Vibe Marketing

Moving a small business to a new state sounds like starting over from scratch. Redio Risell, founder of Risell Mobile Detailing, took the detailing business he started as a college side hustle in Pennsylvania and restarted it in Central Florida with no client list. Then he realized he hadn't started from zero at all. What we cover: - Sneaker reselling as business school: why selling Jordans for $2...

We met Sara Hansen across the aisle at a chiropractic convention in Orlando, where her booth was giving away a Yeti cooler. Turns out the Yeti wasn't the strategy. Sara went from Bushido Billing's first hire to COO of a 33-person team, and her best lead source is something absolutely anyone can do:  answering people's questions in a Facebook group without ever pitching. What we cover: - Only sell...

Everybody tells you to start a newsletter. Nobody tells you who you're supposed to send it to. Caitlin opens with the frustration every founder hits when they sit down to write to an empty list, and from there we get into why email is still worth it, what makes one worth opening, and what to do if you're starting from zero. What We Cover: Email isn't dead: open rates still average in the high 20s...

Social media and AI are table stakes now. So why is the most valuable marketing move still walking into a room and shaking a hand? We sat down with Milna Maldonado of T&G Constructors, who has spent her career in business development and now works in an industry where a lot of people have been burned, to talk about how trust actually gets built and kept. What We Cover: Why Milna thinks marketi...

People have been saying "SEO is dead" for over a decade. After his second trip to Brighton SEO, Craig thinks they're partly right this time, but AI isn't the main reason. Craig and Caitlin talk about what actually changed, the new job title that caught Craig off guard, and why knowing your customer matters more now than it ever has. Why Craig puts Google's own changes, not AI, at about 70% of what...

Craig signed up for a new AI tool at midnight on his birthday beach trip, and six days later it had booked him a meeting from a contact list that got zero replies when he emailed it himself. This isn't a pitch for one tool. It's what happens when you stop prompting AI and start handing it real work, and why the thing holding most business owners back is a wall made of paper. How a sales director w...

Cara Fitch signed up for a blowout membership because she was desperate for a last minute appointment on her birthday. Three years later she got a marketing blast from that same business asking if anyone wanted to franchise, and she picked up the phone. What followed was a 17 month process, an ice cream shop that taught her everything she didn't know about permitting, and a lesson about mentorship...

Dave MacDonald opened this conversation by saying people are the best and computers suck, and then Craig's internet died three separate times, which meant Caitlin and Dave had to carry the first fifteen minutes without him. It's a fitting start to an episode about the messy human side of running a business: hiring people, keeping them, and figuring out whether your marketing is doing anything at a...

You're using AI every day, juggling twenty logins, and pushing client data through tools you never really vetted. So here's the uncomfortable question: do you actually know what's safe? This week Abhi Saini, founder and CEO of Bearium Networks, walks us through it in plain English, no jargon and no fear-mongering, drawing on nearly a decade inside agency life. What we get into: The "check that box...

Craig will be the first to admit it: for 17 years, his business partner did all the networking while he stayed back at the office. This year he decided to fix that, and one of the first people he met was Caleb Paull, a guy who went from panic attacks in the parking lot to coaching business leaders on how to build real relationships. In this episode, Caleb hands over the playbook. What we cover: Wh...

Caitlin loves Legoland and she has never even been. That's how good the world building is. This conversation starts at a theme park and ends up in your waiting room, because the same immersion that sells apple fries can work for a dentist, a lawyer, or any business with a front door. What we cover: What Legoland gets right, from walls fashioned to look like bricks to a signature snack designed to...

Craig opens this one with a confession: he's a mark. Blue mountains on a beer can got his money. A Peyton Manning ad got it again. So this episode, two people who make marketing for a living break down the marketing that actually works on them, and what any small business can steal from it without a celebrity budget. What we cover: Why the trust behind a celebrity endorsement now belongs to anyone...

Most business owners start out doing their own books, and most of them keep doing it long past the point where it makes sense. This week we brought in an actual expert. Lacey Confer of Solutions Group Accounting joins us to talk about when to hand off your numbers, what professional bookkeeping really costs (spoiler: way less than you think), and the money mistakes she sees business owners make on...

Everyone's chasing a million followers. But if 99% of them will never walk through your door, what did that number actually buy you? Chip Colandreo has spent 23 years proving the opposite bet: a small, passionate local audience beats a viral one every time. He joins Craig and Caitlin to talk about why local storytelling is harder than going global, and why it's worth it. What We Cover: Why the onl...

Most people are still typing one-off prompts and wondering why AI gives them generic answers. The problem isn't the tool. It's that you never gave it your context. In this one, Craig and Caitlin open up their actual AI stacks, the tools they pay for, the ones that saved real hours this week, and how each of them built a thinking partner that knows their business well enough to push back. What We C...

Ask a business owner who their customer is and you'll often hear "everyone." It feels safe. It's actually the thing quietly costing them money. This episode is about getting narrow on purpose, and why the right customer does more for your bottom line than a bigger net ever will. What We Cover: Why "I want everyone" is the answer that keeps you stuck, and how to get narrow enough to actually win Th...

Most business owners think they need a rebrand. Most of them don't. In this one, Caitlin and Craig take opposite corners on refresh versus rebrand, then land somewhere that actually helps you decide which one your business needs and which one would just break what's already working. What we cover: The real difference: a refresh evolves your look and messaging while keeping your core intact. A rebr...

You picked a font because you liked it. That might be the problem. In this episode, Craig and Caitlin get into "font crimes," the typeface choices that quietly cost you customers without anyone ever telling you why. Craig even confesses his own past as a font criminal, the kind David used to call out years ago. What We Cover: Why your brain recognizes typography the way it recognizes a circle, tri...

Most roofers fight an uphill battle on trust. Carrie Moreau decided the answer was a cape. As "the Roofing Wonder Woman" behind Certified Best Roofing in Central Florida, she runs a business that pulls 90% of its revenue from in-person networking, in an industry where most companies spend 10% of revenue on SEO. What we cover: The two-business-card system: when the cosplay card comes out, when the...

AI can spin up a working website in an hour. The real question is what happens when you need a careers page, a CRM integration, or a fix at 2 a.m. David Forman, Co-Founder of Clarity Creative Group, has been coding since he was 11 and has been building agencies with Craig for 17 years. He joined us to talk about where AI actually helps a business, where it quietly leaves you exposed, and how to te...

Most business owners are quietly making brand decisions based on what they personally like, and paying for it in ways they never measure. This episode gets honest about the gap between owner taste and what the market actually responds to, plus the questions that help you tell the difference before you spend money in the wrong direction. What we cover: The tax of personal taste: what "I like blue"...

Those scary ADA compliance emails from law firms aren't going away. But here's the thing: the fixes are more straightforward than you think, and most of them will actually make your brand work better for everyone. Craig opens this one admitting ADA compliance used to confuse and frustrate him. Caitlin walks through what it actually means for your website, why roughly 10% of your audience may not b...

AI can build you a logo in 30 seconds. The question is whether you should let it. Craig and Caitlin talk through what AI is actually good at in branding and marketing, where it falls dangerously short, and how to use it as the sidekick it's built to be instead of handing it the keys to your entire brand. Caitlin shares her 10/80/10 framework, and Craig gets real about why even as a power user, he...

You joined the chamber, grabbed a few business cards, maybe went to the big expo. And then... nothing. Here's the problem: most business owners treat networking like a to-do list instead of a growth strategy. Rebekah Arthur has spent over a decade at the Seminole County Chamber and now leads it as President and CEO. She sits down with us to break down what actually works when you walk into a room...

Your brand identity is the soul. Your marketing infrastructure is the machine. Neither one works without the other, and most businesses are running on one while ignoring the other. Craig and Caitlin break down what happens when you have a gorgeous brand book collecting dust in a folder, what happens when you have a marketing engine with no strategic foundation, and how connecting the two is what a...