Entrepreneurship is a bit like painting: It can be very messy, or it can be mildly messy. The difference depends on how you approach it. (Think a 5-year-old artist vs. Van Gogh nearing the end of his life.)

When it comes to growing a business, messes are inevitable. But we’ve seen many cases of founders who accidentally created more messes than necessary by neglecting Step #1 of growing a business.

What’s Step #1 you ask?

Identifying what the business needs to grow.

In other words, identifying and prioritizing business problems, to then address them through proper action. (Which is Step #3. But many founders prefer to skip over #1 and #2 because that’s where you get to do ‘sexy things’ like post content or run campaigns.)

Sounds simple. But simple is often mistaken for “easy” and “unimportant,” which means that a surprising number of startups face problems just because Step #1 was overlooked.

In fact, I think I’d prefer to call it Step #! (yes, exclamation mark) to emphasize how important it is to making sure you set up the right foundation!

We at GBB Media have fixed this for our clients informally over the years, but now that we’ve decided to help as many startups DIY as possible, we’ve formalized our method into a structured framework that you can execute as soon as you’re done reading this post.

The answer to doing Step #! correctly? It’s called a PIP session.

In this guide, you’ll learn what it is, how it works, and what not to do (looking at our consultant friends who think a meeting = solving the problems).

You’ll also get a printable document that covers the framework behind PIP (which we call CAP, for reasons you’ll see) so you can have it as a guiding roadmap during your PIP session.

And by the end of this post, you’ll have Steps #! and #2 down.

Ready?

Let’s go.

The PIP Session

Brass tacks: A PIP session is just a meeting where we identify and prioritize problems. If you’re wondering where the term came from, it’s because someone got tired of writing “problem identification and prioritization” in our team comms and decided to abbreviate it. Plus, “pip” sounds better.

The goal of the PIP session (and yes, there’s usually only one over a period of time) is to come out with a crystal clear understanding of your current business constraints and how they rank in order of priority. Basically, your end result is a numbered list, with some added strategy.

Why is this essential and why did we feel the need to develop this for our clients?

Because when we ask founders what problems they’re currently facing in marketing, we get answers like this:

• “We need to get out there.”
• “We need more business.”
• “Our problem is leads.”

The first one basically means nothing. The second and third ones are common and they might make sense—until you find out that the company is already at capacity in fulfillment and the last thing they actually need is leads.

So, to make it very straightforward (and replicable) for our clients to identify constraints, we formalized PIP sessions based on an underlying framework that we call CAP.

What’s that about?

The CAP Framework

We divide our PIP sessions into 3 stages:

• Stage #1: Identifying the current constraint(s) of the business
• Stage #2: Identifying our approach to the identified constraint(s)
• Stage #3: Identifying the process we will execute in line with our approach to address the identified constraint(s)

You’ll notice that only Stage #1 is actually strictly tied to problem identification; Stages #2 and #3 focus more on creating a plan to addressing the problems.

That’s because we don’t believe in meetings without solutions, so we had to work that in. But most people fail at Stage #1 anyway, so even if that’s all you get out of the framework, you’ll already be ahead of more than 50% of other founders.

Okay, let’s break this down so it’s a bit more concrete. Here’s the master flow chart of what the CAP framework entails, so you can keep the big picture in mind; in the next few paragraphs, we’ll unpack it piece by piece.

Stage #1: Constraint

We’ve found that Alex Hormozi’s simple constraint model is effective, so we borrow that.

There are 2 kinds of constraints (that just come from the basic laws of business):

How do you know which kind of constraint you have? Here’s a quick 1-question test.

(a) It would break.

(b) It would grow (maybe even double or more).

That’s not a conclusive answer but it gives you a quick idea of where you are.

If you’re leaning more toward A, then you’re probably more supply constrained. If you’re leaning more toward B, then you’re probably more demand constrained. Most businesses are a mix of both—they have room to grow up to a certain point, but then they will become supply constrained.

And that’s fine.

What you identify during a PIP session is not meant to apply for the rest of your business life. It’s just meant to identify what’s holding you back now.

As for what will hold you back later—feel free to leave that for later, or if you’re a strategist, start planning ahead while you get unstuck.

Stage #2: Approach

Now it’s time to work on getting unstuck. And the best place to start once you’ve identified what’s keeping you stuck is to come up with your approach.

We developed this stage because, working with companies of various sizes, we realized that the approach (not just the tactical process) is really important for shaping how you get unstuck.

Now, the kinds of approaches you have at your disposal depend on whether you’re supply- or demand-constrained. But we’ll keep it simple for now and assume that you (like most other startups and small businesses) are demand-constrained.

There are 2 main approaches:

As a startup, you might be wondering why the heck anyone would want to get unstuck “indirectly.” But actually, larger companies do benefit from this kind of approach, and you’ll see exactly what I mean when we get to Stage #3.

Speaking of…

Stage #3: Process

Stage #3 is all about the process of how you’ll get unstuck—as in, what specific actions will you take?

Suppose your constraint is on the demand side. Then, regardless of your overall strategic approach (broad or strategic), some tactical actions you could take to get unstuck include:

• paid ads
• branding plays like PR and awareness content marketing
• partner/referral programs
• sales and closing optimization

But these actions aren’t actually ‘the same’, because some will get you more direct results, while others won’t.

Let’s see:

• Paid ads are the most tried and trued way to get near-instant results (though they’re short-term).
• Branding plays are always a long game, because no amount of branding will get you a direct sale, especially if you’re starting from obscurity. If you’re Nike, it’s different—a “You Can’t Win, So Win” campaign will definitely boost sales—but it’s safe to assume you’re not Nike.
• Content marketing is both a short and long game, especially depending on how it’s done (we should know; we’ve built our business on it). For example, posting on social media to get views or go viral is branding, while posting sales-enabling content is part of lead generation (more direct).
• Partner/referral programs can be either, depending on your business structure and whether you’re already getting most of your business from referrals.
• Sales and closing optimization is definitely a direct route to new business.

But if your approach is specific (i.e., you need to get from A to B stat), then your process could be

• paid ads
• content marketing
• partner/referral programs (depending on your business)
• sales and closing optimization

for example.

Usually startups and small businesses need a specific (i.e., direct) approach to getting unstuck.

Only when you get to a larger scale can you afford to go the indirect way, which companies often do because they get influence and market share or brand equity in the process of growing. (None of these things matter if you go bankrupt. So small businesses don’t need to worry about it. Hence our pragmatism.)

How to PIP—With a Roadmap

Okay, so that was a high-level overview, but how do you actually do a PIP session? Like, right now?

Let me walk you through it, then you can do it with your team. 

Materials List

• pen and paper (or virtual document)
• our roadmap (to make things easier)
• some mental juice

You can download our roadmap here.

Duration

30 minutes (45 if you’re feeling generous)

Start: Stage #1

Stage 1 means identifying your constraint. The easiest way to start is often to just randomly list out what you believe your business problems are, so do that now. Then, look over your list, check each against the supply/demand diagram on the roadmap, and write either “supply” or “demand” next to each problem.

Done?

Good.

Now, circle the biggest one. The one that’s costing you the most money, peace of mind, or both. The one that you would wish away if you had a business genie at your disposal.

Great. That’s your priority #1. Feel free to ignore all the others, or just rearrange them in order of decreasing pain for your future reference.

Work with your priority #1 as you move to Stage 2.

Stage #2

Now, consider your approach. We recommend choosing it based on your size, runway, and business goals. Usually this means:

• startup or small business (< $10M revenue) → specific
• medium-to-large enterprise or above ($10M+ revenue) → either specific or broad, depending on your goals and timelines

By the by: You’ll notice that the roadmap doesn’t break down the approach on the supply side into “specific” or “broad,” but instead into “systems” and “people.” That’s because these are the two major categories we’ve identified cause blockages in your fulfillment process. This isn’t a size or goal thing, so pick the one that pertains to your particular situation.

Keep in mind your approach as you consider your options in Stage 3.

Stage #3

Have a look at the process options that pertain to your constraint type (supply or demand) and chosen approach. Which of these do you want to implement? Pick as many as you want, although keep in mind that focusing on one process at a time (especially if you have limited capital) is usually more effective. 

Next Steps

Once you’ve made your choice, you’re done. That’s it. The next move is to implement correctly, which means finding the right resources and/or partners to help you.

Now, if you’ve read anything we’ve written, you know we’re in the content marketing space. So we’re really big advocates of doing content marketing for client acquisition. If this is the route that interests you, then you’re in luck. If you’re in the tech industry doing anything remotely related to pentesting, cybersecurity, or security consulting, then you’re even more in luck.

Because we’re releasing a new series that walks you through how we would approach building a content-powered client acquisition engine for a fictional boutique cybersecurity consultancy, modeled on our real experience. We’re including not just the bare bones, but detailed plans and explanations, checklists, tools, and even sample content assets—in other words, everything you need to DIY.

Interested? Check out our series here. And hey, you can see a PIP session in action, too!

Check Out Our Cybersecurity Series!

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

Want the short version?

Going full-in on a GTM launch when you’re a startup is like going all-in on the number 1 in roulette. You might win, but the odds are overwhelmingly against you.

Instead, adopt our two-pass approach to GTM, where you launch micro campaigns to gather information (i.e., find out which numbers the roulette is rigged for, because in business it’s always rigged) and only then go all-in on the information you know will increase your success.

We don’t often start our articles with riddles, but this time I’ll make an exception.

Suppose you’re stuck in a cave and you have a small pouch of coins. (Don’t worry about how we got here, just go with it for now.)

Naturally you want to leave the cave, but there’s no one way out. Instead, in front of you, there are 5 or so different tunnels, each of which is locked by a gate that takes in coins.

The rules of the game are, presumably, feed coins into gate, it will open, and you’ll be freed.

The problem is…

You don’t know which tunnel is the right one that leads out the cave, and you also don’t know how many coins you should feed into a gate to get it to open.

Sound like a conundrum?

Well, I’m sure we could all spend hours debating what’s the best strategy to solve the puzzle and maximize your chances of success.

But here’s something we can all most definitely agree on: Step 1 is NOT to pick the gate closest to you and feed it all your coins.

And yet, as ridiculous as that may sound, it’s a mistake that we’ve seen so many entrepreneurs make. So, we’re writing this post as the beginning of our official startup marketing playbook—a living library that’s designed for startups specifically, not reworked from templates that big brands use.

If you’re looking for something that’s tailored for you, built in the trenches, and designed to accompany you on the road from absolute 0 to your first few million dollars in revenue (whether you’re VC-backed or bootstrapped), then you’re in the right place.

Let’s begin.

Welcome to Entrepreneurship

You’re officially in a dark cave, with a pouch of coins, and 5 (sometimes more) gated tunnels in front of you.

You want to get out of the dark cave and step into the light of profits, glory, and achievement.

But, alas, you find yourself in a pickle.

As a startup, whether your pouch is on the smaller (bootstrapped) or larger (VC-backed) side, you’re always starting from 0.

Because it doesn’t matter how many coins you have. You still don’t know two very important things:

• which tunnel leads out of the cave
• how many coins you need to feed into a gate to get it to open

Except in the real world, it’s not about actual tunnels and gates. It’s about target audiences. And here’s what we mean by this.

GTM Debunked

Most startups start their marketing journey with a go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

That is, a detailed document that explains:

• who you’re going after (ideal buyer persona)
• what your messaging is (ideally with hooks and offers, too)
• how you’re going to reach your audience (media mix, content plan, etc.)

They add on content calendars and planners, social media managers, maybe paid ads—and start the journey.

The problem is, when you’re a new business, you don’t actually know who you’re going after, what messaging works, and how to reach your audience.

Everything in that document is 100% a guess. It might be an educated guess, based on research, other peoples’ experiences, competitors, etc., but it’s still a guess.

And that means that there’s no guarantee of success, because:

• you might be going after the wrong audience
• you might be going after the right audience with the wrong messaging
• you might be going after the right audience with the right messaging and on the wrong platform

And going all-in on your GTM strategy at this stage is exactly like using all your coins on one gate in the tunnel riddle.

You have no real information, and you’re essentially relying on luck to succeed.

Does this mean that GTM strategies are useless?

No, of course not.

What we’re saying is that, if you’re a startup, a GTM strategy is premature.

Unless you’ve done the work to actually know and identify who your target audience of paying clients is, and you have at least a basic idea of how to reach them and what to say—then you’re not ready for a GTM strategy.

What you need is a pre-GTM strategy, or what we at GBB Media like to call the “first-pass” layer of your entry to market.

The First Pass

Come back to the cave with me for a second.

You still have all your coins, there are still 5 gates in front of you. But now, you have a different approach.

Having counted your coins, you realize they’re 15. So, what would happen if you used up 1-2 on each gate, just to see what happens?

The possibilities are these:

• all 5 gates open up
• none of the 5 gates open up
• some of the 5 gates open up

If none of the gates opens up, then you’ll need to rethink your life choices with your remaining coins at hand.

But if one or more of the gates opens up, then you’ll have the opportunity to explore the tunnels until you find the right one.

In your business’s case, the chances are overwhelmingly more in favor of at least one gate opening up—or one target audience actually being receptive and responsive to you. (We’re assuming, of course, that you pick target audiences that would be interested in your business, which is a perfectly reasonable assumption.)

So, by doing the “first pass” of coins, in which you test for a reaction with fewer resources than your maximum, you’re able to get much more information that can inform your next steps.

And that’s what we recommend to all startups.

Your New GTM Approach

First, do a first pass (aka pre-GTM) on your potential audiences.

1. Make a list of several different potential target audiences. Start from your total addressable market and niche down into groups. Consider niching down even further to find segments within groups that are more likely to buy than others.
2. Execute short (2-4 week), targeted campaigns on those target audiences. You can do one at a time or several at once, depending on your budget or runway. You can also choose to do organic only, or both organic and paid. But in order for your test to generate useful data, you must invest in volume—we’ll cover this in more detail in a later post.
3. Collect and analyze data from your micro-tests. Identify who converted, what converted them, and where to focus more of your resources. Note that a conversion isn’t necessarily a sale; it’s a reaction or expression of interest. (You’re rarely going to get anything more than that for these kinds of short bursts, especially in B2B.)

Then, with the information from your first-pass, you can build your full-scale GTM strategy. The only difference between before and now is, you’re not guessing. You have actual data that you’ve tested, and you know that investing your coins in this gate will lead to a result you want.

By the By

Even though startups are the main focus of this post, even if you’re an established company with consistent revenue, this approach still applies to you.

If you’ve been generating business through referrals, in-person events, or other methods that don’t have to do with reaching out to a cold audience, then you’re in the same boat as startups entering the market when you do begin the cold audience nurture process.

Coming Up

We’ll be sharing exactly how we undergo the process we shared for a fictionalized version of one of our cybersecurity clients. Follow our series and the journey of Talon Consulting here.

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

Long ago, in a faraway land, there lived a listless, curious scholar. He longed to travel the seven seas and see distant lands, meet new cultures, and experience exotic foods.

Day and night he thought of nothing else, until one day, his desire burned too strong and he finally made the decision: He would leave his comfortable life as a scholar, and venture into the unknown.

Early the next morning, he began his preparations. From food rations to clothing, he carefully tracked all the essentials he would need for a long trip.

He was almost ready to close his bag when he realized something. “…The map?”

He scoured his room. No map in sight.

He checked every corner, every table, every sheet of paper. There was no map to be found.

“No worthy explorer has ever ventured forth without a map,” he scolded himself. “I must procure one.”

He fetched a large sheet of cartographic paper, a quill pen, and a bottle, and settled himself at his study. For the next three days, he drew—vast mountain ranges, detailed valleys and ravines, endless expanses of ocean—he drew the world onto his map. And once he had brushed the last stroke of the side of a small desert and looked upon the paper to find it filled, he set down his pen and declared it finished.

He was now a worthy explorer who could partake in worthy adventures, for he had a map.

“. . . he drew the world onto his map. And once he had brushed the last stroke of the side of a small desert and looked upon the paper to find it filled, he set down his pen and declared it finished. He was now a worthy explorer . . . for he had a map.”

Perhaps he had simply misjudged the distance to his destination and had to keep walking further.

And yet, the further he walked east, the hotter the weather became, the more hills turned to flatland, and the more soil turned to dust.

After the fourth day, he reached a ridge. Thinking this might be the beginning of the mountain range, he climbed it eagerly—only to find vast and expansive sand dunes on the other side. No mountains in sight.

Throughout his journey, the adventurer found lakes where he had drawn deserts, and deserts where he had drawn oceans. Before the thirtieth day was over, he had exhausted his rations, and found himself lost in a dense bushland, with no one to ask for help, and no one to come and rescue him, for no one (not even he) knew where he was.

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

How do I actually reach my target audience, not my peers, on LinkedIn?

This is a question we get a lot from small business owners who have been posting for a while, but haven’t been noticing any traction. At least, traction with the right audience.

You might appreciate that fellow CFOs are liking your stuff for the first few months. But after that, it becomes more frustrating than anything, because unlike your target buyers, your peers won’t give you money in addition to likes and hearts.

Well, you already know what the problem is. This post isn’t designed to rub salt in the wound, or explain the echo chamber phenomenon you may be fighting.

Instead, this is your how-to guide that will take you through the exact process we follow in identifying and designing interest-based content topics.

Don’t worry, it’s really simple. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.

You’ll need a legal pad, a pen, a highlighter, and some mental juice to pull this off. So go grab those things (and some coffee, tea… whatever your fix is).

Okay, I assume you’re ready. Let’s dive in.

Materials List

• legal pad
• pen
• highlighter
• some mental juice

If you prefer the digital version, here’s a Google Doc template you can use. (Still come with some mental juice, though 🙂).

Duration

30-60 minutes

The 4-Step Framework for Generating Interest-Based Content

Step 0: Step Out of Your Frame of Mind

This is the prerequisite step, and the one that’s so easy to overlook.

Before you do anything, you need to step out of your current frame of mind, and take an outsider’s view.

You’re not a CFO or any kind of finance professional anymore.

You’re a neutral observer.

This mindset shift is essential if you want to get good results from your brainstorming.

Step 1: Understand Your ICP

Okay, you shifted your perspective and are ready to tackle the work.

This framework presupposes that you already have a great ICP documented, so now is the time to take it out and read it.

Really read it.

Don’t autofill sentences. Don’t recite information to yourself in your mind.

Pretend this is the first time you’re ever coming across this document, and take time to understand it as an outsider. Remember, you have no knowledge of your business.

When you feel confident that you understand the characteristics, thought patterns, and mindset of the person whose profile you’ve just read, move on to Step 2.

Step 2a: Make a List of Your ICP’s Interests

On your legal pad, draw a line straight down the middle, running from the top of the page to the bottom. To the left of that line, start listing down topics, ideas, titles, or anything that comes to you that your ICP would be interested in.

Start this exercise by listing (at the top) 3-5 big keywords that really matter to your ICP and that are part of the very fiber of their being.

For example, if you serve small business owners, those would be revenue, growth, profit, clients.

(If you serve large business owners, by contrast, those could be more like revenue, expansion, efficiency, etc. You get it.)

Then, under the keywords, list topics and subtopics that would pique this person’s interest.

Side Note

The topics you choose can be limited to your ICP’s professional or business interests, or they can encompass lifestyle and personal interests. That depends on your values, brand, and the type of digital footprint you want to create. Practice some self-awareness here.

Think from your ICP’s perspective, and write down anything that comes to mind related to the big keywords, even if it’s not in your area of expertise.

Step 2b: Make a List of Your Areas of Expertise

Great job so far. Being someone else is exhausting, so that’s enough of that; it’s time for you to return to being you!

To the right of the line you drew down the middle of the page, you’ll now go through a similar process as Step 2a, but you’ll write down topics that you can speak to.

Don’t worry about cross-checking against the list you made in Step 2a. Just write down anything that comes to mind that falls within your areas of expertise and passion.

For example:

• tax advice
• setting up financial infrastructure
• passing audits

Really, anything that you can speak to with authority and enthusiasm.

Step 3: Find Areas of Intersection

Time to bring out the highlighter.

Now that you have the two lists written down, go through both and highlight whatever is a commonality between the two lists.

For example, maybe on the ICP side you see “grow my business without overhead,” and on your side you see “cost optimization to reduce overhead.” These two are close enough to be equivalent and are areas of overlap, so they should be highlighted.

What if you don’t see any overlap?

Don’t worry, it’s there. You either need to look harder (they’re often not the same word-for-word, or the concepts are complementary) or you need to expand the lists until you find areas of overlap.

Or, if none of that works, then it means you’re not serving the right ICP. After all, if you have nothing that they would be interested in, and they have nothing that you can speak to, that’s a clear mismatch, right?

But in most cases, it’s the former, not the latter, so keep going until you find the overlap 🙂 

Step 4: Formalize Content Topics (and Create the Content)

Once you’ve found the areas of overlap, you have the seeds of your content topics.

Congratulations!

Now, you can take those seeds, refine them, and generate more concrete topics that you can speak to and create content about.

Of course, then your next step is to actually create the content. All the lists in the world won’t help you get in front of your ideal audience unless you actually use them 😅

So once you’ve reached this point, simply jot down your key topics in your favorite project manager or another page of your legal pad (to avoid clutter), and then get to work 🙂 

If you’d like to see an example before you go though, read on. (But then, seriously, get to work.)

Example: Fractional CFO Serving Artists

Let’s use a real-world case of a fractional CFO serving a particular kind of small business owner in Miami: artists who are trying to make a business of selling their art (wares, crafts, paintings, etc.).

Here are some key features of his ICP:

• they have a Shopify store
• they’ve made some sales in their store, but mostly to friends, family, old colleagues, and people they’ve met at events
• revenue is within a $100K – $500K range
• they want to get more strangers to buy their stuff
• their big vision is international expansion

With this information in mind, we helped him create these two lists:

Then, we passed the highlighter:

And here are some more concretized topic ideas that we put together:

• under the category of “grow my business online/as an artist,” we can talk about
  • what really affects the revenue of an art-based business
  • how to make art-based businesses more profitable
• under “sell my art internationally,” we could create an asset titled, “Thinking about international expansion? What every art-based business needs to know.”
• under “figure out where my money goes,” we can talk about
  • how to keep track of cash in an art business
  • how to handle cash transactions in a digital system from one-off local deals
• under “hire talented people,” we could speak to how payroll can help artist-business owners manage and even attract talent without breaking the bank
• under “where to get good raw materials,” we can talk about
  • how to negotiate with raw material vendors to get good deals
  • the importance of good supplier relationships for art-based businesses (and how to build them)
  • how to evaluate suppliers from a financial standpoint (this could be a guide or checklist)

I hope this was enough to show you that with just a little bit of creativity, you can exponentially enhance your relevance to your ideal client, and therefore the likelihood that they see your great stuff on LinkedIn.

Now, It’s Your Turn

Do the exercises.

Identify the topics.

Create the content.

Go.

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

Social media for business is supposed to be all about reaching your ideal clients. That’s why you’re there and going through the trouble of posting content in the first place.

But have you noticed?

You’re a CFO, financial advisor, bookkeeper, or other professional making content for small business owners, but you’re getting likes, comment, and engagement from other CFOs, financial advisors, bookkeepers…

If you wanted peer support, you would have joined a Facebook group or a social sharing pod, not started a LinkedIn page.

So what’s wrong?

If you’ve ever asked yourself

• Why are my peers engaging with my content when my posts are targeted at and phrased for my ideal audience, not my peers?
• Can I still market to potential clients on this platform?
• How do I change my algorithm, because it’s broken?
• Is LinkedIn just an echo chamber?

This post is for you.

Setting the Stage—The Problem with Algorithms

Have you noticed that YouTube ads are not as tied to geographic location as they used to be, but to video content? You could be in the U.S., but if you’re watching an Italian video, you’ll get an Italian ad.

This is just one example of a growing trend among social media algorithms. Nowadays, everyone is adopting the addictive TikTok interest-based model, showing content to users based on interest, rather than location or other factors.

While I started with a YouTube example, LinkedIn is no different.

Instead of displaying content based on profile and region alone, it shares content based partly on a person’s LinkedIn profile (mainly their current occupation, skills, industry) and partly on their interest signals (what they like and don’t like).

What does this mean for you, me, and every other business person seeking marketing success on social?

It means that we need to understand that this ‘echo chamber’ feel is real, and it’s not going away. But it’s not unbeatable.

Because what you need to keep in mind is the driving force behind how content is shared and distributed: interest.

People (including your ideal audience) will get served content that they’re interested in. And that brings us to the short answer.

The Short Answer—Interest

To reach your target audience, you need to create content that they perceive as valuable, are interested in, and can engage with over time.

The Longer Answer

You may have read the short answer and thought, “duh.” But it’s actually easier said than done. And we need to be very clear about what “valuable” and “interesting” means for your content.

For many founders (especially technical experts), what you think is valuable and interesting is not what your ideal buyer thinks is valuable and interesting.

In fact, it’s usually what you and your peers think is valuable and interesting, which is why the algorithm serves it to them, not to your clients, regardless of whether the wording is client-centric or not.

Here’s a great example to illustrate the point.

Suppose you’re a fractional CFO serving small business owners who don’t want to hire a full-time CFO, but need financial support.

You create a carousel on LinkedIn on the 3 major financial statements that every business owner needs to understand.

Is LinkedIn likely to show this to your client?

The real-real?

Maybe.

Yes, the best you get is a “maybe.”

But why? Isn’t this something that’s valuable to your ideal audience and that they would find interesting?

Let me contrast this piece of content with another, so that you can see the difference.

If you were a small business owner, would you rather:

a) Swipe through a carousel on the 3 major financial statements

or

b) Swipe through a carousel teaching you how to grow revenue without growing cost

Most business owners would choose (b). Why? Because small business owners are either in survival mode or growth mode, or sometimes both.

They’ll be hooked in by “revenue” way faster than they’ll be hooked in by “balance sheet.” Unless we’re talking about a technical operator who naturally has an interest in finance or perhaps even came from a finance background, but that’s probably not who. you’re targeting.

So, your carousel on the 3 major financial statements may be well-meaning, but it’s likely not going to stop a busy business owner scrolling through his or her feed. It will, however, probably stop another fractional CFO who’s looking for a simple explainer to forward to his client.

And the algorithm knows this. Because the business owner usually interacts with content that’s about revenue or business growth, while the CFO usually interacts with content that’s about finance.

That’s why you have a hard time reaching your prospect (if you ever reach them at all).

Two Important Notes

Side Note

If you observe GBB Media content, we publish our technical content on the website and don’t try to shove it down the throats of our social media audience for this very reason. When we do publish a technical piece on LinkedIn, there is a plan behind it that goes beyond mere impressions and other vanity metrics.

Second, this doesn’t mean that you have to talk about things outside your scope of expertise.

Just because your ideal audience is interested doesn’t mean you should talk about it if it’s not relevant to you.

The secret lies in finding that balance between what they want to consume and what you can speak to. If you want to see our framework for generating interest-based content that’s authentic to what you can talk to, but that still captures your prospect’s interest, then here’s your guide:

Learn How to Create Interest-Based Content

The Takeaway

It’s not that your ideal audience isn’t on LinkedIn or that the algorithm is broken. It’s that we live in an interest-based world, and only those select few who interest us are part of it.

If you want to reach your ideal audience on LinkedIn, reframe your content topics to match what they’re already interested in. This will make it more likely that LinkedIn will show them your content when you post it.

And as a bonus, since it’s interesting, your audience will engage with the content, generating interest signals that tell LinkedIn to continue showing them your content in future. So once you get the ball rolling, it will be pretty easy to keep it going.

Looking for a place to start? Check out our how-to-guide (with examples and a downloadable infographic) on how you can generate interest-based content.

Now get to work.

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

You know why selling your services feels so hard and icky?

Because you’re selling your services.

The reality is, no one likes being sold. But everyone loves to buy.

Especially when what they’re buying feels like the best investment they could have made to achieve their desired outcome.

In the service industry, whether you solve a complex, multilayered problem in a highly regulated space, or help humans unlock their potential, the underlying principle remains: People buy when they are ready to buy, not when you’re ready to sell.

So when clients tell me, “I hate selling” or “I can’t afford to come across as a snake oil salesman in this deal,” my answer is always the same: “That’s great! Then you need sales-enabling content, John.”

What Is Sales-Enabling Content?

In simple terms, a sales-enabling asset is a content asset (video, article, audio, report, assessment, etc.) that acts as a facilitator for a transaction.

It’s sort of like a mediator between you and the prospect, priming the prospect and helping them get enough information to make a decision.

The essence of leveraging sales-enabling assets is to naturally guide the prospect with high-value assets (that you can automate or semi-automate) so that by the time they get to that final sales meeting, they are as close to doing business with you as humanly possible.

Sales-enabling assets do not sell.

They help the prospect make a decision.

They help them buy, instead of helping you sell.

They guide the prospect step-by-step until they feel ready to buy—which is the whole point, right?

In the past, this kind of effect could only be accomplished by hiring sales people to go door-to-door or call and follow-up several times before an actual sales meeting. But we’re talking about bootstrapping your way to your first million in revenue, so heck no to all that.

The most efficient way to nurture a prospect to a decision is to leverage content and build assets that can act as the primer they need on your behalf.

Why Does It Work?

Have you ever been to a store where the seller was so bad and so desperate to make a sale you decided not to buy the very thing that took you there in the first place?

Everyone has had that experience.

Now think of a time when you experienced service that was so good, you bought everything you could just to support that shopping assistant or store owner.

What’s the difference here?

It’s simple.

That first awful experience felt like the seller was trying to shove things down your throat. But in the second scenario, you felt cared for, understood, and valued, and it just felt like they weren’t interested in your money.

And when you feel cared for as a consumer, you feel not only more inclined to spend your money, but happier doing so, too.

(Let’s not forget this lesson as business owners. We can learn a lot from our consumer selves on how we need to approach business.)

Now, where do sales-enabling assets come in?

They help represent you in the same way the second seller served you. They are meant to demonstrate that you care, you understand, and you value your prospect.

In my business, we serve a lot of financial services providers in different verticals. It’s a high-trust, highly regulated space where risk is a big concern and no one wants to sign the dotted line unless they have certainty.

That’s the keyword here.

Certainty.

Building certainty in the mind of a potential client is extremely important, yet very hard to do at the last sales encounter.

And that’s why we use the sales-enabling content to act as breadcrumbs left along the path of buying, so prospects can slowly munch and snack on a little piece of certainty at a time. By the time we get to the closing phase, it doesn’t feel like we’re shoving a sale down their throat. It feels like we’re there to finally help solve a problem they want to be free of.

That’s why sales-enabling content never fails to work. Because it helps empower the buyer, long before the sales conversation, to determine how they feel about you, your solution, and your company.

And if they can convince themselves that you have their best interest at heart, then you don’t need to sell anything, do you?

Can It Replace Hard Selling?

It does and it must.

If you’re selling low-ticket items or work in a simple, nonregulated space, you can pretty much get away with anything.

But if you’re in B2B of any kind, you sell high-ticket solutions, and you genuinely care about your clients (why else are you even reading this?), then you must replace hard selling with sales-enabling assets.

Why?

Because in our space, the currency that best translates to new business is trust.

And trust isn’t cultivated on an ad on LinkedIn or at that final sales meeting. It starts long before.

You need assets that can help you cultivate, nurture, and convert that trust into a business opportunity without investing more of your time.

The highest and best leverage, therefore, becomes an investment in a mechanism that can accomplish that for you, and I haven’t found anything better (besides hiring humans to do it) than cloning yourself through content assets that guide your prospect through their purchase journey until they are ready to say “yes” to you.

And if you don’t believe me, take a moment to reflect on the fact that I sent you here to read this message.

Why? Because I’m courting your business.

I will never hard sell you.

It’s too distasteful for my style.

But I will continue to court you and smother you with value and good vibes…

And I sure hope that if we are a good fit and you want a real growth partner, you will buy when you feel ready, because every ambitious founder deserves an ambitious business wifey to support the conquest.

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

JUMP TO SECTION:  Preliminaries  |  Sector 1  |  Sector 2  |  Sector 3  |  There’s More.

Wondering if your business is ready for a digital farm, or what parts of this journey you should focus on?

Take our quick self-assessment to get a customized roadmap for your digital farm journey.

However, to avoid getting lost in details with no sense of direction, we will sensibly start with an overview.

And that is the purpose of this chapter: to give you a survey of what you can expect, and to break down at a high level the elements of this diagram.

A basic digital farm consists of three main sections (referred to as “sectors”). These are:

• Sector 1: The Fields
• Sector 2: The Villages
• Sector 3: The Loyalty Fields

But before we analyze what each means, let me start by mentioning a few central concepts that you need to keep in mind when thinking about the digital farm—our ‘axioms,’ if you will, and a few preliminaries.

Preliminaries

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With those important notes out of the way, let’s examine what the sectors mean and what role they play in making a digital farm work.

What Is Sector 1?

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Just like an actual farm has fields where crops are cultivated and nurtured, your digital farm has fields that accomplish the same thing. In particular, Sector 1—the Fields—is where you nurture and cultivate the trust of total strangers.

There are four different types of fields, labeled A, E, C, and D. These correspond to the four stages of the buyer’s journey according to our D-Model (you can read more about our D-Model here). To make that extra clear, let’s see the overlap:

The Awareness Field

The Awareness field is where every complete stranger starts from, corresponding to the unaware/unaware and aware/unaware phases of the detailed buyer’s journey.

Translated from marketing speak, this means that the person is either

• unaware of both their problem and of you
• aware of their problem but unaware of you

As you can imagine, the trust such a person has in you and your ability to solve their problem is… none.

So, the purpose of this field is to bring awareness and begin cultivating the first level of trust.

At this stage, “level of trust” might be a misnomer, because there is no real trust they’re developing yet. Instead, this field lays down the preliminary foundation for actual trust-building to begin in fields E and beyond.

Speaking of…

The Engagement Field

Next up is the E-field, which is where the stranger goes from having absolutely no clue about your existence to interacting with you and your assets.

In the old days, back when every business conversation used to happen face to face, this would typically be when you’d have a lunch meeting. You’ve already met the person, but now you’re chatting them up to build rapport.

That’s precisely the goal of the Engagement field—the only difference is that this process is mostly (or entirely) accomplished by content assets, as opposed to interpersonal conversation.

This stage is really where the trust plant actually does start to become about trust. You start showing the person that you can solve their problems, they start to like you, and they start to trust you.

The Consideration Field

Once trust in the Engagement field is mature, the prospect will move to the Consideration field. This is where you get them to start thinking about actually committing to you as their problem-solver.

Before we move on, let me make a proper distinction here to dispel some confusion we at GBB Media have witnessed. Many fellow business owners—especially small business owners—think this is where you post sales content.

But actually, you’re not asking for a sale yet at this stage.

To use an analogy our CEO would approve of, that would be like asking your girlfriend to marry you after only a couple of dinner dates. Yes, she likes you and you’re doing great together; but the relationship still needs to mature a bit more before further commitment.

With that clarification in mind, you might find new questions arising—what content does work at this stage? How do you ought to approach the task of cultivating trust when a prospect is considering you?

The answer is to leverage the power of what we like to call Content for Client Conversion (CCC). I won’t delve deeper into the topic here; instead, we’ll return to it when we discuss the Sector 1 Fields more in detail.

If you would like to read some more on CCC in the meantime, though, I recommend our LinkedIn newsletter, where our founder is sharing more about this precise topic.

Discover Content Marketing Catalyst

The Decision Field

Last but certainly not least, we have the Decision field. At this stage, the prospect’s trust in you is very mature; all you need to do is assist the sale by cultivating the last stage of the trust plant.

The goal is to position you as the best (and only) right choice for your prospect, while helping the prospect make any decision, whether or not that choice is you.

Does that sound contradictory?

Surprisingly, it isn’t.

You can accomplish both tasks at once by combining Jay Abraham’s Strategy of Preeminence and the process of consultative selling (also by Jay Abraham).

We will discuss this more in depth in later chapters. But perhaps what suffices for now is that you realize that what passes for the traditional “sales” approach isn’t optimized to get you results in the current marketplace.

Cycles and Interaction

Each field follows a “planting-nurturing-harvesting” (PNH) cycle, much like a physical farm field. You start by “planting” the trust plant in that field; then, you “nurture” the plant into growth; and finally, when the plant is mature, you “harvest” it (in marketing, the equivalent is transitioning someone from one phase of the buyer’s journey to the next).

If you were cultivating fields A, E, or C, then the harvesting process feeds directly into the planting process of the next field over (so, the results from harvesting A are used to plant E, the results from harvesting E are used to plant C, and the results from harvesting C are used to plant D). However, if you were cultivating field D, then the result of the harvest feeds into Revenue Village.

Translated back into practical experience, this means:

• If in fields A, E, or C, once the trust plant in the field is mature, the prospect moves over to the next stage of the buyer’s journey;
• If in field D, once the trust plant is mature, the buyer’s trust is ready to be converted into money through a transaction—hence, they move to Revenue Village.

In this way, a prospect moves from A all the way to Revenue Village. We will explore more about PNH cycles and the dynamic interaction of the fields in the dedicated chapter for Sector 1.

For now, we will turn our attention to Sector 2 and explore a little bit more what “Revenue Village” and “Profit Village” have to do with your business.

Sector 2—Where Money Is Made

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If Sector 1 is only concerned with cultivating trust in all its phases, Sector 2 is only concerned with turning trust into something useful for the business—in most cases, into money. Because this is akin to how buildings and structures in a farm convert the raw produce cultivated into useful products for the community and beyond, we call these money-converting structures villages. There are two main villages, corresponding to sub-sectors of Sector 2.

These are:

• Revenue Village (Sector 2-A)
• Profit Village (Sector 2-B)

A Bit About Revenue Village

Revenue village takes the mature, buying-ready trust from Field D and converts it into revenue for the business. This part of the digital farm consists of:

• your revenue streams (your products, services, etc.)
• your revenue procurement systems (e.g., referral system, digital marketing funnel, etc.)

Here’s an example visual:

Each “building” in the village generally corresponds to a different revenue stream. For example, if you operate a business that offers personalized consultations and subscription-based courses, then those would be counted as two different buildings—one for the session-based consultations, and one for the subscription-based courses.

However, sometimes, depending on how well you develop and layer your offering and pricing structure, different streams can be combined into one large building.

For most SMEs, though, Revenue Village is usually just one building with multiple stories—each story representing one way that you drive traction to that revenue stream.

We’ll come back to this when we talk about Revenue Village more in depth. For now, simply remember that Revenue Village takes trust, and converts it into money.

Profit Village in a Nutshell

If Revenue Village converts trust into money, Profit Village converts top-line revenue into bottom-line profit.

If you have ever seen a P&L before, then you will know that a lot of items stand between top-line revenue and net income (i.e., bottom-line profit).

These are mostly expenses. Because this is the case, the structure of Profit Village is highly dependent on your operational, cost, and backend structures, and less on your marketing.

However, there is a part of Profit Village that connects with a marketing-related function. This is the section that links with Sector 3 via life-time value (LTV).

Understanding this connection is particularly important for businesses that are stagnating or facing declining ROI on customer acquisition, since LTV maximization is a significant lever of leverage. For this reason, we will cover this topic in a lot of detail across a couple of chapters in this series.

Sector 3—Something Most SMEs Miss

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For many small business owners, a sale means the end of the buyer’s journey. But such thinking leaves vast amounts of opportunity untapped and unexplored.

When a stranger becomes a buyer, they don’t just become a “sale” or a “customer.” They achieve client status, which means they move from Sector 1 to an entirely new pool we call Sector 3.

In Sector 3, known as the Loyalty Fields, you can nurture them again and again for future conversions. The best part? You already spent the time, effort, and money to achieve the first conversion. That means that all future conversions come at a much-discounted price.

Nurturing existing clients into repeat clients follows the same process as nurturing strangers into first-time clients. There are A, E, C, and D fields in Sector 3 as well. However, the approach you use cannot and must not be the same, which is why, to make the distinction clear, we’ve labeled these loyalty fields with subscripts of c on them—indicating that they apply to clients, not to strangers.

For businesses focused on reaching the first million, Sector 3 is usually not a place to devote much (or any) thought, except in some rare occasions (e.g., when it’s easier to reach the million by cultivating the loyalty of just a couple of clients instead of acquiring new ones).

However, for all businesses that have reached stability and are seeking to scale, Sector 3 offers the most leverage, because you can get the greatest ROI of any of your marketing efforts.

Why? Because nurturing loyalty increases your client lifetime value (LTV), which feeds directly into Profit Village. Since most of our readers are probably not at this point, we will save the journey into Sector 3 for much later, focusing preferentially on Sectors 1 and 2 first.

However, if you’re nearing the stage where the greatest leverage in your business is activated by Sector 3, rest assured that we will help you unlock your opportunities, too, in this series.

There’s More.

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A lot more.

From superfarms to employee digital farms, there can be many spins, variations, extensions, and even modifications to a traditional digital farm.

This is what makes the digital farm so powerful: As a strategic framework, its base model can be adapted and adopted to fit special needs.

So, as we embark on the deep dive journey together, we will explore use cases, case studies, and special examples that are designed to help you visualize, plan, build, and ultimately execute on your own digital farm.

This is not a passive lecture series.

This is your opportunity to rethink your entire digital marketing approach, and is meant to be hands-on. We will ask questions, offer prompts, and help you get well on your way to building your own content-based digital legacy.

Are you ready to get started?

Here’s your first test. How well did you get the key concepts from this chapter? Find out by taking the quick concept check below.

How did you do? Are you ready to move on? 

Great.

The journey begins with understanding what we’re cultivating: the trust plant.

Chapter 2: The Trust Plant

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

Is your business ready for a digital farm? Is this even the journey for you?

Find out first with our self-assessment quiz, then complete the second self-assessment to get your personalized roadmap for the digital farm journey.

Quiz: Is My Business Ready?

Quick Reflection—How Did You Do?

Did you match the criteria? Are you ready?

If you’re excited about this journey, let’s quickly get you a custom roadmap that matches your main priorities, so that you don’t get lost in theory and you get the most value from our series.

Your Roadmap

Answer the following two questions to get your recommended roadmap for approaching your business’s digital farm.

Q: What is your biggest business challenge at the moment?

Q: Do you have a significant budget to invest in marketing?

Now You Have Your Roadmap

And you’re ready to get started with Chapter 1 of the Digital Farm Series.

Welcome to the Digital Farm Series

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.

In this edition of the Client Question Series, we tackle a common question with an uncommon spin. Instead of giving you the short and long answers as we usually do, we’ll be sharing a story from a real business owner.

If you’ve ever asked yourself “Why am I not getting leads despite posting content on social media?” then this article is for you.

The Background

We recently had a meeting with a fractional CFO serving SMB owners who asked us straight up, “Why is my content marketing not converting?”

The frustration was real for him. He’d spent the last couple of years investing in creating high-quality video assets and educational posts. He even hired a seasoned copywriter to write attention-grabbing copy for his website and LinkedIn personal and company pages.

Technically speaking, he’d done everything right, and yet hardly any leads had come of it.

But why?

The answer we gave him surprised him. And it might surprise you, too.

Real Talk

The truth is, even though he invested in good assets that were entertaining… that’s all they were. Entertaining videos. Cute and clever groupings of words.

Nothing more but a reprieve from the dull and boring, and not something that would do the one thing you MUST do if you want to have a glimmer of hope of driving new business: build trust.

You see, he had forgotten all about the trust-building process in his quest to be the most engaging CFO on social media.

And so, despite posting regularly and doing everything the gurus say you should do, he wasn’t seeing any revenue results.

Our conversation went something like this:

CLIENT: What do you mean I’m not building trust? Aren’t I posting enough?

US: The posting is not the issue. It’s what you’re posting.

CLIENT: I don’t get it. I’m sharing industry trends in an engaging manner. How is that not useful?

US: Who exactly are you sharing those for?

CLIENT: The business owners I want to serve.

US: What kind of business owners are they? VC-backed? Multinational?

CLIENT: They’re bootstrapped agencies making about a million in revenue.

US: And what do bootstrapped agencies making about a million in revenue care about?

[A pause.]

CLIENT: Making more money and not hemorrhaging the money they make.

US: And do your assets help them do that?

[A longer pause.]

CLIENT: Well…

[An even longer pause.]

US: Do your assets at least present you as a trustworthy expert that can help them do that?

[Silence.]

The Big Takeaway

Here’s the main lesson our client learned, and that you need to learn to.

Trust-building in content marketing comes down to 3 things:

1) Relevance

2) Specificity

When you think about the content topics and how to frame the content itself, remember to use their language, their concerns, and their desired outcomes.

For example, our fractional CFO used to use the term “gain financial clarity” when speaking to his audience, but this isn’t a term most bootstrapped founders would ever even think. After our consultation, he changed it to “it’s time to stop running your business in the dark” and saw an uptick.

3) Authority

Our CFO, for example, started publishing assets that spoke to founders in a way that built up his authority and resonated with them.

E.g., “You don’t need an accountant. You need someone who’s been around the block enough times to know how to clean up messes, fix problems, and set things up to run smoothly in the background—to be your backbone while you build up the business. You need someone like me, who’s seen it all and who can support you, no matter your current situation.”

Self-Assessment Time

If your content marketing isn’t converting, it’s time to reassess how much your assets hit the mark.

Are you trust-building? Or just posting cute content that elicits a laugh and nothing else?

There's Always More to Learn—Read More from Our Blog.