March 1, 2026 • 43 mins
We cut through AI hype to show what actually scales: disciplined ops, brand-led content, and a practical framework for awareness, nurturing, and trust. Eric Huberman shares Hawk Media’s scaling lessons, where AI helps, where it hurts, and how to build a moat in a noisy market.
• LLM shifts to persona-first, Q&A-led visibility
• AI as acceleration, not strategy replacement
• Hiring and tooling only with clear business cases
• Lean tech stack choices that reduce complexity
• Brand as the moat in a copycat software world
• Branded entertainment and YouTube as growth engines
• Limits of synthetic audiences and AI-looking creative
• Deepfakes, eroding trust, and authentic messaging
• The Hawk Method: awareness, nurturing, trust
• Channels that scale for B2B and B2C performance
—----------
Guest Contact Information:
Website: erikhuberman.com
Instagram: instagram.com/erikhuberman
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/erikhuberman
YouTube: youtube.com
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Now, host Matthew Bertram — creator of the LLM Visibility Stack™, and Lead Strategist at EWR Digital — takes the conversation beyond traditional SEO into the AI era of discoverability.
Each week, Matthew dives into the tactics, frameworks, and insights that matter most in a world where search engines, large language models, and answer engines are reshaping how people find, trust, and choose businesses. From SEO and AI-driven marketing to executive-level growth strategy, you’ll hear expert interviews, deep-dive discussions, and actionable strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve.
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SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
This is the unknown secrets of internet marketing.
Your insider guide to thestrategies top marketers use to
crush the competition.
Ready to unlock your businessfull potential?
Let's get started.
SPEAKER_01 (00:16):
Howdy, and welcome back to another funfold episode
of the Unknown Secrets ofInternet Marketing.
I'm your host, Matt Bertram.
As always, we're talking aboutdifferent strategies in the
digital marketing space and howto optimize in this new layer of
AI optimization and LLMvisibility.
(00:37):
So I wanted to bring on somebodythat has uh just done it all and
has built AI tools.
Um, he's grown with datadifferent strategies, he's
spoken, he's worked with some ofthe major brands.
And for all of you agencies outthere listening, he's been able
to scale his business quitequickly.
So maybe we'll get into how he'sbeen able to do that because I
(00:58):
know that there are a lot ofagency owners out there that
everything's a moving target.
There's a lot of bespoke work.
Um and uh, you know, how do youscale?
So I know that that's a questionthat that people have.
Uh Eric Hubberman with HawkMedia.
Welcome to the show, Eric.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Awesome.
So, you know, super impressedwith kind of like everything
(01:19):
that you've done.
Um, if you want to credentializeyourself a little bit more, I'm
happy to uh, you know, give yousome time to kind of share your
your journey or your originstory.
SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
Uh yeah, I mean can make a long story short, uh, at
this point, we build Hawk Mediabecause we saw how broken the
marketing ecosystem was.
I mean, there's 90,000 marketingagencies in the US, and I'd
state, you know, prettyconfidently that 99% of them
have no idea what they're doing.
So the idea was to build a teamthat is the best at what they
do, but also easy to work withbecause the generally the few
good agencies out there won'twork with the small and medium
(01:50):
businesses.
So at this point, we're about220 people.
Uh, we currently managemarketing for about 600 brands.
Uh, companies growing, been fun.
We also invest a lot.
So we have our venture fund,we're on our second fund, uh,
focused on marketing tech,e-commerce tech.
Between our funds and ourbalance sheet, we probably
invested in 115 companies.
Um, and then uh yeah, have afinancing arm and have built our
(02:13):
own AI software as well and verytech forward and constantly
growing.
SPEAKER_01 (02:18):
Awesome.
So tell me kind of how you viewthe market currently.
I mean, there was quite a bigshift uh a couple of years ago
when LLMs came onto the scene.
And you know, there's a lot ofdebate whether it's like, you
know, just better SEO gets youvisibility.
But the argument that that Iseem to identify with most is
(02:39):
like this technology was notaround five or six years ago at
all.
So you may be getting to asimilar result, but how do you
get to that result?
The mechanism is completelydifferent.
And how buyer behavior ischanging uh is dramatically like
shifting the landscape.
And so um, you know, and thenand then really leveraging some
(03:03):
of this, like I guess, machinelearning, AI intelligence and
ads and everything else, youknow, it is a moving target and
and things things are changing.
And there's been a fan out fromGoogle and Facebook of where
people are uh finding newinformation.
So, so I mean everything's kindof reset.
And so I'm curious how how y'allare approaching that.
SPEAKER_02 (03:23):
Yeah.
So the nice thing is Google isactually capturing a lot of it
with Gemini.
So there, I think, you know, ifI were a betting man, I think
they're actually gonna come outthe winner in this.
Uh OpenAI's metrics andeconomics just are tough.
Maybe I'll eat my words, but I'mnot, I'm pretty bearish on their
longevity.
Um, I think it was they were thefirst mover, but so is
Friendster.
(03:44):
So is oh so are a lot ofcompanies you don't hear about
anymore.
So um I also think it'scompletely overhyped what this
stuff is gonna do.
I think in the short term, AI isas overhyped as it could
possibly be.
In the long term, I think it'sprobably somewhat legitimate.
I think guys like Elon Musk andum Sam Altman are way
overpromoting it.
Uh, the idea that we're notgonna have any capitalism in
(04:06):
five years and everyone's justgonna hang out is absurd.
Um, again, realize that ChatGPTlike really started
proliferating almost four yearsago now.
So like it's like we're the inanother five years, it's not
gonna completely take overcapitalism.
Like that's not a thing.
Um, but it it's definitelycausing some efficiencies, some
changes.
Six percent of people now go to,or I should say six percent of
(04:28):
organic traffic comes from LOMsnow.
It's not 50, it's six.
So it's happening, it's a thing,but it's a very small piece.
Now, we we invested in tools andreally leaned into optimization
around LOMs early.
So we're doing it for hundredsof brands and it's working great
and it's fun, but it's like it'snot gonna make or break a
(04:50):
business yet.
Now, I think over time it'll getmore and more prolific and it'll
probably be beneficial, butright now it's just a nice, I
wouldn't say it's nice to have.
It's one of many things youshould be doing with your
marketing.
But again, you're not gonnabuild an entire company off of
just showing up in ChatGPT for acertain search.
Plus, the big difference there,like it's not just good SEO,
because the difference betweenSEO and now is one of the
(05:12):
biggest differences is LLMs aretrying to cater it to the
individual audience.
So you have to deal with personatargeting on top of the
traditional SEO side of things,which is like every like in SEO,
we all see the same thing thatwe all see the same result for
the same search.
With LLMs, it's trying to pleaseyou individually.
And so it's a very differenttactic there.
Plus, it's way more question andanswer driven than fact-driven.
(05:36):
So you have to model it so thatit can, all it's doing is
regurgitating what's out therealready.
It's looking for high authority,question and answers.
So when someone asks thatquestion, they can say, well,
this question was asked on thissite, and we believe it's true.
So we're gonna give the sameanswer.
Like this is just replicationand it's not true intelligence
whatsoever.
And so that's why celebritiesare so bent out of shape where
(05:56):
it's you know digesting alltheir work and then creating
like then when you see AIcreated music, it's like, well,
no, it digested a bunch ofexisting music and then just
regurgitated it, like you asked.
Didn't create anything.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
Yeah, no, I so I I think that LLMs, uh, the
application in different areasof your business is what's
transforming the business,right?
Like, so if you take like thetech debt that's happening with
automation and you bringautomation forward, like people
are calling that AI, but thenyou actually add that agentic
(06:31):
layer on top of the automationwhere where it has some agency
and a narrow capacity to dothings, I feel like that's um
that's where I think the reallike value driver or the
leverage is is coming from.
SPEAKER_02 (06:45):
It is, and I agree with you.
Uh, it's just I think the thevalue that that provides is
being overstated.
Where it's like, I would arguethat it's basically like having
an army of 17-year-old interns.
Like, yeah, you can find valuein that, you can find efficiency
in that, but like you need adultsupervision, it needs help, it
needs guidance.
And I don't think that that'srapidly going to change.
I think that it's gonna improve.
I think we're gonna see thingsbetter and better.
(07:06):
And it's like it is impressivehow fast it's improving, but I
don't think we're gonna get tothe point where it's just like,
just let it go, it'll be fine.
Like, I don't think that'scoming anytime soon.
SPEAKER_01 (07:15):
The the the bot economy, right?
As they're promoting.
SPEAKER_02 (07:18):
Buy bot talking to your bot isn't, I don't think
like I listen, I think the earlyadopters and the people that
it's kind of like it reminds mea little bit about when
blockchain got really popularand everybody was throwing
blockchain at every like they'rethrowing the solution of
blockchain at places where theydidn't even have a problem.
That's what the everything'sagent agentic now, and it's
like, but that doesn't reallyhelp now.
(07:39):
And again, we use a lot ofdifferent uh AI technology here
that we find practical.
But to me, it's like great.
It's like I've had the samefeeling of innovation when we
install a great piece ofsoftware.
It's not like it's like all of asudden, like, you know, it's
changed our entire businessovernight.
It's shifted just as much aslike when we finally, you know,
got on a good CRM or we ended upwith you know a good billing
(08:00):
system.
It's like these things arehelpful and it's really
interesting, and I think it'llcontinue to be.
But again, I worry about thehype level because you know, I
just got off a uh venture andfinance call, not for our own
company, but in general, sort ofa macro call.
And it's like watching wherethings are hyped and where
they're valued right now, it'slike this doesn't end well.
SPEAKER_01 (08:18):
Yeah, I I'm I'm starting to hear that as well.
And and certainly uh the chatGPT model, uh he, you know,
they're looking for some money,and it's gonna be interesting
the the quality of service wherewhere that's gonna go.
SPEAKER_02 (08:30):
Well, and the economics don't make sense.
It's not getting cheaper to useAI, it's getting more expensive.
So Moore's Law isn't keeping up,they're not getting cheaper
commute compute, and so at somepoint, the whatever they charge,
30 bucks a month or whatever,charged at GPT, doesn't end up
making sense because they'reliterally losing money on every
inquiry.
And then all of a sudden theeconomics catch up.
(08:51):
And instead of it sent yousaying, Whoa, I replaced it with
a bunch of junior people withthis hundred dollar a month
tool, it's like, well, now thattool is five grand and it
doesn't look as valuable anymorenow, does it?
SPEAKER_01 (09:01):
Yeah, so I would love to kind of um take a step
behind the curtain a little bitof like how you were able to
scale your agency and then howyou've been able to layer in
some of these uh AI technologiesor just advancements, like
whether it be software, becausebecause I'm certainly uh in the
process of learning Python rightnow, and it's giving me a lot of
(09:22):
different kind of capabilitiesand access from a programming
level that from a marketinglevel I didn't have access to.
And I kind of feel like AI isjust that that that next layer
on top of that.
And and I'll just be interestingto see how you were able to
scale your agency and like whereyou inserted different pieces of
technology as you grew.
SPEAKER_02 (09:43):
Yeah, it's it's funny.
It's it's kind of the same wayyou need to look at, and this is
actually something I've reallybecome aware of.
And it actually came fromwatching more politics and
government and then realizing weall have the propensity.
Companies have a propensity tospend more and more and more and
more money, just likegovernment.
Like you build aninfrastructure, they're gonna
spend it.
You give a budget, they're gonnaspend it.
(10:04):
Um, I'm trying to think of howto say this without calling them
out, but I talked to a managerthe other day about how the team
felt bloated.
And it was like, hey, like theredoes this seems to be way too
many people here for what needsto be done.
And his response was like, Oh,yeah, I told the frankly, the
person and topic, like, this isgonna be short-lived.
Like, you know, this we didn'tneed this person that long, but
(10:25):
I can't believe it lasted twoyears.
And then part of me is like,Mother, are you kidding me?
You just said that to me.
Like, you wasted two years ofthis money that you actually
didn't think we needed.
But like on the other side, it'slike, well, that's on me because
I didn't challenge it, becauseyou have to push back.
Because you know, this is goingto what your question is, which
is I, you know, what I like todo is basically push this to the
(10:46):
limit until we find a breakingpoint and then bring people on
because that way you don'treally ever like unless you
really screw up, people aregonna have job security.
Like there, there's a lot ofwork to be done for those
people.
It's when people don't have workto do that the job security goes
away.
And I don't think people realizeit.
When it's really easy at yourjob and things are really chill,
that's not a good thing.
That that that you know, they'regonna wake up at some point and
(11:07):
go, why do we have all thesepeople?
And that's what's happened thepast couple of years at all
these big tech companies.
Um, same thing goes forsoftware.
I get tons and tons of requeststo add software to our company
all the time.
And the amount of, I guess, techdebt or whatever you want to
call it that accrues because allof a sudden you've got a tool
for everything, you're spendingthousands of dollars on things,
and you just go, all of a suddenyou look at it and go, We don't
(11:28):
need all this.
Like this, you know, like theeasy example, because I will
call them out because I do notlike them.
The two platforms that I reallydidn't have a good time with
NetSuite and Salesforce, twotools that are so
overcomplicated and sooverexpensive.
And like we went from QuickBooksand HubSpot to Netsuite and
Salesforce thinking we had toquote grow up.
Yeah.
And I spent three years tryingto get out of those contracts
(11:51):
because HubSpot and QuickBookswere so much easier to use, so
much more efficient.
I had to scale up my financeteam to like seven people from
three, and now we're back tothree because we didn't need all
those people when we're onQuickBooks.
And my company's grown, to beclear, since we made the switch
there and back significantly,but it turned out we didn't need
all that overcomplicated.
So you end up with these, youknow, ridiculous tools that are
(12:13):
hard to implement that you walkinto these long-term contracts,
and you know, I don't have a lotof, I think we're getting away
from that.
That's where AI thinks reallygonna hurt because you're gonna
get much more nimble andflexible tools that can do
exactly what you want them to doversus having to buy into these
massive ecosystems that you arecompletely unnecessary.
Because it to their credit, toNetSuite and Salesforce credit,
trying to build an enterprisetool for everyone's really,
(12:35):
really, really hard and nearimpossible.
So it kind of comes with theterritory, but both to answer
again, answering your questiondirectly, both with people and
with software, I've really triedto find like we only do it when
there's a really solid businesscase on why bringing that person
or that software on is going tomake us more money.
Because it's really easy to say,oh, we're gonna cause relief.
(12:56):
It's like relief at the for thesake of what?
If we're not causing relief,like even if the argument is we
have to give employees this toolor they're gonna burn out and
we're gonna lose them.
Well, I can make a business casefor that.
What is the cost of replacingthem, et cetera?
Great, retention is a cost.
Like, let's figure out whatthat's worth.
But that there has to be abusiness case, or it's really
easy just to go, sure, sure,sure, sure, while you're doing
(13:16):
well, and then all of a suddenyou've you're deaf by a thousand
paper cuts and you've hired abunch of people and a bunch of
softwares that you don't needand it's all out of your pocket.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
So I have a couple follow-up questions to that.
So it it sounds like you startedexploring like like a ERP layer,
right?
Of like bringing everyeverything together.
And and and we've we've exploreda couple different um tools, and
and there's there's somefreemium tools out there or like
you know, uh community tools outthere that that do a lot of
(13:46):
this, and then you can developon top of it.
Um and you know, there's there'sof course tools like go high
level that kind of you know uhaggregate a lot of these tools
together like that.
So um what is your viewpoint ofof utilizing at an agency of
your size, like what does thattechnology later look like?
(14:08):
And like maybe what is the techstack that you're operating
from?
And and you you sharedQuickBooks and and uh HubSpot,
um, which I I think do a lot,right?
HubSpot quite quite does a lot,and they're pretty sticky too,
right?
Like once you get in todifferent components and then
what's interesting is we leftthem.
SPEAKER_02 (14:25):
The that was probably one of the first
software things we did that welike my entire team was excited
to re-onboard.
Like teams hate new software,they hate changes.
When I said I went from salesfirst to HubSpot, everyone's
like, Thank God I should getpaid for this.
Um but uh yeah, in terms of techstack, productive for project
management and time management.
(14:46):
Um I'm trying to think what elsewe're using.
Uh we're switching to Charge B,I think we're negotiating with
right now for billing.
And I'm saying these thingsbecause these are re like this
is a good example of likefrankly, this is where SaaS, I
think, loses me.
Our other billing software, uh,what's it called?
Biller Genie decided to liketriple our cost year over year.
(15:08):
It was like no.
Like, thank you.
You just opened up thecompetitive landscape for us to
go do our research, and now wefound something way better.
And like, this isn't how we youwant to be disloyal to us and
treat us like shit after we, youknow, signed contracts with you?
Like, no, we're not doing that.
So looked for opened up the youknow, sort of uh world and you
know, charge B, we actually hada relationship with, and their
(15:30):
software is great.
So we're probably you know,assuming they work with us on
the pricing and we're goingthrough that right now, we'll
probably switch to that, andit's a better solution.
And then uh, I mean, ziprecruiter for recruiting along
with LinkedIn.
Um what else?
I'm trying to think techstack-wise.
We have our own system calledHawk AI that's digesting about
6,000 companies marketing mediaand revenue data in real time so
(15:52):
that we can actually use on theperformance marketing side,
benchmark in real time, knowwhat's working, what's not.
That's been our own in-housebuild for tool that's just we
can't find someone else that cando that because they don't have
all the data and we don't reallywant to give someone else all
the data.
Um I'm a big, you know, rentover build for the most part,
because unless you're buildingsomething to go to market,
(16:14):
you're building a softwarecompany, it's such a massive
amount of investment.
Like I have not spent money,more money on anything in my
life other than my own AIsoftware.
My house, my like there, thereis not a single line I guess
payroll in general, but like forlike an asset, that is the
biggest thing I've spent moneyon.
SPEAKER_01 (16:32):
So um for for orchestration of the assets,
like uh like HR, like bringingpeople on, like scaling up
projects.
Um that was just like more of apersonal question.
How are how are you managingthat?
Like what what is there a toolor a platform that you're using
to help do that quickly?
To to onboard people and tomanage like resources on on
(16:55):
accounts.
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
Yeah, so productive is part of that.
That's a project managementtool.
Um, in terms of training andonboarding, we have trainual is
another tool we use.
Um, they're great.
Uh what else do we use on thatside?
Uh we have all sorts of bots nowwe've built internally that are
like so you can inquiry quickquestions about like, hey, what
do we do here?
Have we worked in this?
(17:17):
How do we handle this?
Like, that's due.
We use right now we use Pandadocuh for designing.
Yeah.
Um, I mean, yeah, Google Suiteis a we also use.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
So got it.
Cool, cool.
Yeah, and I think that one ofthe things that you mentioned
previously, which was superinteresting, it and that's what
I'm seeing is uh we're we're nota development agency, right?
We're we're EWR's marketingagency as well.
And so um we've started to buildlike little custom tools to do
different things.
(17:48):
We built like custom GPTs to toquery uh different accounts and
um uh internal resources as faras like how do we do what?
And that that that has been, Ithink, a game changer.
And like we were able to mockstuff up pretty quickly, like
get to MVP pretty quickly.
And it's given us like the morewe learn about AI, the the wider
(18:08):
we can reach as far as like aT-shaped um approach.
And and we're starting to buildall kinds of little tools.
And to your point, I feel likeyou can you can spin up a tool
that is customized to your needspretty quickly if you're if you
don't have like if you're notgoing to market and you don't
have a lot of throughput, right?
Like it's just like essentiallylike you're trying to uh run a
(18:30):
script on on what you're doing.
Yep.
I mean, you can build all kindsof stuff uh today.
And uh how do you think thatthat's gonna affect the
landscape of these big SaaScompanies and these big um
recurring revenue?
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
Yeah, it so I we we talk a lot about this on our
venture side uh because we do alot of investing in early stage
software.
I think we're in a time nowwhere software is be like it's
had a moat for a long time whereit's like you can't just
replicate someone else'ssoftware, it's really hard.
And like now, I think it'sreally easy quickly.
So to me, brand is gonna hitsoftware like never before, and
(19:07):
it's gonna be really interestingbecause you know it's the same
way.
Why is Hawk defensible?
Well, where it's not just aboutyour product.
You can hire, again, there's90,000 uh uh uh marketing
agencies in the country.
Well, why are we defensible?
Because we have a lot ofcredibility, we've done it,
we've been very successful, wehave a big brand.
We've built a brand in thespace, and so we're signing, you
know, 50, 60 new clients everymonth right now, and we're
(19:32):
getting we have that throughputand we're able to handle it.
And we we have a goodreputation.
So, because of that, we continueto build and continue to grow,
and it's been great.
Um, I think that goes tosoftware now too, where it's
like it's not the the benefit,the value is not going to be in
the actual software anymore,other than it delivers and it's
good, and like it's a good pieceof software that functions.
(19:52):
But I think brand is gonna takego to market and brand is gonna
be everything.
What's your distributionstrategy?
What's your go to marketstrategy?
What's your marketing strategy?
And doing all that in a way.
That hits the market wellbecause I think it's going to
get so noisy in software that ifyou don't do that, you're you
like if you do that well, you'regonna have a moat because no
one's gonna want to deal withfiguring out which like it's it
(20:13):
happens to us too.
It's like if someone built thenext AI-driven HubSpot, like
I've been pitched on that 50times.
I don't want to take the risk onany of them.
There's too many people with thesame pitch, so you just don't
touch it and let let everyoneelse be the early adopter there
before they break something.
And so in that moment, HubSpot'sgot way more strength because
nobody wants to try any of thesethousand competitors.
(20:35):
Same thing as like a t-shirtcompany.
Once you find the t-shirt youlike, you kind of want to stick
with it and not deal with allthese other guys.
Like once in a while, and that'sa low barrier.
You're talking about you know,10, 50, 100 hours, whatever you
spend on a t-shirt, like not abig deal.
Like, but you most people stickto once they get over that hump,
they stick to it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:53):
Yeah, you know, one of the things that you just said
that got me thinking, and I I doagree with you on the brand, um,
is is really uh the pendulumswinging back.
I don't know if you can kind ofsee.
I I need to set up my cameras alittle bit better, but there's a
a mad a madman poster backthere.
And and I think that brand brandis is really coming back into
(21:13):
vogue because I don't think thatwhat the LMs are producing,
unless you're a really goodoperator uh and you and you
really know what good lookslike, you can get to something.
So I think that creativity isgoing to be there for sure.
What are because you have such awide view of like the demand in
the market and and you'reonboarding so many clients,
where do you see the marketgoing as far as needs?
(21:35):
Like if you were to categorize,you know, you know, paid ads and
uh paid social or SEO orwebsite, like where where do you
see the market kind of flowingto right now?
Well, where is it flowing to orwhere should it, I guess?
Uh where where is the demandright now?
And then then then if you wantto project out, tell me what you
(21:56):
see.
SPEAKER_02 (21:56):
Whatever you whatever you want to call it,
GEO, AEO, AIEO, likeoptimization for LOMs is
definitely where people are inlike most intrigued right now.
But where I'm trying to pushthem because I think it's where
it's going to be even more uhcompetitive, is uh branded
entertainment.
Uh I'm you know, as aperformance marketer, I think
like we have such a limitedamount of uh like great content.
(22:18):
We have cheap content, tons likeinfinite amounts of cheap
content on TikTok and reels andeverything.
But in terms of like truethoughtful entertainment, I
think that you know, you've gotNetflix, you've got these
platforms, Amazon, you've gotHulu, you've got these
platforms, but the amount that'scoming out versus like, I don't
know, I feel like when I was akid, there was a new movie every
week or two that you wanted togo see, and now it's few and far
(22:39):
between.
There's still movies releasing,but a lot of them suck.
And you go into Netflix and it'sa lot of cheap entertainment,
and it's like there's anopportunity to own your space
from an entertainment point ofview, because distribution's
been proliferated.
That if you can capture thataudience, like, you know, I've
got CNBC on in the background,someone is gonna come along and
build a much better financialnews outlet than CNBC, and it's
(23:02):
gonna be attached to a financialor a fintech company.
Like that's where I think itmarketing is going.
And I think it can be at allscales.
It's not just, you know,Robinhood launching CNBC as an
example.
It could also be the next, youknow, running shoe company just
running, yeah, you know, givingrunning tips and cool running
content, but be there for theirspecific audience, they become a
(23:25):
go-to for those rabid fans ofrunning.
Like it's I I I'm all aboutengaging above and beyond a
purchase decision when you'rebuilding a company.
And I think if you do that, it'shard because the uh performance
metrics aren't there, but Ithink it'll pay off.
And I think that's why it'll payoff even more, is because so
many people will be kind ofstuck with their head up their
ass about like, well, I can'ttrack it on a spreadsheet, so
(23:45):
they won't do it.
SPEAKER_01 (23:47):
Yeah, I mean, Google at the beginning of this year
pivoted hard to YouTube.
And I've seen uh starting uh alot of shows and and people kind
of set up their formats ofbuilding content around that as
well as certainly advertising.
And to your point, I mean,that's where, you know, uh like
Vemo3 or whatever you want tocall it from Google and and some
(24:08):
of these other tools uh on theum on the AI side, it's
interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (24:12):
Yeah, the AA side.
You gotta be careful with thatstuff.
Like the AI content, it lookslike AI, so it immediately kind
of hurts your trust factor andyour authenticity.
So unless it fits and it'ssomething that like fits your
brand, yeah.
I think a lot of people aregonna hurt themselves with that
too, because authenticity is abig part of why you want to
create content, is build thattrust.
SPEAKER_01 (24:32):
Yeah, I I guess I I've I've been following um some
of the like uh Bigfoot and uhand uh like uh Starship Trooper
uh chronicles and stuff.
And and I I think that they'rethey're building uh such demand
that they can uh use productplacement and promote things and
um you know and and so I thinkthere's gonna be a proliferation
(24:54):
of that for sure.
I I do agree with you.
And then like Gary Vee istalking about like live
streaming, like selling ishappening around the world.
What are what are your thoughtsaround?
SPEAKER_02 (25:03):
Around the world, it hasn't caught on in the US.
I think people are so used to ondemand here.
It's like, you want me to be onyour time to buy something?
It I we've looked at many,because again, the venture side,
like we have to look at allthese trends, part of investing
thesis too, and a marketingthesis.
Like, is live shopping gonnahelp our clients?
You know, TikTok's shoving itdown people's throats, but it's
(25:24):
not been incredibly effective inthe US.
TikTok shop is, but the liveshopping aspect of it, people
are fine to watch it later.
They don't care that they'retapping in, you know, you can do
drops and things like that, butthose are limited.
And so it it I don't know thatlive shopping in the US maybe it
will catch on at some point, butit's it and it's huge in Asia,
but it just hasn't fit theculture here.
(25:45):
And maybe again, maybe that'llchange, but kind of to your
point about like where is thedemand?
The demand, the demand from theconsumer side is not we need
more live shopping.
SPEAKER_01 (25:54):
Yeah.
So so just to keep this theme ofAI, let's let's move into like
how you see AI enhancing becauseuh paid ads.
I've I feel like paid ads justthere's been a shift in how how
they want you to give the input.
You know, we've we've beenhaving some issues with brands
where you know it's manipulatinguh the imagery or even like the
(26:17):
sizing on Facebook wasn't likeperfect and it would cut off
some stuff.
Like things are just changing sorapidly.
I'm curious uh how how you'reviewing the the AI is kind of
getting into everything, uh, howhow it's affecting paid ads for
you.
SPEAKER_02 (26:33):
Uh paid ads, I mean, a little bit of help on like
replication, where like we knowwe need to build out a bunch of
different ad sets with differentvariables.
We can get help with that.
There's a company called play.aithat we use, P-L-A-I.
Um, and so they've been great.
Um there's a lot of theanalytics, like that's why we
(26:54):
built Hawk AI, is now we can seelike what are the benchmarks,
where are we performing, where'sthe opportunity, and really
quickly diagnose, which used totake us hours and hours, now is
instant.
So it's those kind ofefficiencies where again, you
like I I guess the metaphor ofan army of 17-year-old interns,
but that can work instantly.
So the quality needs to bechecked, but the outputs they're
(27:15):
like that.
So that's the part that's likeyou can save a lot of time on
things that used to be reallytime suck, like really tedious,
a huge time suck that you couldhave had a junior person do, and
now you can just have AI do.
And that's been again analyticswork, replication work, uh, some
research, deck making,presentation making, all these
things are helpful.
But it what's nice is it freesgreat people up to go more to do
(27:38):
their highest and best use andactually execute great
marketing, make greatrecommendations, communicate
well, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (27:44):
Yeah, I I would love to get your perspective.
We've been starting to test outsome tools that uh build
synthetic audiences, and thenyou can run those ads again
that, but we've had mixedresults.
SPEAKER_02 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I've never like that's where intheory, awesome.
In practice, bullshit.
Like, and I've we've looked atinvesting in a few, we've looked
at trying, we've tried a bunch.
It's like, yeah, it'd be great,but it I guess this is also
where not like inlet.
I don't know how they everreplicate because it's not that
(28:15):
complicated as to how they work,like to build it's complicated,
but to understand it, it's likeyou're you're assuming based on
LOM what the response is goingto be based on these personas.
Like, I get that.
It's all assumptions until youactually run it.
And to me, I'd rather just spenda little bit of money on some
meta ads and see how theyperform and see if people
actually buy it.
I I I've always hated, you know,uh what do you call them?
(28:37):
Um, not sample groups, but uhlike research groups, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:43):
Questionnaires and all that.
SPEAKER_02 (28:44):
Yeah, all that shit.
Like, because it's like theythey never actually produce the
answers that they're likelegitimate answers.
Like it's it's my favoritequestion people ask how much
would you pay for this?
Five people are gonna throw outwhatever number they feel
comfortable at the time, likewhatever number's sitting in
their wallet.
Like it's like that doesn't,it's such a dumb thing.
Like, just go spend five grandon meta ads, you'll learn
everything you need to learn andmove on.
(29:04):
Like, don't run around, like it.
These sample sample groups don'treally tell you much.
And I think this is just the AIversion of the same thing.
SPEAKER_01 (29:12):
Yeah, so I mean, we we work mostly with B2B and oil
and gas and work here in Houstonenergy-wise.
Um, but you work on a lot of theconsumer side.
I I and I haven't used thesetools as much as I would like
to, where you can use AI to takethat shoe or take that product
and put it in all kinds ofdifferent backgrounds and like
have different um models orwhatever hold it.
(29:35):
It seems like from a creativestandpoint, um, you know, if
you're if you were doing big onshoots and stuff like that, this
this expedites that and also itit brings down the cost to more
editing, or have you not seenthat these tools work that well
yet?
SPEAKER_02 (29:50):
Exactly.
It's the latter.
It's they they look like AI.
Now, for the right company inthe right situation where like
you're changing the color of thebackground or something, it can
do a decent job.
So there's some basics that itcan do.
But people like if you'reselling shoes as an example, you
can't get a real model to dothis.
You're using AI.
I just saw it happen.
Like I won't blow them up, butsomeone used AI yesterday in an
(30:11):
ad that we didn't do, and thatwas sent to me, and it's they're
like, This is falling completelydead.
I'm like, yeah, because it's notreal.
And it's like, and you're notowning it, you tried to make it
look real.
Now, if you're making a cartoonin AI and you're doing something
that's fun and like doesn'tmatter, it's not supposed to be
real and authentic, then you'refine.
But if you're trying to make itlook like a real person, like it
doesn't look like a real person.
(30:32):
So it just looks like you're awire, and that's a really bad
precedent to set as anadvertiser.
SPEAKER_01 (30:37):
So so I want to open that up.
I think that that's a reallyinteresting perspective uh that
I would love to hear you talkmore about is as people are
getting exposed to AI, right?
Whether it be ads, copy, likewhatever posts, social media is
just like uh prolific with allthis AI stuff.
Yeah, and you know, people arepumping out all kinds of
(30:59):
content.
And like, where do you see thattrajectory going?
Do you think that people acceptit?
Do you think people push back onit?
Like, like, how do you thinkpeople respond to that over
time?
SPEAKER_02 (31:10):
People are pushing back already.
Now, I don't know whatpercentage of people push back,
but I think it's like I kind ofhate it.
Like when I go, like, even whenI go on Instagram and I see like
a really cool uh nature scene ora really cool thing, and I'm
like, whoa, and then I look atthe comments and I'm and
everyone's like, This is AI, andI go look it up, it's like it's
AI.
So even when you're at firstable to fool me, I'm so annoyed
(31:32):
because like you know, now it'slike I saw, I don't know if
you've heard of the bloodwaterfall in Antarctica.
No, no, you like if you want topull up a browser, like it is
cool.
And I had to go research forlike five minutes because I'm
like, this can't be real,because we're at this in this
trust factor, and so you playwith that the wrong way, you're
gonna, and again, I'm thinkingof this as a marketer and an
(31:53):
advertiser.
Yeah, break your audience'strust by using shit that's not
real, and you don't do it in away that's super transparent and
authentic, you've really hurtyour brand.
Like, you know, my and my wholeI wrote a book that's now taught
in a bunch of universities aboutmarketing called the Hawk
Method.
It's about the three pillars ofmarketing are awareness,
nurturing, and trust.
Trust is one of the threepillars.
(32:14):
You knock out your trust in youraudience, you're done.
And so to me, like you showingpeople that you're gonna fake it
by using AI and not using realpeople, to me, like again, sends
a message that you couldn't getreal people.
It sends a message that youdon't mind doing things that are
dishonest.
It's like now again, if you ownit and you do it in a funny way,
(32:34):
different.
You use humor, you use again,it's instead of hiring someone
to create one of those cartoonuh like for B2B for uh software,
for example.
A lot of people did those how-tovideos, like this is why this
software exists.
And it was like the cartoon, itwas really popular like six,
seven years ago.
You do that with AI, doesn'tmatter.
Like if you're just replicatingcartoons, maybe cartoon drawers
are gonna have a hard time, buttrue, like you know, commercials
(32:59):
with people being replaced by A,like it's not working very well
for Coca-Cola.
I know they think it is becausethey hit a lot of impressions.
This is the funny thing, though,is Coca-Cola is celebrating
their AI commercials becausethey said they got so much uh uh
awareness and interaction intoit.
It's like people hated you forthat.
So, like, no, in a time whenpeople are getting healthier and
(33:20):
not drinking soda, and now youjust broke their trust even more
with this.
Like, no, you did not do a goodjob.
SPEAKER_01 (33:25):
I I do feel like Budwezer is figuring it out,
right?
They're going back to their coremarket.
Um exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (33:32):
And you deal with this.
I mean, listen, I've been in aroom with enough major CMOs to
know, like, they have a a lot ofthem have a very inflated view
of themselves and they think itis their job.
I've heard it.
They verbatim.
I've heard a group of COs sayit's our job to move the
cultural conversation of the ofAmericans for American brands.
And it's like, not really, yourjob is to sell beer or soda,
(33:53):
actually, is your job.
Not to like it's a and I hateI'm probably gonna piss off a
couple of CMOs, but theyprobably aren't the right
clients for me, anyways.
Um, like at the end of the day,you're here to build a business,
and I think a lot of them getstuck.
And so when they get see theseAI things, they think, well, I'm
gonna be innovative and I'mgonna do something different.
And it's like sometimes that'sgood when it serves the North
Star of building your brand andselling your product.
(34:14):
Like, that's why you build thebrand, by the way, is so that
people more people buy yourproduct.
That is what we're trying to dohere, and so they lose a little
sight of that and do things thatyeah, run the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_01 (34:24):
Now, now, just talking about kind of like deep
fakes and and kind of that thatarena, which can move markets.
Uh, I remember there's some somethings that people would put
out, and I'm I'm starting to seeit even more, and I have to like
go check it, or like my wifewill tell me things, and I'm
like, that's not true.
SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
I saw someone going crazy about it was a bunch of
fake ice videos that like I hadto message and be like, you
know, this is AI, like, not tocomment on ice one way or the
other.
Like, I think a lot of whatthey're doing is bad and a lot
of it's necessary, but like, soI'm kind of in the middle.
Not the guy that got shot, to beclear while we're on the record.
That being said, these are likefake videos of ice people
(35:01):
beating people up, etc.
And like very for anyone thatknows AI, like very obviously,
like a video three video, likeit it's almost cartoony.
And this person's like, look atwhat they're doing, how dare
they?
I'm like, Oh, you can't tellthis is fake.
Like, I can, but you can I hadto like messaging those are fake
videos, like, not saying thatthere aren't real videos that
are bad, but everything you justthe four videos this person
(35:22):
posted were all fake AI videos,and a lot of people aren't able
to tell the difference, I guess.
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
So, how do you think societally we're gonna deal with
that?
Is there I I mean, I I know thatthere's like okay, I guess tools
that are nascent that are comingout that that you can run it
through, and there's not gonnakeep up.
SPEAKER_02 (35:40):
It's it's gonna be at some point in a weird hope,
we're just gonna stop trustingwhat we see.
We're not used to that, but it'sjust gonna be part of it.
You're gonna, I think, you know,institutional trust is going to
have to come back, and you'regonna have a lot of crazies that
are gonna believe whatever thehell they want to believe.
And you know, the sad truth iswe're already there, like we're
kind of already like AI, itdidn't take AI to do that.
(36:02):
It took, you know, bat media,irresponsible media to do that,
and it already happened.
Major media sources constantlyreporting fake news, you know.
And to be clear, I'm aregistered Democrat.
So when I say fake news, I feellike I'm gonna get you know MAGA
thrown out.
Um, but it's just the truth.
Both sides of the aisle, like,you know, whether it's left
leaning or right-leaning, theamount of bullshit that comes
(36:22):
out of our most major mediachannels is crazy.
Journalistic integrity is prettymuch gone.
And so you end up with, youknow, and so you already have
that.
And so now you've got thecompounding of that.
Now it's like literally like thefootage is fake too.
I think you're gonna, I don'tknow.
I think we're gonna end up in alot of echo chambers.
And I don't know that it getsbetter before it gets worse.
(36:44):
I think it's gonna be people aregonna believe whatever the hell
they want to believe.
SPEAKER_01 (36:47):
So so let's like bring it back to um how to
thrive in a market like that andand in a crowded market today.
Like, where do you think?
I I think we kind of touched onit with the the infotainment, I
guess, component of it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:02):
But it goes, it's it's exactly on that.
It's because trust is so hard tofind, when you find it, people
latch on now.
And so if you are authentic andyou are trustworthy and you do
deliver, people are going to bemuch more loyal because they
don't want to deal with gettingscrewed over again.
They're getting inundated, butlike it becomes to the point
where it's noise.
And I like the easiest way tolook at this from a business
standpoint is the musicindustry.
(37:23):
When you got Napster and Spotifyand kind of democratize the
access to music and it didn'thave to be these gatekeepers,
the expectation would be thatthere'd be a much wider array of
music taste and a big largermiddle class.
It's not what happened at all.
The rich got richer because whathappens is when there's that
much noise and that muchhappening, people just default
to whatever is the most wellknown in general.
(37:44):
Now, you know, there is also alittle bit more music
discoverability now.
And there's people that havecome up that maybe wouldn't have
in the past, but let's be real,the Taylor Swifts of the world
are way more successful now thanthey were 20 years ago without
all this.
SPEAKER_01 (37:59):
I agree with that.
And certainly people latch on todifferent people and brands and
trusted advisors and and thatsort of thing.
SPEAKER_02 (38:06):
And so the idea is like in that example, be the
Taylor Swift in your industry.
How do you be the one thateverybody wants to go to, that
well known and gets out there?
And if not, there's a gap.
My business partner used to talkabout this a lot that this sort
of chasm that's coming whereit's gonna get more and more
divided.
It's the wealth gap, too, by theway.
It's literally the same thingwhere it's like it's gonna get
for when you're already rich andyou're already popular, or if
(38:27):
you can lock in that audience,it's gonna get easier and easier
to keep that stance and it'sgonna get harder and harder to
compete.
And I think that the only sortof hole in that is AI, because
now you can come in and work soaggressively and so fast that
you can find that sort of weakspot in your competition and
potentially exploit it.
SPEAKER_01 (38:46):
Okay, so we're we're getting close to time here, but
I think to to frame it up forpeople to take away something
actionable is I I love what youwere saying about uh the Hawk
method.
And like maybe frame up like fora mid-sized company or not not a
micro business, like somebodythat that that is looking to
scale, like a growth-orientedbusiness, and they're looking at
(39:08):
scale.
What is like the framework orframeworks that you're looking
at when they come to you from ago-to-market strategy, or like
let's lead people with somethingthat's tangible because you
know, AI, some people are toningit out, like tuning it out
completely, which is dangerous,right?
Um, but but but also it's verygood with the internet.
SPEAKER_02 (39:30):
Like it's it's something you should probably
pay attention to.
At some point, everyone's gonnahave it in integrated, and
you're you're like, like it'sgonna be like not having a
website would be not integratingAI.
But it's also like businessesare gonna survive without using
it too.
There's my my that my tire guythat changes the tires of my car
doesn't have a website, he'sfine, he's been in business 50
years, old, you know, Bob'stires, they're doing just fine.
Um, so you have that.
(39:51):
So you you it's not likeeverybody's screwed if they
don't.
It's just like you got to makethe decision.
If you want to keep growing yourbusiness and take on an
opportunity, you probably shoulduse it in terms of.
The full stack, I'd say I reallylike the scalable, repeatable
part of marketing.
I think that should be 90% ofwhat you do.
And that still is, you know, allthe different social media
channels.
So TikTok, Facebook.
(40:11):
And by the way, this is for B2Btoo.
Like I spend for Hawk Media, Idon't know, where we're at
probably two million dollars ayear on Google and Meta and
TikTok and Twitter ads.
Like they, you know, LinkedIn, Iknow everybody thinks LinkedIn's
the B2B advertising.
They change their platform sooften, it's just impossible to
build something repeatable andscalable there.
So while content is great onLinkedIn, advertising has not
(40:33):
been.
Hopefully they fix it at onepoint.
Um and so figuring out yourmedia channels, I could go
forever on how to do that, butthat's the you know top of the
funnel.
How do you build awareness foryour brand?
Let people know you exist, alongwith driving word of mouth, have
really easy messaging of why youexist and who you are so that
your customers feel comfortabletalking about you to other
people.
That's huge.
(40:53):
And then nurturing that, that'swhere content comes in.
That's where uh email marketing,SMS marketing, and on the
content side, we talked aboutit, but it's like building
content that solves your valueproposition from a content
perspective, not just yourproduct perspective.
So whatever you're selling, ifyou're selling, oh, we'll go
back to shoe, running shoes.
People buy running shoes becausethey want to go out and be
healthy or they want to bestylish.
(41:14):
Pick a lane, let's say it'shealthy.
Now create you know contentaround diet, around great trails
to run, around you know whatother people are doing for
longevity, like whatever, getinto the science of it, whatever
it is that fits your brand, butbe that destination, not only
because it'll bring yourpotential customers back that
they'll convert at a higherrate, they'll also share that
and you'll increase word ofmouth.
(41:35):
So both of them, and they'llbuild more of that trust.
And then again, the other thirdpillar is trust.
That's where you get third-partyvalidation, testimonials,
reviews, uh case studies,influencers, um, what do you
call it?
Uh celebrities, uh, PR, allthese things that people go, I
trust them.
And if they're saying I shouldtrust you, I feel comfortable
(41:56):
with that.
Um, there's a lot more to talkabout on that.
But yeah, that would be thequick way to look at your stack.
Oh, how are you buildingawareness?
How are you nurturing thatawareness to convert it and keep
it as a customer?
And then how you're buildingtrust.
SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
Awesome.
Well, Eric, where's the best wayto people to find out more about
what you're talking about andyour thoughts and uh how to get
involved with you?
SPEAKER_02 (42:15):
Yeah, I didn't think I'd plug it, but uh hawk method
is easy.
That's our book.
Um, and then you can reach outto me at or slash Eric Huberman
on any social channel.
And by the way, happy to giveyou a free digital copy.
It's not, I didn't do this tomake money.
So uh happy to give anyone acopy of our book uh again on all
those socials.
And if you want, hawk alwayswill do a free marketing audit
for any business.
So that's just hawkmedia.com.
SPEAKER_01 (42:37):
Awesome.
So uh everybody, if you likewhat Eric's saying, you want to
check out more of what he'sdoing, check out Hawk Media.
So, guys, thank you so much.
If you want to grow yourbusiness with the largest, most
powerful plan on the internet,keep listening to this podcast
and we're gonna help connect youwith the leaders in the
industry.
Until the next time, my name isMatt Bertram.
Bye bye for now.
This is the unknown secrets of internet marketing.
Your insider guide to thestrategies top marketers use to
crush the competition.
Ready to unlock your businessfull potential?
Let's get started.
SPEAKER_01 (00:16):
Howdy, and welcome back to another funfold episode
of the Unknown Secrets ofInternet Marketing.
I'm your host, Matt Bertram.
As always, we're talking aboutdifferent strategies in the
digital marketing space and howto optimize in this new layer of
AI optimization and LLMvisibility.
(00:37):
So I wanted to bring on somebodythat has uh just done it all and
has built AI tools.
Um, he's grown with datadifferent strategies, he's
spoken, he's worked with some ofthe major brands.
And for all of you agencies outthere listening, he's been able
to scale his business quitequickly.
So maybe we'll get into how he'sbeen able to do that because I
(00:58):
know that there are a lot ofagency owners out there that
everything's a moving target.
There's a lot of bespoke work.
Um and uh, you know, how do youscale?
So I know that that's a questionthat that people have.
Uh Eric Hubberman with HawkMedia.
Welcome to the show, Eric.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Awesome.
So, you know, super impressedwith kind of like everything
(01:19):
that you've done.
Um, if you want to credentializeyourself a little bit more, I'm
happy to uh, you know, give yousome time to kind of share your
your journey or your originstory.
SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
Uh yeah, I mean can make a long story short, uh, at
this point, we build Hawk Mediabecause we saw how broken the
marketing ecosystem was.
I mean, there's 90,000 marketingagencies in the US, and I'd
state, you know, prettyconfidently that 99% of them
have no idea what they're doing.
So the idea was to build a teamthat is the best at what they
do, but also easy to work withbecause the generally the few
good agencies out there won'twork with the small and medium
(01:50):
businesses.
So at this point, we're about220 people.
Uh, we currently managemarketing for about 600 brands.
Uh, companies growing, been fun.
We also invest a lot.
So we have our venture fund,we're on our second fund, uh,
focused on marketing tech,e-commerce tech.
Between our funds and ourbalance sheet, we probably
invested in 115 companies.
Um, and then uh yeah, have afinancing arm and have built our
(02:13):
own AI software as well and verytech forward and constantly
growing.
SPEAKER_01 (02:18):
Awesome.
So tell me kind of how you viewthe market currently.
I mean, there was quite a bigshift uh a couple of years ago
when LLMs came onto the scene.
And you know, there's a lot ofdebate whether it's like, you
know, just better SEO gets youvisibility.
But the argument that that Iseem to identify with most is
(02:39):
like this technology was notaround five or six years ago at
all.
So you may be getting to asimilar result, but how do you
get to that result?
The mechanism is completelydifferent.
And how buyer behavior ischanging uh is dramatically like
shifting the landscape.
And so um, you know, and thenand then really leveraging some
(03:03):
of this, like I guess, machinelearning, AI intelligence and
ads and everything else, youknow, it is a moving target and
and things things are changing.
And there's been a fan out fromGoogle and Facebook of where
people are uh finding newinformation.
So, so I mean everything's kindof reset.
And so I'm curious how how y'allare approaching that.
SPEAKER_02 (03:23):
Yeah.
So the nice thing is Google isactually capturing a lot of it
with Gemini.
So there, I think, you know, ifI were a betting man, I think
they're actually gonna come outthe winner in this.
Uh OpenAI's metrics andeconomics just are tough.
Maybe I'll eat my words, but I'mnot, I'm pretty bearish on their
longevity.
Um, I think it was they were thefirst mover, but so is
Friendster.
(03:44):
So is oh so are a lot ofcompanies you don't hear about
anymore.
So um I also think it'scompletely overhyped what this
stuff is gonna do.
I think in the short term, AI isas overhyped as it could
possibly be.
In the long term, I think it'sprobably somewhat legitimate.
I think guys like Elon Musk andum Sam Altman are way
overpromoting it.
Uh, the idea that we're notgonna have any capitalism in
(04:06):
five years and everyone's justgonna hang out is absurd.
Um, again, realize that ChatGPTlike really started
proliferating almost four yearsago now.
So like it's like we're the inanother five years, it's not
gonna completely take overcapitalism.
Like that's not a thing.
Um, but it it's definitelycausing some efficiencies, some
changes.
Six percent of people now go to,or I should say six percent of
(04:28):
organic traffic comes from LOMsnow.
It's not 50, it's six.
So it's happening, it's a thing,but it's a very small piece.
Now, we we invested in tools andreally leaned into optimization
around LOMs early.
So we're doing it for hundredsof brands and it's working great
and it's fun, but it's like it'snot gonna make or break a
(04:50):
business yet.
Now, I think over time it'll getmore and more prolific and it'll
probably be beneficial, butright now it's just a nice, I
wouldn't say it's nice to have.
It's one of many things youshould be doing with your
marketing.
But again, you're not gonnabuild an entire company off of
just showing up in ChatGPT for acertain search.
Plus, the big difference there,like it's not just good SEO,
because the difference betweenSEO and now is one of the
(05:12):
biggest differences is LLMs aretrying to cater it to the
individual audience.
So you have to deal with personatargeting on top of the
traditional SEO side of things,which is like every like in SEO,
we all see the same thing thatwe all see the same result for
the same search.
With LLMs, it's trying to pleaseyou individually.
And so it's a very differenttactic there.
Plus, it's way more question andanswer driven than fact-driven.
(05:36):
So you have to model it so thatit can, all it's doing is
regurgitating what's out therealready.
It's looking for high authority,question and answers.
So when someone asks thatquestion, they can say, well,
this question was asked on thissite, and we believe it's true.
So we're gonna give the sameanswer.
Like this is just replicationand it's not true intelligence
whatsoever.
And so that's why celebritiesare so bent out of shape where
(05:56):
it's you know digesting alltheir work and then creating
like then when you see AIcreated music, it's like, well,
no, it digested a bunch ofexisting music and then just
regurgitated it, like you asked.
Didn't create anything.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
Yeah, no, I so I I think that LLMs, uh, the
application in different areasof your business is what's
transforming the business,right?
Like, so if you take like thetech debt that's happening with
automation and you bringautomation forward, like people
are calling that AI, but thenyou actually add that agentic
(06:31):
layer on top of the automationwhere where it has some agency
and a narrow capacity to dothings, I feel like that's um
that's where I think the reallike value driver or the
leverage is is coming from.
SPEAKER_02 (06:45):
It is, and I agree with you.
Uh, it's just I think the thevalue that that provides is
being overstated.
Where it's like, I would arguethat it's basically like having
an army of 17-year-old interns.
Like, yeah, you can find valuein that, you can find efficiency
in that, but like you need adultsupervision, it needs help, it
needs guidance.
And I don't think that that'srapidly going to change.
I think that it's gonna improve.
I think we're gonna see thingsbetter and better.
(07:06):
And it's like it is impressivehow fast it's improving, but I
don't think we're gonna get tothe point where it's just like,
just let it go, it'll be fine.
Like, I don't think that'scoming anytime soon.
SPEAKER_01 (07:15):
The the the bot economy, right?
As they're promoting.
SPEAKER_02 (07:18):
Buy bot talking to your bot isn't, I don't think
like I listen, I think the earlyadopters and the people that
it's kind of like it reminds mea little bit about when
blockchain got really popularand everybody was throwing
blockchain at every like they'rethrowing the solution of
blockchain at places where theydidn't even have a problem.
That's what the everything'sagent agentic now, and it's
like, but that doesn't reallyhelp now.
(07:39):
And again, we use a lot ofdifferent uh AI technology here
that we find practical.
But to me, it's like great.
It's like I've had the samefeeling of innovation when we
install a great piece ofsoftware.
It's not like it's like all of asudden, like, you know, it's
changed our entire businessovernight.
It's shifted just as much aslike when we finally, you know,
got on a good CRM or we ended upwith you know a good billing
(08:00):
system.
It's like these things arehelpful and it's really
interesting, and I think it'llcontinue to be.
But again, I worry about thehype level because you know, I
just got off a uh venture andfinance call, not for our own
company, but in general, sort ofa macro call.
And it's like watching wherethings are hyped and where
they're valued right now, it'slike this doesn't end well.
SPEAKER_01 (08:18):
Yeah, I I'm I'm starting to hear that as well.
And and certainly uh the chatGPT model, uh he, you know,
they're looking for some money,and it's gonna be interesting
the the quality of service wherewhere that's gonna go.
SPEAKER_02 (08:30):
Well, and the economics don't make sense.
It's not getting cheaper to useAI, it's getting more expensive.
So Moore's Law isn't keeping up,they're not getting cheaper
commute compute, and so at somepoint, the whatever they charge,
30 bucks a month or whatever,charged at GPT, doesn't end up
making sense because they'reliterally losing money on every
inquiry.
And then all of a sudden theeconomics catch up.
(08:51):
And instead of it sent yousaying, Whoa, I replaced it with
a bunch of junior people withthis hundred dollar a month
tool, it's like, well, now thattool is five grand and it
doesn't look as valuable anymorenow, does it?
SPEAKER_01 (09:01):
Yeah, so I would love to kind of um take a step
behind the curtain a little bitof like how you were able to
scale your agency and then howyou've been able to layer in
some of these uh AI technologiesor just advancements, like
whether it be software, becausebecause I'm certainly uh in the
process of learning Python rightnow, and it's giving me a lot of
(09:22):
different kind of capabilitiesand access from a programming
level that from a marketinglevel I didn't have access to.
And I kind of feel like AI isjust that that that next layer
on top of that.
And and I'll just be interestingto see how you were able to
scale your agency and like whereyou inserted different pieces of
technology as you grew.
SPEAKER_02 (09:43):
Yeah, it's it's funny.
It's it's kind of the same wayyou need to look at, and this is
actually something I've reallybecome aware of.
And it actually came fromwatching more politics and
government and then realizing weall have the propensity.
Companies have a propensity tospend more and more and more and
more money, just likegovernment.
Like you build aninfrastructure, they're gonna
spend it.
You give a budget, they're gonnaspend it.
(10:04):
Um, I'm trying to think of howto say this without calling them
out, but I talked to a managerthe other day about how the team
felt bloated.
And it was like, hey, like theredoes this seems to be way too
many people here for what needsto be done.
And his response was like, Oh,yeah, I told the frankly, the
person and topic, like, this isgonna be short-lived.
Like, you know, this we didn'tneed this person that long, but
(10:25):
I can't believe it lasted twoyears.
And then part of me is like,Mother, are you kidding me?
You just said that to me.
Like, you wasted two years ofthis money that you actually
didn't think we needed.
But like on the other side, it'slike, well, that's on me because
I didn't challenge it, becauseyou have to push back.
Because you know, this is goingto what your question is, which
is I, you know, what I like todo is basically push this to the
(10:46):
limit until we find a breakingpoint and then bring people on
because that way you don'treally ever like unless you
really screw up, people aregonna have job security.
Like there, there's a lot ofwork to be done for those
people.
It's when people don't have workto do that the job security goes
away.
And I don't think people realizeit.
When it's really easy at yourjob and things are really chill,
that's not a good thing.
That that that you know, they'regonna wake up at some point and
(11:07):
go, why do we have all thesepeople?
And that's what's happened thepast couple of years at all
these big tech companies.
Um, same thing goes forsoftware.
I get tons and tons of requeststo add software to our company
all the time.
And the amount of, I guess, techdebt or whatever you want to
call it that accrues because allof a sudden you've got a tool
for everything, you're spendingthousands of dollars on things,
and you just go, all of a suddenyou look at it and go, We don't
(11:28):
need all this.
Like this, you know, like theeasy example, because I will
call them out because I do notlike them.
The two platforms that I reallydidn't have a good time with
NetSuite and Salesforce, twotools that are so
overcomplicated and sooverexpensive.
And like we went from QuickBooksand HubSpot to Netsuite and
Salesforce thinking we had toquote grow up.
Yeah.
And I spent three years tryingto get out of those contracts
(11:51):
because HubSpot and QuickBookswere so much easier to use, so
much more efficient.
I had to scale up my financeteam to like seven people from
three, and now we're back tothree because we didn't need all
those people when we're onQuickBooks.
And my company's grown, to beclear, since we made the switch
there and back significantly,but it turned out we didn't need
all that overcomplicated.
So you end up with these, youknow, ridiculous tools that are
(12:13):
hard to implement that you walkinto these long-term contracts,
and you know, I don't have a lotof, I think we're getting away
from that.
That's where AI thinks reallygonna hurt because you're gonna
get much more nimble andflexible tools that can do
exactly what you want them to doversus having to buy into these
massive ecosystems that you arecompletely unnecessary.
Because it to their credit, toNetSuite and Salesforce credit,
trying to build an enterprisetool for everyone's really,
(12:35):
really, really hard and nearimpossible.
So it kind of comes with theterritory, but both to answer
again, answering your questiondirectly, both with people and
with software, I've really triedto find like we only do it when
there's a really solid businesscase on why bringing that person
or that software on is going tomake us more money.
Because it's really easy to say,oh, we're gonna cause relief.
(12:56):
It's like relief at the for thesake of what?
If we're not causing relief,like even if the argument is we
have to give employees this toolor they're gonna burn out and
we're gonna lose them.
Well, I can make a business casefor that.
What is the cost of replacingthem, et cetera?
Great, retention is a cost.
Like, let's figure out whatthat's worth.
But that there has to be abusiness case, or it's really
easy just to go, sure, sure,sure, sure, while you're doing
(13:16):
well, and then all of a suddenyou've you're deaf by a thousand
paper cuts and you've hired abunch of people and a bunch of
softwares that you don't needand it's all out of your pocket.
SPEAKER_01 (13:24):
So I have a couple follow-up questions to that.
So it it sounds like you startedexploring like like a ERP layer,
right?
Of like bringing everyeverything together.
And and and we've we've exploreda couple different um tools, and
and there's there's somefreemium tools out there or like
you know, uh community tools outthere that that do a lot of
(13:46):
this, and then you can developon top of it.
Um and you know, there's there'sof course tools like go high
level that kind of you know uhaggregate a lot of these tools
together like that.
So um what is your viewpoint ofof utilizing at an agency of
your size, like what does thattechnology later look like?
(14:08):
And like maybe what is the techstack that you're operating
from?
And and you you sharedQuickBooks and and uh HubSpot,
um, which I I think do a lot,right?
HubSpot quite quite does a lot,and they're pretty sticky too,
right?
Like once you get in todifferent components and then
what's interesting is we leftthem.
SPEAKER_02 (14:25):
The that was probably one of the first
software things we did that welike my entire team was excited
to re-onboard.
Like teams hate new software,they hate changes.
When I said I went from salesfirst to HubSpot, everyone's
like, Thank God I should getpaid for this.
Um but uh yeah, in terms of techstack, productive for project
management and time management.
(14:46):
Um I'm trying to think what elsewe're using.
Uh we're switching to Charge B,I think we're negotiating with
right now for billing.
And I'm saying these thingsbecause these are re like this
is a good example of likefrankly, this is where SaaS, I
think, loses me.
Our other billing software, uh,what's it called?
Biller Genie decided to liketriple our cost year over year.
(15:08):
It was like no.
Like, thank you.
You just opened up thecompetitive landscape for us to
go do our research, and now wefound something way better.
And like, this isn't how we youwant to be disloyal to us and
treat us like shit after we, youknow, signed contracts with you?
Like, no, we're not doing that.
So looked for opened up the youknow, sort of uh world and you
know, charge B, we actually hada relationship with, and their
(15:30):
software is great.
So we're probably you know,assuming they work with us on
the pricing and we're goingthrough that right now, we'll
probably switch to that, andit's a better solution.
And then uh, I mean, ziprecruiter for recruiting along
with LinkedIn.
Um what else?
I'm trying to think techstack-wise.
We have our own system calledHawk AI that's digesting about
6,000 companies marketing mediaand revenue data in real time so
(15:52):
that we can actually use on theperformance marketing side,
benchmark in real time, knowwhat's working, what's not.
That's been our own in-housebuild for tool that's just we
can't find someone else that cando that because they don't have
all the data and we don't reallywant to give someone else all
the data.
Um I'm a big, you know, rentover build for the most part,
because unless you're buildingsomething to go to market,
(16:14):
you're building a softwarecompany, it's such a massive
amount of investment.
Like I have not spent money,more money on anything in my
life other than my own AIsoftware.
My house, my like there, thereis not a single line I guess
payroll in general, but like forlike an asset, that is the
biggest thing I've spent moneyon.
SPEAKER_01 (16:32):
So um for for orchestration of the assets,
like uh like HR, like bringingpeople on, like scaling up
projects.
Um that was just like more of apersonal question.
How are how are you managingthat?
Like what what is there a toolor a platform that you're using
to help do that quickly?
To to onboard people and tomanage like resources on on
(16:55):
accounts.
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
Yeah, so productive is part of that.
That's a project managementtool.
Um, in terms of training andonboarding, we have trainual is
another tool we use.
Um, they're great.
Uh what else do we use on thatside?
Uh we have all sorts of bots nowwe've built internally that are
like so you can inquiry quickquestions about like, hey, what
do we do here?
Have we worked in this?
(17:17):
How do we handle this?
Like, that's due.
We use right now we use Pandadocuh for designing.
Yeah.
Um, I mean, yeah, Google Suiteis a we also use.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
So got it.
Cool, cool.
Yeah, and I think that one ofthe things that you mentioned
previously, which was superinteresting, it and that's what
I'm seeing is uh we're we're nota development agency, right?
We're we're EWR's marketingagency as well.
And so um we've started to buildlike little custom tools to do
different things.
(17:48):
We built like custom GPTs to toquery uh different accounts and
um uh internal resources as faras like how do we do what?
And that that that has been, Ithink, a game changer.
And like we were able to mockstuff up pretty quickly, like
get to MVP pretty quickly.
And it's given us like the morewe learn about AI, the the wider
(18:08):
we can reach as far as like aT-shaped um approach.
And and we're starting to buildall kinds of little tools.
And to your point, I feel likeyou can you can spin up a tool
that is customized to your needspretty quickly if you're if you
don't have like if you're notgoing to market and you don't
have a lot of throughput, right?
Like it's just like essentiallylike you're trying to uh run a
(18:30):
script on on what you're doing.
Yep.
I mean, you can build all kindsof stuff uh today.
And uh how do you think thatthat's gonna affect the
landscape of these big SaaScompanies and these big um
recurring revenue?
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
Yeah, it so I we we talk a lot about this on our
venture side uh because we do alot of investing in early stage
software.
I think we're in a time nowwhere software is be like it's
had a moat for a long time whereit's like you can't just
replicate someone else'ssoftware, it's really hard.
And like now, I think it'sreally easy quickly.
So to me, brand is gonna hitsoftware like never before, and
(19:07):
it's gonna be really interestingbecause you know it's the same
way.
Why is Hawk defensible?
Well, where it's not just aboutyour product.
You can hire, again, there's90,000 uh uh uh marketing
agencies in the country.
Well, why are we defensible?
Because we have a lot ofcredibility, we've done it,
we've been very successful, wehave a big brand.
We've built a brand in thespace, and so we're signing, you
know, 50, 60 new clients everymonth right now, and we're
(19:32):
getting we have that throughputand we're able to handle it.
And we we have a goodreputation.
So, because of that, we continueto build and continue to grow,
and it's been great.
Um, I think that goes tosoftware now too, where it's
like it's not the the benefit,the value is not going to be in
the actual software anymore,other than it delivers and it's
good, and like it's a good pieceof software that functions.
(19:52):
But I think brand is gonna takego to market and brand is gonna
be everything.
What's your distributionstrategy?
What's your go to marketstrategy?
What's your marketing strategy?
And doing all that in a way.
That hits the market wellbecause I think it's going to
get so noisy in software that ifyou don't do that, you're you
like if you do that well, you'regonna have a moat because no
one's gonna want to deal withfiguring out which like it's it
(20:13):
happens to us too.
It's like if someone built thenext AI-driven HubSpot, like
I've been pitched on that 50times.
I don't want to take the risk onany of them.
There's too many people with thesame pitch, so you just don't
touch it and let let everyoneelse be the early adopter there
before they break something.
And so in that moment, HubSpot'sgot way more strength because
nobody wants to try any of thesethousand competitors.
(20:35):
Same thing as like a t-shirtcompany.
Once you find the t-shirt youlike, you kind of want to stick
with it and not deal with allthese other guys.
Like once in a while, and that'sa low barrier.
You're talking about you know,10, 50, 100 hours, whatever you
spend on a t-shirt, like not abig deal.
Like, but you most people stickto once they get over that hump,
they stick to it.
SPEAKER_01 (20:53):
Yeah, you know, one of the things that you just said
that got me thinking, and I I doagree with you on the brand, um,
is is really uh the pendulumswinging back.
I don't know if you can kind ofsee.
I I need to set up my cameras alittle bit better, but there's a
a mad a madman poster backthere.
And and I think that brand brandis is really coming back into
(21:13):
vogue because I don't think thatwhat the LMs are producing,
unless you're a really goodoperator uh and you and you
really know what good lookslike, you can get to something.
So I think that creativity isgoing to be there for sure.
What are because you have such awide view of like the demand in
the market and and you'reonboarding so many clients,
where do you see the marketgoing as far as needs?
(21:35):
Like if you were to categorize,you know, you know, paid ads and
uh paid social or SEO orwebsite, like where where do you
see the market kind of flowingto right now?
Well, where is it flowing to orwhere should it, I guess?
Uh where where is the demandright now?
And then then then if you wantto project out, tell me what you
(21:56):
see.
SPEAKER_02 (21:56):
Whatever you whatever you want to call it,
GEO, AEO, AIEO, likeoptimization for LOMs is
definitely where people are inlike most intrigued right now.
But where I'm trying to pushthem because I think it's where
it's going to be even more uhcompetitive, is uh branded
entertainment.
Uh I'm you know, as aperformance marketer, I think
like we have such a limitedamount of uh like great content.
(22:18):
We have cheap content, tons likeinfinite amounts of cheap
content on TikTok and reels andeverything.
But in terms of like truethoughtful entertainment, I
think that you know, you've gotNetflix, you've got these
platforms, Amazon, you've gotHulu, you've got these
platforms, but the amount that'scoming out versus like, I don't
know, I feel like when I was akid, there was a new movie every
week or two that you wanted togo see, and now it's few and far
(22:39):
between.
There's still movies releasing,but a lot of them suck.
And you go into Netflix and it'sa lot of cheap entertainment,
and it's like there's anopportunity to own your space
from an entertainment point ofview, because distribution's
been proliferated.
That if you can capture thataudience, like, you know, I've
got CNBC on in the background,someone is gonna come along and
build a much better financialnews outlet than CNBC, and it's
(23:02):
gonna be attached to a financialor a fintech company.
Like that's where I think itmarketing is going.
And I think it can be at allscales.
It's not just, you know,Robinhood launching CNBC as an
example.
It could also be the next, youknow, running shoe company just
running, yeah, you know, givingrunning tips and cool running
content, but be there for theirspecific audience, they become a
(23:25):
go-to for those rabid fans ofrunning.
Like it's I I I'm all aboutengaging above and beyond a
purchase decision when you'rebuilding a company.
And I think if you do that, it'shard because the uh performance
metrics aren't there, but Ithink it'll pay off.
And I think that's why it'll payoff even more, is because so
many people will be kind ofstuck with their head up their
ass about like, well, I can'ttrack it on a spreadsheet, so
(23:45):
they won't do it.
SPEAKER_01 (23:47):
Yeah, I mean, Google at the beginning of this year
pivoted hard to YouTube.
And I've seen uh starting uh alot of shows and and people kind
of set up their formats ofbuilding content around that as
well as certainly advertising.
And to your point, I mean,that's where, you know, uh like
Vemo3 or whatever you want tocall it from Google and and some
(24:08):
of these other tools uh on theum on the AI side, it's
interesting.
SPEAKER_02 (24:12):
Yeah, the AA side.
You gotta be careful with thatstuff.
Like the AI content, it lookslike AI, so it immediately kind
of hurts your trust factor andyour authenticity.
So unless it fits and it'ssomething that like fits your
brand, yeah.
I think a lot of people aregonna hurt themselves with that
too, because authenticity is abig part of why you want to
create content, is build thattrust.
SPEAKER_01 (24:32):
Yeah, I I guess I I've I've been following um some
of the like uh Bigfoot and uhand uh like uh Starship Trooper
uh chronicles and stuff.
And and I I think that they'rethey're building uh such demand
that they can uh use productplacement and promote things and
um you know and and so I thinkthere's gonna be a proliferation
(24:54):
of that for sure.
I I do agree with you.
And then like Gary Vee istalking about like live
streaming, like selling ishappening around the world.
What are what are your thoughtsaround?
SPEAKER_02 (25:03):
Around the world, it hasn't caught on in the US.
I think people are so used to ondemand here.
It's like, you want me to be onyour time to buy something?
It I we've looked at many,because again, the venture side,
like we have to look at allthese trends, part of investing
thesis too, and a marketingthesis.
Like, is live shopping gonnahelp our clients?
You know, TikTok's shoving itdown people's throats, but it's
(25:24):
not been incredibly effective inthe US.
TikTok shop is, but the liveshopping aspect of it, people
are fine to watch it later.
They don't care that they'retapping in, you know, you can do
drops and things like that, butthose are limited.
And so it it I don't know thatlive shopping in the US maybe it
will catch on at some point, butit's it and it's huge in Asia,
but it just hasn't fit theculture here.
(25:45):
And maybe again, maybe that'llchange, but kind of to your
point about like where is thedemand?
The demand, the demand from theconsumer side is not we need
more live shopping.
SPEAKER_01 (25:54):
Yeah.
So so just to keep this theme ofAI, let's let's move into like
how you see AI enhancing becauseuh paid ads.
I've I feel like paid ads justthere's been a shift in how how
they want you to give the input.
You know, we've we've beenhaving some issues with brands
where you know it's manipulatinguh the imagery or even like the
(26:17):
sizing on Facebook wasn't likeperfect and it would cut off
some stuff.
Like things are just changing sorapidly.
I'm curious uh how how you'reviewing the the AI is kind of
getting into everything, uh, howhow it's affecting paid ads for
you.
SPEAKER_02 (26:33):
Uh paid ads, I mean, a little bit of help on like
replication, where like we knowwe need to build out a bunch of
different ad sets with differentvariables.
We can get help with that.
There's a company called play.aithat we use, P-L-A-I.
Um, and so they've been great.
Um there's a lot of theanalytics, like that's why we
(26:54):
built Hawk AI, is now we can seelike what are the benchmarks,
where are we performing, where'sthe opportunity, and really
quickly diagnose, which used totake us hours and hours, now is
instant.
So it's those kind ofefficiencies where again, you
like I I guess the metaphor ofan army of 17-year-old interns,
but that can work instantly.
So the quality needs to bechecked, but the outputs they're
(27:15):
like that.
So that's the part that's likeyou can save a lot of time on
things that used to be reallytime suck, like really tedious,
a huge time suck that you couldhave had a junior person do, and
now you can just have AI do.
And that's been again analyticswork, replication work, uh, some
research, deck making,presentation making, all these
things are helpful.
But it what's nice is it freesgreat people up to go more to do
(27:38):
their highest and best use andactually execute great
marketing, make greatrecommendations, communicate
well, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (27:44):
Yeah, I I would love to get your perspective.
We've been starting to test outsome tools that uh build
synthetic audiences, and thenyou can run those ads again
that, but we've had mixedresults.
SPEAKER_02 (27:54):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I've never like that's where intheory, awesome.
In practice, bullshit.
Like, and I've we've looked atinvesting in a few, we've looked
at trying, we've tried a bunch.
It's like, yeah, it'd be great,but it I guess this is also
where not like inlet.
I don't know how they everreplicate because it's not that
(28:15):
complicated as to how they work,like to build it's complicated,
but to understand it, it's likeyou're you're assuming based on
LOM what the response is goingto be based on these personas.
Like, I get that.
It's all assumptions until youactually run it.
And to me, I'd rather just spenda little bit of money on some
meta ads and see how theyperform and see if people
actually buy it.
I I I've always hated, you know,uh what do you call them?
(28:37):
Um, not sample groups, but uhlike research groups, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:43):
Questionnaires and all that.
SPEAKER_02 (28:44):
Yeah, all that shit.
Like, because it's like theythey never actually produce the
answers that they're likelegitimate answers.
Like it's it's my favoritequestion people ask how much
would you pay for this?
Five people are gonna throw outwhatever number they feel
comfortable at the time, likewhatever number's sitting in
their wallet.
Like it's like that doesn't,it's such a dumb thing.
Like, just go spend five grandon meta ads, you'll learn
everything you need to learn andmove on.
(29:04):
Like, don't run around, like it.
These sample sample groups don'treally tell you much.
And I think this is just the AIversion of the same thing.
SPEAKER_01 (29:12):
Yeah, so I mean, we we work mostly with B2B and oil
and gas and work here in Houstonenergy-wise.
Um, but you work on a lot of theconsumer side.
I I and I haven't used thesetools as much as I would like
to, where you can use AI to takethat shoe or take that product
and put it in all kinds ofdifferent backgrounds and like
have different um models orwhatever hold it.
(29:35):
It seems like from a creativestandpoint, um, you know, if
you're if you were doing big onshoots and stuff like that, this
this expedites that and also itit brings down the cost to more
editing, or have you not seenthat these tools work that well
yet?
SPEAKER_02 (29:50):
Exactly.
It's the latter.
It's they they look like AI.
Now, for the right company inthe right situation where like
you're changing the color of thebackground or something, it can
do a decent job.
So there's some basics that itcan do.
But people like if you'reselling shoes as an example, you
can't get a real model to dothis.
You're using AI.
I just saw it happen.
Like I won't blow them up, butsomeone used AI yesterday in an
(30:11):
ad that we didn't do, and thatwas sent to me, and it's they're
like, This is falling completelydead.
I'm like, yeah, because it's notreal.
And it's like, and you're notowning it, you tried to make it
look real.
Now, if you're making a cartoonin AI and you're doing something
that's fun and like doesn'tmatter, it's not supposed to be
real and authentic, then you'refine.
But if you're trying to make itlook like a real person, like it
doesn't look like a real person.
(30:32):
So it just looks like you're awire, and that's a really bad
precedent to set as anadvertiser.
SPEAKER_01 (30:37):
So so I want to open that up.
I think that that's a reallyinteresting perspective uh that
I would love to hear you talkmore about is as people are
getting exposed to AI, right?
Whether it be ads, copy, likewhatever posts, social media is
just like uh prolific with allthis AI stuff.
Yeah, and you know, people arepumping out all kinds of
(30:59):
content.
And like, where do you see thattrajectory going?
Do you think that people acceptit?
Do you think people push back onit?
Like, like, how do you thinkpeople respond to that over
time?
SPEAKER_02 (31:10):
People are pushing back already.
Now, I don't know whatpercentage of people push back,
but I think it's like I kind ofhate it.
Like when I go, like, even whenI go on Instagram and I see like
a really cool uh nature scene ora really cool thing, and I'm
like, whoa, and then I look atthe comments and I'm and
everyone's like, This is AI, andI go look it up, it's like it's
AI.
So even when you're at firstable to fool me, I'm so annoyed
(31:32):
because like you know, now it'slike I saw, I don't know if
you've heard of the bloodwaterfall in Antarctica.
No, no, you like if you want topull up a browser, like it is
cool.
And I had to go research forlike five minutes because I'm
like, this can't be real,because we're at this in this
trust factor, and so you playwith that the wrong way, you're
gonna, and again, I'm thinkingof this as a marketer and an
(31:53):
advertiser.
Yeah, break your audience'strust by using shit that's not
real, and you don't do it in away that's super transparent and
authentic, you've really hurtyour brand.
Like, you know, my and my wholeI wrote a book that's now taught
in a bunch of universities aboutmarketing called the Hawk
Method.
It's about the three pillars ofmarketing are awareness,
nurturing, and trust.
Trust is one of the threepillars.
(32:14):
You knock out your trust in youraudience, you're done.
And so to me, like you showingpeople that you're gonna fake it
by using AI and not using realpeople, to me, like again, sends
a message that you couldn't getreal people.
It sends a message that youdon't mind doing things that are
dishonest.
It's like now again, if you ownit and you do it in a funny way,
(32:34):
different.
You use humor, you use again,it's instead of hiring someone
to create one of those cartoonuh like for B2B for uh software,
for example.
A lot of people did those how-tovideos, like this is why this
software exists.
And it was like the cartoon, itwas really popular like six,
seven years ago.
You do that with AI, doesn'tmatter.
Like if you're just replicatingcartoons, maybe cartoon drawers
are gonna have a hard time, buttrue, like you know, commercials
(32:59):
with people being replaced by A,like it's not working very well
for Coca-Cola.
I know they think it is becausethey hit a lot of impressions.
This is the funny thing, though,is Coca-Cola is celebrating
their AI commercials becausethey said they got so much uh uh
awareness and interaction intoit.
It's like people hated you forthat.
So, like, no, in a time whenpeople are getting healthier and
(33:20):
not drinking soda, and now youjust broke their trust even more
with this.
Like, no, you did not do a goodjob.
SPEAKER_01 (33:25):
I I do feel like Budwezer is figuring it out,
right?
They're going back to their coremarket.
Um exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (33:32):
And you deal with this.
I mean, listen, I've been in aroom with enough major CMOs to
know, like, they have a a lot ofthem have a very inflated view
of themselves and they think itis their job.
I've heard it.
They verbatim.
I've heard a group of COs sayit's our job to move the
cultural conversation of the ofAmericans for American brands.
And it's like, not really, yourjob is to sell beer or soda,
(33:53):
actually, is your job.
Not to like it's a and I hateI'm probably gonna piss off a
couple of CMOs, but theyprobably aren't the right
clients for me, anyways.
Um, like at the end of the day,you're here to build a business,
and I think a lot of them getstuck.
And so when they get see theseAI things, they think, well, I'm
gonna be innovative and I'mgonna do something different.
And it's like sometimes that'sgood when it serves the North
Star of building your brand andselling your product.
(34:14):
Like, that's why you build thebrand, by the way, is so that
people more people buy yourproduct.
That is what we're trying to dohere, and so they lose a little
sight of that and do things thatyeah, run the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_01 (34:24):
Now, now, just talking about kind of like deep
fakes and and kind of that thatarena, which can move markets.
Uh, I remember there's some somethings that people would put
out, and I'm I'm starting to seeit even more, and I have to like
go check it, or like my wifewill tell me things, and I'm
like, that's not true.
SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
I saw someone going crazy about it was a bunch of
fake ice videos that like I hadto message and be like, you
know, this is AI, like, not tocomment on ice one way or the
other.
Like, I think a lot of whatthey're doing is bad and a lot
of it's necessary, but like, soI'm kind of in the middle.
Not the guy that got shot, to beclear while we're on the record.
That being said, these are likefake videos of ice people
(35:01):
beating people up, etc.
And like very for anyone thatknows AI, like very obviously,
like a video three video, likeit it's almost cartoony.
And this person's like, look atwhat they're doing, how dare
they?
I'm like, Oh, you can't tellthis is fake.
Like, I can, but you can I hadto like messaging those are fake
videos, like, not saying thatthere aren't real videos that
are bad, but everything you justthe four videos this person
(35:22):
posted were all fake AI videos,and a lot of people aren't able
to tell the difference, I guess.
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
So, how do you think societally we're gonna deal with
that?
Is there I I mean, I I know thatthere's like okay, I guess tools
that are nascent that are comingout that that you can run it
through, and there's not gonnakeep up.
SPEAKER_02 (35:40):
It's it's gonna be at some point in a weird hope,
we're just gonna stop trustingwhat we see.
We're not used to that, but it'sjust gonna be part of it.
You're gonna, I think, you know,institutional trust is going to
have to come back, and you'regonna have a lot of crazies that
are gonna believe whatever thehell they want to believe.
And you know, the sad truth iswe're already there, like we're
kind of already like AI, itdidn't take AI to do that.
(36:02):
It took, you know, bat media,irresponsible media to do that,
and it already happened.
Major media sources constantlyreporting fake news, you know.
And to be clear, I'm aregistered Democrat.
So when I say fake news, I feellike I'm gonna get you know MAGA
thrown out.
Um, but it's just the truth.
Both sides of the aisle, like,you know, whether it's left
leaning or right-leaning, theamount of bullshit that comes
(36:22):
out of our most major mediachannels is crazy.
Journalistic integrity is prettymuch gone.
And so you end up with, youknow, and so you already have
that.
And so now you've got thecompounding of that.
Now it's like literally like thefootage is fake too.
I think you're gonna, I don'tknow.
I think we're gonna end up in alot of echo chambers.
And I don't know that it getsbetter before it gets worse.
(36:44):
I think it's gonna be people aregonna believe whatever the hell
they want to believe.
SPEAKER_01 (36:47):
So so let's like bring it back to um how to
thrive in a market like that andand in a crowded market today.
Like, where do you think?
I I think we kind of touched onit with the the infotainment, I
guess, component of it.
SPEAKER_02 (37:02):
But it goes, it's it's exactly on that.
It's because trust is so hard tofind, when you find it, people
latch on now.
And so if you are authentic andyou are trustworthy and you do
deliver, people are going to bemuch more loyal because they
don't want to deal with gettingscrewed over again.
They're getting inundated, butlike it becomes to the point
where it's noise.
And I like the easiest way tolook at this from a business
standpoint is the musicindustry.
(37:23):
When you got Napster and Spotifyand kind of democratize the
access to music and it didn'thave to be these gatekeepers,
the expectation would be thatthere'd be a much wider array of
music taste and a big largermiddle class.
It's not what happened at all.
The rich got richer because whathappens is when there's that
much noise and that muchhappening, people just default
to whatever is the most wellknown in general.
(37:44):
Now, you know, there is also alittle bit more music
discoverability now.
And there's people that havecome up that maybe wouldn't have
in the past, but let's be real,the Taylor Swifts of the world
are way more successful now thanthey were 20 years ago without
all this.
SPEAKER_01 (37:59):
I agree with that.
And certainly people latch on todifferent people and brands and
trusted advisors and and thatsort of thing.
SPEAKER_02 (38:06):
And so the idea is like in that example, be the
Taylor Swift in your industry.
How do you be the one thateverybody wants to go to, that
well known and gets out there?
And if not, there's a gap.
My business partner used to talkabout this a lot that this sort
of chasm that's coming whereit's gonna get more and more
divided.
It's the wealth gap, too, by theway.
It's literally the same thingwhere it's like it's gonna get
for when you're already rich andyou're already popular, or if
(38:27):
you can lock in that audience,it's gonna get easier and easier
to keep that stance and it'sgonna get harder and harder to
compete.
And I think that the only sortof hole in that is AI, because
now you can come in and work soaggressively and so fast that
you can find that sort of weakspot in your competition and
potentially exploit it.
SPEAKER_01 (38:46):
Okay, so we're we're getting close to time here, but
I think to to frame it up forpeople to take away something
actionable is I I love what youwere saying about uh the Hawk
method.
And like maybe frame up like fora mid-sized company or not not a
micro business, like somebodythat that that is looking to
scale, like a growth-orientedbusiness, and they're looking at
(39:08):
scale.
What is like the framework orframeworks that you're looking
at when they come to you from ago-to-market strategy, or like
let's lead people with somethingthat's tangible because you
know, AI, some people are toningit out, like tuning it out
completely, which is dangerous,right?
Um, but but but also it's verygood with the internet.
SPEAKER_02 (39:30):
Like it's it's something you should probably
pay attention to.
At some point, everyone's gonnahave it in integrated, and
you're you're like, like it'sgonna be like not having a
website would be not integratingAI.
But it's also like businessesare gonna survive without using
it too.
There's my my that my tire guythat changes the tires of my car
doesn't have a website, he'sfine, he's been in business 50
years, old, you know, Bob'stires, they're doing just fine.
Um, so you have that.
(39:51):
So you you it's not likeeverybody's screwed if they
don't.
It's just like you got to makethe decision.
If you want to keep growing yourbusiness and take on an
opportunity, you probably shoulduse it in terms of.
The full stack, I'd say I reallylike the scalable, repeatable
part of marketing.
I think that should be 90% ofwhat you do.
And that still is, you know, allthe different social media
channels.
So TikTok, Facebook.
(40:11):
And by the way, this is for B2Btoo.
Like I spend for Hawk Media, Idon't know, where we're at
probably two million dollars ayear on Google and Meta and
TikTok and Twitter ads.
Like they, you know, LinkedIn, Iknow everybody thinks LinkedIn's
the B2B advertising.
They change their platform sooften, it's just impossible to
build something repeatable andscalable there.
So while content is great onLinkedIn, advertising has not
(40:33):
been.
Hopefully they fix it at onepoint.
Um and so figuring out yourmedia channels, I could go
forever on how to do that, butthat's the you know top of the
funnel.
How do you build awareness foryour brand?
Let people know you exist, alongwith driving word of mouth, have
really easy messaging of why youexist and who you are so that
your customers feel comfortabletalking about you to other
people.
That's huge.
(40:53):
And then nurturing that, that'swhere content comes in.
That's where uh email marketing,SMS marketing, and on the
content side, we talked aboutit, but it's like building
content that solves your valueproposition from a content
perspective, not just yourproduct perspective.
So whatever you're selling, ifyou're selling, oh, we'll go
back to shoe, running shoes.
People buy running shoes becausethey want to go out and be
healthy or they want to bestylish.
(41:14):
Pick a lane, let's say it'shealthy.
Now create you know contentaround diet, around great trails
to run, around you know whatother people are doing for
longevity, like whatever, getinto the science of it, whatever
it is that fits your brand, butbe that destination, not only
because it'll bring yourpotential customers back that
they'll convert at a higherrate, they'll also share that
and you'll increase word ofmouth.
(41:35):
So both of them, and they'llbuild more of that trust.
And then again, the other thirdpillar is trust.
That's where you get third-partyvalidation, testimonials,
reviews, uh case studies,influencers, um, what do you
call it?
Uh celebrities, uh, PR, allthese things that people go, I
trust them.
And if they're saying I shouldtrust you, I feel comfortable
(41:56):
with that.
Um, there's a lot more to talkabout on that.
But yeah, that would be thequick way to look at your stack.
Oh, how are you buildingawareness?
How are you nurturing thatawareness to convert it and keep
it as a customer?
And then how you're buildingtrust.
SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
Awesome.
Well, Eric, where's the best wayto people to find out more about
what you're talking about andyour thoughts and uh how to get
involved with you?
SPEAKER_02 (42:15):
Yeah, I didn't think I'd plug it, but uh hawk method
is easy.
That's our book.
Um, and then you can reach outto me at or slash Eric Huberman
on any social channel.
And by the way, happy to giveyou a free digital copy.
It's not, I didn't do this tomake money.
So uh happy to give anyone acopy of our book uh again on all
those socials.
And if you want, hawk alwayswill do a free marketing audit
for any business.
So that's just hawkmedia.com.
SPEAKER_01 (42:37):
Awesome.
So uh everybody, if you likewhat Eric's saying, you want to
check out more of what he'sdoing, check out Hawk Media.
So, guys, thank you so much.
If you want to grow yourbusiness with the largest, most
powerful plan on the internet,keep listening to this podcast
and we're gonna help connect youwith the leaders in the
industry.
Until the next time, my name isMatt Bertram.
Bye bye for now.
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