Where The Dogs Of Society Howl

Join Jeff and I as we welcome Beatrice Gutknecht to the show. We're talking positioning, best, worst, what makes founders the hardest people on Earth to position, and more: - What positioning actually is, versus the buzzword everybody abuses - Where good businesses go beige, and how to steal them back - Plus three continents, serious tequila, and a woman who organizes everything except her own...

A clear leader is easy to follow. A fuzzy one leaves everybody guessing. Stephen D. Black spent 47 years leading in the grocery business and now coaches the people in the chair. He founded A Brighter Day. Life, a Maxwell-certified coach, the National Grocers Association's endorsed leadership voice, and the author of The Five Rules. We covered: - The Five Rules: do your job, be kind, no surpris...

Most designers never have to live with their own work on a real shelf. Aaron Feiger does. He runs Food Court Creative and owns Pinball Cider, so he designs the brand and then has to sell it. His own packaging gets a sales report. We cover:- Why genuinely good CPG brands still get walked past- What packaging is really saying when the cues stop agreeing- How a small brand out-signals a giant with a...

She’s built a career in wellness and lives it harder than people half her age. Julie Elder calls herself “ancient but still awesome.” She’ll also tell you she left home at 18 to join a band, has topped out at 120mph, and would rather be chasing storms than sitting still. That’s not a contradiction. That’s her whole point about health. We sat down with Julie to talk about wellness as a way of livin...

He set tile for a living. Now he sells Toy of the Year. Derek Love didn't take the usual road into startup sales. He took the one with knee pads. Years setting tile, top-notch, then a hard pivot to Sales Manager at Wigglitz, the startup behind 2026's Toy of the Year and a 250-character collectible obsession. This Thursday we're sitting down with Derek to dig into the stuff nobody puts...

14 years as a Marine officer. More near-death experiences than he can count. Now he decides whether your brand lives or dies in the first 3 seconds on a screen. Eric Martindale joins us on Where the Dogs of Society Howl. Eric runs the digital shelf — Amazon, TikTok Shop, Instacart, Target Roundel — the places where "fine but forgettable" brands quietly bleed out. We're getting into:...

She sold out rooms across three continents. Now she's fighting for three seconds in a grocery aisle. Gina Sicilia spent 15 years as an acclaimed blues singer-songwriter, 11 albums, a Blues Music Award nod, stages across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Then 2020 killed the tour. So she built something else. Gina's Italian Cuisine; no-sugar-added, low-carb Italian food, now on shelves at Kroge...

She walked into an American Idol audition. Twice. Most people wouldn't do it once. Erica Bruno-Martin has spent 15+ years in a business where trust is everything, and buyers decide whom to believe in seconds, the car business. She's turned struggling dealerships into growth machines, coached leaders people actually follow, and somewhere along the way sang on stage with Keith Urban. We'...

Open forum on two things that wreck brand credibility. Part One: Why do brands cave on price when they can't articulate value? Part Two: Every brand now has an AI website. Most sound like it. When does AI amplify signal vs. erase it? Join us for diagnosis and debate.

She drinks seven beverages a day and is building a company around the one that actually works. Vy Vo is the founder of SpaceTime, a performance drink built for the people who can't afford a crash. Founders. Traders. Engineers. Operators. People whose whole livelihood depends on staying sharp. She's in the CPG trenches. Real operations. Real supply chain chaos. Real fundraising conversation...

Most communication is broken. Not a little off. Actually broken. Dan Roth has spent 15 years in advertising, journalism, podcasting, and corporate comms doing one thing: fixing it. He works fractionally. Goes in fast. He figures out what's not working and why. Then he fixes it. We're getting into: Why most CPG brands blow it before the buyer even picks up the package What fractional creati...

Your living room is a confession. On this show we sit down with Dagmar Holub, founder of Interior Odyssey. Her path: an MA in History and Philosophy, teacher training that included state exams in Psychology and Pedagogy, then design school at KLC Chelsea Harbour, before project work and awards took over! Her thesis: home isn't a showroom. It's a mirror. Most people decorate around the part...

42% of you voted for the UAP/Paranormal/Fringe Topic. So we are diving in. Let's talk about the extensive history and current events in our strange world. Sure, we all know the big ones: Atlantis Ancient Egypt / The Giza Pyramids Göbekli Tepe The Nazca Lines Magenta, 1933 Roswell, 1947 The Patterson-Gimlin Film, 1967 The Phoenix Lights, 1997 The Tunguska Event, 1908 The Maya Loch Ness TicTac O...

Growth is easy to talk about. Leading people well while building it? Different story. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re joined by Sondra Shannon, CEO of Gatemaster Tech and host of Live with Sondra. We’re getting into: Theme Parks & Destinations Customer experience Scaling with intention Messaging and story Creative leadership and the human side of success Sondra brings the sp...

Everybody loves a winner. Fewer people understand what it costs to become one. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re joined by Amber Balcaen: NASCAR driver, entrepreneur, speaker, and a serious force. Amber is the first Canadian female to win a NASCAR-sanctioned race in the U.S. and the only Canadian female currently competing in the ARCA Menards Series. We’re getting into: Building y...

Startup culture loves one kind of ending: The glossy one. The big exit. The polished founder post dressed up as humility. But that is not how most businesses end. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re joined by Alison Cayne, founder of Haven’s Kitchen, founder of Choulie, and host of In the Sauce. Alison built Haven’s Kitchen from a Manhattan cooking school into a nationally recognize...

Most brands say they’re data-driven. A lot of them are just spreadsheet-rich and story-poor. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re joined by Russ Abstein, founder of Catman Analytics Group and Senior Director of Category Management at Utz. Russ has spent 30+ years turning giant data dumps into actual shelf wins, helping brands move from “here’s a pile of numbers” to “here’s why this b...

This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re joined by Michael Politz, founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, author of Guide to Restaurant Success, and a guy whose work lives right at the intersection of media, commerce, branding, and influence. He’s also tied to the PR%F Awards and CPG Awards, which puts him right in the middle of how brands get recognized and how recognition actually wo...

Everybody is asking the wrong question about AI. Not just: - Will it take jobs? - Replace people? - Flatten creativity? But this is really the better question: Why are so many humans already operating at half-strength before AI even enters the room? This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re joined by Jeff Chen, founder of Personal Singularity and CEO of Odyssey Films. Through Odyssey Film...

Most startups do not have a growth problem. They have an overhead problem. A systems problem. A too-many-tools, too-many-costs, too-much-drag problem. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re getting into that with Lorde Astor West, founder and CEO of RadHash. Astor is building a modular operating system designed to help founders build and scale software without the usual tech stack bloa...

Most brands do not need more noise. They need better access. Better timing. Better rooms. Better alignment between what they are, who they need, and how they show up. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re getting into that with Shannon Peffley, founder of CPG X, and returning guest Mike Levinson, RD, founder of FS Octopus. We’re talking about: Why CPG X was created What’s broken in th...

We're talking with Nicole Light, founder of Power in Packaging. Nicole has spent more than 15 years building scalable CPG brands across food and beverage, pharma, OTC, beauty, personal care, and private label, taking products from idea to shelf. This is not a surface-level branding conversation. We’re getting into: Why packaging is not the fix if the brand upstream is muddy Why clarity has to...

We're (Jeff and I) talking with Matt Hyams. A comedian, writer, content creator, and a man brave enough to describe himself as the husband of an entrepreneurial perimenopausal wife… in public. So yes, we’re going there. We’re talking about: • marriage and modern life • comedy as truth serum • domestic absurdity • content creation and attention • the strange little behaviors people think are no...

Most founders think growth starts when the product gets picked up. It doesn’t. That’s when the pressure starts. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re talking about what actually takes a CPG brand from local traction to national shelf. My guest is Phaedra Dyer, a senior CPG sales leader with 15+ years in the trenches, helping brands grow across Whole Foods, Sprouts, Erewhon, Gelson’s,...

Most founders think money is the missing piece. It usually isn’t. This week on Where the Dogs of Society Howl, we’re talking with Tom Malengo, co-founder of Brandjectory, about what actually makes a CPG brand ready for growth, investment, and the next level. We’re getting into: • what “investment-ready” really means • the mistakes founders make before fundraising • the difference between traction...