After working with 40+ B2B companies, these 8 things kill their marketing

I’ve been doing booking, client acquisition, and outbound consulting for 40+ B2B companies over the last 5 years. And looking back the failure patterns are almost always identical.

It’s usually not a lack of talent or effort. They just don't stick to one thing long enough or don't have the fundamentals in order.

1. No product-market fit. This is the hardest one to hear. People try to market their way out of a product that nobody actually wants. If there’s no demand, no amount of clever copy is going to fix it. This is most common with unusual products.

2. No unique mechanism. Most people sound like a copy of their competitors. If you look and act like a commodity, you’re basically invisible in a crowded market. I learned this from the bible of marketing books: Breakthrough Advertising. This is becoming more important by the day in 2026 and beyond.

3. The trust gap. It’s wild how many people expect a stranger to buy from them without showing a single case study or any real proof that they know what they’re doing. Trust is everything in B2B. Add it to your website, LinkedIn profile, outreach messages, everywhere.

4. Avoiding outbound. I see founders waiting around for "organic" growth because cold email feels dirty or beneath them. Meanwhile their competitors are actually out there starting conversations. Outbound sucks but it's the fastest way to get clients.

5. Garbage data. People buy a cheap list, don't bother verifying it, and then act surprised when their domain gets blacklisted. If you send cold emails use a tool like CSVgo to verify them. You can also find 100s of ideal prospects in minutes from Sales Navigator, for example.

6. Low volume. Sending 5 or 10 messages a day isn't "outreach," it's a hobby. Marketing is a math problem at the end of the day, and most people just aren't showing up enough to see results.

7. Non-existent follow-ups. This is probably the BIGGEST issue i see. I've handed over thousands of leads to my clients and watched them waste half of them just because they didn't follow up. Most founders avoid it because traditional CRMs are too bloated and confusing and i get it. Personally as a B2B founder and small business owner i use Fluid CRM because it's simple, fast and costs way less than the traditional upgrade trap CRMs. You can use anything, but just make sure you actually use it.

8. Inconsistency. This is another big one. People post for a week, send some emails for a few days, get bored when they don't see an instant ROI, and just stop. Test strategies at least 60-90 days before quitting.

Looking back, I've made all of these mistakes myself when i started. I hope this helps you not do them for so long. Also i'm curious if you would add anything to the list?