If you look everywhere in 2026, people will tell you to post on social media, use AI, cold outreach & other forms of marketing and sales.
What marketing checklist do you actually need?
If you look everywhere in 2026, people will tell you to post on social media, use AI, cold outreach & other forms of marketing and sales.
I agree with them…But I do feel you need to do this in an order.
For example - if you’re a manufacturer, have spent 30 years grafting to get to £30million, then going on social media or using AI will have a good effe, but not a dramatic one. If you are a small business owner, a “one man band” who goes to market with zero visibility then one social post might get you your first customer.
But then what?
It’s quite daunting and every guru online is telling you their story.
So here’s my take on it, influenced by 100’s of business owners, on what to do…In what order, based on impact vs long term scalability.
Brand. Not just a logo. Brand. Logo, colours, voice, tone, meaning, why, fonts, the whole nine yards. It will affect EVERYTHING you do & it gives you a solid north star to refer to.
Website. Seems super obvious, but if you can build a platform that can convert for you whilst you’re sleeping, then you have a pretty good model. And before everyone says “social media is your new website”, yes, for the users on that platform…What about Google? AI? Business pages on the internet? The website is still your hub.
SEO. I used to negate this a few years ago, because I believed you could have greater impact elsewhere, which you can, but that shouldn’t stop you putting processes in place and planting the seed. The further back you plant it the better it is today. When is the best time to plant a tree? 30 years ago. When is the second best time? Today.
Social Media Launch - this can be done in so many different ways and none of them are truly wrong, it’s how you connect the dots and make sure it all talks to each other. You can do founder “Building” journey, showcasing the set up and then the launch. You can wait and go to market when you launch the website, you can do a number of things & like I said, not really a wrong avenue to go down, it’s how you communicate & how clear your brand is.
Some form of lead engine that works whilst you don’t…Ads, email marketing, lead magnets, referrals, something. It needs to be semi-automated at least so you can finish a meeting and have an email to return to, but you need something. I see a lot of business owners do a lot of things well and then fall on this hurdle. Fear of rejection? Fear of being successful? Fear of being too loud? Not a clue for you, but it’s definitely a fear thing, so you have to conquer that asap.
So there it is for this week…The very very simple book to how to go to market and what order you need to run in. Full transparency, I haven’t stopped typing in the 5mins it’s taken me to write this, I won’t read it back for mistakes & I 100% wrote this off the top of my head with no AI help or prompts. I’m going to do this more & post these more, if you liked it, DM me, comment on it, even a silent like would help me know it’s giving people value of some kind. If you want to pick my brain? Give me a topic to write about next.
Think. Believe. Create.
