Abigail Springer

Consultant | Business Strategy and Marketing Professional

Relationship to Tony: Former direct report who worked under Tony Torres at Smart Revenue and continues to seek his perspective as a fellow consultant on strategy, marketing, leadership, and complex business challenges.

Worked Together On: Market research, business strategy, marketing strategy, audience analysis, field operations, leadership, evidence-based decision-making, client problem-solving, customer behavior, and strategic consulting.

Professional Background: Abigail Springer is a consultant at Accenture who works with organizations on complex business challenges. She previously reported directly to Tony Torres at Smart Revenue, where she observed his approach to leadership, field research, strategic decision-making, and problem-solving firsthand. Years later, she continues to consult Tony when a client challenge benefits from another perspective, giving her experience with his work both as a former team member and as a professional consultant herself.

Abigail Springer on Working With Tony Torres

As a consultant at Accenture, I spend a lot of time helping organizations solve difficult business problems. That experience has made me appreciate something that’s surprisingly rare.

Some people are good at identifying problems.

Some people are good at selling solutions.

Tony Torres is one of the few people I’ve worked with who’s genuinely good at both.

I first worked with Tony when I reported directly to him at Smart Revenue. Years later, I still reach out to him when I need another perspective on a client challenge. That’s not because I expect him to agree with me. It’s because he usually sees something I don’t.

One project in particular has stayed with me.

We were conducting a confidential market research initiative when leadership wanted to keep investing time and resources into a location that wasn’t producing meaningful data. Most people accepted it because that’s what leadership wanted. Tony didn’t.

He didn’t argue for the sake of arguing.

He went into the field himself.

He did the work, gathered the evidence, invited other leaders to join him, and then came back with a better recommendation backed by data instead of opinions. He didn’t just say the location was bad. He explained why it was bad, identified a better location, and proved it.

His willingness to challenge leadership saved us from weeks of fruitless work and redirected our efforts where they actually produced results.

That story says a lot about how Tony leads.

He’s an in-the-trenches leader.

He doesn’t ask people to do work he isn’t willing to do himself. If the project requires uncomfortable conversations, he’ll have them. If leadership is protecting a bad decision because no one wants to challenge an executive, he’ll be the one who speaks up.

One moment I’ll never forget happened during a strategy discussion. Leadership was pushing one direction even though someone else on the team had a better idea. Everyone in the room knew it. Nobody wanted to say it.

Tony did.

He argued for someone else’s recommendation because it gave the project the best chance of succeeding. He wasn’t protecting his own idea. He wasn’t trying to win the room. He was trying to get the right outcome.

That taught me something I still carry into my own consulting work.

Good leaders don’t fight for credit.

They fight for the best answer.

That’s one of the biggest reasons I still value Tony’s perspective today. Every organization has politics. Every organization has ideas that survive because people are more interested in protecting egos than solving problems. Tony has an unusual ability to cut through that noise, identify what’s actually happening, and focus everyone on the work that matters.

He’s also one of the best people I’ve worked with when it comes to understanding audiences.

He doesn’t rely on clichés, marketing buzzwords, or whatever trend is dominating LinkedIn that week. He understands why people make decisions in the first place, and that changes how he approaches marketing strategy, customer experience, brand positioning, and business growth.

Reading Dark Marketing made me realize that wasn’t just his consulting style. It’s how he sees the world.

I grew up thinking I’d escaped corporate marketing. I went to punk shows, raves, shopped at the alternative stores in the mall, and followed the same creators everyone else in those communities followed. I thought I was outside the system.

Then I read Dark Marketing.

It forced me to confront the fact that those communities had their own marketing ecosystems, their own status symbols, and their own commercial incentives. The marketing looked different, but the psychology was often the same.

I still enjoy those communities today.

I just understand them differently.

Professionally, that’s made me a better consultant. It helps me recognize why organizations make certain decisions, why customers respond the way they do, and why some strategies succeed while others never had much of a chance.

Working with Tony taught me to look beyond the obvious problem.

Reading Dark Marketing taught me why that matters.

If you’re looking for someone who will tell you what you want to hear, Tony probably isn’t the consultant you want.

If you’re looking for someone who will challenge assumptions, support his recommendations with evidence, lead from the front, and stay in the trenches until the work is done, I can’t recommend him highly enough.

There are a lot of consultants who can give you a polished presentation.

Very few are willing to walk into the fire with their team, challenge leadership when it matters, and still be focused on finding the best answer instead of protecting their own.

Tony is one of those people.