In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Tracy Graziani, founder of Green Fire Strategy, to break down why companies stall after early traction, why “hypergrowth” can actually be dangerous, and how the best teams scale through process, empathy, and consistency, not rockstar hires.

Tracy explains how real growth comes from aligning sales, marketing, and service into one seamless customer experience, and why most companies don’t have a strategy at all, they have a list of tactics.

They also dive deep into the biggest shift happening right now: AI is creating more content than ever, but most of it is junk. The brands that win next will be the ones who use AI for analysis and insight, not just generation.

Chapters
00:00 AI SEO Playbook Intro
04:42 Meet Tracy Graziani
08:33 Focus on What Works
12:29 Team Performance
16:34 Learning Mindset
20:38 Process Tangibility
25:18 Pain Points & Promise
30:22 AI Content Quality
34:09 Customer Pain Points
40:33 AI Streamlines Research
44:24 Consistent AEO Themes
48:04 Strong Opinions Work
53:24 CRM Automation Power
57:13 Growth Plan Strategy ️
01:02:08 Customer Service Role
01:06:08 Marketing Misfits ️

This episode covers:

- Why “SEO is dead” has been said since 1996

- What AI is actually changing in marketing

- Why AEO experts are mostly guessing

- Why process beats personality

- Why competent teams outperform outlier hires

- Why retention and service are the real growth levers

- How to do persona research the right way

- How AI tools like NotebookLM change research forever

- What content still works in 2026

If you’re building a business, scaling a team, or trying to future-proof your marketing for AI search, this is one of the most practical episodes you’ll hear. Guest Tracy Graziani Founder, Green Fire Strategy (Cleveland, Ohio) Website: greenfirestrategy.com LinkedIn: Tracy Graziani

Topics Covered

- Systems and SOPs that actually get used

- Good growth vs bad growth

- Why churn kills scaling

- Sales process vs rockstar salespeople

- Persona research and customer interviews

- AI content “slop” and why quality wins

- What SEO tactics stop working

- What content wins in AI search

- Original research, opinions, and POV content

- HubSpot explained in plain English

- Why most companies don’t have a strategy

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Some of the best business ideas don’t come from a boardroom. They come from a slow conversation, a shared experience, and a product that forces you to sit down and actually talk. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Brandon Wells (aka Cigar Mechanic) to break down what a cigar broker actually does, how cigar brands grow without in-house reps, and why the cigar industry is still one of the most relationship-driven markets left. Brandon explains how he accidentally turned an Instagram handle into a real business, how cigar manufacturers choose between brokers vs in-house reps, and why “story” sells more than packaging in premium categories.

This is also a surprisingly practical episode for anyone in e-commerce, DTC, or brand building, because the cigar world exposes a truth most modern marketers ignore: People don’t buy products. They buy the experience behind them.

What You’ll Learn

- What a cigar broker actually does

- The 3 ways cigar brands sell

- Why relationships beat packaging

- How Brandon built Cigar Mechanic

- The key question he asks brands

- Why cigar lounges are loss leaders

- What most cigar shops do wrong

- How placement drives sales

- Why limited releases fail

- The real “cigar culture” advantage

- The surprising psychology of memory + products

- Why the cigar industry is behind in marketing

- How demographics really work in cigars

- Why value is personal (even at $300)

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Timestamps:

00:00 What Is a Cigar Broker?

03:54 Meet Brandon Wells

05:07 How Cigar Mechanic Started

06:41 The “God Moment”

08:43 Cigar Broker Explained

09:28 3 Ways Brands Sell

12:30 Brandon’s Territory Strategy

13:44 The Interview Filter

15:59 The Million-Dollar Question

18:12 The Worst Cigar Lesson

23:11 Story Beats the Product

28:12 The Cigar Culture Effect

33:49 Why Canada Kills Lounges

49:56 How Lounges Make Money

Guest: Brandon Wells (Cigar Mechanic) Cigar broker, marketer, and founder

Instagram: @cigarmechanic

YouTube: Cigar Mechanic

YouTube: Voodoo Monkey Garage

About Marketing Misfits Marketing Misfits is hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King and features real conversations with operators, founders, and marketers. New episodes every Tuesday.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Entrepreneurs don’t burn out because they lack ideas. They burn out because they stay stuck doing work they should have left years ago. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with James Friel, founder of 57 Hats, to break down why growing businesses start bleeding time, money, and energy and how founders can systematically escape roles that are holding them back.

James Friel explains why most businesses suffer from waste, poor role clarity, weak systems, and misaligned hiring, and why entrepreneurs must treat themselves like temporary “special forces”: build the system, extract yourself, and move on to the next constraint.

This is a practical, operator-level conversation about systems, hiring, delegation, performance management, and building businesses that can actually run without you.

If you’re wearing too many hats, struggling to hire, or wondering why revenue keeps growing but profits don’t, this episode will feel uncomfortably accurate.

Chapters

00:00 Entrepreneurs Die Inside

01:04 The Spider Prank Story

03:39 Meet James Friel

07:20 Businesses That Are Bleeding

08:32 Value vs Waste Explained

11:01 The Hiring Rollercoaster

12:11 Work Your Strengths

14:09 Know Your Real Profits

16:04 Build Systems First

18:47 The Special Forces Role

21:48 Buy Back Your Time

23:41 The Five Business Pillars

27:26 Agency vs In-House

31:09 Teams Aren’t Families
36:18 Fixing Broken Businesses
48:31 Inside 57 Hats
59:17 Why Letting Go Is Hard

What You’ll Learn
- Why entrepreneurs “die inside” when they stay stuck too long
- The difference between value creation vs waste in a business
- When to hire, outsource, or automate (and how to decide)
- Why founders should buy back their time aggressively
- How to identify $10, $100, $1,000, and $10,000 tasks-
- Why most entrepreneurs are bad managers and what to do instead
- How to escape the hire–fire roller coaster
- Why systems matter more than effort
- People, processes, and tools explained clearly
- How poor role clarity kills otherwise good teams
- Why managing outcomes beats managing tasks
- The truth about “we’re a family” culture at work
- Why teams must change as businesses grow
- How poor performance management causes massive waste
- Why almost no business is ever “perfect”
- How clarity fixes most operational problems
- Why letting go is the hardest (and most important) skill
- Why most small businesses never sell and how to avoid that fate

About the Guest
James is a systems-focused operator and the creator of 57 Hats, a hands-on framework and physical product designed to help founders identify which roles they should keep, delegate, or eliminate entirely.

About Marketing Misfits Marketing Misfits features honest, unfiltered conversations with founders, operators, and marketers who build real businesses without buzzwords or fluff.

Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King.
New episodes every Tuesday.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Amazon sellers are waking up to a reality shift. Owning customer data. Building lifetime value. Controlling email, retention, and repeat buyers. And unlocking Shopify’s edge as AI, LLM search, and agentic commerce change how people shop. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Shopify expert Scott Cunningham breaks down why Amazon sellers are moving to Shopify, how to build a real brand instead of chasing products, and how storytelling, hooks, and ad positioning drive sustainable growth.

We dive into Shopify vs Amazon, email as an ATM, lifetime value economics, ad testing frameworks, TBIF storytelling, AI-powered copywriting, AEO optimization, and the future of ecommerce discovery through ChatGPT and agentic browsers. If you sell on Amazon, Shopify, TikTok Shop, Walmart, or DTC, this episode gives you a blueprint to build brand equity, retention, and scalable growth.

Chapters

00:00 Why Amazon Sellers Need Shopify

02:29 Shopify vs Amazon Business Models

05:13 Meet Scott Cunningham

07:25 Amazon vs Shopify Mindset Shift

15:08 The Shopify “Scrappy Middle”

16:02 Email as a Revenue Engine

17:09 Why Shopify Beats Other Platforms

20:18 Shopify Apps and Store Flexibility

22:42 Founder Storytelling for Sales

24:07 TBIF Offer Framework

32:25 Ad Testing Like “Omelet Experiments”

34:38 Creative Testing Tools vs Ads

39:52 Meta Ads vs Google Strategy

41:36 AI Search, AEO, and Shopify Advantage

45:03 The Future of AI-Driven Shopping

59:00 Building Community and Retention

1:04:00 Scott’s StorySelling AI Tool

1:07:36 Shopify Growth Takeaways

About Marketing Misfits: Marketing Misfits features unfiltered conversations with operators, founders, and marketers who build real businesses through trust, distribution, and execution. Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King. New episodes every Tuesday.

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Resources & Mentions

Scott’s StorySelling AI https://merchantmastery.io/gpt

Merchant Mastery Program https://merchantmastery.io

Marketing Misfits Podcast https://marketingmisfits.co

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Most creators focus on attention.The smart ones turn that attention into trust. And trust creates optionality. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Jordan DiPietro to break down how content becomes trust, how trust becomes community, and why the best communities can charge $10,000–$25,000 per year without hurting conversions.

Jordan has built at the center of some of the most influential media and community brands in the world. He spent nearly 13 years at The Motley Fool, became CEO of The Hustle before its acquisition by HubSpot, ran HubSpot’s media division, and later served as CEO of Hampton, one of the most exclusive private tech communities. This is a deep, tactical conversation on community design, pricing, trust, vetting, retention, and monetization, not theory. If you’re building a newsletter, podcast, paid community, mastermind, or founder-led brand, this episode gives you the real playbook.

What You’ll Learn

- Why attention without trust is worthless

- The difference between an audience and a community

- How The Hustle turned content into leverage

- Why newsletters are still one of the strongest trust channels

- Content → trust → optionality explained

- Community vs mastermind (and why it matters)

- How Hampton vetted members and rejected 50–60% of applicants

- Why most paid communities fail after launch

- The biggest pricing mistakes founders make

- How to decide between $1K, $10K, or $25K pricing

Guest Jordan DiPietro Former CEO of The Hustle Former Media Lead at HubSpot Former CEO of Hampton Newsletter writer, advisor, and founder coach Website & newsletter:https://jordandipietro.com/

Chapters

00:00 Content Creates Optionality

01:40 Meet Jordan D. Petro

04:24 From Motley Fool to Hustle

08:15 Are Newsletters Saturated?

12:46 Audience vs Community

15:01 Monetizing Trust Correctly

18:56 Community vs Mastermind

20:42 Vetting Members Matters

24:33 How Communities Stay Engaged

27:02 Do You Need IRL Events?

31:32 Why Founders Are the Funnel

33:49 Why Communities Fail

34:42 Pricing a $10K Community

56:38 Growing a Newsletter Long-Term

About Marketing Misfits:

Marketing Misfits features unfiltered conversations with operators, founders, and marketers who build real businesses through trust, distribution, and execution.

Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King. New episodes every Tuesday.

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

If you’re serious about building authority, monetizing trust, and creating leverage through content, subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Most companies are using AI wrong. They think it’s about cutting staff or automating a few tasks. But the real power of AI is something much bigger. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Rachel Woods, one of the world’s top AI operations experts, to show how businesses are turning their internal playbooks into AI-powered systems that can run entire workflows on autopilot. Rachel previously worked on the early transformer technology behind modern AI while at Facebook, then built and sold a VC-backed startup before launching her AI operations agency. Today, she helps companies replace weeks of manual work with AI systems that run in hours.

They break down what “AI operators” really are, how agentic AI works, and why companies that fail to build internal playbooks will get wiped out as models improve. This is not theory. You will hear exactly how an agency replaced a 3-week influencer vetting process with an AI system that runs in hours, plus how Amazon sellers, agencies, and SaaS companies can apply the same playbook.

What you’ll learn

• What “AI operations” actually means

• Why SOPs are more valuable than software

• How AI agents differ from basic automation

• How to turn your workflows into AI playbooks

• How companies are replacing entire departments with AI systems

• How long it really takes to deploy agentic AI

• What AI will be capable of in the next 6–12 months

• How to avoid building on tools that get wiped out by model updates

• How to future-proof your business using playbooks instead of platforms

Timestamps

00:00 AI replaces a 3-week workflow

01:01 Marketing Misfits intro

02:12 The spider prank story

04:01 Meet Rachel Woods

06:46 Facebook AI background

07:31 What is a transformer?

09:29 From Facebook to startup

11:09 Why ChatGPT changed everything

12:39 What AI operations means

14:38 How AI playbooks are built

16:25 Can you trust AI agents?

18:14 AI vs downsizing teams

20:52 Automation vs true AI

26:14 How Claude rewrote software jobs

47:25 Influencer vetting case study

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

About the guest

Rachel Woods is the founder of an AI operations agency and the creator of The Exchange, a training platform for AI operators. She previously worked on transformer-based AI systems at Facebook and later built and sold a VC-backed startup using GPT before ChatGPT went mainstream. She now helps companies build AI systems that replace entire workflows instead of just single tasks.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Landing pages alone don’t convert like they used to. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Luca Borreani, founder of ZipChat.ai, to break down why conversational marketing is replacing static funnels and how AI chat is quietly becoming one of the biggest conversion unlocks in e-commerce. Consumers now spend hours talking to ChatGPT, asking detailed questions before buying. This episode explains why that behavior is bleeding directly into shopping behavior, and why brands that rely only on landing pages, FAQs, and analytics are missing what actually stops conversions. This is a deep, practical conversation about last-mile conversion, removing buyer doubt, and how chat data reveals insights that analytics never will.

What You’ll Learn:

- Why landing pages alone are no longer enough

- How conversational marketing removes last-minute buyer doubts

- Why people trust chat more than static copy

- The biggest copy mistake hurting conversions

- How small headline changes massively impact results

- Why analytics can’t reveal real buyer objections

- How chat uncovers hidden conversion blockers

- The difference between traffic and real intent

- Why product-market fit still beats everything

- How affiliate marketing sharpened modern conversion skills

Timestamps

00:00 Landing Pages Are Failing

01:40 Why Chat Converts

03:30 Meet Luca Borreani

08:00 Affiliate Skills That Matter

12:00 Copywriting Drives Conversions

21:05 The Last-Mile Problem

24:30 Conversational Marketing Wins

26:50 Analytics Miss Buyer Doubts

30:00 Training AI Conversations

33:45 Chat Reveals Hidden Objections

40:35 Why Users Trust Chat

49:45 WhatsApp Marketing Power

56:00 Agentic Commerce Future

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Guest

Luca Borreani Founder, ZipChat.ai Conversion science, conversational commerce, AI marketing Website: https://zipchat.ai

LinkedIn: Luca Boreanni

Email: luca@zipchat.ai

About Marketing Misfits Marketing Misfits features unfiltered conversations with founders, operators, and marketers who actually build and scale businesses.

Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King. New episodes every Tuesday.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

If you teach, coach, sell information, or run an online business, this episode is a wake-up call. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Dan Ashburn, founder of Titan Network, to break down how AI, agentic systems, personal brand, and community are reshaping marketing, e-commerce, and education at a speed most businesses are not prepared for.

Dan explains why creators, educators, and consultants who don’t integrate AI into real-time execution will end up like Blockbuster, while those who do will build the next Netflix. This is a deep, practical conversation about what’s actually changing, what still matters, and where the real leverage is right now.

This is not surface-level AI hype. It’s about systems, trust, proof, and execution.

What You’ll Learn:

- Why AI must deliver learning while users take action

- The real difference between agents and agentic systems

- Why trust in AI answers is already outperforming Google search

- How AEO (AI Engine Optimization) is driving 10–15% conversion rates

- Why community matters more in an AI-driven, non-personal world

- How Titan Network structures masterminds by business maturity

- Why authenticity and proof now outperform hype marketing

- How personal brand beats company brand at the top of funnel

- Why “standing for something” is required to build community

- How polarization helps cut through AI-generated noise

- The biggest shifts in performance marketing over the last 5 years

- Why content volume now matters more than polish

- How AI is collapsing weeks of work into hours

- Where AI avatars, IP, and personal brand are heading next

- What most people misunderstand about compliance and AI

- How businesses should realistically get started with agents

- Why AI will reward early adopters and widen the gap fast

00:00 Intro

03:56 Introducing Dan Ashburn

04:54 Dan’s Early SEO and Affiliate Marketing Days

09:39 From Trouble to the Military and Business Discipline

12:57 Discovering Amazon and Escaping Agency Life

15:25 China Trips and the Birth of Titan Network

16:25 What Titan Network Is and Why It Works

18:18 Proof, Credibility, and Selling High-Ticket Communities

24:20 How to Build a Community in an AI World

30:27 Major Shifts in Performance Marketing

33:45 How AI Is Compressing Marketing Timelines

39:46 Personal Brand as the New IP

49:25 What Agentic AI Actually Means

01:00:18 AI Compliance, Risk, and Regulation Reality

Dan Ashburn Founder, Titan Network

E-commerce, AI systems, performance marketing

Instagram: @danashburnuk Email: dan@titannetwork.com

Website: https://titannetwork.com

About Marketing Misfits Marketing Misfits features real conversations with operators, founders, and marketers who actually build businesses — not just talk about them. Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King. New episodes every Tuesday.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.