In business, we often assume we're stuck because we need a better strategy, another tool, or one more tactic.

But what if the real problem isn't a lack of knowledge?

What if it's fear?

In this episode of Heart Before Cart, I explore the ACT Matrix, a powerful framework from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that helps founders, marketers, and growth teams understand why they keep doing things that feel productive but don't actually move their business forward.

You'll learn how to identify what's truly important, uncover the fears and stories getting in your way, recognize the behaviors keeping you stuck, and choose actions that move you toward meaningful growth, even when uncertainty is still present.

In this episode, we cover:

• What the ACT Matrix is and why it's so effective for business
• Why being busy isn't the same as making progress
• How fear influences everyday business decisions
• Practical examples for raising your prices, building authority, getting on stage, and starting a business
• A simple 3-step exercise you can use this week to apply the framework to your own business

Whether you're a founder, marketer, consultant, or business owner, this episode will help you stop reacting to fear and start making decisions that align with what truly matters.

📖 Get my book Emotional Targeting: Win Hearts. Boost Sales. Own the Market.

🌐 Learn more about Emotional Targeting and GetUplift: https://getuplift.co

#BusinessGrowth #MarketingStrategy #ACTMatrix #Founders #Entrepreneurship #DecisionMaking #EmotionalTargeting #ConversionRateOptimization #CRO #HeartBeforeCart

Before every Amazon purchase, before hiring a company or even that impulse purchase at Target (that you definitely didn't walk in planning to make), there are 2 questions running in the back of your head (and you probably don't even know they're there).

1. How am I going to feel about myself if I do this?
2. How are other people going to see me?

In other words, your self-image and your social image.

These 2 questions influence far more of our purchasing decisions than most people realize, and understanding them is crucial to understanding your customers and creating marketing that gets customers to take action.

In this video, I'll break down:

• why these questions matter
• how they influence the purchases we make
• real-world examples of how brands answer them every day

From running shoes to insulated water bottles, you'll start to see that the best marketing never sells a product… It sells a version of who we want to be.

RESOURCES

→ Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop

→ Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book

CONNECT WITH ME

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw

Website: https://getuplift.co/

AI might be able to scale your content, but it can't tell you what your customers really need to hear. We just proved it (again) with a recent skincare client of ours…

Their setup: great product (with TONS of 5 ⭐ reviews), strong organic following, high-volume paid traffic… but they had a conversion problem that wouldn't move no matter what they tested.

Our deep Emotional Targeting Audit surfaced a whole hierarchy of customer insights for them. And the first one they tested became their best-performing ad in under a week… and from there, the team applied more insights to their product page and organic content.

This is what Optimize Everywhere with Emotional Targeting looks like in practice.

In the video I share how we turned around their skincare sales results:

1. How we surfaced what a key segment of their buyers was actually thinking when they saw "transform in 7 days" ads
2. How we picked paid ads as their fastest validation channel (and how you can find YOURS)
3. How we moved one section of the product page that pulled the whole customer journey together (and why most teams skip this step entirely)

Want this kind of insight working for your own brand? Book a call to talk about our Emotional Targeting Audit → https://getuplift.co/conversion-optimization-audits/

3 weeks before launch, we threw out my book cover and started over.

This is Part 2 of the story behind my book, Emotional Targeting. Last week I talked about how I wrote the book.

This week, Jessica Noel (my COO) interviews me about the marketing side of it... how we launched it, how we're still selling it a year later and the strategy behind it. Some of it worked really well. Some of it completely flopped. I'm getting into all of it.

We cover:
→ Why we scrapped the original cover at the last minute (and the big risk we took instead)
→ The pre-launch bonuses, and why they matter more than you'd think
→ The best piece of advice I got, which took all the pressure off launch day
→ Launching on the road across 16 speaking engagements
→ How the book ended up becoming one of my best salespeople

If you're thinking about publishing your own book, this is the behind-the-scenes of my experience.

Get the book "Emotional Targeting: Win Hearts, Boost Sales, Own the Market" plus the resource bundle → taliawolf.com/book

Watch Part 1 first: How I Wrote My First Book (1 Year Later) → https://youtu.be/XoLyZi0M5EM?si=lXqdushEsUADlGaC

Heart Before Cart is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

A year ago this week, I published my book, Emotional Targeting. The book was based on 10 years of work, hundreds of clients and thousands of A/B tests. What most people don't realize... I A/B tested the book itself before it was even a book.

In Part 1 of our 2-part book publishing series, my COO Jessica Noel interviews me on the messy process of writing Emotional Targeting. We get into:

→ Why I waited until I had a TON of proof to write it
→ How I tested every chapter on LinkedIn before the book existed
→ The verbal-thinker hack that finally got the book out of my head
→ The "is this just a long blog post?" moment of doubt
→ How I knew it was time to stop revising and hit publish

If you've been thinking about writing a non-fiction book, this is the honest behind-the-scenes version.

Part 2 drops next week. We're sharing the launch strategy, what worked and what we'd do differently.

📘 Emotional Targeting: Win Hearts, Boost Sales, Own the Market is available here → https://taliawolf.com/book

Connect With Me

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw
Website: https://getuplift.co/

Marketing teams are splitting into two groups.

One group is using AI to produce more:
More content.
More tests.
More channels.
More dashboards.
More noise.

The other group is doing something much harder: They’re slowing down long enough to rebuild the foundation.

In this episode, I break down:

• Why “doing more” feels productive (but usually isn’t)
• The hidden cost of AI-driven marketing
• Why most teams are trapped in tactical loops
• The marketing pyramid nobody talks about
• And what Simone Biles and Hetty Green can teach us about strategy

Because the teams that win over the next 18 months won’t be the ones producing the most, they’ll be the ones who understand their customers the best.

RESOURCES

→ Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop

→ Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book

CONNECT WITH ME

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw

Website: https://getuplift.co/

Everyone keeps saying marketing has changed forever.

Traffic is disappearing.
AI Overviews are replacing clicks.
Attribution is getting messier.
And marketers everywhere are trying to figure out what actually matters now.

In this episode of Heart Before Cart, I sat down with Sam Oh, VP of Acquisition at Bitly, to talk about what growth, CRO, AI, and customer journeys actually look like inside one of the internet’s most recognizable brands.

Honestly, this is one of the most grounded conversations I’ve had about AI and marketing so far.

Because Sam isn’t theorizing, he’s actively rebuilding workflows, rethinking attribution, adapting CRO strategy, experimenting with AI tools, and trying to understand how buyer behavior is changing in real-time across millions of users.

But throughout the entire conversation, one thing kept coming up:

“Our job as marketers hasn’t changed. The environment has.”

In this episode we cover:

• Why CRO matters MORE in the AI era
• How Bitly is adapting to AI search and changing buyer journeys
• Why every page on your website is now a conversion page
• How AI is changing attribution and traffic reporting
• The role of experimentation in modern marketing
• How Sam actually uses AI internally without outsourcing strategic thinking
• Why the best marketers are still focused on people first

If you’re trying to figure out how to adapt your marketing without losing the human side of it, this episode is for you.

RESOURCES

→ Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop

→ Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book

CONNECT WITH ME

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw

Website: https://getuplift.co/

Your website used to have one job: convince your visitor to buy.

But, in the last few years your website has picked up a second job, and you may not have even realized it.

Your website is no longer the first step in the customer journey.

It may be the second, third, or even fourth place your potential buyer visits.

Now your buyer is researching you through:

• AI
• Reddit
• YouTube reviews
• TikTok reviews

...and many more, before they even land on your homepage.

So now your website has two jobs.

In this video I breakdown the two jobs, why websites need to do both, how to identify trust gaps in your messaging, and what to do to close them.

RESOURCES

→ Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop

→ Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book

CONNECT WITH ME

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw

Website: https://getuplift.co/