Ep. 2 The Stern Truth: Why Marketing Can Fail You

In this episode, I tackle one of the biggest mistakes we entrepreneurs and small business owners make today: relying too heavily on marketing without having proper systems in place. 

Drawing from my 35+ years of experience growing multiple businesses, I reveal the stark difference between businesses that just advertise and those that truly serve. You'll hear why the business owner who answers the phone and solves problems will always win against competitors with flashy websites but poor follow-through.

If you're a founder or small business entrepreneur looking to grow sustainably, I offer practical wisdom on creating systems that turn marketing leads into loyal customers. Discover how to balance your marketing efforts with excellent customer service, and why this approach is essential for surviving economic downturns when competition intensifies.

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Transcript

Hi, I'm Marshall Stern, and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses.

I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do it all by yourself.

I've been through multiple recessions and I've felt the highs and the lows.

I've been there and I get it.

This podcast.

is here to change that.

Every week I will bring you straight talking advice, real world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugarcoating.

If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place.

This is the stern truth.

In today's episode, we're delving into the stern truth on why marketing may be failing you because it fails so many companies and what you can do about it.

And here's the thing, this episode can also save you tons of money.

Enjoy.

All right, welcome back to another episode of the Stern Truth Business unfiltered.

So today we are going to get into a very, very important conversation on what I believe is one of the biggest mistakes that small business owners are making these days, and that is putting all of these efforts into marketing, and not just small business.

I shouldn't say that, it's big business, medium sized businesses, business period.

They're spending thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing.

No.

Hang tight.

If you're a marketing strategist, don't hate me for this because I'm going to explain what I mean by it all, cause marketing doesn't always work.

That is the stern truth.

What I mean by this?

Hold tight, but before we go there, I do want you to tune in next week because we have our first guest, another business owner, and he's gonna be sharing some of his experiences, some of his stern truths on what's worked and what hasn't worked, and the opportunities moving forward for you and your business, so stay tuned for that one.

But today we are talking about marketing and why marketing doesn't always work.

So, Imagine you're looking for a service for your home or for your business.

You Google it and come, you come up to this beautiful website, Immaculate website, someone spent a lot of time, effort, thoughts into it, and you've actually found it.

So this they've done the search engine thing, you know, they call it SEO search engine optimization.

You go there, you put your information in and you hear crickets back.

This has happened to me.

So when my kids were young, We had a what they call it split level house, and you basically, the kitchen was right by, right by the stairs, and my daughter's bedroom, or actually my son's bedroom was first right at the top of the stairs.

It was it's like 8 stairs, and then my daughter's bedroom was like right there, all very, very close to the living room, to the kitchen and everything.

And they were very, you know, they were young kids, especially my daughter, very, very soft sleeper, light sleeper.

So walk up the stairs and they would creak.

Bottom line was, I would wake my kids up constantly, just walking upstairs to get to our bedroom.

So I went online looking for someone, wasn't sure who he is, and then I'm driving home one day and I see this beautiful pickup truck with a trailer wrapped, graphics wrapped, and of course me being back then in the sign business, which we did wraps, it stood out to me.

It was they had spent usually $5000 maybe even $8000 between the trailer and the pickup truck, fully covered wraps, wrapped graphics, wrapped vehicles and trailer with whatever the company name was it was like.

Renaults in one day or something to that effect, but it was like, whoa, not only did they capture my attention with the graphics, but it was also the name of the company, or the name of their their messaging, their marketing, right?

It was like Renaults done in one day.

And having if you if you have kids or you've had small kids, you know how renovations.

Can, you know, uplift, uproot your life, so doing in one day was awesome.

So I immediately pulled over, I stopped.

I believe I took down, I took down the website and the phone number, went to the website, beautiful website, entered my information in the contact page, never heard back.

I waited days, I waited a week, then I decided to send us an email, not from the contact page, but actually their actual email that I found and I went and I thought maybe their contact page is broken, and I sent in info at whatever it was.

No automation, no automated response, nothing.

Then I said a week later to pick up the phone and call them.

Voicemail, left a message.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing ever.

Here's the thing, they put so much money into this marketing to bring people into their business.

It's like going to a retail store that looks beautiful on the outside and you open the door as locked, or you actually walk into the store and no one's there to serve you.

What a waste of money that was.

You might be sitting there thinking, man, I wish I had all this traffic coming to my business.

That's what people dream of, but here, this company, something is broken.

They spent the money on the marketing, brought all the people in, and nothing, not even a response saying, I'm sorry, we're too busy to help you.

Thanks for coming.

Nothing.

And more recently, The opposite happened.

OK, quick story, New Year's Eve, or hot water t goes out.

I'm useless when it comes to to to this kind of stuff, OK?

That's not my thing.

So I go, I don't know what I'm doing, I I I look and it looks like that little whatever it's called the pilot leg was out, didn't know what to do.

I didn't want to blow up the house, so I look at the label on the on the hot water tank and it said the company, the plumbing company, the heating plumbing company who installed it before we even bought the house, which was like 15 years ago.

So I called them.

Now remember this is not New Year's Eve, and it's not really New Year's Eve, it's the of New Year's Eve, so it's like, or it's afternoon of New Year's Eve it might have been like 5 o'clock on New Year's Eve or 4 o'clock, and they answer the phone and I tell them what's going on?

I I need a service call.

And the person on the other end said, well, you've reached the after hours number.

Do you have a monthly blah blah blah plan with our company?

And I said, no, you installed it it looks like 15 years ago, but I don't have that.

She goes, I'm sorry we cannot help you after hours if you don't have this emergency plan.

And of course she said call back on Friday, which was basically 2 days later, because the next day was New Year's Day and they were closed.

Well, we can't wait 2 days to have hot water.

So I ended up getting someone to help me, somebody knew, my father-in-law's nephew came and helped.

We got it all taken care of, that was fine.

Fast forward to just last week, it went out again.

I'm trying to get it going cause I kind of watched what he was doing, couldn't get the pilot light going.

But I remember my neighbor after this happened last time said so call so and so next time because they're awesome.

I'd never heard of this company before.

I call this person, I said.

My neighbor gave me your number, or it's now, it's about 7 o'clock at night, I think it was last Tuesday night, and our water tank is out.

I can't get the pilot going.

Can you come tomorrow and do a service call?

He said to me, you know what, just hang on for a second.

Let me just help you over the phone, get this pilot light lit, so you could actually have showers tonight, cause I'm sure there's people in your house who would like to get a shower, have a shower tonight and tomorrow morning, and it's still not working tomorrow, I'd be more than happy to come by.

So long story short, I took a picture of the hot water tank, sent it to him, he called me back and he walked me through what to do, and I got it lit.

No charge.

He answered the phone, it was after hours.

I wasn't paying after hours bill.

I didn't have to go to a fancy website that he'd spent all this money on to direct people to.

He serviced, he wowed me.

He blew my mind, and I knew that I eventually very soon will need a hot wire tech because it's been 15 years, and he said, when you're ready, if this doesn't work, call me or come back in.

And I said, well, I'm probably gonna need a new hot water tank, he says, probably, but you might have a month, 2 months, 3 months.

And we can take care of it then.

So a few days go by, everything's still working.

He actually followed up to see if it was working.

He didn't charge me anything.

Who am I going to remember?

Next time I go to replace the whole hot water tank, who am I gonna remember when I'm ready to shell out 2 $2500 or whatever it's gonna cost, which is gonna happen in the next few months?

Is the first company?

Who has their fancy label, and I've seen their trucks all over town.

Who couldn't even bother to help me.

Am I or am I gonna remember the person who actually spent time out of their busy evening.

It was just 7 minutes to walk me through how to get a lit because he was thinking of me as a customer, as a person.

That is how you wow your customer.

That's not marketing, that's all part of brand.

Referrals Showing up.

Now, marking is awesome because you want to get people to, if you're the best kept secret, there's no point.

You want people to know who you are.

So my point is not marketing doesn't work, marketing doesn't always work, and marketing does not work.

This is the stern truth.

Marketing does not work by itself.

You have to have Something on the other end.

You have to have the people, the systems, the processes on the other end.

Once people get through and find you, show up.

Care This company many years ago, this renovation company didn't care, and I hear all too many times with renovation companies, contractors, people in the trades who are so swamped for the last how many years, forever it seems like, especially out here.

Where I am, but are constantly busy, one day it will dry up.

And it's those companies that actually have, not just the marketing in place, But the systems and the processes on the other side to actually serve and fulfill and deliver to the customer.

You don't have to wow your customers all the time, just serve them, do what you're supposed to do, show up.

So are you doing that with your company?

Do you have systems in place to be able to deliver the service and help your client, your customer?

Or are you just spending all this money on marketing to get people drive traffic to your website or to your social media pages, and then there's a thing on the other end.

That's wasting money.

That's sad.

The only person people are who are getting rich out of that are the marketers.

Again, I'm all for marketing, but market something that actually has substance and a system and a process on the other side, so that when you get through the front door of that retail store, or of that service, online business, the online storefront.

There's someone to greet you.

Greet you with a smile and serve you.

I would love to hear your feedback in the comments.

Please, obviously do the whole thing, right?

Subscribe, like, review, all that kind of stuff.

But I would love to hear your comments on maybe some of your experiences where you've been wowed or shocked because someone actually delivered something.

Without expecting anything in return, that's how you build relationships, serve powerfully, people remember that.

People remember that, OK.

I will see you next week with a special guest, but in the meantime, again, please like, subscribe, all that kind of stuff, and if you have topics you would like to hear more about, please let me know.

And if you want to get on the email, so you get, don't miss an episode of this.

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Have a great rest of your week and we'll see you next week.

Thank you so much for tuning in to the Stern Truth.

If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you.

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Also, if you'd like to be a guest in an upcoming episode or join us in one of our momentum accountability group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

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Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.