Episode 435: From Random Acts of Marketing to Predictable Growth with Michael “Buzz” Buzinski

Michael Buzinski 00:00
Well, when we talk about making sales social, it reminds me of the sales process. The way I’ve always sold my products is in a social manner.

Intro 00:15
Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast, featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests teach their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show.

Brynne Tillman 00:40

Welcome back to Making Sales Social. I’m Brynne Tillman, and I’m excited to introduce today’s guest, Michael Buzinski.

Michael is a decorated U.S. Air Force veteran—thank you for your service—serial entrepreneur, international speaker, and bestselling author. Dubbed a “visionary marketer” by the American Marketing Association and known as “Buzz” to many, he’s on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty by simplifying the marketing process for B2B entrepreneurs of all sizes.

With over 30 years of experience and a proven track record of helping businesses build predictable, profitable revenue engines, Michael’s insights are invaluable for those looking to enhance their marketing strategies and achieve sustainable success. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Buzinski 01:35
Hey, thanks for having me.

Brynne Tillman 01:38
Thanks for being had. Thrilled to have you here, and I’m excited to jump into some of the magic you have to offer. But before we do, we ask all of our guests the same first question: What does making sales social mean to you?

Michael Buzinski 01:59
When we talk about making sales social, it reminds me of the sales process. The way I’ve always sold my products is in a social manner.

I have conversations with people rather than pitching my wares. Think back to old-school door-to-door salespeople—selling Cutco knives, vacuum cleaners, and so on. They rarely came to have a conversation. They’d say things like, “Is your vacuum cleaner getting all the dirt? Did you know you had all this dust in your bed?” An hour later, you’d finish being talked at, only to say “no.”

But others came in with curiosity: “Are you a germaphobe? Do you have allergies?” They started with a conversation. I believe if we can make the sales process more like a social interaction—a real conversation—sales can truly be more social.

Brynne Tillman 03:10
I love that. It’s exactly my way of thinking.

And speaking of which, I found a line in my research that resonated with me: random acts of marketing. I’ve been talking about random acts of sales for a decade, so this felt perfect.

Your work addresses the issue of random acts of marketing, which I love. How does that concept affect growth, and what solutions remedy it?

Michael Buzinski 03:51
When we talk about random acts of marketing, we’re talking about entrepreneurs who don’t have degrees in marketing and haven’t practiced it. They went into business to run a business. Then all the hats pile on, and marketing—one of the lifebloods of growth—lands on its head.

We all remember the calls: “You’re in business? You need pens, ads, a website, this and that—otherwise, your business won’t be seen and will die.” That fear drives random acts of marketing.

In the first few years, entrepreneurs throw energy at growth—networking, word-of-mouth, brute force. That can push them into six or even seven figures. But along the way, they collect random acts of marketing—grabbing onto every new promise of more leads, visibility, or trust.

The problem: it’s all random. No order. No system.

Once you reach the seven-figure space, that randomness costs dearly first, because there’s no strategy unifying tactics. Second, because consistency is missing, and as you know, sales is all about consistency, follow-up, and congruency.

The solution? A marketing operating system.

This system must be in lockstep with the sales process. Otherwise, there’s a disconnect in messaging. Marketing says one thing, sales says another, and leads feel the dissonance.

Back in the day, it wasn’t “marketing and sales”—it was one department, led by a Chief Revenue Officer. They shared the same space for continuity. That’s what we need again.

If your marketing is just a handful of random tactics, with no system pulling prospects smoothly from awareness to action—and no warm handoff to sales with the info they need—then you’re in dire need of a marketing operating system.

Brynne Tillman 07:10
I love that. I think anything we do needs a process. Anything random gets random acts of success. You may go, “Oh, that worked,” but it was just by luck. And it’s not like you’re going to repeat that, right?

So I love that predictable mindset—how do we create predictable income and predictable sales leads that convert? It’s all about that process. Thank you for that.

In doing my little digging, I came across your FOCUS framework, which I thought was really cool. The point of it is really to establish that scalable revenue engine. Talk a little bit about how FOCUS works.

Michael Buzinski 08:01
When we talk about random acts of marketing, there are also random acts of messaging. We often try to market all of our services to all people.

There’s a surge right now in the operations space, where people are talking about simplicity and focus. If you think back to Traction with Gino Wickman and EOS, it was about focusing on very specific things at specific times.

Marketing isn’t much different. We need to give the public a single point of reference. The easiest way is through FOCUS, which stands for Fix One Clearly Urgent Struggle.

If we can pinpoint one urgent struggle and show how we can fix it, we’re easier to remember. People with that struggle will latch on. Many businesses spread their message so thin that they miss the mark.

If you’re unfocused, you’re just a loud nobody. But if you’re consistent and focused on the one struggle your best clients face, that’s the best place to be inserted into their business or life.

People often ask, “What about all the other things we do?” Here’s an analogy: when I was a kid, we made shoebox cameras. You’d poke a pinhole in foil, put photosensitive paper inside, seal it, and point it outside. All the light of the world goes through one pinhole to make the big picture.

That’s the analogy. Once people are inside your “shoebox,” you can show them the world. But first, you need one place for them to enter. That’s what FOCUS does.

Brynne Tillman 11:07
That’s fantastic. I love it. Are you familiar with the book The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan?

Michael Buzinski 11:17
I’ve heard of it, yes. I don’t think I’ve read it, but I’m sure it shares similar ideas. It’s not a new concept—it’s just another way to get people there.

Brynne Tillman 11:28
Absolutely. It’s not about marketing—it’s about life. We’re overwhelmed and trying to fix everything. When you focus on fixing one thing, you can actually fix it. I love that.

Michael Buzinski 11:46
Another thing FOCUS allows you to do is systemize and productize your services. You’re putting your client on the path to success. Once you fix one problem, that success creates the next problem, which you can solve with another service.

Too many businesses try to do everything at once. I say, why don’t we date before we get married? Fix one thing first. Let’s have one meal, then talk about the next.

Brynne Tillman 12:25
That is fabulous. It’s manageable, and it’s something everyone can do. If you feel stuck juggling too many balls in the air, just pick one. Catch one at a time.

Michael Buzinski 12:44
Exactly. We only put one ball in play at a time. Even in billiards, you start by hitting one ball with one ball. It might create a combo, but it starts with one.

Brynne Tillman 12:56
Awesome. I love that. So let’s jump into what most people think is the most magical, but also disruptive—AI.

We wrote a book called Prompt Writing Made Easy. We think it’s important. We view AI as the interviewer, not the writer of content. Talk to me about where marketers mess up with AI, and how you’re bringing it into the fold with your clients.

Michael Buzinski 13:40
The biggest mistake? Marketers try to replace humans with AI in content creation and even strategy.

I equate AI to a six-year-old with all the knowledge in the world but no context. It can answer any question, but it doesn’t understand. When you ask for context, it scrapes what others have written—sometimes even spun by other bots—and feeds it back. It’s predictive language, not creative language.

The best marketers use AI as an assistant for research, outlining, and getting 60–70% of the way there. Then we become the editors, not the writers.

This even applies to reporting. AI can summarize data, but without context, it might “hallucinate.” It doesn’t know the nuance of how to frame results without alarming clients.

So the key is to use AI as a lever, not a photocopier. Don’t try to copy yourself over and over.

Brynne Tillman 16:17
Yes, I love that. One challenge we’re trying to fix is teaching people how to prompt AI effectively. We use a CRISPY model: Context, Role, Inspiration, Scope, Prohibitions, You. But you know, there are things that you can do in your prompts. For example, I know you said something like it, it’ll get, ultimately, it’s going to hallucinate, right? It’s going to end things. But you can actually put it in the prompt. Do not make anything up if you are not sure about the answer. Ask me. Don’t fill in the blank. And it learns that, and it will start asking you, you know, do not give me any fake resources. I’d rather have no resources, right? And our sources. I’d rather have no sources than broken links, right? So when you learn, I believe, how to put the prompts in place with the scope and the prohibitions, the things they don’t want you to do. Do not start any paragraph within today’s overturning world. Right? Do not start. Don’t use the words Delve or foster. Right? You know, we can start to teach it, to not do things, not just do things. 

So I love that you brought that up, because I think it’s so important. So I’m going to move on and talk for a moment. You are effectively a fractional CMO, right? Like you’re going into companies that don’t have the marketing chops or the talent, or they’re in between talent, right, to help them with their marketing. And you had said something in the beginning, where marketing and sales need to, you know, kind of be one team again. Talk to me a little bit about, like, how you walk into a brand new company that says, Alright, we haven’t had a marketer in seven months, we need help. Here you are. Here’s the VP of sales, and your seven salespeople go, What is that?

Michael Buzinski  18:30

Lots of conversations in social selling. We have to sail socially, because we have to get everybody on board right. And usually when I’m brought in as a fractional CMO, there has been a marketer. It’s usually the founder or a marketing director who just, you know, they are, they’re just lacking the leadership, not necessarily the chops. Sometimes they have all the chops. They just don’t have the leadership to give them that overview, that the God’s eye view, if you will. That allows somebody from the outside in to see what is not working, what is working, and how to start piecing those together. And then when it comes to the communication between the sales and the marketing teams, it really has to do with the leadership, because you don’t want to micro-manage the sales department, but you need all of the information the sales representatives have. Now, sometimes I get in, I have a $10 million company, the salesperson, the sole salesperson, is still the owner. It’s a $99.7 million accounting firm and the primary sales leader, and there’s only 1.5 salespeople, and the one is the CEO, and that point five is a de facto client success manager. So we’re being brought in, and we’re helping them now and expanding, so in a more of a chief revenue role. Officer space, where we’re looking at the whole revenue operations. So we’re talking with the marketing director. We’re working on getting a client success team in place, because of 67 accountants working for them, and most of the accountants are the account managers. So that means the COO is now effectively the client success manager, right? So there’s not enough. So everybody’s got something a little bit different. And so our approach is to come in, soak in the culture, do an audit, and get a diagnosis of where we’re at. Where are we leaking? Where are we excelling? Where do we have opportunities? Where are threats? All that good stuff. Do a full SWOT analysis, and then from there, it’s just about conversations. And I think that good fractionals, and no matter what position, CEO, COO, fractional, CHRO, all those folks, what makes us good versus the people that are okay, or really just consultants that call themselves fractionals, is that we are conversationalists. We just talk. Because from those conversations, you will hear honesty, you will get insight. You will start to understand why they are where they’re at. And once you understand where an organization’s at, or why an organization’s where it’s at, then you can help leadership from the top down, reorganize how they’re approaching their culture so that you can start implementing the changes that need to happen, because sometimes it’s kind of jolting, and people don’t like change, right? So one, you got to get your COO, your CEO and your coo on board, because they’re if they don’t, they’re not on board, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna get their back. And if you don’t have their back, you’re gonna get fought by everybody else. They’re just gonna leap right over you and say, Nope, I’m not doing what Buzz is doing. I don’t like what I’m hearing. No, no, no, no, no, no. They’re naysayers, right? Because they don’t want to, they don’t want to feel like they’re going to be called out, or they’re going to be shown that they have weaknesses. But if we have good leaders, we all know that we have weaknesses. The best leaders understand they have weaknesses they don’t even know they have because we don’t know what we don’t know. So my approach is to come in as a human, treat everybody as a human, and then just be honest.

Brynne Tillman  22:23

I mean, we should all live our lives, and I think that’s awesome. So I do have another question, and I know we’re going long, but I’m having so much fun. I have I have a question that I’m dying to ask you, because it’s something that I talk about a lot, and I’m curious from your perspective, so my experience when I’m working with my clients is marketing is putting out content based on what they think is important, but it’s not always the content that sales needs To start the conversations. How do you? Yeah, so, so I’ll say, you know, I believe sales needs content around the challenge that’s happening before their prospect knows they need it, and marketing tends to have content a little late in the sales funnel. It’s their hat; their content shows up when they’re searching for a solution. And I think sales needs content before that step.

Michael Buzinski  23:31

There’s that yes, yes, and yes, you’re you’re correct and you’re wrong all the same time. Okay, I love that.

Brynne Tillman  23:39

So I don’t care about where I’m right; tell me where I’m wrong.

Michael Buzinski  23:42

Well, no, it’s right in that conversation. So what you’re describing is the sales funnel, right? And so when we look at that at the top of the sales funnel, the people are either they are usually or sometimes, especially in B to B, that they are not even problem aware, correct? Then you have so, so now you so marketing. Marketing is a magnet, okay? And you need different levels of magnets as we get closer to the sales point of this funnel, which is the bottom of the funnel. The beginning, top of the funnel, is what we call the information ring, okay, some people are not quite in it. There’s a kind of exosphere around the funnel, right? And these are people who are either symptom aware or they might not be problem aware. They’re definitely not brand aware, right? They’re not aware of you, okay? And so the marketing does need to be at every rung of the sales cycle, okay, including the sales themselves. The sales team needs backup content while they’re in a conversation, and their nurture sequence during the sales cycle is part of the marketing. It’s just a continuation, right? So, first, you’re using content marketing, which is what you’re talking about. About. And even in ads, your content. In ads or content marketing, you’re having informational space where you’re educating, but then you get down into what you were talking about. There are different intents. And so now you get into a commercial intent where you are problem aware, or at least symptom aware, and you’re trying to look for solutions. And now you’re comparing solutions. Not really worried about the brand yet. You’re just comparing solutions. Now, marketing is there to make sure that your solution looks like the best solution. That’s a marketing job. Okay, then you get into a transactional phase where they’re looking to start talking to people, because still there, remember, the first two rungs are all research, and sometimes these sales cycles can be anywhere between a day and six months.

Brynne Tillman  25:51

So, can I just ask in this, because I agree with this so wholeheartedly, but in the research, and you could tell me I’m wrong, because I’m not a marketer. I’m a salesperson, really. But in the research, I have found that when you come across educational content that has a small CTA at the end, you’re going to capture more of those folks who are in that research mode of symptoms, right? I’m looking to solve a pain. I have no idea what my options are to solve the pain. I don’t know if I need surgery, or I need a pill, or I need stitches, or what. I don’t know what the solution is, right, but I know that I have a gaping hole that’s, you know, right, right, right. So, so, so my thought is, if you have marketing content at that stage that talks about a solution, you’re too early. You’re asking for 100%

Michael Buzinski  26:54

You’re not pulling them into the sales funnel. You’re asking for a sale before you are really getting them to the next rung. So your information CTAs are not the same as a transactional CTA. Correct. Okay, so in that, everything that I just said, just insert the fact that when you’re giving this information, you’re giving informational content, you give an informational-related call to action. So all they’re willing to do at that point is usually give a name and an email to get more information. So the call to action is informational right now, then you get into the commercial because from that information, you now are going to assume that you’ve got them down into maybe a commercial space. And so now you’re asking for a commercial CTA. Now that could be just an assessment. Why don’t you do an XYZ assessment to see if your symptoms actually equal the problem you think you have? Now we’re qualifying our clients before they waste our salespeople’s time. Now, once they’re done with that piece, they’re like, Here, here’s your diagnosis. Would you like to talk to a doc? Now we’re in the transactional CTA, and now we have primed this sales person with all the information we collected from their diagnosis and all that good stuff, right and and if you have your CRM correctly set up and your marketing operating system working properly before that salesperson gets on the phone or in the meeting, they have already ingested all that information on top of whatever research they’re going to do about the company that you’re working with, right, or who’s calling in, right? But yes, you are correct in that you must match your call to actions with the level of or with the rung of where the prospect is in the sales cycle. And so many people get it mixed up. They ask for a consultation when they’re just giving.

Brynne Tillman  28.:56

information, right, right? I’m not there yet, right?

Michael Buzinski  28:59

Yeah. Diagnoses are really good. Quiz funnels are really good in that commercial space and even in the informational space, you could have somebody do a diagnosis or quiz funnel and say, Hey, you have these symptoms, and then, boom, here it is. So you could sit there and say, Hey, you can download this ebook and learn more about it. Or why don’t you just take this little quiz right here and see if that is the problem you have? Because if you don’t, we’ll tell you where to go instead, because nine times out of 10, you already know if they have this symptom, but they don’t have this problem. And as it relates to your service, it’s somebody else that they should be talking to, and you pushing that out there and making it help people do that when they do have a problem, you can solve. Guess who they’re going to think of as the person who solved their last problem for free,

Brynne Tillman  29:45

absolutely, and you as the

Michael Buzinski  29:47

The business owner didn’t have to lift a finger to do it once it’s in place. Yeah.

Brynne Tillman  29:51

I love that. We actually call it leading to your solution, not with it.

Michael Buzinski  29:55

There you go. I love Oh yeah, yeah. 100% Yeah. If you’re on a diet. Gnostic style. So if you’re going from information, most of my clients are still working. There’s so much money on the tree at the commercial and transactional intent space that the length we already have long sales cycles, right? But there is enough business for most businesses where they’re at right now that if you could capture the people who are already problem aware, and they’re just looking for the right solution, or the right people to administer the solution. Why are we spending all this time, energy, and money up here in the informational exosphere, trying to educate people on our dime, when people have already collected that through chat, GPT, and all these other things, right? Okay, so what do we do? I do a lot of search marketing, okay, inbound, because there’s so much of it, right? There are people looking for how to do i xyz? Why do I have this symptom? What do you do if this happens to your business? These are people who have a problem. They are problem-aware now, they’re looking for a solution. That solution is in the commercial space. You can already start asking for a consultative or a discovery call to find out why you have that problem, right? So if I always say, work from the bottom up, not the top down, okay, if you’re gonna advertise, look for people who are in a transactional state. 3% of your total addressable market is gonna be in a decision state. I have a problem. I’m problem-aware. I’m solution aware. I just need a brand that can give me the solution, transactional boom. The next one up is that commercial state, right? I’m looking and comparing solutions. I might be comparing brands, but I’m in a comparison space. Hey, compare us. Spend 45 minutes with me to show you why we should see if we’re a good match. I love when companies tell me that instead of saying, Hey, let me show you why I’m awesome, ” I like to hear myself, and I like to say, Why don’t we get on a call and see if this is a good match?

Brynne Tillman  32:12

So I’ll throw in, and this has been a huge, major call to action, which, you know, you talked about the audit or the quiz or the evaluation or the right review? Yep, even if we don’t work together, you’re gonna walk away with insights that can help you do X 100%

Michael Buzinski  32:34

on my podcast, I actually offer free discovery calls where I tell people whatever problem that we’re solving in my in that podcast, at the end, I’m like, Hey, let me help you with that, and I’ll run a little if somebody’s willing to take 45 minutes to talk with me, and I solve that problem for them and say, it’s like, here, this is what you need to do. Now, if they take that and run, that’s great. They were never my client to begin with, right? But they got the value, and now they’re a fan. I listen to this guy; he’s got great content. I called him. He didn’t even hard sell me, and gave me the answer, dude’s awesome, and he’s gonna tell people about it, so you’re gonna spread that goodwill. On the flip side, what I tell them is usually going to be over their head. That’s why they called in the first place. So now I’m the obvious answer, so I’m the closest to them when they’re going, Oh, you gave me the answer, but I don’t know how to reverse engineer that into First things first, and so now I’m there. So that discovery call, when it comes to sales, to me, needs to go right back to where we started. And it is sales, social selling, or it was a sales, social making. Sales, social making. Sales social. Keep the conversation going. Remember, your marketing was a conversation. If they came in through a podcast like this, right here, it was a conversation, right? So keep it conversational.

Brynne Tillman  33:52

Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. You know, I don’t know if you ever read Phil M Jones, exactly what to say. It’s a very might have, but I

Michael Buzinski  34:07

missed that. What I said, I probably have. I just read too many books to remember them.

Brynne Tillman  34:13

I mean, they’re just one-liners, like, the whole book is just a bunch

Michael Buzinski  .34:16

Okay, I would think I would have remembered that, but I

Brynne Tillman  34:20

don’t think, oh, it’s, it’s awesome. I have it on audio. I don’t even know if I have the book, but it’s awesome. But anyway, there’s a one-liner that I took out of the book that I use all the time, which is about clothes. It is one of three things. Now, number one, I gave you enough that you’re like, This is great. Thank you so much. I’m ready to go. I think I got it, and if that’s the case, awesome. Feel free to come back with any questions. Number two, you know, I appreciate this. We are just not ready for this. This is not aligned with what you know our goals are, but I really appreciate your time, or number three, I. Love this, but I need a little more help. Where are you falling? And then, right? So now they go, Yeah, you know what I really do like this. I’d be happy to learn a little bit more. I think I might need some help. Great. So they’ve qualified themselves in, and it’s permission-based, and now I can convert that into, well, you know, let’s have a quick conversation about what’s going on and where we can explore if I can help you the way that I love it. So that’s just one of my favorites, and we are so long on this, but man, you are awesome. I’m just going to do a shout-out. I met you through a wonderful networking group called NRG. If anyone’s interested, reach out. The quality of people is Michael, like, it’s amazing, and I love it. It’s probably the best networking group I’ve ever been part of. It’s a great networking group. And so I just wanted to say that, but before we kind of close this out, is there any question I didn’t ask you that I should have?

Michael Buzinski  36:01

That you should have, yeah.

Brynne Tillman  36:03

Like, is there a question that, man, if you asked me this, your listeners would have been blown away.

Michael Buzinski  36:10

I mean, we kind of went deep. I mean, if we, if we threw another nugget in them, I think they’d be buried in gold. I mean, yeah, so, I mean, I’m not tooting my own horn. I’m just saying that you had great questions and we had a good conversation back and forth about it, which is, I think, the best way, versus somebody just asking questions, the person answering questions, and just back and forth. Transactional is very conversational, very social, even. So, you know, I’m not going to, I’m gonna say that. I think we should let it rest right here, and if we think of something later on, maybe we can have another conversation.

Brynne Tillman  36:46

I love that. So how can people who are out there, going, oh my gosh, I learned so much. I think I can implement some of it, but I might need a little more help.

Michael Buzinski  36:57

So you can definitely check us out at buzzworthy dot biz, that’s buzzworthy. The word buzzworthy, dot B, I Z. But if you want to check out my book, The Rule of 26, where I break out how to double your revenue through your website marketing in three steps, go to rule of two six.com. I’ve got a free copy waiting for you. I’ll even sign it myself. All I ask is that you pay for the shipping and handling.

Brynne Tillman  37:23

That’s more than fair. Thank you so much. This has been just eye-opening and so much fun, and I think we probably did two times the time that my average podcast, but hopefully everyone’s getting two times the value that’s right. Really, really fantastic. And to all the listeners. When you’re out and about, don’t forget to make your sales social.

Outro  37:47

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