Devin Bramhall

Co-host: Don't Say Content. Marketing Advisor. Agency Growth Strategist. Former CEO of Animalz.

Your CEO doesn't hate marketing. They hate that you can't prove that it works.

I know because I've been the marketer pitching brilliant strategies that get shelved and the CEO wondering why marketing feels like an expensive black box.

After 15+ years building content strategies as a marketer and tripling Animalz to nearly $12M ARR as CEO, I realized the real problem:

We're optimizing for activities instead of outcomes. Checking boxes instead of driving growth.

The dirty secret? Most "content marketing strategies" are just glorified to-do lists.

My book "B2B Content Marketing Strategy" shows why "do more marketing" is killing growth and what to do instead.

Now I help companies stop doing marketing and start growing businesses as a fractional Chief Growth Officer.

If you're tired of: 
→ Defending your work instead of leading with it 
→ Following frameworks that feel like busy work 
→ Watching brilliant ideas die in committee

You're in the right place.

I help marketers ask better questions. Not “what content do we need?” but “what does the business need to grow?'"

Get weekly no-BS takes on growth: devinbramhall.com/newsletter

Chief Executive Officer

So why am I starting a newsletter when there are already ten thousand marketing newsletters? Fair question.

I got tired of having the same conversation in private that nobody's having in public.

Every week, I sit with marketing leaders who are smart, capable, doing everything right on paper, and still getting crushed. Because the company around them is broken in ways nobody talks about.

The CEO who says "I trust you" and then rewrites your strategy in a board meeting. The founder who hired you to lead marketing but won't let you make a single decision without their sign-off. The reorg that has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with politics.

I hear these stories constantly. From my advisory clients. From my coaching sessions. From people in my comments and DMs who just need someone to say "no, you're not crazy."

So why is everyone learning this stuff alone?

I've also been the CEO. I have been the person making the calls that marketers complain about, and I've been the marketer complaining. I know what both sides are thinking because I've been both sides.

That's what Good Question is. 

I take real stories, real situations, change the names, and break down what actually happened. The human problem. The politics, the miscommunication, the thing nobody in the room said out loud.

Get my newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/ehqXFYNB

First edition arriving in your inbox soon.

Chief Growth Officer [Fractional]. Author: “B2B Content Marketing Strategy” out now on Amazon

I’ve been a CEO. I’ve also advised dozens. And I can tell you... 

I've watched the same person look at the same marketing report on a Monday and love it. 

Then Wednesday? "I don't know why you're showing me this."

Same numbers. Same deck. The CEO had a different week.

And like, that's not a criticism. That's just the job. Being a CEO means you're thinking about 500 things in the next half hour. Your marketing report is maybe thing #387.

So my PR team sends me this question...
"What's the best ROI metric marketers should track in 2026?"

And I wrote this very long answer that was basically me being like, this is the stupidest question I've ever heard. It depends on the industry, the company, the CEO's literal individual personality. (I was nicer about it. Slightly.)

Because every CEO is different. Every person you report to is different. And what I keep trying to tell people is, your job isn't to prove marketing works with the perfect dashboard.

Your job as a marketing leader is to figure out what story your CEO will hear, what they'll say yes to, and what they can go brag about.

Like, give your CEO one killer data point the week before they go to a big dinner or conference. Something specific. Something they can drop in conversation. They'll tell you they don't care about vanity metrics, but THEY DO. They love those bragging rights. They just don't want to see the whole spreadsheet.

And get other people on the team whispering in their ear. Multiple people. So the CEO's hearing it from everywhere.

That's when you start actually making an impact. When your CEO looks good and lets you keep doing the work you know is right.

We keep debating metrics like there's a universal answer. There isn't. There's a human sitting across from you. Speak to them.

Anyway... I got into this more with Ross Hudgens on his podcast. 

Link in comments if you want the full rant.

Speak their language

I'm attending the CMO Alliance Summit in NYC this March.

85+ CMOs and marketing leaders in a closed, peer-focused environment. We're digging into why CEOs don't trust marketing by default, what actually earns that trust, and how you shift from defending your work to owning business outcomes.

If you want to build real trust with your CEO, this is worth your time.

It's invitation-only. DM me for an invite.

Shoutout to the CMO Alliance

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Everyone says the best marketers think like CEOs.

I've been both. They're wrong.

When I first started sitting in exec meetings, I was so focused on proving I was smart I missed every signal in the room. What the CEO actually cared about. Why they were pushing back. Gone.

That was the whole mistake.

I didn't need to think like a CEO.
I needed to pay attention like a marketer.

The CEO is an audience.
The CFO is an audience.
The annoying executive who suddenly has very strong opinions about marketing is definitely an audience.

You do not win those people over by becoming them.

You win them over the same way marketing works anywhere else. Study what they care about. Figure out why your pitch isn't landing. Then run a campaign on them like the marketer you are.

That is the job.

Talked about this Jordan Ogren on the On Marketing podcast and honestly went off more than I planned. If you want the full rant, link's in the comments.

So CEO buy-in is my thing now. 

I didn't pick it. I honestly kind of stumbled into it.

When Margaret Kelsey and I were doing our podcast Don't Say Content, we started talking about the disconnect between CEOs and marketing. 

First time we talked about how companies fail when the CEO and the GTM org aren't even speaking the same language? 

It was our best episode. By whatever the podcast metrics are. So we tried it again, slightly different angle. Same result.

And I was like OK that's interesting.

Then I started looking at my LinkedIn posts differently. I started paying attention to saves. Sends. Shares. Those are completely different-level signals than someone hitting the like button.

And what I care about the most is where people are deeply engaged. Where I see a real problem to be solved. And it was THIS topic.

But I didn't just go all in on this immediately. 

I spent years kind of figuring out what mattered within it. Testing it. Narrowing. What specifically about CEO buy-in? Which part of that conversation? What's the thing marketing leaders actually need?

And this is the part nobody wants to hear because it doesn't come with a template. You need to stop looking for proof. Stop asking for feedback. Stop looking at what your friends are doing.

What you need to do is think for yourself. Come up with an idea. Have enough leading indicators that it could work. Then go put together logical experiments to see if it will.

That's it. That's the whole strategy. Follow signals. Test. Narrow. Commit.

Nobody gave me permission to go all in on CEO buy-in. I just followed enough signals that I trusted myself to try.

Ross Hudgens and I talked about this, the whole thing about why nobody wants to hear "think for yourself" as strategy advice.

It's a good conversation if you're in this headspace right now. I'll link it below.

𝘖𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘛𝘶𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.

Happy snow day to all those who celebrate.

Nora DiNuzzo

You’ve worked too hard for it to be this hard.

Growing up, one thing I never aspired to be was an entrepreneur. 

Running your own company was for the incredibly wealthy (Mr. Burns) or the incredibly innovative (Doc Brown). I was neither.

But what I’ve learned about entrepreneurs over the past few years is that they have one thing in common – they desperately want to fix something that drives them nuts. 

As it turns out – throughout my life and career, a lot of things drove me nuts. 

So nuts that in October 2021, I quit a VP-level job at an ad agency to start my own consultancy – Pitcher – to help small businesses grow.

Because the fact that agencies could rarely find a way to work with companies <$25mm in annual revenue drove me nuts.

Because I believe that small businesses deserve to grow, too. 

In April 2023, I got a call from a friend that I never planned for – with an offer to create something I never considered doing less than two years into being a founder.

A second company.

Because the fact that so many brilliant agencies continuously struggle to grow drove him nuts. 

As it turns out – it drives me nuts, too. 

So nuts that I said yes – and Blood Sweat & Tears was born. 

Yes, born. I have given birth to two human children – and two businesses.

There is not a damn thing women can’t do.

Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer

You’ve worked too hard for it to be this hard.

BS&T is a committed partner to ambitious agencies frustrated by inconsistent growth.

We develop and implement a custom growth strategy that meets you where you are today – whether your goal is to stabilize, sustain, scale or sell your agency.

There is nothing greater to me than women supporting each other 💞

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking at an event for Dress for Success Pittsburgh alongside my longtime friend, Hollie Geitner, APR and newer friend Nicole Ramirez. 

Whether I have known women in my life for 1 year or 20… when they ask me to show up to support something that matters to them and other women in our community, I am THERE.

And shoutout to two special women I mentioned during our session, which was about how to use your voice on LinkedIn - Joy Hoover and Amena 🦒 Chaudhry, SHRM-SCP.

Even though you are miles away, I share your stories and I speak your names. And I know what little I shared about you - your brilliance, innovation, courage - inspired someone in that room.

I’m putting together something really special and important for women this year. Watch this space - I’ll be sharing more soon. 

If you are a woman who supports other women with your full chest - THANK YOU 🙏

Back on my speaking grind.

I miss pitching every day.

Which is why now, I love to present - and to educate.

Are you a speaker too?

If so… tell me what you speak about, and where!

Maybe I will catch you in my travels ✈️

There is nothing cooler than seeing women follow and achieve their dreams.

Unsurprisingly, as someone who likes to write… so do many of my friends. And their dreams include becoming a published author ✍️ 

I met Sophie Jane Lee a couple of years ago, and knew right away she was special. She has a magnetism and spark that you can’t fake, nor can you force. She just embodies it. 

Of course we connected over marketing as well, and I love her branding for Electric Peach 🍑⚡️

Now reading her book, I understand just how hard she fought to get to the point where being herself seems so effortless.

Sophie says in her new book, Beyond Palatable: A Manifesto for Unapologetic Women that “the path forward is not about fixing ourselves, but about remembering who we were before the edits.”

First… A BAR.

Second… that knocked the wind right out of me.

Because you’ve been you all along.

And I’ve been me.

Along the way, as women we were told to, encouraged to, bullied into editing ourselves.

Not just the physical edits. The ones that demanded we rewire our entire personalities. 

As many of you have witnessed in my own transformation, I stopped editing myself about 5 years ago.

Dave DiNuzzo and I dubbed the pandemic year DGAF 2020 - and that’s precisely when I stopped.

Because I saw that life was too short to keep trying to be someone else’s desired version of me.

And the only person who has to live with how I am is me.

One of the greatest advantages of entrepreneurship is the freedom to be yourself.

People have said, “I never knew you felt that way.”

Now that I’m free there is not only a joy in speaking my mind, but also a responsibility to do so.

Especially because I know that many other women cannot yet.

Because it doesn’t feel safe.
Or actually isn’t safe.

Sophie’s book is going to be a transformational read for so many women. I can’t wait for you all to read it.

And to kick off her upcoming book tour, I invite you to hear Sophie and friends (including me!) speak about moving beyond palatable at the Unapologetic Voices live event next Monday, March 2nd.

It’s going to be a 12-hour marathon of incredible speakers in conversation with Sophie - including two women I’m truly in awe of, Erin Corine Johnson and Yinka Ewuola 🤩

Please join us to talk about how to use your unapologetic voice, and stop editing yourself to fit someone else’s dream or narrative.

Who you are and what you want for your life is more than enough 💗

Link to event in comments. I’m speaking at 1:30 EST. Hope to see you there 🙌

Everything that Cindy Gallop said.

I’ll keep what I do professionally quite brief. Here is my elevator pitch:

I have one job - make people millions of dollars.

$200mm and counting so far.

You may not be surprised to hear that 100% of people I talk to - business owners - would like to make millions more than they are making today.

But you might be surprised to know that <1% are actually ready to do it, this minute - mentally, emotionally, financially. 

If growing businesses was that easy and inexpensive… we’d all be retired on the beach in Bali already 🏝️

You have to spend money to make money. Sorry to break it to you.

So… if and when you are ready to make millions… you know where to find me 😎

Free is cancelled. Come with your checkbook ready 😘

Happy #IWD to all the badass women business owners I know and love, who are here to MAKE MONEY today and every day 💰💰💰

As Cindy says… don’t empower me.

PAY ME.

I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business.

Women of LinkedIn - THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!

As Samantha Katz has established, today and today only, on International Women's Day, shocker - LinkedIn has tweaked the algorithm to give us more visibility.

Today, do you see more women in your feed?

Today, did you see that my #IWD post about 'Don't Empower Me, Pay Me', in one day, has gotten to date 93,000 impressions, 4,390 reactions, 142 comments and 492 reposts?

I NEVER get that kind of engagement and traction on here, despite having over 145,000 followers.

Post the shit out of everything you want everyone to know about on here today, that MAKES YOU MONEY.

Algorithmic suppression = economic oppression.

This is why we demand #FairnessInTheFeed - not just on International Women's Day, but on every other day as well 💥

New York is an excellent place for an elite beverage goblin.

Who wants to grab a drink in Midtown with me? DM for happy hour location📍

A few years ago, Sam Kimelman said "you make people question their fundamentals" when it comes to growth. 

That's exactly why Blood Sweat & Tears is launching Clarity Cohort this month. 

Because for a lot of agencies and creative service companies, growth fundamentals - positioning, ICP, POV, building a custom strategy, developing growth SOPs, executing the plan consistently over quarters and years - are missing. 

And it's really no wonder. It's not like there is the equivalent of portfolio school for agency business developers. As someone once said... we got our MBA the hard way 🥵 

If you are still struggling to nail the fundamentals of growth for your agency, come to our next cohort - Thurs. March 19th from 1-2:30p ET. 

I will be teaching 8 core concepts that every agency leader and business developer needs to master. More about the modules and the course format on our website - I'll drop the link in the comments 👇 

Agency growth isn't magic.
It's method. 

Now you can learn the methods I have developed over nearly 20 years in this game... so you don't have to wait that long to nail growth 📈

There is no such thing as an overnight expert.

To master any subject, sport, hobby or profession… there is simply no avoiding reps.

Dave DiNuzzo is currently teaching our son Leo to golf, and it’s been really cool to see him embrace working on his swing, and improving every time he goes to the range.

He just turned 7 last week, and yesterday he was hitting drives 75-100 yards. That’s about 25 yards further than the last time he was at the range.

We also got him a putting mat for his birthday, and as I write this he is practicing his putting before school.

Yes, golf is a game and it’s (mostly) fun ⛳️ 

But it’s also a game that’s impossible to improve at without putting in reps.

And I would know, because lately I’ve been too busy to make any improvement. Been putting in too many work reps, per usual.

To all my friends putting in the reps… I SEE YOU 👀 

Specifically want to shout out a few founders whose focus on reps is leading to big things. Follow and keep your eyes on them, because they are about to skyrocket 📈

evante daniels 
Melissa Withorn  
Chelsea Burns, M.S. 
Victoria Carrington Chávez✨ 
Sebastian D. P. Hidalgo 
Asmara Kazmi  
Nicholas Whitaker 
Mayisha Shamiha, M.A.

taplio

The Battle

Devin Bramhall

Nora DiNuzzo

Followers

Posts

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Performance ScoreDevin Bramhall's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreNora DiNuzzo's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Devin Bramhall

Nora DiNuzzo

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Devin Bramhall's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreNora DiNuzzo's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDevin Bramhall's LinkedIn Performance