Pivoting on my rebrand

Think about when you're in 9th grade and you tell a girl that you like her, and halfway through your little speech you see a look of horror cross her face, so you switch gears and awkwardly say "Ha ha, just kidding. That would be totally weird, right?"

Some call it cringe, I call it a strategic pivot 😅

These are a part of marketing too: I’m a huge advocate of beta testing messaging in micro-interactions before committing to anything— every little conversation you have is an opportunity to see what lands and what doesn't.

The barista, your neighbor, someone you used to work with… try it out on all of them. Pay careful attention to their reaction- if they ever seem confused or like they're just playing along to be nice, that's a sign that you have work to do.

I've been doing this a lot lately to figure out some of the details of the personal rebrand I'm working on. TLDR: I’m calling myself a fractional CMO now because that's much more representative of what I actually do for my clients vs just LinkedIn and YouTube (more info here for anyone who cares).

And I'm in the home stretch, currently focused on the most important part of the whole project: the tagline.

This is a very simple one-sentence description of yourself that when you tell people they instantly nod and go "oh okay" and you can tell that they understand why you do what you do and why it's valuable- until you have one that lands 90% of the time, you're not done.

My first draft of that was “Fractional CMO for B2B services companies.”

It felt good to me because the majority of people that I work with are founders of B2B services companies— investors, software engineers, designers, etc. So to me, that was just describing my reality.

But as I was beta testing it in conversations with various people, I noticed a problem: At first, it seemed like it landed— they never came out and told me that they were confused.

But I could tell that something wasn't quite right.

They would always ask me questions about how I worked with sales teams, lead gen, SDRs, Rev Ops dashboards, etc— things that imply a high-volume transactional sales environment like you’d see at some big company like Adobe that’s dealing with hundreds or thousands of leads that need to get divvied up and pushed through a pipeline.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but It's just not what I do— I don't do leadgen to fill high-volume funnels.

I do high-touch marketing that opens doors with a very specific list of dream clients/partners- usually for agencies, consultants, or expert-led businesses where every deal is high-touch, high-value, and relationship-driven.

Sniping that one perfect client, not spraying 8,500 “personalized” cold emails.

So when I saw that my message wasn’t coming through, to be honest, I was a little bit frustrated— it seemed so obvious to me, how could they not get it?! wtf!

But I quickly pumped the brakes on that reaction.

Now, back when I was 23 and I thought I knew everything, I would've stopped there. At that age, I was constantly blaming clients for “not getting it.” But now at my much older and hopefully wiser age, I understand that's never the answer.

You never, EVER blame the audience for misunderstanding something— it’s ALWAYS on you. The answer is always to look in the mirror and ask yourself, "What could I have done or said differently?"

It can be exhausting, but this is where the real work happens- in those frustrating, grindy little details that don't come easily.

And so after letting it percolate in my brain over the last week or two, I realized that the part that was throwing them off was “B2B services companies.” To be honest, if I heard that I'd probably think “leadgen for high-volume funnels” too.

The other part that didn't quite land for people was my banner headline, where I was trying to communicate that I’m the marketing partner that every salesperson wishes they had… But if I’m being honest, that just wasn't coming through.

I tried to explain it, and it never really quite landed. So, again, I had to admit defeat and go back to the drawing board.

Not easy, but it's all just part of the process - a series of micro-pivots that get you where you need to go.

Here's what I came up with:

• “for B2B services companies” → “for agencies & consultants”

• “the salesperson’s favorite marketer” → “Helping agencies & consultants grow (by any means necessary)”

I feel less confident about the banner headline, but let's see where it goes. The thing I wanna communicate there is that I will do whatever it takes to make your business grow because I have pretty deep experience with almost every aspect of marketing, and I can bring any and all of those to bear on your business. And also that I work my ass off for my clients.

Now, whether that's coming through or not, I don't know. I'll keep beta testing it and iterating until I feel confident that it’s communicating the right thing.

My point:

As my friend Chase Jarvis says, “The details aren’t the details- they’re the thing.” And when it comes to messaging, you don't give up until you get the details right. Keep beta testing in all those little conversations… If it doesn't land, to be honest with yourself and keep iterating until it does.

It turns out that figuring out your messaging is a lot like high school dating:

You’ll say the wrong thing, you’ll get weird looks. But if you’re paying attention, eventually you’ll figure out how to say what you really mean.

PS - If you like my emails, reply to this and say hi! I don’t have any room for new clients right now so I have nothing to sell you, but I always like talking with people.