Stu Lees: Evidence funnels work (really well)

A funnel is just the journey a customer takes from not knowing you exist to paying you money. That's it. Today’s Slideshow with Dave Hayward, we’re going to explain it clearly. Most small business owners want a viral reel. Stu Lees wants to know if they've mapped what their customers are actually afraid of. One of those will grow a business. The other is just noise.Produced by Europa Creative Partners (europa.nz).In this episode of Slideshow, host Dave Hayward speaks with Stu Lees, a marketing advisor, strategist, and founder of the Shoestring Marketer, about the three fundamentals that keep disappearing from the marketing of businesses (large and small).The conversation covers Stu's customer persona framework — built around fears, frustrations, and motivations rather than two paragraphs of demographics — and why marketing works on emotion first, with logic arriving only to validate a decision already made. Stu also shares the email nurture strategy behind $ 2 million in sales in 18 months with no cold calling, and why he believes personal brand has never mattered more for both businesses and the people who work inside them.Links:Stu Lees, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartlees/The Shoestring Marketer: https://shoestringmarketer.co/Dave Hayward, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haywarddave/Chapters 00:00 Introduction01:00 Stu's background: the SF startup and the marketing academy05:00 Learning by osmosis: how Stu learns anything new07:30 Public speaking as a superpower09:00 The Shoestring Marketer and what it's for14:00 Setting up the three neglected things15:00 Neglected thing 1: deep customer personas17:00 Emotion first, logic second19:30 The persona framework: fears, frustrations, aspirations, context22:00 Frustrations as a cheat code for writing content24:00 Case study: "not on my watch" and a backup software campaign26:00 System 1 and system 2 in marketing27:30 Neglected thing 2: the full funnel and email nurture30:00 People don't buy from ads. They buy from relationships.32:00 The $2M case study: 40,000 emails a week, no cold calling35:00 Neglected thing 3: personal brand in the age of AI36:00 It's never been more unsafe to be an employee38:00 The daily LinkedIn connection habit (started 2014, 28,000 connections)40:30 Get out from behind your desk43:30 Being unapologetically human45:00 Public speaking and community as brand builders51:00 Real rooms beat digital channels for trust55:00 Why a monthly newsletter proves you're a reliable business58:00 Wrap up