Episode: Tom Gatti of Black Twig Marketing

Twenty years is a long time to run an agency. Long enough to watch the industry change completely. Long enough to know what never changes.

In this episode of Arrows in Motion, Scott sits down with Tom Gatti, partner at Black Twig Marketing and Communications in St. Louis, for a conversation about what it actually takes to build a marketing business that lasts.

Tom started at Black Twig entirely by accident. His previous agency folded six months in. A call from founding partner Bruce Kupper changed everything. Kupper told him he could ring the bell any time he wanted to leave. But if he stuck, Kupper would teach him how to run an agency. Tom stuck.

Twenty years later he has a clear point of view on everything that matters. Strategy always comes before tactics. Always. In two decades of client work he has never once seen transformational results from a business that skipped discovery and jumped straight to execution. Not one.

We dig into how he handles the AI conversation with clients, why using AI without feeding it unique information produces average output every time, what A/B testing actually looks like when you commit to it the right way, how to build a professional network without ever having a hidden agenda, and what it means to finally be in a position where you can turn away the clients you know are going to be a problem.

This one is for the agency owners, the business strategists, and the marketers who know the difference between what a client asks for and what they actually need.

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Arrows in Motion

Most podcasts about business and marketing tell you what to think. Arrows in Motion asks better questions.
Hosted by Scott Heaton, Arrows in Motion is a long-form conversation podcast that goes deep with entrepreneurs, executives, and marketing professionals who've built real things, and learned hard lessons along the way. Each episode explores the gap between how success looks from the outside and what it actually takes to get there: the strategy, the grind, the pivots, the moments nobody posts about.
Whether you're a Fortune 500 VP rethinking what career advancement really costs, a small business owner trying to figure out if your marketing agency is actually on your side, or a fitness entrepreneur building something from scratch with nothing but drive, there's a conversation here for you.
For early-career marketers and marketing students trying to break into the industry, Arrows in Motion is the mentorship most people never get access to. Real talk on salary negotiation, building professional confidence, navigating agency culture, and what marketing careers actually look like beyond the job description. No gatekeeping. No fluff.
For experienced professionals, it's a mirror, and a reminder that the smartest people in the room are still asking questions.
New episodes drop on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.

Episode: Brian Chankin of Deadly Prey Gallery

Some businesses start with a business plan. This one started with a book.

In this episode of Arrows in Motion, Scott sits down with Brian Chankin, co-founder of Deadly Prey Gallery and former owner of Odd Obsession Movies, for one of the most unexpected entrepreneurship stories the show has told yet.

It started when a customer walked into Brian's Chicago video store and handed him a copy of Ghana Vision. Inside were hand-painted movie posters made on flour sacks by Ghanaian artists, created originally to advertise VHS films for mobile cinema video clubs across Ghana. 80s action. Low budget horror. Kung fu. Bollywood. Each one unique. Each one wild. Brian was immediately obsessed.

He tracked down Robert Kofi, an artist and gallery owner in Ghana, and what started as a conversation about decorating a video store wall became a trans-continental business partnership built entirely on trust. Robert started shipping paintings across the ocean. Brian started selling them. And Deadly Prey Gallery was born.

Today Brian and Robert represent 11 Ghanaian artists, hold the largest collection of hand-painted Ghanaian movie posters in the United States, and run a touring exhibition model that packs out venues from St. Louis to Denver. No paid ads. No agency. Just a van full of paintings and an audience that shows up because the work demands it.

We talk about how Brian chooses his venues, why punk rock bars beat white wall galleries every time, what it took to build a business across two continents without ever meeting his partner in person for seven years, and what happened when a John Oliver segment turned a normal week into a year's worth of business overnight.

This one is for the collectors, the cinephiles, the entrepreneurs who built something out of pure love for the thing and anyone who has ever found the most important thing in their life completely by accident.

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Arrows in Motion

Most podcasts about business and marketing tell you what to think. Arrows in Motion asks better questions.
Hosted by Scott Heaton, Arrows in Motion is a long-form conversation podcast that goes deep with entrepreneurs, executives, and marketing professionals who've built real things, and learned hard lessons along the way. Each episode explores the gap between how success looks from the outside and what it actually takes to get there: the strategy, the grind, the pivots, the moments nobody posts about.
Whether you're a Fortune 500 VP rethinking what career advancement really costs, a small business owner trying to figure out if your marketing agency is actually on your side, or a fitness entrepreneur building something from scratch with nothing but drive, there's a conversation here for you.
For early-career marketers and marketing students trying to break into the industry, Arrows in Motion is the mentorship most people never get access to. Real talk on salary negotiation, building professional confidence, navigating agency culture, and what marketing careers actually look like beyond the job description. No gatekeeping. No fluff.
For experienced professionals, it's a mirror, and a reminder that the smartest people in the room are still asking questions.
New episodes drop on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.

Episode: Jack Nations | Marketing Director

Most small business owners sign a contract with a marketing agency expecting results — and end up frustrated. In this episode of Arrows in Motion, we sit down with Jack Nations, a longtime marketing professional who made the transition from the agency world to in-house marketing leadership, and he has a lot to say about why so many agency-client relationships fail. Jack breaks down the core problem at the heart of most bad agency engagements: misaligned incentives. When an agency's success is measured by whether the client thinks they're doing a good job — rather than whether the client's business is actually growing — the strategy suffers. We explore what small business owners should look for in a strategic marketing partner, how to vet a marketing agency before signing, why brand strategy and planning should come before tactics, and what separates transactional agencies from true long-term partners. If you're a business owner trying to figure out how to choose a marketing agency, or a marketer navigating the agency vs. in-house career question, this conversation will sharpen how you think about the whole relationship.

_____________________________________________________________

Arrows in Motion

Most podcasts about business and marketing tell you what to think. Arrows in Motion asks better questions.
Hosted by Scott Heaton, Arrows in Motion is a long-form conversation podcast that goes deep with entrepreneurs, executives, and marketing professionals who've built real things, and learned hard lessons along the way. Each episode explores the gap between how success looks from the outside and what it actually takes to get there: the strategy, the grind, the pivots, the moments nobody posts about.
Whether you're a Fortune 500 VP rethinking what career advancement really costs, a small business owner trying to figure out if your marketing agency is actually on your side, or a fitness entrepreneur building something from scratch with nothing but drive, there's a conversation here for you.
For early-career marketers and marketing students trying to break into the industry, Arrows in Motion is the mentorship most people never get access to. Real talk on salary negotiation, building professional confidence, navigating agency culture, and what marketing careers actually look like beyond the job description. No gatekeeping. No fluff.
For experienced professionals, it's a mirror, and a reminder that the smartest people in the room are still asking questions.
New episodes drop on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.

Episode: James Forbes | Tiger Fiber & Good Life Growing

Most people hear hemp and think one thing.

James Forbes has built two businesses around everything else.

James is the founder of Good Life Growing — a hydroponic urban farm supplying local restaurants across St. Louis — and Tiger Fiber Hemp, a hemp manufacturing company turning one of the most versatile plants on earth into products most people have never considered.

In this episode of Arrows in Motion, we get into the backyard chicken boom that quietly created a $7 billion market, why hemp outperforms plastic, fiberglass, timber, and cement, what it's like to build a business in an industry that was a Class A felony until recently, and what's coming next — acoustic panels, hemp insulation, EV battery casings, and hemp homes built at an affordable price point.

This is an entrepreneurship story about betting on something before the world caught up. And having the patience to let it play out.

Arrows in Motion

Most podcasts about business and marketing tell you what to think. Arrows in Motion asks better questions.
Hosted by Scott Heaton, Arrows in Motion is a long-form conversation podcast that goes deep with entrepreneurs, executives, and marketing professionals who've built real things, and learned hard lessons along the way. Each episode explores the gap between how success looks from the outside and what it actually takes to get there: the strategy, the grind, the pivots, the moments nobody posts about.
Whether you're a Fortune 500 VP rethinking what career advancement really costs, a small business owner trying to figure out if your marketing agency is actually on your side, or a fitness entrepreneur building something from scratch with nothing but drive, there's a conversation here for you.
For early-career marketers and marketing students trying to break into the industry, Arrows in Motion is the mentorship most people never get access to. Real talk on salary negotiation, building professional confidence, navigating agency culture, and what marketing careers actually look like beyond the job description. No gatekeeping. No fluff.
For experienced professionals, it's a mirror, and a reminder that the smartest people in the room are still asking questions.
New episodes drop on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.

Episode: Ben Smith | Fitness Friend

What does it take to build a successful personal training business from scratch? In this episode of Arrows in Motion, we sit down with Ben Smith, founder of Fitness Friend, who walked away from the restaurant industry to pursue his passion for fitness — and never looked back. Ben shares how he built a thriving in-home personal training business with no outside funding, growing it from a solo operation into a team of independent contractor trainers serving clients across the St. Louis area. We dig into what it actually means to go full-time as a personal trainer, how to get personal training clients organically through relationships and referrals, and why the mobile personal training model offers a level of personalization that traditional gyms simply can't match. Ben also opens up about his niche in senior fitness and in-home training for older adults — a growing and underserved market. If you're a fitness entrepreneur thinking about starting a personal training business or scaling beyond yourself, this episode is packed with real-world lessons from someone who built it the hard way.

Arrows in Motion

Most podcasts about business and marketing tell you what to think. Arrows in Motion asks better questions.
Hosted by Scott Heaton, Arrows in Motion is a long-form conversation podcast that goes deep with entrepreneurs, executives, and marketing professionals who've built real things, and learned hard lessons along the way. Each episode explores the gap between how success looks from the outside and what it actually takes to get there: the strategy, the grind, the pivots, the moments nobody posts about.
Whether you're a Fortune 500 VP rethinking what career advancement really costs, a small business owner trying to figure out if your marketing agency is actually on your side, or a fitness entrepreneur building something from scratch with nothing but drive, there's a conversation here for you.
For early-career marketers and marketing students trying to break into the industry, Arrows in Motion is the mentorship most people never get access to. Real talk on salary negotiation, building professional confidence, navigating agency culture, and what marketing careers actually look like beyond the job description. No gatekeeping. No fluff.
For experienced professionals, it's a mirror, and a reminder that the smartest people in the room are still asking questions.
New episodes drop on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.

Episode: Dan Graney | What does it actually mean to stay creative for decades in an industry that keeps changing the tools?

In this episode of Arrows in Motion, Scott sits down with Dan Graney — veteran creative copywriter, pop culture enthusiast, and advertising lifer — for a wide-ranging conversation about the craft of copywriting, the reality of agency burnout, and what AI actually means for creative professionals who've been doing this long before the algorithms showed up.
Dan brings a rare perspective: a career spanning the early internet, major brand accounts including PepsiCo, Taco Bell, and Frito-Lay, and now the AI era — and his take is that the tools change but the principles never do. Curiosity, discovery, and the willingness to push past the safe idea are as valuable today as they were when he was pitching concepts on paper.
We dig into his creative brief presentation framework — Iteration, Evolution, Revolution — and why presenting three concepts at different levels of boldness isn't just a client management strategy, it's how you protect the work. Dan also shares why nobody in advertising history has ever fired a creative for being too creative, why clients actually want to feel like they're reining you in, and what happens when you strip clinical language out of a product category no one understands and just speak plainly to the consumer.
For early-career copywriters and marketing students trying to break into advertising, this episode is a masterclass in creative thinking, how to use AI as a collaborative tool without losing your voice, and what a long, honest career in the creative industry actually looks like. No shortcuts. No hacks. Just craft.

Arrows in Motion

Most podcasts about business and marketing tell you what to think. Arrows in Motion asks better questions.
Hosted by Scott Heaton, Arrows in Motion is a long-form conversation podcast that goes deep with entrepreneurs, executives, and marketing professionals who've built real things, and learned hard lessons along the way. Each episode explores the gap between how success looks from the outside and what it actually takes to get there: the strategy, the grind, the pivots, the moments nobody posts about.
Whether you're a Fortune 500 VP rethinking what career advancement really costs, a small business owner trying to figure out if your marketing agency is actually on your side, or a fitness entrepreneur building something from scratch with nothing but drive, there's a conversation here for you.
For early-career marketers and marketing students trying to break into the industry, Arrows in Motion is the mentorship most people never get access to. Real talk on salary negotiation, building professional confidence, navigating agency culture, and what marketing careers actually look like beyond the job description. No gatekeeping. No fluff.
For experienced professionals, it's a mirror, and a reminder that the smartest people in the room are still asking questions.
New episodes drop on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.

Kate DeWulf | Fortune 500 VP & Founder of The Big Apple Red She has the title, the salary, and the corner office — and she'll be the first to tell you the cost. Fortune 500 VP Kate DeWulf gets honest about burnout, salary negotiation, career confidence, and what it really takes to advance in corporate without losing yourself along the way.

Arrows in Motion

Most podcasts about business and marketing tell you what to think. Arrows in Motion asks better questions.

Hosted by Scott Heaton, Arrows in Motion is a long-form conversation podcast that goes deep with entrepreneurs, executives, and marketing professionals who've built real things — and learned hard lessons along the way. Each episode explores the gap between how success looks from the outside and what it actually takes to get there: the strategy, the grind, the pivots, the moments nobody posts about.

Whether you're a Fortune 500 VP rethinking what career advancement really costs, a small business owner trying to figure out if your marketing agency is actually on your side, or a fitness entrepreneur building something from scratch with nothing but drive — there's a conversation here for you.

For early-career marketers and marketing students trying to break into the industry, Arrows in Motion is the mentorship most people never get access to. Real talk on salary negotiation, building professional confidence, navigating agency culture, and what marketing careers actually look like beyond the job description. No gatekeeping. No fluff.

For experienced professionals, it's a mirror — and a reminder that the smartest people in the room are still asking questions.

New episodes drop on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Subscribe wherever you listen.

Topics include: marketing strategy, entrepreneurship, career development, personal branding, agency vs in-house marketing, small business growth, corporate leadership, women in business, fitness entrepreneurship, professional development, entry-level marketing, marketing career advice, how to break into marketing, business podcast, career coaching, work-life balance, startup mindset, marketing for beginners, first job in marketing, college to career.