The 5 Biggest Strategic Marketing Mistakes Small Companies Make

Patrick McFadden • April 1, 2015

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 factors that will erode your business.

If you want your business to thrive, watch out for these five strategic marketing mistakes. Get them straightened out and you’ll get your business on the road to robust good health.

#1. Not Identifying a Who

This may be the greatest single mistake for small business disaster. Small businesses are often just telling their story to whomever will listen = everybody.

The problem with this approach is if you think everyone that breaths is your ideal customer chances are you’ll spend money in the wrong media channels and time at the wrong events or on the wrong platforms, wasting your greatest resources of time and money.

Instead, identify your ideal customer. Use your existing customer base to identify the characteristics of your best customers. With that information, develop a detailed profile of your ideal customer. Then, show up in the media channels and in-person events where prospects that most closely fit the profile will be. You may be featured in fewer publications and meet with fewer people, but you’ll close more sales.

#2. Using Customer Expectations as Differentiators

Quite often I will ask small business owners to tell me what’s different about their business from others. The most common answers are, “we have the best price, we give our customers a quality product, or we have better service.”

I’m here to tell small businesses that communicating price, quality, and service are no longer strong enough reasons to differentiate your business for a potential prospect. These are all customer expectations.

The difference needs to be in the way you do business, how you package your product, the way you sell your service, the way you answer the phone, your appearance on a sales call, your signage, marketing kit, etc. – it’s all in the way you provide your service or product.

#3. Communicating What You Do Very Blandly

In marketing your small business, your job is to help the prospect actually understand and perhaps even feel how your business is different from every other business. And lacking this ability to communicate and capture what you do is a recipe to compete on price.

This mistake often occurs at networking events when small business owners or employees are asked, “So, what do you do or tell me about your company”

The typical bland response for many is to say . . . “I’m in the cleaning business, I’m an consultant, I’m a plumbing contractor or I’m a account specialist.”

Your response needs to communicate and capture what you do, who you help and the results they get. [Example] “I show sales reps how to close more deals.” “I help young couples retire rich.” I teach divorced women how to manage money.” “I give wealthy individuals peace of mind.”

#4. Assuming Branding is Just a Logo

It’s popular nowadays to put all your eggs in one basket — but even if your logo is eye catching and interesting, it can’t shoulder the whole load of your brand. And it means nothing if potential prospects are frustrated once they experience your brand.

Just as important as getting the logo right is creating a experience that customers love. That’s why your business must strategically identify and deliver an great experience in the many ways that prospects and customers come into contact with your brand.

Think through all the ways customers and prospects can come into contact with and experience your organization. A great place to start is to identify these three core areas: marketing touchpoints, sales touchpoints and service touchpoints.

#5. Creating Content Instead of Content Marketing

Almost every small business has heard about the need to produce content in marketing has grown as today is more about being found—earning attention—and less about going out and hunting. Unfortunately the mistake is that it’s being interpreted by most as “write more content.”

The word content itself has a lot of hoopla around it today, but there’s a huge difference content and content marketing.

Plenty of small companies have been using content to market their business for a long time, this isn’t anything new—whether it’s a proposal, magazine, ad, brochure, rack card, marketing kit, email, stationary, blog post or newsletter. Most of this content is entirely promotional, focused on the company: their products, services, accolades, features and benefits—not the customer or the information that they are most interested in and find valuable.

Content marketing is the creation of free valuable content that has a marketing purpose. That purpose is awareness, educating and building know, like and trust, enough to do business with you. The goal of content marketing is consumption, then behavior.

Start employing content marketing by creating content to answer common problems or questions customers have with your service or product. You can also develop content that shares creative ideas for getting more advanced results from your service or product.

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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