Funnel Reboot – A show for data-based marketers

May 25, 2026May 25, 2026

Using CRM for Total Recall, with Brandon Drake

Episode 234

We humans like conversations that keep moving forward. Every time we share some detail about ourselves, we expect the other person to remember it.

If they bring that detail back up in our next interaction, we feel pleased and want to keep that relationship going. Conversely, we get annoyed when they blast us with messages we had already said didn’t interest us.

This is severely problematic for us sales and marketing professionals. The sheer volume of people and details we all encounter is too much to keep straight in our outbound emails, let alone in our heads, and that’s why we use CRMs.

But there are many CRMs out there and to fit a business, they all need to be customized. That’s where our guest comes in.

A graduate of CalState in information systems, he worked in data analyst roles for several tech companies, including a Customer Relationship Management company that sold to enterprises. Wanting to work more with solopreneurs and SMBs, he decided to go out on his own as a CRM consultant to show them sustainable relationship-building techniques. Suffice to say, he is able to deliver immediate benefits to his clients under this business model.

He also has a passion for coaching people on their nutrition, which explains why both components are blended in the name of his business – the health data guy.

Let’s go to Laguna Beach to speak with Brandon Drake.

Chapters/Timestamps:

00:00 Why Memory Matters
00:34 Meet Brandon Drake
02:19 From Burnout to Health
03:44 Back to CRM Consulting
07:00 Relationship First CRM
09:14 Automated Nurture Emails
11:20 Crowdsourced Content Engine
12:11 Bio Form Data Hack
16:11 Progressive Profiling Scores
19.45 PSA: Funnel Reboot Reading Room
20:29 Segmentation Beats Spray
26:46 Protect Email Reputation
28:16 AI Needs Process First
32:28 Where to Find Brandon

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May 14, 2026May 21, 2026

The Marketing Growth Formula, with Heidi Hattendorf

Episode 233

In the 2009 movie “Up” there’s a golden retriever whose collar can translate his thoughts to speech. When Dug the dog first starts speaking, the main characters marvel at how smart he is, but expectations drop a moment later when he snaps his head around and halts mid-sentence when he hears a squirrel.

We marketers are prone to Squirrel-chasing. Let’s be honest and admit that we get caught on a treadmill of activity without stopping to ask ourselves if it’s having an impact.

How do we break this habit? This month’s book says it’s by creating a Go-To-Market plan with detailed tactics. A plan reminds us why we’re sticking with those tactics, so we don’t get distracted by any tactic that comes along.

Our guest has an MBA and 25+ years of marketing leadership experience in the US and Europe. Her consultancy, Transformation Insights, offers Fractional CMO services that help companies grow by building go-to-market strategies that are consistent and effective. She is also a speaker and the author of The Marketing Growth Formula which came out in late 2025.

Let’s go to Miami Florida to talk with Heidi Hattendorf

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Chapters/Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

01:38 Meet Heidi Hattendorf

02:38 Three Pillars Framework

09:41 B2B Value and Brand

13:42 Thought Leadership That Works

21:49 PSA for Clinic Episode

22:46 GTM Strategies

35:21 AI Future and Wrap Up

Shownotes

Book’s site: themarketinggrowthformula.com

Heidi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidihattendorf/

Heidi’s website: https://heidihattendorf.com/

David Meerman Scott

Heidi’s Marketing Growth Formula will help you stop chasing squirrels!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oFeEIQcc-lg%3Fsi%3DAeLQGX6aRlj4puvS

April 27, 2026April 27, 2026

Market Eminence, with David Newman

Episode 232

There is a quiet, enduring power in wisdom that resists the urge to conform. Wise people refuse to abandon their convictions. It’s not obvious who will be the Wise character in These Stories, the role often casts them as having lowly beginnings or in the shadow of others who are more powerful. But they speak out anyway, even if they are mocked or sidelined. Take:

Don Quixote’s sidekick Sancho Panza, whom Quixote usually makes fun of, becomes so well known for his practical wisdom that he becomes a Governor. In the story of Sidharrtha, when the prince leaves his palace, he is called a fool and so-called teachers treat him as an outcast. They never reach enlightenment but he ultimately does. To Kill a Mockingbird’s Atticus Finch, the lawyer in the deep South who was shunned by his community for taking on an unwinnable case. Though he lost, townspeople credited him as “the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that.” Sheherazade, the woman in One Thousand and One Nights who was facing execution at dawn, but who told cliffhanger tales that stalled the king’s command, saving her life. Lastly, the Young boy In The Emperor’s New Clothes, where everyone believed the lie that only smart people could see the emperor’s clothes, so no one said anything as he walked by. The boy’s exclamation brought what everyone knew to be true into the open.

These fictional characters remind us that while the truth may be unpopular at first, people eventually realize they should listen to, and follow the person who said it. They remind us that when leaders step up, share their convictions, act as the voice of reason, they will ultimately triumph.

Our guest’s new book says that any company wanting to lead their category.must fearlessly shout out what they know to be true. The title “Market Eminence,” refers to the position of category authority that leaders who do this can reach. Its tone is as bold as his previous books Do It! Selling, Do It! Speaking and Do It! Marketing. He is also an advisor who works with marketers, salespeople and executives, host of a 500+ episode, top-ranked podcast called The Selling Show.

Let’s welcome back this previous show guest from Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania, David Newman.

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Timestamp Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:55 David’s Fork in the Road

05:42 Be The Lighthouse

07:19 Why The Book Uses Questions

08:19 Beyond Purple Cows

11:38 Lighthouse Vs Tugboat

15:03 Three Human Content Types

20:26 Boldness Repels Bad Fits

22:18 Electromagnetic Fence Exercise

24:37 Keeping Bad Fits Out

25:25 PSA

26:29 Filtering Clients Upfront

28:59 Contrarian Slant Prompts

34:06 Fortune Cookie Messaging

34:42 Brand Friends Ecosystem

37:56 Deny Lists and Conviction

40:44 Evolving Views Over Time

42:25 Speak Publish Podcast

46:47 Founder Brand Exit Myth

48:43 Where to get Book, Resources

Shownotes

David’s latest book: Market Eminence

David on:

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjnewman

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/David.Newman.Marketing.Speaker

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@dnewman

Twitter/X:https://x.com/dnewman

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/realdavidnewman

Podcast: https://doitmarketing.com/podcast/

April 13, 2026April 13, 2026

Sales and Marketing that’s Scalable, with Peter Fillmore

Episode 231

It goes without saying that the purpose of sales and marketing is to help a company grow. We create forecasts where revenue grows a hundred-thousand, a million, or 10 million dollars. But we expect to achieve that with incremental changes to our resources and tech-stacks.

When Base 10 Math is used to express numbers that differ by orders of magnitude, we use exponents, noted with the letter N put in superscript (N stands for the Latin word numerus or number). N to the power of 5 is equal to a hundred-thousand, N to the power of 7 is equal to ten million. We don’t have to raise N very much to see it balloon in size. Each increment it jumps by represents its value going up by a factor of ten.

The question of how we reach scale then isn’t how to change financial numbers by a basic percentage; it’s how do we grow them by a factor of N?

Our guest knows how sales and marketing can scale their organization without snapping them. He knows how to leverage concepts like batch mode, local vs global maximums, and WIP bottlenecks for growth.

He graduated from the University of New Brunswick with an engineering degree and then went into technically heavy roles, working in IBM’s semiconductor division. He pivoted into leading sales and marketing teams for tech organizations until the late 2000s, when he founded a product startup with an app that helped salespeople gain visibility into their funnel activity. He also teaches sales practices and scaling up in the engineering faculty at the University of Ottawa.

Join me now as I sit down in person with the head of Ottawa’s Scaling Up initiative, Peter Fillmore.

Chapters/Timestamps

00:00 Intro
02:10 My guest Peter Fillmore
03:27 What Changes When You Scale
05:37 Making the Funnel Visible
08:58 Sales Fundamentals and Urgency
09:55 PSA
12:03 Saying No and Off Ramps
13:26 Marketing Segments and Messaging
15:31 Discipline Metrics and Cadence
22:53 Connect with Peter & Ottawa Scaling Up Initiative

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People, Products mentioned in the show

Peter R Fillmore

https://ottawascalingup.ca

Scaling Up by Verne Harnish

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith

Invest Ottawa

University of Ottawa Telfer

KNBA

March 30, 2026March 30, 2026

The Social Shift, with Katie Brinkley

Social media platforms can serve as both vibrant marketplaces and spaces for genuine social interaction, where consumers feel valued, while businesses boost engagement and sales.

This picture may not look anything like the reality of social media that you see, but our guest will remind you that things haven’t always been this way.

A short glance back of the Internet shows that in the year 2000 the Internet’s governing body actually had looked at using a citizen model to allow individuals who use the internet to kind of come together as a social contract and to decide how they would be able to vote on changes to the internet – and at their peak 158,000 people were on the voting rolls. This was a radical global experiment in direct democracy.

That model didn’t take off, partly because to be a voting member, Internet users everywhere would have to (at least temporarily) upload some Identification – and most weren’t willing to share that kind of data.

What happened instead was the rise of social networks owned by a handful of companies, who conditioned us sellers to post promoted content with attention-grabbing messages because that could be used by the algorithms to keep buyers on the platforms. And I’ve got to call out how , as buyers, we’re also complicit because we now give those platforms way more data than the Internet governing body ever asked for. How ironic.

But our guest maintains that it’s in our ability to regain our equilibrium. While we’re all collectively responsible for how we communicate, marketers can be an ideal catalyst of change. We can make content that prioritizes authentic interaction over consumerism, be it on the current platforms or ones yet to exist. We should remember the saying of the American philosopher Thomas Paine: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

My guest has been leveraging social media to grow audiences and income since MySpace was around. In that 20 year timespan, she has leveraged her social media knowledge both by working for sports organizations and corporations like AT&T, iHeart Radio and DirecTV to running the agency Next Step Social that does this for health and wellness brands. She’s also a speaker and a podcaster.

She lives in Colorado with her husband and daughters. Let’s go now to speak with Katie Brinkley

Chapters/Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
03:01 Meet Katie Brinkley
04:01 What Community Means
06:03 Attention Economy Shift
08:58 Audio Beats AI
10:40 Discovery On Rented Land
11:48 Four Post Strategy
16:10 Platform Culture Matters
17:35 Metrics True Fans
19:47 Beyond Consumption Mindset
23:35 Katie Origin Story
28:03 Burnout And Conversation
32:16 Audit Your Feed
33:29 Where To Find Katie
34:00 Closing Thoughts

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