CultivatED Marketer

About CultivatED Marketer

Grow Brand YOU

Publisher

Cultivated Marketer

Category

business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Feb 2020

Latest episode

22 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

54 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   22 Oct 2026

   CultivatED Marketer Ep. 53 — The Art and Science of Storytelling: What Every Communicator Needs to Know with Jeremy Connell-Waite

   In the 53rd episode of CultivatED Marketer – your go-to marketing professional development podcast – hosts Brent Bowen, Julie Masson, and Matt Tidwell are joined by Jeremy Connell-Waite, Communications Designer at IBM and an expert in strategic storytelling. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience working with global brands, executives, and organizations, Jeremy explores the art and science of storytelling and what makes a story truly memorable. From understanding story structures and audience psychology to communicating complex ideas with simplicity, Jeremy shares practical lessons for marketers, communicators, and leaders who want their words to inspire action and make a difference. CultivatED Marketer Ep. 53 — The Art and Science of Storytelling: What Every Communicator Needs to Know with Jeremy Connell-Waite Great Storytelling Starts With Understanding Your Audience Everyone tells stories, but understanding what makes a good story requires more than following a familiar beginning, middle, and end. Jeremy explains that storytelling structures vary across cultures, audiences, and situations. While Western storytelling often emphasizes conflict, obstacles, and transformation, other traditions approach narrative differently. The real skill lies in understanding which structure will connect with a particular audience and move them toward a desired outcome. For marketers and communicators, that means the audience should always be the hero. Rather than forcing every message into the same formula, great storytellers choose an approach that serves the people they’re trying to reach. Jeremy shares more than 20 storytelling structures through his free Better Stories resource library (https://www.betterstories.org/01), giving communicators practical tools to experiment with different approaches. The Best Stories Create Tension and Transformation What makes someone lean forward and want to know what happens next? According to Jeremy, some of the most compelling stories create a meaningful gap between what someone wants and the obstacles standing in their way. He points to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin as a master of this approach, along with Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey (https://mwp.com/product/writers-journey-25th-anniversary-edition-mythic-structure-writers/) and Aristotle’s Poetics (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140446362?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback), which continue to influence modern storytelling. Jeremy also shares how his fascination with Sam Seaborn from The West Wing helped shape his own career. The fictional communications director inspired his approach to working with executives, where storytelling isn’t simply about writing speeches but helping shape important ideas and decisions. For communicators interested in studying the craft further, Jeremy recommends Aaron Sorkin’s MasterClass (https://www.masterclass.com/classes/aaron-sorkin-teaches-screenwriting). Business Storytelling Is About More Than Delivering Information Some of the most powerful storytelling doesn’t come from traditional advertising or corporate presentations. Jeremy points to nonprofit leader Dan Pallotta as an example of someone who uses storytelling to challenge assumptions and change how people think. Pallotta’s TED Talk, The Way We Think About Charity Is Dead Wrong (https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong), questions conventional thinking about nonprofit organizations and inspired the documentary Uncharitable (https://uncharitablemovie.com/). The conversation also explores how strong communicators use humor, surprise, emotion, and clarity to make complex ideas memorable. Whether presenting to executives, advocating for a cause, or developing a marketing campaign, effective storytelling isn’t just about communicating information. It’s about changing how people see something and giving them a reason to care. The Science Behind Stories That Move People Jeremy’s approach to storytelling combines creative thinking with an understanding of how audiences process information and emotion. He discusses the relationship between logic and emotion, explaining why even highly technical or data-driven presentations need a human connection. Facts can help people understand an issue, but emotion often gives them a reason to remember it and act. Jeremy also introduces his Communications Thinking Framework and the principles behind his work at Better Stories (https://www.betterstories.org/home). These resources emphasize transformation, attention, truth, measurable outcomes, emotion, brevity, surprise, clarity, and action. For marketers, the takeaway is that storytelling should be intentional. Every element should help the audience understand the message, feel its significance, or move toward a meaningful next step. Great Communicators Know When to Say Less With audiences constantly competing for attention, Jeremy believes simplicity is one of the most valuable skills a communicator can develop. Drawing inspiration from historical speechwriters and leaders, including President John F. Kennedy and his speechwriter Ted Sorensen, Jeremy explores how a powerful message can often be built around a surprisingly small number of words. He recommends Mimi Goss’s book What Is Your One Sentence? (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/309891/what-is-your-one-sentence-by-mimi-goss/), which challenges communicators to identify the single idea they want their audience to remember. That sentence becomes the guiding principle for everything else. If a detail doesn’t support the central message or help move the audience, it may not belong in the story. It’s a useful reminder that effective communication isn’t measured by how much information we include, but by what people take away. Your Story Has the Power to Make a Difference As the conversation turns toward the future of storytelling, Jeremy reflects on what remains constant across different cultures, industries, and generations. People want to believe they’re contributing to something larger than themselves. Great stories help connect that sense of purpose with the experiences and values of an audience. Even as AI changes how content is created and distributed, Jeremy believes the ability to communicate with empathy, authenticity, and purpose remains essential. His closing advice is particularly relevant for young professionals and anyone developing their communication skills. Storytelling isn’t reserved for charismatic executives, experienced speakers, or professional writers. Everyone has the ability to develop their voice and use words to make a difference. The challenge is learning how to tell better stories that genuinely move people. Connect With Jeremy Connell-Waite Jeremy is a Communications Designer at IBM, creator of the Better Stories resources, and host of The Truth in Ten, a podcast exploring lessons from influential storytellers. Explore his free storytelling resources and downloadable frameworks through BetterStories.org (https://www.betterstories.org/home), learn more about his background on his professional profile (https://www.betterstories.org/jeremy), connect with him on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremypaulwaite/), and check out his Better Words LinkedIn post (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeremypaulwaite_better-words-by-jeremy-connell-waite-ugcPost-7513160360170856448-DCkG/) for additional storytelling and communication insights. Additional resources discussed during the episode include Dario Amodei’s (https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace)Machines of Loving Grace (https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace), Katie Macaulay’s Internal Comms Podcast (https://classic.abcomm.co.uk/podcasts/), and Jeremy’s Nine Principles of Better Stories (https://www.betterstories.org/_files/ugd/9de62c_d9b68a3527ff43f1877aa2d20bd2d880.pdf). Chapters 0:00 — The Art and Science of Storytelling 1:32 — Meet Jeremy Connell-Waite 4:20 — How Jeremy Became a Storyteller 8:32 — What Makes a Great Story? 11:46 — Story Structures and Free Resources 13:25 — Aaron Sorkin and the Power of Obstacles 17:08 — The World’s Best Business Storytellers 21:11 — Humor, Surprise, and Memorable Communication 23:40 — The Framework Behind Better Stories 26:26 — Storytelling, Emotion, and the Brain 31:40 — Lessons From JFK and Great Speechwriters 36:25 — Finding Your One Sentence 37:26 — Four Quick Questions 40:05 — The Storyteller Jeremy Would Study Forever 41:07 — The Universal Power of Storytelling 43:16 — Finding Your Voice and Making a Difference

2. 

   9 Oct 2026

   CultivatED Marketer Ep. 52 — If AI Can Find You, Will It Trust You? Rethinking Search and Discoverability with Heather Physioc

   In the 52nd episode of CultivatED Marketer – your go-to marketing professional development podcast – hosts Brent Bowen, Julie Masson, and Matt Tidwell are joined by Heather Physioc, Chief Discoverability Officer (https://www.vml.com/people/heather-physioc) at VML and an internationally recognized search industry leader. Heather explains how AI is changing the way people discover brands and why search can no longer be treated as a standalone digital marketing channel. From SEO and AI search to public relations, social media, and content strategy, the conversation explores what it takes for organizations to be found, understood, trusted, and ultimately chosen. CultivatED Marketer Ep. 52 — If AI Can Find You, Will It Trust You? Rethinking Search and Discoverability with Heather Physioc Discoverability Is Bigger Than SEO SEO, GEO, AEO, AIO – marketers have no shortage of new acronyms to learn. Heather suggests stepping back from the terminology and thinking about the larger concept of discoverability. For Heather, discoverability is about whether an organization can be found, understood, trusted, and chosen wherever its audience happens to be searching. That increasingly means thinking beyond Google and a company website to an interconnected ecosystem that includes AI platforms, social media, YouTube, Reddit, earned media, and other sources people use to answer questions and make decisions. Brent references data from AnswerThePublic (https://answerthepublic.com/) illustrating just how fragmented search behavior has become. The shift means discoverability isn’t simply an SEO responsibility anymore. It increasingly touches nearly every part of marketing and communications. Your Website Still Matters – But It Can’t Work Alone With AI-generated answers increasingly appearing before traditional search results, it’s reasonable to wonder whether websites are becoming less important. Heather’s answer is an emphatic no. A brand’s website remains a central source of truth, but the information surrounding that website now matters more. Social media, public relations, customer reviews, expert voices, third-party coverage, and other sources all contribute to how people – and increasingly machines – understand a brand. Instead of thinking about each of those channels separately, marketers should consider how they work together to establish authority and credibility. The opportunity isn’t simply to rank a webpage. It’s to create a connected body of evidence that consistently demonstrates who your organization is and why people should trust it. AI Search Isn’t Another Marketing Channel One of the biggest mistakes organizations can make is treating AI search as the newest channel to hand off to a specialist. Heather argues that AI is instead being integrated into nearly every existing marketing discipline. That makes collaboration between SEO, content, public relations, social media, analytics, technology, and other teams increasingly important. The organizations that succeed will be the ones capable of connecting those disciplines early in the process. Rather than developing a campaign and later asking someone to “SEO it,” “social it,” or “PR it,” discoverability should be considered while the strategy itself is being developed. The difficult part isn’t mastering one more channel. It’s getting multiple disciplines to work together around the same audience needs. Start With Demand, Not the Brand Organizations naturally want to talk about themselves, but Heather sees the strongest brands approaching discoverability from the opposite direction: starting with what customers actually need. Search provides marketers with an unusually candid source of audience intelligence because people voluntarily reveal their questions, concerns, needs, and uncertainties. That information can help organizations shape strategies, customer journeys, content, and experiences before anything is created. Heather recommends building a “network of proof” around those needs through original research, expert voices, case studies, customer reviews, third-party validation, and other credible evidence. In other words, producing more content isn’t necessarily the answer. Creating useful information that genuinely resolves uncertainty is far more valuable. In an AI World, Trust Becomes the Differentiator When Julie asks Heather to identify the single concept organizations should focus on when thinking about how they appear online, Heather’s answer is simple: trust. AI has dramatically lowered the barrier to creating content, including inaccurate or misleading information. That makes credibility, expertise, experience, evidence, and independent validation increasingly valuable signals for both audiences and the systems synthesizing information for them. Visibility may earn a brand an encounter, but trust determines what happens next. That’s also why discoverability can’t be gamed with a handful of optimization tricks. Organizations have to demonstrate that what they say about themselves is credible enough for customers, journalists, third parties, and ultimately AI systems to believe and repeat. Search Expert by Day, Conservation Storyteller by…Also Day Heather’s work doesn’t stop with search and marketing. She is also an award-winning conservation journalist and photographer whose reporting explores wildlife, conservation, Indigenous knowledge, human-wildlife coexistence, and the people doing conservation work in the field. Heather describes photography as a creative counterweight to a fast-moving digital career. Wildlife photography rewards patience and observation, while journalism gives those images a larger purpose. Interestingly, she sees a connection between her two professional worlds: both require curiosity, evidence, understanding an audience, finding signals in the noise, and earning trust. Her interest in outdoor storytelling was influenced in part by her grandfather, longtime Kansas City cartoonist and outdoor communicator Bruce Cochran. You can explore Bruce Cochran’s cartoons and artwork (https://cochranscartoons.com/) online. Learn more about Heather’s conservation journalism and photography at HP Conservation (https://hpconservation.com/), and explore her marketing, discoverability, speaking, and training work at HeatherPhysioc.com (https://www.vml.com/people/heather-physioc). You can also connect with Heather Physioc on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherphysioc/). For marketers interested in developing their search and discoverability expertise, Heather also recommends Ahrefs Evolve (https://ahrefs.com/events) for its combination of evidence-driven practitioners, original research, strategic thinking, and practical applications. Ultimately, whether the latest disruption is AI search or whatever comes next, Heather’s advice remains remarkably simple: put the audience at the center. Reaching or interrupting customers isn’t the same thing as serving them. Organizations that consistently understand what people need, provide useful answers, and earn their trust will be better positioned for whatever comes next. Chapters 0:00 — How Search is a More Complicated Marketing and Communications Problem? 08:32 — Meet Heather Physioc 11:10 — From Journalism to Search Strategy 14:24 — What Does “Discoverability” Actually Mean? 17:59 — Does Your Website Still Matter in the AI Era? 22:47 — Search Is No Longer Just an SEO Problem 26:41 — Why AI Search Isn’t Another Marketing Channel 28:21 — What Winning Brands Are Doing Differently 31:38 — Who Should Own Discoverability? 37:12 — Heather’s Second Career in Conservation Storytelling 40:15 — The Creative Legacy of Bruce Cochran 41:35 — Where to Find Heather’s Work 44:05 — Heather’s Pick for the Best Search Conference 45:01 — The One Thing Every Brand Needs: Trust 47:05 — Putting the Audience at the Center

3. 

   24 Jul 2026

   CultivatED Marketer Ep. 51 —Why Great Communication Isn’t About Compliance, It’s About Influence with Shea Sullivan

   In the 51st episode of CultivatED Marketer – your go-to marketing professional development podcast – hosts Brent Bowen, Julie Masson, and Matt Tidwell are joined by Shea Sullivan, the CEO and founder of Comms at Work (https://commsatwork.biz/). Drawing on decades of experience in internal communications, safety culture, and organizational change, Sullivan shares why effective communication is all about influencing behavior. While much of the conversation focuses on her experience in frontline and workplace communications, the lessons extend far beyond safety. Offering valuable insights for marketers, communicators, and anyone responsible for building trust, and leading change within an organization. CultivatED Marketer Ep. 51 — Why Great Communication Isn’t About Compliance, It’s About Influence with Shea Sullivan Communication Doesn’t End When the Message Is Sent Organizations often assume communication is successful once a message has been delivered. An email goes out. A meeting is held. A policy is posted. From a communications perspective, the work appears complete. Shea Sullivan argues that’s where the real work begins. Communication is measured by whether people understand it, remember it, and ultimately change their behavior because of it. That distinction is especially important in industries where safety and operational excellence depend on thousands of small decisions employees make every day. Communicators must earn attention before they can ever hope to influence behavior. The goal isn’t simply to tell people something. It’s to help them understand why it matters. The Best Communicators Meet People Where They Are Whether she’s working with a construction company or manufacturer, Sullivan believes communicators have to spend time where the work actually happens. It’s difficult to influence behavior from behind a desk. The most effective communicators understand the environment they’re communicating into, allowing them to craft messages that fit naturally into employees’ routines instead of becoming just another piece of information to ignore. The principle applies well beyond safety communications. Great marketing starts the same way: by understanding your audience before asking for their attention. Safety Communication Is Really About Human Behavior Although much of Sullivan’s career has focused on safety communications, the conversation revealed a lesson that extends beyond the job site. Successful safety programs aren’t built solely on policies, procedures, or compliance. They’re built on understanding why people make the decisions they do and creating communication that encourages better choices before mistakes happen. Instead of simply reminding people about rules, communicators become partners in shaping workplace culture. Every message becomes an opportunity to reinforce habits and build trust (https://www.cultivatedmarketer.com/2025/03/26/cultivated-marketer-ep-30-trust-in-organizations-building-the-foundation-for-success-with-dr-cory-scheer/). Whether you’re encouraging employees to adopt a new process or asking customers to embrace a new product, the challenge is remarkably similar: people rarely change because they’re told to. Why Communication Belongs at the Strategy Table Too often, communication teams are brought into projects after the important decisions have already been made. Leadership develops the strategy, finalizes the plan, and then asks communicators to announce it. When communicators are included early, they help identify blind spots, anticipate employee concerns, and shape how change will be received. Communication is no longer just a tactical support function. It’s becoming a strategic discipline that helps organizations build trust, strengthen culture, and successfully navigate change (https://www.cultivatedmarketer.com/2025/08/19/cultivated-marketer-ep-33-lynn-zimmerman/). Relationships Still Build Careers Towards the end of the conversation Sullivan focused on what got her to where she is now. She credits much of her career development to professional organizations like the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) (https://www.iabc.com?utm_source=chatgpt.com) and encouraged young professionals to actively participate in industry communities rather than waiting for opportunities to come to them. Networking, volunteering, and continually learning have opened doors throughout her career that a résumé alone never could. Sullivan reminds us that careers are still built through conversations, curiosity, and the willingness to invest time in relationships with others who share your profession. Data Should Tell Human Stories The conversation closed with a reminder that even in an increasingly data-driven and AI-powered world, communication remains deeply human (https://www.cultivatedmarketer.com/2026/05/28/cultivated-marketer-ep-47-why-human-first-marketing-wins-in-2026-with-justin-ricklefs/). Sullivan emphasized that data is invaluable for identifying trends and measuring success, but numbers alone rarely inspire action. The communicator’s job is to interpret those insights and transform them into stories people understand, remember, and care about. As organizations continue adopting new technologies, that human perspective becomes even more valuable. AI can help communicators work faster, but empathy, curiosity, and storytelling remain the qualities that create lasting influence.Top of Form 03:40 — What Makes Great Internal Communication 07:12 — From Broadcast Journalism to Communications 10:35 — Learning to Speak Your Audience’s Language 15:45 — Compliance vs. Influence 18:22 — Infinite Content, Finite Attention 20:18 — The Most Trusted Voice in the Workplace 21:18 — Go Where Their Eyes, Ears, and Feet Are 24:40 — Building a Strong Safety Culture Through Communication 27:43 — Why Communication Belongs at the Strategy Table 32:18 — Networking Is an Investment in Your Career 36:11 — Lead with “Why” 37:02 — Turning Data Into Human Stories 39:05 — Advice for the Next Generation of Communicators

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