The New AI-SEO Playbook: Dominate AI Search Results in 2026

The first time that someone said SEO was dead, do you want to guess what year it was? >> About the same time they said email marketing is dead. >> It was actually 1996. >> Wow. >> I think that's where we are with AI right now. Teams that optimize for hiring the outliers, the supposedly exceptionally talented players, they actually tend to underperform teams that hire a lot of competent players. >> That's smart. That's very smart business. The stuff that used to work great in SEO that's probably not going to work great anymore are simply things like howto like howto type posts and >> what do you think is going to work? >> You're watching marketing misfits with Norm Ferrar and Kevin King. Feel like I'm hiding behind them like they so big on my face. >> Uh you know at least he has something to hide behind. >> Cover up the bags under my eyes. Yeah. How's it going? >> It's going all right. How are you, Mr. Ferrar? >> I'm a little worn out. We've done a few of these today. >> Little worn out. That's cuz you got you got to work out. You know this. You got to work out so that you can you don't get worn out. >> Exact. Well, you know what? Here's my workout. >> Yeah, that's that's that's a big workout. That that Well, you're you're going to be uh you know, I have to say something though. Um >> lately I you've influenced me. You got you got a calendar? >> No, no, no. I'm not using an online calendar. I refuse to use online calendars. I don't have that. No. I've been uh I've been on my balcony smoking a cigar like like five times in the last two weeks. >> Oo. >> By myself, you know, just chilling. I'm taking something out of the norm book, >> you know. >> There you go. >> You're a guy of systems and processes and I had to have some empathy for you. And I think that's some of what we're going to be talking about today is having some empathy and and systems and process of like I look up to you. This is my my my my older wiser, you know, buddy. So I have to like >> I have to go out and smoke a cigar. I had some nice Cubans >> u you know the ones that so they don't the ones that are in that one case that you're always like, "Hey, you got to be careful here. These are going to dry out." So I'm I'm using them. And I got there with Kona and she plays for about an hour and I I I I check on some messages or I just sit and think. >> So, have I ever sent you >> Have I ever sent you over >> Whoops. Here we go. We're talking over each other again, but that's okay. People are used to it. Um, have I ever sent you over the fivepage smoke outside working process or SOP? >> No, I haven't I haven't gotten that one yet. >> Oh, okay. Okay. you need to do that. Uh, you know, cuz, um, maybe our guest today can actually help. You know, I just got to figure out how to turn this into revenue. But it does. It turns into revenue because I'm sitting there thinking of ideas like the one I told you how we changed market masters around that came off of one of those sessions. >> So, you see, you see, uh, the we don't just talk about just, you know, marketing do these little things about marketing, little hacks or little processes here. We got to think about the big picture, too. And that's what we're going to be talking about today with our guest, Tracy Graziani. >> Let's bring her on. >> Let's do it. >> Hey, Tracy. >> Hi there. >> Hi. How are you? >> Before you say anything, I'm already on your side. I am a systems person. Soon as I like I am a systems person. So, I'll just say that I can't wait to get into this. >> And Norm is I remember the first time I met Norm. Um, he's like, "I have a I have a five-page SOP for how to make coffee in the office." Uh, I was like, "All right, this guy's not messing around cuz I don't have an SOP for anything." So, it's uh uh maybe I should, but um but that's why I partner with Norm, you know. So, >> but it's good to meet you. >> It's nice to meet you, too. >> Uh I pro I also kind of have a system for coffee. Um, I have a I just have a system for everything. It really makes your life easier. I promise. >> You are going to be best friends. Best friends. >> You You and me, Tracy, I can see >> I'm Just mute me, Norm. Just mute me. I'll just have a >> I'll do one better. All right. So, now we could get down to it. No, let's bring it back on. There we go. Okay, >> that's rough. >> Tracy, >> yes. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? >> Oh, the the the everybody's favorite really vague question. Um, so I I own Greenfire Strategy uh based in Cleveland, Ohio. And we are a growth firm. We focus on uh aligning sales, marketing and service. Um the whole go to market function from my point of view should be one seamless experience for your customer and so that means your strategy needs to align all of those things and we do that uh in creative ways. It does when you start talking about SOPs that sounds like it's really uh uh boring and not fun. Um uh but we do that in creative ways and we do that by uh starting with deep persona research for of our clients customers. So we interview their customers. We uh understand their customers usually better than they understand themselves and that helps us uh help our clients achieve better growth uh with less growing pains. >> What type of clients are these that are doing this? >> I'm sorry. What type of clients are these that are coming to you for this kind of stuff? Is it established companies that are launching a new product? Is it someone brand new that's got an idea, needs help? What type of >> Yeah, most of our clients are are actually probably not in that space. Um, uh, we largely work with B2B companies and usually when we start working with a client, they are in one of two places. they've either grown rapidly and they're kind of outgrowing their existing systems and processes and things are starting to uh show a little bit of wear um or companies that have grown to a certain place and then they've just gotten stuck and they're kind of plateaued. So, uh, usually it helps it for for the way we work with our customers for them to kind of have an established MVP product and a customer base and a little bit of track record to look at because a lot of what we do is very data oriented. Uh, in addition to the that persona, >> a lot of people don't realize that if you have a hyperrowth or you're growing rapidly that it's a pain. I I remember and this is actually why I started getting into um systems uh Peter Gerber's uh E-Myth Academy and it was it was because we had a hyperrowth company and we thought oh great we're we're growing we're making money until you get to that one point and there was what I think it's Jeffrey uh is it Jeffrey Archer crossing the chasm >> where you get to that point where everything falls apart >> and now it's a nightmare and you you you kind of want to just give up because every step you take, you take two steps back. So, I can't wait to get into hear more about what you're doing because this is something that's going to solve a lot. Any entrepreneur that's hearing this and they think that growing is awesome until you get to that certain level and then now you got to rethink everything. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, not all growth is good and that's weirdly very counterintuitive to people. >> It is really hard to help people understand that not all growth is good. >> And so we really focus on talking about the difference between good growth and bad growth. >> Um, if you're acquiring a lot of new customers but you're not retaining customers, that's bad growth. You know that eventually you will exhaust your market. you'll run out of of of addressable market to sell to because >> is that part of your deep research is going in there and looking why are they um not staying with the company? Why can't they retain them? >> Yeah, that is part of it. But um I think the mistake a lot of people make actually is focusing on on the that that the negative the things that aren't working. Um, usually the place we start is we say, "I'd like to talk to your best customers, the people who have stayed with you the longest, the people who are happiest, the ones that prefer you business, because usually we can find some gems in the ones that are sticky to help us figure out how to get unstuck on the problem of churn." So, uh, if you it's like, um, have you ever, you know, you're you're you're walking in front of a group of people and you think, "Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip." What do you do? You trip, right? So, it why in business and in life do we then double down on the problem uh and instead of doubling down on what's working. And so, so I usually think the best path to growth is to figure out how can we accelerate what's already working. Uh, obviously we're going to uncover when you talk to those people, you're still going to uncover things that are opportunities to change that will help with solving for your churn and those kinds of things. But if you if you if you spend too much time focusing on what's not working, um it's really hard to accelerate the things that are. >> How often do you find it's a issue of systems or processes that are causing the churn versus just poor product market fit or poor poor execution? >> Well, what's interesting is good systems solve for a lot of execution problems. Because if you if you have a system that works there there's ownorous systems, right? Not not all systems are created equal, right? So, so having having a system that has good adoption, uh there's all kinds of studies that show that actually like uh people who when they were interviewed were maybe middle of the pack when they're hiring salespeople, they they didn't seem to be rock stars as people like to say. uh that often those people, if you have a really solid sales process, will produce more revenue than those allegedly high performers who maybe get a handful of really big deals. Because somebody who actually follows a sales process all the way to the end, the process will beat the personality almost every time. >> That's what franchises are based on. Just follow Absolutely. the process and you know it I remember somebody telling me this uh uh years ago but an MBA could come in and try to improve the processes in McDonald's and just have a failed McDonald's because they've tried to improve something that's just a failsafe um system. And the other thing I wanted to mention too, um, when you were talking about the average person, you know, coming in as a salesperson and then all of a sudden becoming a rock star, you could do that with the right coaching in sports as well. If you take a look at some of the quarterbacks that are out there right now, failed on many teams, and all of a sudden they go to the right team and there's the right system with the right system that fits their skill. >> This is a great example. There's that's another thing. There's actually pretty good research that shows that uh teams that optimize for hiring the outliers, the supposedly exceptionally talented players, they actually tend to underperform teams that hire a lot of competent players. So if you have a a higher a deeper bench of competent people with less of those really expensive supposedly highly talented people, your team will actually on the whole perform better than a team that has a couple of those very expensive rock stars. >> So there's there's a lot of value actually in having people who are very consistent, reliable, and who can uh show up and do the work. Hey, Norm, you'll love this, man. I talked to a seller the other day doing 50k a month, but when I asked them what their actual profit was, they just kind of stared at me. Are you serious? That's kind of like driving blindfolded. >> Exactly, man. I told them, "You got to check out Sellerboard. This cool profit tool that's built just for Amazon sellers. It tracks everything like fees, PPC, refunds, promos, even changing cogs during using FIFO. >> Aha. But does it do FBM shipping costs, too? >> Sure does. That way you can keep your quarter 4 chaos totally under control and know your numbers because not only does it do that, but it makes your PPC bids, it forecasts inventory, it sends review requests, and even helps you get reimbursements from Amazon. Now, that's like having a CFO in your back pocket. >> You know what? It's just $15 a month, but you got to go to sellerboard.com/misfits. sellerboard.com/misfits. And if you do that, they'll even throw in a free two-month trial. >> So, you want me to say go to sellerboard.commisfits and get your number straight before your accountant loses it? >> Exactly. All right. So, how do you screen for those people? How do you is that personality test or what's the process to actually find if I'm if I and Norman and I have have an agency right now that's just getting off the ground. We just signed our first uh at the time of this recording like five clients. We have 147 people on a wait list, but we're like, we got to get the systems and the processes in place >> and and uh for these first five and you know, they're getting a discount as a result because they're with us and like, hey, we're building this plane while we're flying it. >> But how if we got to go out and hire some people to help us out, what are the what would you recommend is the way to find those not the superstars, but those middle of the pack people uh that we can put into the systems that Norm's building? >> Yeah. So there's a few things that I think are really great when you when you interview people. There's a few questions that I really like to ask. Um so uh also just full disclosure, I went to grad school to be a research psychologist. So questions are my jam. Like asking people questions is my favorite thing to do. That's probably why we also do a lot of persona research, right? But um so there's a whole philosophy in HR called a behavior-based interview. I definitely recommend looking into behavior-based interview tactics uh and questions. But uh along that vein, one thing I have found is that in the work that we do when you're working in in a highly tech involved environment that we are all in now, uh I don't know about you, looking at you guys, you seem to probably be around the age that I am. when I was in college about I don't know 1% of what I do every day for work existed at all right >> like it just didn't exist um and so the the skills that you need to do the work that I do I learned those things myself along the way I either taught myself or I took a class or I read a book or you know eventually YouTube came along or whatever right but but a successful person in in an environment like I'm describing is going to be somebody who is going to be able to learn new things and adapt and has a growth mindset. So I'm looking for people who are learners and and not academic but a learner. Those are very different things. So you can have a really great resume. you could have gone to three Ivy League schools, but if you can't answer this question for me in a way that shows that you really uh can can work in the world we're in now, then you're not going to be a fit. So, I usually ask people, what is the last thing that you learned that wasn't required for work or school? >> That's important. >> Yeah. So, when did you what did you learn? And then I ask them why did you want to learn it? How did you go about learning it? Uh what resources did you need? What what did you discover along the way that you didn't know you needed to know? You know, I want to see are they someone who views the world as a place where I have the agency and the power to learn, evolve, and grow. If they're that person, then they're going to do well in an environment that has some structure. We have some systems and processes that nurture, but ultimately your growth is a part of how we succeed. >> One of the things that we try to do is half of the well the the main hire at the beginning is a learner, but they're also an educator. So they can take that process they understand the process to their you know the fullest degree and then they can teach the people that come in under them. So everybody in the organization can actually write their own uh processes and procedures which includes the SOPs and just that that understanding to be able to absorb it and then teach it u is something that's so important uh in our in our system. I don't know if you're looking for that educator learner, but we're trying to filter it throughout the company. >> Yep. We actually do like uh like a weekly show and tell. So, we have a morning standup every day. And so, we have a different person every week share with the rest of the group something that they're doing in their work uh so that we can learn it because we all do different things and first of all, it helps to understand what everybody else is doing in their work all day. uh but also it's creating that right they're they become the teacher not just the learner >> right >> so >> I I guess one of the other things that's really important uh when you people say a lot of the times uh the SOP >> but they're not talking about the process the SOP is part of the process and the process has to include you touched on it at the very beginning the buyin so people aren't going to buy in. If they don't understand why that cup of coffee is so important to have on fresh in the morning in the office, then they will just over just overlook it. It's just, you know, it's just coffee and that's that's not right. But here's the buy in. This is why we are doing it and these this is everything you need to know. Here's the prerequisites. Here's the um all all the uh um uh acronyms. So they learn, you know, the uh all the acronyms that they need or any of the spelling that will be defined in the SOP and then who they're reporting to. I mean, there's such a system outside of just an SOP, >> right? Because a lot of SOPs sit in a binder on a shelf or they're sitting in a knowledge base that never gets clicked on >> and you're the only one that knows it, >> right? So that's pointless. Um, and that's also why I believe in things like, you know, since you're you're a process nerd, you've probably read checklist manifesto, right? That's why I believe in things that that make the process tangible, uh, like a checklist because if it's this really heavyw weighty document with 72 steps, people are probably not going to reference it. But if there's some way for them to quickly implement it and doublech checkck their work, you know, you guys are in marketing. So we have very very uh detailed briefing process that we have that we use, right? And uh and we use and that's a consistent process every time. And then we have a checklist you know so the at the planning point we use the brief and then the content is created and then we have a checklist that reviews it at the end you know and that's how you can consistently create good content and I don't have to hire uh that you know again back to this rockstar right like people think oh well I've got to get this we work in B2B our clients a lot of them are in sustain like in sustainability and healthcare and things that are highly technical. Our clients are PhDs. They're very, very smart people. Their customers are very, very smart people. Um, but I do not have to have PhDs who cost $400 an hour on staff to do the writing for our clients because our clients are the expert on their science and our writers are the expert on writing for humans. And so our writers follow a process and they rely on our client for the scientific expertise piece of what they're writing. They can interview the scientist to get the science, you know, and so that's the that's the beauty of of process and that's the difference of having a process versus um you know focusing on finding this sort of like perfect hire. There is no perfect hire anyway, right? Like, you know, the smartest person in the world could be a terrible employee. >> Probably. >> I know a lot of geniuses that are not not good employees. >> In fact, they're probably more likely to be terrible employee to be real honest. >> Exactly. You say I mean, is that part of the empathy thing? Because you you say a lot uh I've seen in some of the blogs and stuff on your site that everything all the growth starts with empathy. And what what do you mean by that? Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Uh, I don't care if you sell widgets or you sell hot dogs. Uh, the person who pays for whatever you sell is a person. At the end of the day, you're in the people business. No matter what you do, if it's software, if it's a product, if it's a service, whatever it is, you're in the people business. And yet, it's so funny to me that like the four Ps of marketing don't include people, you know, like you go through all of the like best practices that that we teach people about marketing and sales and most of them ignore the humans, which is really funny since at the end of the day, the humans are the ones who authorize the payment, they write the check, they sign the contract, whatever it is, right? So, if you want this person who's going on about their life doing whatever they do, uh, more likely to keep doing whatever they're doing than buying whatever it is you've got, how are you going to bring them along to what you do if you don't really understand them? Like if everything you think about that is bad sales, bad marketing, and bad customer service, the common denominator in all of those things is that it's out of touch with the people, right? You know, when uh you you guys work in marketing, you probably get cold outreach from people that are like, "Hey, you know, we could build you a website." And you're like, "Dude, like that's what I do. Why are you reaching out to me?" Right? like it's so tonedeaf and stupid, right? You know, there's no empathy there. They never bothered to even pay attention and understand what you might need help with, right? So, empathy really is the answer to how you get where you want to go. And and that really means you have to stop thinking about your products, your services, and start thinking about their problems. How do you help them? >> Yeah. The pain points, right? >> Yeah. But it's not just about the pain, right? It's also about the promise. Like a lot of a lot of people are motivated by what they're what they're going to get out of working with you in some way. like when you're in a service business like yours, you know, their pain points are not necessarily something they're even authorized to spend money on, right? But they sure as heck want to get a promotion. They sure as heck want to look good in front of their boss, all of those kinds of things. So, you know, yes, it's pain, but it's also whatever their motivations are, whatever their fears are, you know, whatever is fun for them. Um, >> we had a we had a guy on a couple of weeks ago, Scott Cunningham, and he writes these incredible avatars. You know, what does it life look like before you have the product? What does it look like after the product? He's got all these questions laid out, very, very thorough. >> Sure. >> And as you were talking, I was thinking, I've never done this, >> but what does the life look like for my employee? What does it look like after they implement? and you go through those exact questions and you and the outcome. You know what that's that's interesting. I I might try to do that is just implement the avatar the system we have for that and put it as an employee. What can we do? What does your life how do we make your life easier? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Very cool. >> Yeah. Because you have internal customers too, right? Well, that's what the president of Zappos, the the young guy, the Asian guy, he's passed away now, has some drug problems, but >> um that's unfortunate, but that's one of the things he did is when he started out, his employees like he would go pick up their laundry for him. >> Actually, I just want to correct you because he he died in a house fire. He didn't have a drug problem. >> There you go. There's a story in Wired about uh some crazy stuff in Vegas, but yeah. Okay. Yeah, he died the houseire, but um >> yeah. Um but yeah, the guy was brilliant at what he was what he was doing and the way he treated the employees like going and picking up their laundry and like um I mean there's story after story. You may know some other ones, Tracy, that that he did. Um and it was that's that empathy uh and putting yourself in their shoes and helping them perform better by taking some of the the little minute things off their plate. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, actually literally just today a blog post on the Spark Toro blog just hit uh and Amanda um Nativod from Spark Turo talked about how uh when she was at Fitbit when they planned their content the persona she optimized for was actually their internal teams. So what does sales need in the way of content to help them sell? >> Mhm. >> And so they optimize the content for the internal persona, not the external customer persona, >> which is interesting, >> right? How has AI changed this now with I mean in the past you had to pick up the phone and call and you still that still is important but there's a lot of people that are skipping those steps and they're they're just going straight to the AI dumping a bunch of data in and saying give paint a picture of my perfect customer based on all these reviews all these comments all this data and then they're taking that and running with it and creating u you know avatars that they're writing their emails around and stuff like that. That's one question. And then the second one's back on what you said where you have to talk to the human. You have to sell to, you know, the human's ultimately making that decision. Things are changing now where agents are going to start making some of those decisions. Um, especially in B2B and it it's it's it's small right now and it's not really happening right now, but it it's it's coming. um I believe and where you're going to see the humans will still be in on some of the important decisions, but a lot of the smaller decisions will be made by agents and you're going to be selling not to the person but to the system or to the to the to the um what what that wants to be. And there's people that say, I know one of the things you guys help people do, I saw on your website is like you help with websites and stuff and and and and that's an important barometer, but there's people in the AEO or answer engine optimization space um that say we're we're headed towards a directions where websites don't matter. Websites are going to basically be notion pages u because AI is going to be pulling from that and the humans aren't going to be going so much to the website. So, I'm just curious to see your thoughts on what how AI is affecting everything that you're doing and how it can be used as a tool and also be misused and lead people in the wrong direction. >> I mean, I think every time somebody's missing misusing AI, it just gives me the advantage, right? So, um uh I mean what the the the volume of content on the internet has tripled since the advent of AI because there's so much crap now just absolute AI slop that has been created. So now quality content stands out even more because so much of the internet is useless. And so um I'm not worried about some of the things people are worried about with AI for those reasons, right? Because if you're doing great work, it's always going to bubble to the top. Um, the first time that someone said SEO was dead, do you want to guess what year it was? >> Oh, yes. About the same time they said email marketing is dead. >> It was actually 1996. >> Wow. >> Long before most people even knew what SEO was. And the first time somebody said it was dead was before most people had even adopted it as a strategy. So, I think that's where we are with AI right now, right? Like there are an awful lot of people who've written it off and okay, you can do that, but I think it's here to stay. Uh, so there's no point in doing that. Um, it what AI is and what it is capable of doing is evolving very rapidly and will continue to evolve very rapidly. And so I would say right now to imagine how agents are going to factor in I'm not sure we can realistically imagine how that's how that's going to work. >> Yeah, I'd agree I agree with that. >> So I yes it's going to be a thing. Uh, but how that works is going to vary because what's weird right now is that first of all, anybody who says they're doing AEOS, who is selling AEO, all of that, they're absolutely disingenuine at the at the at a minimum because because we still do not really know enough about it to accurately predict it in how it works. So uh the the handful of tools that are trying to show you. So so take for an example like right now if if the two of you put the exact same prompt into your chat GPT instances you will produce a different result. >> If we did that times 100 people we would have about a 100 results because of that. The way that SEO tools were built, the ones like Moz and Semrush and all of those tools that you use, the way that those were built was by reverse engineering outputs to create predictive algorithms, right? We can't take what we have right now and do that same thing with AI because AI is perpetually evolving. Are you looking to quickly boost new Amazon product launches or scale up existing listings to reach first page positioning? The influencer platform Stack Influence can help. That's right. Stack Influence pushes high volume external traffic sales straight to Amazon listings using micro influencers that you only have to pay with your products. They've helped upand cominging brands like Magic Spoon compete with Cheerios for top category positioning while also helping Fortune 500 brands like Unilver launch their new products. Right now is one of the best times to get started with Stack Influence. You can sign up at stackinfluence.com or click the link in this video down in the description notes below and mention misfits that's misfitts to get 10% off your first campaign. stackinfluence.com. You know what you got to do now is instead of like you got to know your avatar. You got to do exactly what you guys are do. Know the pain points. know who your customer is and create your content that's aimed at them, not aimed at beating an SEO system on keywords and phrases and and backlinks, but based on what's inside their my my chat GBT versus Norm's chat GBT that's going to resonate with my personality that the AI is going to pick up on. And that's that's how AEO is out there. And I agree with you. Someone that says they're an expert on AEO is There is no expert. There's people that are on there's people that are on the cutting edge. They're tracking it. And Norm and I both believe that people should actually be preparing for that and doing some of the steps. But to make big promises like, hey, this is going to revolutionize your business or whatever, that's a that's false. But to actually say, hey, we don't know where this is going, but it's a good idea to be in on the ground floor just in case it goes somewhere and here's what you need to do to optimize, that's smart. That's really smart business. >> Yeah. And so for for persona research, right? So, so you back to that like um there's some really smart people out there who are who are doing a lot with AI persona research and we do use it to a small extent uh as an additional layer to the persona research that we do but you and here's where it's valuable we didn't have access to this before right but effectively the LLM sort of have sourced as much as they can get their hands on of the available you know information that's out there floating around, you know, on the internet. And so, in a sense, it can give you an average of what there is to know about some things based on what's on the internet. Now, couple minutes ago, I mentioned there's three times as much stuff on the internet now than there was before the advent of LLMs. Uh, or really before ChattBT. LLMs have been around for a longer time, but before ChatGpt. Uh, and so we know that a large percentage of what it's sourcing now is self-referential. A lot of what it's sourcing is AI slop >> and often times in incorrect. >> So the AI is sourcing AI. And so you have to take it with a grain of salt that now there's other pieces of the LLM that are getting better at citing their sources and all of those things, but if you follow the sources, you still have to check your your data, right? You follow those sources, you're going to find some of those sources are clearly AI junk, right? So So it it is a tool. It doesn't replace things, but it certainly can enhance things. But here's how how people can use AI. The thing that they're sleeping on, the the thing that is just mind-blowing to me is that everybody is trying to use AI to to generate stuff. And I do realize that it's generative AI, right? That's what that's the first thing people want to do with it, right? But the opportunity that exists is in the analysis. >> Yeah. Okay. So, when I was in graduate school and I was learning to be a psychological researcher, uh you do you do a handful of things when you do when you do research. Uh when you're researching humans, you you can observe humans. So, you you go to their workplace or whatever the study is about, you go and you observe what is happening and you write down what you see. You could film it. You could take audio recordings. Uh and then you you try to catalog everything that you've observed. That's one thing you can do. >> That's the J process with the chimps. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh the uh the next thing that's pretty common uh is to interview people. Uh, and then generally back when I was doing that, I had a a Radio Shack tape recorder and I was recording those interviews and then I, you know, had a a dictaphone pedal playback machine that I would uh then type. >> I remember all those >> and then I would type my I'm not a good typist. And then I would type my transcripts. And so if you had uh for me anyway, if I had an hour of audio, it took me about 3 hours to transcribe that because I wasn't super good at it. I wasn't a professional transcriptionist, but I was in grad school. I couldn't afford to pay for one. Um, and then I would have this typed out thing and I would then print that out. And then I would get a whole bunch of highlighters in different colors and I would start coding those interviews for sentiment. So this is a negative sentiment. We highlight that in red. This is a positive sentiment. We highlight that in green. This is a neutral sentiment. We highlight that in yellow. Uh then you go through and you look for keywords. What are words that people are using to describe this thing over and over again. And you go through and every time you see that word or phrase, you circle it. And then you count all of those things. And then you quantify that and you take that unstructured data of all of those interviews and you build you you come up with structure from it. And then you can an analyze it. Right? So, so when I was that was how I learned how to do and then the the third thing that is pretty common are surveys, right? So, that's sort of the third thing. Those are kind of the three, you know, ways you would go about researching humans. Um, and uh and by the way, you you surveys are kind of nice because usually the data is a little bit cleaner. Uh, but the the observational research you code the same way the interviews, right? You you take that you trans you put the transcripts you blah blah blah all the stuff same thing all of that stuff the way we did that in the past it would take hundreds and hundreds of hours to analyze a data set just to see what you have and then then you can interpret that and draw some conclusions and then determine often that you need to do some more research because there you've uncovered things questions that didn't get answered and you need to go back right so all of that stuff I can now do with AI in moments. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, so we interview our clients customers, right? I interview them on uh Zoom. My AI notetaker is there. I do a 45minute interview with three people from from the persona category. Typically at least three. So do at least three of our clients actual customers that uh fit this particular persona grouping. And then ideally I would interview three people who are not customers of my client who fit that persona grouping. So now I've got almost six hours of of audio, video, and transcription. Those AI tools create the transcript for me, right? >> Mhm. >> And so now I can put all of that into Notebook LM and it can code all of that for me. All of that coding it can do for me and it processes it in a few minutes. And >> that's a nice trade-off. Yeah, exactly. And so what what it allows me to do is a much higher volume at a much lower amount of time because let's face it, that time with the dictaphone, that wasn't valuable time. That wasn't a good use of my brain, right? That was just a a an effort that happily I can take a machine to do for me, right? So that's the beauty of AI is I can put all of that and the beauty of a tool like Notebook LM as an example is I put my data in there and it's only in it's only messing with my data. It's not pulling in random crap off of the internet. It's just my data and I can then use it to structure it, build a mind map. I can make a video overview. I can take that and create a a a short briefing document. I can have it go through and identify occurrences of keywords. I can do all of those things and I can slice and dice and reorganize that data quickly, efficiently. And so now the kind of research that say a a Proctor and Gamble or you know a Coca-Cola would have only be been able to afford uh a mid-market business can hire somebody like me to do that kind of research and they're not spending millions of dollars to do it. Like that's unbelievable. >> Yeah. One of the tricks that we have, we we write a lot of content and again it's AI and we tell our clients that it's AI but it has a human uh at the end of it. So we'll go out we'll do some research if it's a content or a blog article we will have one of the editors go through >> and like we had some uh I forget the name of the company it's not Jasper. Uh ah anyway uh we get about five or six different summaries from the top blog articles. We get it to the writer. They take a look at it and then they import it into an a a blog article, but then they humanize it. They go through and they take the points and they stretch it out. That way the AI isn't just looking at it as AI crap. it's actually good quality uh content and from what I believe from what I've heard is that the the human content is being weighted higher than the AI content. So it actually helps our clients as well. I mean, there's a few things that we know right now that I'm sure will change, but there are some things that are very apparent because they are consistent, and that's what you can look at if you were going to pretend to do AEO. Uh, there are some things that are consistent. When you look at like a Perplexity that cites its sources really well, you you can see a theme that shows up in the things that it cites. It likes well ststructured content that is broken into smaller chunks of information and has very clear uh titles and subtitles, h tags that >> yes, it really likes a good schema. So it loves a listical um you know those kinds of things, right? >> Comparison charts. >> I'm sorry. >> Comparison charts too. >> It loves comparison charts. it loves. And so those are some things you can absolutely employ that will that will help you uh in in answer engines. But at the end of the day, um if you're really being empathetic and helping people with what you make, it's going to naturally occur, right? So and and we have a policy if we don't write with AI. Um we use AI for the research. I highly recommend uh content harmony to build your briefs. Uh it it employs AI and it looks at search intent and intent is really really important now more than ever because people aren't just you know the thing we didn't talk much about is is the other part. There's still people using Google. That hasn't stopped. No. >> Right. Um and in fact Google use is actually up this year to last year. So, uh, it's it's not going away, but Google is 60% of Google searches end without a click because of their AI overviews. Uh, and so now you have to kind of think about what zero click content, right? So, um, or uh writing things that don't lend themselves to an overview. So having a point of view, having an opinion, uh including humor, you know, there's a lot of things that would make somebody actually click through and read your article on your site, uh because it has more meat to it than just being the fact. So I the the stuff that used to work great in SEO that's probably not going to work great anymore are simply things like howto, right? like how-to type posts are probably not going to to farewell for people anymore because um that is definitely from an intent perspective something people are using AI for uh more than uh than than the way that they were using search. And if it's a how-to type thing, Google's going to give it us in their in their AI overview as well. So, >> and what do you think is going to work? What are your thoughts? >> What works? Yeah. >> Um original research. So if you are the authority on this thing, you have conducted a survey or a study or something so that you are the original source of that data point. That's super super valuable. Uh opinion works. Uh, I don't want to get into all of the the darkness that is on the internet right now, but obviously from social media, you can tell people really like strong opinions. >> Uh, and strong opinions do work. And guess what? You can have strong opinions about your work stuff, right? Uh, I'm sure you have very strong opinions about your SOPs, right? Um I have very strong opinions about email subject lines and certain things right like we all do and uh the the the previous approach was always like we need to be very neutral you know that's a that's a professional thing to do and actually I would say the best thing to do now is to you know put your flag in the ground and say we are pro this or we are anti- this and here's why then People have a reason to click through and read your article. >> Yeah. When you please everyone, you please no one. And you got to you it's but a lot of people are afraid to repel people or to upset people, but you have to. I mean, you got to you got to find your tribe. You got to find your people. And that's >> And why And why wouldn't you? There are people I do not want to work with. >> Yeah. >> You know, I told somebody in a sales conversation, we we have a in our retainers, we have a 60-day opt out. So, if at any point you decide you don't want to continue working with us, you give us 60 days notice, you're out. But I have a 60-day opt out, too. And the prospect is like, "Well, why would you do that?" And I was like, "Well, I'll tell you what. I've only fired a handful of customers in in the, you know, 13 years I've owned this company, but I'll tell you what, if you treat my people badly, I'll fire you." And he was like, "What?" And I was like, "Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like that's that's the line for me." You know, >> the customer is not always right. >> Yeah. Not not if they're abusive, not if they're cruel, you know? Um it is a lot easier for me to find a new customer than it is for me to find a good employee, right? >> And who wants to work with somebody that's just a pain in the ass, >> right? And and who does who wants to be? I feel like I have the responsibility to protect my people, right? >> Yeah. >> Because nobody should be treated badly, you know, and I I wouldn't be doing my job if I if I let I mean, I've had I mean, I had a guy he would just was belittled, you know, and and was he was cruel. He was absolutely mean. And it costs exactly 0 and no more time to be polite. So I see one of the things you do to manage all this and you're and everything is you're you guys do a lot of HubSpot stuff and you have HubSpot technical support services and things like that. For those that don't understand, there's some people probably listening to this that are avid users of HubSpot. Some people are like, I don't quite get what that thing does. I hear about Substack and HubSpot and Salesforce and all this. What what is this and why do I need that? What is it actually going to do for me? Can you explain that in like layman's terms for some of the people listening? How val how valuable or how do you guys use it? >> Sure. So, uh HubSpot uh and Salesforce are CRM, customer relationship management software. Um Salesforce was the first cloud-based CRM before Salesforce. All CRM were a software you were installing on your physical servers in your office. Uh, and they cost people, you know, at that time you were spending, you know, $100,000 or something for these enterprise level software tools. And so, um, the, you know, Salesforce was first to market. HubSpot came along and, you know, in my opinion, improved upon the the concept and the product, made it a little bit more user friendly. But the a CRM is a database for all of your customer interactions and information and then uh all of your other electronic software and tools should plug into that CRM. So a lot of people are familiar with getting email marketing for example uh or uh getting text messages uh from a company or those kinds of things. Um, all of those things typically are plugged into a CRM for generally like a mediumsize and larger company, but a lot of small businesses are using CRM and they should be because uh being able to understand what's going on with your customers uh and uh being able to respond in real time, being able to personalize your messaging and your interactions, all of those things um is really valuable. But uh it it is it is a fairly technical piece of software. So so getting set up and using a CRM uh usually you need some support to do that. And so that's part of what we do. So that's part of where my you know systems and processes thinking factors in because uh it's really nice to have a database but if people aren't using it, you don't have any data in your database, right? So, we work with our customers to understand how they're selling and what we can do to help them improve their sales process and then automate as much of it as possible with that software. So instead of you sitting down to your computer and manually sending emails to people, oh that the the proposal you just sent out, you know, before this call, uh 3 days from now, uh you probably want to check in with them if you haven't heard back. You know, uh if you just have to remember to do all of those things, you some things are going to slip through the cracks. And so that's why you would use automation with a CRM to to make sure that they don't because wouldn't it be nice if just 3 days after you send the proposal, if they haven't replied, they get an email from you that says, "Hey, uh, what did you think of the proposal?" Hey, Kevin King and Norm Ferrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player. Or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of the Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet, Norm? >> Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast? >> Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time? It's just me on here. You're not going to know what I say. >> I'll I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair, too. We'll just You can go back and forth with one another. Yikes. But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content, somewhere up there there's a banner. Click on it and you'll go to another episode of the Marketing Misfits. >> Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm. this CRM or HubSpot. >> Yeah, >> it's it's more of a a business in a box. And the way that I look at it for anybody who's um in the Amazon selling game, uh back a few years ago and even now, but you had these apps, everybody had to, you know, get a $99 a month, 150 bucks a month, but there would be multiples and they would overlap. You'd want some something from this app, something from this app, something from this app. Well, with this type of hub, it puts it all together. So, you don't have to have these three, five, 10 different types of apps. It's all in one, which it might look a little pricey at first, but when you consider everything that is involved, um it it actually is quite affordable. >> Yeah. And it's it's automating things that would take up labor, right? So, it it allows you to do more with less people. Uh, which I I know in some ways sounds bad, but um it's doing the work that's not fun for people to do anyway, right? Nobody wants to spend a lot of time sitting in front of their computer sending emails, right? I think we'd rather do more valuable work with our time. >> Well, one of the things you guys do is you also come in when you do this analysis and I saw on your site something I don't remember what the number was like a case study or something. You raised revenue like 30% or something like that. What are you what are you seeing that moves the needle the fastest? There's there's long-term revenue generation or cost cutting that can actually increase bottom line, but from a is it you mentioned a minute ago uh subject lines. You're you're really rigorous on your subject lines. That sounds like you email is an important part of of the mix, but what do you say moves revenue the most for I know it's vary by business, but just if you had to overall say these are the three movers and shakers generally, what would those be? Um we always start so all of our clients start one of two ways. We either do a growth plan uh where the growth plan involves uh persona research, competitor research and an analysis of their current um systems and processes for what they're doing in sales, marketing and service. Uh and so usually through that we we can uncover whatever uh things are are working and what things are not because we try to tie ultimately their results uh back to their activities. And so one of the first things we want to figure out is is uh before you ever add anything, you always want to figure out what you can cut, right? So, uh, if you're, you know, uh, we had a client a few years back, they were doing five newsletters. Um, now there's other com clients I would actually recommend five different newsletters to because you might have five very different personas and you want to have something really highly personalized so that people want to read the newsletter, right? But in this case, that company didn't have the human bandwidth to do five newsletters. And by doing five newsletters, none of the newsletters were performing. They all had an open rate that was like far far below uh average. And so in their case, it was like, okay, let's do one really good newsletter instead of five, you know, let's cut four, keep one, improve the one we have, you know. So I think generally what contributes to growth uh is aligning uh aligning your strategy to what is working instead of aligning your strategy to what your goal is. So most companies I find don't actually have a strategy. They have a list of tactics. >> So that's more of the outputs versus outcomes thing. >> Exactly. >> That you you talk about sometimes. Okay. >> Because here's what happens, right? So the the CEO or the owner is like, well, we need to make this revenue goal by the end of the year. And then the the managers under that, like the VPs or the sea levels or whoever, right? Then that get that gets broken into what they're going to do. And so then they break that out as like okay well uh sales then is going to you know then then each saleserson is gold x number of dollars of that total revenue goal. And then marketing is like well then uh right now we have a close rate of of 22%. So based on that revenue goal now marketing needs to generate this number of leads uh to get that number and then that becomes the strategy. That's not a strategy right that's just a math practice. Uh and then you so then then the next piece is like okay so now we have to get this number of leads. So then the people are like, well, how are we going to get this number of leads? And then it becomes random acts of marketing and here you go. And and that's not a strategy. Being strategic is actually there's a reason behind the decision you make. That's what a strategy is, you know. And so that that is where okay if our outcome is that we want to you know increase revenue nude you know by $10 million this year you know why is that the goal to begin with? What does that mean for the company? What are we actually hoping to accomplish with that? Like we have to actually figure that piece out because in the end really a strategy has to consider a certain you should if you're growing have a certain amount of net new business, right? You are always going to have a certain amount of churn. People will never be your customer forever, right? So, so some churn is going to happen and you do want to have uh at least as much net new business as you do churn but ideally more. But that retention piece is really really important. And so often the strategy strategy the list of tactics is really only tied to to sales and marketing and nobody's talking about what happens once they're a customer because customer service is the most underfunded department in any given company if they even have a department at all. And so the way that most of our clients can grow at 30% year-over-year is because we look at all three of those things. You have to look at sales, marketing, and service as connected. And ideally, you deso those things because we are all on the same team, right? And and and nobody likes to feel I do realize we have to have handoffs, right? Like we do have to have people in our organization who who f a customer from one person to another person in the organization. You can't just interact with only one person the entire time you interact with a company. But nobody ever wants to feel like they've been handed off, right? And typically the handoff points from marketing to sales and from sales to service are where you're losing the most money. So that's where the systems come in. >> And that's where the systems come in. You see? >> Yep. >> Yep. >> It all comes together. >> That's right. Uh so we are at the top of the hour and we always love to ask one question to our misfit and if they know a misfit. >> I know so many misfits. Um, I this is a hard one to pick cuz I there's so many people I would like to pick, but um I highly recommend you talk to uh my friend Lea Wowers and I'll obviously give you her contact information. Um she is doing some of the most creative things uh with AI. Uh, and I think you'll have fun picking her brain and and looking at how she's doing things. Um, she is is very creatively sort of using AI like an employee in in certain ways. Not really replacing people, but but but using it like an employee. So, >> I can't wait to talk to her. All right. >> Well, Tracy, thank you so much for coming on. Uh it was a great discussion and uh especially since it's one of my favorite topics. So >> that works out perfect. >> I appreciate it. >> And we didn't we didn't bore Kevin to death, I don't think. >> No, no, I I I didn't. We got to talk about some cool AI stuff. Yeah, it's all good. Uh no, it was all it was all great. Uh thank you very much, Tracy. Uh this is this has been awesome. >> Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having >> All right, Tracy. Thank you. Oh, how do people reach out actually if they want to? So, so we are green greenfirestrategy.com. Uh, and you're also welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. Uh, I try to post there pretty regularly and I'm always looking for interesting people to connect with and follow there. So, >> awesome. >> All right. Thanks again. >> Yeah, my pleasure. >> All right. There we go. >> A It's awesome stuff. Awesome stuff. Uh, and you tied it all all together there at the end, Norm, with the system. Look, look at you go. Look at you go. You're not You're not this dumb old man that that some people think. >> Oh, nice. That's a nice dumb old fossil, but not a old man. >> Yeah. No, that's that's really good stuff. Tracy's on top of stuff and uh I like I love what she's doing and how she's implementing all that and coming in and uh and letting people see um you know a whole different way to actually look at things. So cuz sometimes you know it's it's hard to see from inside the see the label from inside the glass and uh that that's what they're doing is coming in and helping people. So awesome stuff. Um but other awesome stuff is uh what on on the Tik Tok channel, right? >> Yep. Tik Tok we're doing really well. Uh we've been up for about four or five months by the time this uh airs and uh yeah we got some good content over there and also on YouTube we have two channels. One has long form uh so you'll see the whole video but we also and that's at marketing misfits podcast and then there's the short form that's marketing misfits clips and that's threeinut content or less and these are just the nuggets that we extract from every episode. So you can check that out. >> Yeah. And if you always want to know what's going on, new episodes every comes out every Tuesday on Apple Podcast, on Spotify, on YouTube. You always go to marketingmisfits.co.co and catch the latest there and uh read a little bit about uh Norm and myself and uh and and just learn a little bit more about the podcast. Um but uh yeah, I think that's it, Norm. >> All right. Well, we will see you later, Kev. Uh like I Oh, that was the last podcast about the Soprano uh outfit, right? Um Yeah, >> if if you want if you want to know a little bit about that inside joke, listen to the podcast one just >> Exactly. Um, take care everybody. Appreciate it. >> See you.