Little Talks

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...

Everybody loves a quick win, especially when revenue goals are staring you in the face. But in B2B marketing, the fastest-looking result is not always the most valuable one. Long sales cycles, budget timing, research-heavy purchases, and multiple decision-makers mean trust usually builds long before a deal closes. In this week’s episode of Little Talks, Sam and Roop chat about how that pressure sh...

In B2B marketing, there’s a familiar disconnect: the people building the product and the people selling it often speak different languages. When specs and performance lead the story, buyers can drop off before they ever reach a decision. The opportunity isn’t to simplify the product. It’s to translate what it does into what it means. At the upper funnel, that shift is strategic. On a recent episod...

The word “vendor” gets tossed around a lot in the agency world, and if you’ve ever been in a purely transactional relationship, you know why it doesn’t feel great. You brief, they execute, they invoice and next time you’re starting from scratch. No momentum, no pushback, no one really in your corner. That model works for some things. But for growing a brand, it definitely has a ceiling. Own this w...

One of the most common things we hear from brands thinking about engaging in a content program is, “we just don’t have that much to say.” And man, oh man ... We're here to tell you that’s just not true. The problem isn’t a lack of ideas or topics, it’s where you’re looking and who you're writing it for. Your content shouldn’t be about you and trying to constantly sell, it should be about...

Trade shows are expensive . Between booth space, travel, swag, staffing, and all the little costs that sneak up on you, it's not unusual for a single event to run well into five or six figures. And yet, when leadership asks "was it worth it?" most teams fumble the answer. Not because the show wasn't valuable, but because no one set up a real way to measure it in the first place...

There’s a moment every in-house marketing team knows. You look up at 6 p.m., your to-do list is longer than when you started, and the big strategic work still isn’t done. You were busy. Really busy. But doing what, exactly? That gap between daily execution and long-term strategy is real, and it’s one of the most common challenges marketing teams face. At Littlefield, we work alongside in-house tea...

Change is hard. It's always been hard. But the rate at which B2B marketers are being asked to adapt right now, juggling AI adoption, cross-functional alignment, proving ROI, and meeting digital buyers where they are, it is genuinely unlike anything we've seen before. The pressure is coming from every direction with CFOs expecting more with less, sales and IT teams that need to be brought...

Many businesses hire agencies to execute tasks: build a campaign, design an ad, launch a website. But the strongest agency relationships go beyond simple execution. A truly strategic agency sees itself as a partner in growth, focused on outcomes like revenue, customer acquisition, and brand positioning rather than just delivering assets. For Littlefield Agency, that partnership means asking “why”...

On this week's episode of Little Talks, we return to favorite topic: AI. In marketing, AI isn’t just moving fast, it can also be unstable. Tools launch, raise funding, and pivot in the same week. The hype cycle that once took years now takes months, and sometimes just weeks. That pace can create some real fatigue for those of us in the AI trenches. A lot of new platforms are simply wrappers o...

Likes and views feel good, but they don’t pay the bills. Vanity metrics are easy to report and look great in a slide deck, but they’re tough to connect to revenue. On this episode of Little Talks, Sam and Roop discuss the real shift marketing teams need to make, no longer chasing attention but instead measuring impact. If marketing is working, you’ll see it in the pipeline. Are we generating real...

It's Monday morning quarterback time! After the biggest football game in the world is over, it's time to discuss the marketing world's big game—the commercials. Roop, Sam and Claudia go through the highs and lows of this year's Big Game ads, ranking their favorites and least favorites once again. Who did it right and who wasted their money? The game itself may have been a snooz...

Fresh off their new website launch, Grasshopper Mower's, Michael Simmon, joins Sam and Roop to discuss some of the things to consider when developing a new website for your brand. It's not all pretty pictures, designing a new site involves a lot of planning and strategy to ensure your investment returns dividends for you and your business. From SEO and AI SEO considerations, to user expe...

We touched on them last week with Chris Kizer, but in this episode, Sam and Roop dive a bit deeper into the specifics of what we know about OpenAI’s new ChatGPT ads. When are they rolling out? Who will see them? How much do they cost advertisers? What sort of analytics can we expect? Lots of questions, and a handful of answers that aren’t all that great. But some promising new formats from the tec...

All healed up and feeling great, our Media & Analytics Director, Chris Kizer, finally joins Sam and Roop to recap his stellar presentation (and learnings) from a MAGNET retreat that started the new year. Chris is a human calculator that brings next level media performance and reporting to our clients. Give this episode a listen to get some insight into what's happening now and what's...

Our scheduled guest had to take a rain check, but fear not! Chris Kizer will be our guest next week as we discuss all things media heading into 2026. This week? You’re stuck with Roop and Sam again, but they have a topic we think most of you can relate to—hating all the AI slop flooding your social feeds (and, in some cases, your TV). And no, AI didn’t write this, we used an em dash on purpose! Th...

Sam and Roop return from a lengthy time off for the holidays, and are pumped and ready to go for the new year! After they chat about their Christmas and New Year celebrations (and give the unseasonably warm December weather the thumbs down), it's on to business. To start the year, Sam traveled to Florida for an annual MAGNET retreat with Chris Kizer (who will make his podcast debut next week!...