More than a Few Words

Do you remember marketing meetups? Not the polished, sponsor-filled kind. I mean the scrappy, “grab a coffee and chat” kind. No agenda. No name tags. Just people who geek out over marketing gathering to swap stories, ideas, and maybe a slice of pizza.

Then  social media distracted us.  It was easier to post on Twitter and LinkedIn from the comfort of your bet then it was to get out of bed and come to a networking even . Then along ...

I had a conversation with Laura Chattington, a strategist who’s helped companies with enough zeros to make your head spin. We didn’t talk about prompts, plugins, or the latest hack for writing Instagram captions in 30 seconds flat. We talked about something much more important: how to make AI part of your marketing strategy instead of just your to-do list.

Laura reframed the conversation around two powerful words: speed and leverag...

Is It Too Late to Start a Podcast? Roy Coughlan Doesn’t Think So

I sat down with Roy Coughlan, a serial entrepreneur turned podcast coach, to tackle a question that’s been floating around like last week’s leftovers: Is podcasting still worth it?

If you’ve been wondering whether the market is too crowded or if there’s even room for one more voice (yours), Roy has a clear answer: Yes, there’s room. Especially for podcasters who stick...

I had a conversation with Deanna Russo, LinkedIn pro and founder of Leverage Up, about one of those ideas that sounded great in theory—but fizzled out in practice. Her LinkedIn group community was supposed to be the perfect extension of her one-on-one coaching work. But in the end, it didn’t quite land the way she hoped.

Deanna built a network of over 30,000 followers on LinkedIn, so she knows a thing or two about creating connecti...

I am going to start this marketing monologue with a story. 

I'm going to start with a story.

I was about four years old and I went into a bakery with my dad. And while he was ordering breads and pastries, I was standing there looking in the glass counter at these beautiful pastries.

Eventually, my dad looked down and he says, Lanie, do you want one? Yes, Daddy. So the woman reaches behind the counter and she gets me a Charlotte R...

What if I told you there was one metric that could truly move your business forward—and most business owners aren’t even paying attention to it? That’s what we’re diving into in this episode of More than a Few Words. I had a conversation with jake Tlapek, aka the Wizard of Marketing, who’s spent the last decade helping struggling brands become high-growth success stories using battle-tested SEO and creative problem-solving.

Episode...

Joseph ( Dr. Joey) Drolshagen, left behind a high-powered corporate career to launch his own coaching business built on the SMT Method—Subconscious Mindset Training. He's seen incredible success helping companies grow, but in this conversation we’re not talking about the wins.

We're digging into one of his biggest flops: a year-long coaching program called Struggle to Soar—designed for men navigating divorce, loss, or career upheav...

What Went Wrong: I Was Talking to the Wrong Audience

After years of interviewing guests about their marketing mistakes, I decided it was time to turn the microphone on myself. This solo episode of More than a Few Words dives into one of my biggest missteps—fifteen years in the making.

When I launched More than a Few Words, I imagined it as a smart marketing resource for small business owners. I was running a digital agency, working...

 Phillipa Games, has spent more than 25 years swimming in the deep end of digital strategy and analytics. With experience across nearly 500 clients and websites that have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, Phillipa has seen it all from the good, to the bad, and the wildly overlooked.

In this conversation, we peeled back the curtain on website analytics, not the overwhelming, chart-filled dashboard version, but the real, hu...

Imagine being a fly on the wall, hearing what people really say about your business when you’re not in the room. That’s the promise of AI-driven SEO today.

I sat down with Michael Buckbee, a marketing and tech veteran, to talk about how tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are reshaping brand visibility. This isn’t your standard SEO conversation, it’s a peek behind the digital curtain to discover what AI thinks about your bus...

My guest, Steven Lewis, broke one my big rules.  It is ok, to make mistakes, you just don't want to make the same mistake twice.  And he did.

Yep, Steven started not one, but two businesses that were—how shall I say this?—a bit too far ahead of their time. And in this candid chat, we unpack what he learned, how it shaped the work he does today, and what you, as a business owner, can take away without having to make the same mistake...

Have you ever had that one brilliant idea—the one you were sure would be a game-changer—only to watch it sputter out despite all your careful planning? Oh, friend, you’re not alone.

 I sat down with Whitney Bateson, a passionate entrepreneur who helps wellness professionals build their online credibility. But this time, we weren’t talking about wins, we were unpacking a launch that landed with a thud. Whitney shared the story of he...

“Yes, the world feels like a hot mess right now. But what if the real power lies not in fixing the chaos ‘out there,’ but in finding our footing ‘in here’?”

That was the heart of my recent conversation on More Than a Few Words with the always wise and wonderfully grounded Deborah Sunderland. We didn’t talk strategy or spreadsheets this time—we talked soul. How we, as women business owners, can navigate the storms of our external wo...

Andrew Laws has back in my guest chair (if you missed our first conversation, find it here) it, you’ll find the link in the show notes). This time we shifted away from SEO tips and took a different route—down a bumpy road lined with good intentions, disastrous mistakes, and a hacker with way too much free time.

Andrew’s story is packed with humor, hard-earned lessons, and a healthy reminder that if a business idea sounds too easy, ...

If you've been around here for a while, you already know—I’m an email marketing geek. Not the kind of geek who builds robots in her basement, but the kind who gets excited about subject lines and open rates the way some folks get excited about the first tulips of the season. That’s why chatting with Ellen McDowell Strauss felt like talking to an old friend who also happens to alphabetize her spice rack. Ellen and I first connected ...

You know, I’ve spent years telling business owners to get laser-focused. Find your niche, talk to your niche, sell to your niche. It’s like that old saying: “You can’t please everyone, so pick your people.” But every once in a while, someone comes along and flips my perfectly organized marketing world on its head.

That someone was Matt Diamante, founder of Hey Tony, a marketing agency that helps small business owners tackle SEO and...

We've all had those “seemed like a good idea at the time” moments. Hers involved a Voxer coaching program, and in the spirit of learning from those detours, we unpacked what happened, what she learned, and how there might still be life in that idea yet.

Main Points:

1. Great ideas don’t always land the way you expect. Danielle created a Voxer-based coaching program for personal brand support between sessions. Despite promotions...

In this edition of What Went Wrong, I got a chance to explore mistakes, missteps, and the humbling reality that even seasoned pros can land flat on their face with repeat guest Robin Waite. This time, he didn’t come with a polished pitch or a shiny success story. He brought a cautionary tale about Facebook ads, cold leads, and a £9,000 lesson in what happens when you trust the algorithm more than your instincts.

You know, I’ve always believed marketing should feel more like a warm hug than a high-pressure sales pitch. So when Alesia Galati and I got to chatting about social media burnout (oh yes, that nagging, energy-draining beast), it was like she reached into my cluttered content calendar and whispered, “There’s a better way.” We laughed, we nodded, and somewhere between SEO tips and podcast rants, I found myself ready to trade reels fo...