Customer Journey Mapping For a Small Business - July Roundup

Patrick McFadden • July 31, 2022

Let's kick off the month of July focused on customer journey mapping for your small business.

You know what I say, “every business must address the evolving relationship they have with a prospect and customer from awareness to referral.”

Your prospect and customer questions and objectives change at every stage of their consideration journey.

Because of this, you must map the different interactions, content, and engagement for each stage of the journey.

Most small business marketers view the customer journey from a very traditional and outdated point-of-view with stages such as Awareness, Consideration and Purchase, but for years I’ve promoted and consulted on executing a more holistic and effective approach in this “customer centered era” we live in today: Awareness, Education, Sample, Purchase and Refer.

The customer journey is the sum of all experiences a customer has when interacting with your business.

From their first Google search to their most recent purchase, every touchpoint adds up to a total customer journey.

In the end, the sum of all the customer journey's parts is what your audience experiences when interacting with your brand.

From the ads they see to the product they buy to the customer service they receive, these elements of the journey all shape a customer's perception of your brand.


These posts aim to help you, your team, and your marketing service providers better understand how to develop the customer journey that serves a strategic and business objective in route to your ideal client.


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The Ultimate Guide to Small Business Customer Journey Mapping


Your customer journey map must be designed to educate

Your customer journey map must be designed to educate, build trust, demonstrate how your approach is different and build value for your proposition. In this quest, it’s important to demand that your prospects get this EDUCATION.


The Shift From Interruption Marketing to Attraction Marketing Within The Customer Journey

There’s been a shift away from marketing that interrupts and toward marketing that attracts in the customer journey. Some refer to this as ‘inbound vs. outbound’ marketing or ‘prospect-initiated’ vs. ‘seller-initiated’ marketing.β €


57% of a typical purchase decision πŸ–οΈ is made before a customer even talks to a supplier

So, what does this spell for the typical small B2B owner? You better find a way to make your ⭐marketing⭐ as useful as your solutions. That’s right, sales and marketing is no longer about being found and providing educational information – those are still important, but today you better have prospects looking to you as an adviser, teacher, time saver, problem solver, and guide on life’s journey or what’s the point.β €


The Customer Journey Question That Must Be Answered: How Do Ideal Prospects Find a Business Like Ours?

The search and journey to answer this one question can reveal so much direction for your marketing efforts. When you take the time to really address how your best clients go on the search and discovery process for a service like yours, you begin to uncover the places you need to invest your resources of time, energy, money, and attention span.


How People Buy Has Changed The Customer Journey

I started my small business marketing consulting firm in 2012 and not much has changed about marketing since then: getting someone who has a need or problem to first become aware of you and secondly trust you enough to sample your service, buy your core offering, and refer colleagues, friends and family haven't changed.β €


Understanding the most fundamental shift of all in marketing

The most fundamental shift of all in marketing is the need to logically and systematically move prospects along the path of — Awareness, Education, Sample, Purchase and Refer — this is the entire game these days. Now, what tools and tactics you bring to this game will certainly differ, but the end game is still the same. β €


Where Do FREE Consultations, Estimates, Quotes, Webinars, Presentations, and Small Engagements Fit In Your Business?

It’s not enough to simply make a promise these days. You must find ways to offer substantial proof that you can deliver a result. Case studies and customer testimonials are a great place to start, but nothing beats a real-life experience. It’s why you’ll often hear me say, “the best way to effectively sell a service is to start by giving it away.”β €


How to Guarantee Great Customer Service

We've all had bad customer service. Where it's very obvious that the goal of this customer service person or department is to stall, deny, begrudge, and finally, to the few who persist, offer some cost-saving or "make it right" proposition even though it cost you more time or energy. β €


3 Questions to Ask During Client Interviews Around The Customer Journey

The more you know your best customers the faster your business will grow. That's why as a small business marketing consultant, I always recommend interviewing your client as a starting point to effective marketing. But many small businesses struggle with this, not knowing what questions within the customer journey will lead them to the fountain of gold.β €


What Triggers Clients To Contact You?

So let’s think about triggers. What pain motivates someone to contact a couples therapist?β €

A troubled relationship. A crisis point. A need to change. What about a Plumbing, Heating, and Air company? What pain motivates someone (a slightly stressed homeowner) to contact a service store like Front Range Plumbing, Heating, and Air?

Nothing Is More Frustrating Than This Part of The Customer Journey

Nothing is more frustrating than spending time ⏲️ and energy πŸ”‹ prepping for an unpaid consultation πŸ†“ for a prospect who isn’t invested in solving their problems πŸ€•.

How to Stay Relevant To Your Customers

Be market driven not market(ing) driven. This is how you stay relevant to your customer. Let's face it. The "best known" beats the "best service". Being discovered and found is way better than being the "best" kept secret.


Consistency Throughout The Customer Journey Builds Trust

The key to solving this dilemma is consistent and repeated contact. If you build a marketing process that guarantees your prospects (particularly your A prospects) are contacted at least 8-10 times a year you can significantly increase the odds that your name will be at the top of the list when they do actually decide to purchase.


Education for a small business is the GREAT equalizer

Education for a small business is the GREAT equalizer. I always advise business owners to find ways to educate πŸ—ž because I think it’s the easiest and most effective way to create better ideal customers. In any business it’s just as important to figure out how to train, educate and work with every client in a way that makes them ideal


The Way People Buy Throughout The Customer Journey Is Mostly Out Of Your Hands

Today most prospective customers are going to perform some amount of research online and in a lot of cases that means they've made a business decision about what and who to purchase from before they ever picked up the phone or sent an email or talked to a supplier.


Customer Journey Examples

Awareness to Education Example

Customer Journey Explanation Example


Contact Your Marketing Consultant at Indispensable Marketing

If you’re a small service based business that needs help with strategic customer journey mapping for your business 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 servicesContact us for more information.


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