Marketing With Purpose Kit: Bringing Purpose and Empathy into Marketing
Courtney Joaquin, Founder and CEO of Too Much Consulting, joins The Bliss Business Podcast to unpack empathy in marketing: why it's a daily practice, not a buzzword, and how listening, not louder messaging, is what actually earns customer trust.
Empathy in marketing isn't a soft add-on, it's the daily practice that decides whether customers trust a brand or just tolerate it. In this week's Marketing With Purpose Kit segment of The Bliss Business Podcast, host Tullio Siragusa is joined by Courtney Joaquin, Founder and CEO of Too Much Consulting, a fractional CMO to companies in highly regulated industries like healthcare, biotech, and medtech.
In this episode we explore:
• Why empathy in marketing is a practice, not a personality trait
• How to protect long-term brand building when the board wants quarterly results
• Why empathy has to be cultural before a crisis, not performed during one
• Where sales, marketing, and product alignment actually breaks down
• Why the CRM is where the best marketing insight goes to die
Empathy Is a Practice, Not a Personality Trait
“Empathy is not a buzzword. It is a practice. You have to keep practicing,” Courtney Joaquin says. She defines it as a sequence, not a feeling: “stop assuming and actually ask questions... it’s active listening... and it’s actually going and doing something about it.”
Brand Building Is Revenue Math, Not a Cost Center
When boards push for quarterly proof, Courtney's advice is to translate marketing into finance, not defend it as marketing: “it will always cost us more to win a new customer than to keep the one we already have.” Brand isn't a cost to justify, she argues, it's part of the revenue model.
Empathy Can't Be Improvised in a Crisis
Empathy can't be switched on during a crisis, Courtney warns: “if you have not been doing that, there is no way to save yourself in a crisis.” The brands that hold up under pressure are the ones where empathy is already “culturally woven into the DNA,” not performed after something breaks.
That same discipline, building trust before you need it instead of manufacturing it in a crisis, is exactly what Zero Company helps brands put into their own marketing systems: consistency people can feel, not just a campaign they can see.
Key Takeaways
• (4:25) Empathy is a daily practice, not a brand value: “It is not something you can just turn on and off... you have to keep practicing.”
• (10:31) Brand building isn't a cost against quarterly results, it's revenue math: “it will always cost us more to win a new customer than to keep the one we already have.”
• (12:34) Empathy has to be culturally built before a crisis hits: “if you have not been doing that, there is no way to save yourself in a crisis.”
• (16:15) Go-to-market misalignment is usually a communication gap, not a strategy gap: teams “nod and agree” in meetings while privately unaligned, so smaller, individual conversations surface the real gaps.
• (21:48) The best marketing data comes from pivoting when it contradicts what you wanted it to say: “the real job isn't reading the data. It's actually pivoting when it contradicts what you want it to say.”
• (24:33) The CRM is “the black hole of everything we always talk about as marketers,” full of sales objections and near-conversions that never make it back into marketing strategy.
FAQ
What does "empathy in marketing" actually mean in practice?
Courtney Joaquin, Founder of Too Much Consulting, defines empathy as an active sequence: stop assuming, ask better questions, actively listen, and then respond in a way that proves you understood, not a feeling brands simply claim to have.
How do you protect long-term brand building when a board wants short-term ROI?
Translate brand work into financial terms instead of marketing terms. Courtney Joaquin argues it always costs more to win a new customer than keep an existing one, so retention and trust belong in the revenue conversation, not outside it.
Why does empathy fail during a brand crisis?
Because it can't be improvised. Courtney Joaquin says empathy has to be practiced daily and woven into company culture beforehand. Without that foundation, a crisis response comes across as reactive and disingenuous rather than genuinely prepared.
Courtney's closing point: people forget messaging, they don't forget how a brand made them feel. Learn more about Courtney Joaquin at toomuchconsulting.com.
🎙️ Hosted by Tullio Siragusa
🎧 Produced by Martha Huerta
Watch the video: Marketing With Purpose Kit: Bringing Purpose and Empathy into Marketing.
Owner + Founder I Chief Marketing Officer
Courtney Joaquin is the Owner + Founder of Too Much, a boutique growth firm for bold founders, complex industries, and companies that refuse to be forgettable.
A Fractional Chief Marketing Officer with 15+ years inside highly regulated sectors like healthcare, biotech, climate, and med-tech, Courtney is known for turning breakthrough ideas into brands people trust, pipelines that convert, and marketing engines that drive real revenue. She’s the CMO leaders call when the stakes are high, the product is complex, and “good marketing” isn’t good enough.
What sets her apart is the rare combination of expert operator and undeniable energy. Courtney has influenced billions in revenue, rebuilt marketing functions from the ground up, and helped companies accelerate funding, adoption, and global growth. Just as importantly, she brings a level of positivity, clarity, and forward momentum that teams don’t forget. Clients often say the energy she brings into a room changes what feels possible.
Her philosophy is simple: the market doesn’t need more noise; it needs leaders who can execute. Through Too Much, she builds bold, unignorable brands and marketing systems that actually perform, blending disciplined strategy with fearless creativity. She aligns executives, scientists, creatives, and sales teams around one clear direction and leads with both performance and empathy, because the strongest brands are built by motivated teams and trusted by real people.
Whether she’s leading a go-to-market transformation, launching a category-defining product, or he… Read More
