GOGETMUSCLE

John Jantsch (00:01.891)

So, what happens to a business when the entry-level work that trained your people gets absorbed by AI? Today’s guest has been thinking about that maybe harder and longer than most. And his answer is possibly uncomfortable. The traditional path from junior to senior breaks, and most organizations have no plan for what replaces it. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.

This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Paul Roetzer. He is a former, or I’m sorry, he’s the founder, not former, and CEO of SmarterX and Marketing AI Institute, and co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence. He launched the Marketing AI conference, MACON, co-hosts the Artificial Intelligence Show, and has delivered more than 200 keynotes for AI for organizations including Google, LinkedIn, and the US government. I think after Chat GPT launched,

Even though Paul was on that the trail, that certainly opened up many, many doors for him. So Paul, welcome back to the show.

Paul Roetzer (01:03.192)

China, it’s always good to be with you and to catch up. It’s it doesn’t happen often enough.

John Jantsch (01:05.783)

Yeah. You you I think your first appearance was when PR twenty twenty, maybe bookwise was that was the name of the book, right?

Paul Roetzer (01:16.492)

the kind of the agency was PR twenty twenty. That was the agency I sold back in two thousand twenty one. And then we had, I don’t know, the a marketing agency blueprint and the marketing performance blueprint. It could have been one of those that we were on for.

John Jantsch (01:27.171)

Awesome. All right. Well, let’s dive into the AI Institute. you built it really to help marketers understand AI. and then it just kind of blew up, right? I mean, it was an idea that then, you know. So so what it made clear that you needed to build that, which at the time was kind of outside of the marketing realm.

Paul Roetzer (01:38.018)

Yeah. Seven and a half years later.

Paul Roetzer (01:52.406)

Yeah. So the I I I’ll give the quick origin story. So actually it goes back to the PR twenty twenty days. In two thousand and eleven, I wrote the marketing agency blueprints. That was my first book. And at the time we were a few years into being HubSpot’s first partner and kind of at the forefront of marketing technology and social media and inbound marketing and content marketing and all of those things. and that was the year IBM Watson won on Jeopardy. And I became obsessed with understanding how that technology worked. And then

John Jantsch (02:16.226)

Mm.

Paul Roetzer (02:21.997)

Could it actually be applied? That same idea of it was basically a prediction engine. Take data in, you understand the language behind it, and then you make predictions about what comes next. And so I started working on this concept of what I was calling a marketing intelligence engine. And this is back in 2012 and 13. And the premise was: if we could use Watson-like technology to predict what to do next, what net next best action, next strategy, how to spend our marketing dollars, then we could build.

An entirely new way of doing marketing. And so that was the original hypothesis. And I shared that idea in my 2014 book. And then that was like out of the 50,000 word manuscript, it was like a thousand words. And the book was not about AI otherwise. And that was all anybody wanted me to talk about. And so fast forward to 2016, and we were like, Well, what do we do with this? Like I’m really intrigued by it. I’m convinced it’s gonna change marketing and business in the world, but like I don’t really know what’s possible.

So we created the Marketing Institute to research it ourselves and then tell the story of AI, like what was real, what was happening. And so yeah, we created the Marketing Institute in 2016. And and then, like I always half joke, like we survived long enough financially for ChatGPT to show up. I sold my agency in 2021, focused exclusively then on AI and the institute and eventually SmarterX. raised a seed round of funding that kind of got me through the the really lean years and

Chat GPT came and all of a sudden the interest in AI exploded.

John Jantsch (03:53.699)

So I’ve been through I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been through several of these game changing technologies that came along. And there seems to be this curve. You know, there’s the early adopters, of course, and you know, and then there’s the overhypers, you know, and then there’s the like, my god, I guess it’s not going away. We better figure it out. And and then there’s just kind of like, now it’s plumbing. we don’t even call it anything anymore.

Do you see AI having a similar path even if it’s f faster and and more disruptive?

Paul Roetzer (04:27.637)

I did. so my belief was actually by 2020 we wouldn’t have to call it AI anymore. I just thought it was gonna be like marketing and software and stuff. So I what I’ve always said was I overestimated how quickly everyone else was gonna figure this out and the impact it would have, like in the near term, but then I underestimated the long-term, like true transformation it was gonna cause to the economy and businesses and things like that.

John Jantsch (04:32.842)

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (04:44.236)

Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (04:53.047)

So I have always sort of had this feeling that, like, well, maybe we shouldn’t even call it an AI institute or AI technology or whatever. We shouldn’t differentiate in that way. But I’ve now become convinced that we have a we have a very extended runway ahead of us where being AI matters, like being AI forward matters. Like it’s a differentiator within organizations to say that you’re AI forward, that you understand the technology, you use the technology.

John Jantsch (04:59.517)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (05:12.406)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Roetzer (05:18.319)

and then as a business, I think it’s becoming fundamental for leaders of businesses to be able to think of themselves as an AI forward organization that they’re looking at ways to infuse it into people, processes, technology. And so I don’t know, it’s like I I thought we would be past it by now. And I I honestly I feel like we’re just in the first innings still.

John Jantsch (05:37.154)

Yeah. Yeah. Think about how many defunct social media marketing agencies, you know, are out there, for example, right? and and I think your your idea that, we don’t wanna it’s great that that’s the thing now, but we don’t want to go down that to where it just becomes, you know, business consulting or something. But you know, I think one of the major differences is AI’s impacting

Paul Roetzer (05:44.449)

Yes.

John Jantsch (06:02.301)

every area of a business. I mean, you know, the finance people are using it, the operations people are using it. I mean, obviously the marketing people are using it. And think that’s probably a significant I mean, there are many others, but but would you say that that’s maybe in some ways why it’s you’ve got this long runway is because, you know, it’s basically gonna impact everything.

Paul Roetzer (06:23.499)

Yeah, I I’ve I said years ago that I believed that AI was going to become the underlying operating system to businesses and society, that it was it was literally going to be woven into every aspect of what organizations do, their people, their processes, their their technology. And then within society, it was gonna become the epicenter of the economy. It was gonna basically be the driver of growth. And that’s all starting to happen. And so I do think that.

John Jantsch (06:31.543)

Yes.

John Jantsch (06:46.871)

I was gonna say they’re definitely there are definitely people suggesting that that’s where we are, yeah.

Paul Roetzer (06:52.041)

Yes, it’s like you the like if if we stopped building data centers right now and if the five technology companies that are spending north of eighty to a hundred billion a year on AI infrastructure stopped doing it, the economy would crumble. Like if we whether people realize it or not, we have become an AI driven economy for better or for worse. And so I yeah, I think we’ve gotten to the point where it’s a general purpose technology. Social media is a tool. Like

John Jantsch (07:07.576)

Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (07:19.297)

This is this is on on par with like the invention of computers and electricity and like it it yeah, so that’s what that’s what’s different.

John Jantsch (07:19.649)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:24.611)

Cars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s a little bit of a rising bubble of people that are anti AI. you know, you you see the marketing positioning of, you know, no AI was used in the creation of this. Do you think that is simply a trend or do you think that that will

Paul Roetzer (07:46.51)

I think it’s going to grow significantly. I think it’s gonna be stoked by interest groups that want it to grow. And then I think it’ll naturally grow because people’s lives and communities are gonna be impacted in negative ways. So I always like the the closest thing I can equate to to try and make it tangible for people is, you know, if we go back to 1994, 1995, the internet’s like becoming a a real thing in society. And at that moment, we said, you know what?

There’s gonna be this thing called the dark web, where these like horrible people do horrible things and it’s gonna cause like online bullying and like you’re gonna have all these downstream super negative things that happen. But we go back and say, but would we still build the internet? Yeah, like a hundred times out of a hundred, you would probably still build the internet because it has changed society in a bunch of profoundly like positive ways. And I think AI is gonna be the exact same thing. There’s going to be absolutely

Negative things that happen as a result of it, whether it’s building of data centers in communities that don’t want them, job loss and displacement, whatever. Like those things are gonna happen. They’re a byproduct of it. But if all goes well, it’s also gonna transform health and create growth engines and opportunities we’ve never had before and solve mysteries in the universe. Like it’s gonna do all these things too. So it’s totally natural that there’s just there’s pushback because it’s starting to affect people’s lives. And we

you know, wherever your role in this is, you have to be empathetic to that. Like it’s and that’s my problem with a lot of like the Silicon Valley mentality is accelerate at all costs and like forget if if there’s risks and fears, like throw those aside. I’m not in that boat. I feel like we have to embrace the fact that not everyone loves this and it isn’t all just abundance and amazing things. There’s actually a bunch of things we have to deal with as a society as a result of this.

John Jantsch (09:32.652)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:43.391)

And you know, another issue that I think is I mean, I think there were some unforeseen things that came out of other technologies. But I it feels like even if you ask the smartest people in the world who are making this stuff, they don’t really know where it’s gonna go. And I think that there’s there’s an element of that that I think people some regulation needs to be in order to like not get too far out in front of something they can’t stop.

Paul Roetzer (10:09.227)

Yeah, there’s growing like so recently Demis Asabas posted online about the need for regulation and experts ending a framework. He’s the the co-founder CEO of Google DeepMind. Anthropic has made proposals around regulation frameworks. Sam Altman has called for regulation on Capitol Hill. Like they all claim to want it in different forms, but the regulation can be done where it actually has the negative effect on society. So there’s this like.

Very fine line that I am not the expert in by any means about how to do regulation well. there are very few people that are building the technology who who don’t think that there needs to be some protections and guardrails in place, that we don’t have to stop and say this is gonna have a serious impact. We should be thinking more deeply about it. The challenge has been the leaders of these labs, they’re so focused on just building the technology and competing with each other and competing with China and other countries. They’re

John Jantsch (11:04.524)

Trying to make money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (11:05.525)

Yeah, they don’t sit around and think about the writers who are going to lose their jobs. Like it’s just not and they live in a bubble where it’s like they’re all just technologists and engineers and like they’re all going to have jobs for the foreseeable future because they’re all growing and hiring more of those people, but they don’t think about the average knowledge worker and the impact it’s going to have. So they’re hiring economists and philosophers and like they’re trying to now consider it, but for a long time, they were just heads down, accelerated at all costs.

John Jantsch (11:33.706)

Yeah. Well and I and I think unfortunately when it comes to regulation, you know, you think about the government bodies that are going to decide they need to regulate this. I mean, they can’t even line a swimming pool. You know, so the idea that sorry, that was a cheap one, but the but the idea that they’re gonna actually you know, regulate an industry like this, you know, is pr probably kind of frightening.

Paul Roetzer (11:55.586)

Well, yeah, and they don’t understand the technology and where it’s going. Like the idea originally a couple of years ago is to limit it based on how much compute was needed to train a model. Well, that’s laughable amounts of compute these days. Like and then they just find ways around it. So every time they try and find a way to regulate it, it generally is a a very narrow minded way of thinking about it that would eventually be obsolete within like a year or two.

John Jantsch (12:19.158)

So let’s talk about eight pillars of business AI transformation. That’s something that you have written about. hopefully you remember writing about that. I’ll I’ll I’ll name them for you vision, strategy, data, technology, governance, literacy, people, and performance. the key thing, whether you want to check any of those boxes, is you said no companies ever passed this test yet. where do companies break down in terms of any of those elements when it comes to transformation at an organization?

Paul Roetzer (12:49.419)

Yeah, so this a relatively new concept that I shared. It’s part of a larger transformation system that I’m developing. And it’s like the first piece to it because we talk to a lot of companies of all sizes, small, mid-sized businesses, large enterprises. And everybody’s trying to figure out like what does it actually look like? We throw out this term transformation, but like no one really has quantified how do we actually do that. And what we’ve seen time and time again is, especially in larger enterprises, but it happens in small businesses too.

Just treat it as this technology problem. Like, we just gotta go get some Chad GPT licenses and give them to people. And like then we’re gonna get all these amazing benefits of AI. What app, yeah, and they throw it into the technology pool to do. What needs to happen, and the fundamental flaw that we see is a lack of situational awareness and vision from leadership. And so, my like, if I boil this down to one simple thing, the CEO has to drive the transformation. Like

John Jantsch (13:21.226)

Yeah. And the CTO’s in charge of it. Yeah. Right.

Paul Roetzer (13:43.316)

It has to be so important to the organization that the CEO has embedded him or herself in the deep understanding of the moment, of what the technology is capable of, of the impact it’s going to have on their organizational structure, their people, their products, their markets. And if the C-suite doesn’t have that, then you are not going to see a complete transformation within an organization. So vision and strategy from the leadership on down.

Is what’s fundamental. What’s driving most of the innovation and transformation in companies so far is actually bottom up, where people are just like bringing their own devices to work or getting their own personal accounts and just like doing their own thing. And then sometimes that turns into a collective of people doing their own thing. And then maybe a department’s like, let’s form around this and let’s get a marketing AI council or something. But what often lacks is that top leadership that truly understands this needs to be one of like

John Jantsch (14:19.222)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (14:41.089)

The three biggest priorities we are working on as an organization.

John Jantsch (14:44.428)

Well, and I think you hit on a really thing the thing I see all the time is that they’re treating it like tools, like, here’s a new laptop. you know, as opposed to the fact that this is probably you probably need to rethink your entire organization. You probably need to think what it is, rethink it what it is you actually do. and that might be a little bigger question, you know, about do you even have the right people? you know, do you have, you know, is the structure make any sense anymore? I mean, there’s just

You know, a lot of people like you and I sit around and talk about this stuff, and I think a lot of fifteen person business businesses are saying, Yeah, okay, tell us. I mean, it’s one thing to say you need to rethink your organization. Okay, but like what’s the roadmap for that? I mean, how does somebody, you know, w when you talk about those pillars, are there two or three that they ought to be addressing before they ever like sign up for a subscription? Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (15:34.87)

Yeah, so I mean, literacy is the fundamental thing. So it it’s number six on my list, but it does it’s actually probably number one overall because the even the C suite needs AI literacy. They need the knowledge and the understanding and the belief system around AI and its impact before they can prioritize it strategically within a business. So developing understanding of AI capabilities, the comp comprehension of like what it is and what it’s capable of, and then the competency to use the tools in an intelligent way.

John Jantsch (15:44.972)

Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (16:02.199)

That like you know when to go in and ask ChatGPT for help and and then you know what good looks like. So AI literacy is actually the foundation of all the other components. And then if you do that in individually and you go through the organization and say, okay, we’re gonna raise the skill level of everyone, the understanding of AI and the ability to work with it, then you can you can move the organization forward more, not only efficiency with higher efficiency and productivity, but drive actual innovation and growth as a result of it. And then as a small business, you can start to think.

Wow, like for 20 people, we could be performing at the level of 50 people. I was actually having this conversation today with our director of operations, who she and I used to work at my agency together. And we were laughing. I said, Could you imagine if we had these tools back when we owned an agency? Like it like 90% of what we did for clients, AI is capable of doing now. And so, like, like the perfect example we gave was we used to like give.

John Jantsch (16:49.301)

Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (16:59.443)

Monthly performance reports to clients by the 15th of the following month. So you’d wrap the month up, you’d organize the data, you’d put it into the thing, you’d do the analysis, you would create the PowerPoint, you’d schedule the meeting, and by the middle of the month, you were talking about what happened the previous month. We now at SmarterX, our COO runs those things in real time. So like at any moment, she has it connected to the data.

John Jantsch (17:04.514)

Yeah. Right.

Paul Roetzer (17:27.585)

She can tell the narrative of what is happening across all of our KPIs. And boom, here’s the update in Zoom. Stuff that we used to spend dozens of hours creating on a 15 day lag, we now do in real time. And so when you apply that across entire businesses, all different departments, you start to realize how different we can run companies today.

John Jantsch (17:49.535)

One thing that and and I said it in my beginning kind of question was that also trained a lot of people, right? A lot of the people that did that work learned a lot about marketing by doing that work, and they’re now missing that. how do we fill that gap?

Paul Roetzer (17:57.495)

Yes.

Paul Roetzer (18:05.547)

I don’t know. it is the focus of my Make Con 2026 keynote. So the name of the keynote is The Architect, the Orchestrator, and the Apprentice. And my basic hypothesis is that we have to redefine entry-level work because the tactical things that all of us did to become experts, to know what good looks like, to have judgment and taste, and to be able to work with these amazing tools in a responsible way.

We can do it because we did the data-driven repetitive work all those years and learned right from wrong and good from bad and things like that. And then we edited other people’s work. And it’s like if you remove all of that work from the first three to five years of our careers, how do we get to become the experts we all became and have that domain expertise and institutional knowledge? And so I don’t know the answer, but my current theory is that it looks something like an apprenticeship.

That organizations will have an increased revenue per employee number in as a benefit of AI. So you use AI to run a more efficient business, thereby generating more revenue per employee. But rather than putting that straight to the bottom line, you reinvest a portion of that increased revenue and profit back into developing entry-level talent through an apprenticeship program where they don’t have a direct impact on revenue. They’re actually an expense item for the first maybe two to three years of their career. And so

John Jantsch (19:02.304)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Roetzer (19:31.81)

That’s a theory, but then you actually have to operationalize well, okay, if if that actually is a viable idea, how do we do it? How do we train them? How do we use these tools to advance their learning so they still come out after two or three years with not only the level we had after two or three years, but maybe like 2x that. So we actually accelerate their learning, their taste, their judgment, their capabilities by leveraging AI technology to train them in new ways. And I have yet to meet a single leader.

Of any company of any size that has solved for

John Jantsch (20:05.558)

Yeah, that’s really interesting too, because I mean I I see it every day. It’s like right now some of the entry level people can’t recognize when AI is just hallucinating and saying stupid stuff. and and or just off brand, you know, even. and I think a lot of that comes from, you know, the fact that you can sit around and look at something and and immediately, you know, know the course correct.

but that just comes from experience. And I think I think that’s a really brilliant idea, the idea of of apprentice. but again, you also mentioned expense. and I think that’s what’s gonna make it hard for people. But the you know, companies that invest like that, you know, long term, we’ve seen it time and time again, win. so I think that yeah, yeah.

Paul Roetzer (20:52.833)

Yeah, you have to play the long game for sure. And a lot of companies aren’t gonna have that benefit. Like I’ve always said, if you’re publicly traded, venture capital backed or private equity owned, you’re f you’re fighting an uphill battle to follow that kind of model, to play the long game and not just take the near term benefits of cost reduction.

John Jantsch (21:10.134)

Are are we past the period when, you know, there was a lot of noise about like I’m I’ve gonna be able to reduce my staff to, you know, a third of what I have. Are we past people realizing that because they’re actually working harder now than they ever were?

Paul Roetzer (21:24.853)

No, I I don’t think we’re any I don’t even think we’ve scratched the surface of people realizing that they can reduce their staff. Like, so my my basic premise here is I I do think that AI is gonna drive a lot of innovation, a lot of new businesses, a lot of growth and jobs through entrepreneurship and and creation. But when I talk with leaders at enterprises who are under these very near-term

financial requirements to run the company where you have to either be growing or if you’re not growing fast enough, you have to be cutting expenses to still maintain the profit margins that are required. In those businesses, it’s really hard to sit there and say if you’ve had 15 marketers for the last 10 years, that you still need 15 marketers. Because we if if you train someone properly, like a a manager director level can do a lot of the entry-level work and where you maybe just don’t.

need that entry level higher you were gonna make this year. And so in companies that aren’t growing, I think it’s very hard to make an argument that they will maintain or increase their staffing levels. I I think companies that are growing less than 10% will be under tremendous pressure in the very near future. Once their CEOs realize what’s possible, I think they’re gonna be a lot enough pressure to reduce their staff.

John Jantsch (22:41.131)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (22:44.748)

Talk to me a little bit about MACON. I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, but once you spend our last minute or so together talking about Makeon and inviting people I think you said you even had a special discount code for me.

Paul Roetzer (22:57.187)

yeah. So Mekon, this is our seventh year. It’s hard to believe. I I was I posted something recently about how crazy it actually seems in retrospect. We started this conference in 2019, three years before ChatGPT. We were running an AI conference for marketers. sometimes I struggle to think like, what were we teaching at that point? But it was a lot of like, here’s what it could become, here’s how to find use cases, here’s companies that are building, you know, like.

John Jantsch (23:06.946)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Roetzer (23:22.729)

Email subject line writing tools and predictive modeling for ad spend and things like that’s what we were focused on back in those days. So it’s become something much larger. That first year we had 300 attendees from 12 countries. This year will be well over 2,000. I know I think we had 19 countries already represented last time I saw it. and we we basically break it into applied AI and strategic AI. So now there’s like two fundamental tracks: track for leaders that are thinking more big picture about the impact on the organization.

John Jantsch (23:24.929)

Yeah.

Paul Roetzer (23:51.618)

And applied AI is all about use cases, technologies, things like that, where you go in and then we have build sessions and workshops. So it’s an incredibly immersive environment. It’s a great community of other AI forward marketers and business leaders. So if you’re trying to find your people, try and find that community of other people who are thinking and trying to work toward like a human centered approach to this, that’s what Make On is all about. So yeah, you can go to makeon.ai, it’s A I C O N.ai, it’s in Cleveland.

October thirteenth to the fifteenth, and then duct tape one fifty is the promo code for saving a hundred and fifty bucks.

John Jantsch (24:24.492)

So two T’s in there, so D U D U C T T A P E. Yes, okay. Awesome. Duct tape one fifty gets you hundred and fifty dollars off, I’m guessing.

Paul Roetzer (24:28.481)

Yes.

Paul Roetzer (24:34.209)

That’s I’m guessing too. Looks like looks like that that would be what the one fifty would be in my mind. So if not, we’re gonna make it so.

John Jantsch (24:40.546)

Awesome. What yeah, awesome, awesome. Well, you know, that idea of literacy, you know, if you’re if you’re finding yourself behind, what a great place to pick up that component and and actually do some hands-on work as well. Well, Paul, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by and hopefully it won’t be that long. we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Paul Roetzer (25:04.205)

All right, John, it’s great to see you.

John Jantsch (25:05.907)

Dude.

Why Great Leaders Change Feelings Before Minds

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 21:32:19 +0000

Why Great Leaders Change Feelings Before Minds written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch The Full Episode

Overview

What does state propaganda have in common with the voice in your head telling you to play it safe? According to social psychologist Owen Fitzpatrick, more than you’d think. In this episode, Fitzpatrick joins John Jantsch to unpack the psychological machinery behind belief change, and why the same principles that drive nation-level propaganda campaigns also drive marketing, leadership, and personal transformation.

Fitzpatrick introduces a three-part framework for how beliefs actually form and shift: a belief has to feel right, it has to fit in with who a person believes they are, and only then does it need to make sense. Marketers and business leaders often jump straight to the logic and reasoning stage, missing the emotional and identity work that has to happen first. Fitzpatrick draws on examples ranging from Apple’s iconic ad campaigns to internal AI adoption struggles inside organizations to show how this plays out in practice.

This conversation is for marketers, business owners, and leaders who want to understand why logical arguments so often fail to change minds, and what to do instead. Fitzpatrick also draws a clear line between ethical influence and manipulation, offering a useful lens for anyone in the business of persuasion.

Guest Bio

Owen Fitzpatrick is a social psychologist, keynote speaker, and author of nine books translated into more than twenty languages. He has worked with leaders at organizations including Google, LinkedIn, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, and Citibank, and has studied propaganda firsthand in North Korea, Rwanda, and Afghanistan. His newest book, Inner Propaganda: Leading Hearts and Minds Through Turbulent Times, explores the psychological forces that shape belief formation in individuals, organizations, and nations.

Key Takeaways

Beliefs form through three gates in order: feels right, fits in, makes sense. Logic is the last gate, not the first.
Affective realism means people perceive reality through the lens of whatever they’re feeling in the moment, which shapes what they notice and remember.
Strong brands work because they connect to identity. People buy products that reflect who they are or who they want to become.
Ethical influence focuses on what the other person genuinely wants and is honest about intent. Manipulation relies on deception regardless of what the other person wants.
Resistance to change, including AI adoption, often comes from psychological reactance. People push back when their autonomy feels threatened, not necessarily because the idea itself is wrong.
Leaders get more buy-in when they help people see who they can become in a new scenario, rather than just presenting the logical case for change.

Great Moments

[00:01] – The propaganda-versus-personal-beliefs framing that opens the episode
[01:12] – Fitzpatrick shares the personal story behind the question that changed his life
[03:40] – Introduction of the feels right, fits in, makes sense framework
[06:27] – The Apple and identity-based buying example
[07:36] – Drawing the line between influence and manipulation
[10:51] – Why teams say yes to a plan while not actually believing in it
[14:19] – The staff member who went from hating AI to mastering it
[20:01] – Revisiting the classic Mac versus PC ad campaign
[21:00] – The Old Spice commercial as an identity-driven marketing example

Memorable Quotes

“People don’t follow plans, they follow beliefs.” – Owen Fitzpatrick
“Being right is not enough. If you want it to be successful and it to work, you need to make it feel right.” – Owen Fitzpatrick
“The stories that you sell to yourselves become the beliefs that you buy into.” – Owen Fitzpatrick
“Influence is about figuring out what is it that they want and is good for them, and how can we connect the dots to what is it that I want them to do.” – Owen Fitzpatrick

Resources

Inner Propaganda: Leading Hearts and Minds Through Turbulent Times (book): innerpropaganda.com
Owen Fitzpatrick’s website: owenfitzpatrick.com

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.976)

So, what if the voice in your head telling you to pull back, play it safe, or try the strategy that didn’t work last time is running the same playbook as a state propaganda agency? Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Owen Fitzpatrick. He’s a social psychologist, keynote speaker, and the author of nine books, translated into more than 20 languages. He’s worked with leaders at Google, LinkedIn, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, and Citibank.

Across more than thirty countries, and he studied propaganda firsthand in North Korea, Rwanda, and Afghanistan. We’re gonna talk about his newest book today, Inner Propaganda, leading hearts and minds through turbulent times. So, Owen, welcome to the show.

Owen Fitzpatrick (00:48.985)

Thank you so much, John. Real pleasure to be here.

John Jantsch (00:51.502)

So you write about time when you were fourteen years old, that you wrote a suicide note. you say the one question changed the story you were believing in that moment. So looking back now, with everything you know about all the beliefs, of how beliefs I should say actually work, what do you think happened psychologically?

Owen Fitzpatrick (01:12.323)

So from a psychology point of view, I think what happened was my brain asked a question, and I’m still not to this day sure where that question came from, but wherever it came from, the question I asked myself to help me to look at things differently so that I felt differently about the situation. So always we talk about the importance of persuading people and using logic and reasoning. And anyone in marketing will obviously know that the most important element of being able to convince people is largely about the way in which we make people feel.

So the ability that we have to create a feeling in the other person will not just determine how they feel about the product, it will also dictate how they think about and what they believe about it as well. So the question I asked myself was, and this was when I was in the middle of writing the suicide note where I was looking to end my life, I was I I I basically apologized to my parents and I said, I’m sorry that I have to do this, I just can’t see any other way. but I love you so, so much.

And then the question that I asked was, Is this how much you love them? And that question was so powerful because it almost like in a cynical way forced me to imagine what I was doing to them. And it changed the feelings that I felt at this moment. And so it wasn’t the fact that I loved them that saved me because lots of people end their lives and they love the people and the people love them. But it’s the fact that it drew my attention and it caused me to feel.

quite strongly that there’s no way I could do this. And I think in many ways it changed my belief in that moment from believing I needed to die to believing I needed to live. And I think all my life, that’s what I’ve been searching for. All those journeys to, you know, or countries like North Korea, all the work I’ve done from a corporate perspective as a therapist when I work with thousands of clients, it’s always been working on this notion of how do you help a person to change beliefs? And I believe fundamentally we need to look at it from three gates that we go through.

The belief has to feel right. It has to fit in with who the person is. And only then will it make sense. And I think that most of the time when we try to persuade ourselves or others, we fall into the trap of just trying to make it make sense using logical reasoning. But that’s the last gate to enter. It’s table stakes, but it’s not the most important. And I think that’s the message I’m trying to get out with the book.

John Jantsch (03:30.475)

Yeah, so walk through that framework. feels right, fits in, makes sense. that’s that’s really the central premise of of the entire book or framework of the book. So walk us through that a little bit.

Owen Fitzpatrick (03:32.469)

Mm.

Owen Fitzpatrick (03:40.954)

Sure. So there’s a concept in psychology or neuroscience called affective realism, which basically means that the way in which we perceive reality is through the lens of the feeling we’re feeling. So if you’ve ever felt hangry, that means hungry b you know, hungry and therefore you’re angry or tangry, that means you snap at people and you’re angry when you’re tired. Those experiences that you feel actually dictate how you respond or how you take in the world. So when you’re hangry or tangry, often you don’t even notice it. You just see the world in that angry way.

And the problem is that because our feelings play such a big part in determining our reality, we can walk away from a situation having experienced a particular situation in a specific way based on how we feel. So when we feel anxious, we tend to see the world through that anxious lens. There’s a c another concept called mood congruent cognition, which means we’re more easily able to remember situations which is associated with the feeling we’re feeling. So when we’re depressed, we’re more likely to remember negative events in the past.

We’re more likely to imagine negative experiences in the future. And so our brains, based on how we feel, determine where our focus lies. And it’s almost like our brains are like a news station, right? A news channel. Just like a news channel will A, select it. Like if you watch Fox versus you watch CNN, you’ve got they’re both selecting totally different facts or totally different data points to report the news on, number one.

John Jantsch (05:00.365)

Totally different tot totally different alternate facts, but go ahead, yes.

Owen Fitzpatrick (05:04.95)

yes, yes, yeah. And and and also different worlds, right? But you look at CNN, you look at Fox News, they will paint a picture of whatever they’ve selected at that moment, and they’ll also then engineer a narrative about it, what I call truth engineering. So they’ll engineer a narrative about both. And so what you have is you’ve got two different news channels based upon their agendas, creating two totally different realities, two totally different worlds. Now, if you bring that to the brain, the brain does the exact same thing. You experience the world.

And your brain, based on how you feel, will dictate what you pay attention to in that moment. And also, whatever you are paying attention to, it’ll engineer a narrative or story. And the stories that you sell to yourselves become the beliefs that you buy into. And so what’s really critical is we start to recognize this process. And so it starts with feelings. Then the second piece is what I call fits in, which is really about internal indoctrination. It’s that we won’t accept a belief unless it fits in with who we believe we are.

And again, from a marketing standpoint, if you were trying to sell to someone, the reason I buy Apple products is because they’ve convinced me that I’m the kind of person that needs to buy Apple products, right? If Apple were releasing an apple for $200, I’d probably go, I want to get one of those. I’m the kind of person that eats $200 apples, right? Because they have created a brand so strong that my identity is locked to it. And sometimes it’s not even who I believe I am, sometimes it’s who I want to be in that moment. But it’s

John Jantsch (06:24.471)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This this’ll make me cooler. Yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (06:27.181)

Exactly. If I buy these you know, these these sneakers, this will allow me to jump as high as Michael Jordan. Like this is the mentality that we’ve built over the time. And when we want to change beliefs, if we if we truly want to be able to get a person to see things differently and have a different belief system about something, we need to number one make sure it feels right to them. Number two, it needs to fit in with who they are. And then we can give the logical reasoning, then we can give the benefits, then we can overcome the objections, then we can do all the w work of logic.

John Jantsch (06:30.637)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Owen Fitzpatrick (06:56.557)

But these first two gates are the things that a lot of people miss out on. And I think people in in terms of the field of marketing have a bit of an advantage because they do, based on my market research, they realize how powerful emotions are. But I think when we put it together in that sequence, it gets a lot better results than we do when we just try to push forward with the traditional, here’s the reasons why you should buy my product.

John Jantsch (07:17.857)

You know, a anytime marketers, business people start talking about influence and psychology, particularly, i is there a manipulative element to this? Like if I understand that that’s all I have to do is turn these dials on you, then I know you’re gonna believe whatever I say. I mean, isn’t that a little bit of what propaganda does?

Owen Fitzpatrick (07:36.15)

In many ways, yes. I mean, influence, if we take influence propaganda, manipulation, let’s let’s clarify the term. So influence is when you’re able to communicate in a way that you impact the decisions or the attitude or the perspective or the beliefs or the feelings of the other person, right? manipulation is when you deliberately deceive the other person so that you can get them to do exactly what you want. And I I always clarify the difference between the two is ethical influence.

is about figuring out what the other person wants, understanding what you want and learning to connect the dots. So

John Jantsch (08:08.885)

And it also and and it might be good for them, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (08:11.585)

Yes. Because you’re yeah, yeah, very good point. But what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to engineer it so that you’re getting them what they want. And what they want is not always something tangible. Sometimes what they want is a feeling, right? So you’re providing that feeling through the product that you’re selling. It’s perceived value, which becomes real value because they experience it that way. And then the second piece is the use of deception. So manipulation is when you you you know, you’re more likely to use deception, whereas

when we’re honestly ethically influencing someone, we’re not lying about anything. We’re not e you know, we’re not deceiving them in any way, shape, or form. And so to me, influence is about figuring out what is it that they want and is good for them, to your point. and how can we connect the dots to what is it that I want them to do? And then second of all, how can I do this in an honest way? Because manipulation is I don’t care what you want. I’m gonna do whatever I can to to make you know or believe or feel what I want you to feel. And if we take propaganda.

Generally, that’s the state’s attempt to manipulate the way in which we feel. But you could also argue that almost everything is propaganda. Like when when when back a few hundred years ago, the first term propaganda was used in a in a benevolent way from the Pope, where he was trying to propagate or spread the news of of of the church. and that got obviously turned very dark when Yusuf Goebbels in in the 1930s was

John Jantsch (09:28.983)

Yeah. All right.

Owen Fitzpatrick (09:38.166)

minister for propaganda and then you know what happened there. But I think what’s really important to realize is that every organization out there, leadership effectively becomes a form of propaganda because you’re trying to organize and tell the story of how things work to your people. Marketing is certainly a form of propaganda because you’re trying to win the story war in the customer’s mind. And so recognizing it’s not necessarily seeing it as a nefarious or negative thing, but seeing

John Jantsch (09:40.972)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (10:05.945)

Propaganda is this is how we control the perception of things and understanding it’s what we do to ourselves all the time gives us an advantage in terms of understanding how we can do this in a good ethical way to make a positive difference to the folks we we’re marketing to.

John Jantsch (10:21.259)

Well, and and even inside of organizations, a lot of times the leader who has the vision, you know, needs to get everybody to understand and believe in the vision. And I I I’m sure a lot of folks that are listening today have had the experience of, I don’t know, maybe they went to a conference and they came back and said and said, Here’s what we need to do. We need to change the business and start doing X, Y, and Z and then watching the team just go, I I don’t get it. you know, is based on your framework. where’s the breakdown in that type of scenario?

Owen Fitzpatrick (10:51.523)

So I I think the problem isn’t that the team will go, we don’t get it. I think the problem is the team will go, yeah, we get it, but not actually believe in it. Right. We all know what it’s like, John, when someone goes, yes, and we know there’s zero chance of it happening. To me, that’s the problem. And so the reason the framework works so well is because we’re not giving them like that what what the leader’s doing in that case is they’re making sense. They learn something, then they come back and go, here’s what we need to do. We need to to change everything, and now we need to use AI.

John Jantsch (10:59.381)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (11:19.853)

Just AI. I want everyone to get on board. AI is going to be great for this organization, right? Let’s do it. Here’s how we’re going to do it. Here’s the plan. Here’s the strategy. People don’t follow plans, they follow beliefs. So all of these people are sitting there going, so what I’m getting from you is you went to some fancy conference, you came back, you want all of us to get on the AI train where we know that the AI train is going to cost us our jobs. So you want us to buy into this? Sure, we’ll say yes, but there’s no chance of that happening. And so the leader in that case.

Is losing them because he’s not focusing on making it feel right. So if he wanted to, he or she wanted to make it feel right, then the strategy would be well, what is it that what is it, what are the emotional reasons why this would be something good for them? That’s number one. So what is it that we could that I could do to make them feel good about this opportunity? And number two, it’s just as important, who are they in a new AI world? Because if I’m a coder and you come back to me, John, let’s say I work for you and you say, Hey, Owen.

you know, I want you to be using AI more, we need to scale more, we need to use it more. If AI is doing the coding and I’m a coder, what am I now? Because now I’ve lost my identity because AI is doing my job for me. So what value do I even bring? And I think we forget that. We think here’s the logical reasons why you should want to use AI, but we’re not actually changing the way people feel and connecting it to who their identity is. So in that context, again, the leader should be thinking, how can I create or help them create?

An identity for them to move towards where they can see themselves thriving in a new AI world. And when you’re able to do that as a leader, when your vision isn’t just about your company doing well using AI, but it’s a a a vision which identifies how amazing it will be for your team and who they will become, that’s also gonna make it feel right. And then all of the plans or strategies you have around that, now all of a sudden you you go from compliance.

which you don’t really want as much as buy in, which you do want. And that moves towards commitment and conviction, which is the ultimate North Star you’re going for. That’s how I can I suppose look at those kind of mistakes we make and how feels right fits in and makes sense would actually make the most sense because it feels right and because it fits in with who they are.

John Jantsch (13:28.651)

I think that’s a great example because a lot of people are experiencing that right now. the you know, the AI adoption. What’s interesting that I have noticed is that there is a segment of pretty much everybody’s business that if feels right, fits in and makes sense. and then there and then you have a lot of people that are very threatened by it. And I think it’s that fits in. Well, maybe it starts with feels right, but it certainly hits the fits in box or hot button for them or doesn’t fit in.

So how do you I mean, so I’m sure a lot of business owners are struggling with this idea of you’re absolutely right. We that we need to educate more, we need to s figure out what’s in it for them. But then you have this part of your team that’s just taking and running with it. so you know, how do you kind of balance the whole the fact that people have different beliefs?

Owen Fitzpatrick (14:19.321)

So I think when you deal with someone who’s already taken and running from it, the reason they’re doing that is because before you even opened your mouth, for them, it already felt right. They’d they’ve already be feeling good about it. It already fit in with who they are and it already makes sense. I’ll give you an example. I I hired you know, a member of my staff who initially they’d done some part time work for me. And when they came on board, one of the things they said to me was, AI, I hate it. It it it caused me to lose my job the last time.

John Jantsch (14:27.819)

Right. Yeah.

That’s right.

Owen Fitzpatrick (14:48.961)

I do not want to ever have that happen again. And so what I did was I I got them to go in and I said, look, what I need you to do is I need you to make it so that you understand everything you can about AI. So for the first month, it was just them immersing themselves in that. And as they did that, I knew that as they did that, as that was their entire goal, it wasn’t I want you to use AI to do this for me. I was like, I want you to become a master so you know exactly what to what tools to use in what ways. They came back after a month and they were like a ninja. They could do anything.

John Jantsch (15:03.147)

Mm-hmm.

Owen Fitzpatrick (15:17.759)

And more than that, and more way more important, they started to see themselves as the kind of person that was amazing in in using AI. And so the main trick that I I feel is in order to make something feel right, and we’ll we’ll just give another example in the AI, there’s a psychological concept called psychological reactance, which is that whenever my autonomy is taken away from me, I’m gonna push back, I’m gonna demonstrate more resistance. Now, if you’re trying to create any form of change in an organization, one of the most important things is.

Is that let people feel like they’re a part of the change. Don’t just tell them, hey, by the way, John, you are changing. Here’s what we’re gonna do from now on. You know, I’ve just been to a it well, here’s the thing: it’s faster, but how good is speed when it doesn’t work, right? So you know, even if it’s faster, it still doesn’t get the job done. What does get the job done is to pull back and go, hey, listen, we’d love to invite you and let’s have a conversation.

John Jantsch (15:53.325)

Yeah, but that’s so much easier and so much faster. In the short term, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (16:10.701)

And the more you let them speak and communicate, the more you ask questions, the more you build curiosity in that way, and the more you then show examples of the possibilities, the more likely they are to come on board because there’s less reactants there. You’re not pushing them, you’re having conversations with them. And that to me allows them to get to the point where it starts to feel right. Cause before it feels right, it needs to not feel wrong. And it feels wrong when it’s pushed on me. It feels wrong when it’s in direct conflict to who I see myself as being.

John Jantsch (16:35.031)

Yeah, yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (16:38.475)

It feels wrong when it’s scary to me. It feels wrong when it might be taking over my job. And so those are the things we need to focus on first. How do we stop it from feeling wrong? And then how do we help it feel right? And that requires having conversations, which to your point, John, it’s like, why should I have to? There’s lots of stuff we should have to shouldn’t have to do, but being right is not enough. If you want to it to be successful and it to work, you need to make it feel right.

John Jantsch (17:03.895)

So we we’ve talked about the it it in your intro and certainly your your book deals with this idea of of belief systems in places like n you know, North Korea and corporate boardrooms in your own life. is the machinery in those settings different or are we talking about the same thing across all these contexts?

Owen Fitzpatrick (17:27.097)

Pretty much the same. I mean, we can generalize all day long and we can say this is the same and we can find nuanced differences, but ultimately the way in which the human brain is built is based upon the needs that our brains have. And our brains fundamentally have two primary needs the need for survival and the need for stability. The brain needs to survive, therefore, it will often have what we call a negativity bias as well as a drama bias. The negativity bias means we’re oriented to spend more time focusing on what we have to lose. And that’s obviously what every

John Jantsch (17:30.604)

Yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (17:56.056)

Marketing professional will know is that if you focus on the problems and the pain points, often that will get you a lot of traction. And then also it’s dramatization. So the brain also needs to notice what’s a bigger deal than something else. So therefore, that’s the hyperbole that’s used often in terms of the news to get people’s attention. Once more, the more you hype it up, the more likely people are to pay attention. But the other piece is also important, and it’s important as well from a marketing standpoint, as well as from a mental health standpoint, as well as from a leadership standpoint. If I’m in a situation where

I’m trying to achieve a particular result and trying to persuade people, I have to know that the brain needs stability, which means it likes coherent stories that are simple to understand, which requires as little energy from my brain as possible. So that’s why politics works so well dividing us, is because it’s very simple to sell an idea that says, we good, they bad, us good, them bad, and repeating that over and over again by giving examples where we’re good and where they’re bad.

In the marketing world, that’s what we’re what what they’re doing. They’re ultimately speaking, taking this theory, this message, and they’re using very sophisticated messaging to continuously engineer the way in which people feel. I feel good about me and my tribe, and I feel bad about them. And this is etched into the way in which we think. We are tribal in terms of our mentality. We have you know, in the hunter-gatherer days, we needed to be part of a tribe in order to stay safe. So it’s very easy to get us.

to seduce us into seeing it and often believing a certain belief is the membership fee you pay in order to become part of that group. And so if from a you know influence perspective, you understand about that identity, you understand about the feelings, then it’s much easier for you to be very effective. So it happens in politics, it happens in marketing, it happens in leadership. And even in our own mental health, we tend to be dominated by our feelings, which dictate like I talked about earlier, what we’re focusing on.

John Jantsch (19:42.337)

Yes.

Owen Fitzpatrick (19:51.118)

And as a result of that, the same engineering that’s taking place in our brain is taking place in these huge nations that have been operating propaganda campaigns for for for so long.

John Jantsch (20:01.803)

Yeah, and it would be too easy to show some examples of current politics, us against them. so I’ll revert back to one of my favorite ad campaigns that Apple ran. you know, you had the guy the two the guy in the stodgy suit, you know, that was that was that was the PC and the hip cool guy that wore tennis shoes to work, you know, was the Mac. Like, here’s the enemy. You you don’t wanna be like them, do you?

Owen Fitzpatrick (20:17.197)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m a Mac, I’m a PC.

Owen Fitzpatrick (20:29.579)

yeah.

John Jantsch (20:29.694)

it wasn’t quite as overt, but certainly that was the message, wasn’t it?

Owen Fitzpatrick (20:32.727)

It was that was one of the most phenomenal pieces of marketing. I h 100% agree. And what I loved about it was, you know, sometimes the the PC would be like, and then the other, you know what I mean, continuously freezing. And everything about it was just the identity piece. It was like, who do you want to exactly what you just said there, John, who do you want to be? And I think when when we see this in action, we don’t realize that this is something that from a marketing standpoint, the very best do, even if you’re a member.

John Jantsch (20:42.317)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (21:00.147)

there’s that ad of, you know, look at me, now look at him. It was the it was the old spice commercials with the guy who’s, you know, it was like, look at your man, now look at me. He could be like me too. And that whole that blew up, and that was one of the most successful commercials of all time and millions upon millions of views. But once again, it did so because it was very powerful from an emotional standpoint, and it also had an idea identity component. And so many of the purchases, particularly around you know.

John Jantsch (21:07.402)

yeah.

John Jantsch (21:10.657)

Yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (21:29.609)

hygiene or particularly around what we wear are all oriented towards who do you want to become? What kind of person do you want to be? And I think this is something that from a marketing standpoint, the greatest legends in the marketing world all intuitively understand that. So what I’m trying to do is help people to understand this is what’s happening inside our head. And the more we understand the inner propaganda which is in all of our heads, that is all convincing ourselves of certain things,

John Jantsch (21:35.287)

Yeah. Yeah.

Owen Fitzpatrick (21:56.046)

The more we realize that for me to influence someone else, I need to make sure that the ideas I present feel right, fit in with who they are. And only then will it make sense because that’s what’s going to get through to their inner propaganda. Otherwise, the objections which are formed from the beliefs of their own inner propaganda will prevent them from ever doing business with us. And that’s kind of the core message that I’m trying to put across.

John Jantsch (22:18.093)

Awesome. Well I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by own. is there some place you’d invite people to find out more about your work and obviously your book?

Owen Fitzpatrick (22:25.059)

Sure, absolutely. So there’s innerpropaganda.com is where you can go. More information about the book. I’ve got endorsements. I was lucky enough to get endorsements from the likes of Robert Cialdini and Jonah Berger and Tony Robbins and whatnot and Daniel Pink. so there’s more information there. You can also put in your details once you bought the book and get a free masterclass with me in a free workbook. And I’ve also my website, ownfitzpatrick.com, and I’m on most social media. I have a podcast called Inner Propaganda Newsletter too. So innerpropaganda.com or ownfitzpatrick dot com.

John Jantsch (22:55.433)

Awesome. Well again, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and hopefully we’ll renate to you one of these days out there on the road.

Owen Fitzpatrick (23:01.518)

Thank you so much, Sean. My pleasure.

Why Trust Matters More Than Marketing Now

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 18:27:44 +0000

Why Trust Matters More Than Marketing Now written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode

Overview

A lot of law firms blend in online, which means there’s an easy opening for the ones willing to look different. In this episode from the vault, John Jantsch talks with Megan Hargroder, founder and CEO of Legends Legal Marketing, about what actually earns trust for solo and small law firms now that AI tools are shaping referral decisions.

Hargroder explains why she narrowed her agency to serve only lawyers more than 15 years ago, and what that focus taught her about client relationships and sustainable growth. The conversation gets into why generic “professional” content works against law firms, how LLM’s read Google reviews (instead of just counting them), and what firms can do this week to show up in AI-generated recommendations.

Back from the vault, this episode is for anyone running a law firm, a small agency, or a service business trying to earn trust online. It covers SEO, content strategy, and the parts of trust-building that no AI can fake.

Guest Bio: Megan Hargroder

Megan Hargroder is the founder and CEO of Legends Legal Marketing, an agency built exclusively for solo and small law firms. She started the business in 2011 out of a New Orleans studio apartment with four clients and $2,000 a month in revenue. Fifteen years later, she has built a specialized firm by going deep on one vertical and learning exactly what moves the needle for lawyers. She wrote Trust Is the Strategy, a framework for law firm marketing in a search landscape now shaped by AI and online reviews.

Key Takeaways

The strongest niches usually find you. Look at where you already get your best results, not just where there’s a gap in the market.
Polish does not equal trust. Generic “professional” copy on a law firm site tells potential clients nothing, and it ranks for nothing.
A homepage should tell the client’s story, not the firm’s. If a visitor can’t see themselves in the first paragraph, they’re gone.
Large language models read Google reviews for detail, not just star counts. A review that describes a solved problem is one of your best AI-era assets.
Narrow, specific content outperforms broad content in AI recommendations. Firms writing about tightly defined practice areas are getting picked where generalists aren’t.
Guest podcast appearances deliver strong backlinks, shareable content, and trust signals in one move, making them one of the highest-return tactics available to a small business.

Great Moments

[00:01] – John opens with the core question: is professional polish actually working against firms in the age of AI recommendations?
[01:37] – Hargroder walks through the math behind her decision to niche fully into law firms.
[04:20] – The “professional obituary” problem, and why so many attorney bios fall flat.
[06:37] – Building trust through story: the homepage tells the client’s story, the bio tells the attorney’s.
[09:01] – Why review quality, not quantity, is the biggest trust-builder for local businesses right now.
[12:44] – What Legends Legal is testing to get law firms recommended by LLMs.[15:14] – What separates firms that grow steadily from firms that stall, including the traffic ticket lawyer story.
[17:47] – Hargroder’s top weekly habit for compounding visibility: claim one directory profile.
[18:13] – John’s favorite tactic: guesting on podcasts for backlinks, content, and trust.

Memorable Quotes

“Polish is part of the mask they wear, and all it translates to is generic content, generic messaging. It is not making anyone love you.” — Megan Hargroder
“Your homepage should not be your story. It should be their story. If I am facing chapter seven bankruptcy, that is the story the homepage should tell.” — Megan Hargroder
“LLMs are reading reviews. They are not just quantifying the five stars. They are looking for a detailed example of a problem that was solved.” — Megan Hargroder
“The riskiest thing a lawyer can do right now is keep playing it safe.” — John Jantsch

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.55)

So what if the real risk for small business owners right now is hiding behind professional polish as a brand, while AI research decides which firms it trusts enough to recommend. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Megan Hargroder. She is the founder and CEO of Legends Legal Marketing, an agency that works exclusively with solo and small law firms.

She started in 2011 in a New Orleans studio apartment with four clients paying $500 a month and niched your way all the way down to lawyers and never looked back again. We’re going to talk about her new book, Trust Is The Strategy. So, Megan, welcome to the show. So let’s start with niching. Well, maybe we need to start with how you say it. Because you hear all kinds. Exactly.

Megan (00:45.785)

Thank you, John.

Megan (00:53.987)

That’s Prince on the Rack.

John Jantsch (00:59.438)

You know, there’s a lot of pundits out there certainly saying you’ve got to do it. And then there’s others and I have a view probably slightly towards the other because I’ve seen a lot of people say, I think law firms would be awesome. I’m going to like go to that vertical. And then they work with two law firms and they realize maybe that’s not who they want to work with. Just this example, obviously that doesn’t apply to you, but then they have to start over again. So I’m curious.

Talk a little bit about the math of niching in your case and like what made you go that route, but then also what changed in your agency.

Megan (01:37.621)

It truly just really deep diving into the 80-20 rule and looking at my clients and seeing like, where was my least effort for my biggest profit? And then I layered on top of that, where am I feeling the most successful? And for me, that’s where my feeling I can be the most successful for my clients. And when I started, no one was doing a good job at law firm marketing. Fine Law was the only company on the market. And so

John Jantsch (01:42.862)

Right.

John Jantsch (02:02.988)

Yeah.

Megan (02:07.169)

just doing an okay job meant that you were already ahead of the game. So I liked the idea of being able to definitively guarantee success, whereas other types of, I think people think it’s more fun to work with like a boutique or a restaurant, you know, or I had a national candy brand at one point.

John Jantsch (02:10.478)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Megan (02:29.965)

I guess it’s how you define fun. For me, fun is that I’m not working on the weekends or on the evenings and that I’m not doing an endless display of branding that someone’s just unhappy with no matter what, right? Lawyers are not that picky. They care about one thing and one thing only, our client’s calling me. And so once I felt like I cracked the code on that, I just went all in with lawyers and never looked back.

John Jantsch (02:35.074)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:42.754)

All right.

John Jantsch (02:57.454)

See, and that’s the approach I tell people too. In a lot of ways, you didn’t just go pick a niche, the niche found you, right? Because you had been working in it, you decided, hey, I can get a lot of results for I can provide a lot of value. It’s another way of saying that for these folks and I enjoy doing it. So that to me is the proper way to do it. I just, I see a lot of people really just kind of go, where’s the opportunity as opposed to what you experienced. So.

Megan (03:23.151)

Yeah, and I see my clients do that too with when they’re choosing their niche for law, they’ll be like, where’s the, think this is the best opportunity. Then they’ll go all in and they’ll be like, I actually really hate doing criminal defense or I really hate, you know, expungements or whatever the thing is. So I do agree with you. It’s better to start general and try a whole bunch of things and then just pick your path going from there.

John Jantsch (03:34.83)

Right? Right?

John Jantsch (03:46.382)

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I started in, the, uh, kind the initial question to open the show, talking about this idea of, you know, polish, you know, being, um, you know, something. And in fact, you, you actually tell lawyers the riskiest thing they can do right now is to keep playing it safe. Um, and I completely agree with you, you know, the human element is, is more important than ever. Um, however, I’ve also worked with a lot of attorneys over the year and

polish is like a big part of their mask. So how do you kind of balance that?

Megan (04:20.364)

Well, you use the right word. Polish is part of the mask that they wear, right? And it’s not just for clients, it’s for their peers. Lawyers are very concerned what their peers think of them. And so what you end up getting is polished and professional, which I’m going to use quotation marks around, because all that that actually translates to is generic content, generic messaging. So.

John Jantsch (04:24.715)

Yeah

Megan (04:44.3)

So it’s not resonating with anyone, right? Maybe it’s not turning anyone off or offending anyone, but it’s also not making anyone love you. And that happens a lot on your website homepage, but like the big spot that I see it be really problematic for lawyers is their biographies. And so they’ll have this really safe, I call it a professional obituary that lists their accomplishments, where they went to law school, all the things that people don’t actually care about.

John Jantsch (05:01.614)

You

John Jantsch (05:07.278)

You

Yeah, yeah.

Megan (05:13.538)

when they hire lawyers.

John Jantsch (05:15.95)

Yeah, the, um, I, something I used to do when I first got started at trying to make this point, uh, regardless of the type of business. So let’s say it was a remodeling contractor. I would just go find 10 remodeling contractor websites, copy the first thing that I saw on their website. And then I’d show it to the client and say, first off, do you know who any of these people are? And by the way, you’re on here too. Do know who you are? And it was so easy for them to go, Oh crap, we’re all saying the same thing, which is sort of nothing.

Megan (05:45.103)

And that’s the whole thing. If you’re not saying anything. And so a lot of like what I try to push my clients to do is, well, first of all, you want to build authority. They love that. Everyone’s on board with building authority. We’ve got our awards. We’ve got our badges. We’ve got our testimonials. Great. We’re on board with that. But the next part is that you have to build a component of empathy with.

John Jantsch (05:46.69)

Yeah.

Megan (06:09.484)

these people who don’t know you, right? If you’re hiring a lawyer, you have a problem that you need a professional to solve for you. You don’t know this person, you don’t trust, people don’t trust lawyers. Building trust online is like the hardest thing you can do. So you have to give people something. You have to let them know you understand their problem. And you also have to share something about yourself so that they feel like, this is a human, again, that I can connect with.

John Jantsch (06:20.739)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:37.09)

So trust is in actually in the title of the book. Do you, I don’t think anybody would argue that that’s an important ingredient. The harder part is defined like how do you build that? You know, you can’t just write, trust me, you know, on your website, right? So how do you get people to start saying, these are the things that build trust.

Megan (06:58.626)

think telling a story first and foremost. So using your website to tell someone a story and your homepage should actually not be your story. It should be their story. Right? So if I’m facing chapter seven bankruptcy, what am I going through right now? That’s the story that the homepage should say and I should be able to see myself in there if I’m a client. And then the biography telling the story of the actual attorney. Why are you doing this? You know, aside from money? What made you pick

John Jantsch (07:11.178)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Megan (07:28.206)

Chapter seven bankruptcy as your niche that you want to help people through. How can I trust you to do this? And so there’s elements within the story where you want to show examples of how you’ve solved the problem before outlining people you’ve helped outlining, you know, using a story within story component and then maybe even your own story. So like we have criminal defense lawyers who at one point in their lives had found themselves on the wrong side of the law, right? And

It’s really hard to get people to open up about that when they’re trying to look super polished and professional. But guess what? Those are the stories that get them clients. And once they actually take the leap of like putting that vulnerability out there, people call and they say, I’m hiring you because you, don’t feel like you’re going to judge me because you were in my shoes once before.

John Jantsch (07:57.56)

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

John Jantsch (08:08.301)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (08:17.612)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would guess that in some cases you can have quick wins, but you know, the trust game is also a long-term game. So how do you get people on board with that who are saying, hey, Megan, make the phone.

Megan (08:34.616)

Well, the phone will ring through other methods as well. You’ve got your search strategy, your paid search strategy, you’ve got your LLM strategy, and then you can do organic and paid search work. So that’s the component. But the foundation has to be there. The website itself has to build trust, or you’re paying for traffic to go there, and it’s not doing anything. And really, the big hurdle for newer

John Jantsch (08:35.704)

BLEH

Gosh.

John Jantsch (08:48.216)

Yeah.

Megan (09:01.858)

businesses is building up those reviews because nothing builds trust like reviews and not just any review, not just a five star review, not just highly recommend did a great job because LLMs are reading reviews, but they’re reading them. They’re not just quantifying the five stars. They’re reading them and they’re seeing the keywords used within that. And they’re seeing, this is a detailed.

John Jantsch (09:05.016)

Yes.

John Jantsch (09:17.954)

Yeah.

Megan (09:28.974)

example of a problem that was solved by this person and that’s the same problem this person is talking to me about so I’m gonna match them with that so the actual skipping ahead the actual like quality of the Google reviews is the biggest thing that we work with our clients to build up and it’s not easy right especially in in cases with like criminal defense where clients don’t want to leave a review about

John Jantsch (09:45.56)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (09:51.522)

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan (09:57.219)

how you helped them get out of their DUI. So that’s, to me, the hardest part is building substantial reviews. It’s doable, but it’s difficult. The organic SEO is a waiting game and the paid search is a fast game.

John Jantsch (10:13.51)

yeah, you know, probably the first hurdle you’re experiencing is a lot of lawyers don’t want to ask for reviews, right? I mean, it’s like, no, we did what they pay this for. You know, that should be enough. Right. I mean, so, so that’s probably the first hurdle. you know, it’s interesting. You mentioned that about Google reviews. We have been doing it for years, but AI let’s face it has made it easier, you know, to take seven, 800 reviews, dump them into a tool to analyze them. And all of a sudden, you know, the, the, the, law, the lawyer is saying, you know, we have.

X amount of credentials or whatever they say. And the reviews repeatedly say, know what? They call us back immediately. Right. And that’s like the message. And it is amazing that when, as a marketer, when I can show a client that says, this is not me making this up. You know, this is your actual customers talking. You know, it’s a much easier sell.

Megan (11:05.07)

And the LLMs are making that faster, right? So people aren’t having to go through all of those reviews. And some people will still go to the Google reviews and go through all of them themselves. But that really is one of the biggest definers of trust for any local business really is gonna see that as their biggest definition of trust is going to be their actual online reviews. And Google reviews are the most important. I know people…

John Jantsch (11:13.408)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (11:20.718)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah it is.

John Jantsch (11:32.782)

Three.

Megan (11:33.431)

is on Facebook, people still use Yelp. So those things are still factors and get pulled in. know the Amazon Alexa, for example, is connecting Yelp. yes. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, so so those are still really important too. And I feel like Yelp gets overlooked a lot because Google is still going to be your most valuable. So if you could only get one review, you get it on Google.

John Jantsch (11:43.262)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, and Microsoft uses BitFerBing. Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (11:54.722)

Yeah, yeah.

Megan (12:00.291)

but then if you can layer in that second tier where you ask someone, hey, can you please also just copy paste this on the Yelp page? Here’s the link and make it really, really easy for them to duplicate that in another spot, then you’re really winning.

John Jantsch (12:00.643)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:15.35)

So where we stand today, this will change certainly, but people still have a very, or I think have a higher level trust, whether they should or not, of those three AI recommendations than they do or did of all the ads and everything else that showed up on the homepage. So what are you doing or how are you helping your law firms get recommended directly in that space that is right now, at least, very highly trusted?

Megan (12:44.271)

Okay, well, the biggest way that we’re doing it is a secret, but I’ll tell you some other ways that are not secrets. Because everyone’s trying to crack this code right now, right? And there’s not definitive things. Eventually there will be a little bit more information, like when Google does its algorithm changes and we can do all this, but there’s not that transparency yet with LLM. So we’re kind of all trying little things to see what works. But.

John Jantsch (12:51.288)

Okay.

Sure. Right, right.

Megan (13:13.045)

I would say for law firms specifically, the more niche your website and your content, the better because people are asking specifically, people are not just saying, I need a lawyer, right? They’re saying, I need a lawyer who does this, right? And we’re not seeing the same success with, for example, the high volume, like personal injury lawyers, right?

John Jantsch (13:26.67)

They’re explaining their entire situation, right? Yeah. Right, right.

John Jantsch (13:39.584)

Mm-hmm.

Megan (13:40.815)

because most solo and small firms have been priced out of that bracket already. And so the authority has been built up. I think we’ll start to see a little bit of a shift there away from the larger firms as far as recommendations. But things like divorce, child custody, bankruptcy, expungements, DUIs, those types of things.

John Jantsch (13:46.414)

Yeah. Yeah.

Megan (14:09.684)

If you go in really, really specific and you’re hyper-targeting and those are the articles you’re publishing, and then you’re also posting the social media content, it’s looking at LinkedIn, it’s looking at… One tip I would say too is using videos on LinkedIn. Videos on LinkedIn is playing really nicely into LLM recommendations is one thing that we’ve noticed. So I would say building as a business, building your authority.

John Jantsch (14:34.702)

Hmm.

Megan (14:39.394)

through LinkedIn is really good. Most people overlook that as a marketing tool because they think of it more like a B2B kind of thing. And a lot of lawyers are targeting people, but the LLMs are paying attention to what you post on LinkedIn.

John Jantsch (14:55.426)

So you’ve worked with a lot of firms over 15 years. Some have been very successful. I’m sure some have not seen the light and grown the way they’d like to. What would you say, what are some of the core differences of those firms that make steady progress versus ones that just kind of either plateau or burn out?

Megan (15:14.434)

The ones that are the most successful are the ones that stay the course with starting niche and then building. The places we’ve seen problems happen and where we’ve seen things tank out is when someone starts in one place and they wanna make a strong pivot. So we built up a really successful traffic ticket lawyer, for example. And then he decided, let’s add on criminal defense. Okay, that’s relevant, we can add that on.

John Jantsch (15:20.312)

Yes.

Megan (15:43.012)

And then he decided, let’s change the whole website and turn it into personal injury and let’s remove all of these practice areas. And I was like, your search will tank, right? You are the go-to guy for these things already. You can’t play this PI ball game that everyone has already invested so much in right now without paid search, just organically. And he’s like, I don’t care. Like make the switch. It’s going to work out.

John Jantsch (15:48.29)

No.

Yeah, yeah.

Megan (16:13.229)

And then three months later, he’s like, why are my numbers down? And I’m like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? This is not gonna work out between us. I think we need to break up. So that’s kind of the example of just like, I always tell people if you’re gonna hire marketers, make sure you hire marketers you trust and then trust them, right? Because at the end of the day, like my job is to make your goals a reality and to hit your bottom.

John Jantsch (16:31.714)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Megan (16:40.783)

So I’m not steering you in a direction away from making money. That’s not beneficial towards me. So when you get to a place where you’re not trusting your marketing team and you’re fighting against them, that’s a sign that things are gonna probably break down pretty soon.

John Jantsch (16:55.47)

Yeah. You know, I can’t tell you how many business owners that I’ve worked with over the years that I’ve had to tell them, you know, the problem’s not your marketing issue. And believe it or not, some of them know it and some of them actually appreciate that message. And so they’re like, what do do about that? it’s, yeah, exactly. So if.

Megan (17:03.919)

Mm-hmm.

Megan (17:14.113)

Yeah, it takes a third party often to hop in there and be like, bro, listen.

John Jantsch (17:24.064)

If somebody’s listening right now, small firm runs a small business. Maybe they’re not going to write a book this year, but what’s a couple of things that they could do that you think they could see kind of immediate process progress if they did it once a week, know, twice a week, whatever. What are some activities you’ve seen that have really compounded?

Megan (17:47.248)

I would say once a week, go online and claim a profile on some kind of directory. Hit the big ones first, get AVO, get your super lawyers, all those kinds of things, Better Business Bureau, anywhere online that lists professionals, make sure you have a profile and fill it out completely. And if you do that once a week, you will see impact from it. That would be my top.

John Jantsch (17:51.182)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (18:13.938)

I’ll give you my top one that I tell a lot of business owners is go out and get on other people’s podcasts. Quite frankly, because, you know, talk about trust signals and great links and great SEO and great content that you can share and cut up and do things with. I think it’s, to me, it’s the perfect, it’s really the perfect sort of marketing tactic that a lot of people can do pretty easily in a lot of cases.

Megan (18:36.035)

And it takes pushing though. Like I’m doing this right now because my PR person, Paige has set me up on all of these podcasts. Cause she’s like, you have to do it. Like even as a marketer, I’m like, I don’t do I, do I really? But again, now, now I’m flooding the internet when you Google my name, there’s all of this content now. So she was right. So I think that’s a really good tip too.

John Jantsch (18:38.412)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:45.976)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (18:49.94)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:55.67)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, you know, the, thing that I tell people all the time is it’s an amazing backlink. mean, I, you know, I have a very high authority backlink that you’re going to get, but also I’m very incentivized to promote this show. and so that’s the other thing, you know, a lot of guest posts and things, they just get buried in things, but you most podcasts hosts are promoting their shows. So, I tell people all the time, just go out and do it. There’s so many ways that you can reuse that content too.

Megan (19:24.131)

Yep.

John Jantsch (19:25.262)

All right. So Megan, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Can you give me your best news anchor voice?

Megan (19:37.827)

to close it out.

John Jantsch (19:37.934)

to close this out and to tell people where they can find out more about your work and maybe pick up your book.

Megan (19:47.085)

Okay, well, reporting live from Duct Tape Podcast, this is Megan Hargirter with Legends Legal Marketing. You can find me at legendslegalmarketing.com. You can also shoot me an email at meganatlegendslegalmarketing.com. If you wanna chat or if you wanna copy of my book, I’ll just mail you one. Send me an email.

John Jantsch (20:06.72)

Awesome. I didn’t tell you guys, the, as a past career for Megan that I read in her bio. So I had to set her up there again. I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Megan (20:14.767)

you

Megan (20:20.942)

Absolutely. Thank you, John.

Why Leaders Need Better Perspective, Not More Data

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:03:33 +0000

Why Leaders Need Better Perspective, Not More Data written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch The Full Episode

Overview

Most leaders believe they see the whole picture. The trouble is, we all have blind spots. In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch talks with international leadership expert Cornelia Choe, co-author with Marshall Goldsmith of The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently. Choe unpacks what she calls perspective blindness.

The conversation covers how AI has made data cheap but judgment scarce, why more than half of employees using AI never verify what it gives them, and the reasons senior teams often disagree on how ready their own companies are for change.

Choe introduces her GEM framework (Get up close, Establish meaningful bonds, Map your evolving perspective) to help leaders close these gaps before they cause damage. She also shares her personal history of moving from Minnesota to Seoul at age 10, and how that experience has shaped her thinking with regard to mental maps and blind spots.

This episode is for small business owners, agency leaders, and consultants managing teams through constant change. If you’ve ever assumed your customers, employees, or leadership team see the business the way you do, this conversation will challenge that assumption and give you a framework to address it.

Guest Bio

Choe is an international leadership expert, global keynote speaker, and Thinkers50 Radar honoree. She is the founder of The Leaders Alliance and has advised leaders at organizations including the United Nations and the White House. She is the co-author, with Marshall Goldsmith, of The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently. Choe grew up across eleven different places on three continents by age eighteen, an experience that informs her work on mental maps, cultural blind spots, and perspective in leadership.

Key Takeaways

AI made information easy to access, but it has not made judgment easier. More than half of employees using AI do not verify what AI gives them, and have made mistakes because of it.
Perspective blindness is the belief that you see the whole picture when you only see a piece of it. No single leader can track every change happening across a company or market at once.
Choe’s GEM framework offers three steps: get up close to people who think differently, establish a trusted relationship with them over time, and map how your view of the situation changes as a result.
Microtranslations matter. Two leaders can look at the same data and walk away with completely different conclusions if they never explain their reasoning to each other.
Outside perspective is one of the fastest ways to spot a blind spot, since an outsider will question “this is how we’ve always done it” in ways insiders rarely do.

Great Moments

[00:02] – John opens with the question driving the episode: what if the thing limiting growth is not what you’re doing, but what you can’t see.
[01:41] – Choe explains how AI has commoditized data and why that is dulling judgment, backed by survey data on employee mistakes and unverified AI use.
[03:53] – Choe defines perspective blindness and explains why no leader can track every change happening around them.
[05:00] – John and Choe discuss why there is no lasting “new normal,” just a series of short-lived ones.
[07:06] – Does perspective blindness apply to an eight-person business with no board? Choe says it matters even more for small teams.
[08:56] – Choe shares her personal story of moving from Minnesota to Seoul at age 10 and having to rebuild her entire mental map of who she was.
[12:06] – Choe introduces the GEM framework: get up close, establish meaningful bonds, map your evolving perspective.
[16:01] – A case study of a new CEO who nearly quit after conflict with a departed founder, resolved through a facilitated conversation with another former founder.
[17:25] – Choe unpacks microtranslations and how a 39 percent versus 7 percent readiness gap between CIOs and COOs shows up inside companies.
[19:15] – John and Choe discuss why outside perspective is one of the fastest ways to expose a blind spot no one inside the company can see.

Memorable Quotes

“The higher you go in the hierarchy, the less you hear of what people actually think and you hear more of what people think you want to hear.” — Cornelia Choe
“What we’re really lacking and losing today is judgment.” — Cornelia Choe
“Perspective blindness is a state in which we believe that we see the whole picture.” — Cornelia Choe
“Things are changing so quickly that the disruptors are being disrupted.” — Cornelia Choe
“When you get closer, you see the situation much clearer. And you’re able to find a lot more, many more solutions.” — Cornelia Choe

Resources

Cornelia Choe’s website: corneliachoe.com
The Panoramic Leader (book): available on Amazon
Talk to an advisor: ducttapemarketing.com/consultation
Feedback and contact: john@ducttapemarketing.com

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:02.158)

So, what if the thing limiting your next stage of growth is not what you’re doing, but what you can’t see? Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Cornelia Cho. She’s an international leadership expert, global keynote speaker, and thinkers 50 radar honoree. She’s the founder of The Leaders Alliance and co-author with Marshall Goldsmith of a book we’re going to talk about today, The Panoramic.

leader, how great leaders see differently. So Cornelia, welcome to the show.

Cornelia Choe (00:35.545)

Thank you so much, John. It is such a pleasure to share this conversation to be on the show with you.

John Jantsch (00:41.984)

So I’m looking at you in the camera right now in the mirror is is that the San Francisco transit system behind you?

Cornelia Choe (00:50.57)

It is not. It is a a map of it is a map of stars in the sky above Hawaii. Because it’s it’s there to help us really pinpoint what’s out there and to keep our eyes open to what’s moving across the sky and to know that there are always indicators out there if we look, we turn left and right and see.

John Jantsch (00:51.042)

What is it? What is that map?

John Jantsch (00:57.784)

Huh. okay. All right.

John Jantsch (01:16.874)

that’s that sounds like that sounds like a very intentional tie into your book somehow. And here I thought it was just a a poster, a piece of art. So y you know, your book is coming out at a time when business owners are probably more buried in data than ever, right? I mean AI tools and dashboards and customer analytics. So what still are we not seeing?

Cornelia Choe (01:20.556)

What’s around it?

Cornelia Choe (01:33.452)

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (01:41.684)

No, John, it’s really convenient to get a lot of data today. And AI has really commoditized data. And for so long we’ve looked to leaders to give us the right information and for them to be chosen because they’re smart and because they have the right experience. And today this knowledge is really accessible at our fingertips.

John Jantsch (01:42.158)

Ha ha ha.

John Jantsch (01:47.372)

Right, right.

Cornelia Choe (02:08.651)

But what we’re really lacking and losing today is judgment. And it comes both across the board with all employees using AI. And it really depends on how we use AI. We can take what we’re given for granted and move forward with that. But we have surveys showing that more than 50% of employees using AI have made mistakes in their work by using it.

That over 50% of employees don’t verify what they get from AI. And what that’s doing is really dulling our judgment. And just like after the Industrial Revolution, we’ve had to go to the gym because we’re not getting enough physical movement. We may have to then go to the mind gym to keep our senses sharp. And so this can happen across all employees in a company, but

Especially for the senior management team. What’s really tricky about AI and change, we’ve had so much change in the world today between economic and political upheaval, is that we’re not able to see how change affects all of our different team members. And they’re all changing in different ways, but we go forward thinking that everyone sees our company the way we see it. And we’re having a lot of

dysfunctions amongst teams. And there was another survey showing that CIOs and CTOs, 39% of them think their companies are ready. But in these same companies, COOs think only only 7% of CO COOs think that their companies are ready. So there is a massive disconnect there. So it’s

John Jantsch (03:53.336)

So you you actually have a term for this, I think, that you call perspective blindness. and so so let let’s define that. Tell me what it is. and then what does it look like when a business really has that without knowing it?

Cornelia Choe (03:58.156)

Yes, yes.

Cornelia Choe (04:08.673)

So perfect per perspective blindness is a state in which we believe that we see the whole picture. And today the problem is there’s so much change. There’s change happening all over to the left and to the right. And no leader can understand all of that change. We don’t know how it’s affecting all our different team members, and we don’t know everything that’s happening out there because there’s so much of it. And before change was really

Disruption of the status quo. We had the status quo, and then we had a beginning, a middle, and end of change, and then we had a new normal. The problem with today is that we don’t have a new normal. Before we can adjust to a change, another starts. We have tariffs, we have a war, we have supply chain disruptions, we have lack of access to materials that we need. And so the fact that we don’t

John Jantsch (05:00.76)

Well, so there is there is a there is a new normal, it just lasts two days, right?

Cornelia Choe (05:05.463)

There is a new normal the last two days, but it’s probably enough not enough time for us to feel comfortable and get used to it because we’re always looking for what’s changing next. And it’s it’s changing our state of mind. And so because so many things are changing, we’re not able to see everything. Everyone just sees a piece of the puzzle, which is why we need to bring together and understand different perspectives and kind of add those to our map, so to say, the way we see the world.

But when we think that what we see is the complete picture or that everyone else sees that way, we’re gonna make bad decisions. We’re going to we’re gonna assume that things are rosier than they are, that suppliers are gonna be able to deliver, that customers are always gonna be there. And let me share a story with you. I was talking to an exec an executive, and this executive was asked by senior management to hire someone.

Who was an expert at AI to improve their product and to work alongside them in a software as a service company. And this executive complied and hired this person, but then later got rid of them saying, Look, I’m the disruptor. And it’s it’s true that that person was the disruptor about a decade or more ago when software moved from CD-ROMs online.

And so that was a massive disruption. But today things are changing so quickly that the disruptors are being disrupted. And that’s really hard as a change in identity because where do we get our pride and our self-worth? It’s from what we believe we are: the entrepreneur, the founder, the disruptor. But things are changing so quickly that even disruptors need to constantly update their map to see.

to to stay with reality and what’s really changing around them.

John Jantsch (07:06.552)

Well, I I know from looking at your bio, you’ve worked with leaders at United Nations, White House, but does the same problem show up in your view w with that business that has maybe eight people, no board? I mean, does it look different?

Cornelia Choe (07:21.267)

Absolutely, John. I think it is even more relevant because when you’re working in a small company, you need to be extremely nimble. You need to pivot more. You need to keep your pulse on the market and on changes even more. And so I would say go and meet more of the customers, even if you find that you’re in a very stable niche, for example. There might be adjacent

Areas where you could expand your product or another customer segment that could be even more interested in your product. And things are changing all the time. So there are new opportunities being created, but you could also get disrupted very easily. So this matters even more to entrepreneurs. And I do work with a lot of founders. And and this is something that founders, I think, inherently do better, are better at at the beginning.

of their journey when they’re looking to find product market fit. But as we get more stable and we grow, then we need to continue to adapt both the company and of course our identities on what we contribute to our companies, which is which is hard.

John Jantsch (08:29.42)

Yeah. It it’s funny when you start out, everything’s a hypothesis, right? So you you know, you’re you’re willing to experiment and change, but yeah, you you get entrenched. In fact, one of the things you talk about, you mentioned the word map, and you talk a lot about this idea of mental maps that we operate from. So how how are these maps that that are ingrained, maybe from childhood or certainly from another point in your career, how do how are those creating blind spots, do you think?

Cornelia Choe (08:34.58)

Exactly.

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (08:42.103)

Mm-hmm.

Cornelia Choe (08:56.951)

So I’ll give you an example from my own life. I was raised in Minnesota until I was 10. And I had a pretty happy childhood out in nature, a lot of friends. And a lot of my friends were blonde. So I thought I was blonde growing up because when you’re small, you don’t think about it. You just think you are whatever you see. And then I moved to Korea, to South Korea, to Seoul when I was 10. And

John Jantsch (09:13.206)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (09:22.318)

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (09:23.411)

I had the shock of my life. The first question I asked my mom at the airport was, where did they find so many people with black hair? And how do they get them all in the same room? I had never seen anything like that before. And I had to completely rewrite my map of who I was and how I was supposed to be. And I was promised a whole world of loving relatives who were waiting for me. That well, that wasn’t true. They were totally confused by who I was. They told me I looked Korean, but I wasn’t acting. And I

couldn’t figure out how I was supposed to act. And so we’re all, yeah, we’re definitely not enough and not not very well at all. And so we we all carry around inside an an operating system like an internal GPS guiding us on what works, what doesn’t, which we get from our successes and our failures that we’ve lived through.

John Jantsch (09:55.84)

I mean prob probably didn’t speak Korean, I imagine, at that time, at that point or in your life. Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:12.013)

Mm-hmm.

Cornelia Choe (10:19.659)

And I we call this our internal map. And this is something we need to update. And for me, when I got to Korea, it it got really confusing until one time I saw an interview with an actress who was a single mother, and she was saying that she’s gone through a lot of moments of anger and sadness and joy. And it helps her become better at her craft and a better actress because she’s able to understand more of her characters. And I thought.

That’s my job. That’s what I need to do is to understand a lot of perspectives and the people around me and update my map. And it was only when I was willing to change my map and start to get to know people around me and how they think and how different it was and to absorb that myself, to be able to willing to, you know, to change how I see that I was able to make friends and really find a lot more success in.

John Jantsch (11:15.318)

Mm.

Cornelia Choe (11:17.801)

in every subsequent move. And I’ve lived in eleven different places around the world and three continents by the time I was eighteen. So I’ve had a lot of practice in this. But it it really helps when we adjust our map and our view to the world and the to the people around us, even if we don’t understand it at the beginning, which is true today.

John Jantsch (11:24.717)

Yes.

John Jantsch (11:37.246)

Yeah. Th that’s really interesting you talk about travel. I mean, that to me has always been one of the most eye opening experiences as you experience other cultures in other places and you you, you know, you don’t know about them. So part of your mental map is is ignorance of, you know, other cultures and things. And so to get that that opening I’ve always found that that that really opens your eye d your your mind to new ideas. So we’ve talked a little about poked a little bit of what the problem is. how do we solve it?

Cornelia Choe (11:53.227)

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (12:03.969)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (12:06.134)

Like all good consultants, I think you have a framework that you know, of how to approach it. So you want to unpack that a little bit?

Cornelia Choe (12:09.174)

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (12:13.185)

Sure, it’s a very intuitive framework. And we call it Gem. And it stands for get up close, establish meaningful bonds, and map your evolving perspective. So that basically boils down to step one, where we’re actually willing to get up close to people who think differently. And there’s no pressure, just talk to them, hear their point of view. And we use a lot of

Curiosity and courage at this point, just to approach them and say, hey, you know, do you want to meet for a coffee? If that’s not possible or if it’s dangerous for some reason, then we can potentially read about them or talk to someone we know in common and just to get an idea of what they’re thinking and try to put ourselves in their shoes. And the problem a lot of leaders have is that the the when you’re a founder or a CEO, and the higher you go in the hierarchy.

the less you hear of what people actually think and you hear more of what people think you want to hear. And so creating a relationship of trust, which is step number two to really deepen this relationship instead of a one-off encounter and say, look, I’m happy to meet from time to time and to update your map according to what they see. That’s extremely helpful because that’s when you really get an understanding of what your stakeholders or the people around you are really thinking. And

John Jantsch (13:12.632)

Sure.

John Jantsch (13:16.182)

Mm-hmm.

Cornelia Choe (13:39.308)

That’s what helps you update your map, which is step three. If you talk about a subject in common, then you’ll be able to say, okay, this is where that subject is on my map. They see it differently. I’m going to add on to it. I didn’t know that this was possible. And I get this comment a lot in the circles I lead of leaders who are are chosen to work together into small circles because.

They think differently, not necessarily because they’re from a different background. You could be from the exact same town, but if you think differently and solve your problems together, then you you’re able to see so much more of so many more options and possibilities. And we we call this optimistic fear because it’s acknowledging that there is fear and there could be danger, but still using that fear to propel you forward to get close and

John Jantsch (14:13.74)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (14:25.942)

Mm.

Cornelia Choe (14:35.691)

To get more information to talk to people. And when you get closer, you see the situation much clearer. And you’re able to find a lot more, many more solutions. And to give you an example, I was working with a CEO who took over after the departure of a founder of a company. And we found out that this founder was still controlling some of the operations with through their relationship with employees that they’ve known for a very long time.

John Jantsch (15:02.539)

Mm-hmm.

Cornelia Choe (15:05.847)

And the the new CEO was extremely angry and was thinking of leaving. And they were really succumbing to fight, flight, or freeze and the fear of the unknown. What what’s gonna happen to this company? Because I’m not in control and who’s the real CEO. And so I paired them up with another founder who had just left their company, who had just sold their company. And

This CEO agreed to have a very open mind and just to be very curious during the meeting. And the CEO found that it’s so incredibly hard to leave a company. It this founder felt like they left a part of their body behind. And yeah. And were it was able to really patch things up with their own founder and bring the company to the next level of growth.

John Jantsch (15:51.032)

Well yeah.

John Jantsch (16:01.43)

So so when I heard you talking about the the framework and kind of week to week what that might look like for a business owner, I I I feel like we talked mostly about like people on your team, but that would really be true for customers too, right? I mean, so many of the conversations we have cuss with customers are we are providing a report, providing a service, checking in, it’s all transactional. But we’re not probably doing these things that could expand the map of how the customer actually views the world.

Cornelia Choe (16:05.495)

Mm-hmm.

Cornelia Choe (16:13.803)

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (16:24.471)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (16:30.976)

Or how or what they consider is value based on what we think we’re delivering value. Would you say that that that a business owner or an entrepreneur should probably include customers in those conversations, shouldn’t they?

Cornelia Choe (16:42.855)

Yeah, absolutely, John. I think we’re we’re looking at employees, but we’re actually looking at the realm of stakeholders in general because customers change and their needs change. And we may be able to fulfill a a different need and expand on our product, for example. And so this is a great thing to do in general, but all the more so because things are changing.

John Jantsch (16:50.849)

Right.

Cornelia Choe (17:08.159)

so much in the lives of the customers as well. So I would say get up close to your employees and your customers, but also f with your suppliers, your distributors, and even an influencer who you don’t know who’s far away, who’s bringing people to your products or not.

John Jantsch (17:08.227)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:25.726)

You you use the term microtranslations and and the idea that there could be some miscommunication there. And I’m thinking of like literal translations, right? In in when you’re trying to speak to somebody in another language, even like your intonation can mean something completely different. so I unpack that idea of microtranslations and how they show up in customer relationships, employee relationships.

Cornelia Choe (17:29.015)

Mm-hmm.

Cornelia Choe (17:41.835)

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (17:50.398)

Give you an example of the survey where where it was found that 39% of CIOs believe the company’s ready, and only 7% of COOs believe that the company’s ready, they’re looking in completely different directions, and their plan of action is very different. So if we bring them together, then they’re really able to translate what they are thinking because.

John Jantsch (18:02.912)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (18:07.191)

Yeah.

Cornelia Choe (18:17.823)

If you bring them together, each one is gonna automatically assume that the other sees their perspective. And that’s when you really run into trouble. So starting from the basics where each person will explain how they see the the situation and explaining it in a way that the other person can understand. And that’s when you get the real magic, Jiang, because when you tr explain things in the perspective of another person so that they can understand and

So the COO will say, look, you know, I know you have a plan for your technology rollout, but we’re actually looking at these specific teams which are having a problem. How do they fit in your plan? And then to to translate what we’re saying in a way others can understand, that’s when we actually get the the co-creation and the and the communication. So it’s it’s it’s one added step, but it brings fantastic results.

John Jantsch (19:15.0)

What about outside perspectives? I know I get brought in quite often to organizations and you know there’s there’s leadership, there’s marketing, there’s sales, there’s customer service. And by the time I’ve talked to all of them, I realize that they’ve been they’ve been operating the way they operate, and it doesn’t make sense. and certainly there are disconnects. And it was so clear and easy for me to see when they were just like, Well, I don’t know, this is how we’ve always done it. Would would you say that bringing in outside perspective is a great way to to actually open some eyes to blind spots? Cause

Cornelia Choe (19:31.329)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:44.834)

I mean the problem with blind spots is we would fix them if we knew they were there. Half the time we just don’t know they’re there.

Cornelia Choe (19:49.387)

Mm-hmm.

Exactly. And a lot of people go on autopilot because it’s easier. And our brains are actually our most expensive organ because it takes up two percent of our body weight, but 20% of our energy and our oxygen. So people try to offload and autopilot everything they can because they don’t want to rethink it over. But in a time when we have constant disruption and our maps are changing constantly, then we have to question what we do and

John Jantsch (19:53.422)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:06.2)

Yeah, yeah.

Cornelia Choe (20:21.489)

it’s it it’s easier when we bring in curiosity and optimistic fear because then we’re willing to question and say, it’s not gonna be that big of a deal. Let’s just get a bit closer and see what we think. Let’s talk to these people, let’s call these people in for a meeting Monday morning, let’s make a list of people who aren’t at our table and to get to know what they’re thinking throughout the week.

John Jantsch (20:34.605)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:43.82)

Yeah, yeah. Well well, Cornel, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Is there somebody that or somewhere that you would invite people to connect with you or find out more about the panoramic leader?

Cornelia Choe (20:54.889)

Absolutely. My website is at corneliacho.com, C-O-R-N-E-L-I-A-C-H-O-E dot com. I would love to hear from you. And our if you want to learn more, our book is on Amazon and it’s called The Panoramic Leader.

John Jantsch (21:12.46)

Awesome. Well again, take appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Cornelia Choe (21:18.078)

Absolutely, John. It has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for this wonderful conversation.

AI Has Leveled the Marketing Playing Field

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 20:42:59 +0000

AI Has Leveled the Marketing Playing Field written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode:

Overview

Most small business owners assume neuromarketing and behavioral science are tools reserved for big brands with big budgets. In this episode, John Jantsch talks with Roger Dooley, author of three books on the intersection of brain science and business, about his latest release, The Persuasion Engine. Dooley explains why AI has effectively democratized decades of behavioral science research, giving entrepreneurs and solopreneurs access to the same persuasion principles once locked away in corporate nudge units.

The conversation covers how AI models like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can act as a stand-in for expensive consultants, applying frameworks from Robert Cialdini, BJ Fogg, and Dale Carnegie to everyday marketing tasks such as landing pages, emails, and competitive audits. Dooley also shares research showing AI scoring higher than humans on emotional intelligence tests, and explains what that means for writing customer communications that actually land well.

This episode is for small business owners, marketing consultants, and agency owners who want a practical, low-cost way to apply behavioral science to their marketing without hiring a research team. Dooley closes with a simple framework for running a first behavioral audit using AI in under an hour.

Guest Bio

Roger Dooley is the author of three books exploring the intersection of brain science and business, including his latest, The Persuasion Engine, which shows entrepreneurs and small business owners how to use AI-powered neuromarketing to understand and win customers. Dooley has spent two decades studying neuromarketing and behavioral science, and is known for his work on reducing friction in customer experience. He shares his insights regularly on LinkedIn, where he is most active on social media.

Key Takeaways

Neuromarketing tools once reserved for large brands, such as eye tracking and behavioral testing, are now affordable enough for any small business to use.
AI models can act as a low-cost substitute for a team of behavioral science consultants, applying frameworks from experts like Cialdini, Fogg, and Carnegie to a specific project.
A 2025 Swiss study found AI models scored higher than humans on emotional intelligence tests, with top models reaching roughly 89 percent compared to an average human score around 60 percent.
The most common mistake business owners make with AI is failing to give it enough context about their company, customers, and market before asking for output.
Treating AI as a conversation, rather than a single prompt and response, produces significantly better insights. Pushing back and asking follow-up questions is key.
Testing the same prompt across multiple AI models (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) can surface better results than relying on just one.
AI can be used to run a competitive audit, analyzing competitor websites, reviews, and messaging to find gaps and positioning opportunities.
Before sending an important customer communication, especially one delivering bad news, running it through AI for an empathy and clarity check can prevent costly missteps.
Adding the phrase “ask any questions that will help you respond” to a prompt often improves the quality of AI output significantly.
A first behavioral audit can start with adding company context, sharing existing marketing materials, and asking the AI to identify friction points and missing behavioral principles.

Great Moments

[00:01] – John introduces the episode and guest Roger Dooley, author of The Persuasion Engine
[01:27] – Dooley explains why we have entered “neuromarketing 2.0” as tools become democratized
[03:17] – How AI can apply Cialdini and Kahneman’s frameworks without requiring a thousand pages of reading
[05:19] – Research showing AI models outperform humans on emotional intelligence tests
[06:45] – Building an AI-powered “team of experts” using models like Claude or Gemini
[09:11] – A real example: using AI to audit a hypothetical pool service company’s competitors
[11:12] – How to give AI context so it reflects your brand voice rather than a generic tone
[16:09] – Why AI is surprisingly effective at predicting how humans will emotionally react to a message
[17:45] – The Duolingo CEO letter example and how good intentions can still land badly
[19:45] – Dooley’s framework for running a first behavioral audit in under an hour

Memorable Quotes

“AI is surprisingly good at predicting how humans will feel about a message, even though it can’t feel anything itself.” — Dooley

“It’s far better to do that as a conversation where you probe and you push back on it, because AI wants to please you and it’ll give you answers you don’t like.” — Dooley

“Most commonly it is not providing enough context, for one, about the company, the customers, the marketplace.” — Dooley

“You can create, using an AI model like Claude or Gemini, a team of your top experts, whoever you think are the most relevant to your particular project.” — Dooley

Why Video Marketing Builds Customer Trust in the Age of AI

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:23:37 +0000

Why Video Marketing Builds Customer Trust in the Age of AI written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Eisode:

Overview

Automation is everywhere in small business right now, from chatbots to email sequences to review requests. The question Doug Dibert Jr. raises on this episode is a pointed one: as you add more AI to your customer communication, are you accidentally making people trust you less? Dibert, founder and CEO of the white label video platform Magnfi, makes the case that video is the human layer that keeps automated systems from feeling cold, and that businesses adding short, personal video to their everyday communication are standing out and closing deals faster.

John Jantsch and Dibert get practical fast. They cover where video belongs after the sale, how to turn a four or five star review into a video testimonial that doubles as marketing content, and why a simple recorded reply on a form-confirmation page still surprises people. Dibert shares his Thank You Thursday habit, breaks down how AI video production now rivals shoots that once cost a fortune, and explains how agencies are packaging video as recurring revenue.

This one is for small business owners, marketers, and agency operators who already use automation and want it to feel more human without adding hours to the week. If you have wondered where video actually fits in a tech stack built on AI, you will leave with a short list of places to start.

Guest Bio

Doug Dibert Jr. is the founder and CEO of Magnfi, a white label video platform that helps marketing agencies and businesses add video to AI chat, email automation, and reputation marketing systems. With a background in filmmaking and years running a video production and marketing agency, He built Magnfi to give businesses video testimonial capture, branded video clips, video email, and AI-delivered video replies without the editing overhead. He works closely with agencies that resell the platform to their own clients.

Key Takeaways

Video is becoming the human layer over AI-driven communication. A short clip in a welcome email, a chatbot reply, or an SMS keeps a real person present as you automate.
Video chatbot replies work best as pre-recorded clips delivered by AI from a knowledge base at the right moment, not glitchy on-screen avatars.
Reviews can become a content engine. After a four or five star review or a high NPS score, invite a quick video testimonial and offer a small thank-you, turning happy customers into micro-influencers.
A personal video on your form-confirmation page still stands out, because so few businesses bother to confirm a submission like a human would.
Thank You Thursday: pick a random customer each week and record a short thank-you. It often reopens conversations and surfaces new needs.
Your current customers are your best audience for additional products. Social media nurtures buyers, it does not only attract new ones.
LinkedIn is a strong place for video right now if you want to be seen as an expert in your field.
AI video production has matured fast. Doug’s team produced a cinematic ad for an automotive repair shop that drew over 7,000 plays in two weeks.
For agencies, white label video slots in as an add-on to reputation, social, and web services, commonly at $250 to $750 a month in recurring revenue.

Great Moments

[00:02] John opens with the question behind the episode: is your new AI quietly eroding customer trust?
[00:51] The story behind the name Magnfi, including why dropping a single letter saved $5,000.
[02:06] How video shifted from “just content” to humanizing AI-driven communication.
[03:18] Why video outperforms text: nonverbal cues build know, like, and trust.
[05:54] Where video belongs after the sale, from welcome emails to chatbots to onboarding.
[08:31] Turning four and five star reviews into video testimonials with a simple incentive.
[11:47] Thank You Thursday, and how a weekly thank-you video reopens client conversations.
[16:22] The cinematic AI video example: a Mad Max style ad built around an air freshener.
[20:08] The first 90 days for a white label agency, plus why YouTube is the number two search engine.

Memorable Quotes

“What if every AI tool your business just adopted is quietly making customers trust you less?” — John Jantsch

“Video is a fantastic conduit for know, like, and trust in a digital-first world.” — Doug Dibert Jr.

“Your social media is also for continuing to sell to your current customers.” — Doug Dibert Jr.

“Your current customer base is the best base to sell additional products and services to, because they already know, like, and trust you.” — Doug Dibert Jr.

“That person took the time to record a video. You have no excuse.” — Doug Dibert Jr.

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:02.118)

So, what if every AI tool your business just adopted is quietly making customers trust you less? Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jance, and my guest today is Doug Dibert Jr. He’s the founder and CEO of Magnif Mag. I I bet you a lot of people struggle with that. Magnify. Well, he’ll he’ll straighten me out.

A white label video platform that helps marketing agencies and businesses add video to AI chat, email automation, and reputation marketing systems. So Doug, welcome to the show.

Doug (00:36.632)

Thanks so much. Yeah. No, no. It’s we’re we’re we’re we’re we’re marketers and salespeople. We’re not, you know, English majors, right? So

John Jantsch (00:43.91)

All right. So so tell everybody everybody listening how to actually pronounce it.

Doug (00:51.148)

Magnify, yep, yep, you got it. Yep, magnify, M-A-G-N-F-I, yeah. Well, it w I I I originally started it. I was gonna buy M-A-G-N-I-F-I, but somebody else owned it and they wanted five grand for the letter I. And when you’re a startup, right, I mean every dollar counts. So I was like, well, just take off the I, no big deal.

John Jantsch (00:53.484)

it says magnify, okay. Okay, all right. I was

John Jantsch (01:02.95)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I tell you the other issue I ran into. I I so wanted to pronounce your name like the cartoon. I was trying to put an L L in there, you know. I I so wanted to do that as Dilbert, but that’s okay, gosh. I should I should we start my intro over again? I just butchered everything. All right, so yeah, there you go. All right, well now.

Doug (01:17.704)

Yeah, I get that too.

Doug (01:22.882)

Yeah, yeah, I I get that too. It’s it’s actually diapers, but long eye.

It’s it’s perfect and it’s imperfection. There we go.

John Jantsch (01:39.364)

Now we have a reason to talk about it. So that’s a you know, that’s a marketing win. so you started as a video production company agency, and my guess is that most of your clients saw what you were doing or you sold what you were doing as content production. I I think that’s probably a true statement, right? how does Magnify actually look at video content differently?

Doug (01:40.97)

Yeah, there you go.

Doug (01:47.575)

I did, yeah.

Doug (01:56.63)

You got it. Yeah.

Right true.

Doug (02:06.734)

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So how we look at content differently, I mean, this is it’s a little bit of a metamorphosis, right? And a a lot of the metamorphosis for us really has been driven by the advancement of AI in a lot of communication. So video for a long time has been seen as just content. You know, social media, you gotta make video content, you gotta make those expert tip videos, you gotta do this, you gotta do that, which is all true.

John Jantsch (02:13.317)

Right.

John Jantsch (02:23.226)

Yeah, yeah.

Doug (02:34.306)

But now it’s it’s even more important because it’s a part of humanizing business communication and AI driven communication now. That’s it’s it’s like the pivot has just happened not even that long ago. It’s it’s it’s definitely very interesting pivot, even for us.

John Jantsch (02:52.634)

Yeah. Well well, and I think the biggest change is what you’re suggesting, and certainly what I’ve seen, is that there’s a lot of places, there’s a lot of gaps in where people are using it, video. Certainly, I mean, I I guess we could start with talking about, you know, how video differs from from word, written word content and maybe go there, you know, like why is video so powerful as a medium period?

Doug (03:11.405)

Mm-hmm.

Doug (03:18.008)

You got it. Well, it’s it’s it’s definitely more powerful than just text on a screen because you see let’s like right right now, we’re doing a video podcast, right? You’re hearing my voice, you’re hear you’re hearing my tonality, you’re you’re seeing my hands move. I’m a big hand talker. So you’re seeing my eyes get big with excitement, right? And then obviously you’re laughing. So just it we read so much nonverbal communication than we do.

John Jantsch (03:38.565)

Yeah.

Doug (03:46.242)

Verbal and we actually in science shows we learn more. So the businesses that are are adding video now to a simple email communication are are standing out in a huge way and closing deals faster. We worked with some sales teams that were super reluctant, like, I don’t want to take the time to record a video. I’m busy. I just want to fire off a quick, you know, email and then send it off. You know, keep the that sales prospecting thing going. But the businesses that actually levered it early on.

John Jantsch (03:47.205)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:08.677)

Yeah.

Doug (04:16.574)

actually close the deals faster because video is a fantastic conduit for no like and trust in a in a digital first world.

John Jantsch (04:23.898)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think I think all communication is a form of persuasion. you know, we’re trying to persuade somebody to do something, you know, even if it’s just right back to me. and so I I think video scores very high on trust, and trust is certainly one of the biggest elements of persuasion, as you as you just mentioned. W I I read in the beginning of this some stats that that actually I think you you have shared. Seventy nine percent of Americans prefer human

Doug (04:30.754)

Yeah. Yeah.

Doug (04:45.75)

You got it.

John Jantsch (04:53.868)

Over AI agent and customer service, 86 say human interaction still matters to brain experience. I’m wondering if those numbers are skewed because so many people are doing it poorly. you know, so some of the automation, the really particularly the early automation was was more frustrating than helpful in a lot of cases. And they just found themselves like human, human, human, you know, pushing whatever button to get to that. And and do you think that that some of those numbers are there because

Doug (05:03.672)

Mm-hmm.

Doug (05:11.061)

Yeah, yeah.

Doug (05:15.98)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (05:21.594)

People are doing it poorly. I know that I’ve had good experiences with AI chat and I I’m like, Great, that was the way I wanted to go because it I got the result. That’s really all we’re after, right? Yeah.

Doug (05:32.322)

Yeah, you got it. Yep, right to the end result. Yep.

John Jantsch (05:36.048)

So so how does I guess the second part of that, an actual question, you know, how you know, how is somebody using video in all these like customer experience and onboarding and you know, all the things that they think about that they don’t think about in a lot of cases after the sale?

Doug (05:54.03)

Correct. Yeah. Well, so after the sale, super important. So especially after the sale, letting them know that a real human being is actually behind the business is vitally important. So when they get that first welcome email, adding a simple video to it, even if this is generic, even in the chat bot, right? We’re seeing a a nice uptick in people adding video replies just to a chat bot. Because even after the sale, even for Magnify, when somebody comes in and white labels a platform,

John Jantsch (06:06.01)

Right, right.

John Jantsch (06:20.602)

Mm-hmm.

Doug (06:23.0)

They’ll come and they’ll still hit our chat bot up and just ask questions. So we just we deliver video answers to that. So adding video to that. So and then even social media. People businesses don’t think after somebody is sold, like their social media is just for attracting customers. Your social media is also for continuing to sell to your current customers, because if they bought from you, they’re probably liking your social media.

John Jantsch (06:26.693)

Yeah.

Doug (06:48.278)

So continuing to educate and nurture and onboard that customer into how to maximize out your product or your service that you have.

John Jantsch (06:57.914)

So so so give me a little give me a little bit on the technical details. When you say video in your chat replies, that’s really a a a bot that is replying in video form. I mean that’s not actually pre-recorded videos. A lot of people used to do that. but but you’re actually saying no, it’s gonna respond to the exact question it was asked based on a knowledge base.

Doug (06:58.186)

Even after the sale.

Doug (07:09.73)

You got it.

Doug (07:19.138)

Yeah, based on the knowledge base and delivering of a pre-recorded video. You got it. So that way I’ve seen the the bots out there that have like the automated like AI avatar and it looks really weird like the headljerk and then I’ll give you that text response answer. But these are pre-recorded video responses that are delivered by the AI at the right place at the right time.

John Jantsch (07:33.422)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (07:40.643)

Okay.

Doug (07:44.46)

So business can still we tell me this all the time, automate as much as you can, but when it’s appropriate, add in that video that that human layered response versus just a a talking bot. So what the bot is figuring out where the appropriate response is to add that video video reply.

John Jantsch (08:04.57)

So one of the things I think we talked about was at reputation management. you know, there are a lot of industries that have been on the, you know, getting reviews game for many, many years, home service industries, restaurants, spas, you know, that kind of thing. But it’s I think almost every business has now realized how important it is. how can you use kind of one what I call one-to-one video in referral generation, or not necessary referral, reviews like a Google review.

Doug (08:14.626)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Doug (08:31.586)

Yeah, review capture. Yeah. So a lot of softwares out there I know for reputation management. After somebody leaves a four or a five star or an NPS score leaves like a nine or a ten, now you could with with our platform, that’s how we work beautifully with those platforms. Is that if they do click those, you can automate either a gay, you know, click here and tell us your story, record a quick video testimonial about your experience. And hey, as a thank you for your time, you know, for for telling us your story, we’ll

Well send you 10% off the next visit, right? So that’s a perfect opportunity to create micro influencers out of those people who are leaving those those five stars or four stars and those nine and tens on the on an MPS score. So then it becomes a content generation engine.

John Jantsch (09:17.348)

Yeah. So so so again, just to clarify that, you’re not necessarily saying use it you know, a lot of people do things where they did a service and they want to send a video out to the person saying, Hey, review us. But you’re actually you’re actually advocating more for once somebody does review you to actually then ha use it as an engagement tool.

Doug (09:36.738)

Yeah, it’s actually both. Yeah, yeah. So it yep, you you could utilize it both ways. Like we we have users on our platform that’ll use our video email tool. So it’ll actually route them to a video message of the owner saying, Hey, like I’m Bob the from from Bob’s Burgers, right? Hey, I’m so glad you had a great time at at our place. If you feel so inclined and you want to tell us your story about how much you loved your burger, what was your favorite burger? Just click the link below and record your story for us. And next time you come in, you know, burgers on me, just for taking the time.

John Jantsch (09:38.479)

Yeah, okay.

John Jantsch (10:06.566)

Yeah, yeah.

Doug (10:06.732)

So we’ve seen it both ways. You got it.

John Jantsch (10:10.244)

many years I have actually advocated small business owners, you know how you you fill out a form, whether it’s request a quote or just contact us or whatever the form is, and and it always drove me crazy. You’d press that button, send, and you weren’t even I mean there was no confirmation, there was nothing. You’re like, I don’t know, did they get it? You know, or not, right? And I’d always was big on getting business owners to record a video, send them to a page that basically says, Hey, we got it, you know

Doug (10:11.51)

Yeah, okay. Yeah, small.

Doug (10:16.814)

Mm-hmm.

Doug (10:27.554)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (10:36.674)

Our best agent is on it, they’re gonna get back to you. Me and and the people that did that, it was funny how often we’d get comments because it it was it’s it’s now pretty regular, but it was unique almost so that you know, people would comment on something so goofy and so simple.

Doug (10:39.436)

Yeah.

Doug (10:51.406)

Well what’s what’s what’s funny is you were ahead of the game, John. And because what you were what what you were doing is you were humanizing the experience. Instead of shooting a simple e or even a even an email, just like you said, sometimes you get nothing back, but usually you get that automated little text like, We’ve got your thing, let’s let me be in touch with you, blah, blah, blah. But now, looks like you said, recording, I mean, taking three minutes or less to record a video, throw that in your auto response, and then

John Jantsch (10:56.921)

Yes.

John Jantsch (11:07.045)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Doug (11:20.162)

Having that video pop up? You were ahead of the game, man.

John Jantsch (11:23.79)

Yeah, well and and the fact that everybody the pandemic actually sped this up because everybody that everybody had to go out and get a camera and everybody got on video and everybody was used to now they had all these tools to actually do that recorded before. I mean when I started doing it, we had to bring a crew into the office. It was much harder. So

Doug (11:27.566)

yeah. Yeah. Video.

Doug (11:38.83)

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I remember even even before the like just trying to get something out of Zoom call before all that was was super hard to do. Now it’s like we gotta walk across the street. well to Zoom.

John Jantsch (11:47.47)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. So I think I read somewhere you do something called Thank You Thursday. you pick a random client e each week and send a personal video email. it’s so funny. Again, going back to old practices because I’ve been doing this a long time. I had a habit of of every Friday I would call three or four clients, literally with like, hey, I was just let’s see how you doing. And I can’t tell you how often somebody said, you know, I was just about

Doug (12:00.706)

Yeah.

Doug (12:14.926)

There you go.

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:21.414)

call you, we need to do XYZ. I mean, it was unbelievable. So I made it a habit. So tell me about your thank you Thursday.

Doug (12:22.19)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, thank you Thursday came well from you know from video email, right? ‘Cause like we talk about you should use video email, should do that. It’s kinda like practicing what you preach. So every Thursday, well, ’cause it rhymes, it kinda helps you remember it. yeah, thank you Thursday. You just pick a random customer and record a video and just say, Hey, how’s the su how it’s going on? Hope you’re doing fantastic and hope you’re enjoying the platform. You know, hope the family’s doing good. Just want to record a video to say, Hey, thank you. I appreciate you because I would not be here if you if we if we weren’t working together. So I just want to say thank you.

John Jantsch (12:38.469)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug (12:56.474)

And less than twenty-four hours, if not maybe five to ten minutes later, you would get a response back saying, That was really cool. Thank you so much. And and a little what you just said, John, will happen. They’ll be yeah, well I thinking about adding X this Y XYZ thing on it. I’m glad you reached out. Let’s get this thing going. So it’s I mean, your your your current customer base is is the best base to re to sell additional products and services to because they already know, like, and trust you.

John Jantsch (13:21.412)

Yeah. Have you have you have you quantified or or or gotten even any kind of feedback from clients who’ve maybe adopted that practice to say this is what this has meant over the last six months?

Doug (13:34.466)

Yeah, mean l l literally what I just still what when I kind of explained that concept to our to our agencies and stuff like that that white label us even businesses, literally the same response is like, my gosh, this is so easy, so simple, especially from C suite people, like messaging out their their team members. Hey, I want to record your quick video or record a quick video and just say, Hey, you know, hey, you know, Bill. Just want to record your quick video, just let you know I think you’re doing a fantastic job. Thank you so much for working here.

John Jantsch (13:38.766)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (13:48.601)

Yeah.

Doug (14:01.56)

Especially if they’re talent they want to keep. People just wanna feel appreciated. So that C suite executive that was using our platform did that. He’s like, my gosh, like this is I’m gonna do this all the time now. Just record video, just say thank you to my team members who are doing a fantastic job.

John Jantsch (14:04.976)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (14:16.928)

th a lot of people have been, and any number of people have been using tools like Loom to do kind of similar one to one video and you know, you you just click a button and record. I I I know, you know, we initially our initial use case for using Loom was when we were trying to explain, say to a web designer, like, fix this thing right here, you know, and it was just a lot easier, right, to communicate that. How does your platform differ from a you know, a tool like that which can be free?

Doug (14:23.256)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Doug (14:35.372)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Doug (14:45.58)

Yeah, yeah, no, Loom’s a fantastic platform. Yeah. So we we have the we just like you said, we have the we have the same kind of capabilities inside of Magnify, right? But the cool part about what what Magnify is is we’ve built in not just a a screen recording tool, but we have the ability to capture video testimonials, produce simple branded video clips, make little story videos which takes three video clips and produces them into one video, and then literally add video to any marketing communication that you have, whether you have an AI chat bot.

John Jantsch (14:51.718)

Ha ha ha.

Doug (15:14.942)

you have SMS marketing, add videos to that. So we’re kind like the the all-encompassing video powerhouse. And that stemmed when I was running my video marketing agency. It stemmed from what other digital marketers and what businesses were actually asking for on a consistent basis. So when you’re running a video production company, you’d get those nice big client contracts, right? Where you’re making 10,000-ish dollars a video. But

Magnify was birthed out of, well crap. Like I gotta make more I gotta I gotta figure out a recurring revenue model instead of always always hunting and killing that next thing. So that’s where it was kind of birthed from was the the tools, the five tools we have were birthed from what businesses use or and should be using on a regular basis. And then what makes us unique with the video communication tools is the video content creation tools. We produce it for you. So there’s no video editing needed.

John Jantsch (15:49.966)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (16:01.456)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:09.658)

Yeah, yeah.

Doug (16:09.74)

So art it adds your your logo and music and captions and call to action all by itself.

John Jantsch (16:15.856)

Well in and that ten thousand dollar video, you know, AI is cutting into that budget pretty pretty significantly too, I think.

Doug (16:22.582)

yeah, it’s funny you mentioned that. Well, it’s ’cause we we actually just through probably about a good year and a half, like obviously we’re we’re on we’d like to think we’re on the cutting edge of of video. And AI video being one of those. We we’ve seen it go from like the really terrible to where it’s at now and we’ve we have studied it and just started offering like cinematic style AI videos where it looks

Where it could replace a five million dollar budget video. We just did one for a multi location automotive repair shop. And they wanted like, they came to us, they wanted like a Mad Max style thing video built around a air freshener. Their big thing was like this cool air freshener that you that you hang on their their their the the mirror gives them 15% fifteen dollars off their next oil change.

John Jantsch (16:51.534)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm.

John Jantsch (17:10.67)

Mm.

Doug (17:19.81)

Gets it back of the door. they wanted a story built all around that. So we went, we we were like, okay, yeah, we’ll give you like a one that’s like around a minute and a half. But like once we got into it, we’re like, we made us like a two minute 30 30 second, like full movie trailer. I mean, complete with scenes. I mean, if you were to pay a crew your minimal five million dollars, and it turned out amazing, they dropped it on their social media.

And within two weeks got over seven thousand plays. And immediately we’re like, we want to do more. So we’re actually doing one that’s a a gone in sixty seconds theme mixed with back to the future. So that’s sort of getting ready to drop here pro pretty quick.

John Jantsch (17:50.256)

Yes.

John Jantsch (17:56.088)

yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s that’s interesting. I mean you imagine you imagine like, you know, two actual live trucks or something driving down the road, you know, in a Mad Max style. I mean, I would take f twenty people back in the day, right? All the people holding boom mics and and the three, four different videos on, you know, on trucks. I mean, crazy. So,

Doug (18:02.102)

It’s awesome.

Doug (18:12.366)

Yeah. It’s like my God.

Doug (18:21.85)

somebody who studied filmmaking in college, if I had this at my fingertips back in the day, like I mean, literally, like your the your imagination is only the limit. It’s so it’s crazy.

John Jantsch (18:24.411)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:32.696)

Yeah, yeah. All right, so I’m a two person shop and I don’t have time for video. What’s the least amount I could get away with?

Doug (18:42.712)

The least am I gonna get away with, right? That well, that’s what the Magnify platform was built for, number one. But number, but number two, bust out that phone in your pocket and just record some content for the love. Because I I always love when people you’re on screen, it’s been this is a great analogy I tell all people who are considering it. You ever been scrolling on social media and you stop and you see some guy’s video, you’re like, that guy’s an idiot. Like, I know more than that person.

John Jantsch (18:43.78)

Ha ha ha.

John Jantsch (19:08.602)

Yeah. Yeah.

Doug (19:10.968)

Well, that person took the time to record a video. Well, you have no excuse. Start recording that content. Put it on social media, especially if you’re on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is so hot right now for video content. If they if you’re a LinkedIn person and you’re watching this, make video content on LinkedIn to position yourself as a thought leader as an expert. There’s never been a better time to do it on LinkedIn, for sure. Hands down.

John Jantsch (19:14.277)

Yes.

John Jantsch (19:21.296)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:34.596)

Although my soap speech, stop recording the videos in your car with you driving. I hate those, okay?

Doug (19:40.544)

Yeah. Listen, I’ve been guilty of those. ‘Cause like sometimes you’ll get that thought that pops in your head and like I wanna get it out before I forget. But I hear you. I hear you.

John Jantsch (19:52.778)

So so so so you’re positioning your program though or your platform as white label for agencies. so tell me a little bit about I don’t know the first ninety days of implementation for an agency, what’s that look like?

Doug (20:01.954)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug (20:08.3)

Yeah, so first that’s the most important, right? The first ninety days. So the first ninety days when agency signs up, they they typically have a customer that they’re already like have asked for either video testimonials or they want to add video to an email marketing plan. And so that’s when they typically will find us, right? So but we tell agents all the time, yes, it’s exciting that you have a customer, right? And how our platform works is they pay that the the flat rate and then they get thirty they get thirty seats, thirty seats to give out to as many customers as you got it.

John Jantsch (20:23.675)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:33.284)

Hm. Wow. so those could each be a client could have a seat. I’ll get you, okay.

Doug (20:38.38)

Yeah, so you can give video testimonial capture, video email, branded video clips for your customer and add a layered in video service that works with your existing stack, your reputation marketing, your social media plan, your website design. But we tell them first 90 days, if you make sure you get yourself an optimized YouTube channel for your own agency. And because you agencies

John Jantsch (20:50.638)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (20:59.61)

Yeah.

Doug (21:04.477)

love the idea of having an optimized YouTube channel for their business because one, it helps out tremendously with SEO, right? I mean, and John, you’d be surprised how many agencies don’t know that YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. And when we tell them that they’re like, what? Really? Yes, it is. So yeah, it’s a great way to sell your client into creating content. So the first thing is getting them to create content. Get a video testimonial from one of their happy customers.

John Jantsch (21:10.99)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (21:16.902)

Sure. Yeah. Has been for a long time. Yeah.

Doug (21:32.472)

But it’s implementing it in with their own tech stack, right? So when they approach a business and they go, Hey, check out what we’re doing here. This will work better. This will make work amazing for your business. The business goes, Well, heck yeah, that’s awesome. I want that too. And it’s an easy add on. And most agencies are charging between two hundred and fifty bucks to seven hundred fifty seven hundred and fifty dollars a month in recurring revenue. Right out the gate. Yeah. Yep. You got it. Yeah.

John Jantsch (21:53.772)

Right. Per se per seat. Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you stopping by, taking a few moments on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there some where you’d invite people to learn more about w how they can try out Magnify?

Doug (22:11.02)

Yeah, we well obviously you can just go to magnify dot com, A G N F I dot com. And then always hit me and hit me up on LinkedIn. I’m super active on LinkedIn. Just for just search Doug Doug Dybert J R on LinkedIn. I’m on there pretty much probably way too often, but you could f we could find me on there too. So

John Jantsch (22:29.318)

Well I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road, Doug.

Doug (22:34.072)

Perfect, John. Thanks for having me.

Your Marketing Doesn’t End When Someone Buys | 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 6

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 18:08:32 +0000

Your Marketing Doesn’t End When Someone Buys | 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 6 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode

Overview

In step 6 of the 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success, John Jantsch makes the case for the part of marketing most founders quietly neglect: the customers they already have. The typical business pours close to 90 percent of its budget into winning new customers and only about 10 percent into keeping, reactivating, and growing the existing ones. Yet a returning customer who buys again and refers others is often worth three to ten times a one-time buyer. That gap is the opportunity this episode sets out to close.

John walks through what he calls the customer experience engine, built on four intentional components: onboarding, repeat engagement, a referral system, and reactivation. He explains why the back half of the Marketing Hourglass, the repeat and refer stages, holds the highest-ROI marketing available to most small businesses, with practical examples that range from seasonal maintenance plans that turn one-time projects into recurring revenue, to reactivation campaigns that bring dormant customers back quickly.

This episode is for small business owners, marketers, and consultants who want more growth from customer retention rather than constantly buying it. If your marketing runs smoothly right up until the sale and then goes quiet, this one gives you a framework for keeping the relationship, and the revenue, going.

Host Bio

John Jantsch is the founder of Duct Tape Marketing and the creator of the Marketing Hourglass and the Strategy First approach to small business strategy. He is the author of several books on marketing for small business, including Duct Tape Marketing and The Ultimate Marketing Engine, and he hosts the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, where he shares practical, real-world strategies for owners, marketers, and consultants. Through Duct Tape Marketing and its network of certified consultants, John helps small businesses install a complete Marketing Operating System.

Key Takeaways

Most founders spend around 90 percent of their budget acquiring new customers and only about 10 percent keeping and growing the ones they have. The math rarely favors that split.
A returning customer who buys again and refers others is often worth three to ten times a one-time buyer.
The highest-ROI marketing sits in the back half of the Marketing Hourglass, in the repeat and refer stages most businesses skip.
Treat onboarding as marketing. The first 90 days set the relationship, so build a structured sequence with a clear goal for each touch point.
Do not wait for customers to remember to come back. Use maintenance plans, seasonal triggers, anniversary touch points, and simple check-ins to drive repeat engagement.
Build a systematic referral approach that asks at moments of truth, when a customer is visibly happy with a result.
Reactivation is often the quickest win available. A single campaign to dormant past customers can bring a meaningful share back, sometimes 15 to 20 percent.
A strong customer experience produces reviews, case studies, and results-based stories that AI cannot fake, and those assets feed your new-customer marketing.
Start by auditing one number: the percentage of your budget going toward customers you already have.

Great Moments

[00:01] John introduces step six of the series and opens with the budget question every founder should ask.
[02:18] Why a returning, referring customer is worth three to ten times a one-time buyer, and why the back half of the Marketing Hourglass holds the most value.
[04:36] Onboarding as marketing: designing the first 90 days, plus repeat engagement through maintenance plans and seasonal triggers.
[07:02] Reactivation as the quickest win, and how a campaign to dormant customers can convert fast.
[08:21] The application effect: turning happy customers into reviews, case studies, and content that strengthens acquisition.
[10:43] John’s closing challenge, plus where to get the full ebook and a consultation.

Memorable Quotes

“A returning customer is probably worth three to ten times what a new one’s worth.”
“The back half of the hourglass has the highest ROI marketing available to most small businesses.”
“The marketing is orchestrated to a T until they say yes, and then it falls apart.”
“AI will reward you for clients that are willing to talk about your business.”
“What percentage of your marketing budget goes towards customers you already have?”

Resources

Seven Steps ebook: dtm.world/7steps
Talk to an advisor: ducttapemarketing.com/consultation
Feedback and contact: john@ducttapemarketing.com

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.474)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and again, another solo show. I’m doing this seven-show series called The Seven Steps to Small Business Marketing Success. And you are listening today to step number six. So if you missed all the past episodes, go to ductemarketing.com and you can catch up if you are just now catching up. If you’ve been following along with me, I’m so thankful that you’re here. So

Today I want to talk about the half of your marketing that you are ignoring. So here’s a budget question. What percentage of your marketing budget goes towards getting new customers versus the ones you already have? Getting them back, turning them into referral sources? honestly, for most founders, it’s probably 90-10 or worse, meaning they spend 90% getting that new customer and only about 10% on.

Activating, reactivating, retaining, turning that existing customer into a great source of advocacy. And frankly, a returning customer is probably worth three to ten times what a new one’s worth. And so that math just doesn’t really make any sense, but I get it. All right.

Why this customer engine, if we will, customer experience engine gets ignored. I think I think a lot for a lot of people for many, many years. It’s why I developed a marketing hourglass because a lot of people think that marketing ends at the end of the funnel, right? At the sale. You know, everything after that is operations. But this is a really expensive assumption. I mean, the back half of the hourglass has the highest.

ROI marketing available to most small businesses. Just as a reminder, the seven stages of the marketing hourglass are no, like, trust, try buy. That’s where most people stop. And then there’s repeat and refer. That’s where the real value is, that’s actually where the momentum in any business growth really comes from. I mean, acquisition gets all the budget, the meetings, the attention, customer experience for a lot of organizations gets the leftovers. And yet,

John Jantsch (02:18.614)

The customer who buys comes back and refers again is worth three to ten times quite often that person that just buys one time because you offered them a deal or something. So, I mean, I think the ratio shows up in the data to to really prove this easily. So, how do we actually address it? There are four components to this idea. and it starts really with experience. So I call this the customer engine, but it’s not about.

Customer acquisition. It’s about customer retention. So we might call this the customer experience engine for this step. So onboarding, repeat engagement, referral system, and reactivation. These are core components that need to be intentional parts of your marketing, of how you build your business, quite frankly. And most of the attention in marketing goes to the that.

How do we get a new client? How do we get eyeballs? How do we run ads? So the four components, onboarding. The first 90 days, frankly, is where a relationship gets established. If you’re one of those businesses that can retain, I mean, we’re we’re in a monthly retainer type of business. So every single month we’re having to earn that experience, but we keep clients for years. And I think a lot of it has to do with a very professional onboarding experience.

A structured sequence that they can understand that you communicate to them, that you tell them this is how it’s going to be. and and really, this is a part so many people skip. It it is the marketing is orchestrated to a T until they say yes, and then it falls apart. So walk through what a real onboarding sequence looks like for your business. Like all the touch points, the timing. each step should have.

i a goal of what it’s trying to accomplish. Even and and you can obviously take this and and make a crazy onboarding experience, but even if you just actually set step back and said, how do we, or do we do it consistently? Or are there some tools we should develop around making sure that we communicate expectations? I mean, just having a 30-minute conversation with whoever frankly does the sales, but then also who does

John Jantsch (04:36.016)

the customer onboarding or or customer service, whatever you want to call it, just having a conversation with your team or thinking about creating an experience that that you would like to go through. And in fact, that’s always a great place to find ideas on that. You know, if you’re a customer of somebody, what’s their onboarding look like? Did did did you like it? Did you not like it? Were there parts of it that you were like, yeah, we should do that, or parts of that you were like, we’re doing that and we shouldn’t. You know, those are things that you need to think of.

Repeat engagement. I this is one where, and I get it, we’re all busy, but this is one where we just we just kind of rely on the customer remember to return, right? and and you you’ve really got to develop, you know, maintenance plans, seasonal triggers, anniversary touch points, check-ins anchored to you know, natural moments in a customer situation. Even even if it’s really just checking in to say, hey, I just want to make sure happy with everything, right? So the the landscape business, right?

Introduced seasonal maintenance plans, converted about 40% of the projects to customers. we we helped show them that you know they could create meaningful recurring revenue by just making sure that they were hitting those clients at a time when they probably needed something and the timing was right, and then you just made it easy. That’s one of the real keys. part number three, I’ve already talked about this, but the the referral system, actually having

a you know, a very systematic approach to going back and asking, going back at you know, at moments of truth, identifying when a client’s going to be happy. you know, when you do that new installation and all of a sudden they’re like, Man, this looks incredible. that’s a point to say, you know, do you know others that would need this? Here’s what you could do to actually introduce us to them. Here’s how to do it. those are all parts of it. And then just reactivation. Sometimes a customer

doesn’t have a need. You know, you think about the typical real estate you know, agent, the you know, the the client buys a house and it’s not like they’re gonna come back next month and buy a house, right? But they probably will in three to five years. so what are you doing to actually reactivate that past customer that you you know that if you just stay top of mind, they may actually have a need at some point. It’s probably the the highest

John Jantsch (07:02.674)

ROI that that you can re that you can achieve and it’s also one of the quickest wins. You know, sometimes we come into businesses and you know they have 1200 past clients. And some of them are existing clients, but you know, a large percentage of them haven’t really done anything for a while. Don’t really know why. Wasn’t anything wrong. They just kind of drifted away. Maybe they’re somebody else is serving them. Maybe they just decided,

I can get along without that product or without that service. Who knows? Right. and it’s amazing what just having a a campaign, even that you say, look, these 800 people, let’s make them an offer to come back. Let’s remind them of something new that we have. And it’s incredible. Like in some cases, you know, 15 to 20 percent of them will immediately purchase. And all of a sudden that that was like one easy thing that would have that would have been next to

impossible to achieve to activate that many new clients. So sometimes just actually going back and saying, look, we haven’t touched these people in a long time. Let’s create a campaign can be really one of the the quickest wins that you can have in your marketing. So the last piece is

John Jantsch (08:21.056)

What I would call the application effect on this. and what I mean by that is if you have a great customer experience, you’re going to get reviews. You’re going to be able to build case studies from those happy clients. You’re going to be able to do things that that really allows you to produce content that is real content that AI can’t produce because it’s about the results. It’s about the

the problems that you’ve solved. It’s about the ROI that you’ve gotten for clients. And if you can actually then start to take and routinely use that content in your new customer acquisition, all of a sudden it becomes even more, hopefully it becomes even more obvious why you should have that approach for a customer experience that is going to make these clients

Really happy to talk about your business. AI will reward you for clients that are willing to talk about your business. So it becomes this cycle that really helps to build momentum in your business. So you create the incredible onboarding experience, you create the reactivation and the referrals, but you also create these moments, intentional moments, as part of your system where you are going to acquire.

content, you’re going to acquire assets from your happy customers that you can then use in all of your marketing. So that’s really as much as anything, that’s one of the reasons to focus on this. I’ve the reasons to focus on this are obvious from a business growth standpoint. But then it amplifies itself when you’re able to take these happy customer stories and then use them in your marketing. So what percentage of your marketing budget goes towards customers you already have?

That is the real uncomfortable question that is going to get you the two to the point where you will start to understand how important this idea is. So thanks for tuning in again. You can get the entire ebook at that this is based on at DTM.world slash seven steps. Or if you’re ready to talk to one of our advisors, duct tapemarketing.com slash consultation. So thanks for tuning in. Love to hear from you.

John Jantsch (10:43.596)

Love to hear your feedback on this series. It’s just John at Duct Tape Marketing if you want to do that. share this with friends, neighbors, colleagues, other business owners as well. If you think that they can use this type of information for their business, and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.

How to Win at Paid Advertising in the AI Era | Keith Putnam-Delaney, Primer CEO

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:25:39 +0000

Listen on YouTube // Apple // Spotify

Who we sat down with

Paid advertising is changing in the AI era.

Keith Putnam-Delaney (Co-Founder & CEO of Primer) joins GTMnow to break down the B2B paid squeeze, the B2C-for-B2B unlock, and his 3 contrarian rules for paid in 2026. He has the data on what’s actually working, and it’s not where you might assume.

Discussed in this episode

Why LinkedIn & Google search are hitting a ceiling (and what to do instead
How to get 80% match rates on Meta and 70% on Reddit for B2B audiences
The only moat competitors can’t copy: your targeting
Why you need to feed CRM conversion data back to ad platforms
Holdout groups, attribution, and what actually proves paid ROI
The truth about ads in LLMs (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok)
B2B influencer marketing: the most undervalued tactic right now
Founder lessons from 6 years and 3 pivots building Primer

Episode highlights

0:00 – The paid advertising crisis no one’s talking about

2:40 – AI’s real impact on ad costs

4:06 – Google Search & AI Overviews: what still works

5:04 – LinkedIn CPMs: $20 to $800 in 18 months

6:39 – Why B2B brands need to be on Meta, Reddit & Instagram

7:01 – What Primer does (80% match rates explained)

9:29 – The device fragmentation problem & attribution

11:16 – Holdout groups: the statistically proven approach

13:30 – Which channel to start with (and minimum spend)

22:18 – Paid ad creative: feed the algorithm with variants

25:14 – B2B influencer marketing & thought leadership ads

30:59 – Why you MUST push CRM data back into ad platforms

33:31 – Ads in ChatGPT & LLMs: what’s coming

35:53 – Founder lessons, mental health & iteration

Key takeaways

1. AI didn’t create new channels, it just made existing ones more expensive
AI flooded search, email, and social with more content, creating a supply/demand imbalance that’s driving up CPMs across the board. LinkedIn went from $20 to $800 CPM in 18 months. The channels are the same, they’re just getting pricier and more crowded.

2. Your targeting is the only moat competitors can’t copy
They can reverse-engineer your creative, your messaging, your channels. But they can’t see your targeting. Building a precise, high-match-rate audience strategy like 80% on Meta and 70% on Reddit is your most defensible paid advantage.

3. Go where your competitors aren’t, Reddit, Meta, and Instagram are wide open for B2B
Most B2B brands are still stuck on LinkedIn and Google. But your buyers are humans scrolling Instagram at night. Brands that crack Meta and Reddit now are getting cheaper inventory and less competition before everyone else catches on.

4. If you’re not pushing CRM data back into ad platforms, you’re optimizing for the wrong thing
Ad algorithms optimize for whatever signal you feed them. If you only give them form fills, they’ll chase form fills including junk leads. Closing the loop with actual pipeline and revenue data is what gets the algorithm working for you, not against you.

5. Failure is a feature, not a bug, iteration is the only path
Primer went through multiple pivots, near-death moments, and nine months in the dark rebuilding. Keith’s core belief: failure is a side effect of iteration, and you can’t reach the best outcome without it. The same logic applies to paid ads, test, fail fast, feed the data back in, and keep going.

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GTM 195 Episode Transcript

00:00 – 00:10

Sophie Buonassisi: CPMs over the last 18 months have gone from like $20 on average to as high as like 800. We’ve seen with some of our customers, which is insane.

00:10 – 00:14

Sophie Buonassisi: Keith Putnam Delaney, co-founder and CEO of primer.

00:14 – 00:37

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I really wanted Dev Tool, basically built on an agent platform to make producing integrations way faster. Nobody creates an account on Reddit or Meta with a work email. You get like a 2% 10% match rate. We get incredibly high, like 80% on meta, 50% on Google, like 70% on Reddit, manage rates for our customers. And then that kind of unlocks a lot of interesting possibilities.

00:37 – 00:41

Sophie Buonassisi: There’s a lot of talk about ads in Llms. What is your perspective on all this?

00:41 – 00:50

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Buzz perplexities had their ad program in beta. Obviously OpenAI just launched theirs. From my perspective, I’m excited for it.

00:50 – 01:12

Sophie Buonassisi: What other kind of tactical tips would you give somebody if they were thinking about running? Or they are running paid advertising?

01:12 – 01:14

Sophie Buonassisi: Keith, welcome to GTM now.

01:14 – 01:16

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Hey, Sophie. Thanks for having me.

01:16 – 01:42

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah, it’s great to have you here. We’re going to cover everything paid, and there’s a lot to cover. But let’s start off with the high level structural changes, because we always say with AI, there’s a lot changing in terms of the investment lens where value accrues with product being easier to build, that value shifts over distribution. We’re seeing the same kind of structural changes happen to specific areas.

01:42 – 01:44

Sophie Buonassisi: What’s happening with paid?

01:44 – 02:12

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I think the the really interesting thing about paid is in the wake of all these incredible changes in AI, is that there’s actually a limited number of channels to capture people’s attention. Right? AI has not produced a new social network. It hasn’t produced something that people are sort of scrolling through for content. What AI has instead done is it’s sort of glutted the existing channels with more content.

02:12 – 02:40

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So you have essentially a supply and demand problem you have and of demand and limited supply, and that’s causing a crazy increase in costs on a lot of digital advertising channels. And yeah, I think it’s one of the unsung stories of the AI or revolution we’re going through.

02:40 – 02:45

Sophie Buonassisi: And with these rising costs, how should people be thinking about their acquisition motions?

02:45 – 03:10

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah. Well, what’s really interesting, you know, if he again think about AI and go to market more broadly, it’s also created a glut on outbound. And everybody is talking about the decrease in effectiveness on outbound these days. So it’s sort of like all right what do you turn to? I think a lot of people are looking at community and kind of event field of field marketing and events again, which is cool.

03:10 – 03:39

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And then on paid, I think a lot of people are left kind of scratching their heads a bit, which is too bad because they’re definitely are opportunities. You know, Reddit is seeing a surge in B2B demand lately. We are seeing more and more brands interested in trying to get Metta to work for them. Some very brave B2B brands are exploring TikTok, so there’s definitely an opportunity there.

03:39 – 03:47

Keith Putnam-Delaney: It’s just that LinkedIn and search have diminishing returns at the moment. It seems like for most of the data that we look at.

03:47 – 04:06

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah, yeah, you, you nail on the head where a lot of people are scratching their heads and you named a few channels there. Can we actually go through each of the channels and break down? What has changed now with AI and what people should be thinking about with each channel? Like what’s effective, what’s not? Yeah. Where should people be spending their dollars?

04:06 – 04:31

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Totally. So with AI, let’s let’s talk search because it’s always kind of like the bread and butter default channel that marketers go to because it’s high intent. Right? Somebody searching for something, they want that thing. The AI overview is sort of killing search. Slowly but surely, especially unbranded search. AI answers are popping up the majority of time in something like Google and more and more Bing too.

04:31 – 04:55

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So what are people doing? What’s still working? They’re investing the money in competitor keywords, right? So they’re bidding on anybody and everybody. That’s a brand name that might be related to them that’s working. It’s still actually proven to be quite effective. It may continue to work for a while, but it also will suffer from diminishing returns as everybody else starts doing it.

04:55 – 05:04

Sophie Buonassisi: I have to say, yeah, I can’t tell you. Every time I search for a brand, I’m scrolling down six different ads before I actually get to the organic brand.

05:04 – 05:30

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And it’s really interesting. Google’s like, no, we’re not going to do like when people are searching for brands, we’re not going to do AI answers because they need to still make money, right? To fund all those CPU costs. So that’s that’s search kind of in a nutshell on LinkedIn. Wow. I mean, LinkedIn is just like CPMs over the last 18 months have gone from like $20 on average to as high as, like 800.

05:30 – 05:59

Keith Putnam-Delaney: We’ve seen with some of our customers, which is insane. So a lot of people are looking for efficiencies there. They’re still really cool kind of ad formats that LinkedIn’s playing with, thought leadership probably being the one that’s getting the most attention right now. Their CTV placements are actually still pretty effective from a the neat thing about CTV is you can’t skip it, which is kind of fun.

05:59 – 06:39

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So those are those are the kind of the two default channels, I would say for B2B marketers. I think one of the things that a lot of folks don’t realize is that there is the opportunity and possibility of unlocking more traditionally B2C channels. I think Clay just rolled out their ads product. I think it’s a really interesting sort of signal that that they see opportunity in helping users kind of stitch together, helping their customers stitch together, identity between kind of like the LinkedIn level and that, you know, B2C Instagram, you know, me at night sort of doom scrolling.

06:39 – 06:41

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

06:41 – 06:42

Sophie Buonassisi: All humans at the end of the day.

06:42 – 06:43

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Totally, totally.

06:43 – 06:51

Sophie Buonassisi: In human behavior. Yeah. May look different B2B to be B2C, but truly it’s just humans. Yeah.

06:51 – 06:51

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah.

06:51 – 07:01

Sophie Buonassisi: No, I’m asking all these questions about channels specific to pay because you are yourself an expert in the area. For anyone unfamiliar with primer. Can you give a little bit of context to what you’re building?

07:01 – 07:23

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Sure. So my background wasn’t always impede. I used to be more of a kind of a brand marketer, and then I got really intrigued by data and targeting because at the end of the day, marketing doesn’t really work if you can’t get it in front of the right audience. And what we’ve built, essentially a primer is a targeting layer.

07:23 – 07:47

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So one of the main problems with kind of trying to target people in meta or Google or TikTok or Reddit is they don’t have those B2B sort of filters built in natively. Right? So most folks try to upload a list of work emails, right? Right. And because nobody creates an account on Reddit or meta with a work email, you get like a 2%, 10% match rate.

07:47 – 08:10

Keith Putnam-Delaney: We can change that. And we do. We get incredibly high, like 80% on meta, 50% on Google, like 70% on Reddit, match rates for our customers. And then that kind of unlocks a lot of interesting possibilities, a lot of not only cheaper inventory, but still really effective channels. And then we’re doing some cool things on the measurement front.

08:10 – 08:22

Keith Putnam-Delaney: But yeah, I think what we’re really excited about is nobody really owns the B2B paid acquisition space right now, and we see an opportunity to build something powerful there.

08:22 – 08:34

Sophie Buonassisi: When definitely not across DDC channels like you mentioned, and being able to actually bring the identity of the B2B person over to those channels, that’s a huge gap, a huge gap right now.

08:34 – 08:54

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Totally. But people are like I said, Clay is moving into the space. We’re in the space. Yeah, I think people see that the economics of these sort of two default channels are really working, and they’re looking for new opportunities. And where the money goes is where the startups will go.

08:54 – 09:19

Sophie Buonassisi: And what does that actually do for any kind of measurement? Because I think that’s a huge constraint for a lot of people that are, you know, behind the concept of, okay, we’re humans, we spend time on all these different platforms with scrolling different various things at night. Yeah, but it’s so hard to measure. I know it’s so hard to measure, and especially because, you know, we might scroll something on Instagram tonight, but a lot of the time a demo, for example, might be booked on desktop in the daytime.

09:19 – 09:29

Sophie Buonassisi: So you’ve kind of got the channel fragmentation and expansion, whichever is more suitable there. And they’ve also got it sounds like the device fragmentation too.

09:29 – 09:57

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah. In the device fragmentation is sort of not something I think marketers give enough credit to. You know, even on LinkedIn, the majority of your engagement on LinkedIn is on mobile these days, not on desktop. So LinkedIn is the easiest to attribute because it’s still you. Still people go on desktop, they’re at work, they scroll through LinkedIn, they click on the ad, they go all the way through and they sign up, which is great ideal.

09:57 – 10:29

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I wish everybody did that, but they don’t. So the the challenge and there is no easy answer. If somebody had nailed attribution I mean attribution is where so many startups have gone to die. So attribution is tricky. But I do think like it’s just a process of triangulation ultimately. My friend Pranav over at Paranaque is doing some cool things on the incremental and media mix modeling side of things.

10:29 – 10:53

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I think that’s where a lot of the future leads for the sophisticated paid teams and for earlier stage marketers. You really have to kind of not just look at first touch, last touch. You really have to sort of embrace causality like you have to do holdout groups. You have to even something simple like, hey, we turned up the dial on meta.

10:53 – 11:12

Keith Putnam-Delaney: We saw a ton of leads come in in May. We turned it off in June. We saw, you know, a significant drop. That’s that there’s a strong correlation. There is, you know, let’s. All right. Meta works for us. Let’s keep investing. It doesn’t tell you how much to invest, but at least it gives you signal.

11:12 – 11:16

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. Directional data is holdout groups the best way for people to do that?

11:16 – 11:43

Keith Putnam-Delaney: 100%. Yeah. Hold out groups are the statistically proven way to do it, right? You basically have a control population, doesn’t see this ad campaign and expose population that does. You compare the conversion rates, all other marketing touchpoints being equal between the two groups. And you see if there’s a statistical lift. And like, honestly, it’s sort of a going back to the good old days of like Mad Men advertising.

11:43 – 12:05

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, that’s what they that’s what they do. You know it. Zoom is super famous for their they never did any digital advertising right. Only out of home and kind of sponsorships. And they would just compare markets. Yeah. Right. And they would look in Google Analytics and just compare Nashville versus Louisville, you know. Yeah.

12:05 – 12:18

Sophie Buonassisi: And a lot of companies are doing that now. And for out of home just as it’s grown right. That is the best way. And it’s funny we’ve just come over complicated things with attribution when in reality it’s more the directional side, like you said.

12:18 – 12:26

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Totally. Yeah. And it’s just it’s hard to build a model. Everybody wants a model that’s perfect. Yeah, and it just doesn’t exist.

12:26 – 12:44

Sophie Buonassisi: Yes. Yeah, well, you mentioned something that’s super important. Statistical significance. Even if you’re doing holdout groups, what kind of size of company does this make sense to actually scale towards? To have that kind of end that you are hitting statistical significance? Yeah. Who is this for? If I’m kind of listening to this.

12:44 – 13:08

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, totally. I mean, for the marketer who’s trying to, you know, run a campaign to 500 companies or people, it’s not going to be for you, but you can do it with relatively small sample sizes these days, like even a, you know, a 5000 person audience. Given enough time, you can get to stat sig. Yeah, that’s.

13:08 – 13:30

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah, pretty doable for a lot of companies. Totally. And what about channel? Let’s say you said the starting place is 5000 people. What about a channel starting place. If you’re, you know, advising any kind of companies and marketers building, is there a channel that they should be starting with, or is that perhaps new to each company?

13:30 – 14:00

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I still think the easiest place to test is LinkedIn. You know, just because they’ve got the filters built into their products. Right? You can define your ideal customers right there and try to go after them. So it’s definitely the easiest place to test. One of the things that I’m I’m really hoping that we’ll, we’ll get into as a, as a company in the next year or so is the barrier to entry to testing.

14:00 – 14:28

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Advertising is just very high, right. Because the, the cost of experimentation is really high. Yeah, that’s one of the things I think about a lot is if I was a kind of solo founder or seed stage startup, how could I? How could I be comfortable making this investment and expecting that it won’t just be, you know, it won’t just be lighting $20,000 on fire, which to me might be a lot of money at that at that stage for sure.

14:28 – 14:33

Keith Putnam-Delaney: It’s something that I think we we’re going to have some cool features around at some point.

14:33 – 14:53

Sophie Buonassisi: Oh very cool. We’ll have to revisit this when it comes out. Super exciting. But you’re right, it is a hard barrier, kind of higher barrier to entry. And totally maybe just as we talked about at the beginning, certain areas become a little bit more commoditized, if you will. That is one area that kind of retains that barrier to entry is paid.

14:53 – 15:09

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. So when we think about at the macro level, know where those areas and gaps and opportunities and you call that a few different channels including community including page like where does page sit in terms of kind of where people are going. Are you seeing an uptick or are you seeing people pull spend.

15:09 – 15:10

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Out, know.

15:10 – 15:10

Sophie Buonassisi: What’s happening?

15:10 – 15:36

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I think we’re seeing people double down on paid, just in part because outbound is I mean, paid is the is the top channel for for most companies. It takes a lot of for and I should say for most marketing teams and kind of go to market teams, you know products obviously you have I mean there’s there’s product growth loops that are really powerful.

15:36 – 16:08

Keith Putnam-Delaney: But I think, you know, paid is basically outside of product growth loops. The the biggest area of investment and is outbound really decreases in effectiveness. People are turning money into pouring more money into paid because they can still make the ROI pencil, even though it is getting more expensive. Yeah. And what I think as a result, though, of that increase in cost, is they’re turning to the channels where it’s cheaper to advertise and where they can still get that ROI.

16:09 – 16:10

Sophie Buonassisi: Which are the Reddit’s. Like you.

16:10 – 16:32

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Said, the Reddit’s the meta, you know, the Instagram. So the places where people like were there and it’s sort of kind of an obvious thing, but it’s like people that’s where people are spending their time. You should be where they are to begin with. Even if, even if LinkedIn wasn’t so expensive, you should probably still be on Instagram because that’s where your audience hangs out.

16:32 – 16:33

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, definitely.

16:33 – 16:45

Sophie Buonassisi: No, it makes sense. Are you seeing a certain kind of split between channels that people diversify across, or is that quite variable from company? Just as you know, marketers are thinking about their channel diversification.

16:45 – 17:13

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, I think it’s somewhat persona dependent. Yeah. So Reddit right isn’t for everyone. You know, we’ve seen match rates on Reddit as high as 70%, 80% for IT and engineers and then 4% for legal or procurement. Right. Because it’s a smaller community and not everybody’s on their, I think, the same. Like it’s actually really interesting to think about the channels where people aren’t on LinkedIn.

17:13 – 17:13

Keith Putnam-Delaney: You know.

17:14 – 17:14

Sophie Buonassisi: 100.

17:14 – 17:46

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Percent like doctors, not on LinkedIn. Educate people in education, not on LinkedIn. So those are some of the things that I think are actually kind of quite interesting is it really varies by persona, but the majority, for better or for worse. And I think it’s for worse. The place where we see people continuing to dial up investment is on search, and I just think it’s kind of foolish, like I really do.

17:46 – 18:08

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I don’t think I they, they’re like, oh, well, we’re paying $8,000 for it, you know, for a good for an opportunity, you know, and it’s like we can still afford that. But it’s like, but is that the right question to be asking yourself? Like, is there not something much better, cheaper, higher volume way to get that. Yeah yeah, yeah.

18:08 – 18:13

Sophie Buonassisi: Why are people spending more and doubling down than if it’s only getting more expensive?

18:13 – 18:32

Keith Putnam-Delaney: That’s a great question. Fear. I think I’m trying something new. The cost of falling on your face, you know. Yeah. You know, like, again, that lighting money on fire. It’s hard to know. Paid typically takes a fair amount of experimentation to get right.

18:32 – 18:57

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I’ll just. I’ll just say where I sort of teased it earlier, but I just say, like, what I think is hugely missing in in paid is benchmark data, right? It’s like understand like no. Why like it boggles my mind that there isn’t a company out there that doesn’t aggregate and anonymize segment by persona and then say, okay, here’s what’s working.

18:57 – 19:20

Keith Putnam-Delaney: If you’re going after cybersecurity companies, here’s what you know, here’s what’s working. If you’re going after HR and sort of helping like provide that data to help steer. Now, does it lead to like a reversion to the mean? Yes. But like and will the best marketers always kind of still take a first principles approach. But I think it de-risk a lot of the the investment.

19:20 – 19:29

Keith Putnam-Delaney: If you can learn from your peers in a way that’s a that’s not compromising, I guess is the right word. Yeah.

19:29 – 19:47

Sophie Buonassisi: You know, be hugely beneficial. And there’s benchmarks for so many things. So what’s the barrier to creating paid benchmarks? I immediately what pops in my head is the fragmentation we’ve been talking about. And people not actually having the data around what is effective because of the B2B involvement.

19:47 – 20:07

Keith Putnam-Delaney: If we keep growing, we’ll have the now we’re we’re starting to produce the data. Yeah. Yeah. We’re we’re working on kind of our first set of those. We’re just kicking off some fun data science around that. We’ve finally kind of hit the scale around certain personas where we can we can produce that, and we want to build that into the product.

20:07 – 20:23

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And that is what I think helps that maybe the marketer who’s spending $1 million a month on Google actually decide to put some of that money into meta, maybe that founder who’s trying out marketing for the first time to like, you know, press the on button, I guess.

20:23 – 20:42

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. Yeah, definitely, I love it. Well, we’re excited to see that. And then for companies that you’re working with as you’re growing and scaling what we talked about generally, what size of company or stage of company makes sense to do paid advertising? What stage of company does it make sense for them to look at primer?

20:42 – 21:04

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Typically we currently right. I think it’s going to change. But currently we serve companies with that are already investing about $10,000 a month on average in ad spend. It’s sort of that’s sort of the litmus test we found for like, all right, we’ve got a motion. It’s working. How do we and it’s enough where we can make it more efficient, basically.

21:05 – 21:16

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I think at that point what we found is anybody spending under that is going to turn it off, turn it back on, turn it off, turn it back on. And as a software business, we don’t like that.

21:16 – 21:20

Sophie Buonassisi: So it’s certainly not ideal. Yeah.

21:20 – 21:25

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So that’s kind of what. Yeah. That’s a short answer to your question or maybe a long answer.

21:25 – 21:27

Sophie Buonassisi: People that have always on paid systems that scale.

21:28 – 21:33

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Exactly. Cool. Yeah. Typically around 150 to 100 employees, as well as kind of what we find.

21:33 – 21:55

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah, that’s a really helpful benchmark. And Keith, you know, a lot of people think about paid as just direct pipeline generation. But there’s so many other outcomes that come from anything that gives you data from the customer. Yeah. How do you think about the actual utility of like, how should people be thinking about their programs and what quantitative and qualitative information that they’re gathering?

21:55 – 22:17

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, I think one of the coolest things about paid is that if you think about it, right, it’s it’s the thing that’s furthest up your funnel, right? Impressions are the thing that’s furthest up your funnel. So if you’re if you feel confident you’re reaching your ideal customers, you can get a lot of eyeballs on a lot of messages in a really short time frame.

22:18 – 22:44

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So it’s incredibly powerful, not just obviously like message testing, not just to drive those, you know, form submits and leads, but message testing that can help inform your strategy more generally, like what your website should should say. You can really iterate with messaging at a much faster pace than you can anywhere else, and that is one of the huge benefits that obviously AI unlocks as well.

22:44 – 23:03

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah, it sounds like the the actual learning loop itself from it. Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. And what other kind of tactical tips would you give somebody if they were thinking about running? Or they are running paid advertising and they’re trying to kind of get more juice from the squeeze, like, what are the kind of the tried and true tips that you have?

23:03 – 23:09

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Oh, tips.

23:09 – 23:13

Keith Putnam-Delaney: That’s a great question. Like, I’m trying to think, God, I could go in so many different directions.

23:13 – 23:17

Sophie Buonassisi: We can go in all of them. So. Yeah.

23:17 – 23:42

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Well, okay, I’ll talk about some like, some things that I believe to be true. More like philosophically you should. The hardest thing for a competitor to copy is you’re targeting. They can copy everything else. They can figure out what channels you’re on. They can figure out your creative. They can figure out your messaging. All of that is is is easy for them to to look up and imitate.

23:42 – 24:01

Keith Putnam-Delaney: You can’t figure out your targeting. So that can be a unique competitive advantage. Brandon Cammy, the former head of growth at Rippling Athena. I used to talk about that all the time. The second thing is go where your competitors aren’t. I think.

24:01 – 24:01

Sophie Buonassisi: It’s.

24:01 – 24:26

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Always channel wise. I always think that’s that’s really helpful is, you know, or go where the market generally is. It sort of take like that first principles approach. I think it’s like fun when you know out of home I feel like is having a resurgence. Yeah. Because like it was like I think I mean, these these channels or these tactics are cyclical, right.

24:26 – 24:50

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Everybody rushes in to do field marketing. That’s going to decrease in effectiveness. So what’s the thing they’re not doing right now. The other the other tip I have is kind of more philosophically I guess it’ll be my third point is I think these days buying credibility is a huge it has to be a huge piece of your marketing strategy.

24:50 – 25:14

Keith Putnam-Delaney: What I mean by that is you look at what’s happened in B2C marketing. Influencer is and it’s already happening in B2B. But I really do think that that we’re only at the beginning of what that really looks like. And one of the fastest ways you can grow is buying that credibility from people who already have the audience, as opposed to trying to create it yourself.

25:14 – 25:28

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And I think also because of some trends in B2C, people don’t seem to really want to hear from brands very much these days. They want to hear from trusted people. Yeah, that they feel connection to.

25:28 – 25:41

Sophie Buonassisi: What influence does that last point? And those are all fantastic points. What influence does that last point have on companies approaches to more programmatic platform page spend? Like you’re talking about meta. We’re talking about LinkedIn.

25:41 – 25:42

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, totally.

25:42 – 25:51

Sophie Buonassisi: When we talk about the creator space. But you’re right. I think it’s like the early days of to be yeah. What does that actually do to somebody sitting in a seat and be like, where do I allocate my money?

25:51 – 26:13

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Okay, so there’s vehicles for accelerating that with paid like those those tools exist for example on meta. This has happened for a long time where if you get an influencer can share their basically give you access to their brand, and then you can promote their content, you can basically boost their their content.

26:13 – 26:14

Sophie Buonassisi: Which you can do.

26:14 – 26:40

Keith Putnam-Delaney: On like dollars and you can do that only. And then LinkedIn came out with that, right? 6 to 12 months ago. And I don’t I honestly don’t don’t see many brands doing that yet. And that promoted thought leadership. That’s not from someone within your own company. That’s from someone outside your company. I think that that is probably that’s that’s a hugely undervalued tactic.

26:40 – 26:41

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah.

26:41 – 26:56

Sophie Buonassisi: I like it, I like it. That’s interesting about meta too, because I know a lot of marketers are working that on the LinkedIn side or wanting to do more of that on the LinkedIn side, but haven’t, you know, doubled down enough on LinkedIn itself if that’s where they want to start, but certainly haven’t cross the chasm? Namita.

26:56 – 27:06

Keith Putnam-Delaney: No, and I don’t think like I don’t think many BB marketers are doing it on meta at all. I do think that’s just a big opportunity though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:06 – 27:18

Sophie Buonassisi: So one thing you mentioned, Keith, was the actual targeting is something that your competitors can’t copy. So if we talk about defense ability overall and paid, what happens to the creative side.

27:18 – 27:24

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Man. Well I think a lot of creative.

27:24 – 27:51

Keith Putnam-Delaney: LinkedIn is just so bad. But at this like they don’t have nearly any of the tools that that meta meta is probably the best Google’s second best LinkedIn and read out of the worst on Reddit though I’ll actually give like. Quick aside, the key for Reddit is just making your making your ad content appear native, which is very which is actually easy to do if you’re thoughtful about it.

27:51 – 28:11

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I think the the where where ad content on Reddit fails is when it just it’s like you’re in the middle of a subreddit and it’s just like that, you know, people just glaze over it. But if it looks like it’s actually a thoughtful post, people will engage with it. Shout out to Jason Larson at Confluent for kind of that playbook.

28:11 – 28:37

Keith Putnam-Delaney: In general, though, I think what’s happening with creative is you’re on like on meta and Google is the the dynamic optimization is huge. So you just basically have to feed the algorithm enough variance and enough mix of different formats and messages. And it will it will end up picking the winner. And it’s getting better and better at that.

28:37 – 28:40

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, LinkedIn’s got a long way to go though.

28:40 – 28:47

Sophie Buonassisi: So would that be almost that kind of moat in a way is your variant?

28:47 – 29:14

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah. I mean, your your ability to iterate and produce variants, particularly video is really, really important that that is a moat or it’s something that it’s a it’s a muscle. I would say that is important to develop. And there’s lots of cool tools out there to help with this. Like Opus Pro. You know, something I use a lot?

29:14 – 29:36

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Riverside. And yeah, there’s tons, there’s tons cap cut, all of it. And that’s only going to get better and better and better with AI. Yeah, and easier and easier and easier the. The key is that that that can be a very big competitive advantage and then. Yeah. And then targeting. Yeah.

29:36 – 29:52

Sophie Buonassisi: How do you feel about AI videos. You know you work with so many different companies that are iterating on all their different video variations. What’s happening there. Have any like really done into pure AI variations?

29:52 – 30:17

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I haven’t seen much of it yet. Okay. Yeah, I really haven’t. Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like it has to happen at some point and I see a lot more like kind of AI edited, like, you know, AI b roll mixed in. Yeah. But I haven’t really seen a ton of, like, purely AI output content.

30:18 – 30:18

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah.

30:18 – 30:34

Sophie Buonassisi: I’m curious what that does for paid both on the video and the image side, just as we see a flood and maybe a flood of different variants that algorithms can run and test, if that will take away, maybe the targeting does remain that final mode.

30:34 – 30:58

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Could be, it could be. And that being said, I mean, I do think the the algorithms are also trying to take away aspects of targeting, but it is still something you have some power over in addition to the messaging. The last thing I’ll say is like, if you’re not pushing conversion data back into these platforms, you’re really in trouble to get success.

30:58 – 30:59

Sophie Buonassisi: Tell us more about that.

30:59 – 31:21

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Well, all right. So if the if ultimately if all these ad platforms are basically saying trust the algorithm, trust the algorithm, trust the algorithm, what is the algorithm going to optimize for. It’s going to optimize for whatever signal you feed it. Right. So it’s going to say all right you want form submits. Great. I don’t care how good those form submits are though.

31:21 – 31:42

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Right. Because I’m just the algorithm I want to I want to serve your eyes as much as possible. So you have to feed it basically CRM conversion data back into the ad platform in order to say, hey, no, no, no, no, no, you have to optimize for this, this thing that’s actually valuable to me, not the junk. And the Andromeda algorithm is actually getting.

31:42 – 32:05

Keith Putnam-Delaney: The meta algorithm is getting better and better and better at that. At a crazy clip. For as much as meta seems to be losing in some spaces, it’s still really fucking good at. Yeah, at there, you know, and I think a lot of people, a lot of B2B marketers really dip their toe into meta test. It doesn’t work.

32:05 – 32:09

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Then they come back. But like if you haven’t tested it in a while, it’s worth it. I try.

32:09 – 32:27

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. And that’s one thing I want to double down on because you mentioned earlier, it’s really hard to get it right initially. It takes time. So for companies, marketers, founders that are trying to scale to new channels, like what should they expect? What kind of like time horizon does it take to actually get that right and to click?

32:27 – 32:30

Sophie Buonassisi: And how much money usually does it take?

32:30 – 32:35

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And I actually don’t know if I have a great answer to that question.

32:35 – 32:37

Sophie Buonassisi: Can also be super variant.

32:37 – 33:18

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, that’s what I mean. It can really, really it can be really, you know, kind of again, like target market dependent. I do think that there’s like probably a floor of investment that you have to make. And then probably more than anything, it’s just coming in with good test design, you know, proper AB tests, knowing what metric you’re trying to optimize for and then giving yourself actually not not you giving yourself, but you getting maybe enough rope to not hang yourself to to basically prove that you to run enough experiments.

33:18 – 33:19

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah.

33:20 – 33:31

Sophie Buonassisi: Super helpful advice. What about I have to ask you, you’re remiss if I didn’t. There’s a lot of talk about ads in LMS. What is your perspective on all this?

33:31 – 34:05

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Does TBD right? I mean, perplexities had their their kind of ad program in beta. Obviously OpenAI just launched theirs. It’s I don’t know from my perspective, I’m excited for it. But that’s because I, this is what I do. I mean, if you think about how much money Google has made off of this for so long, I mean, it’s going to it’s going to be really interesting to watch it unfold.

34:05 – 34:14

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And I’m really interested in in how like actually what it’s going to look like. I haven’t had the opportunity to test it yet.

34:14 – 34:21

Sophie Buonassisi: So when do you think ads will be live in chat to you had to give a guess.

34:21 – 34:27

Keith Putnam-Delaney: We should get Tommy Finke in here from OpenAI.

34:27 – 34:28

Sophie Buonassisi: It’s a call a friend question.

34:28 – 34:41

Keith Putnam-Delaney: That’s right. Text them right now. I don’t know, I would guess. I mean, every so much over there seems up in the air at the moment, but in the next six months seems reasonable. Yeah.

34:42 – 34:42

Sophie Buonassisi: That’s very soon.

34:43 – 34:48

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah. So soon they got to make some money if they want to oppo, you know, monetize those free users.

34:48 – 34:52

Sophie Buonassisi: 100%. And I mean I said ChatGPT but it goes for every LM.

34:52 – 35:03

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah. What one platform I haven’t mentioned is X, which is just excuse my language dog shit from an advertising kind of infrastructure standpoint.

35:03 – 35:05

Sophie Buonassisi: We need that asterisk donate on it.

35:05 – 35:18

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So. Yeah. But yeah but like like, you know, ads and grok and all of that I think yeah, I think that’s a natural extension if they can figure that out. Yeah I know they brought on a new CEO to help with the monetization. So we’ll see.

35:18 – 35:27

Sophie Buonassisi: It will be very interesting to see. Well, we’ll revisit that once we’ve got ads and llms and access potentially running more paid opportunities.

35:27 – 35:27

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Definitely.

35:27 – 35:53

Sophie Buonassisi: Well, great. We’ve talked a lot about paid advertising itself. But you know, what we haven’t yet covered is yourself as a founder. Love to hear. You know, now you’re over six years into building and you’ve got incredible operating experience also. Yeah. If you look back in time would have been some of, you know, the biggest lessons that you wish somebody had told you earlier in your founder journey that you would then pass along to.

35:53 – 35:53

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I.

35:53 – 35:54

Sophie Buonassisi: Think, someone.

35:54 – 36:16

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Else, I think everybody did tell me that’s the problem. I just didn’t listen. No. I mean, I joke that this is the most expensive MBA anybody’s ever paid for. Yeah. Thank you. To my investors, the GTA fund. Pleasure. Yeah. I mean, it’s been.

36:16 – 36:37

Keith Putnam-Delaney: There’s so many, you know, statements about being a founder. You know, one of the ones I love a lot is, you know, failure is a symptom of iteration, right? We have failed so many times. We launched a product, got great traction, you know, pivoted. It got great, you know, went down to nothing to like, make it an, you know, subscription product.

36:37 – 37:03

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Got it back up, you know, went down to nothing and then went into the dark for nine months and rebuilt and pivoted again. And it that that many times at bat it takes that you know that grit that people talk about that that belief that like irrational belief that this thing needs to exist, which, you know, paid advertising, not everybody would argue needs to exist.

37:04 – 37:15

Sophie Buonassisi: But but, I mean, it kind of does it kind of, if you like. It’s kind of one of the few things that actually has to exist, because if you have these platforms that have advertising potential, like you need to be winning on them, you need to.

37:15 – 37:39

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yes, yes. Like, I know I meant more like, you know, existential, but but so it’s like a weird thing to feel deep, so deeply passionate about. Like this, this, this is something I geek out about, but I yeah, I it’s just the everybody talks about the roller, all those things, all the cliches are absolutely true. But you don’t really realize they are until you go through it.

37:39 – 37:45

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. I guess toward yourself at like that hardest nine month period.

37:45 – 38:17

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Not to take it out on my partner. Yeah, that was really important. It took me a long time to realize that I was the one responsible for my own happiness. I couldn’t seek affirmation or sort of like, you know, sympathy from somebody where it was just unfair to ask it from them. Right. Like I should be able to give that to myself was kind of like, that was a big unlock that helped me outside of work, have a healthier relationship with my work.

38:17 – 38:39

Keith Putnam-Delaney: That was big. It’s okay to have panic attacks. It’s normal. Get like, talk to people, get help. That’s really important. Yeah, I think and that’s one of the things that’s changed a lot in Silicon Valley in the last, you know, 5 to 10 years is like the embrace of mental health with for founders. I think that’s really cool.

38:39 – 39:02

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And then yeah, just just recognize those moments where it can be just like a simple fork in the road. You could say, all right, I’m done. What does that mean for me? Or I want to keep going. What does that mean for me? And just kind of analyze those two options and pick the one. That’s right. I decided to keep going.

39:02 – 39:24

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And for better or for worse, seemingly for better. But there’s costs to keeping going to that. You just have to pay in terms of your relationships, your the opportunity cost potentially to your career. If because there is still no guarantee that even if you do decide to keep going, that it’s going to work out. Right? Right.

39:24 – 39:52

Sophie Buonassisi: So yeah, a lot of things to weigh, but you’re absolutely right. It’s a very kind of beautiful time to see people being so much more open about their mental health for founders and just for, for all humanity is it’s a cool evolution that we’re seeing and we’re continuing to see. And as you kind of gone along the founder journey, have there been any particular books or things that you’ve read that have really helped you in whatever, whatever capacity you found?

39:52 – 39:57

Keith Putnam-Delaney: You know, the books that have helped me the most? If I’m be totally honest.

39:57 – 39:59

Sophie Buonassisi: 100%.

39:59 – 40:20

Keith Putnam-Delaney: It’s kind of like escapism. Like for me, at the end of the day, it’s funny, I like, I know I should do more business reading, but yeah, but I just like at some point I just need to unplug and fall into a different world. So I’m like a big sci fi fantasy nerd. I love it. That’s one thing, but that’s kind of a BS answer.

40:20 – 40:41

Sophie Buonassisi: No, it’s not a sensor at all. Actually, I read really recently something that I was talking about the the cost of actually not reading fiction anymore, just as people are consuming more short form videos and reading just pure business books. Those are the imagination and what that does for your actual creativity, for marketing, for the ad creative, for actually thinking through these campaigns.

40:41 – 40:52

Sophie Buonassisi: Because suddenly you’re served the experience visually, instead of reading the words and actually envisioning what that sci fi world looks like to yourself so could actually have downstream effects.

40:52 – 40:54

Keith Putnam-Delaney: You’re making me feel good about it. Yeah, right.

40:54 – 40:56

Sophie Buonassisi: Thank you. You’re saying. Yeah, yeah.

40:56 – 40:56

Keith Putnam-Delaney: There’s love.

40:56 – 41:06

Sophie Buonassisi: That there’s downfalls to all these or little trade offs to all the evolutions and things that we are doing. Totally.

41:06 – 41:33

Keith Putnam-Delaney: I will say though, on more of the coming back to the mental health said, I think Untethered Soul was really a amazing unlock for me to kind of, you know, let go. Yeah. Anyway, mindful on the mindfulness journey I’m still very much on, but that has helped enormously. I mean, I could, I could rattle off business books, but I actually think that those if I’m being like, really genuine, those are my two answers.

41:33 – 41:58

Sophie Buonassisi: That’s the only answer it would take is the genuine one. So those are fantastic answers. I love it. And yeah. Okay. Yeah, more of the personal AI side. But of course as you’re building, you’ve implemented some really innovative AI solutions and your personal using it and your team is using it. I’m curious if there’s been any specific use cases that you use other than your product, of course, on the media side.

41:58 – 42:06

Sophie Buonassisi: But for yourself, company building that you know are less obvious but have been really helpful in your journey.

42:06 – 42:26

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, I mean, I’m sort of waiting for someone to create. I really want a dev tool that’s, you know, basically built on a platform to make producing integrations way faster, something that could, for example, look at your kind of like a.

42:26 – 42:55

Keith Putnam-Delaney: A version of cloud code or cursor that is more specific. It looks at your code base, understands how your frameworks for producing integrations, goes off, looks at API documentation, and churns out like a v1 of an integration, and then helps you with the infrastructure support around that too. I think that would be fucking awesome because integrations are such a bottleneck for so many, so many companies, and you don’t want to wait.

42:55 – 42:58

Keith Putnam-Delaney: They’re somewhat commoditized, but they take effort to build.

42:58 – 43:00

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah.

43:00 – 43:00

Keith Putnam-Delaney: That’s.

43:01 – 43:08

Sophie Buonassisi: They’re also expected if you don’t have an integration. It’s actually a huge, huge kind of red flag in the deal process.

43:08 – 43:16

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Totally, totally. And it’s like ten years ago you could get people to pay for them, right? Like kind of a premium firm now it’s like, no way. Like I’m just going to go to your competitor that has them.

43:16 – 43:18

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah, exactly. It’s a non-negotiable.

43:18 – 43:29

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah. It’s like the let’s see expression, the Big Mac, the French fries on the apple pie like you don’t. You don’t pay like nobody’s buying a Happy Meal for the apple pie, right? Yeah.

43:29 – 43:32

Sophie Buonassisi: No, no. Certainly not.

43:32 – 43:53

Keith Putnam-Delaney: And then maybe more on the personal front. And it’s just because I’m dealing with this all the time, it would actually be a terrible business because it would have no recurring revenue. Yeah, but, like, I would love I’m going through a home remodel, and I would just love if there was some like, AI platform to help with with all of that, because the project management is like, I feel like I’ve got a whole nother full time job on the side.

43:53 – 43:55

Sophie Buonassisi: Probably do. That sounds like a real task.

43:55 – 44:04

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, it just sucks because, like, I would, I would happily pay for it. But as soon as the project’s over, you know, I churn out so terrible business, but would be real cool.

44:04 – 44:19

Sophie Buonassisi: That’s awesome. Well, Keith, this has been amazing. If you had to leave listeners with one piece of advice, you’ve shared a ton of really valuable advice. But overall advice, there are some kind of quota like motto that you kind of live by through years of experience.

44:19 – 44:47

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Oh. Another deep question. I don’t know. I think what I said I said before failures, side effect of iteration. I think that’s an eel and musk quote. That is something that I it’s kind of like I reassures me about the choices I make. It’s like, you know, you don’t you don’t kind of get to that best outcome unless you unless you fail, unless you try.

44:47 – 44:54

Keith Putnam-Delaney: So that’s something that kind of makes me feel okay when I make the dumb move that I do from time to time, as we all.

44:54 – 44:55

Sophie Buonassisi: Do, because they’re not dumb. Yeah.

44:56 – 44:56

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Yeah, exactly.

44:57 – 45:14

Sophie Buonassisi: Yeah. I always think of it. It’s the same thing, just in different wording. But failure is a data point. It’s like if you don’t have data, you’re actually in the worst possible position that you could be, and you’ll have data on the success front and the failure front totally. If it’s not statistically significant, how do you iterate? Just like the paid side?

45:14 – 45:14

Sophie Buonassisi: Truly.

45:14 – 45:31

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Well, and it’s a weird sort of motto to to take into parenting. Kind of like it’s a weird way to phrase it in parenting, but I do think about that a lot with my kids. It’s like, you got you got to let them fail. You got to let them try something and have it not work out. Yeah, that’s my, I guess, nugget of wisdom.

45:31 – 45:36

Sophie Buonassisi: Very, very helpful. Keith, this has been wonderful. Thank you. I really appreciate the conversation. And Tom.

45:36 – 45:37

Keith Putnam-Delaney: Thanks, Sophie.

The post How to Win at Paid Advertising in the AI Era | Keith Putnam-Delaney, Primer CEO appeared first on GTMnow.

The 4 Marketing Channels You Actually Control | 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 5

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:37:46 +0000

The 4 Marketing Channels You Actually Control | 7 Steps to Small Business Marketing Success – Episode 5 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode:

Overview

If your biggest marketing channel disappeared tomorrow, how long before your pipeline dried up? For most small business owners John talks to, the honest answer is 30 days or less. That fragility is the hidden cost of renting your pipeline instead of owning it, and it’s the focus of Step 5 in the Seven Steps to Small Business Marketing Success series.

In this solo episode, John draws the line between rented channels (paid ads, search traffic, social reach) and the assets you actually control. Rented channels can produce results fast, but the rules change, costs climb, and a single algorithm shift can erase a healthy-looking business overnight. Owned channels work differently. You decide who’s on your list and what reaches them.

John walks through the four channels every small business can own: email, referrals, strategic partnerships, and direct human relationships. He shares a simple owned-versus-rented audit you can run this week, plus why the human element only grows more valuable as AI takes over the routine work. This one is for small business owners, marketers, and consultants who want a pipeline that holds up when the platforms shift.

Host Bio

John Jantsch is the founder of Duct Tape Marketing and host of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. He is the author of several books on small business marketing strategy, including Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, and The Ultimate Marketing Engine. He helps small businesses build practical marketing systems that produce predictable growth.

Key Takeaways

Test your risk fast: if your biggest channel vanished tomorrow, count how many days before your pipeline dried up. For many owners, it’s 30 days or less.
Rented channels (paid and most earned media) can scale instantly, but costs rise, rules change, and you never control them.
Owned means control. You decide who’s on the list and what reaches them, with no platform getting a vote.
Run the audit: list every lead source that produced revenue in the last 12 months, then mark each one owned or rented. If rented tops half, that’s your next area of work.
Email is your most direct owned channel, but only when the list is qualified, nurtured, and built with permission. It’s a content channel first, a sales channel second.
Write every email as if it’s going to one person, not 20,000. Personal beats broadcast.
A real referral system has three parts: a specific ask, a specific moment, and an easy path. Most businesses only do the ask.
Strategic partnerships with non-competing businesses serving your same ideal client are the most underused lead source for small businesses.
As AI handles more routine work, double down on the human channels: networking, speaking, associations, and in-person participation.

Great Moments

[00:01] John opens Step 5 and poses the test: if your biggest channel disappeared tomorrow, how fast would your pipeline dry up?
[02:07] Renting versus owning explained, why the rental model is fragile, and the owned-versus-rented audit.
[04:30] Channel one: email, and why it still works after years of people declaring it dead.
[06:52] Email as your first layer of content, not just a sales tool.
[07:12] The mindset shift: write to one person, not a crowd.
[09:33] The three parts of a referral system, then why strategic partnerships are so underused.
[11:49] Channel four: direct relationships, and why the human element matters more in the AI era.

Memorable Quotes

“If your biggest channel disappeared tomorrow, how long before your pipeline would dry up? For most folks I meet, it’s 30 days or less.”
“If you own it, you control it. You decide who’s on it and what reaches them.”
“Referrals arrive pre-trusted. They close faster and they’re less price sensitive.”
“Non-competing businesses serving the same ideal client are the most underused lead source a small business can have.”
“The more AI becomes part of our lives and businesses, the more the human element matters.”

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.708)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch, and again, no guest. I’m doing this series of seven steps to small business marketing success. This is actually episode number five. So go to the show notes. You can find all the other episodes if you are behind on this. but I’m gonna dive into episode or step number five. and this one really talks about pipelines. Having a great, healthy pipeline is awesome, isn’t it? Unfortunately,

many people don’t own their pipeline. And this is going to be easy to test. I’m gonna really talk that’s what I’m gonna talk about today. But if if let me ask you this. If your biggest channel disappeared tomorrow, the platform shuts down, alg algorithms change, cost doubles. how long before your pipeline would dry up? be honest. most of the folks that I encounter 30 days or less. and that’s really risky, and that is the cost of

Renting versus owning your pipeline. And I I want to talk about a little bit about those terms. If you own it, that means you control it. you decide who’s on it, what reaches them. no platform’s really going to change that is going to to to really make that go away. That’s that’s the true idea of owning. So I mean, you own your website, you own your email list, you own your social media.

To some degree, although those are really controlled as well. So I want to get into some of the things that I believe if you want to truly own your pipeline, you have to actually own all the assets that drive your pipeline to the extent that you can. Now, when you hear marketers talk about owned media, earned media, paid media.

When I’m talking about renting, really that’s what paid media is. And to some degree earned media, which is great, the publication writes about you. some

John Jantsch (02:07.638)

search platform sends traffic to you. Yeah the social media platforms, you know, people follow you and you know on YouTube or something and and then click over to your website. Those are all things that you you kind of earn mentions. But again, those are really not under your control. I mean those are things that could theoretically go away tomorrow. YouTube changes their algorithm and you no longer get any traffic from it. so that’s why I want to focus on this idea of own. you know someone else

on in on most pipeline, rented pipeline, somebody else owns it, you pay for access to it, you play basically by their rules. and and the the beauty of that, of course, is that that can happen instantly. If you’re a new business and you go to Google AdWords and you open an account and you start advertising, I mean you can actually generate pipeline, you know, immediately. But as many people have experienced, that pipeline

Can get more and more expensive every single year, less and less profitable every single year. they change the rules, and all of a sudden you can’t talk about your product or service in the way that you want to in your ads. I mean, there are all kinds of things that that are there. and a business and and the challenge is this rental model is very fragile, but it can be invisible too, right? A business can look very healthy.

Be chugging along, but it’s 70% of their pipeline, 70% of their customer growth comes from rented channels. And all of a sudden, you know, they disappear overnight because something changed. So here’s a here’s an audit that I would tell you to do. You can do this live. lift up list every lead source that’s produced revenue for you in the last 12 months. And I know sometimes that’s hard to attribute where the revenue came from, but

Spend some time thinking about where your revenue comes from, what lead source, and start marking: is this owned? Is this rented? or you know, rented is the same as paid. you know, and and really kind of look at what’s the ratio. All right. So I want to talk now. Now that you’ve done that, I’m gonna talk about the the the four owned channels and why you need to really put more emphasis, probably.

John Jantsch (04:30.828)

need to put more emphasis on those and less on the rented ones. So the first one is email. I’ve been around for a very, very long time. We started, we started, I think, heavily using email right at the end of like in the 90s, 97, 98, 99, all of a sudden email became a thing. everybody was, you know, really adopting it. And I swear, you know, once people, once people learned the marketing

value of having an email connection with somebody. Of course they started abusing it. And that’s why a lot of people have then declared almost every year from about 2000 and well, let’s say 2004 or so when social media started cropping up that the email was dead. How many times have you heard that one, right? At least for 15 years. But it still works. It’s still one of the most valuable channels. and I

contend that it probably will remain. Now it it it has gotten harder to make effective. and that’s really more because people have abused it and because people have other options that that they’ve spent on. And you know, there’s so much spam and cold, you know, outreach that comes through those that have have actually made people, you know, not like email, if you will, but but a qualified email list that you have built over five years, direct, reliable,

owned is really one of the most efficient channels that you can have. But again, qualified, nurtured, not abused, members of that list can can be really one of the most valuable marketing assets that that a business has. key word again, qualified. people asked to be on it. It was not scraped, it was not bought, it was not added. this is

This is actually your first layer of content, if you think about it. The principles that make content work apply. Genuine point of view, useful, specific. So when you’re sending email out, that is part of your content plan, right? So genuine point of view, built on one of your core principles, built on one of your hub page, one of your

John Jantsch (06:52.0)

elements that you’re using in all of your marketing, all of your content. Ca email in a lot of ways is a content channel. It’s not necessarily a sales channel. It certainly can be. You can earn the right to sell very directly in email, but it is first and foremost, it is a content channel.

John Jantsch (07:12.278)

And again, you know, a lot of I think a lot of people, partly because of spam and things that have gone on, you know, feel like, you know, email doesn’t feel that exciting anymore, right? And I think that that’s a lot of times the edge. you know, the the the real and and again, I’m not talking about necessarily all the ways that people are using it and abusing it. I’m talking about the ways that you have the ability to have a direct conversation. And that and that’s you know, that’s probably one of

It’s one of things I forget all the time, but it’s probably one of the core principles of email is we feel like, okay, this email is going out to 20,000 people. So we’re writing it like it’s going out to 20,000 people. What if you wrote it like it was going out to one person? That you told a personal story, that you were vulnerable, that you shared a a a point of view that might not be accepted by everyone. That’s how you have to think about all of your writing.

You’re writing it to one person. Whether it’s a YouTube video, an email, a social media post, it’s not, hey guys, hey everyone listening. It’s hey, you one person, I wrote this directly for you, or at least you’re gonna feel like I wrote this directly for you. That’s how you make email, certainly a potent channel. I wrote an entire book about this second channel called the Referral Engine. and I’m

Happy to say that that book has remained evergreen because the referrals are not some hack that come about because of the next platform. They are genuinely earned if you actually focus intention on them. Obviously, you’ve got to do good work to get referrals. But after that, if you are intentional about how they are are created, referrals are they’re probably for most of us, they are the best leads. they already

arrive kind of pre-trusted. they close faster, they’re less price sensitive. They’re more likely to refer other people because that’s how they came to you. most small businesses, I think most small businesses, hopefully you do, receive some referrals, but they happen accidentally. that’s hope. That’s not a system. there are three parts to a an effective referral system. There is a specific ask, there is a specific moment.

John Jantsch (09:33.738)

And there is an easy path. So here’s what I would here is who I serve and I would like what I would like you to do. you do that at a moment when the client or the yes, the the client or the you know, the person, it’s the right time to ask them. It’s it’s the moment of truth, as I’ve called it before. And then you make it very easy for them. Most businesses are missing two and three. I mean, they think about like, yeah, okay, I I’m

Gonna go out and ask people for referrals, but I’m not gonna do it, I’m not gonna have it as a planned moment. I’m not gonna have it make sense, I’m not gonna actually make it really easy for them to do. You add those two pieces of it, and you know, right after the customer experiences something good, you make you make that ask land right then and you make it easy for them to do. Now, the the third channel is that you can own.

Is one that is a branch of referrals to some degree. not exactly. and that’s partnerships, strategic partnerships. I don’t know why more people don’t spend more time on this particular channel. non-competing businesses serving the same ideal client are are probably the most underutilized, underused lead source that any small business can have. And it’s it’s not even close. I built in the early days my entire following, my entire business.

My entire platform around these strategic partnerships because it was so easy for me to take the fact that I was early on producing content and others, people started realizing we need content, we need to educate, we need to bring our communities together. And all of a sudden I was a ready-to-tap source. And so they put me in front of their audiences. So the ideal client.

Every one of your ideal clients needs other professionals. every one of your ideal clients has other needs. If you’re in the home services business and you are an electrician, they also need a painter and a plumber and a roofer and a person to do landscaping. so if you could start to develop relationships with all the people that also serve your ideal client, and you can activate those relationships.

John Jantsch (11:49.54)

have them if if you have a podcast, have them on your podcast, you be on their podcast, write content for each other. There’s lots of ways that you can actually start developing these relationships so that these strategic partners then have a have a a real reason, but also your top of mind when it comes to referring you. And then the fourth one is is still just direct relationships. The more AI becomes invasive.

Is that the right word? In our lives and our businesses, the more human element is going to become important. So if you’re using AI to actually become more efficient and to free up time, take that extra time, take your team’s extra time and start doubling down on networking, on speaking, on associations, on in industry, in person industry participation. Spend more time doing those kinds of things because.

those still pay off and they they’re gonna pay off I think even more as people try to automate and and have you know robots theoretically doing their content. I I still don’t know that we’re ever gonna actually get to that point. But I think the real opportunity right now is to double down on the human content. So do that owned versus rented audit. Do it this week. if rented is more than half then really

The owned growth engine is really the work that you need to focus on. So this is step number five of the seven steps to small business marketing success. Hopefully you’re enjoying this series. You can go to our website at Duct Tape Marketing to find the rest of the episodes or the rest of the steps in this. and and obviously six steps six and seven are coming. These are all if you just want to get the ebook all in one shot.

It is dtm.world slash seven steps. you can get it for five bucks. if you want to actually talk to one of our consultants, it is duct tapemarketing.com consultation. So if these are making sense, that actually next step might make sense for you. Go grab the ebook or go grab a a strategy call with one of our advisors. All right. Thanks for tuning in, and hopefully we’ll see you one of these days out there on the road.