Small Business Strategy, Leadership & Growth

Kate Hendrickson

on Small Business Strategy, Leadership & Growth

Kate Hendrickson, The Strategy Lane  ·  Host: Jeremy Rivera  ·  Unscripted Small Business Podcast

BEST QUOTES

"I love getting up on a stage and sharing with groups of people, doing workshops. Those are super fun, because they're interactive and I get to work with people."

— Kate Hendrickson

"We're definitely over-tooled. I think AI is helpful in the right places. I also feel like it

can completely be overused and feel inauthentic."

— Kate Hendrickson

"AI can't replace that people connection. We can't let AI replace that — and making people feel important."

— Kate Hendrickson

Introduction

JEREMY RIVERA

Hello, I'm Jeremy Rivera, your Unscripted Small Business Podcast host. I'm here with Kate Hendrickson, who's going to introduce her agency, introduce a little bit of her experience, and tell us why she's a trustworthy expert.

KATE HENDRICKSON

Thanks, Jeremy. Yes, Kate Hendrickson. I'm with The Strategy Lane and I live a life of different worlds. So I am a consultant, a small business consultant. I'm also an author. I'm also a parent and a wife and a friend and a sister and all of the things. And so I live my life in various lanes. I feel like we're all on a journey with various destinations and sometimes we course correct and sometimes we hit forks in the road. And so the lane I'm super excited to talk about today is the strategy lane. And it really comes from years of not only my own leadership experience, but then working at a large consulting firm out of Chicago for over a decade, helping other leaders understand some of the leadership skills that you might not have been taught — and you just kind of start to have to pick up on your own. And so really helping people upskill themselves and learn more about leadership in general and goals and strategy is what I've done for many years and now I'm doing it on the small business perspective. So it's super exciting to be here.

Marketing Strategy: Face-to-Face Over Funnels

JEREMY RIVERA

Couple of questions along that line. Let's start with a really basic one. How do you do marketing strategy in 2026?

KATE HENDRICKSON

You're looking at it right now. So I love to talk to people. That is my marketing strategy — truly getting in there and having some face-to-face time with people. So whether it's hopping on a podcast, sharing some tips and tricks and my expertise so that way other people can go, man, this would really help me, I'd love to partner or work with this person — or putting myself out there at conferences and doing speaking events locally in my own community. 

Getting out there and meeting business owners and just sharing what I do with others from this perspective is really what I enjoy from a marketing standpoint.

 I'd rather sit down and have a conversation with you. Let's go have some lunch and let's talk about how we could potentially partner together and how I can really help accelerate some of the work that you're doing. 

Let's hop on the phone and have a conversation about it. Let me jump on a podcast and talk to you, whatever that may be. I love getting up on a stage and sharing with groups of people, doing workshops. 

Those are super fun, because they're interactive and I get to work with people. That's really a lot of my marketing strategy right now — how can I get myself in front of people so I can have that conversation.

I'm going to share and be totally vulnerable and honest. Social media is not my strength. But I lean on others for those pieces. So where I know my strengths and things that I'm really good at and how I can help people, I sometimes have to lean on others from a social media perspective. You can follow along on Instagram if you want to see the more personal side — because I don't always feel like I know what I'm doing necessarily.

AI, Authenticity, and the Over-Tooled Business

JEREMY RIVERA

I think because we live in the age of AI — and actually this comes up because I heard about a company that does church social media agency where they have actually banned all forms of AI in their business process entirely. And that comes from them wanting to be authentic in their messaging; they're very spiritual and so they want the things that they do for their church to be from that spiritual side.

 And I think that is an interesting challenge. And I don't think everybody needs to become a Luddite when it comes to AI.

 I was literally talking about, before we started, about how I use AI to process my podcast — and the inauthenticity that can come from overuse of AI is a real challenge. Like I was working out with my wife and her friends and they're joking, yeah, I could totally tell that they used AI for this — and they're not tech savvy people, they're not in the marketing space, and they were all like, yeah, that photo, that headline was totally from ChatGPT. 

Why do they think we do not know? And it ties back to what you just said of your own marketing strategy of getting out there and talking to people, having those real conversations, IRL.

I think, would you agree that small businesses often lean towards tools as a solution versus leveraging people as a solution — of interviewing clients, of having conversations, getting your founder on a podcast, getting them interviewed. They're skipping over that process in favor of, oh, SEO Surfer for $200 a month, it can do all of the SEO stuff, it can write all of our content. Ahrefs, Semrush. There's just an obsession with, if I'm a business, I need a SaaS as a solution. You can read more about why podcasting beats pure tool-dependency for marketing in our SEO Arcade breakdown.

KATE HENDRICKSON

I completely agree and I think we're getting over-tooled. Definitely over-tooled. We have so many tools that we can use. I like AI. I think AI is helpful in the right places. I also feel like it can completely be overused and feel inauthentic. So I'm kind of on the line on that opinion — there's definitely a time and place for it. I also feel like it's not the do-all, see-all, be-all. So while you may go to AI to get some recommendations, whatever your use of it is, whatever it spits out — then it's kind of on you to say, is this accurate? Trust but verify what it's telling you and what it's spitting out and what it looks like.

I definitely see the benefit. I use it from just an efficiency standpoint, creating new systems and processes sometimes. I'll kind of throw it all in there and it'll map it out and then I'll go back through the map and go, this is not quite what I was thinking, and I shift and adjust and change based on that, but it gives me a nice little template and starting point to then continue the work that I'm doing. 

I definitely see the benefit. Like I shared, I have a lane that I live in as a parent — I use it. To be honest, I have a 13-year-old and he is beyond some of the things that I remember from math and things these days. And so I go into AI and say, can you solve this problem and break down the steps so I can see if he did the steps correctly? Because I don't remember. And so that might not be the most efficient way to use AI, but I do feel like it definitely has its benefit out there. But we need to be careful and cautious.

Waymos — like the cars that drive themselves. They make me a little bit nervous. My husband loves them. I haven't tried one. I'm not necessarily a fan just yet. But I feel like we can't let AI be like a Waymo. Like we can't just let it drive itself. We still have to be the driver of a lot of that.

Finding the Creative Spark in 'Boring' Industries

JEREMY RIVERA

I'm curious — you talk to a lot of small businesses probably in a lot of different niches and verticals. I like to ask this question about how do you approach creative advice for businesses that are in a boring niche?

 Like it's not, you know, they're not selling swimsuits, they're not selling Ferraris, it's not sexy. It's like electric substation walls, you know, behind-the-meter LNG power solutions for data centers or agricultural equipment. It's not sexy, but how do you approach those conversations? Because there needs to be a creative spark, right — there has to be something. So how do you find the spark in the gray?

KATE HENDRICKSON

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll give you a couple of examples. I work with some plumbing companies. I work with an irrigation company. And irrigation is not something that we're like, I can't wait to talk about irrigation. However, we do a few things. We do some values exercises and say, who are we as a company and what do we do and how does it align and connect to our long-term goals and growth and marketing — and how do we make our potential customers and client base feel like we're a partnership in a line?

 So what are our values and what does that look like?

Then we also talk about strategy. 

So thinking about our business now and where we want the business to be in two or three years — let's have a little bit of fun. So that's where I get in there and get to do workshops and we throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks in all kinds of areas.

 In a dream world, what does this business look like? 

Who is our avatar? 

Who's our customer?

 What's our customer base look like? 

And how are we going to achieve that?

So we actually do, whatever the industry is, have a lot of fun in that big dream world — and how does AI connect to that long-term growth strategy that we have? And so we think big, we dream big, we put it all on the wall, and then kind of like a funnel, we start to really narrow it down. 

We've already figured out who we are and what our values are. We've figured out what our avatars or our clients or our customers are. And now let's look at what are our key two or three things that we're going to focus on on this big dream wall that we've created so that way we continue to maintain our values and maintain true to who we are and give the best possible service to our customers or clients. 

And at the same time, your values should connect with your leadership style, and your team should have the same values.

Yes, they're selling irrigation. They're also selling who they are as people and what they believe in and how you can trust them. And so those are things that are just innate in human beings and people — that we get to have fun and discuss and figure out, and skills that they a lot of times don't know. When I think about the plumbing company that I work with, they were plumbers.

 Then they said, hey, I'm going to have my own company, I can do this, I can make all the money as the owner. And so they went from being the plumber to the business owner and they didn't know how to lead a team necessarily. 

And so they don't know all of those pieces. And so they get to have some fun with their training and development and upskilling and creating who they are as a company and a brand and a business and what they're known for and how they're respected in the community.

All of those things we get to focus on and have some fun. And that really helps with their marketing strategy — to say, this is who we are and this is what we believe in and this is the service we're going to provide.

 So I think that's how we handle some of those small businesses that you might not think are flashy and fun. Really, we get to be a little creative and have a little fun and really get to the core of who they are as a business and as business owners.

The Biggest Gaps in Small Business Plans

JEREMY RIVERA

You touched on a business plan. And this question's from Thiessen and Associates, a previous guest, for you. What is the biggest hole that you see in small businesses' business plans?

KATE HENDRICKSON

So I think a few things. One is there's a little bit too much chaos going on — either up there or on the paper. They're focusing on way too many things. So I think really figuring out how to narrow it down into two or three key things that as a business and as a company you're going to work towards is one thing that I find.

 I jump in and I start working with somebody and they have all of these things that they're working on and they're constantly putting out fires and they're in a million directions and they never have time to work on their business because they're working in their business on too many things. 

[You can explore Kate's thinking on this in her Strategic Planning & Goal Management blog.]

And then having the tracking and data mechanism to see if you're actually making progress and moving forward. For example, if you have some financial metrics you're trying to hit but you're not actually tracking your financials well or timely or accurately — then we don't even know if we're moving forward in the right direction. 

We don't know if we're going to hit our goals or we don't know if we're going to continue to grow or grow at all or if we're moving in the wrong direction. So I think not having the data is a real issue. 

Honestly, if you can narrow your focus to two or three items and have some data to look at to say, yes, I'm moving in the right direction or no, I'm not and I need to course correct — that is where things get really good. But the issue is just too many areas that you're focusing on and no data to see if you're really getting there.

JEREMY RIVERA

Yeah. I feel that. I was just setting up a dashboard on Zapdigits to pull in Google Search Console and Google Analytics and realized they didn't actually set up Google Analytics at all for this project.

 Well, now I need to go back because I totally would have expected them to have analytics at all.

 But there's this glaring gap.

 Another client is about to launch a new site and they're like, anything you miss? 

Like, yeah, you don't actually have any conversion point on the site. Like, it's all information. What do you want them to do when they get there and how will you measure its success? 

And like, well, there's an email on the contact page for our publicist. And I said, so do you want — can we track how many emails that person receives and whether it came from the site?

Yeah, they could have gotten that email from anywhere else. Can you turn that into a form? Yes. And then they're like, well, what we really want them to do is download this information sheet. 

Well, then we should put an email field and download and have them go to a download page, but capture them into some sort of CRM. 

Come on folks, it's 2026. 

You don't have a CRM?

You don't have the concept of having a form on a site that you've spent millions of dollars for to do this launch. Like it's a new company, huge product, everything. And you literally have no way to measure its success.

KATE HENDRICKSON

Exactly, and you need to make it as easy as possible or they're going to the next guy. There's always somebody else who can offer what you're offering or something similar, and if you don't make it as easy as possible for them — and for you to keep up with whoever that customer or client base is — if you can't keep up with it because you're not tracking it, or they can't get in touch with you easily, they're moving on. They're moving on to someone else.

Soapbox: Getting Out of Reactive Mode

JEREMY RIVERA

This is a good moment to give you a soapbox. You're going to speak to small business owners and give us your hottest take for small business owners.

KATE HENDRICKSON

So I will say — if small business owners feel like they're constantly living in that reactive state and constantly putting out fires, and they don't know what next year is going to look like, they don't know what the end of this year is going to look like — I think now is the time to find that accountability partner or coach or consultant, whatever you want to call it. To find that person who is going to help you find some direction. 

And I think that's the work I love to do. I want to be the person behind the curtain who says, you go get all the accolades, you do the hard work, you go out and grow, put your company out there — but I'm going to be behind the curtain, nudging you along and pushing you along and holding you accountable. 

[If you want to explore working with Kate, you can reach her here.]

And I think now is the time, if you are a small business owner, to find who that person is in your world, whatever that looks like. Sometimes it's a business coach or consultant, sometimes maybe you have a coworker, or you own the company with someone else — your co-owners.

 You need to set time aside to work on the business and have somebody that's going to hold you accountable to all the things that you need to do to help move yourself forward.

Exit Strategy: Does Your Business Plan Have an Ending?

JEREMY RIVERA

I love that. And it comes to mind — I just interviewed Brandon Moon and he comes in from the other side of business planning, of how to exit your business. And his entire business model is how do you wind down, what's your escape plan? 

And it struck me that I've literally started a small business — several different small businesses — and I didn't go into them thinking, what's my end goal here? Like how does this end?

 I was so focused on whether or not I could, I never stopped to think if I should — from Jurassic Park.

KATE HENDRICKSON

Right. And I do an assessment right before I work with someone. And that's one of the questions — are you long-term looking to sell? Because that totally directs our strategy and what we're working on in the next year or two years and what does that look like. It's definitely part of the initial assessment to figure out, are you in it indefinitely or do you have an exit in mind.

Legacy, Community, and the Long Game

JEREMY RIVERA

Matt Brooks of SEOteric and I were talking about how much do you measure the social good and how do you include plans for building the ethos of your company as it scales and grows.

The example was: there are companies that started like a hundred years ago, they still exist today. Obviously the owner is dead, but the company continues to grow and gain profits and continues to exist. 

Wouldn't it have been nice if that owner a hundred years ago had made it a mission to plant a tree every year in a major park? 

We'd have a hundred-year oaks in these parks if they had done that. And they would have cemented a longer-term legacy than just another company that exists and is there to make money.

 So what's your advice for small business owners to perpetuate a legacy by thinking about that in their business plan, their mission and vision statements?

KATE HENDRICKSON

I think that's where we start — go back to values. And so when you're determining what your key core values are, I have a huge list and I have a lot of recommendations and we kind of talk through what that looks like. Community is one that a lot of businesses gravitate towards, especially with small business owners — they're in their own community a lot of times. 

So community in general, but I think then connecting back to community of giving back. But I think a lot of that also stems with the culture you're building within your business and organization. 

So are you surrounding yourself with people and employees and team members who also have a sense of community and also have a sense of giving back? I think that's part of the interview process when you're bringing on new people — there's kind of a cultural fit around community.

And when you start to build a culture of community, then it just becomes natural that it is something that you all find important. And so you find time, you make time for it, because everyone in the organization finds that it's something that is important. I think when you think about goals and key actions and what are you going to focus on and what are you going to work on — setting something specific that connects you back to a community goal you're going to achieve within a six-month or one-year period, putting that on paper, and then — 

I'm going to use the word accountability again — making sure you hold yourself accountable and have someone that holds you accountable to getting it done. Because it is so easy to get wrapped up in the business aspect and the making the money and selling what you're selling or providing the service that you're providing. It's really easy to get wrapped up in that.

So holding yourself accountable to a specific community goal and building a culture of community when you're doing your hiring and bringing your team in — I think those are two really important ways to keep yourself connected to community and not just the bottom line.

Cash Flow Strategy: Beyond Profit First

JEREMY RIVERA

Bruce Ashford — and I'm going to do this for you too — gave him the opportunity to ask the next guest a question, a challenge that he had himself, a pain point he was trying to solve in his business. And he wanted to know if you had any advice about cash flow for businesses. He said that he'd explored Profit First, kind of wrapped his head around that, but wasn't sure if there were alternatives to a Profit First cash flow model that could be considered or that you'd run into.

KATE HENDRICKSON

Absolutely. So we look at all the financial data. Obviously we pinpoint a specific area that we're going to hone into. And so it could be cash flow, it could be just EBITDA — various different things we take a look at — just figure out what's going to be our focus point from a data perspective. But from a cash flow specifically, I think the first thing is obviously looking at your business line items and your expenses too so that there's a little bit more of an even spread. For example, I had a client who, when we were looking at their numbers, their marketing dollars were wild. They were spending such a high percentage of money on marketing dollars and had no idea if it was actually bringing them any sales — had no tracking mechanism. They were just buying every Google ad they could, every Facebook ad they could, and they weren't looking at how they were getting their clients. It was really a mess.

So we had to figure it out — what do we need to exclude, what do we need to do better, and then look at how that adjusts and changes our cash flow. We ended up reducing some of the ad spend. But what we found was that the customers and the clients were continuing — maintaining about the same. They weren't losing any. So we were saving money there, but at the same time, we were noticing the same amount of customers and client calls and service calls. And okay, this is really telling from a cash flow perspective: you don't need that ad spend. But what do you need to continue to maintain a high level of cash flow?

The other thing is analyze your business. If you think about the HVAC company — in the summer months, that cash flow is probably much higher. People are calling, my AC's out, my AC's out, and they'll pay anything for emergency service to get somebody out there, because I live in Florida and it's sweating and hot. But they also know that other times of the year, like fall, people have their windows open — if their AC goes out, they've got a little bit of time, because there's a nice breeze coming through. AC's not working as hard, so they're not going to have as many service calls. So you have to adjust your business to that, knowing that in the summer months we're going to be crazy, we're going to have a lot of money coming in, probably paying overtime — and in the fall and winter months it might look a little bit differently, and we need to adjust and be prepared for that. So I think some of it is knowing your own business and knowing those ebbs and flows based on your own expertise.

Marketing Check-Ins: Customized, Data-Driven Conversations

JEREMY RIVERA

Love that. When you're doing a check-in on marketing with your client, what's your low-hanging fruit to start that conversation? 

Like where are you driving that conversation first? Is there something that you always gravitate to when you're doing your check-ins with your clients that you want to address first? 

Or do you have a standard checklist of things that you're going through to keep them moving in the right direction? Or is it really customized every single time?

KATE HENDRICKSON

It's pretty customized. Because we'll usually find out pretty quickly what's working well and what's not and where there are some gaps. So when we determine what those gaps are, our consistent touch points in regular conversations and calls — we might touch on the things that are working well because it's always really nice to celebrate those.

But then we're really honing in on some of the things that have been either an issue or a problem or you can't get past or there's a gap. I also lean on the business owner. I don't always necessarily have the answers, but I guide them to figure out some of the answers. Like I said, I work with plumbers and irrigation companies — I work with a behavioral health clinic. 

I'm not a clinician, I'm not a plumber, but I can help ask the questions so that we get to a solution or an answer or a next step. 

And so I really view it as a partnership where we're just digging in together to determine where the gaps are and what might need to be done differently.

And where we're spending money that we don't need to be spending — specifically from a marketing standpoint. 

Do you have a company that's helping you with that and what does that look like and what does that return on your investment? 

Are you doing it yourself organically?

 Is there some training that needs to happen from a marketing place because you were a plumber and marketing is not necessarily your expertise? So we really look at: what are you currently doing, what's current state, what data do you have to track it? Then we start tracking the data. 

So all of that takes a little bit of time. And then saying, okay, now what do we need to do differently?

 Is there some training involved?

 Do we need additional resources?

 What does that look like? 

I'm not going to say it's a specific recipe. It's definitely very customized to each client because each client's gaps look a little bit different.

Team Training, Communication & Incentive Plans

JEREMY RIVERA

As we kind of wrap up this conversation, I'm curious — when you booked, what was the topic that you wanted to make sure you talked about that you haven't had the chance to yet?

KATE HENDRICKSON

We talked about strategic planning. We talked about goal management. I would say there's also an aspect of it around training and development for your team. 

While I love working with business owners and their leaders and figuring out what the long-term strategy looks like and what goals or KPIs they're going to set for the upcoming year — and what data we're going to track to make sure we get there —

 there's also a level of understanding that your staff and your team needs to be aware of, because they contribute to this. They influence these goals and how they're connecting and pushing the work forward. So what does that communication look like to your team? How often are you communicating about your goals and do they understand what these numbers even mean?

I think that's another really important aspect of working with small businesses — making sure that they are incorporating their entire team in this process and training and upskilling them on the business as well. And then you can build incentive plans around it. And so I love helping do that — people can really see not only the numbers and how they're helping the business grow or helping retain team members or whatever you're tracking, but they can also feel really connected to pushing it forward because of the benefit it gives them also.

It makes them act like an owner. If you have dollars on the line, you might react a little bit differently. So I think that's another fun piece of it — pulling your team in, communicating out, building some cool incentive plans and bonus structures around those core things that you've determined are important. I think all of that is good stuff.

JEREMY RIVERA

I think that's an important piece because from a management perspective, you can often be so focused on the role and defining — I want them to do this, I want them to do that — that you often overlook some additional things that you can structure to make sure that you're respecting them as a human that's doing these things. You can design a cloud to execute a skill, you can refine your prompting again and again and then it will do it again and it doesn't need cupcakes. But I've found that humans work better with occasional cupcakes. Humans work better when they have some extra money incentive in it. And it can either be — don't substitute pizza for wages. That's always a terrible business plan.

But if you're going to take the time to structure a lifestyle business and you aren't doing it as a solopreneur and you're going to have other people involved — then make a consideration. How much of my profit do I want to invest in making sure that the lifestyle and providing for my employees, my coworkers is developed enough where they're not going to be going home exhausted at the end of the day, but actually coming up with creative solutions for problems, coming up with creative marketing ideas? Especially since more of the bump and grind, just execution stuff, is moving towards AI-ification — we want to create the environment where we're not just cultivating human drones to shuffle paperwork, but creating an environment where they actually do give a damn about the company that they work for.

KATE HENDRICKSON

Yeah, I completely agree. I think AI can't replace that people connection. And like I shared with you at the very beginning of the podcast, this is how I connect and market and work with people, because I love the people aspect. And I think that we can't let AI replace that — and making people feel important.

I think I'm a huge proponent of — if you have a team of people — one-on-one conversations, that consistent monthly conversation to talk about everything from what's working well to what barriers are you facing, to what our goals look like and how are you contributing to them, do you have the tools and equipment that you need to get your job done? And you make them feel important. 

I agree, pizza does not replace wages. 

It's icing on the cake, but it's definitely not going to substitute wages. 

But I think there's a lot of really fun aspects of this that, in addition to the things we already talked about, can really help create the right culture, the right team, and move you forward. 

If you're a numbers person just looking at the bottom line, it's going to give you an ROI because you're going to retain your team members and you're not consistently having to onboard new people and spending your time hiring and interviewing and retraining — and that's going to save you on the bottom line. 

So, if you don't necessarily see the benefit in that people connection, you can see the benefit in the ROI.

The Johnny Camacho Story: People as Investment, Not Just Expense

JEREMY RIVERA

It stands out vividly in my memory. I worked at a real estate website hosting company and worked my way into management. And the second meeting I attended once I was elevated to a manager of a team of 12 — they were talking about setting the goals for the next quarterly budget and they're like, yeah, we need to reallocate and remove some of these human resource expenses. It's the biggest expense in our company and it's just dragging us down, and we need to reduce these highest earners. The wages for these people are way too high. And I was like, wait — you want me to remove Johnny Camacho? He does the work of four different people. Like he's been there the longest. He has the most institutional knowledge. Customers love him. He saved dozens of accounts. No, I'm sorry — he just makes more than anybody else does. It's the same story as what happens when businesses treat people as costs instead of assets.

I object. I put it on record, and then they made me fire him. And we actually suffered so badly that we had to hire him back and increase his wages, because our numbers dropped so dramatically. 

Churn went through the roof. The team was in chaos. And I'm like, I told you guys. Looking at the numbers and looking at people as 'this is our biggest expense' — yes, but it's also your biggest investment. It's your biggest weapon.

 Let's work on other things in the system, in the software, in the sales process that's leading to excessive churn.

One of your most expensive and most experienced people — you pay them more because they were there longer, you pay them more because they had more experience. You should have given him a raise so that we could put an extra goal out there for extra retention. Instead it was just chaos. But it was just the best example of karma coming around — having to reach out and be like, hey, can you come back, and we'll give you a raise because we're really suffering.

KATE HENDRICKSON

He's worth it — that's why.

Yeah, no, that is exactly it. I think people typically end up realizing, when they make those kinds of mistakes, that they may have made a wrong decision.

How to Connect with Kate Hendrickson

JEREMY RIVERA

I would love for you to tell the people and folks who are listening how to connect with you, where can they find you, if there is a social media channel that you are on they can speak to you at, where can they get connected with Kate Hendrickson.

KATE HENDRICKSON

Sure, so my website is kate-hendrickson.com. You will find all my lanes there — consulting, writing, family life, blogs, blogging. But it's really fun and I would love for people to just follow along. Like I shared — structured chaos, but it's the place to connect. You can also find me on LinkedIn and Instagram, and all those links are on my website, so I think that's probably the best place to connect.

JEREMY RIVERA

I appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on board.

KATE HENDRICKSON

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Jeremy.

Key Takeaways

→ Face-to-face marketing still wins. Kate's primary marketing strategy is showing up in person — podcasts, workshops, conferences, and lunch meetings. She views genuine conversation as irreplaceable by any social media algorithm or AI content tool.

→ AI is a starting point, not a destination. AI can generate useful templates and frameworks, but the business owner must verify, adjust, and make final decisions. "Trust but verify" — and never let it drive itself like a Waymo.

→ Small businesses fail because they focus on too many things with no data. Kate's prescription: narrow your strategy to two or three core priorities, then build a tracking mechanism so you know whether you're actually moving in the right direction.

→ Find the spark in any industry through values. Whether you sell irrigation systems or plumbing services, the real differentiator is articulating who you are as a company — your values, your community connection, and your leadership culture. That becomes your marketing foundation.

→ Build a culture of community intentionally. A legacy isn't built by accident. Set a specific community goal, hold yourself accountable to it, and hire people who share that sense of giving back.

→ People are not your biggest expense — they're your biggest investment. The Johnny Camacho story is the definitive case study: losing institutional knowledge destroys teams and spikes churn. Invest in retention, one-on-ones, and incentive structures. If you can't see the people connection, see the ROI.