Also included is information from Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing
It starts with the feeling of being sick.
Build your business through referrals. Good work led to good speech and for years, that was enough. Then you look up and see that it’s been months since a new one came in. If referrals dry up in a small business, there is usually nothing else. There are no ads. There is no content strategy. There is no real pipe. I just hope the phone rings.
Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, knows this situation well. He sees it all the time in the small businesses he works with. And he has a direct message for anyone in that position: the answer is not to start running ads next week.
The answer is to create a strategy first.
Sara Nay’s segment starts at 13:04. Full episode on Paul Green’s MSP Marketing Edge.
Why referrals dry up and what many small businesses are doing wrong next
Growing through referrals is actually a good sign. It means clients like you, trust your work, and talk about you. Sara is the first to say so.
“It’s exciting that you were able to grow based on your shipments,” he said. “That shows you’re giving good service and the customers are happy. That’s the first check box.”
But referrals are not a marketing strategy. They are single channel, uncontrollable. When they slow down, businesses that have nothing else in place have no recourse.
The feeling when the transfer is dry is to hold the close trick. Run some paid ads. Start posting on LinkedIn. Hire someone to do SEO. Sara says instinct is understandable but almost always wrong.
“Instead of going straight, now we’re going to do paid ads,” he explains, “it goes back and says: who are our customers? Where do they live on the Internet? How do they make purchasing decisions? What keeps them up at night?”
Channel selection follows strategy. It does not precede.
Two things you need before choosing any channel
Sara is clear about what should come before any channel decision. Two things.
First, a realistic picture of your ideal client. Not just their job title. Where do they spend time online? How do they make purchasing decisions? What keeps them up at night? What problems are they trying to solve?
Second, messages that give people a reason to care, not just a list of what you’re selling.
“You really need to understand those two things first before you decide which station or how you’re going to look at the station going forward,” said Sara.
This is the basis of what Duct Tape Marketing calls Strategy First. It’s a systematic 30-day process that produces a complete marketing strategy before any tactics begin. Duct Tape Marketing has built its clients’ business on it for over 30 years, and Sara says it’s more important now than ever. The current position of DTM is clear: strategy before technology.
Technologies, AI tools, platforms, none of them become valuable until a clear direction is in place. Tools should follow strategy, not the other way around.
Map the customer journey before you map tactics
Once you know who you are serving and what you are saying to them, the next step is to understand how people interact with your business.
Duct Tape Marketing uses the Marketing Hourglass. It’s the customer journey model John Jantsch first laid out in his book Duct Tape Marketing, and Sara still uses it for every client. The seven categories are Know, Love, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer.
Think of it as a complete loop rather than a one-way funnel. The goal isn’t just to get someone high. It is to move them through all stages and back again.
Sara explains why this is important in practice: “You can sit down and analyze what we are doing in each of these stages.
A well-marked customer journey doesn’t just improve retention. It restarts the referral flow naturally. When referrals dry up in a small business, this research is often where the answer lies.
Tactics without tracking are just busy work
Sara always sees a pattern. A new client goes through five or six sales transactions. When he asks what works, they don’t know anything. They never set a goal before they start.
“It’s not enough to just make your list of tactics at the end of the strategy,” he said. “You have to say, if we’re going to do these things in the next 90 days, what is the definition of success and how are we going to track that? Because that information will help guide you if you have to keep doing things or if you have to change.”
Set a goal for each strategy before you start, and track within 90 days. Score a goal, keep it. Don’t beat it, stop or fix it. That’s the plan. Doing work without measuring is just a waste of time.
How can you stand out when everything sounds like noise
The current marketing environment is noisy. AI-generated cold leads populate LinkedIn inboxes and messages. New forums start every week. Every marketer promises a lead generation program.
Sara says she doesn’t even look at her LinkedIn messages anymore because most of what comes in is auto-noise after the game.
“It’s hard to get people’s attention and it’s hard to stand out,” he says. “But if you approach marketing with a real sense of humanity in it and don’t just try to measure with AI, there’s an opportunity for people to see you for yourself.”
His take on AI is accurate. Use it, but put someone on both ends. Lead with your insights, stories, and guidance. Let AI help shape and rate that content. Then edit and refine the output yourself.
“Human at the front, AI in the middle, human at the end. That’s where it can be powerful,” he said. “It helps increase you and your skill set and doesn’t change your creativity.”
Low budget marketing that really works
If you have a few hundred dollars a month and no marketing infrastructure, Sara has a clear idea of where to start.
- Repurposed content. Record short videos on specific topics that your audience needs to know about. Use those videos as a source for social media clips, email newsletters, and blog posts. AI makes it easy to reuse, but the original thinking has to come from you.
- Direct personal access. Build a list of people in your ideal target market and reach them as a person. Call them. Send a personal message. When the inbox is filled with automated snippets, a genuine call or personal message quickly stands out.
- Podcast guest. Joining someone else’s podcast costs nothing but your time. It puts you in front of their audience and builds authority in a format that people really trust.
None of this requires a huge budget. They require clarity about who you are talking to and discipline to show up regularly. That clarity, as Sara would say, comes from strategy first.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I do first when the transfer is dry?
Don’t start with the channel. Start with your ideal client profile. Explain who they are, where they spend their time, how they make decisions, and what message will resonate with them. Only then does the choice of channel make sense. Sara Nay of Duct Tape Marketing also recommends examining your customer journey using the Marketing Hourglass to find out where existing customer relationships are breaking down.
Should I run paid ads when referrals stop?
Not until you have a strategic foundation in place. Paid ads without a clear profile of the right client and loud messages will waste the budget. Build those first, then decide if paid ads are the right channel for your clients to spend time on.
How do I get referrals to come back naturally?
Map your customer journey using the Marketing Hourglass. See what you’re doing in the Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat and Refer categories. Spaces in the Repeat and Refer sections usually explain why the referral is dry. Fixing those gaps creates conditions for the transfer to restart without asking for them.
What is the Marketing Hourglass?
The Marketing Hourglass is a customer journey model developed by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. It features seven categories: Know, Love, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer. Unlike a traditional funnel, it continues past the initial sale into retention and referrals. Duct Tape Marketing uses it as a research tool to identify gaps and set marketing priorities.
How should small businesses use AI in their marketing?
Sara Nay’s framework: human in front, AI in the middle, human in the end. Bring your own insight, stories, and guidance. Let AI help shape and rate that content. Then edit and refine your output. The goal is to use AI to enhance your thinking, not replace it.
