Marketing for SMEs

I've always been a bit sceptical about business storytelling. Not because I don't think it matters, but because I've never quite understood how to put it to work. Dan Grech, entrepreneur and author of Your Business Is Your Story, has a different approach. It's not so much about how to tell your story, but how to actually use it to grow your business. We get into some interesting questions: - What...

What happens when a business introduces AI before its people and systems are ready? In this episode of Marketing & Ops for SMEs, Jeremy Yang speaks with Brian Beck, a technology and cybersecurity specialist with around 40 years of industry experience. Brian shares the experience of good vs bad AI rollouts and clarifies like you’ve never heard before - Why AI can amplify existing problems rathe...

What is Silicon Valley actually like when you’re living and working inside the ecosystem? In this episode, I sit down with Adam Spector, a four-time founder and active angel investor with more than 200 startup investments behind him, including 14 companies that went on to reach unicorn status. I wanted to understand how different the reality is from what those of us outside Silicon Valley see thro...

Most businesses build their paid ads backwards, according to Tas Bober. Her approach starts with the landing page and the information buyers need to justify a purchase. Jeremy and Tas discuss why conversion rate alone can mislead, how fewer leads can mean better results, and where AI helps without losing your human voice. They also cover: • Measuring performance before, during and after conversion...

I recently sat down with Cydney Mar, who brings more than 45 years of experience across fashion, manufacturing, TV shopping and product development. What I liked about the conversation was how practical she is about getting products off the ground. We covered: Why a good product idea often doesn’t see the light of day What businesses often underestimate before launching How she thinks about testin...

Irwin Hau joins Jeremy Yang to talk about 17 years in the agency world, building Chromatix, and his newer creation, ConversionCow. After starting Chromatix in 2009, Irwin gradually narrowed the agency’s focus towards web design, conversion and the psychology behind what makes people take action online. In this episode, he shares some of the lessons from nearly two decades in the industry before gi...

What do people need to stay engaged, and why can’t leaders manage everyone the same way? Jeremy Yang speaks with David Lengyel, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Venture Up, about communication, trust and the challenge of moving from doing the work to managing people. With over 40 years of experience in team building and leadership development, David explains how experience can lead managers to...

What would a potential client find if they looked you up today, and would it reflect the experience you actually have? Jeremy Yang joins Ashley Smith, business strategist and founder of Show Your Proof, to discuss the gap between an established professional’s reputation and what people can discover about them online. Ashley draws on 18 years in real estate and industry leadership to explain why ex...

Dima Beseda has been building businesses inside digital economies since he was a teenager. He went from making money inside World of Warcraft to co-founding Overgear, which grew to around $40M ARR. Along the way, he worked hands-on across marketing, product and growth, with influencer marketing becoming a major part of how several of those businesses grew. So when Dima started thinking about what...

I’ve been using EOS in my business for years. The problem is, I eventually Frankensteined it with other systems and turned it into something completely different. Probably more fun, definitely less effective. So I got Murray Smith on the podcast to straighten me out. Murray has implemented EOS across 60+ businesses, and we go straight into the practical stuff: right people/right seats, processes,...

Jay Bourgana has worked across banking, manufacturing, business turnarounds, real estate and acquisitions. Jeremy Yang asks him how he assesses a business that has stopped moving, and what he does once he finds the problem. They discuss how Jay builds a management bench, why he starts earning employees’ trust through small visible improvements, and how the bottleneck limiting a business changes as...

Racheal Blackmore has built her career around understanding how people think, decide and take action. From psychology and interrogation to business ownership and marketing, Racheal shares how understanding human behaviour can help businesses communicate more clearly and build stronger relationships with customers. In this episode, Jeremy and Racheal discuss the psychology behind effective marketin...

Jaryd Krause started buying online businesses in 2014 after several attempts to build his own. He went on to acquire three businesses in three years before helping others assess and purchase businesses themselves. In this episode, Jeremy and Jaryd discuss what makes an online business worth buying, the risks buyers often overlook and when buying may make more sense than starting from scratch. They...

Marketing is one of the largest expenses in many businesses, but there is no universal percentage that every owner should spend. Jeremy Yang speaks with Stephanie Smith, financial strategist and co-owner of New Light Financial Solutions, about how marketing fits within the 16 drivers of revenue, profit and cash flow. They discuss why marketing spend needs to be considered alongside the business’s...

Business owners can outsource their funnels, automation and most of their marketing, but Tanya Brody believes they should still write one email themselves every week. Jeremy Yang speaks with Tanya, a direct-response web copywriter and email marketing consultant, about why weekly nurture emails help potential customers get to know and trust the person behind a business. Tanya explains why asking fo...

Rachel Moore has worked in marketing for 18 years, which means she’s seen Facebook pages, organic social, paid media, outsourcing, startups and now AI all come through. The more interesting part of Rachel’s story is how she has continued adapting as the work itself has changed. She has worked in corporate roles, built businesses, moved into fractional work and now hosts and produces B2B podcasts f...

Kate Engler has spent 30 years in PR and media, and these days she teaches business owners how to get media coverage without relying on a PR agency. I went into this conversation knowing very little about PR, so I wanted to understand what journalists actually look for and why some businesses manage to get coverage while others struggle. We get into: • How business owners can find media angles the...

AI can produce a polished, plausible answer to a problem your business should never have been solving. John Suarez argues that this is where cognitive offloading becomes dangerous: not when AI helps with the work, but when people let it decide what the real problem is. Jeremy Yang speaks with John Suarez, Senior Director, Client Operations at SmartBug Media and co-author of The Marketer’s Manual o...

Hiring offshore staff can reduce employment costs, but the working arrangement around that person can determine whether the relationship succeeds. In this episode of Marketing for SMEs, Jeremy Yang speaks with Dave Liong from VA For Everyone about the problems businesses commonly encounter when outsourcing and how an office-based model can address some of them. Dave explains how VA For Everyone su...

AI has made it easier for almost anyone to produce acceptable marketing. But when every business uses the same tools in the same way, acceptable quickly becomes forgettable. Jeremy Yang speaks with Keith Lauver, Founder and CEO of Ellavator AI, about what Keith calls the “Ministry of Mediocrity”: the pull towards safe, average marketing created by general AI tools. Keith explains why businesses ri...

Many business owners approach branding expecting to hand everything over and receive a finished brand in return. But a branding expert cannot decide what your business stands for without your involvement. Jeremy Yang speaks with Solveig Petch, also known as Petchy, a strategic brandsmith with more than 20 years of experience working at the intersection of business, brand strategy and design. Solve...

Being busy can hide a future sales problem. Many event businesses stop marketing when their teams are fully occupied with delivery. When the busy period ends, they discover that the pipeline has dried up and they need to start again from zero. Jeremy Yang speaks with Dan Charles, founder of Codarity, a growth partner built specifically for B2B event service businesses. Before moving into marketing...

AI can help a small business research ideas, develop products and move faster, but handing over all your critical thinking produces generic work. In this episode of Marketing for SMEs, Jeremy Yang speaks with Tracy Brinkmann, host of The Dark Horse Entrepreneur podcast. Tracy draws on decades of experience across entrepreneurship, corporate marketing, coaching and podcasting to explain where AI ge...

A bigger business does not always create more freedom. Sometimes it creates more expenses, more offers to sell and more work that the founder never wanted. In this episode of Marketing for SMEs, Jeremy Yang speaks with Lydia Lee, creator of the Tiny Business Method and founder of Screw the Cubicle. After building a business with three full-time staff, eight offers and a constant cycle of launches,...

Most advice about creating an offer starts with the target audience, their pain points and what keeps them awake at night. Humaira Akhter believes established business owners need to start somewhere deeper. In this episode of Marketing for SMEs, Jeremy Yang speaks with Humaira, creator of the Genius Offer Blueprint™, about finding the “red thread” that connects your experience, strongest work and...