Gary meets with Preston Bowman, CEO of Stone Creek Consulting, who recounts starting in radio at 13, becoming a licensed on-air teenager, and at 17 managing a radio station, which became a “business bootcamp” that sparked his love of business and marketing. After college (electronics engineering with a business minor) and early web-app development work, he built his business in 2001 and increasingly integrated marketing into web work, later partnering early with HubSpot and shifting to a marketing agency with a digital focus. Preston argues most companies confuse tactics with strategy and need an installed process. He outlines his “combustion marketing” framework: clear messaging (spark), irresistible offer (fuel), nurturing funnel that builds familiarity and trust (oxygen), and consistent follow-up (containment). He shares a recent example where a client’s “strategy” was only a social media calendar, and describes his diagnostic roadmap sessions that rate message/offer/funnel/follow-up and fix the most upstream issue first.

Discover:

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

00:28 Teen Radio Station Manager

03:59 From Radio to Tech Career

06:18 Early Web Development Days

09:23 Spaghetti Marketing Problem

14:05 Combustion Marketing Framework

18:53 Real Client Strategy Example

23:33 Diagnostic Roadmap Process

25:59 Who It's For and Next Steps

29:11 Final Advice and Wrap Up

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[00:00:13] Preston Bowman: Thank you so much, Gary. Excited to be here.

[00:00:38] Preston Bowman: I know it almost sounds unbelievable and when I look back on my history, it, it almost feels, unbelievable. But I, when most kids were working McDonald's in high school, I was working in radio. I had started at the age of 13 training, and back then you had to have an FC, C license to actually be on the air and you had to be 14 and a half to actually get that license.

So at 14 and a half, you know, the day I turned 14 and a half, I'm like putting my application in and began to work weekend shifts on the radio and just fell in love with it. And then due to some really interesting circumstances, got this hair-brained idea to offer the, the guy who owned it to buy the station.

I had, I had heard that he was looking to sell. I did not come from money. But I just had this crazy idea and I approached him with it and I expected to be laughed off of the phone and instead he said, you know what? I'd like to hear your thoughts, put it in writing. So I got with my dad, we put together a proposal that was basically give me six months to turn the thing around and get it making money.

And then, and then I'll start paying for it. And I sat and waited and he, he, you know, some time passed and he called back and he said, you know what? I had a number of parties ready to just hand me a check, and I had decided to give you the shot at it because somebody gave me a shot when I was young.

But in the end, I've decided not to sell. What if I bring you on as the station manager? We do a full reset. And so I started as the GM, myself and one other person, and he said here's the keys, check in with me every two weeks. So at 17 I took over the management of a radio station, and it was such a scary, exciting, amazing experience.

I was doing, you know, public appearances every weekend. I was walking business to business on the street with a boombox playing demo ads and selling ads and coming back and writing them and recording them and getting them on the air. It was business bootcamp at 17 and it was amazing and I fell in love with business and I fell in love with marketing and all the things around it.

[00:03:45] Preston Bowman: It definitely, I mean, was a, a real blessing in my development and I carry those experiences, you know, into working with clients today.

[00:04:08] Preston Bowman: Sure. A long winding path that we won't get into too much detail over. But, I left the GM position at the radio station to go to college. I wasn't gonna let that derail me from, from doing that. So I went off to college, really thought I would just go back into radio and, and never did. Probably a good thing,

there's not a lot of money in radio unless you're in this, you know, very small percentage and top markets kind of thing. But that experience did lend itself to I, I took marketing classes in college that I might not have taken without that experience. And my degree actually is in electronics engineering, with a minor in business.

But, yeah, I got out of school and just started working my way through. So, so I guess the, the, kind of the pivotal point to answer your question is the internet sprang to life in the early nineties, right? Early to mid nineties. And when I saw that happen, I'm like this is the where the world is going and this is what I, you know, what I want to do.

My dad was a computer programmer before I was born, before people even knew what that was. So he had taught me code. In college, some of my summer jobs I actually did some, some, coding for IBM. So I had this really strong tech background, this strong business experience, and this love for marketing, and they just all over time have just sort of merged into one.

What, what was

I, I'll tell you, Gary, th this'll, this'll age me some, but, I think I've already given that away a little bit. When I started my business 25 years ago, I started as a database driven web app developer. So I was taking business processes that most businesses were either having custom software built or they were buying a disc and inserting it into their computer and installing the software.

And I was taking that, those processes and moving them into a browser. And, and that was my focus when I started my business. I didn't start out to build, you know, brochure based websites or really to focus on marketing, but because of my background, you know, businesses would hear that I was doing web development and they would say, you know, hey, we're, we're realizing that, you know, businesses are, are, have, have to have a website.

They didn't have really any concept of marketing or user interface or anything like that. And because of my background, someone would come to me and say, can you do a website for us? And I'd say, sure. And we would spend the first 45 minutes with me saying okay, so who's your target audience? What's your primary message?

How do you talk about your offer? And let's make sure that that is cohesive on your website with what you're, you know, the other things you're doing from a marketing standpoint. That was unheard of back then. And today you can't even imagine those two worlds being separate. So I, I started with

doing web development, but leaning into that marketing piece. And then, you know, HubSpot came on the scene. We joined up with them when they were, they were a, they were a startup. You know, they've got thousands of, of partners around the world. We were in the very first, the launch of their partner program in the first 20.

[00:09:19] Gary Ruplinger: Very cool.

So I know you've, you've mentioned that a lot of businesses kind of, well, they, just tend to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. They've never kind of really thought about it more than that. And right, and you see it all the time. It's like, well, you throw enough stuff at the wall once in a while, something sticks, and hey, that's my business.

So I'm curious, curious, kind of what approach you take when you start working, working with somebody then

Right. And you know what I, love that you, you, use that analogy of throwing stuff at the wall because get that mental picture. You throw spaghetti at the wall, what happens? It sticks

[00:10:07] Preston Bowman: for a minute and then it starts to slide down the wall, right? And that's exactly what happens with marketing tactics.

You either, you either throw it at the wall and it doesn't work. And how many times have I heard a business owner go yeah, somebody told me I should run Google Ads. They don't work for our business. Right, well it didn't stick to the wall at all, right? You got the other business who just run with that same tactic.

Somebody told them to run Google Ads. So they run Google Ads and oh my goodness, they, their phone starts ringing. But slowly that spaghetti starts to slide off of the wall and they don't know why, why is it not still working? So, you know, 25 years of, owning my business, working with businesses, it just began to occur to me that the main problem in every business we had worked with was they were seeking to solve their revenue problem

by trying to figure out how to make the spaghetti stickier by trying to figure out how, why it slid off the wall and how they can push it back up the wall. I really love that we're running with this analogy because this just,

[00:11:28] Preston Bowman: ooey gooey fun, yes. And the problem wasn't the tactic. The problem was not having a solid process for the entire way they approached marketing. And, and Gary, if you look at, one of my favorite things to do is to go look at how businesses marketed way, way, way back. Go to the 1800s, go to pre radio, and you would have, you know, early 1900s, you know, you can find online, you can find these examples.

You would have, an ad in a, in a magazine or a newspaper, and there was a form, and people would fill out that form to request the catalog, right? Or to request a, buyer's guide. This is not a new tactic. This has been around for more than a century, and people thought when they filled that form out and took their scissors and cut that out and put it in an envelope. People don't even, you know, the, younger generation don't have any idea what I'm talking about.

You put it in an envelope and you, write the address on it, and you put a stamp in the corner and you drop it in the mailbox. And two weeks later you get a catalog in the mail and you thought you were requesting a catalog, and what you were actually doing was saying hey, start sending me marketing material.

It's the same thing we do today. That tactic has been around forever, and what I love is studying not only historically, but today, the companies that are successful, whether you're talking about a Microsoft, a Google, a, you know, a Walmart, whoever, you know, top restaurants that you would go, I, know they've got marketing figured out.

You know what? They all run the same basic strategy and it works at every level. A massive enterprise down to a solopreneur. The strategy works and most businesses never install that strategy.

[00:14:03] Preston Bowman: So, I have developed a couple of things around the, theme of combustion. I love the idea of combustion. Combustion, it needs four things. It needs fuel, it needs a spark, it needs oxygen, and it needs something to contain it, control it, shape it, right? And marketing is the same way. So the combustion marketing, framework or methodology is about

the, message. Now I know you have had a number of people on who are experts at story. When it comes to talking about their business and their messaging, I know you're very familiar with StoryBrand. I am a certified StoryBrand guide, have been for five years. Totally believe in that framework. It is where we start with any client, is making sure that the messaging is clear.

How they talk about what they do is clear. That's the spark, in combustion is, the words that are being used, making sure they're clear, not clever, not crafty, clear. The second is having an offer and having the right offer. Having an offer that is irresistible, right? The value to the cost is the discrepancy is so huge that I'd feel stupid saying no to this, right?

That's the fuel. The oxygen is then the funnel. So you need a way of that clear message has attracted someone. They have taken you up on your, on your irresistible offer. You now have their contact information, just like those old newspapers with the mail in form, right. And then having a system to nurture them.

What is the purpose of a nurturing funnel? It's twofold. It is familiarity and trust. Familiarity and trust. Those are the two things that are required for someone to move forward in buying the primary offer, the primary service, the primary product from a business. I need to be familiar enough with you that I don't feel like I'm buying from a stranger.

And in my becoming familiar with you, I've begun to trust you. I begin to believe that you actually have something that helps or fixes the villain, the problem, the pain that is right in front of me. So we've got a message, we've got an irresistible offer. We have a funnel that nurtures and leads toward a sale, and then we have

follow up. And that's sort of that containment and that shape. That's, and I know you just had someone on your podcast that that was almost, that that was the main topic was making sure that you're following up with, with truly genuine, marketing or sales qualified leads. So and, and it's, this isn't rocket science, right?

In fact, I would venture to guess, Gary, that your audience listening to us right now, none of them are going, oh my word, really? This is so good. I never heard this. It isn't that we don't know. It isn't that we don't know. We need to talk clearer about what we offer. It isn't that we don't know we need some way of hooking them or that we need a funnel to nurture them, or that we need to be better at follow up.

It's that we don't. It's that we've never installed the processes to make it happen. And I get it. All the intent in the world, all the knowledge of knowing this is what's needed is not the same as action. And we're busy with our day to day taking care of clients. It's hard. It's hard, but this is what's required and this is what differentiates

the business that really sees their revenue begin to take off versus the ones that are clawing and scratching for every dollar.

[00:19:01] Preston Bowman: Yeah.

[00:19:04] Preston Bowman: I can, I can give you one from just the last 30 days. We had a company come to us, and, and this is, this is very common, and I'm not even saying this critically. Companies typically come to us thinking they know the problem. They think they know what is wrong and they're looking for a partner to fix the thing they think is wrong. And often to get to, to, to earn the right, to address the real problem we need to do the thing they've come to us for.

And so, this business came to us because they were shifting their offering a little bit. Which meant shifting their target a little bit, which meant their website needed to pretty significantly change. So they had been referred to us and asked us to update their website. And so of course in those conversations, I'm sprinkling in some of what we've talked about so far in our conversation here, Gary.

I'm sprinkling some of that in trying to to, to pique their interest while continuing down this path of, you know, this is why you came to me, and here's what they said. They said, we have a marketing, we've, we've put together a marketing strategy and we are wanting, we've got dates applied to everything and this, that needs to start in two weeks.

So this website needs to be ready when we start that marketing strategy. And so I'm like okay, we can do that. We'll make that happen in the timeframe you've asked for. Would you be interested in, I mean, I'd love to see that strategy that you're talking about. Would you like to have a conversation kind of around that and take a look at it?

And they said, sure. So we went ahead and, you know, took care of the website. In the meantime, we scheduled a call just to look at their strategy. So we get on the call and they bring up, they share their screen and their marketing strategy is a social media calendar. It's they're gonna begin posting to social media and here are the dates and how many times and all of that.

That is not a marketing strategy, that is a tactic. And what I find so often is that while everything we just covered in the combustion marketing framework is not, is not, you know, some dramatic new way of marketing. It's, still unfamiliar. And businesses think that a tactic is strategy. That is so often what we find.

And so we had this fantastic call where I began to talk them through the, combustion marketing framework and the things that were missing by just having a social media calendar. And it was so fun to watch, in the camera view of the people I'm talking to and the mad note taking that's happening and the, the, eyes showing

oh my, oh my goodness, this is so good. And, Gary, two weeks later, we're still working with them and two weeks later I get an email from somebody saying this client of yours just told me that I need to talk to you. Because you know what you're talking about when it comes to marketing and getting in front of the right people.

I mean, so that's just one example of a business that, thinks they're going in the right direction and they just, they don't actually have a marketing strategy in front of them.

[00:23:16] Preston Bowman: Just tactics. Spaghetti slowly sliding off of the wall.

[00:23:30] Preston Bowman: Yes,

Or how does how does that work?

So we're not gonna just go to any, you know, whichever one of those maybe is a red. We're gonna go which one, we're gonna go in order, right? Because one, you need to focus on one thing. You need to fix one thing. If you try to fix three things at once, you're not gonna fix anything. So we need to fix one thing.

And why do we start at the top? We go as far upstream as possible. That's because fixing the things downstream, fixing your funnel before you fix your messaging just means you're creating a funnel with bad messaging, right? So we need to start at the top. So we rate all of those things and after this assessment, I, my goal in those things, I'll, do a, a little push for a, friend of mine here who has written a book, called Serve to Sell, John Meese.

My goal is to in these assessments to completely serve someone. It's not to sell anything of mine, it's to serve them. And my goal in, doing one of these marketing diagnostics is, that that person can walk away with the number one next best thing to fix. So that they're moving in the right direction toward fixing their revenue problems.

[00:26:07] Preston Bowman: Sure. The, the, the wrong answer to give you would be to say everyone. But I will at least start by saying if you are running a business, if you are trying to sell something, you need a clear strategy mapped out and in place and working. Okay, so that's, that's my little caveat upfront, like everybody needs it,

right? But for me, who's best for us are companies that are, you know, already have marketing happening. They've got a website, maybe they have a CRM. Maybe, maybe they actually have this, this, maybe they've got the tools in place, but they're all these different disconnected pieces. Listen, people, people, you know this, you've seen it,

people sign up for a, a tool because they believe the tool will fix the problem. And tools just complicate the problem. Tools never fix a problem. Tactics don't fix problems. A strategy and a plan fix problems. And then tactics and tools bolt onto that to actually make them happen more efficiently. So somebody who has a website, maybe they've got a CRM, maybe they don't, but they've got money going out.

They are spending money in some way to try to generate business coming in. Which is necessary, we have to. We have to, and I know you, you teach an amazing way of getting leads in the door. But someone who is, is investing in trying to generate revenue through marketing avenues or tools or tactics, and it isn't producing what they think it should.

And then we walk in, we diagnose what's broken and get the pieces working together.

[00:28:27] Preston Bowman: Yeah, actually it's super, super easy. Go to strategyeval.com, strategy E-V-A-L .com, and you can actually apply for one of our Diagnostic Roadmap sessions on, on the site there. So strategy E-V-A-L .com

[00:29:00] Preston Bowman: Yeah, I'll just say. If you, if you have a revenue problem, if it's stagnant, if it's flatlined, if it's decreasing, and you have been looking for the magic bullet, you've been looking for the right tool, you've been looking for, that certain brand of spaghetti that will stick to the wall and stay there,

I want to encourage you that you have a systems problem. Not a tactic problem, not a tool problem. And when you bring a tool or a tactic to bad marketing, it doesn't fix bad marketing, it just lets you do bad marketing faster. So you just, you need a system in place. And, if, if there's any possibility that I could help you figure out what that next first thing to fix is to fix that problem, I'd love to do that.

[00:30:05] Preston Bowman: Gary, thank you. What an honor. I really appreciate it.