Let me be direct with you. If your marketing feels like you're throwing darts in the dark, if growth is inconsistent, and if you're tired of chasing tactic after tactic without predictable results, you need to stop what you're doing and lean into this conversation.
Since the age of 20, I've started six companies. Three went to zero. That's right, they didn't work out.
But three did really well, including my current firm, MindShift Digital.
For the last 15 years, we've been helping businesses unlock predictable growth with digital marketing, AI, automation, and customer acquisition. We've helped generate over $300 million in revenue growth for our clients.
These aren't theories from a textbook. These are battle-tested insights from real companies, real teams, and real results.
At least one of these lessons will offer a fresh perspective on how you approach growth in the future.
Most businesses rush headfirst into tactics, such as SEO, Google Ads, building funnels, and posting three times a day on social media, without first clarifying their strategy.
The Art of War says it perfectly: "Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
Strategy helps you answer the critical questions:
Once you nail these questions and many more, you can lay the foundation for how you're going to win.
The companies I've worked with over the last 15 years that skip this work tend not to do well. Period.
CEOs tell me all the time, "Darrell, we need more leads." It's one of the first things they say when they come to our firm for help with growth.
But here's the truth: the real problem isn't a lack of leads. It's a lack of systems to build awareness, build trust, and convert that trust into revenue.
At our agency, we refer to this as the Trust Flywheel.
Without a system like that, you're gambling on everything you do in marketing. I've seen frustrated CEOs and CMOs who've "done all the things" invested the dollars, paid the salaries, hired freelancers and consultants, attended workshops, and bought webinars.
You know the drill. And yet it's still not working.
That's because they haven't taken the time to develop a systematic approach that is repeated consistently.
There's a phrase in marketing that says, "If you confuse, you lose." Clarity beats noise every single time.
Think about Apple. They don't scream about gigabytes, hardware specs, or pixels.
They say, "It just works." That's clarity.
The businesses that win communicate in plain, compelling language that meets their buyers right where they are, in a language they understand.
Over the last 15 years, when we optimize growth for companies, we often spend time undoing the complicated way they present themselves, their offerings, and their approach.
Sometimes, the technical language of the technical craft you're in is not how your customer communicates. Once we simplify it down to the language they use, you'll be surprised how well your marketing works.
Ads get you in front of people, and we're big fans of ads, don't get me wrong, but they don't make that person care. It takes relevance, resonance, and value.
Think about it. You scroll by, drive by, and see on television hundreds, if not thousands, of ads every single day.
But when something speaks to the pain you have or the desire you seek, you stop. You pay attention. You give it your time, your energy, and possibly even your money.
That's not your budget doing the work. It's your ability to align with what that cold market is looking for. Otherwise, they scroll by and forget you even existed. And you somehow think your ads didn't work.
Here's what you need to do: Create a laundry list of problems, pains, concerns, frustrations, and anxieties that your buyer is experiencing. Many people are reluctant to undertake this work, especially not now, when ChatGPT can generate everything you need.
ChatGPT is a great resource, but if you don't conduct buyer persona work, create an empathy map, and clearly align every one of those problems your buyer has, your marketing will fly right by as if it were never seen.
If something isn't working organically already on your website and in your current business model, do not think that ads will pour fire on it and make it work. All pouring gas on a broken system does is waste your money faster.
The key is this: Ads don't fix your messaging. Ads don't fix your positioning. They amplify what's already working.
In our agency, we work with companies that've already proven they know how to sell something.
They've already got product-market fit, and we can add fuel to their acquisition funnel with ads.
If you're a startup thinking, "Well, Darrell, what about me?" there is a testing mechanism we use that's highly effective to test offer messaging and angles.
Still, it cannot be done until you've done the work to understand your product-market fit, your buyer, your buyer's journey, and what it takes to move that perfectly cold prospect from merely being aware of who you are to acquiring what you deliver.
Listen carefully: Your number one competitor right now is not another company in your industry. It's your prospect's inaction.
I heard this at a seminar about a year and a half ago, based on research conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, Accenture, and Harvard Business Review.
About 38% of all B2B sales are lost due to a prospect's inaction. They didn't go with your competitor; they did nothing.
Apathy is killing way more deals today than your competitors ever will. In our marketing, we have to find the triggering events. We must find the internal urgency to move people from thinking to acting.
The good news? You can do that if you have the proper understanding of their fears, frustrations, doubts, worries, and pains, and if you can paint a picture of their ideal outcome.
Not doing this the right way today is going to make your marketing feel like it's not working.
Every business today has more than enough dashboards, reports, and analytics from Facebook, Google, HubSpot, your CRM, and your email platforms. You've got more than enough data.
But does anyone understand what the data means?
Everyone's flying around with these reports, but does anyone know the key metrics that will move decisions forward? I was sitting in a meeting a couple of months ago where we had to make a tough decision about a challenging campaign.
After looking at the numbers, I said, "We're going to do nothing."
The CEO asked, "How do you know we shouldn't do anything?"
I said, "Because we looked at the numbers."
If you have data but don't know how to use it to drive effective decisions, all those dashboards mean nothing.
One of our clients achieved a 357% ROI growth simply because we reviewed the numbers every single week and made informed decisions accordingly.
My question for you: Are you making decisions based on data, or is the overarching theme in your boardroom, "I think we should do it this way"?
That's not how winning works.
One great post every couple of months won't build trust in your marketplace. But showing up every single week with one solid, steady piece of content on social media, in email, on your website, or on YouTube - that's what compounds over time.
Coca-Cola didn't build its brand overnight. They've spent a hundred years showing up.
Consistency, familiarity, and trust lead to sales.
The vast majority of our clients tell me that people do business with them because they "know, like, and trust" them.
So, if that's true for your business, how are you showing up consistently to build familiarity, so you can build trust, and ultimately convert more sales?
Most people don't buy on the first click, the first trip to your store, the first visit to your website, the first time they see your ad, or the first time they open your email.
Sometimes they don't do it on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 20th, or 25th time.
Remarketing is how you stay top of mind.
Your job isn't to choose when they have to buy or be impatient about when they will buy. Your job is to be there when they're ready to make a purchase. Too many businesses quit too soon. Marketers give up and think an ad campaign didn't work because the click-through didn't result in a sale.
The adage says fortune is found in the follow-up. But so many of you don't want to do the follow-up as long as it takes.
Those who win, who make the most profit, master follow-up.
Some people believe today that you don't need a website because of AI or social media.
Listen: Your website is an employee of your organization. It's there to sell, nurture, inform, and act as an asset, not just to look pretty.
Websites are not art galleries. They're designed to convert. The job of your website is to act as a team member who greets every person who comes there and helps them navigate to what they need in your world.
It should answer questions like:
Anything else that doesn't help that person move forward is just decoration.
I've heard from companies that've spent $100,000 on websites, and when I ask, "How many leads have you generated in the last six months?" they tell me the website hasn't generated anything.
That's because they focused on the wrong things.
Too many businesses hire social media managers to post 12, 15, or 18 times a day, thinking they need to please the algorithm.
Listen: At the end of the day, social media is not a billboard. It's not just about posting everything on sale in your organization.
It's where you create valuable content, build an audience, and start conversations in your community so people can connect with your brand and make that 'know, like, and trust' factor.
You can use social media to promote your business. I'm not saying you can't.
However, don't get caught up thinking that every time you post, you should post about your real estate listing, insurance policy, or investment account. You want to invite people into your world so they can know, like, and trust your brand.
Then they'll move to the place where they want to be convinced that a conversation with you will matter.
The next step isn't necessarily buying from you. If it's entertainment, the next step could be that they get a laugh. If it's information, it could mean they read a blog post or watch a video.
Your post might move them to an 'aha' moment, a moment of clarity. That could be the very next step in their journey.
Every piece of content is part of your digital catalog, which continually gives prospects the opportunity to learn more about you.
Here's a funny saying I have: Most of your best buyers are lurkers. They're not raising their hands, clicking buttons, or hitting 'like,' 'comment,' and 'share.'
The goal is creating a catalog that builds know, like, and trust when no one is watching. That's the key.
I hear the word "funnels" all the time, and they're complex. If you scroll through LinkedIn, you'll see people sharing mind maps of 38-piece funnels with all these steps, tools, and integrations.
Listen: All they're going to do is break when they start running.
Simplicity is what scales. You don't need 12, 15, or 32 steps when three will do.
For the vast majority of our 15 years, three- or four-step processes have worked just fine, especially when considering that the majority of buyers are not ready to buy today. Studies from HubSpot, Adobe, Constant Contact, and Wharton Business School indicate that somewhere in the 95-96% range are not ready to buy today.
But here's the good news: I learned a study 22 years ago that I've never forgotten. Of the 100% of people who inquire or visit your world about your offer, only 3-5% are ready to buy today. But 45-50% might buy in the next 6 to 18 months.
That's where the money is found. That's where fortune is in the follow-up.
Don't overcomplicate your funnel when you know the vast majority of your buyers aren't buying today anyway.
I've said this for the last 15 years at many boardroom tables, in numerous founder meetings, and to many entrepreneurs who've spent months trying to plan the perfect thing: The problem is, the best plan doesn't win business. It's won by the fastest execution with the closest variables to where we want to be.
Winners win by testing, learning, adjusting, and repeating. This game is a game of iteration. It's never "we got it right once and it's going to work forever." We need to break free from this paralysis of analysis and ideation.
I think it was Jim Collins in Good to Great who said, "Perfect is the enemy of done." The best plan is one that yields results, allowing you to see what the data looks like, then plan, iterate, and refine your approach.
Peter Drucker said marketing and innovation are the only two drivers of growth in a company. Everything else is a cost.
When you're the CEO, you cannot get away from the table when it comes to the growth conversation. So many times in 15 years, I've seen owners tell me, "Well, we hired this person, that person, this company, this freelancer. I outsourced it to my son or daughter because they had free time." They just gave away the mechanism called growth.
You must own that. You can delegate it, partner with someone, or even outsource it, but you can't simply walk away because you're the technician or excel at something else in the business.
The companies that thrive are led by CEOs who treat marketing as the engine for growth, not just an expense line. So often, when the industry faces a challenge or the world undergoes a shakeup, the first thing they think about cutting is marketing.
That happens because they haven't actually looked at marketing as the growth center that it is; it was just a line item during good times.
There's a quote attributed to Henry Ford: "The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who tries to stop the clock to save time."
Growth isn't random. It's not luck. And it's definitely not about chasing the next shiny tactic.
Growth occurs when you prioritize strategy over tactics, establish systems that foster trust, and lead with clarity and consistency.
If you take even two or three of these lessons seriously today, I guarantee it'll shift the way your business grows going forward. These aren't theories; they're battle-tested insights backed by over $300 million in proven results with real companies.
Which of these 15 lessons hit you the most? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.
A: If you're currently running ads, posting on social media, or doing SEO without being able to clearly answer who you serve, why they should care, and what makes you different, you need a strategy first. Tactics without strategy waste money and time.
A: This usually means one of three things: (1) you don't have a systematic approach, (2) your messaging isn't clear or relevant, or (3) you're not following up long enough. Most buyers take 6-18 months to convert, so patience paired with consistency is critical.
A: At a minimum, allocate 90 days for any marketing initiative to ensure consistent execution. However, remember that if something isn't working organically (without ads), adding ad spend won't fix it. Test your messaging and offer first.
A: Absolutely. Your website is the only digital asset you truly own. Social platforms can change algorithms, shut down, or remove your account. Your website is your home base and should function as a 24/7 sales employee.