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

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

By Aly HathcockBusinessEntrepreneurshipMarketing
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Humans of Growth: Stories & Strategies Behind Business Growth & Business Development episodes

  • Why the Founder Is Usually the Reason the Business Stopped Growing

    Most founders hit a revenue plateau and immediately think they need more leads.


    No, they need to get out of the way.

    When a founder is the linchpin to every decision, the business can only grow as fast as one person can move. It doesn't matter how good the marketing is or how strong the sales process is. If the CEO is still approving every hire, getting on every difficult client call, and doing in two minutes what they won't let anyone else learn to do in thirty, the ceiling is them.

    In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Larry Waddell, founder of Prism Inspired, a consulting practice that works with agency owners and founders to build the operational infrastructure that actually enables growth. Larry has spent years helping companies break through the three-to-five million revenue plateau by fixing the one thing most founders aren't willing to look at: themselves.

    Larry breaks down how to recognize when you have become your own bottleneck, what a senior leadership team actually looks like at a small or mid-sized company (and why it doesn't have to mean corporate bureaucracy), and the monthly meeting cadence that replaces chaos with rhythm without killing the culture that made the company worth building in the first place. He also gets into the real cost of doing things yourself, why shielding your team from hard clients or hard decisions is the thing that eventually makes your best people leave, and how to think about AI and automation as operational leverage rather than a headcount elimination strategy.

    In this episode, we cover:

    ✔ The signs that a founder has become the rate-limiting step for their own company's growth
    ✔ Why founders who bounce around the same revenue number year after year are almost always the common variable
    ✔ What a senior leadership team actually is at a three-to-ten million dollar company, and when to build one
    ✔ The four-week meeting cadence that keeps a leadership team moving without turning into death by committee
    ✔ Why letting Susie do it in thirty minutes instead of you doing it in two is actually the investment that compounds
    ✔ The "reach down to pull someone up" framework for backfilling when you promote from within
    ✔ Why shielding team members from difficult clients is setting them up to fail when they leave
    ✔ How to think about AI and automation as an operational layer rather than a replacement for entry-level hiring
    ✔ The "what, so what, now what" reporting framework that turns metrics into decisions
    ✔ Why the hollowing-out effect of AI makes deep human judgment more valuable, not less

    If you are a founder, agency owner, or CEO hovering around the same revenue number for two or three years in a row, wondering why good marketing and solid sales still aren't moving the needle, this conversation is the mirror you have been avoiding.

    Because you can't out-market a bottleneck you are creating yourself.


    ______________________

    RESOURCES:
    Get help finding the right marketing partner.
    Learn more about Prism Inspired here.

    1 hr
  • Crisis Communications Plan: What to Do Before, During & After a PR Crisis

    Most companies don't have a crisis communications plan. They have a hope that nothing goes wrong.


    And when something does go wrong, the instinct is to say nothing, wait it out, and let the lawyers run the room. That instinct is wrong. In the court of public opinion, silence reads as guilt. "No comment" is not a strategy. It is a confession.

    In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Ron Sachs, founder of Sachs Media, a PR and communications firm with thirty years of experience managing crises for organizations across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Ron breaks down what a real crisis communications plan looks like, who needs to be in the room, and why the brands that survive a crisis are almost always the ones that get ahead of the story rather than waiting for someone else to define it.

    Ron walks through case studies spanning Starbucks, British Airways, the Amateur Athletic Union, and a federally qualified health center caught in a four-million-dollar embezzlement scandal, drawing out the principles that separate a crisis well-handled from one that turns a short-term problem into a permanent brand scar. He also makes the case for "dumping your own bad news," the counterintuitive strategy of releasing damaging information yourself before someone else frames it for you.

    In this episode, we cover:

    ✔ Why most organizations are already in a deeper crisis before the news breaks, because they have no plan
    ✔ The two categories that cover nearly every crisis: fiscal and physical
    ✔ Why lawyers are often the worst people to run your crisis response strategy
    ✔ The "court of public opinion" principle: why silence and "no comment" signal guilt, not caution
    ✔ What a holding statement is and how to use it to buy time without losing credibility
    ✔ How to dump your own bad news in a way that shapes the narrative instead of surrendering it
    ✔ The Starbucks case study: what a CEO response looks like when it actually works
    ✔ The Academy Sports example: what happens when a company follows policy over common sense in a crisis
    ✔ How to build a crisis communications team without dying by committee
    ✔ Spokesperson training: why not every C-suite executive should be in front of a camera
    ✔ Why updating the story matters as much as the initial response, and how to do it without overpromising

    If you are a founder, CEO, chief communications officer, or marketing leader who has never thought through what your organization would actually do if something went wrong tomorrow, this conversation is the planning session you have been putting off.

    Because people will forgive a mistake. They will not forgive a cover-up.

    ______________________


    RESOURCES:
    Get help finding the right marketing partner.
    Learn more about Sachs Media here.

    38 min
  • The Agency Trust Problem: What Bad Firms Don't Want You to Know

    Most businesses have been burned by at least one agency. And usually, it wasn't fraud. It was selective storytelling.


    Marketing agency transparency is the real gap between agencies that earn long-term trust and the ones that show up to monthly meetings waving impression counts while revenue sits flat. When clients can't access their own ad platforms, when reports are curated instead of complete, and when agencies say yes to every client idea just to protect the retainer, everyone loses.

    In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Zach Phillips, co-founder of McMillan and Phillips, a creative agency with nearly two decades of experience across social, SEO, and digital strategy. They dig into why the agency-client relationship breaks down so reliably, what good agencies do differently, and why the rise of pre-packaged, templated marketing has made it harder for businesses to trust the real thing.

    Zach and Aly unpack the "cherry-picked dashboard" problem (where agencies bury the full picture behind favorable metrics), the art of pushing back on bad client ideas without becoming the bad cop every meeting, and why the go-to-market surge of course-trained agencies has burned small business budgets and poisoned the well for legitimate firms. They also get into what it actually looks like to translate marketing insights into sales and customer success, and why the data always tells a story when someone takes the time to draw the narrative instead of just reading the numbers.

    In this episode, we cover:

    ✔ Why marketing agencies cherry-pick data and what a transparent report should actually include
    ✔ How agencies get blamed for problems they don't own: poor sales close rates, low retention, messy pipelines
    ✔ The "yes man" trap: why agreeing with bad client ideas always ends with the agency taking the blame
    ✔ How to push back on client ideas tactically without killing the relationship
    ✔ Setting benchmarks without pulling numbers from thin air: industry standards, reputable sources, and campaign-specific context
    ✔ Why the lowest bar for marketing agency entry has created a generation of templated campaigns that don't convert
    ✔ The difference between a $300/month "keep the lights on" agency and one that actually builds growth
    ✔ Why influencer marketing is overrated and SEO is still the most underrated channel in most budgets
    ✔ How to pass marketing insights to your sales team and customer success team in language they actually act on
    ✔ The storytelling skill that separates great agencies from ones that just report numbers
    ✔ Why "AB test that" is the most tactically sound response to a client idea you know won't work

    If you're a business owner who's been burned by an agency, a marketing director tired of being the company scapegoat, or an agency owner trying to figure out how to build real client trust without becoming a yes machine, this conversation names what most people in the industry won't say out loud.

    Because the agencies that survive long-term aren't the ones with the flashiest dashboards. They're the ones who earned the right to say "I told you so" without ever having to.

    ______________________

    RESOURCES:
    Get help finding the right marketing partner.
    Learn more about McMillan and Phillips here.

    45 min
  • The One Ad Channel That Doesn't Annoy People (And How to Buy It)

    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 reach

    If 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.

    39 min
  • Confused People Don't Buy: Fixing the Friction in Your Buying Process

    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 away

    If 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.

    33 min
  • Brand Creativity vs Performance Marketing: How to Build a Brand Worth Remembering

    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 time

    If 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.

    35 min
  • Sales Follow-Up Process: How to Close Without the Pushy Old-School Script

    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 it

    If 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.

    36 min
  • Why Your PR Metrics Are Lying (And What Soft Analytics Measure Instead)

    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 resonates

    If 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.

    37 min
  • Amazon Product Photography: How to Increase Conversion Rate

    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 model

    If 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.

    37 min
  • E-commerce Growth Strategy: Why "Best Quality" Won't Sell

    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 revenue

    If 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.

    39 min

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

From the publisher's feed

Behind every business & its growth is a human in the trenches.  On Humans of Growth, host Aly Hathcock interviews CEOs, CMOs, and marketing executives driving business development, demand generation, and brand strategy. These aren’t surface-level chats about lead funnels and KPIs. They’re raw, insightful conversations that reveal how real leaders build marketing engines, scale revenue, and create lasting customer relationships.