I created the Marketing Hourglass after years of working with small businesses that felt overwhelmed by disjointed tactics. Agencies chased big budgets and flashy campaigns, while consultants dropped in and out without leaving a sustainable system. I believed marketing should work like any core business function; systematic, practical and focused on results. That insight became a framework, then a book and eventually a global community built around strategy before tactics.
Traditional marketing funnels push people from awareness to purchase, then stop cold. But as a small business owner, you know the real value comes after the sale, when customers come back, buy again, and tell their friends. Funnels ignore this. They treat marketing as a straight line, missing the reality that today’s buyers research, compare, and rely on recommendations before and after they buy.
Here’s the problem:
Most marketing stops at the transaction.
Buyers expect more: ongoing value, trust, and opportunities to share their great experience.
If you don’t nurture relationships after the sale, you lose out on repeat business and referrals.
Introducing the Marketing Hourglass Framework
The Marketing Hourglass was created to solve this problem. After years working with small businesses overwhelmed by disjointed tactics, I realized that marketing should be systematic, sustainable, and focused on results, just like any core business function.
The Marketing Hourglass expands the funnel into seven essential stages: Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer. Each stage answers a question your customer is asking and helps you guide them from first discovery to enthusiastic advocate.
Aligns with real buying behaviour. People often decide long before they contact you. The hourglass ensures you’re there early and stay present after they buy.
Improves profitability. Selling to existing customers can convert as high as 70%, while new prospects often sit closer to 20%. This means, even a small bump in retention, around 5%, can increase profits by more than 25%.
Creates a referral engine. Happy customers spread the word. The hourglass gives them a structure and incentives to do so.
Know – “Who are you?” Use search‑friendly posts, social media and local events to introduce yourself. Address the problems your audience faces instead of pitching services.
Like – “Do I like your style?” Show personality through behind‑the‑scenes stories, team profiles and newsletters. Help people feel a personal connection to your business.
Trust – “Can you deliver?” Publish case studies, testimonials and reviews. Evidence builds confidence.
Try – “What’s the risk?” Offer a free consultation, audit, sample or downloadable guide so prospects can experience your expertise with little commitment.
Buy – “Is this right for me?” Make the purchase simple. Onboard new customers thoughtfully, communicate clearly and deliver early wins.
Repeat – “Should I stay?” Stay in touch with educational emails, progress check‑ins and offers that add value. Show customers you’re invested in their success.
Refer – “Who else needs this?” Encourage referrals by making the process easy (shareable links, referral bonuses) and recognising advocates. A great experience is the foundation.
Case Study: Balance Dental Studio’s (Previously Fox Point Dental) Marketing Hourglass Success
Balance Dental Studio needed a complete marketing reset. By embracing the hourglass model, they:
Rebranded and relaunched their website for better awareness and trust.
Offered low-risk ways for prospects to engage, like free consultations.
Streamlined the appointment process to make buying easy.
Nurtured patients after their visits with ongoing communication and value.
The results:
Website traffic soared by 1,287%
Google Business Profile views increased by 659%
Overall practice growth reached 300%
When you guide people from first discovery to repeat visits and referrals, the impact is dramatic.
Audit your touchpoints. List every interaction prospects and customers have with you and assign each one to an hourglass stage. Notice gaps, maybe you have plenty of awareness content but no formal referral process.
Fill the gaps. Add simple tactics for the stages you’re missing. For example, if you lack a “Try” stage, offer a free audit or downloadable checklist.
Measure what matters. Track metrics such as repeat purchase rate, referral volume and customer lifetime value, not just leads or clicks.
Update regularly. The hourglass is dynamic. Refine your approach based on results and feedback.
How to Make Marketing Manageable
Small businesses thrive with systematic, not scattered, marketing. The Marketing Hourglass is your blueprint for attracting, engaging, and delighting customers at every step. Want to see where you stand? Schedule a Strategy Call today.
Let’s turn marketing chaos into clarity together.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Marketing Hourglass?
It’s a seven-stage framework that covers the entire customer journey, helping you build relationships beyond the first sale.
Is The Marketing Hourglass a trademarked term?
Yes, the Marketing Hourglass is a registered trademark of Duct Tape Marketing. You can view the US patent here.
How is it different from a funnel?
Funnels end at the purchase. The hourglass continues past the sale, focusing on retention and referrals, key drivers of sustainable growth.
Who created the Marketing Hourglass?
John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, built the hourglass to help small businesses implement systematic, results-driven marketing.
Can any business use this framework?
Yes, B2B, B2C, product, or service. The hourglass adapts to any industry or business size.
How do I start?
Map your touchpoints to each stage, identify what’s missing, and take action to fill those gaps.
What should I measure?
Monitor repeat purchase rates, referral volume, customer lifetime value, and how prospects move through each stage.
On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Lorenzo Johnson, Director of Revenue Management and partner at Socially In, a leading US-based social media agency. As a LinkedIn Learning instructor and expert in B2B social selling, Lorenzo unpacks what’s changed on LinkedIn heading into 2026: from the rise of video and carousel posts to algorithm shifts, authentic engagement, and practical uses of AI. Discover how to optimize your profile, build real relationships, and avoid the common pitfalls that hold most sellers and brands back on LinkedIn today.
About the Guest
Lorenzo Johnson is the Director of Revenue Management and a partner at Socially In. He’s a B2B social selling strategist, LinkedIn Learning instructor, and content creator for Madcraft. Lorenzo has helped thousands of professionals and organizations drive revenue on LinkedIn through practical, authentic, and modern tactics.
Video and carousel posts are the best way to stand out from the flood of average AI-generated content on LinkedIn in 2026.
Social search is merging with traditional search—hashtags, long-form posts, and engagement matter for discoverability on and off LinkedIn.
Your Social Selling Index (SSI) score is built on four pillars: building your brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building trusted relationships.
LinkedIn’s algorithm penalizes mass outreach, low-quality networks, and shallow engagement—focus on quality over quantity.
Use all profile features (professional mode, microsites, newsletters) to get more algorithmic “love.”
Social selling is a long game: expect 300+ days from first connection to closed deal if you’re doing it right.
Automation and AI can help with research, outreach, and follow-up, but don’t shortcut real engagement—be careful with scraping and gray hat tools.
Measure success by impressions, views, and engagement rate—not just meetings booked or sales closed.
Quality engagement, DMs, and real conversation trump cold outreach every time.
Great Moments (with Timestamps)
01:11 – LinkedIn’s 2026 Landscape Always Engine Optimization (AEO), search integration, and the new content game.
02:52 – How to Beat the AI Flood Why video, carousels, and true insights win over “prompted” content.
04:40 – The Four Pillars of LinkedIn Success SSI explained: brand, audience, insights, and trusted relationships.
08:06 – Tools & Features for a Strong Profile Why professional mode and new features matter for reach.
10:16 – Relationship Building, Not Just Outreach Why real engagement is the only way to win in social selling.
12:57 – Where AI and Automation Help (and Hurt) Tools for scale vs. the risk of bans, and finding the “gray hat” balance.
19:22 – What Metrics Matter Most How to track what’s really working in your social selling strategy.
Insights
“If you approach LinkedIn for quick wins, you’re playing the wrong game—social selling is about long-term relationship building.”
“Use every feature LinkedIn offers—profiles that leverage newsletters, video, and professional mode get algorithmic priority.”
“The best outreach is rooted in value: personalized video, insightful comments, and real conversation—not mass DMs.”
“Quality impressions and engagement are leading indicators of future sales—don’t just measure meetings or bookings.”
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Lorenzo Johnson. He’s the Director of Revenue Management and a partner at Socially In, a leading US social media agency. He’s a specialist in social selling, helping B2B professionals and SMEs leverage LinkedIn to drive revenue. As a content creator for Madcraft and an instructor on LinkedIn learning, Lorenzo teaches thousands worldwide.
There’s courses on social selling. So Lorenzo, welcome to the show.
Lorenzo Johnson (00:33.467)
appreciate you and thanks for having me today, John. I’m very, very excited to be here.
John Jantsch (00:37.76)
Awesome. So did I say the name right socially in? I had to kind of stumble over that. There’s a lot of letters together.
Lorenzo Johnson (00:40.857)
You did. No, you said it correctly. You said it better than a lot of people when they call us and they say social lion and other things like that. So you hit it right on the head, John.
John Jantsch (00:50.345)
Awesome. So let’s start. We’re going to talk mostly about LinkedIn today. So let’s set the table going into 2026, which we’re there. What’s changed? What do we need to pay attention to? What’s gotten worse about better about just kind of give us the give us the lay of the land for 2026 on LinkedIn.
Lorenzo Johnson (00:52.507)
Yes, sir.
Lorenzo Johnson (01:11.483)
Well, there’s a few things that’s happening on LinkedIn that I think everyone should be excited about, not necessarily fearful about, but absolutely kind of thinking about what they’re going to be shifting and changing. And so I’ll kind of get right into one of the biggest things that’s happening. And it’s around this term AEO that everyone’s kind of talking about and always engine optimization and always everywhere optimization. know, you’re hearing all of these different types of names and LinkedIn is actually one of those social platforms that’s also starting to
be incorporated a little bit more into that. What we’re starting to actually see is that content is starting to be indexed when you start to get into search inquiries and search queries. Technical things like leveraging hashtags and things like that are actually starting to also come up in search functions and Google and things like that. That’s also with other platforms like Instagram and things like that. But again, I know we’re focusing historically or this conversation specifically on LinkedIn. So.
The first thing that you’re seeing is that with all and like all social, you’re starting to kind of see this integration between social search. These, these avenues that used to be very separated and segregated are really starting to kind of work together now. And so that’s the first thing that we’re seeing right now is that content, long form content, putting out some of that thought leadership type of content that used to be really good and really exciting on LinkedIn. It’s kind of been watered down when chat GBT made everyone an expert all of a sudden and things like that.
but we’re starting to see that start to come back. So that would say that’s one of the first things that we’re starting to see,
John Jantsch (02:40.96)
All right, so let’s dive into that with kind of this flood of very average, you know, AI content. How does somebody take their content and make it stand out?
Lorenzo Johnson (02:43.749)
Okay?
Lorenzo Johnson (02:52.505)
Well, one of the biggest things is doing stuff like this. It’s that video content. It’s that content that necessarily can’t be just crafted using some words and things like that. It’s having the ability to get into conversations like this, speak people able to see your voice. So video content is absolutely really starting to take off from a from a true feature standpoint. One other feature that we’re seeing is carousel post, those types of content engagement features that are keeping people on a post for a little bit longer.
John Jantsch (02:55.438)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lorenzo Johnson (03:20.707)
just like a video would do. We’re also starting to see that have a big impact. But of course, as you know, that is something that could be easily kind of manipulated from an AI standpoint. And I mean, let’s get the elephant out the room as well. You can also script videos and use AI to do all of those different types of things too. So unfortunately, it’s kind of leaking into everything that we’re doing. But I would say video.
by far is the best way to not only posit yourself as that thought leader, but really separate yourself from a lot of the newsletter style type posts out there that as soon as you start to read it, it’s so clear that people are just running it through a chat GPT prompt and not even a quality chat GPT prompt at that.
John Jantsch (03:58.35)
Yeah, actually, I’m not even here. This is an AI avatar speaking for me. So I’ve actually had people ask me if I wanted to be interviewed on their show by an AI avatar. I haven’t yet done one. I just I was like, not. It’s too experimental. So I think a lot of
Lorenzo Johnson (04:02.715)
It’ll get there soon. It’s crazy.
Lorenzo Johnson (04:16.943)
What’d you, how’d you respond to that? What were your thoughts on that?
Nah. Well, it’s interesting. just saw…
John Jantsch (04:26.85)
I was going to say, I think a lot of people look at LinkedIn and they just think, okay, what am I going to post? That’s like how the day starts, right? You really talk more about a LinkedIn blueprint. You want to kind of unpack what the pillars of that are.
Lorenzo Johnson (04:40.355)
Yeah, so I like to kind of break it down and for everyone who doesn’t know, there’s essentially four pillars that LinkedIn uses to define if a profile is being used correctly and if you’re doing those appropriate things. More commonly referred to as an SSI or the LinkedIn Social Selling Index Score. Those four pillars are four things. The first one is how are you building your professional brand? The second thing is, are you finding the right people? The third thing is, are you engaging with insights?
And the fourth, and I would argue absolutely the most important thing is, are you building trusted relationships? And so if you were to break all of those downs, they actually get into all of the day-to-day execution of what you should be doing on LinkedIn. So again, when you start talking about building your professional brand, what type of thought leadership are you actually putting out there? What type of value-based, what type of resource-driven type of posting content?
Are you getting out there and putting out there for people to have a reason to come back to your platform to start off with? Finding the right people. One of the things that we’re actually starting to see more is LinkedIn is actually penalizing your impressions and your reach. If your audience isn’t quality, here’s what I mean by that.
If LinkedIn is starting to get this feel and algorithmically that you’re just basically reaching out to everybody, mass, if you’re using automation tools, which a lot of people are doing to send out mass invites and different things like that. If you’re not actually commenting, engaging, endorsing with the people as they’re starting to come in, LinkedIn is actually going to start to lower your impressions. So that’s why you’ll see people that have.
10, 15,000 followers, but yet their posts are still only getting 10, 15 type of posts and things like that. They’re not truly finding and building up the right audience. know, LinkedIn, unlike other social platforms, it’s not a popularity contest. know, LinkedIn isn’t like, Hey, hey, John Lorenzo, I want you guys to have a hundred thousand people that are kind of all over the place. LinkedIn would rather you have 1000 people that are locked in. They come to your platform for insights. You’re engaging back and forth. They much rather have
Lorenzo Johnson (06:45.903)
that type of relationship building. Engaging with insights. Are you actually commenting, engaging on other people’s posts? Are you also engaging on other content that’s happening? Are you sharing other types of content, keeping people on the LinkedIn platforms and things like that? One of the other misconceptions and just basic things that people don’t do that I see all the time is, you know, people share and copy posts without even having something as simple as like a caption or copy on it.
John Jantsch (06:50.232)
Thank
Lorenzo Johnson (07:11.541)
Small little things like that make LinkedIn really feel are you truly engaging with insights? Are you truly using this platform appropriately? And then that last pillar is again is are you building trusted relationships? And I know that’s very hard to kind of quantify and kind of line item out. But simply what that basically means is are the individuals that you’re connected with and that are connecting with you, are you guys engaging back and forth?
Are you DMing them? Are you liking comments? Are you endorsing? What type of interaction are you seeing? Or are you just kind of posting a whole bunch of kind of stuff out there? So those are typically the four pillars that LinkedIn is typically looking at that guides and decides algorithmic reaches, impressions, and things like that.
John Jantsch (07:55.852)
You mentioned at the beginning of that something called SSI. Is there a tool that your social is selling? Is there a tool you can go and put your profile in and it’ll tell you how you’re doing?
Lorenzo Johnson (07:59.483)
Mm-hmm.
Lorenzo Johnson (08:06.095)
There absolutely is. There’s actually a link, John, that I could pop over to you. Please excuse it. But it’s something as simple as linkedin.com backslash, like SSI score or something. I could get you an actual link. But the really cool thing is, once you log in and you literally click that link, it’ll tell you not only what your overall score is, it will actually give you a rating for each of those pillars out of a 25%. As of right now, and this does change sometimes, each of those pillars is equally weighted, 25%.
John Jantsch (08:15.094)
Okay.
Lorenzo Johnson (08:34.34)
So you will be able to see your rating out of that 25%. Of course, the aggregate score will be what your total LinkedIn SSI score, which will be out of 100.
John Jantsch (08:44.056)
Okay, so a lot of times when I talk to LinkedIn people, you see people doing courses, the very first thing is always fix your profile, update your profile, make it stronger. So what are some tips that you would give people that would make a stronger kind of selling?
Lorenzo Johnson (08:52.569)
Yes. Yes.
Lorenzo Johnson (09:01.615)
The biggest tip that I can give you is you need to use, this is just an algorithmic feature of social. The more features that you actually use and execute, the more quote unquote love that they’ll give you. So for example, and know, John, this is a question for you. I’m just curious since we’re talking, do you by chance have like professional mode activated on your LinkedIn profile or do you even know what professional mode is?
John Jantsch (09:20.91)
I do have it activated, yes, yes.
Lorenzo Johnson (09:22.989)
Of course you do. And so you know that once you activated that there’s some really cool things that you were able to do for completely free by simply clicking that button, the ability to post a newsletter, the ability to actually create a microsite landing page that’s right there where you can have case studies, pitch decks, YouTube videos, all of those different types of things, as well as just a few other searching features that you also kind of get access to. it’s really important to make sure you’re leveraging those features because again,
Once algorithms see that, they say, okay, this is a profile that we should continue to start to get love. So that’s absolutely one of the biggest ones that I see people don’t optimize on their profile. You know, everyone has the cover photo, everyone has the profile pic and things like that, but those additional features, making sure you’re about us is properly used. All of those things really matter, but I will say professional dashboard activation is key, is key, is key right now.
John Jantsch (10:16.654)
So one of the things I know, everybody says this, everybody knows this, you know, want to follow people, you want to engage with people, you want to eventually turn those into conversations. I mean, that’s how we sell, right? I don’t see very many people doing that well. You know, they’re trying to get to the end game, you know, as quickly as possible. So, you know, somebody will connect with me and I’ll think, yeah, that seems like a reasonable person to connect. I’ll connect in the very first email or DM that I get is,
Lorenzo Johnson (10:23.951)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Lorenzo Johnson (10:31.578)
Mm-hmm.
Lorenzo Johnson (10:37.125)
Mm-hmm.
John Jantsch (10:45.994)
an attempt to cause conversation, but it’ll be so silly. It’s like, so what are you most excited about in your business this year? And I’m like, stranger on the bus, just ask me that. It’s like, what? But people don’t seem to think that way. It’s like, want to get to that end game as fast as possible. How do you suggest, especially in a selling environment, that you actually create some
Lorenzo Johnson (10:49.071)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Lorenzo Johnson (11:13.295)
Mm-hmm.
John Jantsch (11:15.435)
engagement but make it authentic.
Lorenzo Johnson (11:18.519)
It has to be, and this is something I tell every single person when they start talking about focusing on LinkedIn, if you go into LinkedIn saying that I need business over the next six months, you’re completely playing the wrong game. Your strategy is going to be off. And I can tell you right now, John, you are not going to get any of that business that you’re going to see. And then you’re going to come back and say, LinkedIn, such a terrible business development platform. my God, it’s so bad and things like that. I was just talking to another company and they did an analysis on how long it takes to do what’s called either social selling.
or account-based marketing, ABM. It is currently taking approximately 320 days from the time you start that campaign until the time that new business actually comes into the door. That assumes that for that entire 320 days, John, you did things the right way. You’re providing value-driven content. You’re providing educational type of content. You’re providing those things that make it so that when people are ready to buy,
Not only have you already created the awareness of your product, the why about your product, but it becomes a no brainer why they should at least consider you when they’re going through that process. And so that’s the biggest thing that I tell people is if you’re not prepared, number one, for this to be a long term game, you’re not playing the right game right here. And that’s unfortunate. What we’re seeing, John, is we’re seeing a bunch of people who have seen these automation tools and they’ve been told that, if you, if you send a thousand messages out by percentages, you have to be successful, right?
And unfortunately we’re seeing a lot of that and it just tires people out from people who are doing it the right way. And so unfortunately now going into 2026 value driven content and engagement strategies is going to be even more important than it was this year.
John Jantsch (12:57.55)
So what pieces of that, because I completely agree. mean, it’s obvious when somebody’s just doing cold outreach to you, you you’re a piece of meat at that point, you know, that they’re trying to communicate with. So, but there are places where I think there are some automation tools, some AI that can help the process. What are some of the tools, you know, for example, if you’ve got a post that really is blown up and you’re getting lots of comments and people are engaging with it.
Lorenzo Johnson (13:03.416)
Mm-hmm.
John Jantsch (13:26.314)
Are there ways for you to maybe move those people to another conversation, say an email, or obviously as much thoughtful commenting on their comments has to be done by hand, but are there parts that can actually make that obvious hand work easier and faster?
Lorenzo Johnson (13:36.09)
Yeah.
Lorenzo Johnson (13:44.787)
There is. I’ll tell you two tools that we, again, I can only speak for our agency, things that we’re doing successfully. The first one is actually a tool called Apollo. Apollo is a tool that integrates not only directly into your LinkedIn, it could integrate into your CRM systems. We use HubSpot, for example, why that matters and why we love it. Apollo is simply an integration tool that if, I was on John’s LinkedIn profile right now and I had it pulled up, I could click on the Apollo integration. It would tell me numerous things.
It will tell me number one, your email, contact information, phone number, a lot of that information that you may not put in your LinkedIn profile because of the exact stuff that we just talked about. However, Apollo has the ability to do what’s called scrape all of that type of information, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. We love Apollo. The way that we leverage it is if you we leverage when we reach out and we do corporate pay outreach campaigns, individual outreach campaigns, as soon as you show any form of interest, any form of interest,
We’re immediately putting you into our email system and things like that. The reason I mentioned that tool is because a lot of people don’t have their business emails in LinkedIn anymore because of what we’re talking about right here. Apollo allows you to still get that information. And then of course, as you can imagine, John, if we have that phone number, you bet you’re going to get a phone call that at least says, Hey, we were talking about this. We were chatting about this. Does it make sense for us to have a conversation? So that’s the first tool that I really, really, really enjoy using.
The second tool that we’ve been using, and full transparency, we’re just testing this, but I’m testing it because of something that we started initially in our conversation, and it’s that video seems to be opening up doors on LinkedIn. It’s actually a tool called Weasley. What it actually allows you to do is it actually allows you to create customized video outreach. So as opposed to doing this, hey, John, we’re in the same field type of conversation, it’s a more personalized video. Of course, you can do some customizations.
But the really cool thing it does is it actually will scroll the site and the LinkedIn profile of the person that you’re talking through. So not only can I say why, you know, I’m just calling, but I can say, hey, John, I was actually checking out your LinkedIn profile and look at what I saw. Here’s a post that you did this. I maybe would have done this a little different or here’s something that you did so great. I would lean into this and take it to the next level. And so we really love that because it combines everything we’re talking about video. So you can see my voice. You can hear me.
Lorenzo Johnson (16:04.571)
but it still is value driven. I’m not saying, hey, John, we talked to all of these different people. Do you want to set up a free consultation and things like that? It’s like, hey, look at your LinkedIn. This is what I saw. Look at your Facebook. Look at your website. Here are actionable things that we could potentially talk about if and when it makes sense and go from there. So I would say those are the two tools that we’ve been using this year that we absolutely plan on taking into 2026.
John Jantsch (16:29.23)
So speaking of tools, LinkedIn gets occasionally very nervous about tools that scrape its content. And we’ve all seen tools that get banned. And again, lot of it’s because people are being too aggressive with them, probably. So how do you kind of balance that idea that, I don’t know, are there legitimate ways to scrape? I don’t know if that’s the right term.
Lorenzo Johnson (16:35.235)
It does. It does.
Lorenzo Johnson (16:40.525)
Yeah, of course.
Lorenzo Johnson (16:53.499)
So no, no, no.
John Jantsch (16:55.24)
or if it’s really a matter of like, it’s only a matter of time before LinkedIn says, no, I don’t like
Lorenzo Johnson (17:00.335)
Now, so these tools are basically what are called black, gray, and white hat tools. Basically, all this simply means is that black hat tools are, LinkedIn says, absolutely not. Those are the things where you use them and you get caught. Not only is your profile being banned, it’s going to be hard to kind of get it back. Gray tools, which are the predominant use, like LinkedIn automation tools and things like that, those live in what we call that kind of gray area. They’re technically,
John Jantsch (17:06.648)
Mm-hmm.
Lorenzo Johnson (17:26.349)
not allowed to be used by LinkedIn. However, this year LinkedIn has basically said, as long as you follow these parameters, we’ll allow it to keep going. Biggest thing, for example, is a connection request limit. Moving forward, you can only send 100 connection requests per week unless you’re doing things the right way and stuff like that. As soon as you start to go over that, grey hat tools start to become out of the box. As long as tools are what are called more integrations and not necessarily scrapes,
Typically, LinkedIn is actually OK with that. We’re not seeing too many different things. For example, the tool Weasley that I’ve actually found is actually allowed to be integrated directly into your LinkedIn inbox through LinkedIn itself. It’s not even like a third party tool and things like Apollo that you have to use. So unfortunately, LinkedIn is always going to kind of always keep you in that gray area. Because again, at the end of the day, they don’t want people to come in and use a bunch of automation that ruins the experience.
which is what’s happened, John, over the past 18 months. LinkedIn has been not an ideal experience for C-level execs and hire. You open up your inbox and there’s 50 people a day that are providing zero value whatsoever. But there are tools that will at least allow you to make your life easy that LinkedIn doesn’t. So another one that we use that has never gotten banned is Phantom Buster. Phantom Buster allows you to scrape anything possible that you can think of, emails, contact information, post information. I mean, they have 100,
no exaggeration, probably 15 LinkedIn specific like scraping categories. We use that because again, it counts as an integration. It’s not actually integrating into the profile or anything like that. those would be three tools that we have seen that not had any issues. That’s typically minimum gray, if not in kind of that white hat type of space. And sorry to get so technical on that.
John Jantsch (19:12.026)
No, no, no, I think people need to hear that. What are some, you know, there’s basic measurement on…
Lorenzo Johnson (19:19.439)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
John Jantsch (19:22.144)
engagement, new followers, you know, kind of thing. What are some ways to actually, other than like getting meetings or getting sales, what are some ways to measure your success, if you will, on LinkedIn?
Lorenzo Johnson (19:29.541)
Mm-hmm.
Lorenzo Johnson (19:35.055)
So one of the biggest things I actually am always looking at is I’m looking at views and impressions. That’s typically what’s defining my success. If I can get this in as many eyes as possible, like I’ve already mentioned, John, the conversion stuff will happen as time starts to go on and as you’re doing things appropriately. So I’m typically looking at views and then I’m looking at kind of that engagement rate per views. And then I’m basically saying the same thing we teach people to do. How do I optimize to create content more like that?
or less like that. If I’m seeing that every time I mention or tagging someone, it’s starting to work, well then I’d say, hey, let’s make sure that we’re putting longer form content. Let’s make sure we’re doing more of that. I typically personally am defining it by views and impressions. I want to get as many impressions as LinkedIn is going to allow me every single time.
John Jantsch (20:20.3)
Lorenzo, I appreciate you stopping by and catching us up on LinkedIn. Where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more about the work at Socially In?
Lorenzo Johnson (20:24.186)
Yes, sir.
Lorenzo Johnson (20:28.929)
Absolutely, please jump on to LinkedIn. It’s going to be Lorenzo Johnson. I’m one of the partners here at Socially In. Very excited to connect with you on there. And of course, John, I’ll get you that direct link to a profile. To find out more information about our agency, please just simply go to www.sociallyin.com. You’ll get an idea of not just the services that we provide. We have a wonderful case study section where you get to look at all the work that we’ve done, high quality, creative, and all of that good stuff as well. Look forward to having you all connect with me.
John Jantsch (20:55.982)
Awesome. Well again, appreciate you stopping by and maybe we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.
Lorenzo Johnson (21:02.053)
That sounds like a plan, John. Appreciate you for having me and thanks so much.
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On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Joe Gagnon, co-founder and CEO of Raynmaker, an AI-native sales platform built specifically for small businesses. Joe shares how AI can take over the hardest part of running a small business—consistent, reliable selling—without sacrificing trust or human connection. They discuss AI-powered call handling, 24/7 coverage, better customer conversations, and why this technology may finally give small business owners their lives back.
About the Guest
Joe Gagnon is the co-founder and CEO of Raynmaker, where he’s building the first AI-native sales platform for small business. A longtime technology and customer experience leader, Joe is focused on combining AI, workflow, and human-centered design to help small business owners sell more, work less, and deliver better customer experiences.
Small business owners didn’t start a business to “do sales.” Most want to deliver their craft and end up overwhelmed by lead follow-up, quoting, and closing.
AI-native doesn’t mean “all AI, all the time.” Rainmaker uses AI for the conversational and learning components, but most of the platform is sales workflow and data integration.
Pricing is designed to replace headcount, not add to it. At roughly $500–$1,000/month, it aims to be cheaper than hiring a person to answer phones—while covering 24/7/365.
Trust comes from better answers, not just a human voice. Customers call because they want fast, clear information and reassurance. If AI can deliver that, many callers are satisfied.
AI can improve sales and support together. Customers don’t separate “sales” from “support” when they dial; Rainmaker can handle both flows through the same number.
AI conversations can be brand-tuned. The system can be trained on the owner’s voice, tone, and brand language, and adjusted for accent, gender, and style.
Learning over time is the real superpower. Call transcripts and patterns can surface common objections, effective responses, regional differences, and new opportunities.
“Outbound” can be redefined around customer timing. Instead of cold calls, think call-backs on forms, instant responses when interest is high, and follow-up on the customer’s schedule.
This tech is about giving owners their life back. Less after-hours selling, fewer missed calls, and more predictable revenue.
Great Moments (with Timestamps)
00:21 – Why Reinvent Sales for Small Business? How owners end up trapped doing sales they never wanted to do.
02:21 – What “AI-Native Sales Platform” Really Means Joe explains AI components vs. workflow and why it matters.
03:54 – Leveling the Playing Field for Small Business Giving small firms big-company sales capability at a fraction of the cost.
05:47 – Automation vs. Authenticity Balancing AI automation with trust, empathy, and real answers.
08:11 – When AI Support Actually Feels Better Than Humans Why customers just want fast, relevant help—no matter who (or what) delivers it.
11:15 – Learning from Every Call Using transcripts and models to improve responses and spot patterns over time.
12:32 – Sales Use Cases: Inbound, Scheduling, and Payments How AI can handle the full sales flow, not just FAQs.
14:46 – Will Customers Prefer Talking to AI First? Exploring a future where AI handles Q&A before any human gets involved.
17:31 – First Steps for Overwhelmed Small Business Owners Phased adoption: answering/summary, then scheduling, payments, and full integration.
19:30 – Why This Tech Might Be the “Car After the Horse and Buggy” Framing AI as the next major productivity leap for small businesses.
Insights
“Most small business owners didn’t start their business to sell—they started it to serve. Sales just got in the way.”
“If the AI gives you better, faster answers than a human, the customer doesn’t really care what’s behind the curtain.”
“We’re not trying to manipulate buyers; we’re trying to inform them so they can make better decisions.”
“The dream is: no more answering the phone at midnight, no more selling from the sidelines at your kid’s game.”
“Technology should remove friction and extend your capabilities—not make life more complicated.”
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Joe Gagnon. He is the co-founder and CEO of Raynmaker, where he’s building the first AI native sales platform for small business, combining his interest in technology, leadership and human connection. Today we’re going to talk about how AI is reinventing sales as we know it for small business. So welcome to Show Joe.
Joe Gagnon (00:25.826)
John, thanks for having me on. Love this show that you have.
John Jantsch (00:27.797)
Well, thank you, thank you. So I guess let’s start with what needs to be reinvented. Why are we reinventing sales?
Joe Gagnon (00:36.494)
I’m not sure that particularly we’re inventing sales, but how we actually make sales happen. And, you know, I’ve been selling since I was 16 years old. So I think I learned the essence of the conversation, but more than anything, you know, why is someone looking to buy something and how do we make that happen? And so what happened, you know, as I got inspired over the past year about the Rainmaker idea was small business owners don’t start businesses with the idea that they want to sell people. They want to deliver their service.
Home services, mow the lawn, clean the house, don’t know, walk the dog, whatever it might be. And then they start this business and they sell usually this early adopter, already want their service in their local community. And then they have to find like, oh my God, I gotta buy some leaves and I gotta talk to these people. Then I gotta convert them. Then I gotta turn them into customers. They’re doing this while they may be driving in their pickup truck to the next customer and it just gets harder and harder for them to actually have a life when they…
stepped into this idea of like American my own business make this work and now they’re stuck in the stock at the hardest part, which is the part that we wanted to focus on, is so we’re reinventing in the context of how a small business owner operates their business.
John Jantsch (01:52.437)
Yeah, it’s funny. I talked to many, many business owners of all, you know, every industry you can imagine. And if they’ve been in business for a couple of years, at least they realize now that 50 % of job is selling or getting sales. And as you said, a lot of them just want to swing a hammer. And so it really does make it tough. We use the phrase and I think this is straight out of your bio, AI native sales platform. What does that mean? I guess, and maybe describe it in the context of Marine Bank.
Joe Gagnon (02:02.924)
Yes.
Joe Gagnon (02:07.939)
Yes.
Joe Gagnon (02:15.518)
Mmm.
Joe Gagnon (02:21.824)
man, it’s like a good question. like, hasn’t AI sort of been around for 30 years, right? mean, you know, MIT and Marvin Minsky and the rest of the boys up there.
John Jantsch (02:30.559)
Well, just even our driving directions, things like that people don’t realize have been very powered by AI. We’ve been using that for a decade.
Joe Gagnon (02:35.542)
Yes. So the models that underlie the idea have been around for a long time. We’ve evolved to this thing called the large language model, which is giving more access to sort of regular people in terms of this token-based conversational creation in real time. So AI native for us is the parts of the workflow where we want to leverage AI
algorithms and technology, but the whole system itself, mean, we probably use 30 % is this AI part, 70 % is a workflow. It’s a sales workflow, it’s a data integration problem. But in the part of the conversational dialogue, yeah, there’s native AI where we’re going back and forth between our own LLM as everyone would call it or what an open AI might look like. But we’re also using
broader context of AI to mean machine learning as well. So the ability to leverage mathematical models to look for insights, to be able to bring out derivative perspectives that you wouldn’t have been able to do with just a normal database. So that’s the AI native part of what we’re doing.
John Jantsch (03:54.517)
So a lot of small business owners don’t have the budget or just don’t really have the wherewithal to put together an operations team, BDRs, closers, whatever all the roles would be. But in a lot of ways, is this leveling the playing field a little bit for that smaller company?
Joe Gagnon (03:57.902)
you
Joe Gagnon (04:10.99)
That’s the hope. know, there’s a language that everyone started using, which is like democratize capability, access to systems and all of that. I think that the fundamental thesis that we took to this was actually literally to say, what would the small business owner need and what could they invest to make this kind of transformation happen? Because actually, if this works, I think we give them their life back. They’re not sitting at the soccer game with their phone connected to their ear. They’re not driving and texting in their pickup truck or whatever vehicle they might have.
John Jantsch (04:16.053)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (04:39.977)
Yeah.
Joe Gagnon (04:40.174)
that our price point, you know, on the low end, it’s $500 a month, on the high end, it’s $1,000 a month. This is less than hiring a person to answer the phones. We can cover you 24 by 7 by 365, learning off of your dialogue, your brand, your voice, and leveraging our sales expertise, our workflow, our database, and the combination of which should allow that business owner to grow as much as they want.
They don’t have to look. mean, some business owners have told me in the past, look, I don’t want more business than I have today, but I just want it to be predictable. I don’t want the ups and downs. I’m spending so much money on leads. I don’t even know what I’m buying. And so we’re trying to get this to where that American dream is not so daunting. And actually that I mean, look at John, I can’t believe how many people want to start their own business. What are they thinking? But maybe we could actually make that
know, emotional journey better and turn it into something that doesn’t dominate their life.
John Jantsch (05:47.113)
One of the, I think, fastest ways to erode trust in marketing is when things feel very automated, very inauthentic. We all get the AI spam now. How do you kind of balance that? Automation’s great when it reduces friction. It’s bad when it kills relationships.
Joe Gagnon (05:57.624)
Yeah.
Joe Gagnon (06:09.538)
I think it’s a great question and there’s a balancing act that we’re going to have to play over the next year. I think if we were a year from now, we’d be really hard pressed to find the difference between a voice generated by AI or a person’s voice. So we’re not far away from that. Our thesis is this, the consumer is making a phone call because they want more information and because the website didn’t provide it, the product didn’t provide it, or they just have some emotional support that they want. And so,
To the degree that we can give them better, even if it is a little bit robotic, or you can notice it’s an AI, but if they can give you what you need, like, think about this example, you know, we have a lot of pest control customers, someone’s gonna spray for mosquitoes in the backyard, and the parents, and gosh, I got kids and a dog, I’m wondering, is this safe? They just wanna ask that question. They would probably love to get the owner, but it’s unlikely.
So what if someone sounds enough like the owner and knows it enough to be relatable and answer the question effectively, not just in a marketing way, the depth of, hey, this is organic. Here’s how to think about it. Here’s what we’ve heard from other customers. Here’s things to consider. And so I keep believing that what the consumer is looking for is just more better information when they need it. And this is the starting point. Now,
Probably everyone won’t adopt this within a year because they will be skeptical. And as they experience it more and more, it’ll get better. Look, I’ve run call center businesses in the past. What I’ve heard more than anything is I don’t want to talk to people who, well, I can’t even talk to them because you have an IVR. Number two, when I talk to them, they don’t know anything. Number three, I can barely understand them, right? That’s the experience to date. We think we can leapfrog over that by bringing this brand context.
and a voice that we can understand that’s available whenever we want. Because imagine midnight on a Saturday, you just want to ask that question like you can’t do that today.
John Jantsch (08:11.069)
I would totally agree with you. I don’t think we care what the technology is as long as we get what we want. And I have interacted, I’m sure we all have, with customer support bots now that are there in every software. And when they’re just maddening, it’s a terrible experience. But I’ve also got a couple of software platforms I interact with a lot, and I get the answers I want.
Joe Gagnon (08:18.03)
Mm.
John Jantsch (08:40.661)
And to me, then I’m like, I don’t need to talk to somebody in support because I got what I wanted.
Joe Gagnon (08:48.14)
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting also, like what we see the integration of sales and support coming together. Like the customer doesn’t think about those differently. And often they call the sales line because they’ll answer and they ask the support. So.
John Jantsch (08:59.689)
Yeah, right. You might spend money with us. Of course we’re going to answer.
Joe Gagnon (09:05.006)
Yeah, so we want to like say, hey, it doesn’t matter. Call the same phone number and bring your sales opportunity or your complaint. I think about this, even in the non-small business area, we’ve been talking to some pizza chains. Like you order your pizza, it’s great. Hey, it came with no pepperoni. I want to call back the same number and get it resolved rather than send an email or try to call the store. We can get that resolved. I think the integration from John, I’ve been working on customer stuff for 30 years.
I think it’s the first time we might be able to, for the first time, really delight a customer because we’re going to work and live the way they do, not the way my business says, I can’t answer the phone now. It’s too expensive to do this. I’m to put technology in the way because it’s just too expensive. We’re going to try and normalize the expense of this and the experience so that it becomes magical. we’re going to, you’ll see on our website soon, we’re going to put up numbers people can call and try.
and see what it sounds like. And they’ll experience it and they’ll be like, well, maybe this is what the future could be like. Because imagine if it is.
John Jantsch (10:11.081)
I tell you a couple of markets I’d like you to target credit card companies and airlines. Could you get them on board?
Joe Gagnon (10:18.882)
You know, my God, I fly a lot and I sort of wonder, you but you know this, like it’s the same as your cable company. I call them up and try and get something like you can’t, you can’t even figure it out. I think this is one of the areas where AI will advance the ball. And because this is under the owner control, it doesn’t have to turn into a marketing vehicle.
They don’t really care about that. They just want predictability and they want their life back. And if we can deliver that for them, you know, this one feels like probably one of the most sort of beneficial systems I could have worked on.
John Jantsch (10:59.913)
Yeah, well, and you’re absolutely right. Those IVR systems from the past, I they basically had a tree of options. If you didn’t fit into one of those options, you were kind of out of luck. Whereas AI can essentially have infinite options for what you’re after.
Joe Gagnon (11:15.406)
Yeah. And I think the other thing is that we learn as we go. So you get all these transcripts, you start to see a pattern. So imagine someone had 50 locations. Well, they never saw the data pattern across all of that. In the future, we can run this into our large language model and ask questions like what worked, what didn’t work, where the objections, how do we handle objections in the future? How could we nurture this customer better? We can learn.
John Jantsch (11:22.644)
Yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (11:42.655)
Well, or even more, like, in this part of town, they care about this. In this part of town, they care about that. And it’s like personalized to the store level.
Joe Gagnon (11:49.034)
yes!
Yeah, we have found one thing that we thought people would like personalized, and then they changed their mind. So regional accents, for example. So we had a customer who said, we would love a Southern accent. And we put it in there like, no, we actually didn’t really want that. That was too much. So they said, how about that Midwestern one? Female versus male. But we can regionalize, and we can make it feel to the brand more than you could.
We know this, we would love to be able to hire people and have them be experts day one and have them get better all the time. Sadly, that doesn’t happen, but we can do that actually with AI.
John Jantsch (12:32.636)
So talk about some very specific use cases that a small business owner, I mean, are people using this for outbound or is this all really kind of inbound customer service support?
Joe Gagnon (12:39.533)
Hmm.
Joe Gagnon (12:45.312)
Yeah, so this is a good question because we’re going to reframe this idea of outbound. Like why does outbound happen? Outbound is typically a sales process, right? But that’s because the customer can’t talk to you when they want to talk to you. So we’re going to redefine outbound in the following way. If you come and fill out a form, you should be able to talk to someone at that point. You should be able to schedule when you want to hear from someone. You should not be throwing your name out into the ether hoping that someday someone actually gets back to you.
When they inbound or this outbound, you never answer who wants to answer from what call might even look like spam. So one, we want to make it work to the prospect or this potential customer’s timeframe and interest level. This is starting first as a sales platform, which is someone has demonstrated some interest. Maybe they got a Google lead or they got a web form filled out or something to that effect. And they want to reach out to us.
When they call the company phone number, it would ring into our AI and the AI would have that dialogue with the person. They’d go through the conversation, hopefully overcome any objections. And then they’d say, would you like to go forward with the sale? If they say yes, then we do auto scheduling into a calendar. We take payment and then we summarize that data for the owner and update the CRM system. So that’s the first use case really is sales inbound.
John Jantsch (14:17.34)
So do you think that one of the things we’ve really witnessed over the last few years is people are going, because they can, farther down the journey before they ever pick up a phone or contact their business. So much research we can do. A lot of people are putting pricing or least calculators on it so that somebody can actually almost be ready to buy before they even raise their hand. Do you see, and I think a lot of that has to do with you start to talk about, people don’t want to talk to a salesperson. They don’t want to be sold. It’s a hassle.
Joe Gagnon (14:38.915)
Yes.
John Jantsch (14:46.015)
to like schedule an appointment and then meet it. So do you see this actually becoming a tool that people will say, I’ll talk to the AI bot before a human, because I can get the information and I don’t feel like the AI bot’s not gonna pressure me to do something.
Joe Gagnon (15:03.638)
Yeah, you know, so that’s a great question, John. So when we started the company, the first thing I did was write our manifesto, you know, what do we believe in? But the second thing that I wrote was our brain maker constitution. And that constitution is a set of responsibilities we want to uphold, which is we are here to inform the customer on behalf of the owner. We’re not here to manipulate. We want to make them make a better decision. We believe that when they do, they’ll buy more. And so
We actually want the AI to be more about informing. And if it gets the person to the place where they want to buy, they should be able to do that easily. But it’s OK if they use it as a place to get knowledge and to learn about the brand and about the products. It is not meant to manipulate and try all of those sales tactics that a person would do. And we can actually program it that way. That’s why we wrote the Constitution.
John Jantsch (15:52.684)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I’m getting at is, mean, imagine doing like a webinar or something. And then typically the CTA is like, know, schedule with one of our advisors, right? Well, now imagine if you say schedule with our AI, it’ll answer all your questions. You won’t have to know anything or do anything. It’s not going to try to sell you anything. It’ll just answer your questions. And then if you want to move forward, you can schedule as a human. Do you see a day where that exists?
Joe Gagnon (15:58.414)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah, yes.
Joe Gagnon (16:18.542)
I think the first part for sure, but I don’t know that you’ll ever need to talk to the human because this should be as good, but we can do the two-step process. And look, I think it’s up to the owner. If they want to provide information and we want to provide information on their behalf. The reason they might not do it now is they’re like, well, every time I talk to you, I should close you. It costs me more to talk to you another time. But the way we sell our platform, it doesn’t matter if we talk to you one, three or five times. We’re there to help that person make a decision.
John Jantsch (16:23.285)
You
Yeah.
Joe Gagnon (16:47.842)
This comes back to my sales experience. My most effective selling has always been when I have a more informed consumer or buyer. They buy better. it’s when a salesperson, that’s right, but when a salesperson tries to manipulate, you often don’t get to the outcomes you want. So we’re really rethinking this entire buying relationship with this process.
John Jantsch (16:58.242)
price goes down the list a lot of things.
John Jantsch (17:13.705)
Yeah, interesting. So if a small business owners listen to this and they’re like, this is all overwhelming. I don’t, you know, I know I need to get into this, but like how, what are some of the first steps that they need? And some of them are going to be mindset, right? Before technology maybe.
Joe Gagnon (17:24.494)
Yeah.
Joe Gagnon (17:31.085)
Yeah.
Yeah, I wouldn’t, this is like a funny way to say, but you know, we have three versions of our platform. The first is the anytime agent that’ll just actually do the answering for you 24 by seven or off hours or weekend, but just take the call and summarize it for you. It’s a way to say, I wonder how my customers interact. Then we can move into scheduling or payment and then on the full way to the full blown solution with integration and so on.
So part of it is maybe you need to explore what it would be like. The second is, you know, to listen in and hear what calls are like and get an experience and say, wow, maybe that’s not so bad. I think the third thing is to start to look at, you know, what the constraints are that you’re going to have into your growth plan. Do you want to make a commitment to hiring people? Do you want to spend that additional capital?
or would you like to put in a learning system? And so I do think that it’s a bit of a step back to say, how do I want to run the business going forward? Do I have the capability or do I want to get back to the reason why I started this? So yeah, it is a bit of soul searching, but at the end of the day, I think if you go back to why you start a small business, it’s because you want to get the product that you believe in in the hands of a lot of people.
and the sales part gets in the way. And I’ve never met a small business owner who says, the reason I want to start the business is because I want to sell. And so I think that it’ll become more normal. we’ve been going to a lot of trade shows. We do presentations. We have a booth. People are just like, are going beyond just curious now. They’re like, I really should be considering this, shouldn’t I? Now in every technology adoption curve, got
Joe Gagnon (19:17.964)
early adopters, early majority, late majority laggards. There’s some people who will never do this. And amen, that’s fine. But if you want this to work the way you want, then it’s probably worth looking at.
John Jantsch (19:30.438)
Yeah, I mean, I’ve been doing this long enough that there were people that swore they would never ever have a website. you know, we come a long way, don’t we? So, Joe, I appreciate you stopping by and introducing us to the tool. Where would you invite people to find out more, connect with you?
Joe Gagnon (19:36.204)
Right. Exactly, right.
Joe Gagnon (19:51.468)
Yeah, you know, Rainmaker with a Y, R-A-Y-N-M-A-K-E-R dot A-I. That’s our website. Now I’m on LinkedIn, Joe Gagnon. You can always check me out there. I have some fun things that I’ve done in my life that’ll tell you a little bit why I started this and what I believe in. And, you know, appreciate, John, you having us on. We really are committed to
sort of democratizing this capability at a price point that makes it easy for a small business owner so that they can sort of, you know, lean into this American dream and, you know, perform maybe better than they ever thought was possible. That’s what the idea behind technology is, right? This isn’t supposed to make it hard or scary, just make it better. And let’s, we’re going to hold ourselves to that.
John Jantsch (20:37.621)
Yeah, I’m 100 % on board with technology that removes friction, that allows me to do something the way I want to do. I’m all for it. And I think it frees us up to do the human parts that technology will hopefully never be able to do.
Joe Gagnon (20:54.188)
Yeah, I, yeah, well, boy, I’m sure we could have a whole nother podcast on this, but you know, I don’t believe that there’s some big bad AI in the future. You know, we are going to use this to our productive benefit. We’re early, right? We’re still early in this journey. There’s a lot of noise around it, but as we bring out applications like we’re working on, I think people are going to start to say, wow, this actually can be very productive for us. So we’re excited about that.
John Jantsch (20:55.317)
You
John Jantsch (21:12.201)
Yep.
John Jantsch (21:22.67)
Yeah, and I think also, just like all technologies, the more people experience it and have a good experience, there would be less resistance, because they’re like, OK, that change wasn’t so hard. That’s right.
Joe Gagnon (21:28.184)
Hmm.
Joe Gagnon (21:34.446)
That’s right. We’ve lived through many of them, right, John? mean, everyone knows those back and says that, you know, we weren’t going to leave the horse and buggy and came to a car and now we can’t live without it. I do think this one is really fascinating because it extends us maybe another order of magnitude than we could have otherwise. And we’re so committed on this price point because
you know, in small business, we understand that these are tight margins and, you know, we want to make this very accessible to people. And, you know, there’s 30 million small businesses in the U.S., probably 10 million who could be in our target profile. We could get hundreds of thousands doing this, then wow, we’d all do better because it’s the lifeblood of the economy really at end of the day.
John Jantsch (22:12.905)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (22:21.267)
Yep. Well again, appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and hopefully we’ll run into you on these days out there on the road,
Joe Gagnon (22:28.664)
Thanks, John. Appreciate it.
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Adobe Express stands out as a versatile tool for editing MP4 videos, thanks to its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that caters to users of all skill levels.
You can easily access a wide range of customizable templates and stock assets, enhancing your creative possibilities for various video projects. The platform allows for high-quality 4K video downloads without watermarks on its generous free plan, making it suitable for both personal and professional use.
With features like audio narration, background music options, and file conversion capabilities, Adobe Express offers a thorough editing experience.
In addition, it’s compatible with all major browsers, so you can edit videos directly online without needing to install any software, streamlining your workflow effectively.
Kapwing
Kapwing is another robust online video editor that simplifies the process of editing MP4 videos without requiring any software installation. Accessible from any internet-connected device, it offers various features to improve your editing experience.
Here’s what you can do with Kapwing:
Crop and trim your videos to focus on the crucial parts.
Add subtitles easily, making your content more accessible.
Apply keyframe animations for creative video flexibility.
Collaborate with others by allowing multiple users to work on the same project simultaneously.
You can export videos in HD quality without watermarks on the free plan, even though file size and project length have limitations.
Kapwing likewise integrates tools for creating memes and social media content, ideal for quick, engaging video production.
Veed
If you’re looking for a versatile online video editing platform, Veed stands out due to its user-friendly design and sturdy features.
It offers a multitrack timeline, making it comparable to traditional desktop video editing software. You’ll find strong tools like pre-designed templates, automatic subtitles, and AI audio cleanup features that greatly improve your editing experience.
As free users can export videos in 720p resolution, note that these exports will include a watermark. Paid plans allow higher quality exports without watermarks.
Furthermore, Veed supports various effect filters, enabling you to add creative touches to your videos easily.
With its optimized design, both novice and experienced editors can edit seamlessly in a web browser without needing to install software locally.
FlexClip
When you need an online video editing tool that balances usability and functionality, FlexClip is worth considering. It offers a user-friendly interface that’s perfect for both beginners and experienced editors.
Here are some key features you’ll appreciate:
Intuitive Modes: Use timeline and storyboard modes for easy project creation.
AI Tools: Improve your videos with text-to-speech and image stylization features.
Templates and Assets: Access a wide variety of templates and stock assets to speed up the editing process.
Basic Editing Features: Trim, split, and merge clips without needing complex software installations.
Although the free account limits video length to 10 minutes and resolution to 720p, it’s ideal for quick edits and small projects.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Best Free MP4 Editor?
The best free MP4 editor can depend on your needs, but several options stand out.
Clipchamp offers unlimited 1080p exports, perfect for social media.
Veed provides user-friendly tools with automatic subtitles, even though it delivers watermarked outputs.
Adobe Express stands out with its templates and 100GB cloud storage.
Canva is great for promotional videos, whereas FlexClip focuses on marketing, though with limitations on resolution and length.
Evaluate these to find what suits you best.
How to Edit MP4 Video Online for Free?
To edit MP4 videos online for free, start by choosing a reliable platform, like Clipchamp or Veed.
After uploading your video, you can trim, join clips, and add changes easily.
Explore additional features like effects and stock footage to improve your project.
Most editors allow exporting in 720p or 1080p, ensuring good quality.
Don’t forget to check out tutorials on these sites to help you navigate their tools effectively.
What Is the Best Free Video Editing Tool Online?
The best free online video editing tool depends on your specific needs.
If you want user-friendly features and templates, Adobe Express is outstanding. For advanced capabilities, consider Veed, though it has watermark restrictions.
Clipchamp offers AI tools for improved editing, whereas Canva shines at promotional videos. If you need quick edits without software installation, Kapwing is a solid choice.
Evaluate these options based on your editing requirements to find the best fit for you.
How Do I Edit an MP4 Video?
To edit an MP4 video, start by selecting a free online editing tool that supports MP4 format.
You’ll typically upload your video, then use features like trimming, splitting, or adding text and changes. Many tools allow you to improve your video with stock footage or effects.
Once you’re satisfied with your edits, you can export the final product, keeping in mind that free versions may have limitations on quality or duration.
Conclusion
In conclusion, each of these five free online tools—Clipchamp, Adobe Express, Kapwing, Veed, and FlexClip—offers unique features customized to different editing needs. Whether you prioritize user-friendliness, collaboration, or advanced editing capabilities, there’s an option for you. By exploring these platforms, you can efficiently edit MP4 videos without the need for costly software. Choose the tool that best fits your requirements and start creating high-quality videos easily and effectively.
Charlie Berger, Eric Foster and Brad Lincoln aren’t naive about the headwinds facing the craft beer industry. As the founders of Denver Beer Co., Stem Ciders and Funkwerks, respectively, they’ve been in the business long enough to have witnessed its heyday circa 2015, when increasingly thirsty Americans fed double-digit growth for companies like theirs.
But Berger, Foster, and Lincoln don’t see these challenges as insurmountable. Instead, they believe this new era calls for a new way of thinking and, importantly, a new business model.
In January 2025, the three longtime friends combined their respective operations under one entity, called Wilding Brands, with the ultimate goal of keeping the spirit of independent craft breweries alive. Joining forces felt like a natural step, they said, as each company sought to adapt in the current market. They have since purchased three other major Colorado breweries, the most recent of which, Boulder’s Upslope Brewing Co., was the largest.
“We’re looking forward at the industry and how we can best continue to innovate and continue to grow and continue to produce in a profitable manner going forward,” said Foster, who serves as Wilding’s CEO.
“We realized that we could do some stuff together that we probably could not do individually,” said Berger, the company’s chief development officer.
While most of the country’s 9,000-plus breweries operate independently, partnerships are becoming more common as businesses seek to share costs on materials and real estate, maximize their production capacity, and strengthen their distribution channels, said Matt Gacioch, staff economist at the Boulder-based Brewers Association.
“Especially now, a lot of breweries that started in the mid-2010s are at this point and, over the past five years, have been at the point of lease renewal. So they’re seeing their costs associated with the properties going up substantially,” he said. “On the materials side, a lot of that has been going up while the overall economy has seen significant inflation. Certainly, brewers haven’t been immune to that.”
Options for every kind of drinker
As one of the leaders in the craft beer movement, Colorado’s scene has seen perhaps more than its fair share of collaborations in recent years.
For example, 4 Noses Brewing Co. in Broomfield was contract-brewing for hazy IPA pioneer Odd13 before buying the company in 2021. In 2023, Westbound & Down Brewing Co., which started in Idaho Springs, expanded its footprint further into the mountains by purchasing two taprooms in Aspen and Basalt. And last April, legacy beer makers Left Hand Brewing Co. in Longmont and Dry Dock Brewing Co. in Aurora merged to become a single company and pool resources.
Wilding Brands offices out of Acreage at Stem Ciders in Lafayette. The company's portfolio currently includes five breweries, one cidery, three packaged beverages, two restaurants and one special events space.(Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
What makes Wilding Brands unique, however, is the rate and scope of its growth strategy, which aims to reach consumers with a wide variety of products and places to drink. In its first year, the company merged its three founding brands, made several high-profile acquisitions, and built a new brewery in Arizona from the ground up.
The company started with Denver Beer Co.’s lineup of easy-drinking American beer styles, Funkwerks’ niche in Belgian-style beers and Stem’s ciders, which appeal to gluten-free and non-beer drinkers. Add in Howdy Beer, a pilsner that Stem Ciders purchased in 2022, and Wilding had a little something to offer everyone.
“The initial platform came together really quickly just because of synergies that exist kind of on the back end and production side, but also because the brands stand alone and differentiate themselves well,” Foster said.
Beer production for all three breweries now takes place at Wilding’s so-called “Canworks” facility in the Sunnyside neighborhood, which started as a Denver Beer Co. brewery in 2014. That’s also where the company brews Funkwerks’ recipes and packages brands Howdy Beer, ¡Venga! and Easy Living Hop Water. Two of Denver Beer Co.’s taprooms still make small batches and specialty recipes onsite, but Wilding didn’t purchase Great Divide’s two Denver taprooms (which are now closed), however, or Upslope’s two Boulder locations (which will remain open). So, those locations no longer brew beer. Station 26 no longer brews its own beer either.
But Wilding did keep Station 26’s taproom with plans to maintain the vibe that has drawn a passionate well of drinkers to the Park Hill watering hole for 12 years, said Corey Dickinson, vice president of marketing. “They have a fantastic, loyal following and so it gives us an ability to continue to engage with that part of town even at local level.”
Acreage at Stem Ciders production floor in Lafayette, Colorado on Monday, Aug., 25, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Going forward, however, Wilding has signaled it won’t rely strictly on traditional brewery and tasting room models. In November, Funkwerks closed its taproom after 15 years in Fort Collins. And Cervecería Colorado, a subsidiary of Denver Beer Co., has been reduced to a single packaged brand, ¡Venga! Mexican lager. Meanwhile, its taproom in Denver has been reimagined as a pop-up space called The Outpost on Platte, which opens solely for special events.
As for Great Divide, it boasts four full-service restaurants in Denver’s River North Arts District, Lakewood, Castle Rock and Lone Tree where the bars serve staple beers like Yeti imperial stout, as well as Stem Ciders, Funkwerks beers, cocktails and wine. Those spots — which are owned and operated by a company called Vibe Concepts, which licenses the branding — serve as opportunities to showcase Wilding’s broader selection of beverages while simultaneously creating a different kind of hospitality experience, Foster said.
“We don’t really want to make every taproom a Wilding Brands taproom. That just doesn’t make sense with how these brands have served the community over the years,” he said. For example, it’s unlikely that Denver Beer Co.’s five brick-and-mortar locations in the Mile High City, Littleton and Arvada would ever sell Great Divide beer.
“But we do look for opportunities where we can cross and where we can represent multiple brands in one location,” Foster added.
Acreage at Stem Ciders production floor in Lafayette, Colorado on Monday, Aug., 25, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
That’s true at Wilding’s two restaurants in Lafayette, Acreage and Ghost Box Pizza. Acreage, which is also the cider production facility, opened in 2018 with a massive patio and mountain views that encourage guests to stay, dine and drink awhile. Ghost Box Pizza, a concept born out of the pandemic, specializes in Detroit-style pies and has a more modest footprint that includes a dining room and arcade. Both feature a robust selection of Wilding products to drink – a model the company expects to replicate going forward.
“Beer bars-slash-restaurants that focus on all of the portfolio – we like that,” Foster said.
Beyond Colorado, Wilding moved to grow its regional presence with an original concept in Phoenix called Formation Brewing. The brewery, opened in September, brews beer onsite to pair with burgers, sandwiches and other pub fare. The bar menu also goes beyond house-made beers to include – you guessed it – Stem Ciders, Howdy Beer and Easy Living Hop Water.
“By really focusing and investing behind these brands, we can create something that hasn’t existed before in the craft bev marketplace,” Berger said. “It’s cool solutions for our accounts. It’s opportunities for employees. And we think we can do a lot with what we have, right now.”
One such opportunity came by way of Planet Bluegrass, the Lyons-based production company that throws the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, RockyGrass Festival and Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, among other events. Vice President Zach Tucker said Planet Bluegrass previously worked with Stem as a beverage provider and enlisted Wilding to stock the bars with beer, cider, seltzer and more at its 2025 and 2026 events.
“They cover most of our drink offerings with beer/seltzer/cider/NA,” Tucker said by email. “Our festivarians were very receptive to all their offerings, including their non-alcoholic options this year. We are excited to work with them again as they are great teammates in putting the events together, our companies align in our sustainability efforts, we love that they are local to Colorado, and we both believe in the value of bringing people together around shared experiences.”
This kind of partnership would be difficult to pull off for just one brewery, Dickinson said. “But by coming together, we have access to not only more resources but we have a better opportunity to provide a better experience at an event like that – where we can say, ‘here’s a selection of amazing products coming from one place’ but (it) gives the consumer better choice.”
Unsurprisingly, the Wilding team plans to introduce new products to meet evolving consumer tastes. Stem recently released its first non-alcoholic cider in hopes of catching Dry January buzz.
Acreage at Stem Ciders production floor in Lafayette, Colorado on Monday, Aug., 25, 2025. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Are craft conglomerates different?
With its recent flurry of deals, Wilding has brought mergers and acquisitions back into the beer industry spotlight. A decade ago, it was commonplace to hear about conglomerates like Anheuser Busch-InBev and Molson Coors purchasing craft breweries to tap into market share, but as consumer tastes have changed, some of those companies are reversing course.
Just last year, Molson Coors sold its craft portfolio and discontinued its experimental arm, AC Golden Brewing Co., effectively exiting the craft market to invest in more lucrative endeavors. AB InBev, meanwhile, unloaded Breckenridge Brewery and other formerly independent beer makers that it had purchased.
Foster maintains that Wilding Brands is inherently different from players in the previous era of M&A. “We really are a founder-led craft beer platform,” he said — one that has quietly become one of the Centennial State’s largest alcoholic beverage producers.
Lincoln said its current annual output exceeds 80,000 barrels, making Wilding now Colorado’s third-largest craft brewer, behind only Odell Brewing Co. and Monster Brewing Co., according to the Brewers Association — and that’s before you add in the 7,200 barrels of cider it is on track to make in 2025.
“As you look at what craft was versus what craft is today, it’s a completely different environment with completely different scales of budgets and available capital to do some of these things,” Foster said. “So clearly as we come together and form a larger entity, we’re stronger in that regard. We have a better balance sheet, we have bigger budgets to do some of these things and better compete with the now-macro-back-to-craft companies out there.”
Gacioch at the Brewers Association, too, thinks these types of partnerships will bolster the industry because the craft ethos remains core to the business. The teams selling the beer understand the market and vernacular, for one, and aren’t also promoting the country’s most popular light lagers, he said.
“These are reasons to think this kind of consolidation we’re seeing recently is going to raise all boats, whereas the M&A that we saw maybe 10 years ago was more of ‘purchase this, see how it goes and stick with it or divest.’ It wasn’t central to the success of the acquiring business itself,” Gacioch said.
With all that transpired over the last year, Wilding Brands is taking time to integrate the companies and teams that it brought together, Berger said. The company employs more than 400 people who used to be competitors and now need to leverage their experience toward a common vision.
But one thing is for sure, Wilding isn’t done yet. “The phone is ringing,” Berger said.
Telluride Ski Resort is scheduled to open this Saturday — a week later than originally planned — after winter storms dropped much-needed snow on the mountains in southwestern Colorado.
The resort announced Monday it would open one lift with access to limited terrain and continue snow making operations, as temperatures permit, “with the goal of opening additional terrain as quickly and safely as possible.”
The weather, however, wasn’t the only reason locals recently speculated that the ski season might further be delayed.
Since June, the resort’s ownership has been negotiating a new contract with its ski patrollers union, the Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association. In recent weeks, those negotiations have turned contentious with the union voting to authorize a strike and subsequently staging a practice picket in downtown Telluride.
The main sticking point throughout bargaining has been compensation, union president Graham Hoffman told The Denver Post. Ski patrollers perform a variety of functions on the mountain, from assisting skiers who need medical help to avalanche mitigation and maintenance and more. So far this winter, they have been preparing the resort to host guests by assessing the safety of the conditions and packing snow across the mountain.
Given the technical skills required for the job, the union is seeking to secure at least $30 an hour base pay for its 70-plus members. Hoffman said there are currently ways for patrollers to do additional training and move up the pay scale to earn more per hour, but that most still don’t reach the union’s desired threshold.
“We’re trying to get everyone closer to $30 and over $30, and lay out a roadmap that will help with the retention of this patrol,” he said.
Telluride Ski Resort defended its current wage offer in a statement sent to The Denver Post and accused the patrollers’ union of bargaining in bad faith. Both parties have repeatedly cited what they believe is considered a living wage in their area – one of Colorado’s most expensive places to live – with a disparity of about $10 per hour.
Ski patrol unions garnered a lot of attention during the previous ski season when patrollers at Vail Resorts-owned Park City Mountain Resort in Utah held a 13-day strike before Vail agreed to a deal. Unions at resorts in Colorado, including Keystone, Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin also made news.
While the Telluride union has not yet announced a strike, Hoffman said patrollers are in an “increasingly uncomfortable” position. Christmas and New Year’s Eve are the busiest times of the season at Telluride Ski Resort and it remains unclear exactly how operations would be impacted should the patrollers initiate a work stoppage.
“We don’t want to go down this road,” Hoffman said. ” We know what this is going to do to the community and we love this community, this is our community. And we love this mountain, we want to keep going to work.”
The resort and the union have two more bargaining sessions scheduled for this Friday and Saturday.
Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter by GTMnow – read by 50,000+ to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow shares insight around the go-to-market strategies responsible for explosive company growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind these strategies and companies.
When you look at the major software companies, Rob Giglio has been instrumental in building the go-to-market engines for most of them. He led at Adobe (during its pivotal shift to the cloud), DocuSign (during its explosive PLG growth), HubSpot, and now Canva, where he’s the Chief Customer Officer (including sales and success).
When we find someone with a track record like this of scaling companies, we dig in to uncover their foundational principles. After listening to Rob deconstruct his how he grew these companies, we’ve distilled three key lessons.
Lesson 1: Apply CPG discipline to de-risk your GTM
Lesson 2: Build a loyalty engine, not a sales funnel
Lesson 3: It’s all about humans, so focus on substance and simplicity
Below, we dive into each lesson. This is the first part of a new series on lessons from some of the top 1% leaders in B2B SaaS.
Lesson 1: Apply CPG discipline to de-risk your GTM
This lesson comes from Rob’s time in consumer packaged goods (CPG), where a marketing mistake is physically and financially costly. If you print the wrong label on a million cans of soup, you can’t just push a quick fix. This taught him that “it’s expensive to be wrong, so you better be thoughtful.”
While software allows for more iteration, Rob argues that B2B teams are often too reliant on gut feelings and skip the upfront rigor that de-risks a launch. His advice is to adopt two powerful tactics from the CPG world.
1. Master concept testing.
Before building anything, CPG companies create mockups of a new product, complete with packaging and pricing and test them with target consumers. This simple step validates demand and messaging before millions are spent on development and manufacturing.
Both product and message testing are key for implementing this lessons. Solutions like Wynter are helpful for getting messaging in front of your ICP quickly.
2. Win valuable segments, not the entire market
Rob uses a brilliant beer analogy: “Almost no beer manufacturer says to themselves, ‘I need to own the entire market of beer.’ They pay attention to segments.” They own ‘beach beer’ or ‘football beer’. Software companies, in contrast, often try to be everything to everyone, which leads to generic messaging that doesn’t resonate deeply with anyone.
Instead of defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) by firmographics alone (e.g. 500-1,000 employees in fintech), define a behavioral or psychographic segment. Who are you really building for? Is it the “compliance-first IT leader” or the “fast-moving marketing team”? Choosing a specific segment clarifies your product roadmap and makes your marketing infinitely more potent.
Lesson 2: Build a loyalty engine, not a sales funnel
Many revenue teams are obsessed with the ‘close,’ viewing the sales transaction as the finish line. Rob believes this is a critical error. The ultimate goal is not the sale, it’s loyalty.
“Ultimately as a revenue leader… you’re not really looking for the sale. You’re really looking for loyalty. The ultimate end of journey is loyalty.”
This framework changes how you design your entire customer experience. At a former company, an intern who noticed it was incredibly difficult to sign up but took only a single click to cancel. They were inadvertently optimizing for churn.
A loyalty-driven model flips this. It removes all friction from onboarding and adds thoughtful friction to offboarding, not to trap users, but to remind them of the value they’re leaving behind.
At Canva, this is built into their GTM. Their customer journey framework doesn’t end at purchase, it extends all the way to loyalty.
Here’s an example a Canva’s cancellation modal:
A simplified version of Canva’s Loyalty Journey:
The key insight is that purchase is just a midpoint. The real work is driving adoption and growth to earn advocacy, which in turn fuels the top of your funnel.
Lesson 3: It’s all about humans, so focus on substance and simplicity
When asked for the single biggest mistake people make in B2B marketing, Rob’s answer was immediate: “calling it B2B marketing.”
You are never marketing to a building or a logo. You are marketing to a human inside that building. The moment you forget this, your marketing becomes abstract, filled with jargon, and ineffective.
To market effectively to people, Rob’s playbook is to focus on two things:
Substance over sizzle: Substance wins every time. While it might not win quick, it will win the most. A splashy campaign or a perfectly executed sales process might win a deal, but if the product doesn’t deliver real, tangible value to the person using it, you will never earn loyalty.
Drive substance through simplicity: The best way to deliver substance is through simplicity. A simple product is easy to adopt, a simple message is easy to understand, and a simple sales process is easy to train and scale. Rob’s test for simplicity is powerful: it must be measurable, describable, and trainable. If your own employees can’t explain what your product does in a simple sentence, how can you expect a customer to?
Rob’s lessons tear down the artificial wall between B2B and B2C to reveal a core truth: whether you’re selling software or soap, you’re in the business of earning a person’s loyalty. The path there isn’t through complex sales motions, but through a relentlessly simple, substance-driven experience.
This report unpacks the findings from 619 B2B buyers, sellers, and marketers to uncover the exact types of customer proof that actually build trust and boost buyer confidence. The TL;DR? They want data, relevance, and actual proof.
67% of sellers have watched deals slip through their fingers because they couldn’t provide relevant, specific customer proof. Learn how to avoid this fate.
Grab this report and learn how to give them the evidence they need.
Design tool Figma IPOs and within minutes of trading hit a $45 billion market cap.
Vanta just raised $150M at a $4.15B valuation. The leading AI-powered trust management platform announced its $150 million Series D funding round at a $4.15 billion valuation. Look out for a deep dive on Vanta’s GTM and growth with their CRO on The GTMnow Podcast soon!
John Fernandez is SVP at Datasite, with a track record as GTM leader at Glia, ContentWise, and Diligent, having scaled teams through IPOs, acquisitions, and $1.4B in equity events. At Glia, John pioneered revenue marketing’s impact, driving 71% of pipeline and 60% of new business revenue from marketing. Connect with him for real-world GTM lessons, scaling playbooks, and unique frameworks for aligning marketing with revenue.
Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts by searching “The GTM Podcast.”
If you’re looking to scale your sales and marketing teams with top talent, we couldn’t recommend our partner Pursuit more. We work closely together to be able to provide the top go-to-market talent for companies on a non-retainer basis.
GTM industry events
Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:
INBOUND 2025: September 3-5, 2025 (San Francisco, CA)
GTMfund Dinner SF (private registration): September 10, 2025 (San Francisco, CA)
The overwhelming majority of Colorado businesses surveyed for a new state report on tariffs said the effects of the import taxes have been negative, with the financial impacts followed by the uncertainty created by changing trade policies cited as the biggest challenges.
The findings released on Nov. 21 are a follow-up to a report issued in September by the Colorado Office of State Planning and Budgeting. The latest look at the impacts of tariffs on Colorado businesses found that 86% of the businesses view the tariffs levied this year as challenges and only 14% see them as beneficial.
State agencies interviewed farmers and ranchers as well as businesses across several sectors: aerospace, construction, technology, retail, bioscience, energy and manufacturing. The report was coordinated among the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, or OEDIT; the Colorado Department of Agriculture; and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
In July, Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order requiring certain state agencies to analyze the impacts of U.S. trade policy changes. The previous report said the effective tariff rate in Colorado has increased sevenfold since last year.
The information from several recent interviews shows that businesses across Colorado are facing tough decisions, said Eve Lieberman, OEDIT executive director. She said business owners are considering whether to raise prices, take less salary, cut employees or whether they can even keep their doors open.
“I talked to a company where the CEO was going to take one third of his salary and is also implementing a hiring freeze. He can’t even think about making future investments,” Lieberman said. “In some cases, especially with manufacturers, businesses are incurring costs as high as $2 million.”
Navigating through the changes in the import levies and adjusting supply chains have consumed hours of work. Lieberman said benefits that people see as possible are related to the potential of spurring more domestic manufacturing and building new business ecosystems.
“This is the time of year that producers are looking to the next growing season (and asking) ‘What are operating loans looking like. What are my markets going to be. Where do I have any certainty?’ The uncertainty that’s come with the tariff chaos out there has been incredibly difficult for that future planning,” Greenberg said.
Farmers and ranchers had trouble getting help with their loans during the government shutdown, she said. Companies that support ag producers, including transportation companies, are dealing with tariff-related issues as well.
The beef industry has lately been a bright spot for U.S. agriculture. The prices ranchers are getting for their beef have risen as drought and other factors have reduced supply, resulting in some of the nation’s lowest herd sizes in decades.
The prices shoppers pay for beef at the grocery store have also shot up, which led the Trump administration to boost beef imports from Argentina to try to lower costs for consumers. While Argentina’s imports aren’t expected to have a significant effect on U.S. beef prices, several ag organizations criticized the increases, saying they will undercut U.S. ranchers.
Colorado potato producers, ranked second nationally, are talking to Japan about opening up trade. The Colorado beef industry is negotiating with Japan and South Korea to help make up for any reduced exports to China.
However, there are concerns that the higher tariffs could lead to loss of overseas markets, as happened with China’s clampdown on buying U.S.-produced soybeans.
“We’re already seeing in places where it’s potentially just easier and cheaper to do business with other countries,” Greenberg said.
Those other countries might not have the same standards for quality and environmental stewardship, she added.
Besides tracking the impacts of tariffs, the state report recommends ways to help sustain businesses dealing with higher costs and uncertainty about their future. Lieberman said one goal is to raise awareness about existing financial programs and loans for small businesses and to help companies explore financing options, such as bank loans.
Another plan is to leverage the business expertise of partners, including the World Trade Center in Denver.
Greenberg and Lieberman said it’s important to maintain relationships with key trading partners, such as Mexico and Canada. The two recently led a delegation of female entrepreneurs and ranchers to Mexico City.
“That was to reinvest in our partnership, our friendship with Mexico, to look at specific business opportunities that we’re capitalizing on now for Colorado business owners,” Greenberg said. “And it was to say we’re going to get through this together and when we come out on the other side, Mexico is going to remain one of our critical trading partners, just like Canada.”
after years of working with small businesses that felt overwhelmed by disjointed tactics. Agencies chased big budgets and flashy campaigns, while consultants dropped in and out without leaving a sustainable system. I believed marketing should work like any core business function; systematic, practical and focused on results. That insight became a framework, then a book and eventually a global community built around strategy before tactics.
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