November 3, 2025 • 48 mins
We explore how an AI-first approach transforms a legacy driving school’s marketing, operations, and hiring while keeping focus on real-world outcomes. The big shift: recruiting becomes the growth engine, and local presence beats AI search for demand.
• AI scheduling reduces travel time and increases daily lessons
• Local marketing at scale through AI-powered research and print assets
• Measuring lift via brand queries, CTR, utilization, and 10th-grade share
• Nine test markets to validate and replicate winning tactics
• Recruiting treated as marketing, led by clear personas
• Retired educators deliver better training and higher lesson counts
• Partnerships with online course leaders instead of head-to-head SEO
• Focus on physical-service moat and first-principles metrics
• Practical AI use: small daily wins over big-bang changes
Guest Contact Information:
Website: coastlineacademy.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/renaud-delaquis
More from EWR and Matthew:
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Now, host Matthew Bertram — creator of LLM Visibility™ and 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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Howdy, so I wanted to just give you a quick preview
to this interview that I'm aboutto do.
It's with an AI first company.
Um, and we don't talk as muchabout digital marketing, but we
talk about how AI impacts allthe different parts of a
business.
Uh, we went into uh marketing,but local marketing, um, how to
(00:23):
measure it.
Uh, we talked about HR, howthat's impacted by it, and what
you can do with these modelsfrom a data analysis standpoint.
Um, one of the things, even thatwe've done recently, is the
unknown secrets of internetmarketing, no one's really
listening to our back catalog,right?
Because things are changing withSEO, even though there's some
really good foundationalinformation there.
(00:44):
So we took AI and we turned thelast 12 years into a book.
And you can actually get this onAmazon.
Um, we're we're gonna have allkinds of like giveaways and
stuff like that.
But it's a really cool use wherewe took um 710, I think,
podcasts and we put it togetheruh in a book called The Unknown
(01:07):
Secrets of Internet Marketingthat you can get, we can pass
out, and then it also links youto the new podcasts.
And that's just one of the usecases.
And I think AI first companiesare gonna win in this new
economy a lot of thecertifications that I'm getting
and where my learning is goingis to learning uh LLMs, uh, how
(01:28):
machine learning works, how itcan be applied.
And then the possibility getsopened up.
And so this is one of first, oneof the first, hopefully, of many
uh interviews that I do with AIFirst Companies.
I'm trying to get people on bothsides of the desk, if you will,
from agency owners to uh onlinebusinesses to physical
(01:51):
businesses, legacy businesses,how marketing is impacting them,
and how business leaders aredealing with uh the rise of AI.
So hopefully you enjoyed thepodcast.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (02:05):
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_02 (02:19):
Howdy, welcome back to another fun-filled episode of
the Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I am your host, Matt Bertram.
Today I have a special episodefor you.
Uh, as we continue to exploreLLM visibility and we're moving
into everything AI, uh, I havebeen trying to bring on other
agencies and also othercompanies, and we're trying to
go beyond what's uh happening insearch.
(02:42):
Um, there's a lot of fun stuffto talk about LLM visibility,
but it's on the tail end of thecurve.
And what I'm seeing isbusinesses that are starting to
build that AI layer and try totransform into an AI first
company are revolutionizing howthey do business and how they
acquire customers.
And so I wanted to bring on uhRenault from Canada, but works
(03:05):
with a US-based company calleduh Coastline Academy, which is a
driving school, which is kind ofan old school business.
So I'm I'm seeing a lot ofventure capital buddies of mine
that are like, hey, we're gonnago into legacy businesses and
we're gonna transform them withAI.
And I feel like you're at thecutting wave of that.
You have a uh a stronge-commerce background, you know
(03:28):
a lot about digital marketing, alot about SEO.
And we're seeing marketing andsales start to uh tap into all
these other things in theoperations of the business to
help it run more efficiently.
So um I'm excited to have you onand talk a little bit more about
this.
Well, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
(03:49):
Well, why don't we just startwith like what's most topical
for you as far as how you'reseeing the world as a digital
market or as an SEO?
But a lot of things that arechanging for you aren't
necessarily SEO um or paid adsor what have you.
It's really how AI is affectingthe operations and the workflow
(04:10):
in the business, from what Iunderstand.
SPEAKER_04 (04:12):
Yeah, it's a super interesting time because
obviously, as with any industry,AI is changing everything, at
least if you allow it to.
Uh, and very often it'll changethings that you don't expect.
Uh, so to give a little bit ofbackground about the company, so
we're the largest driving schoolin the in the US.
(04:32):
We started right before COVIDand uh we managed to grow
quickly.
Now we're in 500 locations,we're in nine states.
Um, and the way that weapproached this was through
technology.
And so we had our own AI systembefore ChatGPT was launched.
Like we we had a very smart CTOwho just put together this uh
(04:55):
this system that would pair adriver or an instructor with a
student and optimize whensomeone where someone will be in
the future and optimize theirscheduling so that we could fit
more lessons in a day whileminimizing the travel time
between between lessons.
So that's kind of where thecompany is coming from.
(05:17):
So really we approached thedriving education, like the this
old school company, like thisold school industry with a kind
of a new lens.
And so you would think that whenAI, like all those AI tools are
coming, like just came up, thatwe would be using them and just
leveraging the crap out of them.
(05:38):
And and we tried, and then wekind of realized that okay, we
were kind of it doesn't reallywork the way we thought it
would.
So if I start with um, you know,our traffic, organic traffic,
uh, or at least organic and paidsearch, these are like about
50-50, how about half half ofour revenue uh generating
(06:02):
channels.
And I thought that AI searchwould be this kind of growing
channel that I would bank on andthat would make a ton of
revenue.
And turns out that's not thecase.
Uh, I think the problem withdriving it, driving schools is
that we're kind of we're thislegacy type business uh that is
(06:25):
very slow to adapt just as anindustry, but people's
perception of it is also slow toadapt.
Um so I think we'll be like onthe second or third wave of of
those search terms uh or thoseAI search terms that we'll
finally will like we're stillinvesting in it, but I don't
think this is what I think it'llbe a few years before we reap
(06:46):
the benefits.
SPEAKER_02 (06:47):
Yeah, well, I mean, also if you think about who is
using AI, um, it's the youngergeneration, like they're already
using it all throughout school,like, but are their parents are
the ones selecting their drivingschool, right?
SPEAKER_04 (07:05):
So so that's so that's the problem.
So there's the this business isit's a weird business to market
to, and that's primarily whatgot me excited about joining a
driving school.
Because I mean, when someoneapproaches you and says, Hey,
you want to work for a drivingschool, you're like, Yeah, no,
I'm good.
Uh, but then they startthinking, you start thinking
about it, and like, wait asecond, I'll be marketing to
teenagers, but they're not theones making the purchase, their
(07:27):
parents will be making thepurchase.
And no one thinks about adriving school except for that
small period of time when youneed it, and then you never
think about it ever again untilyou have other kids, or and
chances are you're gonna go tothe same driving school as your
parents or that as yoursiblings, because nothing
changes in this field.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Yeah, I can see that.
SPEAKER_04 (07:48):
Yeah, so like no one is is going on Chad GPT
searching for the best drivingschool in their town, like
that's just not what'shappening.
SPEAKER_02 (07:55):
Um I keep hearing, I keep hearing like my kids are
not gonna drive, right?
Like uh Teslas and right, likeso there, there's there's an
expiration date on this, butyou're utilizing it like Uber
matching, essentially, um to beable to scale.
And and I've seen that businesshappen with photograph uh
(08:17):
photographers as well.
Like um, I think it's a newermodel, like it's certainly an AI
first model.
And uh I I do the marketing forthe Boy Scouts of America now.
Uh they've changed their nameand there's a there's a lot of
PR uh associated with what'swhat's going on there.
Uh Eagle Scout, I'm proud of it.
Um uh had a great experience.
(08:38):
And uh but it's the same thing.
You're you're marketing to likethe moms, potentially, or the
decision maker of the householduh for the kids, but then the
kids gotta want to do it, right?
And so um you you have adichotomy in the marketing
you're you're going after, andthen there's like certain
(08:58):
decision points uh throughoutthe year that people get
enrolled.
So I can't say I totallyunderstand what you're going
through, but I got a glimpse ofkind of what what you're what
you're dealing with.
Um and and certainly uh all theAI has to make all the
connections and the coordinationand build the schedules.
(09:20):
So I would love to hear moreabout how you're utilizing it
internally, and and we can go asdeep as you want.
I I think I can probably hang.
SPEAKER_04 (09:28):
So yeah, okay.
So let me so that now that Ijust uh kind of poo-pooed all
over the the whole AI thing fromthe industry.
SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
Hello, invisibility, like uh let's I'll take a flyer
and I'll come back in a year andlike we'll talk about it, right?
SPEAKER_04 (09:43):
Let me talk about where it actually had a massive
impact for us and where we seethis going for us, because I
think there's a lot that we havelearned that other companies
might want to learn from.
Uh, because when when your firstidea doesn't work, you go to the
second, the third idea, and thenyou start expanding.
And what where we ended up withwas a very exciting place.
(10:08):
We started looking at otherchannels, other organic channels
that are not Google or notsearch, that are still that
could benefit from from AI.
Because what AI does, at leastfor us, is it it can it allows
us to scale whatever tactic wedo to it scales it almost
infinitely.
I say almost because you stillwant to look at it, you still
(10:31):
want to monitor what's going on.
Human in the loop, yeah,exactly.
But so all those other channelsthat we started looking at, it's
like, well, let's how can thisaffect local marketing, right?
We still have a physicalpresence.
So we're not we're an onlinefirst business, as in everything
happens online, but we offer aservice that is very real,
right?
It's a behind-the-wheel drivinglesson.
(10:53):
So a car needs to show up atyour door, an instructor needs
to be there.
Uh, we need to have a physicalpresence, and also we're
competing against a thousanddriving schools.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like it's there's no onenational driving school.
We will become that one nationaldriving school, but now we're
fighting against an ex like athousand little wars against a
(11:14):
bunch of different smallerdriving schools that that's that
have been in business for themost part since the 90s.
SPEAKER_02 (11:20):
Yeah, no, you got to dislodge them from the legacy,
right?
The pass down, like we talkedabout.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (11:27):
Yeah.
Um, so what has worked for us ison the local marketing side
because we have anything we doin one market, we want to
replicate in all the others.
And the problem with that isit's creating real material,
like marketing assets.
We can imagine like flyers,posters, banners, things like
that, or also reaching out forpotential partnerships.
(11:47):
Like we want to partner with thelocal high schools, we want to
partner with the Boy Scouts orthe Boys and Girls Club, like
anyone who caters to an audienceof teenagers, like if they're
15, we need to be there becausewe're we need to be there at the
moment where they are eligibleto start to learn how to drive.
SPEAKER_02 (12:05):
And are you selling?
Um, I like I haven't dug intothis enough, but like
convenience is it basically youdon't have to go to the physical
location, the car comes to yourdoor.
So parents that are busy orwhatever, you have a vetted
person that just comes to yourdoor, picks up your kid, drives
them, drops them back off, orsomething like that.
SPEAKER_04 (12:25):
I mean, that yeah, yeah, convenience is a big part
of it.
Uh, I think convenience goeseven beyond that because a lot
of those places still you haveto pay them by check.
Like, I kid you.
Oh my gosh, it's I when I sayit's like a traditional legacy
business type.
I mean it.
Um, you know, everything we senda report by email, we have dash
cams both sides, we have GPStracking for the parents, like
(12:46):
all the things that you need.
Yeah, just like it.
So we're we're competing onconvenience and quality.
Um, because then the reason whywe started this in the first
place, uh because we started offas a retrofitting company for uh
for cars.
So we were implementing carsafety equipment in older cars.
We essentially wanted to createthe uh the autopilot, but for
cars that did not have autopilotuh to eradicate car crashes, and
(13:10):
we realized, oh yeah,self-driving is uh right around
the corner, but it's been aroundthe corner for 10 years.
Uh, in the meantime, what willhappen is we will drive less and
less, but we'll be only asked todrive in the worst possible
scenarios, like when the AI,when the the camera can't like
when there's low visibility whenit's raining, like when it's
(13:31):
raining, but that then peopleare getting trained like are
driving less and less, like froma mileage standpoint.
SPEAKER_02 (13:38):
So then it hands them over to them and they're
not prepared to drive.
SPEAKER_04 (13:43):
So that's my point.
So you have so see see theproblem here, right?
And insurance companies arethere's no way Tesla is gonna
pay out for all the accidents,you're still liable for it for
insurance.
So I think we're gonna it'll getworse before it gets better.
Uh so like this this hump, Idon't know what the solution is,
but all I know is until wefigure it out, the driver is
gonna be at the center of this,and we need to create better
(14:04):
drivers, and so that's where wethat's where we came to be.
But anyways, all this to say, sothen we need to start creating
all this marketing material atscale.
Yeah, and I'm like, oh, cool,that's a perfect use case for
AI, because then we can we cansuddenly do this, right?
We can do the research for allthe outreach for part for market
uh partnerships.
(14:25):
I can find out the phone number,I can scrape.
I have amazing tools now to findout who all the football coaches
are uh everywhere in America andjust contact them directly and
be like, hey, I want to give you500 bucks for a banner on your
field.
Um, so this whole partnershipsystem was enabled by AI.
SPEAKER_02 (14:44):
And then you could print print whatever you need to
print at scale, and then youjust drop ship it or whatever.
And I mean, you can you canreally go off online to offline
pretty quickly with AI, andthat's that's a use case that I
don't hear people talking abouta lot.
(15:05):
Like, I'm I mean, my LinkedIn isnoisy right now with everything
with LM visibility and and youknow, it's a very small
percentage of the market.
And you know, I I I broughtsomeone on previously that did
billboards, digital billboards,and um, you know, getting
physical eyeballs and like youknow, physically being there and
(15:26):
involved near that um absolutelyhas impact and they're seeing it
um week over week, and there's alot of kids there.
Like, I think that that'sbrilliant.
SPEAKER_04 (15:36):
Yeah, and I think it's there's also something
really cool about seeing theimpact of AI in the real world.
You know, very too often,especially in digital marketing,
like I like to tell people thatnone of what I do is real.
Um, you know, I spent I mean, Ispend my life in this like
little, I spend my life in thisroom.
I'm on my computer, I work for acompany in another country.
Uh, I'm scaling a national brandthat I'll never like I'll never
(15:59):
experience it.
Um, I go there once a year, youknow, and then I go back home
and I spend time with my kid andmy dog.
And I'm like, cool, none of whatI did is real in my life.
Like, it's not somethingempirically, it's not real.
Um, but then you start seeingflyers and you see you see
photos of banners, and then youstart to see like bands, school
(16:21):
bands with your their logo ontheir van.
And you're like, oh, cool, thisis like this is happening,
right?
And right now we're sponsoring aum a university car.
Uh, they're building an electriccar for a competition, a
national competition, and wehave our own car.
So, like all these as we startedexpanding all these local
marketing tactics, it's startingto have a very real effect on in
(16:42):
communities, but also like incommunities, right?
I'm not now suddenly I'minvesting all those dollars and
I'm not giving them to Google,I'm giving them to kids to like
play sport and play music.
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
So I'm like thinking about like AI recognition, like
facial recognition, right?
Like, and there's a bunch of youknow, real ID and all this stuff
that's kind of double-edgedsword coming.
Um, you know, if you have a logothat's out there, you can, I'm
sure I I would love to hear moreabout the tools and kind of some
(17:18):
of the workflows and and whatyou're doing, but I'm like, to
get uh share a voice, right?
There, the tools out there rightnow just are horrible.
In my in my opinion, most of thetools are bloated and not super
useful and horrible.
They certainly have a place, butthere's gonna be a new
generation of tools that comeout.
I'm thinking, like, okay, ifyou're doing heavy local
(17:39):
marketing and you're trying toget share a voice, like, how do
you measure share a voice?
Well, you need a tool to scrapesocial media, to find your
logos, to find your brand name,and uh to aggregate it all
together to and then and thenyou're running it through some
kind of weighted metric orwhatever you come with with to
say, what is our share of voicein this community?
(18:00):
Like, how are you measuring thatstuff?
I mean, I guess analytics is I Imean, you can take data and you
can use AI to get all kinds ofinsights, but try to measure
what you're actively doing inthe community.
Um, I'm interested to hear moreabout that.
SPEAKER_04 (18:15):
Yeah, so we ultimately measure this in terms
of utilization rate, right?
So we we put this, we attachthis to a revenue target.
SPEAKER_02 (18:24):
Um, and so it's based on based on how many kids,
like you're taking census dataor something like that, and
you're trying to figure out sowe we can calculate market
share.
SPEAKER_04 (18:34):
We do this by calculating how many uh 10th
grader there are in an area.
And it's not a perfect measurebecause obviously it's not like
adults will also take drivinglessons, but for us, like what
market share of 10th grade iswhat you want.
Yeah, exactly.
And so, and that's availabledata.
We can figure this out, and sothat's something that we're
tracking year over year.
Uh, how many students we have inan area, compare that to how
(18:57):
many 10th graders there are inthat area, and that'll give us
an idea of the market share thatwe have.
SPEAKER_02 (19:00):
And you can label you can also label out um the
adults based on age, based onall the data that's being taken,
right?
Like so you can you can start tocut your own data up and see
what what's happening.
SPEAKER_04 (19:11):
Yeah, I mean, the the most important data point
that we're that I'm pushingtowards, like everything I'm
doing here uh is to increaseutilization rate in an area,
right?
We have X amount of instructorsserving, let's say Sacramento uh
in California, and I need theirschedules for the next X amount
of weeks to be 80% full, right?
(19:32):
And if I reach that point, good,I'll move on.
If there's a place where we'reat 30%, okay, I need to really
go hard there.
All those local marketingtactics, they're not like it's
it's it's pretty slow, right?
It's not this will be more on aquarter basis.
So this is how we plan growth inin areas.
So because it's a slow movingtactic, it allows us to predict
(19:54):
how many people we need to hirein any area.
So the tools, so to answer yourquestion, how we measure things
is still very low tech.
It really is just like, okay,well, how many people did we
convert in that area?
And do we need to invest more ofit?
We do have tools to track ourbrand across every single, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:12):
What are what are I'm just curious, what are you
using for some of that that kindof stuff?
Share a voice.
SPEAKER_04 (20:16):
Yeah, so we had some, I think it was called
Athena.
Um or is it Athena?
It's like some Greek god.
It's not if it's not Athena,it's some other Greek god.
Let me just double check.
Uh my daughter is named Artemis,so like I have uh you know, you
(20:37):
know what?
SPEAKER_02 (20:38):
This podcast doesn't have enough typing sounds in it,
actually.
Like I it was that that was asolid type sound that everybody
could hear.
SPEAKER_04 (20:46):
I'm sorry, that's my cherry MX blue.
SPEAKER_02 (20:48):
No, no, no, it's it's actually something that I'm
I'm thinking about now.
Is like, you know, we talk abouteverything that happens on a a
laptop, right?
Like, and so typing sounds needto be part of like the the
general cadence of what's goingon, and those were those were
solid sounds right there.
SPEAKER_04 (21:05):
That's the loudest keyboard I could possibly buy.
Um, again, to make things real.
Okay, I needed something real inmy life here.
I can't just have like the mythe my worst fear is to have a
touch screen keyboard.
Like at that point, I'm just whyeven work, right?
SPEAKER_02 (21:22):
It's like well, it's gonna be a brain chip that's
just gonna like know what you'rethinking, just gonna do it
right.
SPEAKER_04 (21:27):
So um, I think it's called Apollo.
SPEAKER_02 (21:30):
Apollo, okay.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
You're you're using Apollo towell, Apollo.
I I use Apollo.
Maybe I'm using a differentApollo if you're doing like cold
outreach, like no, so yeah, sothere's an out there's two
apology.
SPEAKER_04 (21:41):
There's an Apollo for cold outreach, which I have
used for specifically for um forpartnerships.
That's the one I've been using.
Um there's another Apollo for uhAI, I think.
SPEAKER_02 (21:50):
Oh, this is gonna be an issue with Entity SEO.
I I was just talking to anothercompany that uh if we land them,
which I feel very good about,everybody will know.
Uh very big crypto company.
Um, but there's entity issueswith people with the same names
and other businesses out there.
Um, that's becoming certainly anissue.
(22:10):
EWR, uh, we got mixed up withthe airport in New York.
I feel like I need to get anoffice in New York because you
know everybody's like, Are youout in New York?
Because you're EWR.
Um yeah, what is it?
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (22:24):
Athena HQ.ai.
SPEAKER_02 (22:27):
I'm gonna have to check this out.
SPEAKER_04 (22:29):
It's like right.
Athena HQ.ai.
There is another Apollo that Ihave used that is not the lead
searching tool, but I the onethat I've been using now for
share of voice is Athena HQ.ai.
Um the reason why I don't knowit by heart is because I don't
really rely on it.
Like it's something that I'mlike, okay, it'll get better
with time.
Um, but it's like I said, it'snot really a metric that I care
a whole lot about.
(22:49):
Like we have I have other toolsthat allow me to see how things
work, right?
We have our PR firm that justsends me a report.
I'm like, okay, that's goodenough for me, or I'll just look
if there's a lift analysis andediting the given market, I can
do that too.
SPEAKER_02 (23:03):
Um how are you how are you measuring that?
Like, tell me, tell me how whatare the things that are
important to you that you'vekind of gone in-house now, uh,
when you're measuring uh share avoice or lift, uh, like PR
stuff.
Like, what are the things thatyou're looking at that have real
value?
SPEAKER_04 (23:20):
Yeah, so brand queries are the main ones uh on
search terms.
We still go back to Googlebecause Google is as much as I
don't want it to be, it's stillsuch an integral, like it's a
huge part of our business.
Um, also because other drivingskills were not really investing
in Google.
So, like, that's was the oneplace we could definitely steal
market share was on SEO.
(23:41):
Uh, we could we could dominatethem very quickly just by being
like the Starbucks that shows upnext to a coffee shop and kind
of like that sort of a businessmodel.
SPEAKER_02 (23:51):
Well, I mean, your business model, like this is
like marketing for an AI firstcompany.
That's that's really what I amprobably gonna call this
podcast.
Okay, and um this Harvard coursethat I went through, uh, the
transformation that you need togo through and and really the uh
intersection between uh on thecharts between like a
(24:13):
traditional business with a moatand uh AI company and and just
the they just smash rightthrough it.
Like AI companies are juststeamrolling other companies.
So I think some of the claimsthat you made, Renault, about um
we're gonna be the biggestcompany and you're competing
against like you know businessesthat were started in whatever
(24:34):
1970s or uh in that range or orrun that way.
I I find that in the recruitingbusiness too.
Uh everything's done this thisvery old school way.
And uh uh I haven't seen yet anAI first company.
I need to go start to seek outAI first companies and interview
them.
I would love that to know whatthey're doing differently and
(24:55):
how they're they're they'rebuilding the workflows
internally because it reallyclicked for me as soon as we
started talking about why you'regonna win, right?
And and I'm I'm very muchinterested in how that
translates to marketing.
Uh more like tell me more aboutthe workflows or where where
(25:17):
were we where were we going withthe conversation that you still
wanted to touch on?
I want to make sure I didn't cutyou off.
SPEAKER_04 (25:22):
No, no, no, that's right.
I'll just talk about the liftanalysis real quick, but then we
talk about we talk aboutrecruiting, and that is not to
force it like that is the onething that's the biggest thing
that happened to us.
And let's talk about this.
SPEAKER_02 (25:32):
Yeah, I mean, AI, that's the next area that AI is
gonna move into.
Um okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (25:38):
So okay, just to find just to close the loop on
lift analysis because it's apretty boring answer, but still
I want people to know.
Like it's just we we the maintwo things I'm looking at is are
people searching for the namemore than before?
Um, and also is ourclick-through rate increasing in
that area because peoplerecognize a name, and so we can
very easily see this in anygiven area.
Okay, is that work?
SPEAKER_02 (25:59):
So, well, okay, so let me let me go a little deeper
for that.
Like that that's like I need tolike SEO AI AEO, whatever you
want to call it these days, um,G E O.
Um 50% of the traffic because ofAIO reviews, let's say, right?
AI overviews, etc., likeenriched uh snippets and stuff
(26:22):
like that.
Um, what is it, 58.5% on averageacross all pubs, traffic tanked,
all that informational traffic.
Um, I I don't know how much uh,you know, uh what is it, uh
directional traffic that thatthat you have.
I'm assuming your people arecoming to you, so there's not
(26:42):
like a physical location, butall that informational traffic
now, the educational traffic isjust across the internet, right?
And you're you're skipping allthose different areas where it's
spread out to and said, let'sjust go straight to where the
kids and the the parents are andgo to the football fields and
(27:02):
and sporting events and BoyScouts, whatever, wherever
they're at, and the schools,because like we want a physical
flyer there and we want a brandrecognized and a QR code and a
you know, whatever a domain linkthat they can go check out and a
image of the logo, whatever, andand you can measure that.
I'm also seeing across allaccounts, um, Google's not
(27:27):
really telling us very muchabout uh where that traffic's
coming from.
It's just branded searches noware the highest category of
searches across all areas.
And um, you know, how are youparsing that out or how are you
looking at that, or does it notmatter?
And it's just like more peopleknow about the brand, however,
they got there, we're good withthat.
SPEAKER_04 (27:49):
Yeah, so for us, it's kind of the second part.
We're not too focused becausethere's our reporting has all
the reporting tools havedrastically changed, and ever
since the whole J4 thing, likesince then, I I have I have much
lower trust in my reporting thanI have the lowest amount of
trust in my reporting than everbefore.
(28:10):
And so I rely, yeah.
So I rely a lot on am I thethings that I'm doing, am I
doing the right things for whatI'm trying to achieve?
And and conceptually, is it whatall those tools want?
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (28:27):
And so I'm like first first principles.
I mean, you're just exactly so Ihave good marketing, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (28:32):
Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time.
Like, okay, even if right nowthere's a Google update that is
not working in my favor, am Ithe type of business that Google
wants to promote?
Yes, I am.
I'm a real business, I have reallike a physical business that
has a real impact.
People will leave real reviewsand all of that.
Like, I'm not an affiliatebusiness that is trying to be a
(28:54):
middleman and just like hack myway through the first the first
page.
Like, I'm Google will always tryto please the businesses that
like mine, like Coastline.
Also, we spend a ton of money onGoogle Ads, and so they're like,
Yeah, we want to keep thatbusiness.
Um, so I'm like, okay, so thisis the first principle is is
(29:15):
what I'm going by.
And then are thingsdirectionally going in the
direction that I want?
Uh, and so if I have a bunch oflocal marketing in some area, is
business increasing?
Are my because I also we alsohave paid brand campaigns, and
so these have much more granularuh reporting attached to them.
Um, so those I get to see.
(29:35):
Like, is my cost like am I goingfrom 0.1 penny to 0.05 penny per
click?
Great, that's like I'll takethat, right?
Is um is that or is my clickthrough rate for all the other
campaigns in that area going upuh um on average?
Yeah, okay, cool.
I'm I'm okay with this.
I'm not gonna be too attached toit because this is part of my
(29:57):
marketing budget that is notpaid like it's Not paid search,
it's not performance marketing,right?
So I'm not gonna have like adirect dollar attribution.
We're getting into brandmarketing, and that's always
more difficult to gauge.
So I have kind of theflexibility in my marketing
budget where okay, I have likethis percentage that I get to
spend on things that I think areright that will help.
(30:17):
And if directionally things aremoving, then everybody's happy
with it.
And that seems to be working sofar.
Um, those are importantconversations to have, but they
are because they're difficult,but but it's true, because it is
difficult.
Like you can't, it's it's hardto convince anyone that a brand
campaign has worked unless youunless you spend tens of
(30:39):
millions of dollars whereeveryone knows your brand, but
that's not what we want to dobecause we don't need people to,
we don't need everybody to knowour brand.
SPEAKER_02 (30:47):
Are you doing like um A-B tests or pilot programs
in different areas and kind ofmeasuring the uplift to see what
works?
And then, you know, like takingtwo demographically similar
areas and kind of running thoseand then going, okay, this is
working versus this.
Okay, maybe we'll we'll we'llspread that one out and and do
it, replicate it, right?
SPEAKER_04 (31:06):
Yeah, correct.
So we have uh nine areas, wehave nine test areas.
Um, and the reason why we havenine is because we have people
physically there, like managerswho live there.
So the moment I have someone whois physically at a location, I
know I'll have a much more, Ihave a much better chance of
whatever tests I'm doing to workbecause I need someone on the
ground to make sure, like, arethe banners up?
(31:28):
Because we've been scammedbefore.
Like I gave money to a school,uh, and turns out like their
agency was just a total scam.
And so, like, I don't know whogot like they, yeah, they stole
money from kids, which isterrible, but like that's the
world we live in.
Wow.
Um, I need to make sure, like,it are the banners actually up,
are the flyers up?
Are we physically present at thecar meets, at the festival, at
the whatever?
(31:48):
So we have nine test areas andwe meet every week, and whatever
works in one area, we implementtwo others.
We will often do two areas thatare very similar and see if can
we replicate those results?
If that's the case, then wereplicate this in all those
other places.
That's I think that's kind ofthe strength.
We have we have hundreds ofplaces we can test things.
The moment something workssomewhere, we can scale it
(32:10):
everywhere.
And I think that's very cool.
Uh yeah, no, this is this is uhgreat conversation.
I enjoyed it.
Um, but again, but I do want totalk about the recruiting part
because I mean that was thebiggest aha moment for us.
Um, so I'll just start with somecontext.
We lost our HR manager, uh, ourHR uh director um around
(32:32):
Christmas.
Um, and um, so we all kind ofhad to come together, all the
all the leadership team, we'relike, okay, we need to pick up
the slack here because like westill need to hire people, like
growth needs to happen.
And so, what happens when youhave a bunch of people who are
not in HR, who are notrecruiters, who are then looking
at HR and recruiting, you have abunch of ideas, like you have
(32:53):
new ideas.
Like, wait a second, like I'mlooking at this through a
marketer or product growthmarketer, and like this is a
marketing problem.
Like, I recruiting isessentially just selling
something to someone, like,except instead of instead of
them buying, they're buying intothe company I'm paying them,
fine, but like the all theeconomics and all the funnel is
the same.
Yep.
(33:13):
And I'm like, I need I need totreat them as I would any
client.
Like, are these who are werecruiting?
And so, like, who are thepersonas that we're recruiting?
We don't know.
Uh we kind of know if they passthe interview, okay.
Yeah, cool, but like, can wedefine exactly who it is that we
want?
And so, what we did is westarted doing personality
(33:36):
assessment for all ouremployees, uh, because we wanted
to know like, who are we hiringand and who are the best ones?
And like, because I just wantmore of the best, right?
I want and who are the best?
Well, they're the ones who arethe happiest and the most
fulfilled about their job, likethe ones who treat this as like
a career or something that'smore purpose-driven.
And we found very common themes.
(33:58):
Like one of them, one of thepersonas that we have is retired
educator.
These people, gold for thecompany because they love what
they do, they're patient,they're calm, they really
believe like they they they willin they invest themselves in the
education of their students,which is great, because then
they create better drivers.
And what how do they createbetter drivers?
(34:20):
Turns out they they convincestudents to take an additional
lesson.
So in California, for example,you need to take three lessons
to meet the state requirements,and the state requirement means
whatever you need to pass theroad test.
The road test is notcomprehensive.
Okay, you don't go on thehighway, you don't parallel
(34:41):
park, you don't drive at nightin rain, you don't uh do blind
intersections, like there's alot of essential skills that are
not tested there.
So the incentive for drivingschools is to not cover this
material because we want becauseI mean, someone will only
complain if they don't passtheir test, right?
So, and it's next impossible todo everything in three lessons.
(35:05):
So we we found a higher averagelesson count for all the
students who went through thosehighly motivated, highly
motivated employees, and likethis is all stuff that I don't
have the data analyticsbackground to like pull this
data together, but like AI justmade this super simple to just
figure this out.
Um now there's two, so thenthere's two key learnings here.
(35:27):
We know who we want and theygenerate more money for us, and
they create better drivers,right?
That's important.
Like, so this fits our mission,this fits my goal as a marketer,
because I need to create morerevenue, and then this is a
target for recruiters, so but Ican't just leave it there,
right?
I have like now I need to helpthem, I need to help them, I
(35:48):
need to help them being therecruiters, hire more people
like them because they're notnecessarily easy to find.
So then my so then my priorityas a marketer is to hire people,
and so in my as a demandgenerating uh like my job is to
demand is to is to generatedemand, but now I need to
(36:09):
generate some offer, right?
I need to generate the offerside, and so then I started
looking at my own funnel.
Well, okay, do I is there anymarkets where I generate too
much demand?
And that I'm bottlenecked by howmuch offer I can actually
fulfill there.
Absolutely.
The Bay Area is one of thoseplaces.
I cannot hire enough people inthe Bay Area.
So then all the incentives theycan't like between the two
(36:32):
departments started to likemerge together.
And now we have since hired uhan HR manager and a recruiter,
and so now we have the team inplace.
But what this allowed us to dois we had this like shared
mission now, where the way thatwe will increase revenue, like
one of the ways that we increaserevenue for the company, one way
that we create better drivers sowe fit our mission, all that
(36:54):
comes from marketing and HRcollaborating to make sure that
we hire the best people who willbe the happiest of the company,
who will give the best servicepossible, who will, as a
byproduct of that, sell morelessons.
And me as a marketer, I need tounlock this and make this as
frictionless as possible bygiving them all the marketing
material they need because Idon't want them to be pushy
salesmen.
They're not gonna sell anything,but they can totally just share
(37:17):
information, have flyers, haveeverything ready to go.
I can create incentives.
And yeah, so like that was thebiggest, like that was the
biggest aha moment for us.
SPEAKER_02 (37:29):
Well, it makes a lot of sense, and you can now tie it
together with data of likeyou're you're going after a
two-sided market, right?
Like you've got to have enoughpeople to drive if you have
enough demand, and those thingsneed to be linked because you
don't want to keep you knowpumping this air if you don't
have the drivers.
So those things are associatedwith each other and are relevant
(37:51):
to each other and and need to bepart of that conversation.
And then you're building brandcampaigns, you're you're trying
to recruit them.
Like the thing you're selling isto join your company and to
believe in the the brand missionand be part of it.
You have target personas, youhave a customer journey, um, you
have assets and videos, andlike, you know, it it's it's
just you're selling somethingdifferent, right?
(38:13):
You're selling for them to uhjoin your company and you want
the top talent of what whatyou're looking for, and then it
ties to your revenue goalsbecause you can sell a bunch of
courses, but if they can't gettheir lessons in a reasonable
time frame, they might go withanother solution.
And so it it all balances oneach other, but you can use AI
(38:35):
to help you figure that out.
I I love that idea of uh likeyou know, doing um, you know,
there's Myers Briggs, there's abunch of different tests, taking
that together to understand whatthat is, and then feed that in
uh to AI to understand what whatis the DNA of our company, like
(38:57):
who who have we hired and whoare those best people?
Because what you probably foundout from the retired educator,
that that might not have beenalready uncovered, or was it
with uh with the uh um you knowHR team, that's clearly
something that you could getfrom AI Insights that is finding
(39:18):
these patterns, right?
And um, it seems like also uh,you know, you went into it a
little bit of hey, like we'regonna teach them more, so
they're gonna produce morelessons because they're getting
you know good quality drivingthat leads to better reviews,
that means to more revenue, um,and and certainly referrals if
their kids learn to drive betterthan the minimum required to
(39:41):
meet the test.
Because I can only assume that Iremember, I actually kind of
remember defensive driving wasat like a laugh, like a
defensive driving and and uhdriver training, I think were uh
associated with each other.
And it it was just a bunch ofwell, useless videos um that
(40:02):
need to be updated from thegovernment.
Um and there are some onlinebusinesses.
So how are you competing?
Oh, that's driver, that'sdriver.
Uh, do you do that part of thebusiness too?
SPEAKER_04 (40:15):
The uh driver's the online course, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (40:18):
Yeah, the online courses.
I'm assuming you do that aswell, like right, it fits right
into what you're offering prettyeasily.
SPEAKER_04 (40:24):
Absolutely.
Uh yeah, so we do, and that'sactually why.
So I was hired primarily for uhfor growing that product.
Okay.
Um, and um the reality of thisspace, at least in the US, is
that there's very few compthere's only a handful of
competitors.
They own the market because thatwas like a really good SEO play
(40:46):
for the longest time.
So you have a company likeAceable who owns all the top,
I'd say the top three or topfour companies, um, like drivers
ed.com, that's them.
IDrive Safely, that's also them.
Um, so they kind of own thatmarket.
Um, then you have othercompanies like Zatobi, uh, they
are on in the practice testrealm, uh, which is like an
(41:06):
in-between.
So you do driver's ed and thenyou do your practice test in
order to take your DMV test.
That'll give you your permit.
Then you take behind your wheellessons, and then you take your
rope test.
Like that's the sequence ofevents.
Um, our approach was to not gohead to head against them.
SPEAKER_02 (41:25):
Yeah, that's a that's a big I mean that that's
all I saw that like as an SEOplay, right?
Like you get to the top, youneed to just get a certification
or get some kind of approval,like driver's ed, and you're
just like, Oh, I'll I'll takethe top thing, right?
Or the top of Google.
And that was all that peoplethought about.
SPEAKER_04 (41:42):
Yeah, but what we did uh is partner with all of
them.
Um, so that was like if we can'tbe them, let's join them.
Because what we told them islike, listen, you guys sell the
product that comes before us,and like realistically for us,
driver's ed is just a leadmagnet, right?
It's just like there you go,yeah.
Like we just need them, like wewill break even or we'll lose
money on this product because werely on a certain percentage to
(42:04):
then convert to behind the wheellessons.
Um, so we told them, do you guyswant to just make a commission
on this and send people our way?
And they said, Yep.
And so we're partnering.
So all our competitors, that wasmy first year, is like, let's
just partner with everycompetitor out there.
SPEAKER_02 (42:21):
Let's let's flip like it's how what we're talking
about, and and I'm a little bitslower right now because I'm
processing this of as an AIfirst company, you have to think
differently, right?
And so you're like, we're notgonna compete with these guys.
Let's actually let's partnerwith them to grow this other
(42:42):
product that we have somesustainable advantage against
other players in.
Yeah, um, and that's just gonnaaccelerate your growth, right?
And so that's that's apartnership play that I don't I
don't know if all the otherdriving schools would think
about it that way.
Well, you know, if they couldn'teven service it, like y'all
could actually service it andand do it and go head to head,
(43:04):
but you decided, hey, like thisis our focus, this is you know
where we want to specialize in.
And so let's figure out how toturn all these negatives into
positives.
I I love that.
SPEAKER_04 (43:16):
Yeah, and I think this kind of our philosophy for
for just as a business, uh,because we're the we're a bunch
of very passionateentrepreneurs, like as like we
all have we did the personalitytest ourselves, so we all we are
all the same person.
Um, at least on the leadershipside, like there's seven of us
uh at the on the leadership, andlike we're there's two different
(43:37):
types, but like still clearpersonas.
Uh, we can easily be distractedby good ideas because we live in
this world, like what AI hasdone for us is it remove the it
remove the how do we dosomething because I don't care,
like I know I can, right?
At this point, is I don't needto know how to I could vibe code
(43:59):
something that like and justit'll happen, right?
Like this morning I was lookingat Hank Green's uh new app.
I think it's called uh what's itcalled?
The the Vlogbrothers guy.
I think it's uh distractingfree.
Anyway, so it became like thenumber one app today or
yesterday in the US, like it'sit overtook Google and Chat GPT,
and it's it's just a timer thatprevents you from like just
(44:22):
don't touch your phone forhowever long you commit it to,
and like you have this beanthat'll just start knitting.
And if you touch your phone, thebean will stop knitting and
it'll be sad, and so you don'tdistract the bean for however
long.
Like, and that is like thenumber one app.
Okay, there's no accountcreation, there's no ads,
there's nothing like it.
This is a perfect use case forlike vibe coding something.
(44:43):
Like, this could have been vibecoded, and it's just one of
those ideas like you have thisidea, I don't care how to do it,
I can do it.
It probably wasn't vibe coded,but it could have.
That's my point.
Yeah, and so at Coastline, we wetry to be very mindful of not
being distracted by anythingthat is not our core business
because yeah, we could do likethere's a lot of really cool
ideas.
(45:03):
We could become an insurancecompany, right?
We could be because we train thebest drivers, so why not ensure
the people that we train?
We could um try to own theonline practice test because
it's related to our product,yeah.
But like that's not our mainadvantage.
Our advantage is to give betterdriving lessons that are more
convenient, and our competitorsare the mom and pop driving
(45:25):
schools.
And so we need to keep focusedon that.
So anything else, if it's gonnabe if it's gonna be a problem,
we need to either join with themor address it in some way.
But like joining them is thebest scenario.
Because I mean, the practicetest market, the the top three
companies in the US, they're notfrom the US, they're from
Eastern Europe or and or Sweden.
(45:46):
Um, it's just like you'reopening the doors to pure SEO or
pure organic play.
And if you do that, then you'reopening the doors to competitors
from all across the world.
And there's someone out therewith a better team uh that is
more less expensive to operateand they have more time and they
will crush this game.
Um, but what they can't do iscreate a physical business.
(46:09):
So, like, that's yeah.
So we keep we keep focusing towe keep reminding ourselves to
focus on that.
SPEAKER_02 (46:15):
Well, Renault, like I I love this conversation.
I don't know if everybody'sfollowing what what we're
talking about, but I think thatum it's gonna uh age well.
I think it's gonna age well asum uh people get more uh feet
under them around AI.
Um, is there anything that wehaven't covered that you want to
(46:38):
make sure that we highlight?
Um I uh I know I took theconversation maybe a couple
different directions.
So I want to turn it over to youto uh share with us anything you
would like to share, as well asum, you know, how people can get
in touch with you to find outmore.
I think you're doing some reallyinteresting stuff.
SPEAKER_04 (46:57):
Yeah, I think two things on AI is just use it as
you would healthy food.
I think that's our approach.
It's just a little bit every daybecause you can't just like eat
a healthy meal, a big healthymeal once a week.
No, no, it's like just use it alittle bit every day just so you
understand the capabilities.
And whenever the new model comesout, at least you'll understand
how you can use it.
(47:18):
Uh like don't try to do the bigchange, try to do the small
changes because I mean I thinkthat will open the door to a
bunch of opportunities that youdidn't know existed, and at
least in your in your context.
Um, and on the driving side,yeah, drive safe out there.
I mean, there's a um we're we'rewe're here like we're doing this
for a reason, right?
We want to create safer roads.
(47:39):
I think things are gonna beworse before they get better.
And I think it's the best thingyou can do is to improve your
training.
Uh, so I would encourage peopleto take driving training if with
us or with or someone elsedoesn't matter, but just learn
those skills because the theconsequences can be pretty
severe.
Uh, and we see them, and it's uhyeah, I may I may be overly
(48:02):
exposed to this, but I I doreally generally think people
should learn defensive drivingskills.
And so I encourage people to dothat.
And uh if you want to check usout, coolflanacademy.com, and
yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (48:15):
Awesome.
Well, everybody, hopefully youfound this uh conversation
helpful.
If you did, please like it,please share it.
Um, it it really does help us.
Um, we are uh trying to transferover to a video first uh
podcast.
We've been doing this for 12years, and uh uh we have to
learn new things, and and AI isgetting involved in every which
(48:39):
way.
So hopefully you found thispodcast helpful.
Um, this is the Unknown Secretsof Internet Marketing.
My name is Matt Bertram.
Until the next time, bye bye fornow.
Howdy, so I wanted to just give you a quick preview
to this interview that I'm aboutto do.
It's with an AI first company.
Um, and we don't talk as muchabout digital marketing, but we
talk about how AI impacts allthe different parts of a
business.
Uh, we went into uh marketing,but local marketing, um, how to
(00:23):
measure it.
Uh, we talked about HR, howthat's impacted by it, and what
you can do with these modelsfrom a data analysis standpoint.
Um, one of the things, even thatwe've done recently, is the
unknown secrets of internetmarketing, no one's really
listening to our back catalog,right?
Because things are changing withSEO, even though there's some
really good foundationalinformation there.
(00:44):
So we took AI and we turned thelast 12 years into a book.
And you can actually get this onAmazon.
Um, we're we're gonna have allkinds of like giveaways and
stuff like that.
But it's a really cool use wherewe took um 710, I think,
podcasts and we put it togetheruh in a book called The Unknown
(01:07):
Secrets of Internet Marketingthat you can get, we can pass
out, and then it also links youto the new podcasts.
And that's just one of the usecases.
And I think AI first companiesare gonna win in this new
economy a lot of thecertifications that I'm getting
and where my learning is goingis to learning uh LLMs, uh, how
(01:28):
machine learning works, how itcan be applied.
And then the possibility getsopened up.
And so this is one of first, oneof the first, hopefully, of many
uh interviews that I do with AIFirst Companies.
I'm trying to get people on bothsides of the desk, if you will,
from agency owners to uh onlinebusinesses to physical
(01:51):
businesses, legacy businesses,how marketing is impacting them,
and how business leaders aredealing with uh the rise of AI.
So hopefully you enjoyed thepodcast.
Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00 (02:05):
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_02 (02:19):
Howdy, welcome back to another fun-filled episode of
the Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I am your host, Matt Bertram.
Today I have a special episodefor you.
Uh, as we continue to exploreLLM visibility and we're moving
into everything AI, uh, I havebeen trying to bring on other
agencies and also othercompanies, and we're trying to
go beyond what's uh happening insearch.
(02:42):
Um, there's a lot of fun stuffto talk about LLM visibility,
but it's on the tail end of thecurve.
And what I'm seeing isbusinesses that are starting to
build that AI layer and try totransform into an AI first
company are revolutionizing howthey do business and how they
acquire customers.
And so I wanted to bring on uhRenault from Canada, but works
(03:05):
with a US-based company calleduh Coastline Academy, which is a
driving school, which is kind ofan old school business.
So I'm I'm seeing a lot ofventure capital buddies of mine
that are like, hey, we're gonnago into legacy businesses and
we're gonna transform them withAI.
And I feel like you're at thecutting wave of that.
You have a uh a stronge-commerce background, you know
(03:28):
a lot about digital marketing, alot about SEO.
And we're seeing marketing andsales start to uh tap into all
these other things in theoperations of the business to
help it run more efficiently.
So um I'm excited to have you onand talk a little bit more about
this.
Well, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
(03:49):
Well, why don't we just startwith like what's most topical
for you as far as how you'reseeing the world as a digital
market or as an SEO?
But a lot of things that arechanging for you aren't
necessarily SEO um or paid adsor what have you.
It's really how AI is affectingthe operations and the workflow
(04:10):
in the business, from what Iunderstand.
SPEAKER_04 (04:12):
Yeah, it's a super interesting time because
obviously, as with any industry,AI is changing everything, at
least if you allow it to.
Uh, and very often it'll changethings that you don't expect.
Uh, so to give a little bit ofbackground about the company, so
we're the largest driving schoolin the in the US.
(04:32):
We started right before COVIDand uh we managed to grow
quickly.
Now we're in 500 locations,we're in nine states.
Um, and the way that weapproached this was through
technology.
And so we had our own AI systembefore ChatGPT was launched.
Like we we had a very smart CTOwho just put together this uh
(04:55):
this system that would pair adriver or an instructor with a
student and optimize whensomeone where someone will be in
the future and optimize theirscheduling so that we could fit
more lessons in a day whileminimizing the travel time
between between lessons.
So that's kind of where thecompany is coming from.
(05:17):
So really we approached thedriving education, like the this
old school company, like thisold school industry with a kind
of a new lens.
And so you would think that whenAI, like all those AI tools are
coming, like just came up, thatwe would be using them and just
leveraging the crap out of them.
(05:38):
And and we tried, and then wekind of realized that okay, we
were kind of it doesn't reallywork the way we thought it
would.
So if I start with um, you know,our traffic, organic traffic,
uh, or at least organic and paidsearch, these are like about
50-50, how about half half ofour revenue uh generating
(06:02):
channels.
And I thought that AI searchwould be this kind of growing
channel that I would bank on andthat would make a ton of
revenue.
And turns out that's not thecase.
Uh, I think the problem withdriving it, driving schools is
that we're kind of we're thislegacy type business uh that is
(06:25):
very slow to adapt just as anindustry, but people's
perception of it is also slow toadapt.
Um so I think we'll be like onthe second or third wave of of
those search terms uh or thoseAI search terms that we'll
finally will like we're stillinvesting in it, but I don't
think this is what I think it'llbe a few years before we reap
(06:46):
the benefits.
SPEAKER_02 (06:47):
Yeah, well, I mean, also if you think about who is
using AI, um, it's the youngergeneration, like they're already
using it all throughout school,like, but are their parents are
the ones selecting their drivingschool, right?
SPEAKER_04 (07:05):
So so that's so that's the problem.
So there's the this business isit's a weird business to market
to, and that's primarily whatgot me excited about joining a
driving school.
Because I mean, when someoneapproaches you and says, Hey,
you want to work for a drivingschool, you're like, Yeah, no,
I'm good.
Uh, but then they startthinking, you start thinking
about it, and like, wait asecond, I'll be marketing to
teenagers, but they're not theones making the purchase, their
(07:27):
parents will be making thepurchase.
And no one thinks about adriving school except for that
small period of time when youneed it, and then you never
think about it ever again untilyou have other kids, or and
chances are you're gonna go tothe same driving school as your
parents or that as yoursiblings, because nothing
changes in this field.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Yeah, I can see that.
SPEAKER_04 (07:48):
Yeah, so like no one is is going on Chad GPT
searching for the best drivingschool in their town, like
that's just not what'shappening.
SPEAKER_02 (07:55):
Um I keep hearing, I keep hearing like my kids are
not gonna drive, right?
Like uh Teslas and right, likeso there, there's there's an
expiration date on this, butyou're utilizing it like Uber
matching, essentially, um to beable to scale.
And and I've seen that businesshappen with photograph uh
(08:17):
photographers as well.
Like um, I think it's a newermodel, like it's certainly an AI
first model.
And uh I I do the marketing forthe Boy Scouts of America now.
Uh they've changed their nameand there's a there's a lot of
PR uh associated with what'swhat's going on there.
Uh Eagle Scout, I'm proud of it.
Um uh had a great experience.
(08:38):
And uh but it's the same thing.
You're you're marketing to likethe moms, potentially, or the
decision maker of the householduh for the kids, but then the
kids gotta want to do it, right?
And so um you you have adichotomy in the marketing
you're you're going after, andthen there's like certain
(08:58):
decision points uh throughoutthe year that people get
enrolled.
So I can't say I totallyunderstand what you're going
through, but I got a glimpse ofkind of what what you're what
you're dealing with.
Um and and certainly uh all theAI has to make all the
connections and the coordinationand build the schedules.
(09:20):
So I would love to hear moreabout how you're utilizing it
internally, and and we can go asdeep as you want.
I I think I can probably hang.
SPEAKER_04 (09:28):
So yeah, okay.
So let me so that now that Ijust uh kind of poo-pooed all
over the the whole AI thing fromthe industry.
SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
Hello, invisibility, like uh let's I'll take a flyer
and I'll come back in a year andlike we'll talk about it, right?
SPEAKER_04 (09:43):
Let me talk about where it actually had a massive
impact for us and where we seethis going for us, because I
think there's a lot that we havelearned that other companies
might want to learn from.
Uh, because when when your firstidea doesn't work, you go to the
second, the third idea, and thenyou start expanding.
And what where we ended up withwas a very exciting place.
(10:08):
We started looking at otherchannels, other organic channels
that are not Google or notsearch, that are still that
could benefit from from AI.
Because what AI does, at leastfor us, is it it can it allows
us to scale whatever tactic wedo to it scales it almost
infinitely.
I say almost because you stillwant to look at it, you still
(10:31):
want to monitor what's going on.
Human in the loop, yeah,exactly.
But so all those other channelsthat we started looking at, it's
like, well, let's how can thisaffect local marketing, right?
We still have a physicalpresence.
So we're not we're an onlinefirst business, as in everything
happens online, but we offer aservice that is very real,
right?
It's a behind-the-wheel drivinglesson.
(10:53):
So a car needs to show up atyour door, an instructor needs
to be there.
Uh, we need to have a physicalpresence, and also we're
competing against a thousanddriving schools.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like it's there's no onenational driving school.
We will become that one nationaldriving school, but now we're
fighting against an ex like athousand little wars against a
(11:14):
bunch of different smallerdriving schools that that's that
have been in business for themost part since the 90s.
SPEAKER_02 (11:20):
Yeah, no, you got to dislodge them from the legacy,
right?
The pass down, like we talkedabout.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04 (11:27):
Yeah.
Um, so what has worked for us ison the local marketing side
because we have anything we doin one market, we want to
replicate in all the others.
And the problem with that isit's creating real material,
like marketing assets.
We can imagine like flyers,posters, banners, things like
that, or also reaching out forpotential partnerships.
(11:47):
Like we want to partner with thelocal high schools, we want to
partner with the Boy Scouts orthe Boys and Girls Club, like
anyone who caters to an audienceof teenagers, like if they're
15, we need to be there becausewe're we need to be there at the
moment where they are eligibleto start to learn how to drive.
SPEAKER_02 (12:05):
And are you selling?
Um, I like I haven't dug intothis enough, but like
convenience is it basically youdon't have to go to the physical
location, the car comes to yourdoor.
So parents that are busy orwhatever, you have a vetted
person that just comes to yourdoor, picks up your kid, drives
them, drops them back off, orsomething like that.
SPEAKER_04 (12:25):
I mean, that yeah, yeah, convenience is a big part
of it.
Uh, I think convenience goeseven beyond that because a lot
of those places still you haveto pay them by check.
Like, I kid you.
Oh my gosh, it's I when I sayit's like a traditional legacy
business type.
I mean it.
Um, you know, everything we senda report by email, we have dash
cams both sides, we have GPStracking for the parents, like
(12:46):
all the things that you need.
Yeah, just like it.
So we're we're competing onconvenience and quality.
Um, because then the reason whywe started this in the first
place, uh because we started offas a retrofitting company for uh
for cars.
So we were implementing carsafety equipment in older cars.
We essentially wanted to createthe uh the autopilot, but for
cars that did not have autopilotuh to eradicate car crashes, and
(13:10):
we realized, oh yeah,self-driving is uh right around
the corner, but it's been aroundthe corner for 10 years.
Uh, in the meantime, what willhappen is we will drive less and
less, but we'll be only asked todrive in the worst possible
scenarios, like when the AI,when the the camera can't like
when there's low visibility whenit's raining, like when it's
(13:31):
raining, but that then peopleare getting trained like are
driving less and less, like froma mileage standpoint.
SPEAKER_02 (13:38):
So then it hands them over to them and they're
not prepared to drive.
SPEAKER_04 (13:43):
So that's my point.
So you have so see see theproblem here, right?
And insurance companies arethere's no way Tesla is gonna
pay out for all the accidents,you're still liable for it for
insurance.
So I think we're gonna it'll getworse before it gets better.
Uh so like this this hump, Idon't know what the solution is,
but all I know is until wefigure it out, the driver is
gonna be at the center of this,and we need to create better
(14:04):
drivers, and so that's where wethat's where we came to be.
But anyways, all this to say, sothen we need to start creating
all this marketing material atscale.
Yeah, and I'm like, oh, cool,that's a perfect use case for
AI, because then we can we cansuddenly do this, right?
We can do the research for allthe outreach for part for market
uh partnerships.
(14:25):
I can find out the phone number,I can scrape.
I have amazing tools now to findout who all the football coaches
are uh everywhere in America andjust contact them directly and
be like, hey, I want to give you500 bucks for a banner on your
field.
Um, so this whole partnershipsystem was enabled by AI.
SPEAKER_02 (14:44):
And then you could print print whatever you need to
print at scale, and then youjust drop ship it or whatever.
And I mean, you can you canreally go off online to offline
pretty quickly with AI, andthat's that's a use case that I
don't hear people talking abouta lot.
(15:05):
Like, I'm I mean, my LinkedIn isnoisy right now with everything
with LM visibility and and youknow, it's a very small
percentage of the market.
And you know, I I I broughtsomeone on previously that did
billboards, digital billboards,and um, you know, getting
physical eyeballs and like youknow, physically being there and
(15:26):
involved near that um absolutelyhas impact and they're seeing it
um week over week, and there's alot of kids there.
Like, I think that that'sbrilliant.
SPEAKER_04 (15:36):
Yeah, and I think it's there's also something
really cool about seeing theimpact of AI in the real world.
You know, very too often,especially in digital marketing,
like I like to tell people thatnone of what I do is real.
Um, you know, I spent I mean, Ispend my life in this like
little, I spend my life in thisroom.
I'm on my computer, I work for acompany in another country.
Uh, I'm scaling a national brandthat I'll never like I'll never
(15:59):
experience it.
Um, I go there once a year, youknow, and then I go back home
and I spend time with my kid andmy dog.
And I'm like, cool, none of whatI did is real in my life.
Like, it's not somethingempirically, it's not real.
Um, but then you start seeingflyers and you see you see
photos of banners, and then youstart to see like bands, school
(16:21):
bands with your their logo ontheir van.
And you're like, oh, cool, thisis like this is happening,
right?
And right now we're sponsoring aum a university car.
Uh, they're building an electriccar for a competition, a
national competition, and wehave our own car.
So, like all these as we startedexpanding all these local
marketing tactics, it's startingto have a very real effect on in
(16:42):
communities, but also like incommunities, right?
I'm not now suddenly I'minvesting all those dollars and
I'm not giving them to Google,I'm giving them to kids to like
play sport and play music.
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
So I'm like thinking about like AI recognition, like
facial recognition, right?
Like, and there's a bunch of youknow, real ID and all this stuff
that's kind of double-edgedsword coming.
Um, you know, if you have a logothat's out there, you can, I'm
sure I I would love to hear moreabout the tools and kind of some
(17:18):
of the workflows and and whatyou're doing, but I'm like, to
get uh share a voice, right?
There, the tools out there rightnow just are horrible.
In my in my opinion, most of thetools are bloated and not super
useful and horrible.
They certainly have a place, butthere's gonna be a new
generation of tools that comeout.
I'm thinking, like, okay, ifyou're doing heavy local
(17:39):
marketing and you're trying toget share a voice, like, how do
you measure share a voice?
Well, you need a tool to scrapesocial media, to find your
logos, to find your brand name,and uh to aggregate it all
together to and then and thenyou're running it through some
kind of weighted metric orwhatever you come with with to
say, what is our share of voicein this community?
(18:00):
Like, how are you measuring thatstuff?
I mean, I guess analytics is I Imean, you can take data and you
can use AI to get all kinds ofinsights, but try to measure
what you're actively doing inthe community.
Um, I'm interested to hear moreabout that.
SPEAKER_04 (18:15):
Yeah, so we ultimately measure this in terms
of utilization rate, right?
So we we put this, we attachthis to a revenue target.
SPEAKER_02 (18:24):
Um, and so it's based on based on how many kids,
like you're taking census dataor something like that, and
you're trying to figure out sowe we can calculate market
share.
SPEAKER_04 (18:34):
We do this by calculating how many uh 10th
grader there are in an area.
And it's not a perfect measurebecause obviously it's not like
adults will also take drivinglessons, but for us, like what
market share of 10th grade iswhat you want.
Yeah, exactly.
And so, and that's availabledata.
We can figure this out, and sothat's something that we're
tracking year over year.
Uh, how many students we have inan area, compare that to how
(18:57):
many 10th graders there are inthat area, and that'll give us
an idea of the market share thatwe have.
SPEAKER_02 (19:00):
And you can label you can also label out um the
adults based on age, based onall the data that's being taken,
right?
Like so you can you can start tocut your own data up and see
what what's happening.
SPEAKER_04 (19:11):
Yeah, I mean, the the most important data point
that we're that I'm pushingtowards, like everything I'm
doing here uh is to increaseutilization rate in an area,
right?
We have X amount of instructorsserving, let's say Sacramento uh
in California, and I need theirschedules for the next X amount
of weeks to be 80% full, right?
(19:32):
And if I reach that point, good,I'll move on.
If there's a place where we'reat 30%, okay, I need to really
go hard there.
All those local marketingtactics, they're not like it's
it's it's pretty slow, right?
It's not this will be more on aquarter basis.
So this is how we plan growth inin areas.
So because it's a slow movingtactic, it allows us to predict
(19:54):
how many people we need to hirein any area.
So the tools, so to answer yourquestion, how we measure things
is still very low tech.
It really is just like, okay,well, how many people did we
convert in that area?
And do we need to invest more ofit?
We do have tools to track ourbrand across every single, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:12):
What are what are I'm just curious, what are you
using for some of that that kindof stuff?
Share a voice.
SPEAKER_04 (20:16):
Yeah, so we had some, I think it was called
Athena.
Um or is it Athena?
It's like some Greek god.
It's not if it's not Athena,it's some other Greek god.
Let me just double check.
Uh my daughter is named Artemis,so like I have uh you know, you
(20:37):
know what?
SPEAKER_02 (20:38):
This podcast doesn't have enough typing sounds in it,
actually.
Like I it was that that was asolid type sound that everybody
could hear.
SPEAKER_04 (20:46):
I'm sorry, that's my cherry MX blue.
SPEAKER_02 (20:48):
No, no, no, it's it's actually something that I'm
I'm thinking about now.
Is like, you know, we talk abouteverything that happens on a a
laptop, right?
Like, and so typing sounds needto be part of like the the
general cadence of what's goingon, and those were those were
solid sounds right there.
SPEAKER_04 (21:05):
That's the loudest keyboard I could possibly buy.
Um, again, to make things real.
Okay, I needed something real inmy life here.
I can't just have like the mythe my worst fear is to have a
touch screen keyboard.
Like at that point, I'm just whyeven work, right?
SPEAKER_02 (21:22):
It's like well, it's gonna be a brain chip that's
just gonna like know what you'rethinking, just gonna do it
right.
SPEAKER_04 (21:27):
So um, I think it's called Apollo.
SPEAKER_02 (21:30):
Apollo, okay.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
You're you're using Apollo towell, Apollo.
I I use Apollo.
Maybe I'm using a differentApollo if you're doing like cold
outreach, like no, so yeah, sothere's an out there's two
apology.
SPEAKER_04 (21:41):
There's an Apollo for cold outreach, which I have
used for specifically for um forpartnerships.
That's the one I've been using.
Um there's another Apollo for uhAI, I think.
SPEAKER_02 (21:50):
Oh, this is gonna be an issue with Entity SEO.
I I was just talking to anothercompany that uh if we land them,
which I feel very good about,everybody will know.
Uh very big crypto company.
Um, but there's entity issueswith people with the same names
and other businesses out there.
Um, that's becoming certainly anissue.
(22:10):
EWR, uh, we got mixed up withthe airport in New York.
I feel like I need to get anoffice in New York because you
know everybody's like, Are youout in New York?
Because you're EWR.
Um yeah, what is it?
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (22:24):
Athena HQ.ai.
SPEAKER_02 (22:27):
I'm gonna have to check this out.
SPEAKER_04 (22:29):
It's like right.
Athena HQ.ai.
There is another Apollo that Ihave used that is not the lead
searching tool, but I the onethat I've been using now for
share of voice is Athena HQ.ai.
Um the reason why I don't knowit by heart is because I don't
really rely on it.
Like it's something that I'mlike, okay, it'll get better
with time.
Um, but it's like I said, it'snot really a metric that I care
a whole lot about.
(22:49):
Like we have I have other toolsthat allow me to see how things
work, right?
We have our PR firm that justsends me a report.
I'm like, okay, that's goodenough for me, or I'll just look
if there's a lift analysis andediting the given market, I can
do that too.
SPEAKER_02 (23:03):
Um how are you how are you measuring that?
Like, tell me, tell me how whatare the things that are
important to you that you'vekind of gone in-house now, uh,
when you're measuring uh share avoice or lift, uh, like PR
stuff.
Like, what are the things thatyou're looking at that have real
value?
SPEAKER_04 (23:20):
Yeah, so brand queries are the main ones uh on
search terms.
We still go back to Googlebecause Google is as much as I
don't want it to be, it's stillsuch an integral, like it's a
huge part of our business.
Um, also because other drivingskills were not really investing
in Google.
So, like, that's was the oneplace we could definitely steal
market share was on SEO.
(23:41):
Uh, we could we could dominatethem very quickly just by being
like the Starbucks that shows upnext to a coffee shop and kind
of like that sort of a businessmodel.
SPEAKER_02 (23:51):
Well, I mean, your business model, like this is
like marketing for an AI firstcompany.
That's that's really what I amprobably gonna call this
podcast.
Okay, and um this Harvard coursethat I went through, uh, the
transformation that you need togo through and and really the uh
intersection between uh on thecharts between like a
(24:13):
traditional business with a moatand uh AI company and and just
the they just smash rightthrough it.
Like AI companies are juststeamrolling other companies.
So I think some of the claimsthat you made, Renault, about um
we're gonna be the biggestcompany and you're competing
against like you know businessesthat were started in whatever
(24:34):
1970s or uh in that range or orrun that way.
I I find that in the recruitingbusiness too.
Uh everything's done this thisvery old school way.
And uh uh I haven't seen yet anAI first company.
I need to go start to seek outAI first companies and interview
them.
I would love that to know whatthey're doing differently and
(24:55):
how they're they're they'rebuilding the workflows
internally because it reallyclicked for me as soon as we
started talking about why you'regonna win, right?
And and I'm I'm very muchinterested in how that
translates to marketing.
Uh more like tell me more aboutthe workflows or where where
(25:17):
were we where were we going withthe conversation that you still
wanted to touch on?
I want to make sure I didn't cutyou off.
SPEAKER_04 (25:22):
No, no, no, that's right.
I'll just talk about the liftanalysis real quick, but then we
talk about we talk aboutrecruiting, and that is not to
force it like that is the onething that's the biggest thing
that happened to us.
And let's talk about this.
SPEAKER_02 (25:32):
Yeah, I mean, AI, that's the next area that AI is
gonna move into.
Um okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (25:38):
So okay, just to find just to close the loop on
lift analysis because it's apretty boring answer, but still
I want people to know.
Like it's just we we the maintwo things I'm looking at is are
people searching for the namemore than before?
Um, and also is ourclick-through rate increasing in
that area because peoplerecognize a name, and so we can
very easily see this in anygiven area.
Okay, is that work?
SPEAKER_02 (25:59):
So, well, okay, so let me let me go a little deeper
for that.
Like that that's like I need tolike SEO AI AEO, whatever you
want to call it these days, um,G E O.
Um 50% of the traffic because ofAIO reviews, let's say, right?
AI overviews, etc., likeenriched uh snippets and stuff
(26:22):
like that.
Um, what is it, 58.5% on averageacross all pubs, traffic tanked,
all that informational traffic.
Um, I I don't know how much uh,you know, uh what is it, uh
directional traffic that thatthat you have.
I'm assuming your people arecoming to you, so there's not
(26:42):
like a physical location, butall that informational traffic
now, the educational traffic isjust across the internet, right?
And you're you're skipping allthose different areas where it's
spread out to and said, let'sjust go straight to where the
kids and the the parents are andgo to the football fields and
(27:02):
and sporting events and BoyScouts, whatever, wherever
they're at, and the schools,because like we want a physical
flyer there and we want a brandrecognized and a QR code and a
you know, whatever a domain linkthat they can go check out and a
image of the logo, whatever, andand you can measure that.
I'm also seeing across allaccounts, um, Google's not
(27:27):
really telling us very muchabout uh where that traffic's
coming from.
It's just branded searches noware the highest category of
searches across all areas.
And um, you know, how are youparsing that out or how are you
looking at that, or does it notmatter?
And it's just like more peopleknow about the brand, however,
they got there, we're good withthat.
SPEAKER_04 (27:49):
Yeah, so for us, it's kind of the second part.
We're not too focused becausethere's our reporting has all
the reporting tools havedrastically changed, and ever
since the whole J4 thing, likesince then, I I have I have much
lower trust in my reporting thanI have the lowest amount of
trust in my reporting than everbefore.
(28:10):
And so I rely, yeah.
So I rely a lot on am I thethings that I'm doing, am I
doing the right things for whatI'm trying to achieve?
And and conceptually, is it whatall those tools want?
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (28:27):
And so I'm like first first principles.
I mean, you're just exactly so Ihave good marketing, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (28:32):
Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time.
Like, okay, even if right nowthere's a Google update that is
not working in my favor, am Ithe type of business that Google
wants to promote?
Yes, I am.
I'm a real business, I have reallike a physical business that
has a real impact.
People will leave real reviewsand all of that.
Like, I'm not an affiliatebusiness that is trying to be a
(28:54):
middleman and just like hack myway through the first the first
page.
Like, I'm Google will always tryto please the businesses that
like mine, like Coastline.
Also, we spend a ton of money onGoogle Ads, and so they're like,
Yeah, we want to keep thatbusiness.
Um, so I'm like, okay, so thisis the first principle is is
(29:15):
what I'm going by.
And then are thingsdirectionally going in the
direction that I want?
Uh, and so if I have a bunch oflocal marketing in some area, is
business increasing?
Are my because I also we alsohave paid brand campaigns, and
so these have much more granularuh reporting attached to them.
Um, so those I get to see.
(29:35):
Like, is my cost like am I goingfrom 0.1 penny to 0.05 penny per
click?
Great, that's like I'll takethat, right?
Is um is that or is my clickthrough rate for all the other
campaigns in that area going upuh um on average?
Yeah, okay, cool.
I'm I'm okay with this.
I'm not gonna be too attached toit because this is part of my
(29:57):
marketing budget that is notpaid like it's Not paid search,
it's not performance marketing,right?
So I'm not gonna have like adirect dollar attribution.
We're getting into brandmarketing, and that's always
more difficult to gauge.
So I have kind of theflexibility in my marketing
budget where okay, I have likethis percentage that I get to
spend on things that I think areright that will help.
(30:17):
And if directionally things aremoving, then everybody's happy
with it.
And that seems to be working sofar.
Um, those are importantconversations to have, but they
are because they're difficult,but but it's true, because it is
difficult.
Like you can't, it's it's hardto convince anyone that a brand
campaign has worked unless youunless you spend tens of
(30:39):
millions of dollars whereeveryone knows your brand, but
that's not what we want to dobecause we don't need people to,
we don't need everybody to knowour brand.
SPEAKER_02 (30:47):
Are you doing like um A-B tests or pilot programs
in different areas and kind ofmeasuring the uplift to see what
works?
And then, you know, like takingtwo demographically similar
areas and kind of running thoseand then going, okay, this is
working versus this.
Okay, maybe we'll we'll we'llspread that one out and and do
it, replicate it, right?
SPEAKER_04 (31:06):
Yeah, correct.
So we have uh nine areas, wehave nine test areas.
Um, and the reason why we havenine is because we have people
physically there, like managerswho live there.
So the moment I have someone whois physically at a location, I
know I'll have a much more, Ihave a much better chance of
whatever tests I'm doing to workbecause I need someone on the
ground to make sure, like, arethe banners up?
(31:28):
Because we've been scammedbefore.
Like I gave money to a school,uh, and turns out like their
agency was just a total scam.
And so, like, I don't know whogot like they, yeah, they stole
money from kids, which isterrible, but like that's the
world we live in.
Wow.
Um, I need to make sure, like,it are the banners actually up,
are the flyers up?
Are we physically present at thecar meets, at the festival, at
the whatever?
(31:48):
So we have nine test areas andwe meet every week, and whatever
works in one area, we implementtwo others.
We will often do two areas thatare very similar and see if can
we replicate those results?
If that's the case, then wereplicate this in all those
other places.
That's I think that's kind ofthe strength.
We have we have hundreds ofplaces we can test things.
The moment something workssomewhere, we can scale it
(32:10):
everywhere.
And I think that's very cool.
Uh yeah, no, this is this is uhgreat conversation.
I enjoyed it.
Um, but again, but I do want totalk about the recruiting part
because I mean that was thebiggest aha moment for us.
Um, so I'll just start with somecontext.
We lost our HR manager, uh, ourHR uh director um around
(32:32):
Christmas.
Um, and um, so we all kind ofhad to come together, all the
all the leadership team, we'relike, okay, we need to pick up
the slack here because like westill need to hire people, like
growth needs to happen.
And so, what happens when youhave a bunch of people who are
not in HR, who are notrecruiters, who are then looking
at HR and recruiting, you have abunch of ideas, like you have
(32:53):
new ideas.
Like, wait a second, like I'mlooking at this through a
marketer or product growthmarketer, and like this is a
marketing problem.
Like, I recruiting isessentially just selling
something to someone, like,except instead of instead of
them buying, they're buying intothe company I'm paying them,
fine, but like the all theeconomics and all the funnel is
the same.
Yep.
(33:13):
And I'm like, I need I need totreat them as I would any
client.
Like, are these who are werecruiting?
And so, like, who are thepersonas that we're recruiting?
We don't know.
Uh we kind of know if they passthe interview, okay.
Yeah, cool, but like, can wedefine exactly who it is that we
want?
And so, what we did is westarted doing personality
(33:36):
assessment for all ouremployees, uh, because we wanted
to know like, who are we hiringand and who are the best ones?
And like, because I just wantmore of the best, right?
I want and who are the best?
Well, they're the ones who arethe happiest and the most
fulfilled about their job, likethe ones who treat this as like
a career or something that'smore purpose-driven.
And we found very common themes.
(33:58):
Like one of them, one of thepersonas that we have is retired
educator.
These people, gold for thecompany because they love what
they do, they're patient,they're calm, they really
believe like they they they willin they invest themselves in the
education of their students,which is great, because then
they create better drivers.
And what how do they createbetter drivers?
(34:20):
Turns out they they convincestudents to take an additional
lesson.
So in California, for example,you need to take three lessons
to meet the state requirements,and the state requirement means
whatever you need to pass theroad test.
The road test is notcomprehensive.
Okay, you don't go on thehighway, you don't parallel
(34:41):
park, you don't drive at nightin rain, you don't uh do blind
intersections, like there's alot of essential skills that are
not tested there.
So the incentive for drivingschools is to not cover this
material because we want becauseI mean, someone will only
complain if they don't passtheir test, right?
So, and it's next impossible todo everything in three lessons.
(35:05):
So we we found a higher averagelesson count for all the
students who went through thosehighly motivated, highly
motivated employees, and likethis is all stuff that I don't
have the data analyticsbackground to like pull this
data together, but like AI justmade this super simple to just
figure this out.
Um now there's two, so thenthere's two key learnings here.
(35:27):
We know who we want and theygenerate more money for us, and
they create better drivers,right?
That's important.
Like, so this fits our mission,this fits my goal as a marketer,
because I need to create morerevenue, and then this is a
target for recruiters, so but Ican't just leave it there,
right?
I have like now I need to helpthem, I need to help them, I
(35:48):
need to help them being therecruiters, hire more people
like them because they're notnecessarily easy to find.
So then my so then my priorityas a marketer is to hire people,
and so in my as a demandgenerating uh like my job is to
demand is to is to generatedemand, but now I need to
(36:09):
generate some offer, right?
I need to generate the offerside, and so then I started
looking at my own funnel.
Well, okay, do I is there anymarkets where I generate too
much demand?
And that I'm bottlenecked by howmuch offer I can actually
fulfill there.
Absolutely.
The Bay Area is one of thoseplaces.
I cannot hire enough people inthe Bay Area.
So then all the incentives theycan't like between the two
(36:32):
departments started to likemerge together.
And now we have since hired uhan HR manager and a recruiter,
and so now we have the team inplace.
But what this allowed us to dois we had this like shared
mission now, where the way thatwe will increase revenue, like
one of the ways that we increaserevenue for the company, one way
that we create better drivers sowe fit our mission, all that
(36:54):
comes from marketing and HRcollaborating to make sure that
we hire the best people who willbe the happiest of the company,
who will give the best servicepossible, who will, as a
byproduct of that, sell morelessons.
And me as a marketer, I need tounlock this and make this as
frictionless as possible bygiving them all the marketing
material they need because Idon't want them to be pushy
salesmen.
They're not gonna sell anything,but they can totally just share
(37:17):
information, have flyers, haveeverything ready to go.
I can create incentives.
And yeah, so like that was thebiggest, like that was the
biggest aha moment for us.
SPEAKER_02 (37:29):
Well, it makes a lot of sense, and you can now tie it
together with data of likeyou're you're going after a
two-sided market, right?
Like you've got to have enoughpeople to drive if you have
enough demand, and those thingsneed to be linked because you
don't want to keep you knowpumping this air if you don't
have the drivers.
So those things are associatedwith each other and are relevant
(37:51):
to each other and and need to bepart of that conversation.
And then you're building brandcampaigns, you're you're trying
to recruit them.
Like the thing you're selling isto join your company and to
believe in the the brand missionand be part of it.
You have target personas, youhave a customer journey, um, you
have assets and videos, andlike, you know, it it's it's
just you're selling somethingdifferent, right?
(38:13):
You're selling for them to uhjoin your company and you want
the top talent of what whatyou're looking for, and then it
ties to your revenue goalsbecause you can sell a bunch of
courses, but if they can't gettheir lessons in a reasonable
time frame, they might go withanother solution.
And so it it all balances oneach other, but you can use AI
(38:35):
to help you figure that out.
I I love that idea of uh likeyou know, doing um, you know,
there's Myers Briggs, there's abunch of different tests, taking
that together to understand whatthat is, and then feed that in
uh to AI to understand what whatis the DNA of our company, like
(38:57):
who who have we hired and whoare those best people?
Because what you probably foundout from the retired educator,
that that might not have beenalready uncovered, or was it
with uh with the uh um you knowHR team, that's clearly
something that you could getfrom AI Insights that is finding
(39:18):
these patterns, right?
And um, it seems like also uh,you know, you went into it a
little bit of hey, like we'regonna teach them more, so
they're gonna produce morelessons because they're getting
you know good quality drivingthat leads to better reviews,
that means to more revenue, um,and and certainly referrals if
their kids learn to drive betterthan the minimum required to
(39:41):
meet the test.
Because I can only assume that Iremember, I actually kind of
remember defensive driving wasat like a laugh, like a
defensive driving and and uhdriver training, I think were uh
associated with each other.
And it it was just a bunch ofwell, useless videos um that
(40:02):
need to be updated from thegovernment.
Um and there are some onlinebusinesses.
So how are you competing?
Oh, that's driver, that'sdriver.
Uh, do you do that part of thebusiness too?
SPEAKER_04 (40:15):
The uh driver's the online course, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (40:18):
Yeah, the online courses.
I'm assuming you do that aswell, like right, it fits right
into what you're offering prettyeasily.
SPEAKER_04 (40:24):
Absolutely.
Uh yeah, so we do, and that'sactually why.
So I was hired primarily for uhfor growing that product.
Okay.
Um, and um the reality of thisspace, at least in the US, is
that there's very few compthere's only a handful of
competitors.
They own the market because thatwas like a really good SEO play
(40:46):
for the longest time.
So you have a company likeAceable who owns all the top,
I'd say the top three or topfour companies, um, like drivers
ed.com, that's them.
IDrive Safely, that's also them.
Um, so they kind of own thatmarket.
Um, then you have othercompanies like Zatobi, uh, they
are on in the practice testrealm, uh, which is like an
(41:06):
in-between.
So you do driver's ed and thenyou do your practice test in
order to take your DMV test.
That'll give you your permit.
Then you take behind your wheellessons, and then you take your
rope test.
Like that's the sequence ofevents.
Um, our approach was to not gohead to head against them.
SPEAKER_02 (41:25):
Yeah, that's a that's a big I mean that that's
all I saw that like as an SEOplay, right?
Like you get to the top, youneed to just get a certification
or get some kind of approval,like driver's ed, and you're
just like, Oh, I'll I'll takethe top thing, right?
Or the top of Google.
And that was all that peoplethought about.
SPEAKER_04 (41:42):
Yeah, but what we did uh is partner with all of
them.
Um, so that was like if we can'tbe them, let's join them.
Because what we told them islike, listen, you guys sell the
product that comes before us,and like realistically for us,
driver's ed is just a leadmagnet, right?
It's just like there you go,yeah.
Like we just need them, like wewill break even or we'll lose
money on this product because werely on a certain percentage to
(42:04):
then convert to behind the wheellessons.
Um, so we told them, do you guyswant to just make a commission
on this and send people our way?
And they said, Yep.
And so we're partnering.
So all our competitors, that wasmy first year, is like, let's
just partner with everycompetitor out there.
SPEAKER_02 (42:21):
Let's let's flip like it's how what we're talking
about, and and I'm a little bitslower right now because I'm
processing this of as an AIfirst company, you have to think
differently, right?
And so you're like, we're notgonna compete with these guys.
Let's actually let's partnerwith them to grow this other
(42:42):
product that we have somesustainable advantage against
other players in.
Yeah, um, and that's just gonnaaccelerate your growth, right?
And so that's that's apartnership play that I don't I
don't know if all the otherdriving schools would think
about it that way.
Well, you know, if they couldn'teven service it, like y'all
could actually service it andand do it and go head to head,
(43:04):
but you decided, hey, like thisis our focus, this is you know
where we want to specialize in.
And so let's figure out how toturn all these negatives into
positives.
I I love that.
SPEAKER_04 (43:16):
Yeah, and I think this kind of our philosophy for
for just as a business, uh,because we're the we're a bunch
of very passionateentrepreneurs, like as like we
all have we did the personalitytest ourselves, so we all we are
all the same person.
Um, at least on the leadershipside, like there's seven of us
uh at the on the leadership, andlike we're there's two different
(43:37):
types, but like still clearpersonas.
Uh, we can easily be distractedby good ideas because we live in
this world, like what AI hasdone for us is it remove the it
remove the how do we dosomething because I don't care,
like I know I can, right?
At this point, is I don't needto know how to I could vibe code
(43:59):
something that like and justit'll happen, right?
Like this morning I was lookingat Hank Green's uh new app.
I think it's called uh what's itcalled?
The the Vlogbrothers guy.
I think it's uh distractingfree.
Anyway, so it became like thenumber one app today or
yesterday in the US, like it'sit overtook Google and Chat GPT,
and it's it's just a timer thatprevents you from like just
(44:22):
don't touch your phone forhowever long you commit it to,
and like you have this beanthat'll just start knitting.
And if you touch your phone, thebean will stop knitting and
it'll be sad, and so you don'tdistract the bean for however
long.
Like, and that is like thenumber one app.
Okay, there's no accountcreation, there's no ads,
there's nothing like it.
This is a perfect use case forlike vibe coding something.
(44:43):
Like, this could have been vibecoded, and it's just one of
those ideas like you have thisidea, I don't care how to do it,
I can do it.
It probably wasn't vibe coded,but it could have.
That's my point.
Yeah, and so at Coastline, we wetry to be very mindful of not
being distracted by anythingthat is not our core business
because yeah, we could do likethere's a lot of really cool
ideas.
(45:03):
We could become an insurancecompany, right?
We could be because we train thebest drivers, so why not ensure
the people that we train?
We could um try to own theonline practice test because
it's related to our product,yeah.
But like that's not our mainadvantage.
Our advantage is to give betterdriving lessons that are more
convenient, and our competitorsare the mom and pop driving
(45:25):
schools.
And so we need to keep focusedon that.
So anything else, if it's gonnabe if it's gonna be a problem,
we need to either join with themor address it in some way.
But like joining them is thebest scenario.
Because I mean, the practicetest market, the the top three
companies in the US, they're notfrom the US, they're from
Eastern Europe or and or Sweden.
(45:46):
Um, it's just like you'reopening the doors to pure SEO or
pure organic play.
And if you do that, then you'reopening the doors to competitors
from all across the world.
And there's someone out therewith a better team uh that is
more less expensive to operateand they have more time and they
will crush this game.
Um, but what they can't do iscreate a physical business.
(46:09):
So, like, that's yeah.
So we keep we keep focusing towe keep reminding ourselves to
focus on that.
SPEAKER_02 (46:15):
Well, Renault, like I I love this conversation.
I don't know if everybody'sfollowing what what we're
talking about, but I think thatum it's gonna uh age well.
I think it's gonna age well asum uh people get more uh feet
under them around AI.
Um, is there anything that wehaven't covered that you want to
(46:38):
make sure that we highlight?
Um I uh I know I took theconversation maybe a couple
different directions.
So I want to turn it over to youto uh share with us anything you
would like to share, as well asum, you know, how people can get
in touch with you to find outmore.
I think you're doing some reallyinteresting stuff.
SPEAKER_04 (46:57):
Yeah, I think two things on AI is just use it as
you would healthy food.
I think that's our approach.
It's just a little bit every daybecause you can't just like eat
a healthy meal, a big healthymeal once a week.
No, no, it's like just use it alittle bit every day just so you
understand the capabilities.
And whenever the new model comesout, at least you'll understand
how you can use it.
(47:18):
Uh like don't try to do the bigchange, try to do the small
changes because I mean I thinkthat will open the door to a
bunch of opportunities that youdidn't know existed, and at
least in your in your context.
Um, and on the driving side,yeah, drive safe out there.
I mean, there's a um we're we'rewe're here like we're doing this
for a reason, right?
We want to create safer roads.
(47:39):
I think things are gonna beworse before they get better.
And I think it's the best thingyou can do is to improve your
training.
Uh, so I would encourage peopleto take driving training if with
us or with or someone elsedoesn't matter, but just learn
those skills because the theconsequences can be pretty
severe.
Uh, and we see them, and it's uhyeah, I may I may be overly
(48:02):
exposed to this, but I I doreally generally think people
should learn defensive drivingskills.
And so I encourage people to dothat.
And uh if you want to check usout, coolflanacademy.com, and
yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (48:15):
Awesome.
Well, everybody, hopefully youfound this uh conversation
helpful.
If you did, please like it,please share it.
Um, it it really does help us.
Um, we are uh trying to transferover to a video first uh
podcast.
We've been doing this for 12years, and uh uh we have to
learn new things, and and AI isgetting involved in every which
(48:39):
way.
So hopefully you found thispodcast helpful.
Um, this is the Unknown Secretsof Internet Marketing.
My name is Matt Bertram.
Until the next time, bye bye fornow.
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