5 Ways to Ensure Your Business Grows Through Marketing Innovation

Patrick McFadden • August 30, 2013

Looking to take your business to the next level?

As the person responsible for the marketing of your organization, you must have visions for change and progress.

And while, “all change is not progress, all progress requires change.” For without progress, there is stagnation. Think Blockbuster, Kmart, Blackberry, Twinkies, and any other business or brand that does not innovate.

These businesses failed because they were marketing-driven (run by the marketing department) not market-driven (run by what the market wants, regardless of what the marketing department feels like doing.)

The fact is businesses today can’t afford to get complacent. Nor can marketing only be left to a department. Marketing is now, the whole company. Especially, when you think about how customers demand change,  economics change, and competition dynamics change. Not being a business that’s responsive to change puts your sales in the same state: unresponsive!

If you’re ready to ensure company growth, and be responsive to market changes and influences, here are 5 ways to ensure your business grows through marketing innovation .

1. Invent a New Segment of the  Market.  I once heard a speaker talk about a study done by the WSJ on “Why businesses fail?” The study concluded that businesses where failing during that period of time because customers felt they were treated with an attitude of indifference. The speaker then identified that the opposite “continual extreme” of this, is to serve your customers to death. You can do the same for your product or service.

Mentally position your product or service at the “logical extreme” of some aspect of your product category. For example, if the typical product in your market is free but comes with expensive service, make your product expensive and with free service. If you’re making a commodity product, go for something either cheap or expensive, huge or tiny, green or not green, open or close, fake or real, fast or slow, risky or safe, new or classic. For example in the PC market, the growth in the past few years has been in high-end game machines and inexpensive machines that are designed to only be used while connected to the Internet.

2. Create a Sales Network to Replace Your Sales Funnel .  Traditionally, in sales you create a funnel, with as many prospects as possible put into the top and eventually a customer coming out the bottom. Today, however, there is so much clutter and noise that it’s expensive to find new prospects.

So rather than concentrating on lead generation, focus on the fact that  70% of people trust recommendations from peers and friends. Start creating products and services that are so remarkable—worth making a remark about—that current and past customers can’t wait to tell their friends, family and peers about them. These customers now become your sales network and if you hand them a megaphone —a way to spread your message (contests, bumper stickers, business cards, coupons, special offers, organized classes that teach people, and etc.)—suddenly the warm leads multiply.

3. Market to the Laggards or the Early Adopters. With the Internet, customers are now information-empowered and can always find what they want for the lowest possible price. Growing your business therefore means the first step is to choose your market , either: laggards (clueless) or early adopters (smart). Laggards are customers who don’t know what they want and thus can be persuaded to want whatever you’re selling. Early adopters are customers who are seeking new information and can to be persuaded that what you have is special and therefore worth seeking out. Charging a premium price means you must choose your market, either its sufficient ignorance or sufficient knowledge.

4. Show How You’re Different.  Marketing used to be defined as creating a product or service that appealed to the majority—an average buyer—then interrupting as many them as possible (with banner ads, outdoor media, commercials, direct mail, sales calls, etc.), hoping to convince a percentage to buy.

This is no longer effective because today’s consumers are armed with ad-blocking tools and technology that allows them to tune out any message that doesn’t interest them. You have to “earn” a prospects attention and the right to sell to them. This is only made possible if you have a compelling story and content that shows how what you’re offering is different and better from everything else that’s available in the market.

5. Sell the Story Rather Than the Product. Businesspeople make decisions based on logic, right? Wrong! In every product or service category, there is at least one brand that uses a story and content to convince people to pay extra for that product or service. For example I know a Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant who sells for twice the times the average price because she has positioned her business as the moral doctor for companies who value the moral and health of their white-collar employees. Another example is that people pay up to $6 a quart for bottled water because (as the story goes) it’s “healthier” than tap water.

Recognize that growing your business or brand in any way requires more marketing. Marketing is the breaths of air of any organization. You keep breathing to stay alive.

The ongoing mindset is to think that what worked yesterday, does not necessarily work today. What works today may not necessarily work tomorrow. Finding tomorrow’s solution is satisfying tomorrow’s customer.

Question: What do you think? Can you use any of these marketing innovations to grow your business?

About the Author:   Patrick McFadden is the owner and marketing consultant at  Indispensable Marketing , a strategic marketing firm in Richmond, VA. We help  small to midsize businesses get new or better results from their marketing efforts.

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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