The Best Marketing Is Not About You

My wife and I just got back from Puerto Vallarta.

One of the highlights of the trip was a cooking class at ​Gaby’s​, a restaurant near Old Town. It was not a quick tourist stop. It was a full experience (9AM to 2PM). The kind you remember long after the meal is over.

The class was led by ​Chef Julio​.

Before we ever started cooking, Chef Julio took us through town to gather ingredients. We walked through the mercado and around Old Town. Along the way, he stopped at different vendors and shop owners, talked with them, joked with them, and introduced us to places we never would have found on our own.

At one stop Julio gave a bear hug to the city manager in charge of the mercado. In another, he joked around with “Willy Wonka” (his words) who ran the candy store (where we returned two days later). At the final stop we talked about how avocados are the only produce not available to the public. You actually have to go to the counter and tell them what day you need it. Then the grocer will pick out the perfect avocado depending on when you are going to use it in your cooking.

It felt less like a class and more like being welcomed into the heart of the city.

You could tell this wasn’t some polished script. This was his life. He grew up in the restaurant. He told us how his parents started it from nothing and how the business grew over time. Every stop along the way added another layer to the story. By the time we got back to the restaurant, we were not just customers waiting to be served. We were invested.

Chef Julio was giving one of the best marketing performances I have seen in a long time, and it didn’t feel like marketing at all.

At the end of the class he told us the cooking class was the best marketing they do. This is something he didn’t need to say. Our group already knew that was the case.

The people who take the class tell their friends about Gaby’s. Many come back later for dinner. The vendors throughout town benefit from the traffic and relationships he brings them, so they send people his way as well. Over time, the whole thing becomes a flywheel. One great experience turns into another. One introduction leads to another recommendation. One act of generosity creates a network of goodwill.

In other words, Chef Julio is not just marketing Gaby’s. He’s helping the whole community win. That is why it works.

Most marketing today is built the other way around.

A business generally starts with the question, how do we get more attention, drive more leads, etc. for this service or product?

Fair question. But it usually leads to unhelpful content, louder promotion, more noise, and a lot of effort trying to convince people to care.

A better question is this:

How do we create something so useful, memorable, and generous that other people naturally want to talk about it?

That is what Chef Julio built.

It reminded me of when my wife and I started Content Marketing Institute. In 2007, nobody knew who we were. We had no audience to speak of. No real authority. No meaningful traffic.

One of the smartest things we did early on was create a list of the ​top 42 content marketing blogs​. On the surface, that may not sound like a major strategic move. But it was.

We were shining a light on other people in this new and growing industry. We were promoting their work. We put out a press release around it every quarter. And then something important happened. The people on that list shared it with their own audiences.

A year after we curated the list, well over half of the blogs were visibly sharing our list on their own websites.

It made them look good. It gave them something worth sharing. And because it benefited them, it also benefited us.

That one piece became one of our best traffic drivers. More importantly, it helped position us at the center of a growing industry. Not because we shouted the loudest. Because we created something useful for the people we wanted relationships with. It gave us instant credibility with the exact people who needed to know us.

Same principle. Different setting.

In Puerto Vallarta, Chef Julio teaches a cooking class. In Cleveland, years ago, we published a blog list.

Totally different execution. Exactly the same strategy.

The best marketing helps other people win. This is the part a lot of businesses miss.

When you help customers have a better experience, they tell others. When you help partners and vendors make money, they send people back to you. When you help peers get recognition, they amplify your work. When your marketing creates value beyond your own business, it stops being a campaign and starts becoming a system.

That is the goal.

Especially now, when everyone has access to the same tools, the same platforms, and increasingly the same AI-generated tactics, this matters even more. A lot of marketing can be copied. A helpful relationship network cannot. A real experience cannot. A story people personally lived through cannot.

Maybe think about it this way: If your marketing only works for you, it may eventually stop working. If your marketing helps everyone around you win, it gets stronger over time.

So what do you do with that?

Perhaps, try these:

• Make a list of five people or businesses you can promote without asking for anything back.
• Create one piece of content that makes a customer, peer, or partner look smart.
• Turn one transaction into an experience by adding a walkthrough, story, introduction, or teaching moment.
• Build one simple flywheel by creating something helpful that others will want to share again and again (think lists, research, free events, etc.).

Sometimes it is a chef walking through a market, greeting people by name, and creating a story so good that everyone wants to be part of telling it.

The best marketing is not about being noticed. It is about being useful enough, generous enough, and memorable enough that other people want to carry your story for you.

Help enough people win, and they make sure you win too.

Special thanks to my friend Jay Baer for the Gaby’s recommendation and for his breath-taking five-bedroom villa. ​You can rent it here​.

P.S.: ​A reminder that I’m giving away my book, Burn the Playbook, for free​. Please share it with a friend. If you don’t want to fit in, this could be your (or their) roadmap.