Business Spotlight with Marc Case from BD Pros

From playing in cover bands to founding BDPros, Marc Case’s journey illustrates the value of process-driven leadership and emotional intelligence in today’s business world. Growing up on the East Coast and moving frequently, Marc developed an entrepreneurial spirit early on, starting with a lawn-mowing business and later working with College Pro. After college, he built a career in B2B sales and marketing, co-founding a marketing company before launching BDPros, a firm that provides business development and operational support for B2B clients across the U.S. and internationally.

Marc’s leadership style has evolved to focus on people, allowing his team to thrive while maintaining strong operational structures. BDPros operates like a “general contractor” for business development, helping clients navigate sales, marketing, and operations, particularly for those without large marketing budgets. Marc also shares the challenges of entrepreneurship, advising patience and resilience while emphasizing the importance of being “firm on the process, soft on the people.”

Podcast Transcript:

Kory Dogs: Hello, everyone! This is Kory Dogs from ActionCOACH Business Coaching, and today, I’m excited to have Marc Case, founder and president of BDPros, with us. Marc brings over 25 years of experience in B2B sales, marketing, and leadership, and founded BDPros nearly 15 years ago. BDPros provides business development, marketing, and operational support for B2B companies across the U.S., and Marc will tell us more about that shortly. Before focusing on his business career, Marc played in cover bands. So, what instrument did you play?

Marc Case: Well, I started with piano because my parents made me, but later I picked up guitar and bass—just enough to play “Jessie’s Girl” and keep the crowd happy at the state fair.

Kory: What was your go-to song to get the crowd going?

Marc: It wasn’t necessarily my choice, but we often closed with “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. For some reason, people loved it, so we kept playing it.

Kory: That sounds fun! On another note, Marc enjoys spending his downtime with friends and family. He’s also proud of how his team has evolved and grown to meet industry challenges. With that, I’m pleased to welcome Marc to the show.

Marc: Thanks so much.

Kory: Let’s dive in. Can you tell us more about your personal journey—where you grew up and how you got to where you are today?

Marc: Sure. I grew up on the East Coast. My dad worked in corporate, so we moved around a lot—Pennsylvania, upstate New York, outside of Boston—before finally landing in Antioch, Illinois, for my high school years. I ended up attending Marquette University in Milwaukee, where I had the choice between there and Northwestern. For some reason, Milwaukee felt like the right place, and I’ve been here for over 30 years now. I had some jobs after college that involved travel, but Milwaukee just felt like home, so I stayed.

Kory: Thanks for sharing. How did you get to where you are now professionally, and what led you to start your business?

Marc: Professionally, my entrepreneurial spirit started early. I had a lawn-mowing business as a kid. I even hired some friends to help—until they undercut me! But that experience stuck with me. My dad was an entrepreneur before moving to corporate roles, and I always had a bit of that mindset. In college, I worked with College Pro, running my own business for a couple of years. After college, I got into B2B sales, direct marketing, and online advertising in the late ’90s. Eventually, I co-founded a marketing company before starting BDPros. The desire to build something of my own was always there.

Kory: That’s a great story. Let’s shift to leadership. There are many leadership styles out there. How would you describe yours?

Marc: I’d say my style has evolved, but it’s always been process-based and people-focused. In B2B sales, marketing, and operations, you need a playbook, but I don’t want people to feel like they’re reading from a script. I want them to be themselves. So, it’s about balancing firm processes with understanding people. I used to be more hard-nosed, but now I focus more on emotional intelligence—being firm on the process but softer on the people.

Kory: It seems like emotional intelligence wasn’t really emphasized in the ’70s and ’80s.

Marc: Yeah, it was always there, but people were taught to ignore it unless they were selling something. But I’ve always felt connected to people, which is essential in sales and leadership.

Kory: Tell us about BDPros—who you work with and what you do.

Marc: BDPros is a natural extension of my career in B2B marketing, sales, and operations. We think of ourselves as a general contractor for business development. We help clients with everything from lead generation to marketing to operations. Our clients are all B2B, facing the same challenges—selling and marketing their products. We’re always experimenting with new technologies like AI, phone burners, and parallel dialers. COVID expanded our national footprint, and now we’re even working with clients in Canada, Mexico, and Europe. Despite the growth, the core principles remain the same.

Kory: When it comes to getting clients, the first thing that has to happen is marketing. You need to get people interested, right? Get them to raise their hand, and then move them into the sales funnel, down to either a yes or no.

Marc: Yeah. Although I’d say it could be sales first, especially because many can’t afford marketing. Back in the day, with a $50,000 budget, I’d start with a salesperson. Fifty grand won’t beat Apple at marketing smartphones. It’s just not enough. Because it’s B2B, you can start with direct efforts—picking up the phone, LinkedIn, trade shows—one-to-one efforts that have a big payoff. Marketing can be tough because it’s so crowded now, especially with social media where everyone thinks they’re a marketer or influencer. But a salesperson can help cut through that noise. Ideally, if you could afford it all, you’d do it all. Most of our clients don’t have million-dollar marketing budgets, and you can burn money fast if you’re not careful.

Kory: What’s your business model? Do you do the selling for your clients, manage their sales, or both?

Marc: We embed strategy into everything, but we don’t really sell strategy. We’re more doers. We’ve got people with 20 or 30 years of experience in sales, marketing, or operations. We’re more like general contractors—subcontracting where needed. There are a lot of freelance marketers who prefer project work, which is great for things like social media, email campaigns, or trade shows. We do have a marketing director on staff to oversee things as well.

Kory: Who’s your ideal client? What’s their size, niche, or trade?

Marc: We’ve worked with various clients, but the bell curve is probably $1 to $20 million in revenue. We do work with companies like Rockwell, though the division we work with is about $20 million. Rockwell is a $7 billion company, but we aren’t advising their C-suite; we support product lines or services. Recently, we’ve focused on manufacturing and distribution because we’ve got reps with 15-20 years of experience in that area. Typically, our clients have been in business for five years, have over a million in sales, and have hired a salesperson before. That’s key—if they’ve never hired a salesperson, everything looks like an expense. If they have, we should at least look as good as that, if not better. Some don’t understand how long this process can take, or that it might not work if their product doesn’t fit.

Kory: When did you realize you had the confidence to start your own thing?

Marc: Probably when I was five. Seriously though, confidence wasn’t a huge issue for me. We all have insecurities and imposter syndrome at times, but I’ve always had a strong sense of self. Part of that comes from how I was raised—moving around a lot. Some family members shrank in those situations, but I got bigger mentally. You have to reinvent yourself. Maybe that’s where the drive to do something on my own comes from. Confidence does get shaken in this business though. People advised me to just get a job, but that’s not how I’m wired. I probably would’ve taken a job if life had gone a different way, and I’m confident I would’ve done well. In fact, in the early years, I got job offers all the time, but I stuck with this.

Kory: If you could go back to the start of your career, what would you do differently?

Marc: That’s tough. I thought about this recently, and patience is one thing I could’ve used more of. But I’m not sure if I’d have done it if I had been more patient. It’s all a grind, and that grind got me here, but it was taxing on personal relationships and work partnerships. So, I’d say patience—keep working hard, but relax a little. Hopefully, things will come together, and if not, you’ll figure out something else.

Kory: Trust the journey, right?

Marc: Yeah, but it’s hard. In the 70s and 80s, patience wasn’t the message. In sales, especially quota-based sales, if you miss your quota, you’re fired. Patience didn’t seem like an option. But looking back, I see that things do come together eventually. You just have to trust yourself and keep grinding.

Kory: What common misconceptions do people have about owning a business?

Marc: A lot of people think all business owners make a lot of money and don’t do much, or that they inherited the business. For me, none of that is true. I’m doing well, but if I’d chosen a different path, I’d probably be making more and could be retired by now. I had a mentor—my father—who told me, “You’re leaving at least a million or two off your 401K by doing this.” But it’s a different calling. People also think business owners don’t work much. While there are pockets where I can choose not to work, there are times when I don’t have that choice. It’s different from what people expect.

Kory: All right, you’ve learned a lot on your journey and continue to learn. Any interesting insights or advice you’ve come across recently that you’d like to share?

Marc: Yeah, something’s been resonating with me lately, and I’m not sure where it came from. Maybe the universe, but it’s this idea of being firm on the process and soft on the people. It’s kind of counter to how I was raised, not that it was bad, but it was more like, “Just get it done.” I used to think that if you weren’t firm on people, you wouldn’t succeed. 

But lately, maybe it’s the people, maybe it’s the process, maybe it’s me, I’m finding that if we’re all on the same page and focused on the same data, instead of blaming someone for a mistake, we can approach it as a team. It’s subtle, but I’m working on it daily, and I think it’s making a difference. The atmosphere is different, especially when things go wrong, like when a client isn’t happy. We take a step back, analyze the process, figure out where it broke, and give it room to breathe. You don’t always have to fix everything immediately—sometimes you can wait five minutes or even five days. So yeah, being firm on the process but softer on the people is something I’m trying to live by.

Kory: I’ve heard you mention that a few times. It seems like a recurring theme.

Marc: Yeah, it feels like I’m being brainwashed or retrained, but it’s become my mantra. This industry can be tough, especially right now. It’s not easy to sell, but I’m not blaming the economy—B2B is our job. Still, everyone’s saying things are tighter this year for all kinds of reasons.

Kory: What’s something new you’d like to learn outside of work?

Marc: I’ve been getting back into cooking. There’s an art and science to it. I’ve also been playing more golf and working on music production. These are all endless challenges—you can always improve, but you can also get worse. It’s refreshing to step away from business and be a beginner again. It’s like restoring a car—you’re working on yourself but with a different mindset. I don’t just cook to get it done or make music to move on to the next thing. I take my time, enjoy the process, and strive to be the best I can be. It’s humbling to go back to those early stages and relearn things.

Kory: Do you still play the guitar?

Marc: I do, though I’ve sold most of my more expensive gear. Like a lot of musicians, I went into debt to get the cool stuff. Eventually, I had to sell some to pay bills, but I kept an acoustic guitar, a keyboard, and some recording equipment. My skills have definitely declined—I was never great, just good enough to play at the state fair for a few minutes while people walked by. But it’s still fun to pick it up from time to time.

Kory: Looking ahead to the next one to three years, what’s your biggest area for growth and development?

Marc: For the business, it’s about letting go and letting others take over. I’ve been delegating more, and I’m no longer directly involved in sales or client strategy. I still spend 20 to 30 hours a week in the office, but my focus is on operational growth and creating repeatable, transferable processes. The team we have now has the potential to take us to the next level, and I’m working on partnerships and finances to support that. My role is shifting to overseeing things from a higher perspective, trusting the team, and verifying the results.

Kory: What’s your biggest challenge? You might have touched on that a bit already.

Marc: Honestly, the biggest challenge is me. Personal growth is key to letting the team grow. I need to avoid micromanaging and trust them to do their jobs, even if I occasionally find a mistake. Just because something went wrong doesn’t mean I can’t trust people. But I still need to act as the pilot in charge of all these souls. If I think something’s off, I have to check it, even if everything’s been done correctly 100 times. It’s part of my responsibility.

Kory: Yeah, systems and processes are the backbone of any business, but you can’t just set them and forget them. They need to evolve as the business grows.

Marc: Exactly. Part of it is better hiring, and part of it is luck. Recently, we’ve had access to more experienced talent, but a few years ago, we had to hire less experienced people, partly due to budget constraints. Investing in the right people is paying off. Once you show them the process, they usually take accountability. If someone makes a mistake, we fix it and move forward. It’s not about reprimanding—it’s about accountability. I’ll keep checking in, but it’s not about punishment. It’s about ensuring we’re all on the same page. That mindset is different from how I was raised, but it works better. It gives people the room they need, and at the end of the day, it’s just a job. Most people have other priorities, like family. So, we stay serious, but we don’t get emotionally wrapped up in small mistakes.

Kory: Alright, last question before we move to some shout-outs and wrap up. What advice do you have for business owners who are trying to do it all on their own?

Marc: You’re not alone. No matter what you think, there are people around you right now, even if you feel alone, who are sharing your journey. They’re experiencing your joy, your paranoia, your fear, your anger—whatever it is. I used to think I was a lone wolf for a long time too, but the truth is, you’re really not alone. Whether it’s friends, family, or even colleagues, there are people you can lean on. You’re also impacting others. This can weigh heavily on you and mess with your mind, which can affect your relationships. 

Unfortunately, I’ve lost some relationships along the way, partly because I thought I had to do it all. Maybe some of those losses were for the best, but I know now that I could have managed them better.

Kory: Alright, now it’s shout-out time. You’ve had a phenomenal, fun, and stressful journey as an entrepreneur, and I’m sure you’ve had great people help you along the way. Is there anyone you’d like to give a shout-out to?

Marc: Well, I have to start with my parents, who passed away in the last few years. Also, my family and a few people who work with us now, as well as our clients. I’m not going to name everyone because I wouldn’t want to leave someone out, but they’ve all contributed, even those who don’t work with us anymore. I like to say, “Once a pro, always a pro.” Some relationships continue, others don’t, but they all played a part in our journey, and we’re grateful. I hope they feel the same, whether they’re clients, family, or friends.

Kory: How can someone reach out to learn more about BDPros?

Marc: We primarily operate through our website, www.bdpros.com, and we have a decent presence on LinkedIn. Those are the main channels where you can learn about our work, our team, and the promises we keep. We’ve also been celebrating some anniversaries recently, so it’s a great way to see who’s part of the team and how we work.

Kory: Alright, it was a pleasure speaking with you today, Marc. Thanks for being on the show.

Marc: Thanks for your time.