Vibe Marketing

Craig Brooks
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

Two people – Craig Brooks and Caitlin Smith – who do the work every day (one in brand design, one in marketing) dig into the real questions business owners are asking, with honesty about what actually moves the needle.

  1. 1d ago

    You Can't Send a Newsletter to Nobody

    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 to low 30s, and you own the list in a way you'll never own a social feedWhy "an update about our business" shouldn't lead your newsletter, and what shouldCaitlin's rules for an email people actually read: one to three minutes, mobile friendly, big text, white space, and clear beats cleverThe newsletters we never miss (Daily Dad, James Clear's 3-2-1, Mozi Money Minute, Maker Division) and the ones that lost usStarting from zero: pairing email with social, and why the freebie isn't dead if the thing you're giving away is actually goodThe One Thing: If you have clients, you have a list. Send them something useful with no ask attached, and keep doing it. Give more than you ask, and don't fail and bail after two sends. Craig Brooks is CEO of Clarity Creative Group. Caitlin Smith is a brand designer and strategist. New episodes dropping soon. Follow Vibe Marketing wherever you listen to podcasts.

  2. Oct 12

    Just Show Up: Building Trust One Handshake at a Time

    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 marketing runs in eras, like fashion, and why the old school tools keep coming backHer advice for your first networking events: go to all of them, and don't try to sell anythingMarketing feeds you your leads, but brand feeds your marketing: Caitlin on core values your team can actually act onWhy existing clients need different treatment than new ones, and why happy clients and employees are the cheapest marketing you haveJoining a chamber committee: Craig kept saying no for months, and Milna explains what he was missingThe One Thing: Go to the event and leave the pitch at home. Have a real conversation, listen to what the other person has to say, and let trust do the work. Everything else follows from there. Milna Maldonado is Client Relations and Marketing Manager at T&G Constructors, a Central Florida contractor serving clients since 1987 with offices in Orlando, Miami, Palm Beach, and Kissimmee. Connect with Milna: Email: mmaldonado@t-and-g.comPhone: 407-352-4443Website: www.t-and-g.comCraig Brooks is CEO of Clarity Creative Group. Caitlin Smith is a brand designer and strategist. New episodes dropping soon. Follow Vibe Marketing wherever you listen to podcasts.

  3. Oct 5

    SEO Is NOT Exactly Dead

    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 disrupted search, and why 68% of searches now end without a click"Marketing engineer": the new role that came out of the conference, and what it says about where marketing is goingCaitlin's carrots-in-the-spaghetti story, and what it teaches about giving customers what they need in a form they'll actually takeUsing SparkToro to find the podcasts, publications and Reddit threads where your customers really spend their timeThe problem with conference talks: some are six months behind the tools already in your handsThe One Thing: Redo your customer research instead of working from an avatar you made four years ago. Figure out where your customers actually look for answers, whether that's Google, ChatGPT, YouTube or LinkedIn. Focus on those places and drop the rest for now. Craig Brooks is CEO of Clarity Creative Group. Caitlin Smith is a brand designer and strategist. New episodes dropping soon. Follow Vibe Marketing wherever you listen to podcasts.

  4. Sep 28

    Grok Bot Broke My Brain

    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 with zero coding experience built, in plain English, the meeting follow-up system Craig's team had planned to spend two months buildingCraig's first week: conference follow-up emails sent one a day, two replies and a booked meeting, plus a proposal that went out two hours after the call and closed the same afternoon"Paper walls": the habits that feel like hard limits until you push on them, like giving AI access to your emailCaitlin's $30 a month Claude assistant that runs her morning agenda and calls her out when she's been putting something offWhy you don't have to switch tools, and when trying a new one can move you forward faster than waitingThe One Thing: Start with one small, low-risk job. Connect your calendar and email and ask for a daily brief of what's coming up. You'll get your time back right away, and you'll get past the permissions hurdle that stops most people from ever getting real value out of AI. Craig Brooks is CEO of Clarity Creative Group. Caitlin Smith is a brand designer and strategist. New episodes dropping soon. Follow Vibe Marketing wherever you listen to podcasts.

  5. Sep 14

    Bodybuilding Discipline, Applied to Business

    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 she wishes she had learned nine years sooner. What we cover: The email that turned a loyal customer into a franchise owner, and how fast she actually moved on itWhy hiring a business coach 3X'd a business she had already run successfully for a decade, and why Craig waited 17 years to do the same thingThe $8,000 permit for a sink that was already installed, and what her first brick and mortar taught her about going it alone17 months from first phone call to opening day, including the long stretch where it feels like nothing is happeningSelling a service your market doesn't know exists yet, including the wedding room block angle nobody had pitched beforeThe One Thing: Get a mentor earlier than you think you need one. Cara ran a profitable business for nine years before hiring a coach, and that coach handed over twenty years of hard won lessons in a matter of weeks. Craig did the same thing at year 17 of running his agency. Both of them said the same thing about it afterward: we should have done this sooner. Cara Fitch is the owner of Blo Blow Dry Bar in Lake Mary and co-owner of Team Modern Fit, an online fitness coaching business she runs with her husband Ryan. Blo Lake Mary opened July 8, 2026. Connect with CaraEmail: cara@bloblowdrybar.comPhone: 689-371-0707Website: www.blomedry.comInstagram: @blo_lakemaryAddress: 242 Wheelhouse Lane #1240, Lake Mary, FL 32746

  6. Sep 7

    People Are the Best, Computers Suck

    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 all. Dave has been at this for 22 years, and he came in with hot takes. What we cover: Why business owners are usually wrong about where their problem is, and what happens when you actually record what your team does all day instead of guessingThe gap between what your SOP says and what your people are really doing, which is almost always them inventing workarounds you never knew aboutDave's take that two interviews should be enough, and if you can't decide in two, the problem is your process, not the candidateThe hiring move Craig called a huge hack: asking a trusted client or friend to grab coffee with your final candidatesDave's hot take that marketing doesn't work, and why he doesn't believe that anymore after his daughter talked him into a $20K budgetAuditing your sponsorships and event spend by asking what the actual yield has been over five and ten years, not just whether it felt goodThe One Thing: Before you make your next hire, borrow someone else's eyes. Pick a client or a friend who knows you and your business well, get your list down to two or three people, and ask them to have a coffee with each one. You get a read on fit that you're too close to see yourself, and you deepen the relationship with the person you asked. Then take them to dinner to say thanks. Dave MacDonald is the founder and CEO of Better Together Group, a staffing, payroll, and HR consulting firm serving businesses in the US and Canada. He also hosts the WTF podcast, named for work hard, tell the truth, and finish the job. Connect with Dave:Email: dave@bettertogethergroup.comPhone: 1-800-328-1533LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdave-macdonald/Website: bettertogethergroup.com

  7. Aug 31

    Tech That Helps You Win with Abhi Saini

    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" rule: how team AI tools handle your data, and when to anonymize before you paste anything inWhy building AI locally costs thousands, and why paid subscriptions ($20 to $50 a month) are the smarter starting pointPasswords vs. pass keys, finally explained: why a leaked password stops mattering once your phone becomes the keyWhy text-message security codes are losing their edge (SIM swapping is real), plus the offboarding gap that leaves ex-employees holding your ad accountsWhy security only sticks when it's frictionless, which loops right back to Caitlin's friction pointsThe One Thing: Turn on multi-factor authentication everywhere, then upgrade past text-message codes. Move to pass keys or an authenticator app and store them in a password manager you unlock once at the start of the day. It's the highest-impact, lowest-effort security move most business owners are still skipping. Abhi Saini is founder and CEO of Bearium Networks, an Orlando IT and cybersecurity company specializing in healthcare and media agencies. One plan, every tool, no packages: he calls it the Bearium standard. Connect with Abhi: Email: Abhi@bearium.netSupport: (407) 917-1321Direct: (321) 732-4674LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abhisainiWebsite: Bearium Networks | Orlando, FL

  8. Aug 24

    Networking That Actually Works

    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: Why "I'm going to meet good people" isn't a networking goal (that's just socializing, and you can do that at Target)The before, during, and after game plan that turns events into actual resultsRetiring "what do you do?" and asking "what's exciting you lately?" insteadThe LinkedIn intro message that gets replies: lead with common ground, ask for 10 minutes, skip the pitchThe parking lot text: how to lock in the follow-up before you even leave the eventThe One Thing: Ask better questions. Better questions create stronger conversations, stronger conversations build real connections, and real connections compound into a community that attracts opportunity instead of chasing it. You can start doing this at your very next event. Caleb Paull is Founder & CEO of The VIP Co. in Orlando, where he helps professionals build their networks and personal brands with intention. Connect with Caleb: Email: caleb@thevipco.comPhone: (407) 840-5087LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/the1calebpaullWebsite: thevipco.comLinktree: linktr.ee/the1calebpaull

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Two people – Craig Brooks and Caitlin Smith – who do the work every day (one in brand design, one in marketing) dig into the real questions business owners are asking, with honesty about what actually moves the needle.

Information

  • Creator
    Craig Brooks
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    28
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026