New book · 2027

The Marketer’s Torch

Twenty unwritten rules for your first five years in B2B marketing.

A guide to the unwritten rules of how marketing really works inside large companies: where budgets come from, how decisions get made and how good work reaches the top floor.

By Steve Goldhaber · Coming 2027
Book cover
The Marketer’s Torch
About the book

The unwritten rules, written down.

Every large company has an official way marketing is supposed to work, and a real one. The real one decides which budgets get approved, which ideas reach the executive team and which teams get the credit.

Nobody hands you that rulebook when you join. Most marketers learn it the hard way, one missed budget cycle and one stalled project at a time. The Marketer’s Torch writes it down.

Twenty rules in four parts, from the meeting that is really just an announcement to how your work reaches the top floor.

What you'll learn

Three things nobody tells you.

01
Where budgets come from

How money really moves inside a large company, and how to be in the room when it does.

02
How decisions get made

Who actually says yes, who can say no and how to work with both.

03
How good work reaches the top floor

Why great marketing often goes unseen by leadership, and how to change that.

Inside the book

The chapters.

Twenty rules in four parts. The first ten:

01
The Meeting Is Just the Announcement
02
The No Nobody Says Out Loud
03
The Request Is Never the Real Problem
04
Set the Stage Before You Present
05
Where Budgets Really Come From
06
The CEO in Everyone’s Head
07
The Floor You Don’t Visit
08
Sales and Marketing: The Relationship That Runs Everything
09
If They Can’t Say It, They Can’t Fund It
10
When the CEO Has Already Decided
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About the author

Steve Goldhaber.

Steve has spent about 30 years in marketing, including 10 years at Digitas and years leading global digital marketing and content at Aon and JLL. He founded 26 Characters, a B2B content studio based in Chicago.

He is also the author of What’s Your Problem?, The Recruiter’s Dilemma and The Two-Oar Recruiter.

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The book explains how marketing works inside large companies. We help make it work for yours.

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