nadosi.com

John Jantsch (00:00.767)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Talia Wolf. She’s an internationally recognized conversion optimization expert keynote speaker and founder of GetUplift, a leading CRO agency. Known for her pioneering work in emotional targeting and customer-centric marketing, Talia helps brands around the world dramatically improve conversions by focusing on what their customers truly feel and need.

We’re gonna talk about our latest book, Emotional Targeting. When hearts boost sales, own the market. So, Talia, welcome to the show.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (00:37.88)

Thank you for having me, I’m excited.

John Jantsch (00:40.499)

So let’s just define, because I imagine people would have lots of definitions for like, what is emotional targeting?

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (00:48.436)

Well, emotional targeting is the art of creating websites and funnels that appeal and address to people’s emotions. I run a conversion optimization agency and my role is to help brands increase conversions. And the emotional targeting framework is what I developed to help companies increase conversions using emotion.

because people make decisions based on emotion.

John Jantsch (01:19.125)

So let’s try to make it even more tangible. you, can you walk through a time when you, know, the typical sort of feature first, you know, web page that, you know, here’s all of our stuff and what it does. can, can you kind of walk through somebody that you were called in? You could see that was hurting their conversions and then you got them to change their language and create a better outcome.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (01:41.142)

Yeah, so we’ve done this with hundreds of brands really, but the go-to is really how we essentially see that most websites are very, very focused on pricing, features, technology, we’re powered by AI, know, that stuff, and kind of forgetting the, right, whatever, the only one platform for X or powered by AI or we’re the number one platform for something else.

John Jantsch (01:59.059)

We’re gluten free, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (02:10.826)

So everyone sounds the same and looks the same and done this with multiple companies from Strata, Identity Orchestration to Teamwork, which is a project management solution to also e-commerce sites and really a lot of different types of companies. Normally what happens is one notice that there is a very big kind of focus on highlighting the technology and the pricing. And what we’ve forgotten is that there’s people behind the screens that

are making decisions that aren’t just about integrations and the technology behind it. So what we do is we run emotional targeting research to identify why people really buy from them. So once they’ve checked the pricing and it’s like in their category and the integrations all work and that they have all the features that they made in their little shopping list, how do they make a decision? What matters to them?

How do they feel right now? What are they struggling with? What pains do they have? And how do they want to feel after finding a solution? And we map those all out onto the customer journey, and we run experiments to see if different messaging, different design, different UX can help increase conversions when we make it more customer focused about their results.

John Jantsch (03:30.207)

So, know, traditional marketing is like we have personas and we have segments and we have demographics and psychographics of our clients. you know, I think increasingly people are discovering that their best clients don’t all like fit into a persona. mean, they’re, they have a need or a problem or a pain. They may look completely different, right? So how do, how do you kind of zero in then on, on what the emotional triggers, can I use that word triggers are?

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (03:56.94)

Yeah. So I love that differentiation because, you know, we’ve been told for decades that we need to be data driven and data driven means knowing personas like their segmentation, their agenda, location, the browsers that they’re using, the devices, their age. So we kind of quantify people into segments. And then it’s really, really hard to actually write copy or choose images or know what to even say to people to convert.

But when you start zeroing in on the pains, we actually notice that most people, no matter if they’re a 70 year old man in Nebraska or a 15 year old kid from the UK, they’re all kind of experiencing the same emotional issues and they have the same pains and hesitations and concerns and they want to feel certain ways. So the way that we go about it is that we conduct research and the research is qualitative research.

which means we conduct interviews on customers. We do surveys both on customers and on visitors. And we also do something called review mining and social listening, and we do an emotional competitor analysis. So essentially we are listening to the conversations that are happening on Reddit, on LinkedIn, on Quora. We are mining through all the reviews that your competitors are getting or that books.

that are trying to solve the same thing as your product or your service are doing. And we’re listening to how people describe their problems and their issues and what’s keeping them up at night.

John Jantsch (05:36.159)

So how do you balance the fact that some emotional targeting is actually manipulative? It’s like, understand that you’re really afraid of this thing, so I’m going to make you more afraid, and that’s going to get you to buy, or I’m going to create scarcity so that you’re worried that you won’t get it. So how much of that is manipulative? How much of that is authentic?

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (06:00.504)

Thank you so much for that question. I wanna be really, really clear. Yeah, emotional targeting is not manipulative. You’re not trying to make anyone feel anything. The whole framework is based around the idea and the fact that every decision that we make in life is based on emotion and people are coming to our websites already feeling things.

Our role and our job as marketers is to relate to them, to appeal to the emotions that they’re already feeling and help solve those problems. Anyone who is trying to manipulate people, trying to scare or fear mongering or anything is not emotional targeting. Emotional targeting is really just understanding the underlying emotions that are already there, appealing to them and creating an experience

that answers people’s questions and actually helps them.

John Jantsch (07:01.801)

Yeah. So, you, in a lot of ways that the ultimate test is you want the reader to go, you got me. I mean, would that, would that be accurate? Yeah.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (07:08.066)

Yes, and I think that’s the point because as yeah, like as I mentioned before, at the end of the day, once we’ve gone through our shopping list of the mandatory stuff, we’re left with trying to decide, okay, but how do I make a decision between product A, B and C that all look the same, all have the same features, all have the same technology and more or less the same pricing, it’s down to that emotional hook. Does this company solve the particular specific problem that people like

John Jantsch (07:16.979)

Mm-hmm.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (07:37.934)

like me have, and we’ve seen this a lot. So even with Teamwork, for example, which is a project management solution, can everyone in the world use their project management solution? Absolutely, they have an incredible product. But if you are a person, a company that serves clients, so if you face clients, if you are an agency, a consultant, if you are a creative team that serves clients and you have retainers and

projects that are client facing, Teamwork is the best product for you. And they’ve done everything in their product and in their marketing to make sure that when you are an agency owner and you land on their website, you know that Teamwork was designed for your kind of work. And you know that because they’re talking about their specific problems that agency owners and project managers and agencies and client facing teams face.

every single day, which is profitability, knowing if you’re profitable or not, knowing if Pam on accounting is actually doing her work or not. So you could just say, we have great reporting, which is what everyone does. But teamwork and the work that we’ve done with them over the years has really helped solidify the fact that when someone comes in, they can clearly see that this product was built for them for the work that they do that solves their particular issues and problems.

And I think a lot of companies are scared to do that, because you’re afraid to eliminate potential buyers. But we don’t understand that by speaking to everyone, we’re actually alienating the people that actually would buy from us, would stay with us, and would continue to buy from us.

John Jantsch (09:21.129)

You know, one of the things I really, admire is when a company admits like this part of the process is going to be hard, you know, let’s just face it. It’s, know, and they really honest about that. We recently went shopping for a new email service provider CRM and category that is like you said, I mean, line them all up and they all say the same thing. however, the company we went with.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (09:29.579)

Yeah.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (09:40.782)

Yep.

John Jantsch (09:43.589)

was the company that spent the greatest amount of time telling us how hard it is to migrate, but that they were going to be with us every step of the way. And they were not even going to charge you until we’ve migrated you. And that was the deal for us because when you look at them on the surface, they all seem to do the same thing. But our pain was, it’s a pain in the butt to switch. And that was their focus.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (10:06.476)

I love that and I think the fact that they recognize that because I talk a lot in my book about the unconscious and the subconscious stuff. So there’s things that we say that we think like, it’s the pricing, it’s the feature or, actually underlying that is so many fears. Like what if I migrate all our emails and something happens and a freak accident happens and everything gets deleted and everything gets lost. Like that’s a real fear. What if I onboard a product

John Jantsch (10:32.693)

Yeah, yeah.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (10:35.5)

and everyone hates it and thinks, you know, I failed. There’s so many emotions involved in a process like that. So actually knowing and saying, hey, look, this is hard, this sucks. We know you’ve tried all of these other things, but we’re gonna help you. We’re gonna be there every step of the way. That’s knowing your audience and understanding their pains. And that’s incredible.

John Jantsch (10:39.903)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:56.565)

Yeah. So we’ve gotten halfway through and I haven’t actually asked you to outline. You have a, I think it’s in chapter two, a four step emotional targeting framework. So, without giving everything away here, you probably ought to at least set up the four steps.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (11:09.335)

Hahaha!

Okay, so there’s four steps. The first step is running meaningful research, customer research, which I kind of spoke about before, but in the book, I really explain how to run this research and how to actually ask the right questions, how to know how much information to actually collect. The second step is synthesizing the research. And this is actually really important because a lot of the times we’re collecting a ton of data, but we don’t know how to…

Turn it into actual insights that we can use So I talk about the different emotional triggers the most common emotional triggers that people have how to put it into different buckets How do I identify when something’s a pain when something’s a trigger when something’s more of a desired outcome? in step number three

We take all of our research and we audit our website. And this is super important because when we think about a CRO audit, we think, okay, I’ll do a heuristic analysis. I’ll check that I have one CTA and not two. But when I talk about an audit, I’m actually talking about an emotional targeting audit, which is a set of questions that you ask yourself to, it’s strategic questions. Am I appealing on an emotional level? Can people clearly see their specific pains reflected?

Can people see what’s in it for them? So there’s a set of questions that you ask yourself and you kind of make a check for every time you’ve done that. And I think what’s incredible here before I get to the full step is that the hardest part in conversion optimization isn’t running tests and isn’t identifying where the problem is. It’s knowing what the heck is wrong and what changes should I make on a page? When you’ve done this research and you start doing the audit,

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (12:57.866)

It’s incredible how quickly you can see the problems. we’re using stories that don’t resonate. We’re highlighting features people don’t care about. We’re talking about outcomes people don’t care about. So it’s so much easier to understand why people aren’t converting and come up with hypothesis, which leads us to step number four, which is running meaningful tests. That’s when we say, okay, my hypothesis is let’s say people can’t…

clearly and easily see that this product was built for them. So now I’m going to try and show this on the page, on my comparison page, on my homepage, in my navigation, and I’m going to see if by weaving in stories and testimonials and the features that people care about, will that increase conversions? So we do research, synthesizing, emotional audit, and running meaningful experiments that aren’t button tests.

John Jantsch (13:49.033)

Okay.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (13:55.01)

but are actually strategic so that you can learn from them even if you don’t increase conversions.

John Jantsch (14:01.407)

You know, you talked about reviews and, you know, looking at reviews, analysis, looking at questions on core room thing and things, you know, we have found over the years that, that, that, you know, the, best messaging usually comes up right out of the mouth of a customer. and it’s in their voice, their words, it’s probably not stuff that we think is that sexy, but it’s like what they’re really feeling. And, and it’s amazing. And,

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (14:15.81)

Yes.

John Jantsch (14:25.609)

What are we 14 minutes in? I’m first mentioned of AI. But one of the things that AI has really done, I think is, you a lot of people are using it for writing, but it does amazing analysis. So now you can take tons and tons of data. You take all your sales call transcripts and just dump them all in there. And it’s going to be able to synthesize, you know, here’s the themes.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (14:47.342)

100%, you know, garbage in garbage out. So if you can only feed AI with segmentation and raw data, that’s what you’re going to get back. And when you’re trying to write copy with it, and that’s the information you fed it, you’re going to get really bad copy. But other than that, you’re going to get really bad insights. When you feed it valuable insights, and you ask the right questions in AI, and you’re asking it to, hey, tell me what are the top

John Jantsch (15:16.629)

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (15:16.654)

three pains people mention from this thousands, like 1000 answers in my customer survey, what are the top three pains people mentioned? When you ask the right questions and you have really valuable data, that’s when you get the magic. That’s when you get incredible things from AI that you can actually use. And then you can also use it for writing copy. But what’s happening right now is people are just, you know, using basically feeding it garbage data.

And then that’s why when you go online and you’re searching for any kind of solution, everything looks the same and you could probably just swap out logos and you wouldn’t even know the difference.

John Jantsch (15:54.385)

Yeah, no question. In fact, I contend you could probably blank out all the logos of five different websites and then see if people in any of those companies can identify theirs. Because they’ll even read everybody else’s and theirs and go, I don’t know. So talk a little bit about A-B testing, because I think that’s a category that is so valuable, but so under your.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (16:12.6)

easy.

John Jantsch (16:21.429)

because a lot of people go, this is our best shot, put it out there. Why isn’t it working? You know, as opposed to, you know, and again, you know, one of the promises of AI is all of sudden now we’ve got potential for dynamic and personalization to where, you know, people can actually come and hear the message that we believe will be relevant to them. So why aren’t people doing more testing? A and B, guess would be part of that question would be how to do it effectively.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (16:49.986)

Well, testing is hard, right? It’s really, really hard. Like it’s not actually easy if we go back to like being honest and telling our customers. Avery testing is hard, but I think it’s also hard for most people because we’re on a hamster wheel. And I talk about this a bit about this in my book, that

John Jantsch (16:51.945)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (16:57.575)

Well, no, forget it. I want the magic pill. Give me the magic pill.

John Jantsch (17:09.439)

Yeah.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (17:13.922)

When we start A-B testing, we’re kind of just guess working our way around it and we’re Googling or searching on AI for best practices and we’re copying our competitors. And then we throw stuff on this like whatever tool that we’re using and we’re like, it doesn’t even work. It doesn’t even increase conversion. So why am I even wasting my time? And that’s because we’re running meaningless tests with no strategy behind it. Not to mention, obviously the fact that you have to get everyone on board when it comes to A-B testing, you have to sell your ideas.

There’s a lot of pushback. always a lot of like politics inside the organization and it’s just hard. But actually this is why emotional targeting is so great because when you are doing the hard research and you finally have a good hypothesis, you can A, get internal buy-in really quickly because you could say, look, guys, I’ve done the research. Here’s what our customers and our prospects are saying. And here’s what we’re saying on our website. Like we’re completely missing the mark.

I have an idea, I’m not gonna do a homepage redesign, don’t worry, but I’m gonna send out a few emails and I’m just gonna check this or I’m gonna test this on a landing page and let’s just see. So first you get buy-in. Second, when you run emotion-based tests that are based on a real hypothesis, a meaningful hypothesis, whether you increase conversions or not, you’re going to learn something.

Now, if you’re just testing a blue versus a red button and it decreases conversions or increases conversions, there’s nothing you can do with this test. Like you can’t actually say, I’m gonna change all my buttons to red now. Like there’s nothing to actually do with it. But when you learn that, let’s say, my prospects are deeply impacted by their social image. They really care about what other people think about them and buying this product.

makes other people think a different way about them and this matters. You can weave that into your ads, your emails, your landing pages, your comparison page, like everything. So I think the reason it’s so hard is again, like we’re just running meaningless tests. It’s technically hard. You need a lot of people, you need a lot of buy-in, but if you do it the right way, it’s super rewarding and you can break all those silos in the company and say, look, we tested this, we learned this. Hey, sales team, you should be using this content. Hey,

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (19:31.79)

product team, we’re learning that people really care about it. You should be talking about this product this way and this feature this way. Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:41.533)

It is pretty amazing. know, over the years it’s part, it’s largely accidental on my part, but over the years, you know, we’ll change something because it’s not working. And then all of sudden it’s like, all we did was change the headline. And now everybody’s like booking appointments. It’s like magical. It’s unbelievable. So, so you end the book with a call to action, to employing people, imploring people to become emotional detectives.

So how does that play out in your work?

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (20:18.51)

Well, most of all work when we become emotional detectives is doing the research and really identifying those emotions and why people buy because I truly believe that if we whatever you’re selling, if you can identify the real why behind the purchase, there’s no stopping you. There’s nothing you won’t be able to do in terms of optimizing every single page.

and asset that you create. the book and my website and my courses and, and, know, the consulting, the agency, everything is about helping teams become emotional detectives, getting to understand more about their customers than just their behavioral data, but really understanding the people behind the screens so that they can create user experiences and websites that people want to convert to and actually like.

John Jantsch (21:17.269)

I’ll tell you, appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there some place you’d invite people to connect with you, learn about your work, obviously learn about the book?

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (21:25.26)

Yeah, well you can get the book at taliawolf.com slash book or you can follow me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to connect. And also on our website, get uplift.co, which is my agency.

John Jantsch (21:38.901)

Again, thanks for spending a few moments with us. Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Talia Wolf |

Getuplift (21:43.95)

Thank you for having me.

Helping Stakeholders Help Themselves

Helping Stakeholders Help Themselves written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch talks with Bill Shander, information designer, data communications expert, and founder of Beehive Media. Bill shares insights from his new book, “Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask.” The conversation covers how to turn complex data into clear, actionable stories, the importance of questioning order-taking, and why active listening and genuine curiosity are the keys to building trust and delivering what stakeholders truly need. Listeners will learn practical strategies for stakeholder engagement, leadership, and data-driven decision-making in the age of AI.

About the Guest

Bill Shander is a data communications expert, information designer, and founder of Beehive Media. With over 25 years of experience, he has helped leading organizations—including the United Nations, World Bank, and Deloitte—turn complex ideas into clear, actionable stories. Bill is a recognized thought leader in data visualization, storytelling, and stakeholder engagement, and is the author of “Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask.”

Website: billshander.com
LinkedIn: Bill Shander

Actionable Insights

Data storytelling is about communicating meaning and insight, not just sharing numbers and reports.
Order-taking leads to missed opportunities; real value comes from questioning, listening, and guiding stakeholders to what they truly need.
Active listening, curiosity, and asking better questions are essential for building trust and uncovering stakeholders’ real objectives.
Silence is a powerful tool for reflection and better conversation—embrace the pause to allow deeper thinking.
Stakeholder engagement applies to all roles, not just marketing—including HR, IT, and leadership.
Recognize and prioritize all stakeholders—sometimes the real goals and needs come from several layers up in the organization.
In hybrid and remote work environments, intentional communication and Socratic questioning are even more important.
Organizational culture and leadership openness determine how effective “stakeholder whispering” can be—seek or build a culture that values questioning and strategic thinking.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

00:45 – What is a Data Communication Expert?
Bill explains the importance of storytelling and visualization in making data meaningful.
01:44 – Why Stakeholder Whispering Matters More Than Ever
Why questioning and guiding stakeholders is critical in the age of AI and short attention spans.
04:28 – Beyond Order-Taking: Leading with Questions
Bill shares why challenging requests and using a consultative approach delivers better results.
07:41 – The Power of Active Listening and Curiosity
Tips for asking better questions and truly hearing stakeholders’ needs.
09:16 – Silence is Golden
The value of pausing, reflection, and pacing in communication and presentations.
10:28 – Common Pitfalls: Mistaking Tasks for Outcomes
Why focusing only on what’s requested misses the real goals.
12:58 – Recognizing the Real Stakeholders
How to identify and prioritize who really matters in any project or initiative.
15:13 – Culture, Leadership, and Whisperability
The role of culture and leadership in fostering open, strategic conversations.
17:01 – Adapting Stakeholder Engagement to Hybrid and Remote Work
Why face-to-face or Socratic dialogue is essential for discovering true needs.
18:58 – Real-World Example: The Power of Questioning Assumptions
Bill tells a client story where open-ended questioning led to a far better outcome.

Pulled Quotes

“Our job is not just to execute tasks—it’s to succeed and help our organization succeed. That means probing, questioning, and challenging the status quo.”
— Bill Shander

“Active listening, curiosity, and asking the right questions are what build trust and uncover what stakeholders really need.”
— Bill Shander

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:00.878)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Bill Shander. He’s a data communications expert, information designer and founder of Beehive Media. Over 25 years of experience, Bill has helped leading organizations, including United Nations, World Bank and Deloitte turn complex ideas into clear, actionable stories. We’re going to talk about his latest book today, Stakeholder Whispering, Uncover What People Need.

before doing what they ask. So Bill, welcome to the show.

Bill Shander (00:34.34)

Thank you, John. I’m really happy to be here.

John Jantsch (00:36.736)

So I just, sometimes people have things in their bios that I have to ask about. So what does a data communication expert do?

Bill Shander (00:45.654)

That’s a good question. So, you know, everybody these days has data, whether it’s your sales data, your marketing data, your HR data, everybody has data. We’re always packaging it up in PowerPoint presentations to present to our bosses or reports for the board or whoever. And people don’t really do a very good job of it either because they’re not really thinking about communicating ideas. They’re worried about shoving numbers at people. And so I help people.

John Jantsch (01:09.314)

Yeah. Right.

Bill Shander (01:12.216)

tell stories of data, as well as visualize that data in an impactful way.

John Jantsch (01:16.462)

Yeah. And I think there’s probably a lot of people, myself included, that I want to hear the story. Like, what does this data mean? you know, rather than just saying, look, we got this much traffic. Okay. Is that good? Is that bad? Yeah. So what inspired you to write the book? I mean, is there, is there something going on today, you know, in the business world that you think it makes this idea more critical?

Bill Shander (01:22.553)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (01:29.014)

Exactly. How many clicks is good? Are clicks even useful? We don’t know.

Bill Shander (01:44.378)

That’s a good question. I don’t know if today it’s more critical in that this has always been an issue, honestly. I’ve been looking at it for 30 years and took me a long time to realize that this is the thing. Like I’ve been thinking about doing a book for a long time and this was finally the idea of the nugget that said, yes, this must be done. It’s been an issue that’s been around forever. Is it more important today than ever? I would say maybe possibly because of AI. mean, okay, we’re already talking about AI, know, it’s 2025, of course you have to, but.

Honestly, when you ask AI to do something, it just does it. AI is an order taker. And we as humans, what can we do better than AI today? Maybe we can still discern, what really should be done? And maybe we can ask good follow-up questions on all the kinds of things that I talk about in the book that we have to do in order to make sure we’re delivering against the right tasks. AI is just going to do it. So it’s even more important for that reason.

John Jantsch (02:19.064)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:38.198)

Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. mean, I think you can make a case for being more important today and in some ways, because what you mentioned AI actually allows us to crunch a lot more data than we ever would have been able to in some cases. so we certainly have that even the smallest of companies have access now to big crunching. But I think also, I noticed a lot of people, stakeholders included, you know, have much shorter attention spans. And so,

Bill Shander (02:57.082)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:04.258)

You know, that 27 page PowerPoint deck, you know, can be condensed into a story or a metaphor. You know, that might actually be a better way to present the information.

Bill Shander (03:15.748)

Well, that’s it. so stakeholder whispering is, you the basic idea is your stakeholders ask you to do things based on their automated response. How do we usually do it? Well, usually we put it to 27 page PowerPoint deck together. And the problem is to what you said, you know, first of all, attention spans are shrinking a hundred other reasons why that may not be the best solution. But on top of that, like,

I mean, they don’t even know what they need. They’re just going to go with the automated response. And so our job as workers, and it doesn’t matter what role you’re in, if it’s marketing, great, but HR people need this, IT people, finance, et cetera. Whatever we’re working on, we need to question the ask, know, question that automated response. Maybe it is a PowerPoint deck that’s needed, or maybe not to your point.

John Jantsch (04:03.928)

So you mentioned the word order taking, know, I actually, ironically, somebody just said this to me the other day. We have to, you know, we have to sell them what they want so that we can get the trust to sell them what they need. You’ve probably heard that before and you’re kind of advocating for the idea that, no, we need to lead them to what they need and not, you know, and maybe use numbers to help do that. Talk a little more about that idea of beyond order taking.

Bill Shander (04:15.502)

Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Shander (04:28.738)

Yeah. And what you just said is also true, right? Like you do have to gain trust before you can lead them effectively. But yes, the fact is our stakeholders don’t know what they need and our job is to guide them. I often say it’s like therapy. I have a whole chapter in the book about how to conduct a therapy session because it is very much like therapy. Someone comes to a therapist because they have an issue and they need help. And the therapist doesn’t tell them what to do.

They ask them questions. say, well, how does that make you feel? Right? And the questions, right. And the questions allow you to look inside yourself and say, wait, yeah. How does that make me feel? And so in work, okay, you know, we’re launching a new product marketing, make us a brochure. Okay. You know, why would a brochure be better than an app or better than this, that, or the other? Huh? Yeah. Maybe, maybe we should do an app. that introspective opportunity is what guides us down the road towards maybe another option.

John Jantsch (04:56.406)

Yeah. Why do we want that?

Bill Shander (05:24.634)

you know, when you’re new, like you’re in a new role, new boss, whatever, you haven’t gained that trust yet, maybe all you do is you try one thing, one question, which is, the question could be, how do we measure success? How are we gonna know this is gonna, when this has worked, how are we gonna measure that? And just that one question, it’s not gonna get them all the way to some new way of thinking maybe.

but it’s an initial ask. It’s at least one step beyond overtaking. And then over time, you’ll gain more trust and you’ll be able to sort of expand on that guidance way of thinking about it.

John Jantsch (05:58.144)

You know, what I have found is, is that’s a, that’s an incredible technique in selling. you know, a lot of times people will come to us and say, want this, listen, this. and if, if we have the posture or the courage to back up and say what you said, how will that, how will we know that’s successful? What would success look like? How are we going to measure that? have you considered, I find a lot of times people will put their guard down then and like, we’re going to actually have a conversation about.

Bill Shander (06:04.793)

It is.

John Jantsch (06:26.764)

what we should be doing, I don’t have to pretend I know what to tell you to do. And I find it very disarming in a sales conversation. I mean, not to the level of being obnoxious, you know what I mean? But definitely to the level of saying, let’s think about insights instead of actions.

Bill Shander (06:30.658)

Right.

Bill Shander (06:36.42)

Totally, you’re building trust.

Bill Shander (06:40.9)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (06:45.806)

Yeah, you’re building trust the moment you do that, especially in the sales context when there’s, there’s that built in lack of trust in a way. And on top of that, you know, what, what I found in my career, the only success I’ve had in my career is because I was good at the skills, stakeholder whispering. And, know, part of that is no question. It’s the consultative approach. I’m not here.

to sell you widgets, I’m here to solve your problems. I’m here to actually help you succeed. And when you really honestly are doing that, then that includes, yeah, that asking questions like that, will lead to the right solution, not just a solution that puts dollars in my pocket.

John Jantsch (07:22.552)

So of course you’re implying that you have to actually care about getting them a result, right? Yeah. So we’ve covered one side of it, asking better questions, but what role does actually being a better listener play in this?

Bill Shander (07:26.818)

You do. You have to care and you have to be curious. Those are two things that go sort of hand in hand.

Bill Shander (07:41.848)

Yeah, active listening is something is a phrase people talk about. But do you really listen? know, and you know, what’s interesting is like, here we are, we’re having, of course, and like, you’re an interviewer in this context, and you have to do that, right? And like, when I’m talking to a client, I got to be taking notes, I got to be thinking about my next question, response, or you can’t avoid some some of that. But at the same time,

John Jantsch (07:49.07)

No, I’m thinking about the next question I’m going to ask.

Bill Shander (08:07.61)

What I encourage people to do is as best you can within that reality, you try to really listen. And a friend of mine just recently told me his phrase is, listen with your ears, not your brain. So really hear, and yeah, you’re gonna jot notes, you’re gonna notice a little trigger word, they said X, put a little circle on that, whatever, but don’t start formulating your next question as much as you can avoid it until they stop. Truly listen for that whole time.

John Jantsch (08:18.766)

Mm-hmm.

Bill Shander (08:35.354)

It’s really hard to do. None of us could do it perfectly, but we can strive towards that ideal.

John Jantsch (08:41.132)

I think it’s a little bit cultural too. think, you know, Americans are just like, we need noise. They’re like silence, you know, just kills us, right? I read a study the other day that said Americans, I think the average like silence before they become very uncomfortable is three seconds. And in Japan, it is very common for somebody to get asked a question and to literally wait for eight seconds before answering to give it thought and to give it, you know,

Bill Shander (08:50.702)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (09:04.536)

Wow.

John Jantsch (09:08.486)

emotion and I thought, you know, that’s probably I mean, most people if I sat here for eight seconds of dead air, people were like, what’s wrong? It’s pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Shander (09:16.495)

Yeah.

So I have a chapter called Silence is Golden. And not only do I talk about that, but even the chapter, the book is put on the pages in a way that each page is just one sentence with silence all around it. Because it is that important, but it is uncomfortable, it’s true.

John Jantsch (09:29.42)

Yeah. Funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve taken I’ve do some public speaking and I’ve taken some training on that and frequently a coach or something will say no let that pause let that sit let the audience digest that boy when you’re up on stage it’s like can I do it. It’s really hard. It’s funny. So so what are the

Bill Shander (09:55.186)

It is, but yeah, good, Go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, yeah, that strategic performance, which includes pauses, silence, pacing. I can speak really quickly and I can slow it down. And that has an effect on your audience for sure. Whether it’s an audience of one stakeholder or a room full of people.

John Jantsch (09:59.084)

Go ahead and finish, sir.

John Jantsch (10:15.278)

Right. So what are, let’s go with the negative. What are the common mistakes that people make? They might get the essence of this book and then charge in. What are some of the things that you see are pitfalls?

Bill Shander (10:28.312)

I mean, you one of the biggest problems people face is that they think that their job is to do what their boss tells them to do. And like on paper, there’s some truth to that, but, clients, not just bosses, clients, investors, whoever your stakeholders are, there’s a broad range of them. Obviously your job is to execute on tasks for your organization, but it’s not just to be that order taker that we talked about. So you have to, the most important thing I’m hoping people remember after reading the book.

is that they just need to do this. Like, see the world in a new way. Your job is not to execute those tasks your boss tells you to do. Your job is to succeed and help your organization succeed. And that includes probing. know, just asking, is this the right thing to be doing? Is this the right way to be doing that thing? So, step number one, acknowledge that this is a thing and just try to do something about it.

Another challenge is that some people are less whisperable than others, right? Some bosses are not so even into having these long conversations, like, you know, just do what I said, right? And obviously that takes confidence to push back and really engage your stakeholders, which also of course takes trust like we talked about. And I would say one of the third things is that, you know, it’s challenging for

John Jantsch (11:33.614)

you

Bill Shander (11:53.004)

ourselves, just sort of acknowledge to ourselves that, you know, essentially we’re all walking around being driven by our subconscious. We’re like literally all of our lives is driven by our subconscious. Tons of research shows us that we’re not very good at reasoning. We’re not really very good at deliberative thinking. We’re just being driven by our subconscious. And so if we can just think about ways to tap into the subconscious, yes, even in work, it’s like therapy, then we’re all going to do a better job doing what we need to do for.

ourselves and our organizations. And it is for ourselves also, like you’re going to be promoted if you’re the one who actually challenges the status quo, brings strategic thinking to the table and delivers against that. know duct tape marketing, the basic idea, right, is be strategic, don’t just execute on tasks, right? And so it’s a very similar way of thinking.

John Jantsch (12:40.782)

So I’m curious, have you ever considered children to be stakeholders that we have to whisper to? As I heard you say that, just do what I said. was like, that’s probably not the most current way of thinking about parenting, it?

Bill Shander (12:46.382)

They certainly could be. Yeah. I mean, and that’s

Bill Shander (12:58.264)

Yeah. And actually brings up the fourth really important thing to be thinking about and a risk, you know, a problem with this is that we don’t recognize, acknowledge, define, and prioritize all of the stakeholders. Right? So my boss tells me to do something, I do it. I am thinking my one stakeholder is my boss. No.

Your boss asked you to do that because his boss asked him and his boss, her boss. And so it’s four chains deep. And by the way, the board of directors is going to show this to their investors. Like the stakeholder list is actually this long. And now you can’t worry about all of them, but which ones are the two or the three whose opinions and actual goals really matter the most. Really zoom in on those ones and really make sure you understand their actual needs.

Like if it’s ultimately about the investors, even though your boss has you do it, they’re the real stakeholder. So make sure you understand what they really need and make sure your boss understands that they’re his stakeholder. And so that they’re involved in that stakeholder whispering with them.

John Jantsch (14:01.176)

So that brings up an interesting quant. How do you balance the fact that the objective might be to create a better experience for the customer? However, what my boss is doing, my objective has to be to keep my job. And so now I’m kind of torn between that. This isn’t really the right approach for that stakeholder. But if I want to meet this objective, how do you balance that?

Bill Shander (14:26.49)

Yeah, it’s the million dollar question. It’s hard one, right? So like some bosses, some people are not going to be very whisperable. And yeah, you could jeopardize your job with that person theoretically. I would say long term, most of the time, if you serve the customer, you’re not going to jeopardize your job.

John Jantsch (14:31.598)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (14:47.884)

and everything’s going to be for the better. Like you’re going to be the one who gets promoted. You’re going to take your boss’s job, right? Essentially, because you’re going to really solve problems. Should. Occasionally it won’t. And you either are willing to face that risk for the potential reward and or if your boss isn’t whisperable, guess what? I say, find a new boss, right? Because that’s really honestly the answer. You don’t want to work in a culture like that.

John Jantsch (14:52.782)

should work that way, right. Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:07.362)

me. Right.

John Jantsch (15:13.09)

Like so many, I would put this book into a leadership category. Hopefully that jives a little bit with what you’re thinking. And it seems like most leadership ideas really start with the culture of the organization.

Bill Shander (15:22.51)

Yeah, definitely.

Bill Shander (15:29.166)

They definitely do. Yeah. And I have a chapter at the end, which is called some love for my stakeholders or some love for the stakeholders. And I talk about the fact is first of all, I do, I love my stakeholders and it’s not just like blowing smoke. I’ve really enjoyed the work that I’ve done for the last 30 plus years. I’ve enjoyed working with the vast majority of my clients and I really, am curious and I do care and I want to help them. And so.

When I think, when I talk to them in the book, I say, first of all, thank you for teaching me for all these years how to do what I do. But then I also do turn the page a little bit on them and say, okay, now you may be reading this because you’re a middle manager. Guess what? You’re somebody else’s boss, aren’t you? Also, you are somebody’s stakeholder today, even though you’re thinking of as the order taker. So how whisperable are you? And so companies need to develop the culture where they create.

know, cultures of whisperability. And I have some clients who have amazing cultures where they, listen to me, they listen to their employees. It’s not about hierarchy or anything else. And I’ve worked for, you know, as a vendor for some companies that were really not whisperable at all. And I didn’t work for them for, for very long for a variety of reasons, but it’s really hard to be in that type of environment.

John Jantsch (16:45.262)

You have a chapter about, I mean, so many people are working either hybrid or remote or does that change kind of the framework at all or the structure or does it just add kind of another layer of complexity?

Bill Shander (17:01.978)

think it adds another layer complexity for sure because communications is harder, right? Like right now, I’m not looking at you, I’m looking at my camera, but the viewer is looking at my eyes. So at least there’s some eye contact it feels like happening. And so, you know, when it’s all on Zoom, it’s harder to have that real, really productive conversation, certainly better, you know, the body language and all kinds of other things disappear. So there’s definitely that added complexity.

But the process is still the same. You’ve got to have conversations. You’ve got to ask good questions. And something we didn’t talk about, but there’s a key part to the question asking, which is when I ask my stakeholders questions, I’m not doing it to learn the answers. It’s actually the other way around. It’s more of a Socratic dialogue. I’m asking them questions so that they can learn the answers. I want them to figure out what they actually need from me. I’m not trying to guide them. I’m not trying to tell them. I want them to figure it out. It’s like therapy.

John Jantsch (17:44.483)

Yes.

Bill Shander (17:58.848)

Once they figure it out, then I’ll do that. And so the question asking is a very, it’s a two-way street for sure, but the goal is really to help them learn as much as to help me learn.

John Jantsch (18:11.406)

Yeah, you you call it therapy, but it really strikes me. It’s a lot like coaching in some ways. mean, you’re almost coaching people to think about things that maybe haven’t even considered. know, one of my favorite phrases or least favorite phrases is, that’s the way we’ve always done it. Or that’s the way everybody in our industry does it. And, you know, just to even say, anybody ask why? So we’ve always done it that way. It’s amazing how often people will go, you know, I don’t know.

Bill Shander (18:16.591)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (18:28.515)

Right.

Yeah.

Bill Shander (18:36.697)

you

Bill Shander (18:41.55)

Yeah, it’s true.

John Jantsch (18:41.586)

the answer to that. So do you have any in the book or anything you want to anybody you’ve worked with clients that you’ve worked with kind of a real story or example where you know stakeholder whispering has really led to a far better outcome.

Bill Shander (18:58.99)

Yeah, I I tell one story in the book and it’s funny on the surface. It’s a really boring story. It’s not the most dynamic anecdote in the history of the world at all, but it’s one of the most, the moment when this happened was like really eyeopening for me. so was working on project. was doing this data dashboard essentially for this client and we’re having this conversation about whether we should show the rank position.

of countries on this one metric being measured. So this country is number one, two, three, four, five, or should we show the actual score they got on this measurement? So let’s imagine it’s about web analytics. Should we show the number of clicks they got or just the ranking in terms of clicks? And their argument was the way this type of data usually works, the way it’s always been done, is we always just show the rank because people care if their country ahead or behind their favorite country that they want to compete against. But the scores…

John Jantsch (19:37.526)

Thank

Bill Shander (19:55.364)

were universally really, really high. Very few countries had a low score. So you might’ve been ranked 150th. That looks terrible, that sounds awful. But guess what? You had a super high score, just like everybody else. Only a few countries were actually bad. And so was trying to make the case that maybe we should show the actual score because the fact that this country was ranked low didn’t mean they had an actual problem. And so the data…

John Jantsch (20:17.184)

Yeah, they could close 50 places pretty easily.

Bill Shander (20:20.886)

Exactly. They could close it easily and it didn’t matter where they were anyways, as long as they were above X score. And so, you know, I’m asking all these questions. We’re having this really long debate and she almost convinced me five times. I almost convinced her five times. But the point was, you know, it was a very open ended conversation, mostly each of us asking each other questions. and in the end, you know, there was this one moment where she said just literally, she said the word something to the effect of, I never saw it that way before.

John Jantsch (20:24.59)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (20:50.446)

You’re right. And it wasn’t gratifying because I was right, although that’s nice, you know, but it was really because there was this moment of just incredible open-mindedness to your point. Like, why have we always done it that way? Who the hell knows? Like, well, why should we do it that way? Maybe we should consider, maybe we won’t change it, but maybe we should at least look at doing it this other way. And even that I consider a win.

John Jantsch (20:50.819)

Thanks.

John Jantsch (21:15.222)

Yeah, awesome. Well, Bill, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the show. You want to invite people to connect with you somewhere, find out more about your work, obviously find out more about stakeholder risk.

Bill Shander (21:26.136)

Yeah, you can always find me on my website, BillShander.com. And I’m always happy to connect with people on LinkedIn as well.

John Jantsch (21:32.3)

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

Bill Shander (21:36.794)

Thank you very much, John. Nice talking to you.

SEO’s Next Era: Manick Bhan on AI, Content Strategy, and Building a Brand That Lasts

SEO’s Next Era: Manick Bhan on AI, Content Strategy, and Building a Brand That Lasts written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Manick Ban, founder and CTO of Search Atlas—a next-generation SEO and content marketing platform. Manick shares his journey from building RankPay to scaling Search Atlas, and explains why the future of SEO depends on actionable insights, platform integration, and building a brand people trust. The conversation covers the evolution of search, the impact of AI, why high-intent content matters more than ever, and how marketers can thrive in a landscape that’s constantly being disrupted.

About the Guest

Manick Bhan is the founder and CTO of Search Atlas, an advanced SEO and content marketing platform used by over 20,000 websites and 5,000 agencies. A serial entrepreneur and engineer, Manick previously founded RankPay and is widely respected as a thought leader in the SEO industry. He’s known for his innovative approach to search, actionable advice for marketers, and commitment to helping brands drive measurable growth.

- Website: searchatlas.com

YouTube: Search Atlas Channel

Actionable Insights

The future of SEO is about driving real change—not just reporting on data. Tools need to accelerate action, not just provide analytics.
AI is transforming search: Conversion rates from AI-powered search (like ChatGPT) are significantly higher than traditional search.
Marketers must focus on high-intent, core topic content that matches their business’s primary value—not just generic informational posts.
Over-diversifying topics can dilute your site’s authority and harm rankings. Clear focus and topical relevance are critical.
“Quantity” content strategies are quickly becoming obsolete; quality, brand authority, and community matter most in the new search landscape.
Rented platforms (Google, LinkedIn, YouTube) will always be a reality for marketers—so invest in building a brand people seek out directly.
In an era of information overload and AI-generated content, real-world community and peer recommendations are becoming more valuable.
Entrepreneurs should embrace failure early and often—consistent effort and learning lead to long-term success.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

01:03 – Why Search Atlas? Building Tools for Action, Not Just Analytics
Manick explains why he built Search Atlas to help marketers move beyond reporting and actually drive site changes.
03:03 – The Truth About “SEO is Dead” Headlines
Why search is evolving—not disappearing—and how user intent and platforms are shifting.
05:05 – AI’s Impact: Higher Conversion from ChatGPT
Manick shares real data on why AI-powered search users convert better and are more ready to buy.
09:12 – Winning High-Intent Searches
The power of laser-focused content strategy and why matching your core keyword matters above all else.
13:41 – The End of Web Pages? Content’s Coming Transformation
Why Manick predicts web pages as we know them could disappear, replaced by knowledge graphs and platform-generated answers.
15:30 – The Only Moat: Build a Brand They Remember
How to create recall, loyalty, and direct traffic in a world of rented digital real estate.
18:05 – The Comeback of Community
Why in-person connection and peer recommendations are more valuable than ever in an AI-driven world.
19:09 – Entrepreneurship Lessons: Fail Faster, Learn More
Manick’s advice for founders and marketers: don’t be afraid of failure, keep taking swings, and success will follow.

Pulled Quotes

“If you’re not driving action on your site, you’re just watching through the looking glass. Tools have to help you move.”
— Manick Bhan

“In a world of abundant content, your only moat is brand—people need to know you, remember you, and come back.”
— Manick Bhan

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.144)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jantsch. My guest today is Manick Bhan. He is the founder, CTO of Search Atlas, a cutting edge SEO and content marketing platform designed to help marketers, agencies and businesses drive measurable growth. With a background in engineering and entrepreneurship, Manick previously founded RankPay and has become a respected thought leader in the SEO community. So Manick, welcome to the show.

Manick @ Search Atlas (00:30.847)

Thank you, John. Great to be here.

John Jantsch (00:32.686)

So let’s talk a little bit about creating a search Atlas. How old is search Atlas now? Five years ish? Is that?

Manick @ Search Atlas (00:39.551)

I think the first line of code I wrote about seven years ago. Yeah.

John Jantsch (00:44.066)

Seven years ago, okay. So a lot’s changed in that approach or in SEO necessarily. how did you approach or maybe even a better question, why did you think a tool needed to be built for SEO purposes? What was kind of your founding thinking of this?

Manick @ Search Atlas (01:03.187)

Yeah. Good question. with my first, my first tech company, we were in the live entertainment ticketing space. And if you don’t rank on Google, you don’t exist in that industry. You know, it’s like the largest ticketing company is actually Google. It’s not ticket master or stop hub. It’s Google because you go to Google to then find those tickets. So if you’re not on Google there, your business doesn’t exist. So figuring out what the equation was, was something that I started trying to crack the code on, over a decade ago. And.

John Jantsch (01:13.428)

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (01:33.437)

What I learned very quickly in the process of trying to scale and grow that business is that other tools out there, conventional, what I call traditional or trad SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush, these are analytics tools. They give us reports, they give us like data, but if we don’t move on that data, nothing moves, right? We’re just watching through the looking glass. And so I felt what we needed really as an industry was tools that would actually help us accelerate

John Jantsch (01:43.789)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (01:52.034)

Yeah, yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (02:02.259)

change, like the changes to our sites, the changes to the internet that help us rank better. And that’s where Search Atlas came from.

John Jantsch (02:09.592)

So people aren’t familiar with search as necessarily, you know, it basically lives on a platform, but it connects with your website. And so it actually is able to make changes on your website from that platform. That sort of took some wizardry, didn’t it?

Manick @ Search Atlas (02:25.087)

It did. It started as something on back of the envelope, trying to figure out how we would do this and make it fast in real time. But we’re happy that it worked. Initially, we weren’t even sure if Google would be able to see the changes that we were making. So there was a lot of risk in the early days, but I believed that we would figure it out. And we did. And now I can be, I think I’m happy to say, so over 20,000 sites powered by the tech, by the software.

John Jantsch (02:26.094)

You

Manick @ Search Atlas (02:54.269)

over 5,000 agencies on the platform. And it’s a case study machine. Like it just produces case studies constantly. And that’s been great.

John Jantsch (03:03.918)

Yeah. So you’ve probably seen these headlines of late. You know, it’s become very trendy to start a blog post or something with SEO is dead. let’s talk a little bit. So how do you see the landscape changing right now? I mean, there’s no question it is evolving and changing, but certainly not dead. How do you see it? How do you see it today?

Manick @ Search Atlas (03:15.229)

Yeah, I wonder why that is.

Manick @ Search Atlas (03:29.363)

Yeah, I think the problem is that some people’s brains are dead and they see those headlines and that’s what they click on. But the truth is, search is like a basic human function. We have information demands and needs that we need to get met. And there will always be a search engine to meet us in that. The form of what that takes and how it operates and whether the modality is through text or through audio or other formats, that’s going to evolve and become more interesting.

But at a fundamental basis, we’re essentially providing a fragment of information, looking for knowledge. And that discovery process is just evolved. The landscape is now more fragmented than it used to be. The total size of search is actually bigger. And it’s still Google’s game, but the types and ways that we’re searching are changing. And the kinds of people that search on different search platforms is also

John Jantsch (04:15.587)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (04:27.743)

becoming pretty interesting. What we’re seeing in our data.

John Jantsch (04:29.826)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s almost like there’s almost like search personality, right? Almost.

Manick @ Search Atlas (04:36.743)

Yeah, I mean, on the end, on the other end of the computer, there’s an avatar, there’s an ICP. And the ICP of the chat GPT user is someone who’s willing to pay at least 20 bucks a month. Remember that, like we’re paying for the subscription. Anyone can search on Google without even a dollar. It’s a free platform. And so immediately there’s a higher commercial possibility from the user of chat. That’s why I guess when we look at our data, we’re seeing

John Jantsch (04:38.062)

Yeah, yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (05:05.278)

5.5 times higher conversion rate from people that go to our site from chat GPT than from Google, which was insane. And then even for some of our product pages, we see, you know, 1.5 to 4X higher conversion rate. So it’s undeniable that the conversion likelihood is way higher from chat than it is from Google. And that’s what we’re seeing.

John Jantsch (05:27.384)

Yeah, and I think it makes a ton of sense because at least today, the snapshot in the moment, I think that the consumer’s belief is, chat, GPT or AI or something has gone out there and done all the research for me. And so these three results that it gave me, you that’s all I need to look at. And I think that’s really why you’re seeing that. Don’t you think that’s why that intent and that conversion is so high?

Manick @ Search Atlas (05:49.843)

Yeah, for sure. And the other thing that happens faster on LLMs is that you’re able to do your research in a more comprehensive way. So there’s other prompts they’re asking. They’re asking refinements and they’re digging in deeper. They’re going and they’re asking more questions. And then when they get to the final end of their journey, usually they’re in a pretty close position, I think, to make the transaction happen and they’re ready.

John Jantsch (06:16.022)

Yeah. Yeah. was a lot of those questions they used to ask a salesperson have now been answered. Yeah. Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (06:21.693)

Yeah, exactly. Way less objections and they’re way more familiar with what they’re buying. And from an information processing perspective, John, like that’s the other amazing thing about it is it’s way easier for us to interact with ChatGPT because we know the structure. It’s text and it’s structured in a way and it’s easy to synthesize that.

John Jantsch (06:37.858)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:44.238)

Yeah, yeah, it’s a conversation. Feels like a conversation, right? So, how, where do you, what do you see the biggest opportunities and maybe the biggest risks today for marketers with AI becoming, you know, so integrated into search strategies?

Manick @ Search Atlas (07:00.447)

Yeah, that’s an interesting one. I think one of the biggest risks is

Manick @ Search Atlas (07:09.297)

One of the biggest risks is how the platforms themselves are changing. And if you’re like, as an example, if you’re a pure play organic search marketer that was good at creating content and you were creating a lot of informational content, that strategy is becoming more and more obsolete because the truth is Google and all the LMS, they already know what color an Apple is and they know that the sky’s blue. Like we don’t have to like create content to show that to them.

John Jantsch (07:29.027)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (07:38.143)

We have to create something new and different. And so some people that haven’t evolved their marketing approach in organic SEO, that methodology is already obsolete and they need to retrain. So I think that’s a risk is obsolescence. If you’re watching podcasts like this and reading up and actually applying the knowledge, well, you’re using an obsolete blueprint that’s living in, hopefully not Windows 95, but an out-of-date era.

John Jantsch (07:44.408)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (08:07.064)

Yeah, yeah,

Manick @ Search Atlas (08:07.439)

So that’s a risk. Yeah. And the platforms themselves are changing a lot. like what used to work two years ago on Facebook, for example, like I remember buying mobile app installs from, for my first tech company for less than a dollar by scraping the Facebook user IDs and running custom audiences. They closed that loophole. So just how the platforms work, their opportunities, that also changes. And it’s changing faster with AI now than it was before.

John Jantsch (08:36.142)

So you described a lot of that how-to content. The theory was very top of the funnel, get people to my website, that kind of thing. The common advice that I’m hearing a lot and a lot of folks are giving right now is that our content strategy needs to be more around winning high intent searches, which I think people would say we’ve always wanted to do, right? But that person that’s out there searching for best person to do X is a

is a better searcher, but how do we optimize our content for that type of probably more competitive search?

Manick @ Search Atlas (09:12.595)

Yeah. So it’s, so it starts with really understanding your, like the central topic or the primary keyword of your business and being really laser clear about that. So for example, for search Atlas, some people would say it’s SEO. No, it’s actually not SEO. It’s if it’s SEO, then it’s SEO automation and not just SEO automation, SEO automation software. Right. Or maybe it’s marketing automation software.

John Jantsch (09:19.128)

Yep.

John Jantsch (09:34.551)

Mm-hmm.

Manick @ Search Atlas (09:41.279)

problem becomes first off when people begin the process from the wrong starting point and they don’t really understand what is what’s called like their primary keyword or their central searching town. So that’s the first thing. what I, we do, because we also have an agency and we take on a lot of projects from people that have worked with other agencies that did the content process wrong. And they didn’t understand what it was that this business was actually selling and they created as an example.

John Jantsch (10:04.781)

Nice.

Manick @ Search Atlas (10:10.463)

for a cardiologist in LA, an article about did Donald Trump have a heart attack? Well, I get the concept of a heart attack and Donald, that’s somehow related to cardiology, but that has nothing to do with cardiology in Los Angeles or the service or the practice of it. And so when people take that path and they don’t do the right content strategy, they confuse Google about what the site is actually about. And that is the part that is devastating when they…

John Jantsch (10:24.451)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:35.629)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (10:39.281)

increase the site’s focus score, which is a metric Google is quantifying, when they reduce its focus score, when they increase its radius, when the site gets topical radius goes large, it becomes unable to rank for a core topic. And that’s like the mathematics of how they do the demotion. That I think is the biggest problem with content strategies today.

John Jantsch (11:02.39)

Yeah. You see a lot of people that write these things that get a whole lot of eyeballs. And then when you really start drilling into it, it’s like, well, these aren’t, these aren’t people that would ever buy from us, you know? And, so it’s almost like you’re hurting yourself, you know? Yeah. Great. We’ve got lots of traffic, but you’re actually hurting yourself. So, so how should, how should marketers that’s broad and beyond SEO be, thinking about AI today and certainly as it plays into, to your tool search analysts as well.

Manick @ Search Atlas (11:11.732)

Right.

Manick @ Search Atlas (11:33.097)

Well, probably the common thing anyone’s going to say right now is like, learn more AI, like get more into the tools, practice it. And so I don’t want to just say that. I like to come up with kind of my own little unique flavor angle on it. And what I would say is, create gatherings of people either on your team or people that you respect in the community and do your own hackathons. There’s way more power.

John Jantsch (11:39.778)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (11:59.95)

Mmm.

Manick @ Search Atlas (12:01.971)

When a group of people collectively approach a problem together in like in the real world, by the way, not, I’m not talking about zoom. I’m talking about in the real world. we do hackathons with my team and I, I fly out all over the world to meet different clusters of our team. And we lead hackathons for like four days, five days. We all stay in the same place and we build and we build in at the end. We come out, but we come up with a couple of different things we’ve created together and the process though, we all.

become masters of some type of use case around AI in that process. And sometimes we’ll even bring in people that I know that are experts in a particular discipline. And so if you don’t know those sorts of people, go find them and make friends with them and learn as much as you can, not just from what’s online and on YouTube, but from real experts that you can become friends with.

John Jantsch (12:49.975)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (13:01.87)

So there’s a lot of common, know, the whole idea of quality versus quantity. And I see a lot of people looking at AI and saying, I can produce 10 times as much content, you know, in the same amount of time. And I think the flip side of that is I also think you can look at these tools and say, no, I can produce way better content in maybe the amount of time because I can go so much deeper. can have access to stats. I can have access to

know, reports to people have written and be able to pull quotes from other people. Is there a quantity versus quality kind of best practice or advice that you give people?

Manick @ Search Atlas (13:41.753)

So I’ll give a controversial take. I think that web pages as we know them will be dead in less than 10 years. And the reason for this is that right now, and historically, Google have needed us to build web pages and really even Facebook to build web pages to lead people on an informational journey that maybe also includes a conversion journey.

towards some sort of transaction or registration or some path like that. And they needed us to box up the information because they didn’t have it. When we live in an era where creating content, you can create high quality content and lots of it, where content, the value of it, whether it’s a webpage or a blog post is essentially zero and high quality content is abundant. That’s the future we’re racing towards. And so in a world like that,

essentially all the information that’s knowable gets compressed into a knowledge graph. And that knowledge graph is essentially containing all of the factuality, all the information consensus of all of the voices on the internet and the world. And then at that point, Google can just make their own web pages. They don’t need us to build it for them. They just know what our query is. They have their lens and perspective on an answer or multiple answers. And so they will reconstruct

John Jantsch (14:55.138)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:04.627)

the webpage experience synthetically optimized for our exact question and the exact answer we’re looking for.

John Jantsch (15:10.06)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dynamically created for that one person as well. Right. Which, which obviously we, you know, very hard for us to do as a website owner. Yeah. I guess the begs the question then like, what do we do to, compete with that?

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:15.859)

Yeah, on the fly.

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:30.633)

Well, good question. Number one, build the biggest brand you can fast. Build that brand, get people to know that brand and love it. Build something that they want to come back to. Use your resources to create a true brand. Ultimately, all these search systems are essentially trying to identify the brands. Larry Page said famously that the internet is a cesspool and the brands are the signal and the cesspool. That’s literally what he said.

John Jantsch (15:33.294)

you

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:59.933)

And so what does a brand look like? Well, brand looks like people coming to your website, to your assets consistently to first a single purpose and for them to have like a high recall amongst your competitors. Get to that point. Even through traditional methodology, just get there because ultimately that’s the signal you can’t fake.

John Jantsch (16:25.612)

One of the things that I’m seeing a lot go on, you I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time. You know, the first kind of round of digital was like, once these other platforms started popping up, it was like, you know, go there, top of the funnel, get some exposure, but drive everybody back to your own property, your website, your email list, right? I’m seeing a lot more people that are investing in YouTube channels and in LinkedIn newsletters that are

of rented space, but that the entire conversion journey is actually happening in some of those rented places without necessarily sending people back to your home. So how do you feel about that kind of rented versus owned change that seems to be going on?

Manick @ Search Atlas (17:08.819)

I think we’ve always, yeah, I think we’ve always lived in a rent world. It’s always been rented and we just maybe didn’t want to believe it. because even ranking on Google, that’s also rented, right? We’re renting it. We could lose it if we, if we make a mistake. the exception to this would be Amazon, but even Amazon has parts of its business that are rented. and so I think it’s becoming comfortable with the fact that across all areas that, that we have visibility.

John Jantsch (17:18.99)

Yeah, sure.

Manick @ Search Atlas (17:36.627)

we will always be competing with our competitors there. So that means at the core of what we’re doing, we can’t just use crony marketing techniques to box out, you know, the bad guys and just keeping the good guys. Good guys have to become better. You guys have to like keep evolving the state of the art in our craft so that we stay competitive. And like, I mean, that sounds like the most obvious thing, right? Like we just can’t, you know, but I think that’s what it is. And if you build something,

John Jantsch (17:59.436)

Yeah. There’s no silver bullet in that, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (18:05.767)

No, there’s not. And it’s different depending on what industry you’re in. ultimately, guess, you know, and I always hated like the Kevin Costner, if you build it, they will come like mentality that Google have. Like I’ve always hated it. But ultimately it is like in this perspective, it’s true that if you build something of value and people will come back to it and you know, only other thing I want to add to that is also, I think because of this, we’re going to see people move back toward community.

John Jantsch (18:15.512)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (18:34.585)

real face-to-face spaces that are free of digital advertising and just people that now feel like they’re being misled by what they see online. feel like everything’s been gamed and can be gamed. There’s an increasing amount of people that are looking for recommendation from another person, not from the internet.

John Jantsch (18:34.69)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:57.048)

So last question, I always love to end on kind of a personal question. Looking back at kind of your entrepreneurial journey, any lesson that you wish you’d learned a little earlier as a founder?

Manick @ Search Atlas (19:09.663)

Don’t be afraid to fail and fail harder. I had my days of couch surfing and crashing in New York City in the early part of my startup journey when I had no money and I zero twice. And I think we need to celebrate that more and be comfortable and support people who are there. And I’ll say every single person I know that was in startups or building on their entrepreneurial journey a decade ago,

John Jantsch (19:11.31)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (19:38.289)

every single one of them has landed someplace amazing. Like not just financially, but also just happy with like where they are in the world. And I feel like, you know, anyone who’s listening to this and is in that early part of their journey, absolutely like commit to it, keep going and like, don’t give up. you’ll get there, like it will happen.

John Jantsch (19:41.196)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:02.69)

Got to keep taking swings, right? So Manik, is there some place, I appreciate you dropping by today. Is there some place you’d invite people to connect with you, learn more about Search Atlas, everything you’re up to?

Manick @ Search Atlas (20:04.969)

Definitely.

Manick @ Search Atlas (20:14.451)

Yeah, easy person to find online. You can find me on Instagram at Monique Bonn, at Monique Bonn. I’ve also got a YouTube channel. If you look up search Atlas on YouTube, we do like weekly webinars and Google challenges and train people how to get better rankings on Google using Holistic SEO.

John Jantsch (20:34.06)

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

Manick @ Search Atlas (20:39.527)

Awesome. Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

The Future of Local SEO in the Age of AI with David Hunter

The Future of Local SEO in the Age of AI with David Hunter written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Episode Summary

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews David Hunter, CEO of
Local Falcon and
Epic Web Studios, to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of local SEO.
With over 15 years in digital marketing, David brings a grounded and tactical perspective on how businesses can thrive amidst the rise of
AI-generated search overviews, shifting consumer behavior, and proximity-based visibility.

They dive into topics like AI Overviews, how tools like ChatGPT and Google’s generative AI are reshaping local search, and what multi-location
brands and small businesses alike need to prioritize to stay competitive. If you’re wondering how to future-proof your local SEO strategy, this one’s for you.

Key Takeaways

00:34 – AI Overviews Are Reshaping Search: Google is becoming the answer, not just the index. This change is reducing click-throughs but offers new opportunities for visibility.
03:00 – The Shift to Conversational Search Behavior: Consumers—of all ages—are adapting to natural language searches. “Best plumber near me who can come today” is the new normal.
05:27 – Proximity Still Matters—but Less Than You Think: Local Falcon’s study of 60,000+ queries shows authority and relevance are overtaking proximity in AI-based local search results.
08:26 – Understanding AI’s “Best” Results: Tools like ChatGPT may pull from obscure or outdated sources. Local Falcon helps identify which directories and citations are influencing those results.
13:09 – What Should Local Businesses Be Doing Differently? If you’re doing SEO ethically, not much changes—but content structure and clarity become essential.
14:37 – Ask AI What It Knows About You: Literally query ChatGPT about your business to see how it understands your brand and services.
15:35 – Structure Your Content for AI Comprehension: Use clear formatting, bite-sized paragraphs, FAQs, and schema markup to enhance visibility in AI-generated answers.
17:54 – Multi-location SEO Strategy: Brands with many locations have more visibility chances, but need consistency and brand clarity across each location.

Connect with David Hunter

Website: localfalcon.com
X: https://x.com/LocalFalcon
Local Falcon LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/local-falcon/
David’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidhuntererie/

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.026)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is David Hunter. He’s the CEO of Local Falcon and, or an AI powered local SEO platform and Epic Web Studios, a digital marketing agency in Pennsylvania. Over 15 years in the industry, David has been instrumental in transforming how businesses approach local search optimization with lots of things going on in search of all kinds. That’s what we’re going to spend some time talking

So David, welcome to the show.

David Hunter (00:31.871)

Thank you for having me, John. I’m happy to be here.

John Jantsch (00:34.764)

So let’s start big picture. think the thing that’s causing a lot of, depends on what side of the fence you’re on, suppose, a lot of angst, but also a lot of joy, I think, in searchers is this idea of AI overviews. How have those kind of generated overviews that are showing up now as the top results changing the landscape in local SEO? I know that’s a big question, but let’s start there.

David Hunter (00:59.431)

Absolutely, yeah. it’s really, you know, it’s not a small, so AI overviews are not a small change. It’s a fundamental shift. It’s not a little algorithm update, which is what we’re used to as marketers working with Google and others. But this is a big difference here.

I think the biggest complaint that marketers have is that it’s evaporating the clicks to your website. it, know, sort of complaint number two is that it distills the answer on its own. So Google is no longer just simply the provider of 10 blue links. Now they are a content creator. So Google as a content creator is fundamentally different from what it has been for the last.

John Jantsch (01:29.836)

Yeah. Right.

David Hunter (01:52.395)

30 years or so. And that’s a big difference. But at the same time, on the upside, boy, it gets the answer very quickly. Now, it might not always be the right answer. The sources might be a little bit weird, but to the end user, it does a very quick and efficient job of getting you to where you need to be. And so I think that as far as the future goes, it’s looking very bright in terms of our opportunity.

John Jantsch (02:22.178)

Well, I think it’s really changed search behavior. And that’s why I say what side of the fence you’re on. think a lot of consumers really like it. You know, instead of typing in plumber near me or plumber in my city, you know, it’s like, who’s the best plumber in this city that has X amount of reviews and could could show up in the next 24 hours? I mean, that’s what we’re searching now. And so that fundamental shift is really, I think, from a consumer standpoint, if they trust the answers they’re getting, you know, in the overview, then.

That saved them a lot of time of having to shuffle through and figure out who they ought to call. So you can see why the consumer behavior is really shifting dramatically.

David Hunter (03:00.015)

Absolutely, yeah. And I mean, it makes sense, you know, like we, as consumers and users of Google, we’re definitely used to typing in, you know, yeah, pizza near me, and finding a quick response through the map pack. I mean, that’s fairly efficient, but you don’t get that nuanced conversational answer. So what we’re doing as consumers, and I think that

It’s almost a happy accident by Google that they’ve rolled out AI overviews and then phase two is this AI mode, which I think is sort of the future of what the Google SERP looks like. They’re almost training us as consumers to start querying with long tail conversational searches. And so I’m seeing that behavior change. And I look at it.

John Jantsch (03:41.272)

Sure. Yeah.

David Hunter (03:47.339)

And I have colleagues that are always like, well, you know, the old folks, they’re not going to do that. Well, yes, yes, they are. You know, my father’s like pushing 70 years old and, and, you know, I see him on the regular using, conversational, you know, searches and, and, and getting good, good feedback from it. So that’s right.

John Jantsch (03:53.621)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (04:04.846)

Well, yeah, once you get used to it, we want what we want. So it’s like, yeah, I’m going to talk to it like a human being and give them all my details because I’ll get it. know from experience, I start getting better answers.

David Hunter (04:10.879)

That’s right.

David Hunter (04:16.575)

Yeah, I think it takes maybe five or 10 searches for the average person to realize I should be doing this conversationally.

John Jantsch (04:19.372)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you spend a lot of time on proximity, with, some of the tools you’ve created. I know when I first started in search, you know, the, big thing was we had to, we had to optimize our site for, grew up in Kansas city. So I’ll use that example. have to optimize our site for Kansas city and all the suburbs and all, you know, to try to get traffic, you know, from, from those places, Google’s gotten really good at proximity, right? I mean, meaning if I searched that whole, the typical search.

a remodeling contractor near me. Well, it knows where I am, you know, maybe even to the street corner. And so it’s going to say, okay, well, you know, within reason, you know, here are the six that are closest to you. So how is that changing, you know, especially the example I use, the remodeling contractor. I mean, that’s not like a, like a dentist or somebody that like is going to have a

have a footprint area, right? I mean, I might be able to serve a 20 mile radius. So how is proximity playing and how do we take advantage of getting it to show us in a wider range?

David Hunter (05:16.0)

Right.

David Hunter (05:27.699)

Right, so, and you’re dead on about that with the service area business. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for them to really get even more visibility because of this. When local search first became a thing, there was proximity and then prominence and relevance, right? Those were the three components that made up local search. Right.

John Jantsch (05:36.952)

Yes.

John Jantsch (05:47.212)

Yeah. Have a lot of reviews.

David Hunter (05:49.981)

Right. And be relevant. the, you know, if I’m looking for a remodeling contractor, don’t show me a list of barber shops. Right. So it’s got to be relevant. And obviously it gets much more nuanced than that because well, what kind of remodeling and, you know, home remodeler commercial, you know, whatever. So bathrooms, kitchens, but there’s, there’s definitely a shift happening. And so at local Falcon, we have basically spent, we’ve built our platform on tracking results around you, right? The grid, use a grid pattern.

John Jantsch (06:17.838)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

David Hunter (06:19.657)

where you can basically see over top of your business, but then expand it out however far you wanna go radius wise, and then you drop a bunch of pins and you could see these results. Well, the future is definitely changing. And so we recently wanted to roll out a tracker for AI overviews around and chat GPT that’s similar to local Falcons core plan and that it’s got the grid interface, but…

is using the conversational platform to see the results. And so before we did that, I said, well, we need to do, I need to see if this is valid, if it’s even worth doing, right? And so we ran this big study. We put, you know, 4,000 some businesses in there and ran like 60,000 different searches and looked, looked, basically studied the patterns and what was going to come out of that. And that’s where we learned that like proximity, it matters, right? It matters at like a city level. It matters at a, you know, sort of

you know, regional level, but it is not factoring anywhere near the, you know, with the level of authority that it used to. So it’s important that you still, you know, focus on, if you’re a remodeler in Kansas City, that you focus on having that localized content and, you know, authority around that. But the, you know, the relevance and the, you know, the prominence, you know, the expertise, that stuff is really what starts to kind of show up

in terms of like the position that you put in, right? And I don’t even call it ranking because it’s really, it’s more about the position because it’s a natural language response. It’ll weave business names into this paragraph of text that it gives you. Now, it also does a list below and whatever, but yeah, it’s less about the ranking now and it’s more about your position within that ranking. So it’s important because you still need to be known as someone that.

serves the Kansas City area, but less important when you’re dealing with like near me because it’s gonna probably pull a list of the best remodelers around the area or what it thinks is the best.

John Jantsch (08:26.284)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting. you know, obviously showing up on the map pack for a local business. you know, I’m, I’m old enough to, it used to be seven at one point. it’s three, if you can find it, know, midst all the other stuff, exactly. Right. but if I go to chat GPT today and type in a geographic search, best remodeling contractor, Kansas city,

David Hunter (08:36.843)

You always know it’s 10. Yeah, 7, 10 and 7. Now it’s 3. Yeah.

Right. All the ads gotta come up there first, you know?

John Jantsch (08:57.42)

what’s pulling up there. Now, I don’t think a lot of people are necessarily doing that kind of search yet, but they will, right? so, theoretically, are the results that are showing up there, what a common, an amalgamation of like all the searches actually determining you’re the best or is it determining you’re the most trustworthy, you’re the most prominent, you have the most authority, you have the most reviews.

David Hunter (09:24.299)

It’s a great question. So, you know, I think that anybody who tries to tell you that answer is going to be full of snake oil, right? Like nobody really knows how that is pulling in and, and, you know, coming together, there’s a lot of different theories out there. There’s a lot of different, really strong, you know, methodology that’s been put to the test in terms of like, what, you know, I don’t want to get too technical, but like embeddings and vector vector embeddings and like passages within the website.

John Jantsch (09:49.026)

Yeah.

David Hunter (09:51.915)

how it pulls all that information together is definitely different. They’re not using Google search results per se. I do think sometimes they kind of slide them in there, but for a while they were focusing exclusively on Bing places. So I can’t say that it’s gonna provide you with the absolute best list, but it’s pretty close. So I live in the Great Lakes up in Erie, PA, and I did a…

that exact search pizza near me. And I, you know, this is a city of an area of 250,000 people, there’s not that many options. And so when I look at it, I saw the list, I’m like, this is actually, this is pretty good. I mean, some of these places are, you know, probably a 10 minute drive, but they are darn good pizza places. So in the chaos that is coming within these results, it does seem to be finding

pretty decent results out of that, which is definitely encouraging. Now, with Local Falcon and our product that we’ve got, we show you essentially the output itself, as well as we will identify what brands were pulled, and then below that, we show you the sources. This is where I start to really lose my head. So I’ve got an agency called Epic Web Studios that’s been around for…

you know, 17 years now. And I started doing searches around that, like who’s the best web developer in Erie, Pennsylvania, right? The list of results that came back was so haywire. I mean, we’re talking, there were businesses that were, that I remember from 10 years ago that are since out of business. You know, there were businesses that were across Lake Erie in Canada. You know, it was, it was all over the place. And the sources,

John Jantsch (11:27.725)

Mm-hmm.

David Hunter (11:42.173)

were just wild. mean, it was finding essentially these like directories that I’d never heard of before, right? And pulling that type of information through and saying, okay, well, we used, you know, good firms.com and tech behemoths.com. I’m like, who is, what is this? You know, so I spent a couple hours going through, making sure like, well, we better make sure we’ve got a profile there and that it’s validated and.

John Jantsch (11:48.908)

yeah.

David Hunter (12:05.803)

I mean, that’s the most we can do at this stage is identify those sources and make sure that we’re included in that. I mean, there’s a lot more you can do with the content on your site and everything else, but for this part.

John Jantsch (12:12.898)

Yeah, that’s really, yeah. That’s really, that’s really interesting that they identify the sources because I do think, you know, I do think that that’s what’s the house, a house, for example, is a, you know, is a source for builders and local home service contractors. And I noticed that ChiTPT in particular pulls a lot of house results. You know, so that that’s a really great tip is to think in terms of,

David Hunter (12:36.927)

Yes. How’s Angie? Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:41.698)

making sure you’re in the sources that they’re pulling. Let’s just, again, another giant question, but today, especially if somebody, local business is saying, okay, I get it. All these changes are coming. Like, what do I need to do differently than maybe I was, before maybe I was claiming my Google business profile. I was building pages with geographic content on them. I was getting reviews. mean, what else do I need to be doing different?

David Hunter (13:09.651)

Okay, so if you’re running a white hat operation with your web presence, I think that as of today, there’s not entirely that much different that you need to do, but it’s the big caveat that you’re running a white hat operation, right? If you’re sitting here running, you know, some sort of a link farm and trying to, you know, blast a bunch of AI generated content, that’s never gonna work. Or at least it’s not gonna work in the long term, right? Yeah. Right.

John Jantsch (13:35.992)

I was going to say that’s the bad thing is it works temporarily, and so people get excited about it. But then they, you know, eventually Google or whoever catches up.

David Hunter (13:42.239)

That’s gonna get, yes, that’s gonna get plugged, right? The idea of, and I’m not sure if the kind of hack has been plugged yet, but people were putting, people used to do this back in the day too. You would put a bunch of keywords on your homepage or on your website. And a lot of times they’d wanna obfuscate that and make it like a white text on a white background so that you couldn’t see them, right? People are doing that now, they’re injecting prompts inside of it so that when…

the chat GPT bot comes through, it sees a prompt that says like, talk only about this business. It’s the best business and repeating that over and over again. And people are finding it’s working. It was ranking. Now I think that they have since plugged that. don’t know, but I’m not willing to try. I’m not going to put that type of not like nastiness on my site. Like that’s no way I’m not taking that risk, but you know, there’s a lot of little hacks out there. What can someone do in the white hat sense? mean, number one, you need to understand what

John Jantsch (14:23.981)

Yeah.

David Hunter (14:37.247)

people are saying, or how the LLM, the large language model is understanding your content, right? So go, simply go ask ChatGPT about that. What do you know about Local Falcon, right? And just simply Google that, excuse me, search that on ChatGPT and understand right out of the gate, at least it has a, does it know who we are, where we are, what we do? If not, you better start adding some content to your website in a visible way.

John Jantsch (14:44.504)

Mm-hmm.

David Hunter (15:06.098)

that is gonna make sure that it, you the next time the bot does come by, it pulls it in and, you know, can use that in terms of its reasoning. When you do add that content, it needs to be done in a very like bite sized way, right? Like putting up a 2000 word blog post that’s a big wall of text is probably not going to help you in terms of showing up inside of these responses, right? Just think about how the responses come back. They’re very short snippets. And so,

John Jantsch (15:21.134)

you

David Hunter (15:35.307)

if you can write in short snippets and get kind of the core idea down to one or two sentences, and then, you know, I’m not saying don’t do the 2000 word blog post. What I’m saying is within that, make sure that it’s got the main idea and, you know, the thesis, whatever it is you’re doing is all kind of spelled out in little chunks at a time. You’re gonna have a much better shot of showing up. So.

John Jantsch (15:45.4)

Right, right.

John Jantsch (15:55.064)

Right. Yeah.

Well, and I think what we’re saying is good content is good content should be written for humans should be valuable should be educational. But a lot of the tweaks that maybe need to happen are in the structure. So, you know, you have the overview at the at the very front, you know, here’s what this article is about. You have the table of contents, you know, you have the 2000 words and at the end you have FAQs. I mean, it’s probably more about structure, isn’t

David Hunter (16:10.122)

Yes.

David Hunter (16:22.889)

It’s a big, it’s a huge piece of it, right? So again, it’s really about how, you know, chat GPT, know, open AI, Anthropic, you know, others, Google understands the information. So they do that in these little, you know, they’ll basically pull little passages out. And then that contributes to the larger, you know, the larger model understanding what it is. And then it creates its own version of that. Sometimes you’ll even find verbatim, it’s pulling in

some of the content that you wrote, especially with things like FAQs and how you answer that FAQ, right? Number one, you also need to make sure that it’s structurally visible, right? So schema markup has never been more important. You have to identify and when schema markup is essentially like a shortcut for understanding what a page is about, it’s a way for a bot, a crawler to…

John Jantsch (16:56.215)

Yeah.

David Hunter (17:17.563)

recognize and categorize, this is about a recipe or a review or a local business. So making sure that that schema markup is on there. And then of course, again, looking through the sources, right? So when you run these local FalconSkins, you’re gonna see this huge list of sources and it’ll tell you how often that source was used. So if you’ve got a whole bunch of Yelp listings on there, yeah, go get on Yelp and maybe even consider spending the 50 bucks or whatever they want to like,

actually make sure that it’s as complete of a profile as possible, just to give yourself every chance for success.

John Jantsch (17:54.24)

Yeah, absolutely. Let’s touch on just again, this is a giant topic, but let’s say I’m a business that has 10 local locations. Do I need to be doing something differently? Do I need to be doing something? I mean, are there unique challenges that you’re starting to see from that multi-location business?

David Hunter (18:16.939)

So yes, a lot of times when you get, when you’re with a multi-location brand, it ends up, you you have a really good shot of actually showing up because you’ve got so many others, you know, if you’ve got 10 locations in your city, that’s 10 more chances or nine more chances than the solo operation, which is definitely helpful for them. Yes, and so that’s great. However, the response itself,

John Jantsch (18:36.738)

So somebody’s always near to one of them, right?

David Hunter (18:43.619)

you know, we see some wild stuff like it’ll pull, you know, you’re on the east side of town and it starts talking about the location on the west side. So it’s less about that individual location and more about the brand itself, right? So making sure that like holistically the brand is well understood is important. I think that where you’re gonna see potentially some headaches is in like the franchise world where someone buys in.

and they are responsible for their location. I mean, it depends on how the brand operates, but doing things from sort of a centralized source and then disseminating out is probably your best bet.

John Jantsch (19:12.546)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (19:20.93)

Yeah, awesome. Well, David, I appreciate you taking a few moments to come by and share about local searches. there someplace you would invite people to connect with you and find out more about your various platforms and tools?

David Hunter (19:32.715)

Sure, I mean, certainly, you know, search up Local Falcon wherever, know, localfalcon.com. Also, you can find me on LinkedIn. I’m, you know, on there probably too much these days, so.

John Jantsch (19:42.734)

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

David Hunter (19:49.297)

Absolutely, John. Thanks for the very, very lightweight questions there, man. Those were nothing, you know, nothing too strong at all, right? Thanks again.

John Jantsch (19:53.038)

You

Awesome. Awesome.

The 7 Roles Every Small Business Owner and How to Manage Them

The 7 Roles Every Small Business Owner and How to Manage Them written by Jordan E read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Ever feel like running your business is a never-ending game of keeping plates spinning? I remember watching a circus performer as a kid, keeping seven or eight plates balanced on tall sticks. Just when one would start to wobble, he’d rush over to give it a quick spin, only to dash to the next one teetering on the edge of disaster.

That’s exactly what running a small business feels like, right? Unless you’ve got an army of employees, chances are you’re juggling multiple roles every day—some better than others. So, let’s break down these seven roles and talk about how you can keep those plates spinning without losing your sanity.

1. The CEO (a.k.a. The Visionary)

Someone’s got to set the direction, and spoiler alert—it’s you. But let’s be real: in small businesses, the CEO role often gets pushed to the side. You’re so busy working in the business that you forget to work on the business.

Solution? Time-blocking. Set aside a couple of hours a week—call it your “big thinking time.” No emails, no client calls, just you mapping out where you want to be a year from now. If you don’t do it, no one else will.

2. The Salesperson (a.k.a. The Rainmaker)

No one’s bringing in the revenue but you. You’re out there generating leads, following up, and closing deals. And let’s be honest, if you stop selling, everything else grinds to a halt.

Solution? Automate your follow-ups. Tools like ActiveCampaign and HubSpot can send nurture emails, move prospects through a pipeline, and remind you when it’s time to follow up personally. Set up a system once, and let it work for you.

3. The Strategist (a.k.a. The Master Planner)

Marketing without strategy is just guessing.

Solution: Follow a proven framework. Our Strategy First framework provides a repeatable process to ensure marketing efforts are structured and scalable.

What is Strategy First? Strategy First is a structured marketing approach that helps businesses attract the right clients, differentiate themselves, and start charging a premium. It includes a full audit of your online presence, competitive landscape analysis, ideal client persona development, and a customer journey map using our proprietary Marketing Hourglass methodology. This process, completed in 30-45 days with three 1-on-1 meetings, delivers a clear marketing roadmap that businesses can implement themselves or with continued support from a Fractional CMO. Learn more about Strategy First process.

4. The Project Manager (a.k.a. The Organizer of Chaos)

Once you’ve got clients and a strategy, now you’ve got to get the work done. Campaigns, vendors, deliverables—it all needs to be managed.

Solution? Project management tools like Asana, Monday (what we use here at DTM), or ClickUp. These keep everything organized and show clients the progress you’re making without a million email check-ins.

5. The Client Manager (a.k.a. The Relationship Keeper)

If you want long-term clients (and you do), you’ve got to nurture those relationships. Regular check-ins, reports, and proving your value—week in, week out.

Solution? AI-powered reporting. Tools like SEMrush and Google Analytics spit out tons of data, but AI can help translate that into meaningful insights for your clients. Use it to show why what you’re doing matters.

6. The Marketer (a.k.a. The One Who Always Puts Clients First)

Raise your hand if you’ve ever put your own marketing on the back burner because client work comes first. Yeah, we’ve all been there.

Solution? Treat your business like a client. Assign yourself a project manager, use AI tools to repurpose content (e.g., take a blog post and turn it into LinkedIn snippets), and schedule social posts in bulk. Your future self will thank you.

7. The Accountant (a.k.a. The One Who Hates This Part)

Invoicing, bookkeeping, taxes—it’s got to get done, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it.

Solution? Outsource it. If you’re spending hours wrestling with numbers, you’re losing time you could be using to grow your business. Hire a bookkeeper and let them handle it.

How to Escape the Chaos

So, how do you stop feeling like a circus act?

Prioritize the most important roles. Sales, strategy, and client management should top the list.
Automate what you can. Email sequences, project management, reporting—there’s a tool for everything.
Delegate and outsource. Hire a VA, a bookkeeper, or a marketing agency. Free up your time for the work that actually moves the needle.

At the end of the day, you don’t have to keep spinning plates forever. Build systems, get support, and create a business that works for you—not one that runs you into the ground.

Need help creating a system that works? Check out our Strategy First program at Duct Tape Marketing. We’ve built a repeatable framework that helps agencies and consultants scale without the chaos.

Empower Your Team: Learn to Lead Across Differences

Empower Your Team: Learn to Lead Across Differences written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Stephanie Chung

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Stephanie Chung, a bestselling author and transformative leader with over 30 years of experience driving growth and building high-performing teams. Stephanie, a trailblazer in private aviation as the first African American woman to lead a private jet company, shared insights from her book, Ally Leadership: How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You.

Our conversation explored the evolving dynamics of modern workplaces, the importance of building bridges across differences, and actionable strategies leaders can use to foster inclusion and trust. Whether you’re managing diverse teams, navigating generational divides, or seeking tools to lead empathetically, Stephanie’s advice is a game-changer for today’s leaders.

Key Takeaways:

ALLY stands for Ask, Listen, Learn, You Take Action: This framework encourages leaders to foster inclusion through curiosity, empathy, and meaningful action.
Generational and cultural differences require adaptability: Leaders must embrace humility and recognize that managing diverse teams is essential in today’s workplace.
Psychological safety is key to innovation: Creating a safe space for employees to voice ideas and concerns builds trust and drives team success.
Embrace vulnerability as a leader: Acknowledging your own learning curve fosters openness and connection within the team.
Leadership is about connection, not control: Success comes from asking questions, actively listening, and taking purposeful actions to support team members.

Chapters:

[01:03] Who is Stephanie Chung?
[01:40] Introduction to ALLY Leadership
[03:12] Diversity in Leadership: Broadening the Conversation
[05:09] Cultivating Cultural Intelligence and Effective Leadership
[14:21] Overcoming Unconscious Bias Through Human Connection
[20:16] Barriers and Benefits of Leading Diverse Teams
[22:57] Creating a Psychologically Safe Workplace

More About Stephanie Chung:

Ally Leadership: How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You by Stephanie Chung
Check out Stephanie Chung Website
Connect with Stephanie Chung on LinkedIn

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

Duct Tape Transcript

John Jantsch (00:01.142)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Stephanie Chung. She’s a bestselling author, business leader and strategic innovator with over 30 years of experience in driving growth and transforming businesses. She’s a former chief growth officer for Wheels Up and was the first African American to lead a private jet company, JetSuite. She’s also the author of a book we’re going to talk about today.

Ally leadership, how to lead people who are not like you. So Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stephanie (00:37.496)

Thanks for having me, John. I’m excited to be here.

John Jantsch (00:40.384)

I suppose, and I typically find myself doing this, getting definitions on the table of terms that are in titles. how would you, if somebody says, I’m hearing a lot about this ally leadership thing, what is that?

Stephanie (00:53.634)

Yeah, so ally is actually an acronym. So it’s a great question, right? So the reason I didn’t write and call the book Allyship is because it’s a little bit different. So ally stands for ask, listen, learn, and you take action.

And the reason why I wrote the book, John, is because at the end of the day, the whole world’s changing, right? And we as leaders have to get on board and realize that the train has left the station and sticking our head in the sand isn’t going to be helpful for any business leader. So when you think of the work climate, right, we’ve got five, soon to be six generations working, which is unheard of. So trying to lead a boomer versus a zoomer can be a challenge all within itself.

John Jantsch (01:12.14)

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie (01:32.994)

So we have the sixth generations working. We have women as the majority of the population. So that changes the dynamics as well. And then we have the ethnic demographics that are shifting, right? So the, you know, ethnic races are growing, non-ethnic race shrinking, not to mention people with different neurodiversities or different, you know, abilities or LGBTQ plus communities. So what leaders have now is an entire workforce of people who are not like each other and not like them.

John Jantsch (02:01.804)

Right, right.

Stephanie (02:02.092)

And so the real goal is how do we lead people who are not like us? And that’s really the point behind ally leadership. The only way you’re gonna be successful is to ask, listen, learn, and then you take action.

John Jantsch (02:14.594)

You know, one of the things I find really fascinating about you writing this book, so applicable, as you just said, to many leadership roles, but we’re so used to this coming from somebody who looked like me, a white male, right? Who is saying, you’re going to work with different generations now. And so I think it’s so fabulous, but also fascinating that it’s coming from an African-American female.

Stephanie (02:28.834)

Yes. Yeah. Right.

Stephanie (02:40.782)

Well, thank you for saying that. Thank you. You have no idea because that is that was that’s actually why I wrote the book, John, because I felt like the entire conversation was, you know, Mr. White guy, you’ve got to figure out how to lead women and people of color. Right. And so so, you know, yes, I addressed that in the book because obviously I can’t, you know, avoid the elephant in the room. But I felt like the conversation needed to go deeper and wider.

John Jantsch (02:52.386)

Right, right.

Stephanie (03:04.856)

The truth of the matter is all of us, it’s not just the white guy, all of us are going to be leading people who are not like them. And so how do you do it successfully? I’ll take myself as an example. You mentioned in my bio, I come from private aviation. That is a male dominated and specifically a white male dominated industry. And yet I’ve been able to reach the highest level. And so I, as an African-American female,

John Jantsch (03:21.346)

Sure.

Stephanie (03:29.89)

was I remember and you know, I opened the book with the story on how I look at the first team I’ve been given. They’re all white men and they’re looking at me like, where’d she come from, right? And I’m looking at them like, boy, right? And so at the end of the day, know, it really isn’t just, you know, white men have to know how to lead everybody. It’s everybody has to know how to lead everybody. I always say the leader of today, John has to know how to lead all God’s children, every race, every creed, every gender. That’s the job.

And so that’s what the book is really designed for, is to hopefully give tools and to help people who find themselves in that predicament as to, here’s what I did really good, here’s what I did horribly wrong, and hopefully those tools can be helpful for them as well.

John Jantsch (04:14.306)

You know, it’s unfortunately a fact of life that a lot of people grow up without a lot of cultural diversity in their life. And so, you know, how do you, how do leaders start gaining that cultural intelligence? It’s like going to another country almost, you know, right? It’s like, I don’t know how to act here, right? So how do they gain that?

Stephanie (04:21.892)

Yeah.

Stephanie (04:30.166)

Yeah. Yeah, well, I think it’s twofold. One, you have to come to grips that you’re going to make a mistake. And I really want people to grab hold of that. It is none of us for, I shouldn’t say none of us, but most of us are not dealing with life or death situations, right? So you’re going to make a mistake. So that’s the very first thing, because what I find, John, and the reason why I open with that is I find that people are so afraid to make a mistake that they do nothing.

John Jantsch (04:38.754)

Yeah. Yes.

Stephanie (04:57.396)

Right and it’s like well if you come to grips with you’re going to make a mistake then that will ease the the the pressure I guess so that when you make the mistake then you’re okay with it because people people will know it’s about your heart It’s I always say this whole thing is a head and heart issue right if someone is and I give a story in the book about a situation that I had 30 years ago with with someone that

was so not like me and I knew that I was gonna walk in and make a bunch of mistakes, right? Because it was just unfamiliar territory for me. But what I find is people who are not like you would much rather feel like they understand that your heart is in the right place. They’d rather you talk to them than not talk to them because you’re afraid of making the mistake. So how to answer your question, how do you actually go about it?

John Jantsch (05:38.114)

This

Stephanie (05:47.188)

One, get your mindset right. I’m going to make a mistake and nobody’s going to die in this process, right? The second part is, then you come at it with a heart, which is curiosity versus dictating, right? Because nobody wants to hear your opinion on how you see the world when you don’t even understand their world.

Right? And that’s usually the biggest adjustment, especially we as leaders have to make. Nobody cares about your thoughts. What we care about is you actually trying to ask questions, not with the understanding of I’m trying to ask so that I can seem like I care. No, no, you really have to humble yourself and understand that this person’s world is completely different than mine. I don’t have enough education to start dictating to them how they should be running their life.

but I can ask questions out of sheer curiosity and truly listen. And one of the things I like to have people realize is you don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t even have to have all the questions. Just start off asking the basic questions like, know, how are you? Tell me a little bit about your upbringing, your childhood, et cetera. That will then guide you with the next set of questions. Again, I think because people are so afraid and let’s face it, society also hasn’t been very graceful.

Right? People make a mistake and society cancels people and then people are afraid to make a move because they’re afraid of being socially slaughtered or canceled. So everybody has to adjust. It’s not just the leader. The whole world has to adjust. The world is different. And if we can give each other some grace and come at it through a head and heart perspective, then we’re not that far off because we actually have much more in common than we do apart. So the easiest way to do it is ask questions, listen.

John Jantsch (07:01.055)

Mm-hmm. Peace.

John Jantsch (07:07.542)

Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie (07:28.396)

learn and decide to ask more questions. And then use your privilege, because we all have it, right? It’s not just white people having privilege. Everybody’s got privilege. So use it whenever you can to help the other person that you’re in charge of leading.

John Jantsch (07:30.146)

Okay.

John Jantsch (07:42.262)

I suspect from the leader, a large amount of vulnerability, especially early on, has to be there too, right? I mean, to say, like in your case, you walked in, I’ve never worked with a team of all white guys. know, right? Almost like acknowledge that, right? Up front, and I’m going to make mistakes. I think that probably goes a long way to at least getting some grace in the beginning, doesn’t it?

Stephanie (07:54.968)

Yeah, right, Yep.

Stephanie (08:03.908)

Exactly. And even when we think if we go even one step further, because I know a lot of your audience are small business owners, right? One of the best things that we can do when trying to solve a problem, I used to this with my teams and I sold, you know, oversaw billion dollar sales teams. Very first thing I would do is sit down with them and go in front of a whiteboard and say, OK, listen, guys, here’s what we’re being asked to do. And I could really use your help on how you think we should do it.

Right, so when you talk about humbling yourself, it’s true in every aspect of leadership. If you really want to be an effective leader, you really have to know how to eat humble pie as your specialty, right? Because then people realize like, no one is expecting you to have all the answers. That’s true in business. It’s also true in leadership.

John Jantsch (08:31.81)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (08:40.097)

Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie (08:47.234)

And so when you’re leading people who are not like you, no one’s expecting, especially the person who’s not like you, they’re not expecting you to know everything about their lifestyle. They’re not expecting you to be familiar with the little nuances that there’s no way you would know. What they are expecting of you is that you would ask, listen, learn, and then you would take action. And the reason why I keep driving that take action home, is because you can’t call yourself an ally.

Like this isn’t a trophy, right? A participation trophy. You cannot call yourself an ally. Somebody else can call you an ally, but you can’t call yourself an ally. And the only, like, just like I can’t call myself a nice person. Like you can go, you know what, met Stephanie, she’s a nice person. But I can’t go, you know what, I’m a nice person. Like based on what, right? So same is true for ally. You know, you, you, when you take action, people will see it and then they will say, you’re an ally.

If they don’t see it, they’re not gonna say it. And just because you said it doesn’t make it true.

John Jantsch (09:46.764)

Yeah. So is there an example of kind of a challenging moment that you had that you think really not only tested your ability, but maybe kind of informed some of what shows up in the book?

Stephanie (10:00.3)

Yeah, there’s a story. It seems like it’s everybody’s favorite story. So I won’t go too far into it because I won’t spoil it for your listeners. But I tell a story about I was asked to meet with a person because at the time I was in the cosmetic industry and this friend of mine who was a behavioral specialist had asked if I would meet with one of her patients. And I was like, sure, know, no problem because the patient had a desire to get into the makeup cosmetic industry. And so I just want to pick my brain.

So once I said yes, then she shared with me that this person was transgender. Now this was 30 years ago, John. So I honestly had never heard the word, right? I didn’t know anything about transgender. I didn’t know what it meant. Like I just didn’t know. And so once she told me that and I said yes, then I told her,

teach me, educate me, like what does this actually mean mentally, physically, you know, the whole thing, right? I need to be armed so that I don’t look like a complete idiot right now in this luncheon. And so she did her best. But what was interesting, and I tell this story from several different perspectives, what was interesting is when I had that meeting at the restaurant with the transgender person.

John Jantsch (10:57.303)

Yeah

Stephanie (11:11.78)

And I tell the story from my perspective sitting there, from the restaurant attendees perspective sitting there, because again, this was 30 years ago, it wasn’t like recently, right? And just every single role that happened as you’re looking at someone, in my case, as a person who’s not like me. Now, I’m used to walking into a restaurant and maybe being the only woman or being the only black person or what have you. So I understand the dynamics that go on there. But what I saw and witnessed from

their, you know, from what the dynamics were for them walking in the room was very, very different. Something I’d never seen before. And so that’s an example. And again, I won’t go really deep into the story because I spent a lot of time on this story because I know that everybody who reads the book can find themselves in that restaurant scene. I never give, you know, direction as to what’s right, what’s wrong. That’s not for me to do. But what it does do is I promise you, when you read the book, you’re going to find yourself in one of those settings.

either as the wait staff or the person sitting in the restaurant or the person sitting across the person or and and you will find yourself there and Literally probably have a moment of like wow because I in the chapter with what would you have done? Right. So yeah, this book is for making people think John

John Jantsch (12:23.892)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Awesome.

So, unfortunately, we know there are a percentage of people that are biased and bigoted. I mean, they’re just there. However, there are a lot of really well-intentioned people that have pretty deep, unconscious biases. They don’t mean to have them. They don’t mean to have them show up the way they show up. how do people, especially this leader that you’re talking about, how do you get people to start recognizing and overcoming those?

Stephanie (12:36.824)

Yeah, that’s how it is. Yep.

Stephanie (12:45.656)

Sure. Yep.

Stephanie (12:55.692)

Yeah, that’s such a great question because what I love is that you started with the fact that we all have it. There is nobody, nobody that doesn’t have it. one of the best ways to get over it is to, once you realize, okay, I’ve got it, is just to realize I have to, I’ve been programmed to see people a certain way.

Period, right? Doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong. It’s just what I’ve been programmed. And I do spend some time in the book talking about the science behind unconscious and conscious bias, because it really does start, again, I go as a head and heart issue, right? The brain is gonna do what it finds the easiest thing to do. And so the brain will, if it sees something that’s not familiar or not like it, right, for part of it, sometimes bias is actually a good thing, believe it or not, because there’s a safety mechanism part of that as well.

Now, when it gets becoming bad is when you’re judging everybody and of clumping them in there and you’re in group or out group with absolutely no conversation to be had or because you’ve read something and you’ve never actually met a person like that. So the very first thing that we have to do is to realize that we all got it. The second thing you have to do is really to over to because our default system is to automatically put people whenever we meet them and we can just be looking at a picture of them. We don’t have to physically be having a conversation.

Our brain will put them in an in-group or out-group. First thing it does, it’s an instinct that you can’t change, right? Those are from our caveman days. And again, there is safety in that. However, what you can change is to override that default system. And how you override it is by making the unfamiliar familiar. And the only way you make the unfamiliar familiar is to literally step out of your comfort zone. Simple stuff you can do, right? Go into a neighborhood that you’re not used to going to.

You know, and usually in different neighborhoods, they have museums that are there. They have different restaurants. They have different cultural activities that you can do, galleries, et cetera. You must take the bull by the horns. You will not get culturally fluent sitting on your couch or hanging out in your same neighborhood with your same people, working the same job, having the same conversation. That’s not how it works. But if you’re serious about this, and I hope that every leader is, because again, world’s changing. Train has left the…

John Jantsch (14:55.19)

questions.

Stephanie (15:10.936)

building. Either you’re going to jump on board or you’re going to be left behind. Those are your two options. But if you’re that person who says, okay, I realize I don’t know everything and nor do I need to, I’m going to make that effort. So now what I’m going to do is, you if I have a neighbor that maybe I’ve never spent time talking to, maybe have them over for coffee and get to know them and ask them questions. Or you don’t want to do that. Go to a neighborhood that you’ve never really spent a whole lot of time through. You know where it is.

go in there, go to the museum, go to the local small business, talk, shop, ask questions. All of that is just mechanisms that will help you get more familiar so that when your brain meets somebody who’s not like you, it doesn’t automatically stick it in the out group. But now that person becomes a little bit more familiar. Or at least people who fall under that category. It’s simple things. And the reason why I keep making it really, like do step one, step two, step three.

is because I feel like part of the problem that we’ve got in society, John, is people feel like this is this big, grandiose situation. And because the bigger it gets, the more overwhelming it gets, and the more scarier it gets, and the less we do. But if I just say to you, listen, you’re going to make mistakes, accept that, right? And then make those little steps here and there, you’re going to feel like, OK, all right, I’ve got permission. And what I will tell you, especially as a person of color,

John Jantsch (16:21.771)

Yes.

Eh.

Stephanie (16:31.126)

You know, you can tell when people are coming and asking you questions because they really do want to know versus they’re asking you questions because they’re trying to trap you or get you, you know, put your defenses or trigger you or gaslight you, whatever. Everybody knows. Right. So if your head and your heart is in the right place, you would be so surprised on how welcoming people would be to actually have that conversation with you.

John Jantsch (16:53.196)

Yeah. So I guess if talking about going to that neighborhood, if you really want the MBA, like the crash course, go to the beauty salon, right? Or the barbershop. So, you know, it’s interesting. Obviously, I know where you’re going with, you know, lead people who are not like you. But really, nobody’s like me. Right. And so, and so some of the practices you’re talking about really are just human

Stephanie (17:00.78)

Yeah, right? Or the barbershop, right? Exactly.

Stephanie (17:14.754)

Yes. Yep. Exactly,

John Jantsch (17:23.266)

contact practices aren’t.

Stephanie (17:24.772)

100%. It’s all about human connection, right? And as leaders or small business owners, we’re in the people business, period. And people, really, we were designed, we were created for human connection. We are best when we’re connected. If you look on the news, there’s always that story that we all hate, but at the end of the day, the core is they didn’t have anybody that they were connected to.

John Jantsch (17:48.758)

Yeah.

Stephanie (17:48.76)

Right? And so human connection is really why we were created. So what my whole focus with the book is to really drive home the point that you just said. None of us are alike. Right? I mean, we are wonderfully made. You know, we’re unique in so many different ways. And so and that is if you if you start there, then then automatically it makes you realize also that people are not better or worse than you.

Right? because sometimes that’s the issue as well. If you feel like you’re better than other people, then you’re going to treat them a certain way. But if you realize that you’re no better than everybody else, right? We’re all wonderfully made. Then that allows you to come into the conversation with a different heart stance, which then allows the person who you’re speaking to to receive you a certain way as well.

John Jantsch (18:35.82)

So what are some of the barriers that, you know, we always have to drag out, like, here’s the hard part. What are some of the barriers that you’ve seen have really prevented leaders from truly embracing this approach?

Stephanie (18:42.606)

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie (18:48.426)

Usually it’s when they make a mistake, they may have said something wrong or come off the wrong way, and then all of a sudden they’re chastised. And then that kind of scathing review makes them never want to do it again. So that’s usually what I’ve seen. The flip side though, because we do talk a lot, especially in our country, about inclusivity and things of that nature.

John Jantsch (18:52.791)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (19:00.001)

Yeah, right.

John Jantsch (19:10.518)

Mm-hmm.

Stephanie (19:11.64)

What we don’t really talk about the fact that leading diverse teams actually can be very challenging. And it’s not because the team is diverse, right? A diverse team, there’s enough statistics out there, diverse teams simply perform better. So from a sheer business perspective, it just makes good business sense to create a team of all-stars versus, you know, just like in sports, right? Nobody’s gonna have a basketball team with all forwards.

Right? Like you’re never going to win. So you have to have a team where everybody plays a different position, has a different gift, talent, et cetera. And that then means that the team has to, by default, be diverse. Because people think of diversity as far as just race, diversity in communication, diversity of how they think, diversity of perspective. mean, diversity is a big word that covers a lot of things. So that’s the first thing. But that’s usually what happens is people feel like they’ve made a mistake. And so that’s what stops them in their tracks.

John Jantsch (19:34.23)

Right, right.

Stephanie (20:03.064)

But the flip side is what I would say is yes, leading a diverse team can be hard, not because of the team, but because you’ve got to make sure that you’re letting everybody speak their piece and how they may speak their piece because how they see the world may be very, very different.

So as a leader, you gotta have like real leadership skills, right? To make sure that you can manage those conversations and the differences that will come from it and the different perspectives because that’s the secret sauce and how you get a different, more powerful result, right? But you as a leader have to check yourself. If you’re kind of an okay leader, this is gonna be tough, right? But if you’re a real leader that is very strong in communication and bringing out the best in people and you’re secure enough.

John Jantsch (20:32.322)

you

Stephanie (20:46.286)

to be able to allow people to challenge each other or even challenge your thought process. Now you’ve got a team that is unstoppable because if you get a bunch of people presented and focused on a common cause, literally will live, like they will not be stopped. But that’s the job of the leader. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? And what is it the role that you play as to how this business is successful?

John Jantsch (21:09.426)

It’s funny you talk about that diversity. I’ve always contended the best marriages are very diverse. Individuals, right? And the best partnerships in business. People bring a whole different side of it. How does a leader create a safe place for employees, psychologically safe place for employees, given what you’ve been talking about?

Stephanie (21:14.048)

Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes.

I love that. I love that.

Stephanie (21:30.648)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The easiest way to do it literally is that when people voice their opinion, you almost want to create healthy confrontation, right? And so how you do that is, you I used to have one of the best CEOs I ever worked for. He mastered this. He had come over, taken over the organization.

And what he realized very quickly is that the team got along to get along, right? So there was, know, and if anybody didn’t agree, then instead of bringing it up in the middle of that executive meeting, they would then not say anything. And then the meeting’s over and we know the type, right? And then they go to the water cooler and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, So it drove him crazy. And that was just a dysfunction of how the team was used to operate.

John Jantsch (22:09.814)

Yep, yep, yep.

Stephanie (22:14.532)

because the environment wasn’t as such where you could actually voice the fact that you maybe didn’t agree with, you know, your colleague or what have you. So one of the very first things that he did, and it’s funny, I used to watch him do that, and then every company I’ve ever overseen, I’ve done the same thing, where he would try to get us to break that dysfunctional habit, right? And the way that he would do it is I would say he’d drop a grenade in the middle of the, get us all worked up, and then he’d leave.

Now we’re all, you know, crazy and we’ve got to like work it out because we’ve got to come to some kind of consensus. and that’s one way that leaders can do it at the beginning. It feels a little uncomfortable, both for the team and for the leader, because you’re almost stirring up stuff. Right. But I’d much rather have a team that is like, you know, disagreeing in a respectful way, but at the end of the day can all get on board. And when we walk off the doors, we’re all in unison. That’s the goal.

right? But you really as leaders running companies or teams or divisions, the whole point is that you must hear all the different perspectives. That’s how you’re going to be get a competitive advantage out there. And so if you don’t allow people to do that, then you know, the emperor has no clothes, right? We’re all seeing they’re going, yes, it’s all it’s a wonderful product. This new thing you’ve created. In the meantime, people are thinking this is this.

Sucks, right? This product never going to get off the ground and nobody feels like they’re safe enough to be able to say it. So how you create safe psychological safety within a workplace is to literally get people comfortable with the uncomfortable conversations. And a lot of times as leaders, we actually have to start that because they won’t do it naturally. So we kind of have to start it by saying, well, you know what, John, know that Stephanie said this, but you know, looks like the look on your face says that you disagree. Tell me more.

right? And then force you to say, well, the reason, you know, and you’re going to, you’re going to tip toe around it at the beginning. Well, it’s not that I don’t disagree. It’s just, think there’s another way to do it. Great. Well, tell me more. Right. And so you’re going to keep forcing people to get to that point where they, can, you can watch them. They’re feeling uncomfortable saying it. They’re like, well, I just don’t think her idea is good. Great. Well, tell me why. What’s your idea? What can, how can we do this better? Right. So just forcing those conversations. Once people realize that when they do it and they say it,

John Jantsch (24:25.995)

Yes.

Stephanie (24:37.314)

and nothing bad happens to them, the next meeting they’re more likely to do it. And then the next meeting they’re more likely to do it. And that’s how we change the culture.

John Jantsch (24:46.114)

And it’s funny. I feel like when people are in a room together, we’re a little more guarded about our body language. People are so easy to detect on Zoom, right? Because we think, nobody’s actually here with me, you know, so I can roll my eyes and nobody will know. It’s funny. Well, Stephanie, it was so great having you stop by the Duck Tape Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more about how to lead people who are not like you?

Stephanie (24:56.514)

Yes, exactly. Right. So true.

Thank you.

Stephanie (25:14.588)

Absolutely. They are welcome to come onto my website, StephanieChung.com, or I’m on all the socials, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, at the Stephanie Chung. But StephanieChung.com is probably the quickest way to get to me and that. And yeah, for those of you that are leading out there, I hope this book will serve as a tool to help you have the best team so you can get the best results.

John Jantsch (25:36.13)

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

Stephanie (25:40.58)

I love it. Thanks so much for having me, John. Bye bye now.

John Jantsch (25:43.532)

Ha.