Why Clarity Comes Before Strategy written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Catch the Full Episode Overview Most small business owners blame their marketing when growth stalls. They hire a new agency, rebuild the website, launch another campaign — and six months later, nothing has changed. In this solo episode, John Jantsch makes the case that the real problem lives upstream of tactics: it lives with […]
Why Clarity Comes Before Strategy written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Catch the Full Episode
![john jantsch (1)]()
Overview
Most small business owners blame their marketing when growth stalls. They hire a new agency, rebuild the website, launch another campaign — and six months later, nothing has changed. In this solo episode, John Jantsch makes the case that the real problem lives upstream of tactics: it lives with the founder.
This is Step 1 of John’s updated “Seven Steps of Small Business Marketing Success” — a completely refreshed version of the ebook that was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times over the past two decades. Here, John introduces what he calls the Founder Portrait: a one-page, four-question exercise designed to surface the clarity that every downstream marketing decision depends on.
If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, or marketing consultant working with founders, this episode cuts through the noise. It asks the uncomfortable questions about what is actually working, what you are doing out of habit or guilt, where the real profit lives, and what you want the business to give you — questions that most marketing engagements never touch.
Key Takeaways
Great Moments
Memorable Quotes
“Marketing fails upstream — in the tactics, when they are being done — but the founder is often the variable that nobody talks about.”
— John Jantsch
“Drift goes very slowly and then all at once — you find yourself somewhere you never thought you wanted to be.”
— John Jantsch
“There is a difference between activity and what is working. A lot of times we conflate the two.”
— John Jantsch
“No marketing strategy is going to serve you if you do not know what you want the business to give you.”
— John Jantsch
Resources
Seven Steps of Small Business Marketing Success workbook (2026 edition) — dtm.world/7steps
Email John your answer to question four: john@ducttapemarketing.com
John Jantsch (00:01.666)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and no guests today. I’m actually gonna do a bunch of solo shows. So I’m still gonna have a guest. So if you’re listening in line, you will hear the occasional guests still. But I’m doing seven shows as a series. So if you wanna, I’ll tag them all and I’ll remind you this is episode number three of the seven. but I wrote an ebook about 20 years ago.
Called The Seven Steps of Small Business Marketing Success. It was extremely popular, downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. It was a talk that I gave dozens and dozens of times. Because it really took all of the issues that a lot of small business owners were experiencing with marketing and identified them, but also then put them in order to correct.
So over time that became less relevant. however, the fundamentals of marketing have not changed. So for 2026, I completely updated this. And so there is a brand new version of the seven steps of small business marketing success. And I’ll tell you how you can get a copy of it. It’s more workbook, I think than than ebook. Certainly it has great information in it for you, but but it also asks you to do some things, to think about some things, to take action on things. So
I’ve really been referring to it as more of a workbook. So this is episode number one, which is step number one, and something I call the the founder portrait, why clarity comes before strategy. So quite often marketing fails upstream, if you will, you know, in the tactics, when they’re being done, how they’re being done. but
The founder is often the variable that nobody talks about. And that’s what this episode’s really about. You know, I’ve had this conversation many, many times with founders. they want to hire a new agency, build a new website, do new campaign. Six months later, nothing’s really changed. so the first question I always ask is: I mean, when did you last look at your business? Honestly, when did you last look at your relationship with
John Jantsch (02:19.084)
that business, honestly. And and frankly, that doesn’t sound like a marketing question, but it really is at the heart of a marketing question or or really at the heart of the challenge with marketing that a lot of small business owners face. So and what happens is, you know, a founder starts a business, they start growing successfully, maybe 10 years in, business feels okay.
but it doesn’t feel the same. It doesn’t feel right. kind of it it it’s maybe drifted a little bit from you know, what they thought it was going to be. And and you know, it’s funny with drift, it it goes very slowly and then all at once you find yourself somewhere that that you didn’t think you wanted to be. And and a lot of that has to do with the fact that as a business grows, you know, decisions and how decisions are made actually.
needs to change also. And I think that that what I’ve discovered is that’s one of the toughest ones. Maybe you’re hiring people to do tasks that you used to do, but the decisions for how they’re held accountable, the decisions for what it is that you do now as the founder, you know, is a thing that really never changed. and and this isn’t really a th this definitely is not a story about failure because a lot of times it’s just it’s that thing you just can’t identify. Things seem to be going okay, but you just can’t if identify, you know, the the
The position that you’re in. So here’s what I want you to do. And and if you want to, if you need to stop this, I hate to tell you to stop it because I I want you to come back, but if you need to stop this, go grab a pen and paper, or a pencil, even and paper, and come back here. Cause I’m gonna ask you to give some thought to four pretty intense questions. but but and you may not know the answers to them, but I want to get you thinking.
about them because I think that they can actually unlock some things that maybe you haven’t been able to identify in your marketing. All right, so I’ll pause. You can pause now. Go get that paper or if it’s right there. And we’re back, right? Okay, you’re back with your pen and paper. All right. So here are the four questions. Number one, and you can pause this to answer the questions and come back and and I’ll read the the the other questions as well.
John Jantsch (04:44.534)
What’s actually working in your business and how do you know? This can be a pretty broad question, but I am certainly talking about marketing for the most part. you know, the there’s a difference between activity, you know, like what we’re doing a bunch of and what’s working. and I think a lot of times we conflate activity with with what’s working. So working means it’s produces revenue.
it or it reduces your cost to acquire a customer. I mean, a lot of times everything else is just activity. All right. So that’s number one. What’s actually working and how do you know?
John Jantsch (05:27.436)
Okay, number two.
And this is this is where it starts getting a little interesting for you. What are you doing out of habit, guilt, or maybe even optimism that you should stop? Now, maybe nobody’s ever asked you that, maybe you’ve never even thought about that idea, but boy, especially out of habit. Things that we just do because, hey, we’ve always done them, or everybody in our industry has always done them that way.
John Jantsch (06:01.312)
So as you think about this, think about all the elements of your business. is there a service line that never quite worked, but you can’t give up on? You know, a channel that that that you’ve been on since 2021 and haven’t really considered. I think I think naming it is is quite frankly is the hard part. to really dig in and think, you know, are we on TikTok because everybody said we should be, but we hate it and we don’t know if we’re getting anything out of
So naming it, I think sometimes then gives you the permission to stop doing it. And a lot of times effective marketing or marketing strategy starts with figuring out the things that you’re doing today that you should stop doing. Okay, answer question two, and we’ll move on to three.
John Jantsch (06:51.948)
Where is your business actually making money versus where are you pretending it is? Pretending might feel like a strong word, but I do think a lot of times we just assume you know that might be a better word, that that certain elements or certain things that we’re doing are actually making money for the business. And every now and then, especially if you’re one of those business owners like me, that you know, the the finance part of the business is something that I just
Feel like we hire a bookkeeper and they take care of it. I don’t really study it. But if you’re ignoring that element of your business and you’re not really seeing where profit is, you’re not really tracking the inputs like labor that go into things, quite often we can convince ourselves or kid ourselves that something’s making money because it’s generating revenue. And revenue and profit are certainly not the same thing. So
John Jantsch (07:50.424)
Some of the things that we stick to and continue to do are because we like them, or because we like doing them, or because we feel good about them, or because we’ve always done them. You start doing this math on your PL or really digging into expenses, and you start realizing we should stop focusing on this. And I I’ll tell you one of the areas, one of the areas that I always find.
this is true for a lot of businesses, is that we’re focused on the wrong client, or we’ve taken clients because maybe it was slow that month and and it wasn’t a good fit. We’re losing money on that. We should just stop doing that altogether. We should stop offering that service altogether because even though we can attract clients, it’s actually holding us back. It’s actually costing us an opportunity to actually be able to grow the business or scale the business because.
we won’t let go of that because for fear of the fact that well gosh we’re gonna take a you know a hundred thousand dollar hit or something if we quit doing that line of business. When more often than not, that’s what’s gonna lead to the twenty, thirty, forty percent growth in in the really profitable business. All right. So that was question three.
Question four is quite possibly the hardest for some because we’ve stopped thinking about this. What do we actually want this business to give us? What do you, in your particular case, want this business to give you? Now, most marketing work completely skips this category. And I think that you know, a lot of times when we work with business owners, and that’s why I’m asking these questions, because this is how we start a strategy first engagement.
Is getting into this founder’s portrait, as I like to call it. because a lot of decisions are made because they are to grow revenue or because you saw somebody else doing their marketing a certain way. And and they’re not necessarily based in, well, this is actually what I want this business to give me. I just want to do meaningful work. I want to have a certain exit, I want to have a certain lifestyle. And if we’re not
John Jantsch (09:59.04)
making decisions based on that quite often we’ll we’ll make decisions for the wrong reasons. they won’t be bad decisions necessarily, but they’ll just be made for the wrong reason. So there’s a difference between I think how you would actually view marketing in general based on that. And and if if if you don’t know the answers to that question to number four, really no marketing strategy is going to serve you, or you’ll get lucky, I guess.
if it does. All right. So I hope you took some time. If not, please go back and listen to this. when you’re at a place where that you can actually give some thought to those questions and actually record your thoughts on those questions because you’ll get a lot clearer if you do. So what we’re trying to do is create what what we call the founder’s portrait. So this is not a document that you would ever share. it’s just the ground you stand on. It’s like, okay.
It it’s the filter. you know, without it, I think everything downstream, everything you ask people to do sort of inherits the blur, if you will, that that’s created. with it, I think, who you attract as an IC I see you know a a core client, who you attract
From from a messaging standpoint, the channels that you go on. I mean, everything gets built on something that I think is real because of this founder’s portrait. So this process might take you an hour. One blank page, four questions, no team, no advisors, no AI. Don’t use AI to answer these questions. and and don’t try to turn this into a plan. see where it takes you. See if it opens up questions for you. see if it
is challenging in a way that makes you rethink everything about your business. And again, maybe you’ve got the answer, maybe you’ve got clarity, but quite frankly, that can actually be just as potent knowing that can be just as impotent or just as potent as as as actually coming up with a plan because of it. So one of the things I’d ask you to do if you’re up for this challenge is if you answer these questions. I’d love it if you would
John Jantsch (12:19.176)
just email. It’s just John at Duct Tape Marketing. email me your thoughts on question number four. I would love to collect some of those. I I’d I’d really love to see, you know, what you want the business to give you. I want to see really personal responses. And I and certainly I will reply. There’s no wrong answer, so I’m not gonna tell you, no, you need to redo this. but I’d love to hear what you’re thinking. I’d love to hear how deep that you got.
in those. So that’s all I have for day. for today. I will tell you if you want to get a copy of the ebook that I referenced, this is step number one. I’m going to do seven episodes based on obviously a a session on each step. is it’s DTM.world. So that’s DTM like duct tape marketing dot world slash seven steps. is five bucks. just so you have some skin in the game. But I think you will find
the workbook aspect of this. lots of great information, but also lots of great action steps and things to to ask you to do. So take care and hopefully we will run into you one of these days out there on the road.
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