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Author: Tom Nixon

  • More Tools Than Ever. The Needle Still Isn’t Moving.

    More Tools Than Ever. The Needle Still Isn’t Moving.

    What happens when an industry’s quality gate disappears—and why the same thing is happening to marketing right now.

    The following is reprinted from our Substackour Substack, Bullhorns and Bullseyes Bullhorns and Bullseyes, written by my co-host Curtis Hays of Collideascope…

    Every marketer I talk to right now has more tools than they’ve ever had in their career. Websites you can stand up in an afternoon. Free reach to anyone on earth through social. Now AI sitting on top of all of it, writing the copy, building the images, answering in seconds what used to take a week.

    And the needle is not moving.

    Not because the tools are bad. Not because the team isn’t trying hard enough. It’s because tools amplify whatever’s underneath them, and most of the time what’s underneath isn’t solid enough to amplify.

    Watch Now: Why Are We Stuck?

    I’ve been circling this problem longer than I realized. In 1998 I was working nights at a bank, running mainframe jobs on a Unix box, balancing transactions while the system chewed through its batch. There was a lot of downtime in that job, and I filled it writing. Not marketing. Just sitting with a hard question long enough to actually get somewhere with it, instead of reaching for the first answer. I never finished college. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the first real practice I had at digging past the obvious answer to the true one.

    Tom Nixon, my co-host on Bullhorns & Bullseyes, has been circling the same instinct from a different direction for thirty years, across two novels and a career in advertising production. Neither of us invented this argument last week. We just finally said it out loud on air: we’re writing a book together. It’s called The Marketing Reformation.

    None of that is the point. The point is the argument underneath it. Every time an industry’s quality gate comes down, volume explodes and the average collapses. Record labels used to force a musician through years of proving they could actually play before anyone heard them. That gate came down, and there’s a line from Toto’s Steve Lukather that Tom’s heard attributed to him more than once: back then you needed real musicianship to make a world-class album, now all you need is a celebrity and a laptop. Advertising had the same gate. Mad Men-era agencies were full of their own sins, but at minimum they made someone do their homework before an idea reached a client. WordPress took the same kind of gate down for building a website. You don’t need a developer anymore, so you don’t get one, and now there are a hundred million websites that say nothing. AI is doing this to marketing right now, faster than any of the previous collapses.

    Tom put words to the distinction we keep circling back to on air: anyone can come up with an idea. The job was never coming up with it. The job is making the idea hold with the customer. Marketing’s default move is skipping straight to the coming-up-with part and calling it strategy.

    I wrote down a line from a Brian Clark newsletter a while back that’s stuck with me since: once you understand your wiring, you don’t choose your movement, you come to recognize it, because you understand which movements already resonate with who you actually are. That’s what this book is for me. Not a new idea. A recognition of one I’ve been circling since a bank mainframe in 1998.

    Tom’s friend Chuck Bean has a line he uses with clients constantly: you’re not arguing with me, you’re arguing with the data. That’s the whole discipline in one sentence. Find the customer’s actual truth first. Then, and only then, turn the amplifier on.

    I was raised Lutheran, and the title isn’t an accident. The Reformation wasn’t Luther inventing a new belief. It was a correction back to what people already, authentically believed, once the gatekeeper standing between them and it got out of the way. That’s what Tom and I think marketing needs right now: a correction back to the truth the whole apparatus was supposed to serve, before anyone turns the amplifier on.

    The prologue is written. The outline is locked. We’ve already got three or four chapters down, passed back and forth between us. We said out loud on air that we’re aiming for this year. Now we can’t renege.

    We’ll be publishing the deeper cuts here as we write. If you want to watch this get built instead of just reading the finished book, this is where that happens.

  • Content in the Age of AI

    Content in the Age of AI

    Your Content Isn’t Broken. The Way You’re Using It Is.

    For a while now, something has felt off.

    You’re publishing consistently. You’re showing up on LinkedIn. The blog still gets written. The newsletter still goes out. On paper, everything looks fine.

    And yet the returns feel thinner. Engagement feels flatter. Meaningful conversations feel harder to come by.

    Most teams respond to this moment the same way: more content, more frequency, more volume. That instinct made sense once. It doesn’t anymore.

    Because the problem isn’t that brands stopped publishing. It’s that publishing itself has lost meaning.

    The Algorithmic Noise Floor

    We’ve crossed an invisible threshold.

    Algorithms now decide what’s seen. AI now generates what’s said. Attention dictates who listens. Audiences skim, summarize, or outsource their thinking entirely. Which means your next blog post isn’t competing with a handful of peers—it’s competing with everything that’s ever been written on the topic.

    Most of that content isn’t bad. It’s just forgettable.

    The market isn’t short on content. It’s drowning in it. And when leaders ask why their marketing “isn’t working like it used to,” they’re usually asking the wrong question.

    The real question is simpler…and more difficult: Why would anyone notice?

    The Content Treadmill

    Here’s the model most organizations are still running, even if they won’t admit it:

    → Pick a topic.
    → Write a post.
    → Send an email.
    → Share it on social media.
    → Repeat next week.

    It’s tidy. It’s measurable. It feels productive. And in today’s environment, it’s also transactional.

    Each piece exists in isolation. Each message resets the clock. Each post starts from zero. In a world where attention compounds only through familiarity, that’s a structural problem.

    The irony is that many brands are working harder than ever just to create less cumulative impact than they did five years ago.

    Storytelling Isn’t the Strategy

    This is usually where someone says, “We need to tell better stories.”

    That’s not wrong — it’s just incomplete.

    Storytelling is a delivery mechanism, not a strategy. What actually creates momentum is something far less romantic and far more powerful: a repeated point of view. A consistent narrative. A recognizable cadence.

    In other words, not stories — programming.

    Think Like a Network, Not a Publisher

    In a recent internal conversation, my colleague at Collideascope, Curtis (now there’s some alliteration!) framed it this way: What if we thought about our content platform as “the show?”

    That single shift changes everything.

    Shows behave differently than posts. A show has a premise. It has a recurring cast. It has a predictable format. Over time, it trains the audience what to expect.

    Nobody asks, “What’s the topic this week?” They ask, “Is the next episode out?”

    That’s not semantics. That’s strategy.

    When you build the show, you stop chasing attention and start earning familiarity.

    Familiarity Beats Frequency

    Algorithms reward output. Audiences reward recognition.

    The brands that are winning right now aren’t louder…they’re clearer. They say the same thing from different angles, in different formats, over longer arcs, with human faces attached.

    They don’t publish more. They publish with more intent.

    And they stop pretending that every piece of content needs to “convert.”

    Which brings us to measurement.

    Why Your Metrics Are Misleading You

    A lot of marketing frustration comes down to mismatched expectations.

    We ask whether a post generated leads, whether a video converted, whether a webinar closed deals. Those are sales questions masquerading as marketing metrics.

    Modern marketing does one primary job: it earns the right to a future conversation.

    That right is signaled by things like attendance, repeat engagement, and opt-in moments that require time rather than clicks. Warmth matters more than volume. A room full of the right people matters more than a database full of strangers.

    Fewer at-Bats. Bigger Swings.

    One of the most productive shifts we’ve made internally is this: stop thinking in weekly or daily posts and start thinking in terms of 90-day commitments.

    Instead of a blog here and a video there, we design around one idea, one narrative, and one audience tension…explored deeply over time.

    That idea gets expressed through short-form video, long-form commentary, live conversations, events or briefings, and follow-up sequences that actually mean something.

    Not because every brand needs a podcast or a webinar or a video series. But because ideas need room to breathe.

    AI Didn’t Kill Content. It Exposed It.

    Here’s the uncomfortable truth: AI didn’t lower the bar. It revealed how low the bar already was.

    If your content can be replaced by a prompt, it was never strategy. It was output. And C-plus content isn’t neutral anymore. It’s reputationally dangerous.

    Because when you’re not in the room to defend yourself or your C+ copy masquerading as thought-leadership, your content speaks for you. And right now, it’s communicating to the market whether you’re thoughtful, or merely present.

    The Fix for What Ails Conventional Thinking

    What’s broken isn’t content marketing. It’s the assumption that content is something you “do.”

    Content is something you build on. A platform. A narrative. A show.

    Not to feed the algorithm, but to train the audience. To be recognizable. To be trusted. To be remembered before you’re needed.

    Do less. But do it with more intention.

    Because in a world full of noise, the brands that win aren’t the ones publishing the most. They’re the ones people know how to come back to.

    And that doesn’t happen by accident.

    NEXT STEPS: WHAT SHOW WILL YOU CREATE AROUND YOUR BEST IDEAS?

  • Why Expert-Led Content Wins in a Noisy Market

    Why Expert-Led Content Wins in a Noisy Market

    Authority starts with clarity.

    Attention is easy to chase and hard to keep. For experts, consultants, and professional brands, the real opportunity is not to publish more noise, but to share ideas with enough clarity and consistency that the right people begin to trust you before they ever reach out.

    That is where expert-led content makes a difference. When your insight is shaped into strong written, audio, and video content, your expertise becomes visible, memorable, and useful. Instead of trying to sound bigger than you are, you show people exactly how you think and why your perspective matters.

    Many businesses know they have something valuable to say, but struggle to turn raw knowledge into content people actually want to engage with. Notes stay in notebooks. Voice memos stay unedited. Great conversations never become articles, podcast segments, or short-form videos.

    Clear content bridges that gap. It takes your expertise and gives it shape, so your audience can understand what you do, how you think, and why they should trust you. Good content is not filler for a calendar. It is a business asset that builds credibility over time.

    One idea, many formats

    Strong content marketing does not begin with random posts. It begins with a meaningful idea and a smart way to adapt it across channels. A single expert insight can become:

    • a thought leadership article that explains your point of view
    • a podcast episode that adds personality and depth
    • a short video that makes the idea easy to share
    • website copy that sharpens your positioning
    • social content that keeps the conversation going

    This is how content starts working harder for your business. Instead of reinventing the wheel every week, you create a system that turns expertise into a steady stream of useful, aligned communication.

    What audiences respond to

    People are not only looking for services. They are looking for confidence. They want to know that the person or team behind the brand understands the subject deeply and can communicate it well. The businesses that stand out are often the ones that teach generously, speak clearly, and show up consistently.

    When expertise is communicated with creativity and consistency, content stops being promotion and starts becoming proof.

    How Creative Mill approaches content

    Creative Mill helps subject matter experts turn ideas into authority-building content. That means shaping insight into writing, audio, video, messaging, and thought leadership assets that feel true to the expert behind them. The goal is not generic marketing language. The goal is content with substance, voice, and strategic purpose.

    Whether the starting point is a rough concept, a recorded conversation, or years of experience that have never been documented properly, the process is the same at its core: listen closely, find the strongest ideas, and build content that helps the right audience understand their value.

    A better way to be seen

    If your business depends on trust, your content should do more than fill space. It should reflect your thinking, support your reputation, and make your expertise easier to discover. In a crowded market, the clearest voice often carries the furthest.

    Expert-led content is not about saying everything. It is about saying the right things well, in the formats your audience already uses. That is how ideas become authority, and authority becomes momentum.

  • Any Road Will Do? Depends on Where You Want to Go

    Any Road Will Do? Depends on Where You Want to Go

    “Slow Down. You’re Moving to Fast.”

    “Where do you want to get to?”

    Lewis Carroll posed this question in 1865, through a Cheshire Cat perched in a tree. 

    Alice, lost in Wonderland, asks which way she ought to go. The Cat’s response is immediate: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” Alice says she doesn’t care much where, as long as she gets somewhere. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” the Cat says, “if you only walk long enough.”

    Or fast enough, I might add. 

    If you were lost on a road trip, what would you do? Hit the accelerator to get “wherever” faster? Or would you slow down? Perhaps stop entirely. Ask a local for directions. Consult the GPS. Figure out first where you’re going, know the best way to get there, then proceed with confidence, right?

    Unfortunately, what I see most companies and marketing teams doing today, now that they have access to AI, is precisely the opposite. They are chasing Alice’s folly.

    “We don’t know where we’re going or how to get there, but let’s hit the gas and get there faster!”

    The Map is the Source of Truth, Not Your “Impeccable Sense of Direction”

    “Where do we want to get to?”

    Most marketing plans never ask—or answer—the most important question.

    Not “What’s our budget?” 
    Not “Which channels are we using?” 
    Not “What does the content calendar look like?” 

    Those are real questions, and they get answered early and often. But the question that precedes all of them—the one the whole plan depends on—frequently gets skipped, dressed up in vague performative language, or deferred entirely until the next planning cycle.

    It’s easy to read the Cat as clever and Alice as naïve. The more uncomfortable reading is that the Cat isn’t being sarcastic. He’s being precise. If you have no destination, then any road is a valid pathway. The logic is airtight. The problem is that it describes the marketing strategy of most businesses operating in the modern marketing ecosystem.

    Measuring Miles Per Hour, Not Progress

    Here is what happens when a marketing plan begins without a destination: it fills the gap with measurement.

    Activity gets tracked. Clicks, impressions, open rates, follower counts, cost-per-lead. The reporting gets more sophisticated over time. Dashboards proliferate. Somebody books a quarterly review to go through the numbers.

    And every quarter, the answer to, “Is this working?” is the same: Compared to what?

    Marketing measurement is only meaningful when it’s calibrated against a destination. Without one, you’re measuring the speed of the car, not whether you’re getting closer to your desired endpoint. You’re covering ground—impressions are up, traffic is healthy, the content calendar is running on schedule—but you have no way to know if any of it is moving you anywhere useful. You only know you’re moving.

    This isn’t a technology problem. It’s a direction problem. And it cannot be solved with better reporting.

    Strategy Is Not a Synonym for Planning

    The word “strategy” does a lot of impersonation work in marketing. Plans get called strategies. Tactics get called strategies. Calendars get called a strategy. A documented list of channels with associated budgets gets called a strategy.

    A strategy is a theory of how you win. It requires a definition of winning. Without that definition, you don’t have a strategy; you have a plan with no objective attached to it. Rigorously executed, admirably formatted, and functionally directionless.

    The Cheshire Cat’s logic is pitiless on this point. If you haven’t defined where you want to get to, you cannot evaluate whether the road you’re on is a good one, let alone the right one. Every path looks equally valid. Every tactic is a reasonable idea. Every new channel is worth exploring. The plan expands to fill the available budget, the team stays busy, and the question of whether any of it is working remains permanently deferred. The car is speeding ahead, after all. 

    This is not a failure of execution. It is a failure that precedes execution by several months.

    The Destination Has to Be Defined and Definitive

    Here’s where the parable gets instructive, rather than just diagnostic.

    Alice’s mistake wasn’t that she didn’t know where she was going. She was lost in Wonderland. That’s a reasonable state. Her mistake was accepting that not caring about the destination was fine, as long as she eventually got somewhere.

    Most marketing “plans” make the same concession. The objective gets written in a form that sounds directional but isn’t: 

    “Increase brand awareness.” 

    “Build our online presence.” 

    “Grow our audience.”

    “Generate leads.” 

    These are descriptions of motion, not destinations. They’re Alice saying, “Any road will do.”

    A real destination is specific enough that you’ll know when you’ve arrived…and specific enough that you’ll know if you’re heading the wrong way. 

    Not “increase brand awareness” but, “Within 18 months, increase our marketing efficiency ratio from X to Y, resulting in an X% increase in sales (or profit margin).” That’s a destination. You can look at what you’re doing and ask whether it points in that direction.

    The Cheshire Cat would have nothing to add in such a scenario. There’s nothing left to ask. The cat’s own tongue would be “got,” for once.

    Walk Long Enough, in Any Direction, and You’ll Get There

    There’s one more line in the Carroll exchange worth sitting with. After Alice argues that she wants to get somewhere, the Cat says she’s sure to manage that, if she only walks long enough.

    It’s the most devastating part of the passage, and the most misread. People take it as a kind of optimism. Eventually, you’ll arrive somewhere.

    It’s not optimism. It’s a description of what businesses without a destination actually do: they walk. Long enough that they accumulate real mileage, real spending, real effort. They build up an impressive body of activity. And they land, eventually, in a place they didn’t choose and couldn’t have predicted. Because they never decided where they were going.

    That’s Marketing Drift in action.

    The irony is that the destination itself is rarely the hard part. Businesses usually know, in broad terms, what success looks like. The harder thing is stating it plainly, committing to it in writing, and then holding every marketing decision up against it.

    Before the next planning cycle starts—before the channel mix, the content calendar, the budget allocation—answer the Cat’s question.

    “Where do you want to get to?”

    The rest of the plan only makes sense once you have that answer.

    Another all-time great, Yogi Berra, put it plainly: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up somewhere else.”

    And that, friends, is the real danger.

  • Creating Copy That Can’t Be Copied

    Creating Copy That Can’t Be Copied

    Is It You?! Is It Really YOU?!

    When AI content tools went mainstream, they produced something that made a lot of marketing teams quietly uncomfortable. The content coming out of these systems was competent. Well-structured. Readable. Informative in the way that a good FAQ is informative—perfectly clear and almost entirely forgettable. 

    And the discomfort came from a recognition that most organisations weren’t quite ready to sit with: this looks a lot like what we’ve been publishing. That recognition is where the real conversation starts. 

    The dominant fear in content marketing right now is that AI will flood the market with content as good as yours and drown your signal in noise. Understandable. But it misidentifies the problem. 

    The content AI produces didn’t devalue what most organisations were creating. Most organisations had already devalued it themselves—over years, through a content strategy that optimised for volume and visibility, while quietly abandoning the quality that makes either of those things worth having.

    The Problem Predates the Panic

    Here’s a test worth running. Pull up the last five pieces of content your organization published. Read them carefully. Then ask yourself one question: could a competitor have published this? Not with your logo on it—with theirs. Would the argument hold? Would the perspective survive a brand swap, without any meaningful loss to the reader?

    For most organizations, the honest answer is yes. And that’s the thing worth confronting.

    The marketing world spent the better part of a decade producing content at scale because the doctrine said to. Publish consistently. Cover your keywords. Build topic authority. Stay visible. The strategists who gave that advice weren’t wrong about the mechanism—consistency does build presence, and presence matters. But the execution of that doctrine gradually stripped out the one thing that made content valuable: a genuine perspective, formed by real experience, that a reader couldn’t find assembled in quite that way anywhere else.

    What emerged was a kind of industrial content: technically proficient, strategically placed, and intellectually thin. Articles that covered topics without holding positions on them. Posts that informed without illuminating. Content that earned the click and squandered it immediately. 

    The measure of success became volume and visibility, and quality got quietly redefined as competence. Write clearly. Hit the word count. Cover the relevant subtopics. Publish on Thursday.

    AI learned from all of it. The reason AI content looks so much like what most marketing departments were already producing is that most marketing departments were already producing using machine logic—consistent, comprehensive, and fundamentally interchangeable. 

    The machine reproduced the template faithfully. It just did it faster.

    The Camera That Changed Everything

    In the early 2000s, when digital cameras went mainstream, professional photographers faced a disruption that looked, on the surface, like an existential crisis. The technical floor—the baseline skill required to produce a competent image—collapsed in a few short years. Good exposure, sharp focus, accurate colour balance: skills that had taken years to develop and expensive equipment to execute were suddenly available to anyone with a consumer-grade device.

    The photographers who had built their value on technical execution found the market beneath them had quietly evaporated. There was no defending a premium for skills that had become universally accessible. 

    But here’s what that moment actually produced: photography didn’t decline. The best photography became more valuable, and more recognizable, precisely because technically competent photographs were now everywhere. The photographers who had built their value on vision—a particular sensibility, a way of reading light and subject that no camera setting could replicate—found their work gaining ground in a market that had lost its patience for merely adequate.

    When technical competence becomes the floor rather than the differentiator, genuine vision becomes unmistakable. 

    Content marketing is navigating exactly that transition. The floor has collapsed. Well-structured, informative, readable prose is now effectively free, and every organization has equal access to it. Which means no organisation can use it to stand out. 

    And which means, for the first time in a long while, the question that always should have been central to content strategy—what do we actually think, and why does that matter—is now the only question worth asking.

    The Only Question That Now Matters

    Before any piece of content goes near a keyboard—human or artificial—one question deserves a genuine answer: Does this contain a thought that only we could have?

    Not a topic that only you cover. Not a format that only you use. A thought. Something that emerges from the specific experience of being inside your business—the clients you’ve served, the problems you’ve watched recur across industries and categories, the patterns that only accumulate through years of practice in a particular position. Something formed in the world through actual work, not assembled from published consensus.

    The difference is detectable the moment you read it. An article that covers content marketing trends because the topic is popular reads like every other article covering content marketing trends. An article that argues a specific position—that the content strategy shift you’ve consistently seen in growth-stage companies follows a predictable sequence, for a specific reason, that most operators don’t recognise until it’s already cost them—reads like nothing else. 

    One is a topic. The other is a perspective. One fills a content calendar. The other builds a reputation.

    Developing that perspective is the work that precedes the writing. It requires you to have been somewhere, seen something, and drawn a conclusion that only your particular vantage point makes possible. That work cannot be delegated to a language model, because it requires the accumulated weight of actual experience. When you’ve done it, use every tool available to express the result as clearly and compellingly as possible. AI is genuinely useful for execution—for structuring, sharpening, and formatting ideas that already have substance. The thinking that gives execution its purpose has to come first.

    The Opportunity Inside the Disruption

    The volume-first era of content marketing is ending, and for anyone who was uncomfortable with it, that’s worth acknowledging plainly.

    Every strategist who ever made the case for saying something worth saying—instead of publishing on schedule regardless of whether there was anything to say—now has the strongest argument available. 

    When every organization has access to unlimited competent content, volume stops being an advantage and becomes ambient noise. The organizations that build authority in the next phase of content marketing will be the ones that did the harder thing earlier: developed a genuine point of view, earned the right to hold it through experience, and committed to expressing it with enough clarity and craft that the reader stays.

    That requires different investment, not necessarily more. 

    Less resource on production, more on the thinking that makes production worth doing. 
    Less time on topic selection, more on perspective development. 
    Less focus on covering the category broadly, more on owning a position within it deeply. 

    The goal is not to be the organisation that publishes the most content about your industry. The goal is to be the organization whose content, when a reader encounters it, feels like the clearest expression of something they’d been trying to articulate themselves.

    That standard was always the right measure for content. The AI moment hasn’t invented it. It has simply made every other measure inadequate.

  • Make Your Content Engine Purr

    Make Your Content Engine Purr

    A New Model for Content Marketing in 2026 and Beyond

    Two years ago, simply showing up was enough.

    If you published consistently, demonstrated expertise, and shared thoughtful perspectives over time, you separated yourself from most of the market. Content marketing worked because not everyone was doing it well — or doing it at all.

    Today, everyone is showing up.

    And most of them are using AI to do it.

    That doesn’t mean content marketing is dead. It means generic presence is dead. The problem isn’t volume. It’s believe-ability.

    We are no longer just competing with other professionals. We are competing with artificial voices, auto-generated expertise, and an endless stream of frictionless content. Even if your ideas are legitimate and human-generated, your audience may assume they aren’t. And if they believe they can prompt the same answer from ChatGPT in ten seconds, why should they read your blog post?

    That is the real shift.

    The End of Serial Publishing

    For years, the standard prescription looked like this: pick a topic, write a post, publish it, and repeat next week. Over time, that steady drumbeat built authority and brand preference. When someone eventually entered the market for your services, you were top of mind.

    In theory, that still works. In practice, it now produces something far less satisfying: invisibility.

    When every piece of content stands alone, when each post resets the clock, and when nothing builds toward a defined outcome, you are not creating momentum. You are maintaining motion. The difference matters.

    If 2026 demands anything of content marketers, it’s this: stop publishing serially and start building strategically.

    Instead of thinking in weekly posts, think in 90-day arcs. Instead of asking, “What should we write about this week?” ask, “What outcome are we driving toward this quarter?”

    Content without a defined destination is now just noise with grammar.

    The Four “Purrs”

    If your content strategy is going to cut through AI saturation and audience skepticism, it needs four deliberate characteristics. Together, they create what I call The Four “Purrs” — and ultimately, the fifth and most important result. (Spoiler alert: it also rhymes with purr.)

    1. Purposeful

    Content must be aimed. Not vaguely. Not aspirationally. Specifically.

    It’s no longer enough to say, “Over time, this will build trust.” The strategy should define a measurable objective inside a defined window — typically 90 days.

    For example: one clear purpose is to enroll as many members of your addressable market as possible into a live webinar, workshop, or in-person event. That singular objective changes how you create content. Each post becomes runway. Each video becomes reinforcement. Each email becomes part of a sequence.

    You begin to see your audience more clearly as well. There are learners who consume quietly. There are lurkers you cannot measure but know are there. And there are hand-raisers — the persuadable segment who are willing to take the next step.

    Your content must give them something to raise their hand to. Purpose creates direction. Direction creates momentum.

    2. Persistent

    Consistency used to be enough. Now it must be consistency with intention. Persistence is different: it’s consistency with purpose.

    Persistence means narrowing your focus over that 90-day arc. Instead of writing about a dozen disconnected topics, you select one core tension: one problem, one theme, one drumbeat …and you’re going to approach it persistently from multiple angles.

    You explore it through stories, analysis, examples, frameworks, and commentary. You repeat the central idea without repeating yourself. By the time your culminating event arrives, your audience should not wonder what it will cover. They should be expecting it.

    Persistence builds familiarity. Familiarity builds trust. Trust makes persuasion possible.

    3. Persuasive

    Education is valuable, but information alone is no longer scarce. Transformation is.

    Professional services are typically purchased at a moment of inflection — when someone decides they can no longer tolerate the status quo or they finally choose to pursue an aspiration. Effective content moves people closer to that decision.

    This does not require manipulation or aggressive selling. It requires clarity. Your content should demonstrate that the current path has limitations, that an alternative exists, and that you understand the emotional and practical tension your audience is experiencing.

    If your strategy is purposeful and persistent, persuasion becomes a natural byproduct. You are not pitching constantly; you are preparing thoughtfully. Over time, the persuadable segment of your audience begins to consider change.

    4. Personal

    This is where the human advantage becomes unmistakable.

    Written content alone now competes directly with AI. Machines will always win on speed and scale. Humans win on presence.

    Video. Live webinars. Unscripted commentary. Podcasts. Real conversations. When people see you think in real time, when they hear your cadence and observe nuance in your delivery, your expertise becomes authenticated. You signal authorship. You signal authenticity.

    In an era of synthetic content, visible humanity becomes a differentiator.

    Personal content does not replace written content. It validates it.

    The Fifth “Purr” → Permanence

    When content is purposeful, persistent, persuasive, and personal, something powerful happens: it gains permanence.

    Instead of disappearing into the feed after 24 hours, your ideas stay in the market for 90 days. They build anticipation toward a defined moment — a live event, a webinar, a workshop, or a briefing.

    That event then becomes fuel for the next 90 days.

    You record it. You gate the replay. You extract short-form video clips. You generate companion blog posts. You develop follow-up emails. You create derivative assets that extend the lifecycle of a single idea.

    Your strategy compounds rather than resets.

    You are no longer producing isolated posts. You are programming reputation over time.

    The New Discipline

    The truth is, AI did not kill content marketing. It exposed outdated strategy.

    The brands that will win in 2026 and beyond will not be the ones producing the most content. They will be the ones building structured, human, outcome-driven arcs that culminate in meaningful engagement.

    The question is no longer, “What should we publish this week?”

    It is, “What are we building toward over the next 90 days?”

    Answer that well, and your content engine won’t sputter.

    It will purr.

    .

  • Mapping the Hero’s Journey

    Mapping the Hero’s Journey

    Your Customer is the Hero, Not You

    How familiar are you with Joseph Campbell’s now classic framework, “the hero’s journey?” You may not know it intimately, but if you’ve ever seen Star Wars, you’ve seen it in action.

    But it’s also central to effective content marketing strategy. Let’s explore…

    In summary, Campbell outlined the journey of a hero as a person living an ordinary life, but perhaps with an extraordinary gift or tragic event. As a result, they are called to adventure. So begins a journey. At the end, a happy resolution and a mission fulfilled.

    Back to Star Wars as the example, George Lucas tells the story of Luke Skywalker, the lowly farmer who discovers the force after his village and family are destroyed. That call to adventure — vengeance against the evildoers — leads to trials, transformation, and eventually a restored outcome.

    So how does that map to marketing?

    Followers of Campbell’s work point out, correctly, that customer is the hero in their journey, not the brand trying to sell that hero a product or service. When done effectively, the brand acts as the guide, the mentor, the path to resolution.

    Think of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Han Solo guiding Luke Skywalker; you’re helping the customer along their path. Kenobi provides education and a weapon. Han Solo transports Luke across the galaxy. They facilitate the hero; they don’t try to become the hero.

    Likewise, you shouldn’t be thinking first and foremost about selling a product. Primarily, we should relate to the customer’s problem and work to guide them towards a solution, ultimately achieving their desired outcome — which just happens to be your own.

    If we’re truly putting the customer at the center, seeing them as the hero, how do we effectively map out their journey? Let’s continue along on our journey…

    Mapping the Hero’s Journey

    Once you understand their hero’s aspiration, that emotional trigger that prompts their call to adventure, that feeling that says, “I can’t live like this anymore. I need a solution,” you can begin to articulate that you understand the hero’s motivation. That’s the WHY.

    After the WHY comes the HOW. This is when customers start looking for solutions, and if you’ve connected with them on a WHY level, you have them as an audience, and they will naturally look and wonder, “How will you solve my problem?” 

    In Luke Skywalker’s case, he asks Obi-Wan. “You fought in the clone wars?” Which translates to, you’ve been in my shoes? Obi-Wan then presents Luke with his father’s lightsaber. Here’s a tool that might help you solve your problem. You could use a blaster, (i.e., a competitor). But this lightsaber here is the more “elegant” solution.

    Now Obi-Wan has Luke’s attention. He starts educating. “For a thousand years, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic….”

    As the conversation moves on, Luke wants to learn more about the force. He’s drawn completely into his new mentor. Obi-Wan has an audience…a disciple, even.

    Then comes the WHAT.  At the core, it’s the specific products, services, or actions your organization offers. It’s what you do or sell. The light saber is the WHAT. But Luke would never go looking for one if he didn’t have a truly motivational WHY.

    The Whats look almost indistinguishable from competitors’, feature for feature. But if a company connects deeply on the WHY and offers a truly differentiated HOW, then the WHAT, the actual purchase, becomes almost a given. Price becomes less of a factor because you’ve already built that foundational trust and connection.

    Use the Force (of Effective Content)

    Obi-Wan played the long game. He lurked in the shadows, making himself known to his audience for when the time was right. Luke was “in market” when he was called to his adventure. 

    That’s the crucial point of content marketing: it isn’t just about immediate sales. It’s about demonstrating expertise, establishing authority and gaining trust before a customer is actively looking, so you’re top of mind when they do need you precisely. Luke sought out “Old Ben.”  You want your brand to be known as the expert. When a problem does eventually arise, you’re the first one they think of. Which you could say is definitely playing the long game.

    So, what kinds of content actually work best for this long-game approach?

    Well, you tailor it to that hero’s journey. You tell stories. You use case studies, you educate, you hit them with content at different stages of the journey where those potential customers are on their learning and decision-making path.

    Your ultimate goal with content is building an audience of loyal fans who can’t wait for your next piece of content, your next product or feature.

    Fans of brands don’t need a hard sell. When the next iPhone is released, people will wait in line for hours to purchase their new device. Not just because it has a better camera or a faster processor. They could get that from Android. They buy from Apple because somewhere along the way, Apple established a level of loyalty and deep connection with an audience of true fans who couldn’t be pried away from the brand.

    What would that level of loyalty and deep connection look like for your brand?

    It’s a powerful idea to consider. Even more powerful to implement. 

    Listen and Learn

    In this latest Episode of Bullhorns & Bullseyes, Tom Nixon and Curtis Hays focus on something foundational to effective content deployment: Marketing isn’t about who can shout louder or who can outspend the competitive field in the arena of advertising. It’s about genuinely understanding your customers, aligning with their journey, and becoming part of their story. Not as the hero. As the helpful guide that gets them where they need to go.

    As you rethink your own approach to content marketing, ask yourself, who’s the true hero in your story?

    ▶️ Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/ab9-fIl1-SM

    🎧 Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Qxv2Vr2lCPmhM4aiF3KAN

    🙏 Please Support Bullhorns & Bullseyes: Like, share, comment, & subscribe!

  • Map Messaging to Measurement

    Map Messaging to Measurement

    Model Behavior

    At first, most people don’t get it. But once it clicks, it becomes the most powerful methodology for messaging, marketing and media itself.

    By “it,” I’m referring to “WHY.”

    Until I’m blue in the face, I will die on the hill that effective messaging and copywriting needs to be structured in a very deliberate “WHY→HOW→WHAT” hierarchy. In other words, if you want your message to resonate and achieve its objective, you simply MUST lead with WHY.

    But not your WHY…theirs!

    Nobody cares about your WHAT—or even your HOW —until you’ve connected to their WHY.

    The Power of Why is not just a viral TED Talk by Simon Sinek; it’s a proven model for messaging hierarchy that directly maps to the tried and true Sales Funnel framework. In other words, the model of “WHY→HOW→WHAT” is specifically engineered to nurture a potential customer into the action of your choosing…but in the time of the customer’s choosing. Because that’s who’s going to dictate the timing of a potential next step…not your urgent “call to action.”

    The WHY can be better understood when framed as a buying motivation. Most often (in the B2B world) that motivation is rooted in pain…sometimes it can be gain. But understand: before a potential customer ever reaches your doorstep, they are motivated by their own problems or aspirations — NOT the features of your product or service.

    So why ask WHY? Because that’s the mindset your coveted client is already in; and you need to map to it in order to emotionally connect with that prospect.

    AIDA, RACE and WHW

    Tom and Curtis go into three essential frameworks for marketing success on their Bullhorns and Bullseyes podcast. The first is the tried and true sales funnel, which follows a person from Awareness, through Interest and Desire, then ultimately to Action.

    The RACE model, created by Dr. Dave Chaffey, is about planning, measurement, and aligning tactics with funnel stages: Reach, Action, Conversion and Engagement. Note how each metric in the RACE framework directly maps to a stage in the AIDA model:

    When overlaid, it becomes obvious why you should lead with WHY, support that with HOW, and then deliver validating WHATs, our universally adopted framework for messaging, copywriting, and pretty much everything we do here at The Creative Mill.

    Listen + Look + Learn:

    Watch the entire episode below. Listen and subscribe to the audio podcast here. Check out the fuller explanation of the concepts explored in this episode via the Amplify and Aim newsletter below the video.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ixj6QsUNKVU%3Ffeature%3Doembed

    🎯 Amplify and Aim Newsletter

    Episode Recap: Model Behavior

    This lesson in brief: “You Can’t Skip the Funnel—But You Can Equip It…Then You Should Flip It!”

    In this episode of Bullhorns and Bullseyes, Tom Nixon and Curtis Hays geek out (in the way that only true geeks dare!) on three powerful marketing models that shape how they plan campaigns, create content, and measure success. 

    If you’ve ever wondered why some campaigns flop while others convert like magic, this episode is your masterclass in doing it the Bullhorns and Bullseyes way—from the top of the funnel to the flip at the end.

    Let’s break it all down…

    ∇📊 MODEL #1: THE OG SALES FUNNEL (AIDA)

    First up: a classic. Tom reintroduces the trusty old AIDA sales funnel—Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. Though it’s been around since the 19th century, too many marketers still get it wrong today by trying to skip straight to the sale. (Looking at you, “Buy Now” Facebook ads shown to total strangers.)

    The funnel represents the customer’s mindset—not just the steps they take. It’s linear, even if the journey increasingly isn’t. People move from not knowing you exist, to knowing you exist, to wanting what you offer, to finally buying it. But you can’t rush that process…or cheat it.

    Key Point: Most failed campaigns are a result of skipping the early steps—awareness and interest—and pushing for conversion way too early. Want to close more? Nurture more.

    🏃‍♂️📊 MODEL #2: THE RACE FRAMEWORK (REACH, ACT, CONVERT, ENGAGE)

    Next, Curtis shares a modern framework he’s been leaning on for nearly a decade: RACE, created by Dr. Dave Chaffey.

    Where AIDA is about mindset, RACE is about planning, measurement, and aligning tactics with funnel stages.

    • Reach = Build awareness. Don’t measure conversions here—measure impressions, traffic, and engagement.
    • Act = Spark exploration. This is where educational content shines and you begin building trust.
    • Convert = Now it’s time to push for leads or purchases. But only now.
    • Engage = Post-conversion, turn customers into advocates who drive future reach and help you flip the funnel.

    Curtis emphasizes that proper planning sits above the framework. How much budget goes to each stage depends on where you are today. A startup? You’ll need to invest heavily in awareness. A mature brand? You may be ready to convert.

    Key Point: The most efficient marketing spend aligns your budget, your tactics, and your metrics to the right stage of the funnel. Do it wrong, and you’re lighting money on fire.

    💬📝 MODEL #3: WHY→HOW→WHAT

    Finally, Tom rolls out his own spin on Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle—tailored for messaging. The core insight? You need to align with your audience’s why, not your company’s.

    Here’s how the model maps onto the funnel:

    • WHY: The emotional driver. Pain, aspiration, purpose. Start here to capture awareness.
    • HOW: Your method. This is what separates you from competitors and converts interest into desire.
    • WHAT: The features. This is what you do—but by the time someone is deciding that they want your WHATs, you’ve already won them over with the WHY and the HOW…because every competitor has your same WHAT, but not your HOW…and you can bet that they’ve skipped the all-important WHY altogether!

    Curtis admitted he used to get this backward—he thought “why” was about defining your brand’s purpose. Turns out, the real power lies in identifying your customer’s purpose and showing them how you help them fulfill it.

    Key Point: “Nobody cares how awesome your product is—until they know you understand what they’re going through from a pain or gain standpoint.”

    💡 PRO TIPS AND FAVORITE QUIPS

    • “You can’t skip the funnel—but you can equip the funnel. And then, you should flip the funnel.” —Tom
    • “Don’t engineer for awareness then measure conversions.” — Curtis
    • “Marketing should be viewed as an investment, not an expense. So spend wisely.” — Smart Consultants Everywhere
    • When you skip steps, you’re not just burning money—you’re forfeiting valuable trust along the way….and that’s a currency all its own!

    🧠🛠️ Why This Matters

    Marketers often focus on tactics—ads, blogs, email campaigns—without a framework to tie them together. What Tom and Curtis lay out here is a way to plan smarter, message more effectively, and measure in a way that aligns with reality…not your perfect dream world.

    Whether you’re a startup or a century-old brand, if you want better results from your marketing, you need to align what you’re doing with where your customers are in their journey.

    AND IF YOU WANT YOUR CAMPAIGNS TO ACTUALLY CONVERT? BE A MODEL CITIZEN…EXEMPLIFY MODEL BEHAVIORS…AND APPLY A PROVEN MODEL FOR SUCCESS!

    🎧 Listen or watch the full episode on your favorite platform or at bullhornsandbullseyes.com. Bonus: You’ll find downloadable visuals that map it all out. Subscribe to Amplify and Aim here.

    💥 Until next time: Keep blasting that bullhorn 📢 — and aiming for the bullseye 🎯‼️

  • Season 3, Episode 1: THE TRAP

    Season 3, Episode 1: THE TRAP

    The New Season of Bullhorns & Bullseyes Is Here. Let’s Talk About the Trap You’re Already In.

    “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

    “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually. And then suddenly.”

    That’s Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises. And it’s the best description I’ve found for what’s happening to marketing budgets right now.

    We’ve been quiet for four months. Not because Curtis and I ran out of opinions. Because we decided that if Season 3 were going to exist, it had to be something you could actually use. Not a collection of loosely connected conversations. A sequence. Eight episodes. Each one building on the last. Starting with this one. »

    By the end, you’ll have something that works whether you listen once or come back to it in a year.

    Think of Season 3 as an 16-week semester of higher education, with each episode serving both as a discrete learning module and as a sequential building block leading up to the final exam. There is a purposeful order to things this year. And we’re relying once again on some of the best and brightest minds in marketing and business development to help us advance the learning.

    It starts with the uncomfortable part.

    The wrong station, turned up loud. I used this analogy with Curtis during the episode and I want to share it here because I think it lands.

    Imagine your marketing is a radio. And the radio is stuck on country music. But your customer hates country. AI comes along and says: just turn it up. Louder. More channels. More volume. And all your customer is thinking is, this is not for me. Their inclination isn’t to listen harder. It’s to change the station.

    That’s the trap. Companies are spending more, producing more, deploying more. AI lets them do it all faster. And nobody is stopping to ask: are we even on the right station for the right listener?

    Curtis put it bluntly in the episode. He said it’s like calling IT because your network is down, and instead of checking whether the cable is plugged in, they replace the $50,000 server.

    He spent 15 years in IT before marketing, and the thing that drives him crazy is how quickly companies skip the simple diagnosis and jump straight to expensive solutions. You wouldn’t do that with a server. But companies do it with their marketing budget every single day.

    Mirror, Mirror…

    Here’s the part from the episode that I keep coming back to.

    Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

    You know the line. The queen asks the mirror. The mirror tells her exactly what she wants to hear. She’s pacified. Everything is fine. Until it isn’t. And when the truth finally shows up, she goes into a rage.

    That’s what most marketing looks like.

    Your homepage says “We are…” Your pitch deck leads with company history. Your AI tools polish that mirror until it gleams. And the mirror keeps telling you what you want to hear. You’re the fairest of them all. Your product is the best. Your differentiators are clear.

    But the customer is not in the mirror. The customer is on the other side of the window. And most companies haven’t actually looked through that window in a very long time.

    Curtis made a point that stopped me during our conversation. He said when you train AI without your customer’s reality, you’re just training it with the mirror. All it knows is your reflection. And a better reflection of yourself is not a reflection of your customer. Of course it’s going to tell you that you’re the fairest of them all.

    But does the customer care about that? Not yet…

    Nobody does this on purpose. It’s not vanity. It’s just the natural gravity of running a business. You know yourself. You talk about yourself. And gradually, then suddenly, you realize nobody’s listening.

    The Chaos Tax

    This is Curtis’s concept, and I’ll let him explain the math, because that’s what he does.

    You know what you pay for a lead. You might know your close rate. But do you know what you pay for a lead that actually becomes revenue? Not a form fill. A customer.

    The gap between those two numbers is what Curtis calls the Chaos Tax. It never shows up on a P&L. But it compounds. Every quarter you operate inside the trap, you’re not just wasting that quarter’s budget—you’re training your algorithms, your team, and your market to expect the wrong thing from you.

    AI makes the slope steeper. Not because AI is bad. Because AI is indifferent. It amplifies whatever you give it. If the inputs are wrong, you just waste money faster. With better production value.

    Going the wrong way. And making incredible time.

    Four Gates

    We laid down four principles in this episode. I’d call them sequence gates. You don’t get to skip ahead.

    Coherence before creativity. This one’s mine, so I’ll own it. I love the creative side of this business. But I can’t write a tagline that works if I don’t coherently understand what I’m being creative about. A beautiful message built on the wrong insight is just a beautiful mistake.

    Diagnosis before deployment. Curtis’s. He’s never going to let you spend money on ads before confirming your tracking works. Think of it like the IT help desk asking if you’ve rebooted. It’s annoying. It’s also the right first question. And, increasingly, he’s not going to let you deploy your campaigns until you’ve done the coherence work first.

    Meaning before media. Talk to five customers. Find the truth. Find what actually matters to them. Then go spend money on commercials and marketing. Not the other way around.

    Revenue before reach. Prove it converts before you scale it. The algorithms will find more people like the ones already buying. But only if you’ve done the work to know who those people are.

    Your Homework (that I know you won’t do, but should!)

    I’m giving you homework. I’m also betting exactly zero of you will do it. But here it is.

    Go have actual conversations with five customers. Ask them four questions:

    → What was life like before you even heard of us?

    → What pain made you go looking?

    → Why did you choose us? You could have chosen anyone.

    → How is your life different now that you’ve been working with us?

    If you do this, you’ll have the foundation for everything this season is going to teach you.

    If you skip it because you “already know the answers,” well. That’s the mirror talking.

    Two reasons people won’t do this:

    One, they’re afraid a customer might say something they don’t want to hear.

    Two, they’re convinced they already know what customers will say.

    Both of those are the trap. Both of them cost you money every quarter you avoid them.

    What’s on the Syllabus This Semester

    We didn’t offer a single solution in this episode. On purpose. This is the diagnosis. The indictment.

    Over the next eight episodes, Curtis and I are building the solution. The science behind why customers actually choose. How to excavate truth your customers won’t volunteer. How to turn that truth into a story that moves revenue. How to build a community that compounds. How to own your audience instead of renting it on platforms that can change the rules tomorrow.

    By the end, you’ll have a system. Not theory. Something you can run.

    But it starts here. With one honest question: When was the last time you actually talked to a customer? Not surveyed. Talked. And listened.

    If the answer is more than 90 days ago, you’re marketing from memory. Not reality.

    Watch or Listen to Season 3, Episode 1: THE TRAP

    Available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere you listen.

    If this resonates, read the piece that started this whole arc: AI Isn’t Your Prophet. It Might Be Your Amplifier.

    Bullhorns & Bullseyes is hosted by Curtis Hays and Tom Nixon. Season 3 drops a new episode every two weeks.

  • What is Marketing Drift?

    What is Marketing Drift?

    Diagnose the Drift. Fix the Failure.

    Marketing doesn’t fail overnight. It drifts.
    “Gradually. Then suddenly.”

    There are two kinds of drift happening right now. Both are dangerous, if left undiagnosed.

    One happens when marketing execution drifts away from its own strategy.

    The other happens when the real world drifts away from the theoretical strategy.

    It’s natural for marketing to be tempted and compromised by drift.

    Not because teams are careless.

    Because entropy is inevitable.

    1️⃣ The first kind of drift is internal.

    Over time, strategy fragments into campaigns.
    Campaigns fragment into tactics.
    Tactics start optimizing for short-term signals.

    Dashboards get better.
    Tools get more sophisticated.
    Activity increases.

    But the system slowly drifts away from the core strategy that originally made it rooted in provable fundamentals.

    New campaigns are added.
    New channels appear.
    New tactics are layered on.

    Each one may make sense on its own. But collectively, the system becomes fragmented. What once felt coherent now feels complicated. And performance gradually becomes harder to maintain.

    2️⃣ The second kind of drift is driven by externalities.

    Markets change.
    Technology changes.
    Customer behavior changes.

    But the marketing system doesn’t.

    Companies keep running the same playbook that worked three or five years ago.

    The same channels.
    The same assumptions.
    The same patterns of investment.

    Meanwhile, the environment around them keeps evolving.

    (Has there been a faster, more impactful evolution than the one we’re currently experiencing with AI?)

    So even if the marketing system remains internally consistent, it slowly becomes misaligned with reality.

    Worse yet, we use AI to amplify the wrong strategy that has become misaligned. We expedite failure. We amplify misalignment. We move faster down an errant path.

    First Things First: Slow Down to Speed Up.

    Most organizations today are experiencing both kinds of drift at the same time. They just don’t realize it yet.

    But they’re falling in love with technology that fuels misalignment, getting to the wrong outcome faster, louder, and more expensively.

    If you’re feeling the failure but can’t pinpoint the pain, stop now. Re-evaluate. Study. Diagnose. Identify root causes.

    (Hint: You must go back to the very beginning—the very foundation of your marketing. The message itself.)

    Because speeding up failure is not an option.
    If you get my drift.

  • A Post About Nothing

    A Post About Nothing

    That Is, a Post About a Show About Nothing

    One of my favorite scenes on Seinfeld was when George was butchering his attempt to pitch his idea for “a show about nothing” to the NBC execs.

    “Why would anyone watch this?” the lead exec challenges.

    “Because it’s on TV,” Costanza suggests.

    “Not yet, it isn’t,” he bluntly replies.

    How does this apply to thought leadership writing?

    “Excuse me,” I might observe, “but I notice that your best advice, analysis, and takeaways are somewhat buried in the fifth paragraph here. Why would anyone heed them?”

    “Because they’re reading the article.”

    “Not yet, they aren’t.”

    Don’t bury the lede. Don’t “save” your best ideas for last. Don’t miss your opportunity to persuade. Don’t waste your (or the reader’s) time.

    Your lure must generate a click.
    Your headline must fulfill the promise of the lure and justify the click.
    Your open must build upon the intrigue of the headline.
    Your opening salvo (the WHY section) must validate the intrigue and invite the reader on a promising journey.
    Your headers and subheads must light the way to treasure within.

    Then, and only then, will people make it to that all-important takeaway, analysis or advice.

    Failure to do accomplish ALL of the above renders ALL of your expert “thought leadership” nearly invisible.

  • That’s a Wrap!

    That’s a Wrap!

    Lessons Learned from Season 2 of Bullhorns and Bullseyes

    Curtis and I wrapped the final episode of Bullhorns & Bullseyes this week. We broke some news, reflected on lessons learned, celebrated a star-studded roster of guests, and pledged to do something a little different and daring next year. And we hope you’ll be a part of it!

    One of the themes from Season 2 was the concept of storytelling. This time of year you see it everywhere you look:

    ‣ Seasonal nostalgia
    ‣ Stories that tug at the heart strings
    ‣ Vignettes that keep you longing for yesteryear
    ‣ Tearjerkers you kick yourself for falling for

    These aren’t advertisements…they’re brand builders. And they’re more effective and memorable than the 11 months prior pushing sales and promotions combined.

    Think about it: When you get caught up in a story, you can’t help but stick around to see how it ends. When’s the last time a commercial pushing 15% off accomplished that much? Something to consider for 2026….more on that to come.

    Until then, check out the episode below, find it and subscribe here, and read all about it below the video!

    About Last Week…

    75 Episodes, Two Seasons, One Big Realization

    We never set out to build a marketing community. We just wanted to tell Mario’s story.

    But here we are, wrapping up Season 2 of Bullhorns & Bullseyes with 75 episodes behind us, a roster of marketing legends as guests, and something we didn’t expect: proof that authentic expertise shared consistently builds something bigger than a podcast.

    It builds authority. It builds relationships. It builds business.

    How It All Started

    Two years ago, Curtis asked Tom to write a case study about their 7-year relationship with Mario D’Aquila’s Assisted Living Home Care Services.

    Tom called back with a different idea: “Their journey is so detailed, I don’t think a case study can capture it all. Let’s tell the story on a podcast.”

    That conversation launched Bullhorns & Bullseyes. The first three episodes were Mario’s marketing transformation story.

    Now Mario’s appeared 5 times out of 75 episodes and just announced he’s starting his own podcast. The student becomes the teacher.

    The Unexpected Guest List

    What started as one client’s story became something we couldn’t have predicted. Season 2 alone featured:

    Marketing legends: Mark Schaefer on AI and humanity, Brian Clark on content marketing evolution, Gini Dietrich with the PESO model

    Industry innovators: Jesse Flores on the future of AI agents, Janet Tyler on agency transformation

    Storytelling experts: Kristian Alomá on narrative psychology and customer interviews

    Privacy attorneys, acquisition specialists, and business builders who shared practical insights you can’t find anywhere else

    Tom called it “a who’s who list of heavy hitters in the marketing industry.” But here’s what we learned: they didn’t come on because we’re famous. They came on because we’re genuinely curious about what works.

    The AI Thread That Ran Through Everything

    Season 2 became accidentally prophetic about AI’s impact on marketing.

    Mark Schaefer showed us how to add humanity to AI tools without losing efficiency. Jesse Flores painted a picture of an agentic web where websites become conversation partners. Gini Dietrich explained how AI search is changing the discovery process entirely.

    But the real insight came from Brian Clark: “Expertise and wisdom combined with AI is the secret component.”

    The marketers winning aren’t the ones avoiding AI or blindly embracing it. They’re the ones using AI to amplify their hard-won expertise and human judgment.

    The Tractor Story That Explained Everything

    Sometimes the best marketing insights come from the most unexpected places. Curtis’s story about buying a $35 tractor gas nozzle became the perfect example of how modern customer journeys really work.

    He saw a Facebook ad. Got a coupon but wasn’t ready. Watched organic YouTube reviews. Waited for the right color to come in stock. Eventually bought direct from the website.

    Zero attribution in any traditional system. Perfect customer journey in reality.

    Gini called it “a perfect PESO model customer journey” – paid advertising, earned reviews, shared social proof, and owned conversion path all working together.

    The lesson: Stop trying to control the customer journey. Start being present everywhere it might happen.

    What We Learned About Authority

    Here’s what 75 episodes taught us about building business authority:

    Consistency beats perfection. We missed some weeks. We had technical issues. But we kept showing up with valuable conversations.

    Questions matter more than answers. The best episodes weren’t lectures. They were explorations of real problems with people who’ve solved them.

    Stories stick better than strategies. Curtis’s tractor purchase taught attribution better than any framework. Mario’s journey showed DISC assessments in action better than any theory.

    Community builds itself. We didn’t set out to build a marketing community. We just kept having interesting conversations with smart people. The community formed around shared curiosity.

    The Business Impact We Didn’t Expect

    Neither Curtis nor Tom planned for podcasting to become a business strategy. But here’s what happened:

    Relationship acceleration: Guests became partners, advisors, and friends faster than traditional networking ever achieved

    Authority establishment: Industry leaders started referencing episodes in their own content and keynote presentations

    Business development: The conversations opened doors to opportunities that cold outreach never could

    Knowledge consolidation: Teaching forced deeper understanding of concepts both hosts thought they already knew

    Mario put it perfectly: “I actually hear a lot of folks say, ‘Oh my God, you work with Curtis? You work with Tom Nixon?’ So there’s something to this podcasting.”

    The Season 3 Tease

    Curtis revealed they’re working on something different for Season 3 – possibly a mini-course format that goes deeper on specific topics rather than just interview-style episodes.

    And yes, there will be a new hat. Curtis is taking his daughter shopping at “the Boot Barn” to find the perfect Season 3 headwear.

    Some things change. Some things stay the same.

    The Gratitude List

    Both hosts emphasized gratitude as they wrapped Season 2. Not just for guests who shared their time and expertise, but for listeners who engaged, shared, and applied what they learned.

    Tom’s reflection: “Thank you to the listeners and viewers and commenters. We appreciate it and you’ll have more opportunity to comment and let your voice be heard next season.”

    The podcast became a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s what made it work.

    What This Means for Your Business

    The Bullhorns & Bullseyes experiment proves something important: In an attention economy, the businesses that win are the ones that earn attention by genuinely serving their audience.

    Not with slick production values or celebrity guests, but with consistent curiosity about real problems and real solutions.

    The framework isn’t complicated:

    • Find topics your ideal customers actually care about

    • Have honest conversations with people who’ve solved those problems

    • Share insights without holding back the best stuff

    • Show up consistently, even when it’s inconvenient

    • Trust that authority builds itself when you focus on serving others

    Curtis and Tom didn’t set out to become marketing authorities. They just kept asking good questions and sharing what they learned.

    Two seasons and 75 episodes later, they’ve built something that generates business, creates relationships, and serves a community.

    All by deciding to tell one client’s story and never stopping the conversation.

    The Season 3 Promise

    The announcement is clear: they’re coming back with sponsors, new formats, and continued commitment to practical marketing insights you can actually use.

    But the real promise is the same one they’ve kept for 75 episodes: show up with curiosity, share what works, and trust that serving your audience well creates business results.

    Season 3 launches with new energy, new formats, and the same commitment to honest conversations about marketing that actually works.

    The question isn’t whether you should start your own podcast. The question is: What expertise could you share consistently that would serve your ideal customers?

    The Bullhorns & Bullseyes story shows that when you focus on serving others with what you know, everything else follows.

    See you all on the flip side!