Demand Generation - Episode 17 | Bradley Fehler

Construction Disrupted

If you ask Google ‘what's the most important thing in any business’ you get a variety of answers from Relationships, Reputation and People to profit and even Urgency. All are key aspects, and that is undeniable, if one of these is weakened it surely impacts the success of a business.

But this isn’t a definitive list by any stretch of the imagination as each business is different. But one thing that we can all agree on is that a business will not survive without paying customers - be it for profit or not, the money needs to come from somewhere and if we track back, another truism is that a healthy pipeline of potential clients is also a critical factor - if the well is dry, no one can drink (does that make sense, it did when I said it)?

If we flip reverse it a look at why most businesses fail, the picture is much clearer. According to the Small Business Administrator (SBA) about 33% of small businesses fail in the first two years and around 50% go belly up after five years with the most common reasons for this failure including a lack of capital or funding, retaining an inadequate management team, a faulty infrastructure or business model, and unsuccessful marketing initiatives.

And it’s this final one that draws my attention (for obvious reasons). Whether brand building or sales activation, your marketing initiatives are what will set most organisations apart and part of this equates to demand generation - but how do we do this? Where do we start? What does it involve? And why are unicorns currently a thing?

Our guest today is Bradley Fehler a Demand Generation expert and Startup Advisor with experience within B2B SaaS, healthcare and digital sectors. If we dig into the details this consists of understanding your audience, choosing the right comms channels, creating the right type of creative and copy, utilising a budget effectively, integrating comms, usability and accessibility, as well as all of this being underpinned by a cohesive strategy - or as a meme that Bradley recently used puts it: When a startup founder finally finds a working distribution channel… ‘it was the most erotic moment of my life’

Topics Covered

- The mythical nonsense of unicorn growth

- Why culture and the right team are so important

- Planning for growth/scale

- How can marketing help to facilitate demand

- How failure is key

Adobe Express 30-day Free Trial: https://prf.hn/l/ZYdd028

Website: https://www.builddifferent.marketing/

Further Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyfehler/

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/120815/4-most-common-reasons-small-business-fails.asp#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20reasons%20small,model%2C%20and%20unsuccessful%20marketing%20initiatives.

https://pitchbook.com/news/articles//unicorn-startups-list-trends#:~:text=More%20than%20580%20new%20unicorn,1%2C%202023

https://www.luisazhou.com/blog/startup-failure-statistics/#:~:text=99.9%25%20of%20unicorn%20startups%20fail&text=Companies%20become%20a%20%E2%80%9Cunicorn%E2%80%9D%20once,of%20startups%20reach%20unicorn%20status

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/some-people-succeed-after-failing-others-flounder#:~:text=Many%20notable%20success%20stories%20began,Harry%20Potter%20book%20was%20published

https://teamstage.io/company-culture-statistics/#:~:text=Company%20culture%20is%20an%20important,companies%20with%20a%20bad%20reputation.