Nick Bennett

The comment to DM model for LinkedIn still works in 2026 but only if you're giving away something people actually want. The tool or cheat sheet has to do real work.

If your demand gen strategy is just paid ads and a few blogs you don't have a demand gen strategy. You have a media buy and some content marketing.

Been using the same travel mug for four years and every time I almost replace it something stops me. Irrational product loyalty is real and I am not immune to it.

Tiered gifting at events is not bribery. Done right it's a signal. Different touches for different account tiers based on where they are in the buying process. That's just smart.

Q1 is done. Here's what I'd do differently. I took on one client too many. I knew it when I said yes and I did it anyway because the work was interesting and the timing felt right. By February I was stretched thin on two engagements and not giving either one the depth they deserved. I fixed it by the end of the quarter but I cost myself two months of suboptimal work to get there. I also let two pieces of content sit in draft too long. An event attribution framework that would have been more useful in January than in March. I kept refining it instead of shipping it. The version I finally posted wasn't meaningfully better than what I had in week two. On the client side, I should have pushed harder on alignment in one engagement earlier. I knew by week three that marketing and sales were not working the same accounts. I flagged it. I didn't force the fix. By week eight it was the main reason the program wasn't moving. What I got right: I built two tools that reached people I wouldn't have reached otherwise. I ran a webinar that I'm proud of. I shipped more than I didn't. The lesson I keep relearning is that done and out in the market beats refined and sitting in a draft. Every time. Without exception. Q2 is now in full swing.

Account-based is a strategy not a tool. You don't buy ABM. You run it. The technology is just a way to scale something that works at small volume first.

Onboarding as a fractional is 80% listening. You can't fix what you don't actually understand. The instinct to come in fast with solutions usually makes things worse.

Nothing like writing a big check to remind you that being self-employed means you get to do literally everything yourself including the fun part at the end of Q1.

For a long time I was selling fractional engagements the way most consultants do. Here's what I know. Here's what I've done. Here's what I'd do for you. The conversion rate was fine. Not great. The thing that changed it was starting to lead with outcomes instead of services. Not: I can run your ABM program. But: in the last three engagements where I've built this motion, the average time from account selection to first pipeline was 11 weeks. Here's what that took. Not: I do demand gen. But: the last demand gen rebuild I ran cut MQL volume by 60% and doubled pipeline contribution in two quarters. Here's how I'd apply that here. Specificity does two things. It filters out the clients who want activity. And it attracts the clients who want outcomes. Those are very different engagements and you want the second one. The other thing it does is reset the price conversation. When you're selling your time, the client is always calculating hourly rate. When you're selling an outcome, the conversation is about what that outcome is worth. Most fractional marketers undersell because they're positioned around what they do. The shift is to position around what changes because you were there. I'm still working on getting this right. But that reframe has been the most important business shift I've made in the last two years.

Intent data tells you who's looking. It doesn't tell you why. The why is what your BDRs need to personalize outreach. Don't skip that step.

Webinars don't fail because nobody watches. They fail because nothing happens after. No follow-up play. No handoff to sales. No repurposed content. The event was the whole plan.