Marketing Should be Simple
Marketing should be simpler. This post explains why marketing often feels expensive, confusing, and random — and how better diagnosis, clearer priorities, and focused campaigns can help companies become easier to find, understand, trust, and choose.
The Little Lies Marketing Tells
Marketing often uses softer versions of the truth: optimistic sales promises, polite language, and familiar claims like “we are different.” But being different is not enough. The real work is creating clarity around why that difference matters to the customer.
Why I Built My Own CRM
Why I built a custom CRM in Airtable, what I learned, and why small businesses need a system for tracking opportunities.
Good Product Comes First: The Wandering Inn
Marketing matters, but it cannot save a product that people do not want. In this post, I use my experience listening to The Wandering Inn, a 48-hour audiobook I finished and still wanted more of, to explain why product comes before market and marketing. A good product creates its own energy. Marketing works best when it helps the right people discover something genuinely worth choosing.
Breaking Through the Marketing Noise
Attention is scarce. Whether you’re a small business in rural Alberta or a Fortune 500 brand, you’re fighting for visibility in an environment where marketing channels are bursting at the seams.
So why has this happened? And more importantly, what should businesses do about it?
Marketing Levers That Matter the Most for Small Businesses
The truth is, not all marketing channels are created equal. Some deliver results quickly and consistently, while others drain your time and budget with little return. The key is knowing which marketing levers to pull first.
How Bananas, ChatGPT, and Marketing Tie Together
Turns out tracking carbs, chasing targets, and avoiding shiny distractions isn’t just for weight loss — it’s for marketing too.
I lost 15 pounds in two months using ChatGPT as my accountability partner. The lessons I learned about weight loss — tracking, focus, and discipline — are the same ones I use in marketing.
The Visibility Ladder: Why Marketing Matters
If nobody knows you exist, nothing else matters. Being known is the first step to being trusted, chosen, and eventually referred. Visibility is the foundation of growth.
🕵️♂️ The Dark Underbelly of Marketing
Marketing has a reputation for being shiny, strategic, and sexy. But peel back the layers and what you find is a mess of chaos, caffeine, and crisis meetings. Welcome to the side of marketing no one brags about on LinkedIn.
Which AI Platform Is Right for Your Marketing? A Guide for Small Business Owners
In this post, we’ll break down the most popular AI platforms from a marketing perspective. Whether you’re writing blog posts, brainstorming campaigns, creating social content, or analyzing customer data, here’s what you need to know.
The Fundamentals of an Intentional Marketing Plan
If you're tired of guessing, chasing trends, or overcomplicating your marketing, here’s a high-level look at the fundamentals of building a marketing plan that works.
How Risk Tolerance Shapes Your Growth Strategy
This 2x2 matrix maps Sales Growth Potential (x-axis) against Risk Tolerance (y-axis). Whether you're bootstrapping a startup or managing a mature business, your position in this grid says a lot about your current strategy and where you want to go next.
Should I Focus on Profit or Revenue?
When evaluating a business or marketing strategy, one of the most important questions you can ask is: Should I prioritize revenue or profit? This 2x2 matrix offers a visual framework to assess your current position and guide your next steps. The vertical axis represents profitability, while the horizontal axis shows revenue scale.
Competitive Strategies: Porter’s Generic Strategies That Work
In this post, I’ll break down Porter’s Competitive framework using Canadian companies that follow each of the four strategies.
Marketing Strategies During COVID-19 Pandemic
In this blog I discuss various marketing strategies to consider during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are four different approaches based on maintaining or gaining market share and low or high interaction with customers. Whether one chooses to relax, remind, engage, or expand their marketing efforts depends on factors like industry, cash flow, and market response.
Workshop at Creativity & Convergence Conference on Nov 30, 2015
On Nov 30, 2015 Jeff Nelson and Jake Blumes will be facilitating a workshop on using data to help make better marketing investment decisions at the Creativity & Convergence Conference in Calgary, AB.
Outcomes and Targets
For years, when talking about business and marketing, I have used the terminology of goals and objectives. But I'm changing. I am now starting to use the words "outcomes" and "targets". There are a few reasons for this shift.