Why Your Marketing Sucks (and How to Fix It)

If you’re a business owner running a $1M–$6M company, I’ve got bad news: your marketing probably sucks. Most owners assume they understand marketing because they know what they like—but that’s not how it works. What you end up with is confusing messages, wasted money, and no reliable system to generate leads.

I’ve seen it firsthand. A colleague in real estate dropped $5,000 on a professional video shoot that looked fancy but delivered zero results. I’ve personally run quarter-page ads in the New York Post—$5,000 gone, and the phone calls that came in were completely off-target. This happens over and over again because most small-to-mid-sized business owners are spending money on marketing that isn’t built to pay them back.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Marketing = Lead Generation

Here’s the truth nobody in the “marketing guru” world wants to say out loud: marketing is lead generation. That’s it. Sales closes the leads, but marketing’s entire job is to generate them.

And every dollar you spend on marketing should bring you three dollars back. If it doesn’t, you’re just lighting cash on fire. That’s why I tell business owners to think of their marketing as a “nickel box.” You put in five cents, crank the handle, and a dime drops out the bottom. If that’s how it works, how many times should you crank? As many as possible.

The 17 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

I’ve blown thousands of dollars learning these lessons so you don’t have to. Here are some of the most important ones:

1. Your marketing sucks—but you think it’s good. Stop assuming a boosted post or a flyer with big bold letters is working. If you can’t track it, you can’t trust it.

2. The obvious stuff rarely wins. Hot chicks and cute babies get attention, but attention isn’t revenue.

3. Data wins. Stop arguing about creative and headlines—let the numbers tell you what works.

4. Nothing is new. Every ad falls into health, wealth, or relationships. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

5. Creative isn’t marketing. The flyer, video, or graphic is just the tool. The test is whether it generates leads.

6. Concise beats clever. “AC repair starting at $1,000” will outperform “It’s not always good to have a hot wife.” Every time.

7. You are not the hero. Your customer is. You’re the guide. (Shoutout to Donald Miller’s StoryBrand—a must-read.)

8. Expensive sells better. Cheap signals “low value.” Charge what you’re worth.

9. Original almost always fails. Model what’s already working. Swipe proven frameworks.

10. Split testing makes you look like a genius. Run ads side by side, change one thing at a time, and let the data decide.

I could keep going through all 17, but the pattern is clear: stop guessing, stop assuming, and stop spending like your cousin’s “cool idea” is going to work. Test, track, and follow the data.

Watch the full video.

The Hard Truth: Only Revenue Matters

You’re not really in business until you’ve got a dollar from someone who’s not your mom, aunt, or best friend. The same goes for your marketing—it’s only successful if it brings in revenue.

Clicks, likes, views, even attention—they’re all worthless if they don’t lead to sales. That’s why I structure my work with clients around this one principle: only the revenue matters. If the ad spend doesn’t come back multiplied, we stop. Period.

The Next Step

If you’re running a $1M–$6M business, chances are your marketing isn’t pulling its weight. The good news is you don’t need to be a genius to fix it—you just need to test, track, and treat marketing for what it really is: a predictable system for generating leads and revenue.

If you want help building ads that actually pay you back, let’s talk. I’ve spent over a decade in high-pressure sales and operations roles, from the military to $700M companies, and now I help business owners like you scale from $1M to $12M with marketing that works.

👉 Ready to stop wasting money and start running ads that print money? Book a call with me here.