Brand Building Podcast

Most brands think they know their customer. Usually it’s a persona deck someone made 18 months ago. In this episode, I sit down with Bryan Starck, founder of Customer Conversations, to talk about how AI voice agents now interview hundreds of customers every month and turn those conversations into ad creative, email angles, CRO tests and retention wins.

🔍 Get your free Retention Scan: https://retention-lab.com/retention-scan

Bryan and I met working on the same brand years ago. Since then he’s built 100 Celsius into a subscription growth consultancy and launched Customer Conversations, which runs AI-powered customer interviews at scale for ecommerce brands.

In this episode:

AI without a human touch is just efficiency. Used right, it creates more real conversations with your customers than you’ve ever been able to have.

Everyone online says video editors are cooked. In this episode, I sit down with Marin and Mario, the in-house editing team behind every Bread Loaf video, podcast and ad, to talk about how we actually use AI every day and why it still can’t replace a great editor.

🔍 Get your free Retention Scan: https://retention-lab.com/retention-scan

In this episode:

The bottom line: AI without a human operator produces vanilla content. With the right editor behind it, it’s the biggest creative unlock we’ve ever had.

Most win-back campaigns start the same way: “We miss you, here’s 20% off.” When the customer doesn’t respond, the coupon gets bigger. That can work, but you’re training your customers that if they ignore you long enough, you’ll lower the price.

🔍 Get your free Retention Scan: https://retention-lab.com/retention-scan

In this episode, I break down the 3 win-back plays we’re building right now that don’t start with a discount. They start with one question: what should this customer logically buy next?

– Play 1: Turn your win-back into education. How a specialty outdoor brand uses the founder’s how-to content to sell the consumable every customer eventually needs

The discount should be the lever, not the strategy. Your best win-back campaign might not need a coupon at all. It might just need the right product.

Grab your Klaviyo login and audit your account with me. These are the 7 leaks we keep finding when we audit established ecommerce brands doing $5M+ a year. These aren’t beginner accounts: they’re real companies with real teams and agencies. Some of these problems are embarrassingly simple, which is exactly why they survive for years.

In this episode:

At the end, I give you a simple way to score your own account. None of these leaks looks catastrophic on its own, but together they’re 10 small leaks draining one big bucket. Sometimes the expensive problems are just seven boring things nobody checked.

Want us to audit your account for you?

In this episode, I go through the whole playbook section by section. I cover what’s worth copying, where I disagree, and how I’d turn it into a real Q4 plan for brands doing $5M+ a year. Spending more and making more ads is not a strategy.

What I cover:

My biggest takeaway: don’t manage Q4 as six separate platform dashboards. Manage it as one business.

Want help planning your Q4?

Most brands focus on what they send. Orita focuses on when — and the results speak for themselves.

Daniel Brady, co-founder and co-CEO of Orita, joins me to break down how their ML platform models customer behavior to predict the exact moment someone is ready to buy. From win-back flows delivering 5-10X performance to a BFCM Scenario Planner built for Black Friday prep — this one is packed.

Topics covered:

If you want us to analyze your brand’s retention strategy:

Last Black Friday, a brand we work with had someone up until 3:00 AM fixing a broken promotion. Spend threshold. Free gift. Sounds simple. Wasn’t.

This happens every year. Brands sit in a conference room, invent the world’s most clever Black Friday offer — and forget there’s an actual ecommerce store that has to execute it.

In this episode, I break down the BFCM framework Bread Loaf uses with clients: the 3-second offer test, why one hero offer beats twelve competing discounts, VIP early access done right, developer sign-off before anything goes live, and the four-point checklist every brand needs before the holiday calendar locks in.

Your marketing can be exciting. Your checkout should be boring. That’s the goal.

✅ Elevate your brand’s Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com

🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

f your customers can predict your next sale before you announce it, you’ve got a problem.

Most brands default to percent off because it’s easy — but flat discounts do nothing to change buying behavior. They just make the thing customers already wanted cheaper.

In this episode, I break down the offer ladder Bread Loaf uses with clients: why BOGOs and bundles outperform percent off, how to build hot campaigns so you’re never starting from a blank doc when revenue dips, what run rate is and how to use it, and how to properly segment win-back audiences so you’re not sending the same coupon to everyone.

Before your next promotion, ask yourself: am I giving the customer a reason to change their behavior — or am I just lowering the price?

✅ Elevate your brand’s Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com

🚀 Discuss your growth strategy: https://calendly.com/markmilutin/retention-audit-kick-off?month=2025-02

After a tough onboarding, we put everything into turning this client’s account around—and tripled their lead volume. When their contract ended, they decided to move on.

Then they tried to hire the person leading their account directly.

In this episode of the Brand Building Podcast, I share what happened, how my team member handled it, and why we’re still giving that client a professional handoff.

We’re talking about loyalty, taking responsibility when your team falls short, and why better performance doesn’t always repair a damaged client relationship.

Your reputation comes from how you act when things get uncomfortable. This experience was a reminder of the kind of business—and team—I want to build.

Most brands lose the customer the moment they file a return. Redo is built to change that.

In this episode, I sit down with Taggart Kruger from Redo to break down how they've built the only end-to-end returns solution in ecommerce — from checkout protection and AI-powered exchange agents to a 120,000 sq ft warehouse that physically processes, grades, and liquidates returned inventory.

What's covered:

Already working with brands from $5M to Tailormade — this is one to listen to if you're serious about cleaning up your operations.

✅ Elevate your brand's Email & SMS marketing: https://breadloaf.typeform.com/to/rotiGDm7?typeform-source=www.youtube.com