Little Talks

A tiny Christmas tree, a debate about when it's acceptable to start decorating for the holidays, and a little confusion over Jeff Bezos' hair. Just another normal episode of Little Talks. Somewhere in between all of that, Sam and Roop actually managed to talk about what makes a great B2B website homepage. And with 2027 right around the corner, it's a good time to give yours another...

After three weeks apart, Sam and Roop are FINALLY back together on Little Talks! And naturally, they have plenty to catch up on. This week, they're tackling SEO for AI and what brands should be thinking about as we head into 2027. With more people getting their answers directly from AI, website traffic isn't quite what it used to be. But before you start panicking over your analytics, Sa...

Roop’s on vacation this week, and Sam has plenty to talk about after spending a few days in Buenos Aires for the latest MAGNET Global Network principal meeting. He shared some of his favorite moments from the trip and what he learned from agency leaders around the world. One of the biggest topics? AI, of course. But unlike last year’s conversations, which were largely about uncertainty, this year’...

Tell us what you think!

LinkedIn doesn't have to be boring. There, we said it. This week on Little Talks, Roop and Claudia are back with more from UNBOUND, this time talking about all things LinkedIn and how brands can show a little more personality. One thing we heard over and over? Not everything needs to be so polished. A quick walk-and-talk video, a real opinion, or someone from your team sharing what they actua...

If you've listened to Little Talks for a while, you probably know we're big fans of Jay Schwedelson. So when Roop and Claudia saw him on the UNBOUND schedule, obviously they had to be there. This week, they're bringing some of their favorite takeaways from his sessions back to the podcast, starting with what's changing in email. As AI summaries become more common in Gmail, Appl...

The gang is back together after two weeks of travels! Roop and Claudia recap UNBOUND and share with Sam what actually stuck with us after a few packed days of sessions, speakers, product announcements, and a whole lot of AI talk. Some sessions were all-in on using AI to do more. Others made the case that as AI-generated content becomes easier to make, human judgment, trust, and personality matter...

Sam’s on vacation this week, so Claudia is officially comes out from her behind the scenes roll producing the podcast and joins Roop on the mics! And the timing couldn’t be better because the duo is getting ready to head to Boston for HubSpot’s UNBOUND marketing conference. So this week on Little Talks, we’re previewing which sessions made it onto our schedules, and what we’re most excited to hear...

It's easy for media plans to become routine. Search works. Social works. So year after year, the same dollars keep going to the same places. This week on Little Talks, Matt Fogarty, SVP of Sales at Mogl, joins Sam and Roop to talk about why it might be time to rethink that approach. Tools like The Trade Desk are giving mid-market brands access to more data, premium inventory, and insights tha...

LinkedIn. Facebook. Instagram. YouTube. TikTok. Reddit. Threads. And probably three new platforms by the time we finish writing this. Does your brand really need to be on all of them? This week on Little Talks, Sam and Roop talk about whether brands should actually be doing less on social in 2027. Not necessarily posting less, but being a little more intentional about where and why you're pos...

Annual planning always looks great on paper. The budget makes sense. The priorities are clear. Everyone knows exactly what they're doing. And then the year actually starts. This week on Little Talks, Sam and Roop talk about planning for 2027 and why a good marketing plan needs enough structure to keep everyone focused, but enough flexibility to change when something starts working (or really...

Most companies have values. The bigger question is whether anyone can actually remember them. This week on Little Talks, Sam and Roop talk about how LFG became a big part of Littlefield culture and why, six years later, it’s still something we use every day. LFG came out of a pretty difficult time for the agency in 2020. As we rethought where Littlefield was headed, we also wanted values that actu...

"Can you knock this out by tomorrow?" On its own, it's usually not a big deal. But after the fifth "quick request" of the week, those little asks start adding up. This week on Little Talks, Sam and Roop talk about the capacity problem facing in-house marketing teams. Between sales requests, trade shows, last-minute projects, and everything in between, it's easy for st...

AI has made marketing faster. From writing and research to brainstorming and campaign planning, the tools keep getting better. But as Sharon Toerek, Owner and Founder of Legal+Creative | Toerek Law, explains on this week's Little Talks, moving faster also means being more thoughtful about how you use AI. Sharon joined Sam and Roop to discuss the legal side of AI, including intellectual proper...

Planning isn't usually the problem. Most teams have goals. They have strategy sessions. They have whiteboards full of ideas and calendars full of kickoff meetings. The hard part is what happens after all of that. This week on Little Talks, Sam and Roop discuss Traction  by Gino Wickman and why it's had such a big impact on the way Littlefield Agency operates. The system isn't flashy...

AI search isn't coming. It's already here. This week on Little Talks, Sam and Roop talk about one stat that caught everyone's attention: AI referral traffic to U.S. retail sites is up 393% year over year. That's not just another marketing number. It's a sign that buyers are starting to search differently. Instead of scrolling through a page of links, they're asking AI...

Trust is one of those things marketers talk about all the time, but it's hard to point to on a dashboard. This week, Sam and Roop discuss why that doesn't make it any less important. When you're selling equipment that costs six or seven figures, people aren't clicking an ad and making a purchase that afternoon. They're talking to coworkers. Reading reviews. Watching YouTub...

Most equipment marketing is built for the buyer who is ready to own. That makes sense. Ownership is the big, shiny goal. But it also means rental buyers can get treated like a side audience, when in reality they may be the person with the most immediate need in the room. On this week’s Little Talks, Sam and Roop talk about why rental buyers think differently and why the marketing should, too. Thes...

Friend of the podcast Jay Schwedelson is back on Little Talks this week, and as usual, he didn't disappoint! Jay joined Sam and Roop to talk about his new book, Stupider People Have Done It , and somewhere between marketing, AI, LinkedIn, TV, coffee, and life advice, we landed on a simple idea: people still trust people. AI can help you move faster. Social proof matters. Your LinkedIn page sh...

AI has made it incredibly easy to make more stuff. More blogs. More emails. More social posts. More everything. The problem? Nobody was sitting around wishing there was more content on the internet. This week on Little Talks, Sam and Roop talk about what happens when everyone has access to the same tools and can create the same types of content. AI can absolutely help. It's great at research,...

Marketers love a good audience segment until it gets too broad to mean anything. “Business decision-makers” sounds nice in a media plan, but it does not tell you much about where those people actually spend time, what tools they use, or what signals point to real intent. That is where things get interesting, and occasionally a little uncomfortable, because our phones know us better than most dropd...

Agency size has a funny way of becoming a security blanket. It feels measurable, which makes it feel useful. A 60-person shop sounds safer than a 25-person shop, at least until you remember that all 60 people will not be in your reporting meeting, your strategy call, or the late-afternoon scramble when priorities shift. That is where Sam and Roop spent most of this week’s conversation. The episode...

This week’s episode of Little Talks is a special one. After 10 years at Littlefield Agency, Chelsea Clement joins Sam and Roop on the podcast one last time before heading into her next chapter: becoming a full-time mom. Chelsea has been a huge part of Littlefield for the last decade. If you’ve interacted with our team, followed our content, listened to the podcast, or honestly just spent five minu...

Dealer marketing can look really organized at the corporate level and still completely fall apart in the field. A portal gets built, assets get uploaded, launch emails go out… and then a dealer posts an off-brand phone photo five minutes later. This week, Sam and Roop talked about why that happens. Most dealers are not trying to ignore the brand. They are trying to sell in their market, to their c...

A lot of teams still talk about AI like it’s some far-off future conversation. But in reality, the shift is already happening, and fast. The more interesting question now is not whether the tools are improving. It’s what teams choose to do with the extra space those tools create. This week, Sam and Roop reflected on conversations coming out of the latest Magnet meeting and kept landing on the same...