blog

What I wish I'd learned younger.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 12:14:50 GMT

Fifteen years in, a short list of things I got wrong for longer than I should have.

Here's the pattern I see at least once a week: founder hires a marketer, marketer hires a tool, tool produces a dashboard, dashboard fills a slide, slide goes in a board pack. Revenue doesn't move. Nobody is lying. Everybody is busy. And nothing is working.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

Three bets for ninety days. Two of them you are willing to kill in public. One of them you will defend against every opinion in the room. That's the plan. Everything else — the beautiful campaign you already paid for, the event you already booked, the "brand refresh" your designer is quietly working on — either supports those three bets, or it waits.

Most B2B marketing problems aren't marketing problems. They're strategy problems dressed up in campaign clothes. The symptoms show up downstream — low conversion, long sales cycles, the pipeline that 'just isn't landing' — but the leak is almost always upstream. Usually in who you're selling to and why they should care. Sometimes in who's calling the shots. Rarely, if ever, in whether the creative was good enough.

So when I say the opposite of hope is not a strategy, I don't mean hope is bad. I mean hope alone is expensive. Pair hope with a priority, a deadline, and a CFO-legible outcome, and you have a strategy. Everything else is a mood.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

If you made it this far, we probably share a bias: that marketing is a craft with numbers attached, not a brand project with money attached. If you want to pressure-test that bias against a real business — yours — I offer a free 30-minute consultation. No slides.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

Why LinkedIn has gone quiet.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 12:09:53 GMT

The feed hasn't collapsed. Attention has. Here's what's replacing it — and what that means for your pipeline.

Let's get one thing straight. Why LinkedIn has gone quiet — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

Honest work.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 12:06:33 GMT

What I mean when I say 'outcomes over activity' — and why it's harder than it sounds.

Let's get one thing straight. Honest work — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

Not every stage needs a full-time CMO.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:57:01 GMT

When to hire fractional. When to hire permanent. When to hire an agency instead. A plain-English decision tree.

Let's get one thing straight. Not every stage needs a full-time CMO — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

AEO: What SEO looks like when the machines are reading.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:52:07 GMT

Answer Engine Optimisation isn't a rebrand of SEO. It's a different game, with different stakes, and most teams are showing up with last decade's playbook.

Let's get one thing straight. AEO: What SEO looks like when the machines are reading — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

Your website is a liability.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:46:54 GMT

Most B2B websites are museums of old positioning. Three clicks in, your prospect already knows you don't know who they are.

Let's get one thing straight. If your CMO can't speak CFO, you have a problem — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

If your CMO can't speak CFO, you have a problem.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:08:27 GMT

Payback period, CAC, magic number, NRR. A CMO who can't hold this conversation doesn't belong at the exec table.

Let's get one thing straight. If your CMO can't speak CFO, you have a problem — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

Your marketing is self-indulgent.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:01:08 GMT

If the people it's supposed to sell to don't see themselves in it, it's not marketing. It's a vanity project with a budget.

Let's get one thing straight. Your marketing is self-indulgent — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

The 90-Day Diagnostic.

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 10:52:57 GMT

What a proper marketing audit actually looks like — and why most 'audits' are just activity reports with better fonts.

Let's get one thing straight. The 90-Day Diagnostic — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →

Your pipeline isn't broken. Your targeting is..

Marc Fletcher — Tue, 05 May 2026 10:47:14 GMT

Most pipeline problems are targeting problems in disguise. Fix the ICP before you fix the funnel.

Let's get one thing straight. Your pipeline isn't broken. Your targeting is — that's not a take designed to be comfortable. It's designed to be useful.

The fix isn't a better dashboard. It's a smaller strategy.

That's all this is. A method, not a mood.

Three bets for ninety days. Everything else waits. This is the hardest sentence in B2B marketing.

Pressure-test this on your business.

Free 30-min consultation. No slides.

Book a call →