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?

Third Axiom Solutions

VP of Marketing

Productable

As head of marketing and employee number three, I'm charged with creating the Productable brand from the ground up, focusing on top-of-funnel education and awareness, telling the startup's unique story to the masses and driving qualified leads through a variety of marketing activities.

Head of Marketing

Locafy (previously Moboom)

I came on board with Moboom when employee numbers were somewhere in its mid-teens, so my marketing communications role soon broadened to include much more. The biggest challenge: Developing a story that communicated the need for Moboom's responsive web technology when there were already larger and louder competitors, like WordPress, ruling the space. 

The task really tested my inner storyteller, who wanted to create a true emotional connection between our product and our audience. But how do you do that when your product is a website and your target is a developer? You showoff your grab bag of fancy toys. You make them see how your technology allows them to get their job done faster and more efficiently. Essentially, you assure the developer that your product makes them more successful. 

After months of behind-the-scenes planning, we officially introduced Moboom to a packed house of industry influencers and developers at the startup's first-ever Responsive Web Trends Conference in San Francisco. We used the conference as a platform to tell our story and to get developers excited about our technology, all while focusing on the bigger responsive web trends picture. 

As director of marketing, I led the rollout of the "new" Moboom, including conference details, such as speaker topics and presentation coaching; a complete overhaul of www.moboom.com to highlight an in-depth look at that aforementioned grab bag of fancy toys; and a media outreach campaign that included interviews with CIO Magazine and analyst briefings with Forrester.

Duda

As head of communications for this early-stage startup, I immediately saw the opportunity to educate small- and medium-sized businesses on the need to go mobile. With several other players already in the space, it was time for someone to step forward and truly own mobile education as a brand platform. 

With this goal top of mind, I developed Duda's key messages and a communications outreach strategy that included both traditional and emerging media, taking Duda beyond media placements in technology publications such as TechCrunch and into publications more often seen by SMBs.  

To further boost brand awareness, I launched the Duda blog with the purpose of educating SMBs on how and why they should mobilize their websites and turned to Facebook to feature great examples of mobile-friendly sites. Between March 2012 and October 2012, Duda’s Facebook community expanded to attract 70 new fans per day, up from 40 new fans per day; and blog traffic tripled, moving Duda's site up and up in search engine results. I also secured Duda's position as a Yahoo! Knowledge Partner to educate members of the Yahoo! Answers community, one of the web's largest social media sites, and oversaw ongoing content development opportunities such as contributed articles and, more specifically, a seven minute segment that appeared on Fox Business News and the Food Network. 

In addition to these brand communications activities, I also worked closely with business development to announce enterprise partnerships. In particular, I led media outreach for the launch of Duda's partnership with Google, gaining coverage for Duda and Google's GoMo initiative. The announcement received more than 40 unique media placements, including TechCrunch, GigaOm and Fortune.

Director, Marketing Communications

Perfect Escapes Inc.

Brought on to refine the brand position and media outreach strategy ahead of the official launch of Spire, a flash-sale site for luxury hotels by Perfect Escapes, I directed the development of the company's brand narrative and key messages along with its public relations and social media web launch strategies. We focused on the pain points of flash sales and launched as the only flash-sale travel site to offer a "Best Deal Guarantee" and a friendly refund policy.

Well-received by the media, we gained positive news coverage in Reuters, MSNBC.com, Tnooz, Los Angeles Times and more. Overall results included more than 60 placements during the first month of launch with no negative coverage.

In addition to targeting traditional media, I led the development of a Facebook sweepstakes to introduce Spire that resulted in more than 5,000 signups at a CPA of less than $1 per member and wrote several contributed articles for sites such as Techlicious, The Examiner and Traveling Mom.

Director, Communications & Social Media

Expedia Group

During my eight years at Travelocity, I delivered their story to the masses, always focusing on the love and inspiration of travel instead of just selling a travel product. We called this forward-thinking brand initiative "The Resource Program" and endeavored to position Travelocity as an expert in all things travel. 

As a spokesperson and senior editor for Travelocity, I taught travelers how to plan their trips and avoid hiccups; gave them advice on where to go; and offered tips on how to experience a place beyond the typical tourist destinations. I also managed The Window Seat blog and its team of writers, which won the prestigious 2009 Gold Lowell Thomas Journalism Award for travel blogs.

This branding initiative worked. It propelled Travelocity to the top, consistently smashing its competitors in terms of media coverage and brand perception. Case in point: During the busy holiday travel season, I managed all aspects of Travelocity's annual Thanksgiving Task Force, stationing media-trained "spotters" at the nation's busiest airports to report on the travel situation and help travelers navigate the airports during this busy time. In 2010, traditional media coverage included more than 214 media placements in target markets, $2.2 million in ad value, $7.1 million in publicity value and reached an audience of more than 31 million. Travelocity also blew up Twitter and Facebook feeds and gained even more eyeballs through blogging. 

To elevate Travelocity's position as an industry expert, I kept up with trends in travel, generated stories through analysis of seasonal booking data and often set out to ask travelers exactly what they thought of current news and topics affecting them. I created at least four major surveys per year, publishing trend reports and generating press coverage in major outlets. The most memorable of those: Travelocity's Rudeness Survey, a tongue-in-cheek analysis of common behavior that really irks travelers.

Principal, Content & Communications

Manager, Public Relations

Associate, Public Relations

A well-seasoned marketing and communications professional, I've spent more than a decade helping both established brands and startups tell their stories to the people who matter most to their success and am loving my current role as VP of Marketing at Third Axiom.

What I Do: 
- Develop go-to market strategies and drive product launches and announcements
- Keep an open dialogue with internal product and sales teams
- Build case studies and gather testimonials to help tell a brand's own unique story
- Look to data to craft key messages and talking points
- Work to continually educate existing customers while also focusing on acquiring new ones

Who I Am: 
- A natural leader who knows how to rally a team
- A problem-solver who thinks strategically 
- An expert multitasker who does well juggling many projects
- An enthusiastic marketer who will roll up my sleeves
- Comfortable owning a project or simply being part of the team
- Able to influence and work effectively with a wide range of stakeholders

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