Most companies treat leadership development as a soft skill, something nice to have, but secondary to strategy and execution. Emilia D'Anzica, growth coach, go-to-market strategies advisor, and founder of Emilia Speaks CX, argues that's backwards: leadership isn't separate from growth, it's the foundation it stands on.

In this episode, Emilia and Luke talk about why founders hit a ceiling when they try to do everything alone, and why asking for help so often comes too late, only after revenue is already declining or key people are already leaving. Emilia shares her coaching methodology: an anonymous survey process, CC'ing the CEO on everything, and eight hours spent observing a team in training before she ever gives leadership feedback on what needs to change.

They also dig into what's actually broken in most go-to-market playbooks, the handoff between sales, customer success, and support, and why Emilia believes revenue problems are almost always wellbeing and alignment problems wearing a strategy costume.

Key topics:

• Why founders wait too long to ask for help, and what "healthy hustle" actually looks like
• Emilia's coaching process: anonymous surveys, CEO transparency, and reading a room in real time
• Why leadership has to be visibly involved in training, or change reverts within 30 days
• What's broken in most go-to-market playbooks, and how to fix the handoff between teams
• Emilia's quarterly goal-setting ritual, and her advice for staying grounded while building a company

Connect with Emilia on LinkedIn or Instagram, or reach her directly at emilia@emiliaspeakscx.com.

For the first time, Luke goes solo — no guest, just a direct update on where Fixing the Game has been and where it's going.

This podcast started out of frustration: watching Google and Meta go from leveling the playing field for small businesses to quietly working against their growth. For 49 episodes, the mission has been helping business owners fight that David-vs-Goliath battle. In this episode, Luke explains why that mission hasn't changed, but the tools to win it have. With AI, the rules of the game are shifting for real this time, and Luke is shifting the podcast's focus to match.

He talks openly about the quiet year behind the scenes, taking over leadership of his agency, and welcoming two newborns at home and why he's never felt more determined to make this show bigger. He shares his vision for where marketing is actually headed: a shift from fully manual, human-run campaigns to semi-automated and eventually fully autonomous marketing, using the self-driving car analogy (eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, until one day you let go) to explain how this transition will actually unfold, skill by skill, channel by channel.

Luke also previews what's next for the show: guests who are actively building this future rather than just commenting on it, bilingual episodes in German and English, and a sharper focus on agentic marketing, AI-driven systems, and the products his own company is building to prove the thesis out.

Key topics:

• Why the David-vs-Goliath mission of the podcast hasn't changed, even as the tools have
• The honest story behind a quiet year: new leadership, new kids, and a lot of reflection
• The self-driving car analogy for how marketing automation will actually roll out
• Why "the space for pure human advisory is getting narrower" and what that really means
• What's coming next: bilingual episodes, new guest criteria, and a renewed focus on agentic marketing

This episode kicks off a new chapter for the show — if you've been listening for a while, Luke would love your thoughts on what to call this next era of marketing (agentic CMO? AI-driven marketing? something else?), plus any guest suggestions for who should be on the show next.

Most people think ABM just means "more personalized emails." Declan Mulkeen, CMO at Strategic ABM and host of the Let's Talk About ABM podcast, has spent decades proving that's a misunderstanding of what account-based marketing actually is — and why it still works when done right.

In this episode, Luke and Declan trace ABM's origins back to the early 2000s — the idea of putting a CMO inside your most important customer, treating each account as a "market of one" — and walk through why that mindset matters more than ever. Declan breaks down the five stages of ABM maturity, what actually separates a good pilot from a wasted one, and why most companies get their ICP wrong the first time (and why that's completely normal).

They also get into where AI genuinely helps — deep research, synthetic audiences, hyper-personalization — and where it falls apart, plus Declan's "3 Rs" framework (Reputation, Relationships, Revenue) for knowing whether your ABM program is actually working.

Key topics:

• The real history of ABM, and why it's not just "good marketing" or a new name for key account marketing
• The five stages of ABM maturity, and how to tell which one your company is actually in
• What makes a pilot succeed — ICP selection, sales alignment, and picking the right account count
• Where AI actually saves time in ABM, and where "personalization at scale" just becomes noise
• The 3 Rs framework for measuring whether ABM is working: Reputation, Relationships, Revenue

Learn more about Declan's work and find Let's Talk About ABM on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.