How To Grow Your Business in 2025
Just have AI Agents do everything.
Kidding.
No, the truth is simple: to win in business you must constantly evolve your methods to decrease output variance and increase output quality in your various revenue motions:
Prospecting
Pipeline Generation
Pipeline Development
Conversion
Retention
Expansion
Of course, these motions are all linked and most of the “energy loss” or entropy in the system comes from the interconnect between each revenue sub-process — all a part of the global revenue function.
The famous “leaky funnel” problem that B2B and D2C business builders alike all struggle with.
Ultimately, since you can’t fix an upstream problem when you are downstream… the first place you should be focusing your growth efforts is at the very top of the funnel.
Marketing That Sucks
Small plug before we continue: I write about revenue operations and how to build powerful + reliable revenue engines @ .
Let’s assume you are building a SaaS product or some service offering for businesses — congrats on the B2B grind.
B2B purchases are complex, often involving multiple decision-makers and long sales cycles. Generic, broadly targeted social ads (think Facebook, Instagram, even LinkedIn with poor targeting) often reach the wrong people within an organization, or the right people at the wrong time. It's "spray and pray," leading to low conversion rates and wasted ad spend. It's also hard to stand out in a noisy feed.
That’s marketing that sucks.
Social media feels important, and there's pressure to "be everywhere." Metrics like impressions and clicks are easy to track (even if they're vanity metrics), making it seem like something is happening, even if it's not driving real pipeline. It's also a familiar tactic, carried over from B2C marketing.
Highly targeted, account-based marketing (ABM) on LinkedIn can work, but this is very different from typical paid social. We'll address this below.
How about search advertisements?
Similar to paid social, generic search ads (broad keywords) and display ads often lack the precision needed for B2B. They can attract irrelevant traffic, leading to low-quality leads and high cost-per-acquisition (CPA). B2B buyers are often researching specific solutions to complex problems, and generic ads don't address those specific needs.
It's easy to set up and measure (again, often with vanity metrics). There's a belief that "more visibility is always better," even if it's not the right visibility. Traditional marketing playbooks often emphasize paid search as a core tactic.
You know what DOES work in this arena? Highly targeted, long-tail keyword campaigns focused on specific pain points and solutions can be effective, especially when combined with strong landing pages.
Let’s get into email marketing.. the bane of most of our digital existence.
The "batch and blast" approach to email is dead. Inbox fatigue is real. Generic, unpersonalized emails get ignored, deleted, or marked as spam. B2B buyers are looking for value and relevance, not generic sales pitches. Buying generic lists is a recipe for disaster. They have been worked over. You are likely to get marked SPAM just for going down those paths.
You have to build your own sub list — like I am doing here on Substack.
Email is still a powerful channel, but the way it's used has changed. Many marketers haven't adapted to the need for highly personalized, segmented, and valuable content. It's also relatively cheap to send emails, making it tempting to overuse the channel.
Highly segmented, personalized email nurture sequences that provide value and build relationships over time can be very effective. This requires a strong understanding of the buyer journey and their needs.
Another tired technique is the gated white paper where you put a prized PDF behind a wall and force the user to give you info (first, last, email, company, etc..) in return for the goodies.
The "gate everything" approach is turning off buyers. People are hesitant to give up their contact information for content that might be low-quality or overly promotional. The barrier to entry is too high for the perceived value. The market is saturated with white papers.
It's a traditional lead generation tactic, and it used to work better. It's easy to measure (number of downloads), and it provides a tangible "asset" that marketers can point to. Marketers love that for all sorts of job retention reasons.
Let’s flip this on its head.
Truly exceptional, groundbreaking, ungated content that provides real value can build trust and generate leads organically. Gating can work for very specific, high-value resources that are clearly targeted to a specific audience and their needs (e.g., a detailed industry benchmark report).
Marketing That Doesn’t Suck
You know what does work?
Authenticity and leadership. The Founder or CEO's voice carries weight and credibility. They can articulate the company's vision, mission, and values in a way that resonates with potential customers and partners. It shows a commitment to transparency and engagement. It humanizes the company.
I encourage you to be active on relevant social media platforms (especially LinkedIn despite all the hate my X friends throw at it). Ghostwrite thought leadership articles, but ensure they reflect the your genuine voice and perspective. Don’t write your words.. record them and then write like you sound… not like you THINK you sound.
Take that powerful authenticity and unique voice and use it to participate in industry events and webinars.
If you have employees you should be converting them into evangelists. This provides wider reach and increased credibility. Employees are often more trusted than corporate messaging. They can share their expertise and passion for the company and its products/services. It creates a sense of community and shared purpose.
How to Get This Going: Implement an employee advocacy program. Provide employees with training and resources to share content effectively. Encourage them to participate in relevant online conversations. Recognize and reward employees who are actively promoting the company.
Trust is Currency
Builds trust and relationships. Clients aren’t accepting what they are told about a product or experience… they are investigating with the help of their friends.
Focus on providing value, engaging in conversations, and sharing unique perspectives. Avoid being overly promotional. Show the human side of the company. Be consistent and responsive.
Develop a clear social media strategy that aligns with the company's overall marketing goals. Create a content calendar that focuses on valuable, engaging content. Train employees on how to use social media effectively. Monitor social media channels for mentions and engage with followers. Focus on building relationships, not just broadcasting messages.
You need to constantly be creating content and releasing it. You need to engage in the comments. This reinforces thought leadership and attracts organic traffic. Provides value to potential customers at every stage of the buyer journey. Improves SEO and drives inbound leads. Fuels social media and email marketing efforts…. see how mission critical this is?
Consider going the extra mile and hosting small in-person events. Dinners go a long way. This technique builds strong relationships and fosters trust faster than any form of multi-tread engagement failing to use the IRL channel. It also allows for more personalized interactions while providing a valuable networking opportunity.
It also creates a sense of exclusivity and intimacy. That’s key in the noisy always on world we live in.
How To Use This
Move away from vanity metrics and focus on metrics that actually impact the bottom line (e.g., qualified leads, sales pipeline, customer acquisition cost). Use data to identify what's working and what's not, and adjust the strategy accordingly.
Don't try to overhaul everything at once. Start with small, pilot projects to test new approaches. Track the results and iterate based on the data.
Share data and insights to demonstrate the effectiveness of new approaches. Explain the rationale behind the shift in strategy to yourself, and any stakeholders to increase buy-in.
Invest in creating high-quality, valuable content that addresses the needs of your target audience. This is the foundation of a successful B2B marketing strategy.
Elevate from a transactional mindset to a relationship-building mindset. Focus on providing value and building trust with potential customers.
For targeted outreach, ABM (account-based marketing) can be very effective. This involves identifying key accounts, understanding their needs, and creating personalized marketing campaigns to engage them. It's the opposite of spray-and-pray.
Will these methods always work?
No, the evolution must continue.
Continuously test different approaches and tactics to see what resonates best with your target audience. A/B test email subject lines, landing page copy, and ad creatives.
In summary, the shift you need to make is a move from outbound, interruption-based marketing to inbound, relationship-based marketing. It's about attracting customers by providing value and building trust, rather than pushing messages at them. It requires a fundamental change in mindset and a commitment to data-driven decision making.
…but once you have that in place, you will have a continuous flow of quality leads to begin accelerating down the funnel toward the fun parts → dealmaking and execution.
That’s how you grow your business, any business, in 2025.
Update: Thank you so much for spreading the word on social media, across finance and technology communities, in Discord/Slack and wherever else investors, builders and nerds like us gather.
Thanks to you we are getting lots of inquiries about sponsored posts, product reviews, speaking engagement opportunities and more.
Please fill out this form if you have any inquiries or collaboration ideas.
👋 Thank you for reading Wealth Systems. I started this in November 2023 to share the systems, technology, and mindsets that I encountered on Wall Street.
💡The BIG IDEA is share practical knowledge so we can each build and optimize our own wealth engines and combine them into a wealth system.
To help continue our growth please Like, Comment and Share this.
NOTE: The content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, accounting, or legal advice. The author and the blog owner cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information presented and are not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information.
All information on this site is provided 'as is', with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness, or of the results obtained from the use of this information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site or its associates.
Any investments, trades, speculations, or decisions made on the basis of any information found on this site, expressed or implied herein, are committed at your own risk, financial or otherwise. Readers are advised to conduct their own independent research into individual stocks before making a purchase decision. In addition, investors are advised that past stock performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation.
The author is not a broker/dealer, not an investment advisor, and has no access to non-public information about publicly traded companies. This is not a place for the giving or receiving of financial advice, advice concerning investment decisions, or tax or legal advice. The author is not regulated by any financial authority.
By using this blog, you agree to hold the author and the blog owner harmless and to completely release them from any and all liabilities due to any and all losses, damages, or injuries as a result of any investment decisions you make based on information provided on this site.
Please consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.