Identifying your company's leverage with SmartAsset's Brian Bourque

How to Win podcast with Peep Laja

Summary:
This week on How To Win: Brian Bourque, SVP of Marketing at SmartAsset, where they've grown a lead generation business from $0 to $100M+ in revenue primarily through paid acquisition marketing and SEO. Brian has a ton of experience leading profitable paid acquisition teams in quantitative, direct-response marketing businesses. He's an advocate of using behavioral psychology, tech, data, and creativity to find exciting, new approaches to business.

In this episode, Brian breaks down six important lessons he’s learned throughout his career. We discuss why tactics aren't strategy, why the internet is bigger than you think, and, for lesson one, why scaling is about realizing where the leverage lies in each part of your company. I give my thoughts on what a good strategy looks like, the concept of pattern interrupt, and why if they 'zig', you should 'zag'.

Key Points:

• Lesson One - Scaling is about realizing where the leverage lies in each part of your company (01:17)
• How do you find out which points of leverage are the best? (02:51)
• I weigh in on the overuse of the term 'scaling' (05:15)
• Lesson Two - Tactics are not the same as strategy (05:53)
• I talk about the differences between tactics and strategy with a quote from author Richard P. Rumelt (08:15)
• Lesson Three - There is value in asking, "What would need to be true to achieve X?" (09:42)
• I give my thoughts on finding your way to 'X' with a quote from author Roger Martin (12:08)
• I recall a story from Matt Epstein, former VP of Marketing at Zenefits, about impossible goals with a quote from Matt (14:07)
• Lesson Four - The internet is larger than you think (15:44)
• Lesson Five - At scale, everyone is a competitor (18:09)
• I discuss the concept of pattern interrupt with a quote from Mutiny's Jaleh Rezaei (20:41)
• Lesson Six - When they 'zig', you 'zag' (22:11)
• I explain why you should always 'zag' with a quote from author Marty Neumeier (22:55)
• Wrap up (24:40)

Mentioned:

Brian Bourque LinkedIn

Brian Bourque Twitter

Brian Bourque's Newsletter

Richard P. Rumelt 's Good Strategy Bad Strategy - The Difference and Why It Matters

Roger Martin's A New Way To Think

Matt Epstein LinkedIn

Content, community, and customer acquisition with Mutiny's Jaleh Rezaei

Marty Neumeier's ZAG

My Links:

Twitter

LinkedIn

Website

Wynter

Speero

CXL