Shawna Suckow’s Small Is Your Superpower flips the corporate playbook on its head, proving authenticity beats automation, imperfection builds trust, and real beats slick every time
Reading Time: 3 minutes
In a business world still addicted to “scale,” Shawna Suckow’s Small Is Your Superpower shows up like the scrappy underdog who crashes the corporate cocktail party—and steals the room. Her thesis? Being small isn’t a disadvantage anymore. It’s the cheat code for winning hearts, customers, and attention in a world allergic to hype.
Suckow, a veteran marketer, speaker, and all-around truth-teller, flips the big-brand playbook upside down and shakes the jargon out of it. Remember when “small business” used to sound like a euphemism for “not there yet”? Not anymore. Consumers are done with corporate choreography and marketing perfectionism. They don’t want a brand—they want a person. They’re craving a little realness in their feeds, a little imperfection in their inboxes, and a lot less “Your call is very important to us.”
The book opens with the kind of mic drop stat that should make CMOs sweat: trust in major brands has plummeted 31% since 2020. Meanwhile, 74% of consumers say they’d rather buy from a small business even if it costs more. Why? Because small businesses still act like humans. They answer the phone. They admit when they’ve messed up. They send cookies instead of coupons. And, as Suckow gleefully points out, you can’t fake “real” anymore—not when your customers can spot corporate empathy like a bad wig.
Small Is Your Superpower doesn’t just roast the big guys, though—it hands small business owners a cape and tells them to start flying. Her signature concept, the Customer Brandships™ Zone, is a gloriously nerdy Venn diagram that maps out the six qualities every modern brand needs: Differentiated, Trustworthy, Unforgettable, Relatable, Influential, and Magnetic. Translation: stop trying to sound professional and start sounding like a person people actually want to talk to. Suckow’s examples are equal parts hilarious and practical—like the HVAC company that posts, “We show up on time and don’t track mud on your carpet.” Boom. That’s branding.
Where the book really shines is in its tone. It’s not a dusty marketing manual—it’s a caffeinated pep talk from your funniest, most successful friend. Suckow peppers in superhero metaphors (Ant-Man agility, Wonder Woman’s jet, Peter Parker relatability) and tosses around asides that feel like she’s whispering across the table at a conference happy hour. The energy is pure Fast Company: sharp, self-aware, and deeply human.
And she doesn’t just talk the talk. Suckow practices what she preaches—scrapping the slick in favor of substance. Her own videos are unscripted, her advice unsugarcoated, and her trust in small-business ingenuity absolute. By the time she gets to “Human Over Hype,” you’re ready to toss your social media templates and go live in your messy office with a coffee in one hand and confidence in the other.
Small Is Your Superpower isn’t a guidebook—it’s a wake-up call wrapped in a wink. Suckow’s message lands hard and fast: you don’t need to be bigger, flashier, or louder. You just need to be real.
And in a marketplace overrun with “brand voices,” hers is the rare one that actually sounds like a human being—with superpowers.
Any thoughts, opinions, or news? Please share them with me at vince@meetingsevents.com.
