Episode 63, Conner Gossel, Director of Marketing, Broken Yolk Cafe

How does a 47-year-old San Diego breakfast institution scale into Boise, Dallas, Houston, and Lafayette, Indiana without losing the coastal, community-first identity that built it? This episode breaks down inheriting a brand with zero digital marketing history, the "progress over perfection" testing culture built from scratch, why overthinking can be a leadership Achilles heel, and the hard conversations every marketing leader has to learn to have with a lean team. 0:00 – Cold open: "If you show up for your community, it will show up for you" 0:22 – Meet Conner Gossel and Broken Yolk Cafe 1:50 – Staying culturally consistent while expanding into new markets 4:32 – Conner's marketing background and the power of story 9:03 – Segmenting content by generation (the Palm Springs shoot) 11:08 – Leadership style and growing an in-house team 14:50 – His Achilles heel: overthinking 16:40 – The Rolodex story: "people attract people" 19:03 – Getting buy-in from a skeptical CFO on ad spend 22:51 – Today's biggest marketing challenges: Gen Z and bandwidth 25:45 – Where Conner wants to grow as a leader 28:03 – Why he joined Broken Yolk Cafe — and why he's stayed 31:42 – How he measures a successful day About the guest: Conner Gossel is the Director of Marketing at Broken Yolk Cafe, the 1979-founded, family-owned breakfast and brunch brand now expanding across the U.S. LinkedIn:   / conner-gossel-164300161   About your host: Caleb Clark hosts Table Talks Podcast, presented by Hook + Ladder Digital, where CMOs and marketing leaders from multi-location restaurant brands share how they scale revenue and build systems that work. LinkedIn:   / calebclark1