The 7 Biggest Marketing Warning Signs

Patrick McFadden

Usually I talk about how to think and approach marketing in a different way for better results whether those results are to get more customers, increase your conversion rate, differentiate your business, create content assets, etc.

But you also need to know about the warning signs of bad marketing. Every failing business sends out certain warning signs before the eventual collapse. For the observant business owner, this disaster is avoided by taking certain strategic measures. But for the non-observing business owner, this disaster seems to creep in suddenly.

The death of a business is not as sudden as many tend to assume. Just as there is no such thing as overnight business growth, there is no such thing as overnight business collapse.

7 Warning Signs That Your Marketing is Failing

  1. Your sales are driven by price. Chasing the wrong prospects is the basis of all pricing problems. One of the most important components of any marketing strategy is the discovery of a ideal customer. From experience the lack of complete clarity on this will always cause you to struggle to compete on price.
  2. Customer can’t tell your unique difference from a competitor. If your business is receiving inquiries, and the first questions is, “How much does it cost?” there’s a strong possibility you’re not marketing your business effectively. This is a two part problem: first you must find your difference from the mouths of your customers and second you must communicate this difference through your tactical marketing efforts.
  3. You use get quick results services that fail. The shortcut is often the short story! If your business has experienced any growth, there comes a time when a company approaches you with an service or product that seems to address your need, but in fact, is so detrimental it may actually erode your business. These products and services often communicate a shortcut to growth and ignores the real work required to produce sustainable business and marketing results—but, of course, that’s the teaser.
  4. You don’t have a unified plan for taking your message to customers. No matter how perfectly you state your marketing message, if it doesn’t live firmly in the tactics you employ to communicate with customers it’s all for naught. This type of thinking forces you to push your core marketing message into every marketing activity. I’ve developed a very powerful tool for building this kind of framework within the customer journey.
  5. Your sales leads mostly come from your sales staff. A happy customer is the new lead generation. What do I mean? Leads should be coming from your customers who are having a positive experience. Growing a business today takes getting people talking. This is how referrals happen, PR happens, SEO happens and links happen. A recent survey on what motivates customers to make recommendations – essentially get them talking – stated, a whopping 93% of respondents cite “a positive experience with the brand.” The end result of a positive experience is a happy customer and happy customers are the most potent marketing asset any organization can leverage. It’s the most powerful lead generation channel. Perhaps more importantly, a positive customer experience + a happy customer is the greatest lead generation tool available.
  6. Your longtime customers say, “I didn’t know you offered that”. So, if you have ever heard these words from a long-time customer. I have to say shame on you. When a customer becomes a customer, it’s usually to purchase a specific product or solve a specific problem. When we solve that problem or ship that product the job is done, right? To build true marketing momentum the job has just begun. My advice is to create a monthly process of introduction to some aspect of your business and offer this information in several forms.
  7. You don’t have a customer or prospect database. Simply put you need a way to collect prospect and customer information in a manner that provides you with the opportunity to communicate to them without spending money on advertising. Standard marketing CRM type practice suggests that you should create and supplement a database of customers and prospects with the idea that you build more and more information to use to help build deeper relationships and create additional selling opportunities.

If you’re guilty of generating any one of these signs, it’s time to change all of that!!! Contact us today.

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.
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.
By Patrick McFadden April 27, 2025
“Most companies can scale process. Very few can scale how they think.”
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