Frank Growth

Episode #243: Sandra Moran - Selling to a Buyer Who Doesn't Know They're LookingHow to reposition a category when your new buyer isn't searching for you yet.For B2B marketers moving from a legacy category to an outcome-based pitch aimed at a new economic buyer.Sandra Moran is CMO at Schoox, a learning platform built for frontline enterprises and trusted by brands like Five Guys, Wingstop, and Sports Clips. Schoox started as an LMS and is repositioning as a workforce performance platform, which meant moving the conversation from HR and L&D to CEOs and operations leaders. Sandra explains why her team tested the new positioning with existing customers first, how they moved to account-based marketing, and why employee skills now predict AI ROI. She also shares how her team's use of AI more than doubled response rates on personalized outreach.What you’ll hearWhy the LMS category stalled: it tracks course completions, not behavior change or business outcomes, and how Schoox reframed around closing the gap between underperforming and top-performing locationsWhy the repositioning ran through existing customers first: access through current L&D contacts and faster proof than a new logo's sales cycle plus implementationThe repositioning mistake to avoid: skipping the work of talking to buyers, plus why Schoox ran one-on-one interviews with customers who moved forward and those who didn'tHow the team uses AI: brand skills, an account research tool for business development that more than doubled response rates, and AI info pages that improved LLM citationsChapters00:00 - Why most repositioning efforts go wrong01:20 - Selling to a buyer who doesn't know they're looking01:48 - Why the LMS category stopped working03:30 - Shifting from HR buyers to CEOs and operations leaders05:26 - Team changes and the move to account-based marketing06:23 - Why existing frontline customers were the proving ground08:50 - The $27 to $83 guest acquisition gap10:25 - AI ROI is a readiness problem, not a technology problem12:18 - How Schoox uses AI for content, personalization, and LLM discoverability15:06 - Getting sales aligned on the new buyer persona17:01 - What B2B marketers get wrong about repositioning18:31 - Lightning round21:11 - Top three takeaways and one action for this weekLinks & resourcesGuestSandra Moran - CMO, SchooxWebsiteLinkedInAbout Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow - real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton.Promotional linksWork with Winston FrancoisSubscribe / Follow Jason

Episode #242: Nicole Cassese — Scaling brand voice without burning out the people behind itHow to keep a brand voice consistent across 1,600+ assets and still protect the team writing them.For marketing leaders, creative directors, and copywriters running high-volume content with AI in the workflow.Nicole Cassese is the associate creative director owning Quicken's narrative end to end, after more than a decade building brand voice at Disney, Headspace, and Instacart. At Instacart she pushed out more than 1,600 assets inside a highly templatized CRM system, and at Quicken her team drove a 24% preference lift among new and switcher audiences by putting one research-backed unmet need in the website hero. Jason and Nicole cover where personality fits when copy is limited to a subject line, a headline, and one sentence; how to spot creative burnout before it gets bad; why brands are turning to local heroes over influencers and AI slop; and why only 2% of S&P 500 companies can say what AI actually earned them.What you’ll hearWhy a messaging narrative is not a channel strategy, and how the rules change by funnel stage and channelThe Instacart CRM formula: incentive front and center, partner brand rules first, personality only in subject lines and headlinesThe AI mistake Nicole sees most: unchecked output and 10-page decks sent to answer one-sentence questionsThe burnout signal to watch for (feeling unable to step away for a 30-minute walk) and why she gives stressed team members time off, no questions askedChapters00:00 — Cold open: the 2% AI ROI stat00:35 — Why content factories burn out creative teams01:53 — Meet Nicole: Disney, Headspace, Instacart, Quicken03:09 — Why a messaging narrative isn't a channel strategy04:13 — Keeping voice consistent at Instacart scale05:27 — How Quicken drove a 24% preference lift06:14 — Human-centered creative for a legacy finance brand07:35 — Making time for music, poetry, and pottery08:22 — The early warning sign of creative burnout09:13 — Keeping side projects separate from the day job10:38 — What leaders should change for burned-out teams11:31 — Local heroes vs. influencers and AI slop13:25 — Agency briefs vs. community building14:10 — Instacart's pet month campaign14:47 — How AI changed the creative workflow15:46 — Rising AI costs and proving ROI16:43 — The biggest AI workflow mistake17:35 — Lightning round19:45 — Top three takeaways and this week's actionLinks & resourcesGuestNicole Cassese — Associate Creative Director, Brand & Copy, QuickenWebsiteLinkedInQuickenBand (Fabular)About Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton.Promotional linksWork with Winston FrancoisSubscribe / Follow Jason

Episode #241: Will Sartorius - AI didn't kill the creative job, it moved itHow to split ad creative work between AI and people so your ads stop sounding like everyone else's.For founders and marketers running paid social who launch plenty of ads but learn little from them.Will Sartorius, CEO of Selfmade, took over the performance creative agency after a failed acquisition left it with very little money in the bank, and rebuilt it with AI tools as GPT came out. He and Jason Shafton break down which parts of creative work AI now handles well, like tagging reviews and running time series and gap analysis on a Meta account, and which still need people: copy that makes someone feel something and angles no one has tested yet. Will walks through his "cover the logo" test, the multi-agent system Selfmade uses to write and review static ads, and why he tells lean brands to spend 50 bucks a month on a hundred AI statics before investing in storytelling.What you’ll hearHow to tell activity from strategy: run a time series analysis on your ad account, correlate persona, angle, and emotion to ROAS or CAC, and relaunch winning cohorts you haven't run in months.How Selfmade's static ad system works: it scrapes a brand's website, picks untested formats from 15 to 20 static types, runs copy through multiple copywriting agents (including one built on Daniel Kahneman's heuristics), and has 10 more agents review each image before a human signs off.The common mistake of copying competitors' creative, which Will says leads to "spend purgatory," and what he learned when his own top ads failed his cover-the-logo test.Where to start: connect the Meta API (not the Meta MCP) to Claude, tag a year of ads by persona, angle, and emotion, correlate them to ROAS and CPA, and ask what you're missing.Chapters00:00 - Intro: what's left for marketers when AI can build the strategy01:28 - Will joins: taking over Selfmade after a failed acquisition03:45 - What working every role at Selfmade taught him05:28 - Automating review tagging, and the one skill AI can't replace06:49 - Activity vs. strategy in your ad account09:06 - The cover-the-logo test and "spend purgatory"10:50 - Failing his own test11:50 - Where humans show up: the dumbbell model and the last 5%14:48 - "80% is fast, 100% is what ships": AI statics and storytelling16:22 - Inside Selfmade's multi-agent static ad system19:12 - New York's AI disclosure law for ads20:52 - A landing page for every angle you test21:32 - First fix: pull a year of Meta data into Claude22:29 - Lightning round24:26 - Jason's top three takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestWill Sartorius - CEO, SelfmadeSelfmade websiteLinkedInTwitterNewsletterAbout Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow - real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton.Promotional linksWork with Winston FrancoisSubscribe / Follow Jason

Episode #240: Bryan House - Tearing up the enterprise GTM playbook as a challenger brandElastic Path cut its website to two forms, its marketing team from 13 people to 3, and its implementation bids to a third of the price of competitors.For B2B leaders at challenger brands whose activity metrics look busy while growth stays flat.Bryan House is CEO of Elastic Path, a composable commerce platform competing with Shopify, BigCommerce, and Commerce Tools in a market where nearly every company already has a commerce platform. Looking at the data, he found little to no correlation between sales and marketing activity and outcomes, and not one downloaded analyst report form fill had ever turned into an opportunity. He and Jason get into cutting the top of the funnel down to two forms, putting competitors on the homepage, bringing implementation in-house to remove the incentive gap with systems integrators, and using AI and better product to move commerce implementation toward six weeks and $100,000.What you’ll hearWhy Elastic Path replaced BDR cold calling, nurture campaigns, and gated content with two forms on its site: get in touch or request a demoHow marketing went from 13 people to 3, with Claude and product managers covering messaging, positioning, and sales trainingThe trap of falling back on proven sales systems, like swapping BDRs for AI BDRs, when the underlying motion isn't workingBryan's test for contrarian moves like naming competitors on your homepage: what's the downside risk, and is it catastrophic?Chapters00:00 - Why enterprise B2B go-to-market is stuck02:00 - Bryan joins: rewriting the classic enterprise GTM playbook04:13 - No correlation between activity and outcomes06:29 - Being ready when buyers raise their hand07:51 - Commerce for weirdos09:45 - Finding the right customers as a challenger brand11:52 - Putting competitors on the homepage13:52 - Taking implementation to six weeks and $100,00016:06 - Bringing implementation in-house and the SI incentive problem17:56 - Cutting marketing from 13 to 3 and letting Claude do product marketing20:31 - Expansion vs. new logos21:46 - Where the growth is: mid-market B2B e-commerce24:17 - Lightning round26:37 - Jason's top three takeawaysLinks & resourcesGuestBryan House - CEO, Elastic PathWebsiteLinkedInAbout Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow: real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton.Promotional linksWork with Winston FrancoisSubscribe / Follow Jason

Episode #239: Adam Spector - Why startups should automate or outsource before they hireHow to decide whether a task needs a new hire, AI, or an outside vendor.For founders of early-stage, venture-backed companies with 5 to 75 employees who are about to add headcount.Adam Spector is the founder and CEO of Chore, which runs the back office (HR and fractional chief of staff work) for early-stage, venture-backed tech companies with 5 to 75 employees. Chore came out of a company that raised about $10 million but couldn't raise its next round; Adam split it in two, took the services team, and set out to make it profitable. We cover why he now asks "How can we solve this with AI?" before every hire, what happened when he gave each go-to-market team member a monthly qualified-lead target after his head of go-to-market left, and why he thinks founders should outsource admin instead of building an internal team for it. One detail: Chore averages 2-3% of a customer's total monthly expenses, against about 10% at the average company.What you’ll hearThe question Adam asks before hiring, and the Claude project tied to Chore's CRM that now pulls the weekly sales metrics his former head of go-to-market used to compileHow Adam reset his go-to-market team: one metric per person, a set number of qualified leads per month in each channelWhy the team pushed back on that target, and why Adam decided it was not going to be a fit long termThe objection Chore hears most ("that seems expensive"), and Adam's math on a roughly $1,500-a-month service versus 10 to 20 hours of a founder's timeGrowth by subtraction: why managers shouldn't be a crutch, and Adam's view that managers may be irrelevant at fast-moving companies within a year or twoChapters/Timestamps00:00 - Cold open: the go-to-market team pushes back00:40 - Intro: founders have a curiosity problem, not a team problem02:07 - What Chore does and who it serves03:20 - Splitting the company and building a profitable services business04:24 - Why referrals are Chore's main growth channel05:36 - Premature hiring and asking "How can we solve this with AI?"06:55 - "That seems expensive": 2-3% versus 10% on admin08:33 - Resetting the go-to-market team10:39 - Hiring curious builders11:36 - Ollie, Chore's AI ops co-pilot12:55 - Why AI doesn't have to kill services margins13:38 - Growth by subtraction and managers as a crutch14:43 - What managers are for in the future of work15:35 - The hiring audit: automate, outsource, delegate16:48 - The most expensive back-office mistake founders make17:27 - Lightning round18:37 - Where to find Adam19:15 - Top three takeaways and one action for this weekLinks & resourcesGuestAdam Spector - Founder and CEO, ChoreChore WebsiteLinkedInXEntrepreneurial Excellence PodcastAbout Frank GrowthFrank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow - real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton.Promotional linksWork with Winston FrancoisSubscribe / Follow Jason