Constant Contact just dropped research that should terrify every B2B CEO: 89% of small businesses measuring marketing ROI are unsure if their strategy actually worked. Even worse? A quarter don’t even know where their leads come from. After spending 18 years doing market research at Pepsi, Pizza Hut, and Frito-Lay where nothing hit shelves until we had consumer validation, I developed a 5-step assessment process to stop this money hemorrhaging. Here’s how it works.

1. Face the State of Your Nation

Most clients tell me they can’t get enough meetings. But when we dig deeper, I find they’re not doing the right things to get in front of the right people, and they’re saying the wrong things in meetings so they can’t close. First step: brutal honesty. What’s your current marketing spend? What are you spending it on? How many sales meetings per month are you having? How many are actually closing? This baseline reveals where you’re bleeding money before we fix anything.

2. Blue Sky Everything and Create Your Super Niche

We look at every single industry and problem you can solve. Take at least three pain points in every industry. Why this exercise? To create what I call a super niche – one industry you’ll dominate fast and one expensive pain point you’ll own as the expert thought leader. This focus is what separates companies that grow from companies that spin their wheels trying to be everything to everyone.

3. Score Your Options With Brutal Honesty

I use a proprietary feasibility scoring system rating three things: fit for your culture and experience (I had a vegan client whose biggest account was a meat company but scored them 0/10 for appetite to work with more), networking ability within the industry (physicians score low because they don’t easily gather and are time-starved), and feasibility of getting paid what you want for that specific problem. We score the top three industry-pain point combinations on paper. It’s educated guessing, but every experiment starts with a theory.

4. Validate With Real Humans, Not Spreadsheets

Here’s where most strategists fail – they do everything behind a keyboard then hand you a plan that doesn’t work. I have you talk to five decision-makers in each target industry to validate assumptions. Are these the real pain points? What are purchase triggers? Who decides and who approves? What’s the budget? Where do they hang out? This litmus test reveals if you truly have access to them, validates their pain language and cost, and often sets second sales meetings naturally because you’re talking about their problems, not selling to them.

5. Get Your Super Niche Answer and Stop Wasting Money

This methodology works so well my clients keep using it after the initial research phase. The result? Your super niche answer – the exact industry and pain point where you’ll focus, grow fast, and stop wasting marketing dollars on shotgun approaches that generate zero ROI. Then we’re ready to design your custom marketing plan based on real market validation, not guesses.

Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on X, friend me on Facebook, watch my Podcast onYouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk.