Most companies are still spending millions on beautiful, polished content that almost nobody cares about. Shannon Watkins has sat at the top of the brands that figured this out and the ones that didn't. Former CMO of Aflac, global CMO of Jordan Brand, and former global CMO at Fiserv, she's spent her whole career at the intersection of brand and culture, and she pulled up to Butternomics to break down what's really changing in how brands win.

We get into the multimillion dollar mistake brands keep repeating, why people stopped trusting brand voices and started trusting people instead, and what brands are actually buying when they pay a creator. Shannon breaks down the difference between brand, marketing, and advertising, why the agency model is getting disrupted in real time, and the earnings report move every creator should be using before they pitch a single brand.

She also takes us through the road that got her here. The pre-med plan she walked away from at Fisk. The worst assignment at Kraft that taught her the foundation of business. The Powerade campaign built around Derrick Rose and a Tupac poem. The Teyana Taylor partnership at Jordan Brand that changed how she saw creators forever. And now Watkins Brand Advisors, where she's helping CEOs, nonprofits, and creators figure out the problem behind the problem. This one's for the founders, the creators, and anybody trying to build something real around their creativity. Shannon doesn't hold back. Watch the full episode and let us know what hit hardest. Connect with Shannon Watkins on LinkedIn and Instagram, and check out Watkins Brand Advisors.

Simone Hardeman-Jones flew into ATL to break down how she's reimagining what philanthropy actually looks like. As executive director of Green Light Fund Twin Cities, she walks into rooms full of wealthy people and convinces them to invest in the communities everybody else overlooks. We get into the Minnesota paradox. It's ranked number one in quality of life and dead last in the income gap between Black and white residents. Same state. Two completely different realities depending on who you are.

Simone shares how Green Light Fund finds high-impact programs that don't exist yet in a community, brings them in, and backs them with $600K in seed funding over four years. We talk about the maternal health crisis where 95% of Black maternal deaths were preventable, the food logistics problem hiding behind 9 million food shelf visits, and why she stopped selling her community as a problem to fix.

She also gets into what it means to be a Black woman asking for money in rooms that weren't built to welcome her, the difference between deciding for a community versus with it, and the fifth-grade letter-writing campaign that started it all. Learn more about Green Light Fund at greenlightfund.org Subscribe for more conversations on the business of culture.

David Shands didn't set out to build a podcast. He started interviewing speakers to sell tickets to his Social Proof Conference, stopped when the event was over, then picked it back up the next year because it actually worked. Now he runs Podcast Summit, two studios, and a community teaching entrepreneurs how to turn an audience into a business.

In this episode he breaks down the formula. Don't start a podcast because it's a good idea. Start one that cultivates an audience of people who will buy what you sell. Sell strollers, talk to mothers. Sell motivation shirts, tell the stories of people who built something from nothing. The audience and the product have to line up.

David gets into why he'd take 1,000 real podcast listeners over 50,000 random YouTube views, why going viral on a 60 second clip doesn't actually grow your brand in 2026, and the math on a $2 community of 10,000 people. He talks through episode 54, the one that finally hit after 54 tries, and why most people quit at 10. We also get into why he built Podcast Summit in Atlanta after losing $250K on the first one in Miami, his full AI workflow for solo episodes, and the line he keeps coming back to: content needs a business model. If you're sitting on 200 views an episode and thinking about quitting, this is the one to watch.

Atlanta calls itself the Black Mecca. But ask who actually owns the city, who gets pushed out when the money moves, and who benefits from all this growth, and the answer gets complicated.

Nathaniel Smith has spent his life on that question. He's the Founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity, and he grew up in Kirkwood watching the Olympics, gentrification, and the crack era reshape the neighborhoods he loved. He started with one $500 check and built a 16-year movement. In this episode, Brandon Butler sits down with Nathaniel to break down what equity really means, why the Beltline put people in position to fund their own displacement, and how Atlanta built its Black wealth in the first place.

They get into tax allocation districts, why organized people matter as much as organized money, and why he believes Atlanta is the place that has to get it right. This one is for anybody who loves this city and wants to see it work for everybody in it. So goes Atlanta, so goes the South. So goes the South, so goes the nation.

Steve Canal builds the thing most people can't: culture that actually pays. On this episode of Butternomics, Brandon Butler sits down with Steve Canal, co-founder of One Venture Group and part of the team behind ONE Musicfest and TwoGether Land, to talk about how Atlanta actually works.

The city moves on relationships, and Steve has spent his whole career proving it. He breaks down how he built by leading with one question: how can I help? He explains why trust compounds when you show up for people before you need anything, why the door in this city opens when somebody vouches for you, and how he turned that into real brand partnerships and real money.

The conversation gets into what it takes to align big brands with cultural moments that feel authentic, why reading culture is a skill most people never develop, and how Steve picks the partnerships worth saying yes to. He's a two-time bestselling author who has been recognized by the Ebony Power 100 and the Inc. 5000, and he keeps it direct about the work behind all of it. If you're building something in Atlanta, this one will save you years.

Mandii B pulled up to Butternomics and broke down the real podcast money blueprint. Most creators chase a network deal thinking it means marketing, studio time, production help, and guest booking handled for them. None of that is guaranteed. A network deal is really just you licensing your content so they can sell ads against it. The expenses, the editing, the booking, the studio, all still on you.

The real play is diversification. Patreon brings Mandii a quarter million a year by itself because subscriptions hit different when your audience actually believes in the work. Live shows start small but build a real connection with the people who already ride for you. Merch is a slower bag, but it's another lane when the demand is real.

The lesson is simple. Stop waiting on somebody else's deal to validate your show. Build the audience, own the income streams, and let the network come to you on your terms.

Tendernism didn't start on the internet. It started 50 years ago in a kitchen in Robbins, Illinois, with a young Walter Johnson cutting wingtips off chicken wings for his brother's restaurant. 50 years. 50+ states.

Casino kitchens, backyard cookouts, and every Southern state he could get to so he could learn what the old folks knew about a pinch of this and a pinch of that. By the time the camera found him, the craft was already there. The world just hadn't caught up yet. In this episode, Brandon Butler sits down with the man who invented Tendernism to tell the full story.

How the word actually got named (an oxtail, the sun, and meat that peeled off the bone like an orange). Why he calls oxtails "Black Diamonds." How he ended up on the phone with Snoop and Ron Isley. And the Muhammad Ali line that made him realize this was bigger than food: "Ali shocked the world in '65. I shocked 'em in 2025."

Walter is proof that your time is your time. The meat was just the entryway. Tendernism is the movement.

On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, talks with entrepreneur and attorney Khadijah Robinson about what happens after the deal closes. Khadijah opens up about building Nile List from a spreadsheet to an acquired platform, all while balancing a high-powered legal career. She shares what most people get wrong about acquisitions, why the VC system doesn’t work for most Black founders, and what it really means to protect your peace while scaling impact. If you’re thinking about building something big, this conversation will save you years of mistakes.

On this episode of Butternomics, Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant sits down with host Brandon Butler to break his silence on the Target Fast and reveals exactly how 40 days of strategic economic pressure stripped $12 billion from Target's valuation. From a 9.7% drop in foot traffic to forcing the first-ever HBCU business pipeline, Bryant pulls back the curtain on the full strategy, the demands, the negotiations, and what the Black community actually won.

He also shares the vision for New Birth City, a 300-acre development bringing micro homes, senior housing, and Black-owned businesses to one campus, and drops a masterclass on why boycotts without demands are just cancel culture in disguise.

On this episode of Butternomics, Mayor Andre Dickens pulls back the curtain on how Atlanta really runs. With the World Cup bringing 4.5 billion eyes to the A and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Act reshaping the south and west sides of the city, the 61st Mayor of Atlanta delivers a masterclass on how to tap in before the world shows up.

He breaks down the low-interest city loans most entrepreneurs don't know exist, the $5K and $10K micro-loans being handed out through Showcase Atlanta ahead of the World Cup, and the anti-displacement programs under the Neighborhood Reinvestment Act paying $30K to keep legacy homeowners in their homes. He gets into Invest Atlanta, the tax allocation districts that built Atlantic Station and the Beltline, the cautionary tale of Black entrepreneurs who lost everything during the 96 Olympics, and the 4,000 appointees who really run Georgia.

If you live in Atlanta, run a business in Atlanta, or want to own anything here, this is required listening before the world shows up.