AI not paying off in sales and marketing? First, look at what it’s working from.
We work out what makes a good prospect, why customers buy and what sets you apart. Then we help you run your pipeline on it.
Looking for AI workflows or automations? We can build them when they have a clear job to do and reliable knowledge to work from.
Owner-led B2B companies · Considered purchases · Sales and marketing stretched thin
We know what success looks like.
400+ product launches
The Method
We build the foundation first.
One fixed-fee project, led at executive level. We start with an audit and a plain-language readout: what holds up, what needs work, and whether the rest of the project is worth doing. If the answer is “don't spend yet,” the project stops and only the audit stage is paid.
If we go on, we turn the evidence into the foundation: a marketing and communications plan and a certified knowledge base. The files and the reasoning behind them are yours.
We build the base to be accurate, thorough, differentiated and organized so a machine can run on it and a person can decide from it. AI can help with three of those. What makes you different takes judgment about your market, and that judgment is what you're hiring.
We test all four, pass or fail:
| Accurate | Pass |
| Thorough | Fail |
| Differentiated | Fail |
| Organized | Fail |
Step 1 · The audit
Where you stand
Look before you spend. We check whether what your marketing runs on is accurate, thorough, differentiated and organized, before you invest more in it.
Asks of you: a few hours, most of it in writing.
Step 2 · Build and certify
A plan your team can run
We build it around the questions your team has to answer: who to pursue, what to say, what sets you apart, and what to do first. We work through the decisions with leadership and certify the knowledge base.
Asks of you: deal records, a handful of customer introductions, and a short conversation with whoever runs sales.
After the foundation
A system your team runs
If you want it, we build AI into the systems your pipeline runs on, into how your team works, or both. We build and oversee the system for the pipeline work: inbound content, outbound sequences, your website and LinkedIn, case studies, trade-show strategy and support, and content strategy. Your team runs it. If you need help, we can staff it.
Each one answers a question most teams already ask out loud.
- Where to start, what order to read things in, and what this isn't.
- What you sell, who writes the check, and why they buy now.
- Your category, your positioning statement, and what you're first, best or only at.
- Your best-fit customers, everyone in the buying group, and why they really buy.
- What your rivals actually claim, word for word and dated, plus your counters.
- Who profits from things staying as they are, and where the resistance sits.
- What the companies worth selling to have in common, and how to spot them.
- What to say to each audience, and how to answer the objections.
- The register of what you can say publicly, and where each claim came from.
- What passed certification, what's still a bet, and which claims rest on one source.
- The rules any AI reading these files must follow, starting with never inventing anything.
- Where AI helps first, ranked, with the reasoning for the order, and where it shouldn't.
- When each file was last verified, and how often each one needs re-checking.
The Problem
What is holding marketing back?
A lead problem, an unclear story, and a marketing budget that's hard to judge can have different causes.
Before anything runs, we check the claims your marketing already makes.
From an audit readout:
| "We're the only ones who do the whole job in-house." | Still yours— no rival makes this claim |
| "Our quality is what wins us deals." | No longer yours— every competitor says it too |
| "We're known for custom fabrication." | Out of date— most of your growth is somewhere else |
Claims tend to sort this way.
Some of the most useful knowledge sits in sales conversations, customer answers, and what a founder knows but has never had to explain. We draw it out, check where accounts disagree, and put sources behind the decisions that follow.
The Upside
Yes, AI can grow your business.
Especially in sales and marketing.
Ever-present. Always on, in the channels your buyers use most.
Thorough. Personal at scale: each prospect met as the distinct customer they believe they are.
Agile. More ideas in market, faster, and proof of which ones win.
All of it runs on what you feed it: your customers, your rivals, and your edge.
So the bottleneck moves. Producing the work used to be the hard part. Now the hard part is knowing whether what you're feeding it is still true.
The Catch
Everyone has the same AI now.
The difference is what you give it to work with. Most of what your company knows isn't written down: why your customers really buy, what your rivals actually claim, what you're first, best or only at.
Point AI at your marketing without that knowledge and it fills the blanks with everyone's answer. You get more marketing, faster, and it sounds like everyone else's.
What We Believe
Why should I listen to you? Why should I trust you?
We believe B2B companies are selling into a deepening trust recession, and that buyers ask those two questions in that order. To answer them, we believe a company has to be six things.
Why listen
- Different with purpose Why you and not the other three?
- The edge that lasts is what only you can say and prove.
- Agile When did you last look?
- The landscape changes overnight; act on new intelligence proactively.
Why trust
- Ever-present Have I heard of you?
- You can't trust someone you've never heard of. Be known before they're buying.
- Accurate Can I believe you?
- It's cheap to look credible now, and cheap to check. Be the one that survives the check.
- Thorough Do you understand my situation?
- The machine can fake being personal about someone you don't know. Know your customers well enough to make it personal.
- Organized Will I get the same answer from everyone I talk to?
- What lives in heads and silos can't scale efficiently. Write it down so a stranger, or a machine, can run it.
Somebody has to keep deciding what's still true.
| Last verified | |
| Competitive claims | 14 months ago |
| Positioning statement | 26 months ago |
| Best-fit customer criteria | Current |
Speaking, Workshops, Consulting
I teach this in rooms of CEOs and executives.
Talks and workshops for CEO peer groups and industry associations. We also offer:
- Leadership trainings
- Custom-built AI workflows and automations
Recent engagements
"…We worked with Mike to help kickstart our company's AI initiatives & setting up a cohesive AI strategy to better support our teams and customers. I'd say we were able to get a remarkably fast start thanks to his help…"
— David O'Toole, Chief Analytics Officer, Comoto Holdings
"Mike brings an authentic, strategic perspective that helps organizations navigate complex changes, not just in AI, but in how we fundamentally approach innovation."
— Akshay Gadre, Chief Technology Officer, Comoto Holdings
"[Mike] made complex concepts easy to grasp without oversimplifying them. The session was packed with real, usable takeaways leaders could apply immediately — he even built a custom GPT to extend the value beyond the talk. I'd recommend him to any organization that wants AI explained with clarity, relevance, and impact."
— Chris Stovall, President & CEO, Texas811
Bring this to your groupWho Holds It
Mike Covert
Founder & CEO, Ignite Partnership
25+ years experience in marketing strategy and GTM (Samsung, Microsoft, Qualcomm), 400+ product launches, and a client base that's 90% repeat and referral since 2008. I'm a founder and chief executive myself, running my own businesses as AI-centric operations.
On one engagement I made a recommendation, then reversed it when the research came back. It saved that company money and took a possible follow-on project off the table. I never wrote down why. The best judgment on that job lived in one person's head, and the files we delivered did not contain it. That is the failure this work exists to fix.
4x Founder/Executive · IWAI Certified AI Consultant(LinkedIn profile)Tell us what needs to work better.
We'll start there. The first project has a fixed fee agreed up front.
Thanks. Mike will read this himself and reply personally, usually within a business day.
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