Garrett Jestice

Community Founder | Startup GTM Advisor | Former CMO | BBQ Judge | Dad x4

Most B2B founders don't have a lead problem.They have a repeat problem.You can win customers. You just can't count on the next one looking the same.Some months are busy. Some months are quiet. You don't know if you should hire, spend on marketing, or wait.Referrals show up, then stop. Marketing doesn't bring steady customers. Some customers are great and others go nowhere. Every sales call requires explaining what you do all over again.So you try more activity: new campaigns, new channels, new messaging, new offers.But every move feels risky because you never figured out why the good customers chose you in the first place.The real issue is simple:You have won deals, but you don't know the pattern behind those wins.→ Which customers fit best→ What problem made them buy→ Why they picked you→ What you should say to others like themWithout that, every decision is a guess.This is where I help.I work with B2B founders to study the customers they already won, find the pattern, and use it to shape their offer, sales, and marketing so they can win more customers like them.I've spent the last several years working directly with founder-led B2B companies and agencies that have real traction but an unclear path to grow. My process starts with retrospective customer analysis—studying your best wins to identify the buying triggers, selection criteria, and messaging that actually converted.Then we use that pattern to clarify your ICP, reposition your offer, and make sales and marketing feel less random.When it shows up:→ You know who to focus on→ Sales calls get easier→ Marketing stops feeling random→ Revenue becomes more steadyI mostly work with founder-led B2B companies and agencies doing $500K-$5M annually. You've cracked initial solution-market fit. You just can't predict which deals will close next.The goal is simple: Stop hoping for the right customers. Start repeating them.Learn more: PreludeMarketing.com---I also run 10x Solo, a community for independent consultants, fractionals, and micro-agency owners working to build steadier, simpler businesses. Learn more: 10xSolo.com---Outside of work: I live in Utah with my wife and four kids. I coach youth basketball and soccer, judge BBQ competitions, and I am usually planning the next Hawaii trip.

GTM Advisor / Fractional CMO

Startup Marketers is a free, Slack community for startup marketing leaders, freelancers, and fractionals. If that sounds like you, join us to connect with others and share ideas, feedback, and resources to help us all get better.

Join us here: https://bit.ly/StartupMarketers

Most startups don't have a marketing problem. 

They have a go-to-market strategy problem.

When founders come to me, they usually think they need more content, more ads, more campaigns.

But the real issue is usually earlier: no clear ICP, positioning that sounds like everyone else, unclear path to growth.

You can’t fix that with more marketing. 
You fix it with strategy first.

→ Who exactly are you selling to?
→ What problem do you solve for them?
→ Why you, and not someone else?

Until those are clear, more marketing just amplifies the confusion.

Get the strategy right. Then the marketing works.

Founders: How clear is your GTM strategy?

I help B2B founders turn early success into repeatable revenue | GTM Advisor @ Prelude | Founder @ 10x Solo Community | BBQ Judge | Dad x4

A solo consultant came to me with a long list of services. 

She could do this, and this, and this, and this. She had a million ideas for what she could offer. 

But she wanted help tightening her core offer in order to stop chasing random revenue.

The first thing I told her: audit. Don't brainstorm.

→ List every project you've done since going solo
→ For each: what problem did you help them solve? What outcome did you achieve?
→ Then ask: what's the through line between all of it? What are you best at that people value and you can focus on? 

That's where your core offer comes from. You don't invent it. You extract it.

Most people skip the audit and jump straight to "what should my offer be?" 

But that's backwards. Your best offer is already in your past work. You just have to find the pattern.

Solos: What's the through line across your best projects?

When you ask a question and the other side goes quiet, that's when you know you asked a good question.

Noa Ronen, MCC recently shared this in a training on asking better questions for the 10x Solo community. 

She was talking about discovery calls and client conversations.

The instinct is to fill the silence. To move on. To keep talking.

Don't.

Silence usually means they're thinking. They're actually considering what you asked. That's the moment you want.

Bad questions get quick answers. Good questions get pause.

Next time you're on a call and the other person goes quiet after your question? 

Let it sit. They're working it out.

Consultants: What's a question that tends to make your clients go quiet? ("When are you going to pay that invoice?" doesn't count. 😜)

Outbound is the only channel working for your startup?

That’s not a flex. It’s a signal.

If outbound is carrying your pipeline while content, SEO, and paid “don’t work,” here’s what’s really happening:

Your value only makes sense in a live conversation.

Your sales team is:

– Reframing the problem in real time
– Adjusting the pitch per persona
– Handling edge cases on the fly
– Translating vague positioning into something concrete

Outbound works because humans can adapt mid-sentence.

Marketing can’t.

Marketing is 1:many. It requires sameness:

– The same offer
– To the same buyer
– In the same way
– With the same results

If every deal needs custom framing, you’re not scaling a SaaS.
You’re scaling your explanation capacity.

That’s fine in the learn phase.

But if you’re a few years in and still 100% outbound-driven, you’re probably still searching for repeatability.

Outbound doesn’t prove product-market fit.
It proves your team can manually compensate for the lack of it.

The real question isn’t “How do we add more channels?”

It’s: “What would have to be true for our value to make sense without a sales call?”

___

I help B2B SaaS founders diagnose why marketing channels don’t work — especially when outbound does — and fix the root issue (usually positioning, ICP clarity, or offer design).

If outbound is working but everything else feels broken, DM me. Let’s figure out what’s actually going on.

Most solos and agencies get stuck at the same place when trying to grow: 

Level 2: Can I generate consistent, predictable demand?

Referrals are lumpy. 
Feast, then famine. 

To move past it, you need marketing, not just referrals.

Here’s the catch: marketing is one-to-many. It works only when you focus on a specific problem. 

But that can just be your entry door. 

It doesn’t mean that’s all you sell. 
Once they’re in, you can expand. 

But you have to position around one clear problem to get them in.

I talked to a custom dev agency at $5M, all through referrals. 

They wanted to get to $10–15M. 
They’ve tried other marketing channels, but nothing has worked.

Why not? 
Because they haven’t focused on a specific problem. 
One-to-many marketing doesn’t work without that.

If you want to scale past referrals, you have to pick a problem to solve and market how and why you can solve it.

Solos and agency owners: What problem are you positioning around?

Fernando Academia Jr., CDMP, PCM

Full Stack Marketer | Digital Marketing Instructor | Speaker/Trainer

I solve marketing technology challenges for mid-market companies ($5M-$50M revenue) across FinTech, HealthTech, and E-commerce.

Build and optimize marketing technology ecosystems driving measurable outcomes:

→22x-31x ROI improvements through platform optimization
→100% client retention across $50K-$66K MRR portfolios
→12-40% performance gains in customer acquisition and retention
→Email engagement improvements from 12% to 40% through AI-powered automation

📌 My MarTech Expertise

Platform Strategy & Implementation
Marketing automation (Netcore Cloud, MoEngage, Salesforce, CleverTap), CRM systems (HubSpot, Odoo, Pipedrive), analytics platforms (Tableau, Looker Studio, Power BI)

AI-Powered Optimization
Customer segmentation, predictive analytics, campaign automation, personalization at scale

Integration Architecture
Connect marketing platforms with CRM, data lakes, e-commerce systems, and enterprise applications

Team Development
Build marketing technology capabilities through training, process design, and change management

📌 Experience Highlights

Previous Leadership:

• Strategic advisor managing portfolios for top 3 digital banks, largest telemedicine platform, international e-commerce brands, and 90M+ user digital wallet
• Marketing strategist for US-based growth consultancy serving 5-10 clients
• Instructor at CIIT Philippines, teaching digital marketing to 80%+ student satisfaction

📌 Education & Executive Training
Executive MBA, Asian Institute of Management (2025)

Executive Education:

‣ Digital Transformation (Global Network for Advanced Management, Dublin)
‣ Customer-Centric Innovation & Metrics (FGV EAESP, São Paulo)
‣ CMO Leadership Program (Asian Institute of Management)

🤝Fractional CMO Services
Available for select engagements helping companies:

→Audit and optimize marketing technology stacks
→Implement AI-powered customer engagement platforms
→Build customer data and segmentation strategies
→Develop marketing performance measurement frameworks
→Train teams on marketing automation and analytics

🚀 Current Venture
Building SukiNomics, a networked, gamification-powered loyalty platform transforming customer engagement for Philippine MSMEs.

Open to: Fractional CMO roles, advisory positions, and strategic partnerships with growth-stage companies needing marketing technology leadership.

Not available for: Direct competitors to telecommunications industry.

Member

Fernando Academia Jr., CDMP, PCM, CSSWB

I asked an AI to draft a campaign brief last January.
It took me 20 minutes to fix.

I asked it again last week.
It took me 90 seconds.

Same tool.
Same me.
Different result.

The AI learned my format.

My tone. My structure. The sections I always reorder. The data I always want upfront.

It didn't just get better at writing briefs.
It got better at writing MY briefs.
This is the shift most marketers are missing.

The conversation isn't "Will AI take my job?"
The conversation is "Am I training my AI to do the work I shouldn't be doing manually?"

The marketers who figure this out first will operate at 3x the speed of those who don't.

I wrote about this shift in detail.

Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM

Marketing Technology and Digital Transformation Leader | Building SukiNomics | 15+ Years helping eCommerce/SaaS/FinTech scale with MarTech & Strategy

View newsletter: Future-Forward Marketing

Series: Strategic Horizon 2026 | Article 1 of 5 Your job isn't to run campaigns anymore. Your job is to design the system that runs them for you. Let 

Open article: The Digital Marketer's Job Title Just Changed (And Nobody Sent a Memo) by Fernando Academia Jr, EMBA, CDMP, PCM • 5 min read

The Digital Marketer's Job Title Just Changed (And Nobody Sent a Memo)

Most MarTech transformations fail before a single tool gets implemented.
Not because the technology was wrong. Because the change equation was never solved.

Michael Beer proposed a formula for organizational transformation:
Change = D x M x P > Cost of Change

D is dissatisfaction.
M is the model of the future.
P is the process. If any equals zero, the change does not hold.

Here is what that looks like in MarTech.

D: Dissatisfaction.
Everyone knows the stack is broken. Reports take days. Data lives in silos. But "everyone knows" is not "leadership has named the problem." Unnamed dissatisfaction produces complaints. Named dissatisfaction produces urgency.

M: Model.
Most roadmaps describe tools to buy. Few describe the organization that needs to exist for those tools to work. A future model is not "implement a CDP." It defines who owns what data, how decisions flow, and what governance prevents tool sprawl.

P: Process.
Process is not a project plan. It is a sequence: communications deeper than a slide deck, working sessions where new operations get tested, and people decisions consistent with the direction.

Cost of Change is what most leaders underestimate. Loss of autonomy over tool selection. Loss of familiar workflows. Loss of control over "their" data. If cost exceeds D x M x P, people resist. Rationally.

Thomke and Loveman add a layer in their HBR article "Act Like a Scientist." Companies without hypotheses and evidence rely too much on experience and too little on reality.

Six principles that translate directly to MarTech:
> Certainties are assumptions until tested.
> Experimentation reduces the cost of error.
> Evidence must outweigh preference.
> Cultures that avoid questioning lose their ability to adapt.
> Without method, leadership becomes narrative.
>Organizations that experiment as strategy learn faster than the market.

Combine this with Beer's equation and MarTech transformation becomes something you can design, test, and adjust.

Then there is the leadership gap.

Hoque, Davenport, and Nelson wrote in MIT Sloan Management Review that most CIOs and CTOs have little authority for the human side of transformation. 

The work that determines success, behavior, coordination, governance, ends up with no owner.

The person responsible for the stack rarely has the mandate to address the organizational changes that determine value.

The challenge is not a new title. It is connecting technology leadership to strategy, structure, and expected behavior.

Three questions before your next MarTech initiative:
> Have you named and quantified the dissatisfaction, or is it still "things could be better"?
> Does your future model describe the organization, not just the tools?
> Is your process building coalitions, or is it a Gantt chart that assumes compliance?

If any answer is no, your equation has a zero.

Anything multiplied by zero is still zero.

A clean, modern wall built from dark blocks. One block in the middle is missing, glowing red. The entire structure above the missing block is cracking and collapsing. No text in the image at all. This works because it instantly communicates "one missing element brings down the whole thing." It maps directly to the zero in the equation without needing to spell it out. 

The military has a concept called "commander's intent."

It means: tell your team what success looks like. Don't tell them how to get there.

This is now the most valuable skill in marketing.

Not copywriting.
Not media buying.
Not dashboard building.

The ability to clearly articulate what you want — so an AI system can execute it for you.

In 2026:
75% of marketers are increasing programmatic budgets.
33% are running AI across creative, media, and measurement at the same time.
56% still don't trust the systems enough to let go.

The gap between those who architect and those who execute is widening fast.

Your title might still say "Marketing Manager."
Your actual job is now "Marketing Architect."

I wrote about what this means for your career and your daily workflow.

Full article here: https://lnkd.in/gAsUQGUE

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