1,000 new customers a month. And most of them never came back. Not because the product wasn't good. Because the trust wasn't deep enough yet.

Kristy Morris built KAILO, a wellness brand stocked in Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, and Kourtney Kardashian's gift guide, by learning that lesson the hard way. A $159,000 event loss, an accidental Dubai expansion, and a complete rebuild of her retention strategy later, she's got a playbook worth hearing.

This episode is about what actually builds a brand people keep coming back to. 

Key moments:

00:00: What McDonald's can teach you about consistency and why you need to get it right

7:13: The real reason local marketing dilutes your brand

7:51: How to position a brand in the most saturated category in the world

26:39: How to crack a market you know nothing about

29:50: The Kardashian gift guide. What it actually costs to and what it actually did

33:25: Why opening a cafe is actually a marketing strategy 

37:25: 1,000 new customers a month who weren’t coming back

42:57: The Goop Summit that lost $159, 000 and became the best campaign ever

46:18: The ONE thing every marketing need to get right before they spend a single dollar

To find out more on Krisy, KAILO and Sureyya Kahve, you can find them on instagram @kailo_aus , @kailo_medispa and @sureyya_kahve

If you want your ads to finally get in front of the right audience, DM us CREATIVE over on IG @tfm.digital and we'll send you our creative strategy to get you started.

If you're ready to start seeing growth in your franchise every single year then head over to IG @tfm.digital and DM us RECRUITMENT to grab a copy of our franchise development playbook.

Most brands are still paying to rent attention. TEAMM8 built a community that hands it over for free.

Tommy Laurens has been Marketing Director at TEAMM8 for six years. In that time the brand has grown 500%. They doubled revenue two years running. 90% up this year alone. With a team of six. No agency. No Google ads. No influencer budget. Just a community that became their biggest media channel.

Tommy breaks down exactly how TEAMM8's UGC strategy replaced influencers, the free beer activation that built a sales pipeline, the RuPaul's Drag Race partnership that now reaches the US, and why the moment your content looks like an ad, it's already dead.

If you're still trying to buy your way to growth, this one's going to sting a little.

Key moments:

00:00: How to reposition a brand people had stopped caring about

3:42: Why bringing your ads in-house might be the best decision you make

6:34: How to turn your biggest fans into your best marketing channel

7:50: How to measure brand awareness when the numbers don’t tell you the whole story

10:30: How to run paid ads on Meta when your content keeps getting banned

20:59 This is they way to turn a single activation into a sales pipeline

38:42: Why what’s working in your marketing today won’t work tomorrow

To see more form TEAMM8, you can give them a follow on Instagram @TEAMM8

If you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place. 

Every marketer is being told they need to “get on AI” right now. But most businesses don’t actually know what they’re buying.

Is it AI? Is it automation? Is it just a GPT in a pretty dress?

And more importantly, is it going to save your team time… or become another expensive subscription that doesn’t deliver…

Today Matt is sitting down with Zaine, our Head of Investment to talk about where AI is genuinely useful right now, where you’re being sold a dream, and what businesses need to sort out internally before rolling it out.

Key moments:

0:00 - What “AI” actually means in marketing (and what’s been rebranded as AI for years) 

5:06 - The difference between AI and automation 

8:16 - The questions you need to ask before buying any AI tool 

15:46 - Where AI is actually useful right now (and where you’re being sold a dream) 

17:19 - Will AI replace marketing roles… or just change what you hire for? 

19:48 - Why we hired an in-house AI engineer + what that looks like in our business

23:43 - Should you trust tools like Advantage+ and Performance Max with your budget? 

28:41 - Why Meta is catching up to Google in ad revenue and what that means for your spend

31:59 - What the next 12–18 months of AI in marketing will really look like 

36:04 - IThe one thing to fix in your business before you even think about AI 

Connect with Zaine on Linkedin here.

If you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place. 

Phil DeBella started a coffee company with $5,000 in a market with 2,000 competitors and  sold it for $47 million. 

In this episode, he gives away the marketing playbook that built it and explains why most marketing “strategies” don’t actually work. 

We talk about how did it and why the same principles apply whether you're running a cafe, a national franchise, or trying to crack the US market.

He also gets into why the four Ps of marketing are dead (and what replaces them), how to tell your founding story even when you think you don't have one, the real reason the Brisbane's Best Cafe campaign hit 40,000 nominations, and what the marketing teams of tomorrow actually look like in an AI world.

You’ll Hear:

00:00: How to build a brand from scratch with $5000 in a crowded category

2:44: How to know if your campaign is going to work before you’ve even spent a dollar

5:33: The Emotional Engagement formula. The strategy that keeps customers coming back to you 

8:40: Why you need to define your customer and your message and how when you do, it just works

11:21: How to make your customer feel something when your product is identical to everyone else's

28:30: When you should separate your personal brand from your business 

33:16: People and Perception. Why it’s not just about the 4 P’s anymore

34:26: The single biggest mistake businesses make when they are doing great work

35:33: Why your founding story is so important for your brand and how to build it

41:32: What AI can do for your marketing and what it shouldn’t do

47:38: What’s the difference between a campaign people talk about and one people forget

If you want to hear more from Phil, you can connect with him on Linkedin: Phil Di Bella and Facebook. To learn more about Coffee Commune, head to coffeecommunе.com.au or check them out on Instagram @the.coffeecommune

Want to know exactly which channels will you give REAL return on your paid ads? We've created a full playbook that that covers that plus how to get people buying your products online. If you want a copy, head over to IG @tfm.digital and DM us PLAYBOOK.

If you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place. 

Hit follow because you're not gonna wanna miss these episodes.

See the behind the scenes over at @tfm.pod - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.pod/⁠ 

Follow the TFM team over at ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.digital/⁠ and ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@tfm.digital⁠ 

And ⁠https://www.instagram.com/taylorfielding/⁠ and ⁠https://www.instagram.com/mathewfielding/⁠ 

It feels like everything in Australian media is consolidating right now.

The same platforms, the same media owners, the same publishers.

So where does that actually leave brands?

And what happens to local media?

This is just one of the things that Taylor is talking about with Adam Hickey, co-founder of Orand who has worked across agencies, client side and now consults with some of the biggest brands in the country, including Subway.

He’s been involved in major pitch processes, worked closely with leadership teams and has a pretty clear view of how marketing decisions are being made behind the scenes.

Today we’re talking about what’s happening across the Aus media landscape, how brands are thinking about where to invest, and why local area marketing is still doing more heavy lifting that people think.

Key moments:

0:00 - The consolidation of Australian media - Why the media is being squeezed harder than ever (and what that means for where your budget goes next) 

3:43 - Are publishers coming for the agency role? And what that means if you’re the one spending the budget

4:17 - International vs domestic media: how much is too much when we still need to support local media?

11:10 - How big brands really make marketing decisions (it’s not as strategic as you’d think)15:25 - What corporate teams are getting frustrated by when it comes to working with agencies…

19:03 - Local area marketing: What is driving real foot traffic

22:31 - If Adam was launching a new multi-location brand today - where would he start with his marketing?

25:00 - AI in marketing: the gap between what’s possible… + what most teams are actually doing

29:25 - What separates the pitches that win bids versus the ones who don’t

31:48 - How to actually stand out in a pitch 

35:32 - The next move that will unlock growth in your business

36:37 - Before you blame your agency… this is the one thing marketing teams need to fix first

Connect with Adam on Linkedin here.

Want to know exactly which channels will you give REAL return on your paid ads? We've created a full playbook that that covers that plus how to get people buying your products online. If you want a copy, head over to IG @tfm.digital and DM us PLAYBOOK.

If you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place. 

Hit follow because you're not gonna wanna miss these episodes.

See the behind the scenes over at @tfm.pod - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.pod/⁠ 

Follow the TFM team over at ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.digital/⁠ and ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@tfm.digital⁠ 

And ⁠https://www.instagram.com/taylorfielding/⁠ and ⁠https://www.instagram.com/mathewfielding/⁠ 

What happens when you have a customer sale cycle of 728 days?

In today’s episode, Taylor is sitting down with Shay Whitton from Positive Real Estate, Australia’s FIRST buyers agents who have been working in the industry in 2003, well before the marketing world became funnels, retargeting ads and AI generated everything.

Since then, the business has coached more than 7.5k clients, closed over 10k property deals and has built a marketing strategy that keeps people engaged, educated and emotionally bought in for years.

In an era where it’s getting harder to hold your customer’s attention for five minutes, hearing how Shay nurtures an audience for hundreds of days is pretty bloody useful.

Key moments:

0:00 - What marketing looked like before Facebook, Google ads and smartphones 

3:54 - Shay’s best property deal, worst property deal and the $30M mistake that became a very expensive lesson

5:09 - How do you keep someone interested when they might not buy from you for 728 days? 

9:18 - Why warm leads need more than just emails, funnels and follow-ups to stay engaged with your business

13:08 - How Positive Real Estate built extra services around the problems their customers kept running into 

14:31 - The biggest mistake businesses make when they’re marketing to people over a long sales cycle 

16:00 - Live events: how do they play into a long term customer strategy?

23:48 - What do live events look like for smaller businesses?

26:13 - How many people is normal to show up for an event?

27:40 - What going from head marketer to the CMO looked like (and why you need to prepare for more check-ins than you’re doing now)

34:43 - What founders should do before they hire someone to take marketing off their plate 

39:05 - How Positive Real Estate are using AI right now

46:09 -  Can you use AI and still maintain trust with your customers?

49:19 -  Shay’s advice for anyone who keeps saying they want to invest in property and still hasn’t done anything

If you want to know more about Positive Real Estate, you can find the links below.

Website - www.positiverealestate.com.au

Facebook - www.facebook.com/positiverealestate

Instagram - www.instagram.com/positiverealestate

Register for a free property night here

Did you know that your AI generated content could find you in hot water?

Emily Lucas, is a marketing, franchising and commercial lawyer who has seen first hand how businesses create campaigns with good intentions that end up going viral for all the wrong reasons. 

This episode could save you from Court, a cease and desist letter, or your Google rating plummeting from bad reviews overnight. 

Key moments:

00:00 Why your marketing can land you in legal trouble without you even realising it

04:00 How one TikTok wiped out a 4.9/5 Google rating overnight and turned into real life threats

06:00 This business thought their giveaway was harmless, until it ended up in a discrimination claim

09:30 The franchising Code of Conduct changed in 2026. This is what you need to know

19:00 Why you cannot leave your annual financial statements to the last minute and what it will cost you

25:30What you need to check BEFORE you use AI in your next marketing campaign 

29:00 Why AI created branding (fonts, colours, logos) could already belong to someone else… and r and what to do if you receive a cease and desist letter.

35:00 The rules around running competitions and giveaways that most brands are not aware of

43:00 Why Emily googling herself, led to building a personal brand and taking ownership of her own narrative

50:00 What 510K views taught Emily, and why she thinks it’s important for you to get legal approval before you post

If you want to learn more about or connect with Emily you can find Emily on LinkedIn or https://hwlebsworth.com.au/people/emily-lucas/

If you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place. 

Most marketers never really leave Meta and Google - and it’s not because they don’t want to.. But the rest of the media landscape feels too hard to access, too expensive and too easy to get wrong.So what actually happens on the other side? And is getting your foot in the door easier than it sounds?Today we’re sitting down with Rebecca Lawrie, Director of Sales at Channel 9 and who has spent 20+ years in the industry working across TV, streaming, audio and publishing. We’re getting into what brands misunderstand about “big channels,” why performance marketing can only take you so far, as well as how Channel 9 builds campaigns across their entire ecosystem.We’re even covering why you should start looking into your campaign for the Olympics and what you can do to get ahead.Key moments:0:00 -  If you’ve only ever spent on Meta and Google… What are you actually missing? 3:10 - TV is not dead!7:17 - Why sport is one of the stickiest audiences you can put yourself in front of10:13 - How big networks measure the success of campaigns (like partnership with sport)11:57 - Should brands be preparing for the 2032 Olympics already? How to get ahead of the game13:15 - What the Paris Olympics taught Rebecca about how audiences consume media has changed (and what that means for marketing)15:10 - More platforms, more channels… and somehow less clarity on what actually works20:49 - How do you hit big targets while still having a great team culture?24:22 - How Channel 9’s events play into their sales strategy27:45 - A real brief: $100K, a solid restaurant, not quite full. Where Rebecca would spend her budget to book out every weekend32:20 - Why is it so hard to hire right now? Are you feeling it too?33:46 - The way Channel 9 is utilising AI in their marketing and sales teams38:45 -  What are some of the learnings for any brands that want to start working or aligning themselves with talent? If you want to connect with Rebecca, you can find her on Linkedin, IG @beclawrie or if you want to email her, you can reach her at [email protected] you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place. 

What’s the difference between EGC, UGC and why are so many brands raving about it?
This week we’re talking to our Social Media Manager at TFM Digital, Elsie Mollison. She’s going to take you through the type of post that got 50,000 views (and counting), her KISS method to get the best results on any content you create and how to get your team involved with creating content that speaks directly to your customers. We know now more than ever people buy from people so if you want to stand out from the AI generated content and build a brand people love, this episode is for you 

You’ll hear: 

00:01: What is EGC (Employee Generated Content) and UGC (User Generated Content) and why is it taking off right now?

03:39: How a local hospital got over 50k views just by showing their staff on camera and how you can too

09:32: Keep it Simple Stupid. The 4 pillars you need to use in your next brand strategy

12:16 Don’t waste time scripting content. How the best content is unscripted when it comes to EGC

13:18 No one knows your brand better than those that work for you. How giving ownership to your Social Media Manager can showcase your brand

15:25 What is UGC and why BIG brands are paying the big bucks to make it part of their strategy 

18:13 The contra you need to put in place so that you can fully trust your UGC influencers

20:39 How to use the same piece of content and repurpose it for TikTok, Instagram and Facebook

22:28  What you should do this week, if you have never posted employee content before

If you’re looking for some inspiration on EGC, follow @tfm.digital on both Instagram and TikTok (we’re a little more unhinged over there) 

And if you want the complete guide to organic social media send us a DM or comment with the word KISS over at @tfm.pod - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.pod/⁠ 

Does Partnering with the NRL, AFL and Major TV Shows actually give you a good return?

Where do you even begin when trying to measure your ROI? 

Today I’m speaking with Caitlin Cordery who is Group Head of Marketing at Swyftx. She’s built a loyal customer base of over 1.5 millions and launched into new markets where she hasn’t had to just sell the brand, she’s had to educate on an entire category as well. 

And the craziest part? They weren’t able to use Google or Youtube and were limited with their reach on Meta as well. 

We talk about what most brands get wrong, the right way to invest in and build a brand and how to build a customer base that will advocate for you even when the market is down. 

If you want to know how to launch into new markets and build trust even with a small budget, listen to the end of this one. 

You’ll hear: 

00:01: Why the best marketing won’t work for this industry 

3:22: How to build trust and awareness even with a complex product 

4:54: The customer insights that can completely change your approach to branding

8:27: How to market when you don’t want to (or can’t use) the big players 

14:27: Where to focus your attention if you’re currently going through hypergrowth 

17:00: What does brand mean TODAY and how can you get your CEO to understand it? 

20:00: The biggest growth tool to launch into international markets

21:30 The best way to integrate partnerships in 2026 

23:09: How do you measure the ROI of a Partnership deal

26:08: Should you invest in TV partnerships? 

28:55: What you should be using AI for now. And if you’re not… you are already behind

31:05: The marketing trend that will build the most loyal customers

If you want to see what Caitlin is working on, check her out on LinkedIn here

If you want the TLDR of what you should actually care about, you're in the right place. 

Hit follow because you're not gonna wanna miss these episodes.

See the behind the scenes over at @tfm.pod - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.pod/⁠ 

Follow the TFM team over at ⁠https://www.instagram.com/tfm.digital/⁠ and ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@tfm.digital⁠ 

And ⁠https://www.instagram.com/taylorfielding/⁠ and ⁠https://www.instagram.com/mathewfielding/⁠

And if you want help to grow your business with marketing that drives results and stands out head over to www.tfm.digital