Summary:
Who this article is for:
- Early-stage founders and solo entrepreneurs launching a service business who want to know where to actually focus first
- Anyone who’s doing a little bit of everything and feeling stretched thin
- New business owners asking “should I hire a marketing agency?”
Key takeaways:
- Your first customers should pay you in reviews and referrals — make the ask explicit up front
- A CRM is the first marketing asset you actually own — get one before you spend a dollar on ads
- There’s almost always a missing middle rung between your free content and your paid offer — a free membership tier captures leads and starts the nurture
- Two focused hours of content creation can produce 50+ short-form clips, a YouTube video, a blog post, and a newsletter
- Strategic partnerships are the fastest path to customers this month
- Spend 80% of your time on sales and business development. Fulfillment will follow
What’s inside:
- The 6 things Josh walked through with a U of U MBA student launching a used car advisory service
- Why your contact list is the only marketing asset you actually own
- How to turn two hours a week into a month of content
- The strategic partnership pitch that almost nobody says no to
- When to hire an agency — and when you’re not ready yet
Every semester, I sit down with founders through the Hours with Experts program at the Lassonde Entrepreneurship Institute, in collaboration with the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. It’s one of my favorite hours of the month. I started my first company as an undergrad at the U, and I spend a lot of my time now talking to business owners who are five years past the stage where this conversation would have saved them a lot of money.
Last week I met with an MBA student in his final semester. We’ll call him Marcus. Over the summer he took a product management class, built out an idea he’d been carrying around, and liked it enough to actually launch it. His business helps everyday people buy used cars without getting taken advantage of: coaching, training, and a done-for-you option where he handles the search and the negotiation. He’s a few months in, has a handful of paying and near-paying customers, and works a full-time job on top of it.
His question was the question almost every early founder asks: “I’m doing a little bit of everything. What should I actually focus on?”
Here’s what we worked through. It applies to nearly any new service business, not just his.
1. Your First Dozen Customers Should Pay You in Reviews and Referrals
Marcus had been serving friends and family, mostly for free, while he figured out his pricing. That’s exactly right — but there’s a way to get more out of it.
When you do free or discounted work early on, make the ask explicit up front: if you get real value from this, I want a review on Google, Facebook, and anywhere else people will look me up — plus one introduction to someone who should talk to me.
That’s not awkward. That’s a trade. Social proof is the single hardest asset to buy and the easiest one to earn when you’re doing good work for people who already like you. Most new business owners skip straight to “what should I do about SEO and ads?” The honest answer is: we’ll get there. First comes grassroots customer acquisition — networking, referrals, guerrilla marketing, friends and family.
2. Get a CRM Before You Worry About Almost Anything Else
This was the part of the conversation I’d underline twice.
You don’t own your social media profiles. You don’t really own your website either, not in any way that survives a hosting problem or a platform policy change. The one asset you genuinely own is your contact list.
Marcus didn’t have a CRM or email marketing tool yet. My recommendation: go get an affordable one today. GoHighLevel, Constant Contact, Mailchimp. Something that handles email, texting, a basic sales pipeline, and embedded website forms. Don’t overspend. Just start collecting.
It is roughly five times cheaper to sell to someone already in your world than to go find a stranger. Every contact you capture now is an upsell you don’t have to pay for later.
3. Find the Missing Step Between “Free” and “Buy”
Marcus has built a set of free car buying tools on his website plus worksheets for each phase of the buying process. Great assets. His question was whether he should gate them.
My answer: don’t gate the tools. Give away real value with no friction. But notice the gap. Someone finds him on TikTok, comes to the site, runs a free payment calculator, and then the only next step is a $149 purchase. That’s too big a jump.
What’s missing is the middle rung. A free membership. You get the tools plus the videos and walkthroughs that never go on social. The price is your name, email, and phone number. People give that up all day long — and now they’re in your database getting nurtured instead of bouncing.
Then set up an automated nurture sequence. Block out two or three hours one afternoon, write 20 emails, load them into your CRM, and let them fire weekly. Every email follows the same shape: hook, value, call to action. Here’s an interesting thing I learned. Here’s why it matters for you. By the way, if you want help with this, here’s the next step up. That’s high leverage. You write it once and it works on every contact who ever enters your list.
4. Turn Two Hours a Week Into a Month of Content
Marcus is doing well on organic social, which makes sense. His niche is huge and genuinely interesting. But social media is a double-edged sword. It can change your business, and it can also quietly eat five hours a week for six months with nothing to show for it.
So systematize it. Here’s the block I recommended:
- First 30–45 minutes: Record one long-form video, 15 to 25 minutes, where you really geek out on a single topic. That goes to YouTube.
- Next hour: Work from a topic doc and rapid-fire record short clips. Hooks matter more than anything. The first five seconds decide everything.
- Then: Run the long-form video through a tool like Opus Clip. It generates dozens of short clips with captions automatically.
- Then: Take the transcript of the long-form video, use AI to convert it from spoken voice into written voice, edit it properly, and publish it as a blog post with the YouTube video embedded.
- Finally: That blog post becomes the meat of your next newsletter.
Two hours in. Out the other side: 50-plus short-form videos, one long-form YouTube video, one SEO-optimized blog article, and your newsletter content. That’s leverage.
And yes, blogs still work — though not the way they did in 2015. The reason to publish long-form written content now is GEO and AEO: getting cited by AI search. When an AI model evaluates whether your business is legitimate, it’s looking for reviews, testimonials, case studies, a documented process, backlinks, and substantive written content. A brand new site with none of that is invisible to both Google and ChatGPT. Our Grow services are built around exactly this kind of compounding content and SEO strategy.
5. Strategic Partnerships Are the Fastest Path to Real Customers
If the question is “how do I get customers this month,” my mind goes here first.
Ask where your ideal customers already are — physically and online — right before they need you. For Marcus, that’s collision centers, mechanic shops, car detailers, local credit unions, insurance brokers, and university student groups. A collision center is the first place someone hears the words “your car is totaled.” That’s a person who needs him in the next 72 hours.
The approach matters. Don’t walk in asking for something. Walk in offering:
“I run a business helping people buy used cars, and I’ve got a growing list of customers actively in the market. I’m locking in my strategic partner network because my clients constantly ask me who to use for detailing, financing, and insurance. I’d like to send them to you. Does that interest you?”
Almost nobody says no to that. And when they naturally ask what they can do for you, be ready: a spot on their front counter, a mention to customers who are car shopping, a reciprocal link. Make it easy. Bring the printed card with you. Offer a coupon code that pays them a commission on anything it drives.
Done right it’s a win-win-win. The customer gets a vetted referral, you get leads, and your partner gets a kickback. I wish I’d taken strategic partnerships seriously years earlier than I did at Big Red Jelly.
6. Spend 80% of Your Time on Business Development
Marcus described the tension every solo founder knows: disappear into marketing for three days, resurface, and realize you haven’t touched operations.
Here’s my rough split: 80% of your time should be sales and marketing. 20% should be fulfillment. That ratio feels wrong to most new owners because fulfillment is the part that feels like real work. But your job as the owner is to grow revenue. Sales fixes almost every problem a young business has.
The Part Where I Tell You Not to Hire an Agency Yet
I told Marcus he shouldn’t hire anyone right now, and I’ll say the same to most founders at his stage. Do it yourself first. You’ll learn more from three months of running your own marketing than from any consultant. When you outgrow that, work with a freelancer. Then, when marketing becomes the bottleneck on a business that’s already working, that’s when you bring in a team.
That’s the point where we’re useful.
Work With Big Red Jelly
Big Red Jelly is a brand, web design, and digital marketing agency in Provo, Utah, helping small businesses and entrepreneurs Brand. Build. Grow. We build brands, design and develop websites, and run the SEO, GEO, paid advertising, and marketing systems that turn traffic into revenue.
If you’re past the DIY stage and ready for a partner, book a free consultation. If you’re still in the trenches building it yourself, use everything above and reach out when you’re ready.
Founders in the University of Utah ecosystem: connect with the Lassonde Entrepreneurship Institute’s Hours with Experts program to book time with mentors across marketing, finance, product, and operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a new small business focus on first for marketing?
Start with grassroots customer acquisition: referrals, reviews from your first customers, and direct outreach. Set up a CRM to capture every contact before investing in ads or SEO.
Do I need a CRM as a solo founder?
Yes. Your contact list is the only marketing asset you actually own. Affordable options include GoHighLevel, Constant Contact, and Mailchimp.
Should I gate my free tools and lead magnets?
Keep the tools ungated so people get real value immediately, then offer a free membership tier with bonus content in exchange for name, email, and phone number.
Are blogs still worth writing in 2026?
Yes, primarily for GEO and AEO. AI search engines evaluate legitimacy based on substantive written content, reviews, case studies, and backlinks.
How do small businesses get strategic partnerships?
Lead with what you can send them, not what you want. Identify businesses that touch your customer right before they need you, then make the partnership easy with printed materials and a commission-based referral code.
