more than the others, and it's, it's
really costly because, marketing
and sales need to work together.
Even in sales led organizations, marketing
shouldn't be thought of as just, you
know, somebody over there that makes
some nice PowerPoint decks, or maybe
they do some articles on occasion like
marketing and sales need to be working
together so that they're driving revenue.
The whole point of what we're trying
to build here is so that the sales
team has better conversations with more
qualified prospects and close more deals.
And if marketing and sales aren't
connected, that's not gonna happen
because marketing is disconnected
from what sales is encountering.
Whereas when sales is helping marketing
understand what are the questions that
buyers are asking, what are the tools and
the resources that they need, what what
disqualifies a prospect when marketing
and sales are on the same page, they can
create content that helps drive leads,
but if they're also creating content that
sales can then use in the sales process.
So again, it's more of a a hand
in glove type relationship.
As opposed to marketing
tosses things over to sales.
Sales, grumbles about
it and tosses it back.
Marketing tries to do
better, et cetera, et cetera.
AnnieLaurie: So someone listening might be
on a sales team, might be on the marketing
team, what are some questions they can
ask themselves to know if they're aligned?
Steve: Number one, when was the
last time sales and marketing met?
And actually had a conversation around
what questions the, the buyers are
asking, because a lot of times what
happens is, it's transactional meetings.
There's no planning, there's no
having a conversation about the
type of content that's needed.
So I would say that's, that's a good one.
Another one is, I would say,
this is a good question for
the, the CEO to ask and that is
how does marketing describe what you do?
How does sales describe what you do?
In other words, what, what are the
messages that each is communicating?
Because.
Nine times outta 10, it's different.
So marketing and saying one thing on the
website, sales is saying another thing.
And so you get this, this disconnect.
So those would be a couple of starting
places to, to try to get a sense of
whether sales and marketing are working
together or they're disconnected.
And, and you know, another one
is how often are marketing and
sales frustrated with each other?
and part of the mindset is.
Viewing sales and marketing as
parts of the same team rather than
as separate roles and functions.
Yes, they have specific things
that each does, but, but when those
folks are working together and they
see themselves as one collective
team that can shift the dynamic.
AnnieLaurie: Okay, so
let's cover the last one.
It's reporting, and I think that
reporting can get really tricky, right?
Sometimes you're tracking
the wrong things.
Sometimes you're not
tracking anything at all.
Sometimes your numbers aren't
giving you the whole story.
Tell us about reporting.
What do we need to have in place
for our marketing system as it
pertains to reporting specifically?
Steve: Yeah, so when we're
talking about reporting, think
about this as the metrics.
On your dashboard, and this is, this
is how you're learning, this is how you
understand what's working and what's not.
And as data driven as marketing
can be, there's still an art to it.
We're, we're trying to
change human behavior.
We're trying to guide people so it's
not always cut and dry with, with
what's working and what doesn't.
most companies have
some form of analytics.
Google Analytics or something different,
maybe tracking in HubSpot or Salesforce,
whatever tools they're using.
But, but a lot of times
it's the wrong metrics.
They're, they're tracking vanity metrics.
They're looking at things that
indicate activity, but they're
not connected to the end result.
Those numbers have a place, and
sometimes they can feel good, but
really what you want to know is
where's your traffic coming from?
where are your leads coming from?
How are they finding you?
Are those folks converting?
Are they converting into conversations?
Are they converting into opportunities?
Are they ultimately
converting into clients?
How long does each of those steps take?
What are the conversion rates?
Because those are the metrics that matter,
and then you can put dollars to those to
start to measure what your ROI looks like,
not only at at large, but but breaking
it down to the individual channel.
AnnieLaurie: So reporting
closes the loop and it keeps
the system moving and improving.
Is that the idea?
Steve: Yeah.
E.
E, exactly.
And again, it's like we said earlier, the
system's ongoing, so it's not finished.
We get into this cadence, we get into
this rhythm of you plan, you develop your
strategy, what does execution look like?
You execute.
Then you evaluate what's
working, what's not.
Then you make those adjustments.
That's what makes a marketing
system a living thing.
It's not just a static plant.
And when you start to see this build
over the course of, now, again,
this is a longer term perspective.
So when you start to see this over the
course of 18, 24, 36 months, that's
where you start to see a lot of value
because now you have all these things
working together for sustained growth.
Lemme give you a real world example here.
So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm actually
thinking of, of one of our, our clients,
they're technology based company that
provides services to Fortune 500 and.
Fortune 2000, but there was such a
thing type companies, and they've
been growing year over year,
you know, 20% year over year.
And a lot of that is because
over the last several years we've
worked with them to develop a
more strategically focused system.
Where we're executing across the
board, things are now connected.
And so they've seen an increase not
only in their traffic, but their,
their name recognition has increased,
so they're getting a seat at the table
with what had previously been the,
the big competitors in their industry.
And so, but again, they were committed
to the long-term growth, recognizing
that the investments that they were
making initially were gonna take
time to, to see the fruit of that.
And they have.
AnnieLaurie: So let's make this really
practical for everyone listening.
If I'm miss.
or a marketing leader, and I want to know,
honestly, do I have a marketing system
or do I just have marketing activity?
should I be asking myself?
Steve: So I suspect by now folks listening
probably have a good sense of whether
they have a marketing system or not.
But either way, here are four questions
that I think you'll find helpful.
As you think through what you
need in order to grow and scale
your company for the long run.
And so if you can answer a yes to all
four of these, then it sounds like
you probably have a solid foundation.
If you're answering no to these,
then this will at least give
you some insight into the gap.
All right, so question number one.
Do you have a written marketing
strategy tied to your business goals
and something that's reviewed on a
regular basis, something that you're
going back to at least quarterly.
Now, this is not just tactics.
Tactics are a part of this.
Budget is a part of this, but this
is clearly answering the question.
Who are we reaching?
What are we saying?
How are we reaching them, and why?
AnnieLaurie: Okay, what's the next one?
Steve: Question number two is, is
your website actively consistently
generating qualified leads, not just
traffic, but qualified leads, and if it's
just been sitting there and it's not.
We've had past clients who they'd
written some really great articles,
generated a lot of traffic, but
it wasn't their audience, and
so they weren't getting leads.
AnnieLaurie: That's the real gut check
question right there from my perspective.
But what, tell us about the third one.
What's the third question they should ask?
Steve: Does your sales team regularly
use marketing content in their process?
Do they have things that they're giving
that they send to their prospects?
Are they referring to content
in recent sales conversations?
So, I know I just gave you multiple
questions there, but the essence of
it is are they using content that
marketing has created for them regularly?
And if they're not, then there's a gap.
AnnieLaurie: and the last question.
Steve: Yeah.
Can you clearly explain what's
working not just a guess or a hunch,
but can you look at your marketing
and say with confidence that you
know what's driving qualified leads?
AnnieLaurie: So these questions
might make some people a little
uncomfortable, but it's uncomfortable
in the best possible way.
Steve: Absolutely.
I mean that's the point.
'Cause you know, one of the, it's,
it's when, when people just have
this vague idea of we need more
marketing or there's something not
quite right with our marketing.
You can't act on that
because it's, it's undefined.
But when you ask these types of
questions, you start to understand
what's actually going on.
Is it a strategy problem?
Is it a website?
Is there sales alignment?
Is it we're not evaluating?
Maybe it's all the above.
This at least gives you
some starting points.
AnnieLaurie: And Steve, in your
experience, would you say this is a pretty
typical problem that businesses have?
Steve: Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I would say most companies, as
they're growing and scaling, they
go through this phase of trying
to figure marketing out, and that
often means trying some things out.
Maybe it's hiring an agency, maybe
it's trying somebody in-house, maybe
it's some combination, and having
to kind of go through it and figure
out what's working and what's not.
A lot of folks aren't talking
about a marketing system per se.
They're talking about campaigns or
they're talking about tactics, but not
something that that puts it all together.
AnnieLaurie: And that
thing is strategy first.
Steve: Absolutely.
Strategy first every time.
AnnieLaurie: Steve, this has been
such a good conversation, but before
we close, if someone's listening and
they're ready to take action right now,
what's the next step they should take?
Steve: If you're listening and,
and you realize we don't have a
system, here's the first step.
Take 90 minutes sometime within the next
week, sit down with your leadership team
and answer one question, who exactly
are we trying to reach and what's
the problem that we solve for them?
Because if you can't answer that, it
doesn't matter all the other things
that, that is your key question.
So that way you understand
who you're trying to reach.
What type of content to create, what
needs to be on the website, et cetera.
Everything else gets
built on this strategy.
First.
Tactics informed by the strategy.
That is the way to build
something that actually compounds.
AnnieLaurie: I love it.
And for folks who want to learn
more about how way find marketing
approaches this, where should they go?
Steve: Head over to
way find marketing.com.
You'll find there in our learning center.
An article that was
inspired by today's episode.
We will link to it in the show notes
and there you can learn more about
how we work our marketing system
and whether or not we might be a
fit for where you are right now.
We're not the right fit for a lot
of companies but for growth driven
B2B companies, service companies.
We are usually a really good fit and
we work with people two different ways.
One is for folks that have an
in-house marketing person and are
trying to give them structure,
trying to give them training.
We provide coaching and that also
includes meeting with the CEO,
meeting with the sales team so that
we're building that revenue team in
the context of the marketing system.
Now, for those that don't
want to have an in-house team.
We can become that outsourced team
for you where we run the marketing
. We work with you to build the
strategy, take care of the website,
and then we execute the plan for
you, meet with you regularly so that
we're following that 90 day cadence.
AnnieLaurie: Thanks, Steve.
This has been a really
informative episode today.
You've really unpacked a lot for us, if
this episode hit home for you, share it.
Send it to your leadership team.
If you have one person in your company who
needs to hear it, send it to them today.
And don't forget to like and
follow our podcast wherever you
enjoy listening to podcasts.
And you'll always be notified
when we have a new episode.
Steve: Thank you so much
for joining us today on the
Growth-Minded Marketing Podcast.
We will see you all next time.