A practical summary of who you're looking to help, what I should listen out for and where I think there could be some really useful crossover between what we both do.
The more we talked, the clearer it became that your role isn't about being another supplier in somebody's marketing mix. You're often the person helping the owner work out what they're trying to achieve, where the gaps are and which specialists need bringing together to make it happen.
The sweet spot isn't simply “a business that needs marketing”. It's a business with some momentum, an owner who wants to grow and enough moving parts that somebody needs to bring the bigger picture together.
A particularly strong example from our conversation was the tradesperson who started by doing the work themselves and is now building a company around it. They're employing people, managing a team and need enough leads and marketing activity to keep that growth moving.
This sounded like a useful BNI referral profile. There are enough people and moving parts for marketing to matter strategically, but the business may not yet need or want a full senior marketing director in-house.
They may already have somebody posting on social media, handling email, looking at analytics or doing bits of digital activity. The problem is that person has been handed marketing without the strategic experience to connect all the pieces.
When I asked you to narrow it down, local and B2B were the two clearest criteria. The strongest opportunities are businesses with ambition, a willingness to learn and an understanding that growth may require bringing the right outside expertise around them.
One bit of our conversation stuck with me. Somebody says they want a new website and your response is essentially, “What for?”
That's a good summary of the role you play. Marketing activity can look busy without actually supporting the business. Websites, email, social, funnels, analytics and lead generation can all end up sitting in separate silos.
You start further back. What is the business trying to achieve? Is the business strategy clear? Why isn't the current activity producing the result? Then the marketing strategy and the right specialists can sit underneath that.
The best introducers don't necessarily need to understand marketing. They need to be close enough to a growing business to hear the conversations that tell us something has changed.
Particularly coaches working with established businesses that are moving beyond the owner doing everything themselves. The business plan may be developing, but somebody still needs to turn that growth into a joined-up marketing approach.
A broker may meet an owner whose business isn't yet worth what they hope. If the answer is to build value over the next few years, marketing, lead generation and stronger commercial systems can become part of that plan.
People who are brilliant at one part of the puzzle can be useful partners. Steve can help make sure their work sits inside a wider strategy rather than asking one specialist to solve everything.
Accountants, finance specialists, advisers and others who hear an owner talking about recruitment, expansion, capacity or succession may be hearing the early signs of a marketing requirement too.
I don't need to wait for somebody to say, “I need a marketing director.” These are much more natural conversations that could reveal a good introduction.
You described yourself as having spent years as a jack of all trades, but the areas you now want to own are much clearer: strategy, copy, mentoring and developing the people around the marketing.
You don't need to personally build every website, funnel, community, automation or campaign. You need trusted specialists around you who can deliver those pieces when the strategy calls for them.
That also makes the fractional marketing director description make more sense to me. The client gets senior thinking, challenge and direction without necessarily employing that capability full-time.
The bit I don't want to lose from our one-to-one is the potential crossover between what you're building and what I do.
You talked about wanting a network of specialists you can trust, then being able to bring those people into client projects as part of your wider strategy. You also have your own lower-cost offer taking shape around weekly videos, actions and Q&A support.
That feels worth a proper second conversation. In particular, I'd like to look at what you've already built, how you want the client journey to work and where I could potentially take some of the technical build and ongoing delivery off your plate.
I've also got you a free pass to my Help With Digital space. Have a nose around. You'll see the community, training and some of the thinking behind how I use technology to keep people connected and supported.
Get your free passNo sales pitch needed. Go in, have a look around and it'll give us something practical to talk about next time.
One is referrals. I now have a much clearer picture of the growing local B2B businesses, trade-led companies, coaches and advisers that could put you in the right conversations. The other is us. There looks to be a useful fit between your strategy-led role and the technology, landing pages, communities and digital delivery I can put behind it.
