Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and What’s Next

02:23 Conquer Imposter Syndrome with Julian Cole

03:29 Stop writing personal journals, with Daniel Murray

04:07 Unlock the power of hero content with Callum Mcdonnell

04:54 Empathy Inspired Marketing with Kat Kennan

05:45 Finding Your Digital Frontier with Dan Hafner

07:14 Brutally Simple Strategy with Mark Pollard

07:57 Facilitator Conversation Tactics with Laure Roy-Duchamp & David Rovira

10:02 Think Like A Thought Leader with Adam Faulkner

11:13 The Easy Way To Get Referrals with Brandon Barnum

12:14 Breakthrough Social Media Basics with Christian Brown

13:56 How To Doodle Your Dream with Theresa Rose

15:12 Power Up Your Company Offsite with Chloe Temple

16:07 Unlock The Power Of Customer Stories with Joel Klettke

16:56 Master The Blogging Basics with Alison Ver Halen

17:25 Critical SEO Foundations Mase Easy with Phillip Stemann

18:21 Personal Brand: Three Keys That Unlock ROI with Sam Winsbury

19:12 How To Make Friends With AI And Kill Copy-phobia with Hannah Brady

20:56 How To Get 1,000,000 Impressions with Mark P. Jung

22:11 Create Ads That Work Like Magic with Robert Brill

23:11 Why Creators Need To Think Like Scientists with Travis Terrell

25:40 Always Be Communicating with Sunny Singh

27:16 Discover Your Brand In 90 Days with Dain Walker

28:59 Write Stupid To Get To Smart with Maxton Gilchrist

31:19 How To Launch A Personal Brand with Nicole Marguerite Gray

31:47 Craft A Data-led Growth Mindset with Susan Coelius Keplinger

33:42 The Authentic Way To Build Your Brand with Purna Virji

34:32 How To Find Your Audience with Pete Newsome

35:21 Why Going Niche Is Bad Advice with William Choi

36:21 Strategy Simplified with Chris Bradshaw

38:00 Release The Power Of Conscious Leadership with Justin Foster 

40:18 From Burnout To Recovery with Tyler Wittkofsky

41:09 How To Generate Business with Chris Marin

42:55 Discover The Power Of Showing Your Work with Marcus de Vale

43:53 How To Deeply Connect With Customers with Shannon Howard 

44:49 Founders Fighting Burnout with Manuel Saez

45:44 Networking Is Power For Freelancers with Hollie Fraser

46:33 What Is Driving Your Identity? With Matthew Wood

47:46 How To Lead Better Gatherings with Douglas Ferguson

48:48 See You Soon

Here's to progress 🚀

👋 Follow ⁠Dan on LinkedIn

⚡️ But in your network there is power, wisdom, and opportunity.

Meet Hollie Fraser, freelance Creative Director and the mastermind behind We Are She Lance. Hollie has walked the uncertain soil of the freelance world and knows the importance and power of connection. In short, investing time building relationships with people walking a similar path is critical if you want to stay sane!

In today’s episode of Strategy Shorts, we discuss everything from earned media and storytelling, to the delicate balance between work and personal life. Hollie also unpacks her background in advertising and PR, her journey into professional freelancing, and why she’s launched a community for kickass female freelancers.

We’re talking:

✅ Hollie’s journey and the birth of We Are Shelance.

✅ Networking as an opportunity maker and sanity saver.

✅ How to just do it and stop asking for permission.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#Freelancing #Networking #Entrepreneurship #CareerJourney #Empowerment #Podcast #StrategyShorts #WeAreShelance

🧱 only to hit a wall of uncertainty?

🤔 Perhaps you’ve found success,

😵‍💫 and then the friction that comes with it?

This episode of Strategy Shorts goes out to all the dog-tired Founders, Entrepreneurs and leaders out there. You might feel like it, but you’re not alone.

Meet Manuel Saez, he’s an industrial designer by trade and a two-time Founder.

He’s been down burnout valley and come up the other side with some practical tools we can all use to help us manage our mental health.

The resources Manuel is producing come from a deeply personal place, he’s writing for the man he was five years ago. On his journey, he found that he had to piece together his own resources to help navigate his experiences and he’s distilled them into five pillars tailored for those facing the challenges burnout brings with it.

People love to say things like ‘Start with you’

but they often forget to say how to.

Manuel is here to challenge and change that.

We’re talking:

✅ Manuel’s story from industrial design to entrepreneur and through burnout.

✅ Five practices for transformation and nurturing resilience.

✅ The crucial role of self-care and gratitude in achieving liberation.

Here’s to progress 🚀

Founders Fighting Burnout Five-Day Recovery Guide.

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#Entrepreneurship #MentalHealth #Burnout #Resilience #SuccessMindset #StrategyShorts #PersonalDevelopment #Podcast

🤔 Why? Because they are so focused on acquisition…

💔 …that they fail to nurture the community and fan the flames of fandom.

Here’s why that’s a problem: for most brands, their existing customers are responsible for the majority of their profits.

So if you take one thing from this: listen. Book some customer coffee breaks and listen.

That’s how Shannon Howard does it, customer relationships champion and Top 100 CMA. Shannon’s the Director of Customer and Content Marketing over at Intellum, who power customer education for brands like Meta, Google, and Reddit.

In the latest episode of Strategy Shorts, Shannon joins me to open up her playbook and it’s a goldmine.

We zero in on some of the simple weekly practices you can implement to hear directly from consumers and unpack the headlines from the Intellum framework - so you can use customer feedback to create marketing strategies that powerfully resonate.

We’re talking:

✅ The untapped power of the customer journey post-acquisition.

✅ The raw potential of collaboration and user-generated content.

✅ The simple stuff you can do to engage consumers today.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#CustomerExperience #MarketingStrategies #CustomerEngagement #Strategy #Podcast #StrategyShorts

🎨 Maybe it’s time to expand your dialogue through visual thinking.

When we’re trying to get something done, we normally exchange words to shape ideas, argue, and convince. But what if saw our role through a facilitator lens, the host of the dialogue?

And more than that, what if we introduced the power of visual thinking to reach deep understanding and alignment?

🔥 Visual thinking is facilitator power.

It can transform collaboration and problem-solving, paving the way for clearer communication and innovative solutions.

This is the work of Marcus de Vale, a visual facilitation visionary, and Director of Work Visible Studios. Work Visible has taken collaborative problem-solving to the next level for brands like Amazon, Mastercard, and American Express.

In today’s episode of Strategy Shorts, Marcus joins the show to unpack how to leverage visual thinking to foster a culture of creativity, collaboration, and alignment within your team.

We’re talking:

✅ The journey of WorkVisible.

✅ The power of visual facilitation to cut through points of friction.

✅ How to get started with your own visual thinking journey.

Here’s to progress 🚀

Watch the episode here.

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📢 SO to the facilitator community at AJ&Smart

#VisualThinking #Facilitation #Innovation #Collaboration #StrategyShorts #CreativeProcess #Podcast

🚀 But it doesn’t have to.

🤩 And when you lead with value, amazing things can happen.

But don’t take my word for it. It’s wisdom straight from the Chris Marin playbook. He’s the mind behind convert.ai who generates thousands of leads for some of the world’s biggest brands including Microsoft and SEMrush.

But he didn’t start at the top.

He started in the back of Uhaul, dreaming as a seven-year-old kid. He went on to launch his first site at 14 and has since launched four successful companies. Basically, he knows a thing or two about landing the first few key clients.

This is for two types of business leader, those looking to go from zero-to-one, and those looking to scale. It all starts with ‘stand-alone independent value’, the secret sauce that opens decision-maker doors.

🎁 In fact, we’ve got a whole process for you to take away and try.

We’re talking:

✅ Chris’ entrepreneurial journey and where his mindset started.

✅ Proven strategies for outbound lead generation targeting larger enterprises.

✅ The art of crafting compelling value-driven messaging and killing the generic sales pitch.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#B2B #BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneur #OutboundOutreach #ValueProposition #MarketingStrategy #Podcast #StrategyShorts #ConvertAI

Specifically, we’re talking about burnout, and some daily practices (and some dramatic ideas) that you might find useful.

Let’s start with the dramatic. Meet Tyler Wittkoffsky, a self-care champion who has made a bold move and traded the stability of the corporate nine-to-five for life on the road in an RV.

Why? To bring balance to his mental health and take burnout out of the equation. Through remote work, Tyler and his wife have found financial sustainability while living on the road, shining a light on how alternative lifestyles and changing scenery can help maintain a healthy work-life balance.

But Tyler’s journey didn’t start with epic road trips, it started with daily practice and exploring sensory therapy techniques, to combat burnout and prioritise mental wellness.

We’re talking:

✅ Using sensory therapy to unlock your vacation state.

✅ The importance of finding your creative practice.

✅ Investing in and leaning on your support system.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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RESOURCES:

• How To Warm Those Cold Thoughts: t.ly/Vn_rq

• Mindfulness While Traveling: A Route to Mental Well-being: t.ly/TMyhL

• Prioritizing Mental Health: A Comprehensive Guide to Taking Care of Yourself in Challenging Times: t.ly/AQu57

• Connect with Tyler: t.ly/MOpis

• Follow Tyler’s RV Adventure: https://adventurewcoffee.com/

#MentalHealth #SensoryTherapy #SelfCare #RemoteWork #Travel #Wellness #BurnoutRecovery #RVLife #Support #Creativity

⏩ So I’ll simply share who this special extended episode of Strategy Shorts is for…

💚 It’s for conscious leaders and change-makers who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo.

Meet Justin Foster. Justin is a lot of things that people might recognise, a brand strategist, an entrepreneur, a CMO. But beyond the titles, you’ll find a story of transformation, one that has led him and his wife, Virginia, to launch Massive and become leader shapers, system shakers, and freedom makers. Particularly for those from marginalised groups.

Today, Justin joins Strategy Shorts, to unpack the power of conscious leadership and how it can challenge and transform the systems that benefit those with power and resources at the expense of everybody else.

We’re talking:

✅ Justin’s journey from right-wing Republican to Co-founder of Massive.

✅ How switching from machine to people-thinking can liberate creativity, innovation, and agency.

✅ Where to start with your own journey toward conscious leadership.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#Founder #Entrepreneur #ConsciousLeadership #SystemicChange #PurposeDriven #Leadership #Podcast #StrategyShorts

🤔 It probably depends on your definition of success.

🤝 Meet Chris Bradshaw, Global Strategy Director at Infinum…

Chris has made some bold moves in his career. Including trading in his titles for a position that would allow his passions to take the lead: as an innovator, facilitator, and success maker.

Today, Chris joins Strategy Shorts to discuss everything from leaning into personal fulfilment, how to align personal purpose with professional endeavours, and how to turn vision into practical strategy. Plus he’s got two frameworks on the grill (with a side helping of facilitation practice) for how you can simplify your approach to strategy by breaking the challenge down into bite-sized nuggets your team can gather around.

We’re talking:

✅ The power of workshops to unlock alignment (and surface risks).

✅ Meaning-making and balancing personal fulfilment with professional goals.

✅ Not one, but two, common-sense frameworks to simplify strategy.

Here’s to progress 🚀

🗞️ WTF is Strategy?

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#BusinessStrategy #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #Leadership #Podcast #StrategyShorts #Facilitation

👉 Why? Because it’s hard to find your audience on a shoestring budget.

It can be easy to think that nobody wants your solution.

But that’s not true. Your audience is out there.

Finding each other, now that’s the hard part.

Meet Pete Newsome, marketing technologist and GM at Fractal, who has unlocked the secrets to agile audience discovery without breaking the bank. He and his team have made it their mission to help small organisations take that first massive step in discovering their tribe and a foundational audience to build success from.

In this episode of Strategy Shorts, Pete shares practical approaches for startups to discover their audience and test their ideas without significant investment, focusing on content promotion, audience targeting, and leveraging existing resources.

We’re talking:

✅ Pete’s unconventional career path and his passion for service.

✅ A framework for quick, iterative, and affordable audience building.

✅ Where to start gathering insights by using content that already exists.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#AgileMarketing #StartupStrategy #MarketingInnovation #Podcast #AudienceDiscovery #Entrepreneur #NonProfit

👉 Why? Because we think reach means growth. So we sanitise instead of celebrate.

👀 But reaching lots of people isn’t the same as reaching the right people.

🎯 And reaching the right people starts when you tell your story.

Today on Strategy Shorts we welcome Purna Virji, Principal Consultant at LinkedIn. As an alumnus of Microsoft, renowned keynote speaker, and author of High-Impact Content Marketing it’s fair to say that Purna has conquered Mount Marketing.

We discuss Purna’s journey and explore the power and importance of perseverance and authenticity to drive personal growth. We also unpack how you can discover your secret sauce - the content that’s going to help you POP against a sea of samey content.

We’re talking:

✅ Purna’s journey from overcoming challenges to becoming a leading thought leader.

✅ How to ‘crawl, walk, run’ and break down your journey down into manageable steps.

✅ The power of humanising content and authenticity in personal branding in marketing.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#MarketingStrategy #ContentCreation #PersonalBranding #MarketingInsights #Podcast #StrategyShorts #ContentMarketing

👉 And I get it. Dashboards, formulas, and spreadsheets can leave you feeling lost.

🔍 But what if you started small?

Meet Susan Coelius Keplinger, CEO of Force of Nature. She’s a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who’s pushed the boundaries in both business and extreme sports and worked with some of the world’s biggest brands.

And Susan’s got your back.

In the latest episode of Strategy Shorts, we discuss how to de-risk the emotional blockers to working with data and the power of getting started with a single data point to run test-and-learn experiments. Join us to explore the balance between risk, rigour and emotion!

We’re talking…

✅ Susan’s Founders journey and where business and extreme sports meet.

✅ The art of starting small and taking calculated risks in business.

✅ The value of taking risks early, learning from failure, and embracing a growth mindset.

Here’s to progress! 🚀

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#Entrepreneurship #Innovation #Marketing #GrowthMindset #Podcast #StrategyShorts #ForceOfNature

🚪 Please leave your personality at the door.

We’re living in an age of excellent copycraft, punchy posts, and tactical creative. But where’s the heart, personality, passion, and presence?

That’s one of the hot topics I’m discussing with today’s guest on Strategy Shorts, Nicole Marguerite Gray, Founder of Five to Nine Creative.

Nicole has flat-out mastered the art of personal branding in a way that blends personality, authenticity and strategy, and helps her clients stand out against today’s ocean of technically high quality, but frankly quite mundane, content.

We also dive into Nicole’s founder’s journey and how she transformed Five to Nine Creative from side hustle to full-time gig.

We’re talking:

✅ How to avoid getting side-tracked by personal branding tactics.

✅ Nicole’s formula for building a successful personal brand.

✅ How to make a start today by simply grabbing a pen and paper.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#Founder #Entrepreneur #PersonalBranding #StrategicThinking #Marketing #Podcast #StrategyShorts #FiveToNineCreative

❎ Because the pressure to get it right costs you too much.

👉 And getting it wrong, means learning, iterating, and unlocking creative opportunities.

In our latest episode of Strategy Shorts, we’re joined by Brand Strategist, Maxton Gilchrist. Following a period of career transformation, Maxton speaks like an artist on the power of deliberate practice, creative process, and keeping passion in its place. He echoes the outlook of music producer, Jacob Collier, who challenges people to ‘make the worst song in the world’ because in removing the fear of creating something bad you open the door for your unconscious ideas to contribute and that’s when exciting things start to happen.

Maxton puts it like this, ‘Don’t let having the right answer get in the way of getting somewhere interesting’.

Maxton also breaks down one of his favourite brand strategy frameworks using common-sense language that makes it easy for everyone to use. It’s a tool that gets to the heart of the consumer problem and how a businesses can best position themselves to respond.

We’re talking:

✅ Redefining career trajectories through iterative approaches and deliberate practice.

✅ How to use the SOAP framework for creative ideation and strategic planning.

✅ The power of getting out of your own way and keeping it simple to get to effective.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#BrandStrategy #CreativeJourney #ProfessionalDevelopment #SOAPframework #StrategyShorts #Podcast #MarketingStrategy #Marketing

🤑 Always Be Closing, amiright!?

😬 Well, not today. Sorry.

Today, Sunny Singh joins Strategy Shorts to flip the famous script and talk about the power of communication.

The man’s a local legend around my way and he’s taken a wild career ride all the way from working his Mum’s market stall at 9 years old to becoming Group Commercial Director of the Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce.

But he’s more than a businessman. He’s a champion for men’s mental health and has been working to lead the business community in a way that encourages vulnerability and openness.

We’re talking:

✅ Sunny’s remarkable story and the thrill of making a 7-second impact.

✅ The power of vulnerability and openness to truly connect with others.

✅ A fresh new take on the “ABC” strategy and how it can transform your approach to business and self-care

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#Communication #ABC #SelfCare #BusinessStrategy #Business #Podcast #StrategyShortsTBC

🤔 But what if it isn’t as good as we thought?

🤯 What if we’re pouring our blood, sweat, tears, and time into something no one wants!?

Meet Travis Terrell. Travis has been on a wild ride from cash-strapped musician to groundbreaking tech Founder. His company, Soundstripe, have democratised music licensing, putting a steady stream of sustainable cash flow in the pockets of creators all around the world.

💸 But this is no rags-to-riches story of overnight success.

🧬 It's a story of thinking like a scientist. Testing, learning, failing and finally finding the formula for success.

In today’s episode of Strategy Shorts, Travis joins me to talk about his Founder’s journey and how thinking like a scientist will help you create a healthy relationship with your creative process and help you discover what’s really going to work for your brand.

And he’s speaking from hard-won experience; Soundstripe has exploded in recent years, and today, their music is used in over 1,000,000 YouTube uploads every quarter!

We're talking:

✅ Travis’ road from Nashville dreamer to tech founder.

✅ A breakdown of the scientific Method and how to think like a scientist.

✅ The critical importance of focusing on the problem you solve, not the status you want.

Here’s to progress 🚀

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#Founder #Entrepreneur #ContentStrategy #ScientificMethod #Creator #Marketing #Podcast #StrategyShorts #Soundstripe