MAKE YOUR Product/service STAND THE F*CK OUT🤘

Shit was falling apart.

The pandemic was doing us in at Belmont. People were getting laid off. The company culture was starting to dissolve. Emotions were high.

We sell office services. No one was in an office... so we were really hit hard. And so we were launching a new product called Breakroom in a Box to try to pivot hard.

And I don’t know why it’s so damn hard to find authentic marketing help. It's so hard to find real marketing help beyond all the shitty, flashy, bullshit stuff.

I felt burnout full force, man. I had been working relentlessly for a whole year at this point, and when STFO came out, I was like, “Oh, I want to do it.” And when telling my wife about it, I said, “I don’t even know if I have the time.”

I knew the mental commitment was eight weeks. So I asked myself, "Can I put myself fully into it?"

And I don’t know why it’s so damn hard to find authentic marketing help. It's so hard to find real marketing help beyond all the shitty, flashy, bullshit stuff.

I couldn’t do this again with a new product of just walking in the fog. I wanted a roadmap.

As the CMO, I couldn’t do this again with a new product of just walking in the fog. I wanted a roadmap this time. I wanted structure, especially during a fast pivot. And that's something Louis always did with the podcast. He gave a step-by-step structure. And when it comes to launching a product, I wanted to see what a roadmap was like from him.

So, I made that mental commitment. I told myself, “I'll make time.”

I chose to do STFO on me… my personal credit card. I didn't really think about asking the company. I was like, “These are my skills. I'm taking them with me wherever I go.”

We went from $0 to $250K a month from one insight we got from STFO.

So, I was literally working on Breakroom in a Box throughout STFO.

We sent so many free boxes. I was actually able to get something like 200 responses on surveys, and I dropped them all into the Excel spreadsheet, broke them all down, and saw a screaming pattern. It turns out the name Breakroom in a Box is not accurate. That’s not what people used it for. Everyone was talking about the boxes more as a gift of appreciation.

We were roasting coffee in-house, and then people started to put in their own company swag. Of course, other companies do this, but we had that little angle of, “You get ethically sourced specialty coffee with your own brand on it.” And that came as an idea of appreciation which is one thing I can directly tie to STFO.

So with that angle, the sales team just went for it. And by December, we did $250K in sales.

If I could give one piece of advice…

A lot of people think there are shortcuts and hacks in marketing. STFO isn’t for people who spend their time searching for that one little secret that will make their life perfect. It’s for people who want to earn it, who see that things are built over time and with work. 

It’s incredible to go through a crisis as we did, and STFO showed us what we’re capable of when we do the work.

I was in a situation where I had a bit of confusion about the agency services we provide and our podcast and weekly newsletter we send out, and how it all fits together.

I needed to clarify how to position our agency services in conjunction with the podcast and the newsletter, and everything else that was going on.

There are a lot of these storytelling courses where they all say, “You need to find the unique positioning, and you need to tell a story about your brand.”

And that was my biggest objection.

I didn’t want STFO to be another one of those courses that you just buy.

It was exhausting to have all these options open.

I read all those books, like Blue Ocean Strategy and all that, but it never clicked for me. It made me feel tired and lose motivation a little bit. 

It might seem like a luxury problem, but it isn’t really. It’s just tiresome to constantly every single time to send out a newsletter or record a podcast and ask yourself, “What is it that you’re trying to do?”

It was frustrating because we would garner interest from the wrong people. 

I was at about 100 email subscribers, but it was 100 from everywhere… freelancers, and everything.

Now I know who I’m serving.

Now I know who I’m serving: B2B SaaS marketing leaders in Europe.

So, if I do a podcast episode, it’s about “Which guest would these B2B SaaS marketing leaders want to hear from?” Or if I write a newsletter, “What kind of mindset transformations do I want these specific people to experience?” 

I think we got the contract because of it.

And then the same for our sales conversations. I just didn’t have that before. I have a story that connects with people and that I now use in sales calls. 

I had a sales call with a lead last week, and I could just immediately connect with her because I know how it feels to be a new marketing leader.

I think we got the contract because of it.

And since I made the change, I get email replies like, “I like your newsletter better and better.” Now, I’m at around 500 subscribers or something like that, and I feel like people see it’s for them.

I was not expecting…

...to learn a step-by-step repeatable process of narrowing down my target audience and crafting a unique positioning for my segment or niche that I can actually own. 

It just makes me feel very relieved because I don’t have to think about how I’m going to do this every single time for the rest of my life.

STFO is timeless. It’s not something that’s going to go away like some hack or something like that.

It ultimately gave me the clarity that I needed.

Is STFO for marketers too? …or only for one-or-two-people businesses?

After taking the Mark Ritson Mini MBA course the previous year, I felt much more confident in my marketing knowledge and approach.

Because I was leading the marketing strategy at Content Stadium, I was considering doing another course to continue to improve my skills and approach.

I knew STFO would be a lot of work, and, at first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to commit the time. While some people might be able to put some of their work on hold for STFO, I very much did it outside of working hours. So I was working full-time with STFO on top, so that left little time for taking time off.

I was also concerned STFO was only for smaller businesses or one-or-two-people businesses. 

And then I read a couple of the testimonials.

I skipped to the testimonials from marketers rather than reading those from people who have their own business. And then I got FOMO — thinking about the learnings I could miss out on — and I signed up.

STFO wasn’t just theory and exams. I came out with something I can use for my company right now.

The best thing I got out of STFO was finishing a presentation with all my notes and all the research I completed on my target audience throughout the course. It’s a project I wanted to do anyway as part of my work, and I would not have completed it that quickly without STFO.

It’s data and information that I can make use of right away in my day to day, and I used it as the foundation to a large part of my current marketing strategy.

I also shared my presentation with the rest of the team to help them better understand our audience.

With other courses, it can be a lot of theory and exams, but it’s not often a real use case from your company. 

Whereas all the hours I invested in STFO went towards something I can use right now.

Louis is very quick. He gets straight to the point and comes up with insightful responses on the spot.

During our weekly calls, you discuss your progress and ask any questions. Of course, it’s not something Louis has been able to think about before or has planned to answer in advance, yet when it was my 10 minutes to talk, he was always very quick at giving suggestions or asking the right questions back at me. 

That was impressive to me.

I also really liked how he gets to the point quickly. He doesn’t go on and on around the topic.

He was also very responsive in the community where you could post comments and questions at any time. He always responded, always bringing clarity. 

Now that I have built a framework, I can use the process over and over again.

STFO helped me build an actionable framework that I can reuse over and over again for different marketing segments — to better understand my audience, ask the right questions during research, and develop a strong proposition.

Some ideas were definitely already familiar to me, but did learn several new tricks to add to this framework.

One of those things was the triggers. I’ve never really thought about my audience’s triggers before, and it’s had an impact on how I select my marketing tactics. Now I try to be in those places where my audience experiences their triggers.

I realize my review won’t be as shiny as other people’s. I didn’t start from scratch with this course, as I’d already built some foundations with previous courses and experiences, so the step-up wasn’t as big as it could have been otherwise. But it was useful, and I have something to show for it.

I had taken two years off to spend time with my kids. Do I still have what it takes?

I wasn’t sure if I’d have time for STFO because it was the beginning of the school year with my kids. I was busy at work and home.

I had taken a few years off, which is a lifetime in marketing technology years. Things move quickly. 

When I came back to work, I felt really behind because everything was so different from a few of years ago, and I felt I had to be in multiple places and doing all these things. I felt most marketers were doing better than me and had better things to say.

Everybody’s website looked the same and said the same things. We needed to stand out.

We were launching a new product, and I was really struggling with how to differentiate us in the marketplace. 

There were alternatives in the same space, and I was struggling with how to position us well or how to attract the right people.

I think in tech especially, everyone’s websites look the same, exactly the same. They’re the same colors, the same fonts, the same format. When I was researching websites to redo ours, I literally would forget which site I was on because they’re all so similar, and everyone is saying the same thing. There’s just nobody standing out.

I knew that we needed to stand out, and I felt like I needed some direction.

STFO pushed me out of my comfort zone.

The one thing that made me go, okay I have to sign up to STFO… I remember reading one of the testimonials, and I was thought, “Whoa, that sounds like a lot of work.” But also, “That’s exactly what I need to do.”

I hate talking to people. It is not my favorite thing. It’s a big part of marketing, but I’m an introvert. I don’t really like having to talk to a bunch of people. 

But STFO made me do it, and now I’m just in the habit; I talk to customers, prospects, and others in our space all the time.

Sometimes I can get stuck in the research phase because I want to figure out everything, and I want to know everything because I want it to be perfect. But I think we can get stuck in that stage, and then we’re not doing anything, and we’re thinking everybody’s better than us because they figured it out when in reality it’s people just taking action and seeing what works.

With how quickly STFO moves, it kind of helps with that. I’m going to be in the research stage for a while as we launch and get more feedback and see how people use our product, but STFO forced me to take action sooner than I would have.

STFO gave me the confidence and the research to assert which market we should target. Now we’re closing just about everyone we talk to.

STFO gave me the confidence to put a market in front of the founders and to have the research to back it up and show them where we needed to go. 

I’m not going to lie; that was a scary conversation to have. To go against what everybody else was thinking… that was uncomfortable.

But having the customer research to back it up and everything laid out was very helpful.

We went from having nothing to having a clear view of who our market is. I know the business size. I know who I need to talk to.

More importantly, I know who’s not our customer. Now I frequently hear, “Oh, that’s not really our customer”, around the office.  Knowing who you’re not going after is just as valuable as knowing who you are going after, and just really honing our messaging into that.

Now, we’re closing just about everyone we talk to because we have the language we need to have. We know who to talk to. We’re not wasting our time with people we shouldn’t be talking to.

I was scared of Louis at first, but I’m glad I did STFO.

Louis is an encourager. He always tells people that they’re doing a good job, but at the same time he gives us ideas on how we can improve.

I think I was shocked by that, actually. His persona is stand the fuck out and, you know, no bullshit. It was intimidating. I didn’t know what to think at first. But he’s just a really nice, genuine person.

He’s smart. He’s creative. He’s caring. Louis has a way of pushing you and encouraging you at the same time, so you feel like you can do it, but you’re really being pushed out of your comfort zone.

Every time Louis told me to rewrite our website content, I was like, “Dammit, Louis.” I loved what I had, but it’s so much better now. It’s so much better than it was. Even though I was attached to it and loved it, it ended up being better than I imagined it could be.

I’m glad I did STFO. I have no regrets about doing it.

There are so many techniques and things you can learn out there. It’s very mentally tiring.

Everyone is screaming out on the roofs, saying, “This technique is the best, and it’s the new thing you should do!” And then this person’s saying the exact opposite. And it’s just so noisy. No one is talking about the fundamentals, right?

Forget about the internet. Forget about anything. What is evergreen? 

And I felt that STFO was going to be that evergreen thing that was completely different from all the shiny things.

Our market was so wide; we would have lost years.

Before STFO, we didn’t know exactly who was within our segment. It was so wide and so open.

We didn’t know who to target online, and that was always in the back of my mind, “Maybe it’s okay to cast a wide net and attract as many people as we can?”

We avoided making a huge rookie mistake.

It really felt like we didn’t know where to go or what communities to activate. We just hadn’t done our homework.

Now that I’ve taken the program, I realized that we probably would have lost years and years of business just because we would have been so general, so vanilla, that no one would have really believed in such a small company.

STFO really saved us potentially months or years of not being well-positioned.

Everything came together in major ways.

To see the effects of all the work from the previous weeks finally emerging together into that unified differentiation that we can activate and use as part of our strategy was amazing.

Now it’s making sense for my own business, and I see how to do this now. And this is freaking cool.

STFO gave me a huge amount of relief mentally.

Now, whatever we do is based on rock-solid foundations and a very specific segment.

We know exactly who to activate, actually. We know that we have to go for this blog, this blog, and this blog, this forum, and so on. It helped tremendously, too, to know how to focus our efforts as founders.

Louis really went into answering people’s issues and concerns.

That’s super interesting because there were several feedback loops. First, there was a feedback loop within the private forum. Then there was a feedback loop during the weekly calls. Louis created this group dynamic in a genuine way, which helped people really put it to practice, get that feedback, iterate, and close the loop.

If you’re on the verge…

...wondering if you will gain at the end of this program; the answer is absolutely yes. So, just do it. Just trust that there will be a massive gap between where you are now and where you will be after. There will be a lot of work involved, but just freaking take STFO and see the results for yourself.

Just the best course I’ve taken. I don’t know anything remotely close to it.

Louis cares as a mentor. I know that he’s not there just to make a quick buck. It’s great knowing that he really truly cares.