Marketing for SMEs: Tracy Brinkmann on Why AI Should Challenge Your Thinking, Not Replace It

Marketing tools keep changing, but the harder job is knowing which lessons still apply and which ones need to be left behind. Experience helps only when you can adapt it to a different customer, culture and channel.

I spoke with Tracy Brinkmann about what he has learned across decades in corporate marketing, side businesses, podcasting and small-business work. Tracy is the host of The Dark Horse Entrepreneur, where he shares practical ideas for people building businesses alongside the rest of life.

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Introduction

Jeremy: You have worked in marketing for a long time, from Coca-Cola through to Home Depot, Victoria’s Secret and David’s Bridal. You have also built side businesses, coached people and been podcasting since the early days of the format.

Tracy: My route into marketing was not direct. I grew up in a military family, joined the military myself, then started a small computer-programming business after leaving the service.

Tracy: I went through a difficult period involving drugs and the police breaking into my home. With help from my family, I changed direction, entered corporate America and landed a role at Coca-Cola.

Different businesses require different thinking

Jeremy: What changed as you moved between large companies selling very different products?

Tracy: I spent 12 years at Coca-Cola, then worked with companies including Home Depot, Victoria’s Secret and David’s Bridal. Marketing a soft drink is different from marketing do-it-yourself products, clothing or bridal products.

Tracy: Some knowledge transfers, but not all of it. Each company has its own customers, culture, measurements and ways of working, so you sometimes have to unlearn part of what worked in the previous environment.

Tracy: Culture changes how people work as well. Coca-Cola was formal when I arrived, while Home Depot had a different atmosphere and customer focus. Moving into design-led businesses brought another set of expectations.

Use tools to improve the work in front of you

Jeremy: You knew how to program, but that was not your formal role inside those companies. How did you use those skills?

Tracy: I used BASIC programming, spreadsheets and database skills to make my own work easier. When the available tools were limited, I would create a database or a better way to manipulate the information rather than accept an inefficient process.

Tracy: That mindset carried into personal development. After my daughter died, I was concerned that I could return to the destructive habits from my earlier life, so I immersed myself in personal-development seminars and applied the useful parts.

Tracy: Those lessons contributed to five promotions within three years. Colleagues began asking me to teach what I was doing, which led first to coaching and later to business coaching.

Jeremy: Was there one principle that connected what you learned from all those teachers?

Tracy: The idea I kept was to absorb what is useful, discard the rest and add what is uniquely yours. You can return to the same book or recording years later and notice something different because your needs have changed.

Start with the numbers beneath the channel

Jeremy: You also watched digital advertising develop from inside established businesses. What did those early channel changes look like?

Tracy: I consulted for a catalogue retailer that was making about $250,000 a year through Amazon. Its overall sales looked seasonal, but examining Amazon separately, then looking at individual products, exposed a different pattern.

Tracy: A popular flannel shirt kept selling out on Amazon because the company was reserving stock for its printed catalogue. We modelled what could happen if the company stopped restricting the Amazon channel and followed the demand already visible in the data.

Tracy: Within three years, annual Amazon revenue grew from about $250,000 to $5 million. That did not begin with extra advertising spend. It began with separating the channels, examining the product-level numbers and changing how stock was allocated.

The same discipline matters in current advertising. In one Digital Goliath account, reallocating budget towards underused products and stronger campaigns formed part of a 258% year-on-year revenue increase for an ecommerce brand. Another ecommerce account used ongoing testing and specialist channel management to reduce cost per acquisition while increasing ad spend.

Early podcasting solved a capacity problem

Jeremy: You started podcasting well before it became a normal business channel. What were you doing with it at the time?

Tracy: I started my first podcast in 2007. At that stage, people were asking for help with personal development, but there was not enough time to teach everyone individually.

Tracy: The public episodes were short and focused. I would introduce the week’s lesson on Monday, then place the remaining episodes behind a low-cost subscription. It was not a huge business, but it paid bills and allowed one lesson to reach more people.

AI can expand a small business without replacing judgement

Jeremy: After seeing several generations of marketing technology, where do you think the next opportunity sits?

Tracy: I think artificial intelligence-powered microbusinesses will become important. If a business owner understands a real pain point and has a useful way to solve it, artificial intelligence can help with research, brainstorming and product development.

Tracy: The danger is turning over all your critical thinking. That produces generic work. The better use is to treat artificial intelligence like a colleague in a brainstorming session, challenging its answers and continuing the exchange until it helps you consider something new.

Tracy: A general product about starting a podcast competes with many alternatives. A product about starting a podcast for bakers is more specific, and artificial intelligence can help identify relevant topics and ways to make the existing material more useful to that audience.

Tracy: I have experimented with vibe coding, but I am not ready to teach it because I have not used it enough. The tools are improving quickly, yet I do not want to explain a process as an authority before I have properly done it myself.

New technology still needs a human point of view

Jeremy: What about artificial intelligence-generated video and the uneasy reaction people can have when something looks human but does not feel real?

Tracy: New technology usually creates opposing reactions. People made similar arguments about personal computers and smartphones. Both sides can contain some truth because a tool can create benefits while also changing work and behaviour in uncomfortable ways.

Tracy: Artificial intelligence can support creativity when people exchange ideas with it and retain responsibility for the result. If they surrender their judgement, the quality can decline over time.

Old channels can still solve current problems

Jeremy: What are you working on now for small businesses?

Tracy: I am working on email reactivation campaigns for small businesses that have built a list but do not know how to market to it. The arrangement can begin with a performance-based share of the sales generated by the campaign, then develop into longer-term work if the approach proves useful.

Tracy: It has reminded me that old-school channels can still work. A business does not always need a new platform when it already owns an audience it has stopped speaking to.

Five ideas to take from the conversation

• Adapt experience to the environment. A lesson from one company or channel may need to be changed before it fits another.
• Look beneath aggregate numbers. Channel-level and product-level patterns can reveal opportunities hidden by the overall result.
• Use tools to remove friction. Technology is most useful when it improves a real task rather than becoming the task itself.
• Keep responsibility for your thinking. Artificial intelligence can broaden your options, but it should not make the final judgement for you.
• Do not neglect existing assets. An inactive email list may be more useful than chasing the newest platform.

Learn more at The Dark Horse Entrepreneur, connect with Tracy Brinkmann on LinkedIn, or follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X and Pinterest.

This conversation was recorded for Marketing for SMEs with Jeremy Yang. You can watch the full episode on YouTube or listen on your preferred podcast app.