June 4, 2025 • 39 mins
Every business owner dreams of growth systems that work automatically while they focus on what they love. Reed Hansen, founder of Market Surge, has turned this dream into reality for service-based businesses across multiple industries by combining powerful CRM systems with cutting-edge AI.
The journey began with his wife's photography business. Unlike most creatives, she was incredibly process-oriented, allowing her to maintain a full calendar while other photographers experienced feast-or-famine cycles. Reed recognized this as a formula that could transform similar businesses. "We took her processes and replicated them for photography studios across the country, and they saw tremendous success," he explains. This approach—partnering with industry experts to create tailored solutions—became the foundation of Market Surge's growth strategy.
What makes Reed's approach distinct is his recognition that different service industries face unique challenges. Photographers struggle with lead generation during busy periods, plumbers need help preventing appointment no-shows, and high-volume sales businesses like solar installation companies require sophisticated systems to handle their complex workflows. By understanding these nuances, Market Surge creates customized implementations that address specific pain points rather than forcing generic solutions.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Reed discusses how AI is democratizing business growth for small service providers. Beyond content creation, he highlights practical applications that directly impact the bottom line: AI receptionists that never miss calls, intelligent systems that analyze business trends, and even agentic AI that can perform complex tasks autonomously. "These powerful tools enable people to do more of the jobs they like and find the right customers," Reed notes, emphasizing how technology can remove barriers that previously limited growth.
Perhaps most surprising is Reed's revelation about marketing his own business. Despite his sales background, traditional outreach proved less effective than increasing his visibility through podcasting, networking, and content creation. "What's funny is I don't know that I've had any direct new clients from those approaches, but it does seem like my relationship with clients is stronger when they see multiple touch points from where I'm present in these conversations."
Whether you're a solopreneur looking to scale, a creative seeking more consistent income, or a service business owner tired of missing opportunities, this conversation offers practical insights on leveraging technology to create growth systems that truly work while you sleep.
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I am thrilled to have Reid Hanson on the show today.
Reed, you have created MarketSurge, which I love.
Your tagline on LinkedIn I'mreading it just so if I'm
looking off screen.
That's why Built businessgrowth machines that work while
you sleep that is every businessowner's dream and it's
something that you're making areality.
And one thing I noticed when Iwas looking at all of my stuff
(00:45):
on you was that you were reallytaking the approach of like we
don't have a problem necessarilygetting leads, but how are we
taking care of nurturing ourclients?
And that is something that Ithink most people, most small
business entrepreneursespecially, fall down in that
area.
So thank you, first andforemost, for being here.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you, I'm and foremost, for being here.
Thank you, I'm really excitedto be here.
This is a great series ofspeakers that you've had and I
hope to add some value to yourfollowers.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, I have no doubt that you will, so I'd love to
hear a little bit about becauseI know that you had originally a
bachelor's in Italian, englishand business- yes.
You got your master's.
You have an MBA, of course, instrategy and finance.
You've had a series of roles atdifferent organizations.
What was that journey like?
To then decide, you know what?
(01:36):
Yeah, let's go to market surgeand see what else I can do?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Well, absolutely.
You know, I'll try to besuccinct, but I have a funny
take on a humanities major andhow AI is the real enabler of
humanities majors.
We can write the best prompts.
So anyway, that's my two cents.
But out of undergrad I hadinitially thought that I would
(01:58):
go to law school, but my nowwife, her father, was a lawyer
and talked me out of it and so Ichanged gears kind of at the
last minute, after doing a lotof LSAT prep, and went into
technology and sales and learneda lot and I think I was
(02:19):
successful there, despite beingsomewhat of an introvert.
And I'd say that theintroversion kind of continued
through my career.
And I don't say introvert is atotal negative.
I say it is kind of a differentskill set, a different
perspective, and I found overthe years I went on to get my
(02:40):
MBA that I was a little bit morelike geared towards marketing
and so I went from working at astartup and then a large
corporation in Oracle to gettingmy MBA and then I started to
work for some digital agenciesand that helped me make the
transition to full-time marketer.
(03:02):
So I was in business developmentbut then it turned into this
agency that I run in I'm runningtoday.
Now we work with a lot ofservice-based businesses small
businesses, home servicebusinesses and I love working
with people that are experts intheir field you know whether
they're creatives or techniciansand helping them realize that
(03:25):
they can have a steady flow ofleads and that there are tools
that can work while they arebusy working.
And you know, I've beenfascinated.
First it was some of thepowerful tools that come with a
CRM, and then recently it's beenthe AI suite of tools that have
(03:45):
gotten more and more powerful,and those combined really do
drive a lot of business growth.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, Well, one thing that you said service-based
businesses those are businessesthat are not going to be
replaced by AI.
Right, absolutely Right.
It's fantastic.
And there are businesses thatpeople may not realize that
they're really great growthfields and you can make really
good living and become amultimillionaire in
service-based business.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I applaud that you're doing so much for those type of
businesses.
You also mentioned CRMs, whichare really important for any
business, no matter what sizeyou are, and you already brought
in AI to the conversation.
So what I'm finding reallyinteresting is right now we just
started the new term, so we'realready doing summer.
(04:34):
We're in week three of summerand for the digital media
management program, we have somestudents who are very
sophisticated.
They have been working in grossmarketing, performance
marketing, content creationstrategy for years and years and
they understand how thatecosystem works and some of the
AI tools.
(04:54):
And we have students who arebrand new, who are really just
looking at a pivot to a newcareer, or they've been working
in a different type of marketingor sales and they're ready to
learn new approaches and reallyget into the digital side of
things.
So, in your career, talk aboutthat transition and how this
also helps, because doservice-based businesses
(05:16):
typically realize the power ofCRM or you having to educate
them?
There's a mix.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I think there are so many niches within the broad
swath of service-basedbusinesses.
So I'd say one large group Iwork with is photographers, and
photographers are by nature atleast in this century they've
had to learn to use the editingsuite, editing tools, uploading
(05:43):
files back and forth, and sothey're fairly computer savvy
overall.
But I think, just also bynature, they are creatives, and
so they think conceptuallyrather than, for the most part,
are not as much process minded.
And so what I've observed whenI take on a new photography
(06:03):
studio client their businessflows in big spurts.
They have big spurts ofactivity, sales, and then while
they're busy creating thebeautiful photos, they neglect
the funnel.
You know the funnel isn'tgetting filled, and so I mean
they're frankly busy hard atwork making money.
But that gap between where thesales activity stopped and then
(06:29):
the busy period ends and thenthey start trying to fill up
their calendar again, it'sproblematic because it costs
them a lot of money and it'scapacity that they have that is
not being used.
You know, I'd say others are somany like if you talk about,
like a plumber or an HVACprofessional.
They are just always busy, theyalmost never, they don't
(06:51):
necessarily even need, you know,more leads or anything but.
But they could benefit and theydo benefit from a CRM that
manages appointments.
It prevents no-shows, becauseno-shows is always an issue for
whether it's getting a bid or adelivery, and so that is a
(07:11):
different issue.
But they are not very techsavvy at all.
In general they have been verytechnical and focused and with
more work than they can handle.
So it will vary by grouping,but well, and then I'll say
there's another group that theydo super high volume of sales.
So you think, like the solarpanel salespeople, the pest
(07:31):
control, security sales they dosuch a high volume of sales
outbound calls, inbound leads,high spend on ads that they tend
to be very sophisticated.
But they are very peopleintensive and there's
opportunity to replace some ofthe busy work with tech tools,
because we know there are a lotof tools.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
There are tools that you know, I mean in my LinkedIn.
Every day I probably get peoplewho want to help me with leads
generation or help me with thisor help me with that, but having
something that's a full funnelprocess right would seem to be
(08:16):
much more advantageous, nomatter what kind of business you
have.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Well, absolutely so this business was built and I
think as many should be withlike hand.
Absolutely so this business wasbuilt and I think as many
should be hand in hand with anindustry sponsor.
And this industry sponsor wasmy wife, who is a photo studio
owner.
Oh, wow, and she informed andshe would be one of the more
atypical photographers that sheis in fact very process-minded,
(08:41):
that she is in fact very processminded and, and she'd probably
say that her, her creative, herart kind of suffers because
she's so like controlling andOCD about everything has to be
perfectly sequenced.
And but the thing is that shewas able to always keep a full
calendar because she had theright team in place, she had the
(09:04):
right verbiage, the right ads,the website was formatted
correctly, and so we took allthose processes and leveraged an
existing framework, a softwareplatform, GoHighLevel.
I don't know if many arefamiliar, but we took her
processes and replicated themfor other photography studios
(09:25):
across the country and they sawtremendous success.
And so when we realized thatthat was a formula, we started
to replicate this and partner,either formally or informally,
with industry coaches andhigh-performing practitioners in
a given industry.
(09:46):
And you know, and I'd recommendthat approach for anybody doing
a tech startup is they eitherbring this deep, deep expertise
in a niche or you partner withsomebody that does and, as a
result, we create processes thatare industry specific.
Then we replicate them andbuild out that industry and then
(10:06):
continue to add more groupingsto our portfolio.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, and you mentioned go high level, which I
think is really interesting,because what I've seen with
independent practitioners is thetendency to go from one to the
next, to the next Right, so Ican't even name all of them, but
there is one systemio fromfrance and then everybody was
leaving, so it was on adifferent one and then moving
(10:30):
over system and then moving overto go high level and then
moving over to the next thing,because we I say we, but it's
not me, it's a lot of people,you know this group, who really
doesn't have a person or acompany like yourself that can
help systemize all the processes.
So even if you get help from asupposed expert from within one
(10:50):
of these ecosystems, they'rereally not going to understand
how to build it out for yourspecific business.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Right, right, so we'd be like the implementer in that
equation, but it is animportant role because, you know
, as you say, moving from oneplatform to another, I am trying
to stay on top of potentialtrends and so I I take a call
from almost every sales personthat that they calls, just so I,
you know, I know what's outthere and you know I want to be
(11:17):
abreast of what's next.
But, yeah, it's valuable tohave a partner that can navigate
the technology well and evenI'd say we're definitely a level
up from just chat support.
We're actively project managingimplementations and advising
our clients, telling them whenthere's a market trend they
(11:37):
should be aware of, or somethingwe're seeing in one account
that they should try toreplicate.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, and you mentioned that small businesses
really need to understand andlearn artificial intelligence
tools, particularly, of course,generative AI is what we usually
talk about when we're havingthese conversations In the
universe of collegiate students.
I'm finding that a lot ofundergrads who go into grad
school in undergrad they'rebeing told not to use any AI,
(12:07):
and then in my classes I'msaying, no, you must use AI and
let's actually turn some of yourassignments into more AI first
focused assignments so thatthey're actually getting
application.
Same thing on the Intuit SmallBusiness Council, which I just
rolled off a membership of that,which I just rolled off a
membership of that.
But last year we went toCongress and talked about how AI
powers Main Street and how it'sreally important that, from the
(12:29):
SBA through the whole ecosystem, that small businesses are
understanding and getting tolearn how to use AI in their
workflows.
So I'd love to hear a littlebit more about you know, your
take on that, what you've seenwork really well and some of the
processes that people need tobe thinking about just to start
(12:49):
the process of learning, notjust going into chat or going to
some other platform and justdoing basic prompts and things,
but what are really the best usecases.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Well, that's a great question.
You know everybody thinks of AIfirst as, like the generative
roles, the, you know, generatingblogs or graphics for sites,
and you know that's helpful,very helpful.
But you know, and I'll go backto my point earlier about you
know, I think the humanitiesmajors are going to benefit the
most from AI because you know wewere critical thinkers and
(13:23):
we're writers and I thinkcultivating the skills of
curiosity and of being able tothink and observe technical,
both problems and potentialsolutions and to be able to
articulate those to ask the GPTto help you, is going to be
(13:47):
really important.
Now, some of the best use casesI've seen are, so you know, if
I'm talking about these homeservices businesses that I'm
working with quite frequently.
Sometimes they're one man shops, you know, making tons of money
but doing everything themselves, taking all the calls, maybe
not doing the bookkeeping, butthey are missing calls all the
(14:09):
time.
You know message are left andso a great use of AI is, you
know, either a chat or a voicereceptionist that can.
You know, ideally they identifythemselves as an AI agent, but
it helps keep things moving andwe know that speed of response
is really critical and peopleare very quick to move to the
(14:33):
next vendor when somebodydoesn't pick up the phone.
That's a great use case.
Underrated, I think, isgenerating high-quality web
storefronts, which is web pages,high quality web storefronts,
which you know, web pages andyou can ask chat, gpt and
there's other platforms as wellGemini and Grok that do a great
(14:53):
job as well to generate HTMLcode for websites, landing pages
, so you can continue to buildout your website.
You can take that same HTMLcode, copy it, paste it into GPT
and ask for updates and changes.
You know so you can.
You can do your a lot of yourwebsite maintenance through that
(15:13):
.
You know you can ask itquestions about roles in the
business that you aren'tfamiliar with, like you know.
Take a look at my financialreports or my sales numbers or
my reviews that I'm I'm gettingpublicly.
Tell me what I should bethinking about.
What trends can you help meidentify?
The GBT agent in ChatGPT isexcellent at that.
(15:35):
The most advanced level is sofar that I've come across is the
agentic AI that you canactually, with the latest ChatGP
GPT high model, can log intosystems for you that you would
do yourself, can book yourtravel.
It can do simple tasks and theone that I'm having the most fun
(15:56):
with.
I've been using a lot is cursor,which is able to generate full
apps, set up servers, build outthe middleware, you know, make
connections, you know.
So I built I built a full appon over the weekend to help me
with some large CSV files that Iwas I was using for a customer
(16:17):
and you know, basically I nowhave a website, a working
website, that I can it's likepassword protected and I can
filter large files that Icouldn't do on my desktop and it
has been.
It's just tremendous and reallyit's like just a matter of
describing what you want andthen asking the engine to
generate it and then say like,oh, I need this tweaked a little
(16:39):
bit and it does it and itpushes out the production role.
So that's probably just thebeginning.
I think we're just going to seemore and more agentic
opportunities and that willenable people to do more and
more of the jobs they like andbe able to generate business and
find the fit, find the rightcustomers, using these very
(17:02):
powerful tools.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, it's interesting because when I'm
talking about these tools withstudents or with most people in
marketing or PR in those worldsright, we're talking about it in
a very different way than theway that you're talking about it
with your service-basedbusinesses, because what you're
really saying is this isdemocratizing a lot of the
process of taking the painpoints of owning a business If
(17:24):
you don't have time to do allthe menial tasks.
You're talking about thebusinesses that are always busy.
They don't have time to sit andnurture new leads because
they're out in the field all day, and they probably have all
their workers out in the fieldall day as well.
So it's really helping createmore growth and create the
businesses of the future, theones that we dream about having
(17:46):
right, but that we, as maybesolo practitioners or small
businesses, can't always achievebecause we have monetary
barriers or time or we're not.
You know, we don't have theright brain functionality to
like, understand and be able tosit and do all these different
tasks.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Well and I love what you're saying the
democratization of thistechnology.
It is just so wonderful thatthese platforms all have free
tiers that are very powerful,and so in many cases, you can
use the free tiers of thesetools to do everything you want,
and a lot of people may feelintimidated by some of what
(18:25):
we're describing here, but forthose that have never tried it,
that probably does not includeyour audience, but I do tell
people that it is much moreaccessible than you can imagine.
Basically, it's like you canopen up the app and ask it how
to use it and it will explain itto you, educate you on how to
use it and, in words that youcan understand, it'll learn how
(18:48):
you like to learn as well.
So it's just remarkabletechnology and, by necessity, it
needs to be democratized inorder to get the best learning
into the algorithm, and so it isa bit symbiotic.
But also, you know, thepowerful people in this field
have been very generous andthey've realized that right away
(19:10):
.
They haven't put huge costbarriers in front of people that
could be users and providingvalue back.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Your background also.
You worked at Northwestern.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I did.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Which seems a little different than some of the
different other roles thatyou've had.
Do you feel like creating thatcustom programs for
professionals and managers alsohelped you figure out how to
design market surge and you knowall the different steps to
implement?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I think so.
Like I said, I really liketeaching and enabling, and so my
role at Northwestern was and Ilive here in Evanston that's
very close, I'm just a fewblocks from campus.
So it was a great time in mylife where I got to walk to work
.
I don't know how many peopleget to do that, but I enjoyed
working with a wide variety ofcompanies, associations and
(20:06):
healthcare organizations todesign either for high
potentials or veryline-of-business specific
programs to help them learndifferent parts of the business.
And, of course, ai even thenwas a hot topic and we were
trying to help them enable thatin their environments.
(20:28):
And it was just you know.
I think that experience reallyhelped me to think through how
to educate my clients, and so itdoes.
There's that concept of skillstacking, where you know and and
sometimes by accident ithappens.
But I think my experiences havedefinitely built into where I
(20:49):
am here and what we do at marketsurge.
It's it's uh, it's funny howlife kind of sets the table for
you.
But Right.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, it really does, but you have to be willing and
open to say yes, right.
Yes, uh-huh yeah so you wentfrom that position walking to
work to the studio, to filling amarket gap.
Does your wife still have aphotography business?
Is she probably ingrained inmarket search?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
she does still have her photography business and
it's doing very well.
So we're, we have ourindependent businesses.
You know, I, I, our businesssupports hers and and she is,
you know, like she's been doingthis about 10 years on her own
and I think she is ready forsomething else and so she's
(21:40):
starting to start look aroundand so that's that'll be an
interesting process for her.
She keeps saying she wants togo into a corporate role, but I
was like, how could you do that?
Like you know, that's so fun torun a business and just try
something a little different.
But she is a tremendous talentand has been very successful.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So what does your work look like today?
You have market surge.
You had to figure out how toget clients.
You started out with oneindustry, started creating
profiles and protocols for otherindustries.
Do you still have to walk towork or do you work from home
primarily?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I do work from home and I have a remote team across
the country and then a fewinternational employees that
support some of the technicalfunctions.
So I do a lot of sales andbusiness development, and so I
say sales when it comes to newclients.
And then business developmentI'm often working with our
current clients to take whatevernext step in their marketing
(22:43):
process needs to happen, andlately we've been working with
some logistics providers acouple of our clients and we're
and that's an industry wherethere's a lot of opportunity.
I'd say they're not very.
They don't use a lot oftechnology.
It's a very handshake andface-to-face contact type of
business.
But they so tremendousopportunity and we're looking at
(23:06):
potential ways that the AI canbe a part of the carrier
evaluation process, the, youknow, automating the quoting
process and a lot of systems youknow just a lot of different
systems they use and hopefullyjust connecting those into the
one hub that they can operatefrom and get like a data
(23:28):
dashboard on.
But yeah, that's really fun.
There's a whole variety ofsophistication in every industry
.
Within the industry they'revery similar, but then you go
from industry to industry andthat's all different.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, the nuances.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
One.
So how did your personal brandand the contacts you had and, of
course, that your wife had inphotography as well play into
growing your business andstarting something new that I
mean this is very different thansome of the other things that
you've done.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, and that's been a really good learning I've had
over this time, leading MarketSurge.
At first, so, coming from asales background, I was selling
somebody else's product you knowan Oracle database or a machine
or middleware or whatever itmay be, and I had tremendous
resources for marketing todescribe the value.
(24:21):
And when I come to Market SurgeI'm thinking, well, it's kind
of a numbers game and you knowwe do good things and I'll just
try to contact as many people aspossible.
You know I was thinking coldemailing was going to be the
best way and maybe a little bitof cold calling.
But over time what I've reallylearned is that the business is
doing better when I'm morevisible.
(24:44):
So when I you know I've startedproducing a podcast this year
and interviewing otherentrepreneurs and learning from
them and networking.
I joined the chamber ofcommerce.
I, you know I've been trying toguest on other podcasts and
collaborate and blogging I'vejust what's funny is I don't
know that I've had any directnew clients from those
(25:06):
approaches, but it does seemlike my relationship with
clients and new clients.
They see multiple touch pointsfrom where I'm present and
visible in these conversationsand seems to build a little bit
(25:26):
of trust, like if I can speakpublicly about the value and you
know like my face can be onscreen or I can write blogs that
are compelling.
That has really seemed to justbe more valuable than the sales
efforts that I assumed wouldwork.
So, yeah, it's been a bit of asurprise.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So well, I love hearing that, because I always
preach that podcasting is thebest marketing and sales
opportunity you have, becausesomebody else is saying that
you're an expert in your field.
You're getting to share yourexpertise.
You get a lot of content thatyou can share as blog posts,
social media, newsletter contentall you know and you get video
(26:05):
and you get static and all ofthese different pieces that you
can put together as part of yourconstruct.
And then, of course, it helpswith your SEO, because other
people all the backlinks.
Yeah, yeah, so thank you foractually sharing that.
Yeah, huge plug for podcasting.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I would just say that's been the best channel I
have what is the name of yourpodcast and how have you found
that?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
yeah, it's called inside marketing with market
surge, and I just did it on awhim, you know, I I just like, I
kind of asked chat gpt toeducate me on what do I need to
do to do a podcast, and it gaveme a list of platforms that I
needed.
I didn't realize I needed botha video editor and, like a
platform publisher, you know.
(26:52):
So I've been using descript andthen publishing on transistor
and which has worked pretty well, and I'm kind of a one man show
.
I do have a team and I'm tryingto get them trained on this, so
I don't have to do this allmyself.
But so far it's me and you know, I've taken the approach of you
know, and, anika, I'd love tohave you on my podcast.
(27:13):
You have an open invite.
I'm going to send you a linkafter this.
But I've been reaching out topodcasts, listening to podcasts
and sending them maybe a littleemail about, like how I might be
a fit or what we could talk,and then when I go on their
podcast, I invite them to comeback and it's also been like a
great conversation starterPeople that like have a business
(27:34):
that's interesting, that I'venever met before.
Just reach out to them onLinkedIn and say like, hey,
would you be interested inchatting?
And if they understand thevalue of a backlink.
It is a very easy sell and it'sa very less investment, but
it's been so valuable to makeall these contacts I've learned
about, like technologies that Ididn't, I didn't know so much
(27:54):
about and, you know, just justbeen tremendous all around and
you know that definitely, uh, isa bit of a labor for me as an
introvert, but I the benefitshave been totally worth it, yeah
fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Well, you would never know.
You're an introvert.
My daughter is an introvert andshe can talk to anybody anytime
, but then of course she needsto go home and just completely
decompress.
I'm an extrovert and I stillneed to go home and decompress.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, no, that's what I'll do.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I'll probably be asleep after a few minutes,
after we wrap to excite you, itcontinues to surprise and
delight you, because oftentimeswe can build a business and then
we get tired of working in theminutia, we get tired of doing
the same thing over and overagain and trying to figure out,
(28:38):
like, how am I going to continueto grow my business, stay
excited, but not, and you know?
Then my follow-up question tothat would also be you're the
face of the business.
You said that things do better,but you can't be there all the
time.
So how do you then, you know,stay inclined to continue your
business but then also findother people who can step in for
(29:00):
you?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, that is a challenge.
You know.
As far as what makes me excitedis, I, you know, have been
really immersed in thetechnologies.
You know like I love to talk to.
You know, product hunt isanother place where I've been
reaching out to people and andinviting them to chat or or do a
podcast with me, and they havesome cool ideas.
These are people all over theworld that have cool startups,
(29:24):
cool, cool widgets, and and thenso I'm I'm just excited about
the, the rate of change, ofchange in the technology space,
ai in particular.
It's like every day there'ssomething just groundbreaking
and hard to believe that this ishappening.
Usually we used to wait years inbetween these big leaps forward
(29:45):
, but now it's like every week,and so I love the technology.
It's like every week, and so Ilove the technology.
I love seeing these returnsfrom our clients that you know,
people that came from liketotally not familiar with
technology and to making thatleap and using the vocabulary of
marketing frameworks and beingvery deliberate and organized
(30:07):
with their efforts.
You know that's very satisfying, I guess, like kind of the
teacher instinct.
You know the very rewardingresults there, and then I have
tried my best to enable myemployees to be autonomous and
give them their realms.
So, for instance, one of myemployees is she has an interior
(30:30):
design business on the side andand so I thought, you know,
wouldn't it be great if shecould help?
You know, if those skills couldtranslate to something in the
technology realm?
So she really wasn't like amarketer per se.
She has some experience withsocial media, but you know, I I
kind of invited her to do thingsand she was constantly checking
(30:50):
in with me Like, do you likethis design?
Do you like you know?
I kind of invited her to dothings and she was constantly
checking in with me Like do youlike this design?
Do you like you know how?
About this like font, you know?
And and I did take her side onetime and I said you know, I
don't know if you know, but I'mkind of colorblind and I really
need you to own this and I needyou to tell me what looks good.
And you know, I want you toreally run with this.
(31:11):
And she has and has donefantastic.
Like the bet paid off and herskills did translate and as
she's had to learn like someHTML and and how to use some new
tools for her, she's kind ofapproached it the way she would.
Interior design job and youknow project managers, the
(31:32):
designers and and just has hasbeen tremendous, and so I look
for opportunities to do thatwhere I can say you own this and
you know, so, like I'm probablylooking to hire somebody to do
my podcast and say you own this,I will record you, you do
everything else and you knowknow, but there's a lot of tasks
that, uh, that I, I think that.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
But giving people on the team a sense of ownership
and finding people that liketreasure, that like that is how,
how I'll grow, I think, and andstill still want to keep doing
this yeah, yeah, wonderful, andI really appreciate using that
example of somebody who mighthave been an atypical hire but
(32:13):
you saw the potential, you sawwhere she could fit in to your
team and what skill sets she didhave in her other work.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
That would translate really well, just to underline
your point, in this day and age,you know, with the tools as
they are, I don't know thatthere is much that can't be
learned on the job.
I think that, like we're in inthe time where you can learn
(32:45):
just about anything and if youhave like characteristics or
qualities, I think employersshould look at that much more
than they should Like.
Do you have experience on thisparticular platform?
You know, I think employersshould look at that much more
than they should Like.
Do you have experience on thisparticular platform?
I think that would be veryshort-sighted to really focus on
platform over skills andqualities.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And you also mentioning that you're
colorblind.
So many times we forget aboutaccessibility.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I mean even for somebody who's not completely
hearing, impaired visionimpaired, other impairments.
But that is really important toconsider still when we're
thinking about fonts and colordesign elements.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Absolutely, and I wouldn't say I'm not majorly
colorblind.
But green and blue, thatspectrum is very difficult for
me and usually it hasn'tmanifested so far into a safety
issue but it has definitely inmy wardrobe choices.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
My wife always tells me One of the things that you
said you'd be willing to answeris an unconventional marketing
move that worked really well foryou and for your clients.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, well, let me talk about, like, a specific
tactic that we've beenexperimenting with.
So you know, I don't thinkwe're the first to do this, but
we were really.
I think somebody had.
I think this idea sparked.
Somebody on our team received aPayPal like for one cent from a
friend and, and, and it wasinteresting that, like I mean
(34:15):
all the things that go to thespam folder the PayPal email
will always hit your inbox, youknow, and and it always catches
your attention, so that thatkind of evolved into this two
cent campaign and maybe peoplehave attempted this.
But we will target somebody thatwe think is in a buying
position and send them a twocents on PayPal, and you know
(34:38):
they get that email at the topand you can add a little
description and you say hi, Ijust wanted to give you my two
cents.
I think your business is great,but I think you could be doing
even better.
We'd love to chat, and so wekind of hacked the PayPal system
to make it work for a marketer,and two cents is a small price
to pay for a phone conversation,tremendous response, and it's
(35:01):
just been a really fun thing,you know, and the plenty
approach I think is just startson a positive note, rather than
like what are you doing?
You're trying to steal.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That could go very many ways.
Yeah, it could Right.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
And it does, it does.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
But that is very clever and I actually haven't
heard of people using that.
So thank you for bringinganother idea to the table for us
all.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you have an offer wherepeople can go to your website
and get a free local map oftheir search engine ranking.
We talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Absolutely so.
A lot of businesses, especiallythe kind of businesses that I
work with, they're servicebusinesses where it's in-person
delivery.
They're very reliant on howthey come up in search engines
and you know so.
If somebody is searching for ACunit repair, you want to be in
the top.
You know the top spot iscoveted, the top three is
(35:59):
awesome.
But you know there aredefinitely some fundamentals
that companies can do.
But what I can provide is a heatmap of a radius around your
business.
So you pick your addressablearea, give me, like the miles
away from your business thatyou'd either drive to deliver or
that they would be willing todrive to you, and I can give you
, in each quadrant, heat map youknow it's green, yellow, red
(36:23):
based on are you in the topthree, top 20, or not in the top
20.
And I can give you the names ofthe businesses that are ahead
of you.
Now that those are good datapoints because you can mimic
their approaches and climb inthe rankings, or you can hire a
consultant that that can assistyou in doing that.
But yeah, it's, you know we cando that.
We can turn that around in justa few minutes and just give you
(36:46):
that piece of data just to knowwhere you're ranking.
And you know like a business,for instance, might be ranking
really well in certain quadrantsof the city and not in others
and that would mean that there'sa stronger competitor in that
area or that you know.
Maybe that's a time to reachout for a backlink and somebody
in that little community.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So, yeah, fantastic and that is.
I mean, that's hugely valuableand it's something that we talk
about in the class that I'mteaching right now.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
It's great Awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We're going to be going yeah, we'll be touching
base after this, because I'dlove to show your tool to my
students.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Is there anything else small medium-sized business
service-based business shouldreally think about as they're
getting their start, they'relooking for the person to work
with.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
I would look at if you werelooking for a consultant to help
you with the marketing of yourbusiness.
I would want to speak to thembefore you engage.
I would not pick them based onthe technology that they.
I would try to talk to them andsee, you know, is this somebody
that is going to listen to meand understand my business or is
(37:53):
this somebody that's going todictate how it's going to be
done?
And so I think that engagementis really important, because you
should look at hiring a humanrather than relying on
technology, Because thetechnologies are just constantly
evolving.
You can't really say you'll beon one CRM for years and years.
(38:14):
You'll probably be changing,but if you have a good partner,
then that will last you a verylong time.
So I'd say get to know theperson, get to know you know.
There's a lot of free resources.
So some things you canoutsource to a partner, a lot of
things you can learn, and a lotof things are very simple to
(38:34):
pick up.
There's YouTube channels thatcover a ton of knowledge and a
lot of like tips and tricks andhacks, but then there's also the
GPT engines that can teach youin the way that you need to
learn.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, fantastic.
We're going to have everybodygo to marketsearchio.
Of course we'll have that inthe show notes.
We'll also have your podcast inthere.
I'm looking forward to being anew listener and giving you a
read with you, so, and you'retalking to you about your
podcast, my other podcast, andhaving some fun further
conversations on these.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Yeah, I'd love to collaborate.
That would be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Thank you, reed.
It's been a pleasure having youon Mediascape and thank you to
everybody who's been watchingthis episode or listening to it.
Leave us a rating review if youhaven't.
Give us a follow if you haven't, and we'll be back again with
another amazing expert to talkabout being a digital change
maker, how they're helpingchange the narrative for
(39:37):
businesses everywhere throughtheir knowledge, their expertise
and their services.
On Mediascape Insights fromDigital Changemakers brought to
you by USC Annenberg's MS inDigital Media Management Program
.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management Program, visitus on the web at dmmuscedu.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital
changemakers, a speaker seriesand podcast brought to you by
USC Annenberg's Digital MediaManagement Program.
Join us as we unlock thesecrets to success in an
increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I am thrilled to have Reid Hanson on the show today.
Reed, you have created MarketSurge, which I love.
Your tagline on LinkedIn I'mreading it just so if I'm
looking off screen.
That's why Built businessgrowth machines that work while
you sleep that is every businessowner's dream and it's
something that you're making areality.
And one thing I noticed when Iwas looking at all of my stuff
(00:45):
on you was that you were reallytaking the approach of like we
don't have a problem necessarilygetting leads, but how are we
taking care of nurturing ourclients?
And that is something that Ithink most people, most small
business entrepreneursespecially, fall down in that
area.
So thank you, first andforemost, for being here.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you, I'm and foremost, for being here.
Thank you, I'm really excitedto be here.
This is a great series ofspeakers that you've had and I
hope to add some value to yourfollowers.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, I have no doubt that you will, so I'd love to
hear a little bit about becauseI know that you had originally a
bachelor's in Italian, englishand business- yes.
You got your master's.
You have an MBA, of course, instrategy and finance.
You've had a series of roles atdifferent organizations.
What was that journey like?
To then decide, you know what?
(01:36):
Yeah, let's go to market surgeand see what else I can do?
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Well, absolutely.
You know, I'll try to besuccinct, but I have a funny
take on a humanities major andhow AI is the real enabler of
humanities majors.
We can write the best prompts.
So anyway, that's my two cents.
But out of undergrad I hadinitially thought that I would
(01:58):
go to law school, but my nowwife, her father, was a lawyer
and talked me out of it and so Ichanged gears kind of at the
last minute, after doing a lotof LSAT prep, and went into
technology and sales and learneda lot and I think I was
(02:19):
successful there, despite beingsomewhat of an introvert.
And I'd say that theintroversion kind of continued
through my career.
And I don't say introvert is atotal negative.
I say it is kind of a differentskill set, a different
perspective, and I found overthe years I went on to get my
(02:40):
MBA that I was a little bit morelike geared towards marketing
and so I went from working at astartup and then a large
corporation in Oracle to gettingmy MBA and then I started to
work for some digital agenciesand that helped me make the
transition to full-time marketer.
(03:02):
So I was in business developmentbut then it turned into this
agency that I run in I'm runningtoday.
Now we work with a lot ofservice-based businesses small
businesses, home servicebusinesses and I love working
with people that are experts intheir field you know whether
they're creatives or techniciansand helping them realize that
(03:25):
they can have a steady flow ofleads and that there are tools
that can work while they arebusy working.
And you know, I've beenfascinated.
First it was some of thepowerful tools that come with a
CRM, and then recently it's beenthe AI suite of tools that have
(03:45):
gotten more and more powerful,and those combined really do
drive a lot of business growth.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, Well, one thing that you said service-based
businesses those are businessesthat are not going to be
replaced by AI.
Right, absolutely Right.
It's fantastic.
And there are businesses thatpeople may not realize that
they're really great growthfields and you can make really
good living and become amultimillionaire in
service-based business.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I applaud that you're doing so much for those type of
businesses.
You also mentioned CRMs, whichare really important for any
business, no matter what sizeyou are, and you already brought
in AI to the conversation.
So what I'm finding reallyinteresting is right now we just
started the new term, so we'realready doing summer.
(04:34):
We're in week three of summerand for the digital media
management program, we have somestudents who are very
sophisticated.
They have been working in grossmarketing, performance
marketing, content creationstrategy for years and years and
they understand how thatecosystem works and some of the
AI tools.
(04:54):
And we have students who arebrand new, who are really just
looking at a pivot to a newcareer, or they've been working
in a different type of marketingor sales and they're ready to
learn new approaches and reallyget into the digital side of
things.
So, in your career, talk aboutthat transition and how this
also helps, because doservice-based businesses
(05:16):
typically realize the power ofCRM or you having to educate
them?
There's a mix.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I think there are so many niches within the broad
swath of service-basedbusinesses.
So I'd say one large group Iwork with is photographers, and
photographers are by nature atleast in this century they've
had to learn to use the editingsuite, editing tools, uploading
(05:43):
files back and forth, and sothey're fairly computer savvy
overall.
But I think, just also bynature, they are creatives, and
so they think conceptuallyrather than, for the most part,
are not as much process minded.
And so what I've observed whenI take on a new photography
(06:03):
studio client their businessflows in big spurts.
They have big spurts ofactivity, sales, and then while
they're busy creating thebeautiful photos, they neglect
the funnel.
You know the funnel isn'tgetting filled, and so I mean
they're frankly busy hard atwork making money.
But that gap between where thesales activity stopped and then
(06:29):
the busy period ends and thenthey start trying to fill up
their calendar again, it'sproblematic because it costs
them a lot of money and it'scapacity that they have that is
not being used.
You know, I'd say others are somany like if you talk about,
like a plumber or an HVACprofessional.
They are just always busy, theyalmost never, they don't
(06:51):
necessarily even need, you know,more leads or anything but.
But they could benefit and theydo benefit from a CRM that
manages appointments.
It prevents no-shows, becauseno-shows is always an issue for
whether it's getting a bid or adelivery, and so that is a
(07:11):
different issue.
But they are not very techsavvy at all.
In general they have been verytechnical and focused and with
more work than they can handle.
So it will vary by grouping,but well, and then I'll say
there's another group that theydo super high volume of sales.
So you think, like the solarpanel salespeople, the pest
(07:31):
control, security sales they dosuch a high volume of sales
outbound calls, inbound leads,high spend on ads that they tend
to be very sophisticated.
But they are very peopleintensive and there's
opportunity to replace some ofthe busy work with tech tools,
because we know there are a lotof tools.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
There are tools that you know, I mean in my LinkedIn.
Every day I probably get peoplewho want to help me with leads
generation or help me with thisor help me with that, but having
something that's a full funnelprocess right would seem to be
(08:16):
much more advantageous, nomatter what kind of business you
have.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Well, absolutely so this business was built and I
think as many should be withlike hand.
Absolutely so this business wasbuilt and I think as many
should be hand in hand with anindustry sponsor.
And this industry sponsor wasmy wife, who is a photo studio
owner.
Oh, wow, and she informed andshe would be one of the more
atypical photographers that sheis in fact very process-minded,
(08:41):
that she is in fact very processminded and, and she'd probably
say that her, her creative, herart kind of suffers because
she's so like controlling andOCD about everything has to be
perfectly sequenced.
And but the thing is that shewas able to always keep a full
calendar because she had theright team in place, she had the
(09:04):
right verbiage, the right ads,the website was formatted
correctly, and so we took allthose processes and leveraged an
existing framework, a softwareplatform, GoHighLevel.
I don't know if many arefamiliar, but we took her
processes and replicated themfor other photography studios
(09:25):
across the country and they sawtremendous success.
And so when we realized thatthat was a formula, we started
to replicate this and partner,either formally or informally,
with industry coaches andhigh-performing practitioners in
a given industry.
(09:46):
And you know, and I'd recommendthat approach for anybody doing
a tech startup is they eitherbring this deep, deep expertise
in a niche or you partner withsomebody that does and, as a
result, we create processes thatare industry specific.
Then we replicate them andbuild out that industry and then
(10:06):
continue to add more groupingsto our portfolio.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, and you mentioned go high level, which I
think is really interesting,because what I've seen with
independent practitioners is thetendency to go from one to the
next, to the next Right, so Ican't even name all of them, but
there is one systemio fromfrance and then everybody was
leaving, so it was on adifferent one and then moving
(10:30):
over system and then moving overto go high level and then
moving over to the next thing,because we I say we, but it's
not me, it's a lot of people,you know this group, who really
doesn't have a person or acompany like yourself that can
help systemize all the processes.
So even if you get help from asupposed expert from within one
(10:50):
of these ecosystems, they'rereally not going to understand
how to build it out for yourspecific business.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Right, right, so we'd be like the implementer in that
equation, but it is animportant role because, you know
, as you say, moving from oneplatform to another, I am trying
to stay on top of potentialtrends and so I I take a call
from almost every sales personthat that they calls, just so I,
you know, I know what's outthere and you know I want to be
(11:17):
abreast of what's next.
But, yeah, it's valuable tohave a partner that can navigate
the technology well and evenI'd say we're definitely a level
up from just chat support.
We're actively project managingimplementations and advising
our clients, telling them whenthere's a market trend they
(11:37):
should be aware of, or somethingwe're seeing in one account
that they should try toreplicate.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, and you mentioned that small businesses
really need to understand andlearn artificial intelligence
tools, particularly, of course,generative AI is what we usually
talk about when we're havingthese conversations In the
universe of collegiate students.
I'm finding that a lot ofundergrads who go into grad
school in undergrad they'rebeing told not to use any AI,
(12:07):
and then in my classes I'msaying, no, you must use AI and
let's actually turn some of yourassignments into more AI first
focused assignments so thatthey're actually getting
application.
Same thing on the Intuit SmallBusiness Council, which I just
rolled off a membership of that,which I just rolled off a
membership of that.
But last year we went toCongress and talked about how AI
powers Main Street and how it'sreally important that, from the
(12:29):
SBA through the whole ecosystem, that small businesses are
understanding and getting tolearn how to use AI in their
workflows.
So I'd love to hear a littlebit more about you know, your
take on that, what you've seenwork really well and some of the
processes that people need tobe thinking about just to start
(12:49):
the process of learning, notjust going into chat or going to
some other platform and justdoing basic prompts and things,
but what are really the best usecases.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Well, that's a great question.
You know everybody thinks of AIfirst as, like the generative
roles, the, you know, generatingblogs or graphics for sites,
and you know that's helpful,very helpful.
But you know, and I'll go backto my point earlier about you
know, I think the humanitiesmajors are going to benefit the
most from AI because you know wewere critical thinkers and
(13:23):
we're writers and I thinkcultivating the skills of
curiosity and of being able tothink and observe technical,
both problems and potentialsolutions and to be able to
articulate those to ask the GPTto help you, is going to be
(13:47):
really important.
Now, some of the best use casesI've seen are, so you know, if
I'm talking about these homeservices businesses that I'm
working with quite frequently.
Sometimes they're one man shops, you know, making tons of money
but doing everything themselves, taking all the calls, maybe
not doing the bookkeeping, butthey are missing calls all the
(14:09):
time.
You know message are left andso a great use of AI is, you
know, either a chat or a voicereceptionist that can.
You know, ideally they identifythemselves as an AI agent, but
it helps keep things moving andwe know that speed of response
is really critical and peopleare very quick to move to the
(14:33):
next vendor when somebodydoesn't pick up the phone.
That's a great use case.
Underrated, I think, isgenerating high-quality web
storefronts, which is web pages,high quality web storefronts,
which you know, web pages andyou can ask chat, gpt and
there's other platforms as wellGemini and Grok that do a great
(14:53):
job as well to generate HTMLcode for websites, landing pages
, so you can continue to buildout your website.
You can take that same HTMLcode, copy it, paste it into GPT
and ask for updates and changes.
You know so you can.
You can do your a lot of yourwebsite maintenance through that
(15:13):
.
You know you can ask itquestions about roles in the
business that you aren'tfamiliar with, like you know.
Take a look at my financialreports or my sales numbers or
my reviews that I'm I'm gettingpublicly.
Tell me what I should bethinking about.
What trends can you help meidentify?
The GBT agent in ChatGPT isexcellent at that.
(15:35):
The most advanced level is sofar that I've come across is the
agentic AI that you canactually, with the latest ChatGP
GPT high model, can log intosystems for you that you would
do yourself, can book yourtravel.
It can do simple tasks and theone that I'm having the most fun
(15:56):
with.
I've been using a lot is cursor,which is able to generate full
apps, set up servers, build outthe middleware, you know, make
connections, you know.
So I built I built a full appon over the weekend to help me
with some large CSV files that Iwas I was using for a customer
(16:17):
and you know, basically I nowhave a website, a working
website, that I can it's likepassword protected and I can
filter large files that Icouldn't do on my desktop and it
has been.
It's just tremendous and reallyit's like just a matter of
describing what you want andthen asking the engine to
generate it and then say like,oh, I need this tweaked a little
(16:39):
bit and it does it and itpushes out the production role.
So that's probably just thebeginning.
I think we're just going to seemore and more agentic
opportunities and that willenable people to do more and
more of the jobs they like andbe able to generate business and
find the fit, find the rightcustomers, using these very
(17:02):
powerful tools.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, it's interesting because when I'm
talking about these tools withstudents or with most people in
marketing or PR in those worldsright, we're talking about it in
a very different way than theway that you're talking about it
with your service-basedbusinesses, because what you're
really saying is this isdemocratizing a lot of the
process of taking the painpoints of owning a business If
(17:24):
you don't have time to do allthe menial tasks.
You're talking about thebusinesses that are always busy.
They don't have time to sit andnurture new leads because
they're out in the field all day, and they probably have all
their workers out in the fieldall day as well.
So it's really helping createmore growth and create the
businesses of the future, theones that we dream about having
(17:46):
right, but that we, as maybesolo practitioners or small
businesses, can't always achievebecause we have monetary
barriers or time or we're not.
You know, we don't have theright brain functionality to
like, understand and be able tosit and do all these different
tasks.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Well and I love what you're saying the
democratization of thistechnology.
It is just so wonderful thatthese platforms all have free
tiers that are very powerful,and so in many cases, you can
use the free tiers of thesetools to do everything you want,
and a lot of people may feelintimidated by some of what
(18:25):
we're describing here, but forthose that have never tried it,
that probably does not includeyour audience, but I do tell
people that it is much moreaccessible than you can imagine.
Basically, it's like you canopen up the app and ask it how
to use it and it will explain itto you, educate you on how to
use it and, in words that youcan understand, it'll learn how
(18:48):
you like to learn as well.
So it's just remarkabletechnology and, by necessity, it
needs to be democratized inorder to get the best learning
into the algorithm, and so it isa bit symbiotic.
But also, you know, thepowerful people in this field
have been very generous andthey've realized that right away
(19:10):
.
They haven't put huge costbarriers in front of people that
could be users and providingvalue back.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Your background also.
You worked at Northwestern.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I did.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Which seems a little different than some of the
different other roles thatyou've had.
Do you feel like creating thatcustom programs for
professionals and managers alsohelped you figure out how to
design market surge and you knowall the different steps to
implement?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I think so.
Like I said, I really liketeaching and enabling, and so my
role at Northwestern was and Ilive here in Evanston that's
very close, I'm just a fewblocks from campus.
So it was a great time in mylife where I got to walk to work
.
I don't know how many peopleget to do that, but I enjoyed
working with a wide variety ofcompanies, associations and
(20:06):
healthcare organizations todesign either for high
potentials or veryline-of-business specific
programs to help them learndifferent parts of the business.
And, of course, ai even thenwas a hot topic and we were
trying to help them enable thatin their environments.
(20:28):
And it was just you know.
I think that experience reallyhelped me to think through how
to educate my clients, and so itdoes.
There's that concept of skillstacking, where you know and and
sometimes by accident ithappens.
But I think my experiences havedefinitely built into where I
(20:49):
am here and what we do at marketsurge.
It's it's uh, it's funny howlife kind of sets the table for
you.
But Right.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, it really does, but you have to be willing and
open to say yes, right.
Yes, uh-huh yeah so you wentfrom that position walking to
work to the studio, to filling amarket gap.
Does your wife still have aphotography business?
Is she probably ingrained inmarket search?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
she does still have her photography business and
it's doing very well.
So we're, we have ourindependent businesses.
You know, I, I, our businesssupports hers and and she is,
you know, like she's been doingthis about 10 years on her own
and I think she is ready forsomething else and so she's
(21:40):
starting to start look aroundand so that's that'll be an
interesting process for her.
She keeps saying she wants togo into a corporate role, but I
was like, how could you do that?
Like you know, that's so fun torun a business and just try
something a little different.
But she is a tremendous talentand has been very successful.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So what does your work look like today?
You have market surge.
You had to figure out how toget clients.
You started out with oneindustry, started creating
profiles and protocols for otherindustries.
Do you still have to walk towork or do you work from home
primarily?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I do work from home and I have a remote team across
the country and then a fewinternational employees that
support some of the technicalfunctions.
So I do a lot of sales andbusiness development, and so I
say sales when it comes to newclients.
And then business developmentI'm often working with our
current clients to take whatevernext step in their marketing
(22:43):
process needs to happen, andlately we've been working with
some logistics providers acouple of our clients and we're
and that's an industry wherethere's a lot of opportunity.
I'd say they're not very.
They don't use a lot oftechnology.
It's a very handshake andface-to-face contact type of
business.
But they so tremendousopportunity and we're looking at
(23:06):
potential ways that the AI canbe a part of the carrier
evaluation process, the, youknow, automating the quoting
process and a lot of systems youknow just a lot of different
systems they use and hopefullyjust connecting those into the
one hub that they can operatefrom and get like a data
(23:28):
dashboard on.
But yeah, that's really fun.
There's a whole variety ofsophistication in every industry
.
Within the industry they'revery similar, but then you go
from industry to industry andthat's all different.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, the nuances.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
One.
So how did your personal brandand the contacts you had and, of
course, that your wife had inphotography as well play into
growing your business andstarting something new that I
mean this is very different thansome of the other things that
you've done.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, and that's been a really good learning I've had
over this time, leading MarketSurge.
At first, so, coming from asales background, I was selling
somebody else's product you knowan Oracle database or a machine
or middleware or whatever itmay be, and I had tremendous
resources for marketing todescribe the value.
(24:21):
And when I come to Market SurgeI'm thinking, well, it's kind
of a numbers game and you knowwe do good things and I'll just
try to contact as many people aspossible.
You know I was thinking coldemailing was going to be the
best way and maybe a little bitof cold calling.
But over time what I've reallylearned is that the business is
doing better when I'm morevisible.
(24:44):
So when I you know I've startedproducing a podcast this year
and interviewing otherentrepreneurs and learning from
them and networking.
I joined the chamber ofcommerce.
I, you know I've been trying toguest on other podcasts and
collaborate and blogging I'vejust what's funny is I don't
know that I've had any directnew clients from those
(25:06):
approaches, but it does seemlike my relationship with
clients and new clients.
They see multiple touch pointsfrom where I'm present and
visible in these conversationsand seems to build a little bit
(25:26):
of trust, like if I can speakpublicly about the value and you
know like my face can be onscreen or I can write blogs that
are compelling.
That has really seemed to justbe more valuable than the sales
efforts that I assumed wouldwork.
So, yeah, it's been a bit of asurprise.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So well, I love hearing that, because I always
preach that podcasting is thebest marketing and sales
opportunity you have, becausesomebody else is saying that
you're an expert in your field.
You're getting to share yourexpertise.
You get a lot of content thatyou can share as blog posts,
social media, newsletter contentall you know and you get video
(26:05):
and you get static and all ofthese different pieces that you
can put together as part of yourconstruct.
And then, of course, it helpswith your SEO, because other
people all the backlinks.
Yeah, yeah, so thank you foractually sharing that.
Yeah, huge plug for podcasting.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I would just say that's been the best channel I
have what is the name of yourpodcast and how have you found
that?
Speaker 3 (26:32):
yeah, it's called inside marketing with market
surge, and I just did it on awhim, you know, I I just like, I
kind of asked chat gpt toeducate me on what do I need to
do to do a podcast, and it gaveme a list of platforms that I
needed.
I didn't realize I needed botha video editor and, like a
platform publisher, you know.
(26:52):
So I've been using descript andthen publishing on transistor
and which has worked pretty well, and I'm kind of a one man show
.
I do have a team and I'm tryingto get them trained on this, so
I don't have to do this allmyself.
But so far it's me and you know, I've taken the approach of you
know, and, anika, I'd love tohave you on my podcast.
(27:13):
You have an open invite.
I'm going to send you a linkafter this.
But I've been reaching out topodcasts, listening to podcasts
and sending them maybe a littleemail about, like how I might be
a fit or what we could talk,and then when I go on their
podcast, I invite them to comeback and it's also been like a
great conversation starterPeople that like have a business
(27:34):
that's interesting, that I'venever met before.
Just reach out to them onLinkedIn and say like, hey,
would you be interested inchatting?
And if they understand thevalue of a backlink.
It is a very easy sell and it'sa very less investment, but
it's been so valuable to makeall these contacts I've learned
about, like technologies that Ididn't, I didn't know so much
(27:54):
about and, you know, just justbeen tremendous all around and
you know that definitely, uh, isa bit of a labor for me as an
introvert, but I the benefitshave been totally worth it, yeah
fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Well, you would never know.
You're an introvert.
My daughter is an introvert andshe can talk to anybody anytime
, but then of course she needsto go home and just completely
decompress.
I'm an extrovert and I stillneed to go home and decompress.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, no, that's what I'll do.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I'll probably be asleep after a few minutes,
after we wrap to excite you, itcontinues to surprise and
delight you, because oftentimeswe can build a business and then
we get tired of working in theminutia, we get tired of doing
the same thing over and overagain and trying to figure out,
(28:38):
like, how am I going to continueto grow my business, stay
excited, but not, and you know?
Then my follow-up question tothat would also be you're the
face of the business.
You said that things do better,but you can't be there all the
time.
So how do you then, you know,stay inclined to continue your
business but then also findother people who can step in for
(29:00):
you?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, that is a challenge.
You know.
As far as what makes me excitedis, I, you know, have been
really immersed in thetechnologies.
You know like I love to talk to.
You know, product hunt isanother place where I've been
reaching out to people and andinviting them to chat or or do a
podcast with me, and they havesome cool ideas.
These are people all over theworld that have cool startups,
(29:24):
cool, cool widgets, and and thenso I'm I'm just excited about
the, the rate of change, ofchange in the technology space,
ai in particular.
It's like every day there'ssomething just groundbreaking
and hard to believe that this ishappening.
Usually we used to wait years inbetween these big leaps forward
(29:45):
, but now it's like every week,and so I love the technology.
It's like every week, and so Ilove the technology.
I love seeing these returnsfrom our clients that you know,
people that came from liketotally not familiar with
technology and to making thatleap and using the vocabulary of
marketing frameworks and beingvery deliberate and organized
(30:07):
with their efforts.
You know that's very satisfying, I guess, like kind of the
teacher instinct.
You know the very rewardingresults there, and then I have
tried my best to enable myemployees to be autonomous and
give them their realms.
So, for instance, one of myemployees is she has an interior
(30:30):
design business on the side andand so I thought, you know,
wouldn't it be great if shecould help?
You know, if those skills couldtranslate to something in the
technology realm?
So she really wasn't like amarketer per se.
She has some experience withsocial media, but you know, I I
kind of invited her to do thingsand she was constantly checking
(30:50):
in with me Like, do you likethis design?
Do you like you know?
I kind of invited her to dothings and she was constantly
checking in with me Like do youlike this design?
Do you like you know how?
About this like font, you know?
And and I did take her side onetime and I said you know, I
don't know if you know, but I'mkind of colorblind and I really
need you to own this and I needyou to tell me what looks good.
And you know, I want you toreally run with this.
(31:11):
And she has and has donefantastic.
Like the bet paid off and herskills did translate and as
she's had to learn like someHTML and and how to use some new
tools for her, she's kind ofapproached it the way she would.
Interior design job and youknow project managers, the
(31:32):
designers and and just has hasbeen tremendous, and so I look
for opportunities to do thatwhere I can say you own this and
you know, so, like I'm probablylooking to hire somebody to do
my podcast and say you own this,I will record you, you do
everything else and you knowknow, but there's a lot of tasks
that, uh, that I, I think that.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
But giving people on the team a sense of ownership
and finding people that liketreasure, that like that is how,
how I'll grow, I think, and andstill still want to keep doing
this yeah, yeah, wonderful, andI really appreciate using that
example of somebody who mighthave been an atypical hire but
(32:13):
you saw the potential, you sawwhere she could fit in to your
team and what skill sets she didhave in her other work.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
That would translate really well, just to underline
your point, in this day and age,you know, with the tools as
they are, I don't know thatthere is much that can't be
learned on the job.
I think that, like we're in inthe time where you can learn
(32:45):
just about anything and if youhave like characteristics or
qualities, I think employersshould look at that much more
than they should Like.
Do you have experience on thisparticular platform?
You know, I think employersshould look at that much more
than they should Like.
Do you have experience on thisparticular platform?
I think that would be veryshort-sighted to really focus on
platform over skills andqualities.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And you also mentioning that you're
colorblind.
So many times we forget aboutaccessibility.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I mean even for somebody who's not completely
hearing, impaired visionimpaired, other impairments.
But that is really important toconsider still when we're
thinking about fonts and colordesign elements.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Absolutely, and I wouldn't say I'm not majorly
colorblind.
But green and blue, thatspectrum is very difficult for
me and usually it hasn'tmanifested so far into a safety
issue but it has definitely inmy wardrobe choices.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
My wife always tells me One of the things that you
said you'd be willing to answeris an unconventional marketing
move that worked really well foryou and for your clients.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, well, let me talk about, like, a specific
tactic that we've beenexperimenting with.
So you know, I don't thinkwe're the first to do this, but
we were really.
I think somebody had.
I think this idea sparked.
Somebody on our team received aPayPal like for one cent from a
friend and, and, and it wasinteresting that, like I mean
(34:15):
all the things that go to thespam folder the PayPal email
will always hit your inbox, youknow, and and it always catches
your attention, so that thatkind of evolved into this two
cent campaign and maybe peoplehave attempted this.
But we will target somebody thatwe think is in a buying
position and send them a twocents on PayPal, and you know
(34:38):
they get that email at the topand you can add a little
description and you say hi, Ijust wanted to give you my two
cents.
I think your business is great,but I think you could be doing
even better.
We'd love to chat, and so wekind of hacked the PayPal system
to make it work for a marketer,and two cents is a small price
to pay for a phone conversation,tremendous response, and it's
(35:01):
just been a really fun thing,you know, and the plenty
approach I think is just startson a positive note, rather than
like what are you doing?
You're trying to steal.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That could go very many ways.
Yeah, it could Right.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
And it does, it does.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
But that is very clever and I actually haven't
heard of people using that.
So thank you for bringinganother idea to the table for us
all.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you have an offer wherepeople can go to your website
and get a free local map oftheir search engine ranking.
We talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Absolutely so.
A lot of businesses, especiallythe kind of businesses that I
work with, they're servicebusinesses where it's in-person
delivery.
They're very reliant on howthey come up in search engines
and you know so.
If somebody is searching for ACunit repair, you want to be in
the top.
You know the top spot iscoveted, the top three is
(35:59):
awesome.
But you know there aredefinitely some fundamentals
that companies can do.
But what I can provide is a heatmap of a radius around your
business.
So you pick your addressablearea, give me, like the miles
away from your business thatyou'd either drive to deliver or
that they would be willing todrive to you, and I can give you
, in each quadrant, heat map youknow it's green, yellow, red
(36:23):
based on are you in the topthree, top 20, or not in the top
20.
And I can give you the names ofthe businesses that are ahead
of you.
Now that those are good datapoints because you can mimic
their approaches and climb inthe rankings, or you can hire a
consultant that that can assistyou in doing that.
But yeah, it's, you know we cando that.
We can turn that around in justa few minutes and just give you
(36:46):
that piece of data just to knowwhere you're ranking.
And you know like a business,for instance, might be ranking
really well in certain quadrantsof the city and not in others
and that would mean that there'sa stronger competitor in that
area or that you know.
Maybe that's a time to reachout for a backlink and somebody
in that little community.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So, yeah, fantastic and that is.
I mean, that's hugely valuableand it's something that we talk
about in the class that I'mteaching right now.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
It's great Awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
We're going to be going yeah, we'll be touching
base after this, because I'dlove to show your tool to my
students.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Is there anything else small medium-sized business
service-based business shouldreally think about as they're
getting their start, they'relooking for the person to work
with.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
I would look at if you werelooking for a consultant to help
you with the marketing of yourbusiness.
I would want to speak to thembefore you engage.
I would not pick them based onthe technology that they.
I would try to talk to them andsee, you know, is this somebody
that is going to listen to meand understand my business or is
(37:53):
this somebody that's going todictate how it's going to be
done?
And so I think that engagementis really important, because you
should look at hiring a humanrather than relying on
technology, Because thetechnologies are just constantly
evolving.
You can't really say you'll beon one CRM for years and years.
(38:14):
You'll probably be changing,but if you have a good partner,
then that will last you a verylong time.
So I'd say get to know theperson, get to know you know.
There's a lot of free resources.
So some things you canoutsource to a partner, a lot of
things you can learn, and a lotof things are very simple to
(38:34):
pick up.
There's YouTube channels thatcover a ton of knowledge and a
lot of like tips and tricks andhacks, but then there's also the
GPT engines that can teach youin the way that you need to
learn.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, fantastic.
We're going to have everybodygo to marketsearchio.
Of course we'll have that inthe show notes.
We'll also have your podcast inthere.
I'm looking forward to being anew listener and giving you a
read with you, so, and you'retalking to you about your
podcast, my other podcast, andhaving some fun further
conversations on these.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Yeah, I'd love to collaborate.
That would be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Thank you, reed.
It's been a pleasure having youon Mediascape and thank you to
everybody who's been watchingthis episode or listening to it.
Leave us a rating review if youhaven't.
Give us a follow if you haven't, and we'll be back again with
another amazing expert to talkabout being a digital change
maker, how they're helpingchange the narrative for
(39:37):
businesses everywhere throughtheir knowledge, their expertise
and their services.
On Mediascape Insights fromDigital Changemakers brought to
you by USC Annenberg's MS inDigital Media Management Program
.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital
Media Management Program, visitus on the web at dmmuscedu.
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