5 Steps to Restart and Revive Marketing Your Small Business

Patrick McFadden • November 5, 2017

When you work all year on marketing your small business you sometimes find yourself in shiny object syndrome and not on track to meet your business goals. This can be a frustrating and challenging time.

I’ve found that we all fall into that trap and it helps to spend time restarting and reviving marketing your small business, by doing these 5 steps.

5 Steps to Restart and Revive Marketing Your Small Business

#1 Refocus your marketing message on problems, not solutions

The first step in restarting and reviving your marketing is to speak to problems, before solutions. If you don’t take this step seriously, everything else you do in terms of marketing will be far less effective.

When you’re taking the time to address the problems your ideal customers see and feel before offering your solution, there is little chance the marketing activities you’re implementing to attract and convert them won’t resonate.

Make a list of the problems you solve for ideal clients

If you’re having a tough time thinking about your ideal client’s problems, think about the conversations you had leading up to your sales meeting, the things addressed in your client interview or hopefully, you’re a good note taker and can revisit those for some insight.

For example, a lot my firms prospective clients might say things like – I just want my phone to ring, I want to be on the first page of Google, I want more referrals, I want less marketing headaches, I want my website to generate leads, I feel like I’m wasting money on ineffective marketing, etc.

So my firm don’t sell strategic marketing consulting services or marketing plans or even consulting – all my ideal clients need to know about what we do is that:

  • We make the phone ring – end of story.
  • We get you on the first page of Google – end of story.
  • We make more referrals happen – end of story.
  • We make marketing headaches go away – end of story.
  • We make the website generate leads – end of story.
  • We make marketing dollars go to work – end of story.

Another example, a massage practice:   They might have the best tables, oils, and most highly skilled therapist but all their customers seem to care about is that their pain and discomfort go away.

So that’s the promise they need to communicate, shout about and promote. The rest is an expectation – I mean doesn’t everyone in the massage business have highly skilled therapist.

That’s it – that’s how you retarget your message so it’s no longer about you and your remarkable products and services and it’s all about your remarkable clients and the problems they want to be solved.

#2 Refresh your website to match your message

This is what we worked on in the previous section. If you haven’t completed step #1, don’t pass go here – go back and get your problem-addressing message.

The purpose of the message is grab the attention and interest of website visitors. This will also show the visitor that you understand the challenges they face. You need to make your website match your message to solve their problems.

This is the message from a marketing consulting company –  We Make Your Phone Ring! They recognize for most small business owners organizing marketing and buying marketing services is confusing but owners do it to bring in business, so the problem that they solve is to make the phone ring.

#3 Create a client reactivation plan

If you have clients that you havent heard from in a while, a good way to re-engage them is to write them a reactivation letter or make a reactivation call.

In the letter, you remind them of the results they received from your services. Then you can mention any positive changes and/or new services you might offer, as well as explaining to them that you now offer a new way for them to get valuable information that will help them with the area they came to you for help with previously.

Let them know you will be giving them a subscription to your newsletter so they can gain the value of that information. This way, you can get them right into the follow-up plan you have created.

#4.  Develop your follow-up approach

 Marketing to generate leads and sales to close deals is not a one shot event. By automating or having a process approach to multiple follow-up messages, scheduling routine touches and sending the occasional thank you, hand written note, you can stay top of mind when the purchasing and referring decisions are made.
The longer your sales cycle the better your follow-up approach needs to be. There is so much that technology can take off your plate here, you need to develop it!

#5 Focus on turning opportunities into paying customers

If you’ve taken to heart and over a period of time implemented step 1-4, you should no longer have to focus on leads, website traffic, followers, and likes. The highest priority at this point in your marketing strategy should be conversion – turning opportunities into paying customers.

When you can figure out how to get prospects to call you, visitors to your website and attendees to respond to your presentation, then your focus must be on converting that interest into business.

Map out and adjust your process approach for sales. Literally write down the exact steps of what happens in a step 1, step 2, step 3 format, after your phone rings or your email bings, and adjust the steps for effectiveness.

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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