Marketing Team of One

Charlie Fusco grew up on film sets and in funding meetings. She was producing infomercials before she turned 21 and eventually grew that work into a $15 million agency. In 2018 she sold it and started TGC Worldwide, where her team helps people who are trying to do good in the world get their stories heard. Sometimes that means a bestselling book launch. Other times it's a documentary or a live eve...

Mark DeVito has spent more than two decades helping organizations, from federal agencies to political campaigns to global brands, figure out who they are and how to tell that story with authenticity. As managing director and head of brand strategy at SKDK, he's built a career on the idea that strategy and storytelling aren't separate skills, they're the same skill. In this episode, Mark joins Eric...

Touda Bentatou oversees new customer onboarding at Novi AMS and has spent years helping associations navigate one of their most consequential decisions — building the right tech stack. She joins Eric to talk through how to evaluate software without getting it wrong, what a real member communication plan looks like when change is coming, and the frameworks she relies on to keep projects from going...

Dan Mall spent 28 years in the design and marketing world, ran his agency Superfriendly for 10 years with a bench of 700 contractors and only one full-time employee, and now coaches other agency owners on building a business that supports the life they actually want. He joins Eric this week to talk about what solo marketers can do when they're under-resourced, under-heard, and still expected to de...

In this episode, Mike sits down with Ashley, the producer behind the Marketing Team of One, who took on exactly that kind of project — rebuilding a friend's website using AI and no formal web background. The AI delivered something that looked great. But looking great turned out to be the easy part. What she ran into was an order-of-operations problem that no tool could solve for her. This one is f...

Too many dashboards. Not enough clarity. Knowing which numbers actually matter and which ones are just noise can make or break how leadership sees your work. Eric and Mike introduce a simple three-tier metrics pyramid that brings order to the chaos. One number at the top for the CEO. A handful in the middle for reporting. And a deeper set for you, the practitioner, to optimize against. They also c...

Eric and Mike take a closer look at the conference experience through a design lens, breaking down the details that separate an event people rave about from one they quietly endure. From the moment attendees walk through the door to the conversations they have in between sessions, there's more intention (or lack of it) behind that experience than most people realize. They get into what actually ma...

A "perfect" website is a moving target, and most people building one alone are working without a map. In this episode, Eric and Mike break down the full set of considerations that go into a website that actually works, the ones that get a lot of attention and the ones that quietly determine whether a site holds up over time. Some carry more weight than others, and getting them right doesn't requir...

What separates a presentation that lands from one that loses the room — and how do you even know which format to reach for first? In this episode of Marketing Team of One, hosts Eric and Mike get into the weeds on something they see walk through their studio door nearly every day: the deck . Inspired by a previous episode with the team at Duarte, they break down the presentation formats most peopl...

Eric and Mike have a hunch that communications is more valuable than most organizations give it credit for. So they do what any good hosts would do and bring in Sheila Johnston, someone who can actually back that up. The conversation gets into why so many organizations treat marketing and communications as an afterthought, what it looks like when a company builds it into the foundation instead, an...

Vanessa Sapino, Senior Vice President and Partner at FleishmanHillard's Sacramento office, joins host Eric Grotenhuis to talk about the real work behind public relations and why she has spent 22 years doing it. From leading the Kubota account for 17 years to one career-defining moment with a celebrity client that she never saw coming, Vanessa has built a career around being ready for whatever come...

When a fan messaged in with real frustration about being stretched too thin, Eric and Mike did what they do best: turned it into a conversation worth having. This one is all about the challenge of finding help when you're a marketing team of one, and why it is harder than it sounds. They dig into how to figure out what you actually need help with before you go looking, why handing everything to so...

What happens when you're the strategy lead, the project director, the brand cop, and the air traffic controller all in one? Monica Griffis, Director of Marketing and Communications at the California School Board Association, joins host Eric Grotenhuis to share how she stepped into a tough situation and built something she's proud of. Her team of about 10 people ran over 800 projects in a single ye...

Eric sits down with Jennifer Bourn, graphic designer, business coach, and CMO of Motivation Code, and a marketing team of one herself, for a wide-ranging conversation about what's really working (and what isn't) in marketing right now. Jen gets real about the growing fatigue around social media, why more businesses are pulling back online and returning to offline tactics like networking and events...

28,000 views. No images. Just Mike typing his thoughts about AI into LinkedIn and apparently hitting a nerve with a lot of people. In this episode, Eric pulls Mike into the studio to dig into what sparked that post and where the conversation leads from there. They get into AI branding, what certain tools are signaling about their intentions, and why some of it is starting to feel a little off. The...

Eric sits down with Blair Enns, founder of Win Without Pitching and a respected authority in the sales and marketing world, to explore what it really means to sell expertise with confidence. Known for challenging traditional sales tactics, Blair shares how credibility is built before a sales call ever happens, why mindset matters as much as strategy, and how solo marketers can support sales effort...

This episode of Marketing Team of One steps beyond tactics and into the craft of brand with legendary lettering artist Gerard Huerta . Best known for creating some of the most recognizable logos and lettering in music and publishing, Gerard shares how a career built on drawing, curiosity, and creative discipline led to work that still holds up decades later. Eric and Gerard talk about why hand-dra...

Eric is joined by marketing icon and longtime brand evangelist Guy Kawasaki for an energizing conversation that's equal parts practical, honest, and refreshingly grounded. Together, they explore what it really takes to build influence in today's marketing landscape, especially when you're doing it all yourself. From the role of evangelism in modern branding to the shifting realities of social medi...

Website redesigns tend to start with frustration and end with exhaustion. In this episode, Eric and Mike unpack why so many website projects go off the rails and how most of that pain can be avoided with the right planning upfront. They walk through how to audit an existing site, clarify goals for both the organization and its users, and design an information architecture that actually supports ho...

In this episode of Marketing Team of One, Eric sits down with Ryan Orcutt and Cameron Flett from one of the world's most famous design firms, Duarte, to explore what goes into high-stakes presentations. From executive keynotes to internal decks that drive major decisions, Ryan and Cameron share how storytelling, design, and delivery come together when the pressure is on. They break down why empath...

Content calendars get a bad reputation. They sound rigid, corporate, and like something you "should" be doing instead of something that actually helps. In this episode, Eric and Mike reframe what a content calendar is really for: giving you clarity, consistency, and a system that doesn't make you want to quit marketing altogether. They walk through how to organize your ideas, define what you shoul...

In this episode, Mike and Eric rewind the tape on how the Marketing Team of One Podcast went from a long-running idea to an actual, consistent show. They walk through the early days, starting from the "do we really need a podcast?" debates, down to the realization that talking out loud works a lot better for them than staring at a blinking cursor. Each share the moments that shaped the podcast: th...

On this episode of Marketing Team of One, Eric sits down with Steve Joves, a creative leader and the Creative Manager for SAFE Credit Union. He has spent his career moving across industries and adapting to new challenges.  They talk about what it means to guide brand expression inside a growing organization, how to build creative systems that scale, and why collaboration often matters more than he...

Two podcasters. One $100 budget. In this episode of Marketing Team of One, Eric and Mike put their scrappy marketing instincts to the test, proving that creativity might just be the most valuable asset of all. It's a playful showdown of ideas, strong opinions, and questionable coffee purchases — because when time and money are short, ingenuity has to pick up the slack. You'll walk away with plenty...

In this episode of Marketing Team of One, Eric and Mike sit down with Doug Aguiar, former Chief Marketing Officer of Golden 1 Credit Union, to explore what small marketing teams can learn from large-scale brand operations. Doug shares insights from decades in financial-services marketing—covering brand reputation, consumer trust, storytelling, and the art of balancing creativity with measurable re...