nadosi.com

John Jantsch (00:02.19)

So what if every time you hired too fast, launched a new channel or added a service line, you were making a bet that your business actually wasn’t prepared to win. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jance and my guest today is Mark Roberge. He’s the co-founder of Stage Two Capital, founding chief revenue officer at HubSpot and the author of a book we’re going to talk about today, The Science of Scaling.

Mark helped grow HubSpot from zero to IPO and then brought what he had learned into Harvard Business School where he taught founders how to grow without blowing up what they built. His framework gives business owners a way to use evidence rather than instinct or outside pressure to decide when they’ve truly earned the right to scale. So Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Roberge (00:53.259)

Thanks, John. That’s not my copy and I love it. Seriously, I love how you put it.

John Jantsch (00:59.105)

Awesome. good. Well, you know, we were talking before we got started, you and I met some 20 years ago when HubSpot was a nascent business. think maybe the first conference there were 500 people, something of that neighborhood.

Mark Roberge (01:04.916)

Yeah.

Mark Roberge (01:11.393)

Yeah, I was like in a Marriott in Cambridge. I have like, I remember specifically a couple of things about you. I think you were the most famous one of our early partners. I think I remember my last in-person chat with you was in some steakhouse in like South Boston or something. Cause I remember two people came up to you and asked for your autograph and you were like super humble about it. And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is crazy.

John Jantsch (01:21.271)

Ha ha ha!

John Jantsch (01:27.438)

You

John Jantsch (01:35.288)

Well, I’m glad I wasn’t a jerk. That’s for sure. Awesome. Well, let’s get into your book a little bit. So I mentioned HubSpot, Harvard, now you back companies as a VC. Did something you learned or showed up across all three of those roles kind of make you say, I need to write this book?

Mark Roberge (01:37.365)

Hahaha

Mark Roberge (01:54.207)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, it’s kind of funny that we can unpack as much as you want, but in reflecting the last 20 years of my life professionally, I’ve given up on having a plan because I never intended to go into sales. I never applied for HubSpot. I never applied or intended to be a professor at Harvard. I never intended to start a venture capital firm.

And I never intended to write either the sales acceleration formula 12 years ago or the scientist’s killing last year. These were all things that like people were like, would you be willing to do this? So they did, they do just like show up and the way that this one, as both books unfolded was a, like you, I am blessed with the opportunity to do a number of keynotes every year. and I, for the big ones like saster, I tended to try to do something fairly original for the year.

So I’ve, you every year I do something original. So I’ve given like 20 to 25 brand new speeches over the last decade. And this one was just like a pattern I saw after like eight years of being out of HubSpot as an independent board member, as a professor, as an advisor, as an investor, in why companies, the few that went IPO and billion dollar valuations versus the ones that went bankrupt was just this.

really non-strategic, non-rigorous perspective on when to scale and how fast. And half do it too early, too fast. Half of them wait too long and go too slow. It’s more about going the optimal time. I started speaking about it and I’m like, it’s ridiculous how many classes and rigorous frameworks we have on accounting for and accruing revenue, but not on scaling revenue. And it just went viral and kept speaking about it, kept writing about it. And then Stanford was like, hey, can you write this up?

And here we have it.

John Jantsch (03:47.128)

So the term, you kind of alluded to it, but I’ll say it directly, earn the right to scale. It does a lot of work in your framework and your talk. So what does a business owner actually have to prove or do to prove that’s true? Like, when do they know I have the right to scale?

Mark Roberge (04:04.286)

Yeah, it’s kind of interesting how it unfolds right now. I I’ve done this with like tractor companies in Brazil and pharmaceutical companies in Japan, but mostly with software companies in Silicon Valley. And it’s kind of funny how it’s decided. Like the decision on when to scale is usually when someone hands you a fat check, which doesn’t sound that strategic.

And so I try to unpack it as two steps that are sequential. One is product market fit and the other is go to market fit. And usually you’re like product market fit, like duh, product market fit, duh. But like, what is product market fit? You know, I think a lot of people will say I’m ready to scale when I have product market fit, which I think is a great answer. But then when I ask them what product market fit is,

I get a lot of different answers, most of which are about a certain revenue number, a certain customer number, a certain number of inbound leads. And then I’m like, well, okay, cool. Let’s say that you have 200 customers or like 500 inbound leads and everyone’s buying, but like people stop using the product. Do you have product market fit? And they’re like, okay, no, but

I’ll just start, I’ll just listen to them and build the product to appease their needs. And I’ll be like, okay, well, how will you know when you’ve achieved it? And they’ll be like, when they keep using the product and don’t churn. And I’m like, exactly. So like that, that’s like the first kind of like pivot mentally for folks is I encourage you to define product market fit, not as a revenue acquisition.

metric, but as a revenue and customer retention metric. And the book talks about how to extract that long-term lagging indicator back to something that you can evaluate in the first week of a customer being with you. Okay, so that’s step one, product market fit. And then if you think about it, once you’ve achieved product market fit, all that means is that when you sign up 10 more customers, they’re gonna see value that you promised and stick around.

John Jantsch (06:00.866)

Yes.

Mark Roberge (06:25.372)

It doesn’t mean that you’ve proven that you can acquire and serve them profitably. And that’s what go-to-market fit is. And it’s measured by UNEconomics. So that’s really the, probably the simplest way to describe the work is these two sequences of product market fit and go-to-market fit as measured by retention in the first one and positive UNEconomics in the second.

John Jantsch (06:29.506)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (06:46.018)

Well, since we’re defining terms, we probably better step back because I bet you if I asked 100 people, 10 people, 100 people sounds like too much work. If I asked 10 people what the word scale means, we’d probably get a bunch of definitions, more leads, more staff, more tools, but how do you define it?

Mark Roberge (06:59.21)

Sure. Sure.

Mark Roberge (07:07.528)

Yeah. So once you are ready to scale the way and that to your point, yeah, that can mean a lot of things. It could mean how do we scale our culture? How do we scale our engineering team? How do we scale our office space? Blah, blah. First off, I’m, I should be more clear that I’m talking about scaling the revenue. And to your point, scaling revenue, the inputs to that vary quite a bit by business by business. if you’re a consumer business, you may just have to spend more on marketing. Something that you know a lot about Joan. if you’re a B2B.

John Jantsch (07:15.094)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (07:21.92)

Okay.

Mark Roberge (07:37.513)

sometimes you have to scale fancy outside salespeople if you’re selling like rockets to governments. And sometimes you do it through PLG. And again, it’s more of like a marketing exercise. So I really talk about scaling the revenue and the principles, apply, whether you’re doing it through pure marketing or through, through sales head count. let’s for simplicity, let’s just talk about scaling through sales head count and the

Big pothole that people make there is even if they follow the guidance of like, let’s achieve product market fit first and then go to market fit, and it could take a day, it could take a week, it could take a month, it could take a year, whatever, and now we’re ready to scale, they raise money and then they have a target for the year and they hire like 27 reps the next week.

even though they only have one on the team today. And there’s just no appreciation of the new capabilities that are needed to hire and onboard and manage 27 reps. Like just like, let’s take one piece of it, which is let’s kind of pontificate that the hiring quality might be correlated to the number of interview screens we do, qualified interview screens to the hire. If I do,

two interview screens and make a hire, I’m probably not gonna make as good of a hire as if I did 10 interview screens and make a hire. So if we’re trying to do 10 and we’re making 27 hires, that’s 270 qualified interview screens. Where are we getting those candidates? Who’s doing the interviews? Nevermind, where’s the demand gen gonna come from? Who’s gonna ramp them? What about the managers? It’s just too driven from a Google Sheet or Excel, and so the simple pivot philosophically is,

Don’t think about it as putting the annual plan together and hiring all those reps on January 2nd. Think about it as establishing a hiring pace every month or every quarter. 10 reps a month, boom, boom, boom. As opposed to like 37 at the beginning of the year.

John Jantsch (09:51.791)

So there’s all kinds of horror stories of companies that blew up because they grew too fast. Would you say that they scaled too fast or they didn’t scale fast enough?

Mark Roberge (09:57.47)

Yes.

Mark Roberge (10:04.928)

Both. have, like I said, it’s about half and half. I mean, I would say like the classic examples out there, like an old school one is Groupon, which I think if you look at it from this lens, never really had product market fit. they just like, the promise was like, if you’re a Chinese restaurant and give these coupons away, you’ll get new customers, but it was really just the existing customers. And then maybe like WeWork never really had go-to-market fit. And that was pretty famously documented story.

John Jantsch (10:21.486)

There’s Buzz. There’s Buzz.

Mark Roberge (10:35.36)

The ones that didn’t scale fast enough, we just don’t know, right? Cause they’re like, I can name some in our portfolio or people I’ve worked with over the years, but the reason why we don’t know them is cause they just sat there and they were like, they had something, but the co-founders just like wanted to just go too slow and continue to do founder selling and wanted to run a profitable business when it needed to be a blitz scale business. And there’s nothing wrong with running a profitable business. just, if you’re trying to win in the AI customer support,

John Jantsch (10:38.702)

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Roberge (11:05.258)

category today, you can’t be profitable right now. Like there’s just certain blitz scale risk that you have in your category that needs to dictate how fast or slow you go.

John Jantsch (11:06.638)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (11:16.056)

So one of the key elements in science of scaling is evidence over instinct. So if I don’t have a giant data team, and I know AI is actually solving some of this right now, but what does evidence actually look like at a startup or smaller business level?

Mark Roberge (11:29.768)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Mark Roberge (11:40.117)

Yeah, I mean, you don’t, you definitely don’t need like a sophisticated data science team. You don’t even need AI agents doing this stuff. Let me just give you like a really simple example. So we talked about product market fit is where I’m, I’m proposing to everyone that it’s more about customer value and retention as opposed to customer acquisition. And obviously you need to acquire customers to eventually make them valuable. So it’s an input to it.

John Jantsch (11:48.526)

Okay, all right.

Mark Roberge (12:08.34)

The retention is a lagging indicator. So we needed to find a leading indicator of retention. We can’t wait a year to know if we have product market fit. I need to know like the week after I acquired the customer or the month after. And so what the book and the work I’ve been doing with companies for last decade is to help them define their leading indicator of retention. What is it that we can observe in the first month of a customer’s experience with you, your product, your service, whatever.

that if we see that, they’ll be with you forever. And if we don’t, they’ll probably churn. And so like, I frame it as P percent of customers do e-event every tee time. Okay, so that sounds like the programmers on the audience are like loving this right now. The history majors are like totally lost, right? So like, just to bring that to life, Slack, 80 % of customers send 2000 team messages every month. HubSpot, 80 % of customers use five or more features in the platform every month, right?

John Jantsch (12:53.55)

You

Mark Roberge (13:08.564)

These are things that can be measured in the first month to give us insight. If we’re at 80%, we probably have product market fit. If we have 10%, we definitely don’t. I don’t need a data scientist to evaluate that. Okay, so these are not overly complicated, like PhD math type things.

John Jantsch (13:20.174)

So.

John Jantsch (13:29.922)

One of the things I’ve been preaching for 20 years is that when we talk about the customer journey, that retention and advocacy and all the things that come after somebody becomes a customer are part of the customer journey or should be part of the customer journey. And for so many people, it’s let’s get a customer. And I think what you’re really certainly hammering home here is this idea that you’re not going to scale without retention and without

Mark Roberge (13:44.234)

Yes!

John Jantsch (13:59.382)

know, referrals or whatever you call it. Yeah.

Mark Roberge (14:01.984)

Spot on. mean, when I hear people like you say this, the conviction continues to escalate, right? Because it’s like, another way to say what John is saying here is, let’s just talk really tactically. Do not let the dashboards and sales funnels in your CRM end at closed one. That is like literally step four of seven, right? Like let’s just like really step back, like very, very like basic, like.

John Jantsch (14:20.468)

Yeah.

Mark Roberge (14:31.654)

know, opportunity stage one is, you know, business, like discovery call and like business and you know, metrics definition. Step two is product validation, demo, blah, blah. Step three is closed one. Step four is set up. Step five is regular engagement. Step six is retention. That’s the funnel.

John Jantsch (14:52.558)

John Jantsch (14:59.438)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually refer to it, have been referring to it as the hourglass, you know, with the idea being that, the funnel, right, but then it goes back out again. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Roberge (15:06.26)

Totally. And expands. Exactly, because you expand more and like lot of people like winning by design with Jaco and like that’s just a great way, the bow tie. A lot of people like it’s a really good way to think about it because that usage, it represents that the usage and should grow.

John Jantsch (15:16.589)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:23.576)

So you were at Harvard and name a dozen schools, Stanford, that a lot of people go to those because they’ve got a big idea or they wanna have a big idea. They wanna turn out the next Google. I’m sure you encountered many founders or would be founders in those environments. What would you like if you were, I’m sure you did this in your class environment.

tell them they’re gonna get wrong or how would you coach them of how you think they’re thinking about it incorrectly?

Mark Roberge (15:58.009)

I mean, there’s a lot to that. I think we covered a lot of them related to the work in terms of like, you know, being more precise around having the business fundamentals in place to be prepared to scale and how you go about scaling. I would say,

I guess I’ll add two more to it that come up a lot, one that’s related to revenue development to some degree and one that it really isn’t. The one I’ll mention is having a plan for a moat. And I would say like, when I ask people what their long-term defensibility will be, they often tell me about a feature.

John Jantsch (16:31.992)

Yes.

Mark Roberge (16:45.468)

And when I asked them if they are correct and they start crushing it and start winning, and then the competition realizes it, how long will it take them for them to build that feature? And they say six months. And I say, that’s not long-term defensibility. So, so you really have to like, you don’t have to prove it on day one. Cause oftentimes it might take something that you have to kind of take one of those design big start small approaches to it.

John Jantsch (17:02.58)

Hehehehe

Mark Roberge (17:14.464)

but you really need to have a vision around if you are right, there will be lots of copycats and the incumbents will try to take you out and you need to make sure that you win there. The other one, unless you want to talk about that, John, I have one more that I can throw out that’s pretty popular. Yeah, yeah, the other one that’s interesting, I think it was a study done at London School of Economics where they looked at like, I don’t know, 5,000 seed funded businesses like 15 years ago and.

John Jantsch (17:22.637)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:31.17)

Yeah, yeah, go for it.

Mark Roberge (17:43.282)

and tried to evaluate the commonalities for those that like exited at, you know, very strong exit. The number one correlation was the founder’s ability to up level the executive team around them as they went through the various phases of growth. And it’s like, it’s so pronounced in my journey with some of these folks. It’s like, it’s so hard to do too. Like it’s so hard for like a founder to like stare someone in the eyes who’ve been there in the trenches with them from day one for three years.

and be able to communicate that they are over their head and that the business needs someone ready for the next stage. How you deliver that, how you recognize it, how you have the guts to say it, how you like move through that and still feel like a human and still feel like that person has been made whole. Like that’s such a difficult skill to build, but that there’s so much correlation with successful founders and CEOs and in

developing and executing that skill.

John Jantsch (18:43.372)

Well, and let’s take it up one level. Many times the business outgrows the founder, right? So they may be having that conversation with themselves, right? Yeah.

Mark Roberge (18:48.714)

Sure. It’s very rare that they’re there. Totally. Yeah. And that lots of times the board has to manage that. think we, we went from an, like a culture or like a tactic around that. would say in the eighties and nineties when venture capital was much smaller and startups were, it just, was a much smaller portion of the economy. VCs were notorious for investing in these young technicians and then

fire in them. And I think in the early 2000s, venture took a different approach. They didn’t want to get a reputation for firing CEOs. So they did what I call the Sheryl Sandberg, which is to like bring in the, the operator, but keep the CEO, which is good. think that’s great. think a lot of times that CEO can sort of graduate up to being a

face to the organization, a driver of the culture, a person to be in key meetings with customers, to be on the road, but like don’t have to be or nor qualified to be like the day-to-day operators, hence like today’s COO president role. So, but yeah, sometimes founders, they’re like not willing to let go. And I have to be like, I have to be like, do you even understand that you have graduated to an era and scale that every CEO

John Jantsch (20:00.782)

Yes, yes.

Mark Roberge (20:15.519)

founder dreams of, we’re basically offering to pay for someone to do all the work that you hate and have you just do the work you love, which is product vision, talking to customers and talking to the market. So it’s like, it takes a little reframing, you know.

John Jantsch (20:17.56)

Yeah, that’s right.

John Jantsch (20:23.598)

You

John Jantsch (20:33.16)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you, I think your PR people mentioned this, they’re donating the proceeds to the book to McLean Hospital for Mental Health Research. Is there an intentional connection of the subject of scaling to mental health?

Mark Roberge (20:42.014)

Yeah.

Mark Roberge (20:48.113)

my gosh. Huge. Well, not so much. It’s very light. It’s more of an intentional connection to the author. and it’s just something as you’ve experienced, John, it like you get up, you get up in the morning and do these things three times more aggressively when you have a cause like this around you. And there’s two personal reasons and thank you for providing a platform to talk about them. The first one is mental health has played an enormous piece in my own life.

John Jantsch (20:55.992)

Yeah.

Mark Roberge (21:18.259)

I have been a caregiver, a direct caregiver to many loved ones and I’ve been a patient. And I can stand here and say this because I’ve been blessed with certain resume wins that society values and I can be braver than most. And I’m sure by saying that some people may be hesitant to work with me. And I just think we need to fight that stigma more. Like we’ve come a long way in a generation, but

Even to this day, I think a lot of people will be interviewing a candidate and find out they survived cancer 10 years ago and it will elevate their perception of them versus if they found out that they overcame a serious mental illness, they may have some concern and both are just a disease. They’re often genetic. So that’s part of the personal driver. And the second one is I think in this moment in tech, there’s a hundred times more capital talent.

John Jantsch (22:02.03)

Yes.

John Jantsch (22:07.308)

Yes.

Mark Roberge (22:17.009)

an effort going into building AI and next to nothing in helping society adapt to the world that about to become. And I think we as technicians need to change that. We can’t delegate this to Washington or economists. They’re just not close enough to it. And we just need to like really diversify our efforts away from just building and profiting toward

John Jantsch (22:25.347)

Yes.

Mark Roberge (22:44.265)

helping society adapt to this new world. like with every tech revolution, we ended up better as a society, but there are scars along the way. It happened with the internet. They’re about to be really bad with AI if we don’t do anything. So I think we all need to find a little thing to do. And right now that’s my little thing to do.

John Jantsch (22:51.734)

Yes.

John Jantsch (22:59.914)

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Any way you’d invite people to connect with you, find out more about your work as well as your latest book.

Mark Roberge (23:11.315)

Yeah, I’m all over. mean, LinkedIn is probably where I’m most at. I’m trying to hang out on TikTok more, John, just to like, because I need to like talk to these 22 year old founders as well, which is awesome. So I’m trying to find where they are. But I’m mostly on LinkedIn if folks want to go on there and collaborate.

John Jantsch (23:25.55)

Well again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you someday in a steakhouse in South Boston. I don’t know how much that’ll be worth to you, if you got a pen, I’ll do it. All right. Thanks, Mark.

Mark Roberge (23:32.305)

I’d love it and maybe I’ll ask for your autograph, John.

Mark Roberge (23:42.578)

All right, it’s great to see you. Thank you.

Why Some Entrepreneurs Keep Growing While Others Stall

Why Some Entrepreneurs Keep Growing While Others Stall written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode:

Overview

Most business owners are not failing because they lack ambition. They are failing because the daily practices that drive performance quietly erode under pressure, and nobody notices until the stall is already underway. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch sits down with Jon Gordon, bestselling author of The Energy Bus and his latest release, The Power of Positive Habits, to talk about the micro-practices that separate leaders who keep growing from those who plateau.

Jon has spent two decades working with organizations including the LA Dodgers, Miami Heat, Clemson football, Southwest Airlines, and Dell. His work is grounded in a simple premise: habits are not just personal development tools. They are leadership infrastructure. Without them, you cannot show up consistently for your team, your clients, or your business.

This episode is for entrepreneurs and small business owners who feel like they are already working as hard as they can and still losing ground. Jon walks through specific, actionable habits around mindset, leadership, health, and relationships, and explains why simplicity and practicality are the only things that make habits stick long-term.

Guest Bio

Jon Gordon is a bestselling author of more than 30 books, including The Energy Bus, which has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. He is a sought-after keynote speaker and consultant whose clients include professional sports franchises, Fortune 500 companies, and leadership teams across industries. His work focuses on how positive habits, energy, and mindset drive individual and organizational performance. His latest book, The Power of Positive Habits, compiles 93 proven practices into a practical framework leaders can start using immediately.

Key Takeaways

Habits are not just personal development. They are leadership tools. If you are not showing up with the right energy and mindset, your team cannot perform at their best.
The thank you walk, taking a morning walk while practicing gratitude, floods the brain with positive emotions that build resilience over time. It is one of the highest-leverage single habits in the book.
Connect before you correct. Building genuine relationships with your team is not a soft skill. It is the prerequisite to feedback that actually lands and performance that actually improves.
Do not try to build 93 habits at once. Start with one. Master it. Then add a second. The compounding effect of three solid habits will outpace the chaos of chasing all of them simultaneously.
Good habits are the first thing to go during stressful times, but they are exactly what you need most when things get hard. Your habits are your foundation, not a reward for when things calm down.
Positive thinking is not about ignoring reality. It is about maintaining the belief and optimism necessary to navigate challenges and find a path forward. Pessimists do not build businesses.
Most plateaus are caused by a leadership gap or an unresolved wound that is quietly constraining growth. Identifying and working through it is how leaders move to the next level.
Mastering the morning, reading, thinking, and doing something positive before the day begins, creates a success anchor. You start the day already winning, which makes you more resilient when the punches come.
Principles inform, practices transform. Knowing what you should do is not enough. The habits you actually put into practice are the only thing that changes your life.
Jon Gordon was not naturally positive. His habits are the result of deliberate, consistent work over 20 years, not personality. That means these habits are available to anyone willing to practice them.

Great Moments (Timestamps)

[00:01] — John’s opening frame: the owners losing ground without knowing it, and why habits are the hidden culprit

[01:17] — Why Jon wrote this book for leaders specifically, and what makes it different from other habit books

[02:18] — The comparison to Atomic Habits: what ChatGPT said, and why it is worth hearing

[03:26] — The thank you walk explained, and the research behind why gratitude in the morning changes your brain chemistry

[04:43] — How these habits apply to small business owners and entrepreneurs, not just corporate teams

[06:42] — The one thing that makes habits stick long-term, and why complexity is the enemy

[09:07] — What happens when someone tries to do all 93 habits, and what Jon recommends instead

[12:23] — The honest answer to “can you be positive and still face hard realities?” Jon’s response is worth the whole episode

[14:22] — Why plateaus happen, what is really holding people back, and how to move through it

[17:16] — Jon’s personal story: how a failing marriage and a naturally negative mindset led him to build the habits he now teaches

Memorable Quotes

“Principles inform, practices transform. It’s going to be the practices that transform you.” — Jon Gordon

“Being positive doesn’t mean you ignore reality. It means you maintain optimism, belief, and faith in order to create a better reality.” — Jon Gordon

“If you grow your capacity for leadership, you will become greater than your problems.” — Jon Gordon

“Good habits go out the window during stressful times, and they actually need to be our foundation during those stressful times so we stay strong in the storm.” — Jon Gordon

“I’m not naturally positive. And so I have all these positive mindset tips in the book because thinking is a habit.” — Jon Gordon

Before You Touch Your Marketing, Do This First

Before You Touch Your Marketing, Do This First written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Most founders come to a marketing conversation with a tactic already in mind.

Better website. More leads. A LinkedIn strategy. Maybe an AI tool that’ll finally make content easy. The tactic changes. The assumption underneath it doesn’t: the marketing needs to change.

After 20 years doing this work with small businesses, here’s what I’ve actually seen. The marketing is rarely the first thing that needs to change. The founder’s clarity is.

Not because anything is wrong with the founder. Most of the founders who ask for marketing help are working hard and carrying a lot. The problem isn’t effort. It’s that they’ve lost the ability to see their own business clearly.

Why that happens

Five years in. Ten years in. You’ve absorbed a hundred opinions about what your business should be, and somewhere along the way you drifted from what it actually is.

You’re making decisions based on the business you remember, or the one you wish you had. Every new strategy you install inherits that confusion.

I watched a founder last year build out a full content strategy, hire a new agency, and rewrite their website. Same results they’d been getting for 3 years. The strategy was fine. The clarity underneath it wasn’t there.

The Founder Portrait: 4 questions most founders avoid

Before you touch strategy, before you change anything about your marketing, do this. One hour. A blank page. Four questions.

What’s actually working right now, and how do I know?

Not what you’re doing. What’s working. There’s a difference, and most founders can’t answer it with specifics.

“Working” has a real definition: it produces revenue, a measurable input to revenue, or it reduces what you’re spending to acquire revenue. Everything else is activity. If you can’t name what’s working and point to the evidence, that’s a starting point.

What am I doing out of habit, guilt, or optimism that I should stop?

Every business carries weight it doesn’t need. A service line that never quite worked. A customer segment that costs more than it pays. A channel somebody told you to be on 3 years ago.

The honest answer is almost always 3 to 5 specific things. Naming them is the hard part. Stopping them is what creates room for real growth.

Where is my business actually making money, and where am I pretending it does?

This one requires looking at revenue by segment, by service, by customer, with gross margin attached. Most founders have a story about their business that’s drifted from the numbers. The numbers don’t drift.

I’ve seen this pattern enough times that I look for it now. The founder thinks they run a 3-service-line firm. The numbers say they run a single-service-line firm with 2 expensive hobbies attached.

Who am I as a founder, and what do I want this business to give me?

This is the question most marketing work completely skips. Growth is one possible goal. Some founders want a business that supports a specific life. Some want an exit. And those are different businesses with entirely different marketing systems.

If you don’t know which one you’re building, no strategy can serve you. It’ll always optimize toward the wrong target.

What the Founder Portrait actually does

These 4 questions together produce what I call the Founder Portrait. It’s not a document you share or hand off. It’s the ground you stand on when you do the strategic work that comes next.

Without it, every downstream decision is made from an unstable position. The messaging, the ideal client definition, the channels, the campaigns: all of it inherits whatever you were confused about when you built it.

You can only build a system on what you actually know. The Founder Portrait is how you find out.

One thing to do this week

Sit down for one hour with a blank page and answer the 4 questions. No team. No advisors. No AI. Just you and the page.

Don’t try to turn the answers into a plan yet. The work this week is to see the business clearly. Everything else comes after that.

The Founder Portrait is the starting point. The rest of the system is what comes next. I’ve put the complete framework in a new ebook: “7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success.” It covers everything from defining your ideal client to building a referral engine that actually runs. Grab it at dtm.world/7steps.

Why the Smartest Leader Usually Fails

Why the Smartest Leader Usually Fails written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the full episode:

Overview

Most companies hit a ceiling not because of strategy or market conditions, but because the leader is still trying to be the smartest person in the room. In this episode, John Jantsch sits down with Jason Wild, executive advisor and co-author of Genius at Scale, published by HBR Press, to make the case that the lone genius model of leadership is not just outdated. It is actively holding companies back.

Jason spent more than 20 years in senior roles at Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce, leading projects across 40 countries. He watched brilliant people pour their careers into innovation efforts that succeeded at rates of five to fifteen percent, not because the ideas were bad, but because the conditions around those ideas were never built to support them. Genius at Scale is his answer to that problem.

This episode covers the shift from pathfinding to wayfinding, the three leadership roles that drive repeatable innovation, why most good ideas die in integration rather than ideation, and what small business owners can do right now to build a team that does not need them to be the source of every good idea.

About Jason Wild

Jason Wild is an executive advisor, co-founder of Wild Innovation Consulting, and co-author of Genius at Scale: How Great Leaders Drive Innovation, published by HBR Press. He spent more than two decades in senior leadership roles at IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce and has led projects in 40 countries. Earlier in his career he had television and film credits, including a co-starring role opposite Mr. T in a CBS movie. Learn more at geniusatscale.com.

Key Takeaways

Stop hiring for the A player. Build the A team. The distinction sounds small but it changes everything about how you lead, hire, and structure work.
Innovation is a social process. You cannot mandate it. You have to create the conditions where people feel safe enough and inspired enough to want to co-create the future with you.
Most innovation stalls at integration, not ideation. Good ideas are not the bottleneck. Getting them through the seams between people, systems, and teams is where everything falls apart.
Language shapes culture more than most leaders realize. The Pfizer VP who banned the word change and replaced it with evolve saw an immediate shift in how his skeptical team responded to new initiatives.
The most dangerous place to make decisions is your office. Getting out and experiencing what your customers actually experience is not a nice-to-have. It is a leadership practice.
Celebrating individual achievement sends the wrong signal. If you want collaboration to be the norm, recognize teams, not heroes.
Wayfinding is replacing pathfinding. In a world changing this fast, the job of a leader is not to set a fixed destination and remove barriers. It is to figure out where you are going while you are already moving.
Self-awareness is an underrated leadership skill. How you make people feel when you give feedback shapes whether they will ever bring you their best thinking again.
Small business owners are better positioned for this than they think. Smaller teams, less bureaucracy, and closer proximity to customers are advantages in building cultures of repeatable innovation.

Timestamps

[00:02] Opening hook: the reason your company hits a ceiling might have nothing to do with strategy.

[00:53] Jason’s first career in Hollywood and co-starring with Mr. T in a CBS movie of the week.

[01:44] The core premise: why the lone genius model of leadership fails and what replaces it.

[03:33] What Jason saw at IBM that shaped his thinking about why smart people accept such low innovation success rates.

[06:37] Why small business founders are wired to be the genius in the room and why that eventually becomes the ceiling.

[07:19] The ABC framework: architect, bridger, and catalyst unpacked.

[10:07] Why the architect role is really about culture and psychological safety.

[11:03] The bridger as the unsung hero of innovation and why Death Valley is where most good ideas go to die.

[13:04] The role outside consultants and third parties play in bridging across boundaries.

[14:03] What catalysts do differently and how movements start with people and ideas, not companies.

[16:35] The Pfizer story: how banning the word change helped get a vaccine out in 266 days instead of eight to ten years.

[18:25] What we typically celebrate about leadership that the research says is actually wrong.

[20:31] How writing the book as a collaborative team proved its own thesis.

Memorable Quotes

“Stop trying to hire the A player. Focus on building the A team. It sounds subtle but it is a fundamentally different way to lead.”

“Innovation is not about coming up with the best idea. The organizations that innovate time and time again focus on the conditions and the environment around the idea.”

“Most innovation stalls not at the ideation phase but the integration phase. That is where good ideas go off to die.”

“Self-awareness is one of the most undervalued skills in leadership. How you make people feel when you give them feedback determines whether they will ever bring you their real thinking.”

“If the billionaire founder can make time to stand in line at a bank branch, everyone else can practice empathy too.”

Learn more at geniusatscale.com.

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:02.083)

So what if the reason your company hits a ceiling has nothing to do with strategy, funding or market conditions and everything to do with who you think the genius in the room is supposed to be? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Jason Wilde. He’s an executive advisor and co-author of a book we’re going to talk about today, Genius at Scale, How Great Leaders Drive Innovation. was published by HBR Press.

Jason spent more than 20 years in senior roles at Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce and led projects in 40 countries and co-founded Wild Innovation Consulting. And this wasn’t in your bio, I don’t think, but I found you had some television credits, movie credits. So can we start there?

Jason Wild (00:53.47)

We can start wherever you want, John. It’s great to on your show, yes. My first career was Hollywood. My mom was the classic stage actor, stage mom, trying to get me and my brother to be famous. So yes, believe it or not.

John Jantsch (01:09.562)

That’s awesome. So you started with Mr. T in something? Is that one I found maybe? Was he? Yeah.

Jason Wild (01:16.238)

I did. did. It’s, yeah, going back to the eighties, but at the peak of his his fame in the 18, I did co-starred a movie was the CBS movie of week called The Toughest Man in the World that you can find on Amazon or YouTube. I think actually a few years ago, I found a YouTube clip where whoever uploaded the clips said it was the worst fight scene in Hollywood history. And I agree.

John Jantsch (01:43.081)

Well, you have that permanent record for you. All right, so let’s dive into the book. The core idea is that the idea of the genius at the top, the boss, is really now out of date and what’s needed now is genius at scale. Can you make that concrete really for a business owner, say, running a team of 10, 20 people?

Jason Wild (02:08.046)

Yeah, absolutely. this is a book that when my co-author invited me to write the book almost 10 years ago, I kind of thought it would be the book writing version of the Gilligan’s Island, right? It’d be maybe a two, three year tour. And here we are, believe it or not, almost 10 years later and thousands and thousands of hours and worth every minute. So basic premise was I was not interested. I’m a practitioner. You know, I’ve been leading projects in teams.

trying to do meaningful work around technology, digital transformation, cultures of innovation around the world with large companies as well as startups. honestly, at this point in my career, John, I was not interested in just writing a book to write a book. But I was really lucky to start my career at IBM when Lou Gerstner was still CEO there and got to interact with Lou a little bit and

And it was a really important moment, I think, for me at that part of my career, because IBM was very client focused, very customer centric. And that was ingrained deeply in my brain. I was surrounded literally by geniuses. I was there when IBM did Watson on Jeopardy. I got to know the guy who invented the relational database, eventually a small company called Oracle monetized and created a nice little business around.

John Jantsch (03:30.042)

You

Jason Wild (03:33.711)

You know, as I was working on these projects, long story short, I was seeing these incredibly talented people literally pour their life into these projects or whatever it is they were working on, but accepting very low success rates, 5%, 10%, 15%. And, you know, I bought into the same notion that innovation was all about coming up with the best idea, that it was about the lone genius.

John Jantsch (03:58.329)

you

Jason Wild (04:01.672)

I’m the person with the biggest title and power. But over time, I became really curious about what really did set out in a small company or a big company. You why did some ideas, you know, go far enough along to actually change the way that we live or work or change the system? And others didn’t. And it kind of became a little bit of my career and life passion. And I saw so many of these people that I really looked up to just approaching it kind of the wrong way.

falling in love with the ideas, focusing on the world of innovation. And maybe they get lucky or there’s some heroic result, but the real organizations or teams that were great at innovating time and time again, were the ones that really focused more on the conditions and the environment around them. And so, we started talking about Mr. T, it took me 40 years for my life to come full circle away.

But, know, genius at scale in some ways is meant to kind of put down this notion of, you know, senior leaders stop looking to hire that A-Team player and instead focus on building an A-Team. And I think it sounds very small and subtle, but it’s a big part of the difference. And then when I looked at it, there are lots of books on innovation, of course, and lots of books on leadership, but there are no books about how do you actually lead innovation.

John Jantsch (05:25.433)

Yes.

Jason Wild (05:25.486)

which to me was really really fascinating because it’s one of those words or topics that lots of people lean forward, they’re interested, they’re curious, but there was a lot more opinions than actual science around how do you actually create those conditions as a leader for people to be willing and able to want to innovate. In my co-author’s last book that was published about 12 years ago, focused a lot on companies like Pixar and eBay.

right, super creative, know, digital native companies where innovating is not easy, but it’s certainly easier than being, you know, a mom and pop small company, right, or a legacy company that, you know, was founded 80 years ago. So in Geniuses Scale, the book that we wrote, we, you know, we focused on companies in regulated environments, healthcare, banking, you know, as well as startups, startups in Africa and Japan to really shine a light on, you know,

Everyone’s context is different, but really the role of leaders is to create the environment where innovation organically thrives as a result of the community versus constantly trying to chase the next shiny object.

John Jantsch (06:37.322)

So, a lot of my listeners are small business owners, mid-size business owners, founders. And I think the very nature of that is like, I created this thing, I’m the genius, it starts there. And so then I’m going to build a team and everybody looks to me to continue to say, what’s next? And you really introduce the evolution, I guess, that that leader needs to go through and even some roles that they need to take on. You’re ABC, you’ve got a good, like all consultants, you have a…

a good framework there for architect, bridger, and catalyst. Walk me through a little bit of what those roles are and maybe the challenges for lot of business owners to step into those roles.

Jason Wild (07:19.446)

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think, you know, for small businesses, you know, even large businesses these days, you know, doing business in the past was, don’t think it was ever easy, but it was, it was, it was easier. And, you know, and literally the world is shifting two or three feet underneath our feet, you know, every single week. So there’s so much to keep up with and

Yeah, you know, so legacy leadership was, you know, some would call kind of pathfinding to your point, whether you’re, you know, the owner of a small business or a 4,200, 500 company, right? And that legacy kind of leadership is change management, setting the direction, right? Articulating the vision, hopefully very, very clearly, and then convincing as many people as quickly as possible to get in the car and follow you to that, to that destination. And maybe that was okay, right? When you had the luxury of time.

But the world is changing really quickly and you could argue that it’s never going to be as slow as it is right now. It’s only going to accelerate. So part of what the book is about is this what we’re calling wayfinding. If classic leadership was pathfinding, setting that direction and trying to remove those inhibitors and barriers, which is even more important as a small business owner because your margin of error is even less than a large company.

It’s very uncomfortable for many leaders, regardless of your pedigree and your background. But I do think that small business owners are going to be more ready and in a better position to be able to pursue this. And what we talk about is more wayfinding. And part of the uncomfort is, how do you lead when we’re surrounded by fog? Because it’s not just artificial intelligence that’s changing the world. There’s geopolitical aspects, there’s supply chain.

There’s other technologies, quantum, 5G, blockchain, all of these things are like feeding off of each other that makes predicting the future even more difficult than it was before. So this notion of wayfinding is figuring out what the destination is while you’re on the path. And to your point, we identified common patterns and three very distinct roles that leaders play.

Jason Wild (09:39.119)

in cultures that have proven that they can innovate routinely in time and time again, and not just get lucky once or in the right place at the right time. So the ABCs, which yes, are convenient and memorable, but did kind of like surface naturally, you know, out of our research and work. So first and foremost, the foundation is the architect. And the architect’s job is really about building community. And what I touched on a little bit earlier,

John Jantsch (09:52.218)

you

Jason Wild (10:07.118)

it recognizes that innovation is a social process. And especially in small companies, you can’t mandate innovation. You have to invite people to want to co-create the future with you. And we define innovation very broadly, not just disruptive innovation, but anything that’s new and useful, which I think makes it even more applicable to the world of small business. So architects do a good job of creating environments where people are both willing and able.

to want to contribute, there’s a psychological safety. They don’t feel like there’s going to be a negative reaction when you challenge, right, or come up with a new idea. So that’s why that’s the foundation. And it is, it’s a lot about culture. It is totally about culture. And I think in a way where the culture is continuously learning and experimenting too. And I think especially for small business owners,

John Jantsch (10:47.064)

That sounds like culture to me.

Yeah.

Jason Wild (11:03.5)

Right, your business is not too big or too small to at least have a couple of working hypotheses. And I think that’s what great architects do is they have working hypotheses and they encourage and empower others to have working hypotheses of at least one or two big questions this calendar year that we want to get smarter about. And those questions will lead us to better questions. So architect is a foundation and I think we realize that

You know, that’s important, but it’s not enough. And then the next one is the Bridger B. Bridger is really about focusing on building partnerships and Bridgers, you know, tend to be more junior people in the organization. And I really feel having been a practitioner and out there like doing the work, the Bridger is the unsung hero of innovation where the architects maybe get, you know, the award and the Steven Spielberg and the Oscar.

And then we’ll get to the catalyst, which is about igniting movements that literally change the world. The bridgers are usually behind the scenes doing really tough work and recognize that, recognizing that most innovation stalls, not at the ideation phase of coming up with the ideas, but the integration phase, human integration, system integration, integration with partners. So these bridges are, you know, focus on these boundaries or these seams.

where lots of good ideas go off to die. And one of my previous employers actually called this area Death Valley, as if it was a place that was a badge of honor if you survived it. So great architects and bridgers kind of flip the lens and create environments where it’s not about surviving Death Valley, but it’s about creating conditions.

John Jantsch (12:32.09)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:46.03)

Well, so what role then does like outside consultants and third parties play in that too? I’ve said, when you talk about partnerships, you’re kind of focusing on internally, but bringing in great talent from the outside is probably a part of that bridge, isn’t it?

Jason Wild (13:04.994)

Yeah, it is. It can be internal and external. can be sales and marketing, business and tech, right? A lot of it is people who speak different languages, have different objectives, feel that they’re part of a different community. And, but you got to get them to kind of work together. They may not want to like hang out together at the end of the day and be best friends, but you know, the role of that leader and that bridger is getting the collective value out of them that individually never would have happened. So.

Absolutely, there’s a lot of focus on partnering externally. And I think what Bridges, Bridges are good at many things, but one of things that really good at John is building trust in low trust environments, being proactive at mapping the ecosystem and places where, hey, if this goes well or not well, we think we’re going to need some solutions or partners here and not waiting until it’s a five alarm fire. And they give credit to others and go out of their way.

John Jantsch (13:45.338)

Mm-hmm.

Jason Wild (14:03.192)

to make others the hero and not about themselves. And then C is the catalyst, C is about really igniting movements, movements that become bigger than the individuals. And I think this is where it’s not every day where people wake up and say, hey, John, I want to ignite a global movement, right? Because it just seems so far away.

And, but you look, I I worked at Salesforce for many years, which is one of the CRM platforms for small business. And, you know, what’s interesting about a place like Salesforce is it’s become kind of the de facto movement for CRM and cloud computing. So a lot of people associate the companies with those movements, but movements are really started by people and ideas. And so part of the reason of the book is to give hope.

to people that it may seem very difficult or impossible, but anybody can ignite a movement that changes how we work and live with the right focus and other best practices that obviously we would love for you and people to read the book and learn about.

John Jantsch (15:13.478)

Well, so the ABCs basically add up to what you’re saying is we need to have collective genius in order to have innovation. how do, I mean, do people resist or maybe misunderstand that idea?

Jason Wild (15:29.656)

Yeah, think there’s resistance everywhere. one of the things that I think in writing the book, we wanted to write a book that is educational and inspiring, but also a business book that doesn’t put you to sleep and has an element of entertainment because we’re so fortunate and privileged, John, to be able to have studied for years some of these leaders and be a fly on the wall.

And one of them was the leader of clinical supply chain at Pfizer, who was a relatively new executive. And it’s the story behind what he and his team did to get the vaccine out there in 266 days, in usually what would take eight to 10 years. And one of the things that they did was a real focus on language. And it’s a reminder that every detail matters if you want it to.

And Michael Koo, this Pfizer VP, he inherited the team that was skeptical of almost everything, just because of past failures and attempts and other leaders and the usual stuff inside of a big company. And one of the things that Michael decided in his first few months of joining Pfizer was he banned the word change. And it sounds very petty, but…

John Jantsch (16:52.346)

Hmm.

Jason Wild (16:56.386)

I think it represents a bit of the genius of him understanding the environment that he was parachuting into. And instead he said, let’s talk about evolve. Cause when people would talk about change, immediately it would be a negative reaction, more change. We went through a change management program last year. I’m tired of change, but who doesn’t want to evolve, right? Who doesn’t want to keep up with the Joneses? And so there was something psychological there about

You know, everyone should want to get better, better, better at their craft. And if you don’t, why are you here? And I think you again have less luxury in a small business. So language matters. And I think self-awareness is one of the most undervalued skills of leadership. How you make people feel when you give them feedback.

And these soft skills now with the arrival of AI, you you hear lots of people saying they’re not soft skills anymore, right? Because, you know, getting the most out of people and tapping into as Pixar would say, everyone has their slice of genius is not the responsibility of the individual worker. It’s of the leader to activate that and figure out what it is individually.

John Jantsch (17:58.614)

You

John Jantsch (18:11.918)

Yeah, I’m curious because you studied so many exceptional leaders, are there things that we typically celebrate that are wrong about leadership and leadership culture that your research found?

Jason Wild (18:25.294)

Oh yeah, know lots of things. One of the things that’s a pet peeve of mine is celebrating like individual awards. And I mean, even like Thomas Edison said, it’s like, nobody did anything alone. And whether it’s intentional or not, just putting someone up on stage as an individual, it sends their own signals of, right, be an individual hero and be like this person, right? And you’ll get to lift the trophy too.

and instead recognize teams. And that might mean that sometimes you’re recognizing people who, you know, aren’t pulling their own weight. But the real message you’re trying to send to the organization is collaboration is not optional. And even better, get great at collaboration because that’s how like meaningful value creation happens. I think the second thing is, that back to stop trying to be the smartest person in the room. And instead,

try to activate that collective intelligence of the entire team. And I think the third one, and I’m not as worried about this small business, but I’ll say it anyway, is what do you think is the most dangerous place to make a decision,

John Jantsch (19:39.81)

in a meeting.

Jason Wild (19:41.635)

Yeah, in the office, right? In the comfort of your office. So I’m a big believer in getting out there and walking a mile in the shoes of your customers. Do it sometimes with purpose. Do it sometimes with a blank sheet of paper. I worked at Salesforce. Mark Benioff, the founder, co-founder of Salesforce, is a billionaire. know, famously ahead of a big meeting with one of the big American banks.

John Jantsch (19:52.792)

This is

Jason Wild (20:08.77)

He wanted to go to a local branch, wait in line, to see the experience. And Yad helped him prepare for the meeting, but it was more about sending a signal to the whole organization that if the billionaire founder can care about time to do it, then everyone else can practice and develop empathy. So those are a few things off the top of my head.

John Jantsch (20:31.406)

So this book, you had a co-writer, so this book in some ways was collective genius. Do you think that that collaboration itself made for a better book or at least a different experience than writing a solo book?

Jason Wild (20:45.442)

I think so, for sure. And we’re still friends, thankfully. so yeah, it’s a multi-generational team. I’m in the middle. know, two academics with me as a practitioner. And yeah, I think it was just a phenomenal experience that I think we all agree that there’s no way we would have ended up where we got to if we tried to do this alone.

And I think the most important thing is that, you you write a book, but you never know how the world is going to respond. And, you know, I think some of the things like wayfinding is in the epilogue. And we wanted to write a book that was meant to be timeless, because I have some friends writing books about AI. You know, one was the former chief AI officer at NASA. And like tongue in cheek, I tell them like, good luck, hopefully it’s still relevant by the time it’s published. And

John Jantsch (21:40.806)

Yeah, no kidding.

Jason Wild (21:42.286)

So it’s interesting that we didn’t write a book about AI, but a lot of people serendipitously are saying that the ABCs represent a really interesting operating system, right? Because organizations, you need some structure and predictability, but again, you need to adapt and flex and morph your value proposition like great startups do. And so I don’t think we would have landed there without this,

two exceptional co-authors that I’ve had the privilege of working

John Jantsch (22:15.578)

Well, and I think you also surfaced in this day and age, what are probably going to be the human skills that are going to remain the most valuable, I think, in the long run as well. Well, Jason, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there a place you’d invite people to connect with you and certainly learn more about Genius at Scale?

Jason Wild (22:35.756)

Yes, thanks for asking. yeah, it was just published a couple of months ago. We’ve got a wonderful website in multiple languages, genius at scale.com, genius at scale all one.

John Jantsch (22:49.144)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Jason Wild (22:53.977)

Sounds great. Thank you so much, John.

The 5 Stages From Operator to Owner

The 5 Stages From Operator to Owner written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode:

Overview

Most agency founders think becoming CEO is the finish line. Jason Swenk says it is actually one of the traps. In this episode, John Jantsch sits down with Jason Swenk, founder of Agency Mastery and author of Operator to Owner, to walk through the five stages every agency founder has to climb and why so many get stuck long before they reach the top.

Jason built and sold his own digital agency after working with brands like AT&T, Hitachi, and LegalZoom. Now he works with seven and eight figure agency founders who are still doing too much, holding on too long, and wondering why the business cannot run without them. The conversation covers the identity shift required at each stage, why founders are usually the worst managers, and what it actually looks like when you finally get out of your own way.

This one is for agency owners and consultants who know the business depends on them too much and are ready to do something about it.

About Jason Swenk

Jason Swenk is the founder of Agency Mastery and host of the Smart Agency Masterclass Podcast. He built his own digital agency from scratch, working with clients including AT&T, Hitachi, and LegalZoom, before selling it. He now advises seven and eight figure agency founders on building businesses that run without them. His book, Operator to Owner, maps the five stages every agency founder must navigate to build a business they actually own. Find the book and a free diagnostic at operator2ownerrevolution.com.

Key Takeaways

Being the CEO is not the finish line. Most founders mistake the operator or manager stage for success and never push through to genuine ownership.
The agency owning you is a choice you keep making. You started a business to escape the nine to five and accidentally created a 24 by seven. Getting out requires an intentional identity shift, not just better systems.
Founders are usually terrible managers. Hiring people without systems, clarity, or defined outcomes is why you end up doing their work on top of your own.
The bottleneck is almost always the founder. Until you build decision-making layers that let your team act without coming to you, you are the ceiling on your own growth.
You held on to sales too long. Almost every agency founder does. And competing with your own sales team for leads is not a strategy.
Do not hire a salesperson before you have a system. Giving someone a quota with no context, no stories, and no process is like prompting an AI with no instructions.
You do not have to reach owner level. Architect is a legitimate destination. Know what stage you want to reach and build toward that intentionally.
Picking a niche takes time and that is fine. Treat it like a Vegas buffet. Try things, notice what works, and ask yourself who you would serve on a performance-only basis.
AI adds work before it removes it. If you do not build decision systems and layers first, AI will amplify your bottleneck, not eliminate it.

Timestamps

[00:01] Opening hook: being CEO of your agency might be the trap you mistook for the finish line.

[00:40] The moment Jason’s wife told him to shut the agency down and get a job, and the two questions from a NASCAR interview that changed everything.

[02:25] The five stages: operator, manager, architect, CEO, and owner, and why most founders stall in the first two.

[04:24] The rubber band effect: why founders sabotage their own teams to feel important again.

[06:20] What the agency actually needs from you at each stage changes. Most founders never update their job description.

[08:29] Why hiring a salesperson never works until you have systems and stories behind them.

[11:34] Throwing your team into the deep end without floaties, and why fender benders are acceptable but train wrecks are not.

[13:34] The E-Myth reference and why most agency owners start a business to be free and end up less free than before.

[14:08] The niche question: why forcing a niche too early backfires and how to find the right one over time.

[16:11] What a true owner’s week actually looks like day to day.

[17:52] The one thing Jason held on to too long and what finally changed when he let it go.

[19:46] One move agency owners can make in the next 30 days based on which stage they are in right now.

Memorable Quotes

“We start an agency to leave the nine to five and end up starting a 24 by seven. It does not make any sense.”

“It is not about who you need to hire. It is about who you need to become.”

“If you are not evolving, you are not doing anything. Especially now, more than ever.”

“I held on to sales too long. I was even competing with my own sales team, which is completely unfair.”

“If you had to be paid on performance only, who would you do it for and what would you do for them? That is how you find your niche.”

Get the book and take the free stage diagnostic at operator2ownerrevolution.com.

When Referrals Stop, Do This Before Touching a Single Marketing Tactic

When Referrals Stop, Do This Before Touching a Single Marketing Tactic written by Shawna Salinger read more at Duct Tape Marketing

When Referrals Dry Up: What Small Businesses Should Do Before Touching a Single Marketing Tactic

Featuring insights from Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing

It starts with a sick feeling.

You built your business on referrals. Good work led to good word of mouth and for years, that was enough. Then you look up and realise it has been months since a new one came in. When referrals dry up for a small business, there is often nothing else in place. No ads. No content strategy. No real pipeline. Just the hope the phone will ring.

Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, knows this scenario well. She sees it constantly across the small businesses she works with. And she has a direct message for anyone in that position: the answer is not to start running ads next week.

The answer is to build a strategy first.

Sara Nay’s segment begins at 13:04. Full episode on Paul Green’s MSP Marketing Edge.

Why referrals dry up and what most small businesses do wrong next

Growing through referrals is actually a good sign. It means clients like you, trust your work, and talk about you. Sara is the first to say so.

“It’s great that you’ve been able to grow based on referrals,” she says. “That shows that you provide a good service and clients are happy. That’s checkbox one.”

But referrals are not a marketing strategy. They are a single, uncontrollable channel. When they slow down, businesses with nothing else in place have nothing to fall back on.

The instinct when referrals dry up is to grab the nearest tactic. Run some paid ads. Start posting on LinkedIn. Hire someone to do SEO. Sara says that instinct is understandable but almost always wrong.

“Instead of just going okay, we’re now going to do paid ads,” she explains, “it’s taking a step back and saying: who are our clients? Where do they hang out online? How do they make buying decisions? What keeps them up at night?”

Channel selection follows strategy. It does not precede it.

The two things you need before you pick any channel

Sara is clear about what has to come before any channel decision. Two things.

First, a real picture of your ideal client. Not just their job title. Where do they spend time online? How do they make buying decisions? What keeps them up at night? What problems are they trying to solve?

Second, messaging that gives people a reason to care, not just a list of what you sell.

“You really need to understand those two things first before you can decide what channel or how you’re going to approach the channel moving forward,” Sara says.

This is the foundation of what Duct Tape Marketing calls Strategy First. It is a structured 30-day process that produces a complete marketing strategy before any tactics start. Duct Tape Marketing has built their client work on it for over 30 years, and Sara argues it is more important now than ever. The current positioning at DTM says it plainly: strategy before technology.

Technology, AI tools, platforms, none of them become valuable until a clear strategic direction is in place. The tools should follow the strategy, not the other way around.

Map the customer journey before you map the tactics

Once you know who you are serving and what to say to them, the next step is understanding how people move through a relationship with your business.

Duct Tape Marketing uses the Marketing Hourglass. It is a customer journey model John Jantsch first laid out in his book Duct Tape Marketing, and Sara still uses it with every client. The seven stages are Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer.

Think of it as a complete loop rather than a one-way funnel. The goal is not just to get someone in at the top. It is to move them through every stage and bring them back again.

Sara explains why this matters in practice: “You can sit down and analyze what are we doing in each of these stages. Where are gaps? Where are opportunities to improve? And if you can really nail moving someone through each of those stages as they interact with your business, they’re going to become repeat customers and then they’re also going to just naturally refer you.”

A well-mapped customer journey does not just improve retention. It restarts referral flow naturally. When referrals dry up for a small business, this audit is often where the answer lives.

Tactics without tracking are just busy work

Sara sees a pattern constantly. A new client walks in running five or six marketing activities. When she asks what is working, they have no idea. They never set a goal before they started.

“It’s not enough just to create your list of tactics at the end of strategy,” she says. “You need to say, if we’re going to do these things for the next 90 days, what’s the definition of success and how are we going to track that? Because that information is going to help guide if you should keep doing things or if you should shift.”

Set a goal for each tactic before you start, then track it over 90 days. Hitting the goal, keep it. Not hitting it, stop or adjust. That is a system. Running activity without measurement is just spending time.

How to stand out when everything feels like noise

The marketing environment right now is loud. AI-generated cold outreach fills inboxes and LinkedIn messages. New platforms launch weekly. Every vendor promises a lead generation system.

Sara says she barely checks her LinkedIn messages anymore because so much of what arrives is automated pitch after pitch.

“It is harder to get people’s attention and it is harder to stand out,” she says. “But if you approach marketing with a more authentic human feel to it and not just trying to scale with AI, there is opportunity for people to see your authentic selves.”

Her take on AI is precise. Use it, but put a human on both ends. Lead with your own insight, stories, and direction. Let AI help shape and scale that into content. Then edit and refine the output yourself.

“Human on the front end, AI in the middle, human on the back end. That’s where it can be powerful,” she says. “It helps elevate you and your skill set and not replace your creativity.”

Low-budget marketing that actually works

If you have a few hundred dollars a month and no marketing infrastructure, Sara has a clear point of view on where to start.

Content repurposing. Record short videos on specific topics your audience needs to know about. Use those videos as the source material for social clips, email newsletters, and blog posts. AI makes the repurposing faster, but the original thinking has to come from you.
Direct personal outreach. Build a list of people in your ideal target market and reach out to them as a human. Call them. Send a personal message. When every inbox is full of automated pitches, a real call or personal message stands out immediately.
Podcast guesting. Getting onto someone else’s podcast costs nothing but your time. It puts you in front of their audience and builds authority in a format people actually trust.

None of these require a big budget. They require clarity about who you are talking to and the discipline to show up consistently. That clarity, as Sara would say, comes from strategy first.

Frequently asked questions

What should I do first when referrals dry up?

Do not start with a channel. Start with your ideal client profile. Define who they are, where they spend time, how they make decisions, and what message will resonate with them. Only then does channel selection make sense. Sara Nay of Duct Tape Marketing also recommends auditing your customer journey using the Marketing Hourglass to find where existing client relationships are breaking down.

Should I run paid ads when referrals stop?

Not until you have a strategy foundation in place. Paid ads without a clear ideal client profile and resonant messaging will waste budget. Build those first, then decide whether paid ads are the right channel for where your clients actually spend time.

How do I get referrals to come back naturally?

Map your customer journey using the Marketing Hourglass. Look at what you are doing at the Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer stages. Gaps in the Repeat and Refer stages often explain why referrals have dried up. Fixing those gaps creates the conditions for referrals to restart without actively asking for them.

What is the Marketing Hourglass?

The Marketing Hourglass is a customer journey model created by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. It maps seven stages: Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer. Unlike a traditional funnel, it continues past the first sale into retention and referral. Duct Tape Marketing uses it as an audit tool to identify gaps and set marketing priorities.

How should small businesses use AI in their marketing?

Sara Nay’s framework: human on the front end, AI in the middle, human on the back end. Bring your own insight, stories, and direction. Let AI help shape and scale that into content. Then edit and refine the output. The goal is to use AI to elevate your thinking, not replace it.

Ready to build your marketing strategy before your next tactic?

Duct Tape Marketing works with small businesses to create a complete marketing strategy through a structured 30-day engagement called Strategy First. You leave with a full plan you can run with internally or have us execute as your fractional CMO.

Visit ducttapemarketing.com/strategy-first or connect with Sara Nay on LinkedIn.

Turn Talks Into Your Most Effective Marketing Tool

Turn Talks Into Your Most Effective Marketing Tool written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode:

Overview

Most small business owners are sitting on one of the most powerful marketing channels available and never use it. In this episode, John Jantsch welcomes back Jess Ekstrom, founder of Mic Drop Workshop, to make the case that speaking from a stage is not a vanity play. It is a lead generation, brand building, and audience growth strategy that compounds over time.

Jess built her first company, Headbands of Hope, almost entirely by convincing professors to let her speak in class. She did not know she could charge for keynotes until a university emailed asking for her fee. Now she teaches entrepreneurs and founders how to turn their story into a signature talk that earns bookings, builds an audience, and drives business without ever feeling like a sales pitch.

This episode covers the difference between keynote speaking and lead gen speaking, why sharing your failures lands better than your wins, how to build a talk backwards from the outcome, and the mindset shift that dissolves stage fright almost instantly.

About Jess Ekstrom

Jess Ekstrom is an entrepreneur, two-time bestselling author, and Forbes top-rated speaker. She founded Headbands of Hope as a broke college student and grew it into a nationally recognized brand before it was acquired. She is the founder of Mic Drop Workshop, where she helps women step into their voice and build careers as confident, paid speakers. Her TED talk on the spotlight vs. lighthouse speaker mindset has driven significant attention to her framework. She hosts the Amplify podcast and can be found at micdropworkshop.com.

Key Takeaways

Speaking is a marketing channel, not just a career. The keynote can drive awareness, build an audience, and generate leads without ever directly selling anything from the stage.
Know which lane you are in. Keynote speaking means the talk is the product. Lead gen speaking means you waive your fee in exchange for the right to sell from the stage. Both work. Pick one and be intentional about it.
Build the talk backwards. Start with a transformation promise: after people hear you speak, what do you want them to do, believe, think, or feel? Everything else builds toward that outcome.
Spotlight speakers ask what everyone thinks of them. Lighthouse speakers ask what everyone needs from them. The second mindset makes you a better speaker and kills stage fright faster than any rehearsal trick.
Share what went wrong, not just what went right. Audiences do not connect with wins. They connect with the arc. Admitting the $10,000 wire to a fraudulent manufacturer landed better than any highlight reel.
Build one signature talk and stick with it for three to five years. Changing your topic every year means no one has time to associate your name with a solution.
Use the slide deck as a lead magnet. Offer to send notes, discussion questions, and slides via a QR code before your closing. It converts better than almost any other stage-based list building tactic.
The false finish line is the biggest trap. You do not need a certain follower count, revenue number, or website to start pitching yourself to speak. You need a topic you are excitedly curious about and the willingness to do the reps.
Simplify, do not complicate. The best speakers remind people of something they already knew but forgot. Novelty is overrated. Clarity wins.

Timestamps

[00:00] Opening hook: the most underused marketing channel for small business owners is a stage.

[00:37] Jess’s background: building Headbands of Hope by speaking in college classrooms before knowing speaking was a paid profession.

[01:37] The moment she realized speaking could be a revenue channel, not just an advertising channel.

[02:22] The difference between an elevator pitch and a keynote, and why the keynote becomes the product.

[03:18] Keynote speaking vs. lead gen speaking: two lanes, two different business models.

[05:03] How to weave what you do into a keynote without it feeling like a sales pitch.

[07:14] Using a QR code slide deck as a lead magnet from the stage.

[08:26] The difference between wanting to be on a stage and actually having something worth saying.

[09:09] The spotlight vs. lighthouse framework from her TED talk, and why it changes everything about how you show up.

[11:18] Why sharing failures lands better than sharing wins, and what that requires you to give up.

[11:36] Her framework for building a keynote: transformation promise, work backwards, simplify.

[17:35] Why having one signature talk beats being a Cheesecake Factory speaker.

[19:52] The billboard exercise: the simplest way to figure out what you should be speaking about.

Memorable Quotes

“The keynote becomes the product. It’s not about selling your product through the keynote. It’s about raising awareness for it and most importantly, sharing a story in a way that inspires someone to do something about it.”

“The more you give, the less nervous you’ll be. And sometimes that means not looking good.”

“No one wants to learn from someone who’s always been at the top. We need the arc.”

“Stop making people think too hard. The best speakers remind people of something they once knew that maybe they forgot.”

“If you’re not willing to stick with a keynote for three to five years, don’t do it. You’re not giving anyone time to associate your name with a solution.”

Connect with Jess Ekstrom at micdropworkshop.com or find her on LinkedIn.

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00.977)

So what if the most underused marketing channel for a small business owner isn’t a new platform or a bigger ad budget, but the founder standing up and telling their own story from a stage? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jess Ekstrom. Entrepreneur speaker, mom of two and founder of Mike Drop Workshop, where she helps women step into their voice and become confident speakers. Started her first company.

Headbands of Hope. Longtime listeners may recall we talked about that so many years ago on this show. At the time she was a broke college student, built her entire marketing engine by begging professors to let her speak for five minutes in class. That scrappy beginning turned into a career as a Forbes top rated speaker and two time bestselling authors. She’s also the host of the Amplify podcast. So Jess, welcome back.

Jess (00:57.162)

It is good to be back. We’re going to have to do a fact check on how many years ago I was on this show, but I know two kids and a new business later. Here we are.

John Jantsch (01:06.471)

Well, how old is oldest child?

Jess (01:09.07)

three. But it was long before that. It was long before that.

John Jantsch (01:10.219)

okay. It was, yeah, I was gonna say, I thought that was gonna be arch. Well, I’ll go back and research it. So let’s talk, we don’t have to go back and relive the headbands of hope, although are you still doing anything with that? Okay, okay, cool.

Jess (01:23.01)

Yep. It got acquired, which was really exciting. Yeah, very exciting. And it was great for me to be able to fully step into my drop workshop and let new people in. And it’s doing great.

John Jantsch (01:37.127)

So when, at what point did you realize that speaking was, you know, a lot of people talk about it as free marketing and certainly a lot of people want to be highly paid speakers. When did you just decide, hey, that’s really a great way, I mean, that’s a marketing channel all by itself.

Jess (01:52.492)

I remember the first email I got from Marshall University that said, what is your fee to come speak to our students? And I had to ask about a dozen people what they meant because I was like, what are they talking about? A fee? I pay? I was so confused. I didn’t even realize that this was a channel for income because it had been such a good channel for advertising for me. And one of the things that I teach now in my drop to a lot of founders,

John Jantsch (02:03.301)

You’re welcome.

Jess (02:22.416)

is the difference between an elevator pitch and a keynote. You know, an elevator pitch is around what you’re selling, you know, the problem you’re solving. But a keynote is around the story of your startup and making that story transferable to someone else. and then the keynote becomes the product. So it’s not about selling your product through the keynote. It’s about raising awareness for it, but most importantly,

John Jantsch (02:25.969)

Mm-hmm.

Jess (02:49.238)

sharing the story in a way that inspires someone to do something about it.

John Jantsch (02:52.903)

So maybe there’s not either or, you maybe just tell people both can be true. certainly, well, I haven’t asked the question yet. Here are two things. Because I have a lot of people that, there are a lot of people that want to be speakers and they start out at a low fee and maybe they work up, I don’t know, let’s say $10,000 for a keynote. But then.

Jess (02:58.658)

Both can be true.

John Jantsch (03:18.247)

There were other speakers, myself included, when I was getting started that if I got in a room of 50 prospects, I would come away with $100,000 worth of business. I didn’t care about being paid because I knew the opportunity to get in that room was more important than what I might make as a speaker. How do you balance those? And again, like I said, can both be true.

Jess (03:38.796)

I think that there are two different lanes that you have to decide what you want to run in. The keynote is your product, which means it’s not about selling a product. It’s about delivering a keynote. And then the other lane is called lead gen speaking or selling from stage, which means you get no fee, which is exactly what you’re talking about, John, but you have free rein to sell from the stage. And in that case, whatever money you make in the back of the room becomes your fee for being there.

But I am a big advocate for the keynote being the product. And in my drop workshop, I teach people a framework called moment to meaning, where you share a moment, a lived experience, and then what’s the takeaway for the audience. Your moment can be a story in your business. It can be for me, you know, I told the story probably on your podcast, losing money to a fraudulent manufacturer, starting my business, Headbands of Hope.

John Jantsch (04:09.223)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (04:35.62)

Mm-hmm.

Jess (04:37.206)

And then the meaning is, you know, failures don’t have to be the end. It can be, you know, just a pivot in your story. But now I’m not going up there selling headbands of hope, but now everybody knows about it. And so I don’t necessarily think that you have to choose between being a lead gen speaker and a keynote speaker. I think use the story of your company in your keynote and that way it becomes a both and.

John Jantsch (04:49.884)

Right.

John Jantsch (05:03.995)

Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I do remember early on, I certainly took that very much that approach of I’m just here to deliver lots of value teach you guys lots of stuff. Hopefully it’s awesome. And I remember early on a couple times where people come up to me say, like, what do you actually do? You know, how could I actually hire you? And I thought, maybe I somehow need to work that in more than just I’m just here to teach you stuff. So so how do you kind of balance that? I

Jess (05:21.486)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Exactly.

John Jantsch (05:33.605)

I never call it selling from the stage because I didn’t have like a $500 course that they could go back there and buy. It was really more that at some point, in fact, I had a speaking engagement that early on in my career, I’m sure I wasn’t paid for it. And a gentleman came up and said, I really liked what you said. Can you come talk to us? And that was in 2004. They still the client today. So millions of dollars worth of business from that client came from.

Jess (05:36.056)

Right.

Jess (05:40.301)

Yep.

John Jantsch (06:03.245)

him actually coming up to me and saying, I like what you had to say, but like, how do I hire you? So how do you balance kind of that, you know, that you do want people to know that you can help them solve the problem you just described?

Jess (06:09.826)

So.

Jess (06:14.668)

Yeah, right, exactly.

I think alongside with using how you help people as an anecdote in your keynote as a way to get a point across, are, you know, with I work with coaches, they can say, when I coach people on this topic, I tell them this. Or if you’re a podcaster, and you want to promote your podcasts, but without being like, scan this QR code and listen to my podcast and leave a review, you can say here’s some really interesting guests I’ve had on my podcast.

And here’s what they said. And it’s continuing to further the value that you’re delivering to the audience without selling them something. But one kind of hack I will give to that, John, you can still use your keynote as an audience building technique that still delivers value in a way where you’re delivering them the notes or the recap or the slide deck from your presentation.

in exchange for an email. So when I speak right before my conclusion, I tell them that they can scan a QR code and it’s going to send the slide deck to them so that they have it, they can remember it, it’s going to give them discussion questions to bring back to their team. But that is also where they’re now in my orbit. Now I can also, they want to hear what I’m doing. The next email I send will probably be about mic drop workshop or my book or my podcast.

And so there are ways that you can use that time on stage to just get people into your orbit in a way that provides value. I’ve tested a lot of different lead magnets from the stage. The slides or the notes convert higher than anything else that I’ve done.

John Jantsch (07:57.968)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (08:01.807)

Yeah, yeah. So.

How do you also balance? mean, there’s a lot of people that look at speaking and think that’s also kind of a very, you know, statusy thing, right? I’m doing a keynote here. You see people on LinkedIn all the time talking about the status thing. But what’s the difference between wanting to be on the stage and actually having something worth saying from it?

Jess (08:16.354)

Yeah.

Jess (08:26.094)

Such a good question. And I would say most of the women that I work with lean towards the what do I have to say? And how I teach this, this is actually a concept I gave in my TED talk last year that has done really well. So I’ll share it here. It’s usually when you have that imposter syndrome coming from

what I call a spotlight mindset. Spotlight speakers go up there, spotlights on them. How do I look? How do I sound? They’re concerned with public perception. They want to appear impressive. What does everyone think of me? If a spotlight asks, what does everyone think of me? Then the other kind of speaker is a lighthouse, is, what does everyone need of me? You go up there with, I’m going to solve a problem. Where are they at now? Where are they hoping to go? How can I help? And so when you switch from like, how do I be admired?

John Jantsch (08:57.093)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (09:14.097)

Mm-hmm.

Jess (09:25.458)

how can I be helpful? All the sudden speaking is less of a flashy opportunity and more of a impactful moment for you. And the irony is, is that you become better for it, your keynote gets better, my nerves got better. When I stopped going up there trying to be impressive. Instead, I would do my research on the

audience. Okay. This is accountants. What are accountants experiencing in 2026? What are their, what keeps them up at night? Okay. Now that I know where they’re at, I can help where they want to go. So I think that shift can help people a lot.

John Jantsch (10:04.813)

you know, what’s interesting is, you mentioned it, but I felt this, for sure. You know, a lot of people talk about being afraid of public speaking, you know, and a lot of it’s that mentality of I’m on stage, everybody’s looking at me. but when it’s, what am I here to give? yeah, all of a sudden the stress kind of melts away. least that’s been my experience. Yeah. Yeah.

Jess (10:16.76)

Mm-hmm.

Jess (10:24.288)

Yeah. The more you give the less nervous you’ll be. And to be real, that sometimes means not looking good. I think sometimes when we speak from a place of a lighthouse, we want to share all the wins that we’ve had as a business owner. look at this thing I did. I’m on the today show. I sold millions of copies, blah, blah, blah. I did that. It didn’t land. I didn’t get booked from it. When I started to share moments that went wrong and what I did about it.

That’s when the rubber started meeting the road because it wasn’t about making me look good. had to admit, yeah, I wired $10,000 to a fraudulent manufacturer. That, that sucked. But here’s what I did. That’s when I think things started to get noticed. So also just getting out of your head that you have to paint yourself as the hero and paint yourself in the best light. No one wants to learn from someone who’s always been at the top. We need the arc.

John Jantsch (11:03.6)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (11:18.439)

No questions, because it’s true. Nobody’s always been at the top. So it’s a lie. So do you have a specific framework that you teach for building a talk that really kind of lands?

Jess (11:21.184)

Mm-hmm. No, true. Yeah, they want to root for you.

Jess (11:36.566)

Yeah. I would say start with the aftermath. Before you think about what you want to say, think about what you want to stay. Like, what do you want to stay in the room after you leave? And so I give, we call it a transformation promise. After people hear you speak, what do want them to do? What do you want them to believe? What do you want them to think? What do you want them to feel?

And then once you have that transformation promise, maybe it’s after people hear me speak, I’ll give like my example. I speak about motivation and how to create motivation that lasts. So after people hear me speak, I want their whole team to be intrinsically motivated to create lasting motivation. Now I have a North star. Now I have the outcome in mind that I can build my keynote around. So then you work backwards. Well, what are the things that people need to understand in order to create motivation that lasts?

Well, they need to know the science behind motivation, how our brain works. They need to know how to be intrinsically motivated instead of extrinsically validated. They need to know how to define their success. So then I start going down the list of what’s a checklist that someone needs to understand in order to arrive at that transformation? And then of course, fill those with, well, when did I learn this? What’s the story I can answer here? What’s a data point?

But I think one of the most important things you can do as a speaker is to simplify, not complicate. I think the spotlight speakers in us want to sound fancy and want to words and stuff that just is hard to understand. And I think one of the most misconceptions about speaking is to be revelatory and groundbreaking and novel. But the best speakers out there,

are reminding people of something they once knew that maybe they forgot. mean, James clear, like simple habits stack up Mel Robbins, you know, and her like, just go for it with her five second rule. Shonda Rhimes, just say yes. None of these things are new. None of these things are groundbreaking, but they saw a path to own it and put their context and their spin on it. So I would say,

Jess (13:57.782)

work backwards, create a transformation promise, and then stop making people think too hard.

John Jantsch (14:06.543)

It’s funny, I remember again, early on in my career of speaking, I’d think, how am I gonna talk for 45 minutes? I need 247 slides in order to fill that 45 minutes, right? And then you find yourself just rushing through. And now the same talk, 10 or 12 slides that you actually live in the moment with the people is a lot.

Jess (14:13.241)

yeah.

Jess (14:16.759)

Yeah.

Jess (14:21.431)

Yeah.

Jess (14:29.102)

totally. It’s daunting. That’s why it’s kind of like, you know, if you’re a runner or something, it’s like instead of running a marathon and thinking 26.2 miles, it’s like, how do you break it into five races of five? And so breaking your talk into smaller talks in that way, because now it’s pretty variable. I don’t know if you’ve gotten this, but I get asked to speak for an hour, which typically was a norm. And now it’ll be like 45 minutes, 30 minutes.

50. So that way you can just plus or minus some of these microtox within it instead of having to start over every time.

John Jantsch (15:05.511)

Yeah, actually, I had the opposite happen one time. One time somebody didn’t show, and so they said, can you fill 90 minutes? And by the way, you’re on in about half an hour.

Jess (15:12.204)

Mmm.

Jess (15:16.428)

Yes, that is, you gotta be ready to go at any time, but you did it.

John Jantsch (15:21.095)

So you work with a lot of women. don’t know if it’s predominantly, but you work with a lot of women. And women have their own brand of head trash, I think, around some of this topic that men don’t seem to suffer from sometimes. We don’t have imposter syndrome because we think everybody’s… That we’ve arrived all the time, right? So…

Jess (15:26.946)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jess (15:36.909)

Yep.

Jess (15:40.534)

Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Why not? Why? Of course someone should listen to me. Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:48.903)

You’ve built multiple companies, you’re a mom of two, you work with a lot of folks who have ambition. Do you see that, what are the places where they’re quietly kind of sabotaging their balance, you know, before they even notice?

Jess (16:02.766)

That’s great question. I think that they have this facade or like this false sense of a finish line that exists somewhere that is never there. Well, in order for me to be a speaker, I have to reach this amount of revenue or I have to have this amount of status or I have to have this many followers or I need to have this accolade. I see that all the time.

People are like, well, I can’t pitch myself to speak because my website isn’t live yet. I’m like, you have a LinkedIn. Go for it. And so I think it’s, can be comforting to people to, and myself included to say, well, I can’t do that yet because I don’t have this. It’s not, I’m not saying never, but I’m saying this. And I would say that pitching yourself and becoming a speaker is less about this.

John Jantsch (16:35.121)

Yeah.

Jess (17:01.112)

false finish line of being an expert in something and more about being excitedly curious about a topic and willing to put in the work. It doesn’t mean that there is like some number or something out there that you have to hit in order to be qualified to pitch yourself. It’s like, what are you curious enough about? What’s been a theme in your life? What have people asked you for advice on that you’re willing to put in the work? Put a keynote together, further your research around it every week and

Put your name out there for opportunities. That’s probably the number one thing I would say.

John Jantsch (17:35.911)

So do you specifically try to coach people? Because you’ve mentioned this several times, your keynote. Is that your thing that you’re always working on? And if somebody asks you to speak, that’s what you’re going to tell them? You’re not like, what do you need? But it’s like, no, here’s what I do.

Jess (17:42.158)

Mm-hmm.

Jess (17:49.738)

Yes. So this, I’m so glad you brought this up because this is another, again, I call it a trap. That sounds like a lot, but mistakes. Sometimes I see speakers come into is they think by being dynamic and being able to speak about 20 different things, it’s helping them as a speaker when it’s actually hurting them. People want your greatest hit. Like I call it being a cheesecake factory speaker where you go. It’s like, no one wants

Alfredo sushi and you know, a burger. It’s what is your chef’s special? What’s the thing that you’re really good at? And so tell them what you deliver and how it’s going to help them. Don’t necessarily ask them what they need and create a talk around that. Doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to customize your talk to that audience. But if you’re starting from scratch, every single time you speak, one, it’s a lot more work for you. And two, it’s a lot less benefit to them because they are not getting something proven.

Like no one wants to be your trial run at this. Do the reps. Yeah, yeah, get good at it. And they want something that’s like, yeah, I’ve given this talk at Coca-Cola. I’ve given this talk at Chick-fil-A. You know, I’ve given this talk here. So build one signature talk. That’s what I would recommend.

John Jantsch (18:49.735)

Try out some new material.

John Jantsch (18:58.801)

Right. Right.

John Jantsch (19:06.119)

And I think from a practical reality, you’ll just get better at it. You’ll see where people laugh. You’ll see where people get really engaged. And all of a sudden it’s like, okay, I can make that better at that moment. And so as opposed to like, have to figure out the structure of this thing.

Jess (19:11.288)

Mm-hmm. Totally.

Jess (19:16.736)

Yeah, absolutely.

Jess (19:22.742)

Absolutely. mean, you can always keep iterating and always should be iterating. think a keynote is a living and breathing thing. Like I’m never done with a keynote. It’s, I’m always editing and improving, but I would say if you’re not willing to stick with it for three to five years, then don’t do it. I see so many speakers that like every year are changing their thing that they’re known for. I’m like, you’re not given anyone time to associate your name with a solution.

John Jantsch (19:25.637)

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:41.009)

Yeah, it’s funny.

John Jantsch (19:46.172)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:52.977)

funny, I’m sure comedians experience this all the time, but I’ve always puzzled how like same talk, different parts are funny one time and they’re not at all to the audience the next time. Same with like, you know, some bit that’s supposed to be really touching and like, it doesn’t look like anybody got it. I just always, there’s no question that really, I just always find that really odd. So.

Jess (20:13.901)

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

John Jantsch (20:20.217)

I appreciate just you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there some place you’d invite people to, who want to do more speaking, who want to actually learn how to do it right? What would be the next step for them? What would be the first step I should say for them? And then also how can they find out more about working with you?

Jess (20:40.238)

I would say if you want to start speaking, ask yourself, I actually said this to someone today, so I’ll say it here. Imagine I gave you money to buy a billboard in your town and or on your local highway. And it was up to you to put whatever phrase or slogan that you wanted to on that billboard.

what would be the thing that you would put on that billboard? Like what is like a mantra, a theme, like something that you keep coming back to that helps people. And so if you wanna just get started, I would think about like, what would you put on an empty billboard and start there? And then you also…

John Jantsch (21:20.485)

All it comes to mind to me is eat more chicken, but that’s already taken, so sorry.

Jess (21:23.777)

Yeah.

That’s a place to start, John. And then you have the greatest test group of all time with social media, like test, test, and test again. And then if you want help with that, you can come to us at micdropworkshop.com or follow us anywhere. I’m also on LinkedIn, Jess Ekstrom, where you can find me.

John Jantsch (21:46.853)

Awesome. Well, again, appreciate you taking a moment to stop by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Jess (21:52.672)

Yeah, thanks, John.

Marketing Strategy for Businesses That Have Outgrown More Tactics

Marketing Strategy for Businesses That Have Outgrown More Tactics written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Strategy for Small Business: Why Clarity Beats More Tactics Every Time

Most small businesses aren’t short on marketing activity. They’re short on the clarity that would let them do less of it. After working with hundreds of small businesses on their marketing strategy over 30 years, I’ve seen the same pattern: scattered tactics, inconsistent messaging, and a team that’s busy but not aligned. The problem isn’t effort. It’s the absence of a strategy.

You Don’t Have a Marketing Problem. You Have a Clarity Problem.

Most business owners I know are working harder than ever. More channels. More platforms. New AI tools to figure out every other week. The promise of AI, by the way, was that it was supposed to make all this easier. Ask most owners how that’s going, and they’ll tell you they’re working harder just keeping up.

That’s not a tools problem. That’s a strategy problem.

When you don’t have a clear strategy, every new platform looks like an opportunity and every new tactic looks like the fix. You say yes to everything because you don’t have a filter for knowing what to say no to. Teams get busy. Vendors get busy. Nobody is coordinating. And the messaging starts to drift in five different directions at once.

I’ve seen this at every level. Businesses with five people doing marketing. Businesses with five outside vendors all working on the same brand. All moving. None of it quite connecting.

The fix isn’t a better tactic. It’s the clarity to know what you’re actually trying to do, who you’re doing it for, and why someone should choose you.

What a Small Business Marketing Strategy Actually Looks Like

Here’s where a lot of people get tripped up. They hear “marketing strategy for small business” and assume it means more planning, more documents, more time before anything happens. That’s not what I’m talking about.

Clarity starts with a single honest question: do you know exactly who your ideal client is, and do you know why they’d choose you over every other option they have?

I worked with a business owner a couple of years ago. Solid seven-year-old business, good local reputation, decent revenue. But the marketing never quite landed. He’d tried ads. Tried SEO. Had a consultant in for a while. Still felt like running in place.

When we sat down, the problem was obvious. He had tactics. What he didn’t have was a clear picture of who he was actually for. His messaging was written to appeal to everyone, which meant it resonated with nobody.

We got specific about his ideal client: who gets the most out of this, values the work, pays well, comes back, and sends referrals? Who is specifically not that person? Once he could answer those questions clearly, everything else simplified fast. The messaging changed. The channels narrowed. The conversations started to feel different.

That’s what strategy does. It’s not about doing more. It’s about knowing what matters, and having the confidence to ignore the rest. You can see this play out in our client case studies.

The Part That Doesn’t Get Talked About Enough: Team Alignment

Even when a business owner has clarity, the team often doesn’t. And that’s where a lot of good strategy dies.

I walk into businesses regularly where the founder has a clear sense of direction but the team is working from their own assumptions. The vendors are doing the same. Nobody is comparing notes. The result is inconsistent messaging, wasted effort, and a growing frustration that marketing “just isn’t working.”

That’s not a brand problem. That’s an alignment problem.

And alignment doesn’t come from circulating a PDF after the fact. It comes from building the strategy together.

When the whole team is in the room for the process of defining the ideal client, sharpening the message, and setting priorities, they own it. They understand why decisions were made. They can defend those decisions to a vendor or a prospect. That shared language is worth more than the document itself.

How to Build That Foundation Faster Than You Think

In the past, the kind of strategy work I’m describing took 30 to 45 days. And it was worth it. Clients came out the other side with more clarity than they’d had in years. Relief was usually the word that came up most.

But I kept asking myself whether we could deliver the same depth faster.

Turns out, we can. With the AI research tools we’ve gotten good at, we can do the front-end analysis of your industry, your existing marketing, and the competitive landscape before we ever show up. Which means the day itself is all signal, no setup.

We call it Strategy First in a Day. One focused day with your key team in the room. We build the ideal client profile, sharpen the positioning, tighten the messaging, and set the priorities for the next 90 days. Same outputs as the full engagement. One day instead of 45.

It works especially well for businesses in the one to 25 million dollar range: ones that have proven they can get clients but feel the growing complexity that comes with real traction. The ad hoc approach got you here. It won’t get you to the next level.

Questions I Get Asked About This

Is this only for businesses that are struggling with marketing?

Not at all. Some of the businesses that benefit most are growing well but feel the friction. Revenue is up, but the messaging is inconsistent. The team keeps restarting conversations that should already have answers. Strategy First in a Day works best when there’s real traction and you’re ready to make the marketing match where the business actually is.

What does my team walk away with at the end of the day?

A complete strategic foundation: your ideal client profile, your core message, your positioning relative to the competition, and a 90-day priority roadmap. Some businesses hand that to their internal team and run with it. Others move into ongoing fractional marketing leadership. Either way, the work is done in the room, not assigned as homework.

How is this different from a workshop or a consulting engagement?

Workshops give you frameworks. Consulting engagements give you recommendations. Strategy First in a Day gives you the actual deliverables, built with your team, that day. The distinction matters. When everyone in the room builds the strategy together, they understand it, they own it, and they can actually use it. That’s different from being handed someone else’s conclusions.

The Bottom Line

Growth that feels messy usually isn’t a marketing execution problem. It’s a clarity problem. And clarity isn’t something you stumble into by adding more tactics.

It starts with knowing who you’re for, why they’d choose you, and what matters most right now. Everything else follows from that.

If you want to see what building that foundation looks like in a single focused day with your whole team, head to dtm.world/oneday. That’s where we’ve laid out exactly how Strategy First in a Day works, who it’s built for, and what you walk away with.

Most Businesses Fail Because Founders Can’t Sell

Most Businesses Fail Because Founders Can’t Sell written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode

Episode Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, host John Jantsch sits down with serial entrepreneur Brian Will to unpack the real reasons most businesses fail and why it has little to do with product, market, or funding. Drawing from his experience building 10 companies worth over half a billion dollars, Brian explains how sales, not technical skill, is the true driver of business success.

The conversation explores practical sales psychology, common mistakes founders make, and actionable strategies to improve closing rates. Brian also shares his unconventional journey from high school dropout to successful entrepreneur and breaks down why mastering communication, negotiation, and human behavior is essential for any business owner.

Guest Bio

Brian Will is a serial entrepreneur who has built or co-built 10 companies across five industries, collectively valued at over $500 million at their peak. A high school dropout turned business leader, Brian specializes in sales systems, negotiation strategies, and business growth. He is the author of multiple books, including The Dropout Multi-Millionaire and The Psychology of Sales and Negotiations, where he shares proven frameworks for scaling businesses and improving sales performance.

Key Takeaways

1. Most Businesses Fail Because Founders Can’t Sell

Failure is rarely about product or market. It is about lack of sales ability.
Many founders are technicians who lack skills in selling and management.

2. The Biggest Sales Mistakes

Talking too much
Sounding like a stereotypical salesperson
Overloading prospects with technical details

3. Sales Is a Conversation, Not a Pitch

Asking the right questions is more powerful than presenting features.
Customers will tell you how to close them if you listen carefully.

4. Simplicity Wins

Communicate at a basic, clear level, around a fifth grade level.
The more complex your explanation, the less your customer retains.

5. “No” Is the Most Powerful Word in Sales

Every negotiation starts with “no.”
Setting expectations and anchoring price ranges improves outcomes.

6. Never Ask for a Budget

Customers will often mislead you.
Instead, provide a price range and let them choose within it.

7. Match Your Sales Style to the Buyer

Emotional buyers respond to feelings.
Analytical buyers want data.
Adjust your approach quickly based on cues.

8. Founders Must Build Around Their Weaknesses

If you are not a salesperson, hire or partner with one.
Success requires entrepreneur, technician, manager, and salesperson roles.

9. Listening Is a Competitive Advantage

Knowing when to stop talking dramatically improves close rates.

10. Growth Comes From Letting Go of Control

Brian’s biggest lesson is that success accelerated when he stopped trying to do everything himself and trusted more experienced partners.

Great Moments

00:02 – Why Businesses Really Fail
Brian explains that failure is usually due to lack of sales skills, not product or funding.

00:54 – Discovering a Natural Talent for Sales
Brian shares how he accidentally discovered his ability to sell insurance.

03:52 – The Three Core Sales Mistakes
Talking too much, sounding like a salesperson, and being overly technical.

05:35 – Talking Yourself Out of the Sale
A story illustrating how over explaining can lose deals.

07:04 – The Power of “No” in Negotiation
Why every negotiation starts with rejection.

09:57 – Why Technicians Fail as Business Owners
The Joe the plumber example highlights missing business skills.

12:29 – Ask Questions, Don’t Pitch
How questions reveal exactly how to close a deal.

14:47 – Practical Sales Example (Windows)
A real world walkthrough of effective sales questioning and pricing.

16:40 – Why You Should Never Ask for a Budget
Customers will mislead. Set ranges instead.

18:13 – The Lesson Brian Wishes He Learned Earlier
Success came when he stopped trying to do everything himself.

Memorable Quotes

“Most salespeople fail for exactly the same reasons. They talk too much and act like a salesperson.”

“If I can get you to have a conversation instead of selling, your closing rates will go through the roof.”

“Every single negotiation starts with no.”

“If your business fails, it won’t be because you’re bad at your craft. It will be because you can’t sell or manage.”

“The more you talk, the less they hear.”

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:02.122)

What are the reasons most businesses fail has nothing to do with their product, their market, or even funding and everything to do with the fact that the founder never learned how to Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Brian Will. He’s a serial entrepreneur dropped out of high school, went on to build or co-build 10 companies across five different industries collectively worth over half a billion dollars at their peak.

He’s the author of three books, including one we’re going to talk about today. No, the psychology of sales and negotiations. So Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian (00:40.654)

John, I appreciate you having me today. It’s gonna be fun.

John Jantsch (00:43.348)

So, start with the fact you dropped out of high school, built 10 companies. At what point did you realize that maybe this selling thing has a lot to do with my success?

Brian (00:54.648)

You know, it’s funny, John, the first company I did was landscaping and I only did it because I basically had no education and no job skills and I thought anybody could dig a hole and mow grass. Right. So that’s what I did. And I did that for 10 years and that company did well until it didn’t. That’s my one of my favorite things and ended up losing everything. Almost went bankrupt, lost the house, the cars, made a couple of critical errors in business that I carried with me for the rest of my life.

John Jantsch (01:05.683)

Yeah, right.

Brian (01:23.81)

But what was interesting when I got out of the landscaping business is a buddy of mine, he said, hey, you should come sell insurance with me. Now, mind you, I’m thinking, you remember the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray? And you remember Ned, needle nose Ned, and every day he tries to get Bill and one day Bill just knocks him out in the street. That was my internal picture of an insurance salesman. And I did not see myself walking around with a briefcase and a hat, know, chasing people down on the street.

John Jantsch (01:34.856)

yeah. One of my, one of my favorites. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (01:46.048)

Yeah.

Brian (01:51.022)

And I told my friend, no, I’m not selling insurance. Never. I’m a landscaper to start with. So he bugged me and bugged me and six months goes by and he kept showing me big checks. And finally I said, all right, how do I sell insurance? And he said, give me $500. I’ll give you some leads. I’ll take you on one appointment and then I’ll turn you loose. That’s the worst way to train a salesperson. I got to tell you.

John Jantsch (02:13.642)

you

Brian (02:15.061)

So that’s what we We went on one appointment. We went into this house. We came out. He goes, I just made $500. And I was like, my gosh, that’s incredible. So I took these 20 leads and a week later I showed up at the office and I had sold 12 insurance policies. And the guy that owned the agency, I walked in, I put him on the table and he goes, what’s that? I said, those are the insurance policies I sold this week. And he goes, how many leads did you get? And I said, I had 20. I said, is that not good enough? He goes, my God.

That’s like top 1 % in the country. What did you do to sell those? I remember saying, I don’t know. I just sold them. I had no idea, John, I could sell. I tell my kids all the time, you probably have talents you don’t know yet. And one of the talents I did not know at the time was apparently I could sell. And within six weeks, I was producing 50 % of the revenue in this agency.

John Jantsch (02:58.421)

Mm.

Brian (03:08.587)

Six months later, I broke off. started my own agency. A year and a half later, I sold it to a venture capital firm. It was my first sale. And we turned it into a company that went public. I didn’t know I could sell. I just could, and I don’t know why. But then I turned it into a system of selling and sales management and training and wrote the book. And, you know, that’s what I do.

John Jantsch (03:30.474)

Well, a lot of people suggest sales can be taught, but it’s not a skill necessarily. But you kind of backed into it as like, had that skill. I don’t even know what I was doing. So how do you kind of reconcile that with the idea that you’re now taking people who maybe say, I don’t have that skill and you’re teaching them.

Brian (03:44.813)

Brian (03:52.654)

You know, it’s interesting. Most salespeople fail for exactly the same reasons every single time. Number one, they talk too much. Number two, they act like a salesperson. If I can just get you to learn how to have a conversation with somebody and not act and sound like a salesperson. You know, a salesperson’s their voice.

John Jantsch (04:02.442)

Yeah.

Brian (04:15.854)

goes up like an octave and they talk really fast and they’re excited. Like, hey, John, how are you, man? I’m glad you came in today. And you’re like, dude, you’re a salesperson. Stop doing that. Right. And then if I asked you about a product, you have to give me a 20 minute dissertation on everything there is to know about everything about this product. And I don’t care because we know that psychologically people only remember 30 % of what they hear anyway. So the more you talk, the less they hear. And then the more you talk, the less they want to listen to you. And now they just want to leave.

So if I can get you to number one, have a conversation instead of sell and number two, learn when to shut up, your safe’s closing rates will go through the roof right out of the gate.

John Jantsch (04:55.776)

My father was kind of an old time salesperson. was a manufacturer’s rep and he’d go into these towns and go around the square to the stores that were there. I used to go with him every now and then. I remember he was like, really, we got this great new product. I’m going to show this person today. He walks in and he’s like, hey, we got this great new product. The guy’s like, that is nice. Can I get 10 cases? Got out his pad, sat it down, came to pen.

and left. was like, well, you didn’t even tell me about it. He was like, I took the order. And it just lasted with me forever. A lot of people talk themselves out of orders.

Brian (05:35.663)

Oh yeah. And the third thing is they talk too technical, right? I remember I was doing a project out in Seattle a year or so ago and I always, if it’s a small sales team, I like to go out with the salespeople and listen. And I out with their top salesperson and he went in to see this customer and they were selling windows and he’s like, yeah, and these windows have…

The Belgian slash and the six inch nails and they do this and this and the customers nod their head. And I stopped, said, hey John, can I ask you something? What is a Belgian slash and a six inch nails? That sounds like a band. And he goes, I don’t know, I said, and he said something different. And I looked at the customer and I said, did you hear six inch nails? And they go, yeah, that’s what we heard too. And if I hadn’t stopped John and asked the question, they would have the whole time never known what he said, right?

John Jantsch (06:12.946)

You

John Jantsch (06:27.21)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian (06:28.622)

So you can get too complicated and lose your client so easily. And I tell people, don’t use tech talk. Talk at a fifth grade level. Stop due check-ins, know, pause for effect, just like I did right there. And, you know, there are a few things we can teach you to make you better. We may not be able to make you the best, but we can make you better.

John Jantsch (06:54.314)

So you start your, I think this is not your first book with this, the word no. Is there a story behind why you’ve kind of latched onto that?

Brian (07:04.874)

Yeah, because the most powerful word in the English language is no. Without a doubt. And that’s on both sides of the sales process. can’t tell. I’ve got so many stories about the word no. And the Genesis literally, believe it not, comes from Richard Branson. And he wrote a book. And one of the things in his book, he says, is if your first offer doesn’t insult them, you’ve offered too much.

And no matter what, because if you’re talking to somebody who’s a negotiator, they’re never going to offer you what you want. And if you’re selling something, you’re never going to sell it for, you know, never going to offer it for sale for what you actually want. So we already know right out of the gate, both sides are going to say no. Right. So we start with no. That’s what we always start with. And every single negotiation starts with no. I’ll give you a, I’ll give you a funny example. I own some restaurants. I have a manager that works for me.

John Jantsch (07:36.629)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (07:54.186)

Thanks.

Brian (07:59.791)

And I was sitting in there with a general contractor one day and the manager comes up and he said, Hey, the electrician’s here and he wants to fix the outlet and the lamp and he wants $1,200. I said, offer him 600. And the manager looked at me and goes, what do you mean? I said, go back. He’s already here. He’s either going to take my 600. He’s going to go home. He goes, but it’s 1200. said, listen to me, just go offer 600 and come back. He comes back. goes.

He’ll do it for nine. I said, take the deal. Right. And the manager was like, I don’t understand what just happened. And the person at the table goes, do you do all your negotiations that way? I said, yes, I do. Whatever you tell me, it’s no.

John Jantsch (08:40.96)

Well, that’s an interesting point because the word negotiation is in the title, but I think a lot of people think selling is, have this offer, I give it to you, you pay me or you don’t pay me. That negotiation is really not even a part of the deal. It’s like, do you want it or not? So, and what you’re suggesting is it should be a part of every conversation or at least every transaction.

Brian (08:56.419)

Yes.

Brian (09:04.536)

So you’ve been to the mall, right, John? To a store, to buy a suit or pants or… Those people are technically salespeople, but they’re not selling you anything. That’s retail, right? Salespeople are true salespeople that are going out and trying to sell a product or a service, and those things are negotiable, period.

John Jantsch (09:13.524)

No, no.

John Jantsch (09:24.234)

So what do you say to that? A lot of times, mean, a lot of my listeners are, you know, they don’t have sales teams. mean, the founder is selling out there. And a lot of times they got into the business because they were good at doing something like landscaping, for example. Right. So how do you turn that person, especially the person is like, I hate selling. How do you turn that person? mean, obviously one of the pieces of leverage you have is the fact that, well, if you don’t sell, you’re going to be out of business. But how do you turn that person into

Brian (09:43.672)

Yes.

John Jantsch (09:54.519)

you know, somebody who could successfully sell.

Brian (09:57.423)

So my first book, John, is called The Dropout Multi-Millionaire. And I talk a lot about this in that book. And we like to say that every successful company has four personalities. And I don’t care if it’s Apple Computer all the way down to the guy who just started his own business. You have an entrepreneur who’s a big thinker, who’s also usually a salesperson, but not always. You have the entrepreneur, you have the technician, you have the manager, and you have the salesperson, right? Most businesses…

John Jantsch (10:01.311)

Mm-hmm.

Brian (10:26.572)

are started by technicians and they’re not salespeople. And as I like to say, my books are famous for Joe the plumber, right? Joe’s a plumber, he works for XYZ Plumbing for 20 years. He goes out every day, they’re paying him 50 bucks an hour. One morning, Joe wakes up and says, why am I charging 150 an hour? I’m only getting 50. I’m gonna start my own business and we’re gonna call it Joe’s Plumbing. So Joe starts Joe’s Plumbing.

If Joe’s plumbing fails, it will not be because Joe is not a good plumber. It will be because Joe is not a good salesperson or a manager, one of the two. But Joe thinks that all there is to business is the technician part, not understanding that he doesn’t understand how business works. He doesn’t understand how insurance works and payroll works and sales work and, you know, managing people. None of that. He doesn’t get that. And so that’s why most businesses fail is because they’re started by technicians.

If you are a technician, understand that you don’t know how to do sales, bring somebody in who does.

John Jantsch (11:28.938)

Yeah. No, no, no question. I think a lot of people jump out of, out of work and, decide to start a business and don’t realize just there’s a lot of moving parts. So, if somebody came to you, they were a newbie in, like a class or coaching or something you were doing, what, would be the basic principles kind of map out the basic principles that you would teach or that have really worked for you over the years?

Brian (11:39.33)

Yes.

Brian (11:55.342)

You mean a new business owner?

John Jantsch (11:56.754)

Yeah, who wants to get better at selling? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian (12:00.374)

better at selling. Okay. So the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to, and I hate to say this, but I’m going to go out with you on a couple of sales calls to find out what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. And then we’re going to develop a system for you to learn how to sell. So there in my book, we lay all these things out, but it’s sick. It literally gets into the things we’ve already talked about, which is you need to bring your presentation down to a few words, not a five minute dissertation.

John Jantsch (12:27.114)

Hmm.

Brian (12:29.934)

You need to quit selling and just ask questions. That’s one of the most powerful sales tools there is. If I can find out what you want, why you want it, when you want it, who else you’ve looked at buying it from and why you didn’t buy it from them, you will tell me exactly how to close you. But that’s a series of questions. If we want to get into, you know, high level sales, then we’ll start talking about

learning who the other person is. You know, some people give and receive information differently, as I like to say. John, if you’re an emotional person and you like you live on your emotions and what’s going to feel good and do good. And I try to give you a bunch of data. You’re going to your eyes are going to roll back in your head. If you’re a data person and I can tell that very quickly when I first start talking to you and I start giving you all the emotional reasons why you should do something and you keep going, no, just give me the numbers. Right.

how you receive information, how you give information is how you receive it. I need to pick up that small thing and my sales tactic has to match how you receive information. And then my close ratios will go up. Matching that with not talking too much, asking a ton of questions and letting the person close themselves. These are things we teach that I would try to teach somebody. And then it’s learning when to shut up. Like that’s the huge one. Just stop talking.

John Jantsch (13:58.314)

So the point you make about reading, you know, how somebody wants to be sold, how they process information, how they learn. Doesn’t that take a long time to really get good at? I know one of the things that they teach all the time is just what you talked about. Go in and probe, right? Ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. I don’t really like that when somebody comes in and I feel like I’m being interviewed because I’m like, I don’t really know you that well yet. I don’t trust you necessarily. I’m not going to give you, you know, all this information you’re asking me for. how do you…

How do you deal with kind of, I mean, how do you teach people to do that reading, you know, how somebody needs to be, and again, I’m, you know, years of experience, you probably learned it because you’ve seen everything, but how does that newer person who is really maybe feeling a little uncomfortable with this, like this new approach that they’ve been taught?

Brian (14:47.982)

Well, these things are gonna all be product specific. So let me just, let me give you one, right? I have a company that does window and door replacement. Okay? So when I walk up to the door, I’m like, hey John, how are you doing? I understand that you’re looking to replace some windows today. Is that right? Yeah. But which ones are you looking to replace? Well, I’m thinking the ones on the front of the house. Why do you wanna replace those? I mean, why not all of them? Why just these? And you’re gonna say, well, because…

John Jantsch (14:52.382)

Yeah. Right.

Brian (15:16.526)

I either want a bigger window or this one’s fogging up or I need a double pane window. So these questions aren’t really interviewing you as much as why are you wanting to replace these windows. And when you say, this one’s leaking and this one’s leaking and I don’t want a double pane here or I want a bigger window, I’m like, okay, great. So you’re looking at a double pane window, you want to do this and this. Have you shopped with anybody else? And you’ll say yes or no. Do you have any idea what windows like this cost? And you’re going to say, well, not really.

John Jantsch (15:19.786)

It’s all the sun all day. Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:30.453)

Mm-hmm.

Brian (15:46.061)

And then I do what we call, we set the Delta, right? And I’ll say, well, just to let you know up in advance, Windows costs, and I know this because I did this with a window company, Windows costs between 300 and a thousand dollars a piece to replace. 300 is going to get you a base level, a thousand is going to get you the Mac daddy. What range are you going to be in? I’m going to set the range. And the reason I set the range is because I don’t want you to come in and say, I thought they were a hundred bucks and I just spent a half a day with you.

John Jantsch (16:08.874)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (16:14.922)

Yeah. All right.

Brian (16:16.27)

Right. I also want to try to I don’t want to pitch you a thousand dollar window when you say my budget’s 200 or if it’s in my I never asked somebody a budget. I always give them a range. let them pick in the range. You want the cheapest at 300. You want me to talk about the thousand. Let’s go in the middle. OK.

John Jantsch (16:23.882)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:31.508)

Yeah, you know, people ask the budget question. I’m always, you know, what are you looking to spend? That’s my favorite question. And I’m like, as little as possible. mean, I’m just trying. It is.

Brian (16:40.174)

Yeah, that’s a terrible people don’t ever ever ever ask somebody what their budget is and they go why I’m saying because they’ll lie to you. They want I don’t go into the car lot and say I’m really looking to spend $52,560. Right? I’m gonna lie to you because I think you’re to take advantage of me. Now, if that same person says Windows costs between 300 and $800 a piece.

John Jantsch (16:54.898)

Right?

Brian (17:05.646)

Now you know you’re not getting it for 200 bucks. You’re gonna give me at least, you want me to start at 300, 500, 800, where do you wanna go? Because I could spend all day talking about Windows, but let’s talk about what’s important to you. And by the way, if we’re gonna get into super high level sales, John, if they pick the 500 and we get to the end and they’re not willing to commit, this is what we call the drop back and punt. I’ll say, well, let me ask you something. To be very fair, I just told you all about the $500 Windows, and those may be what you want.

Would you have any interest in hearing about the $300 window? Because if you say yes, you could never afford the 500 in the first place.

John Jantsch (17:42.504)

So do you find that these principles that you teach doesn’t really matter? The industry, B2B, B2C, doesn’t really matter?

Brian (17:52.855)

It is what, look, people are people. I don’t care if you are the CEO of IBM, you still go home and fight with your wife and your kids are throwing up on you and you know, you’re just a person.

John Jantsch (18:03.914)

So you also wrote the Dropout Multi-Millionaire. What lesson from that book do you wish you’d learned 10 years earlier?

Brian (18:13.55)

You know, I spent my first 10, 15 years in business trying to do everything myself, trying to be the smartest guy in the room. Particularly when you get under pressure, too many entrepreneurs fall back into the red personality zone where they get very autocratic and you will do it my way and blah, blah, And it wasn’t until I met my business partner, Steve, who was way more successful than me.

And that even took a year before I broke down and I said, you know what? I’m going to listen to you. And when I did that, we went from zero to we sold our company for $80 million three years later. You know, at some point you have to understand that there are smarter people than you as smart as you think you are. There are people that know more about certain things that you need to listen to.

Finding somebody who’s been there and done that, who’s willing to come in and help you and tell you, and then your ability to take that advice and listen to it is the difference between your success today or your failure tomorrow, 100%. And I didn’t know that when I was young.

John Jantsch (19:28.126)

I think that’s a great place to end it today. Brian, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you invite people to connect with you and find out more about your work?

Brian (19:37.484)

Yeah, BrianWillMedia.com. BrianWillMedia.com. My books, my training, everything’s on there. You can find everything you want to know.

John Jantsch (19:43.816)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Brian (19:48.943)

Appreciate it, John. Thanks for having me.