How Businesses Can Thrive in Uncertain Times

How Businesses Can Thrive in Uncertain Times written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Bill Canady

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Bill Canady, seasoned business leader and author of From Panic to Profit. Bill has spent over 30 years driving business growth, leading industrial and consumer companies, and refining strategies that help businesses navigate uncertainty. He founded the 80-20 Institute to help organizations maximize efficiency, optimize operations, and scale profitably.

During our conversation, Bill shared invaluable insights on how businesses can not only survive but thrive during uncertain times. We explored the power of the 80/20 principle, the importance of business optimization, and why leaders must embrace change to maintain business efficiency and maximize profits.

Bill’s insights provide a practical roadmap for scaling a business while mitigating risks. By focusing on efficiency, strategic growth, and adaptability, businesses can turn uncertainty into opportunity.

Key Takeaways:

• Embrace the 80/20 Rule – Focus on the 20% of customers, products, and efforts that drive 80% of your revenue growth. This business strategy ensures efficiency and profitability.
• Optimize Before You Scale – Scaling without first improving operational efficiency can amplify inefficiencies. Businesses must earn the right to grow by eliminating waste and focusing on what works.
• Adapt to Market Changes – Interest rates, supply chain disruptions, and economic shifts create uncertainty. Business leadership requires agility and a proactive growth mindset to stay ahead.
• Invest in High-Value Customers – Instead of chasing every lead, customer focus should be on retaining and nurturing the most profitable relationships.
• Leverage AI and Technology – Tools like AI-driven insights and automation can help businesses enhance business efficiency, cut costs, and improve decision-making.
• Lead with Transparency and Strategy – Employees and stakeholders look to CEO tips and leadership for direction. A clear profit strategy backed by data fosters trust and alignment.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Bill Canady
• [01:01] What is Panic Mode for a Business?
• [03:54] The Stockdale Paradox
• [06:22] The 80/20 Principle
• [10:59] Small Customers that Need Much Attention
• [12:58] Earning the Right to Grow
• [15:11] Where to Start When Fixing Panic Mode
• [16:44] How Will AI Affect Business?

More About Bill Canady: 

• Check out Bill Canady’s Website
• Connect with Bill Canady on LinkedIn
• Read From Panic to Profit – Uncover Value, Boost Revenue, and Grow Your Business with the 80/20 Principle by Bill Canady’

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00.962)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Bill Kennedy. He is a seasoned global business executive with 30 plus years of leadership in industrial and consumer markets as chairman of OTC Industrial Technologies and CEO of Arrowhead Engineering Products. He has driven significant revenue and profit growth.

He's passionate about business strategy and founded the 80-20 Institute to help companies scale profitably. We're going to talk about his latest book called From Panic to Profit. Uncover value, boost revenue, and grow your business with the 80-20 principles. So Bill, welcome to the show.

Bill Canady (00:44.578)

Hey, it's great to be here, John, and you're a fantastic hype guy, so I should hire you.

John Jantsch (00:48.238)

I'm just reading what you gave me. So, I like to sometimes start with words that are in the title of a book. So, what does panic mode generally look like for a business?

Bill Canady (00:52.526)

You did perfect.

Bill Canady (01:05.378)

Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting question. And if you think of the scale from your house is on fire and your boat is sinking to, maybe you're just not making enough money, right? But a lot of times it's situational and companies are looking out and they cannot figure it out. And in today's world, what that means is interest rates have gone up, can't cover your debt, cash is not coming in the patient needs.

John Jantsch (01:30.274)

You know, probably wasn't going to go here first, but I think I will now since we talked about, I'm talking to a lot of business owners that in 2025, even if business seems okay, are, are feeling a little panic of uncertainty. like change is happening faster than anyone can keep up with it. And of course, you know, we could unpack the whole political, scene, you know, that is causing a lot of disruption as well. So is, is, is.

Can Panic Mode actually be, I just don't know?

Bill Canady (02:02.945)

I think for most of it, it really is that, you know, being a CEO or an owner or founder, you know, I've heard other people use this site. This is nothing original for you. It's like staring in the abyss, but having someone throw rocks out of it that you can't see them coming and chewing glass from time to time. So when you're in this chair, no decisions that you get to make are the easy ones. All the fun stuff, like where we're going to dinner and how big a bonus to give, someone else makes those, right?

John Jantsch (02:17.58)

Yeah.

Bill Canady (02:30.975)

It's the, I'm not sure what to do next. That's what arrives here. And today, maybe it's always been this way. I don't know, but it moves so fast, right? Whether it's a tariff that's in or out, whether it's a interest rate that's going up or down, you think you're going left, you really, maybe you're going right. Perhaps you're not even sure. So it's the lack of control that causes us staying awake.

John Jantsch (02:39.736)

Yeah, right.

John Jantsch (02:54.082)

You know, know a lot of business owners, leaders of organizations feel that part of their job is to exude the posture and the, you know, everything's going to be just fine, you know, for the team. But when you're in panic mode, how do you do that?

Bill Canady (03:08.587)

You know, it's an interesting piece. So I kind of go the opposite. Not like I don't know what I'm doing, but more about the unvarnished truth. This is where we are. It's what we're facing. However, we have a plan to deal with this. And our plan deals with understanding where we're going, because our destination hasn't changed. But you know, like use a sailing metaphor. Sometimes the wind blows from the left. Sometimes it's from the right. We have to be able to deal with that.

And that's really what the book is about. It's a, do you actually get through it? What's the simple, basic stuff that you need to do? And most of your money, most of all the good stuff comes from just a few pieces of that. So having a destination, being able to articulate, that's what people want.

John Jantsch (03:54.232)

So this might be a good time to visit one of the principles in the book. You talk about the Stockdale paradox. I think that's a little bit of what you described there. A lot of listeners may have encountered that. The first time I've heard that term was maybe in Jim Collins' work. I don't know if he created it, but you want to define that based on what we just talked about.

Bill Canady (04:17.195)

Yeah, absolutely. So your own point there. So Jim Collins was interviewing a gentleman by the name of Admiral James Stockdale, or Jim Stockdale, and he had been a prisoner of war. And Jim, and he was the highest ranking one, and he'd got a lot of men through it, where he did a fantastic job. And he asked him, so who didn't make it? And Stockdale goes, well, that's easy. It was the optimist, right? And what he meant by that was,

John Jantsch (04:44.622)

Yeah

Bill Canady (04:47.285)

You have to have a sense of unvarnished truths. This is what's gonna be hard, but you have to believe you're gonna get through it. And when you set false expectations or really unknown expectations, we're gonna be here on Friday, we're gonna be here by Easter, whatever it is, you don't really know. So you're better off to share that, but give people hope, the confidence that you are gonna get in through. And that was what the Sockdale Paradox was all about is it's gonna be hard, but we're gonna make it.

John Jantsch (05:17.554)

There is another end to that of course is the pessimist too, right? Who is just, never going to make, you know, it is kind like you just have to balance that optimist pessimist, right?

Bill Canady (05:25.709)

You do, you do. And some of us, you know, we like to think we're realist and all that. you know, it's funny, I see this in so much. You see it in today's climate. It's like when you're a CEO, you need a goal you're going for, whatever that goal is. So it's a destination. You need a strategy to get it there. Your highest chance of success is having your team come in, buy into that strategy. Even if it's just an okay strategy, it's perfectly fine for it to be that way.

But if you're all pulling on the same ore, rowing in the same direction, you'll get there. You can have a fantastic strategy, a wonderful strategy. No one buys in, you're not going anywhere. So this is where the negative person kind of falls apart a little bit. You're trying to get everyone together, but you have this, and a lot of times they think they're doing you a favor, like a voice of reason. That's good early, because we need to challenge and pressure test and be little battle tested, if you will.

Some point you got to put all your hands in the middle and stack hands and go after it. If you can't get that person on board, this is probably not the PlayStation B.

John Jantsch (06:28.526)

Yeah, well, again, going back to, I guess in this case, the subtitle of the book, you spent a lot of time talking about the 80-20 principle, the Pareto principle. You know, it almost sounds cliche because every business book, not every business, a lot of business books, a lot of business blogs, you know, people talk about that principle. But why do you think that it has become so universally accepted?

Bill Canady (06:54.379)

Honestly, I think it's a couple of things. One, it's really kind of a universal law, right? It turns out most of the good stuff comes from a very few pieces. And we use 80-20, the Alfredo Pareto figured that out, looking at pea pods and farming and all sorts of things. I use it because I tend to wear a blue shirt every day, even though my closet is full of red shirts and pink shirts, my wife has bought me. So we tend to do the same thing over and over and it tends to be where we get it. What happens is,

John Jantsch (06:58.69)

Yeah.

Bill Canady (07:23.805)

is that we get distracted by other things. Now the reason 80-20 is so attractive is it's quantitative. It gives you the sense you can actually figure it out. It's not just the black art. But as Eisenhower said, plans are useless. It's the art of planning that's critical here. Same thing with the data. You get that data. It is just factual. It just is, right? You can argue with it. You can say you're different. It just is the data.

You have to decide what you're gonna go do with it and you recognize everybody you're involved with gets a vote too.

John Jantsch (07:58.222)

Yeah, and one of the pieces that you mentioned here, but I'm going to allow you to mention it more directly, is that if the agreement is, yes, 80 % of our profits or whatever come from 20 % of our customers or 20 % of our efforts, you kind of have to define what that 20, which 20%, right?

Bill Canady (08:18.807)

That's right, because it won't tell you what your strategy will be. It will tell you where you're making money and even more importantly sometimes tell you where you're losing money. It's funny, you may think, well, I gotta go get more out of others. Sometimes if you just stop losing money, it turns out to be pretty powerful, right? So looking at that data and so there's no surprise. So I always use an example. We talk about fair but not equal, right?

The example I use is people with their spouse and their sibling. You think about what you give to your spouse on their birthday versus what you might do on your sibling. My sister, I send her a text, right? And sometimes I'm late. My wife, do I take out to eat? I buy nice things. Why do I do that? Because my life is surrounded by my wife and my children and things. If I don't take care of her, if I don't look after her in a way that she's got options, she can go somewhere else.

Same way with our customers. If you identify your best customers, the data will tell you that. And you know they're your best because they buy a lot and they pay their bills. Go do more with them. They already value because they're in. The one that you're buying very low is buying very low. You're probably their B vendor, right? They're getting it from somewhere else. So identify with the data, then figure out how to take care of them in a way that they care.

John Jantsch (09:38.286)

Could you also bring that say to operations or even to how a CEO might use their time? You know, we all keep really busy because the clock says we're supposed to be there from X to X. When in fact, know years of doing this myself that I would say 10, 15 % of my actual efforts deliver all the money. So maybe I had to just go fishing.

Bill Canady (10:03.029)

You know, there's a lot of truth in that. see people who are, who are really amazingly efficient and do a lot of fishing too. I, I'm not that good, right? I, I, I, I think I'm still wasting a good portion of my time, but, but I, try, I try to get better at it. You know, it's, it's, it's identifying those pieces surrounding yourself into it and, and, and getting after it is so hard though. And you know, when you start out, if you're an entrepreneur, what's the first thing you do, right? You'll take any order. You just need to get started.

As time goes by, there's only one of you, we'll just make it a sole opener, and there's only so many hours in a day. At some point you go, I'm maxed out, right? I don't have anything left in the tank, I don't have any time, I don't have the resources. You have to start, you then have to start making decisions, right? You have to start those folks and you have to start saying no. And it's important to say no to the right area. What typically gets our time is the squeaky wheel.

John Jantsch (10:40.59)

Mm-hmm.

Bill Canady (10:58.657)

And so if you have a small customer, they can wear you out, you're doing all these things. You look at results at the end of the year, it was de minimis. That big customer, may not, they may be self-sufficient. They're clearly happy because they're a big customer. Go get more of that. Go spend that time around. Then you can go fishing all you want.

John Jantsch (11:16.398)

So you just revealed, I haven't named this universal law yet, but one of my universal laws is that there's this inverse relationship between how much somebody pays you and how much attention they need.

Bill Canady (11:29.459)

Absolutely. You know, there's something about it, right? We all have the story, you know, of that tiny customer. So Motel 6, you remember that? We'll leave the light on you, Tom Modep. So Motel 6, when I was in grad school, we did a study on it, or it was a case study that we read. And, you know, they ran that whole hotel with one person.

There was only ever one person, which by the way, if you ever stayed in it, you believed it. it was a wonderful hotel and all that, but they were so efficient. So we're doing the case study and then they said, how do you think they did it and what they did? So if you came into a Motel 6, there was a counter there, a person behind it, that was the person running everything. Behind them was the laundry, right? They could just turn right around. It wasn't a pretty wall, it was laundry machines.

John Jantsch (11:59.042)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:19.598)

Hmm.

Bill Canady (12:22.433)

This was back in the days when I was there, when he had VCRs and they would at eight o'clock, they'd put the VCR, the video in, right? And things like that. And so the biggest issue they had with their employees and they would fire them for this is an employee would get a call from a room, say room 10 and that person would be having a problem and whatever the problem is, right? The employee would leave and go check on it. Now, what would happen is during that time they're going to solve this one issue,

They'd have 10 people come in, try it, no one's at the front desk. Phone or ring? No one can answer the phone. So they had to put in hard and fast rules that you cannot get distracted by trivial things. And so it's a really stark example of that, but they ran a whole hotel with one person. And I don't remember now what was it they were charging, probably 30, 40 bucks, but they made money at it because they were efficient.

John Jantsch (12:54.947)

Yes.

John Jantsch (13:17.698)

So there's a line in the book.

somewhere, but I wrote this down that you talk about businesses needing to earn the right to grow before they can scale. And I think that's fairly nuanced. So I'd love it if you'd kind of unpack what you mean there.

Bill Canady (13:35.917)

It is.

Bill Canady (13:40.056)

So my favorite line with that is a baby does not make a bad marriage better, right? So what we mean by that is it's interesting. You can be really good at getting customers, but if you can't satisfy them, what you wind up with is a whole bunch of short-term unhappy people. When you come into an operation and you're looking at it and there's problems, it's generally not just a sales problem. There's operational problems.

John Jantsch (14:07.499)

Mm-hmm.

Bill Canady (14:07.533)

There's inventory problems. There's supplier problems. You need to correct a lot of those as you're going so you can actually earn that right to go get the business because you know, a customer, don't care what our problems are. They just want what they want, just like anyone else and as they should, right? So if you can't ship on time, if you're a problem, if you have quality defects, before you go get more people to see how bad you do, perhaps you want to go back in your factory and clean it up a little bit.

and do some tech time studies and look at your sourcing and on and on because there's very few of us that have products you can't get anywhere else, right? Most of us have something that's easily attainable, no matter what our differences are. Make sure you start with getting the machine running well, get the engine in the car capable of getting where you need to be while you're out getting those customers. It'll make a big difference for

John Jantsch (14:57.954)

Yeah, that, I'm not sure where I heard this, it reminds me of the line, we're losing money on every sale, but we're making it up on volume, right?

Bill Canady (15:05.645)

in volume. That was the old spark plug things. We're going to sell spark plugs for $1. We buy them for $2, but we're going to make it up in volume. We used to say that on it. I started out as a sales guy. I love them, but I always felt like it gave me a license to make fun of them. There was never, just, man, if operations can make this thing and I can only sell it for $1, that two bucks needs to be their problem. When you own the business or you're running the business, you have to look at the whole P &L.

John Jantsch (15:12.43)

you

Okay, yeah.

John Jantsch (15:20.97)

Hehehehe

Bill Canady (15:34.015)

and you got to figure it all out. Just because you can get it out on time doesn't mean you make that money at it, right? It takes a lot of effort.

John Jantsch (15:38.254)

Yeah. So if I was a business owner, I had a variety of issues that I'd identified that had me in panic mode. And I said, Bill, come on down and take a look at our company, fix us. Where do you generally start?

Bill Canady (15:54.902)

You know, it's the most amazing thing. So I get everyone together. I get them in a conference room. And the first thing I ask them is, what is our goal? What does good look like? And not some, we're going to be better human beings and treat people with dignity. That's all important too. But where are we going? What's the destination? I have yet to have the same answer out of two people. You go around that table and operations will say something operations like, we got to be on time.

John Jantsch (16:17.902)

Hmm.

Bill Canady (16:23.467)

The majority of times, the goal is set by whoever owns it. In private equity, typically they want to get at least three times whatever dollar of equity they put in, it's called Moit, multiple loan invested cash. A private company is whatever the values of the owners are. Sometimes it's parochial, take care of my employees in my town. Almost always it's the dividend as well. That's how they take care of their family and themselves, what they live off of. That's really very important. In a public company,

John Jantsch (16:47.438)

Yeah.

Bill Canady (16:50.303)

It can be all sorts of things. That's why it's so hard to run a public company. At the beginning of a quarter, it's one thing. At the end, you need that penny to make your earnings per share. Start with that. If you start with what the value is, what that goal is, your job as a CEO is then to figure out, make that goal, and you and your team figure out the strategy of how to get there. Most people never do that.

John Jantsch (17:16.716)

believe that we're going through, you I've been doing this 30 years. know you said you'd been doing this, this work for 30 years. So we've seen some, the world is ending moments and know, ups and downs and cycles and whatnot. I feel like, and here, this is maybe a record. I'm 17 minutes into the show. I'm just now mentioning AI, but I think, I feel like what's going on with AI and how that's going to change business is really,

We'll get through it. There'll be new industries, there'll be new jobs, but I feel like we're in a time where people have to decide, do I go this way or that way with my business? Standing still is not an option. How do you feel like that's going to shake out? This is just a guess, but what's your view on how that's going to shake out the next two, three years maybe?

Bill Canady (18:05.293)

I remember in the 80s, late 80s, I didn't have a cell phone and never heard of computer. And then I get a cell phone and my first cell phone was analog, right? And they were coming out with digital. I'm like, I don't know if I want to switch, right? Same thing with computers, right? If you're old like I am, you've gone through all this. AI is not only coming, it's here, right? It is absolutely going to have an effect on us and already in our businesses.

John Jantsch (18:26.488)

Yeah, yeah, right.

Bill Canady (18:32.173)

it is making an impact. Not in maybe some of the really meaningful ways, but I think I saw the other day on, you know, we've got a terrible war going on around the world. I think I saw where they're trying to fight the war with robots. Now, I don't know if you saw that in there. So, I mean, look, we are definitely in the future now. AI, just like we thought computers would get rid of everyone and cell phones all of a sudden would kill all these. It changes things, but it means we can do more. And you, as a person,

If you want to do it, maybe you got to get new skills. Sometimes that's the case with it, but you can continue to grow and go on and on and on. So whether you embrace it or not, doesn't matter. It's happening. It's happening around us every day. Everybody I know now either has, if you've got Microsoft co-pilots in it, this is a very simple example. If you're my daughter, means I'm paying for her subscription to chat GPT, right? So everyone's got it and they're using it to just even write simple documents now, right? We're doing faster in our...

John Jantsch (19:23.214)

you

Bill Canady (19:30.005)

our turnaround time is, it will allow more throughput for us. It will cost us some jobs for sure, but we'll also create a whole new industry we haven't even thought about. So embrace it, whatever level you're comfortable with. This rocket's leaving the platform here.

John Jantsch (19:41.699)

Yes.

John Jantsch (19:45.836)

Yeah. Yeah. No, I've, I've said that at least for the last couple of years that, the only risky move right now is to just try to stay put and hope it goes away. Sure. That's right.

Bill Canady (19:55.501)

It's never worked even without AI, you know, there was not going anywhere as making the decision. You're basically punching out. So you're going to go backwards or forwards. My thought is go with it. The other thing I would add to it is, you know, for most of us, I mean, there's some big fancy companies out there that do all this. Most of us are at best fast followers, right? I'm just really starting to embrace it and use it. I sat on a university board. We have students from all over the world.

John Jantsch (20:18.318)

Mm-hmm.

Bill Canady (20:25.357)

Now when you call our number, they actually interact with AI because they can do over a hundred different languages, right? And can you imagine having a hundred different people available at any time and they'll send it all out? You still need people, but it's really enabling a lot of different growth opportunities.

John Jantsch (20:32.078)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (20:37.368)

Alright. Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:43.512)

Well, I was going to say opportunity is really the word because a lot of people fear change, but change always brings opportunity. And that's really where I think we are.

Bill Canady (20:52.747)

Gotta be agile, gotta be flagged. It hurts though, right? I mean, Jesus, what else? I had someone like today, I don't know if you experienced this, but you can get ahold of me on a cell phone, text, email, Teams. I've got a new thing they call Notion they're sending me things on. So I've got all this stuff and I'm like, can't they just like, know, can't they just pick one? Well, they're never gonna pick one. That problem's a build problem, not anyone else. I'm the one that has to change.

John Jantsch (20:55.894)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (21:18.498)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Bill, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. there anywhere you'd like to invite people to connect with you and find out more about from panic to profit?

Bill Canady (21:29.441)

Yeah, so first I can just go right to my website. It's my name, BillCanady.com. You can see it right here on the screen. I encourage everyone to come there. You can look at the book, look at my other stuff. Happy to help in any way possible.

John Jantsch (21:40.78)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by. Hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Bill Canady (21:45.943)

Sounds good, John. Thank you so much for having me. This was fantastic.

John Jantsch (21:49.016)

Awesome.

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How to Outrank Big Competitors in Search

How to Outrank Big Competitors in Search written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Sam Dunning

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Sam Dunning, founder of Breaking B2B, an SEO firm specializing in SEO for revenue—not vanity metrics. Sam shares his insights on how small businesses can compete with industry giants in Google rankings by focusing on B2B SEO strategies that drive organic traffic and real conversions.

We discuss the dangers of falling into the “traffic trap”, where businesses chase high-volume keywords that don’t convert, and instead explore long-tail SEO tactics, strategic keyword research, and the role of AI in SEO. Sam also shares practical techniques for competitor SEO analysis, leveraging on-page and off-page SEO, and adapting to Google search updates to maintain visibility.

If you’re tired of seeing competitors outrank you in search, this episode is packed with actionable strategies to help your business dominate Google rankings and drive revenue.

Key Takeaways:

• Avoid the Traffic Trap: Prioritize keywords that drive inbound leads over vanity metrics. Focus on search engine optimization that brings paying customers, not just clicks.

• Use Long-Tail SEO to Compete: Instead of targeting high-competition terms, optimize for landing pages SEO with niche-specific keywords that align with customer intent.

• Maximize EEAT for Authority: Build trust and credibility through technical SEO, backlinks, and authoritative content that aligns with Google’s EEAT framework.

• Adapt to AI and Google Search Changes: Stay ahead of Google AI overviews and algorithm updates by creating high-value, user-focused content.

• Leverage Local SEO & Competitive Analysis: For service businesses, local SEO is critical. Optimize Google Business Profile, target location-based keywords, and analyze competitors’ weaknesses to rank higher.

• Invest in SEO Strategy, Not Shortcuts: SEO is a long-term game. Avoid SEO mistakes like low-quality backlinks and keyword stuffing. Instead, build a sustainable SEO content strategy that drives consistent business growth.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Sam Dunning
• [00:31] Approach to SEO Strategy
• [03:42] SEO Isn’t for Every Business
• [06:21] SEO is a Long-term Game
• [08:53] Your Marketing Niche
• [13:00] Google Search vs AI Search
• [15:24] SEO and Local Search
• [18:46] Where to Start with SEO

More About Sam Dunning: 

Check out Sam Dunning’s Website
Connect with Sam Dunning on LinkedIn

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by

Want to elevate your marketing game? AdCritter pairs Connected TV ads with precise digital retargeting to drive real results. Discover how their full-funnel strategy can help your business grow smarter. Let them know Duct Tape Marketing sent you, and you’ll get a dollar-for-dollar match on your first campaign! Learn more at adcritter.com.

 

Duct Tape Transcript

Email Download New Tab

John Jantsch (00:00.98)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Sam Dunning. He is the founder at Breaking B2B, an SEO firm and the host of podcast by the same name, Breaking B2B. So Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Dunning (00:20.738)

Hey John, thanks for having me on man. Looking forward to the chat.

John Jantsch (00:23.822)

So I know that one of your promises, taglines, messages, whatever we want to call it, SEO for revenue, not vanity. So let's start there. How do you define that distinction and how do you use that to sort of differentiate yourself from other SEO firms?

Sam Dunning (00:42.742)

Yeah, great place to start. So in short, it's after going through the pain myself. It's so before I got into SEO as a profession or ran my own consultancy or agency, kind of working with past agencies, teams, contractors, and also potential clients, prospects, and customers that come to us. So much of the time get frustrated as they've either tried to do SEO themselves.

hired contractors, hired teams or whoever it may be, but have focused on the wrong metrics or wrong outcomes. So they've fallen into what I call John the traffic trap, which is even more important in the world of AI as AI search, LLMs take over slowly beat at Google's market share. They've fallen into something called the traffic trap. What does the traffic trap means? Well, it means they go for informational based keywords on Google search.

John Jantsch (01:38.48)

businesses.

Sam Dunning (01:39.734)

So think of things like simple searches, like what is a KPI, how to build a website, what is a CRM, stuff that's easily answerable nowadays with things like AI overviews in Google, which show up as really high juicy traffic terms, but are not likely to result in conversions, AKA inbound leads, demo requests, booked calls, or whatever that main call to action your B2B company wants.

John Jantsch (01:50.49)

Yep.

Sam Dunning (02:07.092)

So they fall into that trap thinking we need to get traffic at all costs, but it's not going to result in, or it's very unlikely to result in a book called demo or conversion. Now I thought, well, that's a waste of time, especially running, running a business myself. And I'm sure you're the same John, like most marketing that we put, whether it's our own resource or agencies or contractors want to result in actual kind of qualified leads or revenue. So we flipped that on its head. thought, how can we do the opposite of that?

and focus on what is a dream client actually searching for when they need our offer, when they have this very specific problem we solve or they're comparing alternatives and how can we show up and start driving qualified inbound traffic for those terms.

John Jantsch (02:50.0)

Yeah, and I think one of the things, know, there are a lot of people that have enjoyed what looked like a lot of good organic traffic that are kind of freaking out because all of those information searches are going away or Google's like hoarding them, right? And so a lot of people have seen real drops in traffic and they're freaking out, right? But what you're saying is that was garbage traffic anyway, wasn't

Sam Dunning (03:03.566)

Mm.

Sam Dunning (03:10.978)

Yeah, now, now don't get me wrong, top of funnel or informational based SEO isn't completely dead. But if you're doing a very light version of it, stuff that can be simply answered by an AI or LLM, then that probably is a waste of your time. And those prospects that are searching for that kind of stuff, like very simple what is or very simple how to terms are probably just going to land on your page, get the info and bounce off.

John Jantsch (03:35.93)

Yeah, yeah, I do. I do it dozens of times a day myself, right? You because I just want to figure out like, how do I make that thing work in this tool that I'm using? And I know I could find somebody who's written about it, but I can't even tell you what their website was or what it was about. So SEO really, with a lot of small business clients, is so misunderstood that it gets a really bad rap, you know, because a lot of people hire SEO people, they don't know what they're doing.

Sam Dunning (03:51.522)

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

John Jantsch (04:04.804)

they're getting some reports once a month that seem to say they're ranking for something and ultimately they get really frustrated. And, so, you know, what is it that you think, the, the, the, true, like value-based, let's put it that way. Cause there are a lot of scammers out there. The true sort of value-based SEO firm is, is going to be telling their clients today. that is kind of different.

different than smoke and mirrors that I think a lot of SEO folks have used to describe what they're doing.

Sam Dunning (04:37.238)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd say one of the first things is that SEO is not for every business. And what do I mean by that? Well, I mean, first and foremost, you have to be in a sector that actually has demand to capture. So you have to be in a known category and have folks, AKA your dream clients or prospects actively searching for your offer. Because if you're trying to create some kind of new tool, new service, new offer, Google is, SEO is always best as a demand capture channel.

John Jantsch (04:43.216)

Hmm.

Sam Dunning (05:05.036)

So you need prospects in market searching for your offer. That's the first thing. The second thing is you actually have to have resource to make it worthwhile. Whether that is your own cash, like you mentioned, they're hiring a contractor agency, whoever it may be, that you can invest to actually give it a good amount of time to see success, or you need the resource in-house. Marketers that actually know what makes a solid SEO campaign.

know how to actually build a revenue driving SEO program, whether that is creating, doing solid keyword research around what your dream clients search or when they need the offer, building content that matches that intent that resonates with dream clients and is also following SEO best practices than the other elements of SEO, be it link building, technical SEO, et cetera. And you have to have the longevity to make it worthwhile. And you can, don't get me wrong, you can see results with SEO done right as quick as 90 days, but

John Jantsch (05:56.613)

Yes.

Sam Dunning (06:03.762)

If you're looking at it as a quick hit and you're thinking, yeah, I'll do this for a month. Then I might switch and do paid ads. Then I might do some social ads. Then I might try some outbound sales. Then I might do some review sites. Then it is a waste of your time. Do another channel that you can give a chance or stick to paid media.

John Jantsch (06:20.398)

Yeah. So what do you tell a client when, mean, because you, just told me something a lot of clients don't want to hear, right? It's like, no, I, you know, I, see my top three competitors are, know, on top of Google. How come I'm not? so, you know, how do you kind of set the expectation for that fact that it's a long-term game? Because let's face it, there have been SEO folks that I sound like I'm really negative SEO, but I've just seen too many small businesses get kind of burned by just not understanding it. And so not knowing what they're even buying,

Sam Dunning (06:46.53)

Yeah, I get it.

John Jantsch (06:49.902)

So because a lot of SEO firms hide behind that, it's a long-term game, it's a long-term game, which just means you're never gonna get results.

Sam Dunning (06:57.516)

Yeah, it's that classic response, right? Like the client says, or the potential customer says, how long does SEO take agency says, six to 12 months, sign our 12 month retainer and we'll be good. So what you said is correct in the sense that let's face it. Most of us, whether we're a B2B service company, tech company, software company, we have giant competitors, right? We've got the top three, the top four, the top five that always come up in sales conversations to an annoying level.

John Jantsch (07:06.298)

Right.

Sam Dunning (07:25.57)

And they're probably, if we've not done SEO ranking above us for some of those core terms that we want to start driving leads for. Now, usually for those juicy terms, there's quite often competitors owning those. So let me give you a tangible example. If let's pretend we sold proposal software as a tool. We might want to own terms like best proposal software or best proposal tools, et cetera.

But those are gonna be extremely competitive. You've got massive software companies like Proposify, Quilla, PandaDoc, well-funded companies that have a ton of cash to spend on marketing and SEO. Now, how can we beat these companies? Because we're probably not gonna get ranked for that keyword for years, realistically. Well, that's when you need to do something called long tail SEO. And you need to, instead of thinking like we're gonna rank for best proposal software in this instance, we might go for things like, we might pick niches that...

that are maybe underserved or that we've historically sold well into. So you might think, all right, short term, like the next three months or so, we're gonna go for like proposal software for FinTech teams or for sales teams or for HR teams, or we're gonna target competitors. Like we're gonna go for Proposify alternatives or GetAccept alternatives, all that kind of stuff. there's always quick wins you can grab with SEO, but it's naturally knowing first and foremost, what niches you wanna target.

John Jantsch (08:28.464)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (08:43.14)

you

Sam Dunning (08:44.972)

what your prospects might be searching for and realizing that those really super competitive terms are going to be owned by the giants and that we have to chip away at the stuff they're under serving.

John Jantsch (08:53.936)

Yeah. And I love that idea. You know, I have people come to me all the time and they're starting a business and they're like, should I choose a niche? And I'm like, well, my take is, mean, if you have a real reason, like you're an expert in that and you've worked in it all your life. Otherwise, I think what happens is a lot of people choose niches they think are good. And, but, you know, then they're like six months later having to start their business over again. but I'm always telling people you don't have to choose a niche, but you should niche your marketing.

Sam Dunning (09:15.48)

Mm.

John Jantsch (09:21.412)

And that's really what you're talking about is that, you have campaigns that are like, say professional services is a category for you. Well, there's 10 subcategories in there and you should be messaging to those 10 subcategories. And I'm hearing you say that that's a, that's a solid foundation for approaching SEO today.

Sam Dunning (09:42.122)

Exactly right exactly right. So I always say Like going back to marketing fundamentals like SEO Let's ignore SEO for a second the main marketing fundamentals are have an offer But have an offer that serves a dream client that ideally has historically bought well into your service is in a niche that can easily Ford your offer Has the expensive problem you solve is motivated to solve it and has no issue spending cash on it

If you can get those lined up, that's good, not just for SEO, but for marketing in general. So I have a very simple, I'm a simple guy. A lot of my strategies are straightforward when it comes to actually building out your SEO, like what keywords should we target? What type of content should we create? I recommend folks, whether it's a founder, whether it's your marketing leader, whoever in your organization makes sense. The very simple strategy for finding what I call money keywords, which in simple terms of commercial keywords that your dream clients will search for needing your offer.

Fire up a Google Sheet, fire up an Excel Sheet, split it into four main columns. Column one is what you actually call your offer. Going back to proposal software, that might be proposal software, proposal tools, proposal platform. Column two, what are those money niches that you've historically sold well that can have the problem you solve and motivate to solve it and can easily afford the offer? Could be, like you said, financial firms, accountancies, whatever those niches are. The third is what are those main competitors that always come up in sales calls? That's column three. And the fourth is...

This is probably a framework you've talked about on the podcast. I'm sure jobs to be done. What are your dream clients jobs to be done? What are those struggling moments they face? Maybe they try to do something internally, like they cobbled together a solution on Google sheets or Excel, or maybe in the sales proposal world, like it would be like something like how to build a sales proposal within Google docs or how to, how to build out sales proposals that convert all that kind of stuff. Why do I build those four columns? Well,

John Jantsch (11:14.544)

Mm-hmm, true.

Sam Dunning (11:37.486)

It helps me build out long tail keywords that my dream clients were actually going to search for needing the offer. And if I get, if I'm, if I have a team, then I might involve my sales team. So they can actually come with me to say, look, these are competitors that come up. These are the niches that are doing well right now. Um, these are the common frustrations or our clients jobs to be done or struggling moments. And then we can have well-informed keyword research. That's also going to fuel our content when we get to that stage.

that our target prospects are probably actually looking for when they need our offer.

John Jantsch (12:10.248)

So one of the things that if we could do a quick search and find 10 blog posts on people saying SEO is dying and AI is going to eat all SEO organic traffic. one of the things I'm hearing you say is, or at least that I'm seeing is, if you're really focused on high demand, AI is not really returning results for somebody who is looking to hire

an accountant in their community right now, right? mean, if somebody who's really doing that level of search, they're not getting an AI overview for that, are they?

Sam Dunning (12:46.766)

Not so much not to say there aren't it's like right now from what we're saying a lot of the AI Overviews and more for informational based searches Not always but quite a lot of time now. There's there's obviously two sides to the coin with your typical Google result now There's sometimes an AI overview at the top Then you've got some a couple sponsored listings. Then you've got the organic results in between but that aside You've also got LLMs like chat GPT search perplexity, etc

John Jantsch (12:49.956)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Dunning (13:16.416)

Now, a lot of folks are saying stuff like, when I say a lot of folks, mean, random marketers on LinkedIn, et cetera, they like to make a lot of noise and saying stuff like Google search is dying and all this kind of stuff. the truth is that LLMs, whether that is chat, chat, GPT, perplexity, et cetera, are gaining chat. GPT is especially are gaining a bit more market share, but it's nothing in comparison to Google. Google's still growing and it still is by far the most searched engine. when it comes to those prospects.

John Jantsch (13:26.405)

Yes.

John Jantsch (13:44.752)

So what do we, just to put a number on that, 2, 3 % for the LLM?

Sam Dunning (13:50.67)

I can't, I can't remember what it's last valued at, but Brian Fishkin has just done a report. So one of the, one of the well-known SEOs he's just put out a report to show that I mean, Google is literally kind of a hundred X or so more compared to some of these LLMs. So what I'm saying is the thing to consider is if you have a more technical user, so if your end clients are more technical, they're probably using more AI search. If not, they're more of a layman.

They're probably still using Google for now, but it's more to be aware that AI is on the rise. We can certainly dive into some ways that you can rank on LLMs and chat to you between similar happy to dive into that. But I think that's one thing to bear in mind. Most folks are still using Google when they have intent to review offers.

John Jantsch (14:36.848)

Yeah. Sometimes we forget about, you know, what our target market does. Like, do they read the newspaper? Do they, you know, it's like, that's what we need to pay attention to. Right. So, so, uh, instead of ranking on the LLMs, I'd let's for a minute go into local search. Um, so a lot of, let's say I'm a local home remodeler. Um, I mean, in, in this day and age search has really been, I mean, we can run ads and do things, but search has been a big driver of business, uh, for me, especially if I can get myself in that three pack.

Sam Dunning (14:50.211)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (15:05.776)

So how is local search going to be impacted?

Sam Dunning (15:10.614)

Yeah. I mean, to be blunt, I don't do tons with local businesses. most exactly, exactly. So a lot of my clients are kind of more national, not necessarily serving, serving small end industries. Now, yeah, some of that, again, some of that, certain searches will, will be appearing in whether it's Google AI overviews. So you get the quick review, and that sort of things. And I think more of it is understanding the crux of SEO in my opinion, at least.

John Jantsch (15:14.67)

Yeah, because B2B is more national, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Dunning (15:40.814)

is yes, you follow simple guidelines with technical. So for example, if you were, say, I don't know, providing HVAC in a certain state of the U S so let's say in New Jersey, those kinds of HVAC services in New Jersey, for example, if we actually want to typically what's going to rank for that is probably a landing page. And the usual framework I like to follow for a landing page is problem. Are you facing this problem with whatever's going on in your home? This is the impact of that problem.

We'll agitate a bit and then this is the solution. This is how we're well equipped to solve these issues, these bleedneck frustrations. And then you'll probably show some examples of your offer. You'll have some client testimonials and reviews might have an FAQ like what's your pricing? How long does it take? What's your refund policy? And you have a call to action to book a call. The crux of SEO is reviewing what's ranking right now. In this case for our target search term, this offer in this location.

And how can I completely blow that page out of the water? How can I make my page more helpful, more useful, more educational, trustworthy and convincing to this dream client? And a lot of that comes down to customer research, like knowing what your prospects actually care about their jobs to be done in their end goals. Yes, you need basic technical SEO. So you need your focus keyword in the URL. You need it in the H1 in the MetaTitle description. And you might want some internal links on that page to other blog articles or other useful pages. But if you can follow that framework.

With local SEO, in most cases, you can actually outrank competitors without even worrying about backlinks. Cause a lot of these local websites, they're not really doing a lot of SEO. They might have like a couple pages, like homepage, couple service pages, portfolio contact. If you can actually strategically build out what I call these money pages for like offer plus industry, offer plus location, and do that in a systematic way that's custom research backed, then you can, you can probably start ranking quite nicely and pulling in some leads.

John Jantsch (17:14.412)

Yeah. Right.

John Jantsch (17:36.034)

You said one of my favorite words that you Brits say, HVAC. I love that term.

It's a little different than the way us Americans pronounce it.

Sam Dunning (17:50.23)

It's also niche isn't it when Brits say niche and US says niche. I always get those two mixed up.

John Jantsch (17:51.788)

Yeah. Well, I have learned niche too. I rather prefer niche. So that's one. I have a lot of Canadians that are clients and a couple of their words of process is one that as opposed to process that I love to harass them about. you went into a business, they said, Hey, Sam,

Sam Dunning (17:59.071)

Okay.

John Jantsch (18:16.506)

Come help us. We're not ranking for anything. You know, they've got a decent business. They've got a decent product or offer. I mean, that's not really the issue. Where do you start? I mean, what do you, how do you kind of start the process? And let's say they've bought into, it's going to be a six month process. Do you have a set? You know, here's what we do first. Here's what we do next. Here's how we expand that.

Sam Dunning (18:37.678)

Yeah, yeah, so you start with what we briefly touched on earlier. So understanding the main offer, problems they solve, competitors, industries that they serve well, that have that expensive problem and motivated to fix it and have cash to easily invest in the offer. So you build out that Google sheet, formulating those offers, industries, jobs to be done and competitors, make those four main columns. And then from there,

John Jantsch (18:42.82)

Yep.

Sam Dunning (19:05.026)

We're making our money long tail commercial keywords. So what service do you want to make at us, Or what offer?

John Jantsch (19:12.99)

you know, let's do mine, marketing strategy.

Sam Dunning (19:16.182)

Okay, it's quite a nice broad one. And do we want to serve like specific niches? Are we gonna?

John Jantsch (19:18.442)

Yeah, let's go with home service businesses where we're going to serve like remodeling contractors, roofers, landscapers.

Sam Dunning (19:26.23)

Yep, lovely, lovely. Yeah, yeah, so we could, if we wanted to drill down on those niches, some of our offerings might be, some of our money keywords might be like marketing services for landscaping or best marketing agency for landscapers and hitting some of those home niches. And then once we've kind of worked out, once we've exhausted what I call these long tail keywords, and then if we go to kind of...

That would be kind of some of the high commercial intent keywords. If we, if we went more jobs to be done, it might be how to rank higher as my home services business or why is my business not showing up on Google? Why is my landscape business not driving leads or why is my landscaping website not converting? Those might be some of the struggling moment searches.

John Jantsch (20:11.442)

So those were all questions, by the way, right?

Sam Dunning (20:15.116)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are things that probably come up on discovery calls. That's how you pull those. So make an exhaustive list of that. Like I said, if you're the founder, you'll know a lot of these, but if you perhaps have a sales team, they can help you contribute to that. Then simplest way to actually build content that ranks is to just Google those keywords. So let's say marketing agency for landscapers or best marketing agency for landscape or something like that. Google the keywords, see what the top three organic pages are.

John Jantsch (20:15.952)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (20:28.4)

Sure,

Sam Dunning (20:44.652)

what type of page they are. This is called addressing, assessing the intent. Is it a landing page, a blog article, a how-to, a product list, a comparison, whatever. Probably gonna be, I'd imagine a landing page for that type of keyword. It might be a top 10 comparison, like we reviewed the top marketing agencies in 2025 for landscapers. Probably one of the two. See what shows more in the organic search results. Let's pretend it's a landing page. I'd review the top.

John Jantsch (21:03.12)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Dunning (21:12.396)

three landing pages. So what's ranking now of my competitors. I look for gaps in those pages. Usually landing pages are quite thin. This is our offer. There's some testimonials. Here's a to action. So I would do what we talked about earlier, problem agitation solution based on our knowledge of the industry or ourselves team's knowledge. So start with the hero area, the top banner. This is the offer. Here's a call to action. Here's a book of cool calls to action. Are you facing these problems?

around your landscaping company, like struggling to drive leads for your website, competitors above you in organic search results or spending loads of cash on ads and not returning pipeline. Here's exactly how we fix it. Here's three video testimonials of customers we sold it for. Here's our exact process from A to Z. Here's some FAQs around our offer. Why are we more expensive than other marketing agencies? Do we have a proven process? Do we have a returns policy?

How quickly can I see results? All those FAQs from those kind of really tight objections you get on sales calls. And then yeah, follow the technical SEO basics. So the focus URL has the keywords. So yourdomain.com forward slash best landscaping marketing agency. Same for the H1, same for the meta title and description. So that's what I call the blow out the water strategy, review what's ranking, make your page more helpful, useful, educational, trustworthy.

John Jantsch (22:10.03)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Dunning (22:34.84)

Google rolled out a framework called EEAT, Experience Expertise Authority Trust a while back. And for more, I guess, for less competitive terms, that alone, doing that at scale in a systematic way, like saying, look, we're gonna publish, we're gonna build out and publish five to 10 pages each month, whatever's realistic for your company, we'll steadily get your rankings. When you get to more competitive terms, I don't know, in the marketing agency world, like things like best marketing agency in the US or whatever it might be,

John Jantsch (22:37.626)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (22:52.624)

Yeah. Right.

Sam Dunning (23:03.886)

you're gonna have tons of competitors. That's when you'll need the help of backlinks to build up your website's authority. And there's a bunch of ways to build links, happy to dive into, but that's just a starting point that I'd recommend.

John Jantsch (23:07.918)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (23:17.348)

My favorite is guesting on podcasts, quite frankly, because we're going to link back to your site, Sam, and we're going to promote the heck out of this episode. so that to me is one of the best backlinks that you can get is going on people shows. Plus you get the exposure, you know, you might actually get a client because somebody listens to it. So that's my favorite. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Dunning (23:36.79)

Yeah, it's great. It is one of the best. I'd probably put that as number one or number two for sure. My other favorite is building partnerships, which again has more holistic business play. So this is finding partners that serve the same ICP, the same idle client profile as you, but are not direct competitors. So as a real example, I partner with a LinkedIn ads agency, Impactable. They serve just like me, B2B service and B2B SaaS clients, but they're not going after SEO clients because they don't offer it. So.

John Jantsch (23:44.911)

Right.

Sam Dunning (24:05.518)

I approached their founder guy called Justin a while back and I'm a big fan, John of weird, painfully short messages if I'm trying to get stuff done. So I probably sent you one. I find the founder or the marketing leader on LinkedIn. I'll say something like, Hey Justin had a weird idea to scale your organic traffic and in bounds you against a conversation. He'll probably connect with me on LinkedIn or whatever channel I outreach email, whatever, and say, Sam, what are you on about? But let's hear what you've got to say. Then I'll shoot him like a loom video.

John Jantsch (24:30.084)

Yeah.

Sam Dunning (24:33.006)

and just say, look, I've got an idea. In this case, partnership play. The small step initially I might offer is I'll write out a guest blog article for you that will be really useful to your audience. And in return, I just want to link back. And then they might do that and that might grow into, okay, let's do a podcast together. Okay, let's do some more content together. All right, let's start presenting business each other's way. So it's gone from just a small SEO play to like reciprocal business. Just like your podcast is kind of has so much more play to it than just SEO.

John Jantsch (25:00.878)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, Sam, I appreciate you taking a few moments to drop by the duct tape marketing podcast, where would you invite people to connect with you find out more about your work?

Sam Dunning (25:09.942)

I really appreciate it. Three, three main ways. Really one is LinkedIn. I post ramblings on SEO each and every day. The second is the Breaking B2B podcast where we interview just like this marketing leaders as well as solo episodes on SEO and what's working on marketing today. Or the third is if you're tired of seeing competitors above you and organic search results, stealing traffic inbound leads and more, then we might be able to fix it with our unusual approach to SEO. It's BreakingB2B.com. Happy to chat.

John Jantsch (25:37.584)

Again, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Sam Dunning (25:43.022)

Cheers, man. Thank you.

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Weekend Favs March 15th

Weekend Favs March 15th written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Munch AI – AI-powered content repurposing tool that automatically extracts engaging clips from long-form videos, optimizes them for social media, and enhances them with captions and trends.

• Wisecut – AI video editing software that automates cuts, generates subtitles, and enhances audio, making it easy to create professional videos with minimal effort.

• FlexClip – User-friendly online video editor with templates, stock media, and AI tools for creating marketing videos, slideshows, and social media content quickly.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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7 Paths to a Successful Startup

7 Paths to a Successful Startup written by Jarret Redding read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Lori Rosenkopf

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Lori Rosenkopf, Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School and author of Unstoppable Entrepreneurs: Seven Paths for Unleashing Successful Startups and Creating Value Through Innovation. Lori’s research on entrepreneurship, business growth, and innovation has been published in top academic journals, and she has spent years studying what truly sets successful entrepreneurs apart.

During our conversation, Lori shared insights from her book, focusing on the seven distinct paths to startup success. She highlighted the importance of resilience, adaptability, and business strategy, emphasizing that there is no single formula for success. From bootstrapping a business to leveraging venture capital, each path offers unique opportunities and challenges.

Key Takeaways:

• Startup success isn’t one-size-fits-all – Entrepreneurs can achieve success through multiple pathways, including business innovation, technology startups, and business pivots.

• Bootstrapping builds resilience – Many successful founders delay seeking startup funding, giving them more control over their vision and business growth strategies.

• Recombination fuels innovation – Entrepreneurs who blend unique experiences and skills often discover breakthrough ideas that lead to business success.

• Mindset matters – A strong entrepreneurial mindset helps business owners navigate startup challenges and seize growth opportunities.

• Pivoting can lead to major breakthroughs – The ability to adapt and shift direction is a key trait of thriving small business owners.

• Funding isn’t the only path to scaling – While venture capital is one route, many startups achieve business resilience by reinvesting profits and expanding strategically.

• Success takes time and persistence – The media highlights overnight success stories, but real entrepreneurship is about long-term strategy, innovation, and problem-solving.

Chapters:

• [00:09] Introducing Lori Rosenkopf
• [00:53] Telling Real Entrepreneur Stories
• [03:59] The Six Rs
• [06:33] The Realities of Disrupting the Market
• [07:37] Bootstrapping
• [09:58] Technology Commercializers
• [11:17] Accidental Entrepreneur
• [15:20] Defining Innovation

More About Lori Rosenkopf: 

• Check out Lori Rosenkopf’s Website
• Connect with Lori Rosenkopf on LinkedIn
• Read Unstoppable Entrepreneurs: 7 Paths for Unleashing Successful Startups and Creating Value through Innovationl Guide by Lori Rosenkopf

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John Jantsch (00:00.792)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jantsch and my guest today is Laurie Rosenkopf. She is the Simon Imidge Pauley Professor, Professor of Management and Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School. Her research on technology and communities and knowledge flow has been published in top journals. She's served as a senior editor and consultant and has led significant curriculum and diversity initiatives. We're going to talk about her book.

Unstoppable Entrepreneurs, Seven Paths for Unleashing Successful Startups and Creating Value Through Innovation. It's going to be out in, depending upon when you're listening to this, it'll be out in April of 2025. So Laurie, welcome to the show.

Lori Rosenkopf (00:43.803)

Thanks, John. Great to be here.

John Jantsch (00:45.88)

So you talk about, I've got a one word underlined here that you talk about stories from entrepreneurs that you call the unvarnished stories that you find that really deeply resonate with folks. wonder if you can talk a little bit about that.

Lori Rosenkopf (01:01.231)

Sure. So many of the stories that we see in the media about entrepreneurs tell a successful path without so many of the obstacles and challenges that were faced along the way. And we know that all entrepreneurs are really facing daily, if not hourly, challenges. And so I wanted to tell stories of people who were going

through these challenges and how they got through them because there's a lot of lessons for all of us across the different stories.

John Jantsch (01:34.796)

Yeah, I would agree. mean, the media loves the unicorn, you know, stories and things. And even in some of those stories, you know, the whole like, we tried this eight times and pivoted eight times before we hit on the thing. And all that really happens is like, look at this big success story. I mean, there's lots of really big success stories, you know, that people mentioned Ubers of the world that were, you know, other things before they were that. So I think that.

Lori Rosenkopf (02:00.853)

Absolutely. And it's not just even choosing to pivot because the first approach isn't working, but it's like you're Caitlin, who's the social entrepreneur in my book, and she has taken a set of girls to discovery days to see different companies, to learn about careers, because that's her mission, to help girls find great careers. And she's running bus tours and COVID happens. Well, her business is gone. There's no bus tours.

John Jantsch (02:27.236)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lori Rosenkopf (02:30.183)

And she winds up doing a virtual program, which allowed her, once she digitized, to Forex her business really quickly. And now it's grown into a really thriving endeavor. She's an EdTech now, instead of a bus tour operator.

John Jantsch (02:42.606)

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I never want to say that the pandemic was a good thing, but you know how many industries, you know, that really came out of that out of necessity that everybody went, oh, this is actually a better way, but probably would have never really got tried or adopted without that set of circumstances. So you like all good authors. Well, actually, before I get into your methodology, I want to ask you,

How much is your environment at the school really fed into your learning and certainly what you put in the book?

Lori Rosenkopf (03:22.387)

I'm so glad you asked that. role as Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship means that I'm the Faculty Director of our Student Center for Entrepreneurship at Warren. And we have a host of students with a host of different interests who are demographically diverse and are trying to learn how to be more entrepreneurial, whether or not they'll go and become entrepreneurs right away. And I was seeing stories in the media which were

just the celebrity entrepreneurs, the unicorns, like you said. And those were a singular type. And I really wanted to tell stories of so many of our amazing students and alumni entrepreneurs to give them role models because role models matter.

John Jantsch (03:53.272)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:06.764)

So you talk about entrepreneurial mindsets and I'm so glad you picked on the tech bro a little bit image, but mindsets that you call the six Rs. Yeah. Reason, recombination, relationship, resources, resilience and results. I butchered it there, but you can maybe expand on that idea that you've distilled into these six Rs.

Lori Rosenkopf (04:31.955)

Yeah, in each of the seven stories we tell, so the seven different paths, there's not a one size fits all path to entrepreneurship. We talk about each of these different aspects and they're motivating principles that can help anyone to be more entrepreneurial. And so without going through the laundry list, my personal favorite is recombination. My research has focused on that historically, but the idea that each of us has a unique set of experiences.

John Jantsch (04:36.748)

Right, Yeah.

Lori Rosenkopf (05:01.361)

both in our workplace and our education, but also in our family life and where we've lived and the like. And it's through mixing all of the different experiences and relationships and resources to throw in a couple of others that we're able to see ideas that allow us to innovate. And innovation is what allows entrepreneurs to create value.

John Jantsch (05:23.8)

So are those mindsets something that we can adopt or have, or are they actually, or have they've actually become more like tactics or strategies, you know, that somebody, so like recombination, that can be somebody's mindset. They might think that way. They may look at architecture or calculus and say, what if we took some of those principles and did this with them? Or they might actually just say, you know, that's who I am. That's how my mind works. mean, how

Lori Rosenkopf (05:42.654)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (05:53.016)

How do you kind of, how do you balance kind of that idea of strategy versus mindset?

Lori Rosenkopf (06:00.209)

Well, when we're educating students, we're always talking about growth mindsets and figuring out how you can push yourself in new directions. And so I think that recombination, it's something that one can look backwards wherever they are and say, what's my mix? And take a little bit more stock and say, if I put these two things together and start to do some idea tournaments with yourself, but also in looking ahead, particularly for younger folks who are saying, what kind of job should I be looking to take or what kind of major?

John Jantsch (06:06.115)

Yeah.

Lori Rosenkopf (06:30.045)

might I take to say, let's stretch yourself a little bit. Let's not just take the standard path that everybody follows because then you're going to be very cookie cutter. But the people who are able to be the most successful and the innovations that have been really the most provocative and disruptive are ones where there's some novelty involved.

John Jantsch (06:49.492)

I'm glad you used the word disruptive because you actually have that as a path. You feature, I think, is it Amy? I think a lot of people tend to think that way. Like, I need to create something that just disrupts the market. I think a lot of people, that's their mindset, but it's actually really hard, isn't it?

Lori Rosenkopf (06:51.593)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Lori Rosenkopf (07:11.133)

Yes, it is very uncommon, let's say it that way, in addition to being hard. And I selected Amy specifically because she wasn't a tech bro. She's selling originally women's hair color, but she's built out a phenomenal omni-channel empire. And at the beginning, she had a little bit more struggle raising funds than someone who was doing it for, say, Dollar Shave Club. But she knew she wanted to do something big and disruptive.

John Jantsch (07:15.724)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (07:22.999)

Yeah, yeah.

Lori Rosenkopf (07:40.937)

She had worked as a venture capitalist, so back to recombination. She knew what was the pattern to recognize, and she saw this market and went for it. she's essentially a unicorn. She's doing extraordinarily well. You'll be seeing more of them in the news.

John Jantsch (07:59.352)

So you mentioned venture capital. I do think that there's a common feeling amongst people that startups like we've got to raise money or this round we're in this round. mean, that's a lot of the talk you hear. You give a lot of ink to bootstrapping. And I'm curious kind of your thinking or your approach to that path.

Lori Rosenkopf (08:02.623)

Mm-hmm.

Lori Rosenkopf (08:15.317)

Yes.

Lori Rosenkopf (08:20.467)

Well, bootstrapping is what we recommend to all of our young people starting off. Go as long as you can without raising. And I think these days that advice is getting out there more, but five or 10 years ago, everybody was saying, I need to raise, I need to raise, particularly in a place like Wharton where everyone wants to build high growth enterprises. Bootstrapping, I love this story. Jesse is my bootstrapper. He built a

John Jantsch (08:26.848)

Right. Yeah. Right.

John Jantsch (08:36.301)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (08:49.038)

Mm-hmm.

Lori Rosenkopf (08:50.739)

digital marketing firm. This wasn't his original training. He was just looking for a way to be entrepreneurial after being a banker. But he was one of the first in Facebook's API. So lots of digital spends managing that. He sold that. now, all bootstrapped, and now he's building out additional companies to help other entrepreneurs. You should have him on the show as well. for example,

John Jantsch (09:02.904)

Hmm.

John Jantsch (09:16.366)

Well, make an introduction, I'd be happy to.

Lori Rosenkopf (09:20.755)

Okay, but to go back to recombination, because this is why it's my favorite, because he built this digital marketing firm, because he had spent a couple of years working in banking and private equity sorts of environments, people from private equity firms are saying, could you help me assess whether this $10 billion acquisition I'm thinking about actually has a capable digital marketing strategy? He's built a new consulting business on that.

John Jantsch (09:37.582)

Yeah, yeah.

Lori Rosenkopf (09:50.025)

Others come to him say, you outsourced your talent to the Philippines and got all these growth assistants. He's built another company that hires growth assistants and places them for everyone. So like his entrepreneurial spirit is just incredible and everything he does is bootstrapped. So it's quite remarkable.

John Jantsch (10:07.512)

Well, and you said there's a statistic that you shared about bootstrapping and 80 % survival rate after five years. mean, that's not the common statistic, is it?

Lori Rosenkopf (10:16.724)

Well, right, because you're not worried about satisfying your investors or your debtors right away. So you have a little bit more time and space.

John Jantsch (10:21.069)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:27.928)

So there's another term that you use in the book, technology commercializers, that again, I guess that's a bit of a recombination maybe, path kind of bridging the gap between existing innovation and new market applications. Talk about your story there.

Lori Rosenkopf (10:32.853)

Mm-hmm.

Lori Rosenkopf (10:45.043)

Yeah, I love to use that term to refer to a path where somebody sees that technologies exist and figures out how to bring them to markets that need them. So in the book, I talk about Joan, who had been working as a scientist, a PhD scientist at a large pharmaceutical firm. She calls herself an accidental entrepreneur.

because after many years of doing that and worrying about whether the pills should come in a two pack or a four pack, she wanted to work on life changing medicines. She wound up building a small investing arm herself, not in the pharmaceutical firm, and then becoming CEO of one of the portfolio companies. And now they're working on cures for cystic fibrosis, which that's life changing for people. And she didn't invent.

John Jantsch (11:38.007)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lori Rosenkopf (11:40.787)

the science, but she was able to assess the scientists and small biotechs that were developing it.

John Jantsch (11:48.618)

It's you're reading my questions. I was going to the accidental idea because it seems like that's a threat. Like you mentioned her, but it seems like almost all of the people, there was some little bit of, I wasn't really trying to change the world. I was just doing this and it led me to that. mean, is that, do you think that that's, is that just coincidental with your stories or do you think there's something to that?

Lori Rosenkopf (12:09.413)

Well Well one of the other ours in the book is Reason, know your reason for doing it and there are two kinds of people I've seen and and some are Very much. I want to be an entrepreneur from square one They're like I had the best paper route when I was a kid, you know I was selling candy and middle school etc and it's just continued and I just had to find a good place to go and be an entrepreneur and make money and some of the stories in my

John Jantsch (12:17.122)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (12:29.198)

Right.

Lori Rosenkopf (12:38.313)

book are those types. But there are others who people, their reason is a deep burning personal passion. And some of them like Caitlin knew that she wanted to do female empowerment stuff from when she was very young. But others came to that through their series of experiences. we don't say people need to go and be entrepreneurs right away when we're training them. We just want them to be entrepreneurial thinkers. We want them to go out.

Do some work, learn a space, and then see opportunity and then capitalize on it.

John Jantsch (13:13.42)

I imagine that you have particularly pick on your younger students, if I can for a minute, that they come to the program and initially it's like, what technology is ripe for, you know, disruption like, or, know, or what's the app I can create, you know, to create this huge commercial success. How do you help them figure that out?

Lori Rosenkopf (13:35.039)

Well, we do a lot of experiential learning. We have 25 programs in my center where students can do anything from get a $500 award to test out their grandmother's cornbread recipe and see if they can build it into a brand to $10,000 awards that we give to our students in accelerators who are really pushing and working on ventures. But the experimentation is incredibly important because most of these ideas that people can come up with

when they're this young age are not the ones that are going to be the source of their career. You know, again, outsized attention to things like Snapchat. But that's not what we're typically seeing. But by playing with any venture idea, one can develop a repertoire to become more entrepreneurial, see more of those opportunities and pursue them more effectively in the future.

John Jantsch (14:11.82)

Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

John Jantsch (14:29.656)

What are some of the kind of most innovative things you've seen entrepreneurs do beyond sort of the creating financial returns, you know, for community, for mentoring, for, you know, other things that you've seen founders do?

Lori Rosenkopf (14:44.853)

Jared is the founder of a venture capital firm and it's a venture capital firm that has the mission of creating a thousand diverse entrepreneurs. He felt like he's an underrepresented minority and he felt like money was being left on the table because there are documented biases about the amount of funding that both women and minority entrepreneurs are able to access.

John Jantsch (15:11.694)

Sure, sure.

Lori Rosenkopf (15:14.323)

He built a firm expressly to do this and the firm is Harlem Capital. And they've been able to bring in a portfolio. Everyone is welcome in the portfolio, but diverse entrepreneurs are more represented and they built ways, special ways in which the founders support each other. They're not just independent portfolio companies and they're very proud of their statistics, which show that one in nine people who are minority entrepreneurs

minorities working in venture capital have gone through at least one of Harlem Capital's training programs or internship programs.

John Jantsch (15:51.566)

So are they located in Harlem or that was just a chosen name?

Lori Rosenkopf (15:56.117)

They're in New York City and I think that was specifically chosen to indicate their mission.

John Jantsch (15:57.838)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this last question is either going to be the dumbest question I asked you or the hardest question. Okay. All right. So how would you define innovation?

Lori Rosenkopf (16:07.029)

Okay.

Lori Rosenkopf (16:12.457)

Hmm. Let me start by saying I define entrepreneurship as value creation through innovation. And that's why I can come up with those seven pathways, because it's not just founding a business and disrupting like that media stereotype. then innovation is the application of knowledge in order to create a productive

John Jantsch (16:20.206)

Okay.

Lori Rosenkopf (16:38.293)

product or service or process. It's anything that's going to allow us to do something differently and hopefully create value from it and therefore be entrepreneurial.

John Jantsch (16:51.982)

And I guess doesn't exist today would be one aspect, right? Something new.

Lori Rosenkopf (16:56.819)

Well, in many cases, innovations are adoptions of things from other places. You start off by saying, what if I put out architecture together with calculus? In many cases, people are able to take something that's effective in one domain and transplant it into another market, for example, or another geography. So those are very common sorts of approaches. So it's innovative to that place.

John Jantsch (17:22.574)

If I'm reading your book, am I to choose one path or is it amalgamation?

Lori Rosenkopf (17:32.041)

You, if you are reading my book, you should be inspired by all of the stories. And what you would see is that most of the people over the span of a career, so those who were have a little bit more age under their belts, like you and me, they're able to take different paths at different times. Jackie was a banker originally, she went into tech, she went to square.

John Jantsch (17:53.933)

Yes.

Lori Rosenkopf (18:00.361)

You know, used to have those little white square, I still do the square white point of sale terminals, but that's where it started. And because she was a banker, she said, my gosh, they can use this data to make loans. She builds out a banking business, Square Financial Services, within Square. And then she sees these banks don't do enough for fintechs like Square. And then she goes and acquires.

John Jantsch (18:03.308)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure.

John Jantsch (18:13.614)

Right.

Lori Rosenkopf (18:27.731)

in a traditional bank and turns it into this disruptive fintech bank. So what did we have there? She was an intrapreneur. She was an acquirer. She was a disruptor as well. really a career can be an amalgamation of many paths.

John Jantsch (18:47.106)

You know, it's interesting, you, you mentioned age. and one of the things I've seen a lot of and heard a lot of people talk about, I think the media tends to play up these very young, you know, startup founders when in fact, a lot of 55, 60 year olds are actually, driving some of the most innovation, aren't they?

Lori Rosenkopf (19:06.665)

Yeah, one of my colleagues, Danny Kam, he's a fellow professor in the management department with me, he's done some research on the cream of the crop in venture capital, top firms there. And the majority of them are founded by people, the median is around late 30s, early 40s.

John Jantsch (19:19.138)

Yeah.

Lori Rosenkopf (19:27.025)

And I think you'll see even more of the older entrepreneurs now as we're seeing all these changes in the workforce and job dislocation and the like. So here are people with a lot of expertise and necessity is a big promoter of entrepreneurship too.

John Jantsch (19:41.814)

No question. Laura, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there anywhere you'd invite people to learn more about your work? Obviously, find unstoppable entrepreneurs.

Lori Rosenkopf (19:54.581)

Well, absolutely. Google my name. I'm the only Laurie Rosenkopf in the world. you can also find the book at all of your favorite places. Read about Venture Lab, where our student entrepreneurs are doing great things. But it's been wonderful to have this conversation with you, John. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (20:11.918)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate it and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Lori Rosenkopf (20:17.141)

Sounds great.

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