You’ve baked the best sourdough in the village. Regulars. Word of mouth. A queue on Saturday mornings.
Then someone asks: “What’s your TAM?”
“About 400 people. It’s a small village.”
That’s the wrong answer, and it’s costing you more than you think.
TAM isn’t about where you bake. It’s about who eats bread.
Three miles away: four coffee shops, a deli, a hotel doing breakfast for 80 guests a day, a farm shop full of tourists buying anything with the word “local” on it. None of them are baking their own bread. All of them need yours.
You haven’t moved the oven. Your market just tripled.
Here’s where most B2B companies flinch.
Partner channels feel like giving something away. Shared margin. Less control. Someone else is in the room with your customer. I’ve heard every version of this objection, and I’ve made some of them myself.
But the math is hard to argue with.
Selling direct to villagers: €3.50 a loaf, one at a time. Supplying the coffee shop down the road: 20 loaves before 8am, recurring, predictable. Lower margin per unit, but you’re not in the unit business anymore. Multiply by four coffee shops, and you’re a wholesale supplier with a distribution network. Your competitor, obsessing over walk-in footfall, doesn’t even know this game exists.
A partner who already has the relationship, the trust, the daily touchpoint with your buyer, isn’t a threat to your margin. They’re a shortcut to scale that took them years to build.
The question isn’t whether this model works. It’s whether your current channel strategy is leaving that kind of volume on the table.
If you’re a B2B company that suspects your TAM conversation is overdue, or your partner channel is underperforming what it should be, this is exactly what we work through in an initial call. No deck. No pitch. Just the numbers and what’s actually blocking growth.
You did the research. Population: 2,000. One bakery, a retired owner, no marketing. No obvious competition. You signed the lease.
Then you found the bread makers. Not one or two. Dozens. A village proud of its “self-sufficiency.” A WhatsApp group sharing sourdough starters. A farmers’ market every other Sunday, where three locals sell their own loaves.
The TAM analysis said 2,000 potential customers. The reality was a village that had already decided it didn’t need you.
This is the breadmaker problem.
It’s not about a competitor you can see. Not another bakery, a supermarket, a brand bidding on your keywords. It’s about existing behavior that has already filled the gap you thought was empty. Behavior that nobody put into the competitive landscape. Workarounds, habits, good-enough solutions that your prospects built, bought, or settled on long before you showed up. This is why the pipeline stalled. Not because of competition. Because the market had already moved on.
Raw market size never tells you how much of that market has already moved on without you.
The coffee shop signal
Here’s what you should have looked for before signing the lease.
How many independent coffee shops are in the village?
Not chains. Not the pub that does a panini. Independent coffee shops, the ones that care about their flat white, source their beans, and put a handwritten card on the counter explaining where the milk comes from.
These places are a leading indicator. They tell you the village has a segment willing to pay more for quality. An audience that has already opted out of “cheap and convenient” in favor of “considered and good.” When you walk in with a sourdough loaf and a story about your flour, someone will lean in rather than shrug.
You’re not just looking for a distribution partner. You’re reading the room.
A village with three independent coffee shops has already told you something about its appetite. A village with a Greggs and a Shell garage forecourt has told you something, too.
Neither is wrong. They’re just different markets. The mistake is treating them as equivalent because the population number is the same.
TAM isn’t a headcount. It’s a behavioral audit.
The number of people who could buy from you is almost always bigger than the number who would.
The gap between those two things is where most go-to-market plans quietly fall apart.
Start with what your market is already doing. Not your named competitors, the workarounds. The spreadsheet from two years ago that’s technically terrible but free. The agency hired because buying software felt like a commitment. If you can’t name those, you don’t yet understand the market.
Then ask whether that behavior has roots or whether people are quietly frustrated with it. Friction is your opening. Embedded behavior, the kind where someone has invested time, money, or identity in the workaround, is the breadmaker problem. It’s harder to shift than any named competitor, and it won’t show up in a competitive landscape slide.
Somewhere in that market, someone is already paying more for better. Already opted out of the cheap default. Already leaning forward when something new walks in. Find that person before you build your strategy around the wrong customer. They’re your signal that appetite exists.
The coffee shop is one of those signals. The bread maker is one of those warnings.
Learn to read both before you commit to the village.
If you´re investing in marketing and not sure why it´s not pulling through, it´s worth a conversation. Let´s talk
Next: once you’ve found the right village, the one with real appetite and the right signals, the question becomes whether the coffee shop is your customer, your channel, or both.
Most people think of garlic as an ingredient — a bit player. But gardeners know better. Garlic is strategic.
You plant it in the cold. It grows invisibly for months. You tend to it, give it space, and trust the process.
Come summer, you don’t just get a single clove. You get an entire head. More value than what you put in.
This, my fellow marketers, is Account-Based Marketing.
ABM isn’t about scale. It’s about precision.
It starts with deliberate targeting — like choosing the right spot in the garden.
Then comes months of nurture:
Personalisation
Warm-up content
One-to-few messaging
Stakeholder mapping
Patience
No drama. No noise. Just carefully placed, high-potential growth.
Garlic (and ABM) rewards the long game.
You don’t plant garlic and expect a crop in four weeks.
You commit. You invest. You wait for the right season to lift the whole thing out of the ground. And when you do?
You’ve built something robust, healthy, and multipliable. One clove becomes ten! Just like one engaged account becomes a customer, a case study, an advocate, and a source of referrals.
In a world of “spray and pray,”
ABM is garlic.
A little under the radar.
A little quiet.
But utterly effective.
Next up in the series: What potatoes and hidden pipeline have in common.
Okay, children, sit down, and Grandma X is going to tell you a story. Once upon a time, we had to look up companies (and people) in printed telephone books. Businesses were listed in the Yellow Pages, arranged by type of business, and then the listings were in alphabetical order. So if you were, say, a print shop, you might have thought it was really clever to call yourself AAA Printing. That way, when someone looked up “Print Shop” in the Yellow Pages, you would be first. Great.
So, let’s say print shops, XYZ Printing and AAA Printing, are both located near a university. This university’s master’s students need to deliver their thesis in five hard copies bound in magenta. XYZ creates a website with their location, directions on how to get there, their services and prices, and in the months of May and June, a lead magnet that they have a special on magenta hard covers and if you deliver the text by Tuesday, they can have it ready by Thursday. AAA decides not to bother and only has a standard Google listing with their name, address, and telephone number. Are you still with me? The old search was “town + print shop,” so both would pop up, and you could call. Now we say to Chat, “find me a place close by that I can get my master’s thesis printed and bound.”
Guess which print shop pops up? And why? How do I ensure Chat finds me? Well we have to do the work to help answer the question.
The confetti has settled, the champagne flutes are rinsed clean, and a new year stretches before us brimming with possibility. We’re energized by the idea of a fresh start, vowing to hit those KPIs and smash those marketing goals. But as February fades into March, a familiar feeling might start to creep in: déjà vu.
Why is it that so many well-intentioned resolutions fall by the wayside by spring?
Here’s a thought: maybe the problem isn’t with you, but with your approach.
The Illusory Ease of Automation
In the age of marketing automation tools, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that technology is a shortcut to success. Reservation modules, payment gateways, and website chatbots promise a frictionless experience for your customers, but they often overlook a crucial truth:
These tools are designed to streamline the customer journey, not the business owner’s journey.
While a seamless online experience is essential for conversions, the back-end requires constant vigilance.
Are your appointment times accurate across all platforms?
Are you confirming appointments promptly?
Is your shopping cart functioning flawlessly?
The reality is, you don’t need ten different payment processors. In fact, offering too many choices can confuse customers and hinder conversions.
The same goes for appointment scheduling and communication tools. If you prefer email bookings, there’s no point in offering a chat module that you’ll never monitor.
Beyond the “Build It and They Will Come” Mentality
The days of passive online success are long gone.
In today’s competitive landscape, social proof, positive reviews, and strategic marketing are table stakes.
Running an online business requires just as much dedication and hustle as a brick-and-mortar store. The ability to work remotely can sometimes blur the lines between work and personal life, leading to burnout.
So, how do we break free from this cycle of unrealistic expectations and rekindle the optimism of the new year?
The Power of Data-Driven Realignment
Early March, with its quieter pace, presents the perfect opportunity to take a step back and reassess your goals.
Here’s your roadmap to realignment:
Break Down Your Business Plan:
What products or services do you offer?
What are your core competencies, and what can you realistically outsource?
Identify Your Goals:
What do you want to achieve this year?
Be specific and measurable.
Leverage Data:
Look at your website analytics, customer engagement metrics, and sales data.
What’s working? What’s not?
Refine Your Approach:
Based on your data, refine your marketing strategy and optimize your marketing automation tools.
Embrace Help:
You don’t have to be a jack-of-all-trades.
Delegate tasks to qualified professionals to free up your time and energy.
Remember, it’s okay to course-correct!
The new year is a time for fresh starts, but progress isn’t always linear.
Embrace data during March for realignment. This approach ensures that your marketing efforts are targeted and efficient. It leads to long-term success.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is ever evolving and an ongoing task. Google’s Search Quality Evaluator (SGE) is going to make it even more important to pay attention to how as well as what. Key step for next gen SEO success?: align your brand voice with authority and authenticity.
Google SGE assesses the quality of web content based on various factors, including expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). By marking these as cornerstone criteria for content creation, you not only cater to the preferences of Google’s algorithms but also meet the expectations of users seeking reliable information and solutions.
Here’s why aligning your brand voice with authority and authenticity is crucial for SEO in the era of Google SGE:
Improved Search Visibility: Content that show authority and authenticity is more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Google rewards websites that demonstrate expertise and trustworthiness, leading to increased organic traffic and visibility. Top tip: create from a question answering mode.
Enhanced User Engagement: A strong brand voice resonates with users, encouraging higher engagement metrics such as click-through rates, time on page, and social shares. Engaged users signal to Google that your content is valuable and relevant, further boosting your SEO performance.
Building Backlinks and Citations: This is a debatable topic times gone by people just bought back links. Moving forward it is being found and cited as an authority. Because when other websites reference and link to your content, it signals to Google that your site is a credible source of information, contributing to improved search rankings.
Establishing Niche Authority: Consistently showcasing expertise in your field not only strengthens your brand’s authority but also establishes your website as a go-to resource within your niche. This positions you as a leader in your industry, attracting more organic traffic and reinforcing your SEO efforts.
Aligning your brand voice with authority and authenticity isn’t just about creating compelling content—it’s about meeting the criteria set forth by Google SGE to ensure optimal SEO performance. By prioritizing E-A-T principles in your content strategy, you can create content with confidence to drive growth and visibility for your brand.
Welcome to the second blog in my Google SGE Series! In this blog a dive into the crucial aspect of content creation: building authority. Authority isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a cornerstone of effective SEO and content strategy.
First let’s define authority in the context of content. Authority refers to the perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and credibility of your content in the eyes of your audience and search engines. The more authoritative your content is, the higher it’s likely to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs), leading to increased visibility and engagement.
So, how do you build authority in your content? Here are some practical tips to get you started:
1. **Create High-Quality, Valuable Content**: Quality is paramount. Focus on producing content that addresses the needs and interests of your audience. Don´t just jump on a trend but try to provide unique insights, and offer actionable advice that sets your content apart from the competition. I follow several continous learning courses to make me a better marketer and use that knowledget to write these articles to offer insights and encouragement to small business owner.
2. **Back Up Your Claims with Evidence**: Don’t just make bold statements—support them with evidence. Incorporate data, statistics, case studies, and expert opinions to add credibility to your content. By backing up your claims, you demonstrate authority and build trust with your audience. A claim can be something like being all natural – show the source of your ingredients, show the chain, show the production process. Be transparent and evidence will happen.
3. **Maintain Consistency Across Platforms**: Consistency is key to establishing authority. Ensure that your brand voice, messaging, and visual identity remain consistent across all digital platforms. Consistency fosters familiarity and reinforces your brand’s credibility in the eyes of your audience. In my case there is an abundance of pink and flowers. Next to articles about inspiration and marketing and a bit of pedantics about metrics.
4. **Engage with Your Audience**: Actively engage with your audience through comments, social media interactions, and feedback channels. Resn/pond to inquiries, address concerns, and participate in discussions to establish yourself as a knowledgeable and approachable authority figure. This can be daunting so think before you leap but it can be worthwhile. Good customer service means people will be more likely to recommend you.
5. **Leverage User-Generated Content**: Encourage user-generated content such as testimonials, reviews, and user-generated posts. User-generated content not only adds authenticity to your brand but also serves as social proof of your authority and credibility. I had to really think here for my own example, in my case I would say it is cultivating the recommendations on my LinkedIn profile.
It’s also worth mentioning the importance of authenticity in building authority. Authenticity resonates with audiences and strengthens the bond between brands and consumers. As I mentioned in the brand voice article, staying true to your brand values and communicating authentically can enhance your authority and credibility.
Quite simply SGE will force us to be authorities in our read – so building authority in your content is essential for SEO success and audience engagement.
First in this series, an introduction to Google´s Search Quality Evaluator and its role in shaping search engine results.
SGE is an experimental update to Google’s search engine that uses artificial intelligence to generate contextual answers to complex questions.
SGE leverages AI in order to enhance its search experience. The best thing is to read Google´s explanation located here.
Important take outs
Results will be served to us differently namely:
When appropriate, SGE will show an AI-powered snapshot to help people quickly get an overview of a topic, with factors to consider and helpful information.
These snapshots serve as a jumping-off point from which people can explore a wide range of content and perspectives on the web. SGE will show links to resources supporting the information in the snapshot, so people can check the information and explore further.
This allows people to dig deeper and discover a diverse range of content, from publishers, creators, retailers, businesses, and more, and use the information they find to advance their tasks.
Pillars? What are the pillars of authority and how will that affect business and marketing?
This means that Google will place more value on the pillars of authority and expertise in web content. EEAT will become the new acronym to use as a touchstone for content.
To quote Google: E-E-A-T (is an acronym created by Google for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthines). It is not a ranking factor but rather a component of Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines
To sum it up simply – authority, trustworthiness and expertise. Don´t just write a peripheral blog about a subject you know scores well. Write a blog based on your company´s expertise by an authority on that subject within your company.
Internal thought leaders, quality and informative content are what I see as key things to identify and start with.
Google is always innovating and with the growth of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) they are rolling out Google SGE. Google SGE is Google Generative Search Experience and this will have an impace on companies and marketers. There is a lot to cover so I will split this into a series of 5 articles. Which I will then link back to this blog post.
Navigating Google Analytics 4 (GA4) effectively is crucial for any business looking to understand their website’s performance and user behavior. Whether you’re targeting a global audience or a niche market, these top 5 tips will help you make the most out of GA4 for your marketing efforts.
Set Clear Goals and Objectives This is crucial always – and especially with data. What are the metrics I need to understand what I am looking for? Just because something has gone up or down may not be bad for your goals.
Master Event Tracking GA4 places a significant emphasis on event tracking, which allows you to monitor user interactions on your website. Events can include button clicks, video views, form submissions, and more. It is crucial to take the time to learn how to set up and track events accurately. This data is invaluable for understanding how users engage with your site and where you can make improvements.
Utilize Enhanced Measurement GA4 offers an enhanced measurement feature that automatically tracks essential user interactions, such as pageviews, scroll tracking, and outbound clicks. Enabling this feature could save you time and provide valuable insights without the need for manual event tracking setup. It’s especially helpful for those new to GA4 or with limited technical expertise. However these are default settings that may also not be significant for your business so read these wisely.
Customize Reports and Dashboards Take advantage of this feature by organizing your data in a way that aligns with your goals. You can focus on key metrics like user demographics, conversion rates, and traffic sources. Customization is also important as GA4 has set up some default items that might not really be interesting for your business.
Stay Informed with Alerts and Predictive Metrics. Set up alerts to receive notifications when specific events or metrics reach predefined thresholds. This proactive approach allows you to react swiftly to significant changes in your data. Additionally, explore predictive metrics like potential revenue to anticipate future trends and make informed decisions.
Learning your way around GA4 is important and you should take the time to understand it. As with all data sources – set clear objectives, understand event tracking, utilize enhanced measurement but cutomize reports. Don´t just look at the data and react – read it and think ´what does it mean to my business´.
