April 2, 2024 • 22 mins
Prepare to embark on a journey through the digital marketing landscape with Miele Oscebo, the pioneering CEO of Smart Finds Marketing, who mapped the trajectory from traditional to digital before many could even spell 'internet.' As a luminary who matched Google's stride into the public domain, Miele dissects the four A's of marketing—anticipate, accept, adapt, and adopt—with an intimate recount of how these principles paved his path through the dot-com boom, the social media surge, and beyond. The conversation reveals the relentless evolution of online marketing and how Miele's forward-thinking approach became a survival kit for the digital age.
Venture further into the marketing maze of the future, where artificial intelligence emerges not as a daunting adversary but as an invaluable ally. Miele illustrates AI as the maestro behind the curtain, orchestrating dynamic advertising, content creation, and conversion enhancements that redefine customer engagement. We'll unwrap the potential of generative AI to revolutionize visuals, from the written word to cutting-edge graphics, and muse over the stark reality businesses face: adapt to the rhythm of innovation or risk silence in the market. As we conclude, Miele offers a clarion call to action for businesses, beckoning entrepreneurs to connect for a continued exchange of insights and innovation in the digital expanse.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey folks, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast
sponsored by Lean DiscoveryGroup.
This is your host, Dylan Burke,also known as Deige, and I'm
very happy today to be here withMiele Oscebo, CEO of Smart
Finds Marketing.
Welcome Miele.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I know nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, it's great to meet you as well, and thank you
for being here today.
So, to get us started, can youtell us a little bit about
yourself, your background andhow you ended up doing what you
do today?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah.
So the background goes likethis I started the company back
in 1987.
It's been 36 years.
We're going into 37 years now.
I started the, you know, backthen it was your traditional
marketing agency, especially inthe Detroit metropolitan area.
So, as you can imagine, it'sthe Motor City, the three
(01:07):
largest automotive manufacturersin their headquarters sitting
in Detroit that's why we call itthe Motor City.
And there's a lot going on andNeedles to say.
As the internet opened up, Istarted the internet group in
1994.
We went 100% public.
I would assess should say wewent 100% digital as of 2004,
(01:32):
which is the same time thatGoogle went public.
And for the last 19 years Ihaven't looked back.
We don't do any type oftraditional media anymore.
It's all digital, from websitesto, you know, to marketing, all
kinds of marketing, all kindsof advertising, pretty much
whatever is needed.
(01:53):
So I spent the good portion ofmy career in this business.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
That's amazing and I love the foresight that you must
have had back then, becauseeven today, people are
struggling to adopt to a digitalmarketing strategy and you saw
this like 27 years ago, which isobviously amazing, I think that
comes from being an earlyadopter.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I like, I like, I don't for lack of words.
I like new stuff.
So you know, when there's newtechnology, I always enjoy
technology as a hobby.
I enjoy business, I enjoymarketing sales.
You know the entire process.
And so the internet.
I remember a friend of mine whowas working with Sun
(02:38):
Microsystems.
At the time he invited me tothe Sun Microsystems office in
the Detroit Metro area.
You guys, you got to check thisout and I said and so we'll get
to the office.
He goes, he pulls up Yahoo, hepulls up Netscape and he goes
take a look at all these thingsthat we can do.
So that was pretty much thestarting point of it all.
(03:01):
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Can you paint me a little bitof a picture of your roadmap of
the first couple of years,because I'm sure it wasn't too
easy to get a lot of clients onboard, or am I wrong about that?
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
No, no, when we started the group, we kind of
started the ISP area back inthose days, but we weren't
focused on residential, weweren't interested in dial-up
accounts, rather we focused onbusinesses.
And I remember we had onecompany that wanted high-speed
(03:42):
internet into their office andback in those days you had to
provision a T1 line.
We had routers that were as bigas a desk, cables that were
really big I can't even begin totell you and it was difficult
to get companies to understandthat they needed to be on the
(04:03):
internet.
They needed high-speed internetaccess.
I remember the firstinstallation we did with
high-speed internet access andwe got everything all set up in
that company's office, goteverything hooked up Netscape's
working, yahoo's working,everything browsing the web is
working and we went to the CEO'soffice and we showed them this
great thing and the first thingcoming out of his mouth was now
(04:26):
what?
And I said you have noimagination, that was awesome.
So, that was, you're right,though.
It was not an easy thing to getbusinesses to understand that
they needed to go down this road, and it would take another 10
years I mean literally untilabout 2004, before businesses
(04:48):
woke up and realized they neededto, that they need to engage in
the internet, in the webwebsites, marketing, etc.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
That's awesome, yeah, and I love that you stuck onto
it for so long before it becamefully adopted.
Can you tell me a little bitabout how what you offer has
changed since 2004 versus now,obviously with the pandemic
changing the landscape.
The pandemic changed thelandscape of pretty much
(05:20):
everything we do, and now AI hasentered the mainstream and
that's changing everything again.
So tell me how you've adaptedto these changes and how it's
benefited, or not benefited.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, you bring up an interesting point, and I would
say that over the last, well, 27years to be pro-promenos with
even during the 1990s as wellOne thing that I evolved into
talking about because I'm anindustry author you can punch my
name in the Google, you'll findme where I talk, I'm on
(05:56):
videocast podcast and you'llfind me on search engine journal
, for example, practicallyCommerce and a variety of other
publications too, and one of thethings I always talk about in
my speaking engagements are myfour A's of marketing, meaning
that you have to anticipatechange, you need to accept
change, and that's usually thehardest part for a lot of
(06:18):
businesses.
The third one is to adapt tothe changes and the fourth one
is to adopt the changes, and Ithink that keeping these A's in
mind, whether it's for our ownbusiness or whether for our
clients, helps to putperspective on to the fact that
there's never a point wherethings stop.
(06:39):
It's an ongoing process.
It's an ongoing marketingeffort.
All you're doing is changingwhat you're doing and your
budget.
That's how this process hasworked, and you could think
about it from 2004.
2004 means that Twitter wasn'teven on the market yet and
(07:02):
social media really hadn'tstarted, it was kind of like
your MySpace, facebook wasstarting to come into play, but
how do you use it as a business?
How do you make money utilizingthese websites?
So there's a lot going on there, but I can tell you that for
the last 13 years actually no,I'm sorry, for the last 19 years
(07:24):
the changes that have takenplace includes a financial
crisis in 2008, where Detroitmetro area was ground zero.
That lasted for a good twoyears.
The good news is, during thatsame time frame, we actually got
an award from the state ofMichigan as a marketing agency,
so we're quite proud of that.
(07:45):
But then, yes, you're right.
If you take a look at, let's say, from 2010,.
2011 on, what are some of theother major changes that have
taken place?
Google Analytics changed.
It started to provide more data.
Google Search Console changed,provided more information about
how Google perceives our website.
A variety of algorithm changes,especially the one in 2013,.
(08:09):
The Hummingbird algorithm wasjust a nasty change that took
place.
And then you go through thesealgorithm changes and you also
go through changes in terms ofthe industry.
Linkedin becomes more popular.
Now.
Social media as a whole, notjust a piece of it, becomes a
(08:29):
significant force thatbusinesses have to work with.
You're dealing with thepandemic that comes into play in
2020.
That changes the environment,too, for the better, to the
extent that now everybody'stalking on Zoom.
I can't tell you how long ittook me to get clients to not
(08:49):
want to meet face-to-face, tonot want to go to offices.
It's like let's just get on toa digital platform and talk
straight up, like you and I aredoing right now.
That took a long time, but itwas the pandemic that impacted
that, in my opinion, in apositive way for everybody to be
more efficient in terms of ourcommunications.
I can get a lot more donesitting on my desk and talking
(09:11):
to people over Zoom versussomething else, and so these are
some changes and, yes, youbring up a great point.
We've actually been usingartificial intelligence for
about four years ourselves.
We use it specifically in ourconversion rate optimization
program, where we're impactingthe number of leads a website
(09:32):
can generate, or I should sayconvert visitors to leads.
We've been using artificialintelligence for four years.
However, once it got tomarketing, it went public, like
it did a year ago.
The amount of changes thatwe've seen the last 12 months
that AI has impacted is immense.
I think it's for the better.
(09:53):
This is AI 0.0 right now, so weshouldn't even think that this
is 1.0 yet.
We have a long ways to go, butthe amount of changes that we've
seen this in the last 12 monthswhere AI has made things more
efficient, it helps speed thingsup for businesses.
It's helping to make everythingmore effective.
(10:15):
I think there's a variety ofchanges that are good.
I know I've been through a lotof conversations, especially on
LinkedIn, where you don't havepeople that have this fear
factor going on or they're nothappy with the fact that it's
not perfect yet.
I can go back to the 1980s,when the PC first came out.
(10:35):
It wasn't perfect.
The reality is technology andsoftware development is always
spiral.
It has a starting point and itjust keeps going changing,
improving, updating, upgrading.
These are all facts of lifewhen it comes to technology.
The fact that people are outthere saying artificial
(10:56):
intelligence isn't great becauseit's missing all these things.
We're on version 0.0.
We still have a long ways to go.
I think it's for the better.
I know on our end, not onlyhave we been using for four
years with our websiteconversion program, but more
importantly, I think, what we'veseen in the last 12 months is
(11:18):
helping to make marketing moreefficient.
You can get more work done withless people and have a greater
impact in terms of an ROI forthe client 100%.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I couldn't agree more on that, especially what you
said about the Zoom meetings.
It took such a long time forpeople to get comfortable.
My grandfather, for example, isa property advisor.
He doesn't understand that youcan close a deal without shaking
another man's hand.
He gets his whole team totravel from all over the city to
(11:57):
come and meet them.
That's just what he believes in.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
He's 80 years old.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I don't think he'll change.
Most of us have adapted andunderstood that we can get so
much more done without the timetaken to commute between
meetings.
It's amazing the fact that Ican work.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I've got to give you an idea.
I just had a prospect we talkedto seven years ago.
He actually called me on thephone yesterday, without an
appointment, just thinking thatI would just pick up that.
Even that action is outdated.
Nowadays, if you want to have ameeting with somebody, you're
going to direct message them insome form, in whatever platform.
(12:41):
You're going to send amessenger, whatsapp, go to
LinkedIn, send a direct message,or social community.
You're going to send a directmessage first and say, hey, are
you available on this day atthis time?
Then you set up a time to meet,send out the Zoom info on the
calendar.
Right, that's the processnowadays, the fact that somebody
actually called me, thinkingthat I was going to be available
(13:03):
, and leave me a voice message.
That was the first time inmaybe five years or more where I
had that type of interaction.
But some people are stillhanging on to the old system,
unfortunately.
Needless to say, I playtelephontag with this person
because it didn't go well.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, I find that a lot too.
It always just doesn't work outfor people.
The greatest thing I've foundis that I'm sitting in Cape Town
, south Africa, right now,chatting to you in Detroit.
We're having this awesomeconversation.
It's like we're sitting face toface.
It's amazing what technologyhas done.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
You can hear me clearly.
I can hear you clearly.
Aside from a minor timedifference in terms of what time
we have versus what time youhave, or seasonal changes,
that's about the only time we'rerunning Exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It's taken globalization to a whole other
level.
I agree.
Back to your business.
If we were to sit down in,let's say, 12 months' time and
everything has gone right,completely right, what has
changed and what does thebusiness look like then?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So, if I you know, we're a marketing agency, we
have a creative team, we have atech team, we have a marketing
team, we have our own writersEverybody's in the Detroit
metropolitan area and so, tothat extent, considering the
knowledge, the experience, thebroad competencies we have, and
never mind the fact that ourability to adapt to the changing
(14:43):
environment and technologiesand what's happening in the
marketing world, I can tell youthat we generally go into a
larger corporation and we eitherbecome the digital marketing
department or, especially ifthey're much larger, like some
of our clients, we become asupport team for the internal
(15:05):
marketing team, and what usuallywhat that means is that we're
we're able to walk in and manageall aspects of you know from
their server for you know, fortheir internet server, their
website, their marketing, theiradvertising, their email
marketing, whatever, especiallynowadays with the AI tools where
(15:28):
we can do use AI foradvertising to improve how the
ads that are being seen by anindividual changes based on
their actions, or being able togeographically target people
within a specific area usingartificial intelligence.
Never mind the fact that youhave all this intelligence and
data that's out there that wecan tap into and have AI take
(15:50):
big data, summarize it all downfor us so that we can actually
take effective actions.
These are all things that aregoing on right now and, from our
standpoint, I don't see thatwhat we as a company are doing
in terms of, let's say, our CROprogram, where we're helping
businesses convert more visitorson their website to become
(16:13):
leads or sales, or whether ornot we're using our agency
solution and managing andhelping clients with their
marketing and advertisingefforts I don't think that's
going to change.
What's going to change is whatwe do and what strategies we
employ.
And so just now, in the last 12months, as you can imagine,
we're using more artificialintelligence as part of what
(16:34):
we're doing, whether it's thecontent that we're writing,
whether it's the optimization ofa website and its search engine
and its implementationcomponents.
There are changes that arealready taking place in the last
12 months relative to thisbeing able to take artificial
intelligence and create awebsite visitor journey, a
(16:58):
funnel where you're able totrack that individual and base
the call to actions actively,right then and there, while
you're on the website, based onwhat they've done.
I mean, these are all.
These are the changes that havetaken place Now.
I can only imagine that we'regoing to continue to build on
this over the next 12 months.
I expect more artificialintelligence to come to the
(17:22):
market.
I expect more things, forexample, like generative AI
becoming improving, taking thatto another level, both in terms
of images and graphics andphotography, let's say, as well
as in the direction of contentand video.
(17:43):
So you're going to find AI isgoing to expand all those areas
and we're going to be able totap into more marketing channels
.
I expect additional marketingchannels to open up.
You know 100%.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I believe the next couple years, or the next 12
months even, is going to be gamechanging for businesses.
As long as you are open to newtechnologies and taking
advantage of them.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You bring up an interesting.
I think it's worth mentioningsomething that I've run into
with businesses that areresistant to these changes.
It usually goes like this Ihave to explain to them that
they need to accept the changeand move forward.
They can gripe all they want,they can fuss, fume and have it
(18:33):
hisseep it, but it doesn'tchange the fact that that change
has taken place.
It's on the market, it's movingforward.
Now if the businesses fusses andfumes and says I don't want to
do this, that's great, but guesswhat?
Your competitors are movingforward, number one, and all
you're doing is keeping yourselfexponentially behind.
(18:56):
So that's not a good thing.
And the second part is theindustry is moving forward.
In other words, your targetaudience has already accepted
this change.
They're already using thatchange and therefore you have to
be with them.
Your target audience is goingthere.
You have to be there.
Your competitors are movingforward.
You need to be competitive.
This idea of just sittingaround and saying I don't want
(19:19):
to participate, this doesn'twork, and that's something that
I've seen quite often in thelast 10 years, especially the
hummingbird album 100%.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I'm ready to crush the next year.
I'm taking a little break nowand I'm coming in hot.
These guys in Magic Mind I'mnot sure if you can see that.
They send me a bunch of theirproducts and it's amazing.
I'm super excited to crush theyear with Magic Mind next year.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It just helps you with productivity and energy.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
It's like a coffee supplement.
It's really awesome.
And that does bring us to theend of our show.
Amile, it was great chatting toyou.
It was great to chat with youtoo.
Before we go, what advice wouldyou like to give to other
business owners looking tosucceed in this ever changing
world.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Let's build on the concept of what I've been
talking about.
The first thing I'm going tosay is step the change, Step out
of it.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Amazing.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
That's my suggestion.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Amazing, and is there any way for, or what is the
best way for, people to reachout to you if you have any
offers for them or if they'relooking to take advantage of
your services?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, I think the best thing to do, like a lot of
people do, is.
Number one is contact me onLinkedIn.
That's the best place to reachthem.
You can punch me in my name,maley Ostele I'm assuming we're
going to end up having that showup someplace.
Or you can look on LinkedIn forour company, smart Finance
Marketing.
You'll find me through there.
Just as a quick FYI, I haveover 20,000 really close friends
(21:00):
on LinkedIn.
Usually, if you connect with me, you tag me on your posts.
I'm able to help you expandyour reach.
So I'm always there to help mynetwork.
I always suggest for them totag me because I can get their
expand their reach through avery large network, including
(21:23):
other people who have largenetworks.
So, first of all, contact me onLinkedIn.
Second of all, just directmessage me on LinkedIn, happy to
engage.
I think that's probably thebest place to find me.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Okay, awesome.
Thank you so much, and if youwant to try out these Magic
Minds, you can head over to yourother listeners.
You can head over tomagicmindcom and you can get up
to 6% off, with growing 20 asthe coupon code.
Thanks so much, thanks so muchwe're done.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Talk to you later, deige, bye, bye.
Hey folks, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast
sponsored by Lean DiscoveryGroup.
This is your host, Dylan Burke,also known as Deige, and I'm
very happy today to be here withMiele Oscebo, CEO of Smart
Finds Marketing.
Welcome Miele.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I know nice to meet you.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah, it's great to meet you as well, and thank you
for being here today.
So, to get us started, can youtell us a little bit about
yourself, your background andhow you ended up doing what you
do today?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah.
So the background goes likethis I started the company back
in 1987.
It's been 36 years.
We're going into 37 years now.
I started the, you know, backthen it was your traditional
marketing agency, especially inthe Detroit metropolitan area.
So, as you can imagine, it'sthe Motor City, the three
(01:07):
largest automotive manufacturersin their headquarters sitting
in Detroit that's why we call itthe Motor City.
And there's a lot going on andNeedles to say.
As the internet opened up, Istarted the internet group in
1994.
We went 100% public.
I would assess should say wewent 100% digital as of 2004,
(01:32):
which is the same time thatGoogle went public.
And for the last 19 years Ihaven't looked back.
We don't do any type oftraditional media anymore.
It's all digital, from websitesto, you know, to marketing, all
kinds of marketing, all kindsof advertising, pretty much
whatever is needed.
(01:53):
So I spent the good portion ofmy career in this business.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
That's amazing and I love the foresight that you must
have had back then, becauseeven today, people are
struggling to adopt to a digitalmarketing strategy and you saw
this like 27 years ago, which isobviously amazing, I think that
comes from being an earlyadopter.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I like, I like, I don't for lack of words.
I like new stuff.
So you know, when there's newtechnology, I always enjoy
technology as a hobby.
I enjoy business, I enjoymarketing sales.
You know the entire process.
And so the internet.
I remember a friend of mine whowas working with Sun
(02:38):
Microsystems.
At the time he invited me tothe Sun Microsystems office in
the Detroit Metro area.
You guys, you got to check thisout and I said and so we'll get
to the office.
He goes, he pulls up Yahoo, hepulls up Netscape and he goes
take a look at all these thingsthat we can do.
So that was pretty much thestarting point of it all.
(03:01):
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Can you paint me a little bitof a picture of your roadmap of
the first couple of years,because I'm sure it wasn't too
easy to get a lot of clients onboard, or am I wrong about that?
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
No, no, when we started the group, we kind of
started the ISP area back inthose days, but we weren't
focused on residential, weweren't interested in dial-up
accounts, rather we focused onbusinesses.
And I remember we had onecompany that wanted high-speed
(03:42):
internet into their office andback in those days you had to
provision a T1 line.
We had routers that were as bigas a desk, cables that were
really big I can't even begin totell you and it was difficult
to get companies to understandthat they needed to be on the
(04:03):
internet.
They needed high-speed internetaccess.
I remember the firstinstallation we did with
high-speed internet access andwe got everything all set up in
that company's office, goteverything hooked up Netscape's
working, yahoo's working,everything browsing the web is
working and we went to the CEO'soffice and we showed them this
great thing and the first thingcoming out of his mouth was now
(04:26):
what?
And I said you have noimagination, that was awesome.
So, that was, you're right,though.
It was not an easy thing to getbusinesses to understand that
they needed to go down this road, and it would take another 10
years I mean literally untilabout 2004, before businesses
(04:48):
woke up and realized they neededto, that they need to engage in
the internet, in the webwebsites, marketing, etc.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
That's awesome, yeah, and I love that you stuck onto
it for so long before it becamefully adopted.
Can you tell me a little bitabout how what you offer has
changed since 2004 versus now,obviously with the pandemic
changing the landscape.
The pandemic changed thelandscape of pretty much
(05:20):
everything we do, and now AI hasentered the mainstream and
that's changing everything again.
So tell me how you've adaptedto these changes and how it's
benefited, or not benefited.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, you bring up an interesting point, and I would
say that over the last, well, 27years to be pro-promenos with
even during the 1990s as wellOne thing that I evolved into
talking about because I'm anindustry author you can punch my
name in the Google, you'll findme where I talk, I'm on
(05:56):
videocast podcast and you'llfind me on search engine journal
, for example, practicallyCommerce and a variety of other
publications too, and one of thethings I always talk about in
my speaking engagements are myfour A's of marketing, meaning
that you have to anticipatechange, you need to accept
change, and that's usually thehardest part for a lot of
(06:18):
businesses.
The third one is to adapt tothe changes and the fourth one
is to adopt the changes, and Ithink that keeping these A's in
mind, whether it's for our ownbusiness or whether for our
clients, helps to putperspective on to the fact that
there's never a point wherethings stop.
(06:39):
It's an ongoing process.
It's an ongoing marketingeffort.
All you're doing is changingwhat you're doing and your
budget.
That's how this process hasworked, and you could think
about it from 2004.
2004 means that Twitter wasn'teven on the market yet and
(07:02):
social media really hadn'tstarted, it was kind of like
your MySpace, facebook wasstarting to come into play, but
how do you use it as a business?
How do you make money utilizingthese websites?
So there's a lot going on there, but I can tell you that for
the last 13 years actually no,I'm sorry, for the last 19 years
(07:24):
the changes that have takenplace includes a financial
crisis in 2008, where Detroitmetro area was ground zero.
That lasted for a good twoyears.
The good news is, during thatsame time frame, we actually got
an award from the state ofMichigan as a marketing agency,
so we're quite proud of that.
(07:45):
But then, yes, you're right.
If you take a look at, let's say, from 2010,.
2011 on, what are some of theother major changes that have
taken place?
Google Analytics changed.
It started to provide more data.
Google Search Console changed,provided more information about
how Google perceives our website.
A variety of algorithm changes,especially the one in 2013,.
(08:09):
The Hummingbird algorithm wasjust a nasty change that took
place.
And then you go through thesealgorithm changes and you also
go through changes in terms ofthe industry.
Linkedin becomes more popular.
Now.
Social media as a whole, notjust a piece of it, becomes a
(08:29):
significant force thatbusinesses have to work with.
You're dealing with thepandemic that comes into play in
2020.
That changes the environment,too, for the better, to the
extent that now everybody'stalking on Zoom.
I can't tell you how long ittook me to get clients to not
(08:49):
want to meet face-to-face, tonot want to go to offices.
It's like let's just get on toa digital platform and talk
straight up, like you and I aredoing right now.
That took a long time, but itwas the pandemic that impacted
that, in my opinion, in apositive way for everybody to be
more efficient in terms of ourcommunications.
I can get a lot more donesitting on my desk and talking
(09:11):
to people over Zoom versussomething else, and so these are
some changes and, yes, youbring up a great point.
We've actually been usingartificial intelligence for
about four years ourselves.
We use it specifically in ourconversion rate optimization
program, where we're impactingthe number of leads a website
(09:32):
can generate, or I should sayconvert visitors to leads.
We've been using artificialintelligence for four years.
However, once it got tomarketing, it went public, like
it did a year ago.
The amount of changes thatwe've seen the last 12 months
that AI has impacted is immense.
I think it's for the better.
(09:53):
This is AI 0.0 right now, so weshouldn't even think that this
is 1.0 yet.
We have a long ways to go, butthe amount of changes that we've
seen this in the last 12 monthswhere AI has made things more
efficient, it helps speed thingsup for businesses.
It's helping to make everythingmore effective.
(10:15):
I think there's a variety ofchanges that are good.
I know I've been through a lotof conversations, especially on
LinkedIn, where you don't havepeople that have this fear
factor going on or they're nothappy with the fact that it's
not perfect yet.
I can go back to the 1980s,when the PC first came out.
(10:35):
It wasn't perfect.
The reality is technology andsoftware development is always
spiral.
It has a starting point and itjust keeps going changing,
improving, updating, upgrading.
These are all facts of lifewhen it comes to technology.
The fact that people are outthere saying artificial
(10:56):
intelligence isn't great becauseit's missing all these things.
We're on version 0.0.
We still have a long ways to go.
I think it's for the better.
I know on our end, not onlyhave we been using for four
years with our websiteconversion program, but more
importantly, I think, what we'veseen in the last 12 months is
(11:18):
helping to make marketing moreefficient.
You can get more work done withless people and have a greater
impact in terms of an ROI forthe client 100%.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I couldn't agree more on that, especially what you
said about the Zoom meetings.
It took such a long time forpeople to get comfortable.
My grandfather, for example, isa property advisor.
He doesn't understand that youcan close a deal without shaking
another man's hand.
He gets his whole team totravel from all over the city to
(11:57):
come and meet them.
That's just what he believes in.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
He's 80 years old.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I don't think he'll change.
Most of us have adapted andunderstood that we can get so
much more done without the timetaken to commute between
meetings.
It's amazing the fact that Ican work.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I've got to give you an idea.
I just had a prospect we talkedto seven years ago.
He actually called me on thephone yesterday, without an
appointment, just thinking thatI would just pick up that.
Even that action is outdated.
Nowadays, if you want to have ameeting with somebody, you're
going to direct message them insome form, in whatever platform.
(12:41):
You're going to send amessenger, whatsapp, go to
LinkedIn, send a direct message,or social community.
You're going to send a directmessage first and say, hey, are
you available on this day atthis time?
Then you set up a time to meet,send out the Zoom info on the
calendar.
Right, that's the processnowadays, the fact that somebody
actually called me, thinkingthat I was going to be available
(13:03):
, and leave me a voice message.
That was the first time inmaybe five years or more where I
had that type of interaction.
But some people are stillhanging on to the old system,
unfortunately.
Needless to say, I playtelephontag with this person
because it didn't go well.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, I find that a lot too.
It always just doesn't work outfor people.
The greatest thing I've foundis that I'm sitting in Cape Town
, south Africa, right now,chatting to you in Detroit.
We're having this awesomeconversation.
It's like we're sitting face toface.
It's amazing what technologyhas done.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
You can hear me clearly.
I can hear you clearly.
Aside from a minor timedifference in terms of what time
we have versus what time youhave, or seasonal changes,
that's about the only time we'rerunning Exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It's taken globalization to a whole other
level.
I agree.
Back to your business.
If we were to sit down in,let's say, 12 months' time and
everything has gone right,completely right, what has
changed and what does thebusiness look like then?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So, if I you know, we're a marketing agency, we
have a creative team, we have atech team, we have a marketing
team, we have our own writersEverybody's in the Detroit
metropolitan area and so, tothat extent, considering the
knowledge, the experience, thebroad competencies we have, and
never mind the fact that ourability to adapt to the changing
(14:43):
environment and technologiesand what's happening in the
marketing world, I can tell youthat we generally go into a
larger corporation and we eitherbecome the digital marketing
department or, especially ifthey're much larger, like some
of our clients, we become asupport team for the internal
(15:05):
marketing team, and what usuallywhat that means is that we're
we're able to walk in and manageall aspects of you know from
their server for you know, fortheir internet server, their
website, their marketing, theiradvertising, their email
marketing, whatever, especiallynowadays with the AI tools where
(15:28):
we can do use AI foradvertising to improve how the
ads that are being seen by anindividual changes based on
their actions, or being able togeographically target people
within a specific area usingartificial intelligence.
Never mind the fact that youhave all this intelligence and
data that's out there that wecan tap into and have AI take
(15:50):
big data, summarize it all downfor us so that we can actually
take effective actions.
These are all things that aregoing on right now and, from our
standpoint, I don't see thatwhat we as a company are doing
in terms of, let's say, our CROprogram, where we're helping
businesses convert more visitorson their website to become
(16:13):
leads or sales, or whether ornot we're using our agency
solution and managing andhelping clients with their
marketing and advertisingefforts I don't think that's
going to change.
What's going to change is whatwe do and what strategies we
employ.
And so just now, in the last 12months, as you can imagine,
we're using more artificialintelligence as part of what
(16:34):
we're doing, whether it's thecontent that we're writing,
whether it's the optimization ofa website and its search engine
and its implementationcomponents.
There are changes that arealready taking place in the last
12 months relative to thisbeing able to take artificial
intelligence and create awebsite visitor journey, a
(16:58):
funnel where you're able totrack that individual and base
the call to actions actively,right then and there, while
you're on the website, based onwhat they've done.
I mean, these are all.
These are the changes that havetaken place Now.
I can only imagine that we'regoing to continue to build on
this over the next 12 months.
I expect more artificialintelligence to come to the
(17:22):
market.
I expect more things, forexample, like generative AI
becoming improving, taking thatto another level, both in terms
of images and graphics andphotography, let's say, as well
as in the direction of contentand video.
(17:43):
So you're going to find AI isgoing to expand all those areas
and we're going to be able totap into more marketing channels
.
I expect additional marketingchannels to open up.
You know 100%.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I believe the next couple years, or the next 12
months even, is going to be gamechanging for businesses.
As long as you are open to newtechnologies and taking
advantage of them.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You bring up an interesting.
I think it's worth mentioningsomething that I've run into
with businesses that areresistant to these changes.
It usually goes like this Ihave to explain to them that
they need to accept the changeand move forward.
They can gripe all they want,they can fuss, fume and have it
(18:33):
hisseep it, but it doesn'tchange the fact that that change
has taken place.
It's on the market, it's movingforward.
Now if the businesses fusses andfumes and says I don't want to
do this, that's great, but guesswhat?
Your competitors are movingforward, number one, and all
you're doing is keeping yourselfexponentially behind.
(18:56):
So that's not a good thing.
And the second part is theindustry is moving forward.
In other words, your targetaudience has already accepted
this change.
They're already using thatchange and therefore you have to
be with them.
Your target audience is goingthere.
You have to be there.
Your competitors are movingforward.
You need to be competitive.
This idea of just sittingaround and saying I don't want
(19:19):
to participate, this doesn'twork, and that's something that
I've seen quite often in thelast 10 years, especially the
hummingbird album 100%.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I'm ready to crush the next year.
I'm taking a little break nowand I'm coming in hot.
These guys in Magic Mind I'mnot sure if you can see that.
They send me a bunch of theirproducts and it's amazing.
I'm super excited to crush theyear with Magic Mind next year.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It just helps you with productivity and energy.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
It's like a coffee supplement.
It's really awesome.
And that does bring us to theend of our show.
Amile, it was great chatting toyou.
It was great to chat with youtoo.
Before we go, what advice wouldyou like to give to other
business owners looking tosucceed in this ever changing
world.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Let's build on the concept of what I've been
talking about.
The first thing I'm going tosay is step the change, Step out
of it.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Amazing.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
That's my suggestion.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Amazing, and is there any way for, or what is the
best way for, people to reachout to you if you have any
offers for them or if they'relooking to take advantage of
your services?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, I think the best thing to do, like a lot of
people do, is.
Number one is contact me onLinkedIn.
That's the best place to reachthem.
You can punch me in my name,maley Ostele I'm assuming we're
going to end up having that showup someplace.
Or you can look on LinkedIn forour company, smart Finance
Marketing.
You'll find me through there.
Just as a quick FYI, I haveover 20,000 really close friends
(21:00):
on LinkedIn.
Usually, if you connect with me, you tag me on your posts.
I'm able to help you expandyour reach.
So I'm always there to help mynetwork.
I always suggest for them totag me because I can get their
expand their reach through avery large network, including
(21:23):
other people who have largenetworks.
So, first of all, contact me onLinkedIn.
Second of all, just directmessage me on LinkedIn, happy to
engage.
I think that's probably thebest place to find me.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Okay, awesome.
Thank you so much, and if youwant to try out these Magic
Minds, you can head over to yourother listeners.
You can head over tomagicmindcom and you can get up
to 6% off, with growing 20 asthe coupon code.
Thanks so much, thanks so muchwe're done.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Talk to you later, deige, bye, bye.
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