10 Questions Every Small Business Should Be Prepared To Answer When Hiring Marketing Agencies

Patrick McFadden • November 2, 2022

When you hire a good marketing partner who specializes in tactical implementation (SEO, social media, website design, digital advertising, print, email marketing, etc.) they will ask you to complete some type of intake or questionnaire form to better understand your business.

From over 10 years of small business marketing experience, I have noticed that most owners and CEOs aren't prepared to answer these questions, and if they are, not effectively.


Below are ten questions when answered intentionally and addressed constantly, will keep you rooted in the place where small business marketing success occurs – in the realm of the customer.

1. Briefly describe your business?

This is a good baseline question for marketing agencies to understand the industry or category your business plays in. It can get at how your business benefits customers and what place your business has in the market.


2. Describe what your company offers (products/services), prioritizing the top profitable offers?

This question helps a marketing agency focus in on the services that really drive profitability not solely revenue, which is the key to growing a business.


3. Who are your main competitors or competitive solutions?

On the surface this question could be looked at as a competitive market question, and it may be, but the true gold in this question is when an agency can discover people are already spending money on a product or service because two-thirds of their work is done. Smart marketing agencies employ some form of competitive research in an effort to better understand what products and services, pricing models and value propositions their client's are up against.


4. Why a customer would choose you over competitors?

In this question you are trying to convey a differentiation that your marketing agency can work with as a true differentiator. Prospects need a way to differentiate your business from others – if you don’t give them a compelling reason to choose you, they’ll opt for the lowest price option.


5. What problem(s) do you solve? What are your customers' pain points?

Every successful marketing agency knows people aren’t looking for your products and services, they’re looking to get their problems solved. The brand, company or provider who can define the problem the best quite often is not only the one that gets the business but in many cases is paid a premium as well.


6. What goals do you help accomplish? What are your customers' desires?

This question is for your marketing agency to get the specifics around what you, your solution or brand help customers get, achieve, dodge, avoid, gain, or acquire from buying what you sell. This is a question you’ll need to work on to describe the transformation your client's want.


7. Where is your target audience located geographically?

This is a great question for your marketing agency to know what areas of town or geographic areas to show up on the first page of search results on Google, Bing or Yahoo. Appearing in the top local search engine results is especially important to businesses trying to attract nearby customers.


8. What is the occupation(s) of your target audience?

In this question your agency is trying to uncover the makeup of your ideal customer. This is probably the question you’ll need to work hardest at getting specifics. You want to look for titles and professions and actual customers that buy from you.


9. What words/phrases do you consider people will be using to look for your products/services on Google?

This is the new lead generation question, but understanding what it implies is very important. If your agency wants to get very, very good at being found online, around the world or around the town, they have to know everything they can about the actual terms and phrases your customers use when they go looking for companies like yours.


10. What are some common misconceptions or frustrations in your industry, if any?

Every industry has something that's common from a misconception or frustration standpoint. Arming your marketing agency with this insight give them the ability to marketing your company more effectively.


If you say you provide quality services or that you offer the best customer service, your marketing agency knows that’s not enough. Everyone says that! Better is only better if you’re different. But keep in mind that being different for different’s sake is not enough. That difference must be of value and speak specifically to your customers.

Your difference must solve a frustration for your clients, eliminate one of their key problems, enhance what they experience, or dramatically alter a well-worn industry given with a unique solution only you can provide.


Conclusion

The answers to the questions above aren’t found in tactics such as Advertising, LinkedIn, SEO, or Web Content – these are strategy questions and they can only be addressed with strategy answers.


Contact Your Marketing Consultant at Indispensable Marketing

If you’re a small service based business that needs help with developing the answers to these questions above or your business’s online presence on Google and other search engines, at Indispensable Marketing we can help. We offer marketing strategy consulting, marketing audits, monthly marketing packages, consultations, exploratory calls or monthly local SEO services. Contact us for more information.

The Missing Layer in AI: Why Judgment, Not Just Data, Will Define the Next Era of Intelligence

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Everyone is scaling outputs. Almost no one is scaling judgment.

Everyone Talks About AI Judgment. We Built It.

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Ask anyone in tech where AI is headed, and they’ll tell you: “The next leap is reasoning.” “AI needs judgment.” “We need assistants that think, not just answer.” They’re right. But while everyone’s talking about it, almost no one is actually shipping it. So we did. We built Thinking OS™ —a system that doesn’t just help AI answer questions… It helps AI think like a strategist. It helps AI decide like an operator. It helps teams and platforms scale judgment, n ot just generate output. The Theory Isn’t New. The Implementation Is. The idea of layering strategic thinking and judgment into AI isn’t new in theory. The problem is, no one’s been able to implement it effectively at scale. Let’s look at the current landscape. 1. Big Tech Has the Muscle—But Not the Mind OpenAI / ChatGPT ✅ Strength: Best-in-class language generation ❌ Limitation: No built-in judgment or reasoning. You must provide the structure. Otherwise, it follows instructions, not strategy. Google DeepMind / Gemini ✅ Known for advanced decision-making (e.g., AlphaGo) ❌ But only in structured environments like games—not messy, real-world business scenarios. Anthropic (Claude), Meta (LLaMA), Microsoft Copilot ✅ Great at answering questions and following commands ❌ But they’re assistants, not advisors. They won’t reprioritize. They won’t challenge your assumptions. They don’t ask: “Is this the right move?” These tools are powerful—but they don’t think for outcomes the way a strategist or operator would. 2. Who’s Actually Building the Thinking Layer™? This is where it gets interesting—and thin. Startups and Indie Builders Some small teams are quietly: Creating custom GPTs that mimic how experts reason Layering in business context, priorities, and tradeoffs Embedding decision logic so AI can guide, not just execute But these efforts are: Highly manual Difficult to scale Fragmented and experimental Enterprise Experiments A few companies (Salesforce, HubSpot, and others) are exploring more “judgment-aware” AI copilots. These systems can: Flag inconsistencies Recommend next actions Occasionally surface priorities based on internal logic But most of it is still: In early R&D Custom-coded Unproven beyond narrow use cases That’s Why Thinking OS™ Is Different Instead of waiting for a lab to crack it, we built a modular thinking system that installs like infrastructure. Thinking OS™: Captures how real experts reason Embeds judgment into layers AI can use Deploys into tools like ChatGPT or enterprise systems Helps teams think together, consistently, at scale It’s not another assistant. It’s the missing layer that turns outputs into outcomes. So… Is This a New Innovation? Yes—in practice. Everyone says AI needs judgment. But judgment isn’t an idea. It’s a system. It requires: Persistent memory Contextual awareness Tradeoff evaluation Value-based decisions Strategy that evolves with goals Thinking OS™ delivers that. And unlike the R&D experiments in Big Tech, it’s built for: Operators Consultants Platform founders Growth-stage teams that need to scale decision quality, not just content creation If Someone Told You They’ve Built a Thinking + Judgment Layer™… They’ve built something only a handful of people in the world are even attempting. Because this isn’t just AI that speaks fluently. It’s AI that reasons, reflects , and chooses. And in a world that’s drowning in tools, judgment becomes the differentiator. That’s the OS We Built Thinking OS™ is not a prompt pack. It’s not a dashboard. It’s not a glorified chatbot. It’s a decision architecture you can license, embed, or deploy— To help your team, your platform, or your clients think better at scale. We’ve moved past content. We’re building cognition. Let’s talk.

We Found the Missing Layer AI Has Been Waiting For

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
In every era of innovation, there’s a silent bottleneck—something obvious in hindsight, but elusive until the moment it clicks. In today’s AI-driven world, that bottleneck is clear: AI has speed. It has scale. But it doesn’t have judgment . It doesn’t really think . What’s Actually Missing From AI? When experts talk about the “thinking and judgment layer” as the next leap for AI, they’re calling out a hard truth: Modern AI systems are powerful pattern machines. But they’re missing the human layer—the one that reasons, weighs tradeoffs, and makes strategic decisions in context. Let’s break that down: 1. The Thinking Layer = Reasoning with Purpose This layer doesn’t just process inputs— it structures logic. It’s the ability to: Ask the right questions before acting Break down complexity into solvable parts Adjust direction mid-course when reality changes Think beyond “what was asked” to uncover “what really matters” Today’s AI responds. But it rarely reflects. Unless told exactly what to do, it won’t work through problems the way a strategist or operator would. 2. The Judgment Layer = Decision-Making in the Gray Judgment is the ability to: Prioritize what matters most Choose between imperfect options Make decisions when there’s no clear answer Apply values, experience, and vision—not just data It’s why a founder might not pursue a lucrative deal. Why a marketer might ignore the click-through rate. Why a strategist knows when the timing isn’t right. AI doesn’t do this well. Not yet. Because judgment requires more than data—it requires discernment . Why This Is the Bottleneck Holding Back AI AI can write. It can summarize. It can automate. But it still can’t: Diagnose the real problem behind the question Evaluate tradeoffs like a founder or operator would Recommend a path based on context, constraints, and conviction AI today is still reactive. It follows instructions. But it doesn’t lead. It doesn’t guide. It doesn’t own the outcome. And for those building serious systems—whether you’re running a company, launching a platform, or leading a team—this is the wall you eventually hit. That’s Why We Built Thinking OS™ We stopped waiting for AI to learn judgment on its own. Instead, we created a system that embeds it—by design. Thinking OS™ is an installable decision layer that captures how top founders, strategists, and operators think… …and makes that thinking repeatable , scalable , and usable inside teams, tools, and platforms. It’s not a framework. It’s not a chatbot. It’s not another playbook. It’s the layer that knows how to: Think through complex decisions Apply judgment when rules don’t help Guide others —human or AI—toward strategic outcomes This Is the Missing Infrastructure Thinking OS™ isn’t just about better answers. It’s about better thinking—made operational. And that’s what’s been missing in AI, consulting, leadership development, and platform design. If you’re trying to scale expertise, install judgment, or move from tactical to strategic… You don’t need a faster AI. You need a thinking layer that knows what to do—and why. We built it. Let’s talk.
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