Sam Stern

How to get more customers now without a big budget

Growth Leader & Mentor
Lemonade, Mixpanel, DigitalOcean, 25+ Startups

Growth hacks to gain traction & improve conversion rates throughout your funnel that don't cost a thing.

Tactics you can implement today to grow your customer base

Find your target audience that converts, meet them where they are and build messaging that converts them into customers

How to find your ICP & convert them into customers

Not all channels are measured the same way. Learn how to find success indicators and allocate budget the right way.

How to choose distribution channels that yield positive ROI

In today's digital landscape, influencer marketing stands as a powerful tool for marketers, agency owners, and founders seeking to amplify their brand's reach and authenticity. By leveraging influencers who resonate with your target audience, you can create genuine connections and foster trust in a way that traditional advertising often struggles to achieve. Influencers bring credibility and relatability, making your brand's message more impactful and engaging. Additionally, influencer marketing provides unparalleled access to niche communities, offering precise targeting and higher ROI. For agency owners and founders, integrating influencer strategies not only diversifies your marketing efforts but also aligns your brand with innovative trends, ensuring you stay ahead in a competitive market. Embracing influencer marketing is not just an option; it's a strategic imperative to drive growth, build loyalty, and achieve long-term success.

Why Influencer Marketing?

Course Syllabus

There will be homework in addition to worksheets for you to complete. Set aside the time to invest in yourself and your business.

Weekly projects

Course schedule

Startup founders who want to increase awareness, engagement, generate high-quality content, and sales.

Small-to-Medium Business Owners who want to test influencer marketing before taking the plunge in hiring someone to do it full-time

Freelancers or Consultantswho know would like to learn more and add influencer services to your current digital marketing offerings.

For B2C Startup Founders, SMBs, Freelancers, Consultants, and Agency Marketers.

Run an influencer campaign with confidence

Are you looking to tap into Gen Z and millennial consumer markets?&nbsp;Are you launching a new <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/consumer-reviews/sns-bestreviews-home-most-instagrammable-decor-from-amazon-20200220-lkab7c6hfra2hlvtv3rsbgjaha-story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Instagrammable product</a> that can capitalize on or even become a new trend? Or does your business need a boost in credibility from reliable sources? AI Resource: top influencer ID software

Define Your Influencer Marketing Goals
 

Identify your unique selling points and use them to find influencers in a similar niche who can help you build consumer trust.&nbsp;Be prepared to let your influencers take the reins in some cases; it helps to let your marketing efforts originate from a place of authenticity.

Create an Influencer Marketing Campaign Concept
 

Social media influencers can tap into the emotions of your target audiences and inspire them to engage with your brand to help you achieve your marketing goals.&nbsp;Make sure the actions you plan to take align with those goals and expected outcomes across the board.

Define Your Target Audience & Distribution Channels

I ran competitive influencer campaigns for Reebok, Procter &amp; Gamble, Land Rover/Jaguar Canada, Kraft Heinz, and Converse centered around data trends and high-quality, engaging content.Gain the&nbsp;insider knowledge at an accessible cost.

Common Influencer Campaign Mistakes to Avoid
 

How to find the influencers who align with your current top spenders (or those who are already looking for your product or service!)

Finding the Right Influencers

Learn the best outreach and ongoing communication tactics to create your influencer partners engaged and connected to your brand.

Communicate with Influencers Effectively & Efficiently

What to include in your contracts depending on the content you need, where you want to post it, how long you would like to use the content, and more! AI Resource: the top tools to streamline influencer contracts

Influencer Contracting 101

Now that you're up and running, how will you maintain momentum to reach the finish line (gorgeous content, an engaged audience, increased following, and revenue!)

How to Manage Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

What is most important for your campaign? Reach, CPA, engagement, earned media value, click-through-rates, etc. are all examples of reliable ways to check the effectiveness of your influencer marketing campaign beyond just revenue. AI Resource: performance benchmarking

How to Get the Highest Return on Your Influencer Investment

Make sure you're gaining the insights behind what worked, what did not, and how to use these learnings to iterate even more successfully in the future. AI Resource: the top tools to personalize and templatize influencer outreach

Campaign Tracking ROI & Reporting

Learn actionable processes to run effective and efficient influencer campaigns to drive awareness, engagement, and revenue.

Georgina Whalen

Winter 2026 Cohort

A 4-week cohort taught by a Fortune 500 influencer strategist, built for SMBs.

Influencer Marketing for SMBs - How to Build, Launch & Measure in 90 Days

Develop positioning and messaging that fuel pipeline 

CMO, Advisor, Author of Standout Startup

Allyson Letteri

CMO, GTM Advisor, and Author of Standout Startup. 

Cohort 1

When your messaging resonates, your pipeline grows faster. But many startups struggle to communicate their product’s value to their ideal customers.In just 2.5 hours, you’ll fix this.You’ll capture the insights you need to sharpen your positioning, then use AI to build a high-converting messaging framework. Finally, you’ll put it into action with a homepage outline you can launch fast.You’ll learn how to: ✨ Define clear positioning that sets you apart ✨ Build messaging that actually drives pipeline ✨ Turn messaging into a homepage you can launch nowThis workshop is hands-on and fast-paced.You’ll leave with messaging you can launch right away, plus a repeatable process to refine your messaging as your market shifts.This workshop sets the foundation for every part of your GTM strategy.

Create messaging that drives pipeline. Clarify your positioning and build high-converting messaging you can launch, fast.

Define your ICP and buyer persona

Sharpen your positioning and differentiation

Build messaging that converts

Turn messaging into a homepage that sells

B2B startup leaders who need effective messaging to launch their new product or increase pipeline and sales.

Marketing managers who want to learn a smart process to create high-converting messaging that drives more leads and better launches.

PMs and engineers who need the tools to develop positioning and value propositions so that their products sell.

How I Bought a 45-Year-Old Business With No Savings — And How You Can Too

1x Founder, 2x CEO, 3x Head of Product

The Home Depot

U.S. Army

Cadence

Unilever

Stanford University

Rocky

June 2026

Most employees are one reorg away from a job search. But there's another path: buying a small business that already has customers, cash flow, and proof.Rocky did exactly that — acquired a 45-year-old business with zero savings. No VC. No co-founder. No startup risk.In 1 day, you'll learn the exact playbook he used — from finding the right deal to running it with AI.AI isn't just changing products — it's eliminating the jobs that build them.If you're a Business or Product Manager (PM) who's watched colleagues get laid off, wondered how long your role is safe, or just realized you're building someone else's wealth — this workshop is for you.Entrepreneurship by Buyout is the path most Business Managers and Product Managers don't know exists: acquiring a small business that already has customers, revenue, and cash flow — then running it as the CEO.Rocky did it. He acquired a 45-year-old business with no personal savings, converted it into an AI-native company, and now teaches PMs how to evaluate if this path is right for them.

<code>Ambitious Business &amp; Product Manager: You've mastered your craft. Apply it to something you own — with real financial upside and no ceiling.</code>

Risk Aware Business &amp; Product Manager: Layoffs happen to great people too. A cash-flowing business gives you income no manager can take away

Side Income Business &amp; Product Managers: Learn to evaluate real deals now so you're ready when the right opportunity appears

I guide you through the commercial logic that determines whether your course sells or not: problem, buyer, credibility, and outcomes.

xVP at Maven, Qual Research Expert

Maven

Vanina Schick

Product Marketing Leader I Qualitative Research Expert I Course Design Consultant

You have expertise. The kind that can change a career. You want to share it, build your reputation and income with a course. But you don't want to become a course marketer. I get it. I don't either, and I'm a marketer.Here's what I learned as VP Marketing at Maven. Some experts create courses that just seem to pull demand. They share content and professionals enroll. No hard-sell required.Why? Their course is a credible solution to a specific professional problem with real economic stakes. The right buyer finds it and the response is immediate: this is exactly what I need, now! Not: I'll think about it. Not: maybe one day.These experts didn't get lucky. They found where the most unique and credible part of expertise overlaps with urgent market demand. They found their Course-Market Fit. There are three ways to do that.<ol><li>Iterate towards it. Launch, fail, adjust, repeat. It works, but it takes months and multiple cohorts to nail.</li><li>Intuit it. If you have an unusually clear read on your buyer's problem, this works too. Most experts are too close to their topic to get there.</li><li>Intentionally design it. There's a structured process to find Course-Market Fit in two weeks. It's this course.</li></ol>

Your course will sell if it is a credible solution to a painful problem 

Design a course that professionals need to enroll in

Make your credibility do the selling (zero-ick)

Define exactly what you're selling, and why it justifies the investment

Leave with clarity on your Course-Market Fit

You are actively planning to build or reposition a course (not exploring the idea in the abstract).

You have a course to build or reposition

You have a domain of expertise deep enough to serve as a practitioner guide. This course positions  existing expertise. It cannot create it.

Your expertise is real and practiced 

This course fits in with full time job, but is demanding. You must be willing to do deep, structured work across two weeks. 

 You're here to work: exercises, live critique, real output

Deep expertise, no audience — you know your knowledge is valuable, but you don't have an existing audience.

Course launched, not converting — you've built a great course and suspect the sales gap is coming from positioning, not content.

Compelled to teach, not to sell — you want a course that earns its own enrollment. Constant pitching is not a posture you want to hold.