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About Patrick

I look at marketing the way an engineer looks at broken code.

I'm Patrick. I ran a software agency for years. Then I found out the thing my clients needed fixed was not the software.

Request a call with Patrick Skip to why it is called Tech Guys

Where this started

I used to build exactly what people asked for.

For years I ran a software agency. We were good at it. You told us what to build and we built exactly that. On spec. On time. It worked.

Then an ugly pattern showed up. A client would arrive certain their idea was gold. They knew their industry, so why wouldn't they be? They would spend $200K. $300K. One went north of $500K. We built the dream. Launch day came and everybody was high-fiving.

About two weeks later came the awkward phone call.

"Hey Patrick... how do we, uh... get customers?"

They had a product. They had no process for getting customers to use it.

So they would run off and hire a marketing agency. I watched a lot of those deals up close. Pretty dashboards. Green arrows everywhere. Zero customers.

The $500 validation test

So I changed the offer.

After enough reruns of that movie, the next project started differently. I told the client: pay me for a few hours of my time, give me $500 to spend on Google Ads testing your idea, and we see if people actually want this thing before you spend six figures having us build it.

That was the whole offer. $500 in Google Ads, pointed at a JotForm on a crappy landing page. A benefit headline, some bullets, a few questions. I'm serious. A JotForm.

Build first

$200K to $500K+

What clients spent on software before asking how to get customers.

Test first

$500

What it cost to find out, in a week, whether anybody wanted it.

That little form told my clients in a week what a half-million dollars of software could not tell them in a year: does anybody actually want this?

Sometimes the answer was yes. Sometimes it was "no, and thank God we found out for $500."

The test got popular as a first step to working with us. It grew into deeper market research. Then it started out-earning the software side of my own software company. That was a weird meeting to sit through with my developers.

The name

Why it is called Tech Guys Fix Marketing.

It takes a rare breed to look at marketing the way you look at code in a program, and know where to fix what is broken.

I have fixed broken businesses for over 20 years. It is always the same issues. Just like it is always the same few things that make a computer stop working.

  1. Bug 01

    Over-engineering

    More parts than the job needs. More parts means more places to break.

  2. Bug 02

    Over-AI-ing

    AI is a tool. Pointed at the wrong problem, it makes the wrong thing faster.

  3. Bug 03

    Over-complicated offers

    If a buyer cannot tell what they get, they do not buy.

  4. Bug 04

    Over-complicated ads

    An ad has one job. Most are trying to do five.

So who are the tech guys?

The strategist is me. Behind me is a team of trusted resources and my AI systems. The name is plural because the idea is bigger than one person: in the digital era, and now the AI era, marketing works best in the hands of tech people who get marketing.

What it turned into

I kept tinkering.

I did what any engineer does when something works. I sharpened the questions, fixed the routing, and learned which clicks were actually worth paying for.

That question process, tuned over years on real businesses with real money, is what I teach in The Second Engine. The quiz software I built for the sorting step is HelloCarson.

I have used it to grow:

  • Plastic surgery practices
  • Medical practices
  • Law firms
  • Gyms
  • Wellness clinics
  • Publishing offers
  • E-commerce brands

The e-commerce brands were a surprise. It was flat-out not designed for that.

See the book, The Second Engine

When you are ready

Think something in your marketing is broken? Let's look.

Tell me a little about your business. If it is not a fit, I will tell you on the call.

Request a call with Patrick

Rather talk now? Call Patrick at 859-251-8535