Marketing advice from people who actually do the work.

Origin Story

Marketing Guides for Small Businesses didn't start as a podcast. It started as a stack of short, practical guides for business owners trying to figure out what actually mattered — Local SEO in 2016, Google AdWords later that same year, and Reputation Management in 2017. No fluff, no filler — just the strategies that were working for small businesses at the time.

The books did their job. But marketing doesn't hold still, and neither did we. Instead of writing another book every time something changed, we started talking — recording conversations between marketing consultants who were still doing the actual work, still in front of real clients, still testing what held up and what didn't. That conversation became the podcast, and it's been running ever since.

The name stuck. The meaning shifted. Where "the guides" once meant the books on the shelf, The Guides now means the people behind the mic — the marketing consultants who show up every week to talk through what's actually working for small businesses right now. Ken, Paul, and Ian have been part of that conversation almost since it started; Jeff joined them in early 2024, rounding out the team that's on the show today. A few of the earliest voices have moved on along the way, but the core of the show — and its strategy-first approach — has stayed remarkably consistent.

What We Believe

Strategy comes first. Always. A tactic without a strategy behind it is just activity. Before we talk about ads, content, or the latest platform trend, we ask what it's actually supposed to accomplish — for a real ideal customer, moving through a real buyer journey.

Marketing is a system, not a task list. A CRM isn't a sales system just because you bought one. A website isn't a lead engine just because it's live. Every piece of marketing only works when it's connected to the pieces around it — attracting the right customers, converting them, and keeping them.

Simple beats clever. Small businesses don't need more marketing activity. They need clear priorities, consistent execution, and a way to tell what's actually working. We'd rather give you three things that move the needle than twelve things that sound impressive.

AI is a tool, not a strategy. AI can speed up the work — research, content, personalization, follow-up. It can't replace judgment, positioning, or knowing your customer. It just makes a good strategy faster, and a weak one more obvious.

If we can't back it up, we don't say it. Every example we share is real — pulled from our own client work or verifiable sources, not invented for a tidy story. If we don't know something, we'll say so.

Who This Is For

This show is for small and mid-sized business owners who are done guessing.

Maybe you're doing some marketing but not sure if it's the right marketing. Maybe you've got a website, some social presence, and a CRM you're not fully using, but no real sense of how they connect. Maybe you're just tired of advice that sounds great in a keynote and falls apart in your actual business.

If you run a home services company, a professional practice, a manufacturing business, a software company, or any other business where marketing has to earn its keep — this is built for you. Not marketers talking to marketers. Business owners talking to business owners, with marketing consultants who've sat on both sides of the table.