September 23, 2025 • 49 mins
What if everything you know about SEO is becoming obsolete? Dale Bertrand, founder of Fire and Spark, brings a refreshingly technical yet human-centered perspective to digital growth strategy—a perspective forged through his journey from building government supercomputers to revolutionizing how businesses approach organic traffic.
"Rankings and traffic that don't convert are worthless," Dale asserts, challenging the vanity metrics that have dominated digital marketing for years. His "SEO for Revenue" methodology cuts through the clutter, focusing on customer acquisition rather than keyword rankings. This approach has yielded remarkable results, including helping GrabCAD achieve 30x growth in organic traffic that ultimately led to a successful acquisition.
As artificial intelligence reshapes search, Dale identifies three critical shifts: the tools marketers use, the algorithms powering results, and how customers seek information. This trifecta demands new strategies where content must be "semantically dense" and "snackable" for AI training. The counterintuitive outcome? Less traffic but more revenue—a concept many marketers struggle to embrace.
Perhaps most surprising is Dale's deceptively simple advice for understanding customer behavior: just ask them. "We've gotten used to hiding behind analytics," he notes, advocating instead for direct conversations that yield insights no dashboard can provide. This human connection extends to his recommendations for product selection, where he encourages entrepreneurs to find the sweet spot between passion for a customer community, viable sales channels, and healthy unit economics.
For those building online businesses in 2023 and beyond, Dale offers a roadmap for navigating the transition from traditional SEO to what he calls "Generative Engine Optimization" (GEO). Early adopters who master these dynamics stand to benefit significantly, just as early SEO practitioners did years ago.
Connect with Dale at fireandspark.com or reach him directly at dale@fireandspark.com to learn how your business can thrive in the age of AI-powered search.
Ready to scale your Amazon business? Click here to book a strategy call. https://calendly.com/firingtheman/amazon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Firing the man, the podcast for
entrepreneurs and businessbuilders ready to scale beyond
the grind and into smart,sustainable ownership.
I'm your host, David Shomer,and today's guest is someone who
designs growth strategies usingcutting-edge tech and
data-driven precision.
Meet Dale Bertrand, the founderand CEO of Fire Spark, a growth
(00:49):
agency built on a foundation ofsupercomputing, artificial
intelligence and a ruthlessfocus on real business outcomes.
Dale cut his teeth building a5,832 processor supercomputer
for the US government beforepivoting to digital growth,
(01:10):
bringing that same power andprecision to SEO and revenue
strategy.
Under Dale's leadership, fireand Spark built the SEO for
Revenue methodology.
Where traffic isn't the goal,it's the vehicle for generating
measurable ROI.
His team helped GrabCAD achievea 30x growth in organic traffic
(01:33):
, ultimately leading to asuccessful acquisition.
Dale's blend of AI-poweredautomation, proprietary
predictive models andirresistibly creative strategy
helps businesses not just showup while leaving competitors in
the dust.
Today, we'll cut through theclutter of SEO tips and dig into
(01:58):
how he's engineering scalablegrowth systems that turn human
grit into exponential revenue.
If you're building an onlinebusiness and wondering how to
scale smart, this episode willchange your game.
Dale, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Well, thank you for having me.
I'm excited to talk aboutfiring the man.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So, to start things off, canyou share with our audience a
little bit about your backgroundand path in the entrepreneurial
world?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yes, I have a technical background, so I
studied engineering undergradand I studied engineering and AI
in graduate school.
So I ended up right afterschool working at a number of
tech startups, so they werereally in the hardware space.
But I was a software guy, so Iwas writing software for
simulators, for semiconductordevices and computer chips.
So I did that for a decadeafter I finished school and I
(02:57):
loved it while I was doing it.
But I knew that I wanted to dosomething different.
I saw the engineers that were acouple decades ahead of me and I
didn't want to be doing thesame engineering for my entire
career.
I didn't want to be an engineerfor my entire career.
So I pretty much quit that joband I ended up just spending six
(03:19):
months trying to figure outwhat I wanted to do next.
I decided I wanted to start abusiness.
So I started a business, but Ididn't know exactly what that
business was going to do at thetime that I started it and I
ended up doing some freelancingand eventually that turned into
Fire and Spark, the agency thatI run now.
(03:39):
But there have been manyiterations over the last 15
years of Fire and Spark and wewere a publisher at one point
Like things have changed overthe years.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Okay, and as I was preparing for this interview, I
came upon the fact and Imentioned this in the intro that
you built a 5832 processorsupercomputer for the US
government, and I just have toknow more about that.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Well, that was how long ago was that?
Maybe 20 years ago?
I can't believe that.
I'm that old, but yeah, thatproject was from about 2005 to
2008 that we worked on that.
It was a startup that I joined.
The founder of the startup wasa PhD chip designer out of Intel
(04:30):
and he had an idea for a novelchip architecture that we could
use to build a supercomputer,and he sold the idea to the US
government.
So they were happy to buy themachine.
If only we could build it.
So it took three years to buildit, from the chip through the
operating system andapplications on top of it.
(04:51):
But the crazy thing is wedidn't know what the government
was going to be using it for atthe time that we were building
it.
It turns out that it's beendeclassified, so we know that
they were sifting through phonerecords.
So it's interesting that it wasa spy machine at the end of the
day, but we didn't know thatwhen we were building it.
It was just like a computerarchitecture exercise to us.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's wild, that's right, and that was 20 years ago
.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, yeah because I think we started trying to get
the timeframe right, like thatwas 2005, 2000.
Yeah, around that timeframe.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Okay, okay Now.
How did those experiences shapeyour perspective on technology
and SEO?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, I'm an engineer by training and I worked for a
decade as an engineer, so I lovethe process of problem finding,
debugging technical issues, ofproblem finding, debugging
technical issues, buildingstandard operating procedures
for the marketing work that wedo at our agency.
I'm very much a process-drivenperson and I enjoy thinking in
systems, especially with thebusiness that we're building at
(05:59):
Fire and Spark.
I think the systems thinkingreally helps.
There are many different peoplethat decide to go independent
and take the entrepreneurialroute, and everybody who decides
to take the entrepreneurialroute is going to have a
different skill set, a differentbackground.
Mine happened to be quitetechnical and that was an asset
(06:19):
for me, but everybody's gotsomething in terms of their
skill set that they're bringingto the table.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Okay, Okay Now Fire and Spark's SEO for revenue
methodology shifts focus fromrankings to tangible ROI.
Why is that mindset so vitalfor scaling a business today?
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Well, let me talk about this a little bit
differently.
Like I run an agency, most ofwhat we do is SEO and content
marketing, and if you areselling SEO services, people
assume that you're like a snakeoil salesman as soon as you open
your mouth.
Right, it's really hard to findan agency or consultant that
can help you with SEO, thatactually knows what they're
(07:04):
doing and they're not trying tosell you services on an annual
retainer and then just let youturn at the end of it when you
don't get the results.
So I have been frustrated for along time that agencies were
selling rankings basically aservice design to get you
rankings.
Oftentimes they're vanityrankings for keywords that don't
(07:29):
have much volume.
Instead of targeting traffic.
You're targeting real customeracquisition and real revenue,
(07:49):
which seems like it should havebeen a no-brainer right.
Like it feels old to me becauseI've had this argument, you know
, for the last 10 years and it'sgot to be resolved at this
point.
Rankings and traffic thatdoesn't convert are worthless
when it comes to SEO andagencies and consultants that
are out there bragging aboutrankings that they're able to
(08:11):
achieve.
It's not always valuable.
Like it depends on whether it'sreally delivering an actual
business result, like whether,at the end of the day, when
you're doing SEO, it's forcustomer acquisition, not
rankings acquisition.
And that's what I always,that's what I get excited about,
and at Fire and Spark I meanwe're we're totally focused on
(08:33):
actual conversion and customeracquisition at the end of the
day, not just bragging aboutsome traffic that's coming to
your site that had no intentionwhatsoever of purchasing
anything.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You know I think I've hired some of those SEO
agencies before who I, as aretired accountant, am always
looking at ROI and oftentimesthey would move the conversation
from revenue or net income orconversion rate to keyword
ranking and it didn't seem totranslate to real results.
And so you know, on the topicof and we're recording this in
(09:15):
August of 2025, on the topic ofSEO, how is AI changing the game
?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
AI is changing everything, as we all know,
right, because we've all heardthe doomsday scenarios where all
of our organic traffic goesaway.
And yeah, I mean AI isdefinitely going to affect
organic traffic.
But I think the way I wouldthink about it is there's three
ways that AI is affecting SEOLike.
(09:43):
One is the tools that we're allusing now, like marketers are
using AI tools for helping withcontent and optimizing meta
titles and even debuggingtechnical issues on websites, so
AI is affecting the way that wework.
That's huge.
The other thing that AI isaffecting is the algorithms that
search engines are using to doranking in a traditional ranking
(10:07):
search engine, but also togenerate AI results, and we're
talking about ChatGPT orGoogle's AI mode, or even like
AI overviews.
So those algorithms are changing.
Those are the platforms that aregoing to give answers instead
of traffic, right?
So because those algorithms arechanging, because search engines
(10:27):
are moving from ranking enginesto generative engines, there's
less clicks and less traffic toyour website.
And then the third thing that Iwant to point out is that AI is
changing customer behavior interms of how your customers
search for your products andyour services and how they
search for information aboutproblems that they might solve
with your products and yourservices, and how they search
(10:47):
for information about problemsthat they might solve with your
products and your services.
And with all three of thosethings changing at the same time
, it feels like whoa, likethere's a lot of change
happening here, and marketersthat I talk to when I speak at
conferences, when I do myworkshops, they're really
overwhelmed with all this change.
Now, if you're new to the space, that's actually an advantage,
(11:10):
because you don't have thebaggage of the old way that SEO
used to work or the old waycontent marketing or digital
marketing used to work.
You have the opportunity toreally take an AI first mindset
if you're just getting startedwith a new venture, or if you're
just getting started with a newventure, or if you're just
getting started with yourentrepreneurial career or your
marketing career.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Can we talk about what that would look like from a
practical sense?
And let's use an example.
Say, I've got a business thatdoes chainsaw carvings,
something kind of unique, surewhat you know, what would have
(11:53):
been the old way that SEO wouldhave been done?
And then how would that changein the AI age?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So if you are doing chainsaw carvings which I've
never done before, so I'm goingto make some assumptions about
it chainsaw carvings which I'venever done before, so I'm going
to make some assumptions aboutit it's a local business, or
it's possible that you'reselling on Etsy, or maybe you're
selling nationally if you'reable to ship your chainsaw
carvings, I don't know.
But if you're selling chainsawcarvings, like any business,
(12:18):
you're looking for customers.
The old way of doing SEO wouldbe writing blog articles about
chainsaw carvings either how todo your own chainsaw carving
like maybe 0.001%, but some ofthem might want to buy a
(12:50):
chainsaw carving.
So that's how you would getyour customers.
At the end of the day, what ishappening with AI search is that
when your customers aresearching for that information
about chainsaw carvings, they'regetting their answers and maybe
even a chainsaw carvingtutorial directly from AI, so
they're not going to need tocome to your website at all.
So, on the face of it, thatchanges things, because you'd be
(13:34):
writing content to train AIabout your business so that it
has the right, accurateinformation about your business
and they can answer questionsaccurately when somebody is
actually searching for theservice that you offer or a
chainsaw carving, if they'relooking for products or
something like that, becausewe're no longer aiming for that
(13:54):
top of funnel informationaltraffic that will land on an
educational blog article.
Instead, we want to make surethat when the AI is having a
conversation with someone who'sa likely customer or a good
candidate for my service, itmentions my name or mentions our
brand, or it mentions one ofour products, and that's really
(14:14):
a different way of looking atSEO.
Both are search engineoptimization.
It's just that we've got to getout of this mindset that what
SEO is for is driving traffic.
It was always for drivingcustomers, not traffic.
That's the SEO for revenuemindset.
But now that we've got these AIengines, we want them to have
(14:37):
the conversations with ourcustomers about our brand, about
our products, about ourservices, and then, after the
customers are educated, they'llseek us out.
Maybe they'll click directlyfrom ChatGPT or maybe they'll
type our brand into Googlesearch.
What we've seen is we've seenbrands who are pursuing the
strategy where their trafficgoes down but their revenue goes
(15:00):
up, and that's really somethingthat's hard to wrap people's
heads around.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Okay, so what I'm hearing is the classic blog on a
website that people used topush articles to is becoming
less relevant, and packing yourwebsite with more useful
information is the move today.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Is that accurate?
Making sure that the content isoptimized for AI, for its
training.
So you want to make sure thatyour brand is in the right
places online based on theconversations that you want to
appear in.
The easy thing to do there ishave some conversations with,
let's say, chatgpt and figureout what pages it's citing and
figure out if you can get yourbrand mentioned on those pages
(15:48):
for your chainsaw carvings usingthis example.
And then also, you want to makesure that the content that
you're creating is semanticallydense, it's modular, that it's
snackable when it comes to AItraining.
Like, imagine the differencebetween a long let's call it
like a 10-page long blog articlesomething very long for a blog
(16:11):
article but it just never reallygets to the point.
It's really fluffy, it talksaround the topic and it doesn't
really answer questions thatpeople would need answered if
they were in the middle of abuying decision.
Like that's a lot of the type ofblog content that we created
when we were told that SEOcontent had to be 2000 words
long, 5000 words long, like itended up just getting more
(16:32):
fluffy as long as it had theright keywords in it.
But for AI content, you want itto be more semantically dense,
where an AI page or a pagethat's optimized for AI would be
a collection of modularsections that are maybe one, two
, three paragraphs each thateach answer a specific question
(16:54):
succinctly and densely, withoutthe fluff, so that they are
snackable when it comes to AI.
Ai is going to be looking forthose modular passages when they
are relevant to a conversationthat is having with one of your
customers and AI will give themthe information that you have in
those snackable modularsections of your content and
(17:16):
possibly, depending on what AIyou're using and what mood it's
in, give a source link out toyour website, so maybe you will
get some traffic out of it.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Okay, okay.
So what is in the AI age?
Where's the most valuable realestate?
If it's, if it's no longer onthe blog section?
Uh, where is your valuable realestate, to put these snackable
uh bits of information?
So?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
it's wherever your customers are searching for
information about your type ofproduct or service.
That's like the obvious answer,right?
So so, david, it it?
You really need to start withcustomer research.
So where are your customershanging out online, do a safari
Like?
Are they?
Are they at the watering hole?
Are they hanging by the fruittrees?
Um, it might be a.
(18:07):
It might be that they'rehanging out on Facebook looking
for information.
It might be that they'reGoogling or talking to chat GPT.
It might be that they're in aprivate forum that you need to
join, but that's really the mostimportant thing.
And then, when we're creatingcontent let's say the type of
content that we used to createas, like, keyword targeted
(18:28):
educational blog articles wewant to make sure that we're
creating the type of contentthat has value in the places
where our customers hang out.
So, if we decide that ourcustomers are hanging out in
this private forum or thisReddit thread or whatever it is,
it could be Facebook and we'reusing our content for Facebook
ads, we want to make sure thatwe're getting more value out of
(18:49):
our content rather than justtypical SEO rankings.
I mean, seo rankings are fineand they're still very valuable.
Most people still search Googlethe traditional way, especially
for those commercial keywords,not just the informational
keywords.
But when we're creating content, we want to make sure that we
understand where our customersare hanging out online.
(19:10):
So we're creating a type ofdual-purpose content that can be
useful in those forums but alsoin traditional search engines.
Also, it's snackable for AIengines.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Okay, I want to go a little bit deeper on the
question of where are customershanging out?
And, dale, I got to complimentyou on I threw you a real curve
ball with this chainsaw carving.
And the reason is last weekendI went to a county fair.
There was a guy that took ablock of wood, made it into a
bald eagle.
It was outstanding and so it'stop of mind.
(19:45):
But you know, say you have aclient come to you and they have
a business like chainsawcarving that you're unfamiliar
with, and you are going throughthe step of figuring out where
customers hang out.
What's the best way to do that?
Ask the customers.
Okay, that is a lot better ofan answer than what I was
(20:11):
thinking.
I was thinking an advanced AItactic and you're just yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Well, I will expand.
I gave you a short answerbecause I just wanted to
emphasize the point.
A lot of us who are marketerstoday, in 2025, grew up with
digital marketing.
Like, digital marketing hasn'tbeen around forever, but it has
been around for a very long time.
For most marketers who arepracticing right now and for
(20:37):
those of us who've been doingdigital marketing or SEO or
content marketing online, we'vegotten used to hiding behind
analytics.
So when we ask a question likewhere do our customers hang out?
What information do ourcustomers need to make a buying
decision, we start looking attools and software and analytics
dashboards and we forget thatwe can just ask them Like it's
(21:01):
as simple as that.
So, like, the most important,most powerful thing is that you
figure out, whatever yoursituation is as a marketer or an
entrepreneur, how you're goingto have conversations with your
customers full stop.
You're going to haveconversations with your
customers Full stop.
When I advise a startup, there'sa lot of advice, right how to
(21:22):
raise money, how to build theirproducts, how to do their
marketing, how to optimizeFacebook channels.
But really for an early stagestartup, what they care about is
having as many conversations aspossible with their target
audience, and this could beface-to-face, on the phone,
whatever video call, but thepoint is they're talking to as
many people as possible andthat's how they're going to
(21:42):
figure it out.
I mean, for you as a marketer,regardless of what type of
organization you're at could beestablished or a new venture
that you're starting, you needto be talking, optimizing.
You need to be optimizing fortalking to your customers.
Maybe you're calling them likethe first several orders that
you get, the first several dozenorders that you get.
(22:04):
You're calling everybody.
I mean, you should calleverybody in that situation
until you just can't anymore,because you want to understand
how did they find you?
What questions did they have?
Why did they choose you?
What did they think about thecompetitors?
Why did they consider notbuying?
Find you?
What questions do they have?
Why did they choose you?
What did they think about thecompetitors?
What, what, why were did theyconsider not buying from you?
Like, those are the mostimportant freaking conversations
, but those are your customers.
You also want to talk to peoplewho didn't choose you and you
(22:26):
got to figure out how to do that.
Um, if you're in an organizationwhere you have a sales team,
you can um, you can listen torecorded sales calls, because
maybe you don't have access toyour customers.
First of all say if you're amarketer, you don't have access
to your customers.
Don't take that job like find ajob where you do have access to
your customers, because it isnot possible to do marketing
(22:47):
hiding behind an analyticsdashboard.
Like where did we get that idea?
I think I think for a a whilewe were doing like google
adwords back in the day, nowgoogle ads and we're like oh
okay, I see I can just optimize.
But that type of job whereyou're doing marketing staring
at a dashboard all day, attractsa very different type of
(23:07):
marketer than a marketer thatneeds to talk to their customers
, interview their customers,understand the nuance of the
answers that they're getting,dig deeper in the right places,
take the right notes, understandhow to use the customer's words
in your marketing as messaging.
That's actually.
It's a different type ofmarketer, right, and one type of
(23:28):
marketer is declining whileanother one is advancing.
So the type of marketer that'sstaring at dashboards all day
and interpreting the numbers inorder to turn a dial, that's
going away because AI can dothat.
The type of marketing that'snot going away is somebody who
can talk to real humans,understand their buying patterns
(23:49):
, understand how to persuadethem to choose you, not your
competitor, and make the cashregister ring.
That's the type of marketerthat's not going away.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I really like that answer and it's so simple when
do customers hang out?
Ask them.
I really like that and I cantell you there's probably some
listeners right now that areattracted to e-commerce because
it is, in some ways, a nameless,faceless transaction in some
(24:21):
instances, some ways, a nameless, faceless transaction in some
instances, and I think thatattracts a certain type of
person, and so I'm sure thereare probably some listeners
right now that that answer makesthem uncomfortable picking up
the phone and dialing.
But I think your points arewell received.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
On the two types of marketers.
It depends on how much of yourmargin you want to give away to
Amazon, like if anyone listeninghas ever sold on Amazon like
they want all your margin.
They want you out of businessat the end of the day.
But if you build a brand onyour own site, you're building a
brand.
You own the customerrelationship, you're having
conversations with your customer.
That's a real business.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's something that needs to
be said and I, as an Amazonseller, I know there's a lot of
people listening that sell onAmazon, and I think that's a big
difference.
What you're talking about isbuilding to where they're not
(25:20):
your customers, they're Amazon'scustomers, and your ability to
engage with them and and askquestions are limited by by
policy.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And Jeff Bezos has famously said, like your margin
is his opportunity and he meansit.
So what that means is, if youcan pay your rent, that's money
that he's trying to figure outhow to put in his pocket.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
So I mentioned in the intro,you led GrabCAD's organic
traffic to grow 30X, which ledto a successful acquisition.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about that and what
strategic choices made thatpossible?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Well, that's really what it's called now is
product-led marketing orproduct-led SEO.
We didn't have that name whenwe were doing it, but what
GrabCAD was was a website wherepeople who are working on any 3D
design could collaborate andsubmit designs and comment on
each other's designs and therewas actually some software that
(26:24):
helped them do the design.
So, because the product wascollaborative and because some
people were using it for free,we could generate SEO content
from the library of 3D modelsand it became a really nice
virtuous cycle there where themore people that submitted 3D
models, the more content wecould create.
(26:46):
That was just basicallygenerated from the database of
3D models.
The more content we created,the more differentiated all of
that content was in that library, so that different pages and
the library itself would rankfor more and different types of
searches and the more searchesthat the content in the library
(27:08):
was appearing for, then the morepeople who were interested in
3D design would find out aboutGrabCAD and go to the website
and get involved.
So it really just became thisvirtuous cycle where we had to
make sure that we weregenerating the right content,
that we were surfacing the rightinformation about the models
(27:34):
that were submitted so that theywould show up in Google
searches, and then making surethat the registration flow was
appropriate so that peopleunderstood why they wanted to
register.
Make sure that we understoodthat people, because people
would usually come because theywant to download the model and
play with it or use it in theirproject, and so we need to make
sure that they register in orderto download something and they
(27:56):
get the value that they'relooking for, and then they want
to come back.
There's a whole email marketingcampaign on the back end to get
people to come back to the siteand submit more models and more
designs, which is reallyimportant, and then we're
creating more content based onthose models and it just goes.
But it's really a product-ledmarketing approach.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
How could somebody take some of the lessons that
you learned or things that youdid with that company and apply
them to their own physicalproducts brand?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Well, it's tough because we think of product-led
SEO or product-led marketing asworking best with, like, a
software solution or a softwaresolution that can generate
content online or generate sometype of marketing asset.
So with the products, it reallydepends on the type of product
(28:50):
that you're selling.
But if it's a physical product,what I would say the real
parallel there is the communitythat we built around the brand.
So anything that you could doto build a real community around
your brand and that involvesthe founder or someone who's
(29:10):
leading the brand really beingout in front and engaging with
the community it helps so muchif you've got a purpose-driven
brand or, at the very least, yougive a damn about your
customers.
I'm going to give you anexample.
Like, I worked with a smalle-commerce brand that was
selling jewelry and it was ajewelry designer, a woman here
in Boston.
(29:31):
She loved designing jewelry.
She wanted to sell it online.
The problem is, there are abouta million people, including
five in my family, who like todesign jewelry and want to sell
it online.
Like, how do you differentiatethat?
That's very difficult.
So when I was asking her aboutthe different products that she
was creating, it turned out thatthere were a few of them that
(29:53):
were selling really well.
But there was one that wasselling great and I asked her
what it was and she said, oh,it's a bracelet paired with a
necklace with this autism symbolon it.
And I was like, oh really.
I said, well, who's buying it?
She said, well, families whoare touched by autism.
And I said, okay, well, how'dyou get into that?
And she said, well, we, we havea son or a daughter who is
(30:13):
autistic, and so I made a couplefor some friends.
Everybody liked it.
So I ended up making dozensmore and they've all sold.
And I said you've got yourbusiness idea right there,
because not only is a productthat you've proven you can sell,
but it's a product that tapsinto a community, it's a purpose
behind it, it's targeted enough.
It's not just jewelry.
(30:34):
It's targeted enough where youknow what communities you need
to engage with and who you needto activate to get more sales
and what influencers you need toengage with and who you need to
activate to get more sales andwhat influencers you need to
talk to about this jewelry.
So I really like the idea of apurpose-driven approach and for
me personally, if I waslaunching an e-commerce brand,
it wouldn't be, you know more, Idon't know beach umbrellas or
(30:58):
something.
It really needs to have apurpose behind it that's linked
with a community that would loveit, absolutely love it, and
promote it for me, and so it'sreally that community angle that
drove GrabCAD.
That could also work for aphysical product business.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I like it.
I like it and, in terms ofbuilding, that community is
there and maybe it depends onwhat you're selling and where
your customers hang out, but isthere a natural place to start
building a community?
If you do have a brand, yes,there's a silver bullet.
Ask your customers.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Aha, I love it.
I love it.
Brands that go viral.
They've got a good story behindthem and they've got a
community that already existedbefore the brand launched, that
was vibrant and around whateverthat mission is, whatever that
purpose is, and so they just tapinto that.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, that makes sense.
That makes sense and, being thecustomer avatar, in a way, it
is really helpful.
I've got two brands right now.
One of them I would compare toyour beach umbrella example.
It's products that I can sourcefor X and sell for Y, and I
don't have a huge connection toit.
(32:37):
My second brand is within thefishing category, which I love
to fish and I'm part of a bunchof fishing Facebook groups and
and I I know where I hang out,and so I think that's something
that's important.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Well, let's double click on that, Like if you were
getting started now, or or maybeyou're launching another brand
or something like what, howwould you do it?
Cause you've you've got twogreat brands there for
comparison I'll tell you what Iwouldn't do.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I would not take an, a course that says go find
something on alibaba that'sunder 20, that you can fit in a
backpack and go sell it.
Um, and you see a lot of me tooproducts there, um, where you
type in a particular keyword andyou, your first 10 listings all
look very, very similar.
It's hard to differentiate.
(33:27):
And so, um, you know, that wasthe first brand that I started
and, to be honest with you, Ikind of got tired of it.
Um, you know, you are, uh, veryinvolved with the products that
you're selling.
You're making infographics,you're writing listing copy, and
if you're doing that aboutsomething that you're passionate
(33:49):
about, everything is easier andit also helps you tap into the
mind of your customer.
If you know, in the fishingcategory, I know a bunch of
fishermen.
I can ask them hey, where doyou hang out and go from there,
(34:09):
and so, yeah, that would be myadvice.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, and I think you , we want to make sure that
people aren't thinking oh well,whatever I'm passionate about, I
love to knit, even though Iknow someone who does a great
business on knitting.
Well, whatever I'm passionateabout, I love to knit, even
though I know someone who does agreat business on knitting.
But it may not be somethingthat you can sell or you know
what channels to sell it on.
It might not be something thathas a community that you can tap
into.
It might not be something wherethe economics work for many
(34:34):
different reasons, with variousproducts that are easier to ship
than others and just being oneexample.
But you really want to find thatconcentric circles of a product
category that you're passionateabout, but I wouldn't say
passionate about the product.
You're passionate about thepeople that you would be selling
(34:55):
to, so you like hanging outwith them, you like calling them
on the phone, you like talkingto them about whatever it is
they're excited about thatyou're helping them to do with
your products, like that's huge.
And then also you've you have achannel.
It could be Facebook ads, butit could also be a private
community or any other type ofcommunity.
There's a channel where you can, you could sell into that that
(35:17):
works for you at the volume youneed to make the business work.
And then also the economicswork the economics around your
margins and shipping andeverything that goes into making
the unit economics work.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I've heard you mention economics a couple of
times and I think you will havea great perspective on this.
You've worked with hundreds,probably thousands, of
entrepreneurs.
At this point, Are there anyrules of thumb on unit economics
or uh, that people shouldconsider when deciding products
(35:52):
to launch?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
It's really tough Cause, like I work with several
product businesses with theirmargins are just astronomical
90%.
Think, like the supplements,space or somebody selling like a
paper product, like maybe aprinted illustration or
something like that.
It's just insane, like themargins that they're able to get
(36:15):
.
Those are great businesses, soI would love to be there.
But also if it's a recurringpurchase, that makes a huge
difference.
So then what it comes down tois lifetime value, and the
lifetime value of a customermight be high in terms of the
margin that you're getting.
It might be high because yourcustomer acquisition cost is low
(36:37):
.
It might be high because youhave great margins on the
product.
It might be high because yourshipping is zero, because it's a
digital product.
Or it might be high becauseyou're happy to lose money
shipping the very first productbecause you know they're going
to buy every month, everywhatever, because it's a
recurring purchase.
But the rules of thumb arereally around the customer
(36:57):
lifetime value compared to theacquisition cost on the channels
that you're considering.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
It makes a lot of sense to zoomout and look beyond your first
sale, repeat purchases, customeracquisition costs, lifetime
value.
I think those are all reallyreally good metrics and there
are a bunch of ways to make itwork.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
The way it doesn't work is if shipping kills your
margin, or you're going to needto do advertising and there's no
margin for that, or there'sjust no margin.
So, in general, the more marginthe better, but if you don't
have astronomical margins,there's different strategies for
making it work.
If you're somewhere in themiddle, you just can't have zero
(37:45):
margin.
Remember, that's what Bezoswants.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
That's right.
That's right.
Warning to all you Amazonsellers beware, so Dale.
Can you tell us more about Fireand Spark?
Who do you work with?
What's your typical client looklike?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
So currently we work with a bunch of e-com and
healthcare clients and we do alot with content.
So we've been doing SEO contentfor a long time and, as I
talked about during thisconversation, SEO content is
changing.
It's now generative engineoptimization, not search
optimization, but the other termI really like is search
everywhere optimization.
(38:21):
Because, if you think about it,content marketing has been
around forever before theinternet, before content was
digital.
Content marketing made a lot ofsense and it still does and it
always will.
But it turns out there was thisperiod of time for the last
couple decades where contentmarketing was really easy.
All you had to do was hire somecheap writers and have them put
(38:42):
keywords in the right placesand you were done right.
I made my own money doing thatback in the day when we were a
publisher.
But that is coming to an end.
That window is closing.
So everyone's asking well, whatdo we do next?
And what we do next is contentmarketing, which is the same
thing we've always done.
It's just that we're going tobe marketing that content on
(39:02):
more channels than just organic,just search engines.
We're going to be marketingthat content in online forums
and social media and emailmarketing and traditional search
engines and chat, GBT andgenerative engines and AI.
So what we do at Fire and Sparkis help brands make that
transition from what was to whatwill become.
(39:25):
And what's wonderful about whatwas was a lot of us made a lot
of money selling variousproducts.
I feel like I've sold prettymuch everything through my
agency or one of my sites that Iwas running and made a whole
bunch of money, like optimizingfor Google.
And in the future there will beopportunities, Just like when
(39:48):
SEO was new.
When SEO was new, this was like15 years ago and I knew some
folks who figured it out.
They taught me what they knew.
That's how I got started.
I figured some stuff out on myown because I'm pretty technical
.
It worked and it put money inyour pocket, because those of us
who were early to SEO like wefigured it out before the big
(40:09):
brands threw a lot of money atit.
And the same thing is true rightnow with GEO.
There are a few people who haveit figured out for their brand,
but it's not going to work forevery brand.
But if you're in there early,if you can figure it out, if
you've got the right business toreally leverage it, then, yeah,
you can make a killing, justlike we did with SEO.
So what I would say to peopleis, like, if you're curious,
(40:29):
like you know, reach out to me.
I'm happy to take a look atwhat you're doing.
I will say that, like, gettingvalue out of GEO is pretty
different from getting value outof SEO.
It's different, but happy tohave that conversation with
anybody who's trying to figureout what comes next after SEO.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Outstanding, outstanding, and we'll post
links to all of that in the shownotes.
Dale, this has been anoutstanding interview.
I feel like we could go forseveral more hours, but out of
respect for your time, I wouldlike to transition into the fire
round.
This is four questions that weask every guest at the end of
the episode.
(41:08):
Are you ready, dale?
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Sure sure.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
All right.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
What is your favorite book?
Oh man, I mostly read businessbooks and I'm trying to figure
you know what One that's notquite business but it is
nonfiction is the Let themTheory, which I founded on a
podcast probably a podcast inthe manosphere but then I
mentioned it to my wife and shesaid I've known about this book
forever.
(41:33):
It's been all over social media, but I read it and it was
really really good.
It's about how you relate tothe world.
Um it really.
It really falls into the bucketof books that are about your
mindset.
I don't even know how todescribe it, but um it it.
(41:55):
It's very popular in my wife'scircle of social media and
podcasts and it's not so popularin my circle of podcasts Cool,
I'm going to add that one to myreading list.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
What are your hobbies ?
Speaker 3 (42:09):
I recently started tennis again, which I love, so
for me I try to do somethingphysical every day and really
what unlocked it for me fortennis was working one-on-one
with a coach, so I didn't haveto wait for a friend of mine to
be available and I'm learning alot faster than if I was in
group lessons.
So that costs money, but itworked great for me.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Outstanding.
What is one thing you do notmiss about working for the man?
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Well, this is such a peculiar question because I
think I am the man now because I, like I, have 25 employees
right, so what I don't miss isnot being the man.
I don't know if that makes anysense, but I wish there's a way
that I could say that, um, likeit goes full circle.
Where I worked for the man, theman was an asshole.
(42:58):
That's why I gave him themiddle finger and quit, and then
I started running my ownbusiness and it took me 15 years
to figure it out.
But now things are going greatand I couldn't even imagine that
.
I hesitated back when, like thethe moment before, I
figuratively gave my boss thefinger.
I can't even believe that.
(43:18):
I hesitated Like I should havekicked that guy in the ass.
Um, gave him the finger, calledhis mother names and stomped.
I hesitated Like I should havekicked that guy in the ass, gave
him the finger, called hismother names and stomped out of
there, like because thingsworked out really well.
So, but then, like I hire abunch of people, you know,
figure out my business and I'mthe man.
And being the man sucks because, like all of that bullshit that
(43:42):
my boss used to do to me, now Ido it to my employees and I'm.
I don't do it on purpose, butthey've got to deal with my crap
.
I'm scheduling meetings whenthey don't feel like attending
cause they've got 20 otherthings to do that I told them to
do Like I'm the man now.
So you got to ask yourself,like, what problem do you want?
Um, but it comes full circleand I'd like to believe that I'm
(44:03):
a better manager than most ofmy managers were.
But I really have to beintentional about how I manage
so that people have a betterexperience working for me than I
had working for some jerks backin the day.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
I think that's really really good perspective.
Final question what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (44:34):
You may have heard this one before, but it's really
the why behind your business.
If you're starting like atransactional business where you
sell like you said, you buy forX, you sell for Y and that's it
.
You don't care about yourcustomers or the product or the
difference your product ismaking in the world, or
something.
(44:54):
Maybe you care about yourfamily putting food on the table
.
There's plenty of people outthere who are excited to just
offer their family a goodstandard of living and they'll
work their butts off just forthat.
I'm not one of those people.
I have to actually care aboutthe customers that I'm working
with in order to show up everyday.
(45:15):
But any e-commerce businessthat you're building, you don't
believe the people that say it'seasy, because it's not easy.
The people who succeed arepassionate about something and
that's why they show up everyday.
That's why they send the extraemail, they put in an extra hour
, that's why they work on theweekends, that's why they're
(45:36):
doing more social media postingthan they need to, but it's that
kind of stuff.
Or making phone calls makingmore phone calls than the other
guy, but it's that kind of stuff.
Or making phone calls, you know, making more phone calls than
than the other guy.
It's because they're passionateabout something and that's
really what drives them.
So I don't know what that isgoing to be for everybody, but
there needs to be something thatyou're excited about, Like if
(45:56):
you.
One litmus test for this is likewhat do you do nights and
weekends?
And I don't know a singleentrepreneur that stops working
at five o'clock.
Most of them start work at fiveo'clock before they can fit
their.
They can finally, you know,quit their full-time job, right.
So if you're work building anew business and thinking to
yourself all right, this is work.
(46:17):
I don't want to do it afterfive o'clock.
I don't want to do it afterfive o'clock.
I don't want to do it onweekends, Like you are simply
not going to succeed because youdon't enjoy the process enough
to to stick with it.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
That's a really, really good answer to that
question, and this is my twohundred and eighty ninth
interview, and that that is oneof the best ones that I've heard
.
So, dale, thank you so much foryour time today.
If people are interested ingetting in touch with you, or
Fire and Spark what's the bestway?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Well, we're at fireandsparkcom, all spelled out
.
I'm happy to talk to anybodywho has questions about what's
going on with SEO and how that'stransitioning into GEO.
Or reach out to me directly,dale at fireandsparkcom, or you
can look me up on LinkedIn.
I post on LinkedIn at least afew times a week.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Awesome, Awesome.
Well, Dale, thank you so muchfor your time today and looking
forward to staying in touch.
Oh well, bye-bye.
Thank you for having me.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income streams in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Shomer and
(00:22):
Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Firing the man, the podcast for
entrepreneurs and businessbuilders ready to scale beyond
the grind and into smart,sustainable ownership.
I'm your host, David Shomer,and today's guest is someone who
designs growth strategies usingcutting-edge tech and
data-driven precision.
Meet Dale Bertrand, the founderand CEO of Fire Spark, a growth
(00:49):
agency built on a foundation ofsupercomputing, artificial
intelligence and a ruthlessfocus on real business outcomes.
Dale cut his teeth building a5,832 processor supercomputer
for the US government beforepivoting to digital growth,
(01:10):
bringing that same power andprecision to SEO and revenue
strategy.
Under Dale's leadership, fireand Spark built the SEO for
Revenue methodology.
Where traffic isn't the goal,it's the vehicle for generating
measurable ROI.
His team helped GrabCAD achievea 30x growth in organic traffic
(01:33):
, ultimately leading to asuccessful acquisition.
Dale's blend of AI-poweredautomation, proprietary
predictive models andirresistibly creative strategy
helps businesses not just showup while leaving competitors in
the dust.
Today, we'll cut through theclutter of SEO tips and dig into
(01:58):
how he's engineering scalablegrowth systems that turn human
grit into exponential revenue.
If you're building an onlinebusiness and wondering how to
scale smart, this episode willchange your game.
Dale, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Well, thank you for having me.
I'm excited to talk aboutfiring the man.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Absolutely, absolutely.
So, to start things off, canyou share with our audience a
little bit about your backgroundand path in the entrepreneurial
world?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yes, I have a technical background, so I
studied engineering undergradand I studied engineering and AI
in graduate school.
So I ended up right afterschool working at a number of
tech startups, so they werereally in the hardware space.
But I was a software guy, so Iwas writing software for
simulators, for semiconductordevices and computer chips.
So I did that for a decadeafter I finished school and I
(02:57):
loved it while I was doing it.
But I knew that I wanted to dosomething different.
I saw the engineers that were acouple decades ahead of me and I
didn't want to be doing thesame engineering for my entire
career.
I didn't want to be an engineerfor my entire career.
So I pretty much quit that joband I ended up just spending six
(03:19):
months trying to figure outwhat I wanted to do next.
I decided I wanted to start abusiness.
So I started a business, but Ididn't know exactly what that
business was going to do at thetime that I started it and I
ended up doing some freelancingand eventually that turned into
Fire and Spark, the agency thatI run now.
(03:39):
But there have been manyiterations over the last 15
years of Fire and Spark and wewere a publisher at one point
Like things have changed overthe years.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Okay, and as I was preparing for this interview, I
came upon the fact and Imentioned this in the intro that
you built a 5832 processorsupercomputer for the US
government, and I just have toknow more about that.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Well, that was how long ago was that?
Maybe 20 years ago?
I can't believe that.
I'm that old, but yeah, thatproject was from about 2005 to
2008 that we worked on that.
It was a startup that I joined.
The founder of the startup wasa PhD chip designer out of Intel
(04:30):
and he had an idea for a novelchip architecture that we could
use to build a supercomputer,and he sold the idea to the US
government.
So they were happy to buy themachine.
If only we could build it.
So it took three years to buildit, from the chip through the
operating system andapplications on top of it.
(04:51):
But the crazy thing is wedidn't know what the government
was going to be using it for atthe time that we were building
it.
It turns out that it's beendeclassified, so we know that
they were sifting through phonerecords.
So it's interesting that it wasa spy machine at the end of the
day, but we didn't know thatwhen we were building it.
It was just like a computerarchitecture exercise to us.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's wild, that's right, and that was 20 years ago
.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Well, yeah because I think we started trying to get
the timeframe right, like thatwas 2005, 2000.
Yeah, around that timeframe.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Okay, okay Now.
How did those experiences shapeyour perspective on technology
and SEO?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, I'm an engineer by training and I worked for a
decade as an engineer, so I lovethe process of problem finding,
debugging technical issues, ofproblem finding, debugging
technical issues, buildingstandard operating procedures
for the marketing work that wedo at our agency.
I'm very much a process-drivenperson and I enjoy thinking in
systems, especially with thebusiness that we're building at
(05:59):
Fire and Spark.
I think the systems thinkingreally helps.
There are many different peoplethat decide to go independent
and take the entrepreneurialroute, and everybody who decides
to take the entrepreneurialroute is going to have a
different skill set, a differentbackground.
Mine happened to be quitetechnical and that was an asset
(06:19):
for me, but everybody's gotsomething in terms of their
skill set that they're bringingto the table.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Okay, Okay Now Fire and Spark's SEO for revenue
methodology shifts focus fromrankings to tangible ROI.
Why is that mindset so vitalfor scaling a business today?
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Well, let me talk about this a little bit
differently.
Like I run an agency, most ofwhat we do is SEO and content
marketing, and if you areselling SEO services, people
assume that you're like a snakeoil salesman as soon as you open
your mouth.
Right, it's really hard to findan agency or consultant that
can help you with SEO, thatactually knows what they're
(07:04):
doing and they're not trying tosell you services on an annual
retainer and then just let youturn at the end of it when you
don't get the results.
So I have been frustrated for along time that agencies were
selling rankings basically aservice design to get you
rankings.
Oftentimes they're vanityrankings for keywords that don't
(07:29):
have much volume.
Instead of targeting traffic.
You're targeting real customeracquisition and real revenue,
(07:49):
which seems like it should havebeen a no-brainer right.
Like it feels old to me becauseI've had this argument, you know
, for the last 10 years and it'sgot to be resolved at this
point.
Rankings and traffic thatdoesn't convert are worthless
when it comes to SEO andagencies and consultants that
are out there bragging aboutrankings that they're able to
(08:11):
achieve.
It's not always valuable.
Like it depends on whether it'sreally delivering an actual
business result, like whether,at the end of the day, when
you're doing SEO, it's forcustomer acquisition, not
rankings acquisition.
And that's what I always,that's what I get excited about,
and at Fire and Spark I meanwe're we're totally focused on
(08:33):
actual conversion and customeracquisition at the end of the
day, not just bragging aboutsome traffic that's coming to
your site that had no intentionwhatsoever of purchasing
anything.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You know I think I've hired some of those SEO
agencies before who I, as aretired accountant, am always
looking at ROI and oftentimesthey would move the conversation
from revenue or net income orconversion rate to keyword
ranking and it didn't seem totranslate to real results.
And so you know, on the topicof and we're recording this in
(09:15):
August of 2025, on the topic ofSEO, how is AI changing the game
?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
AI is changing everything, as we all know,
right, because we've all heardthe doomsday scenarios where all
of our organic traffic goesaway.
And yeah, I mean AI isdefinitely going to affect
organic traffic.
But I think the way I wouldthink about it is there's three
ways that AI is affecting SEOLike.
(09:43):
One is the tools that we're allusing now, like marketers are
using AI tools for helping withcontent and optimizing meta
titles and even debuggingtechnical issues on websites, so
AI is affecting the way that wework.
That's huge.
The other thing that AI isaffecting is the algorithms that
search engines are using to doranking in a traditional ranking
(10:07):
search engine, but also togenerate AI results, and we're
talking about ChatGPT orGoogle's AI mode, or even like
AI overviews.
So those algorithms are changing.
Those are the platforms that aregoing to give answers instead
of traffic, right?
So because those algorithms arechanging, because search engines
(10:27):
are moving from ranking enginesto generative engines, there's
less clicks and less traffic toyour website.
And then the third thing that Iwant to point out is that AI is
changing customer behavior interms of how your customers
search for your products andyour services and how they
search for information aboutproblems that they might solve
with your products and yourservices, and how they search
(10:47):
for information about problemsthat they might solve with your
products and your services.
And with all three of thosethings changing at the same time
, it feels like whoa, likethere's a lot of change
happening here, and marketersthat I talk to when I speak at
conferences, when I do myworkshops, they're really
overwhelmed with all this change.
Now, if you're new to the space, that's actually an advantage,
(11:10):
because you don't have thebaggage of the old way that SEO
used to work or the old waycontent marketing or digital
marketing used to work.
You have the opportunity toreally take an AI first mindset
if you're just getting startedwith a new venture, or if you're
just getting started with a newventure, or if you're just
getting started with yourentrepreneurial career or your
marketing career.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Can we talk about what that would look like from a
practical sense?
And let's use an example.
Say, I've got a business thatdoes chainsaw carvings,
something kind of unique, surewhat you know, what would have
(11:53):
been the old way that SEO wouldhave been done?
And then how would that changein the AI age?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
So if you are doing chainsaw carvings which I've
never done before, so I'm goingto make some assumptions about
it chainsaw carvings which I'venever done before, so I'm going
to make some assumptions aboutit it's a local business, or
it's possible that you'reselling on Etsy, or maybe you're
selling nationally if you'reable to ship your chainsaw
carvings, I don't know.
But if you're selling chainsawcarvings, like any business,
(12:18):
you're looking for customers.
The old way of doing SEO wouldbe writing blog articles about
chainsaw carvings either how todo your own chainsaw carving
like maybe 0.001%, but some ofthem might want to buy a
(12:50):
chainsaw carving.
So that's how you would getyour customers.
At the end of the day, what ishappening with AI search is that
when your customers aresearching for that information
about chainsaw carvings, they'regetting their answers and maybe
even a chainsaw carvingtutorial directly from AI, so
they're not going to need tocome to your website at all.
So, on the face of it, thatchanges things, because you'd be
(13:34):
writing content to train AIabout your business so that it
has the right, accurateinformation about your business
and they can answer questionsaccurately when somebody is
actually searching for theservice that you offer or a
chainsaw carving, if they'relooking for products or
something like that, becausewe're no longer aiming for that
(13:54):
top of funnel informationaltraffic that will land on an
educational blog article.
Instead, we want to make surethat when the AI is having a
conversation with someone who'sa likely customer or a good
candidate for my service, itmentions my name or mentions our
brand, or it mentions one ofour products, and that's really
(14:14):
a different way of looking atSEO.
Both are search engineoptimization.
It's just that we've got to getout of this mindset that what
SEO is for is driving traffic.
It was always for drivingcustomers, not traffic.
That's the SEO for revenuemindset.
But now that we've got these AIengines, we want them to have
(14:37):
the conversations with ourcustomers about our brand, about
our products, about ourservices, and then, after the
customers are educated, they'llseek us out.
Maybe they'll click directlyfrom ChatGPT or maybe they'll
type our brand into Googlesearch.
What we've seen is we've seenbrands who are pursuing the
strategy where their trafficgoes down but their revenue goes
(15:00):
up, and that's really somethingthat's hard to wrap people's
heads around.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Okay, so what I'm hearing is the classic blog on a
website that people used topush articles to is becoming
less relevant, and packing yourwebsite with more useful
information is the move today.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Is that accurate?
Making sure that the content isoptimized for AI, for its
training.
So you want to make sure thatyour brand is in the right
places online based on theconversations that you want to
appear in.
The easy thing to do there ishave some conversations with,
let's say, chatgpt and figureout what pages it's citing and
figure out if you can get yourbrand mentioned on those pages
(15:48):
for your chainsaw carvings usingthis example.
And then also, you want to makesure that the content that
you're creating is semanticallydense, it's modular, that it's
snackable when it comes to AItraining.
Like, imagine the differencebetween a long let's call it
like a 10-page long blog articlesomething very long for a blog
(16:11):
article but it just never reallygets to the point.
It's really fluffy, it talksaround the topic and it doesn't
really answer questions thatpeople would need answered if
they were in the middle of abuying decision.
Like that's a lot of the type ofblog content that we created
when we were told that SEOcontent had to be 2000 words
long, 5000 words long, like itended up just getting more
(16:32):
fluffy as long as it had theright keywords in it.
But for AI content, you want itto be more semantically dense,
where an AI page or a pagethat's optimized for AI would be
a collection of modularsections that are maybe one, two
, three paragraphs each thateach answer a specific question
(16:54):
succinctly and densely, withoutthe fluff, so that they are
snackable when it comes to AI.
Ai is going to be looking forthose modular passages when they
are relevant to a conversationthat is having with one of your
customers and AI will give themthe information that you have in
those snackable modularsections of your content and
(17:16):
possibly, depending on what AIyou're using and what mood it's
in, give a source link out toyour website, so maybe you will
get some traffic out of it.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Okay, okay.
So what is in the AI age?
Where's the most valuable realestate?
If it's, if it's no longer onthe blog section?
Uh, where is your valuable realestate, to put these snackable
uh bits of information?
So?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
it's wherever your customers are searching for
information about your type ofproduct or service.
That's like the obvious answer,right?
So so, david, it it?
You really need to start withcustomer research.
So where are your customershanging out online, do a safari
Like?
Are they?
Are they at the watering hole?
Are they hanging by the fruittrees?
Um, it might be a.
(18:07):
It might be that they'rehanging out on Facebook looking
for information.
It might be that they'reGoogling or talking to chat GPT.
It might be that they're in aprivate forum that you need to
join, but that's really the mostimportant thing.
And then, when we're creatingcontent let's say the type of
content that we used to createas, like, keyword targeted
(18:28):
educational blog articles wewant to make sure that we're
creating the type of contentthat has value in the places
where our customers hang out.
So, if we decide that ourcustomers are hanging out in
this private forum or thisReddit thread or whatever it is,
it could be Facebook and we'reusing our content for Facebook
ads, we want to make sure thatwe're getting more value out of
(18:49):
our content rather than justtypical SEO rankings.
I mean, seo rankings are fineand they're still very valuable.
Most people still search Googlethe traditional way, especially
for those commercial keywords,not just the informational
keywords.
But when we're creating content, we want to make sure that we
understand where our customersare hanging out online.
(19:10):
So we're creating a type ofdual-purpose content that can be
useful in those forums but alsoin traditional search engines.
Also, it's snackable for AIengines.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Okay, I want to go a little bit deeper on the
question of where are customershanging out?
And, dale, I got to complimentyou on I threw you a real curve
ball with this chainsaw carving.
And the reason is last weekendI went to a county fair.
There was a guy that took ablock of wood, made it into a
bald eagle.
It was outstanding and so it'stop of mind.
(19:45):
But you know, say you have aclient come to you and they have
a business like chainsawcarving that you're unfamiliar
with, and you are going throughthe step of figuring out where
customers hang out.
What's the best way to do that?
Ask the customers.
Okay, that is a lot better ofan answer than what I was
(20:11):
thinking.
I was thinking an advanced AItactic and you're just yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Well, I will expand.
I gave you a short answerbecause I just wanted to
emphasize the point.
A lot of us who are marketerstoday, in 2025, grew up with
digital marketing.
Like, digital marketing hasn'tbeen around forever, but it has
been around for a very long time.
For most marketers who arepracticing right now and for
(20:37):
those of us who've been doingdigital marketing or SEO or
content marketing online, we'vegotten used to hiding behind
analytics.
So when we ask a question likewhere do our customers hang out?
What information do ourcustomers need to make a buying
decision, we start looking attools and software and analytics
dashboards and we forget thatwe can just ask them Like it's
(21:01):
as simple as that.
So, like, the most important,most powerful thing is that you
figure out, whatever yoursituation is as a marketer or an
entrepreneur, how you're goingto have conversations with your
customers full stop.
You're going to haveconversations with your
customers Full stop.
When I advise a startup, there'sa lot of advice, right how to
(21:22):
raise money, how to build theirproducts, how to do their
marketing, how to optimizeFacebook channels.
But really for an early stagestartup, what they care about is
having as many conversations aspossible with their target
audience, and this could beface-to-face, on the phone,
whatever video call, but thepoint is they're talking to as
many people as possible andthat's how they're going to
(21:42):
figure it out.
I mean, for you as a marketer,regardless of what type of
organization you're at could beestablished or a new venture
that you're starting, you needto be talking, optimizing.
You need to be optimizing fortalking to your customers.
Maybe you're calling them likethe first several orders that
you get, the first several dozenorders that you get.
(22:04):
You're calling everybody.
I mean, you should calleverybody in that situation
until you just can't anymore,because you want to understand
how did they find you?
What questions did they have?
Why did they choose you?
What did they think about thecompetitors?
Why did they consider notbuying?
Find you?
What questions do they have?
Why did they choose you?
What did they think about thecompetitors?
What, what, why were did theyconsider not buying from you?
Like, those are the mostimportant freaking conversations
, but those are your customers.
You also want to talk to peoplewho didn't choose you and you
(22:26):
got to figure out how to do that.
Um, if you're in an organizationwhere you have a sales team,
you can um, you can listen torecorded sales calls, because
maybe you don't have access toyour customers.
First of all say if you're amarketer, you don't have access
to your customers.
Don't take that job like find ajob where you do have access to
your customers, because it isnot possible to do marketing
(22:47):
hiding behind an analyticsdashboard.
Like where did we get that idea?
I think I think for a a whilewe were doing like google
adwords back in the day, nowgoogle ads and we're like oh
okay, I see I can just optimize.
But that type of job whereyou're doing marketing staring
at a dashboard all day, attractsa very different type of
(23:07):
marketer than a marketer thatneeds to talk to their customers
, interview their customers,understand the nuance of the
answers that they're getting,dig deeper in the right places,
take the right notes, understandhow to use the customer's words
in your marketing as messaging.
That's actually.
It's a different type ofmarketer, right, and one type of
(23:28):
marketer is declining whileanother one is advancing.
So the type of marketer that'sstaring at dashboards all day
and interpreting the numbers inorder to turn a dial, that's
going away because AI can dothat.
The type of marketing that'snot going away is somebody who
can talk to real humans,understand their buying patterns
(23:49):
, understand how to persuadethem to choose you, not your
competitor, and make the cashregister ring.
That's the type of marketerthat's not going away.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I really like that answer and it's so simple when
do customers hang out?
Ask them.
I really like that and I cantell you there's probably some
listeners right now that areattracted to e-commerce because
it is, in some ways, a nameless,faceless transaction in some
(24:21):
instances, some ways, a nameless, faceless transaction in some
instances, and I think thatattracts a certain type of
person, and so I'm sure thereare probably some listeners
right now that that answer makesthem uncomfortable picking up
the phone and dialing.
But I think your points arewell received.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
On the two types of marketers.
It depends on how much of yourmargin you want to give away to
Amazon, like if anyone listeninghas ever sold on Amazon like
they want all your margin.
They want you out of businessat the end of the day.
But if you build a brand onyour own site, you're building a
brand.
You own the customerrelationship, you're having
conversations with your customer.
That's a real business.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's something that needs to
be said and I, as an Amazonseller, I know there's a lot of
people listening that sell onAmazon, and I think that's a big
difference.
What you're talking about isbuilding to where they're not
(25:20):
your customers, they're Amazon'scustomers, and your ability to
engage with them and and askquestions are limited by by
policy.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And Jeff Bezos has famously said, like your margin
is his opportunity and he meansit.
So what that means is, if youcan pay your rent, that's money
that he's trying to figure outhow to put in his pocket.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
So I mentioned in the intro,you led GrabCAD's organic
traffic to grow 30X, which ledto a successful acquisition.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about that and what
strategic choices made thatpossible?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Well, that's really what it's called now is
product-led marketing orproduct-led SEO.
We didn't have that name whenwe were doing it, but what
GrabCAD was was a website wherepeople who are working on any 3D
design could collaborate andsubmit designs and comment on
each other's designs and therewas actually some software that
(26:24):
helped them do the design.
So, because the product wascollaborative and because some
people were using it for free,we could generate SEO content
from the library of 3D modelsand it became a really nice
virtuous cycle there where themore people that submitted 3D
models, the more content wecould create.
(26:46):
That was just basicallygenerated from the database of
3D models.
The more content we created,the more differentiated all of
that content was in that library, so that different pages and
the library itself would rankfor more and different types of
searches and the more searchesthat the content in the library
(27:08):
was appearing for, then the morepeople who were interested in
3D design would find out aboutGrabCAD and go to the website
and get involved.
So it really just became thisvirtuous cycle where we had to
make sure that we weregenerating the right content,
that we were surfacing the rightinformation about the models
(27:34):
that were submitted so that theywould show up in Google
searches, and then making surethat the registration flow was
appropriate so that peopleunderstood why they wanted to
register.
Make sure that we understoodthat people, because people
would usually come because theywant to download the model and
play with it or use it in theirproject, and so we need to make
sure that they register in orderto download something and they
(27:56):
get the value that they'relooking for, and then they want
to come back.
There's a whole email marketingcampaign on the back end to get
people to come back to the siteand submit more models and more
designs, which is reallyimportant, and then we're
creating more content based onthose models and it just goes.
But it's really a product-ledmarketing approach.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
How could somebody take some of the lessons that
you learned or things that youdid with that company and apply
them to their own physicalproducts brand?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Well, it's tough because we think of product-led
SEO or product-led marketing asworking best with, like, a
software solution or a softwaresolution that can generate
content online or generate sometype of marketing asset.
So with the products, it reallydepends on the type of product
(28:50):
that you're selling.
But if it's a physical product,what I would say the real
parallel there is the communitythat we built around the brand.
So anything that you could doto build a real community around
your brand and that involvesthe founder or someone who's
(29:10):
leading the brand really beingout in front and engaging with
the community it helps so muchif you've got a purpose-driven
brand or, at the very least, yougive a damn about your
customers.
I'm going to give you anexample.
Like, I worked with a smalle-commerce brand that was
selling jewelry and it was ajewelry designer, a woman here
in Boston.
(29:31):
She loved designing jewelry.
She wanted to sell it online.
The problem is, there are abouta million people, including
five in my family, who like todesign jewelry and want to sell
it online.
Like, how do you differentiatethat?
That's very difficult.
So when I was asking her aboutthe different products that she
was creating, it turned out thatthere were a few of them that
(29:53):
were selling really well.
But there was one that wasselling great and I asked her
what it was and she said, oh,it's a bracelet paired with a
necklace with this autism symbolon it.
And I was like, oh really.
I said, well, who's buying it?
She said, well, families whoare touched by autism.
And I said, okay, well, how'dyou get into that?
And she said, well, we, we havea son or a daughter who is
(30:13):
autistic, and so I made a couplefor some friends.
Everybody liked it.
So I ended up making dozensmore and they've all sold.
And I said you've got yourbusiness idea right there,
because not only is a productthat you've proven you can sell,
but it's a product that tapsinto a community, it's a purpose
behind it, it's targeted enough.
It's not just jewelry.
(30:34):
It's targeted enough where youknow what communities you need
to engage with and who you needto activate to get more sales
and what influencers you need toengage with and who you need to
activate to get more sales andwhat influencers you need to
talk to about this jewelry.
So I really like the idea of apurpose-driven approach and for
me personally, if I waslaunching an e-commerce brand,
it wouldn't be, you know more, Idon't know beach umbrellas or
(30:58):
something.
It really needs to have apurpose behind it that's linked
with a community that would loveit, absolutely love it, and
promote it for me, and so it'sreally that community angle that
drove GrabCAD.
That could also work for aphysical product business.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I like it.
I like it and, in terms ofbuilding, that community is
there and maybe it depends onwhat you're selling and where
your customers hang out, but isthere a natural place to start
building a community?
If you do have a brand, yes,there's a silver bullet.
Ask your customers.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Aha, I love it.
I love it.
Brands that go viral.
They've got a good story behindthem and they've got a
community that already existedbefore the brand launched, that
was vibrant and around whateverthat mission is, whatever that
purpose is, and so they just tapinto that.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, that makes sense.
That makes sense and, being thecustomer avatar, in a way, it
is really helpful.
I've got two brands right now.
One of them I would compare toyour beach umbrella example.
It's products that I can sourcefor X and sell for Y, and I
don't have a huge connection toit.
(32:37):
My second brand is within thefishing category, which I love
to fish and I'm part of a bunchof fishing Facebook groups and
and I I know where I hang out,and so I think that's something
that's important.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Well, let's double click on that, Like if you were
getting started now, or or maybeyou're launching another brand
or something like what, howwould you do it?
Cause you've you've got twogreat brands there for
comparison I'll tell you what Iwouldn't do.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I would not take an, a course that says go find
something on alibaba that'sunder 20, that you can fit in a
backpack and go sell it.
Um, and you see a lot of me tooproducts there, um, where you
type in a particular keyword andyou, your first 10 listings all
look very, very similar.
It's hard to differentiate.
(33:27):
And so, um, you know, that wasthe first brand that I started
and, to be honest with you, Ikind of got tired of it.
Um, you know, you are, uh, veryinvolved with the products that
you're selling.
You're making infographics,you're writing listing copy, and
if you're doing that aboutsomething that you're passionate
(33:49):
about, everything is easier andit also helps you tap into the
mind of your customer.
If you know, in the fishingcategory, I know a bunch of
fishermen.
I can ask them hey, where doyou hang out and go from there,
(34:09):
and so, yeah, that would be myadvice.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, and I think you , we want to make sure that
people aren't thinking oh well,whatever I'm passionate about, I
love to knit, even though Iknow someone who does a great
business on knitting.
Well, whatever I'm passionateabout, I love to knit, even
though I know someone who does agreat business on knitting.
But it may not be somethingthat you can sell or you know
what channels to sell it on.
It might not be something thathas a community that you can tap
into.
It might not be something wherethe economics work for many
(34:34):
different reasons, with variousproducts that are easier to ship
than others and just being oneexample.
But you really want to find thatconcentric circles of a product
category that you're passionateabout, but I wouldn't say
passionate about the product.
You're passionate about thepeople that you would be selling
(34:55):
to, so you like hanging outwith them, you like calling them
on the phone, you like talkingto them about whatever it is
they're excited about thatyou're helping them to do with
your products, like that's huge.
And then also you've you have achannel.
It could be Facebook ads, butit could also be a private
community or any other type ofcommunity.
There's a channel where you can, you could sell into that that
(35:17):
works for you at the volume youneed to make the business work.
And then also the economicswork the economics around your
margins and shipping andeverything that goes into making
the unit economics work.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I've heard you mention economics a couple of
times and I think you will havea great perspective on this.
You've worked with hundreds,probably thousands, of
entrepreneurs.
At this point, Are there anyrules of thumb on unit economics
or uh, that people shouldconsider when deciding products
(35:52):
to launch?
Speaker 3 (35:53):
It's really tough Cause, like I work with several
product businesses with theirmargins are just astronomical
90%.
Think, like the supplements,space or somebody selling like a
paper product, like maybe aprinted illustration or
something like that.
It's just insane, like themargins that they're able to get
(36:15):
.
Those are great businesses, soI would love to be there.
But also if it's a recurringpurchase, that makes a huge
difference.
So then what it comes down tois lifetime value, and the
lifetime value of a customermight be high in terms of the
margin that you're getting.
It might be high because yourcustomer acquisition cost is low
(36:37):
.
It might be high because youhave great margins on the
product.
It might be high because yourshipping is zero, because it's a
digital product.
Or it might be high becauseyou're happy to lose money
shipping the very first productbecause you know they're going
to buy every month, everywhatever, because it's a
recurring purchase.
But the rules of thumb arereally around the customer
(36:57):
lifetime value compared to theacquisition cost on the channels
that you're considering.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
It makes a lot of sense to zoomout and look beyond your first
sale, repeat purchases, customeracquisition costs, lifetime
value.
I think those are all reallyreally good metrics and there
are a bunch of ways to make itwork.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
The way it doesn't work is if shipping kills your
margin, or you're going to needto do advertising and there's no
margin for that, or there'sjust no margin.
So, in general, the more marginthe better, but if you don't
have astronomical margins,there's different strategies for
making it work.
If you're somewhere in themiddle, you just can't have zero
(37:45):
margin.
Remember, that's what Bezoswants.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
That's right.
That's right.
Warning to all you Amazonsellers beware, so Dale.
Can you tell us more about Fireand Spark?
Who do you work with?
What's your typical client looklike?
Speaker 3 (38:00):
So currently we work with a bunch of e-com and
healthcare clients and we do alot with content.
So we've been doing SEO contentfor a long time and, as I
talked about during thisconversation, SEO content is
changing.
It's now generative engineoptimization, not search
optimization, but the other termI really like is search
everywhere optimization.
(38:21):
Because, if you think about it,content marketing has been
around forever before theinternet, before content was
digital.
Content marketing made a lot ofsense and it still does and it
always will.
But it turns out there was thisperiod of time for the last
couple decades where contentmarketing was really easy.
All you had to do was hire somecheap writers and have them put
(38:42):
keywords in the right placesand you were done right.
I made my own money doing thatback in the day when we were a
publisher.
But that is coming to an end.
That window is closing.
So everyone's asking well, whatdo we do next?
And what we do next is contentmarketing, which is the same
thing we've always done.
It's just that we're going tobe marketing that content on
(39:02):
more channels than just organic,just search engines.
We're going to be marketingthat content in online forums
and social media and emailmarketing and traditional search
engines and chat, GBT andgenerative engines and AI.
So what we do at Fire and Sparkis help brands make that
transition from what was to whatwill become.
(39:25):
And what's wonderful about whatwas was a lot of us made a lot
of money selling variousproducts.
I feel like I've sold prettymuch everything through my
agency or one of my sites that Iwas running and made a whole
bunch of money, like optimizingfor Google.
And in the future there will beopportunities, Just like when
(39:48):
SEO was new.
When SEO was new, this was like15 years ago and I knew some
folks who figured it out.
They taught me what they knew.
That's how I got started.
I figured some stuff out on myown because I'm pretty technical
.
It worked and it put money inyour pocket, because those of us
who were early to SEO like wefigured it out before the big
(40:09):
brands threw a lot of money atit.
And the same thing is true rightnow with GEO.
There are a few people who haveit figured out for their brand,
but it's not going to work forevery brand.
But if you're in there early,if you can figure it out, if
you've got the right business toreally leverage it, then, yeah,
you can make a killing, justlike we did with SEO.
So what I would say to peopleis, like, if you're curious,
(40:29):
like you know, reach out to me.
I'm happy to take a look atwhat you're doing.
I will say that, like, gettingvalue out of GEO is pretty
different from getting value outof SEO.
It's different, but happy tohave that conversation with
anybody who's trying to figureout what comes next after SEO.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Outstanding, outstanding, and we'll post
links to all of that in the shownotes.
Dale, this has been anoutstanding interview.
I feel like we could go forseveral more hours, but out of
respect for your time, I wouldlike to transition into the fire
round.
This is four questions that weask every guest at the end of
the episode.
(41:08):
Are you ready, dale?
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Sure sure.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
All right.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
What is your favorite book?
Oh man, I mostly read businessbooks and I'm trying to figure
you know what One that's notquite business but it is
nonfiction is the Let themTheory, which I founded on a
podcast probably a podcast inthe manosphere but then I
mentioned it to my wife and shesaid I've known about this book
forever.
(41:33):
It's been all over social media, but I read it and it was
really really good.
It's about how you relate tothe world.
Um it really.
It really falls into the bucketof books that are about your
mindset.
I don't even know how todescribe it, but um it it.
(41:55):
It's very popular in my wife'scircle of social media and
podcasts and it's not so popularin my circle of podcasts Cool,
I'm going to add that one to myreading list.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
What are your hobbies ?
Speaker 3 (42:09):
I recently started tennis again, which I love, so
for me I try to do somethingphysical every day and really
what unlocked it for me fortennis was working one-on-one
with a coach, so I didn't haveto wait for a friend of mine to
be available and I'm learning alot faster than if I was in
group lessons.
So that costs money, but itworked great for me.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Outstanding.
What is one thing you do notmiss about working for the man?
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Well, this is such a peculiar question because I
think I am the man now because I, like I, have 25 employees
right, so what I don't miss isnot being the man.
I don't know if that makes anysense, but I wish there's a way
that I could say that, um, likeit goes full circle.
Where I worked for the man, theman was an asshole.
(42:58):
That's why I gave him themiddle finger and quit, and then
I started running my ownbusiness and it took me 15 years
to figure it out.
But now things are going greatand I couldn't even imagine that
.
I hesitated back when, like thethe moment before, I
figuratively gave my boss thefinger.
I can't even believe that.
(43:18):
I hesitated Like I should havekicked that guy in the ass.
Um, gave him the finger, calledhis mother names and stomped.
I hesitated Like I should havekicked that guy in the ass, gave
him the finger, called hismother names and stomped out of
there, like because thingsworked out really well.
So, but then, like I hire abunch of people, you know,
figure out my business and I'mthe man.
And being the man sucks because, like all of that bullshit that
(43:42):
my boss used to do to me, now Ido it to my employees and I'm.
I don't do it on purpose, butthey've got to deal with my crap
.
I'm scheduling meetings whenthey don't feel like attending
cause they've got 20 otherthings to do that I told them to
do Like I'm the man now.
So you got to ask yourself,like, what problem do you want?
Um, but it comes full circleand I'd like to believe that I'm
(44:03):
a better manager than most ofmy managers were.
But I really have to beintentional about how I manage
so that people have a betterexperience working for me than I
had working for some jerks backin the day.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
I think that's really really good perspective.
Final question what do youthink sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail or never get
started?
Speaker 3 (44:34):
You may have heard this one before, but it's really
the why behind your business.
If you're starting like atransactional business where you
sell like you said, you buy forX, you sell for Y and that's it
.
You don't care about yourcustomers or the product or the
difference your product ismaking in the world, or
something.
(44:54):
Maybe you care about yourfamily putting food on the table
.
There's plenty of people outthere who are excited to just
offer their family a goodstandard of living and they'll
work their butts off just forthat.
I'm not one of those people.
I have to actually care aboutthe customers that I'm working
with in order to show up everyday.
(45:15):
But any e-commerce businessthat you're building, you don't
believe the people that say it'seasy, because it's not easy.
The people who succeed arepassionate about something and
that's why they show up everyday.
That's why they send the extraemail, they put in an extra hour
, that's why they work on theweekends, that's why they're
(45:36):
doing more social media postingthan they need to, but it's that
kind of stuff.
Or making phone calls makingmore phone calls than the other
guy, but it's that kind of stuff.
Or making phone calls, you know, making more phone calls than
than the other guy.
It's because they're passionateabout something and that's
really what drives them.
So I don't know what that isgoing to be for everybody, but
there needs to be something thatyou're excited about, Like if
(45:56):
you.
One litmus test for this is likewhat do you do nights and
weekends?
And I don't know a singleentrepreneur that stops working
at five o'clock.
Most of them start work at fiveo'clock before they can fit
their.
They can finally, you know,quit their full-time job, right.
So if you're work building anew business and thinking to
yourself all right, this is work.
(46:17):
I don't want to do it afterfive o'clock.
I don't want to do it afterfive o'clock.
I don't want to do it onweekends, Like you are simply
not going to succeed because youdon't enjoy the process enough
to to stick with it.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
That's a really, really good answer to that
question, and this is my twohundred and eighty ninth
interview, and that that is oneof the best ones that I've heard
.
So, dale, thank you so much foryour time today.
If people are interested ingetting in touch with you, or
Fire and Spark what's the bestway?
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Well, we're at fireandsparkcom, all spelled out
.
I'm happy to talk to anybodywho has questions about what's
going on with SEO and how that'stransitioning into GEO.
Or reach out to me directly,dale at fireandsparkcom, or you
can look me up on LinkedIn.
I post on LinkedIn at least afew times a week.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Awesome, Awesome.
Well, Dale, thank you so muchfor your time today and looking
forward to staying in touch.
Oh well, bye-bye.
Thank you for having me.
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