nadosi.com

John Jantsch (00:00.664)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Eva Gutierrez. She is the founder of ThinkWithAI.com, a leading educator and consultant on practical AI adoption for business leaders with a background in behavioral science and communication. Ava’s methods empower companies to get more value out of AI, integrating it into decision-making, brainstorming, recruiting, and day-to-day workflows.

guess we’re going to talk about AI today. Ava, welcome to the show.

Eva Gutierrez (00:33.321)

I’m sure you haven’t been talking about AI a lot. It’s hardly getting brought up these days.

John Jantsch (00:38.958)

I kind of have a running joke with my guests to say, okay, we’re six minutes in and we haven’t mentioned AI yet, you so we better get to that, but you’re right off the bat. We, we’re going to go into it today. So let’s set the table. My, one of the things I think there was this period where it was all like whiz bang, like, my God, look at all this incredible stuff it can do and the future and you know, who’s going to lose their job. I mean, that seemed to be like all the conversation. And I feel like people are kind of settling in now and saying, well,

Eva Gutierrez (00:44.723)

Ha!

Eva Gutierrez (01:02.783)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (01:07.669)

Mm.

John Jantsch (01:08.334)

here’s what it can do, here’s what it can’t do. What do you find is kind of the biggest mindset shift that you think people need to make to look at this in the right way?

Eva Gutierrez (01:21.845)

Number one is how you’re thinking about AI supporting your work. So we tend to read the headlines exactly what you just mentioned of like, you might have a job today and tomorrow it’s gone. And all of this like really big macro thinking of AI is just going to take over tomorrow and that’s the end. And the reality is that I teach the founders and business operators that I work with is so much more tangible. What we look at is saying, hey,

John Jantsch (01:26.531)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (01:48.881)

AI is going to start taking over some of your work, but it’s going to do it task by task. And it’s your job as the human part of this AI relationship that you’re building with your new AI team members to be the one recognizing, okay, this is a task that I should offload to AI. And I say this because what AI allows for all of us is this hyper-personalization, especially as business owners or operators or people that really enjoy their jobs.

It’s the ability to say, I don’t want to do this thing, so I want AI to do it. And even though AI can do this thing, I still am going to do it. So it’s really focused on that task by task and within those tasks, not telling yourself that you have to give it to AI because AI can. It’s saying, what do I now have more time for that I wish I had time for that I can just give to AI and looking at it from a month by month basis.

John Jantsch (02:29.005)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (02:47.314)

What am I having or where am I recruiting AI to help me out this month? Task by task, like bring it way, way smaller. That’s when it becomes tangible and something you can actually create a plan around.

John Jantsch (03:01.198)

You know, it’s funny, I’ve owned my own business for 30 years, so I’ve seen a lot of these things come. And, you know, I remember, I feel like there’s a little parallel to when it all of a sudden became kind of trendy to get a virtual assistant. You know, right? And it was like, oh, I can get somebody from the Philippines to do this work for, you know, whatever, you know, rate. But they still had to figure out what that work was. You know, it wasn’t a magic pill. Right. And I think there’s, I know that

Eva Gutierrez (03:15.38)

Mmm

John Jantsch (03:31.138)

This is not a person doing the work, but I think there’s some parallels, aren’t there?

Eva Gutierrez (03:34.709)

absolutely. And this is the perfect way to set this up as well. What I teach people as well is saying when you go to offload that task to AI, I need you to picture AI as if it was a person and you just hired them. And bonus points is to give them a salary in your mind saying, I just hired this person. I’m paying them $2,000 a month. I just hired this business advisor. I’m paying them $8,000 a month to just talk to me and help me. Right. Put a number on there. This is for your mind.

John Jantsch (03:53.24)

Yes.

John Jantsch (04:01.122)

Mmm.

Eva Gutierrez (04:04.98)

Because what you want to do is now look at that situation and say, how much context would I give this new VA I hired in order to expect them to do this job well? And then in order to expect them to do this job extraordinarily well, right? At the end of the day, it’s the amount of context that you’re giving that person, right? How many SOPs? What about the context of the business and the products and all the things you’ve tried before and what’s working and what’s not working, right? Looking at AI the exact same way,

as you did when you went to hire that VA. I think we’ve all hired a VA, didn’t give them enough context, and then we’re like, man, they didn’t give me what I was looking back.

John Jantsch (04:43.106)

Well, they actually became a, they actually became a pain because you had to like think up stuff for him to do every day, right? Cause you hadn’t really planned it.

Eva Gutierrez (04:48.52)

Yep. Exactly. And so with AI, that’s exactly it as well. What we’re looking to do is say AI should take over your work, just task by task. Don’t make it any bigger than what it really is. It’s task by task. It’s the tasks that you want to offload. This is AI. Like you get to choose what you keep working on and you get to choose what you say. I would love AI to take that on. And then when you hire AI for that task, imagining it’s a person that you hired with a salary.

John Jantsch (04:59.522)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (05:18.192)

and saying how much context would I give to this person? What type of onboarding would I put them through? What would I make sure they have access to before I even let them start working on this project? That immediately helps you get way more success out of that experience with your new AI VA, for example.

John Jantsch (05:36.738)

So you’ve used the term several times and I was going to ask you about this. You intentionally used the term hiring AI. So maybe kind of unpack what you mean by that or how that’s different than people are typically engaging AI. Let’s put it

Eva Gutierrez (05:43.027)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (05:51.313)

Mm-hmm. So I use hiring AI for the human mind because a lot of AI takes just it’s all about reframing the way that we’re thinking about it, right? And we’ve all had conversations in chat to BT where you’re like, wow, this is the most brilliant, incredible thing that just happened. And we’ve also all had conversations in there where you’re like, I am so close to throwing my computer out the window because are you right? Exactly. Like, no, that wasn’t a good idea.

John Jantsch (06:13.774)

Stop agreeing with me.

Eva Gutierrez (06:20.754)

Right? And AI is like, you’re like the, you’re the most brilliant person that ever existed. And so that’s what we try to do here is instead of just like winging it and hoping that it gets the job done, it’s you reframing it in your mind to say, I am approaching this. Like I am hiring a person to do the job. And the only difference here is that AI has the ability to look through way more context than that person would.

And so instead of saying, I’m just going to try to figure out this AI use case, I’m going to just try to put it together. It’s you as the human in your mind saying, as I sit down to situate this, I am hiring AI for this role. I’m not just trying to see if it can work and taking it seriously because it’s however serious you take it is the output that you get.

John Jantsch (07:11.598)

So does this change how we think about the traditional org chart? I mean, when we used to hire a person, it was to fill a role, and that role did all these things. And in a lot of ways, are we saying, no, we want to hire specific AI tools to do specific tasks, and we might have 100 of them.

Eva Gutierrez (07:31.22)

Yes, it definitely changes the org chart. What I teach is this idea of you have the org chart if you’re a business owner, for example, of you up top. And then normally you would have had like employees under you, right? Now you have you up top. You have a bunch of your own AI. Let’s just call them agents for now as a placeholder word here. A bunch of little AI agents that can do a bunch of tasks for you. But you still have your team underneath that. And then your team under each of one of them, they have a bunch of agents that are underneath.

John Jantsch (07:49.452)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:59.832)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (08:01.032)

them. Because if we just look at an org chart and then start to say what is the task that each person has to do every day, that’s where we start to go back to the beginning here and we say, okay, let’s start bringing AI support in as much as possible for each of those tasks and looking at that support, not just in terms of can it do the task, right? It shouldn’t just be an assistant, but while it’s hypothetically over there.

Why doesn’t it also be a strategist and help you strategize something that you hadn’t thought of previously with this new context? And then why doesn’t it also act as an advisor while it’s doing that thing too? And looking at the bigger picture of the goals of the company and making sure that this is aligned to them. So looking at hiring those AI agents for everybody with the goal of not saying we should replace our whole team, but the whole team can be monumentally enhanced if they have this AI assistant strategist and advisor.

helping them see what they previously couldn’t see.

John Jantsch (08:58.742)

So does it then, as I listen to you describe that, in my experience, even working with our own team, is it really kind of changes what their role is as well. mean, you talk about these agents, they’re much more of a manager in a lot of ways, managing the agents or managing the output, directing, overseeing, strategizing. so does, while I think that people are getting that,

Eva Gutierrez (09:08.584)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (09:26.478)

Does that cause some disruption inside of organization where you’ve got a bunch of doers?

Eva Gutierrez (09:32.055)

Yes and no. So I think what happens here is if we were to think about two, three years ago, we look at AI and we couldn’t even fathom where we would be, right? 2023, ChatDBT just comes out. There’s a lot of question of how good is it going to be at things? How smart can it get? Right? And it was hard to predict, okay, here’s where we are now going to be. Here’s what the future looks like. And I feel that same sense today.

John Jantsch (09:39.491)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (09:43.843)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (09:51.34)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (09:59.518)

that it’s extremely difficult to predict and say, here is where we will be. Because we hadn’t even predicted that AI would be such a big part of the workforce like four or five years ago. And so to me, it’s so much more about just getting there and then saying, okay, now what is the plan based on where AI is and what its capabilities are and what people are interested in doing and how people and AI come together in this hybrid intelligence? Like where’s our role now? It’s gonna be different than it was two years ago.

John Jantsch (10:08.76)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (10:28.979)

today in a few years.

John Jantsch (10:31.758)

Explain what you mean by hybrid intelligence because I know that that was something I was going to ask you about because I know you’ve talked about that before so explain where that fits.

Eva Gutierrez (10:42.643)

So I love this term hybrid intelligence. I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops for two years now since 2023 when I read this incredible book called the intuitive executive. It’s a textbook and it inside it talked about this idea of hybrid intelligence, which means humans will always be central to decision making with AI in a complimentary supporting role.

And so when we look to saying, all right, let’s have AI come in and help us as people, whether you’re a business owner, whether you’re an employee, whether you’re a consultant, whether you’re an advisor, what we’re really doing is creating a hybrid intelligent relationship. I have a relationship with AI where it supports me a certain way. You have a relationship with AI where it supports you a slightly different way. We’re both business owners, so it’s pretty aligned, but there are still different things there that it’s supporting us with. And that’s what’s going to happen across that org chart as well.

That’s when I start to say, well, you know what? It’s pretty difficult to predict where we’re going because the AI support that I need as a business owner is much different than the AI support that maybe my virtual assistant needs. And so as we start to predict these things, it becomes more of a question of, well, at certain roles, what does that change look like? Instead of deciding that there’s going to be this one big macro change.

John Jantsch (11:59.64)

So do you see a window, not necessarily a trend, but a window here where companies will say, I get what you’re talking about. I want to hire that recruiting agency that does this work. Just like, you know, recruiting or people that place, you know, VA’s. Do you see that that’s an opportunity, a business opportunity for people to actually come in and do this for companies?

Eva Gutierrez (12:22.875)

You mean like bringing in AI support, helping them set up on.

John Jantsch (12:25.79)

Yeah, actually be the one that defines the role and then trains and then, you know, installs it, so to speak. Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (12:29.587)

absolutely. There are a lot of AI agencies these days that are ready to audit and install whatever it is that you’re looking for. What I tend to push back on here, and there is a time and a place for this, don’t get me wrong, if it’s an incredibly complex setup, you should hire somebody to situate it. But I think one of the most important things that all of us should know right now is the skill set of AI.

Because to me, this is kind of like saying, let’s say it’s like 1999, 2000, right? And you’re saying, I’m just going to hire someone that knows how to use a computer. And then I’m just going to tell them what I want to do on the computer for my business. To me, I’m like, that doesn’t sound that smart, right? And that’s where we are now, I believe, where you don’t want to just say, well, they know how to use AI.

John Jantsch (13:10.04)

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (13:24.027)

You want to be able to say, they can build out something super complicated that would take me hours and hours and it’s not worth figuring out. There is totally that use case, but the skillset of AI, I don’t believe is something that is just like something you outsource. It’s something to say, I’m going to take some time to learn this. And the thing about AI is that it is just a skillset. And so what is the difference between someone that has a skillset and doesn’t? And that is literally just the amount of hours that they have put in.

to learning that thing, right? And so all of us have the capability of learning the skillset of AI and just learning the foundational skillset that you need. Once you know that, then you can start to understand, this new platform came out. It’s actually not useful to me because of X, Y, and Z. this new Chat GPT feature is out. This is awesome for us because of A, B, and C. That’s when you can really start to figure out, okay, this is what I should learn how to do. This is what I should set up.

John Jantsch (14:11.384)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (14:23.088)

and then here’s the complicated stuff to bring to somebody else.

John Jantsch (14:26.798)

Yeah, it’s funny. parallel for me, you know, is in SEO. A lot of people are like, I don’t know how to do SEO. I’m just going to hire somebody to do it. And I always tell people, look, you have to you have to actually be smart enough or know enough about SEO in order to buy it. And I think that that’s kind of the parallel, because otherwise you’re going to get ripped off by people that are selling you stuff that’s not really going to be your thing. But you’re just like, I don’t get that stuff. You do it. So I totally agree. So.

Eva Gutierrez (14:35.26)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (14:42.45)

Mm.

John Jantsch (14:58.168)

How does somebody go about, and you’ve kind of hinted at it, think, to the first step is get stuff you don’t like to do off your plate, right? But how do you go about as a business, let’s say you’ve got 10, 12 employees that probably could all benefit in their job functions in some way. How do you go about kind of structuring what our plan’s gonna be? Because I think if you just, I see a lot of companies just, couple of their people are dabbling in it because they like that stuff. And so they’re using it this way and this way and the.

Eva Gutierrez (15:18.812)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (15:23.794)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (15:27.594)

owner of the business hates it. So they’re like, I don’t care what they do with that kind of, mean, how do you like have a comprehensive plan that’s really going to serve the business well?

Eva Gutierrez (15:36.306)

So I’ll answer this in two parts. The first part here is that I’ve talked to business leaders and I’ve talked to their teams, separate conversations. And if you are a business leader, I can promise you your team wants you to give them guidance on how to use AI because they don’t want to spend their time, their nights and weekends going through some course that they had to buy themselves in order to be able to do this. Right. This is learning and development. They are waiting for you to say,

John Jantsch (15:44.28)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:00.376)

Yeah, yeah, yep.

Eva Gutierrez (16:06.395)

here’s how we’re going to start learning about AI and how we’re going to bring it into the workspace. So it’s a really important thing for leaders to know right now. Your team isn’t going to raise their hand and say, I don’t really know how to use it well, because what benefit does that give them? So it’s creating this awkward tension where the business leaders are like, we want you to use AI more. Please go use it more. We’re more than happy. We’ll pay $200 a month for a chat GPT enterprise account for you. And then the team is using it as glorified Google search.

John Jantsch (16:18.552)

Yeah. Right, right, right, right.

John Jantsch (16:34.7)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (16:35.1)

So as a business leader, like however you want to go about it, just make sure that you’re giving your team guidance and courses and teaching them, hey, here’s the skillset of AI, instead of just saying, go use it and you figure out how to do it. So that’s step one. Step two here, we get a bit meta. This is something that I teach in my AI First Business system, is that what you can do is just tell AI what you do all day and then have AI give you an opportunity map that says,

John Jantsch (16:47.01)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (17:03.132)

Hey, here’s where you can use me. Here’s where you can use me at the assistant strategist and advisor level. So what I teach in that AI first business system is essentially recruiting AI to tell you where to hire AI. And then again, now you have task by task. You can say, okay, you know what? I hate doing this one task every day. Let me prioritize situating that and having AI support with that. Or being able to say AI is helping at the assistant and strategist level of this one task.

John Jantsch (17:03.502)

I like that.

John Jantsch (17:15.746)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (17:31.516)

But if we just made this one little tweak, it could actually now be an advisor as well within that whole task. And now we’re getting so much more information. We’re making better decisions. We’re more prepared, for example. That’s the way that I see it. So leaders making sure that you’re giving your team actual guidance and a plan as to how to use it because they are asking for it. They’re begging you for it, but they don’t want to raise their hand and say it. And then two, create that opportunity map.

John Jantsch (17:54.254)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (17:59.344)

Go through and tell AI what you do every day and have AI tell you where it can help.

John Jantsch (18:05.184)

So you use the term using AI for recruiting. I may have messed that up. You may have done it the other way around. explain kind of what, I know what you mean by that, but I think you kind of went by it. So I want you to kind of specifically highlight that idea.

Eva Gutierrez (18:20.464)

Yeah, so, and this kind of puts me out of a job hilariously when I give this advice, right? Because I help people figure out where to add AI to their work, but at the end of the day, the best thing I can do is actually teach you the skillset of AI, which is this hybrid intelligent relationship where you’re going to rely on AI to help you move forward with AI. So you can go into ChatGPT and say, hey, here’s everything that I do every day.

John Jantsch (18:26.062)

You

John Jantsch (18:45.133)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (18:45.836)

Here’s where I use AI support. Here’s where I don’t use AI support. Here are the tools that I’m using. Here are the tools that I kind of want to use, but I’m not using. And what it can do is create this opportunity map for you. I have a full workflow of this whole thing, but you can duct tape it together, of course, and be able to have AI just say, here’s all the tasks that you do every day. Here’s how AI could help at the assistant level. Here’s how it can help at the strategist level. Here’s how it can help at the advisor level.

John Jantsch (18:59.074)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (19:12.122)

And so what you’ve really done is just upgrade AI into your recruiter, right? Because you haven’t hired AI to do any of those things yet. You’ve just essentially told AI, can you come audit my business and then tell me who I should hire and where it would be the most helpful? But instead of being like, well, you need a full-time salary role here, you need this over here, we get to do it a little bit differently in this case and just go task by task.

John Jantsch (19:38.006)

And I think what you just shared right there is really the biggest mindset shift, you know, because I do think a lot of people look at a chat GPT window and say, I need to tell it what to do. You know, I need to tell it to give me this output. And I think a lot of times they really struggle because they don’t know what they don’t know. And so I think just this idea of asking it first is such a mindset shift.

Eva Gutierrez (19:43.078)

Yeah.

Eva Gutierrez (20:03.986)

Exactly. And that’s really all AI is if you start to think about it, right? It’s a mindset shift to say, okay, I just need to start to bring this on task by task. It’s a mind shift to say, you know what I’m going to do here? I’m going to give it as much context and maybe more context than I normally give someone that I hire for the role. It’s all of these reframes that are the reason that it’s like a hybrid intelligent thing.

John Jantsch (20:09.102)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (20:31.829)

This is a relationship we’re building where we’re learning who AI needs us to be in order for AI to be exactly what we want it to be. And the thing about AI, and I talk about this all the time, say AI is like a golden retriever. It’s ready to go whenever you’re ready to go. It’s like, where are we going? To the kitchen? Awesome, I couldn’t be more excited. Are we going on a walk? I cannot wait. You just tell me where you want to go, because let’s go over there. I don’t even care. And it’s our job to put the constraints on it.

and to say, is awesome, I love having intelligence on demand, but my role as the human part of this hybrid intelligence is to constantly put the guardrails on intelligence on demand and force it to funnel this intelligence through the specific guardrails that I need for this specific task or this thing I wanna think through or a workflow that I’m building out. So it’s our job in order to do that. And that is like the macro reframe that we all need.

John Jantsch (21:28.046)

Yeah, and it’s my hope, we never know, but it’s my hope that that’s the 5 % we need to guard, right? And own as humans because that’ll become our job. Well, Ava, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you’d invite people to connect with you and learn about your work?

Eva Gutierrez (21:33.947)

Mm-hmm.

Eva Gutierrez (21:45.605)

Yeah, you can go to thinkwithai.com and that’s where I have that AI first business system as well as I’m building out some really cool stuff with Notion agents right now that I am so stoked about. So you can check everything out over there.

John Jantsch (21:55.726)

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

Eva Gutierrez (22:04.242)

Likewise, John. Nice to meet you.

Turning Values Into Action

Turning Values Into Action written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch welcomes back bestselling author, keynote speaker, and Acceleration Partners founder Robert Glazer. Robert’s new book, “The Compass Within,” explores how to identify, clarify, and truly live your core values—in leadership and life. Robert shares why most people and companies get values wrong, how to go beyond one-word platitudes, and why real values are actionable, measurable, and often forged in formative experiences. If you want to stop drifting and lead with purpose, this episode offers a practical framework for finding your true north.

About the Guest

Robert Glazer is a globally recognized thought leader, bestselling author, keynote speaker, and founder of Acceleration Partners, a leading partner marketing agency. He’s known for his Friday Forward newsletter and books including “Elevate.” His latest, “The Compass Within,” is a parable and framework for discovering and applying the values that drive lasting personal and organizational success.

Website: robertglazer.com
Book: compass-within.com
Values Exercise: robertglazer.com/six
Newsletter: Friday Forward

Actionable Insights

Most people struggle to name or define their true values—because real values aren’t one-word platitudes, but actionable, measurable behavioral principles.
Personal values are distinct from company values, but both must be clear enough to guide real-life decisions and withstand high-stakes situations.
Values are often forged in formative, sometimes painful, experiences—most people orient toward or away from something in their past.
Clarifying values isn’t about aspiration; it’s about uncovering patterns in when you thrive (or struggle), how you show up in relationships, and what frustrates you deeply.
Effective values are tangible: You should be able to review performance or make tough choices based on them—not just list them on a wall or website.
“Family” and “integrity” are common but often fail the test—dig deeper to find the actionable principle behind them.
Leadership is shaped by values: Self-awareness turns strengths into superpowers and prevents your blind spots from becoming weaknesses.
Compass drift—slowly sliding away from your values—often happens when you don’t clarify and re-align; success comes from continual reflection and realignment.
Values-aligned decisions often cost something in the short term, but build stronger culture, trust, and performance in the long term.
Try Robert’s six-question exercise (robertglazer.com/six) to begin surfacing your true values.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

01:14 – Why Most Values Books Get It Wrong
The difference between one-word “values” and real, actionable principles.
02:37 – Why a Parable?
How storytelling makes finding and applying values more relatable and practical.
04:53 – The Family and Integrity Trap
Why these common values often fail—and how to dig deeper.
07:36 – Making Values Measurable
How to move from platitudes to performance reviews and real-world decisions.
09:32 – Are Values Baked or Built?
How formative experiences shape your core values, and when they can change.
12:38 – Leadership and Self-Awareness
How unexamined values drive (or sabotage) your leadership and relationships.
16:58 – From Rudderless to Aligned
Robert’s personal story of how clarifying values fueled business and personal growth.
19:00 – Values Gone Wrong: Lessons from Corporate Scandals
Why misaligned or fake values can sink entire companies.
21:13 – The Cost (and Power) of Values-Based Decisions
Why standing for your values can be hard—but is essential for long-term success.

Insights

“Real values are actionable and measurable—they help you make the hardest decisions, not just the easy ones.”

“Most people’s values are formed in response to their formative years—either doubling down on what worked or rebelling against what didn’t.”

“Leadership is shaped by values; self-awareness lets you turn strengths into superpowers and avoid turning them into liabilities.”

“Saying no or making hard calls based on your values costs something in the short term, but pays off in trust and culture.”

“If you can’t objectively rate yourself on a value, it isn’t really guiding your choices.”

Duct Tape Transcript

How to Turn a Moment Into Momentum

How to Turn a Moment Into Momentum written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Don Yaeger, New York Times bestselling author, leadership expert, and speaker. Don’s new book, “The New Science of Momentum,” challenges the myth that momentum is just luck or a sports cliché. Instead, Don shares a research-backed, practical framework for leaders who want to engineer and sustain momentum—in teams, organizations, and personal growth. Drawing from hundreds of interviews with elite athletes, coaches, military leaders, and business executives, Don reveals what separates those who wait for sparks from those who build their own winning streaks.

About the Guest

Don Yaeger is a leadership expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and author of more than 30 books, including several New York Times bestsellers. He’s known for deep-dive interviews with world-class performers, distilling their habits and strategies into actionable playbooks for business and life.

Actionable Insights

Momentum isn’t just a sports cliché—it’s a science that can be engineered with the right culture, recruiting, and preparation.
Elite leaders don’t just wait for a “spark”—they build frameworks, teams, and habits that make capturing and sustaining momentum possible.
Culture matters: Avoid pitting teammates against each other, and recruit people who cheer for others’ success, not just their own.
Preparation is critical: Teams that mentally rehearse “what if” scenarios and study moments in advance are better at recognizing and seizing opportunities.
Momentum killers: Negativity, selfishness, failing to recognize small wins, and not celebrating team achievements all sap energy and belief.
Measuring momentum is less about external scoreboards and more about internal belief—a shared sense among the team that success is possible and building.
Leaders must “speak truth” every week: Honest, clear communication builds trust and belief (the foundation of momentum).
Building momentum sometimes means making hard choices—like restructuring or changing direction—so you’re ready when opportunity strikes.
The most successful teams and companies use rituals (like celebrating wins and preparing for “what ifs”) to foster momentum as a habit, not an accident.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

01:06 – The Super Bowl Spark: How One Moment Inspired the Book
Don explains the origin story—watching the Patriots’ epic comeback and asking how moments become momentum.
02:54 – The Framework: Culture, Recruiting, Preparation
Why momentum starts before the spark, and what leaders can engineer.
04:23 – Recognizing and Seizing Moments
The Buzz Williams “laptop drill” for building awareness in teams.
07:29 – Momentum Killers
How negativity, selfishness, and failing to recognize sparks can drain belief and performance.
10:51 – When Momentum Means Making Hard Calls
Why adapting to change—even when it’s uncomfortable—is essential for future opportunities.
12:03 – How Do You Measure Momentum?
Why the real scoreboard is a shared sense of belief and engagement.
14:52 – The Scotty Pippen Story: Why Team Players Matter
What happens when ego trumps the team in critical moments.
18:26 – Rituals and Habits for Leaders
The weekly habit that builds trust, belief, and lasting momentum.

Insights

“Momentum is a belief system—a shared sense among your team that something big is possible and building.”

“Elite leaders don’t wait for a spark; they build the culture, team, and preparation to seize it when it comes.”

“Celebrate others’ wins as your own—teams with true momentum multiply each other’s energy.”

“Speak truth every week. Trust and belief are the foundation for any lasting success.”

“_

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00.898)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Don Yeager. He’s a New York Times bestselling author, leadership expert, and sought after speaker with deep experience interviewing world-class athletes, coaches, and business leaders. Don has distilled the secrets of high performance into a practical framework. His latest book, the new

Science of Momentum challenges conventional wisdom and offers a research-backed playbook for leaders who want to sustained success. So, Don, welcome to the show. Should we see how many sports cliches we can use in this interview?

Don Yaeger (00:36.413)

Hey John, thank you so much, looking forward to it.

I don’t know. I feel like I’m already in the bottom of the ninth. mean, you know, because anyway, good.

John Jantsch (00:47.31)

So, just take it one question at a time. That’s all you could do, So, speaking of cliches, you argue that momentum isn’t just a cliche, it’s a science. What made you tackle this topic?

Don Yaeger (01:06.493)

So like many of your listeners probably, I was watching the Super Bowl a few years ago when the New England Patriots fell behind to the Atlanta Falcons 28 to 3. And the prognosticator said Atlanta had a 99.4 % chance of winning the game at that stage. Most of America turned the game off because it was over. And then suddenly, Tom Brady.

John Jantsch (01:24.483)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (01:31.707)

runs 12 yards on third and eight. Tom Brady had him run 12 yards all season long, right? That’s not who he is. And one little thing after another started stacking up and pretty soon, as we all know, New England created the greatest comeback in the history of the Super Bowl. And I watched and at the end of the game, Joe Buck said this great line. said, New England has rewritten the word, redefined the word momentum tonight.

So the next morning I came in, opened up the whiteboard in my office, brought in the creative team that works for me, and just wrote the words, how do you turn a moment into momentum? Can momentum be manufactured? Can we engineer it? Can we build it? Or is it we just have to wait on something good to happen? And that started an eight-year project interviewing the best leaders in the world in the worlds of sports, politics, the military, and business to try to understand.

John Jantsch (02:13.027)

No.

Don Yaeger (02:29.828)

How do they construct momentum?

John Jantsch (02:32.716)

Yeah, let’s talk little bit about that. Cause I think most people probably think in terms of like momentum, something you just get caught up in, you know, it takes you, it carries you. Right. And you, you argue it’s really, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, but again, was going to say, since your argument can be engineered, there like triggers or things that you found that start, you know, that, that process.

Don Yaeger (02:38.491)

Right. Right. And that can be true, but that can be true, by the way. Yeah. But the great ones don’t wait on it.

Don Yaeger (02:54.247)

There are actually, a big piece of it is, in fact, in the book, we actually built a model for how momentum can be constructed in your organization. And what’s interesting is I used to think it always began with a spark, something that happened, right? What I grew to understand from talking to these great leaders is that there’s an entire framework of effort that is created before the spark. in that framework,

The first thing you have to do is create the right culture a culture where we where we actually aren’t pitting each other pitting teammates against each other which happens too often then you got to recruit people who are both talented but can cheer for other talented people right and that’s very hard to do as well and Then the third thing is there’s there’s actually an entire model of preparation That that allows you to be mentally in the game when the spark occurs which allows you to capture sparks

John Jantsch (03:49.549)

Thanks

Don Yaeger (03:50.695)

that others miss. And we use great examples from great leaders in all three of those kind of pre-spark elements that teach you that you can actually then engineer the moment. And then as the moment comes, it could be small, but you can treat it as if it’s large. if you do so, you can actually, as we said, you can create momentum where other people might be sitting back

and wondering when’s my spark gonna happen?

John Jantsch (04:23.606)

Yeah, it’s interesting. know, I think a lot of times, you know, people are like, you were just in the right place at the right time. And there is a lot of truth to that, but it’s also recognizing the right place, right? And taking action, isn’t it?

Don Yaeger (04:35.699)

Yeah. In fact, so, um, one of our great interviews, one of my favorite interviews in the entire book, did 250 interviews with great leaders was with a basketball coach named Buzz Williams. Buzz was the coach at Texas A &M last few years. He’s now the coach at Maryland, but, uh, but Buzz all season long off season, all off season long, uh, you’re walking by his office or one of his players. He’ll say, John, get in here. And he’ll pop open the laptop and on his laptop, he’ll have.

a contest, a competitive contest that’s being played and it’s often not in basketball, right? It could be women’s volleyball, could be softball, baseball, football. And what he wants is for the player to sit down, he opens up the laptop, hits play, and then he lets them watch six to seven minutes of the contest. Then he closes the laptop and he said, tell me exactly what is the time left in the game right now?

What’s the score in this very moment that I just closed the laptop and who has momentum on their side? And explain to me why you believe that. And what he wants is he wants to build within his players this awareness of what’s happening around them so that as something good happens, they are better in position to grab onto it, do something with it.

John Jantsch (05:50.594)

Yes.

Don Yaeger (06:01.107)

You know, the business analogy of that would be, you know, those organizations, and there are plenty of them that are very good, that create what if teams, right? A team of executives who sit in on a regular basis are asking themselves, what if? I mean, let’s, let’s throw something crazy out there. What if the president United States decides to throw tariffs on every country in the world and half of our supply chain is gone? What if, what, what, would never happen.

John Jantsch (06:27.598)

that would never happen. Why are we even talking about that?

Don Yaeger (06:31.485)

But if it were to happen, what would we do? Right? What if the CEO of our greatest competitor is suddenly caught on a big screen at a Coldplay concert, hugging up on his HR director? What if? I mean, that would never happen, right? Nobody would ever do that. But the truth is, if you can start thinking about what if concepts, what it does, forget whether those are the exact same things that happened.

The concept is that we collectively are constantly thinking about the world as our playing field. And when you’re thinking about the world as your playing field, you have a greater opportunity to capture those moments when they come.

John Jantsch (07:17.176)

So we’ve been talking about catching momentum and engineering momentum. What are some ways that you found that people actually, probably not intentionally, but actually kill momentum?

Don Yaeger (07:29.113)

well, one of the easiest ways to kill momentum is to not recognize it when it happens. Right? So something comes along an opportunity, a, and you sit and you’re busy chuckling because you’re thinking, how crazy is that? And instead of, capturing and using the moment to your advantage, you’re, you’re laughing about it. And pretty soon the moment’s gone. Right? They’re called sparks for a reason. you know, they don’t last.

John Jantsch (07:34.286)

Sure. Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:50.22)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (07:55.707)

unless you’ve built the kindling, which is all the work you do in advance, and you fan the flames, which is what you do after the spark takes hold. so this idea that it’s, you, but the other ways you can kill momentum are simply in having a bad, let’s say you recruit people and that are so eye centered that if I’m not the reason that good things are happening, then I don’t want to be proud. I’m not happy.

You know, the way you discover this is the next time you as a group are celebrating someone on your team that just did something fantastic. They made a massive sale. They closed the deal. They dislodged the competitor. Look for the A players on your team. Where are they in that celebration? Are they at the front high-fiving the guy, the woman that makes this deal? Or are they in the back grousing, damn it, that should have been my deal.

John Jantsch (08:25.944)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (08:55.345)

Right? Should have been my opportunity. And you start to realize what you have. If you don’t have people who can celebrate each other, you know, in the world of neuroscience, there’s a whole, whole, you know, discussion around what are called mirror neurons, which is what, which is how, you know, we’ve, we’ve all seen somebody walks into a room and yawns. Other people suddenly start yawning, right? Mirror neurons are, we mimic a situation.

John Jantsch (09:19.825)

Don Yaeger (09:24.367)

if we feel like we’re connected to it. Well, if I feel like your success is to my detriment, then the mirror neurons in the room are actually quite negative, right? And people pick up on that. And suddenly the vibe changes and that’s a way to kill momentum, by the way.

John Jantsch (09:39.246)

Mm.

John Jantsch (09:46.126)

Were there any examples of people that you’ve spoken with over the years? Sometimes you have to make a change that is really hard because you sense, the market’s going this way. I remember talking to some folks in advertising in newspapers. In the early days of the eight, yeah. In the early days, but.

Don Yaeger (10:04.432)

Wait, newspapers? Wait, I know, my kids still laugh at me that I still grab the New York Times when I’m going through an airport.

John Jantsch (10:13.474)

You know, they were laughing in the early days of, of, you know, the web and just like this Craigslist thing’s a joke. and you know, it pretty much because they, you know, they wouldn’t make the move early to say, we got to kill classified ads and make them free because, you know, they’re going to eat our lunch if we don’t. and, so sometimes, you know, grabbing that momentum or that opportunity that’s obvious means you’re going to.

Don Yaeger (10:31.677)

Right.

John Jantsch (10:39.512)

killed the golden goose, you know? how do you, did you talk to anybody that really, you know, saw momentum as a real negative to begin with, but as where the market was inevitably headed?

Don Yaeger (10:51.473)

Well, yeah, momentum. mean, if you’re momentum is when you had the wind to your back, right? That’s what momentum is. If you want positive momentum. So if you shift, if you fence, if you feel the wind is coming to your, to your, to your front, then you, you might need to turn and make a change. mean, there are a couple of companies that we, that we focused on who built momentum after pretty significant layoffs of employees. Like they had to make the hard choices, but in order to get right,

John Jantsch (10:56.386)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (11:17.837)

Yeah, yeah.

Don Yaeger (11:21.309)

for the market in order to get right to be able to capture the next opportunity in the market. They couldn’t be, they couldn’t have the, so yes, uncomfortable as that was, it was the choice that helped them be ready for an upcoming opportunity to expand that opportunity and take it and create that wind to their back.

John Jantsch (11:45.39)

How do you measure momentum? mean, some cases, there’s certainly very tangible results like revenues up, things like that. But I suspect that some of it’s sort of incremental. Are there metrics that you can say, this means we have momentum?

Don Yaeger (12:03.217)

No, because momentum at its core is a state of mind, right? It’s a belief system at its core. That’s what momentum really is. There’s a scientific version of momentum, right? Which you would when you see, you know, a swinging of of a pendulum or whatever. There’s a scientific version of that. But in in real life, momentum at its core is a is a belief system. So

What you, how do you measure belief system by the number of people who are participating in it, right? If you’re the leader and you’re the only one that believes, you don’t really have momentum because you need, as a group, you have to be able to move into moments. You have to, I mean, remember that question I wrote at the beginning, how do you turn a moment into momentum?

And there was a lot of the preparation piece, having the right people on your team. The recruiting piece is one of the few places in the book where we went with a negative as an example. And the story we share was, you may or may not remember when Michael Jordan retired for the first time from the Chicago Bulls. For all those years, Scottie Pippen had been his Robin.

Right? His bat. He was Batman. Scotty was Robin and Scotty Pippen kind of objected to that. He really wanted to be Batman. He believed he was worthy. So suddenly Jordan’s out of the picture and Scotty is Batman. And that first season Scotty is Batman is okay. Good. But when they get to the playoffs, they’re in, they’re in a key game against the New York Knicks. Two seconds left. Phil Jackson calls a timeout. Scotty Pippen’s like,

John Jantsch (13:28.696)

Yes.

John Jantsch (13:33.986)

Yeah.

Don Yaeger (13:55.581)

I’m Batman. got, I’m going to take the shot right now to put us over the top. Cause that’s what I’ve been waiting for. Jackson designs a play for Tony Kukoc to take the shot. Scottie Pippen refuses to get off the bench. He’s like, I’m not even going to the game. If you didn’t call the play for me, I’ve waited all these years. Now it’s my turn and you’re going to give the shot to Tony Kukoc and Pippen refused to get off the bench.

No one on his team ever saw him the same way again. In fact, they, they, they, they, to this day, if in the NBA, you commit a very selfish act as a teammate, it’s referred to as pulling a Pippen, right? Because Scotty Pippen was so absorbed with the idea that it had to be his. He, and so, you know, obviously in the NBA, you, you, you, you picked players, you contract with them. So it’s not like you can dump Pippen.

John Jantsch (14:25.837)

Yes.

John Jantsch (14:36.459)

You

Don Yaeger (14:52.199)

But what they saw immediately was that he was not and could not be the leader of that team. so when you’re picking people to put on your team, pick people who can be happy when somebody else does well, as just as they would be happy if they did it as well for themselves.

John Jantsch (15:13.378)

So, you know, the thing about sports is, I mean, there’s a winner and there’s a loser, right? In a game. In business, it’s not quite so clear.

Don Yaeger (15:22.445)

I would argue that you may not, there’s maybe not a scoreboard that is broadcast to the world, but most often internally, we know the scoreboard. I was working with a company last week, a massive international company and they can look at most many of their products that they are currently in the marketplace with and where they were once the leader of the pack in that product line.

Many of them they are they are not anymore now to the world. They still look they’re still a pretty they’re a fantastic brand Everybody knows who they are, but internally they know they have lost momentum, right? They have lost That others are taking their space. So there are there are There are scoreboards. They just may not be always as public as we’re used to in sports

John Jantsch (16:15.128)

So you, great deal of your career and your very successful books have been as a biographer. Would that be the right term to use? Yeah, right.

Don Yaeger (16:22.119)

Yeah, yeah, I’m a teammate with Deon Sanders and all kinds of other people to help tell their stories.

John Jantsch (16:28.138)

So for this book, you probably didn’t go live with any CEOs for a couple of months or anything. What’s been your tool to kind of extract these stories from some of the folks?

Don Yaeger (16:38.727)

I think what happened was many people were fascinated by the curiosity. The idea that again, you know, in sports, we, we see momentum. everybody. Yeah. The other team has momentum, right? we have momentum. Exactly. It’s probably it’s, it’s as great. It’s as used a word as there is in broadcast. but in business and in other places, it’s known, but not studied. It’s not been studied.

John Jantsch (16:52.878)

Yeah, broadcasters say it all the time during games, right? Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:07.704)

Yeah, yeah, right.

Don Yaeger (17:08.763)

And so the idea that I was coming at it and that I was coming at it from four verticals, right? was, mean, cause we look at it, how did some of the greatest generals in the planet sit down with us to talk about how you build momentum into your game, into your battle plan, right? How do you win small, how do you create small victories to win momentum? And then business, know, some of the great business leaders and politics.

James Carville, Karl Rove, sat down with us to talk about how do you build momentum into a campaign to win an election? You want to peak at the right time, obviously. And so all of these were just fascinating conversations and people, when people find out who else you’re talking to, most people of significance kind of want to be in. They want to be in that conversation. So, wait, you got, I’d like to talk next, basically.

John Jantsch (17:58.496)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:04.366)

Yeah. So if somebody’s listening to this, a leader’s listening to this and they want to make it a part of their culture, because I think I hear that as much as, as anything, you know, you, got to get as many people to believe, you know, well, that’s, that’s probably the definition of culture. Um, is there a single habit or ritual that you’d tell somebody? Okay. You have to start this, this week.

Don Yaeger (18:26.579)

I think what you have as a habit among those that, again, I’m just the voice of the people that I had the chance to interview, was you speak truth into the conversation every week. If people start thinking that you’re blowing smoke, that you’re spinning the numbers, that you’re creating, like the company I was talking about last week.

If the CEO were to walk in and say, guys, we are right on the edge of just kicking the world by the tail. Everybody in the room would know that CEO was not telling the truth. So they were either disconnected from the truth or a liar. And you want to be neither of those things if you’re a leader. And so one of the most important things you have to do every week is speak truth into the situation so that you can then create a vision that others believe is possible.

John Jantsch (19:06.958)

you

Don Yaeger (19:22.161)

And that’s where you begin to create that belief system.

John Jantsch (19:25.802)

And I imagine for a lot of leaders, that’s hard because, you they’re looked up, you’re supposed to have all the answers, you know, you’re you’re like taking us someplace great, right. And so for them to admit, I don’t have all the answers or maybe things aren’t going like we thought, I mean, could be really tough, can’t it? Yeah.

Don Yaeger (19:28.115)

It’s very hard.

Don Yaeger (19:41.423)

It can be, but if you, the alternative is an absolute loser.

John Jantsch (19:48.77)

Yeah. Well, Don, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast. Is there someplace you’d invite people to? know you have your own podcast that you’d love people to listen to and then obviously find out about the new science of momentum.

Don Yaeger (19:58.365)

to corporate competitor.

Don Yaeger (20:04.913)

Yeah, you know, just Don Yeager.com and donyeager.com is the best place. because I know a lot of people misspell my last name, I own all iterations of my last name on the internet. And so, yeah, I welcome your listeners to the conversation.

John Jantsch (20:18.35)

Good for you.

John Jantsch (20:27.086)

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

Don Yaeger (20:32.765)

Good job, thank you.

How Books Can Shape Success

How Books Can Shape Success written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Todd Sattersten, publishing veteran, business book expert, and CEO of Bard Press. Todd’s new book, “100 Books for Work and Life,” distills a lifetime of reading and curation into a guide for anyone seeking wisdom, growth, and practical tools for success. Todd shares how he chose the top 100, why timeless and timely books both matter, and how reading with intention (not just for validation) can radically change your business, leadership, and life.

About the Guest

Todd Sattersten is CEO of Bard Press, a leading business book publisher and curator behind bestsellers like The One Thing and The Gift of Struggle. With more than two decades in the book industry, Todd is known for his discerning eye for transformative business and self-help books, and for helping authors shape works that stand the test of time.

Website: bardpress.com
Book & Resources: the100.best

Actionable Insights

The best books challenge your thinking, provide clarity, and offer practical storytelling you can use—regardless of their age.
Timeless books (like “How to Win Friends and Influence People” or “The Effective Executive”) are written so their lessons aren’t bound to any particular era.
Modern classics and timely books matter too—some topics need regular updates to stay relevant (especially around technology and culture).
“Tiny Habits” by BJ Fogg is an underrated gem for anyone wanting step-by-step guidance on changing behaviors.
Read for self-improvement, not just validation—step outside your comfort zone and seek books that challenge where you’re struggling most.
Reading with intention—looking for answers, frameworks, or new perspectives—makes any book more valuable than reading for volume or badges.
The right book at the right time can be transformative; the 100 Best is organized by 25 topics (with four books each) to help you find answers for what you need most.
For young entrepreneurs, Todd recommends:
1. “Badass” by Kathy Sierra (customer success focus)
2. “Influence” by Robert Cialdini (persuasion and leadership)
3. “The Coaching Habit” by Michael Bungay Stanier (coaching and people development)

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

00:43 – How the 100 Best Were Chosen
Key criteria: unique approach, clarity, and practical storytelling.
03:26 – The Power of Neuroscience at Work
How “Your Brain at Work” changed Todd’s perspective.
05:30 – Blurring the Line Between Work and Life
Why business and life books belong together—and how “Grit” bridges both.
08:14 – Four Years, 100 Books, 25 Topics
The research and curation process behind the book.
09:40 – Most Underrated Book?
“Tiny Habits” by BJ Fogg deserves more attention.
11:24 – What Makes a Book Timeless?
Why some classics never age and why we also need timely books.
13:35 – Newly Relevant Advice
Why “How to Win Friends and Influence People” still resonates today.
14:57 – Reading for Self-Improvement vs. Validation
The value of reading outside your comfort zone.
18:41 – Reading With Intention
How to find frameworks, answers, or new perspectives—even when the author didn’t intend them.
21:26 – Top Three for Young Entrepreneurs
Todd’s must-reads for those just starting out.

Insights

“Read for self-improvement, not just validation—seek books that challenge you where you need it most.”

“Classics are timeless because they focus on core human truths, not trends or technology.”

“Reading with intention—looking for specific answers or frameworks—makes every book more valuable.”

“The best business books are really about self-awareness, empathy, and leadership.”

“Coaching and customer success are foundational skills for every entrepreneur.”

[fusebox_trnscript]

7 Steps to a Complete Visibility Audit

7 Steps to a Complete Visibility Audit written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

On this solo episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch tackles the evolving world of SEO—and why it’s time to focus less on “rankings” and more on holistic digital visibility. John walks through a practical step-by-step visibility audit, highlighting the key areas every business must review: from AI overviews and Google Maps to reviews, media mentions, E-E-A-T, and content structured for modern search and answer engines. Whether you’re a local business or a national brand, this episode will help you see where you really stand (and what to fix first).

About the Host

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author of several best-selling books including Duct Tape Marketing and The Ultimate Marketing Engine. He’s the founder of Duct Tape Marketing, a trusted resource for small business owners and marketers looking to simplify and succeed with their marketing.

Website: ducttapemarketing.com
Podcast Archive: Duct Tape Marketing Podcast

Actionable Insights

SEO isn’t dead, but it’s now about visibility—not just rankings. Think: where are you seen when customers are searching, asking, or being referred?
Audit your presence in Google’s AI overviews: Search your top products, services, and brand questions in Google and see if your business is cited.
Check your local pack presence: Are you appearing in Google Maps results for relevant local searches?
Review volume, freshness, and sentiment matter: Google (and prospects) look for current, consistent, positive reviews—especially on Google Business Profile, Yelp, and industry sites.
Media mentions and authority: Are you being cited by credible sources, industry publications, or local media? These drive authority with both search engines and AI models.
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust): Are you demonstrating real proof on your website (bios, testimonials, transparent pricing, case studies, original research, schema markup)?
Structure content for AI: Step-by-step guides, FAQs, tables of contents, short answers, and conversational Q&A boost your chances of being surfaced in AI and answer engines.
Add CTAs everywhere: Make sure every key page and content section has clear calls to action—don’t make people hunt for how to contact, call, or buy.
Use tools and checklists: Tools like Gumshoe.ai and a structured audit checklist will help you track and improve your visibility across all touchpoints.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

00:01 – Why SEO Isn’t Dead—But Visibility Is What Matters
John reframes the conversation from rankings to real-world visibility.
01:35 – Elements of a Visibility Audit
The step-by-step checklist: AI overviews, local pack, reviews, media mentions, E-E-A-T, content fit, and CTAs.
02:25 – Using Tools Like Gumshoe.ai for AI Visibility
How to check your brand’s presence in AI answers.
03:34 – The Power of Local Pack and Reviews
Why freshness, volume, and sentiment of reviews matter for both trust and search.
04:44 – Authority & Media Mentions
How being cited by credible sources impacts your search and AI ranking.
05:45 – E-E-A-T in Action
Demonstrating expertise and trust on your website for both search engines and humans.
07:09 – Structuring Content for AI and Modern Search
Why FAQs, step-by-step guides, and clear answers are the new keyword strategy.
08:29 – CTAs: The Final Visibility Step
Make it clear and easy for visitors to take the next step.

Insights

“Visibility is the new SEO—showing up in AI, maps, reviews, and media is what really matters now.”

“A single, strong review in the last month is worth more than a hundred from three years ago.”

“AI and answer engines reward structured content—step-by-step guides, FAQs, and short, clear answers.”

“Don’t just rank—be seen, be trusted, and make it easy for people to take action.”

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.154)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and no guest today. I’m going to do a solo show. I’m to do, in fact, a couple of shows on the whole broad topic of SEO, which depending upon who you talk to today is either dead or has at least a new name. And so I’m going to add to that conversation. SEO is definitely not dead. However, I’m going to add to that conversation that I think we need to think about it differently. It is more about

visibility. That’s what we’re really trying to get our clients not so much rankings. It’s visibility in a lot of the different ways that people are choosing to find their answers. Obviously people are going to AI tools, Google and other search engines are showing them AI answers. So there’s no question that that is become a part of the game that we have to pay attention to, but not at the absence of many of the other things. I mean, people still make recommendations. make her

referrals for a lot of businesses. They are definitely going to Google, looking in that map pack and they’re looking at your reviews. So there’s many things that lead to whether or not somebody’s going to go on that journey with you or not. Obviously, one of the steps is about being seen and found, but it’s a lot more, it goes a lot deeper than just that element. So what I want to talk about today is actually doing a visibility audit. I’m going to give you the elements that I think are important and talk a little bit about.

how you might think about them and how you might do them as well. And then we’ll have a checklist in the show notes for this. So if you want to head on over to Duct Tape Marketing, the podcast and find the show, the visibility audit, you will be able to acquire that checklist as well. So let’s get into the steps in there. So the first one is, your brand showing up?

in Google’s AI overview. So pretty simple. Go to Google and search the top service products, questions in Google that are related to your company, your industry, your brand, and see if you get cited in any of those. Now, as we go through these, if you and you do have the checklist, you can assign a score to that. Do a dozen or so searches and one to five. How’d you do?

John Jantsch (02:25.902)

There’s a tool out there that I’ve been playing around with that I’ll tell you about. called Gumshoe.ai. And it will really give you, I think, some, you can run a report and get the very detailed information about where you show up in AI. All right, the next one, and this is of course, hyper, hyper important for local businesses, and that is your local pack presence. So on the maps, when somebody searches and it’s clearly a…

a location based type of search. mean, sometimes people actually put a town in there, but even if they don’t, if they’re looking for something in a town, you Google knows where they are. So do searches around your same thing, your business, your industry, your products and services, your brand. And do you appear in the Google map pack? So, you know, do if you’re happened to be in that town, you can do your service near you. Checklisting star reviews.

you know, optimization, not just of your own, but look at your competitors. What are they doing? All right. Speaking of reviews, volume, freshness, sentiment, all really count. Google doesn’t want to see that you’ve got a hundred reviews one day and then haven’t gotten any for three years. So are your reviews strong and recent enough to inspire trust? Because it’s not just Google. It’s the, know, if you go somewhere and nobody’s reviewed a business for four years, doesn’t that make you a little…

suspicious, right? So go to Google business profile, of course, but also today, you know, I used to kind of be negative on Yelp and I’m still not a huge fan of Yelp. But increasingly, those reviews are being drawn in by AI. So we need to look at all the industry review sites, look at the count rating recency responses. Again, this can apply for your competitors as well.

Media mentions and authority, a big, big part of the game and showing up today is really about authority and most media sites, like it or not, are seen as authority. So if you get quoted in the local paper, if you get quoted in the Wall Street Journal, and they link back to your website, even if they don’t link back to your website, but they mention your business.

John Jantsch (04:44.686)

All the crawlers are now picking that kind of information up and really assigning a lot of authority if the Wall Street Journal talked about you you must know something so Is your business being cited in any credible resources or sources? I should say beyond your own website You can look in Google News You can do podcast searches you can use tools like refs or SM some rush

You know, tools like that to find citations, backlinks, mentions of your brand. And again, right now all we’re doing is auditing. These are the key components. Once you have a sense of, or a sense of dread, or a sense of where you stand, these, then we can start talking about how to fix them. All right. You’ve probably heard people talk about this acronym EAT, E-E-A-T. So it stands for experience.

expertise, authority, and trust. It’s basically proof points, especially on your website. So are you adding experience, expertise, authority, and trust in any of your webpages, any of your blog posts? So do you have author bios? Do we have testimonials? Do we have pricing this transparent? Are there case studies? Is there original research? Schema markup also helps identify what those various elements are.

You know, even if you’ve written content three, four years ago, going back and thinking about, you know, how could we add a case study, an actual example of somebody getting a result that we’re talking about here? How can we get quotes from other from clients or how can we get quotes from other experts that would really validate what it is that we’re talking about? All right. Content fit for AI. So is your content structured for AI?

There is now a somewhat formulaic way to make your content more structured for AI. So things like lists, step-by-step how-tos, answers. You’ve probably heard people talk about answer engine optimization. And a lot of times people are going to AI tools and asking very long detailed filtered questions. So the more you can provide these short structured answers to the types of questions that people are asking in conversation,

John Jantsch (07:09.974)

it’s totally different than ranking for some keyword term. You might show up for a percentage of searches on a very specific term because you’ve answered a very specific answer. So FAQs fit right into that as well. So you can again, go back to your content if you’ve written it before and add a step-by-step how-to, add an overview of what the content is, add a table of contents to the…

Add some questions, even have some of your headlines be questions and then answer the question in there. And then one simple way, let’s say you’re a modeling contractor and you do kitchens, baths and additions. Well, you hopefully have service pages for all three of those elements that demonstrate you do lots of great work in those categories. But why not have FAQs on every single one of those pages? People have questions.

And so it’s very useful content to be answering the specific questions that people have, but it’s also amazing search content. It’s amazing AI content. So make sure you’re doing it. And lastly, what are your calls to action? mean, is it, once somebody finds you, it clear what they should do next? So look at all of your top pages. Are there CTAs to call or to book or to actually buy or to contact you?

give people multiple options to just click on, know, have that phone number up at the very top or have that email or have that evaluation form right there on the above the fold on the homepage so that they don’t have to go looking for it, but also in context of when they’re actually looking at a service, maybe they’re actually down to the part where they’re reading the FAQs, make sure you have CTAs there as well. So.

Those are some things that you might want to audit as a visibility type of approach. Like I said, we’ll have the show in the show notes. We’ll actually have a checklist for this tool as well. So that’s it for today. I’m going to do another show pretty soon. Also on the topics around visibility, the topics around how to create content that that will rank for both the search engines. Again, we’ve got to rank for

John Jantsch (09:28.502)

for algorithms, for search engines, for AI bots, and let’s not forget, for people. So thanks for tuning in today. Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

How to Turn LinkedIn into a B2B Lead Machine – Anthony Blatner Explains

How to Turn LinkedIn into a B2B Lead Machine – Anthony Blatner Explains written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Anthony Blatner, founder of Speedwork Social—a leading LinkedIn ads agency specializing in helping B2B companies generate high-quality leads and close enterprise deals. Anthony shares his insights on what makes LinkedIn ads uniquely valuable for B2B marketers, how to avoid common (and costly) setup mistakes, and the latest strategies for leveraging thought leader ads, retargeting, and creative best practices. If you want to get more ROI from LinkedIn and turn it into your top source for qualified leads, this episode is packed with actionable tips.

About the Guest

Anthony Blatner is the founder of Speedwork Social, a top LinkedIn ads agency that helps B2B businesses—from SaaS startups to Fortune 500s—scale revenue with advanced paid media strategies. With a background in software and enterprise sales, Anthony brings deep expertise in targeting, analytics, and campaign optimization.

Actionable Insights

LinkedIn’s unique value for B2B: unmatched professional targeting (job title, company, industry, size), active tech/marketing/recruiting audiences, and robust analytics.
Avoid default settings—LinkedIn’s ad defaults favor large budgets and broad reach; custom, niche targeting is key for B2B success.
Winning campaign structures:
- Lead generation with value-first offers (guides, webinars, newsletters) and retargeting.
- Thought Leader Ads—boosting posts from founders, CEOs, or influencers to drive engagement and trust.
Case studies and educational posts outperform “hard sell” ads—people want to learn from peers, not be pitched by brands.
Build audiences by analyzing best customers, identifying true job titles and industries, and layering in skills, groups, or custom company lists for precision.
Minimum viable budgets: LinkedIn CPCs are higher, so a $15K+ customer LTV is ideal; Thought Leader Ads can get costs down to $1–$2/click when done right.
Retargeting is powerful: Use LinkedIn’s pixel to reach website or company page visitors with tailored follow-up.
Lead gen forms vs. landing pages: LinkedIn forms typically lower CPL, but landing pages are required for Thought Leader Ads.
Clarity > flash: For ad creative, be direct about who you’re targeting and what you’re offering. Avoid untargeted clicks.
AI is useful for creative testing, but authenticity and personal content still win—especially as LinkedIn’s culture evolves.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

00:50 – Why LinkedIn Ads?
What sets LinkedIn apart for B2B targeting and campaign measurement.
01:59 – Who Wins on LinkedIn?
The most active industries (tech, SaaS, recruiting, marketing) and how niche targeting works.
03:29 – The Big Mistake: Default Settings
Why most new advertisers waste money and how to structure campaigns for results.
04:15 – Lead Magnets & Thought Leader Ads
The two best-performing B2B strategies right now.
06:36 – Boosting Posts and Influencer Content
How to leverage company leaders (or external influencers) for greater engagement.
08:45 – Audience Building & Secret Sauces
How to go beyond job title targeting for hyper-precise reach.
11:44 – Budgeting for LinkedIn
What you need to make the economics work—and how Thought Leader Ads can cut costs.
14:33 – Retargeting & Company Page Visitors
Why you should pixel your site and retarget warm audiences.
15:19 – LinkedIn Forms vs. Landing Pages
When to use each and why.
16:33 – Creative Best Practices
Why clarity and fit matter more than flash—and how to avoid expensive untargeted clicks.
18:38 – AI’s Role in LinkedIn Ads
Where AI helps, where authenticity matters, and what’s next for the platform.

Insights

“LinkedIn’s real power is in its targeting. You can’t reach decision-makers this precisely anywhere else.”

“Lead with value—guides, webinars, case studies—and build trust before asking for the sale.”

“Thought Leader Ads are crushing traditional company ads; people want to hear from people, not brands.”

“Don’t rely on default settings—custom, precise targeting delivers better results and lower costs.”

“For creative, be clear, direct, and targeted—don’t pay $10+ for clicks that don’t fit your ICP.”

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00.924)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Anthony Blatner. He is the founder of Speedwork Social, a leading LinkedIn ads agency that helps B2B companies generate high quality leads, close enterprise deals and scale revenue using advanced paid media strategies. With a background in software and enterprise sales, Anthony has helped hundreds of businesses from SaaS startups to Fortune 500s, leverage, link.

ends robust targeting and analytics for measurable results. So Anthony, welcome to the show.

Anthony Blatner (00:35.564)

Hey, John, thanks for having me. Excited to be here and talk about LinkedIn marketing.

John Jantsch (00:37.382)

So you bet. let’s just start the basics. mean, what makes LinkedIn ads uniquely valuable? You mentioned B2B specifically for B2B markers compared to other social ad platforms.

Anthony Blatner (00:50.764)

Yeah, the biggest thing about LinkedIn is the audience. Number one, who visits LinkedIn compared to who visits other platforms. It’s definitely the professional audience. Everyone starts by creating their LinkedIn usually when they’re entering the job market. So that’s where it starts. Some people never updated after that, but a lot of people do along their career path. And it’s also evolved into more of a social platform now.

on the business, a lot of it on the business professional side. So number one’s audience. And then number two is just pure how you can target people because people start with using it as their resume, their job titles, their companies, those company pages are all, that data is there. It’s all filled out pretty up to date. So having those ways of target people based on job title, company, industry, company size, those options like don’t exist on.

almost any other platform. it’s a great way to be able to target those types of professionals. So if you’re a B2B company looking to target a niche professional, then LinkedIn usually has the best options for you.

John Jantsch (01:53.712)

Are there industries or types of offers that do particularly well on LinkedIn that you’ve seen?

Anthony Blatner (01:59.852)

Yeah, there’s a wide variety. I’d say overall it’s like who visits LinkedIn the most and it is mostly like the tech oriented industries, the more digitally active industries. Those are the most active. So tech software SaaS is like the biggest one. After that, it’s a lot of the marketers out there. So the marketing industry is big and active on LinkedIn. And then past that, a lot of it’s…

John Jantsch (02:02.076)

Yeah.

Anthony Blatner (02:25.484)

Like the recruiting industry, HR is very big on LinkedIn because they’re doing a lot of that recruiting. A lot of those people, you know, spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. so then you get into industries like that. and that said these days, it’s always like interesting when we have a very niche audience and we build it out and size it up, how many people we can find. and then on LinkedIn, but then pass that just depends on the activity level of that audience.

industries that tend to be more of like working in the field industries. They might not be as active. So definitely the tech software and then the marketing folks.

John Jantsch (02:59.25)

So I’ll be honest, I have a lot of people that come to me and say, I’ve tried LinkedIn, I can’t make it work. And it’s really expensive. I’m guessing they’re probably just going on there and just doing whatever the easy button is to set up an ad or something. Are you finding that there’s a campaign structure or type that delivers consistently and maybe without spending too much time, we ought to identify kind of the various options on LinkedIn. But are you finding like right now today, this campaign structure really works?

Anthony Blatner (03:29.388)

Yes. So there’s kind of two, two ones that are the main ones, the winning ones right now that I recommended most people to start with. but before I get into that, you’re definitely right. People get onto LinkedIn, they try the ads platform and they will see much higher CPMs and CPCs than other platforms. So when you compare it with like Facebook or other advertising platforms, like your costs are going to look a lot higher.

John Jantsch (03:54.182)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Blatner (03:54.23)

And then the challenge is most people will just, you know, if they’re not familiar with the platform, they’re just going to set it up, use the default settings, click launch, just like they would on Facebook or Google. But a lot of those default settings aren’t great for your small to medium sized business. They’re more built for enterprise businesses. So you might.

John Jantsch (04:12.498)

Or for LinkedIn to make a lot of money.

Anthony Blatner (04:15.283)

Yes, yes. know, ad platforms are in the business of them, you know, making money themselves. So a lot of those default settings aren’t, aren’t serving, you know, the small to medium sized business. So we usually recommend changing a lot of those initial settings because somebody might set up a campaign, click launch, and then you then find out your budget didn’t reach who you really wanted it to reach due to audience expansion options. And then it didn’t serve exactly where you wanted it to. It served more on third party websites, part of the ad network.

of LinkedIn because of the default option. So you spent your money, you didn’t reach who you wanted, you didn’t serve your ads where you wanted. So of course you didn’t get any good results out of it. So that’s the most common scenario of what, when we review accounts. So when you use the right settings, you can reach the right professionals and, you know, drive some results. And the main two things right now, the main two things in general that work, the first one is kind of more the traditional one, B2B.

sales takes a long time. So it’s not going to be like selling widgets on Facebook, be an e-commerce store. Someone’s probably not going to click and buy right away. So you kind of have to plan for the long game. You might to start that.

interaction, you might offer what we call a lead magnet, which is like a guide or report. You might get somebody to sign up for a webinar, sign up for a newsletter. What’s that stepping stone to start it on the way to making a purchase? And you might then retarget them to then offer them a demo or a consultation afterwards. first one is lead with value. Lead magnets and lead generation campaigns are always a good way to do that. Those are always, you know, it’s kind of a traditional tactic.

The newer one is what we call thought leader ads. And this is just the boosting of posts of people on LinkedIn. So you’ll post on LinkedIn from your profile. And as of maybe about a year ago, now you can boost posts from people. So we just see that these perform so much better than a traditional company ad because people are on LinkedIn to hear from other people, not to read ads from companies. They’re there to hear from other people. So those do…

John Jantsch (06:20.178)

So walk me through that a little bit. that similar to, would you actually have some sort of arrangement with that thought leader to where they would write a post that’s maybe favorable to something you’re trying to push, almost like an influencer would, you know, in other platforms?

Anthony Blatner (06:36.245)

Yes. Yeah. And you can set up like, you know, external influencers, but probably step one is you yourself or people in your company or your CEO and founder. that’s, that’s usually the, it’s just called thought leader ads is the name of what the ad unit is. So most companies are going to start with their founder, CEO or themselves. And then.

John Jantsch (06:46.031)

I see.

John Jantsch (06:50.063)

Okay, okay.

Anthony Blatner (06:56.363)

I mean, nowadays, yes, lots of people are setting up arrangements with third party influencers and doing those kind of, you know, sponsored deals. yeah, stuff one is like your CEO, founder. And then like, you know, there’s a lot of content. You think about it a little bit differently where it’s like, what is somebody going to post that somebody wants, that their prospect wants to read and then starts that interaction. So what we see work very well.

across the board, like different industries have different things that are going to work in different companies, but across the board, it’s like a really good case study is a great way to kind of start that because people are on LinkedIn to learn from others and learn how they can do better at their job or in their company. So often they want to read successful case studies by similar companies, similar people. So that’s a great content format to start with. So if you have really strong case studies, write that as a

John Jantsch (07:32.018)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Blatner (07:51.382)

as a post and you do have to write it up like, hey, I’m going to teach you something, read this. And then if you are interested in what we did, you can contact me, you can click here to learn more, and then you can kind of continue the journey from there. we just see that those get so much higher engagement rates and LinkedIn reports on dwell time, which means people are, and we get those stats so we can see people are sitting there and reading that content two to three times longer than a traditional company ad. So it just shows like people are reading this content, they’re absorbing it and like that’s what we want out of marketing.

John Jantsch (08:21.222)

Yeah. So is there any secret sauce to targeting? You know, you’ve got all the selects that they give you seniority, company size, job title, all those kinds of things. But I still feel like that doesn’t get narrow enough. know, are you, are there targeting mistakes that you commonly see or are there, I guess I’m asking this two ways. How do people make mistakes and then like, how do people succeed? What’s the secret sauce?

Anthony Blatner (08:45.163)

Yes, there’s a lot of sauces and lots of flavors on LinkedIn. But it starts with number one is that what I told you earlier of like, don’t use the default settings because default it says audience expansion and like even Facebook and Google try to do the same thing. I think there’s might be a little more clear sometimes, but you know, on LinkedIn, when you’re selling B2B, you usually want to target a very specific professional at a very specific type of company. So when you have, when you allow the algorithm to go find similar people, suddenly you’ve made a couple hops in our

not in the industry and job you want to be reaching. So that’s number one. From there, secret sauces are, we usually start with like audience research. Give me a few of your best customers or a few of your target customers. Let’s go download their, you know, look at their profiles. What, how do they categorize themselves? What are the job titles? What are the industry’s company sizes? And then we’ll build a demographic profile from that of who we want to target.

John Jantsch (09:16.144)

Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Blatner (09:41.014)

And then the way to kind of take that a step further is to get more niche into what are the skills or interests or groups on top of that. When you do Facebook and Google advertising, often you give it a very big audience and you let the algorithm go find the right person for you. Lincoln’s algorithm, you know, isn’t as advanced as these other platforms, but we also don’t need it to be. just, we don’t want the algorithm to do any work for us. We want to

We want to have the campaigns reach exactly who we want. So don’t give it very broad, very big audiences, give it very small and niche audiences of exactly who you want to reach. And then past that, kind of the most advanced thing that we often recommend is to build your own company lists when appropriate, when you can do that. There’s a lot of third party data platforms out there that can be useful, but also if you’re, you know, if you’re

If you know your industry, you can sit down and often like write that list yourself or have a BDR salesperson write that list. And then can upload that to LinkedIn and make sure you’re going after the exact companies you want. Because not always, there isn’t always a LinkedIn industry definition for the exact industry you want to reach. And sometimes you have to make your own list.

So, what am I saying?

John Jantsch (11:00.786)

So how do you, okay, no, no, no. think just, you know, we’re obviously we’ve got 20 minutes. We’re not gonna teach everybody all the ins and outs, but I think just what you’ve said at a high level certainly ought to at least put people on notice about how they need to be thinking. So let’s talk a little bit about budgets. I’m sure you have some clients that, you know, have been used to paying, you know, $1.17 for a click on Facebook and all of a sudden see $6 on LinkedIn. Obviously it all comes down to ROI.

Does that $6 produce better than the $1.17? How do you make the economics work? How do you do the reporting so that you can make a case for saying, this is money well spent?

Anthony Blatner (11:44.876)

Yeah. So number one, does start with having higher costs as a platform. Just, you do have to have a high enough LTV for that ROI to make sense in the end. So you’re probably not going to be selling kind of small widgets or very cheap services. If you do, you would just stick to the organic side of the platform. You probably wouldn’t spend too much on ads or maybe your ads are just retargeting people who are already visiting your website. So you use stuff like that.

But yeah, you need to have a high enough LTV for that ROI to make sense. So usually we say you want to have at least 15K of your LTV. So this is more enterprise level software, more, you know, bigger ongoing services. So if you know like, Hey, you know, maybe I do client services and on average, your client sticks with us for a year and we make 20K from that client. Great. You’re a good fit.

John Jantsch (12:26.81)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Blatner (12:38.381)

If you’re 10K or lower, 15K or lower, then you just want to be a little more careful of making sure your stats are working out and that you are keeping clients or retaining clients. So that’s usually what we say to people. That line I’d say is moving a little bit with the new Thought Leader ads. The other advantage is they get so much higher engagement rate and people sit there and read it to all time like I talked about, which then allows you to get cheaper costs on your ads.

Like every other ad platform, they want to be delivering content that the user, their user wants to engage with that keeps them on the platform. So if your content is getting very high engagement rate, that’s a good sign for the platform. They give you a discount on your ad costs. Inversely, if your content does not get much engagement, not many clicks and stuff, then they charge you a premium. So it’s all playing that game. So with Thought Leader Ads, does allow you to get higher engagement rates, get cheaper costs, and then

You know, your, your LTV could be lower than if you’re having good thought leader campaign running because Hey, maybe you are getting cause like to give you some benchmarks is you said six bucks, but I’d say the average LinkedIn click is like 10 to 15 bucks for a standard company page ad. So that’s expensive. Um, so yeah, you just need to make sure your ROI is, is going to work out there with the thought leader ad. If you are getting very high engagement, we see thought leader ads get one to $2.

John Jantsch (13:38.226)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (13:46.875)

Okay.

Anthony Blatner (14:00.749)

per click and then you are comparable with a Facebook ad and maybe even better than a Facebook ad. Some of the best ones we’re running right now are below a dollar per click and are just crushing the Facebook results that they’re getting on Facebook because we have the targeting we want on LinkedIn. So kind of all comes down to this.

John Jantsch (14:00.914)

Okay.

John Jantsch (14:18.126)

You mentioned something I want to circle back to you, retargeting. Can you, do they have the similar pixel idea that you can actually put on your website and then you, can you run only retargeting ads? So somebody’s come to your website, now they hopped over to LinkedIn, now they’re going to see your ad. Yeah.

Anthony Blatner (14:33.355)

Yeah, definitely. The two things are most common is website retargeting. yeah, same pixel, very similar to like Metis pixel. It’ll track who visits your website and then retarget those people. And then also people who visit your company page. You can retarget those people as well. Company pages rank very well in Google. So often we’ll see, you already have a good amount of traffic to your company page. People are already visiting. Let’s start by retargeting.

John Jantsch (14:40.476)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (14:58.172)

So one of the things that it seems like almost all the social platforms are doing, you used to run an ad and you’d drive people to a landing page, but now they’ve all come up with their own sort of lead capture form and they seem to be encouraging people to use their forms. Do you see that to be true or do you have something that you recommend one way or the other?

Anthony Blatner (15:19.239)

Yeah. So I still, there’s still cases for both. We, I do often recommend the LinkedIn forms because you’re just, your CPLs are going to be better, much better than having somebody click off to a website, submit a form there. And when you’re already paying LinkedIn’s higher prices, you just, need that math to make better sense for you. So you do use LinkedIn’s forms a lot. You know, your average executive might not spend too much time.

John Jantsch (15:29.904)

Yeah.

Anthony Blatner (15:46.062)

clicking off to a website, reading a bunch, finding the form, submitting it. So let’s just make that an easy process. But with the Thought Leader ads, you can’t use the native form. So we do still use landing pages a lot with Thought Leader ads. But then again, the benefit of those, you get cheaper cost per clicks. So you can get cheaper cost per clicks to your landing page.

John Jantsch (16:08.434)

How do you handle ad creative and copy? You know, it’s not quite the same as, you’re not gonna have a reel or a video or something in an ad, I suspect. is there, have you kind of cracked what? And again, having said this, answer, whatever you answer, I know that like it’s two months from now, might be a different answer. But what are you finding that’s working right now from a creative and copy standpoint?

Anthony Blatner (16:28.982)

Right.

Anthony Blatner (16:33.611)

Yeah. And it’s interesting, like LinkedIn continues to evolve and in a way we see it getting closer to like a, to a Facebook and the style of creative people are using. I think just as it matures as a social platform, the more people use it, you know, we see what, what we see, gets human attention on Metta and human attention is on LinkedIn too. So it works on LinkedIn. So we’re seeing more of that style start to bleed into LinkedIn. That’s also to say like B2B

John Jantsch (16:37.127)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:57.382)

Yeah.

Anthony Blatner (17:01.951)

Creative could always use like some spicing up. So we don’t mind some of that You know the the creative style a couple things I usually recommend number one is You don’t want to go too far into the Facebook side of things where like Facebook marketing tends to be very flashy get someone’s attention draw them in get the click on LinkedIn you want to be more clear and direct who is this for and what are you offering because Even with Lincoln’s good targeting, you know

John Jantsch (17:05.362)

Yeah

Anthony Blatner (17:30.161)

You still will have an audience and not everyone in that audience is a perfect fit So you want to you want to reduce the unintentional? Untargeted clicks again back to those expensive prices if somebody isn’t a perfect fit You don’t want to just grab their attention to get them to click on something that’s not relevant And then you paid 15 bucks for that click. So you want to make sure you’re getting targeted clicks. We do keep creative a little more Clear and direct under who who are we talking to? What are we offering so that we get the most clear?

John Jantsch (17:40.945)

Mm-hmm.

Anthony Blatner (17:58.628)

get the most targeted traffic that does come through.

John Jantsch (18:01.83)

Yeah, it is interesting. You’re seeing the culture, if you will, change a little on LinkedIn. I mean, it used to be people would actually give people crap for posting personal stuff on LinkedIn, you know, and, now it’s like, no, it’s, it’s definitely become a more, I mean, it is a lot of business stuff there, but you definitely see people posting, you know, more personal types of things there as well, don’t you?

Anthony Blatner (18:09.929)

Yeah.

Anthony Blatner (18:21.141)

Yeah. And I think, I think there’s like a benefit to that too. You know, it doesn’t need to be all just business. It’s nice to get to know people a little bit. so I do appreciate that type of.

John Jantsch (18:24.006)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m curious how is, AI has impacted every industry. I’m curious how it’s impacting what you’re doing for folks on LinkedIn.

Anthony Blatner (18:38.893)

Yeah. AI on social is a whole can of worms. I’d say like right now, the thing that LinkedIn does need to figure out is the, there are a lot of AI comments that get left on things. And like, can just, most of the time you can tell like that’s an AI comment. That’s an AI comment. I know they’re taking steps in the right direction. It’s a hard problem to solve because, you know, sometimes it’s hard to tell when someone’s really commenting. Thanks versus AI. Thanks.

John Jantsch (18:55.762)

100%.

Anthony Blatner (19:08.683)

But, you know, think they’re, I think they’re taking steps in right direction. They just, that needs to be figured out because there is some fluff and spam with that. And not to say it’s any better on Facebook, like if anything is worse on Facebook. So there’s like the authenticity aspect. And I think, you know, when you’re buying something for your business, when you’re spending more money, people are going to critique it, analyze it more before they make that purchase. So I don’t know, you know,

John Jantsch (19:18.203)

Okay.

Anthony Blatner (19:38.463)

Right now, like AI generated videos aren’t super useful or effective because there’s no authenticity to that. People don’t trust that content. So it doesn’t, doesn’t work. So it’ll, it’s interesting, you know, we’ll see what happens. Sure. AI copy that’s helpful for marketers. It’s helpful for everyone to create content. Sometimes you’re in niche industries and it’s hard to, you know, it takes a lot of time to learn that industry. So you’ll use AI to help you write that content or

John Jantsch (19:46.406)

Yeah.

Anthony Blatner (20:06.583)

Ticker content, that’s all beneficial. So very early days, we’ll see what what happens with it.

John Jantsch (20:12.518)

I certainly like it for testing. If you’re trying to run 27 versions of an ad to figure out what’s going to work, it’s pretty good at doing that type of work. So, Antony, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there somewhere you’d invite people to learn about your work and connect with you?

Anthony Blatner (20:33.773)

You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m the only Anthony Blattner on LinkedIn. And I try to talk a lot about LinkedIn ads, LinkedIn marketing, always sharing best practices. So that’s the number one place just on LinkedIn. And then past that, we have a podcast, LinkedIn ads radio that we share all LinkedIn best practices. And then our website speedworksocial.com if you want help with your LinkedIn.

John Jantsch (20:57.306)

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

Anthony Blatner (21:02.754)

Sounds good, thanks for having me.

From SEO to AEO: Todd Sawicki Reveals How AI Is Transforming Search

From SEO to AEO: Todd Sawicki Reveals How AI Is Transforming Search written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Todd Sawicki, founder and CEO of Gumshoe AI, a cutting-edge platform helping marketers navigate the rapidly evolving world of AI-driven search and discovery. Todd breaks down what AIO, AEO, and AI search really mean for marketers, why buyer behavior is shifting, and how brands can optimize for the new era where large language models (LLMs) drive discovery, answers, and conversions. If you’re looking for practical ways to future-proof your SEO and content marketing, this episode is packed with actionable insights and big-picture context.

About the Guest

Todd Sawicki is the founder and CEO of Gumshoe AI, a platform at the forefront of AI-driven search and discovery solutions. With a deep background in digital media, marketing technology, and scaling startups, Todd is a sought-after voice on the future of search, LLM optimization, and how marketers can adapt as buyer behavior and search platforms are transformed by AI.

Website & Free Report: gumshoe.ai

Actionable Insights

AI-driven search (AIO, AEO) is fundamentally changing how buyers search, what they expect, and how marketers must optimize—think “training the AI salesperson” rather than just ranking on Google.
LLMs (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews) are increasingly personalizing answers, using your site’s content, FAQs, product detail pages, and structured data to deliver tailored recommendations.
AI search users are high-intent and convert at dramatically higher rates—often 2–20x higher than traditional organic or paid search—because they are pre-qualified and further down the funnel.
Content quality, structure, and freshness matter more than ever; LLMs reward authoritative, updated, and well-organized information, not just what’s most popular or backlinked.
Updating and repurposing existing content (especially with FAQs, schema, and summaries) is critical—LLMs cite content that has been updated within the last 90 days.
Competitive insights and personas are key: Tools like Gumshoe can reveal what LLMs say about you, your competitors, and which personas they surface—providing messaging ideas and identifying areas to improve.
Focus on high-intent, conversion-focused queries (not just top-of-funnel trends) and use AI insights to build better ad campaigns, content, and product positioning.
Track, measure, and iterate: AI traffic is growing fast—use analytics to see where it’s coming from, how it performs, and how your optimizations are working.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

01:31 – The Rise of AI Search and Zero-Click Experiences
How AI-driven search is changing user expectations, buyer behavior, and marketing priorities.
03:21 – Why Buyer Behavior Matters More Than Technology
Users are asking longer, more complex, and more high-intent questions, and expect personalized answers.
05:18 – The Value of AI Traffic
Why visitors from AI answers convert at much higher rates—and what marketers should do about it.
06:49 – Training the AI Salesperson
How to “teach” LLMs about your product, and why product marketing and messaging matter more than old-school SEO tactics.
08:30 – What Content Do LLMs Prefer?
Brand websites, FAQs, knowledge bases, and structured content are the top sources cited by AI.
09:52 – Why Doing Content Right Pays Off
How years of quality content and structure are finally being rewarded by AI-driven platforms.
12:26 – Content Freshness, Updates, and Repurposing
The average AI-cited content is only 86 days old—updating and repurposing is critical for ongoing visibility.
14:42 – How Gumshoe AI Works
Using personas, synthetic users, and competitive insights to see what LLMs are saying about your business—and what to do next.
20:38 – The Future of High-Intent Search
Marketers must focus on conversion-ready, long-tail queries and position for the new funnel managed by AI.

Insights

“AI-driven search means you have to train the AI like you’d train a salesperson—answer objections, provide detailed info, and position your product for each persona.”

“Content quality, structure, and freshness are the new currency—LLMs reward the right answers, not just the most popular ones.”

“Focus on high-intent, conversion-ready queries—AI search gets users further down the funnel, and marketers need to adapt their messaging and content to win.”

“Analytics prove it: AI-driven visitors stay longer and convert more. Optimize now and track what’s working as AI’s role in discovery grows.”

“Competitive intelligence and persona insights are critical—know what LLMs say about you and your competitors to improve your messaging and positioning.”

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:02.52)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Todd Sawicki. He’s the founder and CEO of Gum Shoe AI, an innovative platform at the forefront of AI-driven search and discovery solutions. With a background in digital media marketing technology and leading high-growth startups, Todd is known for his deep insight into changing landscape of search. We’re going to talk about SEO, we’re going to talk about AIO, AEO, all the

Other rows that are out there.

Todd Sawicki (00:33.81)

As long as we don’t call it GEO, what, you can tell the person who came up with that had no background in marketing because I’m sorry, the minute I’ve been in the paid landscape, the minute you see the letters GEO, you instantly think of geo targeting, hello people, the last thing we wanna do is make anything more confusing than it might otherwise be. So, my little soapbox for today.

John Jantsch (00:48.622)

Sure,

John Jantsch (00:54.86)

And so with that, with that Todd’s on the show. So welcome Todd. So let’s, mean, I kind of laid that out a little bit. You know, you’ve created a tool that is really taking advantage of some of the changes that are going on in marketing today, especially around search. So maybe give a high level kind of in your view, let’s start with the basics. All this stuff we’re hearing about.

Todd Sawicki (01:10.609)

Yes.

John Jantsch (01:21.41)

GEO for one, AIO, AIO, know, all those kinds of things. I mean, what does it all really boil down to for the typical marketer or typical business?

Todd Sawicki (01:31.374)

It is a it is a good question. So I think we all woke up a year ago. And with the rise of zero click searches with AI mode in Google search taking off, and we began to see Google traffic starting to decline. And at the same time, if anyone was sort of looking at their, like GA four analytics or whatever they’re using, they started to see, look, I’m getting this new basket of traffic from chat, tbt and others. And so AI

John Jantsch (01:50.478)

Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (01:58.706)

and sort of looking at that. so the AI search is taking off. And so as a marketer, suddenly you had to start paying to this attention, this new thing called AI search. And so fundamentally, we look at it as, you know, marketers want to understand what the hell are LMS saying about me. And then from a product standpoint, we like to say yes, we help marketers understand what LMS think about them and their brands, and ultimately what to do about it. And I think that’s one of the interesting things is there’s a lot more you can do about it, because AI search is a

fundamentally different platform and approach than traditional search and really in many ways I think a search is solving a lot of the problems we’ve been complaints as end users we’ve had about traditional search and then there’s downstream applications for marketers and how to think about how you work with those platforms as a result.

John Jantsch (02:45.262)

Well, and I think you’re hitting on one of the things that I try to get people to understand. Everybody always goes, oh, we’ve got these new platforms. Um, but what they fail sometimes to recognize is that the buyer behavior is changing because of these new platforms and how people, what their expectations are, how they now go to, even to Google. mean, I’m seeing people do this. We used to put it in these nice little compact searches. Well, I’m seeing people put in these very long searches now, very high intent, you know, very filtered almost because they know they can get AI overviews and things. And I think that.

Todd Sawicki (02:57.202)

Correct.

Todd Sawicki (03:09.039)

Exactly.

John Jantsch (03:15.222)

change is really what we really need to adjust to, right? It’s not necessarily the technology, is it?

Todd Sawicki (03:21.778)

I agree users have fundamentally changed and you probably hear this even anecdotally amongst your friend sets. Like you start kind of experimenting with chat tpt or perplexity or whatever it is and you’re like you ask it a real deep question that you know is very frustrating to get answered in traditional search and you would have to click through 10 things and it was just a pain in the ass and took a lot of time and where now you get a pretty good answer most of the time right away and it fundamentally changes the experience. I mean we’re seeing dramatic thing changes especially in complex areas like b2b type searches.

It’s a great use case when you’re researching very technical things. You’re researching like more long tail areas for traditional search work wonderfully in the world of AI. And I think the other thing that traditional search really did a poor job of, and it really shows up in AI search is AI search does a phenomenal job of personalizing its answers for you. And that is one of the things that

in even in terms of our own product and platform, but the implications of that are very interesting. And so as an end user rate, would you imagine think of the LM as you walk into a shoe store, and there’s a wall of 500 pairs of shoes behind that salesperson as you walk in, and the LM is the salesperson. And so you’re trying to know what’s the right pair of shoes? Well, Google you do it doesn’t really ever answer I need a new pair of shoes, you would never like Google just would struggle with that. But with

John Jantsch (04:43.488)

Or give you the most popular shoes or whatever.

Todd Sawicki (04:45.488)

Or give you the most popular one. Exactly. Just give you the most popular one. But the LLMs are really trying to understand, are you a runner? Are you a hiker? you have an account, you register, they’re building profiles of you, interestingly enough. Right? The minute you put your email in, it knows where you work. It knows what you’re affiliated with. And so as a result, your users are seeing that there really, there’s a value for that relationship between you and the LLMs. It learns more about who you are. It discovers things. It’s trying to personalize the answers. And so it therefore can give you a better answer and really help you in a way that

Traditional search never quite got to.

John Jantsch (05:18.252)

You know, and one of things that I get business owners pretty excited about, because a lot of them are going, is all hype or like, don’t, you know, do I got to really do this or am I really going to get AI traffic or not get AI traffic? So all these questions and all I do is show them analytics. and I am able to demonstrate that to them, the people who come from AI stay on your site 10 times longer and convert seven times more than your paid ads, more than your organic traffic. And a lot of that, think is just what you talked about because.

Todd Sawicki (05:43.602)

Yup.

John Jantsch (05:47.5)

they are doing the filtering themselves. And if they get to your website, it’s because you had what they wanted. Right.

Todd Sawicki (05:51.258)

Exactly. They’re pre-qualified. Right. No, and we’re seeing stats on the B to C. We typically see a little bit less than seven X, probably more in the range of kind of two to five X increased conversions on the B to B side. We’re seeing increased conversion rates up to like 20 X better. Cause again, they’re down the funnel. Cause right. When I think about, you think of from a marketer standpoint, let’s think about the classic marketing funnel. There’s discovery, then consideration, then conversion.

Google managed discovery and then handed you off to websites to manage consideration like your own website some third-party writer whatever it might be but AI is trying to do not just discovery but manage through the Q &A process consideration as well and then hand that user off for conversion and So that’s why you see these higher conversion rates. They’re further down the funnel AI has managed that now from a marketing standpoint You’re now your challenges. I need to manage AI differently because now suddenly it’s it’s the one selling my product

John Jantsch (06:49.09)

Yeah, yeah.

Todd Sawicki (06:49.35)

And I think that’s the fundamental shift here as a marketer is you have to going back to that, that shoe store analogy, that element as a salesperson means you’re going to have to manage that person, right? That’s not your job. Whereas SEO, and I think this is one of the other big changes. SEO is a very technical thing, like link building. And remember that the just the ridiculous debate we had for years about is it a sub domain or a folder? Right? Is that marketing? No, that’s a very technical thing. And you know, any non technical marketer, whenever that discussion and by the way,

for those who don’t pay attention that went on for years like it was like a red versus blue sort of battle in the online marketing sphere. And but a very technical thing not marketing based at all. And I think the differences for LLMs, it’s much more of a, oh, how do I teach the LLMs what to say about my product, just like I teach, you know, a salesperson at the front of Dick’s Sporting Goods store kind of the same way. And so it’s now it’s much more of a product marketing exercise than it ever was with traditional search. And I think that’s the other thing is

You’re going to have to think about how you talk to the LLMs and how you market to them.

John Jantsch (07:50.35)

Well, and this gets at the crux of, you know, a good salesperson is trained on, know, all the objections of, you know, all the questions they’re going to get. Right. And so now all of a sudden our content has to be answers.

Todd Sawicki (07:57.222)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (08:04.722)

Correct? absolutely. So one of the things, so Gumshoo as a platform has been, we publicly launched it about six months ago and we’ve already worked more than 3,500 marketers have signed up. We’ve already generated millions of prompts on behalf of marketers so they understand what elements say in response to these prompts. And as a result, we’re able to analyze those response. think it’s like 10 million answers that we’ve analyzed.

John Jantsch (08:29.112)

Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (08:30.416)

And then you really, you start to see patterns in what they’re doing, but they absolutely want you as marketers to provide them kind of sample question answers back. if you, of the fascinating things about LLMs is they actually link, they prefer the number one source that they link to for product information are brand websites. And then within that, they link to product description pages or PDPs or product detail pages, whatever description you want to use, like the PDPs, FAQs,

John Jantsch (08:50.616)

Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (08:59.896)

knowledge base articles, how to sections, they love that sort of informative how to answer questions for them. And they use that as a guide. Now they process their own way, they kind of regurgitate it in their own way, but they want to use that as a basis. So you’re right, you’re gonna you have to just like you train that salesperson on Rude Q &A, you’re doing the same thing now with the models, which I think is interesting to marketers, when they start kind of like seeing and understanding like it’s not a marketing exercise, and not a weird technical link building sub domain folder esoteric discussion anymore.

John Jantsch (09:04.738)

Yep. Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:25.292)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and one of the things that we have seen, because, know, I’ve always believed that, that you do content, right. You’re going to get rewarded by the search engines. Well, we’ve been doing content, right. In my view, you know, hub pages, structured content, FAQs, table of contents, summaries, schema, you know, we’ve been doing all that stuff because it was good content marketing. well,

Todd Sawicki (09:37.244)

Yes.

John Jantsch (09:52.258)

the LLMs and AI are actually rewarding us for that work right now because we ranked high in Google. We are now ranking higher in AI overviews and in chat GPT. Are you seeing that as well?

Todd Sawicki (10:06.354)

So if you don’t have content online, it is hard for AI to even know you exist. And so that’s sort of step one. You’d be surprised at the lack of content out there. It’s, know, all right, well, you sell it. You sell these programs. But I think it’s because everyone probably thinks they’ve all, everyone’s done content marketing. It’s not always the case.

John Jantsch (10:12.526)

Well, yeah.

Well, no, no, I would not be surprised.

Yeah. Yeah. I always love it. I always love it when we go to work with a new client and they say, yeah, well, our SEO firm is doing this for us. And it’s like, what are they SEOing? Like, there’s no content there.

Todd Sawicki (10:35.83)

There you go. Exactly. There’s no content. There’s nothing else. And so the differences here you mentioned, like you generated content that the difference here though is there’s a subtle, you know, benefit and you kind of address this, I’m gonna call it what you said, which is you’re getting rewarded. But what’s interesting is Google, it was rewarding popularity, not necessarily the best content and the most authoritative content. What LMS are doing is doing a much better job of rewarding the correct content. So

It’s sort of like, and we have a good stator on this, is, we look up the traditional Google rank of all the URLs that are cited by AI and its answer, and its justification for its answers. The traditional Google rank is below 21, 50 to 90 % of the time, meaning page three and beyond. So it’s pulling out these, so it is looking at some of those that traditionally link to content SEO, but it was always these deep links. And the problem with traditional searchers,

John Jantsch (11:18.658)

Well, yes.

Todd Sawicki (11:28.602)

is, you know, we kind of generically use the stat one out of 100 people go to page two on Google, one out of 1000 go to page three, one out of 10,000 go to page four, and no one goes to page five. And that’s very exactly how the dead bodies but AI to my stat 59 % of the links they surface are in that that sort of buried into because they have AI or machines, they have infinite patients. So what they’re good at doing is finding authoritatively correct like we like to see canonical information. And then and so as a brand,

John Jantsch (11:38.734)

Yeah, that’s where you hide the dead bodies, right?

John Jantsch (11:51.15)

Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (11:58.416)

all that work that maybe struggled to get surfaced in Google, because it just wasn’t as popular or using out to people buying links. Now, now they’re really to your point, really rewarding good content, good highly valued structured content. And so it’s sort of like, it’s sort of the it’s paying off 10 years of work, finally. And so the people who may be struggled to get some of that popularity in Google, it is absolutely paying off in AI overview, AI search and AI overviews and things like that in a way that you always prayed and hoped for as a content market, like your day has come.

John Jantsch (12:07.842)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:13.964)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:26.35)

Yeah

Todd Sawicki (12:26.716)

Producing great content is a payoff and it’s happening. And I think that’s really fascinating here, which is people are like, with the rise of AI Slop, no, the models want good content and they’re good at deducing what is good content. AI Slop will not get ranked and you have to, they want authoritative information. And so that’s content that will get ranked in AI search and then drive traffic today and tomorrow, agentic purchases, right? You’re ultimately trying to drive some of that conversion more and more that AI will be driving that itself. Like Perplexity’s browser will load a cart for you today.

Right, it’s loading products it’s picking on your behalf into that. So that future is coming fast and furiously. And so I think that change is sort of fascinating to see when you look at what’s happening. Now, the other stat about what’s really fascinating here is, okay, what if I don’t have been produced 10 years of content, am I screwed? Well, one of the other facts that we’ve seen is that the average age of a cited piece of content

is only 86 days old in AI search. And that’s falling 10 to 15 % quarter per quarter. Now there’s a caveat there, which is it doesn’t have to be originally published, it just has to be updated. Like the AI will look at content that’s older, but as long as it’s been updated, and you note that that updated date, it will value that as well. And so and that 86 days is falling 10 to 15 % every quarter. So today it’s 86 days, next quarter is gonna be 78, 70 to the quarter after that, and see you get faster and faster.

So you’re gonna have to be doing a lot more work around content, maintaining it, updating it. It’s not a publish once and walk away model anymore. It’s gonna be a constant refresh. And so, the good side of that is you’re just starting out. We’ve definitely seen this with people where you can impact the results well within a 90 day window where traditional search that was almost impossible. And so there’s a definitely, don’t wait, get started. Hire John and his team.

John Jantsch (14:12.504)

But again, yeah, well, but I was also going to say that another best practice for years has been repurpose your content. And so, I mean, I now it’s like repurpose your content in a specific way, you know, add FAQs, you know, to that content, right? But, but I think that’s what you’re saying is should be very helpful for those people that just kind of wrote the hundred one off blog posts. It’s like, no, now go back and make that pay. Let’s talk specifically.

Todd Sawicki (14:28.146)

Correct. Right.

Todd Sawicki (14:39.94)

Exactly, exactly. It’s fascinating to kind of, you know, watch that all happen and come to fruition.

John Jantsch (14:42.742)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s talk specifically about gumshoe. I know that’s what you want to talk about. But first off, I have an account. I’ve played with it and it is in seemingly incredibly complex what you’ve built. And so my first question is, my first question is, where did that come from? Are you a mad scientist or did you hire people or how did you develop that? Because

Todd Sawicki (15:02.844)

Well, thank you.

Todd Sawicki (15:10.77)

So we have a team, right? We have a team. I’ve been in digital marketing tech for 20 years in my career and got involved in, and really the common theme has been around customer acquisition as it turns out. And I even view the purpose, we only care about AI search as marketers, ultimately because it can drive business, right? It’ll drive traffic and revenue, right? So fundamentally it’s a, and so I 20 years ago got involved in toolbars and search. Then I got into the social marketing landscape, just as that was taking off like 2007 to,

John Jantsch (15:28.334)

That’s right. That’s right.

Todd Sawicki (15:39.986)

to 2012 and then got into paid and built a DSP. So in the programmatic space and then was playing in ecommerce and Shopify’s ecosystem, you building customer acquisition apps in there and then ultimately transition here. And it was sort of the space of a year ago was talking to marketers. And again, the beginning of this conversation around AI search and the rise of that. And if you’re a marketer, and suddenly the channel you’re relying on Google search falls off a cliff. for some key keywords, I heard

30 60, even 90 % declines in traffic, even on the paid side. Like it just Google is sacrificing even paid traffic and on some keywords. So that’s an existential change in the landscape. And then as we started thinking about this in terms of working with marketers, you’re like, well, you know, to what I said earlier, gumshoe helps brands understand what elements think about them. And then what to do about it. Well, that where does that come from? Well, if you’re a marketer, you can’t just log into chat tpt and find out what it’s saying to you because

John Jantsch (16:12.813)

Mm.

Todd Sawicki (16:37.508)

as you I don’t know if any everyone should go watch the season premiere this fall’s episode from Boulder natives, you know, the creators of South Park, the first episode this year, the main one of the main characters dads is like falling in love with chat tbt because all it does is flatter him. And it says like every idea he has is wonderful. And it’s a great and he’s got some he’s trying to start a new business. And his wife gets all pissed off because he’s constantly going to ask chat tbt and says see I’m right, you know,

John Jantsch (16:54.285)

Right.

Todd Sawicki (17:05.426)

his wife’s name is Sharon, see I’m white Sharon, chat TBT says I’m right. And he’s like, No, it just says that to everybody. And so as a marketer, you you can’t just log in and ask chat TBT what it thinks about your business, because it’s going to kind of lie, it’s going to flatter you, it’s going to say the most optimal thing it can because it by the way, the minute you put your email in, it looks you up on LinkedIn, it knows it knows where you work, it knows your products, it’s no it knows how to answer things. And so then you realize as a marketer, I don’t care what LM say to me, I say, I care what it says to my target customers.

John Jantsch (17:17.666)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (17:31.832)

Yeah. Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (17:34.01)

And so the way that we built our product was around how do you help marketers understand what it’s really saying to its customers? And so our point of view as well, how do we get in the shoes of that customer? And so what we do is we build these personas which become synthetic users. right, so those are what are asking prompts in the models. We have a better understanding of how they, how will they talk to, how the models speak to these different, different customers and those insights of like, okay, here’s how it, and by the way, the variety of answers between one type of

persona and another is fascinating. And they’re absolutely customizing their answers. Like, John, you’ve seen this, right? Just one customer will say, like, just imagine you’re a hiker, you’re going to get a different answer for the pair of shoes than if you’re a marathon runner. And so that makes rational sense as a marketer kind of understanding this nuance and how it’s treating different types of end users using AI search is sort of a fascinating insight. And it’s cool just to look at the answers and see what they say to different things. So that’s my point about marketers and the messaging and seeing how it talks to different people.

John Jantsch (18:06.594)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:31.374)

One of my first observations that kind of blew me away frankly was I just put in a company’s URL, I think is all I did. yeah, and it came up with, I want to say eight, maybe it was a little more than that personas. And they were, we had already done that work, but they were very spot on, maybe even a little better descriptions. And what I found was interesting was it actually,

Todd Sawicki (18:39.324)

Correct, that’s what you start with. You start with the URL, correct.

John Jantsch (19:00.342)

All the analytics and search was great, but we actually got some messaging ideas just from that part of it, and that wasn’t even the intent.

Todd Sawicki (19:10.652)

Well, and that’s what I mean about it. you know, it’s, was talking with a head of product marketing earlier today, and I’m like, this is product marketing’s moment, because AI search is fundamentally a product marketing exercise. And it’s a positioning exercise. And when you read those prompts and answers, we hear that all the time, because what we help you on what we ask questions and basically ask questions around product areas for your business. And those will give you a set of responses like, we recommend these three companies or these eight companies or these five. And then you see the rationale for those

recommendations. And that’s great marketing, right at feedback. It’s it’s what’s our positioning, what’s our competitive positioning, you show this to any product market, like, oh, my god, this is like my competitive messaging framework, which you’d by the way, what you describe john a itself serve, can do this yourself, anyone can enter a URL of a company to get this. And in like 10 to 15 minutes, you’re walking away with a really cool understanding of your products position in the marketplace, at least the marketplace of AI search, which is meant to be a broader perspective of the world, obviously.

But it’s no, hear this all the time. It’s fascinating. Like it is a total rabbit hole for anyone who cares about commutative or comparative messaging.

John Jantsch (20:13.742)

Yeah. So the other observation is that, you know, lot of people that are talking about losing search traffic, it’s for, let’s say I’m a remodeling contractor. It’s they’re losing traffic for trends in kitchens, right? Which was not somebody that was going to buy anything, right? They’re losing a lot of that traffic because they’d written a great trend article for 2025, right?

Todd Sawicki (20:37.138)

Correct.

John Jantsch (20:38.37)

But that was not going to ever convert. But what’s interesting from what you’re unearthing is you’re unearthing all these really high intent searches. I mean, the search string is such that it’s like, yeah, that person’s looking to remodel their kitchen. And I think that that’s what marketers need to really focus on is that, forget about the, I mean, we do still have to do a lot of things to create awareness. But what we really need to focus on is high intent right now and capturing that search.

Todd Sawicki (21:07.138)

That is absolutely, I think a change, which is you’re going to go a little bit more down funnel. And you because you I think you can with AI search problem with Google is all those searches were so high level and so generic. It was hard to, to you’re right, the lack of long detailed searches in Google meant it was hard as a market, you couldn’t really target that sort of bottom of funnel activity. But AI is kind of all about that. And even if you ask a generic question, AI will follow it up with a more specific like they want to, they want to know which direction they need to go. There’s a back and forth that never existed in Google search.

John Jantsch (21:16.962)

Yeah, right.

Todd Sawicki (21:35.878)

that absolutely exists in AI. And you anyone who’s experienced this, when you go to the models, it’ll it’ll ask for follow ups, it’ll clarify things, it’ll make sure it understands what you’re talking about. So that it’s its goal is to give you the very best answer possible.

John Jantsch (21:41.932)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (21:48.686)

Yeah, it wouldn’t have been great. You go to Google and say, no, that answer was wrong. Fix it, right?

Todd Sawicki (21:52.324)

Exactly, we all wish we could like that search, you’ll get some results. You’re like, that is a terrible right link. And now with all the like the amount of Google searches that are so link baited to death. I love to get the analogy of in a lot, you know, I said earlier, the AI search is fixing a lot of things wrong with traditional search, like how many times in our lives like you bought like a new TV, and I just need to know the damn matter the width of it. So will it fit on my mantle or not? And you do a search and like you get every link is 10 best this or 10 best that or trends of

hot TVs this Christmas like I just need the dang measurement. Come on, Google.

John Jantsch (22:23.854)

or a link to Amazon that’s not even a TV. Those are my favorite. So I’m sorry, we got geeking out here on like all the under the hood stuff. And I’d love it you could just like give us the two minutes feel what is gumshoe? How you know, how does it work? How does somebody try it out?

Todd Sawicki (22:28.187)

Right!

Todd Sawicki (22:42.556)

So at any market, it’s a publicly available and you can try it out for free. It is, you can generate a report about your company. You go to it, as John said, you’re going to enter your company’s URL. And then from there, what we’re gonna do is again, show you what LMS think about your business and product. You’re gonna select a product that’ll generate personas and then we’ll generate the prompts that represent the activity that users are having with AI. And then…

run a series of real-time conversations, we turn those personas effectively into synthetic users. That’s kind of a buzzy word. Synthetic is the ultimate now AI buzzword. It’s a simulated user, it’s a synthetic user. And then that user will, yeah, exactly. It’s better than that. We’ll have a series of conversations with the LLMs. We kind of create those and then we analyze the chat activity and kind of package that up in a way so that you can help identify areas, topics of these types of prompts where you’re doing well or you’re doing poorly.

John Jantsch (23:14.648)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (23:18.83)

It’s better than bot though, isn’t it?

Todd Sawicki (23:38.736)

And then the next step is we also allow you to sort of then generate the content based upon, you know, where your strengths and weaknesses are that through our platform that you can then host on your site. And the way to think of it is, is your personas are your predicted customers, who the elements think are your top customers, and then they want instructions, the content you generate is intended to be or write on your own, is intended to be the instruction set back to the models. Okay, for these customers, here’s the features and benefits that we believe appeal to them and why they want to pick our products.

And ultimately, that’s going to send traffic back to your site. And then can help analyze that to understand was it good traffic, bad traffic, what have you. And so the goal of our point of view is to say, again, how do we help you understand what I’m thinking about you and then what to do about it, right? You’re ultimately how do you capture as much revenue or as much referral traffic as possible from the LLMs. And so that’s the way Gumshoe works. You can go to gumshoe.ai. They said you just start with the URL. And in 10 to 15 minutes, you’re going to walk away with sort of insights about what you can do. there’s, again, you don’t need an inter credit card that’s just freely available. Everyone can create an account. And then

The way we work is it’s not a subscription based a time based. If you want to rerun a report, you want to run it again, like in a weekly or monthly basis, kind of track how you’re doing, you would then sign up to pay an ongoing basis. And so it’s just based upon how often you want to sort of leverage the platform and use it. That’s the model. So feel free once you generate a report, whether it’s a free one or a paid one down the road, it’s available to you for as long as we’re around as a company.

John Jantsch (25:03.266)

Yeah. And one of the things that I failed to mention, you didn’t mention either is I thought does a really good job at, at, identifying competitors, as well. Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (25:12.466)

Correct, because what we’ll do is in those answers, we’re going to get multiple companies products recommendations and we surface that to know your competitive great great point, John, you know, your competitive standing, our competitors doing better or worse than you in AI. And that’s obviously often a key indicator. And then we’ll help you analyze where they did better versus you. So you know, what’s your point about messaging, right? And the product messaging, like what features of a competitor are winning versus ours?

where is their positioning better? Is it something else? Or and that’s sort of a great insight is where all the other companies getting mentioned alongside you, and then we’ll help you identify also, what were the reasons like what led to the models answering the way they did? Like what citations and sources so if you want to do outreach from a PR standpoint, you can we help you identify the places you should be going and talking to, or even read our core threads you should be posting on. We now have a feature where we’ll we’ll give you a draft post for Reddit and Cora.

John Jantsch (25:49.816)

Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (26:05.498)

Again, but it’s based upon, you know, strengths and weaknesses that we identified and said, here’s the things you should be talking about more to help you get more visibility to AI. And so that’s sort of the goal here is how do we help you talk back to AI. So you’re feeding it the features and benefits of your products. So they’ll talk about your products next time instead of someone else’s.

John Jantsch (26:26.878)

I’m sorry to sound like an ad for, for gum shoe, but you know, we actually took a lot of this long tail searches and built some ad campaigns around, around them as well.

Todd Sawicki (26:35.792)

We have heard that because the persona piece is great for that, like audience targeting and things like that. No, no, we’ve absolutely heard that, that there’s some interesting crossovers about this. Once you realize it’s messaging based, there’s a ton of things you can do with this data. It’s really, I’m not kidding about being a rabbit hole. Like you start reading the chats that we generate and surface. just, it becomes, it’s really fascinating to kind of see what’s being said in a way that you only ever got through focus groups or weird surveys before. And now and again, it like.

15 minutes, getting some really interesting insights. can then spend a lot of time diving into and learning from in a way that we just never had access to before.

John Jantsch (27:10.99)

Well, we’ve gone over time. appreciate you. Take it a few moments to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast is gum shoe dot AI and Todd again, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Todd Sawicki (27:24.914)

Thank you very much. Appreciate the time and attention.

How to Create Exceptional Experiences

How to Create Exceptional Experiences written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Neen James, globally recognized leadership and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and author of “Exceptional Experiences: Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business.” Neen shares how any business—regardless of size, industry, or budget—can create extraordinary, memorable customer experiences by leveraging attention, intentionality, and five key “luxury levers.” From the power of origin stories to practical experience audits, Neen unpacks how luxury is a feeling, not a price tag—and why making people feel seen, heard, and valued is the greatest differentiator in a world full of automation and noise.

About the Guest

Neen James is a leadership and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and author known for helping Fortune 500s and fast-growth businesses turn ordinary interactions into extraordinary results. Her frameworks focus on attention, intentionality, and leveraging luxury “levers” to make brands more memorable, profitable, and impactful.

Website & Free Assessment: neenjames.com
Book: Exceptional Experiences: Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business

Actionable Insights

Luxury isn’t about price or exclusivity—it’s about how you make people feel; exceptional experiences are defined as high quality, long lasting, unique, authentic, and (sometimes) indulgent.
Any business can use the five luxury levers—Attention, Anticipation, Personalization, Generosity, and Gratitude—to elevate customer experiences.
Attention is about presence, storytelling, and meaningful origin stories, not just being loud; collaborations and origin stories are powerful ways to capture mindshare.
Anticipation is the hallmark of luxury: Think like a concierge, not a bellhop—anticipate client needs before they ask.
Personalization and customization are rooted in genuine curiosity and fascination with your customers—capture details and use them to create more tailored experiences.
Engage all five senses—luxury is often subtle, seamless, and easy; even digital businesses can use the language of the senses to stand out.
Experience audits (and mystery shopping) are practical ways to spot where your business falls short of luxury and to inspire your team to elevate every touchpoint.
In an automated world, human touches—like handwritten notes, personalized videos, or exclusive small events—are more valuable and memorable than ever.
Differentiation often comes from surprising luxury in unexpected places—when you deliver above-and-beyond experiences where clients least expect it.
Start small: Engage the senses, be truly present, and look for one way to add delight, anticipation, or a personal touch in the next 30 days.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

01:17 – Redefining “Luxury” for Every Business
Why luxury is both inclusive and exclusive—and always about feelings, not price.
03:47 – What Does Luxury Really Mean?
The five universal qualities: high quality, long lasting, unique, authentic, indulgent.
04:36 – The Five Luxury Levers Explained
From attention to advocacy, Neen’s elevation model for mindshare and market share.
06:32 – Capturing Attention Through Origin Stories and Collaboration
Why being present, telling powerful stories, and creative partnerships win in a noisy world.
08:54 – Anticipation as the Hallmark of Luxury
Learning from the concierge: how to anticipate needs and create wow moments.
12:13 – Experience Audits and Mystery Shopping
Practical ways to spot and fix gaps in your customer journey.
15:48 – The Power of the Five Senses
How fragrance, tactile experiences, and even digital “sense” can elevate your brand.
17:37 – Human Touch in an Automated World
Handwritten notes, personalized videos, and thoughtful gifts drive real connection.
21:21 – Differentiation Through Unexpected Luxury
Why luxury in “ordinary” businesses creates the most powerful word-of-mouth.

Insights

“Luxury is about making people feel seen, heard, and valued—no matter the price tag.”

“Anticipation is what sets luxury apart; be curious, ask questions, and solve needs before they’re spoken.”

“Engage the senses—luxury is as much about ease, atmosphere, and emotion as it is about products.”

“In a digital and automated world, human touches and surprise-and-delight moments are your top differentiators.”

“Start small: pick one luxury lever and look for ways to add a personal or sensory touch to your next customer interaction.”

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.464)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Neen James. She is a globally recognized leadership and customer experience expert, sought after keynote speaker and author. She has worked with Fortune 500 companies and fast growth businesses alike, helping them turn ordinary interactions into extraordinary results with a focus on…

Neen (00:06.681)

is today is Neen James. She’s a globally.

Neen (00:14.203)

keynote speaker and author. She has worked with Fortune 500 companies and fast growth businesses alike, helping them turn ordinary interactions into extraordinary results with a focus on attention, intentionality, and luxury levers that we’re going talk about today. She’s passionate about making businesses more memorable, profitable, and impactful. And we are going to unpack her latest book, Exceptional Experiences by Luxury Levers to Elevate

John Jantsch (00:26.592)

attention, intentionality, and luxury levers that we’re going to talk about today. he’s passionate about making businesses more memorable, profitable, and impactful. And we are going to unpack her latest book, Exceptional Experiences, Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business. So Neen, welcome back.

Neen (00:44.571)

of your business, Dean, welcome back. G’day, what a treat it is to be back with you. It’s been a minute since we got to play like this.

John Jantsch (00:52.682)

That’s right. So you we need to start here, I think, because you kind of opened the book by saying, OK, let’s talk about this word luxury, what it actually is. Right. Because I think we think Ritz Carlton, we think Rolex, we think Mercedes, whatever. I’m not sure those are the most luxurious brands, but you get the point that that’s how people think. So if I’m an accounting firm or I’m a remodeling contractor, like what does luxury have to do with me?

Neen (01:00.303)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (01:04.705)

Sure.

Neen (01:17.485)

Yeah, think luxury is a divisive word, John. I think to your point, some people think it’s expensive or it’s elitist or it’s unapproachable. And yet I’m on this mission to really reframe and change the narrative around that. It’s my belief that luxury is both inclusive and exclusive. So inclusive, John, meaning I think luxury is for everyone every day. It’s just that our definitions of luxury are different. We can get into that.

John Jantsch (01:20.492)

Yeah, it is. Yeah.

John Jantsch (01:24.439)

Right.

Neen (01:45.339)

But I think it’s exclusive because we all have the privilege of being able to roll out a red carpet experience for our clients, for our team members. And so if you look at my body of work, you mentioned intentionality and attention. So if you think back through the books that I’ve already written, folding time, I said to the world, you can’t manage time, but you can manage your attention. And then I published Attention Pays, where I said it’s really intention that makes our attention valuable.

And I had shared that attention’s about connection, right? And I see my new book, Exceptional Experiences, as the evolution of all of those things, because what I believe is that it’s really luxury is about the human connection, and now more than ever before in our digital AI world, John, I think we’re all craving that human connection. So really to me, luxury, what it means to me and what it means to you could be different. And so what I did was a research study on that.

very topic. So even luxury as a word, John, it is one that we all need to kind of think about what it means to us personally and what it means to brands.

John Jantsch (02:43.382)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:52.174)

Yeah, and I think a lot of people jump immediately to, you know, gold plating or something. mean, you know, like the tangible things, right, of luxury. And I think I may have read this actually in your work. It’s really more, luxury is more of a feeling or how you make somebody feel, right? Or how whatever the product or purchasing the product makes you feel. And I think that that’s probably the, I mean, should we even say luxurious? Does that sound more like a feeling?

Neen (02:56.951)

Sure. Mm-hmm.

in your work. It’s really more…

Neen (03:07.803)

Right. Yes.

Neen (03:16.635)

Should we even say luxurious? that sound more like a feeling? Yeah, and I think it is. But John, think too what makes you feel special and feels like luxurious to you could be different to someone else. But we all have this power. have this power to create these experiences for others, which is why the book has been called exceptional experiences, because I think one of the things that I did when I did this proprietary research study, the only one of its kind in the world.

John Jantsch (03:29.678)

I assure you it is. I assure you it is.

Neen (03:47.131)

While people have different versions of what luxury is, they have different mindsets, What they all agreed was that luxury could be defined as high quality, long lasting, unique, authentic and indulgent. Now, indulgent is the word that most people will be like, you know, some people are like, I don’t know if that’s me, but think about all the other four words, John. They could apply to leadership.

John Jantsch (03:53.55)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (04:14.863)

High quality, long lasting, authentic and unique. And so that’s truly how luxury is defined. So then what we do is we take it a step further and say, well, what does luxury mean for you? And that could be different.

John Jantsch (04:26.73)

Yeah. So, so also in the subtitle, five luxury levers, attention, anticipation, personalization, generosity, gratitude. Did I get that right?

Neen (04:28.077)

So also at the summer.

Neen (04:36.771)

Yeah, so we have taken these five luxury levers and what we’ve said is because of all the consulting that I do with global brands, whether it’s as a keynote or whether I’m confident to the CEOs working with their teams, what I realized was this experience elevation model, which is the framework is inside the book. You can all see that in the book is what I realized is.

My CEOs are measured on two things. And so are so many of the small businesses listening to this or the marketing professionals. And that is they’re measured on mind share and market share. The model has been designed so that you do everything from capturing the attention of the clients you want to work with, right? Which as marketers, we always were in the attention business, right? How do we capture the attention? And so that is really top of mind. How do you really grab that mind share all the way through to the pinnacle of the model is how do you create

advocates of those same people, which is really about driving revenue, which is about market share. So if you think top of mind, top of market, what my experience elevation model does inside the book, it’s just a framework that anyone can apply as you entice people to do business with you and invite them into your community. You get them excited about what you’re offering and then delight them with all the different ways you can do that. So you ignite them to be advocates. That’s the five luxury levers.

John Jantsch (05:56.654)

All right, so let’s unpack them, each of the words, can we? And you say lever, I say lever, I don’t know.

Neen (06:01.168)

Yeah!

Let’s yeah, we can go with whatever makes you feel comfortable, but I know our listeners are probably saying, what did she say? Lever, lever. We can go with lever for today.

John Jantsch (06:10.318)

Okay, so attention is kind of a loaded word for marketers, know, right? Because it’s getting really noisy. There’s so many distractions because everybody’s trying to get our attention. So what are some practical ways that attention is more about being present rather than being loud?

Neen (06:16.248)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (06:22.046)

So noisy.

Neen (06:32.634)

Mm hmm. It is. I mean, John, think about it as marketers, we’re brilliant storytellers. But what I think we need to do is, and while the book does mention storytelling as a system of elevation, of course, because we need to be able to tell stories. One of the stories that can really capture people’s attention is origin stories.

If you look to luxury brands like Chanel, if you’ve even walked into a Chanel makeup counter in your department store, every product, every piece of merchandise, every name is associated with Coco herself. And as the sales associate explains the name of that lipstick and why it is the way it is and that the merchandise has been designed like the staircase in her apartment in Paris.

All of a sudden as a consumer, you’re like, I need that lipstick because I want to be closer to Chanel. So when it comes to attention, it’s not just about storytelling. It’s also about the origin story so that people get to understand why you as the small business owner, why you as the marketer are so passionate. But another system and a practical thing we talk about here as far as capturing attention, John, is being more collaborative and being very creative. Billy Carl-Samuel, one of my favorite champagne houses.

They partnered with Hansman Seville Rowe, a bespoke suit tailor. Now, what do those two businesses have in common? Well, they share the same kind of clients, but what they were able to do was to create a tweed that was based on champagne. The white flowers, the white foam of champagne, the steel vats with the silver, the green leaves of the vines. And so they created a tweed based on their partnership that they then sold to their clients.

So understanding that if we want to capture attention now, John, we have to do it in more creative ways through the origin stories, through the collaborations we have. But being present for some of us in the most practical sense is sometimes just putting our phone down. Sometimes it’s just actually looking at the person and saying hello and making them feel seen and heard. That’s a very easy way for all of us, no matter what business we’re in, to be more present.

John Jantsch (08:39.624)

I want to go to another one and we don’t have to unpack all five of these, but one that I thought was kind of curious or I’m curious about was anticipation as the hallmark of luxury. Can you maybe use an example of that one? Because the book is loaded with case studies.

Neen (08:54.679)

Yeah, I love this. Yes. When you think about it, the luxury lever, to use your word, of delight is, know, how do we anticipate needs that people don’t even know they have? And let’s think about this. If you, think too often as marketers, as small businesses, as managers of businesses, we act like the bellhop. And a bellhop in a hotel is vital. They move the bags quickly through the hotel lobby and up to your room and efficiency is key and it’s very transactional for them, right?

But if you think about it, we don’t want to think like a bellhop. We want to think like a concierge. Because a concierge, John, they’re the most well-known revered position in a hotel. They’re the go-to person, which is what we want to be as a small business or a marketer, right? And what they do is they get us that ticket to that particular concert or that table. We couldn’t get that reservation, but here’s how a concierge is different. A concierge anticipates needs we didn’t even know we had.

They make suggestions in our community or in the hotel or things we didn’t even know we wanted. But what that requires is a fascination. Luxury brands are genius at personalization and customization. Personalization is really about information and as marketers we have a lot of information data points. Customization is about connection. How do you connect in a deeper way to the clients who already love you or want to do business with you?

But I think it is fascination that requires that anticipation. We have to be so curious about the people we want to serve, John, that we ask the extra questions, that we get to give them our undivided attention. So personalization, customization, fascination, this anticipation, we need to have systems in place to do that. We need to teach our team to be more curious.

to spend more time, to capture those data points so we can use it in our conversations later. It might be the simplicity of a newsletter that you have and actually using the person’s name and capturing their first name in your sign up form so that that’s the simplest, easiest way and get it right so the spelling is correct. But let’s like.

Neen (11:06.337)

simplest form, we love the sound of our own name, John. You know, if you go into your coffee shop and they know your name or your favorite restaurant, you just smile a little bigger because someone saw you. That’s what anticipation is.

John Jantsch (11:25.826)

You know, it’s funny. mean, some of this is right out of, some ways is right out of how to win friends and influence people, right? It’s some of the…

Neen (11:32.883)

Dale Carnegie said it himself in the early 1900s when he wrote that book he says a person’s name is the sweetest sound and he was right back then and it’s as right today as it was back then because but the stealth message don’t tell anyone but the real message of this book John is how do you make people feel seen heard and valued luxury brands do that so so well my whole body of work is about how do you create these moments that matter for people

And he had it right when he wrote that book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And we all crave that.

John Jantsch (12:13.41)

You talk about something, because I’m sure there’s some people that are starting to say, okay, this is great. Like, how do we start kind of thinking this way or bringing this around? You talk about something you call experience audits. You want to kind of walk us through that?

Neen (12:16.795)

There’s some people that starting to say, okay, this is great. Like how do we start?

something you call experience on it. Can you walk us through that? Yeah.

It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to have a luxury product to provide a luxury level of service, right? So you could be running a mechanic shop. I use the same consulting model when I’m working with the emergency rooms for some of my hospital clients. So you can apply these five luxury levers at any business. It’s really about finding the system of elevation that makes the most sense for you and what you’re trying to achieve. But an easy experience audit is maybe you could even find out what the luxury points are not.

doesn’t feel like luxury in your business if there’s too many forms to fill out, if the lines are too long, if there’s weeds in your garden, if there’s dusty old magazines in your reception area. It’s very easy to see and look around what’s not luxury, John. That’s a really easy starting point. I do encourage businesses, regardless of what type of business you have, to if you want to upskill your team to provide a more luxury level of service,

Send them to a hotel lobby, give them a budget, get them to order a coffee and sit and observe what’s going on. Do they notice the way the staff move, they dress, they speak, the sounds, the smells, the touch points, the service they receive? Allow your team members to enjoy some luxury so they understand it and then get them to come back and debrief it with the team. What did they see, hear, smell, touch?

Neen (13:48.74)

What was all of the senses that were engaged in that experience so they can do an audit out into the world as well? I also really encourage my teams, the clients I work with to mystery shop, to mystery shop, have someone mystery shop their business. Now this is an old technique yet it’s still valid for today, right? Mystery shop your competitors, mystery shop, have someone mystery shop your business and then do a bit of a readout so the team get to hear.

This was their experience. There’s so many ways you can do an experience audit.

John Jantsch (14:21.218)

You know, it’s funny, when I think back in hindsight, some of the best experiences, luxury experiences I’ve had, wasn’t, the place wasn’t trying to be that. They weren’t trying to put that on as like, we’re very, like you said, exclusive. They just did everything. In some ways you don’t notice luxury, right?

Neen (14:26.485)

experiences I’ve had. wasn’t, the place wasn’t.

Neen (14:39.684)

Yes, and it’s easy because one of the things that often is associated with luxury is ease. The Ritz has a, they have a preference that you only ever enter your information once. Now let’s think about this. Like I was at a hotel this week. I mean, I travel for a living. That’s my job. Some people drive, I fly. It’s the same thing.

It’s just different form of commute. So I stay in a lot of hotels and every time I open my computer I had to add my hotel room and my name for the Wi-Fi I mean multiple times think of how often we open and close that computer and so the Ritz has got it right because they’re like Let’s just enter your information once so now the system says I see you. Mr. Jance I’m so glad that you’re back with us and then that’s all you have to do. So sometimes luxury is ease How do we make it really easy for people to do business with us?

John Jantsch (15:08.419)

Yes.

John Jantsch (15:28.012)

Yeah. So, all right. If you were going to, I loved, I love doing this to people that write books and they have like five key things or seven key things. And I asked them to pick the fit, not only their favorite, but like if somebody came to you and they probably do this at the end of a talk, right? Okay. That’s all great, Neen. But like, what’s the one thing I need to focus on like for the next 30 days, what would you tell them?

Neen (15:41.532)

If somebody came to you…

Neen (15:48.419)

Yeah!

can tell you what my favorite thing is that often gets overlooked. And that is how do you really engage the five senses? Because John, we all know this, especially as marketers, that our sense of smell gives us a deeper emotional connection to a brand. We can smell a meal or a fragrance from someone who’s important to us and all of a sudden we’re transported back.

Look at something like the Addition Hotels. They have a signature fragrance. If I walk into the Tampa Addition, the Madrid Addition, or the New York Addition Hotel, every time I know exactly where I am because they have a signature scent. I would invite people that regardless of what business you’re in, how do you engage the five senses? And if you’re a digital business, if everything’s 100 % online, think about how you’re using the language of sight and smell and touch.

And think about how do you elevate that? Look at Ikea. 60 % of the purchases at Ikea are unplanned. Why? Because they deliberately appeal to all five senses. You smell the meatballs, you walk through the store, you touch the fabrics, you build it yourself. And then $500 later that you didn’t even know you needed to spend, you’ve got a whole lot of to-do list items because you’ve been shopping at Ikea. They’re geniuses at this. So I would say to people, start.

with thinking how do we engage the senses in the lobby, the reception, the collaterals, all of those things.

John Jantsch (17:14.83)

I was going to ask you, not just digital businesses, mean, every type of business is using more automation. We’re using AI. We’re becoming more efficient. We’re in some ways distancing the customer. How do you take advantage of the fact that I think people are craving that more because they’re losing it?

Neen (17:17.884)

I mean, every type of business is using more automation. We’re using AI. We’re becoming more efficient.

Neen (17:31.621)

take it.

Neen (17:37.966)

Because I do things like I still write handwritten notes. I’m a big fan of a handwritten note. And so that’s an easy way to say to a client, we really appreciate doing business with you. And it costs me a stamp and two minutes of my time. I’m also a fan of sending like what I call lumpy mail. So like actual packages in the post so that someone opens it. Because if you get your mail at the end of the day, I don’t know about you, but all the white envelopes generally equal some sort of bill or invoice. So if I get something that feels like a present.

John Jantsch (17:41.837)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:55.074)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (18:05.878)

or no, it’s a credit card application. It’s what it is. Yeah.

Neen (18:07.708)

It’s awesome. Okay, a credit card. There you go. There you go. So I think what we need to think about is how do we bring the human connection back into those opportunities? How about instead of just sending an email, what if you got out your cell phone and you shot a short video and sent a text message and said, I love doing business with you. By the way, we just got this new set of tires in. I think they’d be great for your car.

John Jantsch (18:23.726)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (18:32.636)

I just wanted to let you know about them. Here’s a picture of them. Send. imagine if we brought our voice, our human voice back into business through video messaging, through the text messaging, through voice notes. There’s so easy ways. It still feels like a system of elevation, but instead of just sending yet another email that’s going to land in someone’s inbox and get cluttered up by the 200 other emails they have, what if you leverage that personal touch?

That’s the type of thing. If you see something and say, Hey, I saw this and I thought of you. That’s a very easy line to say to a customer. Like I see you, I hear you. know you’re important to me. That’s why I think luxury is about human connection.

John Jantsch (19:16.204)

Yeah. And I, and I do think, I mean, I personally recognize when somebody, I mean, it’s easy to hit, like you hit, you said send, you know, to 20,000 people at once, right? That’s why it’s appealing because you can do it. But, but yeah, I was going to say, but I, I, I personally noticed when somebody does something that I know they can’t automate.

Neen (19:25.308)

Right? That’s why it’s appealing. Sure, it’s efficient, but that’s thinking like a bellhop.

I notice when somebody does that.

Yes. And it’s more obvious now, John. And so when you think about it, if you really want people to pay attention to what you’re doing, you don’t want to be like everybody else. You want to think about, for example, I use pink, my brand is pink, if people didn’t know that, and you’re listening to this, I use pink mailers for books that I send out. Does it cost a little more? Sure. But when people get it, they say, I know it was from you immediately.

John Jantsch (19:39.799)

Yeah.

Neen (20:02.33)

because there’s a consistency of the brand, right? But I still have to ship things. So I most will just choose something that feels a little bit more unique. I hand write labels so that they know that it’s my handwriting that I took the time to send it to them. That’s why I like to write a handwritten note that you can’t order. I mean, you can, that’s not true. You can automate that kind of thing now, but I feel like we have to think about, especially those top tier clients that we’re have, that we’re serving.

What is it that we’re doing for them? It could be the simplicity, John, of having a private event. Maybe, let’s say you’re working, going back to the tire shop example, you might be running a tire shop, which does not feel like luxury, but you know what you could do?

You could open a little bit earlier for your top tier clients. They could meet the mechanics. They could explain more about the tires and the wheel balancing and how you take care of them and what to do in bad weather. And all of a sudden you’re getting more of an exclusive luxury experience from your local tire dealer. It doesn’t take a lot of thought, but it does take effort.

John Jantsch (21:06.818)

Yeah, it’s also interesting. mean, you expect a luxury experience from the bespoke tailor. mean, that’s sort of like that’s the bar of entry for them, right? So imagine this business that you’re not really expecting that from. What a differentiator, right?

Neen (21:12.644)

Of course.

Neen (21:21.402)

Yes and then because it’s so differentiated, the client can’t help but tell other people. We used a Tyler for a home project many years ago. I cannot tell you how many times I have referred that Tyler. They had perfectionism like I’ve never seen before. They cleaned up. They were so lovely, so polite, well groomed and

People want that level of service from anyone who’s in their home, but this Tyler, he went above and beyond all of that. And so what I want people to think about is luxury, that connection point. What is it you could do to anticipate things? People didn’t even know they needed, therefore thinking more like a concierge. We can all do that. We just have to invest the time and energy to think about it in advance. Then you can systemize it.

John Jantsch (22:06.336)

And now we’re back to attention, aren’t we? So, Neen, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Where would you invite people to connect with you? Obviously, find out about your work and your latest book.

Neen (22:08.152)

Always about attention,

Neen (22:19.328)

Neenjames.com you can find out everything there. You can also download a free self assessment to find out what your own luxury mindset is. It’ll take you less than five minutes to do it. It’s free. So go to the website Neenjames.com grab your copy of the book and download the assessment.

John Jantsch (22:33.824)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a moment and hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Neen (22:38.864)

I would love that. Thank you for everything you do in the world, John.