The marketing strategy everyone hates the most (Models + Marketing Part 3)
Welcome to Part 3 in the “Models + Marketing” series—a deep dive into why service businesses and content creator businesses can’t play by the same rules.
Even when the strategies look similar on the surface, what these two models actually need to grow couldn’t be more different.
Service providers and content creators aren’t playing the same game, yet most marketing advice keeps acting like they are.
In the previous two installments, we’ve covered:
Marketing lies, omissions, and misunderstandings (read Part 1)
When the math of scale doesn't pencil out and how to understand the numbers behind different business models (read Part 2)
Where You’re Closest to the Money
All businesses need to grow. But growth doesn’t always mean more clients or bigger revenue, and it’s not the same as scale.
Growth means increasing revenue, time, impact, influence, or sustainability in a way that aligns with your model, capacity, and priorities
Scale, on the other hand, means increasing revenue without a proportional increase in effort or resources. It’s 1:many. It’s leveraged. It’s building systems that can serve infinite customers without you being directly involved.
If you’re running a low-volume, high-ticket business—consultant, coach, creative, agency—you don’t need to scale to grow.
For you, growth can look like:
Raising your prices so you work with fewer clients and make more money
Improving your client experience so you get more referrals and spend less time on lead generation
Streamlining your operations so you’re not reinventing the wheel with every engagement
Building systems for follow-up and nurture so opportunities don’t slip through the cracks
Getting more selective about who you work with so you’re doing work you love with people you enjoy
Stabilizing your revenue so you’re not riding the feast-or-famine rollercoaster
None of these growth levers requires a funnel, a course or membership, or running ads. (Those are optional, as previously discussed.)
The one thing you do need to grow as a service provider, is to get really good at Layer 1 marketing—direct outreach and follow-up. That is your foundation.
Layer 1 marketing looks like:
Sending personal emails to people in your network
Following up with leads who expressed interest but didn’t move forward
Asking for referrals from past clients and colleagues
Having real conversations, one-on-one or in small groups, where you can listen, understand, and offer value
Networking with intention and care
This is not sexy, Silver Bullet stuff.
It’s basic; things you already know because essentially it’s about talking to people.
Layer 1 is the simplest kind of marketing—yet it’s the hardest one to do because it’s the most tender, real, and vulnerable.
It requires you to put yourself out there, one person at a time, and risk hearing “no” or “not right now.”
Layer 1 places you in the direct line of fire, face-to-face with rejection, indifference, and silence.
Direct outreach and follow-up can be uncomfortable as hell. No one likes to be blatantly ignored or denied.
You start ruminating on why someone did or didn’t respond, and if they responded unfavorably, how come. Without ready answers, you fill the void with all kinds of stories. The Inner Critic and the Imposter Monster run haywire in your head. We all do this.
So I get why people would much rather spend 10 hours writing posts on LinkedIn that will get a few dozen views and a couple of comments and call it marketing.
I get the appeal of prioritizing Layer 2 and Layer 3 activities. It’s fun to create things for people's consumption—way more fun than getting ghosted after sending someone an email you took great care to personalize so you’d come across as sincere and earnest as you were when you wrote it.
Layer 2 and 3 marketing makes you feel productive. Helpful. Putting good things out into the world.
And anyway, if people don’t listen or read or watch your content, you can blame it on the algorithm.
But the truth is Layer 1 is where you’re closest to the money.
Layer 1 will always be you fastest, shortest path to revenue.
Many service businesses are putting 4X more time and energy into Layer 2 marketing for 4X less return.
If you need to fill your pipeline to bring in money in the next 30-60 days, Layer 1 is how you do it.
Layer 1 is not only your foundation, it’s your control, your center of power.
You’re not waiting for the algorithm to show your post.
You’re not playing footsie with traffic to an ad.
You’re not dependent on any platform or tool beyond your email address, a smartphone, and the means to show up somewhere live.
When you’re having real conversations with real people, you hear the language they use.
You learn what they’re struggling with, what they want, and what makes them say “yes, that's exactly what I need.”
That information is everything to your messaging, your positioning, your offers. You don’t have to guess. You listen and you know.
Watch Out for These Cold-blooded Business Killers
By now I’ve convinced you to get back on the horse with your Layer 1 marketing activities, yes?
You’re committed. You know what to do.
You’ve blocked off next Wednesday from 8-10am to “do your marketing.”
But warning: there are two specific dangers ahead:
The Hurchy-lurchy
The When-I-Then-I Trap
These little buggers will thwart your best laid plans.
They’ll make everything harder and take longer so we have to head them off at the pass.
Contrary to how it sounds, the Hurchy-lurchy is not some cute little retro dance.
It’s the start-stop-start cycle one gets into with marketing—especially when you’re an owner-operator out on the front lines with your clients while also in charge of your business development.
You market to get clients and projects. It works!
Now you’ve got clients and projects to attend to so you go heads down, forgetting all about marketing.
Not only don’t you have time to do marketing, but god forbid you do it and you get even more clients and projects when you’re already so busy!
Then, at a future point in time that comes much faster than you think, those clients and projects wrap up.
One day (again, sooner than you think) you look up and realize your pipeline is dry.
Crap—time to start marketing!
Only the problem is that your next client or project could be months away because marketing takes time to generate.
This is one of the three hidden timelines in business—the marketing timeline—where on average it could be anywhere from 3-6 months before your efforts generate meaningful work.
(Read up on the Marketing Timeline in my “Time It Takes” series here. )
The Hurchy-lurchy is insidious because its impact is not immediate.
It creeps up on you in stealth and silence.
It lets warm leads grow cool and then cold, tanking the ROI on your previous efforts.
It keeps you strapped into a revenue roller coaster, and sets you up for a cashflow crisis.
That's scary enough.
But then we have our second business killer, the When-I-Then-I Trap which is what happens when you tell yourself:
“When I get my website updated, then I’ll send out those emails.”
“When I update my LinkedIn Profile, then I’ll send the connection message.”
“When the sales page is ready, then I’ll make the offer.”
“When I ______, then I ______.”
When the “when” part never ends—because of procrastination, perfectionism, or fear of visibility and rejection—you never get to “then.”
You stay in a perpetual state of “almost ready but not quite yet.”
This delay is killing your future business.
While you’re stuck in the When-I-Then-I Trap, your would-be clients are hiring the people who’ve already reached out them, who are having conversations and making offers.
Of course you will need to get some things in place before you can be effective with your outreach, namely your positioning and essential messaging—how you explain who you are, who you serve, and what problems you solve.
Yes, this information will eventually need to be reflected in your online presence.
But too many people put far too much emphasis on building assets that aren’t critical to client acquisition
You can work a hefty Layer 1 that results in a hefty income without a website or social media presence.
Finally, I want to clarify where direct outreach and follow-up fits in the picture for a content creator or education-based business.
While this model lives and dies by Layer 3 activities (effectively Layer 3 is your Layer 1), even a business running traffic systems for a mass audience needs to build direct relationships with individuals.
You need people who will be your collaborators and referral partners, people who can connect you to new audiences, theirs or their colleagues. So like your service provider counterparts, you will also be consistently doing direct outreach and follow-up to keep your pipeline of visibility opportunities full.
I’ve never met a successful content creator who didn’t also have a strong network they actively nurtured.
…
Alrighty, at this point in the series we’ve covered the low-volume high-ticket (primarily service providers) and the high-volume low-ticket business models (most content creators and education-based businesses) in depth including the math that runs behind them.
We’ve defined the three layers of marketing and what happens when you work the wrong layer for your business model.
We’ve made the case for the merits of Layer 1 marketing as your foundation when you’re a service provider and the two pitfalls to watch out.
In Part 4 (coming soon), I’ll give you a framework for how to work your Layer 1. Because if you’ve already done outreach and follow-up and haven’t gotten great results, or you’re stuck in the Hurchy-lurchy or the When-I-Then-I Trap, you need a way out. You need to understand why what you’ve done hasn’t worked and how to approach it differently.
Need to catch up with the series?
Read Part 1: Marketing lies, omissions, and misunderstandings
Read Part 2: When the math of scale doesn’t pencil out