4 Questions to Ask Before "Should We Use LinkedIn, SEO, Google Ads or Any Tactic?"

Patrick McFadden • January 3, 2022

This year we've received a handful of consulting request from business owners that are thinking about their marketing and so often the questions I get are:


  • Should we be on LinkedIn?
  • Should we be using Google Ads?
  • What do we need to be doing to reach our audience?


Most tactical challenges can most often be solved with strategy planning and focus so before you determine whether LinkedIn is better for your organization than Instagram or if digital advertising is an effective way to generate leads, start at the point where you will ultimately create the greatest possible impact – strategy!


After spending considerable time reviewing these request, I’ve compiled a list of questions every business owner must think about before choosing LinkedIn, Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, Google Ads or any tactic to increase visibility or lift sales. 


1. Who is our ideal customer? 

 It’s simple: “If your product or service is for everyone then it’s a product or service for no one.” You must determine, exactly who wants and needs what you have to offer? The best thing about this question is there’s only one wrong answer, and that’s everyone.


I believe that most organizations are uniquely suited to serve a narrowly defined market or ideal customer. Successful marketing is almost always specific, not general. And that “almost” is close to absolute because you can no longer run a traditional ad that reaches everyone.


Now, instead of interrupting everyone you meet, you have no choice but to choose your target market and from that market choose ideal customers.


Here’s a tip: Begin by segmenting and then building a detailed profile of your most successful accounts (profitable + refer your organization). Your best customers have the following two key characteristics: they are profitable and also refer business to you. 


2. What does our ideal customer value about our company or offering?

After developing a profile of an ideal customer, it’s time to find a way to attract this group. This is achieved by discovering some aspect of your business that this ideal customer clearly values from the rest of the market.


You need to dig in and find that one special way of doing things that your customers truly value - even if that value is outside of what you're selling them.


  • For example, we work with an alternative glass company whose real value is eliminating callbacks for homebuilders.
  • Another example is a bookkeeping firm whose real value is decreasing the hiring and recruiting (HR) time for small business owners.


By defining the thing that your ideal customer values, you can change the context of how the market sees what you offer and in doing so eliminate your competition.


Here’s my advice: Go talk to 5-10 of your best customers, they know what you do that’s of value to them. Listen carefully and don’t be afraid to embrace the little things you do, that’s where you are different in a way that matters.


3. What type of information is our ideal customer seeking online?

Sales and marketing 101 says that you focus on the problems and desires of the prospect, and match those up with your product or service.


Doing this online with information is no different, except you're delivering independent value with content before you attempt to make the sale.


The Internet has disrupted the traditional sales process, allowing the prospective customer or client to begin on their own terms the information-seeking process via search and social media. This means savvy business owners must adapt to the information empowered prospect in a fashion that more resembles educating than it does hard selling.


Here’s my advice: Look at these three simple information structures and determine which one fits your ideal customer. It may be all three.


  1. How-to. How-to information aims to teach the reader something, by taking them through a step-by-step process. It’s usually structured with numbered, sequential steps. And, where appropriate, these steps might include a screenshot or photo to show the reader what to expect at each stage.
  2. List. List information offers readers a selection of ideas, tips, suggestions, or resources. These are normally numbered. The key difference between list and how-to information is that readers don’t need to follow the list from start to end: they can dip in and use those points that seem most applicable to their own situation.
  3. Review. Review information offers an informed opinion about a particular product or service. These are a great way to serve your readers, who might be debating whether or not to purchase a particular item. They also help establish your own knowledge and expertise in your field.


4. What type of content can our company provide that showcases our strengths, personality, and values?

The last piece of the puzzle is about your strengths, personality, and values. But, it’s not simply about those three things. What's more important is to find the type of content that communicates and showcases those important characteristics, in a way that allows you to stand apart from everyone else that says they are in the same business as you.


Here's my tip: Carefully choose the formats you can employ with excellence.


  • Blog: Blogs in video, audio or written formats can communicate expertise, news, and announcements. Blogging can stabilize SEO efforts, create a central home for social sharing, build your email list, drive your point of view, and allow for community building.
  • Reviews: Ratings and reviews sites allow customers to communicate what they like (or don't like) about your service or product.
  • Testimonials: Testimonials are one of the most powerful trust signals you can use in your marketing. They give prospective customers a sense of what they can expect as well. 
  • eBook or Whitepaper: Every business should have a way of doing business or a set of beliefs that are documented in the form of an eBook or white paper. This must communicate what makes your business different, what's the secret behind your customer's success, how your company approaches customer service, and why your company does what it does.
  • Educational Events: Today, presentations, workshops and seminars (online and off) are tremendous ways to provide education with the added punch of one-to-one engagement.
  • FAQs: Go beyond the questions that routinely get asked and include those that should get asked but don’t, particularly the ones that help position your company favorably against the competition.
  • Case Studies: Building rich examples of actual customers succeeding through the use of the product or service offerings is a tremendous way to help people learn from other individuals and businesses just like them.


Contact your marketing consultant at Indispensable Marketing

We have an engagement called Marketing Strategy Consulting, where we answer all these questions for our clients. As a part of this engagement, we interview your existing customers and analyze your competitors. We build ideal client personas and establish a marketing message that will speak to them. We map out your editorial calendar and determine how to make content a relationship-workhorse. And we go through the customer journey exercise and identify the gaps in your current marketing approach. This gives you a firm foundation on which to build your tactics and move your marketing forward based on a solid strategy.


Want to learn more? Schedule a consultation with us so we can talk about how to do this for your business.

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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