Humans of Growth: Stories & Strategies Behind Business Growth & Business Development

Marketers have been obsessed with digital channels for a decade.But one of the oldest advertising mediums has quietly become one of the most measurable. Today's billboards are not static signs on the highway. They are digital, data-driven, and capable of changing in real time based on the weather, a live sports score, or a stock market trigger. And most marketers have no idea how to buy them.In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Sarah Carney, VP of Programmatic Media at Big Outdoor, to break down how digital out of home advertising actually works in 2026, what it costs, how to measure it, and why brands of all sizes are using it to reach the right audience at the right moment without annoying them.Sarah explains how programmatic DOOH works across formats (highway billboards, transit screens, taxi toppers, ATM screens, Times Square spectaculars), why dynamic creative lets you swap messaging in under two minutes based on real-world triggers, and what attribution in outdoor advertising actually looks like now. She also walks through the Knicks campaign her team ran for Epic Games, where they turned around new Times Square creative in under eight hours the night of game four, and swapped it again live when the Knicks won.In this episode, we cover:✔ What programmatic digital out of home advertising actually is, explained in plain language✔ The difference between static and digital out of home, and what going digital unlocks✔ Day parting: how brands like Starbucks run DOOH only during morning commute hours✔ Dynamic creative: how campaigns change in real time based on weather, sports scores, or stock data✔ Why out of home is the only ad channel that does not annoy people (and what the research says about long-tail performance)✔ Brand safety in outdoor: why you will never run next to a political article or a weird website✔ How attribution works in DOOH, including device tracking, ID graphs, and 30-day look-back windows✔ What DSPs you need to access out of home inventory (and why Meta and Google do not have it)✔ Minimum budgets, local targeting, and why small brands and three-zip-code campaigns are viable✔ 3D digital billboards: what they are, how the creative works, and what is currently running in Times Square✔ The social amplification effect: why influencers post in front of DOOH creative and what that does for reachIf you are a founder, CMO, media buyer, or agency owner who has never bought outdoor advertising because you assumed it was only for legacy brands with massive budgets, or because you thought you could not measure it, this conversation will completely reset how you think about the channel.Because the smartest place to advertise right now might be the one your competitors have not figured out yet.______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about Big Outdoor here.

You can have great ads, a full pipeline, and a sales team that closes.But if your buying process is confusing, your onboarding is messy, or marketing and sales are telling different stories, your growth is going to flatline. Because customers don't care where marketing ends and sales begins. They only experience one company.In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Nikki Leonardi, marketing strategy consultant at ClearEdge, who has spent nearly two decades sitting at the intersection of marketing, sales, and customer experience. Nikki works with everyone from funded startups to enterprise teams, and her diagnosis is almost always the same: it is not a marketing problem. It is an alignment problem.Nikki breaks down why the customer journey does not end at the signed contract, how to find the friction points in your buying process before your prospects find them for you, and why the one metric most companies ignore (NPS passives) is actually the most valuable signal in your entire customer base. She also explains why AI amplifies your customer experience, good or bad, and what that means for how LLMs are going to surface (or bury) your brand going forward.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why most growth challenges have nothing to do with marketing strategy and everything to do with alignment✔ How to walk your own buying process as if you are a first-time prospect (and why your CEO has internal biases that make this harder than it sounds)✔ The "confused people don't buy" rule: where buying process friction actually shows up✔ Why marketing and sales silos are an internal communication problem, not a strategy problem✔ What should happen in the first 30 to 90 days of onboarding and why most companies drop the ball✔ The five KPIs that actually tell you whether your customer experience is working: retention rate, referrals, lifetime value, acquisition cost, and brand reputation✔ Why NPS passives are more valuable than your detractors and why almost no one pays attention to them✔ How customer sentiment is increasingly influencing LLM and AI search visibility✔ Why marketing amplifies whatever experience already exists, good or bad✔ What it looks like when marketing and customer success actually work together instead of handing off and walking awayIf you are a founder, CMO, marketing director, or customer success leader trying to figure out why your leads convert but do not stay, or why growth keeps stalling despite solid top-of-funnel numbers, this conversation will help you find where the real leak is.Because marketing is not the engine of growth. Customer experience is. Marketing just accelerates whatever is already there.______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about ClearEdge here.

Everyone is following the same playbook.Post more. Run better ads. Optimize the funnel. And so every brand ends up looking, sounding, and feeling exactly alike. Performance marketing got incredibly efficient. It also got incredibly forgettable.In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Will Burns, founder of IdeaSicle X, a creative strategy firm that builds brand ideas for companies trying to get their soul back after years of chasing ROAS. Will spent decades at agencies like Arnold before building a platform that brings together four creative experts virtually to generate brand ideas, taglines, and manifestos faster and more honestly than the traditional agency pitch process.Will breaks down why a brand idea at the top changes everything below it, including hiring, product development, social media, and yes, even your performance marketing. He explains why the typical brand presentation (three polished options, one shoved down the client's throat) is a waste of everyone's time, and why presenting twelve taglines at once is actually the most efficient path to a brand truth everyone can agree on. He also gets into what really happens to creativity in a group brainstorm, the three research-backed techniques that measurably increase creative output, and why AI is a better muse than it is a creative director.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why performance marketing breeds transactional relationships and kills brand equity over time✔ What "random acts of marketing" look like and why they signal a brand with no idea driving it✔ The brand idea framework: how one clear idea should inform hiring, product, and every channel✔ Why presenting twelve taglines beats presenting three every time✔ How to write a brand manifesto and why more companies need one✔ What the average CMO tenure (under two years) does to long-term brand building✔ The walking study: why a walk increases creative output by 40% and the science behind it✔ Psychological distance and the placebo effect: two more research-backed creativity techniques✔ Why traditional brainstorms are flawed and what to do instead✔ AI as a creative muse: how Will built IdeaSicle X's spark tool and what AI can and cannot do✔ Why vibe coding let him rebuild a platform for $500 that cost $70,000 the first timeIf you're a founder, CMO, creative director, or agency owner who keeps hearing "we want bold creative" and watching clients approve the safest option, this conversation will reset how you think about what brand strategy is actually for.Because AI can execute faster than any team alive. The only thing it cannot do is have an idea worth remembering.
______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about IdeaSicle X here.

Most companies think they have a lead problem.They don't. They have a follow-up problem.And even the ones with a follow-up process lose deals the moment a rep opens their mouth and sounds like they're reading from a compliance document instead of talking to a real person.In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Bryan Wong, Head of Inside Sales at L2T Media, a digital advertising agency focused on the automotive space. Bryan has spent years doing cold calling and building inside sales teams, and his take on sales process, follow-up, and sales mindset is about as far from the Zig Ziglar playbook as you can get.Bryan breaks down why the best sales framework is less about the script and more about the directions, why outcome-dependent salespeople are their own worst enemy, and what it actually sounds like to follow up with a prospect the way you'd text a friend about plans. He also gets into why old-school pushy sales tactics are generationally obsolete, what the shift from high-pressure closing to consultative selling actually looks like in practice, and why cold calling is one of the most underrated channels left in B2B.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why most sales teams don't have a lead problem, they have a follow-up problem✔ The "directions to 7-Eleven" framework: what a sales script should and should not include✔ How to write follow-up emails and calls that don't sound like corporate form letters✔ Why outcome dependency makes salespeople stiff and kills conversion✔ What Bryan learned about talking to people at his first job selling shoes at Vans at 17✔ Old-school vs new-school sales culture, and why hard-charging tactics fall flat with younger buyers✔ How modern buyers arrive 50% decided before they ever talk to a rep✔ Why the willingness to walk away is one of the most underrated sales advantages✔ Cold calling in 2026: why fewer people are doing it and why that's actually an opportunity✔ What consultative selling really means when you strip away the jargon✔ The mindset shift that lets salespeople relax on the phone and perform better for itIf you're a founder, sales manager, AE, or marketing leader trying to figure out why your pipeline converts worse than it should, or why your team keeps sounding scripted even after training, this conversation will give you a different way to think about what sales actually is.Because sales is not persuasion. It is helping someone decide whether moving forward is right for them.______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about L2T Media here.

Most marketing teams are measuring PR wrong.They're counting impressions, tallying article placements, and reporting publication names. But none of those hard metrics can tell you whether anyone actually trusted you more, considered you more seriously, or moved closer to a decision. Earned media strategy lives in a different category, and if you're judging it by the same scorecard as paid ads, you're going to keep undervaluing the channel that compounds.In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Pierce Kafka, founder of Kafka Media Group, a boutique PR and media relations agency working in health, technology, and entertainment. Pierce breaks down why publicity beats paid advertising for long-term brand trust, how his team built a proprietary framework called soft analytics to measure what impressions can't, and why the next frontier of influencer relations isn't macro celebrities or big-budget deals.Pierce walks through the practical difference between hard analytics (impressions, article count, unique visitors) and soft analytics (brand sentiment, the "cool quote," ideas and insights that shift campaign direction). He explains how KMG used earned media to support a funding round for one of their clients, why micro influencers with 2,000 followers often outperform those with 2 million, and what a cascade of genuine influencer content actually looks like when it's working.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why hard analytics can't capture what earned media actually does to brand trust✔ Soft analytics explained: how to measure PR outcomes that don't fit in a dashboard✔ The "cool quote" framework: turning third-party praise into a reusable marketing asset✔ How to use media coverage to build investor trust before a funding round✔ Earned media vs paid advertising: why publicity is more durable than rented attention✔ Micro influencer marketing: why 2,000 highly engaged followers can outperform 2 million✔ Why unpolished influencer content converts better than produced brand ads✔ How to get influencers to post without paying them, by crafting stories that offer them value✔ The difference between B2C and B2B storytelling, and why the audience changes but the structure doesn't✔ Why Instagram is overrated right now (and what Pierce thinks is underrated)✔ How AI is being used to organize and analyze large volumes of media and testimonial data✔ Beginning, middle, and end: the simplest framework for any marketing story that actually resonatesIf you're a founder, CMO, marketing director, or agency owner trying to figure out how to measure and scale earned media without blowing budget on macro influencers or celebrity deals, this conversation will change how you think about publicity as a growth channel.Because when you stop paying for attention and start earning it, it doesn't disappear when the budget runs out.
______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about Kafka Media Group here.

Most shoppers never read your product page. They judge your photos first, especially on Amazon.Amazon product photography does more selling than your copy, your features, and sometimes even your ads. If a customer can't quickly see what the product is, how it works, and whether it fits their life, they move on.In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Liz Giorgi, CEO of Soona, a content creation platform that has matched e-commerce brands with over 1,500 photographers, stylists, and UGC creators. Liz spent the first decade of her career in professional production before founding Soona, and she's built the platform around something she pioneered called the virtual photo shoot, letting brands see and edit their shoot in real time without ever leaving their desk.We get into how user-generated content changes buying behavior at every stage of the funnel, not just on social, and why brands are leaving real conversion on the table by skimping on Amazon's image guidelines. Liz breaks down the exact traits Amazon rewards in a listing image, the traffic-stopping cost of traditional production, and why one specific New York law is about to change how brands can use AI-generated people in their photos.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why UGC in your product gallery can lift conversion to cart by up to 75 percent✔ What a virtual photo shoot actually looks like, and why it replaces the traditional studio day✔ Why real human imagery in Amazon listings drives a 17 to 27 percent conversion lift✔ Why only 19 percent of Amazon stores use video, and the 9 to 13 point lift it can add✔ How to audit competitor reviews on Amazon to find your "green space" opportunity✔ Why shoppers only read 10 to 15 percent of your Amazon product copy✔ What Amazon actually wants in your image set: scale, human presence, before and after comparisons✔ Why New York's new AI labeling law changes how brands can use AI-generated humans in product photos✔ How UGC creates a through line of conviction across ads, social, and point of sale✔ The real cost breakdown of traditional product photography vs a platform modelIf you're an e-commerce founder, DTC brand owner, Amazon seller, or marketing lead trying to figure out why your product page isn't converting, this conversation will change how you think about your image strategy from Shopify to Amazon to social.Because in e-commerce, the picture sells before the words ever get a chance.
 
______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about Soona here.

Most e-commerce brands don't have a product problem. They have a focus problem.They try to sell to everyone, list every variation, chase every platform at once, and lead with "we have the best quality." That's the most boring pitch in the world, and it's usually the reason growth stalls.In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Michael Jordan, founding partner at BAD Marketing, to break down what actually separates e-commerce brands that scale to eight figures from the ones that flop. Michael has run this from both sides: as an agency operator managing Amazon and Meta accounts for hundreds of brands, and as a founder who's launched, scaled, and shut down his own.We get into why subscription and repeat purchase products stack the odds in your favor as CAC keeps climbing, why TikTok is the cheapest place to test which hook and avatar your market actually responds to, and why too many product options quietly kill conversion rates. Michael also breaks down his insert card system, the one he built into his own book, for turning anonymous Amazon buyers (whose data Amazon keeps for itself) into an owned email and SMS list worth 30 to 40 percent of total revenue.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why founder involvement is the biggest predictor of whether a brand scales past seven figures✔ Subscription and repeat purchase products vs one-off items: why CLTV matters more as CAC rises✔Why "we have the best quality" is the weakest marketing angle you can run✔ How to use TikTok to test 50 hooks and let the market tell you your winning avatar✔ Why Instagram has gotten harder to test organically compared to TikTok✔ Meta vs TikTok vs Amazon: why Michael tells brands to start on the platform with less competition✔ How too many product variations create decision fatigue and kill conversion rates✔ Amazon's five keyword rotation strategy: how to actually rank a listing over time✔ What data Amazon gives sellers, and what it deliberately keeps from you✔ How insert cards turn Amazon buyers into an owned email and SMS list✔ Why a 50 percent discount doesn't convert anymore, and what offers do instead✔ How brands are cutting wasted branded ad spend without losing revenueIf you're an e-commerce founder, Amazon seller, DTC brand owner, or marketing lead trying to figure out why growth has stalled, or why your ad spend keeps climbing without the results to match, this conversation will change how you think about product, platform, and customer data.Because the brands that win aren't the ones with the best product. They're the ones with the sharpest focus.
______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about BAD Marketing here.

Everyone is talking about whether AI will replace jobs. The better question is: what happens if you refuse to learn it?In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Jason Neman, CEO of Good Brand, to discuss how AI is changing marketing, branding, business growth, and the future of work. We break down how successful companies are actually using ChatGPT, Claude AI, and other AI tools to become more productive, without replacing human creativity.In this episode, we cover:✔ AI marketing vs. human creativity✔ Using AI for business & how to train it on your brand✔ AI prompts that produce better content✔ AI automation vs. human strategy✔ Why AI integration is becoming essential✔ The future of marketing jobs & marketing agencies✔ How content marketing is changing✔ Why brand voice still matters✔ CEO leadership in the AI era✔ The future of digital marketingWhether you're a CEO, founder, marketing leader, or agency owner, this episode offers practical advice for using AI to grow your business instead of fearing it.
______________________RESOURCES: Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about the Good Brand here.

Influencer marketing is not “send free product and pray they post” anymore.Creators know their worth. Consumers know when they are being sold to. And brands that still treat creator marketing like a one-off transaction are usually the ones wondering why the campaign looked good on paper but did not actually move the business.In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Tommy Johnson, Senior Director of Partnerships at Open Influence, to unpack what modern influencer marketing actually takes to drive awareness, trust, engagement, and real business results.We talk about the shift from gifting to paid creator partnerships, why bigger creators are not always better, and how brands can build influencer campaigns that feel real instead of over-scripted.In this episode, we cover:✔ Why influencer marketing has moved beyond free product gifting✔ How creators and influencers actually build trust with their audiences✔ The difference between macro influencers, micro influencers, and niche creators✔ When brands should focus on awareness versus bottom-funnel results✔ How to measure influencer marketing campaigns using impressions, engagement, affiliate, brand lift, and smart commerce links✔ Why over-scripted influencer content usually performs worse✔ How much creative control brands should give creators✔ Why paid amplification matters in creator marketing✔ How to build long-term creator partnerships instead of one-off campaigns✔ Why consumers trust creators who show up consistently with the same brandIf you care about influencer marketing, creator marketing, influencer marketing strategy, UGC creators, paid creator partnerships, social media marketing, TikTok marketing, brand awareness campaigns, and measuring influencer marketing ROI, this episode will help you think more strategically about how creators can actually support business growth.Because the future of influencer marketing is not just finding someone with followers.It is finding the right creator, the right audience, the right message, and enough trust to make people care.
______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about Open Influence here.

Pet influencers are adorable but not always profitable.
A lot of brands see a cute dog with a big following and assume they’ve found the perfect influencer. But just like with humans, follower count is one of the least useful numbers on its own. The real value comes from audience demographics, engagement, platform fit, usage rights, content quality, and the person behind the pet.
In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Colleen, founder of Pets on Q, to break down what brands need to understand before hiring pet influencers, animal talent, or UGC creators.
In this episode, we cover:
✔ Why follower count is not enough when choosing pet influencers ✔ How audience demographics can make or break an influencer marketing campaign ✔ The difference between pet influencers, animal talent, and UGC creators ✔ Why pet accounts often drive brand awareness more than direct sales ✔ How usage rights, exclusivity, and platform choice affect influencer pricing ✔ Why Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook all carry different value in creator partnerships ✔ What brands should evaluate before spending money on pet influencer marketing ✔ Why the human behind the pet often matters more than the pet itself ✔ How trainers, vets, groomers, and working-animal owners are changing pet marketing ✔ Where AI-generated creators fit, and why pet content is harder to fake convincingly
If you’re a brand, marketer, or business owner trying to understand influencer strategy, social media marketing, UGC, creator partnerships, or how to work with pet influencers without wasting your budget, this conversation will help you see what actually makes a campaign work in the pet space.
______________________RESOURCES:Get help finding the right marketing partner. Learn more about Pets on Q.