In today’s hyper competitive digital landscape, standing out with crystal clear brand positioning and authentic marketing is your secret weapon to crush competitors, attract loyal customers, and accelerate unstoppable growth.

Cory Hanscom, seasoned CMO and expert in brand architecture, reveals how modern businesses lose relevance when they fail to evolve their brand strategy to match shifting markets and buyer ambitions.

Drawing on over three decades of experience including leadership at 3M, Cory teaches solopreneurs and founders practical methods to diagnose brand drift, retarget smartly without losing valuable equity, and establish powerful, differentiated narratives that emotionally connect and command attention.

He explains how to narrow your focus on niche dominance, craft compelling value propositions, and avoid the content homogenization caused by unfiltered AI messaging. Cory shares tools to audit your brand’s precision, align your marketing to core business ambitions, and build authentic community engagement that drives real business outcomes.

Listeners will gain actionable insights into evolving their brands strategically, deploying targeted campaigns that resonate deeply, and confidently owning their market space.

Key Insights:

3:54 - Why On-Brand Marketing Fails

7:23 - Brand Targeting Self-Assessment

8:14 - The 8 Brand Positioning Roles

9:28 - You Can't Be Everything

11:40 - Strategy Before Tactics

13:59 - Commit to Your Business Model

18:12 - When to Retarget Your Brand

24:28 - AI's Marketing Sameness Problem

34:13 - Quality Over Quantity in Marketing

Connect With Cory: linkedin.com/in/coryhanscom

Brand Articulate: https://www.brandarticulate.com/

Follow Jake:

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

TikTok: @JakeTheMindMechanic

Podcast: https://thejakestahl.com/podcast/

Book: Own the Room: https://thejakestahl.com/books/

This episode is brought to you by Orchestraight. Start your free 7-day trial at orchestraight.com.

Orchestraight. The straightest path to success.

Most salespeople lose deals not because of what they say, but because they don’t know when to stop talking. Imagine turning high-pressure conversations into your arena of control, using the power of silence to slow the room down, elevate your presence, and let decisions come to you.

Jake and Jon break down five essential habits that transform how you communicate under pressure: deliberately slowing your speech to convey calm authority; mastering the two-second pause to show thoughtfulness and command respect; silencing yourself after making asks to avoid showing uncertainty; replacing defensive rambling with clear, confident direction; and ending your statements with finality, not questions, to project unwavering assurance.

Backed by cutting-edge research, this episode reveals how silence isn’t a void to fear but a powerful presence that commands attention, lowers defenses, and builds influence—even when the stakes are high and emotions run wild. Learn how to harness these habits to own every room you step into, from tense board meetings to critical sales calls.

Follow Jake:

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

TikTok: @JakeTheMindMechanic

Podcast: https://thejakestahl.com/podcast/

Book: Own the Room: https://thejakestahl.com/books/

This episode is brought to you by Orchestraight. Get a free 7-day trial at orchestraight.com.

Orchestraight. The straightest path to success.

Tired of sending endless LinkedIn messages that get ignored? The secret isn’t more automation... it’s being a human in a robotic world. Discover how authentic connection on LinkedIn will blow away the noise and open doors you didn’t know existed.

Bill McCormick is a leading authority on authentic relational intelligence and LinkedIn coaching. He is dedicated to helping solopreneurs and sales professionals grow through genuine human connection rather than automation or scripts. Bill shares how modern tools can help, but true sales success on LinkedIn relies on showing up authentically and building trust.

Bill explains the pitfalls of overusing automation and AI for outreach, risking account restrictions and low engagement. Instead, he encourages starting with a strong LinkedIn profile that showcases your value proposition clearly and leverages real client feedback as social proof.

Jake and Bill discuss practical outreach tips, emphasizing the power of personal introductions, authentic engagement on social content, and avoiding generic, pushy sales tactics. They highlight strategies to build relationships by focusing on clients' actual challenges and asking thoughtful, curiosity-driven questions.

Bill also shares how he offers complimentary consultations and team webinars to help build LinkedIn skills, delivering measurable business development results.

This episode equips listeners with actionable, human-centered tactics to cut through LinkedIn noise and build meaningful networks that convert.

0:52 - The Problem with Automation

2:19 - Bill's Background Story

7:55 - Optimizing Your Profile

14:35 - The Art of Authentic Outreach

21:49 - Making Bad Impressions at Scale

29:45 - Crafting Your About Section

33:39 - How to Connect with Bill

Connect with Bill: Bill@allsellingissocial.com

Bill's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billmccormick/

Follow Jake:

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

TikTok: @JakeTheMindMechanic

Podcast: https://thejakestahl.com/podcast/

Book: Own the Room: https://thejakestahl.com/books/

This episode is brought to you by Orchestraight. You can get a free trial of Orchestraight, an NLP-based Lead Gen tool, for 7 days, up at orchestraight.com.

Orchestraight. The straightest path to success.