Most creators focus on attention.The smart ones turn that attention into trust. And trust creates optionality. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Jordan DiPietro to break down how content becomes trust, how trust becomes community, and why the best communities can charge $10,000–$25,000 per year without hurting conversions.

Jordan has built at the center of some of the most influential media and community brands in the world. He spent nearly 13 years at The Motley Fool, became CEO of The Hustle before its acquisition by HubSpot, ran HubSpot’s media division, and later served as CEO of Hampton, one of the most exclusive private tech communities. This is a deep, tactical conversation on community design, pricing, trust, vetting, retention, and monetization, not theory. If you’re building a newsletter, podcast, paid community, mastermind, or founder-led brand, this episode gives you the real playbook.

What You’ll Learn

- Why attention without trust is worthless

- The difference between an audience and a community

- How The Hustle turned content into leverage

- Why newsletters are still one of the strongest trust channels

- Content → trust → optionality explained

- Community vs mastermind (and why it matters)

- How Hampton vetted members and rejected 50–60% of applicants

- Why most paid communities fail after launch

- The biggest pricing mistakes founders make

- How to decide between $1K, $10K, or $25K pricing

Guest Jordan DiPietro Former CEO of The Hustle Former Media Lead at HubSpot Former CEO of Hampton Newsletter writer, advisor, and founder coach Website & newsletter:https://jordandipietro.com/

Chapters

00:00 Content Creates Optionality

01:40 Meet Jordan D. Petro

04:24 From Motley Fool to Hustle

08:15 Are Newsletters Saturated?

12:46 Audience vs Community

15:01 Monetizing Trust Correctly

18:56 Community vs Mastermind

20:42 Vetting Members Matters

24:33 How Communities Stay Engaged

27:02 Do You Need IRL Events?

31:32 Why Founders Are the Funnel

33:49 Why Communities Fail

34:42 Pricing a $10K Community

56:38 Growing a Newsletter Long-Term

About Marketing Misfits:

Marketing Misfits features unfiltered conversations with operators, founders, and marketers who build real businesses through trust, distribution, and execution.

Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King. New episodes every Tuesday.

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

If you’re serious about building authority, monetizing trust, and creating leverage through content, subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Most companies are using AI wrong. They think it’s about cutting staff or automating a few tasks. But the real power of AI is something much bigger. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Rachel Woods, one of the world’s top AI operations experts, to show how businesses are turning their internal playbooks into AI-powered systems that can run entire workflows on autopilot. Rachel previously worked on the early transformer technology behind modern AI while at Facebook, then built and sold a VC-backed startup before launching her AI operations agency. Today, she helps companies replace weeks of manual work with AI systems that run in hours.

They break down what “AI operators” really are, how agentic AI works, and why companies that fail to build internal playbooks will get wiped out as models improve. This is not theory. You will hear exactly how an agency replaced a 3-week influencer vetting process with an AI system that runs in hours, plus how Amazon sellers, agencies, and SaaS companies can apply the same playbook.

What you’ll learn

• What “AI operations” actually means

• Why SOPs are more valuable than software

• How AI agents differ from basic automation

• How to turn your workflows into AI playbooks

• How companies are replacing entire departments with AI systems

• How long it really takes to deploy agentic AI

• What AI will be capable of in the next 6–12 months

• How to avoid building on tools that get wiped out by model updates

• How to future-proof your business using playbooks instead of platforms

Timestamps

00:00 AI replaces a 3-week workflow

01:01 Marketing Misfits intro

02:12 The spider prank story

04:01 Meet Rachel Woods

06:46 Facebook AI background

07:31 What is a transformer?

09:29 From Facebook to startup

11:09 Why ChatGPT changed everything

12:39 What AI operations means

14:38 How AI playbooks are built

16:25 Can you trust AI agents?

18:14 AI vs downsizing teams

20:52 Automation vs true AI

26:14 How Claude rewrote software jobs

47:25 Influencer vetting case study

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

About the guest

Rachel Woods is the founder of an AI operations agency and the creator of The Exchange, a training platform for AI operators. She previously worked on transformer-based AI systems at Facebook and later built and sold a VC-backed startup using GPT before ChatGPT went mainstream. She now helps companies build AI systems that replace entire workflows instead of just single tasks.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Landing pages alone don’t convert like they used to. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Luca Borreani, founder of ZipChat.ai, to break down why conversational marketing is replacing static funnels and how AI chat is quietly becoming one of the biggest conversion unlocks in e-commerce. Consumers now spend hours talking to ChatGPT, asking detailed questions before buying. This episode explains why that behavior is bleeding directly into shopping behavior, and why brands that rely only on landing pages, FAQs, and analytics are missing what actually stops conversions. This is a deep, practical conversation about last-mile conversion, removing buyer doubt, and how chat data reveals insights that analytics never will.

What You’ll Learn:

- Why landing pages alone are no longer enough

- How conversational marketing removes last-minute buyer doubts

- Why people trust chat more than static copy

- The biggest copy mistake hurting conversions

- How small headline changes massively impact results

- Why analytics can’t reveal real buyer objections

- How chat uncovers hidden conversion blockers

- The difference between traffic and real intent

- Why product-market fit still beats everything

- How affiliate marketing sharpened modern conversion skills

Timestamps

00:00 Landing Pages Are Failing

01:40 Why Chat Converts

03:30 Meet Luca Borreani

08:00 Affiliate Skills That Matter

12:00 Copywriting Drives Conversions

21:05 The Last-Mile Problem

24:30 Conversational Marketing Wins

26:50 Analytics Miss Buyer Doubts

30:00 Training AI Conversations

33:45 Chat Reveals Hidden Objections

40:35 Why Users Trust Chat

49:45 WhatsApp Marketing Power

56:00 Agentic Commerce Future

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Guest

Luca Borreani Founder, ZipChat.ai Conversion science, conversational commerce, AI marketing Website: https://zipchat.ai

LinkedIn: Luca Boreanni

Email: luca@zipchat.ai

About Marketing Misfits Marketing Misfits features unfiltered conversations with founders, operators, and marketers who actually build and scale businesses.

Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King. New episodes every Tuesday.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

If you teach, coach, sell information, or run an online business, this episode is a wake-up call. In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Dan Ashburn, founder of Titan Network, to break down how AI, agentic systems, personal brand, and community are reshaping marketing, e-commerce, and education at a speed most businesses are not prepared for.

Dan explains why creators, educators, and consultants who don’t integrate AI into real-time execution will end up like Blockbuster, while those who do will build the next Netflix. This is a deep, practical conversation about what’s actually changing, what still matters, and where the real leverage is right now.

This is not surface-level AI hype. It’s about systems, trust, proof, and execution.

What You’ll Learn:

- Why AI must deliver learning while users take action

- The real difference between agents and agentic systems

- Why trust in AI answers is already outperforming Google search

- How AEO (AI Engine Optimization) is driving 10–15% conversion rates

- Why community matters more in an AI-driven, non-personal world

- How Titan Network structures masterminds by business maturity

- Why authenticity and proof now outperform hype marketing

- How personal brand beats company brand at the top of funnel

- Why “standing for something” is required to build community

- How polarization helps cut through AI-generated noise

- The biggest shifts in performance marketing over the last 5 years

- Why content volume now matters more than polish

- How AI is collapsing weeks of work into hours

- Where AI avatars, IP, and personal brand are heading next

- What most people misunderstand about compliance and AI

- How businesses should realistically get started with agents

- Why AI will reward early adopters and widen the gap fast

00:00 Intro

03:56 Introducing Dan Ashburn

04:54 Dan’s Early SEO and Affiliate Marketing Days

09:39 From Trouble to the Military and Business Discipline

12:57 Discovering Amazon and Escaping Agency Life

15:25 China Trips and the Birth of Titan Network

16:25 What Titan Network Is and Why It Works

18:18 Proof, Credibility, and Selling High-Ticket Communities

24:20 How to Build a Community in an AI World

30:27 Major Shifts in Performance Marketing

33:45 How AI Is Compressing Marketing Timelines

39:46 Personal Brand as the New IP

49:25 What Agentic AI Actually Means

01:00:18 AI Compliance, Risk, and Regulation Reality

Dan Ashburn Founder, Titan Network

E-commerce, AI systems, performance marketing

Instagram: @danashburnuk Email: dan@titannetwork.com

Website: https://titannetwork.com

About Marketing Misfits Marketing Misfits features real conversations with operators, founders, and marketers who actually build businesses — not just talk about them. Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King. New episodes every Tuesday.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

What does it take to build a million-dollar online business before you turn 18? In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Makenna Riley, entrepreneur and co-founder of GSD, to break down how she started making money online at 12 years old, launched profitable businesses during COVID, and helped her mom, infomercial legend Forbes Riley, pivot online when the world shut down.

This is not a hype story. Makenna walks through the exact sequence of skills, mindset, marketing systems, and execution that turned webinars, funnels, and paid ads into real revenue, fast. If you care about online business, funnels, Meta ads, selling knowledge, building systems, or scaling without formal education, this episode is packed with practical insight.

What You’ll Learn:

- How Makenna made six figures by 17 and hit $1M before 18
- The webinar that closed $25,000 with just 25 attendees
- Why beginners often outperform “experts”
- How she learned funnels, ads, and marketing at 12 years old
- Why most people fail after buying courses
- The real difference between feeling productive and producing results
- Why websites don’t convert (and what works instead)
- How to structure funnels, offers, and product pipelines
- The biggest mistakes people make with thank-you pages
- Why low-ticket offers beat “free”
- How Meta ads still scale fast when done right
- How to build a business without college or formal training
- What actually separates successful students from everyone else

📚 Chapters

00:00 Early Business Start

04:20 Internet Exposure

09:03 Marketing College

14:17 Millionaire Goal

18:30 GSD Company Launch

23:47 No Formal Training

27:57 Passion for Business

33:17 GSD Launchpad Training

37:24 GSD Launchpad Goal

41:40 GSD vs ClickFunnels

46:12 Confidence & Success

50:15 Client Success Story

55:16 Marketing Diversify

01:01:26 Marketing Mistakes ‍️

01:05:18 Email Marketing Power

01:09:31 Russell Brunson's Work

01:15:51 Marketing Misfits Outro

Guest Makenna Riley Entrepreneur | Funnel Builder | Co-Founder of GSD Website: https://gsdyourbusiness.com Instagram: @themakennariley

About Marketing Misfits
Marketing Misfits features unfiltered conversations with founders, marketers, and operators who built real businesses by testing, failing, and executing — not following trends. Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King.

This episode is brought to you by:
- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits
- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/
- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co
- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/ - Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

What happens when you lose your money, your health, and almost your life — all at once? In this episode of Marketing Misfits, Norm Farrar and Kevin King sit down with Ingrid Macher, a fitness entrepreneur and global influencer who went from being broke, overweight, and facing a near-death asthma attack… to losing 50 pounds in 90 days and building a multi-million-dollar wellness business serving millions worldwide. This is not a surface-level influencer story. Ingrid breaks down the exact mindset shift, health reset, and marketing strategy that changed everything — and why most people fail to grow an audience or business even when they have “followers.” If you care about organic growth, paid ads that actually work, audience building, fitness transformation, or monetizing influence, this episode delivers real lessons.

What You’ll Learn

- How Ingrid lost 50 pounds in 90 days and kept it off for 14 years

- The near-death moment that forced a complete life reset

- Why most people fail at weight loss and content creation

- How losing everything in the 2008 crash led to her biggest opportunity

- The real difference between followers and buyers

- Why you only need 1,000 raving fans to build a million-dollar business

- How Ingrid built massive reach organically on Facebook and beyond

- When to use paid ads — and why boosting organic winners works best

- How TikTok Shop is changing monetization right now

- Why knowing your avatar matters more than going viral

- The hidden opportunity in underserved markets (especially Spanish-speaking audiences)

- How fitness, family, faith, and finances all connect to long-term success

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:05 Guest Introduction: Ingrid Macher

08:09 Ingrid's Journey to America

10:54 Overcoming Challenges

13:31 The Turning Point

15:36 Transforming Health and Fitness

18:14 Maintaining Weight Loss

33:50 Becoming a Wellness Influencer

34:32 A Million Dollar Product Idea

36:04 Entering the Info Product Industry

37:09 Building a Social Media Presence

38:08 Organic Growth and Marketing Strategies

43:34 The Power of Community and Faith

48:05 Adapting to Social Media Changes

56:08 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Ingrid Macher Fitness entrepreneur, author (7 books), global wellness leader Instagram (English): @ingridmacherofficial About Marketing Misfits Marketing Misfits features real conversations with founders, operators, and creators who built businesses the hard way — through failure, pivots, and unconventional strategies.

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Hosted by Norm Farrar and Kevin King.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Most creators have no idea how powerful newsletters are right now. In this episode, you’ll learn why email is outperforming every social platform and how top operators are turning simple weekly emails into six-figure profit machines. Kevin King and Norm Farrar break down their own newsletter playbooks (including selling $4,500 dedicated sends and hitting 62 percent open rates) and sit down with Matt McGarry, widely regarded as the newsletter expert behind The Hustle, HubSpot, and Newsletter Operator. Matt reveals exactly why newsletters outperform every other channel for trust, retention, monetization, and audience ownership. You’ll hear the mistakes beginners make, how to actually grow a newsletter, and what it takes to turn email into a real business. If you’re a marketer, founder, creator, or ecommerce operator, this will change how you think about email forever.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why newsletters outperform social and YouTube for monetization

• How Kevin charges $4,500 per email and sells out months in advance

• Newsletter vs. marketing email: the real difference

• How Matt built newsletter systems from The Hustle to HubSpot

• Why most newsletters fail after 10 issues

• How to grow from 0 to thousands of subscribers

• How to design newsletters people actually read

• Deliverability tactics to stay out of Promotions

• How to segment your list for 5–10x higher revenue

• How to blend AI with human writing without sounding robotic

• Why churn kills paid newsletters and what to do instead

• How to use LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram to grow email fast

• Real-world monetization strategies that actually work in 2025

Chapters

00:00 The Power of Newsletters

00:46 'Email is Dead' Myth

01:43 The Billion Dollar Sellers Newsletter

03:29 Introducing Matt

04:22 Matt's Journey

08:54 Consistency in Newsletters

14:10 Editorial vs. Promotional Emails

27:52 Effective Newsletter Strategies for Beginners

39:57 LinkedIn Newsletters: Are They Worth It?

40:38 LinkedIn Newsletters

43:04 Organic vs. Paid Newsletters

43:18 Challenges of Paid Newsletters

48:26 Newsletter Design Tips

50:29 AI in Newsletter Writing

01:01:24 Deliverability Strategies

01:11:09 Power of Email Segmentation

01:19:55 Final Thoughts

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

In this episode of Marketing Misfits, we break down why podcasting is becoming one of the most powerful trust-building tools in the age of AI and how brands can use it to stand out instead of blending into AI sameness. Our guest Eric Ryan went from LinkedIn Live to a cable TV show, built a 19-person podcast production team, and developed a framework for becoming “niche famous” so clients come to you.

We dig into:

• Why most podcasts die after 7 episodes

• How to turn a podcast into a client-acquisition machine

• Why you must be omnipresent to win in 2025

• How AI is destroying bad content and elevating real voices

• The exact formats, lengths, and clip strategies that perform best

• Why “don’t be gentle with your list” is the most important marketing advice you’ll hear

• The truth about going viral on TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube Shorts

• How to become niche-famous (not Joe Rogan famous) and still print money

• The #1 thing that separates successful podcasters from quitters

If you're building a personal brand, running an agency, launching a show, or trying to build authority online, this episode gives you the playbook.

Timestamps

00:00 Why Eric Started a Podcast to Get Clients

01:52 Why Most Creators Fail at Email + Podcasting

03:10 Competing With the Entire Internet (Not Your Industry)

05:12 “Podcasting Makes You Famous”

07:44 Becoming Niche Famous

09:20 How Eric’s LinkedIn Show Led to Cable TV

12:52 Land High-Value Clients

15:31 Editing + Distribution

17:44 Authority vs. Views

21:40 Why TikTok Is Beating Every Platform

24:20 Holding Creators Back

26:10 Being Actually Interesting

28:30 Why Most Interviews Are Terrible

32:18 Building a Multi-Platform Content Engine

35:44 Consistency vs. Perfection

38:05 How Long Should a Podcast Really Be?

41:22 Cutting Content Into Clips That Actually Perform

44:58 Managing Expectations: What “Success” Really Looks Like

49:10 The Hidden Work Nobody Talks About

53:12 The One Strategy Eric Says Will Make You Stand Out

56:40 Should Everyone Start a Podcast in 2025?

59:02 Final Takeaway: Be Different or Be Invisible

This episode is brought to you by:

- Sellerboard: https://sellerboard.com/misfits

- House of AMZ: Elevate your brand today at https://www.amazonseo.com/

- 8fig: Get 25% off 8fig off at https://8fig.co

- Stack Influence: Use code MISFITS for 10% off at https://stackinfluence.com/

- Levanta: Get 20% off Levanta's gold plan and book your call today - https://get.levanta.io/misfits

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.