Podcasts about aeo

Most SEOs assume AI visibility requires an omnichannel content spread. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter, scaled Uber Eats as one of its first marketing hires and now runs an AI search agency advising fractional CMO clients including Multisensor AI and FORM Kitchens. She outlines how to run an AI visibility audit to benchmark brand and competitor citations across generative engines, exposing which source types actually drive AI answer inclusion. The discussion reframes AEO as an extension of proven SEO fundamentals rather than a separate, channel-hungry discipline.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coyuchi is proving that a 35-year of press is a brand's ultimate asset in the age of AI search. By continuously optimizing site schema for LLMs and selling “feelings over features,” the organic home textiles leader is turning AI discovery directly into revenue. For more on Coyuchi, in show notes, click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

What separates the brands that dominate their category from those that disappear into digital noise? Two things: a ruthlessly focused niche and a brand story governed with such precision that your ideal client finds no other logical answer. Lindsey Busfield, co-founder of Optimize My Firm, built the nation's most recognized SEO agency for personal injury attorneys by doing exactly that — going so narrow, so deep, and so disciplined in her StoryOps™ that competitors simply can't follow. In this episode of the Business of Story, host Park Howell and Lindsey unpack why niching down is the most powerful brand strategy available to any business, how governing your story with clarity, consistency, and coherence makes you the category king or queen of your market, and why AI-driven search now rewards exactly this kind of high-fidelity storytelling. You'll discover: Why casting a wide net produces shallow results — and how radical niche focus turns your brand into the signal, not the noise How personal injury lawyers use story to win cases — and what every business can steal from that approach to govern their brand narrative How to build your digital footprint across SEO, AEO, and GEO so that Google, Perplexity, and every AI search engine serves you up as the definitive answer in your market Lindsey is also host of the Personal Injury Marketing Minute podcast and author of How Personal Injury Lawyers Get Leads: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why — available now on Amazon. Connect with Lindsey Busfield: Website: optimizemyfirm.com Email: lindsey@optimizemyfirm.com LinkedIn: Lindsey Busfield Learn more about the Business of Story and StoryOps™: storycyclegenie.ai

Only one-third of Google searches now click through to the open web. Jenna Hannon, founder and CEO of Hatter and former product marketing lead at Uber Eats, argues that AEO success depends on marketing fundamentals, not channel-hacking. She and Tyson break down why brand differentiation and positioning outperform multi-channel content sprawl, how AI visibility metrics like citation frequency and sentiment are replacing traditional traffic-based attribution, and why keyword specificity now beats broad-volume targeting in an AI-driven search landscape.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Giulia Miotti is Senior Ecommerce Experience and Performance Manager at Bang & Olufsen, the Danish luxury audio brand where Scandinavian design meets high-fidelity sound.With over a decade of international experience across Adidas, Escada, and B&O, she's built her career at the intersection of digital innovation and brand storytelling; leading content, SEO and AI search, and ecommerce growth strategies that bring a legacy brand confidently into a digital-first, omnichannel future.In This Conversation We Discuss:[00:00] Introduction[02:20] A century of maintaining brand craftsmanship[05:02] Kicking off the brand's digital transformation[09:46] Sponsor: IntelliGems[11:47] Building omnichannel Ecommerce roadmaps[15:03] Sponsor: Klaviyo[17:24] Legacy systems and internal friction[18:17] Piloting in-store appointment bookings[23:40] Sponsor: eFulfillment Service[25:59] Winning over franchisees with customer data[27:19] Callouts[27:29] Optimizing for AI search and AEO[36:48] Why strong SEO fuels AI search success[39:02] Final thoughts and where to find GiuliaResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeHigh-end Headphones, Speakers, and Televisions bang-olufsen.com/en/int Follow Giulia Miotti linkedin.com/in/giulia-miotti-digital/ Book a demo today at intelligems.io/ Get your free demo klaviyo.com/honest Lower scale costs today eFulfillmentService.com/honest If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Did you know AI and affiliate review sites decide which mattress brand you see first—before you even step in a store? Here's how to win that game.Think the best mattress wins online? Think again. In this eye-opening episode, Mark Kinsley and PR/affiliate powerhouse Kris Hillberg reveal the hidden playbook behind how mattress and bedding brands become household names—whether or not their products are actually better.Discover why today's digital landscape is driven less by quality and more by who controls review sites, affiliate links, and the new “AI search” engines like ChatGPT and Google's LLMs. Kris shares insider tips on how brands are gaming YouTube, leveraging social proof, and rewriting the rules of SEO—now called GEO and AEO. If you're a retailer, brand, or even a curious consumer, you'll learn why old-school tactics are out, how social media keywords and creator partnerships are essential, and why being “real” will matter more than ever as AI-generated slop fills the web.Feeling lost as Google changes everything, review sites lose power, and affiliate commissions plummet? Kris and Mark break down the new rules—plus the biggest mistake most mattress brands make: ignoring holistic, multi-channel strategies. With concrete examples (Liquid Death, Tuft & Needle, and more!), they'll show you how to build digital gravity and create a surround-sound brand presence that's future-proof.Timestamps:- 00:50 – Why top mattress brands win (it's not product quality)- 03:45 – AI's secret influence on what brands consumers see first- 06:20 – How YouTube & social media now drive mattress discovery- 10:05 – The end of classic SEO: What is GEO & AEO?- 14:30 – Mattress review sites: Are they losing their power?- 18:00 – The “affiliate tax” and the dark side of mattress marketing- 22:15 – Why local retailers are losing to digital-first brands- 27:50 – The surround-sound strategy: What 8-figure brands do differently- 34:10 – Liquid Death & consumer-first branding secrets- 42:00 – Why “realness” beats AI in building trust- 49:00 – The 5-year plan for launching a winning mattress brandConnect with The FAM Podcast:

Audio-only note: There will not be a video version of this episode this week. We are currently without power after the derecho that came through our area, but we still wanted to get this important conversation out to you.   For years, homeowners found landscapers by asking a neighbor, searching Google, and reading reviews. They still do. But now more people are also asking AI tools questions like: “Who are the best landscapers near me for a patio?” or “Who can fix drainage problems in my area?” That is where AEO — Answer Engine Optimization — comes in.   In simple terms, AEO is about making it easy for AI-powered search tools to understand who you are, what services you offer, where you work, and why homeowners should trust you. Your website and Google Business Profile are still essential, but they are now part of a bigger picture. Google's own guidance says that strong search fundamentals—useful content, a clear site structure, crawlable pages, and accurate local-business details—remain the foundation for visibility in its AI search features.   In this episode, Scott covers: •What AEO means in plain English—and what it does not mean •Why a nice website and a solid Google Business Profile are only the starting point •The five things homeowners and AI tools need to understand about your company •How clear services, service areas, photos, reviews, and helpful answers build trust •A free, unsponsored tool—AgentChecker.ai—that can help you see where your website stands   Important: AgentChecker.ai can surface technical terms such as structured data, accessibility, Core Web Vitals, and headers. Do not worry if the report feels technical. Send it to your website person and ask them what matters most and what should be fixed first.   Follow Million Dollar Landscaper: Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube   If this episode helped you, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps us reach more landscaping owners who need practical, no-fluff advice.   #MillionDollarLandscaper #LandscapingBusiness #AEO #AnswerEngineOptimization #AISearch #LandscapingMarketing #LocalSEO #GoogleBusinessProfile #LandscapingWebsite #LawnCareBusiness #GreenIndustry #ContractorMarketing #SmallBusinessMarketing #ScottMolchan #HomeServiceBusiness  

What do you want to be known for, and does your digital footprint actually reflect it? In this special behind-the-scenes session from the She Believed She Could Summit, Allison Walsh is joined by Heather French Henry and Brielle Cotterman for a powerful conversation about personal branding, identity, storytelling, publicity, and taking ownership of your narrative. Heather challenges you to look beyond titles, services, and accomplishments to define the character, values, and impact you want people to associate with your name. Brielle then reveals why telling that story intentionally has never been more important, especially as AI changes how people discover, research, and form opinions about individuals and brands online. From defining what you stand for to leveraging PR, earned media, podcast interviews, thought leadership, and third-party credibility, this episode will help you become more intentional about the story the world is hearing about you. Because if you don't tell people who you are, what you do, and what you stand for, someone else will. Plus, Allison shares how you can experience more conversations like this live at the upcoming Iconic Impact Summit. Connect with Heather: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherfrenchhenry/ Website: https://www.heatherfrenchhenry.com/ Connect with Brielle: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briellecotterman/ Website: https://influentialleaderagency.com/ Positioned for Partnerships™ Mini Course - Turn your platform into a revenue-generating brand opportunity—without needing a massive following. Learn how to position your brand, create a high-converting media kit, and confidently pitch partnerships so brands instantly understand your value. 

For years, business owners have been laser-focused on SEO — but the way people search is changing fast. In this episode, we break down Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the strategy every business owner needs to understand as more people turn to AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to find answers instead of scrolling through search results. We cover what AEO actually is, how it works alongside traditional SEO, and seven practical ways to start optimizing your content so AI tools recognize your business as a trustworthy source. Whether you're a solopreneur or scaling a team, this episode will help you future-proof your marketing strategy for the AI era. Resources: The Meeting Place Membership Rock The Reels 1:1 Coaching Free Client Welcome Guide Additional Trainings and Resources Connect with Brittni: Follow me on the Gram - @brittni.schroeder Join my Facebook Group  Visit my website Subscribe to my Youtube You can find the complete show notes here: https://brittnischroeder.com/podcast/what-is-aeo-the-new-search-strategy-every-business-owner-needs-to-know  

Times change, but somehow the job hasn’t. In this episode, Chip and Gini dig into what’s stayed constant across their combined decades in PR and marketing, and why chasing the latest platform update is a losing game if you’ve lost sight of the fundamentals underneath it. The episode was sparked by a LinkedIn series from Doug Simon, who asked longtime PR pros what has remained constant in their careers. Gini was asked the question of whether the PESO Model still holds up, and her answer is that the four media types haven’t gone anywhere, and earned media’s third-party credibility now matters more to how LLMs learn. Chip extends the logic to SEO and its successors, advising to chase the people, not the algorithm or the platform. Other changes may also have less of an impact than you might think. Influencer marketing is the latest version of celebrity TV endorsements, but with a YouTube channel. The agency-client relationship continues to run on the same dynamics it did 70 or 80 years ago. Gini brings up the story about a UK agency reportedly running AI agents to pitch journalists undetected for eight months. Chip’s take is that just like with interns and inexperienced team members, there are well-managed AI agents as well as poorly managed ones. It's the human factor that matters most. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “If you lose sight of the fundamentals, you can have all the technology in the world, and you’re still gonna have rubbish results.” Gini Dietrich: “If you create content for humans, you will win the SEO game. You will win the AEO, GEO game. You will win whatever comes next game.” Chip Griffin: “Chase the people. Don’t chase the algorithm.” Gini Dietrich: “Your job, especially as a communicator, is to protect reputation, build brand, and create thought leadership. That has not changed.” View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m gonna have to try to rack my memory from way, way back, and as I get older, that, that distance gets longer and my memory gets poorer, so we’ll see how this works. Gini Dietrich: Ok- okay. Well, I have the same afflictions, so let’s see what happens. Chip Griffin: So we thought that this was, this was spurred by something that our friend Doug Simon did recently on LinkedIn where he did a video series and talked to a bunch of people who have been in the PR industry for a long time and asked a series of questions, one of which was, what has- Remained constant over the course of your career in PR. Obviously we talk a lot these days about everything that, that has changed, is changing. There’s no shortage of those things. I’ve talked about it here on the show, you know, how we started with fax machines and mailed press releases and things like that, that just kind of blows the mind of a lot of the younger listeners that we have. But, but even with all of that change and with everything that AI is doing to our industry today, there are a lot of things that have stayed constant. And I think that as we think about how we run our agencies, it’s important to remember the fundamentals that have remained the same no matter how much technology has changed in PR and marketing. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I think you’re right that the, probably the way that we do things has changed, but not the strategic reason. Like I say to people all the time that the reason you do your job has not changed. The strategy, the strategic reason behind it has not changed. The tools have changed, for sure, but your job, especially as a communicator, is to protect reputation, build brand, and create thought leadership. That has not changed. Yeah. The way that you go about it has changed, but not, not the actual doing of the job has changed. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, the tools have changed. The landscape certainly in media has changed. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yes. Chip Griffin: The landscape in terms of the public and where they go for information and where they receive messaging and all of that, obviously that has changed substantially over the 35 plus years that I’ve been in communications. But it is still about communicating the right message at the right time to the right people. Yeah. And building relationships with the people that you are trying to influence, whether that’s a member of the media or a member of the public or potential client or whomever. And if you remember those fundamentals, it helps you to figure out how to use all of these technologies for their greatest impact. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I had a convers- I was on Zoom with Fred Cook of former GolinHarris, now at Annenberg Center. I was on Zoom with him last week, and he’s like, “So has PESO changed?” And I was like, “No, because we still do those things, right?” Like, the way that we implement it today versus the way we implemented it in 2014 are completely different, for sure. But we still use earned media, we still use shared media, we still use owned media, we still use paid media. The way that we use it has changed, but we still use the four media types. And to your point, media has changed, so earned media has changed, like the, the recipient of our earned media has changed, but the outcome of third-party credibility is probably even more important today than it was back then because that’s how the LLMs learn too, is by citable information. So yes, the way that we go about it has changed, but the actual work itself, the outcome itself has not. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think the, the important thing to think about here is that, that ultimately all of these tools and publications and platforms are all designed to connect one human to another. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And, and so you know, when you think about public relations, for example, it’s got relations right there in the title. And so you really need to think about how you are building those relationships between whoever the person is on your end and the person that you’re trying to reach. And, if you, if you take the humans out of this entirely, then you’re missing the plot, and you really need to be thinking about how do these tools and how do these techniques allow you to do more of that, to do it better, to do it at greater scale, all of those kinds of things, but not, not just, you know, chuck everything that you knew out the window, have the machines do everything on their own, for you. Gini Dietrich: No. No. Chip Griffin: Abandon proven approaches. None of those things make any sense. Gini Dietrich: No. Please do not do that because that has not changed. Like, the way I- we talked about this last week, like, AI is making us far more productive and far more efficient, but you still have to know how to, to your point, relate to other human beings. Are you creating content and engineering your visibility to show up in AI? For sure. But that’s also because human beings are using AI to get the answer, so you still have to build those relationships with other human beings. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and if you follow the fundamentals, then it allows you to evolve with whatever tools and technology- That’s right come along. It’s similar to what I’ve always said in terms of SEO in the old days and now AEO, GEO, which is chase the people. Don’t chase the algorithm. Yep. Don’t chase the platform. Yep. Chase the, the people because ultimately all of the tools are designed to do that anyway, right? Right. I mean, Google for years has been trying to figure out what is the user actually looking for and trying to deliver that in the results. And so if you are sitting there trying to say, “Hey, I need to figure out how to reach that same person,” you’ll probably be okay no matter how they change the algorithm. If you sit there and say, “I need to figure out what was the latest Google algorithm update, and what does that mean?” “How should I move things around on my page? What should I bold?” If you start thinking in those terms, you may win the short-term battle, but you will lose the war because you do not understand what you’re actually trying to do, and that has not changed over the course of our careers. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I’ve said for at least a decade, if not longer, that if you create content for humans, you will win the SEO game. You will win the AEO, GEO game. You will win whatever comes next game. Because human beings are still the ones that are purchasing your services. The robots are not. Chip Griffin: Right. Gini Dietrich: And so if you create content, if it’s whatever content it is, it’s earned media, it’s video, it’s audio, it’s written, whatever it happens to be, if that audience, number one audience is human beings, you will win all the other games. Chip Griffin: And look, even most of the things that we look at today as new, they aren’t really. They’re just, they- they’re packaged differently. I, you know- Right … we, we have all of this talk around influencers- Yes, yes … and the rise of influencers. Yes, yes. Which to me is one of the silliest things in the world. Not the influencers themselves, I mean, some of them can be silly. They’re certainly useful to us as communicators, marketers, et cetera. But that’s no different than three decades ago when we had celebrity endorsements. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: Right? The, it is just the modern-day equivalent of it, and we just define celebrity a little bit differently than we might have back, you know- Yep in the ’80s or ’90s, but ultimately it’s the same thing. It’s just they have a YouTube channel now or an Instagram account- Right … instead of, you know, you put them in a TV commercial or a print ad or something like that. But even back in the day, you had celebrity endorsers who were not truly celebrities. They were just someone known in their local community- Right … who you could throw in a newspaper ad and say- Yeah … you know, “Hey, you know, I believe in either this cause or this product or whatever.” So that has not changed. That continues to be exactly the same, just packaged differently. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, when you think about earned media, and you know, we do a, a lot, a lot, a lot of work with universities because PESO model curriculum is in almost every university’s PR, communications, marketing, and some journalism programs. So we do a ton of work with universities, and I, one of the questions I get consistently from professors is, “How are you teaching earned media through PESO?” And we keep talking about traditional media is like, that used to be the thing, right? You would get The New York Times, you would get Oprah, you would get The Today Show. Like, those things don’t matter as much anymore because you have influencers or, local celebrities that have their Substack newsletters, they have their Medium newsletters. You can subscribe to those, you can pay for those just like you would the newspaper, and you get the information that you need. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and, so little technical glitch on my end. I think we’ll clean it up, in the edit. But if you noticed anything, it was just for some reason my home TV studio- … decided to shut itself off. The, the, the smart home devices here just decided that, nope, it was time to turn everything, everything off, so. Gini Dietrich: I was talking to a blank screen. I was like, “Should I keep going?” Chip Griffin: You know, but we just, we roll through these things … on the Agency Leadership podcast because the technology has changed- It is- … but glitches still happen. Glitches, right. I mean, you know, I, I, I remember back in the ’90s, you know, using dial-up internet to do work, and then, you know, someone actually calls your landline and knocks you offline in the middle of, you know- Yep trying to send an email or something. Yep. Yep. And you gotta figure, did it actually send? Did it not send? Yep. So, you know- Mm-hmm … technical glitches- There you go … that’s another thing that has remained constant- It’s still- … despite all the technology. Oh my gosh, it’s so funny. You know, the typewriters that I used to use at work, sometimes the ribbon would get snagged, and, you know, you’d have to unsnag the ribbon, right? So even non-electronic things still had issues. Broke your pencil, whatever. Gini Dietrich: As much as things have changed- … they still remain the same. Chip Griffin: They, they absolutely do. And, and I, so I think it’s part of our responsibility as agencies to work with our clients and help them to understand that the fundamentals have remained constant and will continue to remain constant. Because we wanna make sure that we’re taking advantage of everything that’s out there, but we also need to make sure that we are not overdoing it in one area or another because we’re losing sight of those fundamentals, nor are we either having our clients get scared or us get nervous about it and what it means for our businesses. Because if we follow those fundamentals, then we can continue to adapt, and take advantage of all of these technologies as we move forward. If you, if you focus on the technology first and just say, “Hey, I need to have an AI strategy.” No, you don’t. Gini Dietrich: No, you don’t. Chip Griffin: You absolutely do not need to have an AI strategy- Right or an influencer strategy or anything. Gini Dietrich: Totally agree. Yeah. Chip Griffin: You need to have a strategy that takes advantage of AI or influencers or whatever as appropriate. Yes. But your strategy should be rooted in those fundamentals because that’s how you get ahead. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And like I said at the start, I always say the reason that we do these things has not changed. The tools have changed, the way you go about it has changed, but the how or the why has not changed. So don’t get so wrapped up in, “Oh my gosh, now I’ve gotta figure out AI.” Yeah, you gotta figure out AI- Right … because it’s, it’s going to replace you if you don’t figure it out, and it’s actually really fun, so you should figure it out just from that perspective. But you don’t have to change your strategy. You don’t have to change, like, the things that you do to service clients- Right … because that has not changed. Chip Griffin: Right. Right. And, and I think that that’s a, that’s another thing that has remained constant is the relationship between agencies and clients. You know, we think all of this is changing in the world that we’re in, but it’s really not. The way that agencies and clients work together is the same today as it was 70 or 80 years ago, even before you and I were born, let alone started working in the industry. And so understanding how those relationships and dynamics come together and how you can partner most effectively. Sure, the actual nature of the relationships has changed because of the work that we’re doing, but those relationships still matter in the same way that they always did, and you still need to build the human component into it. We can’t allow the technology to overtake that. We need to make sure that we’re spending the time to get to know our clients. We need to make sure that we’re continuing, even in this remote world that we’re in, to find ways to have additional touchpoints, whether that’s through more frequent video calls to build the relationship or ideally in person whenever possible. Those things still matter, and we still need to try to figure out how to take advantage of them to have those strong business relationships in addition to the results-oriented relationships that we’re looking for. Gini Dietrich: So I’m gonna throw a little wrench in things- Okay … because I just read an article this morning that talked about how an agency out of the UK has created AI agents that are pitching media, and it took about eight months for a journalist to go, “Something doesn’t seem right,” and then started to investigate, and sure enough, the agency owner said, “Yeah, I mean, we’ve created these bots that are pitching the media.” He claims that there are real humans on the back end of it, um, that has not been proven yet. They, the, the investigative journalist said, “I think actually based on what I have here, that there aren’t real humans behind it.” But, you know, I think when, when we hear about AI taking our jobs, we hear these kinds of stories, and we get a little freaked out. Nobody’s happy about it. Every journalist who’s been pitched by these AI bots have come out and said, “This is not okay.” But I think that there are gonna be other experiments like this where you’re trying to use– or you’re trying to build an agency out of AI agents instead of human beings. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, I– what I would say to that is I think that there are probably countless examples that we’re not aware of where the, the AI did work on pitching the journalist and didn’t get called out, right? Because- Gini Dietrich: Right … Chip Griffin: by definition, you can only call out the ones you catch. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: So, I suspect there is a fair bit of this going on. I mean, part of the problem is that, that so much of it is done poorly. I mean- Right. Yes … my, my inbox is full of sales messaging that I’m fairly certain is, you know, whether it’s directly AI generated or AI assisted, it’s hard to tell for sure sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Because it might be entirely AI or it might just be poorly managed AI. But at the same time I’m certain I’m also being exposed to plenty of messages that are AI generated, and, I can’t tell because they are, they’re good at what they do. And I think we will absolutely see more of that. But ultimately, all of the – the AI doesn’t decide to do these things on its own, right? I mean- Fair. Yeah … at least as of now. Yeah, right. And so even in the- Yep … example that you shared, even if it’s just the owner who’s involved in having created this network, you still have the human at one end of this. Yeah. Whether they are managing every message or not, who knows? And, I’m not even sure that that’s necessary as long as they are well targeted and being actually truly genuinely helpful to the journalist on the other end by giving them something that is, you know, that fits with what they write about. I mean, part of the problem with AI is that so much of it is just poorly targeted. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. Chip Griffin: But that, that’s more on the humans who are sending them out there. Yeah, yep. It’s not on… The AI can do a great job if you give it the right context, the right direction, the right information. If you just say, “Hey, you know, go find journalists” … of course it’s gonna do poorly, right? It’s- But, but so would a human … Gini Dietrich: just like a young professional Chip Griffin: I mean, we’ve talked about this before. Gini Dietrich: Right. A young pro- Yeah … intern Chip Griffin: You bring an intern and you tell them, “Just start talking to journalists and, and get them to cover us,” and you don’t tell them what you do. You don’t tell them what the journalists cover. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, they’re gonna do awful. Yeah. You start giving context and the in- even the intern will do- Yeah … a good job with very little background, but you need to give them something, and the AI needs the same thing. But ultimately it’s still that human on one end and the human on the other end. And so I think that, that we, when we’re talking about fundamentals, that’s what I’m talking about. You need to sort of separate out all of the machinations in between. That can be done well, it can be done poorly, and that changes the outcome, but fundamentally you still have a human on both ends of that conversation. Even though we like to pretend it’s the AI doing it on its own, the AI is never- It’s not … doing it on its own. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Chip Griffin: At least, at least as of this recording. No. We, we don’t have- Gini Dietrich: Not right now, right. … Chip Griffin: AI that just wanders off and does its own thing. Gini Dietrich: This is why I always say please and thank you to my AI, just so that it remembers that I was kind to it. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, and, I mean, we can probably talk about this some other time, but I think the AI companies are doing themselves no service by trying to make it seem like the AI operates on its own, and when they say the, “The AI broke out of its constraints and, you know, hacked into another company,” baloney. I mean, come on. Like, just knock it off. And I don’t, from a communication standpoint, I guess, you know, they may think that that’s helping them to, No … to say, “We’re really powerful. You should use us.” That’s not really- That’s not … I don’t think what- Nope … what ultimately- Gini Dietrich: That’s not the message Chip Griffin: comes through. Gini Dietrich: Nope. That’s not the message. Chip Griffin: So, yeah. So it’s, you know, you need to focus on the fundamentals. And I think if, if you take nothing else away from this discussion it’s, is that the fundamentals don’t change, haven’t changed, remain constant, you know, going back to, I don’t know, Ben Franklin or earlier, you know? These are not things that are, you know, wild and innovative. The tools and techniques are, absolutely. And but to me, that’s the exciting bit, right? Right. You can figure out, if you know the fundamentals, then you can always take advantage of the latest tools and technology to do it better, to do it faster, to do it more effectively, whatever it may be. But if you lose sight of the fundamentals, you can have all the technology in the world, and you’re still gonna have rubbish results. Gini Dietrich: 100%, I totally agree. Yep. Strategy has not changed, tools have. Chip Griffin: So with that, I think we will stop beating this dead horse, and we can, we can move along. You can move along from listening to us today, and you’ll have to join us for the next episode where we’ll find something else to rant and rave about. Gini Dietrich: Yes, we will. Chip Griffin: ‘Cause that’s what we do. That’s what we do. At least that’s what I do. Gini Dietrich: That’s what we do. Chip Griffin: So with that, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Vacation rental search is changing fast.Organic traffic is declining, AI Overviews are taking up more space in Google, and travelers are increasingly using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to research where to stay.For property managers, that creates a new challenge: how do you stay visible when the way people search is no longer as straightforward as ranking on page one of Google?In this episode, Alex & Annie are joined by Vanessa Humes, VP of Sales and Marketing at ICND, and Jill McGee, Senior Digital Marketing Specialist, to unpack what this shift means for vacation rental brands and their direct booking strategies.They explore why SEO is still very much alive, how AI is changing the path travelers take before reaching a website, and why the fundamentals of trust, authority, useful content, and strong website structure may matter more than ever.The conversation also looks at what operators should actually be paying attention to as new terms like AEO and GEO enter the marketing vocabulary, whether emerging AI optimization tactics are worth the hype, and how the metrics used to measure digital marketing success may need to evolve along with search.In this episode, we discuss:06:45 - Why declining organic traffic does not mean SEO is losing its value07:33 - How AI is changing the way travelers research and discover vacation rentals26:14 - What SEO, AEO, and GEO mean for vacation rental marketers10:32 - Why trust, reviews, structured data, and strong content still matter36:27 - How property managers can create content with stronger booking intent23:41 - Why AI-driven traffic may be smaller but more qualified29:00 - Which new AI optimization tactics deserve attention and which may be more hype than substance48:20 - How operators should think about search visibility heading into 2027If you are trying to understand where SEO fits in an AI-driven search landscape and what your vacation rental brand should be doing now to stay discoverable, this episode is worth a listen.Connect with Vanessa:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-humes-549b528/ Connect with Jill:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-highsmith-mcgee-940908179/ Connect with ICND:Website: https://bit.ly/3THIq8J LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/intercoastal-net-designs/ Free Resource from ICND:Download ICND's AI Visibility Case Study to learn how vacation rental companies can adapt to AI-driven search.

In this Kitchen Side episode, Alex Birkett and Allie Decker unpack what actually makes content valuable in the age of AI, moving past the tired debate over human versus AI-produced content to the deeper question of how companies should measure quality at all. Drawing on decision theory and the idea that almost anything can be measured, they argue that production method matters far less than whether a piece teaches something new and lands with the people it is meant for. They explore AI visibility as a kind of digital brand recall, why sentiment and context matter more than raw share of voice, and how incumbents and startups face very different battles in shaping their narrative across the web. The conversation also digs into why brands no longer own their own story, the compounding risk of building exposure in the wrong category, and why a human QA layer grounded in real customer understanding is the one part of the content system that should never be automated. Key Takeaways The debate over AI-produced versus human-produced content misses the deeper question of how to define and measure content quality in the first place. Almost anything can be measured if a decision carries uncertainty and risk, including fuzzy concepts like brand affinity or customer experience, by breaking them into concrete, quantifiable components. Measurement is only worth doing when the cost of collecting it is lower than the value of reducing uncertainty, and when you will actually act on the result. AI visibility works like a digital brand recall survey, but raw visibility is meaningless without understanding the context and sentiment in which a brand is mentioned. Segmenting prompts by ICP and buying stage reveals visibility gaps that aggregate scores hide, such as a brand appearing at 40 percent overall but only 4 percent for enterprise queries. Brands no longer own their own narrative, because if the rest of the web contradicts a company's website, LLMs treat the external consensus as the truth. Incumbents with high domain authority have an SEO advantage but face a harder AEO battle, since years of press, mentions, and third-party content are slow and expensive to re-steer. Startups can win by getting specific for narrow prompts and buying-journey stages, but building heavy exposure around one positioning creates risk if they later pivot. AI content programs fail because of weak systems, not the AI itself, so the durable model is human strategy up front, AI in the middle, and a human QA layer at the end. Customer understanding is the last defensible advantage, and the one part of the content system that should stay human is the empathy to judge whether a piece will actually land. Show Links Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Allie Decker on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the "kitchen side" of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we're working both on growing our clients' businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify), Ryan Law (Animalz), Dan Shure (Evolving SEO), Kaleigh Moore (freelancer), Eric Siu (Clickflow), Peep Laja (CXL), Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper), Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo), Tim Soulo (Ahrefs), Ryan McReady (Reforge), and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient LinkedIn: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

Brent Smart is one of the most respected marketers in the world. After spending more than 20 years in advertising, he made the rare move from agency life to become CMO of NRMA Insurance. Brent's most recent role as CMO of Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications company, he helped transform the brand through bold, distinctive and highly effective marketing.In this episode, Brent shares the principles behind his approach to creativity, from selling big ideas inside large organisations and drawing on academic marketing frameworks to building a culture where great work can thrive. We discuss the campaigns that defined his career, including Telstra's viral "Better on a Better Network" campaign, why humour and surprise remain powerful competitive advantages, and the unique agency model that helped Telstra consistently produce standout work.Timestamps00:00 - Start01:03 - Why Brent left Telstra02:31 - Why Brent moved in house after 20 years agency side05:41 - How to sell a creative idea into a big organisation11:01 - The academic frameworks to create great marketing12:16 - Why you should look at your brands heritage14:02 - The most successful campaign Brent did for NRMA17:33 - How Brent won a Grand Effie21:13 - How Brent transformed Telstra's brand marketing26:08 - The Telstra Walk - the viral campaign32:39 - Using humour to cut through35:00 - The power of surprise and consistency37:41 - The unique agency model that helped Telstra create cuthrough work40:02 - Why craft is so important in 202642:44 - How to build a creative culture47:11 - How to be a great CMO ---Thank you to our sponsors System1 and HubSpotDownload System1's creator effectiveness report here:https://system1group.com/the-creator-effectiveness-playbookFind about more about HubSpot's AEO product here:https://www.hubspot.com/products/aeo

"This traffic is nothing. It is a rounding error." Kurt and Paul pulled 24 months of raw order data from 10 established Shopify stores: 94 million sessions, 2.2 million orders, $274 million in revenue. They went looking for the AI shopping revolution and found 0.1% of revenue. The catch: those referrals convert better than any other channel, and getting ready for them takes one afternoon of free work. Then the discount data. Across $285 million in gross sales, nearly every store hands the same 20% code to new and returning customers alike, all year long, while the promo type that wins on every metric gets 7% of the budget. Also covered: the channel quietly outselling all AI sources combined 35 to 1, and the leaked evergreen code that cost one store $349,000. SPONSORS Swym - Wishlists, Back in Stock alerts, & more getswym.com/kurt Cleverific - Smart order editing for Shopify cleverific.com Zipify - Build high-converting sales funnels zipify.com/KURT LINKS State of Ecommerce 2026 (AI traffic report): https://ethercycle.com/pages/state-of-ecommerce-2026 State of Discounts 2026: https://ethercycle.com/pages/state-of-discounts-2026 Promo Party (free gift with purchase app): [PROMO PARTY URL] Shopify Agentic dashboard: Shopify admin, under Sales channels WORK WITH KURT Apply for Shopify Help ethercycle.com/apply See Our Results ethercycle.com/work Free Newsletter kurtelster.com The Unofficial Shopify Podcast is hosted by Kurt Elster and explores the stories behind successful Shopify stores. Get actionable insights, practical strategies, and proven tactics from entrepreneurs who've built thriving ecommerce businesses.

JP Garbaccio has worked both sides of SEO — years agency-side as a technical specialist, and now leading SEO and AEO strategy at Searchable, an AI search visibility platform. That gives him a blunt take: AI search isn't the next chapter of SEO, it's a shift from 2D to 3D, and most of the industry is still navigating it with an old map.JP and Russ talk about why client trust is fraying as attribution gets murkier ("clients aren't being stubborn, they're scared"), why product marketers and PR — not technical SEOs — are increasingly leading AI search strategy, and why brand fame may matter more than any single tactic. JP also shares what Searchable's data shows on sentiment and market penetration, and why patient, forward-thinking brands are about to pull ahead.They close comparing AI tools — including why JP reaches for Claude above everything else.

Download the companion guide Google and HubSpot both just published research showing website traffic has dropped by as much as 80 percent since 2024, and it's not because your marketing got worse. It's because the Google AI summary now answers most search questions itself, before anyone even reaches your site. This episode is about what private practice marketing in 2026 needs to look like now that AI answer engine optimisation (AEO) has changed the rules for how people find a therapist, counsellor, or psychologist. Brooklyn walks through the simple things you can do to get more clients through AI, why the old website conversion rate game (2 percent, if you're lucky) has shifted, and why showing up consistently across every platform an AI might check counts for more than any single funnel now. There's touch point research in here too, the number of times a cold audience needs to see you before they're ready to book, and why that number is different for short form content versus long form content for therapists. A podcast for private practice marketing compounds in a way a Facebook post never will, and Brooklyn tells the story of a woman who found her through one episode and booked a call within days, next to another who followed along on Facebook for years before reaching out. The episode closes somewhere completely different, unpacking whether positive thinking works for manifesting, and how it fits into the bigger picture of building a business mindset for private practice that can hold the results you want. Keywords used: AI answer engine optimisation (AEO) for therapists, how to get clients through AI, private practice marketing in 2026, Google AI summary for therapists, website conversion rate private practice, how many touch points to get a client, short form content vs long form content for therapists, podcast for private practice marketing, does positive thinking work for manifesting, business mindset for private practice Mini FAQ: Q: Why has my website traffic dropped even though nothing changed on my end? A: Google's AI summary now answers most search questions itself, so people get their answer without ever clicking through to your website. Google, HubSpot and Ahrefs are all reporting the same drop since 2024. Q: How many times does someone need to see my content before they book with me? A: A cold audience, people who've never heard of you, need around 11 touch points of short form content in any 90 day period, and someone brand new to your world needs about 50 touch points before they're ready to work with you. Q: Is a marketing funnel still relevant now that AI is changing search? A: Yes, but you need more than one. Instead of a single funnel, you need multiple pathways, your website, your Google Business Profile, your Psychology Today profile, and several different free resources, all feeding into the same message. Q: What kind of content gets clients to convert? A: Interactive content like quizzes converts far better than static PDFs or eBooks, because people want to be doing something, not just reading. Long form content like a podcast also compounds over time in a way social media posts never do. Q: Does positive thinking work for manifesting? A: The research says yes, positive thinking on its own has real psychological benefits, but it only works when it's paired with the deeper identity and personal psychology work behind it. Toxic positivity, on the other hand, has very little research behind it at all.  

In Episode 680 of the New Media Show, host Rob Greenlee welcomes Steven Goldstein, founder and CEO of Amplifi Media, for a timely, future-leaning discussion. We have entered the Liquid Content Era. A podcast conversation can now become an audio episode, full-length YouTube video, Spotify video, Apple Podcasts video, vertical clips, social posts, articles, newsletters, searchable transcripts, and potentially AI-discovered answers. The underlying content may be the same, but the way people encounter and consume it varies by platform. That creates an enormous opportunity for creators. It also creates a measurement problem. Podcasting built much of its advertising business around the download. That metric helped turn an emerging medium into a legitimate advertising marketplace, but Steven argues that it no longer adequately represents how audiences consume modern shows. Downloads were created in an era when bandwidth was limited and podcast applications often downloaded episodes to devices before the listener played them. Today, streaming is increasingly immediate, video consumption is growing, audiences move between devices, and clips can sometimes reach more people than the original episode. The question is no longer simply:  How many times was the podcast downloaded? The better question may be: How many people actually listened to, watched, encountered the advertising, and engaged with the creator's content across the entire media ecosystem? Why advertisers need this change. Large brands already buy television, web, streaming video, social, and other digital media through dashboards that provide comparable impression-based reporting. Podcasting remains fragmented across RSS analytics, platform dashboards, YouTube views, Spotify data, and different definitions of what constitutes meaningful exposure. That fragmentation makes podcast media harder to buy at scale. Steven explains that advertisers do not want separate teams manually reconciling podcast audio, video, clips, and platform metrics. If podcasting wants to attract substantially more advertising investment, it needs to fit more easily into the systems marketers already use. That leads into one of the episode’s central topics: the AMP Accords. The Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting was formed to address three persistent problems: Defining a podcast Standardizing exposure metrics across platforms Creating a more consistent way to evaluate advertising effectiveness. The AMP Accords describe their goal as establishing cross-platform measurement standards spanning open RSS and closed platforms. One of the biggest proposed shifts is moving toward a 30-second play as a standardized exposure metric across audio and video. Steven is less concerned about whether 30 seconds ultimately proves to be the perfect number than he is about establishing a common starting point. Media measurement has always evolved. Steven draws on his experience in radio, where audience measurement moved from handwritten listening diaries to electronic Portable People Meters. The change was disruptive. Some formats gained audience under the new methodology, and others lost it. But advertisers demanded better information, and the industry eventually adapted. Podcasting is facing a similar moment. The industry should not allow the pursuit of a perfect measurement system to delay the adoption of a more useful one. The AMP framework also addresses advertising impressions and audience measurement. That matters because an advertiser ultimately wants to know whether someone actually received an advertising message, not simply whether a media file was automatically delivered to a device. Rob and Steven discuss the tension this creates for established podcast measurement. Some publishers remain strongly committed to the download because it has provided consistency and an open measurement methodology for many years. Steven gives the download credit for helping build the podcast advertising business but believes the medium now needs to move forward. The shift becomes even more important when video enters the equation. YouTube has become a major podcast-consumption platform with sophisticated analytics on views, watch time, audience behavior, retention, and discovery. Spotify has added video. Apple is expanding its video capabilities through HLS. Meanwhile, audiences increasingly move fluidly between audio and video rather than seeing them as completely separate media products. This raises another difficult question: What exactly is a podcast now? The AMP Accords propose a broad podcast definition that encompasses audio or video and open or closed distribution, provided the program remains meaningful without requiring constant visual attention. Steven likes the basic framework but emphasizes that audiences will ultimately shape the word's meaning. People already call shows “podcasts” based on format and experience rather than on technical infrastructure. Most listeners do not know whether a show uses RSS feeds, direct platform uploads, streaming video, or another delivery method. Rob raises a concern about defining podcasting too strongly through an audio lens. If a video must always function perfectly with the viewer's eyes closed, does that discourage creators from investing in richer visual storytelling? That question becomes increasingly important as video production matures. A modern video podcast can include visual demonstrations, graphics, archival material, set design, screen sharing, camera movement, and other elements that provide additional value to the viewer. Rob argues that creators should retain the freedom to build excellent audio and excellent video experiences, even when the two versions are not identical. The discussion then moves to another major part of liquid content: short-form video. Shorts or Clips were initially treated primarily as promotional tools designed to push people toward the full episode. That assumption is changing. Some audience members may never consume the full show. They may know a creator entirely through Shorts, Reels, TikTok, or other excerpts. Steven describes this as both an opportunity and a potential problem. If a creator publishes the four best moments from an hour-long conversation, some viewers may decide those clips provide everything they wanted from the episode. That means short-form may represent a separate audience, not simply a funnel into long-form media. At the same time, social clips have become an increasingly important discovery mechanism. Creators cannot simply ignore the places where audiences spend their time. That is the essence of liquid content: the audience determines where and how the media gets consumed. Artificial intelligence adds another layer. Steven believes creators should increasingly think beyond traditional SEO, Search Engine Optimization, toward AEO, Answer Engine Optimization. AI systems are increasingly becoming discovery engines themselves. Instead of searching through a list of websites or podcast episodes, a user may ask an AI system a specific question and receive a direct answer assembled from available sources. That shift could be especially valuable for niche creators. A podcast with deep authority in a narrow subject may become an important source of AI-generated answers if its content is well-structured, transcribed, accessible, and clearly associated with expertise in that category. Rob expands the discussion into recommendation systems. YouTube already uses AI extensively to determine which content should be presented to which audience. Similar systems will increasingly influence discovery throughout digital media. That creates a harder competitive environment. Steven argues that mediocre content will be crushed. As audiences face effectively unlimited choices and algorithms become better at filtering those choices, simply producing acceptable content may no longer be enough. Shows need differentiation, relevance, expertise, strong personalities, or storytelling that holds attention. That does not mean every successful podcast needs millions of listeners. Steven points to niche podcasts serving highly specific professional communities. A show about HVAC systems may never become a mainstream entertainment hit, but it can still become an extremely valuable business if it reaches the right technicians, manufacturers, buyers, and industry decision-makers. Influence within a valuable niche can matter more than raw audience scale. The conversation closes by examining the tension between short-form and long-form media. Consumers are time-starved. Summaries, clips, AI-generated takeaways, and compressed content are becoming increasingly useful. Yet long-form is not disappearing. Joe Rogan, Acquired, Dan Carlin, and other successful long-form creators demonstrate that audiences will still spend hours with content when the storytelling, expertise, personality, or subject deserves the investment. The real challenge is earning the audience's time. In the Liquid Content Era, creators are no longer simply publishing episodes. They are building adaptable media assets that can move across platforms, formats, screens, algorithms, and audiences. The measurement systems now need to catch up. Topics Covered in This Episode: -What Steven Goldstein means by the Liquid Content Era -Why one piece of content now becomes many media products -Why the podcast download is becoming less representative of consumption -What podcasting can learn from radio and television measurement -Why advertisers need unified cross-platform metrics -The AMP Accords and the future of podcast measurement -The proposed 30-second play standard -Plays, audience, ad impressions, and ad audience -Audio versus video measurement -Apple HLS, YouTube, Spotify, and platform competition -Why the definition of a podcast continues to evolve -Whether video podcasts need to work with the viewer's eyes closed -The difference between clipping content and creating for vertical video -Why clips may represent a separate audience -AI and Answer Engine Optimization -How algorithms increasingly control media discovery -Why mediocre content faces greater pressure -High-value niche content versus mass audience scale -What it takes to create a hit today -Why long-form content can still win Chapter Time Stamp Markers 00:00 Welcome to The New Media Show Episode 680 00:36 The Liquid Content Era needs new measurement 01:10 Introducing Steven Goldstein of Amplifi Media 02:07 Why media has entered the Liquid Content Era 03:18 The New York Times as a liquid content example 04:41 Podcasting moves from audio into multimedia 05:29 Video was always part of podcasting 06:22 Why the download originally made sense 07:13 Streaming changes how podcast consumption is measured 08:08 What podcasting can learn from radio measurement 09:11 From listening diaries to electronic measurement 10:00 Why advertisers need podcasting inside their dashboards 11:05 Audio and video buying remain separated at agencies 12:06 How television moved toward impression-based measurement 13:13 Short-form video enters the podcast media mix 14:12 Introducing the AMP Accords 15:08 What the AMP Accords propose 17:03 What AMP got right and what could go wrong 18:41 Why 30 seconds is a starting point, not the final answer 20:06 Moving beyond the download 21:23 Downloads do not always equal actual listening 22:03 The IAB and industry resistance to changing measurement 23:20 Some shows will gain, and others will lose under better metrics 24:18 Why Steven believes the download cannot be the future 25:11 Consumer behavior is forcing podcasting to change 26:02 Vertical video becomes a major media business 27:01 Can YouTube, Spotify, and Apple align around new metrics? 29:16 Comparing 30-second and 60-second exposure 31:07 Plays, audience, ad impressions, and advertiser needs 32:16 Why advertisers dislike hidden podcast audience numbers 33:07 Measurement matters differently for niche podcasts 34:19 How audiences move between audio and video 36:05 Should audio and video come from the same media file? 37:02 Why measurement does not need to be perfect to improve 38:16 Liquid content keeps expanding into new formats 39:14 What qualifies as a podcast now? 40:02 The audience may ultimately define podcasting 41:35 Does “eyes closed” unfairly prioritize audio? 43:05 Could the new definition weaken video creativity? 44:31 Separate audio and video podcast experiences 46:07 Vertical video versus automatically generated clips 46:52 Are clips replacing the full episode? 48:04 Short-form audiences may be entirely different 49:00 AI enters the Liquid Content Era 49:28 SEO shifts toward Answer Engine Optimization 50:27 AI becomes the first layer of media discovery 51:13 Algorithms judge what audiences see 53:04 Why mediocre content will be crushed 54:02 What qualifies as quality content? 55:04 Niche media does not need mass scale 57:07 How specialized podcasts can build valuable businesses 58:38 Why podcast creation remains flat despite creator growth 1:00:16 Creators no longer need traditional media gatekeepers 1:01:21 What the COVID podcast boom taught the industry 1:02:27 High-value content and why hits are hard 1:03:05 Differentiation as the foundation of a successful show 1:05:05 What television can teach podcasters about format innovation 1:06:22 Why creators compete for increasingly limited audience time 1:07:34 Short-form versus long-form content 1:08:22 Why people increasingly use AI to summarize long content 1:09:08 Joe Rogan, Acquired, and why long-form still succeeds 1:10:05 Gen Z will consume long content when it earns the time 1:11:01 Structured YouTube content versus podcast conversations 1:13:00 Final thoughts on the changing New Media landscape 1:14:00 Where to find The New Media Show Guest: Steven Goldstein, Founder and CEO, Amplifi Media Amplifi Media: https://www.amplifimedia.com About Steven Goldstein: https://www.amplifimedia.com/about Steven Goldstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-goldstein-a057b54 Amplifi Media on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplifi-media Steven Goldstein is founder and CEO of Amplifi Media and teaches The Business of Podcasting at NYU. His current work focuses heavily on the shift toward cross-platform audio, video, and social distribution, as well as what he describes as the Liquid Content Era. AMP Accords Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting: https://ampaccords.com The AMP Accords focus on three areas: standardizing impression metrics, developing cross-platform performance measurement, and creating a common industry definition of a podcast. Host, Rob Greenlee, and New Media Show Links New Media Show: https://newmediashow.com New Media Show on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@TheNewMediaShow New Media Show Audio on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-media-show-audio/id392545649 Rob Greenlee Website: https://robgreenlee.com Rob Greenlee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robgreenlee Rob Greenlee on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@RobGreenlee Podcast Hall of Fame: https://podcasthall.com AI Disclosure Note: AI tools were used to create a video and audio introduction clip, episode images, help organize and edit this episode and summarize its description, and create chapter markers from the completed Episode 680 transcript. The recorded conversation, human performances, guest perspectives, editorial direction, final review, and responsibility for the published content remain with actual humans Rob Greenlee and Steven Goldstein.The post Liquid Content Era Needs New Measurement | Steven Goldstein, Amplifi Media #680 first appeared on New Media Show.

In this episode, Stewart Alsop sits down with Mark Quadros, founder of GrowthOG and former link-building agency owner, for a wide-ranging conversation covering the state of Facebook ads and paid marketing, the decline of traditional SEO and backlink building in the age of AI, how Google and Cloudflare are jockeying for position as AI search reshapes the internet, and the messy economics of AI-generated video versus real footage (including Mark's work with Google Omni and Epidemic Sounds). They also get into monetization shifts across YouTube, Substack, and TikTok, the "reality disturbance" thesis behind Stewart's show with his father, and where video content and AI video ads are headed next. Find Mark Quadros on X @dherealmark and at his website, markxquadros.com.Timestamps00:00 Stewart welcomes Mark Quadros, discussing his shift from link building to GrowthOG and diving into Facebook ads and paid marketing.05:00 They explore AI psychosis and how AI-driven discovery is replacing traditional Google search behavior.10:00 Talk turns to bloated b2b ad budgets and why large companies struggle to adapt efficiently to AI.15:00 Mark shares his Bitcoin background, the "every company becomes a bank" theory, and his agency's slow decline.20:00 Deep dive into AEO, llms.txt, Cloudflare, and concerns over AI companies scraping the open internet.25:00 Conversation shifts to video, FFmpeg, open-source tools, and Mark's years living in Thailand.30:00 Mark recounts YouTube demonetization of AI content and pivoting back toward b2b clients.35:00 They unpack ghostwriting, ethical writing tensions, and how backlink value was really priced.40:00 Discussion of Google and YouTube killing old SEO playbooks, tied to shifting interest rates.45:00 Mark details pricing AI video ads, working with Google Omni and Epidemic Sounds, blending real footage with AI.50:00 Closing thoughts on the "reality disturbance" thesis and the value of human connection over AI.Key InsightsLink building is dying but not dead. Mark's SEO agency business peaked around 2022 working with brands like monday.com and HubSpot, but AI has steadily eroded the value of backlinks. There's still budget for links, just far less than during the gold rush years of 2018-2022.Big companies waste money because they can't track it. B2B companies spending $2-500M+ a year in revenue often can't account for where ad and vendor spend actually goes. Once a budget exists, it gets allocated regardless of efficiency, especially in large organizations too bureaucratic to figure out AI.AI is changing product discovery itself. Instead of searching Google and choosing from options, people now get AI recommendations directly, shifting the entire model of how consumers find products, which threatens the search-and-link economy that powered SEO for two decades.The open internet may be closing. Concerns about Anthropic, OpenAI, and China scraping content freely, including old books, have pushed creators like Stewart to restrict access to older podcast episodes. This marks a cultural shift away from the openness that defined the early internet era.AEO and llms.txt are the new frontier, and nobody fully understands them yet. Much like early SEO in 2001, there's a new discipline forming around how AI agents discover and read content, but no established playbook exists, leaving even experienced marketers uncertain.AI-generated video is a high-effort, low-margin trap. Mark found that fully AI-generated ads were nearly unprofitable given the time needed to get results right, while blending real human footage with AI-altered environments (using tools like Google Omni) produced better, faster, more believable results.YouTube's AI demonetization wave hit creators hard. As AI-generated content flooded YouTube, the platform cracked down broadly, devastating even legitimate animators and renderers. This pushed Mark to pivot away from consumer video tools back toward serving his existing B2B client base.

In today's uncertain environment, many clinics are reacting by cutting marketing, reducing spend, and slowing down growth. But the clinics that continue to grow are doing something very different. In this episode, we break down what's really happening in the market, why patients are hesitating, and how smart clinics are shifting their strategy to increase profits without relying on more traffic. Because the truth is: You don't have a traffic problem. You have a conversion and system problem. What You'll Learn Why patients are delaying decisions (even if they can afford treatment) The biggest mistake clinics make during uncertain times Why cutting marketing reduces future revenue The difference between defensive vs strategic decision-making How to increase revenue without increasing ad spend The “1 Case Rule” and how small improvements create massive impact Where clinics are losing bookings without realising it How to improve conversion across your entire patient journey Why follow-up, systems, and team confidence matter more than ever How authority positioning reduces hesitation and increases bookings Key Takeaways Patients are not disappearing — they are becoming more cautious Most clinics react by cutting, but high-performing clinics optimise Conversion matters more than volume in uncertain markets Small improvements in conversion can add significant revenue Existing patients are your most underutilised growth lever Systems, follow-up, and consistency drive predictable results Authority and positioning reduce patient hesitation Important Insight “Uncertainty doesn't remove opportunity — it reveals it.” Clinics that continue to grow are not lucky. They are simply more intentional with their strategy, systems, and positioning. Work With Us At Online Marketing for Doctors, we help clinics build: High-converting websites Structured SEO and AEO strategies 24/7 AI agent & human call centre to support sales conversion  Scalable patient acquisition systems via Pay Per Click advertising If you want to position your clinic at the top, not just blend in, get in touch with our team. Key Links Mentioned

Benjamin Behrooz has built a family of branding agencies, Branding Los Angeles, Branding Aloha, Branding Texas, Branding Miami, and Branding New York, on one simple idea: nobody buys from a business they don't trust, and nobody trusts a business they can't find. In this episode Roy and Ben dig into the collision of branding, SEO, and AEO (answer engine optimization), and why construction companies, plumbers, electricians, and other blue collar trades are some of the best proof of concept for it. Ben explains why his agency now spans five markets across the US, why he believes skilled tradespeople are the next generation of millionaires as AI reshapes the job market, and how his team helps businesses become the answer AI actually recommends when someone searches for a licensed, bonded, weekend-available plumber. The conversation covers pricing models for marketing services, why "own your website, own your phone number" matters more than ever, the red flag of a client who's burned through four marketing companies in a year, and Ben's blunt take on why letting a machine fly the plane without a human at the controls is a recipe for disaster.   ⏱️ TIMESTAMP 0:02 - Welcome to the Podfather Podcast, intro to Benjamin Behrooz 1:03 - Why five branding agencies across five markets 2:25 - Franchise, partnership, or location-based SEO model 4:16 - Working with coaches and the 50/30/20 split of marketing, psychology, and coaching 5:12 - Why blue collar trades are the next generation of millionaires 10:13 - How AI now asks buyers seven to ten questions before a business is even found 11:27 - Pricing models: leads vs. management fees, and owning your website and phone number 18:48 - The red flag of a client who has hired four marketing companies in the past year 21:00 - Why Ben turns ads off once a client is fully booked 23:16 - ChatGPT's partnership with Yelp and how AI search is shifting in real time 24:12 - Working with life coaches, business coaches, and wellness brands 26:08 - Believing in yourself and showing up, Ben's core philosophy 29:21 - Blogs, video, and figuring out where AI actually recommends you 32:15 - AI hallucinations and why you need a human mind behind the machine 32:54 - The five-market vision and what's next: Texas, New York, and family life 35:25 - Where to find Benjamin and how he gives back to the community   About Benjamin Behrooz Ben Behrooz is the Founder and CEO of Branding Los Angeles, Branding Aloha, Branding Texas, Branding Miami, and Branding New York, where he helps businesses grow through strategic branding, SEO, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), public relations, and digital marketing systems designed to deliver measurable results. His work focuses on helping businesses move beyond visibility alone to build lasting authority, generate qualified leads, and drive long-term revenue. He has extensive experience across legal, medical, dental, construction, home services, hospitality, and professional services, where traditional marketing often falls short. Links Benjamin Website: https://www.brandinglosangeles.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrandingLosAngeles Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/BrandLosAngeles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandinglosangeles/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/branding-los-angeles/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Qp_sQJMt1NnRoR8EiDMVw   Roy Website: https://roycoughlan.com/ Virtual Assistants: https://va.world/ Private Networking Group (Connected Leaders Academy, 45+ Countries, 685+ Members): https://connectedleaders.academy Brain Upgrade: https://brainupgrade.org/ Podfather Network: podfather.me   #PodfatherPodcast #BenjaminBehrooz #BrandingLosAngeles #BrandingAloha #Branding #SEO #AEO #AnswerEngineOptimization #DigitalMarketing #BlueCollarBusiness #ConstructionMarketing #SmallBusinessGrowth #MarketingStrategy #LeadGeneration #AIMarketing #BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneurship #PodFatherNetwork #RoyCoughlan #MarketingPodcast #TradesBusiness #HomeServiceMarketing #NoAgentList

Vanitha is a marketing professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Director of their Center for Branding, and author of Hyper Digital Marketing: Six Pillars of Strategic Brand Marketing in an AI-Powered World. Her client roster includes Hershey, Kraft Heinz, and P&G — brands that don't tolerate bad advice.In this episode, she explains why the old "command and control" era of brand management is over, what generative engine optimization (GEO) means for your go-to-market strategy right now, and why the most strategic thing you can do for your brand today might be making your purpose machine-readable. If you're still building a brand for humans only, you're already behind.Key Takeaways4:41 — The death of command and control branding. Brand meaning is no longer dictated from the top down. It's co-created by influencers, social users, experts — and now AI agents. Governance has to evolve.6:10 — GEO & AEO replace SEO. Generative Engine Optimization and Answer Engine Optimization are the new disciplines. Brand managers must now optimize for AI agents, not just human search.6:52 — Agent-to-agent commerce is coming. A customer's AI agent will negotiate with a seller's AI agent. The "double agent problem" is not hypothetical — it's the near future of B2C and B2B commerce.8:46 — Phygital is a strategic imperative. Physical and digital experiences are merging. AI-powered dynamic shelves, Gucci's tech-integrated showrooms, and real-time personalization are the new baseline customer expectation.10:07 — AI as a brand governance layer. AI can monitor every touchpoint and enforce brand compliance at scale — something no human team can do. It can also catch PR crises before they escalate.13:55 — Brand intelligence: three AI capabilities every founder needs. Predictive analytics (lead generation), generative AI (content at scale), and ethical AI (aligning purpose with every touchpoint) — each with a different role in the customer journey.16:05 — The uncanny valley of personalization. Empathetic AI can read emotional state and adjust messaging — but cross the line and customers feel surveilled. Personalization has to be "just right" or it backfires.19:20 — Startups have a structural advantage over legacy brands. Legacy companies are paralyzed by hierarchies and permission layers. Founders building from scratch can design AI-native workflows from day one.21:37 — Future-proof move: invest in data quality now. A unified, 360-degree view of customer data is the foundation for every AI capability. Without it, your AI tools have nothing to work with.22:47 — Purpose + Platform: the two most critical pillars. Purpose must become machine-readable. Platform thinking turns a product into an ecosystem. These two shifts separate brands that AI agents surface from those they ignore.26:44 — Brand as API. Codify your values into machine-readable rules. Program your AI agents to optimize for what you actually stand for — or they'll optimize for something else entirely.29:54 — Start from the experience, not the tools. The biggest mistake founders make: buying AI tools and hoping they add up to something. Work backwards from the customer's pain point, then slot in the right AI capability.37:39 — Highest-leverage AI moves in the next 60–90 days. Lead generation, predictive analytics for lifetime value modeling, and personalized content at scale — these are the three areas most founders are underleveraging right now.Tweetable Quotes"Brand meaning is no longer dictated from the top down. It's assembled by algorithms, co-created by communities, and negotiated between machines before a human is ever involved." — Dr. Vanitha Swaminathan"Your next customer's AI is already looking. The question is whether it can find you." — Jeff Mains"Taking your brand purpose and converting it into machine-readable code — that's what it means to be visible in an AI-powered world." — Dr. Vanitha Swaminathan"Peloton could have just sold treadmills. Every brand needs to ask: are we a product, or are we a platform?" — Dr. Vanitha Swaminathan"The small entrepreneur has a huge advantage. They're building systems from scratch — legacy organizations are caught with hierarchies that AI can't penetrate." — Dr. Vanitha Swaminathan"Purpose isn't a brand value anymore. It's infrastructure." — Jeff Mains"Start from the experience, work back to the tools — not the other way around." — Dr. Vanitha Swaminathan"You have to put checks and balances in place just like companies built privacy policies after the first cybersecurity wave. That's where brand management is headed." — Dr. Vanitha SwaminathanSaaS Leadership Lessons1. Your brand needs to be legible to machines, not just humans. AI agents are the new gatekeepers between your product and your buyers. If your differentiation, purpose, and proof points aren't structured in a way machines can parse, you won't make the shortlist — even if you're the best solution. Audit your website and content through the lens of an AI agent, not just a human reader.2. Stop buying tools. Start redesigning processes. Most companies pour money into AI tools that live in isolation and never add up to a better customer experience. The highest-ROI move is mapping your customer journey, identifying the friction points, and then selecting AI capabilities to solve specific problems. Tools follow process — not the other way around.3. Your data is your competitive moat. AI is only as good as what you feed it. Founders who invest early in unified, high-quality customer data — breaking down internal silos and creating a 360-degree view — will compound that advantage over time. Your competitors buying tools without clean data are spinning their wheels.4. Codify your values or your AI will invent them. If you don't tell your AI agents what to optimize for, they'll optimize for something — and it might not align with your brand. Translate your purpose, values, and brand standards into machine-readable rules. Think of your brand as an API: clear inputs, predictable outputs, consistent behavior at every touchpoint.5. The human-AI mix is your new product design challenge. The question isn't whether to use AI in customer-facing functions — it's where the handoff happens. Too much AI and you feel sterile. Too little and you can't scale. The founders who win will design deliberate human-in-the-loop moments that create trust and preserve the brand experience where it matters most.6. Think platform, not product. Every SaaS company is already closer to a platform than a product — you have data, users, and network effects working for you. Lean into it. Build the ecosystem around your core offering. Nike isn't a shoe company; Peloton isn't a treadmill company. Ask what yours is really for, and build accordingly.Guest Resourcesvanitha@katz.pitt.eduhttps://business.pitt.edu/professors/vanitha-swaminathan/https://www.facebook.com/PittBusinessSchool/photos/vanitha-swaminathan-thomas-marshall-professor-of-marketing-and-director-of-the-c/10158297436008280/https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanitha-swaminathan-5924896https://www.instagram.com/vanitha_swaminathanEpisode SponsorThe Futureproof Series - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfkXKUPZ5xuOqMPR7_gzGybncTtavyR1NThe Captain's KeysSmall Fish, Big Pond – https://smallfishbigpond.com/ Use the promo code ‘SaaSFuel'Champion Leadership Group – https://championleadership.com/https://jeffmains.com/books/SaaS Fuel ResourcesWebsite - https://championleadership.com/Jeff Mains on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkmains/Twitter - https://twitter.com/jeffkmainsFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/thesaasguy/Instagram - https://instagram.com/jeffkmains

Your customers aren't just using Google to find you anymore. They are now search on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, as well as on AI. Because of this, you can no longer rely on traditional SEO alone for brand visibility. In this episode, Emma breaks down how search behavior has changed and what that means for your content strategy. You'll learn the difference between SEO, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), as well as how social media has become one of your brand's most valuable search assets, and how AI determines which businesses it recommends. If you've been creating content just for entertainment or today's algorithm, this episode will challenge you to think bigger. Join Emma as she covers practical ways to optimize your content so it continues working long after you hit publish.   Listen in as Emma explains: Why AI and social media are replacing traditional search behavior The difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO  How to keep your content discoverable long after publishing   And much, much more!  

Bec Darley, CMO of Vodafone Australia, joins us to discuss what it really takes to grow a challenger brand in one of the world's toughest telecoms markets.From competing against an entrenched duopoly to building distinctive campaigns with Ali Wong, Bec shares how Vodafone has embraced its challenger mindset rather than trying to imitate the market leaders. We explore why marketers need to understand far more than advertising, from unit economics and legal to customer experience and organisational change, and why the best marketing leaders are, ultimately, business leaders.Timestamps00:00 - Start00:54 - Who is Bec Darley?03:31 - Taking on roles beyond marketing to make you a better marketer05:38 - Why the history of duopolies in Australia makes being a challenger tough08:53 - How does Vodafone take on the giants as a challenger12:55 - Leaning into your disadvantage16:01 - Vodafone's commercials with Ali Wong18:37 - The importance of legal for marketing21:08 - When taking risks backfires - getting banned24:19 - Focusing on mental availability26:40 - Are we losing the ability to be creative while hunting efficiency29:28 - Understanding the unit economics of the business34:28 - How to manage a portfolio of brands36:18 - Why you need to be customer first38:51 - The best marketers move beyond marketing40:24 - How to make change in a company43:46 - Embracing discomfort and failing fast46:23 - Bec's advice to all young marketers ---Thank you to our sponsors System1 and HubSpotDownload System1's creator effectiveness report here:https://system1group.com/the-creator-effectiveness-playbookFind about more about HubSpot's AEO product here:https://www.hubspot.com/products/aeo

AI search optimization is rewriting how buyers find businesses, and SEO alone no longer gets you in the answer. Callum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice, joins David Hill to unpack the difference between SEO, GEO, and AEO — and what it takes to get recommended by ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Most people think AI killed SEO. It didn't. SEO became the infrastructure layer underneath a much bigger system, and the businesses figuring that out right now are getting a first-mover advantage in a $750 billion market. Three things you'll take away: Why SEO didn't die — it became the foundation AI search is built on How reviews, content, and reputation drive whether an AI names your business The first-mover window that's open right now, and what to do inside it Small brands are already outranking household names like Argos and IKEA in AI recommendations. Callum explains how — and what you can do this week without a multi-year timeline or a seven-figure budget. CONNECT WITH CALLUM KENNARD ClickSlice: https://www.clickslice.co.uk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/callum-kennard/ GET 14 DAY GO HIGH LEVEL TRIAL https://www.gohighlevel.com/?fp_ref=david-i-hill-training25 CONNECT WITH DAVID Website: https://www.davidihill.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidihill/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidihill Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidihill X: https://twitter.com/davidihill TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@davidihill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidHillcoach SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-persistent-entrepreneur/id1081069895 #SalesTraining #AISearchOptimization #PathToSalesMastery #DavidIHill #ThePersistentEntrepreneur #PersistentEntrepreneurPodcast #SalesLeadership #lessonsfromthemat

Danny Kirk, founder of ReddiReach, shares insights on how Reddit and AI search optimization can boost brand visibility and influence search engine rankings. Discover practical strategies for leveraging Reddit data, understanding AI filtering, and preparing your brand for the future of AI-driven search and commerce. https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielpkirk/key topicsReddit as a data source for AI and searchStrategies for brand engagement on RedditImpact of AI filtering and content qualityFuture trends in AI search and e-commercePractical steps for SEO and brand visibilityChapters00:00Introduction to Danny Kirk and ReddiReach01:53The Power of Reddit in AI Search Optimization09:25Strategies for Brands on Reddit13:56Navigating Local SEO and E-commerce Challenges18:24Future Trends in AI and E-commerce

A reader told me my AI-assisted essay didn't sound like me anymore. That critique kicked off a week where reputation and AI collided in public three times: Substack's new Pangram "human-detection" scan, LinkedIn's AI-slop report button, and the backlash over an influencer's OpenAI brand trip. Each one exposes the terms platforms are quietly setting for anyone with a public body of work. This episode is me working out how to stay visible without giving up my own ground. Pillars: Trust · Visibility · Identity · Communication What's covered A critique that stuck (00:00–03:00) A reader told me my AI-assisted essay had lost my voice — that it sounded more like Claude than like me. I disagreed. But the position got harder to defend once I separated two questions: can I write, and why am I experimenting at all. Where AI actually fits my work (03:00–04:00) Useful for SEO, AEO, and discoverability. The trainer material — takeaways, reflection questions, anything designed to teach rather than model — is mine to write. That part was never up for experiment. Substack + Pangram (03:52–05:41) Substack now scans posts and rates them human, AI-assisted, or AI-written. My read: unreliable like every detector, and easy to game, since anything under 100 words, audio, video, or paywalled content can't be scanned at all. So who benefits? Substack gets a PR win. Pangram gets a funding-round talking point. Writers get scanned. My response: I'm moving my experimentation behind the paywall. LinkedIn's AI-slop button (05:57–07:12) No test, no proof, just crowd-sourced suspicion anyone can act on. Any anonymous reporting system carries the same abuse potential, and we already know where that lands: ageism, misogyny, racism. Thought leader vs. influencer, and the OpenAI brand trip (07:12–10:54) A creator I follow — she wouldn't call herself an influencer, but she functions as one — took an unpaid OpenAI brand trip and posted about it while running a bath. The comments tore her apart over data-center water use. Her defense was "I didn't know this would be controversial." That's a research failure, and for someone whose credibility rests on thinking things through, it's a costly one. Trust, reputation, and PR strategy (10:54–12:27) Getting torn apart in the comments isn't the answer either. I think we're capable of civil disagreement on both sides. But if you're a public persona doing brand deals, you need a real strategy: know your stuff, own it, explain it, and make sure the deal's values match yours. Platform incentives (12:34–15:00) LinkedIn's new multi-collaborator post feature runs on the same engagement logic under a friendlier name. More talking helps the platform at least as much as it helps you. And this goes past creators — if you're an employee, your public presence is also your resume. Reflection questions Is it actually worthwhile to take the risk of experimenting publicly with AI? What does a platform gain by having users rate each other as "less than human"? Who does that serve? Am I experimenting with this tool because it's genuinely useful, or just because it's there? Whose credibility is most at risk when anonymous, crowd-sourced flagging gets abused? Where's the line between thought leadership and influence, and does that line change how I'm judged? What is it about a voice I don't fully agree with that still works? What can I learn from that discomfort? Before taking a partnership or brand deal, have I actually researched who I'd be standing next to? Do public missteps deserve public dismantling, or is there a more civil way to hold the same concerns? How do I present myself in a way that builds trust and protects my reputation without getting defensive? Would I want my name permanently tied to this company or platform, in this form, five years from now? Am I transparent about how I'm using AI? Does that use actually serve me, my work, and my relationships? What future is this choice building toward, not just what does it do for me right now? How do I stay visible in a way that still feels ethical to me? A note on process: these show notes are pulled from my own transcript, not generated from a prompt. AI did the structuring and compression; the words are mine. Same distinction I draw in the episode: extraction and discoverability work, not voice work. It's not safe to be experimental for free anymore. I'll still be on LinkedIn, and the longer essays will still land on Substack — but the experiments are moving behind the paywall. If you want to watch the process, that's where it lives now.

Executive Summary On this episode of Adventures in Legal Tech, Jared Correia talks with Phillip Greer, CEO of Best Lawyers, about how AI is rewriting the rules of legal search and firm operations. Greer breaks down the real differences between SEO, AEO, and GEO, then explains how he turned his own company into a shop full of vibe coders. It's a practical look at getting found online and getting comfortable with AI at the same time. Key Takeaways SEO isn't dead. It's the foundation that feeds AEO and GEO, the practices that get law firms found inside AI search tools and chatbots. Quality, well-structured content and citations from reputable third-party sites matter more than backlink farming ever did. Legal consumers across every generation are shifting from typed search terms to conversations with AI tools, often without realizing it. Building an AI-literate firm starts with a safe, governed environment where non-technical staff can experiment without touching client data. Start small. Pick something fun, not a client matter, to learn how an AI tool handles data before you roll anything out firmwide. Links and Resources Red Cave Law Firm Consulting: redcavelegal.com Best Lawyers: bestlawyers.com Keywords AEO, GEO, AI search optimization, legal SEO, AI Overview, ChatGPT for lawyers, shadow AI, vibe coding, AI-literate law firm, Best Lawyers, legal directory marketing, law firm content strategy, AI governance, legal tech podcast, Jared Correia, Phillip Greer, structured data for lawyers, AI search engines, law firm AI adoption, legal marketing strategy Episode Highlights [00:02:29 - 00:04:31] Greer lays out his top SEO pitch: keep doing SEO, treat it as the foundation feeding AIO. [00:04:56 - 00:08:38] Greer defines SEO, AEO, and GEO and explains why all three belong in a firm's strategy. [00:09:32 - 00:11:59] Greer traces shadow AI from a guilty secret to standard practice at nearly every firm. [00:12:56 - 00:16:39] Greer argues authenticity beats generic AI-written content and backlink farming for standing out. [00:27:48 - 00:32:20] Greer describes building the Best Lawyers internal app store that turned employees into vibe coders. [00:32:48 - 00:36:13] Greer explains how he handled data governance and change fears before rolling AI out company-wide. [00:36:20 - 00:39:08] Greer's advice: start vibe coding with something fun and low-stakes before touching firm data.

#378 | Dave sits down with Ethan Clouser, Head of Marketing at Bland AI, to talk about running marketing at a 22-year-old-founded, enterprise voice AI company that just raised $100 million - at 22 years old himself. Ethan breaks down Bland's early viral bets like the "Still Hiring Humans?" billboard, why they bought Soulja Boy's voice rights for an AI phone campaign, and how a giant red telephone car became one of their best marketing investments. Not to mention, Bland AI's marketing team built its entire website with Claude Code - coded by a guy who'd never written a line of code before. They also get into Bland's daily stand-up and KPI system, why "Voice AI for regulated industries" works as a homepage headline, and how to stand out when 200 competitors are all saying the same thing. Timestamps (00:00) - - Intro to Ethan Clouser, Head of Marketing at Bland AI (02:26) - - The failed no-code startup that accidentally turned Ethan into a marketer (06:14) - - Cold LinkedIn outreach and how Ethan landed the head of marketing job (09:09) - - The "Still Hiring Humans?" billboard bet that built Bland's early brand (13:46) - - Filling the marketing gaps Bland was missing: SEO, AEO, and reputation (17:56) - - Why "Voice AI for regulated industries" works as a homepage headline (20:34) - - Vibe-coding Bland's entire website with Claude Code (23:42) - - Bland's daily marketing stand-up and how KPIs decide which bets get made (31:29) - - Buying Soulja Boy's voice rights for an AI phone campaign (40:05) - - Standing out in a market crowded with 200 voice AI competitors (43:34) - - Why marketing, sales, and product alignment matters more than sales-marketing alignment Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn how to build an ABM program that scales at vector.co/exitfive.Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.Walker Sands - An integrated B2B marketing and growth services agency that helps marketing leaders turn strategy into measurable business impact through their Outcome-based Marketing model. Learn more at walkersands.com/exitfive.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

"Send us a message!"The best conversations aren't planned.For this episode, we filled a bowl with random salon and business topics, took turns drawing them out, and challenged ourselves to answer each one in just a few minutes.From difficult clients and Google reviews to commission, hiring, social media, core values, AEO, expansion, cancellation policies, and client expectations, you'll hear our honest thoughts without a script.Some topics could have been entire episodes. Others were quick takes. But together they paint a pretty clear picture of how we think about building a salon business.The Big Idea: Great businesses aren't built by having all the answers. They're built by consistently thinking through the right questions.Key TakeawaysDifficult clients don't always belong in your business.Core values should guide every major decision. Expansion should happen only after you've maximized your current business. Amenities rarely differentiate your salon. Social media should solve client problems—not just showcase hair. Standards protect both your clients and your culture. Commission is a business model, not a recruiting strategy. Hiring systems matter more than hiring quickly. Business owners should spend time on work that only they can do.Time Stamps00:00 — Opening takes: negativity & owner responsibilities04:00 — Difficult clients & team meetings07:00 — Hustle culture & core values11:00 — Expansion & Google reviews15:00 — Standards & commission salons21:00 — Amenities & social media28:00 — Cancellation policies & client expectations34:00 — AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)37:00 — Hiring systems that actually workReflection: Which topic challenged your thinking the most?More importantly... which one are you actually going to act on this week?Your business should serve you, so that you can serve others.And sometimes the biggest breakthroughs don't come from finding new answers—they come from asking better questions.Links and Stuff:Our Newsletter Mentoring InquiriesFind more of our things:InstagramHello Hair Pro Website

This week on the Brand Shorthand podcast, Mark is joined by the agency's media and digital marketing managers, Alyssa Laubacher and Lauren Leroux, to discuss marketing strategies for AEO, SEO, and GEO. Tune in to learn more about what these terms mean, how search has evolved, how to incorporate AEO, SEO, and GEO strategies to improve search visibility, and common mistakes to avoid when implementing these strategies. Join Mark, Alyssa, and Lauren for 30-ish as they discuss all things marketing, advertising, and of course … positioning.

If AI does not understand what you do, who you do it for, and the value you bring, it cannot recommend you. And if it cannot recommend you, you are invisible. Loralyn Mears, PhD, is the founder of STEERus and the author of Misinterpreted, a book about the hidden risk making brands and leaders invisible in the age of AI. Her career spans genetically engineering mosquitoes to fight malaria, the dot-com era in Silicon Valley, leadership roles at Fortune 100 companies, and more startups than she can count. The through line: taking complex concepts and making them simple enough to act on. In this episode, Loralyn breaks down why the game has changed from Google search to AI search, and what brands need to do right now to be understood, recommended, and chosen. What We Cover: Why the average American communicates at a fourth-grade reading level and what that means for your messaging The Microsoft study showing we get distracted 187 times per day The UDA framework: Understand, Decide, Act, and why buyers get trapped in the zone of chaos and confusion Why "invisible brands don't make money" in the age of AI search SEO vs. AEO vs. GEO: what each one actually does Signal distortion: the next evolution beyond generative engine optimization Why AI search interprets what it thinks you want while Google search just finds words Why pivots, rebrands, and category creators confuse AI the most The role of reviews, Google Business Profile, and third party validation in AI visibility Clarity, consistency, context, evidence, trust, and restraint as the pillars of being understood How to test, optimize, and scale your brand's interpretation over time Connect with Loralyn Mears: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loralynmears/ Podcast: Small Business Stories

Noah Hopton, CEO and Founder of Finvisor, helps startups and growing businesses simplify operations by building integrated back-office teams that combine accounting, finance, payroll, HR, insurance, and technology. By combining experienced financial professionals with modern technology, Noah enables businesses to streamline operations, stay compliant, and focus on sustainable growth.  In this conversation, Noah introduces The Adjacent Extension Framework—Earn the Trust, Build the Relationship, Listen for Other Problems, Connect Other Specialists, and Empower the Team with Tech. He explains why proactive service creates lasting client relationships, how solving adjacent business challenges leads to sustainable growth, and why integrated back-office teams outperform disconnected vendors. Noah also shares how AI is reshaping finance operations by automating repetitive work, empowering finance professionals to focus on strategic decision-making, and helping businesses leverage technology to enhance—not replace—human expertise. — How to Outsource Your Back Office with Noah Hopton  Good day, listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Noah Hopton, the CEO and Founder of Finvisor, helping seed and Series A companies that have outgrown spreadsheets and part-time bookkeepers but aren’t ready for a full-time finance team yet. Their job is to give you the financial clarity to make good decisions at every stage of growth. Noah, welcome to the show.  Yeah. Pleasure to be here, Steve.  Well, great to have you here, and I’m very curious about your career and your business and what you built here. I’m particularly curious about your personal ‘Why’ and how you manifest it in your business.  Personal ‘Why.’ That’s great. Well, I’ll be honest, I didn’t go in thinking I was going to be an accountant or run an accounting firm. You know, I studied accounting in school. Eventually, I thought I was going to probably be more in a kind of front-of-house sales relationship because I enjoyed the people part—making relationships and meeting people.  But I was very fortunate that I found the consulting, fractional CFO world, where I got to discover a love of problem-solving, creating relationships, and creating value for clients. For me, it was kind of this love of helping clients understand their business, helping clients understand what to think about around the corner, where it's not just being in-house with one set of books that you're closing.Share on X  When you’re at Finvisor, my day-to-day, at least when I started, was probably working with 10 to 12 clients a month and helping them understand, “Okay, how did they perform last month? Can they hire a certain number of people? And what’s the plan going forward?”  Yeah, I mean, that’s super helpful. I started life in accounting as well with KPMG, and what attracted me was to essentially have that language of business so that I would be able to understand how a business works and have this confidence of not flying blind, right? That’s really, really cool. So how did you evolve from a CFO into a founder? What was the trigger point for you?  So I was very fortunate. I actually was at a prior firm at one point when I started my career, and they were a little bit like the cobbler with bad shoes, where eventually they decided they had to close shop, and clients were going to be given notice. I, myself, was given notice saying, “Hey, in a week, you’re not going to have a job, Noah.” And so I was really given this moment in life, saying, “Hey, if I enjoy what I’ve been doing, do I think I could do it better than the firm I’d been at?  And do I want to make this leap into being a founder and starting a business?” And so my co-founder and I both talked to each other and said, “Look, we love our clients. We love what we’ve been trying to build. I think we just need to do a little bit of a refresh and restructuring of how this operates.” And so we started our own company. I was very lucky that I started with about, I had about 30 clients and a team of four on day one, which I think is unusual.  Most people in the accounting space start off as a one-person shop, trying to grow from one to two, and having to double their clients or double their size to get there. We were fortunate to have five team members and 30 clients on day one. Originally, our vision was just, “Hey, let’s help with the fractional CFO and the bookkeeping,” but that really evolved over time as we added additional services and really understood where our clients were having problems in their back office.  What are the areas where maybe the insurance brokers they’d been working with weren’t very hands-on and kind of came in once a year? Our clients were asking us, as their CFO, “Hey, can you help us select our health insurance?” And we’re like, “Well, we’re kind of doing the broker’s job. Why don’t we build out our own team?” So that was one of the first verticals we moved into and added by building an insurance brokerage. From there, we kept building, where now not only do you have your CFO and accountant helping you, but you also have them with the ability to go out to market, help you compare quotes, and help get your insurance in place. So you’re essentially expanding the array of virtual services that you’re providing, or fractional services that you’re providing, to your clients?  Correct. Yeah. We really try to own the full back office end to end because I think a lot of people deal with, “Okay, great, I have a bookkeeper, I have a tax accountant, I have an R&D tax provider,” and they’re dealing with four or five different vendors that don’t really communicate. The client is the person playing telephone between the two, and we’re like, “Wait, stop. Why is this the solution?” We should just build a different business where it’s all under the Finvisor umbrella.  It’s all full-time team members who are actually working together on behalf of the client, even if fractionally. Some of our clients only need five hours of a payroll specialist, but they need someone to own that role, and they need that person to be able to talk to their sales tax team because it’s like, “Oh, we hired someone in a new state. Is sales tax applicable there?” And connect those dots because, when you have these disconnected providers, you have a lot of things that can drop because they’re not in people’s field of view.  Yeah, I mean, it’s a great service. If you can get a competent team that will take care of your back office, then you can focus on figuring out message-market fit and then essentially scaling revenue. You don’t have to worry about it, and you don’t have to babysit inexperienced people that maybe you can afford to hire, but who would not be able to own the job.  Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s kind of the, “Do you want to…” You know, I think at least when we started in 2014, there was more of a generalist bookkeeper. That’s kind of the typical solution people went with. Nothing against that, but it’s kind of nice to have dedicated specialists in the different back-office areas that you need. I mean, bookkeepers are great.  They’re usually not your best payroll and HR people. They’re not thinking about California final-paycheck laws, or whether you need to offer a 401(k) if you hire someone in California. Whereas, if you have someone whose entire job is payroll and HR, and you need Finvisor to help run your payroll, they’re going to be thinking about those edge cases and helping you along so that you can just build your business, get to the next milestone, and not worry about tripping yourself up because of compliance, taxes, or a lack of visibility in your reporting. Yeah, that’s great peace of mind. So this podcast is about frameworks, and I wonder, what is your framework? How do you help your clients, or how do you figure things out? What have you developed? We’re about 400 frameworks in, so I’m looking for something unique that helps you and is easy to explain—three to five steps maximum.  Yeah. I mean, one of the ones that comes to mind for us is what we’ve really called the Adjacent Extension Framework. So, first, do really good work and earn your client's trust in one area. Makes it easy for them to approach you.Share on X For us, it’s historically been accounting. People think, “Great, get my books put together.” But for us, it’s really about creating a relationship and earning the client’s trust.  Then, as step two, listen for the other problems they’re having. What are the adjacent problems they’re asking you to solve? And then for us, what we’ve really done is double down in those other areas by building specialists in those verticals. Once you’ve earned the client’s trust, if you’re doing their accounting and all of a sudden they’re struggling with invoicing or collections, you can say, “Hey, we can also help you with accounts receivable and collection efforts because we see your AR balance increasing on your financial statements.” At that point, they’re already thinking, “Great, I like working with this person.  Let’s give their team a try and help us solve another problem.” So, for us, it’s really been about finding those adjacent problems, building a team that specializes in them, and then connecting the client with the right expert. The last piece that’s really coming to market now is using technology to empower the team. Historically, a lot of our value came from having experts who could handle the edge cases or the gray areas between payroll, accounting, taxes, and sales tax. Now, with technology, you can also build the data infrastructure to highlight what’s happening for the client while helping guide the team as they manage those clients.  Love it. So what I’m hearing is, number one—or maybe even number zero—is do a great job, right?  The trust.  Okay. So that’s maybe another way of saying it: earn the trust. But is doing a good job enough to earn that trust, or is there more to it?  I mean, I think in any service business, you want to be proactive. A lot of bookkeepers, accountants, and even legal professionals are usually waiting for the client to ask a question before providing an answer. I think the goal should be to think ahead for the client and proactively provide guidance. That came naturally for us because we sit in the fractional CFO seat.Share on X  But even if you’re just doing bookkeeping, you can still catch these things for clients and help them out. Or if you’re selling P&C insurance and helping clients with their general liability coverage, you can think about what other types of coverage they may need. So I’d say the more proactive you can be, the better. The other thing is meeting clients where they already are.  For us, a lot of our clients are on Slack, so we connect with them on Slack. We chat with them as if we were full-time employees because we don’t want the experience to feel different. We don’t want you to feel like you’re emailing a generic support inbox and not knowing when someone is going to get back to you. If you only need fractional-level support, it shouldn’t feel like you’re getting fractional value or a fractional level of communication.  I love it. So you actually own the function inside the organization, so it feels like you’re part of the team, or your people are part of their team. So that builds the trust. So, do a great job, or earn the trust, number one. Number two, build the relationship. Number three, listen to other problems that they might have. Number four, connect them to other specialists. And number five, empower the team with technology.  Yeah. That’s a lot of it. I mean, as an advisor, we’ve grown… I mean, 60% of our growth comes from client referrals. So I think you know you’re doing something right if clients are recommending you to their friends and network. And so hopefully, if someone’s listening to this and you’re not getting referrals, you should be thinking about, “How do we either create more trust for our clients to be referring us, or how do we become more top of mind when clients are having these conversations?”  That’s great. So 60% of your growth comes from referrals. What’s the other 40%? How do you drive growth? What drives growth for you? What’s the other way to drive growth besides referrals?  Yeah. I mean, I think it’s also being connected with the ecosystem that you’re in. In our space, there are a lot of technology partners. Think about Xero, which is an accounting software, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, payroll software like Rippling, Bill.com. They all have accounting partnerships, and the more you can build with them and grow your team alongside them, clients will reach out to them and say, “Hey, do you have someone who can help us set up Bill.com or help us set up Rippling?  We don’t have a payroll team to do our state tax registrations.” So we’ve seen a lot of good momentum as our software partners start sending us clients to help us grow. I think the other area is trying to figure out where you can have partnerships that will do introductions. We’ve been very fortunate in partnering with a number of VCs. Obviously, the VCs have worked with us because we’re on the board, or we had a mutual client. A lot of them will start to build partnership channels, and it’s a great opportunity.  They’ll say, “We just invested in this company, and you should go talk to Noah’s team to help with your accounting or your fractional CFO.” So it’s really about finding those tangential operators or entities that complement whatever you’re doing.  So are these primarily personal relationships that need to scale, or do you have a way to scale this across other people in your organization—this ability to develop partners? Or is it mainly you?  It depends on the role. A lot of our fractional CFOs on the team continue to build relationships. I would say probably 40% of our new clients come through a channel that’s not through me. There’ll be other people on our team who have built relationships with another VC or another software company. I think one of the key things we’ve always focused on is hiring people who are very, I would say “doers” might be the wrong word, but people who can self-manage and be project managers.  If you find the right people who can take a step back and look at the bigger picture, I mean, sometimes people come to Finvisor and they don’t realize that we ourselves are a business. Yes, you’re doing accounting like you were in-house and getting the books closed, but if you do good work and you realize clients are having problems, you have to think, “Hey, how can I help clients more and also help Finvisor create a win-win?” A lot of times, when we’re hiring, we’re trying to find people who have that type of drive to continue building and helping us internally, and not just do one part of the puzzle they’re responsible for. That might not be the most direct answer, but I would say a lot of it is hiring—making sure it's not just me leading the growth, but me building a team that can help lead the growth outside of just me.Share on X  Yeah. So how do you share the context so that your team members can connect the dots as well as you can? What’s your approach to that?  There’s a couple of ways we’ve done it. One way is we use a note-taker that then feeds into our CRM. For all client communication, whether they meet with us on Zoom or Google Meet, the transcripts are put into a centralized hub for us. It also connects to our CRM in terms of what we’re doing for the clients. At any point in time, someone can ask, “Hey, what’s going on with this client?” They can understand, “Great, this is what the payroll team talked to them about this week.  This is what the CFO team talked to them about last month. These are the problems they’ve been bringing up.” So we can capture that information without it having to be provided orally every single time, and without having to rely on a chat or an email to the team. There are some moments when it’s useful to give the team a larger update, but in general, it’s good to figure out a way to capture the essence of what you’re doing for your clients so that the team can then, in an AI chat-specific way, talk through, “Hey, great, what’s going on with this client? What are their needs? What has changed in the last six months? Who’s working on the client?”  I’ll have a VC that we’re talking to say, “Oh, we’re looking to invest in the CPG space and this type of vertical. Do you have any clients?” We’re at a point now where I don’t know every client. I usually have an idea about most clients, but there are definitely clients where I don’t know everything that’s happened in the last six months because I don’t talk to all 200 clients.  But I can go to our central hub to gain that information and understand, “Okay, great, which client is looking to fundraise and might want to be connected to this VC?” It’s a nice way to connect the dots. They’re looking to invest. The client is looking to raise. We also do brown-bag sessions. We’re a distributed team, so I think you have to be a little more intentional about how you educate the team. We’ll have weekly meetings where we walk through new technology, new changes in what we’re offering, new positioning, and continue educating the team in a more structured format.  The other thing we’ve done to help the team understand what’s going on is to make information as accessible as possible, similar to how we communicate with clients. So the team doesn’t have to log in to a pretty outdated CRM to pull information on a client. It’s either available directly in the Slack conversation or in a more modern tool like Notion, where you can easily search and find the information you want. So basically, you’re managing and harvesting your data and using that to feed people information about how they can develop partnerships. Is that what I’m hearing?  Yeah. And I think a lot of it is also figuring out which playbooks and processes are repeatable, documenting them better, and then educating the team around them. For example, with our fractional CFOs, we want to be in the board meeting. If we can be in the board meeting, A, we can help clients answer questions about their finances more easily, and B, it’s good to have visibility into what the board is saying about the business and where they want to go.  Then, obviously, the VCs are going to say, “Oh, great, this is Ian at Finvisor.” If he reaches out to me about a partnership, they’re going to have a better understanding of what we do because they’ve been in the room with us—or they’ve been in a virtual or in-person boardroom with us.  So you’re basically sharing the playbook so that they have a better understanding of what they can refer you for. Correct. Yeah.  So, switching gears here, Noah, what’s one thing that you’re trying to actively figure out in your business right now?  I mean, the question everyone is trying to figure out, at least in my space, is how they’re going to use AI in some fashion. That’s the kind of million-dollar question everyone keeps talking about—AI in accounting, AI in finance. Right now, we’re really structured in how we’re trying to use it and apply it. But the question I have is, what’s the next year going to look like? What’s five years going to look like as this technology gets more legs and more trust behind it? We’re pretty intentional about what we’re building and how we’re using some of the newer technology with AI. But I think there’s a lot that, at least for me, you have to continue to iterate. The world today feels different than it did three months ago. I’d say for most of Finvisor’s history—and this has been 12 years—it hasn’t felt like that, where a year later things might feel marginally different because we’re maybe 20% bigger or whatever might have happened.  Now, I think there’s a lot more excitement and unknown around technology and how it can either make people more efficient or help highlight and surface better issues that clients need to talk through. But I also feel like we’re in a moment where everyone’s trying to throw AI into every technology. So we're also trying to stay true to who we are, which is people first, relationships first—technology powering us, not being the solution.Share on X  So as you’re scaling AI to improve the information that your people have, your CFOs have, that presumably is going to lead to people doing less of the mechanical, repeatable tasks and more of the judgment tasks. So how do you scale judgment as you’re scaling the impact with AI?  On our side, I think it’s A, trying to organize and structure the data coming in. B, trying to create tooling that isn’t unique to one client but is built in a way that can be customized for each customer. A lot of the firms I talk to that are in the Finvisor space just take a blanket approach—turn Claude on for every fractional CFO, let them connect it to QuickBooks, and try to figure out their own playbooks.  That’s not how we’ve ever run the business. We don’t just hire accountants and let them run the accounting and see how the output turns out. We’re more focused on figuring out what is actually useful for review. Right now, I think AI has been most helpful around quality. It can definitely check that things are consistent and make sure edge cases are being caught.  I think we’re going to get to a future state where it’s not only making sure quality is at the 95th percentile of confidence, but also giving visibility into metrics like CAC, LTV, and churn—things that would normally take longer to pull together. Your fractional CFO might currently spend hours reviewing Stripe data or Shopify data to come to a conclusion. AI can cut out maybe 40% of that data-cleanup layer, where it’s like, “Okay, now they have the tools to dig in and understand what the underlying problem is,” instead of spending so much time cleaning up the data and getting everything organized.  So currently, at least my thesis is that it’s going to allow us to manage more clients because some of the day-to-day—I don’t want to call it busy work—but the work you have to do before you get to the exciting parts of the job will become more automated and less manual, like pulling data out of Stripe, Shopify, your CRM, or NetSuite.  So does that mean you’ll have a different type of people, maybe higher-level thinkers? Or do you think you can elevate your current team to that level?  Yeah. I think you’re… Sorry, I know I was originally answering this through the fractional CFO lens. Most of our fractional CFOs are already at the top of that organizational pyramid. For them, it’s really about helping them have cleaner data, better visibility into the actions they need to take, and better insight into what they should be reviewing and discussing with the client.  If I think more broadly about the back-office finance team, I do think a lot of the more generalist staff accountant and AP specialist roles won’t be spending as much time on the day-to-day blocking and tackling. If a client has 1,000 transactions a month flowing through their bank and credit cards, historically that accountant would sit in QuickBooks Online clicking “Okay, okay, okay,” reviewing every transaction and coding it. Eighty percent of those transactions will simply be coded automatically in real time as they come in. That leaves them to focus on the 20% that actually requires human judgment.  For me, the question is, can we continue to empower those people to be more impactful with that 20%? Are they the right people for that 20%? We’ve always tried to hire people who are proactive and broader thinkers, so I think we have the right team to step into that. If we’d built a traditional BPO model with an outsourced accounting team made up of people who were really just coding transactions at a basic level, I’d be more worried because getting those people to step up and handle edge cases is difficult.  But that’s not how we’ve historically built Finvisor. We’ve always tried to find people who are a little more… I’d rather hire an A-plus player than a B-player just because there’s some savings in the cost structure. I’d rather have the right people who can perform 80% of the time when they’re at bat than just hire someone because they’re cheaper.  Yeah.  Wrong baseball analogy there, but yeah.  Yeah, I understand. So you have A-plus people. Maybe the people who are doing more bookkeeping-type services—their jobs may become automated—but your A-players are going to have best-in-class information, and they can serve more clients that way.  Yeah. I still think that if you think about the typical accounting structure—if you’re working in-house and you have a bookkeeper and a controller—it’s still helpful. Depending on the size of the company, if you’re a small company, you probably won’t need that bookkeeper.  The controller can handle the edge cases and close the books. But at a certain scale, you’ll still want that junior resource supporting the controller so the controller can focus on the higher-level, more strategic work. I think people will simply be able to do more with less if they’re the right person. There will be people who, if they aren’t good at staying on their toes and figuring out edge cases, won’t be the right fit.  AI will probably replace some of those roles. But I think there’s a great opportunity for people who can think more strategically. They don’t have to be a CFO. They can just be a really smart bookkeeper who’s good at handling edge cases. They’ll simply be able to manage three times as many clients as they could when they had to code every single transaction.  Okay. If you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing in your business over the next 12 months, what would it be?  One area that we probably haven’t prioritized enough because of growth is SEO, AEO, and our overall sales build-out. Our paid advertising hasn’t been the strongest part of our business because it hasn’t been the top priority. If I had a magic wand, I’d have someone clean up our SEO and AEO visibility because I know clients love us and we do great work, but I don’t think we’re showing up the way I’d like from an SEO and AEO perspective. So that would be it. Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah. Love it. So, who are your ideal customers? Who do you want knocking on your door? Is it venture-backed companies primarily, or do you also work with private company founders? Who are your sweet-spot customers?  A lot of our clients are going to be in that 5-to-50-employee range, where they don’t need a full-time back office, a full-time accountant, a full-time CFO, or a full-time payroll specialist, but they need someone to own those roles. That way, we can put together the right Finvisor team to support them. We’ve intentionally made ourselves pretty modular, so while the largest group of our clients is in the tech VC world, we also have a lot of SMBs—law firms, beauty businesses, and other professional services businesses.  I would say that, if you looked at the Finvisor client base as a whole, you’d probably see a lot of startups. But we’re also starting to see more SMBs and more traditional businesses that don’t have VC funding but still need help with their accounting, bookkeeping, and modernizing their back office. So it’s a bit of both. Most of our clients are going to be in that 10-to-50- or 100-employee range, where they’re complex enough that they care about their financials and want to understand what they spent last month, where they’re going, and how they’re going to get there.  Earlier-stage companies are sometimes just a little too early. If you’re a one- or two-person company with just an idea, there’s a reason people think about their financials on more of a cash basis. They can think about the five clients they’re working with. Their bank balance ties pretty closely to their financials. There’s not a huge difference between the two when you’re a sole proprietor.  But as you start to evolve, that’s where Finvisor can provide more value. For all of our clients, we do accrual accounting, so we’re recognizing your revenue and your costs over the life of the service. As you start to grow and build, that’s really helpful. Obviously, if you’re at day one, it’s less impactful because you’re living more day to day, week to week, and month to month.  Steve Preda: Okay. So if we have those kinds of companies—which we do among our listeners—and they hear about this and want to fix their back office and outsource it to a reliable partner who can help them own those functions and give them good advice, what’s the best entry point? Where should they go, and how can they connect with you personally as well?  Yeah. hello@finvisor.com comes to me and the sales team. There’s probably a 95% chance you’ll talk to me if you reach out because I still love connecting with most new businesses that come through the door. The other area I wanted to call out that could be helpful for businesses is PEOs. PEOs are great, but I think at some point clients need to graduate from the PEO, and Finvisor is uniquely positioned to be both your insurance broker—helping you quote large-group plans—and your payroll and HR team to help you leave the PEO.  For a lot of our clients, once they pass that 100-employee mark, it’s like, “Great, we now qualify for a large-group plan,” which might have better rates than what they’re getting through the PEO. They just don’t have the team or bandwidth to get off the PEO. We’ll come alongside those larger companies and say, “Great, let’s quote a large-group plan for you. We’ll also put together a transition plan to register you in the 20 states where your employees are currently located.  We’ll make sure you get your workers’ compensation and employment practices liability insurance in place so there’s really no difference—apples to apples—from being in the PEO to running your own payroll.” We help with that transition because I’m always surprised to see companies with hundreds of employees still on a PEO, where the savings could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if they left. They just don’t have the internal team because they’ve always been on a PEO. They’ve never had to do state registrations, so they don’t know how to do them. Because of that, they’re usually not looking for an alternative path to get off that structure. We can at least review it with them and help them out if it’s a good fit. And just to remind our listeners what a PEO is, in case they don’t know.  Oh, sorry. Yeah. A PEO is a Professional Employer Organization. If you’ve heard of companies like TriNet or Justworks, they’re PEOs. In the health insurance space, there are four primary ways you can get health insurance. Most companies start with small-group plans in the early days because they’re state-mandated. For example, in California, if you’re under 100 employees, the rates my company gets would be the same rates Steve’s company gets if we’re both under 100 employees and we’re asking Blue Shield for a quote from the same ZIP code. That’s small-group insurance.  Then there’s level-funded, where carriers quote specifically based on your employee group. There’s large-group, which is somewhat similar but designed for larger organizations. Then there’s the PEO. Let’s say you’re a 10-person company. You don’t have enough employees to qualify for large-group health insurance, which is usually discounted because the risk is spread across hundreds of employees. The PEO says, “We’ll employ your team. Instead of you directly employing 10 people and buying health insurance for only those 10 people, we’ll employ your team and give you rates based on the 10,000 employees we already have.” PEOs are really popular in places like California and New York, where health insurance is very expensive.  But once you get above about 100 employees, you can usually qualify for your own large-group rates, which are similar to what the PEO is getting. The difference is that the PEO is generally marking up those rates because they need to make a margin on the plan. You can often get those rates directly yourself.  Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Okay. So if you’re listening to this and you’re building a venture-backed startup, or you’re the founder of a professional services firm, a law firm, or another small business with 10 to 100 employees, and you don’t yet have the budget—or maybe you simply don’t need—a full-time CFO, insurance advisor, HR leader, and other functional specialists, then reach out to Noah and Finvisor.  Check out what they have to offer and see what services might be a good fit for your business. Thanks, Noah, for coming on the show and sharing your expertise. It’s fascinating to see how this field is evolving, how you’re tapping into technology, and how you’re focusing on the highest-quality CFOs to help your clients. If you enjoyed this conversation, stay tuned.  Follow us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you don’t miss an episode. Every week, we bring you exciting entrepreneurs and their best management frameworks. Thanks for coming, Noah, and thanks for listening.  Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. Important Links: Noah's LinkedIn Noah's  website Noah's email: hello@finvisor.com

AI can produce a thousand blog posts. It cannot tell you what you believe. In this episode of Content Amplified, Rafael Moiseev, CMO at Customertimes and principal of the fractional CMO consultancy Apex Strata, explains how his team kept scaling content after losing their content manager, and why intention matters more than volume. Rafael breaks down "institutional memory," the practice of interviewing your internal experts for their point of view and their writing style, analyzing their past work, and recording every thought leadership event so the AI has something real to write from. He describes AEO as a bullet train where you either pop on or get left in the dust, and shares the play that has worked for him: research reports, including competitive ranking reports where he still gets cited as the source even when he is not ranked first. He also walks through a buyer journey he traced end to end, from an LLM answer to the report, to the website, to the form, to pipeline, using HubSpot and Microsoft Clarity. If you want AI content that sounds like your company and shows up in AI answers, start here.About RafaelRafael Moiseev is the CMO at Customertimes, a global tech firm specializing in AI automation, end-to-end data solutions, and customer experience, where he has spent about five years. He is also the principal of Apex Strata, his own consultancy, where he handles marketing on a fractional CMO basis for emerging SaaS companies. Rafael believes AI is not going to replace people, it is going to replace people who do not use AI, and that the winning move is to pick a few topics you can genuinely prove out rather than trying to be everything to everybody. He is also blunt about the limits of marketing: he will not work for a company whose product he does not believe in, because marketers are not liars.Show NotesConnect with Rafael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelmoiseev/Customertimes: https://customertimes.comApex Strata: https://apexstrata.comText us what you think about this episode!

Your phone rings after hours and a perfect-fit remodeling lead leaves a voicemail and disappears. We talk with Lauren Scherber, second-generation owner of Castle Building and Remodeling in Minneapolis St Paul, about the practical ways she's using AI to stop that leak and build a stronger design-build business without losing the human side of the work.We get into what it really takes to scale a remodeling company from a basement operation into multiple design studios with a full team: designers, project managers, and in-house carpenters. Lauren shares the behind-the-scenes reality of family business succession, why systems and roles matter, and how tough decisions can protect both the company and the relationships that built it.Then we go deep on AI in remodeling and construction. Lauren explains how AI agents and a modern CRM help capture leads, summarize sales calls, and schedule consultations 24/7. We also cover AI for interior design visualization, faster renderings, and plan and spec comparison that can catch costly mistakes before they hit the field. On the marketing side, we talk digital marketing for remodelers, SEO and AEO, content like remodeling cost guides and “Remodeling 101” videos, and why PR, reviews, and even accessibility now affect search visibility as bots and language models pull from many sources.If you want smarter workflows, better lead conversion, and clearer positioning in a crowded market, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a builder or designer friend, and leave a review so more pros can find the show.Transform your marketing with Designer Discussions Academy. In weekly face-to-face sessions, we equip busy business owners with cutting-edge PR strategies, marketing insights, and time-saving tools to not just work in your business, but on your business. Join us to outshine competitors and elevate your business.Join us for our Academy sessions and workshops:https://www.designerdiscussions.com/academy.htmlDesigner Discussions is an educational interior design podcast on marketing, PR and related business topics. Download our FREE Client Avatar GuideDesigner Discussions is a partnership of three experts: Jason Lockhart, CEO of KABMS; Maria Martin, founder of DesignAppy; and Mirjam Lippuner, founder of Get Ink DIY

Send us Fan MailAmazon 75-character title limit rules now split product titles and Item Highlights for mobile shoppers. The video shows why Amazon two-part titles appear differently across categories and why AI title rewrites may miss strong SEO and AEO terms. Amazon sellers learn how to check title displays, compare mobile and desktop sessions, and update listings after the July 27, 2026 rollout.Do not let Amazon's AI rewrite the 75 characters carrying the strongest search terms, get a listing plan before rankings and sales move: https://bit.ly/4jMZtxu#AmazonTitleUpdate #AmazonSEO #AmazonSellers #amazontitleupdateWant free resources? Dowload our Free Amazon guides here:Download the 2026 Amazon AI Operating Manual: https://bit.ly/3SLmusPAmazon Receiving Delay Guide: https://hubs.ly/Q04cdD4c0Amazon Catalog Spring Cleaning: https://hubs.ly/Q046BVfp0Amazon Proft Margin Defense 2026: https://hubs.ly/Q042trRH0Amazon SEO Toolkit 2026: https://bit.ly/4oC2ClTAmazon Seller Strategy Report 2026: https://bit.ly/3YN1RME2026 Ecommerce Website & SEO Readiness Checklist: https://hubs.ly/Q04btghf0Amazon 2026 PPC guide: https://bit.ly/4lF0OYXTimestamps00:00 - Amazon 75-Character Title Limit00:31 - Two-Part Titles Across Product Categories01:21 - Why Amazon Title Displays Look Inconsistent02:28 - What Amazon Sellers Should Update Now02:59 - Check Title Display and Session Data03:31 - Mobile vs Desktop Category Theory-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Follow us:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28605816/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevenpopemag/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/myamazonguys/Twitter: https://twitter.com/myamazonguySubscribe to the My Amazon Guy podcast: https://podcast.myamazonguy.comApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-amazon-guy/id1501974229Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4A5ASHGGfr6s4wWNQIqyVwSupport the show

If someone handed your competitor every prompt, workflow and AI system you use today, would you still have an advantage?   That is the question that opens this live roundtable, recorded in a sealed room at the first Founder AI Studio Live in Toronto. Ten women who are not just using AI but building with it: intellectual property strategists, AI educators, investors, community builders, and operators who have built and exited companies.   No keynote. No panel. Just founders comparing notes from the front line.   IP lawyer Andrea Bolden takes on the part most founders get wrong: whether your prompts, workflows and custom GPTs count as intellectual property, why switching off the training toggle is not the protection you think it is, why people trademark a name while giving away the entire body of work underneath it, and which AI tools will actually indemnify you if you get sued.   The room also gets into what happens to knowledge businesses when knowledge stops being scarce, why AI-native builds beat AI retrofits, the environmental cost nobody wants to raise, the risk of putting your child's face into these systems, and the six companies capturing most of the value from all of it.   It ends with a lightning round on the one tool each founder actually uses.   CHAPTERS 00:00 Context: what this room was 01:35 Not a keynote, not a panel 02:16 The question: would you still have an advantage? 03:09 Forty-five products that all do the same thing 05:46 Being the tastemaker 07:54 AI as a democratizing force 10:03 AI-native builds vs. AI retrofits 11:00 The contractor line item that changed everything 14:24 From "done for you" to "done for you-ish" 16:01 Building instead of talking about building 18:35 The real unlock is the speed of learning 23:00 If you sell knowledge, what are you selling now? 24:42 Dyslexia, ADHD and AI as a translation layer 28:22 Are your prompts and GPTs your IP? 29:28 The training toggle myth 30:30 Trademarking the name, losing the body of work 32:15 Tim Ferriss and what is already public 34:08 Can AI legally be an author? 35:32 Which AI tools will indemnify you 37:03 Writing a book with AI 39:27 Just because AI can, should it? 43:14 Share the why, not the whole how 44:00 The one thing to do next week 45:22 Canada's AI strategy and where the money is going 47:32 Environmental impact and who absorbs it 49:55 Your child's face inside an LLM 50:52 Sycophancy and outsourced thinking 51:58 What work do we reserve for humans? 54:16 Six companies and who holds the stake 56:14 Lightning round: the one tool 1:01:27 The advantage was never the tool   TOOLS MENTIONED Claude / Claude Code / Claude Cowork, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Lovable, Gamma, Codex, DeepSeek, Kling, Go High Level   LINKS Next Founder AI Studio Live   IN THE ROOM Host: Monique Bryan, Brand Authority Strategist Featuring: Andrea Bolden, IP and business lawyer   PARTNERS Captured by Perspective Studio Productions Presented in partnership with BDC Capital, Inclusive Entrepreneurship   Founder AI Studio Live is an invite-only working session for established women founders already building with AI. The room is the asset.   #AIforFounders #IntellectualProperty #WomenInAI Who Knows You is hosted by Monique Bryan, brand authority strategist and built for founders, operators, and experts who are doing real work and ready to be picked for it. Take the AI Visibility Audit to find out where your positioning is breaking down and what to fix: [RUN YOUR AUDIT] Connect with Monique:Before we build, let us talk. https://moniquebryan.com/book/ - Website: moniquebryan.com LinkedIn: Monique Bryan Instagram: @moniquebryan

Is Google losing the AI search war - or winning it? Eli Schwartz, bestselling author of Product-Led SEO joins Russ Macumber to unpack why Google's distribution edge (Android, Chrome, YouTube, Gmail) still beats anything ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini can offer - and why AEO is really just SEO wearing a new hat.They cover how Reddit's data feed may shape what LLMs trust, why chasing individual AI platforms is a losing strategy, and whether AI is coming for marketers' jobs (mostly just the boring parts). Plus: real takeaways from Google I/O, an early look at AI-powered Gmail search, why prompt-tracking tools mislead brands, and the fast-approaching world of hyper-personalized search.

Think Instagram is enough? Think again. In this episode, I'm making the case for why every IG-first creator and business owner needs to be cross-posting to YouTube, no extra work required. I'll break down why YouTube functions as a search engine (not just another feed), how it gives you way better SEO and AEO than Instagram ever will, and my simple workflow for filming once in CapCut and posting everywhere. If you're making content on IG and not putting it on YouTube too, you're leaving leads on the table. Tune in to hear exactly how to fix that.Www.the-spacesocial.com

Small Business SEO - What is a title tag, and do I need one? If you're working on SEO for your small business and aren't sure what matters and what doesn't, this week's episode will help you. I'll break down what title tags are, how you write them, what they look like on Google, who they're technically for, and more so you know what to do. Once you've written your title tag, the next thing to work on will be your meta description. You can find out more about that here - https://www.etchedmarketing.com/blog/what-is-a-meta-description Support the showRegister now for the free SEO class - https://www.etchedmarketing.com/registration-seo-class  My free resources are here- https://www.etchedmarketing.com/freebies  Want to work with me 1:1? https://www.etchedmarketing.com/marketing-consulting   Join me in Simple SEO Content -https://www.etchedmarketing.com/yes Join Simple Podcast SEO and learn how to grow your show quickly and easily in the self-study podcast SEO program. - https://www.etchedmarketing.com/enroll My favorite marketing tools (affiliate links) Podcast recording and editing - DescriptPodcast hosting - BuzzsproutEmail Marketing - Active CampaignMarketing Website Analytics - Clicky SEO Tool - Ubersuggest     Do you have a question you'd like me to answer on the podcast? Ask it here -  https://forms.gle/Fbrqpmss6gxUnaMj7

Sometimes the hardest setback becomes the start of a far better life. I speak with Jeff Brown, an international photography business mentor whose path began with dyslexia, school struggles, and a fishing fly business at age 16. Jeff shares how military photography, personal branding, and business skills helped him build a successful creative career. He also opens up about losing everything through a failed pub, rebuilding his mental health, and creating a global photography mentoring business. His story shows how persistence, clear goals, strong branding, and the courage to change direction can create an unstoppable life. Highlights: 00:01:38 - How dyslexia and school struggles shaped Jeff's drive to work for himself. 00:05:58 - The first sale that showed him entrepreneurship was possible. 00:14:50 - Why passion and effort mattered more than early photography skills. 00:35:49 - How branding and marketing helped grow four photography businesses. 00:39:06 - The business failure that forced Jeff to rebuild his life. 01:01:49 - Why clear goals, strong branding, and steady action create growth. About the Guest: Jeff Brown is an International Photography Business Mentor, Best Selling Photography Business Author, Public Speaker and President of The British Institute of Professional Photography. Also working for The International School Photography Conference Team he has delivered sell-out courses and workshops around the world. Jeff works closely with photographers from all niches and photographic backgrounds having a real passion to help them grow their online brand and achieve their goals.          Jeff first dipped his toe into entrepreneurship at the age of 15 while still at school, selling handmade fishing flies to local tackle shops to boost his pocket money. After leaving school at 16 he set up his first full-time venture, a mail-order fishing tackle business. His fishing tackle business came to an end 7 years later, shortly after Jeff enlisted in the Royal Navy where he went on to serve as a military photographer and intelligence analysist.            Following nearly 10 years service he left the armed forces to set up his own photography company, and eighteen months later had a successful six-figure wedding photography company and a commercial photography business, then going on to open a separate school photography business and a Boudoir Makeover studio turning over 1,000 boudoir and model shoots per year.            In 2014 Jeff decided to follow his dreams of owning a country food pub by investing over £120k of his own money into a pub venture, which turned out to be his greatest ever failure, losing his entire investment and racking up £60k of debt in just 12 months while at the same time going through a divorce.           After suffering from depression in 2015, he changed direction again and developed an online photography business mentoring program, making it his mission to help and inspire photographers worldwide to market their businesses better.                                                Part of Jeff's major focus and teachings are in the areas of Goal Setting, Brand Message, Consistency, and Website Content including the new AI and AEO search on Google, and also his favourite social media platform which is LinkedIn. It's essential to have a mindset for success and a clear path to follow. No business can truly succeed without goals, direction, a powerful brand and a positive mindset to achieve.        Jeff has written 4 internationally best-selling photography books and recently published his first travel book – ·      The Photographers Missing Link-edIn ·      The Ambitious Photographer's Journal          ·      Help My Photography Website Needs More Customers        ·      The Photographer's Gratitude & Mindset Journal       ·      Plan Your Ultimate Northumberland 250 Road Trip   He writes for several photography magazines and associations and is also a brand ambassador for OM System (Olympus Cameras), The British Photography Awards, Studio Ninja, The Societies of Photographers, and the UK and US Brand Ambassador for The Shutter Studio App.         Jeff lives in the beautiful scenic county of Northumberland, England. He's a keen traveller having visited over 60 countries so far, as well as being an outdoor enthusiast, motorbiker and loves getting out in nature when ever he can. Ways to connect with Jeff**:** Website: www.thephotographersmentor.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/JeffBrownThePhotographersMentorLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/thephotographersmentorAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jeff%20Brown/author/B09M76J1XK About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:04 What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingston, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Hi again, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. You know what's really fun about this podcast is we get to meet all sorts of people who talk about all sorts of different kinds of things, and today we get to talk to a gentleman from England, Jeff Brown, and Jeff, among other things, is an international photography business mentor, best-selling photography business author, he's a public speaker and also the president of the British Public Institute of Photography. I think I said that right. Jeff Brown  01:36 British British Institute of Professional Photography. British Michael Hingson  01:40 Institute of Professional Photography. Got to say it right, but anyway, and and all sorts of other things. He's an adventurous kind of person, as you're going to learn in the course of the day. So, Jeff, I want to welcome you to Unstoppable Mindset, and we're really glad you're here. Jeff Brown  01:55 Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Michael Hingson  01:57 Well, I'm glad to do it, and I have a visitor in the studio today, my cat Stitch, who is monitoring this, and I'm sure that if she has any opinions, she's going to voice them. But we'll see. Stitch is a wonderful kitty. She's almost 16 years old, and we we love having her around. But anyway, so Jeff, why don't we start by you telling us kind of maybe about the early Jeff growing up and some of those things, and we'll go from there. Jeff Brown  02:25 So growing up, so I grew up in the northeast of England, and I was born in 1970. So I'm 55 now, and back in sort of late 70s, early 80s, the northeast of England was a was a bit of a grim place. It was gray. It was there was a lot of poverty. It was mainly coal mining and shipbuilding, and it was the old sort of mentality of you know you go to school, you study hard, you get a job, you stay in the job for for your life, you retire, and then you're dead. That's it. Yeah. So, for some reason, that didn't really, really appeal to me. And I used to love reading. I read loads of books. I was obsessed with books. Got into books from a very early age. Into sort of fantasy type books, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and stuff like that. But it was only when I got into maybe probably about the the junior schools I'd gone through the infant school I got to about eight or nine year old that I realized there was something the matter with me in the fact that I'm really struggled with with school I wasn't very good at it years and years later, I found out I was dyslexic, but I couldn't read out aloud. I had real problems with numbers. Numbers seemed to always look the wrong way around to me, and I got an instant dislike of school and an instant dislike of authority. I had I just I couldn't wait to get out of it, but I was quite creative when I got into fishing, I was good at making fishing flies. I got into photography, and that sort of gave me more of a creative mindset. Where I thought, well, I don't want to work for anybody else. I don't want to be told what to do. I want to try and make my own direction. And I decided that I was going to be self-employed or you know start my own business at the age of 14, Michael Hingson  04:23 what did your parents think of your your kind of independent mindset or entrepreneurial mindset? Because you must have voiced it along the way. Jeff Brown  04:31 Well, I did, yeah, and funny enough, you know, I said I had a real dislike of school. I mean, I actually not not overly proud of it, but I was expelled from school at the age of 16, kicked out of school because I got into quite a bit of trouble. I was I was very rebellious. I really disliked it with the passion, and I left school with zero qualifications. So I didn't I didn't pass any exams. I filled every exam that I actually bothered to turn up for, but to. It matters worse. My dad was a college lecturer, and my mum was a teacher. So, so obviously it didn't go down well with with having two parents who were in the education system. But they backed me 100% They were they they could see that I was struggling, but dyslexia wasn't really a thing that was talked about back. Yeah, and yeah, my my dad put forward at the time one and a half 1000 pound to help me get onto the you know get the equipment I needed and the the office space to start my first business. Michael Hingson  05:34 So it was pretty supportive, Jeff Brown  05:36 very supportive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and and I think it helped as well that my first business was making fishing flies and tying and exporting fishing flies to fishing businesses around the world. But my dad was keen on fishing as well, so he had he had an attraction to the business. Michael Hingson  05:54 Okay. Well, I know that my wife had lots of relatives in England. A lot of them were from the Cornwall Mosel area, and a lot of them, of course, were very much into fishing. Jeff Brown  06:05 Oh yeah, yeah. I know Cornwall. In fact, I spent a year in Cornwall on on Navy search and rescue, and that would have been 1919 98 I think it was then very beautiful place. Michael Hingson  06:19 I've not been. I'd love to go sometime. We'll have to figure that out. Jeff Brown  06:23 Yeah, it is. It's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. Michael Hingson  06:26 So you started this business. So you were basically 15 when you started the the business, which I think is kind of interesting. That's at a young age, and of course, by the time you were 16, as you said, you got expelled from school, which had to not be very very much fun. Jeff Brown  06:44 Yeah, I mean, well, to be honest, so the the starting of the business, I used to I used to go into the fishing tackle shops at weekend myself and one of my friends who who I used to go fishing with, and he was good at making flies. He was called Phil. Obviously, I'm called Jeff, and we decided we were going to create a business called PJ Flies. And one weekend, we we went into one of the local fish and tackle shops, and we were buying some some bits and bobs to make fish and flies with. And the business owner, the owner of the shop, said, "Look, says, look, if you bring me some flies down next week, if they if they if they're any good, I'll buy them off you. So we walked into the shop and took these fishing flies in the following week in a little presentation box. And I remember him individually taking each fly out at a time because he said, "How much how much how much are you going to sell me them for? And I said, "Well, I'll sell them for 10 pence each. So he was taking them out, and I was counting up in my head. And at the time, my pocket money was, I think, was three or four pounds a week, and I came out of that shop with a 10-pound note. So it was double what I was getting paid off my pocket money, and it was such a great feeling. So that was my first ever sort of dip into entrepreneurship, earning money, and and he said, and the last thing he said as I went out the door, he says, if you can if you can make the same amount next week or even double, bring them back and I'll buy them off you. So the following week I went back and made 20 quid. Michael Hingson  08:18 Wow, what goes into making a fly, I'm not a fisherman by by training or anything, so I don't know a lot about fly fishing. Jeff Brown  08:27 Yeah, so it's all feathers and so feathers and furrows, and it's all held onto the hook with with a very fine thread, like what's called a gossamer thread. It takes it takes a while to learn. So I was taught by an old guy who was a really good fisherman, and he he had a caravan on the same caravan site that my parents had that they used to go on holiday on, and because we we we never used to go abroad in those days, all the holidays were spent in England, and that he he saw that I was getting into fishing, and he came and taught me how to how to tie fishing flies, which was great. Michael Hingson  09:06 Yeah, and of course, the whole idea behind the fly is to attract the fish, right? Jeff Brown  09:10 That's right. Yeah, yeah. Michael Hingson  09:13 So that they will, if you will, take the bait. Jeff Brown  09:16 Yeah, yeah, totally. And the funny thing was, I was yeah, I used to love fishing, but I don't need fish, so I would either put you know put them back in the in in the river, or I'd I'd give them away to to members of the family. Michael Hingson  09:30 Wow. Well, and suddenly fortunes changed, and there you were making flies and selling them. Jeff Brown  09:37 That's right. That's right. Michael Hingson  09:39 So how long did you do that? Jeff Brown  09:42 So we we got we got a proper sort of business premises in 1986. So when I was I was 16 year old, and we applied for a grant with the then Prince's Trust, which was run by Prince Charles, who's now King Charles. And we were the youngest people in in the UK to be accepted for a grant. They bent the rules and they give us the grant under the age of 18. So we got the grant at 17 year old, and then shortly after, we were in a business sort of a business community, a big a big workspace with lots of offices with other creative people in, and shortly after the the center had opened, about six months after, the the the manager of the center came up and says, "Well, look, we'd like to we'd like you to make a box of salmon flies, but a really good box of salmon flies, all the best ones, and we'll pay you. And it's going to be a presentation box for a special guest who's coming to officially open the business center in a few months. But we can't tell you who it is. And anyway, it turned out two months later it was it was Prince Charles. Speaker 1  10:59 He Jeff Brown  10:59 came to visit us, and he was presented with a box of fishing flies-the the flies that we tied from. Michael Hingson  11:07 Wow, that was pretty cool. So you got to meet him. Jeff Brown  11:11 So yeah, we got to meet him. He talked about fishing. He talked about fly tying. He said he'd he'd been bought a fly tying kit for Christmas one year from his wife, who would have been Princess Diana, but he couldn't get away from get away from it. It was too. He found it too complicated and too complex. So he says, "I really admire that you you know that you guys can can tie the flies. So so yeah. So it was nice. It was nice to meet him. It was nice to be able to do that presentation box, and we had that business till I was 26 so Michael Hingson  11:45 10 years, Jeff Brown  11:46 nearly 10 years. Yeah. Michael Hingson  11:48 Now, have you met him ever since Jeff Brown  11:52 then? I haven't met him, but I have met other members of the the royal family because I was a my next stage in business, so my next stage in life was to become a a military photographer. I met a few members of the royal family in my capacity as a military photographer. So I went from so one avenue being creative, which was the fishing flies, into sort of another avenue being creative. And the funny thing was, I'd never had any intention of John in the military. None of my family were in the military. My dad had done his national service, and my granddad had served in the in the navy during the Second World War. But just on a whim, one day I happened to be walking past a military careers office, and I thought I'd pop in. I love cooking. I thought, oh look, I'd seen a picture on the window where he could train to be a military chef. Yeah, okay. So I went into enquire about being a chef, joined as an aircraft engineer, and then transferred across to become a military photographer. And funny enough, like I said early on, that I hate authority and I hate being told what to do because that came from a hatred of hatred of schools. Michael Hingson  13:10 A school, right? Jeff Brown  13:11 But I believe that the military was different because people say, "Well, you know, if you if you hate authority and hate being told what to do, why the hell did you go and join the military? But the military was very different in the fact that I put up with the I put up with the authority because the military give you adventure. It wasn't a nine foot nine to five. It wasn't a routine job, you know. So it give and I love excitement. I love adventure. I love the the idea of every day being different. So so I was happy enough to put up with military life, and I did that for nearly nine years. Michael Hingson  13:49 Well, so did you find that the military respected your creativity as you grew at being a photographer, and so you were a photographer, so that you were allowed to, to to be creative and do the things that you wanted to do, or did you find that there was just as much authoritarianism, if you will, and they kept telling you what to Jeff Brown  14:15 do? No, no, they were very good at being creative. Funny, the the military photography branch-it's only a small branch. It's about 80 people in the in the in the navy photography branch. So by comparison to all the other branches of the navy, it's tiny, and it's always also a very sought after branch. So basically, have to wait till somebody retires or somebody, you know, gives up their position that you can actually request, and I just managed to get in at the right time where somebody had left, and I applied, and I got accepted and went on to their training course, and their training course is is quite intense, 26 exams in six months, but. All the people who run it are really passionate photographers, so they're all about developing your own creativity. Yes, there's rules and regulations to follow, but it was very different than other other avenues of the armed forces. And then, you know, your average working day, you were you were given a lot of freedom. You were given a brief for a job, but then quite often you would just go off and design that job the way you wanted, you know. Michael Hingson  15:24 But why did you, since you, I guess you, as you said, joined as an aircraft engineer? Why did you decide to look at photography? What what attracted you to that? Jeff Brown  15:35 Because I didn't. Well, first of all, I didn't realize you could be a military photographer. So it was, and you can't join as a military photographer anyway. It's what's called a sidewards entry branch. You have have to have served three years in a in a another part of the armed forces before you can apply. And to apply to get into the military military photography branch, you have to pretty much do it on your own merit. So you've got to build a portfolio up. You've got to do all the application yourself, and they also look at your. It's not like the way you react to discipline, the way you think on your own two feet, sort of thing. So, funny enough, when I went through the interviews and and they looked at my portfolio, they said that my my work was pretty poor, but they loved the way I thought, and they loved the way I was driven, and would get up early and go out and do stuff. This is, you know, it's the it's the passion and the the willingness to learn. We can teach you all the other stuff, but you you know you you're showing that willingness and and going that extra mile. That's that's what got us in and and got us to be accepted into the into the branch. It wasn't my skills as a photographer because I was that was pretty useless. Pretty new, Michael Hingson  16:49 yeah, Jeff Brown  16:50 yeah. But you know they they developed that. Michael Hingson  16:55 So the the whole idea of going in and learning to cook and being a chef kind of went by the wayside, huh? Jeff Brown  17:00 It did, yes. But I still, I still, I still love cooking to this day, and I was still very passionate about it. And I always had a dream of, you know, one day owning a a pub or running a food pub, Michael Hingson  17:12 right? Well, and you know things happen, but you you clearly are an adventurous sort of person that you even chose to do all of this, and that-that's in of itself, I think, admirable to you know to do that. So you you became a photographer, and so what kind of things did you do during the time you were in the military from a photographic standpoint? Jeff Brown  17:40 So we would do everything. We do everything from portraits of sort of admirals in uniform, official portraits. We do big presentations and awards. We do a lot of PR photography. So we'd be we'd be tasked with with a concept or an idea, or being told something is happening, or we want to promote this, so they might say, right? We've got an aircraft carrier coming into your area. Can you come up with some ideas to to sort of really promote it? Something that look really exciting. It'll encourage people to to join the military because one of the one of the things military photography branch, it's it's about PR. It's trying to get pictures of the military into the into the newspapers in a positive light. So you know, young young men and women go, "Oh, that looks great! I'd love to join, and it serves them an absolute fortune in in in advertising. So so that was that was a lot of the stuff we did, we create concepts and ideas, and quite often the concept and ideas led to having a lot of fun. You know, I'd say like, well, what have I got at my disposal? And then an admiral might say, well, what do you need? I said, well, I need a few helicopters. I need some fast patrol boats. I need some marines on on on ribs lent over these these you know rigid inflatable boats all camouflaged up with their cam cream on and their rifles and they'll be in front of the in front of the the aircraft carrier then we'll have the the helicopters flying in the background and all this was was so basically controlled by us, so we would have headsets on. We'd be talking to the, talking to the the pilots. We'd be directing people, and those shoots probably cost 10s and 10s of 1000s of pounds to to put together. When you think about it, but it was great to see some of the images come out. And in those days, when I first started doing it, we were shooting a lot of the stuff on film, so we didn't have the the the the benefit of seeing the images instantly, as in you know with digital photography. Michael Hingson  19:51 I was going to say much less digitally editing it. It was all on film. Jeff Brown  19:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael Hingson  19:56 When did it migrate over to be more digital? Jeff Brown  20:00 So we were still we when I was in training we we were using digital but still preferred you to to do a bit more on the film side of things Michael Hingson  20:08 higher quality Jeff Brown  20:10 yeah and and they also I think for like an archival purposes for the idea of have negatives and hard print Speaker 2  20:18 yeah Jeff Brown  20:19 but then you know towards like the 2004 two you know 2003 2004 Then they were starting to embrace digital fully, and and you know do away with all the the film. Michael Hingson  20:33 Wow! Jeff Brown  20:34 And obviously there is the cost aspect as well. You know because you with film it costs every time you you press the shutter button, you know you can you can take a lot more images. But I suppose it does it does make you a bit more of a lazy photographer. Michael Hingson  20:49 Well, I I suppose in some senses it can. It just depends on how disciplined you are. Well, you seem to be a pretty disciplined kind of person, and so you you worked at that pretty well, and I can. I can appreciate that. So so when did you start doing photography for the military? When did you enroll in the military? Jeff Brown  21:11 So that was 1997 Michael Hingson  21:14 Okay, so you were what 2526 25 Jeff Brown  21:19 Yeah, 2026 Yeah, yeah, 2627 yeah. Michael Hingson  21:23 Well, and the the thing about photography or or any skill like that that is is pretty unique and pretty new for you is that you had to really develop the knack to doing it, but you obviously also had to have a lot of understanding about things like, as you said, PR and all that. I mean, some of that just had to be a little bit more natural, or just you observed so much that you realized the value of it. And as you pointed out, having the the whole photography branch in the military had to be incredibly much less expensive for the military, no matter what you wanted them to do, than them doing PR in other ways because it was all done internally. Yes, yes, you had to have helicopters and military people and all that other stuff, but they didn't have to pay the company to go out and, or didn't have to pay it much to go out and do the photography because you're the company. Jeff Brown  22:29 That's right. That's right. And also, some some of the jobs were required a certain level of vetting that they couldn't bring a company in unless those people were vetted. To you know, like on, I did quite a few photography shoots on nuclear submarines, which you you can't enter a nuclear submarine base unless you're you're vetted to a certain level. Michael Hingson  22:51 Right. Now that brings up a point. So let's let's go back to that. So going into a nuclear submarine base and so on, and and doing photography. What what was the purpose of pictures for that? Since it had to be pretty cleared and must have been somewhat classified. Jeff Brown  23:11 Well, sometimes some of the the shoots on board the submarine would be like award ceremonies. So okay, yeah, you know, people getting medals or achievements, and actually getting a photograph from receiving their award from the captain of the submarine. But then sometimes we would have PR photographs of of the the submarine sailing, and we'd be on speedboats going down the lock, photographing the submarine. Michael Hingson  23:41 But what you were not doing was taking pictures of things that were so classified that they didn't dare show them to the public or whatever. Jeff Brown  23:49 Yes, yes, Michael Hingson  23:50 yeah. Which which makes sense. Speaker 1  23:57 If you enjoy unstoppable mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week, we've created a way for you to support the show. Your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Michael Hingson  24:30 So you you did that, and so you clearly found a niche to to do and to to work at, and obviously loved it. Jeff Brown  24:43 I do. I mean, it took it took a while to get the confidence. I'm quite an introverted person, so where I love taking photographs, and you know, it's easy to take photographs of things and objects and landscapes and that sort of stuff. It's. It's quite hard when you don't have a lot of confidence and you are quite introverted to start directing people and telling people what to do, especially when you had to direct, you know, entire ships, companies, or groups of 4050, people to do a a group shot at the awards ceremony. So that that was something that took a bit of getting used to and put me out of my comfort zone to to become a bit more sociable and a bit less introverted, and also direct people from behind the camera. Michael Hingson  25:31 So you you became a director, Jeff Brown  25:35 I suppose. Yeah, you do. In some senses, Michael Hingson  25:38 anyway. Jeff Brown  25:38 Yeah, yeah, and from from another point of view, I sudden realized that you know you might not like directing people, or you might be really nervous about speaking to people you've never met before and telling them what to do. But quite often, the people on the other side of the camera are just as nervous as you because they don't like having their photograph taken. They feel awkward, so you know part of your job as a photographer is to put people at ease and make people feel comfortable. Michael Hingson  26:03 Yeah, and I think about it as a public speaker. I keep hearing all the time that one of the top fears that people have is speaking and standing on a stage and speaking. And I and I finally realize that that's because we're conditioning people to think that it's scary, but the fact of the matter is that, and I still believe this to this day, audiences want speakers to succeed. Unless you're just a real jerk, audiences want you to succeed, and I would think that that some of that same level of confidence goes into what you do as a photographer. You are-they want you to succeed, and the people who are nervous about you taking their pictures and so on. Your job, as you point out, is to kind of help make them feel more comfortable about Jeff Brown  26:55 it. Yeah, and and you, you know, on from your point of view, you know, you you want somebody to love the picture? Michael Hingson  27:02 Yeah, Jeff Brown  27:02 you want someone to go, oh wow, you know, like actually take away their their dislike and awkwardness of having a photograph taken, and you know it's it's quite rewarding when you see somebody go, oh wow, I didn't know I could look that good, you know, because you've you've directed them, you've posed them, you've helped them feel more relaxed, and they see themselves in a different because it's it's quite it quite often it's not that somebody always looks awkward or you know they don't take a good picture as people say oh don't take my picture I don't take a good picture you know it's the fact that they've never been directed they've never they've always felt felt uncomfortable and awkward so it comes through in the the final image because they don't look relaxed. They don't look natural. They've got this fake smile. They look uncomfortable. Michael Hingson  27:49 I know. For me, I've I've never worried about that. Of course, being blind my whole life, I never really cared a whole lot about pictures. Yeah. So I love to pick on pictures all the time. So you know, for example, people say that a picture is worth 1000 words, and I just point out, yeah, but it takes a whole lot more memory. So, but but but I I appreciate pictures, and I've learned a lot more about photography and appreciating photography ever since September 11th. And part of that was my guide dog Roselle at the time, who became a real camera ham hound. She loved to be in front of the camera, and there was one time we were on a Larry King show on CNN, and you know his shots are and the photographers and and the and everything on the show is basically front like from the chest up, and and so on, and they take pictures. So one day we were going to be on the show, and they made a a little platform that Roselle, my guide dog, could lie on, and they said, "Okay, put her up on there, and I did, and she laid down, put her head between her paws, and that was it. And the director came like about a minute before the show started, and he said, "Isn't there anything you can do to get her to react more and to be a little bit more involved in the show? And I said, "Are the Klieg lights on yet? And he said, "No. I said, "Just wait till you turn the lights on. Everything will change. The lights came on. She lifted up her head, started blinking her eyes and flashing her eyelashes, smiling and licking her chops, and just having a good old time. She loved the camera. It was so funny. Jeff Brown  29:39 Yeah, I can't get. I can't get my dog to sit. He won't sit in front. He won't sit in front of the camera. He's a working Springer Spaniel. He will not stay still for two minutes. And there's something about it. Every time you look, you pick up the camera. I think he knows that you want to take a picture, and he turns his head away. He looks the opposite direction. Michael Hingson  29:57 Yeah. See, Roselle was exactly the opposite. Knew you wanted to take her picture, and she was going, "Bring it on! She just absolutely loved it. It was so funny, and and and it was it was a blessing. But it it as as we talked about it, as I talked to photographers and other people when we dealt with different interviews and so on, I grew to appreciate the value of pictures and what it was that they were trying to get, and it didn't take any work really to get Roselle to be involved in that. It didn't take a lot of work to get me involved with it, but I gained a greater understanding of it. So I certainly value the fact that there's there's a lot of reasons for taking photographs, although I also like audio input and other things like that that I'm going to see. But still, it's it's great that we have this technology, and nowadays, of course, because it is so digital, it makes it so much easier. Jeff Brown  30:59 It does. I think I think obviously there's you know everybody's using photographer now. Everyone walks around with a camera in their pocket, which is you know effectively a smartphone, and the quality of the images that you can take on a phone are fantastic. You know the you know the the resolution, the color saturation, the the look absolutely amazing. But sometimes I think people forget to stop and appreciate the moment. So everybody is more, you know, getting the picture taken, sticking it onto Instagram, onto Facebook, and also we have all these digital memories. But not many people are printing pictures out and putting them on the walls like we used to in the 80s and 90s. You know, family portraits, and I think that is a big thing that photographers need to be to be sort of reinventing and encouraging people to to enjoy the wall art, personalize the home, have a picture on the wall that brings a smile to your face every time you see it. Because if you take it on your phone, you you enjoy it for a second, and then it becomes a memory, and it goes in. I looked the other day. I've got 14 and a half 1000 pictures on my phone. Yeah. So, and I only ever see them, you know, seconds after I take them and I post them on Facebook, and then maybe a year later when a Facebook memory comes up and reminds me, oh, this is what you were doing this time last year. Michael Hingson  32:20 Yeah. Well. Well, and I understand that, and I, I, I also understand what you're saying about lazy photography because, as you said, you take the picture, you look at it, and it's gone, and you don't necessarily do all you can to make sure that the picture is looking as good as it as it can look, and sometimes we just rely on the automatic zoom and other things like that to make the picture look good. But the bottom line is that ultimately we're in control of it and really should make the picture as good as we can make it. Jeff Brown  32:54 Yeah, I mean that was that was what we were taught in the military right at the very beginning. And as I say, you know, was starting out on on on film cameras. It was get it right in the camera. You know, get it right in the camera. It'll look a lot better, and it'll save you hours of time in the dark room. And then there's a tendency now for photographers to think, "Oh, that'll do. I'll just sort it out in Photoshop afterwards, and which again takes time. And as a photographer, time is money. So yeah, yeah. The better you can get the composition and the and the way a photograph looks in the camera, then the less work you're going to have to do afterwards. Michael Hingson  33:35 Yeah, which makes perfect sense. And so I appreciate that. Well, so you were in the military for 10 years, and what made you retire from the military? And also, what kind of skills did you learn that you then took away from the military? One of them had to be accepting authority a little bit more, but I'm being sarcastic. But still, what what kind of skills and so on did you learn, and and did you take away, and and why did you even leave the military after 10 years? Jeff Brown  34:07 So, so being a military photographer, I was a military photographer, and there was a new a new sort of breed of like a new discipline that was coming into into the into our area into the the photography branch, and it was called IA, which is an intelligence analyst, and they believed that photographers, probably rightly, had a real attention to detail and a keen a keen eye for spotting things, and they were so they recruited intelligence analysts from the photography branch to analyze intelligence imagery, satellite imagery, reconnaissance, and then collate this information with other intelligence services. Like Lacher on I six and JCHQ, so so people on the ground, you know, and and military listening outposts, and so I got sent to work. So I did my intelligence course, and I got sent to work for with the intelligence services for about two and a half years now. While I was while I was doing my job as a military analyst, intelligence analyst, I started getting people coming into my office and saying, "You're a military photographer, aren't you? Yeah. Would you photograph my dog? Can you can you photograph my daughter at her birthday? Do you do weddings? Can you do my my my partner's wedding and stuff like that? So started doing a little bit of stuff on weekends, and then soon realized that there was actually quite a good bit of money being a photographer. So that was it. So that that set me on the path of right. I'm going to get out the military. I'm going to start with my own business. I'm going to go back to being self-employed again, but this time using my skills as a photographer. And yeah, I had good photography skills. I had other skills that the military had sort of drummed into me, which was you know timekeeping, organization, attention to detail, and that would work brilliant with a wedding because with a wedding you've got to organize people, everything's got to be on time. You've you've got to have that attention to detail, so started doing weddings on weekends, and then I left, and now decided to go into partnership with another military photographer who was working at the same the same base as me, and was also from the same the same area, the same the same city. So I left first because he was married with two kids. Alif first to set the business up and get the business bringing in money, and then about six months later, the business was bringing in enough money for him to put his notice in and and come out and and join me full time in the photography business. So and then it just skyrocketed from there. We ended up having four different photography businesses, Michael Hingson  37:03 pretty impressive, huh? Jeff Brown  37:05 It was good, but I think you know a lot of the lot the stuff that we did is when we left the military is you get a resettlement grant to resettle you back into civilian life to to to get you ready to work for other people, but obviously we were going to go self employed, so we we spent this resettlement grant of 7000 pound on marketing and branding training. So I got 7000 Kev got 7000 So we spent spent a lot of our money on understanding how to run a business, understanding what brand was all about and brand concept and and marketing. And it wasn't necessarily our photography skills that helped us succeed. It was the skills of actually understanding how to run a business and how to market our brand, Michael Hingson  37:49 which also goes a little bit back to understanding PR and just as you said, understanding all about business, which is which is pretty cool. Speaker 3  37:57 Yeah. Michael Hingson  37:59 Well, as you as you did that, how easy was it for you to integrate back into society and become disciplined enough to run your own business? Because when you were in the military, you had other people who were making a lot of those decisions, but you had to learn something along the way or figure out something along the way that allowed you to truly run your own business. Jeff Brown  38:22 To be honest, I felt I felt quite excited to be going back to it because, obviously, you know, from sort of 1415, year old, I'd had I'd had my own business, and that that was my first my first ever job. You know, working for myself with fish and fish and tackle business, and I sort of realized early on that yes, I don't have a boss, but ultimately the business is the boss because the business demands from you all the time. It demands how much work you need to put in, and if you don't put the work in, then you don't get the money. But the other good thing about running your own business is you're not on a fixed wage. You know, you have that ability to make a lot more money, without having to be promoted or or impress somebody else, you know. So for some people, it doesn't work. Like my girlfriend always says, she doesn't think she could do what I do because she doesn't like that uncertainty. Of you know, because every business is ups and downs, ups and downs. You have low moments. You have high moments, but that's life in general, isn't it? And I think you've just got to have more high moments than low moments. But yeah, I love it. I don't think I could ever work for anybody else. But a lot of, I think I'm unemployable. I don't think I can. I don't think I could go into a normal job. But a lot of those high Michael Hingson  39:40 moments are also moments that essentially you create. It's your mindset. That's Jeff Brown  39:45 right. Yeah, Michael Hingson  39:46 because you know, like failure. Everybody talks about failure. Well, you know, you're going to experience failure in your life, and I have gotten to the point where I tend to react and say there really is no such thing as failure. Because failure seems to be an absolute-you screwed up, and that's all there is to it. And the reality is, it's not. Failure isn't really the issue. The issue is okay. You made a plan. Something didn't work right. The question really is now: Where do you go from here? How do you fix it? What have you learned from what happened? And I think that's really the issue. Jeff Brown  40:20 That's totally that's totally right, and you know, but I made a a decision back in 2014 So you said, you know, I love cooking, and had the photography businesses, which which were both doing very well. They were both they were all super successful, you know, bringing in the money, and I decided, wouldn't it be nice to buy a really, really beautiful traditional country pub, one with log fires, you know, in the middle of the countryside, maybe a two, 300 year old building, and and run my own pub? So that was that was my idea. So so I found this this beautiful little country pub in Durham, in the northeast of England, and it was like a picture postcard country pub that looked beautiful. It actually had two log fires. It had, I think, it was about 300 year old. It had wooden beams, everything, and so I fell in love with it. I I bought the lease on it. I plowed 120,000 pounds of my own money into it, and within 12 months, I'd lost all that money. I was a further 60,000 pound in debt, and I couldn't see any way out. Because you say, you know, like failure. Sometimes people think failure is that's it, that's the end. They can't see past it, and stupidly, I decided that that was it. I couldn't go on anymore, so I tried to drive my car off a bridge. I was, I was drunk at the time, but you know, luckily I didn't. I just damaged the car. I didn't damage myself. I woke up the next morning feeling utterly disgusted with myself because my daughter at the time would have been seven year old. and I realized I needed to get out the pub, and I needed to change a different direction, which I did. So I ran away, and I came to the countryside where I live now in Northumberland, and moved away from all my family and and my friends, about an hour away from all my family and friends to restart my life again, and I spent probably about six months listening to positivity books and audio books, and and trying to rewind my mindset, and then take a new direction. And that's when I got into the idea of because I was in the middle of the countryside, I could run an online business training photographers in marketing and branding, and you know how to how to promote themselves on the internet, and I could do that with anybody anywhere in the world who was a photographer. So that was my idea, and that's what I went for. And you know, looking back at it, 11 years on from that, it would be 11 years in March when I tried to take my own life, and I thought that was that was the biggest worst failure I'd ever have. It was the best failure I ever had because I've never been as happy. I've never been as stress free. My work takes me all over the world, speaking and meeting photographers. I have an absolutely amazing community. No day is the same because I'm on all different time zones, speaking to different people, and and I just love it. It's stress free, but you know, if I'd stayed at the pub, that wouldn't have been stress free. So, Michael Hingson  43:33 so what happened? That why did the pub fail? Fail, or or why didn't the public pub succeed? And what did you learn from that? Jeff Brown  43:40 So, well, first of all, probably I probably fell in love with the idea of the pub, but I probably didn't do enough research. Now, funny enough, it was in an old mining village, my coal mining village, that was very, very much based around if you weren't born and bred in the area, you didn't fit in, so first of all, I think fit into the village very well. But the profitability in the pub trade is is very hard, especially if the pub, if the building is owned by a brewery and you've got to buy your beer direct from the brewery, it reduces the profit margins. And I just think everything that could go wrong in that 12 month did go wrong. We had staff stealing offers. We had a couple of sabotages to the pub, a couple of really big bills that wasn't expected, equipment going wrong and equipment failing, and yeah, the costs just spiraled out of control. Michael Hingson  44:38 Just a lot of lack of research, Jeff Brown  44:41 yeah, yeah, yeah, Michael Hingson  44:42 and I would suspect that you would say that because of that, and because you realized all that, you learned. Jeff Brown  44:50 I learned, yeah, yeah, I, I totally learned, and I think you know that I, I, I fell in love with the idea of it. I fell in love with the building, and probably, probably didn't research it. And also, you know, yeah, I was great at marketing. I was great at business, but I'd never run a pub before. And yeah, it was probably a bit of a. I'd probably sort of trying to run before I could walk. In that, you know, might have been better off going and working for somebody else and being a manager or working in a bar. And you know, the the day I opened the pub, I'd never even pulled a pint before. Never stood behind a bar and served served a drink. So, Michael Hingson  45:28 yeah, and that's that's an art in of itself. Jeff Brown  45:32 Yeah, yeah, that's right. Michael Hingson  45:34 I used to when I lived in New Jersey and worked in New York. I used to go to a restaurant called Virgil's Real Barbecue, best barbecue I think in the country, and so if you're ever in New York, it's Virgil's. Anyway, they had opened a facility in Las Vegas. Also, they opened a restaurant in Las Vegas, and so last week when I was at the Consumer Electronics Show, I went there, and one of the things I had heard early on when they I heard about them opening the restaurant several years ago, was that the people who opened the restaurant before they could open it had to go spend six months in New York at the original Virgil's, learning everything about it, so that they could make this restaurant and the food be the same as as what they experienced, because they wanted Virgil's to be the same in both places, and they did. And I can say that, from my perspective, at least, they did a really great job, and they learned from that, which was exactly what you wanted for the people in Las Vegas to do, and they survived the pandemic, and it's still open. So when you're in Las Vegas next time, Jeff Brown  46:47 yeah, I'm there next week. So yeah, I'll have to Virgil's. Yeah, I'll check it out. Michael Hingson  46:52 Virgil's real barbecue, best ribs in the country. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it, everybody. Well, that's cool. So. So, do you believe that things happen for a reason? I mean, a lot has happened, and of course, the pub closed and and all that. Do you believe that things happen for a reason? Jeff Brown  47:13 I do, and and you know now I I think one of the things as well when you get to that point where you you don't believe there's there's there's any way out, and and you know you you get that alone, you get depressed, but you you feel that you've got to take your own life. You are right at the very bottom. I think for you to go to the very bottom and then come back up again, it changes your mindset about stuff. And I I never get stressed. I am a very, very chilled out person. If something goes wrong now or something fails, I just go. Well, it's happened for a reason. Maybe something better is around the corner. Maybe it's the universe trying to direct me in a in a different path. You know, and and I think the less you live, the more you live by that mindset, the more it opens you up to other opportunities. Yeah, keeps you living it. You know, you're not living in the past; you're living in the future. It it was for the first six months coming up here 11 years ago. It was hard to move away from that failure in my mind. I kept playing it over and over again, but you know, playing it over and over again wasn't going to make that failure with the pub any different. The outcome had happened, and what I needed to do was focus on the future, get back together and get my myself back together, both mentally and also establish a new business and a new way of life. And that in itself was a a massive learning curve, but for the better. Michael Hingson  48:44 Well, and and the reality is, it it certainly has made a big difference in your life. And the fact is that, again, it goes back to failure isn't the end all, and failure is is probably the wrong way to put it. It's a learning experience, and I think that it's so important to do that. I am like you. I refuse to feel stress. I've been through too many experiences in my life that that caused stress, and I've learned that there are always ways to to deal with things, and so it's important to not let the stress overwhelm you. I wrote a book that was published in 2024 called "Live Like a Guide Dog: True Stories from a Blind Man and His Dogs About Being Brave, Overcoming Adversity, and Moving Forward in Faith. And moving forward in faith is part of it, but the whole issue is we focus on our lives on so many things. We think we need to control everything, and the reality is, we only control probably much less than 10% of all the things that we experience, but we worry about 100% of everything, and that doesn't help. And so, it builds up so much fear and causes so much stress. And if we would just focus on the things over which we really can control, we would be much better off. Jeff Brown  49:59 Saying that, you know, after leaving the pub, because my mindset was very, very delicate, and I had to build my my mental health back up, I decided to stop watching the news. So I used to used to get up and go downstairs and put the news on TV and have my morning coffee and and listen to all this negativity, all this drama, every single morning, which I've done for probably 40, you know, well, at least 30-five years, and and that was it. I've never watched the news since. I don't watch any live TV. I don't watch the news. People say, "Well, how do you manage? So, well, somebody will tell me something, but most of the time, half the stuff that people get worried about never actually happens. And if it does happen, quite often there's nothing you can do about it because it's the other side of the world. Michael Hingson  50:53 Well, even if it's in England, you don't have control over it, so why worry about it? Now, I watch I watch the news, but I do it because I want to get the information. But I won't worry about it. And there's so much that happens. But I feel that that at least there is information to be gained by watching the news. But what I had to learn somewhere along the line is don't take it personally because you don't have any control over it. And there are so many things that that go on, but the the trick is not to let things you don't have any control over really affect you to the point where you get nervous and stressful again. Jeff Brown  51:34 Yeah, yeah, and I think that you know the the same thing can be put into social media. You know, people say social media is negative. Social media is dangerous, and it depends how you react to it and what you engage on. You know, in my own social media, I follow a lot of photographers, a lot of people who talk about adventures and motorcycle rides and travel and nature. So my news feed is filled with a lot of positive stuff. And if if I see something negative or see something sensationalist, what I do is I don't unfriend that person. I just unfollow them, so I don't see their content again. Michael Hingson  52:09 Yeah. Jeff Brown  52:10 But from from the plus side, you know, social media has bought me more opportunity than anything else, and and effectively for free. And I've traveled traveled a lot because of my work. I have over 100,000 followers across my my social media platforms, and social media brings me customers, brings me clients. It helps me sell books, so there is a lot of positivity to it. I suppose it. The negative is only if you engage in the negative, then you will you'll find the the negative aspect. Michael Hingson  52:40 Yeah. Well, and the reality is that again, it's it's how you approach life, and you've clearly learned a lot about how to approach life in a much more positive way. You've developed, well, we'll call it an unstoppable mindset. You've developed a mindset that allows you to go through life and do the things that you need to do, and focus on the things that you can, and you leave the rest of it alone. Jeff Brown  53:06 Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Michael Hingson  53:08 Which which makes a lot of sense. Well, for you, you you talked earlier about the fact that you have dyslexia, and you've been with dyslexia for most of your life, or maybe all of your life. It's interesting. I've talked to so many people who didn't know that they had dyslexia when they were in school and so on, and experienced a lot of the same frustrations and kinds of experiences that that you've experienced. And somewhere along the line, they finally discovered that they they had dyslexia. How did that when you when you finally realized that? What did that do for you? How did how did that really affect you? Jeff Brown  53:52 Well, funny enough, I I can remember a moment where I must have been about eight year old, where a teacher and you know, back in the 70s, teachers weren't as kind, weren't as kind to to schoolchildren as they are now. You know, and and this this teacher singled me out in front of the class and and told me that I was stupid and I wouldn't amount to anything because I kept struggling with this reading and my numbers. And at the time, I I was I was chubby. I had ginger hair, so I didn't have a I didn't have a lot going for us in in the popularity front, and also being you know the the stupid one in the class. So I found it really negative, and I found it really really personal because I didn't realize that I was dyslexic because nobody knew what dyslexia was now, and when I got to my mid 30s, and I went to train to go into the work with the intelligence services and be an image analyst, I had to redo my English and maths all level qualifications that I should have passed at school, but obviously I didn't. I had to do them through the military, and that was when I found out I was dyslexic, and I didn't actually know what dyslexia was until until I made up on it, and then it all made sense. You know why why I'd struggled for so long. I have my own workarounds. I know what my I know what my what my issues are. I mean, now with with with my work, there's so much out there that helps you as a dyslexic. You know, you you have you have spell checker, you have read aloud where you might not be able to see see it. You know, so quite often I'll do a social media post, and I'll I'll get Word document to read it out aloud so I can hear it. But if I if I if I read it back, I can't see the mistakes I've made because my mind doesn't process that. I know when I write a number down, I probably write write it down the wrong way. So if somebody gives me a phone number and I phone it and it's dead, I just change some of the digits around and figure Michael Hingson  55:58 it out. Do you agree? Do you use technology like Dragon, naturally speaking, to dictate? Jeff Brown  56:04 I tend, I tend to. So I started using only in the past six months. I was quite, I was quite sort of against AI, and well, not against it, but everybody was jumping on the chat, ChatGPT bandwagon, and I always tend to do something different than everybody else does. Six months ago, I jumped on a piece of software called Claude, and because I've because I've written five books now, I've written four business books, and I've written a travel book. I also had a lot of content to give to Claude to feed Claude, and then I had transcripts from my YouTube channel, and and then I gave them some do's and don'ts about you know tone of voice and language, and you know I would never say things like this, I would never say things like that. Told them that you know don't be spelling color without a U. Don't put a Z in sympathize because not American English. It's English, English, and the funny thing is, like over the over the past few months, he's he's pretty much replicated my tone of voice, so I can get Claude to write me a social media post, and then I I just tweak it slightly, and I'll make some changes, and then when I've written that social media post, I give it back to Claude and say, can you note? Can you identify the changes that I've made from what you've originally made, Michael Hingson  57:24 right? Jeff Brown  57:25 And take them on board for the next one, and then you give a summary of the changes. And it's yeah, it's it's it's quite impressive. It's quite scary as well because he he says things like, "Am I becoming more Jeff? Yeah, yeah, you are a bit. Michael Hingson  57:42 Well, the other thing is there are programs and technologies, as I mentioned, like Dragon, which is a a technology that you can get where you dictate, and it recognizes your voice, and it will then convert what you say directly into digitized form, which is pretty cool. I use Dragon when I write a fair amount, and and so that that goes back far earlier than AI. Although I'm sure that there are AI, there are AI components to Dragon naturally speaking today. But it's a it's a great program, and it makes writing a lot easier. So rather than typing on a keyboard, I'm speaking, and it is essentially taking what I write, and it just completely digitizes it by recognizing my voice and then putting it out in in in a digital form for me. I can use it with Microsoft Word and other things like that, Jeff Brown  58:41 yeah. And then do then do you listen back to that and then give edits on on what has been on what is being done? Michael Hingson  58:49 Yeah, I can. I just go back and read the word doc, and but it's but it literally is is transcription of what I say, so I can then go back and say, okay, let's fix this, or everything is fine, and I can go even go back and figure out what's misspelled if there are things that it misrecognized. But it works pretty well. Jeff Brown  59:12 Yeah, tech technology is is is fantastic. It's also got it's it's it's I suppose worrying sides for creative people, where there's a lot, a lot of creatives that potentially AI could could really damage their careers going forward. So it's it's interesting to see which direction it's taken. You know, work with it, but then also be aware of it. Michael Hingson  59:40 Yeah. Well, you still need to take control. Jeff Brown  59:43 Yeah, yeah. Michael Hingson  59:45 So, what's the most unusual or interesting country that you've ever visited since you do so much traveling? Jeff Brown  59:52 I've been to North Korea. So, 2019 I went to North Korea for New. New Year's Eve to celebrate New Year in in Pyongyang Square with another 100,000 North Koreans. There was only 12 Western tourists in Pyongyang at the time, and we were there for 10 days. So yes, I've I've done North Korea, which it took a bit getting into getting into North Korea. It's not as easy as just you can't go on and book a holiday. He can't choose a hotel. It all has to be done through a third-party agent, and it took about six months to get the whole thing to together. But it was-it was very interesting. It was a completely different than every anything I'd ever experienced before, and it's also supposed to be one of the safest countries you can travel to because you you're followed by the North Korean secret police everywhere you go, even inside buildings, when you're in restaurants, when you're in bars. That nothing could ever happen to you, but the North Korean people would never dare to come up and speak to you anyway, you know. But the the thing with North Korea is everything is everything is orchestrated. Everything is set for you alive and there in advance, so you only ever see what they want you to see. You never see the other side of North Korea. I've also been to Chernobyl, where the the last was that was absolutely fascinating, and last year I went to Transnistria, which is one of these countries that doesn't exist. It's not officially recognized by by the UN, and that was like stepping back into the 1980s Speaker 1  1:01:38 That was, Jeff Brown  1:01:39 but everywhere I've been, you know, I think that that's t

Send us Fan MailGoogle still matters, but the way people search is shifting under our feet. More buyers are starting with AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini, then making decisions from the answer they get back. When that happens, ranking well is not the whole game anymore. The new question becomes: will an answer engine cite your business by name when someone asks where to buy a shed near them?Kimberly Reynolds from AI Advantage Agency joins us to explain Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) in plain terms and connect it to what shed dealers care about most: leads, calls, and sales. We dig into the practical building blocks that help AI systems understand your business, including schema markup, entity signals, and why WordPress tools like Rank Math can simplify setup. We also talk about content strategy that works for AI search, like answering one question per page, leading with the answer, and adding FAQs with the right schema so your site becomes easy for AI to parse and trust.We also cover what is changing in paid media, including how Meta's ad algorithm now relies heavily on creative and copy, plus why Google Business Profile and reviews are even more important as Google rolls out AI Overviews and more searches end without a click. If you've got a solid website, a local presence, and a limited marketing budget, you'll walk away with a clear 90 day plan to improve SEO, AEO, and local SEO together. Subscribe for more shed sales and marketing breakdowns, share this with a dealer friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.For more information or to know more about the Shed Geek Podcast visit us at our website.Would you like to receive our weekly newsletter?  Sign up on our website: shedgeek.comFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube at the handle @shedgeekpodcast.To be a guest on the Shed Geek Podcast visit our website and fill out the "Contact Us" form.To suggest show topics or ask questions you want answered email us at info@shedgeek.com.This episodes Sponsors:Studio Sponsor: Shed ProVelocity 360J Money LLCCardinal LeasingiFAB LLCIdentigrow

Send us Fan Mail93.2%. That is the Google AI Overview citation rate for the builder Anewgo has been working with on its AEO initiative - meaning when buyers ask Google's AI real questions about communities, floor plans, features, and pricing in that builder's market, the AI cites that builder's website as a source 93% of the time. In this July State of AI episode, Anya Chrisanthon - CCO at Anewgo - walks through the newest data from Anewgo CTO Keng Lim's follow-up study and rounds out the month's biggest AI news for home builders.Finding one: the builder became part of more buyer conversations - on every platform ChatGPT surged early (16% to 72%), gave back some ground, and finished at 61%. Gemini climbed steadily to a new high of 75%. Google AI Overview climbed at every single measurement and finished at 93.2%. Three platforms, three different trajectories, all moving up. The lesson: buyers ask the same question in different AI tools and get different answers. If you're only measuring one platform - or not measuring at all - you have an incomplete picture.Finding two: being cited is not the same as being recommended Google cited the builder's website 93% of the time but ranked them number one only 43% of the time - a 50-point gap. Getting found and trusted by AI is step one. Step two is making the case: clear community details, plan options, included features, real points of difference. That's what converts a citation into a recommendation.Finding three: AEO creates value before the website visit While AI visibility went up, website sessions dropped about 47%. The study can't attribute the traffic change to AEO - but the opposing trends prove that sessions alone can no longer measure AEO progress. A buyer can have a meaningful brand encounter with your business inside an AI answer, and your analytics never see them. The new scorecard: are AI tools citing you, are they recommending you, and are the visits you do get more engaged and qualified?The rest of July in AI The model race kept sprinting - GPT-5.6 shipped as a full lineup and the industry theme shifted from "best model wins" to "best fit wins." The European Commission ordered Google to open Android to rival AI assistants - one more sign that the AI on your buyer's phone is becoming a choice, not a default, and your digital presence has to work for all of them. And agent frameworks went from theoretical to shipping - moving AI from answering questions to completing work.

From the Wealth Management Edge conference floor: VanEck's Head of Product Management Ed Lopez explores what advisors are asking about, from AI and AEO to private markets, real assets, and the three macro themes shaping portfolios. 00:00 Conference Overview and Key Themes 02:04 EDGE Conference evolution 05:28 Christian Munafo's session on private markets 07:20 AEO: Making your business searchable on AI 08:40 Ed Lopez sits on Women in ETFs panel 15:15 Ed's EDGE Takeaways

Search is changing fast, and the old playbook is breaking. In this 30-minute session, Becca Searns and Shaun Chojnacki of Haley Marketing tackle two halves of the same problem: how to get found when people are asking ChatGPT instead of scrolling Google — and how to actually convert them once they land.Becca breaks down conversion rate optimization: why most staffing sites were built to recruit, not to sell, and the framework that fixes it. Shaun follows with the tactical side of AI search — knowledge gaps, listicles, AI overviews, and the new acronyms every marketer needs to know.Practical, tactical, and something you can start using today.Expect to Learn:Why 98% of your visitors leave without doing a single thing — and why your site might be the culpritThe three questions behind every high-converting site: drivers, hooks, and barriersThe "people are goldfish" rule — you get 3–5 seconds to answer what you do, how you do it, can you do it for me, and am I in the right placeWhy clear beats clever, why carousels kill conversions, and why short forms winHow search is shifting to ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and TikTok — and what "topical authority" really meansThe AI knowledge gap strategy: writing listicles for niche roles and geographies nobody else ownsHow one client won 14,000+ AI Overviews in six monthsWhy SEO still matters — LLMs pull from page one, and they click anywhere on it, not just the top threeThe new alphabet: AIO, GEO, and AEO — what each one is and how to optimize for itWhy FAQs, schema, reviews, and press releases now do heavy liftingAbout the Guests:Becca Searns, Director of Creative Services, Haley Marketing Becca grew up with marketing at the dinner table. That instinct led her home to Haley Marketing, where she leads the quality of creative services and shapes the design and user experience across Haley Marketing's products. She holds a BFA in New Media Design and an MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology. But her real education came from seven years traveling internationally. That mix of formal training and on-the-ground experience is what lets her deliver creative solutions that are world-class, easy, and affordable.Shaun Chojnacki, Senior Marketing Strategist, Haley Marketing Shaun brings nearly a decade of expertise in digital marketing, SEO, paid media, and content strategy. Before joining us, Shaun served as Marketing Director at iPost, driving impressive results like boosting organic traffic by 100% and increasing lead conversion rates through targeted SEO and paid media strategies​. He's also managed substantial marketing budgets and played key roles on senior leadership teams for large e-commerce companies.

In this episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, Jon LaClare sits down with Chris Salerno, founder and CEO of QC Capital Group, to explore how strategic marketing can help businesses attract investors, raise capital, and build stronger portfolio companies.Chris shares how his fascination with business growth and consumer psychology led him from the real estate industry to founding a private equity company focused on businesses that support people's essential daily needs. He explains why branding, storytelling, customer acquisition, and a compelling pitch are just as important in the investment world as they are when marketing a consumer product.The conversation breaks down how QC Capital reaches accredited investors through social media, educational content, newsletters, targeted podcast appearances, professional referral networks, and memorable in-person experiences. Chris also explains why understanding your ideal investor's needs—including diversification, cash flow, and potential tax advantages—is critical when developing an effective marketing message.Jon and Chris also discuss the growing importance of Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO. As more consumers and investors use tools like ChatGPT and other AI platforms instead of traditional search engines, businesses must create credible, useful content that helps both people and AI systems understand their expertise.In today's episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we'll cover:● Why raising capital requires a strong brand, story, and marketing strategy● How to understand and communicate directly to your ideal investor● Why educational content builds trust with high-value prospects● How social media and newsletters can support investor acquisition● Why targeted podcast appearances can reach the right audience● How professional referral partners can become powerful growth channels● Why memorable experiences can outperform traditional networking events● What Answer Engine Optimization means for the future of marketing● How third-party content helps businesses establish authority online● Why businesses must adapt as customers move from Google to AI-powered searchWhether you're preparing to raise capital, looking for investors, or simply trying to reach a highly specific audience, this episode offers practical lessons for building authority, strengthening your message, and getting your business in front of the right people.Want to connect with Chris?Visit qccapitalgroup.com to learn more about QC Capital Group and its current investment opportunities.To be a guest on an upcoming episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, contact us today!Do you have a brand that you'd like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands totaling more than $2 billion in revenue? Visit HarvestGrowth.com and schedule a free consultation with our team today!

The way your customers search has changed. Not gradually. Dramatically. And most indie pet businesses haven't noticed yet. A year ago, if someone's dog had itchy skin, they'd Google "best dog food for itchy skin" and scroll through 20 links. Now? They're asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Perplexity the same question in a conversation: "My seven-year-old Labrador has itchy skin and keeps licking his paws. I think it's food-related. I want a locally owned pet store near me that actually understands nutrition." That's not a keyword search. That's a conversation. And that's AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Candace explains why this shift actually favors indie pet businesses and exactly what you need to do to win. She discusses: ⭐️ The difference between SEO and AEO (and why it matters more than you think) ⭐️ How customers are using AI tools instead of Google to find answers ⭐️ Why this isn't about panicking or hiring an expensive agency ⭐️ How AI scans your website differently than Google does ⭐️ Brand pages optimized for both humans and AI bots ⭐️ The one thing Candace would do first if she took over your business tomorrow Plus why the next 20 years are about helping people find trusted experts and not just products!  Transcript Show NotesJoin Us Online Find us on Facebook Join our Free Pet Industry Facebook Group Follow us on Instagram Read our Blog

In This Episode of Business Lunch: We explore the evolving landscape of search engine optimization (SEO) versus answer engine optimization (AEO), and how businesses can adapt their strategies to stay ahead in AI-driven search environments. They discuss practical tactics, the importance of evidence and authority, and how to leverage paid and organic channels effectively.Chapters:00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview00:17 Challenges with Technology and Setup00:30 Introduction to ChatGPT Ads and Platform Insights00:58 SEO vs AEO: What's the Difference?01:26 Understanding Search Engine Optimization and Answer Engine Optimization02:02 Should You Invest in SEO Now?02:30 Clarifying SEO, GEO, and Generative Engine Optimization03:06 How Answer Engines Are Replacing Search Engines03:42 The Shift from Rankings to Recommendations04:15 Using Search Engines for Direct Source Verification04:56 The Changing Role of Search in Customer Awareness Levels05:36 Branded Search and Its Importance06:01 The Evolving Nature of Search Optimization06:19 Optimizing for Recommendations, Not Rankings07:15 Bidding Strategies on Competitors and Trademark Terms08:40 Cost-Effective Strategies for Competing in Answer Engines10:00 Practical Approach for Business Owners11:00 From Rankings to Recommendations: New Optimization Goals12:08 The Role of Evidence and Proof in AI Recommendations13:15 Creating Credibility and Authority for Search Engines14:06 Content Strategy for AEO Success15:29 Schema and Technical SEO for AI16:29 Building the Neural Network: Assets and Relationships17:32 Practical Steps to Optimize for AI and Answer Engines18:36 Focusing on Questions, Not Keywords19:10 Gathering Evidence to Prove Authority20:39 Distribution, Freshness, and Uniqueness in Content21:26 The Importance of Original and Contrarian Content22:29 Using the Skyscraper Strategy for AI Optimization23:46 Reverse Engineering Top Sources and Cited Content25:38 Prioritizing Strategies Based on Business Needs26:09 Shifting Budgets from SEO to AEO27:05 Content and Embedded Influencers for Organic Growth28:14 Paid Search and Branded Terms for Immediate Impact29:41 Balancing Organic and Paid Strategies33:02 The Role of Authority and Evidence in AI Rankings36:34 Starting with Paid Search and Organic Content37:49 The Future of Search and Business Strategy40:13 Encouragement to Experiment and Share Results42:22 Final Thoughts and Wrap-upConnect with me on social:TikTok: Check out my TikTok HereInstagram: Check out my Instagram HereFacebook: Check out my Facebook HereLinkedIn: Check out my LinkedIn HereSubscribe to my YouTube

Save at FXRRacing.com with Pulpmx30 code and also thanks to Firepower Parts and Maxxis Tires. We talk to the MX6 rider about his SX season this past year, hosting Pulpmx Show, his small off-road career, quitting the sport for a year and getting a real job, AEO year, that crazy DM he got and more.

This Episode is Sponsored by StayFi Your ultimate tool for Vacation Rental WiFi marketing allowing you to collect guest emails automatically via custom captive WiFi login splash pages. Drive repeat direct bookings and convert your OTA bookings to book direct for their next visit. Visit https://stayfi.com/vrsuccess/ and use code VRSUCCESS for 50% off 3 months of StayFi service. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Gil Chan came at the short-term rental industry from a direction most operators never consider. After 15 years in Silicon Valley, working with brands like Gap, Sephora, and Home Depot on their post-purchase e-commerce experience, he became an STR host - and immediately spotted a gap that his industry background made obvious. The tools that e-commerce businesses took for granted simply did not exist for vacation rental operators who wanted to build a direct booking website worth having. Crafted Stays is Gil's answer to that gap: a purpose-built direct booking platform that works the way a proper commerce site should, not as feature number 40 in a property management system's marketing materials. But what makes this conversation particularly timely is where Gil has taken the platform over the past year - deep into AI-powered search, website building, and the kind of content strategy that gets operators found in places Google's traditional search results simply can't reach. This episode covers direct booking strategy, how search is changing (and what SEO, AEO, and GEO actually mean for property managers), the Aria AI assistant Gil built into Crafted Stays, and how operators can start thinking about their online presence in a way that serves both guests and the AI systems that are increasingly mediating how people find places to stay. It's a practical, technically grounded conversation - and one that will stay relevant for some time. ‍KEY TAKEAWAYS‍ Direct booking websites built on WordPress and plugins were never designed for the live data demands of vacation rental commerce. Purpose-built platforms handle PMS connections, checkout, and mobile experience in a fundamentally different way.‍ SEO, AEO, and GEO are three different things. Traditional search engine optimization gets you on page one of Google. Answer engine optimization gets you into the snippet at the top of the page. Generative engine optimization gets you cited when someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude for a recommendation. Operators need to think about all three.‍ AI-powered review analysis is an underused tool. Most operators check a five-star review and move on. Mining reviews for recurring themes - a screened porch that guests keep mentioning, a location detail that keeps coming up - surfaces the specific things guests value most, and those become the content anchors for the entire website. The Sightline Report that Aria generates combines property data, review sentiment, and third-party SEO keyword research to produce a strategic playbook for each operator. It tells them which keywords to target, which landing pages to build, and which guest personas to write toward - without requiring any marketing expertise from the operator. Building your AI business brain before you start using AI tools is not optional - it is foundational. Gil has been giving every new team member at Crafted Stays the same 40-page document about the business since he built it a year ago. The quality of AI output is directly tied to the quality of context you give it. The divide in AI adoption is getting wider, not narrower. Some operators are building sophisticated automated systems; others have barely touched ChatGPT. The window to build a real advantage by getting in early is still open, but it will not stay that way indefinitely.‍ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Most nonprofits start with the tools. The better question is, what's the scalable opportunity technology can solve so your team can stay focused on the human interactions that matter most?With 1 in 2 people impacted by cancer in their lifetime, Mike Osborne and his team at Cancer Council Victoria are applying that thinking to one of their biggest pressure points: freeing up counselors from digging through systems so they can stay present and support more people in less time.Mike also reveals research-backed hot takes on AI-generated search summaries, and why teens are more likely to open up to a chatbot than talk to an adult.Resources & LinksConnect with Mike on LinkedIn and learn more about Cancer Council Victoria on their website. Bloomerang is the proud presenter of Missions to Movements. See how one team surpassed a $1M match and raised $2.25M for their mission with Penny, Bloomerang's AI-powered fundraising strategist. Learn more at bloomerang.com.The Monthly Giving Builder: Generate your comprehensive monthly giving plan and build your program step by step - with a guided companion working alongside you from start to finish. Let's Connect!Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!