Good Enough Isn't

Patrick Patterson & Myles Biggs
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Marketing

Good Enough Isn't is a podcast for marketing leaders who own the number. If you run growth for a brand in a complex, high-consideration market, this show was built for you. Each episode digs into what's actually driving results right now: how AI is changing media buying and creative, what marketing leaders are doing differently this year, and where the conventional playbook is quietly failing. No hype, no theory. Just plainspoken conversations with the people accountable for growth. From Level Agency, the digital marketing agency behind growth programs for brands that expect more. Because in a world moving this fast, good enough isn't. New episodes every other Tuesday.

  1. 2d ago

    Where the Trail Goes Cold: Matt Miller and Miriam Valls on Data Readiness

    Send us Fan Mail Pick one real lead from last month and trace it from ad to form to CRM to sales outcome. Then ask whether the ad platform ever learned how it ended. Miriam Valls says the point where that trail goes cold is your data readiness gap. That one exercise anchors a conversation about why AI and automation make data readiness more urgent for marketing leaders. Brad Stephenson talks with Level's Matt Miller and Miriam Valls about what a data-ready company looks like. Matt explains why readiness starts with customer strategy and measurement structure, with technology following. Miriam explains why nobody owns data end to end and why problems start at the handoffs between marketing, CRM operations, IT, and developers. Matt then walks through Level.Signal, the propensity model that scores each lead so ad platforms can optimize toward likely buyers instead of form fills. Miriam covers staffing: name one accountable owner rather than waiting for a rare analyst, engineer, and martech hybrid. The back half gets practical. They cover how much volume a model needs and what to do with less, how Google's Meridian marketing mix model and incrementality testing differ from user-level attribution, and what changes when PII and HIPAA are involved. They also share questions that expose an "easy button" pitch from a partner. Each guest closes with one next step, and the personal picks include a book called Beyond Darwin, Ted Lasso, and the Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes documentary. What You'll Learn What data readiness looks like when it starts with customer strategy and the customer journey, with tagging, privacy, and infrastructure followingWhy nobody owns data end to end, and where handoffs between marketing, CRM ops, IT, and developers break: consent, identity, and latencyWhy optimizing on form fills finds more form fillers, and how a propensity score gives bidding algorithms a value to chaseWhy to name one accountable owner for first-party data instead of waiting for a unicorn hire, and why a bot-filtering cleanup that lowered one account's subscriber count was good newsHow much volume a propensity model needs (Level looks for about 200 events per month of the outcome), and what to do with less: add qualifying form fields, but skip the 40-question formHow marketing mix modeling, Meridian, and incrementality testing differ from user-level attribution, and why to start with a learning agenda and in-platform lift testsHow to handle PII and HIPAA-regulated data: data minimization, user-level versus aggregate measurement, and server-side taggingHow to vet a partner with the "anti easy button," and the one-lead trace Miriam recommends as a first stepResources Mentioned Level Intelligence Suite (Level.Signal, Level.Pulse, and causal analysis): https://www.level.agency/level-intelligence-suite/From Think Leads to Rethink ROI: What Google's Shift Means for Marketers (Level's Meridian Certified Partner announcement): https://www.level.agency/perspectives/from-think-leads-to-rethink-roi-what-googles-shift-means-for-marketers/StrataTech increases enrollment efficiency (Level.Signal lead scoring case study): https://www.level.agency/work/driving-enrollment-efficiency-through-data-driven-lead-scoring/Data Science & Analytics at Level: https://www.level.agency/capabilities/data-science-analytics/Multi-location Healthcare at Level (HIPAA-compliant measurement): https://www.level.agency/multi-location-healthcare-digital-marketing/Google Meridian: https://developers.google.com/meridianBook a strategy call with Level: https://www.level.agency/book-a-strategy-call/Connect With Matt and Miriam Matt Miller's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcm29/Miriam Valls' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirvalls/Level leadership team: https://www.level.agency/our-story/our-team/Know a marketing leader whose ad platform only hears about the form fill? Send them this one. About the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

  2. Oct 20

    A 90% Failure Rate Is the Whole Point: Akash Pathak on Experimentation and Scaling What Works

    Send us Fan Mail Akash Pathak’s fix for stalled AI pilots is one added word: test and learn and scale. He spent more than 20 years leading marketing and digital teams at McDonald’s, Humana, and Trunk Club. Today he advises enterprise and mid-market companies on AI, teaches AI and marketing at Northwestern University, and writes the Growth Amplifier newsletter. He also co-hosted Level’s dinner in Chicago on getting AI past the pilot stage, and this conversation carries that theme further. Brad Stephenson starts with the programs behind the résumé. Pathak explains why most innovation comes out of a failure rate above 90 percent, and what a leader has to do so a team keeps experimenting anyway. He walks through the McDonald’s mobile loyalty and CRM launch, where performance marketing was new to the organization. He also covers the Trunk Club churn data that showed a 50 to 60 percent gap between men and women and pushed the brand’s focus toward women. A McDonald’s coffee punch card taught him something about retention: the moment a customer redeems the free coffee is what brings them back. The back half turns to AI. Pathak and Brad compare notes on synthetic audiences, which are useful for poking holes in an early idea before it reaches a real audience. Pathak then lays out the gap he sees between what leaders expect from AI and what teams get, citing BCG and HBR figures on CEO and employee satisfaction, and explains why executives should get hands-on with the tools every week. He covers how he prepared data for a predictive model at Humana, and why stories about results, failures included, are what move a pilot into a process. He closes with why most brands look vanilla and a book recommendation from Jim Kwik. What You’ll Learn Why most innovation comes out of a 90-plus percent failure rate, and how leaders can keep a team experimenting through itWhat it took inside McDonald’s to launch a mobile loyalty and CRM program when the company was seven to eight years behind StarbucksWhy a brand at 95 percent awareness has a different problem than one in the 20s, and how Trunk Club’s churn data redirected its focusWhat a coffee punch card revealed about loyalty: redeeming the free cup, not earning it, is the moment that brings customers backHow to use synthetic audiences to vet early ideas and find gaps, and why Pathak would never green-light a slogan or logo on their say-soWhy executives who get hands-on with AI each week make better decisions, and why associate-driven AI projects succeeded in a 55-project study Pathak citesHow to get data ready for a predictive model: pull every customer attribute, find and clean the data, then run correlations against written hypothesesHow to move a pilot into a process by telling the story with the data, reporting failures honestly, and recruiting champions so the work outlives its builderResources Mentioned Akash Pathak’s website: https://www.akashpathak.coGrowth Amplifier newsletter: https://letsamplify.substack.com/p/growth-amplifier Jim Kwik, Limitless: https://jimkwik.com/ Connect With Akash LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akashpathak Website: https://www.akashpathak.coKnow a marketing leader whose AI pilot worked and then went nowhere? Send them this one. About the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

  3. Oct 6

    If the Code Isn't There, It Doesn't Exist: Mike Barton on Accessibility as an AI Visibility Problem

    Send us Fan Mail Featuring Mike Barton, VP of Corporate Communication & Content Marketing of AudioEye, with hosts Brad Stephenson and Mike Rubino Episode Summary A screen reader can only read what's in the code. If it isn't there, the content may as well not exist, and the same is now true for AI agents. Mike Barton's path to that idea runs from an advertising and English degree at BYU through Omniture, years of content and executive messaging at Adobe where, by his own admission, accessibility never crossed his mind, and building a customer marketing team from scratch at Zenoti. Today he leads corporate communication and content marketing at AudioEye and holds the CPACC credential. Brad Stephenson and Mike Rubino dig into why the quick fix keeps failing. Barton explains why even the best automated tool finds only about half the issues on a modern site, why companies with an accessibility widget installed still end up in court, and why 80-plus binary WCAG guidelines, an average of 62 issues per page, and sites that now change daily push most teams to wait until they're sued. He also makes the case for plain copy, the hardest kind to write, and for treating accessibility as a small slice of martech spend that makes the rest work harder. The back half turns to AI. Barton walks through AudioEye's new study, in which five AI coding tools were asked to build WCAG 2.2 AA sites and averaged 55 issues per page, barely better than the web they learned from. He explains how AI agents read a site's accessibility tree and stall at the same broken forms people do, then closes with a flat-budget starting plan and a return to Homer's The Odyssey, a reminder that the storytelling principles behind a good brand haven't changed in a few thousand years. What You'll Learn Why even the best automated tool catches only about half of a site's accessibility issues, and why companies with a widget installed still get suedWhy 80-plus binary WCAG guidelines, 62 issues per page, and sites that change daily keep accessibility at the bottom of the backlogWhat happened when AudioEye asked five AI coding tools to build WCAG 2.2 AA sites, and why developers' trust in that code is misplacedHow AI agents read a site's accessibility tree, and why a broken form stops an agent the same way it stops a personWhy accessibility should be measured by its effect on SEO, AEO, and GEO rather than on its own, with $18 trillion in global spending power at stakeWhy plain, jargon-free copy matters for people with invisible cognitive disabilities, and why it is harder to write than long copyWhat separates WCAG A, AA, and AAA in practice, and when an image can be marked decorative and skippedWhere to start on a flat budget: a free site scan, a partner instead of new hires, and your highest-converting pages firstResources Mentioned AudioEye (free Site Scanner): https://www.audioeye.comAudioEye HearSay Podcast: https://www.audioeye.com/podcasts/2026 Web Accessibility Litigation Report: https://www.audioeye.com/guides/2026-web-accessibility-litigation-report/2026 Digital Accessibility Index: https://www.audioeye.com/digital-accessibility-index/2026AudioEye's AI coding tools study: https://venturebeat.com/technology/we-asked-five-ai-tools-to-build-accessible-websites-all-15-sites-failedConnect With Mike LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omnibarton/Also on This Episode Mike Rubino's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-rubino-94634210/Know a marketer who thinks an accessibility plugin has them covered? Send them this one. About the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

  4. Sep 22

    Nobody Wants a Corporate Doctor: Jim Evanger on Scaling Multi-Location Healthcare

    Send us Fan Mail Nobody Wants a Corporate Doctor: Jim Evanger on Scaling Multi-Location Healthcare Featuring Jim Evanger, CEO and President of Foundation Partners Group, with hosts Brad Stephenson and Patrick Patterson Episode Summary Four out of five healthcare providers now work for a larger organization, and patients still say they don't want to go to a corporate practice. Jim Evanger has spent his career inside that tension, leading multi-location dental, orthopedic, sleep disorder, and behavioral health businesses as CEO or executive chairman. A few months into his role as CEO and President of Foundation Partners Group, which runs hundreds of end-of-life care locations, he sees the same pattern: the company is national, and every family experiences it as local. Brad Stephenson and Patrick Patterson press Jim on how that works day to day. He lays out his "support center light" model, where finance, HR, IT, and enterprise marketing like PPC, SEO, and AI search sit centrally, while reviews, referral networks, and community presence stay with the people closest to the patient. He walks through a KPI dashboard that tracks every step from first inquiry to paid claim, explains why higher deductibles are turning patients into comparison shoppers, and describes the red "I need help now" homepage button that grew his orthopedic funnel almost overnight. The back half turns to expansion. Jim explains why he favors acquisition over de novo growth in healthcare, and why buying practices to rack and stack EBITDA without vetting the providers is a mistake he won't repeat. He shares how to "create the hero" when a beloved doctor retires, and makes the case for clustering locations in one market, down to the river or freeway patients won't cross for care. He closes on summit night on Kilimanjaro, climbed on a broken foot, and the extra gear it proved he has. What You'll Learn What Jim keeps at the support center (finance, HR, IT, PPC, SEO, AI search) and what he leaves to local teams (reviews, referral reps, community social)How one red "I need help now" button on an orthopedic homepage grew the funnel almost overnight and pushed cost per conversion downWhy his KPI dashboard tracks every step from first contact to paid claim, and how it exposed a business where lead volume held steady while conversion to patients fell offWhy Jim wants his own team handling review management instead of an agency, and how the way you treat employees shows up in patient reviewsHow rising employer health costs, which Jim puts at 9 to 15 percent higher in 2027, push patients into high-deductible plans and consumer-style shoppingWhat Jim checks before acquiring a practice, from provider age and turnover to secret shopping, and why buying on EBITDA alone backfiredHow to "create the hero" around new providers when a beloved doctor retires, using published results and patient testimonialsWhy clustering locations in one region works better than scattering them, and how rivers, bridges, and freeways act as psychological barriers to careResources Mentioned Foundation Partners Group: foundationpartners.comLevel Agency Virtual Insider Series recaps, including sessions with Profound and Reddit: Profound Session: youtu.be/yQOIRT3YTGAReddit Session: youtu.be/r453GebnJ9ELevel Agency blog on multi-location healthcare search visibility: level.agency/perspectives/improving-local-search-and-visibility-for-multi-location-healthcare/Tim Tebow Foundation: timtebowfoundation.orgConnect With Jim LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jimevangerConnect With the Show Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bradpstephensonPatrick Patterson's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pattersonworkHow to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share this one with a marketing or operations leader growing a multi-location healthcare brand.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.About the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

  5. Sep 8

    Intent Is the New Code: Artem Koren on Why the Next 100 Years Belong to Communicators, Not Engineers

    Send us Fan Mail Intent Is the New Code: Artem Koren on Why the Next 100 Years Belong to Communicators, Not Engineers Featuring Artem Koren, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Sembly AI, with hosts Myles Biggs and Patrick Patterson Episode Summary AI is great at information. It still can't meet you for coffee. That tension sits at the center of this conversation with Artem Koren, whose path to Sembly AI runs through a childhood chess obsession, a management consulting exit, a too-early 2009 machine learning startup, and a 2019 moment in his uncle's spare room when a transformer running on a single GPU summarized a news article and convinced him the technology had finally arrived. Myles Biggs and Patrick Patterson dig into what changed between that moment and now. Artem argues the last century of progress belonged to STEM and the next belongs to whoever can shape intent most sharply, information technology giving way to what he calls intent technology. They trace what that means for a team of skilled engineers who couldn't make the leap to large language models on their first attempt, why the flawless investment-bank PowerPoint was always a trust signal rather than the point, and what happens to that signal once anyone can generate a polished deck in minutes. The back half turns to Sembly itself. Artem walks through Sembly 3.0 and the new Studio product, where meetings become just one data source among many and the real interface is a stated intent: name the client, name the goal, get back a branded, sourced, client-ready deck or document. He closes on the career pyramid reshaping into something closer to medicine, junior work still needed but the middle thinning, and why taste and judgment stay human longer than most people expect. What You'll Learn Why "intent technology" is replacing information technology as the core skill of the next era, and what a loosely specified intent actually costs youHow the OpenAI to Hugging Face agent swarm incident illustrates the risk of underspecified intent at scaleWhy a team of strong classical engineers failed to adapt to large language models in their first year, and what mindset shift actually workedWhat the perfect PowerPoint really signaled for consulting firms and investment banks, and what happens to that signal once AI can produce one in minutesWhy the career pyramid is warping into something closer to an Eiffel Tower, with junior work intact but the middle getting thinnerWhat Sembly 3.0's Studio does differently from Gamma, Claude, or ChatGPT: never starting from scratch, and deriving a client's branding and tone automaticallyWhere taste, judgment, and real-world endpoints still sit outside what AI can fully absorb, at least for nowResources Mentioned Sembly AI: sembly.aiConnect With Artem LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/akorenConnect With the Show Myles Biggs' LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggsPatrick Patterson's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pattersonworkHow to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share this one with someone thinking about AI and the future of work.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.About the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

  6. Aug 11

    AI Search and Student Enrollment: Steph Gallo on Closing Higher Ed's Visibility Gap

    Send us Fan Mail AI Search and Student Enrollment: Steph Gallo on Closing Higher Ed's Visibility Gap Featuring Steph Gallo, Corporate Director of Marketing at Pima Medical Institute, with guest host Brad Stephenson, SVP of Marketing at Level Agency, and Stacey Heubeck, AVP of SEO at Level Agency. Episode Summary Google didn't change the rules. Students did. That's the premise behind this conversation with Steph Gallo, who brings three decades of marketing and brand development across healthcare, CPG, manufacturing, and higher education to a problem every enrollment marketer is now facing: prospective students are doing the bulk of their research before they ever touch your website, and most of that research is happening inside LLMs, on Reddit, and in third-party content that schools have never invested in. Brad Stephenson and Stacey Heubeck join Steph to unpack what that shift actually demands. They dig into the 59-point gap between branded and non-branded AI visibility, why schools show up fine when someone searches their name and vanish in program comparison questions, and how to make the case to a CFO who only wants to talk about last-click cost per enrollment. Steph gets specific about the internal work required, including the case she made to compliance and academics for publishing tuition, financial aid detail, and certification information that institutions have historically kept behind an admissions conversation. The back half turns operational. Stacey breaks down SEO versus GEO in plain terms and names the three metrics her team actually tracks. Brad walks through where paid and organic overlap turns into waste, and how a holdout test surfaces it without tanking performance. Steph closes on first-party data, the 90-day learning curve on value-based bidding, and why so many marketers abandon ship two weeks in. This one is built for career education and higher ed marketing leaders, but the playbook travels to any category where the buying decision starts long before the site visit. What You'll Learn Why branded AI visibility looks healthy while non-branded visibility collapses, and what that gap costs you in students you never knew were searchingThe three metrics to track for AI visibility (visibility rate, citation rate, brand mention and share of voice), plus the direct-traffic signal that reinforces the story for your CFOSEO versus GEO in plain language, and why brand consistency, entity recognition, and answer-first content now matter more than exact-match phrasingHow to build the internal case with compliance, academics, and leadership for publishing tuition, financial aid, and certification content you used to hold backWhy neutral, one-size-fits-all program content makes you invisible, and what program-level and state-level specificity looks like in practiceHow to audit branded and non-branded keyword overlap, run a holdout test, and redeploy wasted spend without hurting paid or organic performanceWhat it takes to get clean first-party enrollment data into value-based bidding, and why the first 90 days feel like failure before they start workingResources Mentioned 2026 Career Education Benchmarks Report from Level Agency: info.level.agency/career-education-benchmarks-2026Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyPima Medical Institute: https://pmi.eduConnect With Steph LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stephanie-galloConnect With the Show Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bradpstephensonStacey Heubeck's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sheubeckHow to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share this one with an enrollment or higher ed marketing leader.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.About the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

  7. Jul 28

    Awesome at boring: the unglamorous habits that fund real growth, with Jon Morris

    Send us Fan Mail Episode summary Most marketing leaders can walk into a room and defend their channels, their campaigns, and their creative. Far fewer can walk into the CFO's office and defend their budget in the language that office actually speaks. In this episode, Jon Morris makes the case that this gap is the single biggest thing holding marketing leaders back, and he hands over the benchmarks and mental models to close it. Jon turned a $10,000 business plan prize into Rise Interactive, one of the largest independent digital marketing agencies in the world, at nearly $40 million in revenue and a nine time Inc. 5000 run, before an impressive exit. He now runs Fiscal Advocate and Engine BI, building the financial infrastructure marketing organizations too often fly blind without. The heart of the conversation is a simple, uncomfortable truth: you will not grow faster than your competition if you spend less on sales and marketing as a percentage of revenue than they do. Jon lays out the benchmarks he coaches leaders to, walks through the only three ways to actually grow revenue, and explains why marketing that can't connect to one of those levers has a short shelf life. He also gets into "difficult is good," his framework for finding a real differentiator and then investing behind it until it becomes a moat, including the two question test that exposes whether your "we're data driven" positioning means anything at all. Threaded through it all is Jon's philosophy of being "awesome at boring," the process discipline and data driven management that compound quietly over years, and a grounded take on AI: not a replacement for marketers, but a multiplier for the ones who bring human taste, judgment, and orchestration to the tools. For any marketing leader or founder trying to fund growth, prove impact, and build enterprise value rather than just revenue, this one is a masterclass. What you'll learn The three KPIs that actually matter and the only three ways to grow revenue: retain existing customers, upsell them, or win new businessWhy marketing that can't be tied to a measurable business outcome struggles to earn a seat at the leadership tableThe benchmarks Jon coaches to: roughly 20% organic growth, 20% EBITDA, and an 8% of revenue average spend on sales and marketing, and why growth leaders sit on the "spend more" side of that lineHow to build the case for a bigger marketing investment when your CFO doesn't already share that philosophyThe "difficult is good" approach to differentiation and the two question test that separates real positioning from cookie cutter claimsWhat "awesome at boring" looks like in practice, and why data driven management is the unglamorous engine behind durable growthA realistic view of AI in marketing: where human taste and judgment stay irreplaceable, and how orchestration becomes its own differentiatorThe mindset shift from running a revenue business to building enterprise value, and why that changes the bets you make Featured guest Jon Morris is the founder of Rise Interactive, which he grew from a $10,000 business plan prize into one of the largest independent digital marketing agencies in the world, reaching nearly $40 million in revenue, around 250 people, and nine appearances on the Inc. 5000 before its acquisition. He stepped down as CEO in March 2020. Today he is the founder and CEO of Fiscal Advocate and Engine BI, where he functions as an outsourced finance department and data infrastructure partner for marketing agencies and services businesses, helping leaders make better decisions with better numbers. A self described student of business and champion of being "awesome at boring," Jon is a frequent voice on agency economics, growth strategy, and the financial side of marketing leadership. Connect with Jon Website: fiscaladvocate.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jonmorrisramsayinnovations Connect with the show Level Agency: level.agencyPatrick Patterson on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pattersonworkBrad Stephenson on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bradpstephensonMeet our CRO, Howard Diamond Episode How to support the show If this episode was useful, here is how you can help more marketing leaders find it: Subscribe to Good Enough Isn't wherever you listenShare this episode with a colleague who owns a marketing budgetRate and review the show, it genuinely helps others discover itAbout the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

  8. Jul 15

    Irreplaceably Human: What Cannes Lions 2026 Means for Creative, AI, and Marketing

    Send us Fan Mail Featuring: Patrick Patterson (CEO, LE), Howard Diamond (CRO), and Pat Van Gorder (Chief Partnerships Officer) of Level Agency Host: Myles Biggs Episode Summary Level sent three leaders, CEO Patrick Patterson, CRO Howard Diamond, and Chief Partnerships Officer Pat Van Gorder, to Cannes Lions this year, and this episode is their debrief. Rather than a straight recap of the world's biggest creativity festival, the conversation centers on a question every marketing leader is quietly asking right now: as AI absorbs more of the work, what actually stays human, and what does that mean for how brands should be building their teams, their agency relationships, and their creative? The panel keeps returning to one phrase: irreplaceably human. It surfaced constantly at Cannes this year as agencies, brands, and platforms all tried to name what AI genuinely cannot replicate: taste, judgment, curiosity, and one-to-one connection. The group unpacks the split they saw play out at the festival itself, a creative side focused on craft and human insight, and a media and technology side focused on scale and automation, and argues the two are only getting more valuable when they're built together rather than treated as separate disciplines. From there the conversation turns practical. The panel discusses why creative is becoming the clearest competitive differentiator in a market where every brand has access to similar AI tooling, how client conversations about AI have shifted in six months from "are you using it" to "how are you proving ROI with it," and why award-winning creative work correlates with measurable business outcomes rather than existing as a vanity exercise. They also make the case for indie and scaled independent agencies having a real moment at Cannes this year, not just attending, but presenting, partnering, and winning. What You'll Learn Why "irreplaceably human" became the unofficial theme of Cannes Lions 2026, and how the panel defines what that actually means (taste, judgment, curiosity, and relationship, not just craft)Why creative is becoming the differentiator that separates brands when everyone has access to the same AI and algorithmic toolsHow client expectations around AI have matured in just six months, from proving you use it to proving it drives value and ROIWhy award-winning creative work correlates with real business impact, not just recognition, and what that means for how brands should evaluate creative investmentThe rise of "brandformance," the blending of creativity, media, and performance into a single discipline instead of three separate onesWhy scaled independent agencies had a breakout year at Cannes, from panel stages to award shortlists, and what that signals for brands evaluating agency partnersA practical framework for evaluating new AI tools and models (their own internal evaluation process, covering discovery, testing, safety, and measurable outcomes)Why the next frontier for brands isn't just AI content, but conversational and agent-facing brand experiences (business messaging agents across Google, Meta, and TikTok)Why "permission" to put creative back at the center of strategy, not as an afterthought to lead volume and cost per lead, was a real takeaway for how the panel is changing their own approach Featured Panelists Patrick Patterson is CEO of Level Agency, where he leads the agency's overall strategy and its approach to applying AI across marketing operations and client work. Howard Diamond is Chief Revenue Officer at Level Agency, leading the agency's sales and client growth strategy. Pat Van Gorder is Chief Partnerships Officer at Level Agency, leading the agency's strategic partnerships across technology, media, and platform relationships. Connect With Our Panelists Patrick Patterson: linkedin.com/in/pattersonworkHoward Diamond: linkedin.com/in/howarddiamondPat Van Gorder: linkedin.com/in/patrick-vangorder Connect With the Show Level Agency: level.agencyMyles Biggs on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs How to Support the Show If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to Good Enough Isn't wherever you get your podcasts, share it with a colleague who's thinking about creative and AI, and leave a rating and review. It helps more marketing leaders find the show About the Show Good Enough Isn't is a podcast from Level Agency, a digital marketing agency, about the hard truths behind business growth and the people who refuse to settle for "good enough." Listen and Subscribe Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-enough-isnt/id1834694172Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6S3C2V2fUxs7x4hpuq7jWfConnect With the Show Level Agency: https://www.level.agencyMyles Biggs' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylesjbiggs/Patrick Patterson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattersonwork/Brad Stephenson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpstephenson/How to Support the Show Subscribe so you never miss an episode.Share it with someone who would get value from it.Rate and review if it brings you value. It helps more listeners find us.

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About

Good Enough Isn't is a podcast for marketing leaders who own the number. If you run growth for a brand in a complex, high-consideration market, this show was built for you. Each episode digs into what's actually driving results right now: how AI is changing media buying and creative, what marketing leaders are doing differently this year, and where the conventional playbook is quietly failing. No hype, no theory. Just plainspoken conversations with the people accountable for growth. From Level Agency, the digital marketing agency behind growth programs for brands that expect more. Because in a world moving this fast, good enough isn't. New episodes every other Tuesday.

Information

  • Creator
    Patrick Patterson & Myles Biggs
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Good Enough Isn't
  • Show Website
    Good Enough Isn't

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