Hey,
Quick question: How much time did you spend on marketing last week?
Now ask yourself: How much revenue did that time directly generate?
If you’re like most business owners at $15-30k/month, the answer is uncomfortable.
You’re spending 15-20 hours a week on “marketing” but only 3 of those hours actually moved the needle.
The rest? Busywork disguised as strategy.
Let me show you what I mean.
THE MARKETING TIME AUDIT FROM HELL
I did this exercise with a client last month. $28k MRR, working 55 hours a week, couldn’t break $40k no matter what they tried.
Here’s where their “marketing time” actually went:
• Checking analytics (3x/day): 5 hours/week
• Tweaking ad copy: 4 hours/week
• “Engaging” on social media: 6 hours/week
• Creating new content: 8 hours/week
• Testing new platforms: 5 hours/week
Total: 28 hours/week on marketing
Want to know what actually drove revenue?
• Sales calls: 4 hours/week → $12k closed
• Outbound DMs to warm leads: 1 hour/week → $8k closed
• One email to existing customers: 15 minutes → $3k
5.25 hours of work = $23k in revenue
The other 22.75 hours? Theatre.
THE BRUTAL TRUTH
Most of what passes for “marketing” is procrastination with a business card.
You’re:
- Optimizing copy that already converts
- Creating more content when you haven’t monetized existing content
- Building presence on platforms where your customers don’t buy
- Testing new strategies before maxing out strategies that work
You know what works. You’re just avoiding doing it because it’s uncomfortable.
Sales calls are uncomfortable. Outbound DMs are uncomfortable. Asking for the sale is uncomfortable.
Checking analytics? That’s comfortable. Feels productive. Isn’t.
WHAT TO DO INSTEAD
Here’s the framework we used to take my client from $28k to $47k MRR in 6 weeks:
1. Kill everything that doesn’t have a direct line to revenue
If you can’t draw a straight line from the activity to money in the bank within 30 days, stop doing it.
“But what about brand awareness?”
You’re at $28k/month. You don’t have a brand awareness problem. You have a revenue problem.
2. Triple down on your ONE channel that works
You already know which channel drives most of your revenue. Do more of that. Do ONLY that until it stops working.
For my client, it was LinkedIn outbound. We killed Instagram, killed Twitter, killed their podcast.
All 28 hours went into LinkedIn: prospecting, engaging, DMing, posting.
Revenue doubled in 6 weeks.
3. Automate the busywork
Everything that isn’t revenue-generating but still needs to happen? Automate it.
We built 5 automations:
- Lead capture → CRM → Welcome email (saved 3 hours/week)
- Meeting reminders → No-show rate dropped from 40% to 12%
- Weekly reporting → Saved 2 hours/week
- Content repurposing → Old posts auto-recycled every 90 days
- Follow-up sequences → Stale leads re-engaged automatically
That’s 10+ hours back per week. All redirected to revenue generation.
THE 80/20 OF MARKETING
80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your activities.
Your job isn’t to do more marketing.
Your job is to identify the 20% and do it better than anyone else.
For most businesses at your stage, that 20% is:
1. Outbound to warm leads (LinkedIn, email, DMs)
2. Sales conversations (calls, demos, proposals)
3. One email per week to existing customers (cross-sell, upsell, referrals)
That’s it.
Everything else is supporting infrastructure.
STEAL THIS: THE 1-HOUR REVENUE SPRINT
Try this tomorrow:
1. Set a 60-minute timer
2. Open your CRM/DMs/email
3. Find 20 people who:
- Engaged with your content in the last 30 days
- Fit your ideal customer profile
- Haven’t bought yet
4. Send them a personalized DM:
“Hey [name], saw you [specific thing they did]. I help businesses like [their company] [specific outcome]. Want to see how this could work for you? I have 3 spots open this week for quick strategy calls.”
5. Send all 20 messages in that hour
If you do this with the right 20 people, you’ll book 3-5 calls. Close 1-2. That’s $5-15k from one hour of work.
That’s marketing.
HERE’S WHAT I’M OFFERING
I know you’re drowning in work. I know you don’t have time to build 10 automations.
So here’s what I’m doing:
Option 1: Steal Everything (Free)
I built a guide with the 10 automations that gave me 20 hours back per week. Exact steps to implement each one. Grab it here: [LINK TO LEAD MAGNET]
Option 2: Let Me Build It For You**
I have 5 strategy call spots open this week. 60 minutes, $500. We’ll audit your marketing time, identify your 80/20, and map out exactly what to kill, what to scale, and what to automate.
You’ll walk away with:
- Your revenue-generating activities identified
- A kill list (what to stop doing immediately)
- 3 automations to implement this month
- A 90-day roadmap to $100k months
Reply with “AUDIT” to claim a spot. First reply, first served.
Option 3: Do Nothing
Keep spending 20 hours on marketing theatre. Keep wondering why you’re stuck at $30k/month. Keep telling yourself you’ll “figure it out eventually.”
Your call.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS NEWSLETTER
Every Tuesday and Friday, you’ll get:
- One tactic you can implement in 24 hours
- Real numbers from real businesses (including mine)
- No theory, no fluff, no “mindset” bullshit
- Something you can steal and use immediately
If you implement even half of what I share, you’ll add 20+ hours back to your week and $20-50k to your revenue in the next 90 days.
If you don’t implement anything, unsubscribe. I don’t want you on this list if you’re just collecting free content.
Sound fair?
NEXT ISSUE
On Friday, I’m breaking down the exact automation we built that took no-shows from 40% to 12%. It saves 2 hours per week, and we’ve used it to book $180k in the last 4 months.
You’ll be able to build it in 45 minutes.
See you Friday.
—DSG
P.S. Serious about the strategy calls. I’m capping it at 5 this week because I can only handle 5 deep audits while running my business. If you want one, reply now. They’ll be gone by Wednesday.