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

By Aly HathcockBusiness Entrepreneurship Marketing

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

July 30 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
July 23 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
July 16 The Biggest AI Mistakes Businesses Are Making Right Now
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 marketing

Whether 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.
52 min
July 02 Influencer Marketing: How to Make Paid Creator Partnerships Actually Work
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 brand

If 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.
32 min
June 25 Pet Influencer Partnerships: A Marketing Crash Course
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.
29 min
June 18 Personal Branding & Founder-Led Marketing in an AI Trust Recession
Most founders are wrong about personal branding.

They think it’s about ego, selfies, and posting your life story online. But according to Rachel Gogos, CEO of The Brand ID, your personal brand is not about being louder. It’s about making your business feel more human, more trustworthy, and more real.

In this episode of Humans of Growth, Aly Hathcock sits down with Rachel Gogos to talk about the role of personal branding in modern business growth, why every company brand starts with the founder, and how leaders can build trust without turning themselves into full-time influencers.

Rachel breaks down why founder branding matters even when the founder is not the public face of the company, how AI marketing is making authenticity more valuable, and why businesses need to move away from faceless, generic content. They also discuss the difference between being personal and being too personal, how to make your ideal customer feel seen, and why your website should feel less like a brochure and more like a real-life experience with your business.

This conversation also digs into brand strategy, content marketing, website copy, customer pain points, and the importance of creating a consistent customer experience across every touchpoint — from your social media content to your sales calls to your website.

If you’re a founder, CEO, marketer, or business owner who wants people to trust your company before they ever get on a call, this episode is for you.

In this episode, we cover:

✔ Why personal branding is not about ego
✔ How founder values shape company branding
✔ Why faceless marketing is losing power
✔ How AI is changing authenticity in marketing
✔ What CEOs misunderstand about branding
✔ How to balance professionalism with personality
✔ Why your website should focus on the customer, not just the company
✔ How to make your ideal audience feel seen
✔ Why branding is more than fonts, colors, and logos
✔ The underrated power of in-person connection

If you've been thinking about building a personal brand and not just a company, this episode is for you.

______________________

RESOURCES:
Get help finding the right marketing partner.
Learn more about The Brand ID here.
29 min
June 11 The ROAS Trap: Why Better Numbers Don’t Always Mean Better Growth
Your best-looking marketing campaign might be the one quietly killing your growth.

Most businesses look at ROAS, cost per lead, and in-platform ad reports and assume they know what’s working. But those dashboards are often rewarding the easiest conversions, repeat buyers, retargeting, brand search, while the campaigns actually creating new demand get ignored or killed too soon.

And that’s how companies end up recycling the same customers instead of growing.

In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Scott Desgrosseilliers, founder of WickedReports.com, to break down why most businesses are using the wrong scoreboard for marketing attribution, and how to figure out which campaigns are actually driving revenue growth, new customer acquisition, and long-term customer lifetime value.

Scott walks through part of his Five Forces Framework for measuring marketing performance, why in-platform ROAS can mislead business owners and agencies, how to think about top-of-funnel marketing, and why the cheapest customer is not always the most profitable customer.

In this episode, we cover:

✔ Why most businesses are measuring marketing attribution with the wrong scoreboard

✔ The problem with in-platform ROAS, and why Meta, Google, and Amazon often take too much credit

✔ Why new customer acquisition needs to be measured differently than repeat purchases or retargeting

✔ How cheap customers can quietly hurt customer lifetime value and long-term profit

✔ Why the first product someone buys can determine whether they become a high-value customer

✔ The difference between first-click attribution, last-click attribution, and multi-channel attribution

✔ Why top-of-funnel marketing gets under-credited, and why killing it too early can stall growth

✔ The “scale, chill, kill” framework for deciding when to increase, maintain, or cut ad spend

✔ How AI can help analyze marketing data, and where it still needs human guardrails

✔ Why brand search may be one of the most overrated marketing channels right now

If you’re a founder, CEO, CMO, agency owner, or marketing leader trying to figure out why your ads look good on paper but revenue still feels stuck, this conversation will reset how you think about marketing measurement.
______________________

RESOURCES:
Get help finding the right marketing partner.
Learn more about WickedReports here.
28 min
June 04 Why Your CRM Follow-Up System Matters More Than More Leads
Most business owners think they have a lead problem.

They don’t.

They have a follow-up problem.

Because you can spend thousands on ads, SEO, website traffic, Google Business Profile optimization, and lead generation, but if no one responds quickly, if the sales process is messy, or if leads disappear into a broken CRM, that marketing spend is wasted.

In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with James LaJoie, co-founder of PSP Compass, to break down why “more leads” is not always the answer, and why the businesses that grow fastest are often the ones with the best systems, not the biggest marketing budgets.

We get into speed-to-lead, customer lifetime value, local business marketing, AI automation, CRM follow-up systems, and why consistency is one of the biggest differences between companies that scale and companies that stall.

In this episode, we cover:

✔ Why most businesses don’t actually need more leads, they need a better follow-up process
✔ How speed-to-lead can make or break growth, especially in home services and local businesses
✔ Why your sales pipeline may be the real reason your marketing “isn’t working”
✔ The customer lifetime value numbers every business owner should know
✔ Why calls, form fills, and response times matter more than traffic alone
✔ How a slow follow-up process can waste your entire ad spend
✔ What a strong lead follow-up system should look like after someone submits a form or calls
✔ How AI automation can improve customer relationships without replacing human connection
✔ The CRM automations every small business should consider building first
✔ Why consistency is one of the biggest growth advantages a business can have
✔ The underrated power of Google Business Profile for local business marketing

If you’re a business owner, home service company, or local business marketer who keeps asking for more leads but still feels like revenue is stuck, this conversation will help you find the real leak in your growth engine.

______________________

RESOURCES:
Get help finding the right marketing partner.
Learn more about PSP Compass here.
27 min
May 28 How to Build a PR Strategy That Actually Drives Business Growth
Most companies confuse visibility with credibility. Getting featured feels like the win — but the headline is just the start.

Real PR is what happens after the article runs. The investor who finally takes the call. The $30K speaking spot that costs nothing to earn. The partnership that lands because you've been showing up in the right rooms for years.

In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Rachel Ford-Hutman, CEO of Ford-Hutman Media, a PR agency helping life science companies get media coverage, tell their stories, and build credibility with investors and audiences. We get into what PR actually does behind the scenes, why earned media still matters as newsrooms shrink, and the real ROI behind a single press feature.

In this episode, we cover:

✔ Why visibility doesn't equal credibility — and what a PR strategy is actually building
✔ PR vs marketing: the real difference and why most founders confuse them
✔ How earned media is shifting as newsrooms shrink and AI reshapes journalism
✔ Realistic PR timelines and the real ROI of public relations
✔ Why "no response is the no" — and how that changes the way you pitch journalists
✔ How small media wins feed bigger ones (the path from local outlet to Forbes)
✔ Where thought leadership, op-eds, and conferences fit into a strong PR strategy

If you're a founder or marketing leader trying to figure out how PR fits into your growth strategy, this episode has your name written all over it.

______________________

RESOURCES:
Get help finding the right marketing partner.
Learn more about Ford-Hutman Media here.
34 min
May 26 Why Your Expertise Is Killing Your Brand Messaging
Your expertise is killing your messaging.

The more you know about your product, the harder it gets to explain it in a way customers actually understand. And this is why most companies lose buyers in the first five seconds someone lands on their website.

In this episode of Humans of Growth, I sit down with Roy Abdo, CEO of Digital Revamp, to break down how to fix your brand messaging, why your CEO needs to be the top of your marketing funnel in 2026, and how the executives growing fastest right now are using LinkedIn thought leadership and executive personal branding to drive trust, attention, and inbound demand — with as little as one piece of content a week.

In this episode, we cover:

✔ The "curse of knowledge" and why your B2B brand messaging is too clever for your buyers
✔ The 5-second coffee shop test for brand clarity and website messaging
✔ How to focus your value proposition on the problem instead of the tactic or feature
✔ Why brand positioning starts to fail when companies try to be known for 17 things
✔ The Nike rule: when you've earned the right to expand your brand and product line
✔ Why executive personal branding is the new top of the marketing funnel
✔ How to build an executive thought leadership strategy on one piece of LinkedIn content a week
✔ The "common enemy" framework: why every B2B brand needs a clear villain in its messaging
✔ How to find your CEO's point of view on the future of your industry
✔ Why internal employees see executive content first — and why that matters for culture and retention

If you're a founder, CEO, or marketing leader who knows your brand messaging could be sharper — or you've been told to "build your personal brand" without anyone explaining what to actually post on LinkedIn — this conversation is the playbook.
______________________

RESOURCES:
Get help finding the right marketing partner.
Learn more about Digital Revamp here.
35 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.

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

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

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