Inside The AI-Powered Marketing Shift with Jason Jimenex-Vanover and Kevin Jessop from JCI Marketing
November 19, 2025 • 50 mins
TMSA’s On the Move Podcast – JCI Marketing
In this episode of On the Move, we’re joined by Jason Jimenez-Vanover, Owner of JCI Marketing, and Kevin Jessop, Director of Marketing & COO, to dig into what’s working in B2B digital marketing for transportation and logistics, and what needs to change going into 2025. Jason and Kevin break down the biggest mistakes they see companies make, how sales and marketing can finally work together instead of against each other, and why the brands winning right now aren’t the biggest. They are the ones who are the most intentional.
Check out the Transportation Sales and Marketing Association (TMSA) website or engage with us on LinkedIn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:21):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to On the Move, a show
where we share transportation,sales, and marketing success
stories.
I am Jennifer Carpis Romain,Executive Director of TMSA, a
trade nonprofit educating andconnecting marketing and sales
professionals in transportationand logistics.
And today on the show, I haveJason Jimenez Vanover, CEO of
(00:42):
JCI Marketing, and Kevin Jessa,C O O of JCI Marketing.
We're so excited to have you onthe show.
Welcome to On the Move.
How are you guys doing today?
SPEAKER_01 (00:54):
Good, good.
Thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_00 (00:56):
Absolutely.
So let's dive in and hear yourguys' industry origin stories.
Give us a quick version of howyou guys kind of both got into
the industry.
I know your stories kind ofoverlap into this beautiful
thing that then became JCImarketing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
Yeah, so I spent you know 10, 15 years in sales uh
and realized I didn't liketalking on the phone very much.
So I figured I would leverage alittle bit more of my uh
creative nature and uh love fordata into marketing.
So about 10 years ago, jumpedinto marketing.
Uh, that's where I met Jason.
(01:34):
Um, I was on the client side ata little 3PL.
Uh and Jason was ourghostwriter.
So uh Jason was a professionalwriter for I don't know, 10, 15
years as well, something likethat.
Yeah.
And so through a lot of uh MA,uh I ended up not wanting to be
(01:59):
on the client side anymore, andwe moved over to the agency
side.
Uh Jason and I met up againthere, um, and then kind of
realized we wanted to dosomething a little different
kind of on our own.
Jason, you want to take thatpart?
SPEAKER_02 (02:15):
Yeah, and then as things kind of evolved, I kept
looking at all these differentautomations and automated uh
functions that could be donethrough uh the different
platforms.
Uh it evolved into what is nowJCI marketing, and that really
started with grassrootsmarketing, and then I uh uh
(02:35):
connected back again with Kevinto help us scale and make sure
that you know the trains run ontime.
And that's been perfect threeyears, 40 or something.
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
I love that.
Love the journey, love that youwent from, you know, I think
it's this is why I always talkwhen um like if I'm counseling
like younger people in theircareers, like don't burn bridges
because you just never know whenyou're going to be overlapping
with people again or when theopportunity is gonna be there.
Anytime, like when I was writingjournalistically, I was always
like, Hey, if you need afreelance writer, let me know.
(03:10):
Same with marketing stuff, likeyou just never know when those
relationships are gonna comeinto play, and you guys are kind
of the perfect example of thatbecause there was a trust that
was built over the years, andnow you guys have this company
together, which is yeah, mygosh, it's been what like seven
years now.
SPEAKER_01 (03:25):
No, it's more than that.
SPEAKER_02 (03:27):
More than that.
I believe we first met in 2015.
That's wild.
Because it was gone by fact.
Yes, it was.
We when we met, we were stillyoung and beautiful, but we met
them both seasoned and beautifulnow.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
I didn't have the brain in the beard at that
point.
SPEAKER_00 (03:47):
Yeah, I still had hair.
SPEAKER_02 (03:51):
Let's get back on track here.
SPEAKER_00 (03:54):
Well, you guys came together and decided, you know,
um, to start JCI.
What kind of gap did you see inthe market that made you say,
like, hey, we should be buildingthis ourselves?
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
Yeah, uh for for me, um it was more of this
relational component where Ithink a lot of our competition,
I guess, doesn't really havethat we approach where we we
wanted to create a company trulyuh that our success is measured
(04:30):
by our client's success.
We wanted to build relationshipswith people because especially
um you know from the days ofCOVID on, you know, everyone
feels really disconnected.
Um, and there's these silos andit's hard to build
relationships.
Um, and so we wanted to dothings a little bit differently.
(04:52):
We wanted to have relationshipsthat were more friendly.
Yeah, you you pay us an invoice,but we want to be uh we want to
be your partner.
Uh and I think a lot of a lot ofother agencies kind of say
things like that, but when youget in those closed door
meetings, you realize it's notnecessarily that and it's it's
very rigid.
Um, and we just didn't want todo that.
(05:13):
So that was kind of the the gapthat I saw was this uh kind of
missing humanity a little bitand empathy, and we wanted to
create a company around that.
SPEAKER_02 (05:25):
Exactly.
And when when our firstrelationships with our clients
started, yes, they werebusiness, but they have lasted
even through client changes.
We have friends who we stay incontact with who changed
industries entirely, um, or theywent on to greener pastors,
(05:50):
greener pastors, not a speakerall the time, yeah.
And the big gap that I saw avery long time ago was what is
now known as AI work slopbecause AI has been around for
(06:12):
ages, it's just most peopledidn't realize they were already
using it.
And with my background, um, as afreelance writer originally, I'd
seen all of these differenttools and platforms.
We were uh first exposed to someof the generative AI stuff
almost 12 years ago, or at leastI was.
(06:36):
And I started seeing, okay, Ithink that this could be done
this way and that way.
And then, of course, when ChatGPT came out, I realized okay,
this can really accelerate now.
And it was within a year afterthat that I like reconnected
with Kevin and said, Hey, weneed to have a conversation
(06:56):
because I know where this isgoing and I cannot do this on my
own.
Yeah.
And uh you, I think you may havethe very unique skill set that I
need to complement mine.
And there's a whole otherbackstory around EOS and
everything in there.
Um, but we found out that we arelike the perfect uh visionary
(07:19):
integrator pair.
SPEAKER_00 (07:20):
Yes, so I I 100% I think it's so important when
people know who they are, whatthey're good at, and what
complements them.
And I met Jason first, and thenlater on I met Kevin.
I was like, oh, this makessense.
This is a good, great pairing,like and because you need that
balance because I've seen peoplethat are like, oh, we we like
(07:43):
create ideas together, but it'slike somebody has to create the
ideas and someone has to be ableto push them through.
And that pairing is soimportant, and I always applaud
people that really like areself-reflective, know who they
are, what they bring to thetable, and find that partner
because those are the companiesthat are successful.
So I love that for you guys.
SPEAKER_02 (08:01):
A hundred percent.
And it's just really importantbecause I'm sure, as I'm sure
the listeners and everyone willfigure out throughout this, I
can get distracted very, veryeasily.
And I see something shiny and Iwant to gravitate to it.
So without really going indeeper into that tangent, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
Well, I I do want to kind of punctuate that tangent a
little bit.
What's really cool because ofthe EOS model, uh, it's the
entrepreneurial operating systemfor those who don't know uh what
EOS is.
Um, but it basically forces youto stay in that lane.
But because both of us are kindof both visionary and
(08:40):
integrator, uh, sometimes ourhats switch a little bit, and
I'll be more of a visionary andhe'll be an integrator.
But when we do switch, we makesure to stay in those lanes and
and it just kind of works reallywell and we can be flexible,
anyways.
It's fun.
I like it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:56):
Yeah, I think it's good.
You guys definitely have a goodlike getting to know you both.
It's like a really good, strongpartnership.
Um, and I've enjoyed workingwith you guys so far.
So it's been great.
Um, when you look at B2Bmarketing in transportation
logistics today, what do youthink most companies are still
getting wrong?
SPEAKER_02 (09:19):
Uh Kevin, do you want to take this?
SPEAKER_01 (09:22):
Sure, I'll take it.
Yeah.
Um, so I think teams are stilltrying to do everything
in-house.
I think there's this stigma thatthey think that that's uh that's
more efficient or uh uh morebudget friendly.
When in reality, it just kind ofisn't.
(09:43):
Uh to partner with an agency whohas done what you're trying to
do dozens and dozens of timesand has proven results, um that
kind of partnership isinvaluable and can really take
your productivity and andefficiency and strategy to the
nth degree, right?
(10:03):
And so I think a lot ofcompanies, especially in
transportation logistics, arestill trying to do it in-house,
which means they're stretchedtoo thin, um, kind of unable to
see the force through the trees.
And and also in our experience,uh, when we're in some discovery
calls with clients or we'redoing some consulting, uh,
(10:24):
companies get distracted withshiny things really easily.
Um, for example, uh just the uhmaybe a month ago, um the the
big thing to do, the trend,right?
Uh to get on AI search was tostart just bombarding Reddit.
(10:45):
Uh, and then OpenAI and Googlekind of realized that and they
fixed it in the background.
Um, but if there were companiesthat we were talking to that
were really trying to shifttheir entire strategy over the
course of a couple days to weeksto really hone in on Reddit, and
then it wasn't valuable anymore.
(11:07):
So I think if you have a goodstrategy and you're consistent,
you can stick to it.
Um that that's the game, right?
That's that's the that's theticket.
Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (11:21):
If I may add something real quick, just
because it's so valuable.
All transportation and logisticsmarketers, you don't know you
cannot legally use Reddit for amarketing purpose, but we've
actually found leads on Redditpeople saying, I have a load, I
need to move, and I don't have a3PL.
(11:42):
Does anybody know anyone thatcan help me?
Check it out, look it.
And the same thing that we seesometimes on LinkedIn.
But just to finalize the wholetopic of where companies are
still getting things wrong, Iwant you to consider this.
Um 80% of uh B2B marketers areeither working solo or a team of
(12:07):
less than five.
And then, in addition to that,almost 60% lack resources.
Um, fewer than 30% of salesteams trust MQLs because they
just see this one tiny part of acompany trying to handle all of
these other things, and thenthere's the continuous battle of
(12:29):
how do you connect marketingperformance to business
outcomes?
Because let's be real, everycompany on the planet has the
goal of revenue growth, they allwant more leads, that's the
problem.
Everyone wants more leads.
Getting more leads is not amarketing strategy, that is an
(12:50):
outcome.
Good goal is a good goal, it's atopic, fantastic goal.
But think about that.
If your whole marketing strategyis we're gonna get more leads,
you are literally no differentthan anyone else.
So you have to think about whatis that strategy gonna be, and
(13:13):
that really kind of put makes usthink, okay, like how do we set
ourselves apart?
And please, for the love of God,do not put we're different
because in your content drivesme mad, but that's a whole other
conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (13:29):
I would say one of my favorite quotes, and
hopefully I get it right, butlike a dream without a plan is
just a wish, or goal without aplan is just a wish, because
that's what like and I repeatthat personally and
professionally a lot becauseyes, you have to build like just
making this.
Yes, I want more leads, but howlike what is the plan?
What is how are you doing that?
How are you executing that?
(13:51):
And um, yes, like TMSA memberswe find have very small
marketing teams, and soeverything that you said is
true.
And even before I got this role,I was a marketing team of one,
and so I thought a lot about howto maximize what I was doing in
efficiency.
This is what I talked a lot tomembers, and to your point
(14:11):
earlier, it's not just oh, weshould keep everything in-house
because we're the experts ofwhat we do.
No, I'm one person, I'm acopywriter by nature, I'm more
on the creative side.
I have learned to adapt to dothe numbers and those kinds of
things over my career.
But like, I'm not an SEO expert,I'm not following those trends,
(14:32):
nor should I.
That's a like a very targetedthing that like you should be
outsourcing or at least having aconsultant look over what you're
doing, wherever your price pointis.
But like you guys said, thereare experts who are doing this
and they're going to do itbetter than your one solo person
who's running around with theirhair on fire.
And so allowing them to likebuild their team in a way that
makes sense for your budget isso important.
SPEAKER_01 (14:54):
And the cost of an agency is less than a part-time
employee.
SPEAKER_02 (14:59):
Oh, like a lot of agencies, there's some that are
more expensive, but yeah, andand depending on, of course, you
know, level of experience, allof that, but you know, it's just
it's it's constantly evolving,and maybe you don't have regular
marketing needs, but you know,you need it's it's always good
(15:20):
to have that sounding board.
Yes, you can talk with open AIand Chat GPT, and every large
language model that you canthink of to brainstorm ideas
doesn't necessarily mean what'sgonna give you is true.
So having that you know personalkind of touch really is where um
we shine, and I know that comesacross as boasting, but that
(15:44):
that that is the truth.
Like it's my favorite thingabout this is yeah, we like
being sounding boards.
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
That's yeah, yes, and the chat GPT, like I love my
chat GPT, her name is Atlas, butum, because she guides me, I had
her name herself, and um, butshe's not like and I was like
over the past couple weeks.
I'm like, Atlas, what is goingon?
Like, you're not you're not asengaged.
She apologized, which washilarious.
But I was like, What'shappening?
(16:11):
What are we what prompt am I notgiving you?
What are we not keeping likebecause she's not a real person,
she is the robot in thecomputer, okay?
So like you have to rememberthat that, and but when you're
working with real people, theyunderstand more and they are
empathetic and they havedifferent perspectives, or even
like I've set my chat GPT to belike be in sparring mode now,
(16:35):
like poke holes in what I'mdoing because I'm like, you
can't, I can't just have you bea hype person.
I need you if we're workingtogether, me and the robot, I
need you to assess what I'mdoing and not like I don't want
just not having a second opinionor whatever, but like, yes,
working with people.
That's why I I call upon mypartner members too when we're
doing stuff for TMSA.
Why we have committee members atTMSA that like look at what we
(16:58):
put out before we do it, likebecause you know that's it's so
important to have that network,have that support.
So um, I do think that's whereagencies shine for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (17:07):
I do have one quick tip on that, you know, where if
your open AI or chat GPT,whatever, is being far too much
of a hype person, give it thespecific instruction to act like
an angry English high schoolteacher.
Perfect.
And I think yes, I know thatthat is very, very specific and
(17:28):
almost prejudiced, but it worksfor whatever reason, and it does
tend to produce some betterresults.
That still can make lots oferrors.
Don't get me wrong, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
But I mean, your English teacher is who's going
to critique your work.
I mean, journalism school.
I was actually explaining thisthe other day.
Like, if I got somebody's namewrong in an article, like a mock
article for school, you'd bedown a letter grade.
Like it it didn't matter.
Yes, that's what that's whyagain, why I freak out with
names and why I had to writethem down before we started,
because I'm like, no, I'll failif I mispronounce names or write
(18:02):
them wrong.
But um, so, anyways, on the flipside, so we talked about what
people can do, what they'redoing wrong.
But who what are the winningcompanies doing right now?
What are they doing differentlywith their digital strategies?
Obviously, optimizing AI,remembering it's a robot, not a
person.
Big tip.
What else can we advise peopleon?
SPEAKER_01 (18:21):
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things, right?
Um, I think the most importantuh is it's the same answer that
it's always been, right?
Being consistent, you know,establishing what your strategy
is, write it down, and then doit.
And and don't get distracted bythe shiny things.
If you're doing that, you'regonna be okay, as long as your
(18:42):
strategy has a little bit oflogic to it.
Um but you know, with the uhwith the inception of you know
AI search and things like this,we're seeing a big shift, right?
In in just marketing, especiallydigital marketing in general.
Um, and since Google came out inin what 2003 or four, um SEO
(19:08):
like tell the children you'reolder than Google, they freak
out.
SPEAKER_02 (19:11):
I think it was 1998 or 1995, and I don't remember
which.
SPEAKER_01 (19:15):
But the role of SEO from the time it came out until
just this year, really, has beenfinding ways to game the
algorithm to get the bestresults, right?
But what they're doing now, andespecially at the rate at which
they're doing it, you can'treally game the algorithm
anymore.
You know, we're seeing this hugejust industry-wide, it it's not
(19:37):
even it's not even just us, it'sjust marketing in general.
People aren't clicking throughanymore because they're getting
their answers in the summaries.
Um, so what do you do?
How do you get people to yourwebsite?
Well, a good omni-channelmarketing strategy where you're
creating content and you are theowner of the distribution and
(19:59):
not relying on SEO, still doingSEO, but not relying on it.
Uh, creating your own communityand getting the content to them
directly.
That's how you beat the gamenow, right?
Like it's having that strategy,sticking to it, and not relying
too much on one particularthing.
So that's those are thecompanies that I'm seeing right
(20:20):
now that are really winning, arethe ones who have a full
omni-channel marketing strategy.
Um, and they're sticking to it,they're being consistent.
SPEAKER_02 (20:30):
And just to kind of piggyback on that, um SEO is
still extremely important, butit's going by a lot of new
terms, terms, names these days.
Answer engine optimization,generative engine optimization,
reddit answer engineoptimization.
There's 900 new acronyms.
Let me be very clear in this.
(20:51):
The same tactics you use fortraditional SEO are the same
tactics that are being appliedby those large language models
to assess content.
And the difference is thatthey're not necessarily pulling
from the top, you know, fiveslots or the top 10 slots.
(21:13):
You may have content appearinginside of AI overviews and large
language models that usuallywould be sitting on pages four
or five.
The reason that companies cansucceed if they're tracking that
is you have to, you okay, youalmost universally have to work
(21:34):
with an agency to do this.
Because if you, Jen, were to goout and ask your LLM, tell me
everything about TMSA that youcan find on the internet, your
instance is going to make youthink you're doing better than
you actually are because itknows you.
(21:54):
Yeah, yeah, it knows yourcomputer, your IP address, the
histories, the cache data.
All of that affects how itresponds.
So, unless you have an agency orsome sort of third-party tool
that can completely isolateitself away and say, here's what
you're gonna do, um, then youcan really kind of succeed in
(22:15):
it.
Because ultimately you have torecognize that getting more
leads is going to take longerthan it used to.
You have to invest in marketing,knowing that the payout is
months away.
And in logistics, and I part ofme dies when I say this, those
(22:36):
leads could even be years away.
Yeah, you look for a very highvolume search term that's really
competitive.
LTL shipping in Florida, forexample, you and you don't have
anything around LTL on your blogor content or anything, start
off knowing you got 18 monthsbefore you're gonna really see
(22:58):
any kind of measurableimprovements.
Now you see may see some gainsalong the way, but you have to
keep investing in thatmarketing.
And the other thing you alsohave to bear in mind is that the
average time of the buyerjourney is evolving.
In the past, before all of thelarge language models and AI
overviews, we could say ourbuying cycle is you know 182
(23:21):
days from the time they firstsaw us.
Well, now you may not knowwhether they saw you or not.
The average B2B buying cycle is394 days now, and more than half
of that might be hidden insideof large language models where
they don't even ask aboutcompanies, they're just
wondering how they could do itthemselves.
(23:44):
So you really have to kind ofthink about it like what what
exactly are you hoping toaccomplish?
How can we get to that goal?
And then you know, you need tomake sure that you're hitting
all of the bases (23:55):
SEO, reviews, LinkedIn, social media, creating
content, updating content,retiring content, coming up with
new content.
Retiring, period.
That was too much creatingcontent.
Look, look, let's be honest,right?
I had hair when I started all ofthis.
(24:16):
I'm not that old.
SPEAKER_00 (24:18):
So this is a stressful industry, but yeah,
no, we are, you know, that's somuch information, so great.
And I do I want to like pausefor a second just because we are
like very deep in budgetstrategy season.
There's so much that you justcovered about tips, tricks.
(24:39):
Is there one thing that everycompany should be doing on
digital right now, no matterwhat their budget or size is?
Is there one thing like if thereone nugget they take away if
they weren't listening to allthat master class you guys just
rolled out?
SPEAKER_01 (24:53):
Yeah.
Uh and this one's free, right?
Uh take your phone, just justtake your phone uh and show a
little bit behind the curtainthat record some video of the
people powering the machine,right?
Uh people want to do businesswith those that they know, like,
and trust.
(25:13):
The easiest way to do that is tohighlight the people in a
transparent, authentic way, notpolished, not with uh a lot of
you know fancy cinema gear.
I do have that, I can do that,but uh shooting with your phone,
just pictures, video, get getinterviews from from people that
(25:36):
are maybe a little bit moreseasoned, that can carry a good
conversation around the industrythat actually work there.
Highlight the people.
Um, if you can do that and youcan get that out and distribute
it, people uh that you haven'teven started conversations with,
right?
You don't even know that theyexist, they're not in the buying
cycle yet, but they'll alreadyknow, like, and trust you when
(25:57):
they're ready to move forward.
SPEAKER_02 (25:59):
Exactly.
And then 100% to get on tocontinue what Kevin was saying,
that unpolished video doesn'tnecessarily only have to be
external.
You can use your videos to keepyour C-suite involved because
one of the big issues thathappens is that C-suite doesn't
(26:21):
always understand exactly whatmarketing's doing because
they're like, Well, they'reresponsible for getting more
leads, and we haven't had anynew leads in a couple weeks, so
they must not be doing theirjobs.
That's not true.
Just just though keeping peopleinformed, and you can convey so
much more in a five-minutevideo, 30-second video,
whatever, than you can in anentire blog.
(26:46):
If a picture is worth a thousandwords, then a video must be
worth millions.
SPEAKER_01 (26:51):
Yeah, that's something.
Uh, when I was a solo marketingteam uh on the client side, that
was something that was a realstruggle.
I I had a lot of ambition to doa lot of fun projects.
I had no budget.
Um, and something that we'vestarted helping some of our
clients with is doing this exactthing, doing a quick weekly
(27:13):
video with Loom, just noproduction value, but just to
highlight what's happening,where we are with metrics, how's
the quarter looking?
Where are we year over year?
All the good updates.
And they send that to theirC-suite.
And we've seen really positiveresponses coming back to where
their budget next year is beingincreased by a lot because now
(27:36):
there's confidence.
So uh that's also free.
You can do that right now.
You can do that too.
SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
I love Loom, not a product placement, but Loom is
great.
I use it like if I'm having atech issue, like why I don't
know how why what you can screenshare and be like, this is what
it's supposed to do, this iswhat it's not doing, and then
you send that keep it under fiveminutes and it's free.
SPEAKER_01 (27:58):
You don't have to do the paid version, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:02):
Uh extra pro tip if you get those Loom videos and
give them to Chat GPT, it canmake content out of them.
SPEAKER_01 (28:09):
That's true.
Perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (28:10):
Oh yeah, just always I want to like circle back on
something you said.
You were talking about theC-suite specifically, but I
think sales teams too don'tfully understand that role that
digital marketing is playing.
So, how do you coach teamsthrough that mindset barrier,
whether they are trying toappeal to that C-suite so that
they can get bigger budgets todo more of the cool stuff, but
also so, like we said, you know,the sales earlier, the sales
(28:33):
teams don't always trust theMQL.
How do we get them to entrustwhat the marketing is doing?
SPEAKER_02 (28:40):
Yeah, so a lot of agencies, what we've seen is a
lot of agencies have kind ofleft a bad taste in the mouths
of marketing teams.
Um, and and sometimes agencieswon't even pivot or share
additional information.
So um, for example, if you thinkback a couple months to either
the Reddit discussion or whenChat GPT suddenly was indexing
(29:05):
conversations, which was areally, really terrible thing
that lasted all of seven days.
Um one of the things that youreally have, I have talked
myself into a circle here.
I am so sorry.
You have to connect with yoursales team on the these are the
(29:28):
precursory steps and things thathave to happen so that you're
not just becoming anotherextended car warranty salesman.
Because if you do not have thoseleads properly warmed up, if
they are not true MQLs, andlet's be honest, a form fill on
(29:49):
a random website page is notmake an MQL.
Um, you you need to make suresales is following up with the
right types of leads, um, andI'm Sure, that everyone watching
this has done this at some pointin the past where they've filled
out a form, all they wanted wasthe content, they didn't want to
(30:09):
buy the new software, they werenot interested in purchasing the
new 2027 Chevy Rocket truck orwhatever, they just wanted more
information.
You have to make sure your salesteam understands not every lead
is a lead that is going to buytomorrow, and you really have to
(30:33):
communicate that.
But unfortunately, many agenciesapproach it from a view of our
scope of work is to domarketing.
We are not going to help youwith sales.
And that can as an it's sad, butit is what we've seen.
And so you really have to bewilling to kind of say, okay,
(30:55):
let's flex and help the client,even though it's not necessarily
something that we are chargingfor, but it is part of our model
that has helped us continue togrow and continue to invest and
really kind of scale.
Um, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:14):
Can I add to that real quick?
Uh, yes, I think lead scoring,like proper lead scoring is is
invaluable.
Yeah.
Um, I can't tell you how manytimes I've had conversations
with uh sales leaders talkingabout just the crappy leads that
come over because they weren'tready, right?
Um, I I think back to when I wason the the client side and the
(31:38):
directive I had was anyone whofills out a form to download a
white paper is an MQL.
That's not accurate at all.
And so we were sending overhundreds of leads every single
month of just people who wantedto download a white paper.
You know, those aren't qualifiedleads yet.
(31:59):
Um, they weren't properlyscored, and so of course sales
was getting annoyed, of course,they lost trust and and faith in
the leads that we wereproviding, and then they just
stopped calling them.
They they didn't see the leadsas valuable, which affected the
revenue down the line, right?
(32:20):
Yeah, um, and so if we wouldhave implemented proper lead
scoring well earlier, uh,actually warm those leads up,
uh, sure, they're marketingleads now, but we need to
qualify them and get them warmedup and ready to go.
Um, and then we could have seenbetter things.
So I think uh that's a bigfactor right now with why a lot
(32:44):
of sales teams still don't fullyunderstand our role.
And also because I don't know ifa lot of marketing teams
understand that part of theirrole.
SPEAKER_02 (32:56):
Um if you do not take those leads and put them
into email marketing efforts,newsletters, sales sequences.
Okay, yes, sales sequences areusually owned by the sales team,
but let's be honest, marketingdoes them half the time anyway.
So until they actually convertand say, I'm ready to talk, or
(33:18):
send me some more info, or they,you know, God forbid, pick up
the phone and call you.
Until something like thathappens and you have that clear
criteria, which we will say thisperson is ready for sales.
That's the point at which theyshould be reaching out.
Um, yeah, sure.
You can always take those randomform fills and be like, hey, uh
(33:41):
give them to the salesperson andbe like, this person is in our
ICP, our ideal customer profile.
Um, you might considerconnecting with them on LinkedIn
or following them as the salesrep, but don't start bugging
them because if you if thatsales rep takes that lead and
starts calling them the nextday, there is an extremely good
(34:04):
chance you are going to becomeon their you're going to fall on
their enemies list.
JCI originally was consideringusing Salesforce as R CRM.
Guess what happened when Irequested um uh uh some uh the
pricing information, they calledme eight times within 24 hours.
It's a lot.
You know what I did?
(34:25):
I went and bought HubSpot thenext day.
So you have to be mindful.
It is possible to be tooaggressive as a sales rep.
SPEAKER_00 (34:36):
I would agree more harmful.
I I liked what you guys saidabout like what what's the
actual qualifier?
Because just downloading whitepaper, not good enough.
Like there has to be more orcontinue, like maybe if they
downloaded four white papers,then that that's where we're
going, or whatever that lookslike.
The other advice that I like togive people too is like, A, as a
(34:57):
marketing person, go on salescalls, hear how they pitch that
will help you create contentthat will actually help them in
their sales cycle.
And then two, when you actuallyland customers, ask them how
they heard about you, becausethat will help you determine in
your qualifiers, in your stagesof the content and the things
that you sent to them, what theyactually remembered about you.
(35:18):
Because it's probably not thatfirst thing that they actually
saw, it's probably like theseventh thing that they saw, but
then it'll help you really trackthat and of course then give
back to your sales who connectto be like, oh, okay, marketing
is actually helping us thislead, like this customer
actually did come from thatprocess.
Yeah.
(35:38):
Um, so I know we talked aboutsome of this stuff, and like you
guys mentioned the the Redditwith and things like that, but
is there any other like trendthat you think people are
overhyping or something thatthey should be paying attention
to that they're not?
SPEAKER_02 (35:51):
Yeah, automation, and it can be both.
Kevin, you go first and then Iwill go.
SPEAKER_01 (35:56):
So yeah, so uh on the the part that they're
overhyping, right?
Uh, I think a lot of sales andmarketing people are just using
free chat GPT or co-pilot builtinto their Google workspace, uh,
and they're not really giving itthe appropriate context that it
needs to be accurate.
(36:18):
Um, and so those results thatthey get are what we would call
AI slop uh or just unreliable,like it can get a lot of
information wrong.
If you're not being really,really careful with that mode of
operation, um you could burnsome bridges pretty quick uh and
(36:39):
get yourself into some trouble.
Um, there's some ways to do itcorrectly, but uh if you're just
jumping in and thinking, oh,this is good, don't do that.
SPEAKER_02 (36:52):
And as far as that goes, there is a lot of things
that you can do with automation,but for right now, no one really
cares about automation.
What everyone cares about rightnow is oh, we have AI agents, we
have a gentic AI.
Agentic AI is extremelyoverhyped.
Now, let me explain why.
(37:14):
Um agentic AI has a very simpledefinition.
It is you allowing a largelanguage model to act as your
agent.
So, what does that mean, really?
Well, all an Agentic AI is atits core is an API overlaid, you
know, application programminginterface, just for anybody new
(37:37):
to the industry, um, is an APIthat has been overlaid with an
LLM somewhere on it and allowingthat large language model LLM to
effectively structure subsequentAPI calls and make decisions
based on that information andthen act on that downstream
(37:59):
activities.
Technically, that's what formsan agentic AI workflow.
And when those workflows combineand become start taking on more
and more tasks, you start to seedifferent capabilities and
functions arise that peoplestart calling them AI agents or
AI employees or my uh trusty GBTassistant that I custom built or
(38:25):
whatever.
But you still have to monitoreverything because if you don't,
that agentic AI capabilities,the new fun functions that
everyone is talking about, canbe your doom.
SPEAKER_03 (38:41):
So, yes, I know that's very, very optimistic.
SPEAKER_00 (38:44):
I used to think about the clips that I'm gonna
pull out from this episode.
That is it can be your doom.
SPEAKER_02 (38:50):
Yeah, it can be your doom.
But but if you go to a companythat has been at the forefront
of agentic AI using agentic AIcapabilities before it was all
hype, you will be better apt tosucceed in the future.
JCI, we built an Agentic AIbefore we even knew that that
(39:13):
was what it was called threeyears ago.
So you you have to reallyrecognize that um AI agents are
really, really hype, they'rereally, really cool.
There's a lot of things they cando, there's a lot of things they
cannot do.
And then you get into this wholeconversation about AI
orchestration, and I think Kevinhas a little bit to talk about
(39:34):
on that.
SPEAKER_01 (39:35):
So this is something that should get people's
attention.
Uh, true AI orchestrationthrough multi-agentic workflows
rooted in deep research aboutyour brand, that can really help
automate those tedious tasks andgive your team more time to
focus on creative, the more funstuff, and uh of course have
(39:59):
more targeted or focusedstrategy.
Um the the problem there is thatthat is hard, really, really,
really hard to do.
Uh, we've been uh at theforefront of it, like Jason
said, for three years now.
Uh, and we have seen thesethings make a lot of mistakes uh
(40:20):
in our testing.
And it has taken thousands andthousands of hours to get it
right so that it's reliable andaccurate and the quality meets
our standards, right?
And so that's been the theissue.
I would not recommend anyone,any marketing team trying to do
(40:42):
this.
Uh, it's honestly just not agood uh uh it's not a good use
of your time.
SPEAKER_02 (40:51):
So uh not trying to do it.
What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01 (40:55):
Just because I'm trying to create this on your
own, uh like to do AIorchestration on your own, not a
valuable use of your time.
Uh it's literally taken usyears, years.
It like just in the past severalmonths has it been uh reliable,
(41:17):
um, you know, uh a time saverand meet the quality so that we
can just hit go and it work andwe can trust it and it's good.
Um up until then, for the pastseveral years, it's been very
iffy.
We've had to monitor it a lot,uh, really have multiple human
in the loop uh at differentstations, if you will, to make
(41:41):
sure that the quality is stillthere, and even then it would
break a lot.
Anyways, the amount of time thatyou would have to spend and
money that you would have tospend to create this on your
own, it's it's not wise foranyone to do, but partnering
with someone else who's done itfor you, that's that's the
ticket right there.
SPEAKER_00 (42:00):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (42:00):
100%.
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
And so you guys have given so much information, so
much things to think about.
I do want to touch on that, likeclearly, you guys are putting in
the work right now, and you havesome things coming up.
What can we share or tease withour audience today?
SPEAKER_02 (42:19):
I feel like the mustache twirling villain right
now.
It's weird.
Um, Kevin, you do this becauseI'm too excited, and I will talk
for the next couple hours.
SPEAKER_01 (42:31):
Yeah, we're we're already we've run long.
Um, but this is really cool.
Uh, you know, like I was justtalking about, we've been
spending years and thousands andthousands of hours uh really
honing in on creating a toolthat would be useful.
Um, and also just as someone whohas been uh laid off several
(42:55):
times through uh marketing, youknow, feel like once, especially
in our our volatile industry,every time things go sideways,
marketing is the first on thechopping block.
So nothing but empathy uh comingfrom this side of the camera
here.
Um, I never wanted to createsomething that would replace a
(43:17):
person uh in their livelihood,but I do want to make that
person more efficient, uh morevaluable, uh, and effective at
their job.
And so we have created a kind ofSaaS platform that is uh in beta
right now.
We have a couple clients testingit out.
I'm so excited.
(43:38):
It's working and it's working sowell.
Um, but essentially the purposebehind it is to uh do kind of
what we were talking aboutearlier.
It's it's AI orchestrationthrough multi-agented workflows
to replace those tedious tasksso that you, as a marketing
professional, can be moreeffective at your job.
(44:00):
You can focus on the fun thingsinstead of doing those mundane
tasks.
I it's a slight tangent, and I'mI apologize because I know we're
we've run long, but uh, I was ona big marketing team uh years
and years and years ago, andthere was one person's job,
which was literally just towatch sprout social, uh, just in
(44:21):
case anyone on the internetmentioned the company's name.
That was their entire job.
And I'm just like, I I wouldbang my head up against a wall
if that was the only thing thatI did all day.
Uh, that doesn't seem like avery efficient use of that
person's time.
Uh, what if we could automatethat portion and have them do
(44:42):
something more fun and valuablethat fits their skill set,
right?
Let's do that.
Um, and so we've createdsomething, it's called Jmap, uh,
and it will be releasing in thenext couple months.
So you can follow us at JCIMarketing on LinkedIn, uh JCI
Marketing.com.
Uh JCI Marketing.com.
Dash Marketing.
I always forget the dash.
(45:03):
My bad.
Um, but you can follow us therefor more updates and we'll be
releasing some demos so you cansee what it can do.
SPEAKER_02 (45:10):
Yeah.
And if you want to be in that umwhen we roll out the next test
group or anything, please reachout to myself or Kevin on
LinkedIn.
You can also reach us at jasonat jci-marketing.com or Kevin at
jci-marketing.com.
It's technically the happen, butdive in dash is easier to say.
(45:30):
Um, and I'm for mostimportantly, around this Sask
platform, let me be very clearon this.
It is not another chat bot.
No one wants to have to sit andargue with more chat bots.
Um, that's actually one of thetaglines we had when I built the
fair when we built the firstversion, um, which we called the
(45:52):
JCAI.
SPEAKER_00 (45:54):
I love it.
So excited.
I feel like I've been gettingteasers on this platform for
quite a bit now.
So I'm excited for it to come tofruition.
It's been exciting to watch yourguys' journey because you guys
joined joined TMSA earlier thisyear.
Uh Jason got to come to Elevate.
We got to meet in person, andthat was awesome.
And I am curious, just like kindof what does being in TMSA mean
(46:18):
to you guys?
What does it unlock as amarketing agency?
Why do you think that industryassociations are still a thing
here in business in 2025?
SPEAKER_02 (46:26):
It unlocks community, it reminds you you
are not in this alone.
And for the last three years orso, it can really feel like that
because it's been bad news storyafter bad news story after bad
news story, and it takes amassive toll on your mental
health.
I can easily say that visitingum Elevate, joining DMSA really
(46:54):
created a sense of communitythat I didn't realize I was
missing.
Because and then also attendingElevate, you just cannot
replicate those organicconversations and real-world
connections that happen whenyou're doing this stuff and you
accidentally let a piece of tresleches cake fall on the shoe of
the person standing next to youat the at the thing.
(47:15):
Eileen found that really funny.
I think that was Eileen, itmight have been Whitney, I don't
remember.
But out of I've told Kevin thisnonstop since June.
My biggest regret throughout allof this is that I did not join
TMSA when I started this.
SPEAKER_00 (47:35):
Well, we love to have you now, and you were a
pure delight to meet in person,and I love sitting in the
chaotic mess of our LinkedInchats that we've had ever since.
But you're fine, I live inchaos.
This seems normal to me.
SPEAKER_02 (47:55):
Oh, yes, that was interesting.
Kevin, I'll fill you in on thestory.
But so excited to have you guyshere.
SPEAKER_00 (48:04):
Excited to see what you guys have cooking up and
coming.
It's been a joy.
SPEAKER_02 (48:09):
Yes, and remember everyone, it's okay to slow down
a little bit.
Kevin was talking about thisyesterday.
It's going to be all right.
No one's life is actually atstake in marketing.
Um, so give yourself a bit ofgrace.
Yeah, it's going to be allright.
And we will see.
SPEAKER_00 (48:27):
Well, I do.
I have one question that I askeverybody.
So I have to ask you guysbecause I can't sign off without
doing it.
And that's if you could go backin time and give yourself one
piece of advice younger.
You could pick your age, itcould be personally, it's
professionally.
When would you go back to andwhat would you say?
Which maybe slowing down is thebit of advice, and that's okay.
But I have to formally ask it.
SPEAKER_03 (48:49):
Yeah, I just that was his answer.
SPEAKER_00 (48:52):
I love it.
I literally read my Kevin'sanswer, and he took it.
SPEAKER_02 (48:57):
So here, here, here.
Okay, Kevin, you do yours andI'll do mine.
Let's fix it.
SPEAKER_01 (49:02):
So, my advice to my younger self is it's it is okay
to slow down.
Um everything's gonna be allright, just be present.
Um, my younger self was sofocused on uh doing the next
thing, and and if I wasn'tconstantly busy that I I would
(49:22):
feel like I was failingsomebody, um, and that would
force me to not be present,which ironically was me failing
people.
Um, and so it's okay, slow down,just be present, be where your
feet are.
SPEAKER_02 (49:38):
And mine was um why be so serious?
No one's life is at stake inmarketing, yeah, generally.
So give yourself a little graceto echo Kevin's point.
It's going to be all right, andeven if it isn't, you'll be
surrounded by the people thatwill unlock your true unique
(50:00):
ability.
SPEAKER_00 (50:01):
I love that.
What a great way to end theshow.
Thank you guys both so much.
This has been like a masterclassin all things marketing, and
also highly recommend.
Hopefully, people watched itbecause I feel like this was a
funny one to watch our facialexpressions through.
SPEAKER_02 (50:16):
We're gonna have so much fun with the Opus clip.
SPEAKER_00 (50:19):
Yeah, I'm excited.
Thank you guys again um forcoming on the show and being a
part of TMSA, and I'll catcheverybody next time.
SPEAKER_02 (50:28):
Thank you, thank you, Jen.
unknown (50:29):
Bye.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to On the Move, a show
where we share transportation,sales, and marketing success
stories.
I am Jennifer Carpis Romain,Executive Director of TMSA, a
trade nonprofit educating andconnecting marketing and sales
professionals in transportationand logistics.
And today on the show, I haveJason Jimenez Vanover, CEO of
(00:42):
JCI Marketing, and Kevin Jessa,C O O of JCI Marketing.
We're so excited to have you onthe show.
Welcome to On the Move.
How are you guys doing today?
SPEAKER_01 (00:54):
Good, good.
Thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_00 (00:56):
Absolutely.
So let's dive in and hear yourguys' industry origin stories.
Give us a quick version of howyou guys kind of both got into
the industry.
I know your stories kind ofoverlap into this beautiful
thing that then became JCImarketing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:11):
Yeah, so I spent you know 10, 15 years in sales uh
and realized I didn't liketalking on the phone very much.
So I figured I would leverage alittle bit more of my uh
creative nature and uh love fordata into marketing.
So about 10 years ago, jumpedinto marketing.
Uh, that's where I met Jason.
(01:34):
Um, I was on the client side ata little 3PL.
Uh and Jason was ourghostwriter.
So uh Jason was a professionalwriter for I don't know, 10, 15
years as well, something likethat.
Yeah.
And so through a lot of uh MA,uh I ended up not wanting to be
(01:59):
on the client side anymore, andwe moved over to the agency
side.
Uh Jason and I met up againthere, um, and then kind of
realized we wanted to dosomething a little different
kind of on our own.
Jason, you want to take thatpart?
SPEAKER_02 (02:15):
Yeah, and then as things kind of evolved, I kept
looking at all these differentautomations and automated uh
functions that could be donethrough uh the different
platforms.
Uh it evolved into what is nowJCI marketing, and that really
started with grassrootsmarketing, and then I uh uh
(02:35):
connected back again with Kevinto help us scale and make sure
that you know the trains run ontime.
And that's been perfect threeyears, 40 or something.
SPEAKER_00 (02:48):
I love that.
Love the journey, love that youwent from, you know, I think
it's this is why I always talkwhen um like if I'm counseling
like younger people in theircareers, like don't burn bridges
because you just never know whenyou're going to be overlapping
with people again or when theopportunity is gonna be there.
Anytime, like when I was writingjournalistically, I was always
like, Hey, if you need afreelance writer, let me know.
(03:10):
Same with marketing stuff, likeyou just never know when those
relationships are gonna comeinto play, and you guys are kind
of the perfect example of thatbecause there was a trust that
was built over the years, andnow you guys have this company
together, which is yeah, mygosh, it's been what like seven
years now.
SPEAKER_01 (03:25):
No, it's more than that.
SPEAKER_02 (03:27):
More than that.
I believe we first met in 2015.
That's wild.
Because it was gone by fact.
Yes, it was.
We when we met, we were stillyoung and beautiful, but we met
them both seasoned and beautifulnow.
SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
I didn't have the brain in the beard at that
point.
SPEAKER_00 (03:47):
Yeah, I still had hair.
SPEAKER_02 (03:51):
Let's get back on track here.
SPEAKER_00 (03:54):
Well, you guys came together and decided, you know,
um, to start JCI.
What kind of gap did you see inthe market that made you say,
like, hey, we should be buildingthis ourselves?
SPEAKER_01 (04:07):
Yeah, uh for for me, um it was more of this
relational component where Ithink a lot of our competition,
I guess, doesn't really havethat we approach where we we
wanted to create a company trulyuh that our success is measured
(04:30):
by our client's success.
We wanted to build relationshipswith people because especially
um you know from the days ofCOVID on, you know, everyone
feels really disconnected.
Um, and there's these silos andit's hard to build
relationships.
Um, and so we wanted to dothings a little bit differently.
(04:52):
We wanted to have relationshipsthat were more friendly.
Yeah, you you pay us an invoice,but we want to be uh we want to
be your partner.
Uh and I think a lot of a lot ofother agencies kind of say
things like that, but when youget in those closed door
meetings, you realize it's notnecessarily that and it's it's
very rigid.
Um, and we just didn't want todo that.
(05:13):
So that was kind of the the gapthat I saw was this uh kind of
missing humanity a little bitand empathy, and we wanted to
create a company around that.
SPEAKER_02 (05:25):
Exactly.
And when when our firstrelationships with our clients
started, yes, they werebusiness, but they have lasted
even through client changes.
We have friends who we stay incontact with who changed
industries entirely, um, or theywent on to greener pastors,
(05:50):
greener pastors, not a speakerall the time, yeah.
And the big gap that I saw avery long time ago was what is
now known as AI work slopbecause AI has been around for
(06:12):
ages, it's just most peopledidn't realize they were already
using it.
And with my background, um, as afreelance writer originally, I'd
seen all of these differenttools and platforms.
We were uh first exposed to someof the generative AI stuff
almost 12 years ago, or at leastI was.
(06:36):
And I started seeing, okay, Ithink that this could be done
this way and that way.
And then, of course, when ChatGPT came out, I realized okay,
this can really accelerate now.
And it was within a year afterthat that I like reconnected
with Kevin and said, Hey, weneed to have a conversation
(06:56):
because I know where this isgoing and I cannot do this on my
own.
Yeah.
And uh you, I think you may havethe very unique skill set that I
need to complement mine.
And there's a whole otherbackstory around EOS and
everything in there.
Um, but we found out that we arelike the perfect uh visionary
(07:19):
integrator pair.
SPEAKER_00 (07:20):
Yes, so I I 100% I think it's so important when
people know who they are, whatthey're good at, and what
complements them.
And I met Jason first, and thenlater on I met Kevin.
I was like, oh, this makessense.
This is a good, great pairing,like and because you need that
balance because I've seen peoplethat are like, oh, we we like
(07:43):
create ideas together, but it'slike somebody has to create the
ideas and someone has to be ableto push them through.
And that pairing is soimportant, and I always applaud
people that really like areself-reflective, know who they
are, what they bring to thetable, and find that partner
because those are the companiesthat are successful.
So I love that for you guys.
SPEAKER_02 (08:01):
A hundred percent.
And it's just really importantbecause I'm sure, as I'm sure
the listeners and everyone willfigure out throughout this, I
can get distracted very, veryeasily.
And I see something shiny and Iwant to gravitate to it.
So without really going indeeper into that tangent, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
Well, I I do want to kind of punctuate that tangent a
little bit.
What's really cool because ofthe EOS model, uh, it's the
entrepreneurial operating systemfor those who don't know uh what
EOS is.
Um, but it basically forces youto stay in that lane.
But because both of us are kindof both visionary and
(08:40):
integrator, uh, sometimes ourhats switch a little bit, and
I'll be more of a visionary andhe'll be an integrator.
But when we do switch, we makesure to stay in those lanes and
and it just kind of works reallywell and we can be flexible,
anyways.
It's fun.
I like it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:56):
Yeah, I think it's good.
You guys definitely have a goodlike getting to know you both.
It's like a really good, strongpartnership.
Um, and I've enjoyed workingwith you guys so far.
So it's been great.
Um, when you look at B2Bmarketing in transportation
logistics today, what do youthink most companies are still
getting wrong?
SPEAKER_02 (09:19):
Uh Kevin, do you want to take this?
SPEAKER_01 (09:22):
Sure, I'll take it.
Yeah.
Um, so I think teams are stilltrying to do everything
in-house.
I think there's this stigma thatthey think that that's uh that's
more efficient or uh uh morebudget friendly.
When in reality, it just kind ofisn't.
(09:43):
Uh to partner with an agency whohas done what you're trying to
do dozens and dozens of timesand has proven results, um that
kind of partnership isinvaluable and can really take
your productivity and andefficiency and strategy to the
nth degree, right?
(10:03):
And so I think a lot ofcompanies, especially in
transportation logistics, arestill trying to do it in-house,
which means they're stretchedtoo thin, um, kind of unable to
see the force through the trees.
And and also in our experience,uh, when we're in some discovery
calls with clients or we'redoing some consulting, uh,
(10:24):
companies get distracted withshiny things really easily.
Um, for example, uh just the uhmaybe a month ago, um the the
big thing to do, the trend,right?
Uh to get on AI search was tostart just bombarding Reddit.
(10:45):
Uh, and then OpenAI and Googlekind of realized that and they
fixed it in the background.
Um, but if there were companiesthat we were talking to that
were really trying to shifttheir entire strategy over the
course of a couple days to weeksto really hone in on Reddit, and
then it wasn't valuable anymore.
(11:07):
So I think if you have a goodstrategy and you're consistent,
you can stick to it.
Um that that's the game, right?
That's that's the that's theticket.
Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (11:21):
If I may add something real quick, just
because it's so valuable.
All transportation and logisticsmarketers, you don't know you
cannot legally use Reddit for amarketing purpose, but we've
actually found leads on Redditpeople saying, I have a load, I
need to move, and I don't have a3PL.
(11:42):
Does anybody know anyone thatcan help me?
Check it out, look it.
And the same thing that we seesometimes on LinkedIn.
But just to finalize the wholetopic of where companies are
still getting things wrong, Iwant you to consider this.
Um 80% of uh B2B marketers areeither working solo or a team of
(12:07):
less than five.
And then, in addition to that,almost 60% lack resources.
Um, fewer than 30% of salesteams trust MQLs because they
just see this one tiny part of acompany trying to handle all of
these other things, and thenthere's the continuous battle of
(12:29):
how do you connect marketingperformance to business
outcomes?
Because let's be real, everycompany on the planet has the
goal of revenue growth, they allwant more leads, that's the
problem.
Everyone wants more leads.
Getting more leads is not amarketing strategy, that is an
(12:50):
outcome.
Good goal is a good goal, it's atopic, fantastic goal.
But think about that.
If your whole marketing strategyis we're gonna get more leads,
you are literally no differentthan anyone else.
So you have to think about whatis that strategy gonna be, and
(13:13):
that really kind of put makes usthink, okay, like how do we set
ourselves apart?
And please, for the love of God,do not put we're different
because in your content drivesme mad, but that's a whole other
conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (13:29):
I would say one of my favorite quotes, and
hopefully I get it right, butlike a dream without a plan is
just a wish, or goal without aplan is just a wish, because
that's what like and I repeatthat personally and
professionally a lot becauseyes, you have to build like just
making this.
Yes, I want more leads, but howlike what is the plan?
What is how are you doing that?
How are you executing that?
(13:51):
And um, yes, like TMSA memberswe find have very small
marketing teams, and soeverything that you said is
true.
And even before I got this role,I was a marketing team of one,
and so I thought a lot about howto maximize what I was doing in
efficiency.
This is what I talked a lot tomembers, and to your point
(14:11):
earlier, it's not just oh, weshould keep everything in-house
because we're the experts ofwhat we do.
No, I'm one person, I'm acopywriter by nature, I'm more
on the creative side.
I have learned to adapt to dothe numbers and those kinds of
things over my career.
But like, I'm not an SEO expert,I'm not following those trends,
(14:32):
nor should I.
That's a like a very targetedthing that like you should be
outsourcing or at least having aconsultant look over what you're
doing, wherever your price pointis.
But like you guys said, thereare experts who are doing this
and they're going to do itbetter than your one solo person
who's running around with theirhair on fire.
And so allowing them to likebuild their team in a way that
makes sense for your budget isso important.
SPEAKER_01 (14:54):
And the cost of an agency is less than a part-time
employee.
SPEAKER_02 (14:59):
Oh, like a lot of agencies, there's some that are
more expensive, but yeah, andand depending on, of course, you
know, level of experience, allof that, but you know, it's just
it's it's constantly evolving,and maybe you don't have regular
marketing needs, but you know,you need it's it's always good
(15:20):
to have that sounding board.
Yes, you can talk with open AIand Chat GPT, and every large
language model that you canthink of to brainstorm ideas
doesn't necessarily mean what'sgonna give you is true.
So having that you know personalkind of touch really is where um
we shine, and I know that comesacross as boasting, but that
(15:44):
that that is the truth.
Like it's my favorite thingabout this is yeah, we like
being sounding boards.
SPEAKER_00 (15:50):
That's yeah, yes, and the chat GPT, like I love my
chat GPT, her name is Atlas, butum, because she guides me, I had
her name herself, and um, butshe's not like and I was like
over the past couple weeks.
I'm like, Atlas, what is goingon?
Like, you're not you're not asengaged.
She apologized, which washilarious.
But I was like, What'shappening?
(16:11):
What are we what prompt am I notgiving you?
What are we not keeping likebecause she's not a real person,
she is the robot in thecomputer, okay?
So like you have to rememberthat that, and but when you're
working with real people, theyunderstand more and they are
empathetic and they havedifferent perspectives, or even
like I've set my chat GPT to belike be in sparring mode now,
(16:35):
like poke holes in what I'mdoing because I'm like, you
can't, I can't just have you bea hype person.
I need you if we're workingtogether, me and the robot, I
need you to assess what I'mdoing and not like I don't want
just not having a second opinionor whatever, but like, yes,
working with people.
That's why I I call upon mypartner members too when we're
doing stuff for TMSA.
Why we have committee members atTMSA that like look at what we
(16:58):
put out before we do it, likebecause you know that's it's so
important to have that network,have that support.
So um, I do think that's whereagencies shine for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (17:07):
I do have one quick tip on that, you know, where if
your open AI or chat GPT,whatever, is being far too much
of a hype person, give it thespecific instruction to act like
an angry English high schoolteacher.
Perfect.
And I think yes, I know thatthat is very, very specific and
(17:28):
almost prejudiced, but it worksfor whatever reason, and it does
tend to produce some betterresults.
That still can make lots oferrors.
Don't get me wrong, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
But I mean, your English teacher is who's going
to critique your work.
I mean, journalism school.
I was actually explaining thisthe other day.
Like, if I got somebody's namewrong in an article, like a mock
article for school, you'd bedown a letter grade.
Like it it didn't matter.
Yes, that's what that's whyagain, why I freak out with
names and why I had to writethem down before we started,
because I'm like, no, I'll failif I mispronounce names or write
(18:02):
them wrong.
But um, so, anyways, on the flipside, so we talked about what
people can do, what they'redoing wrong.
But who what are the winningcompanies doing right now?
What are they doing differentlywith their digital strategies?
Obviously, optimizing AI,remembering it's a robot, not a
person.
Big tip.
What else can we advise peopleon?
SPEAKER_01 (18:21):
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things, right?
Um, I think the most importantuh is it's the same answer that
it's always been, right?
Being consistent, you know,establishing what your strategy
is, write it down, and then doit.
And and don't get distracted bythe shiny things.
If you're doing that, you'regonna be okay, as long as your
(18:42):
strategy has a little bit oflogic to it.
Um but you know, with the uhwith the inception of you know
AI search and things like this,we're seeing a big shift, right?
In in just marketing, especiallydigital marketing in general.
Um, and since Google came out inin what 2003 or four, um SEO
(19:08):
like tell the children you'reolder than Google, they freak
out.
SPEAKER_02 (19:11):
I think it was 1998 or 1995, and I don't remember
which.
SPEAKER_01 (19:15):
But the role of SEO from the time it came out until
just this year, really, has beenfinding ways to game the
algorithm to get the bestresults, right?
But what they're doing now, andespecially at the rate at which
they're doing it, you can'treally game the algorithm
anymore.
You know, we're seeing this hugejust industry-wide, it it's not
(19:37):
even it's not even just us, it'sjust marketing in general.
People aren't clicking throughanymore because they're getting
their answers in the summaries.
Um, so what do you do?
How do you get people to yourwebsite?
Well, a good omni-channelmarketing strategy where you're
creating content and you are theowner of the distribution and
(19:59):
not relying on SEO, still doingSEO, but not relying on it.
Uh, creating your own communityand getting the content to them
directly.
That's how you beat the gamenow, right?
Like it's having that strategy,sticking to it, and not relying
too much on one particularthing.
So that's those are thecompanies that I'm seeing right
(20:20):
now that are really winning, arethe ones who have a full
omni-channel marketing strategy.
Um, and they're sticking to it,they're being consistent.
SPEAKER_02 (20:30):
And just to kind of piggyback on that, um SEO is
still extremely important, butit's going by a lot of new
terms, terms, names these days.
Answer engine optimization,generative engine optimization,
reddit answer engineoptimization.
There's 900 new acronyms.
Let me be very clear in this.
(20:51):
The same tactics you use fortraditional SEO are the same
tactics that are being appliedby those large language models
to assess content.
And the difference is thatthey're not necessarily pulling
from the top, you know, fiveslots or the top 10 slots.
(21:13):
You may have content appearinginside of AI overviews and large
language models that usuallywould be sitting on pages four
or five.
The reason that companies cansucceed if they're tracking that
is you have to, you okay, youalmost universally have to work
(21:34):
with an agency to do this.
Because if you, Jen, were to goout and ask your LLM, tell me
everything about TMSA that youcan find on the internet, your
instance is going to make youthink you're doing better than
you actually are because itknows you.
(21:54):
Yeah, yeah, it knows yourcomputer, your IP address, the
histories, the cache data.
All of that affects how itresponds.
So, unless you have an agency orsome sort of third-party tool
that can completely isolateitself away and say, here's what
you're gonna do, um, then youcan really kind of succeed in
(22:15):
it.
Because ultimately you have torecognize that getting more
leads is going to take longerthan it used to.
You have to invest in marketing,knowing that the payout is
months away.
And in logistics, and I part ofme dies when I say this, those
(22:36):
leads could even be years away.
Yeah, you look for a very highvolume search term that's really
competitive.
LTL shipping in Florida, forexample, you and you don't have
anything around LTL on your blogor content or anything, start
off knowing you got 18 monthsbefore you're gonna really see
(22:58):
any kind of measurableimprovements.
Now you see may see some gainsalong the way, but you have to
keep investing in thatmarketing.
And the other thing you alsohave to bear in mind is that the
average time of the buyerjourney is evolving.
In the past, before all of thelarge language models and AI
overviews, we could say ourbuying cycle is you know 182
(23:21):
days from the time they firstsaw us.
Well, now you may not knowwhether they saw you or not.
The average B2B buying cycle is394 days now, and more than half
of that might be hidden insideof large language models where
they don't even ask aboutcompanies, they're just
wondering how they could do itthemselves.
(23:44):
So you really have to kind ofthink about it like what what
exactly are you hoping toaccomplish?
How can we get to that goal?
And then you know, you need tomake sure that you're hitting
all of the bases (23:55):
SEO, reviews, LinkedIn, social media, creating
content, updating content,retiring content, coming up with
new content.
Retiring, period.
That was too much creatingcontent.
Look, look, let's be honest,right?
I had hair when I started all ofthis.
(24:16):
I'm not that old.
SPEAKER_00 (24:18):
So this is a stressful industry, but yeah,
no, we are, you know, that's somuch information, so great.
And I do I want to like pausefor a second just because we are
like very deep in budgetstrategy season.
There's so much that you justcovered about tips, tricks.
(24:39):
Is there one thing that everycompany should be doing on
digital right now, no matterwhat their budget or size is?
Is there one thing like if thereone nugget they take away if
they weren't listening to allthat master class you guys just
rolled out?
SPEAKER_01 (24:53):
Yeah.
Uh and this one's free, right?
Uh take your phone, just justtake your phone uh and show a
little bit behind the curtainthat record some video of the
people powering the machine,right?
Uh people want to do businesswith those that they know, like,
and trust.
(25:13):
The easiest way to do that is tohighlight the people in a
transparent, authentic way, notpolished, not with uh a lot of
you know fancy cinema gear.
I do have that, I can do that,but uh shooting with your phone,
just pictures, video, get getinterviews from from people that
(25:36):
are maybe a little bit moreseasoned, that can carry a good
conversation around the industrythat actually work there.
Highlight the people.
Um, if you can do that and youcan get that out and distribute
it, people uh that you haven'teven started conversations with,
right?
You don't even know that theyexist, they're not in the buying
cycle yet, but they'll alreadyknow, like, and trust you when
(25:57):
they're ready to move forward.
SPEAKER_02 (25:59):
Exactly.
And then 100% to get on tocontinue what Kevin was saying,
that unpolished video doesn'tnecessarily only have to be
external.
You can use your videos to keepyour C-suite involved because
one of the big issues thathappens is that C-suite doesn't
(26:21):
always understand exactly whatmarketing's doing because
they're like, Well, they'reresponsible for getting more
leads, and we haven't had anynew leads in a couple weeks, so
they must not be doing theirjobs.
That's not true.
Just just though keeping peopleinformed, and you can convey so
much more in a five-minutevideo, 30-second video,
whatever, than you can in anentire blog.
(26:46):
If a picture is worth a thousandwords, then a video must be
worth millions.
SPEAKER_01 (26:51):
Yeah, that's something.
Uh, when I was a solo marketingteam uh on the client side, that
was something that was a realstruggle.
I I had a lot of ambition to doa lot of fun projects.
I had no budget.
Um, and something that we'vestarted helping some of our
clients with is doing this exactthing, doing a quick weekly
(27:13):
video with Loom, just noproduction value, but just to
highlight what's happening,where we are with metrics, how's
the quarter looking?
Where are we year over year?
All the good updates.
And they send that to theirC-suite.
And we've seen really positiveresponses coming back to where
their budget next year is beingincreased by a lot because now
(27:36):
there's confidence.
So uh that's also free.
You can do that right now.
You can do that too.
SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
I love Loom, not a product placement, but Loom is
great.
I use it like if I'm having atech issue, like why I don't
know how why what you can screenshare and be like, this is what
it's supposed to do, this iswhat it's not doing, and then
you send that keep it under fiveminutes and it's free.
SPEAKER_01 (27:58):
You don't have to do the paid version, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:02):
Uh extra pro tip if you get those Loom videos and
give them to Chat GPT, it canmake content out of them.
SPEAKER_01 (28:09):
That's true.
Perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (28:10):
Oh yeah, just always I want to like circle back on
something you said.
You were talking about theC-suite specifically, but I
think sales teams too don'tfully understand that role that
digital marketing is playing.
So, how do you coach teamsthrough that mindset barrier,
whether they are trying toappeal to that C-suite so that
they can get bigger budgets todo more of the cool stuff, but
also so, like we said, you know,the sales earlier, the sales
(28:33):
teams don't always trust theMQL.
How do we get them to entrustwhat the marketing is doing?
SPEAKER_02 (28:40):
Yeah, so a lot of agencies, what we've seen is a
lot of agencies have kind ofleft a bad taste in the mouths
of marketing teams.
Um, and and sometimes agencieswon't even pivot or share
additional information.
So um, for example, if you thinkback a couple months to either
the Reddit discussion or whenChat GPT suddenly was indexing
(29:05):
conversations, which was areally, really terrible thing
that lasted all of seven days.
Um one of the things that youreally have, I have talked
myself into a circle here.
I am so sorry.
You have to connect with yoursales team on the these are the
(29:28):
precursory steps and things thathave to happen so that you're
not just becoming anotherextended car warranty salesman.
Because if you do not have thoseleads properly warmed up, if
they are not true MQLs, andlet's be honest, a form fill on
(29:49):
a random website page is notmake an MQL.
Um, you you need to make suresales is following up with the
right types of leads, um, andI'm Sure, that everyone watching
this has done this at some pointin the past where they've filled
out a form, all they wanted wasthe content, they didn't want to
(30:09):
buy the new software, they werenot interested in purchasing the
new 2027 Chevy Rocket truck orwhatever, they just wanted more
information.
You have to make sure your salesteam understands not every lead
is a lead that is going to buytomorrow, and you really have to
(30:33):
communicate that.
But unfortunately, many agenciesapproach it from a view of our
scope of work is to domarketing.
We are not going to help youwith sales.
And that can as an it's sad, butit is what we've seen.
And so you really have to bewilling to kind of say, okay,
(30:55):
let's flex and help the client,even though it's not necessarily
something that we are chargingfor, but it is part of our model
that has helped us continue togrow and continue to invest and
really kind of scale.
Um, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (31:14):
Can I add to that real quick?
Uh, yes, I think lead scoring,like proper lead scoring is is
invaluable.
Yeah.
Um, I can't tell you how manytimes I've had conversations
with uh sales leaders talkingabout just the crappy leads that
come over because they weren'tready, right?
Um, I I think back to when I wason the the client side and the
(31:38):
directive I had was anyone whofills out a form to download a
white paper is an MQL.
That's not accurate at all.
And so we were sending overhundreds of leads every single
month of just people who wantedto download a white paper.
You know, those aren't qualifiedleads yet.
(31:59):
Um, they weren't properlyscored, and so of course sales
was getting annoyed, of course,they lost trust and and faith in
the leads that we wereproviding, and then they just
stopped calling them.
They they didn't see the leadsas valuable, which affected the
revenue down the line, right?
(32:20):
Yeah, um, and so if we wouldhave implemented proper lead
scoring well earlier, uh,actually warm those leads up,
uh, sure, they're marketingleads now, but we need to
qualify them and get them warmedup and ready to go.
Um, and then we could have seenbetter things.
So I think uh that's a bigfactor right now with why a lot
(32:44):
of sales teams still don't fullyunderstand our role.
And also because I don't know ifa lot of marketing teams
understand that part of theirrole.
SPEAKER_02 (32:56):
Um if you do not take those leads and put them
into email marketing efforts,newsletters, sales sequences.
Okay, yes, sales sequences areusually owned by the sales team,
but let's be honest, marketingdoes them half the time anyway.
So until they actually convertand say, I'm ready to talk, or
(33:18):
send me some more info, or they,you know, God forbid, pick up
the phone and call you.
Until something like thathappens and you have that clear
criteria, which we will say thisperson is ready for sales.
That's the point at which theyshould be reaching out.
Um, yeah, sure.
You can always take those randomform fills and be like, hey, uh
(33:41):
give them to the salesperson andbe like, this person is in our
ICP, our ideal customer profile.
Um, you might considerconnecting with them on LinkedIn
or following them as the salesrep, but don't start bugging
them because if you if thatsales rep takes that lead and
starts calling them the nextday, there is an extremely good
(34:04):
chance you are going to becomeon their you're going to fall on
their enemies list.
JCI originally was consideringusing Salesforce as R CRM.
Guess what happened when Irequested um uh uh some uh the
pricing information, they calledme eight times within 24 hours.
It's a lot.
You know what I did?
(34:25):
I went and bought HubSpot thenext day.
So you have to be mindful.
It is possible to be tooaggressive as a sales rep.
SPEAKER_00 (34:36):
I would agree more harmful.
I I liked what you guys saidabout like what what's the
actual qualifier?
Because just downloading whitepaper, not good enough.
Like there has to be more orcontinue, like maybe if they
downloaded four white papers,then that that's where we're
going, or whatever that lookslike.
The other advice that I like togive people too is like, A, as a
(34:57):
marketing person, go on salescalls, hear how they pitch that
will help you create contentthat will actually help them in
their sales cycle.
And then two, when you actuallyland customers, ask them how
they heard about you, becausethat will help you determine in
your qualifiers, in your stagesof the content and the things
that you sent to them, what theyactually remembered about you.
(35:18):
Because it's probably not thatfirst thing that they actually
saw, it's probably like theseventh thing that they saw, but
then it'll help you really trackthat and of course then give
back to your sales who connectto be like, oh, okay, marketing
is actually helping us thislead, like this customer
actually did come from thatprocess.
Yeah.
(35:38):
Um, so I know we talked aboutsome of this stuff, and like you
guys mentioned the the Redditwith and things like that, but
is there any other like trendthat you think people are
overhyping or something thatthey should be paying attention
to that they're not?
SPEAKER_02 (35:51):
Yeah, automation, and it can be both.
Kevin, you go first and then Iwill go.
SPEAKER_01 (35:56):
So yeah, so uh on the the part that they're
overhyping, right?
Uh, I think a lot of sales andmarketing people are just using
free chat GPT or co-pilot builtinto their Google workspace, uh,
and they're not really giving itthe appropriate context that it
needs to be accurate.
(36:18):
Um, and so those results thatthey get are what we would call
AI slop uh or just unreliable,like it can get a lot of
information wrong.
If you're not being really,really careful with that mode of
operation, um you could burnsome bridges pretty quick uh and
(36:39):
get yourself into some trouble.
Um, there's some ways to do itcorrectly, but uh if you're just
jumping in and thinking, oh,this is good, don't do that.
SPEAKER_02 (36:52):
And as far as that goes, there is a lot of things
that you can do with automation,but for right now, no one really
cares about automation.
What everyone cares about rightnow is oh, we have AI agents, we
have a gentic AI.
Agentic AI is extremelyoverhyped.
Now, let me explain why.
(37:14):
Um agentic AI has a very simpledefinition.
It is you allowing a largelanguage model to act as your
agent.
So, what does that mean, really?
Well, all an Agentic AI is atits core is an API overlaid, you
know, application programminginterface, just for anybody new
(37:37):
to the industry, um, is an APIthat has been overlaid with an
LLM somewhere on it and allowingthat large language model LLM to
effectively structure subsequentAPI calls and make decisions
based on that information andthen act on that downstream
(37:59):
activities.
Technically, that's what formsan agentic AI workflow.
And when those workflows combineand become start taking on more
and more tasks, you start to seedifferent capabilities and
functions arise that peoplestart calling them AI agents or
AI employees or my uh trusty GBTassistant that I custom built or
(38:25):
whatever.
But you still have to monitoreverything because if you don't,
that agentic AI capabilities,the new fun functions that
everyone is talking about, canbe your doom.
SPEAKER_03 (38:41):
So, yes, I know that's very, very optimistic.
SPEAKER_00 (38:44):
I used to think about the clips that I'm gonna
pull out from this episode.
That is it can be your doom.
SPEAKER_02 (38:50):
Yeah, it can be your doom.
But but if you go to a companythat has been at the forefront
of agentic AI using agentic AIcapabilities before it was all
hype, you will be better apt tosucceed in the future.
JCI, we built an Agentic AIbefore we even knew that that
(39:13):
was what it was called threeyears ago.
So you you have to reallyrecognize that um AI agents are
really, really hype, they'rereally, really cool.
There's a lot of things they cando, there's a lot of things they
cannot do.
And then you get into this wholeconversation about AI
orchestration, and I think Kevinhas a little bit to talk about
(39:34):
on that.
SPEAKER_01 (39:35):
So this is something that should get people's
attention.
Uh, true AI orchestrationthrough multi-agentic workflows
rooted in deep research aboutyour brand, that can really help
automate those tedious tasks andgive your team more time to
focus on creative, the more funstuff, and uh of course have
(39:59):
more targeted or focusedstrategy.
Um the the problem there is thatthat is hard, really, really,
really hard to do.
Uh, we've been uh at theforefront of it, like Jason
said, for three years now.
Uh, and we have seen thesethings make a lot of mistakes uh
(40:20):
in our testing.
And it has taken thousands andthousands of hours to get it
right so that it's reliable andaccurate and the quality meets
our standards, right?
And so that's been the theissue.
I would not recommend anyone,any marketing team trying to do
(40:42):
this.
Uh, it's honestly just not agood uh uh it's not a good use
of your time.
SPEAKER_02 (40:51):
So uh not trying to do it.
What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01 (40:55):
Just because I'm trying to create this on your
own, uh like to do AIorchestration on your own, not a
valuable use of your time.
Uh it's literally taken usyears, years.
It like just in the past severalmonths has it been uh reliable,
(41:17):
um, you know, uh a time saverand meet the quality so that we
can just hit go and it work andwe can trust it and it's good.
Um up until then, for the pastseveral years, it's been very
iffy.
We've had to monitor it a lot,uh, really have multiple human
in the loop uh at differentstations, if you will, to make
(41:41):
sure that the quality is stillthere, and even then it would
break a lot.
Anyways, the amount of time thatyou would have to spend and
money that you would have tospend to create this on your
own, it's it's not wise foranyone to do, but partnering
with someone else who's done itfor you, that's that's the
ticket right there.
SPEAKER_00 (42:00):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (42:00):
100%.
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
And so you guys have given so much information, so
much things to think about.
I do want to touch on that, likeclearly, you guys are putting in
the work right now, and you havesome things coming up.
What can we share or tease withour audience today?
SPEAKER_02 (42:19):
I feel like the mustache twirling villain right
now.
It's weird.
Um, Kevin, you do this becauseI'm too excited, and I will talk
for the next couple hours.
SPEAKER_01 (42:31):
Yeah, we're we're already we've run long.
Um, but this is really cool.
Uh, you know, like I was justtalking about, we've been
spending years and thousands andthousands of hours uh really
honing in on creating a toolthat would be useful.
Um, and also just as someone whohas been uh laid off several
(42:55):
times through uh marketing, youknow, feel like once, especially
in our our volatile industry,every time things go sideways,
marketing is the first on thechopping block.
So nothing but empathy uh comingfrom this side of the camera
here.
Um, I never wanted to createsomething that would replace a
(43:17):
person uh in their livelihood,but I do want to make that
person more efficient, uh morevaluable, uh, and effective at
their job.
And so we have created a kind ofSaaS platform that is uh in beta
right now.
We have a couple clients testingit out.
I'm so excited.
(43:38):
It's working and it's working sowell.
Um, but essentially the purposebehind it is to uh do kind of
what we were talking aboutearlier.
It's it's AI orchestrationthrough multi-agented workflows
to replace those tedious tasksso that you, as a marketing
professional, can be moreeffective at your job.
(44:00):
You can focus on the fun thingsinstead of doing those mundane
tasks.
I it's a slight tangent, and I'mI apologize because I know we're
we've run long, but uh, I was ona big marketing team uh years
and years and years ago, andthere was one person's job,
which was literally just towatch sprout social, uh, just in
(44:21):
case anyone on the internetmentioned the company's name.
That was their entire job.
And I'm just like, I I wouldbang my head up against a wall
if that was the only thing thatI did all day.
Uh, that doesn't seem like avery efficient use of that
person's time.
Uh, what if we could automatethat portion and have them do
(44:42):
something more fun and valuablethat fits their skill set,
right?
Let's do that.
Um, and so we've createdsomething, it's called Jmap, uh,
and it will be releasing in thenext couple months.
So you can follow us at JCIMarketing on LinkedIn, uh JCI
Marketing.com.
Uh JCI Marketing.com.
Dash Marketing.
I always forget the dash.
(45:03):
My bad.
Um, but you can follow us therefor more updates and we'll be
releasing some demos so you cansee what it can do.
SPEAKER_02 (45:10):
Yeah.
And if you want to be in that umwhen we roll out the next test
group or anything, please reachout to myself or Kevin on
LinkedIn.
You can also reach us at jasonat jci-marketing.com or Kevin at
jci-marketing.com.
It's technically the happen, butdive in dash is easier to say.
(45:30):
Um, and I'm for mostimportantly, around this Sask
platform, let me be very clearon this.
It is not another chat bot.
No one wants to have to sit andargue with more chat bots.
Um, that's actually one of thetaglines we had when I built the
fair when we built the firstversion, um, which we called the
(45:52):
JCAI.
SPEAKER_00 (45:54):
I love it.
So excited.
I feel like I've been gettingteasers on this platform for
quite a bit now.
So I'm excited for it to come tofruition.
It's been exciting to watch yourguys' journey because you guys
joined joined TMSA earlier thisyear.
Uh Jason got to come to Elevate.
We got to meet in person, andthat was awesome.
And I am curious, just like kindof what does being in TMSA mean
(46:18):
to you guys?
What does it unlock as amarketing agency?
Why do you think that industryassociations are still a thing
here in business in 2025?
SPEAKER_02 (46:26):
It unlocks community, it reminds you you
are not in this alone.
And for the last three years orso, it can really feel like that
because it's been bad news storyafter bad news story after bad
news story, and it takes amassive toll on your mental
health.
I can easily say that visitingum Elevate, joining DMSA really
(46:54):
created a sense of communitythat I didn't realize I was
missing.
Because and then also attendingElevate, you just cannot
replicate those organicconversations and real-world
connections that happen whenyou're doing this stuff and you
accidentally let a piece of tresleches cake fall on the shoe of
the person standing next to youat the at the thing.
(47:15):
Eileen found that really funny.
I think that was Eileen, itmight have been Whitney, I don't
remember.
But out of I've told Kevin thisnonstop since June.
My biggest regret throughout allof this is that I did not join
TMSA when I started this.
SPEAKER_00 (47:35):
Well, we love to have you now, and you were a
pure delight to meet in person,and I love sitting in the
chaotic mess of our LinkedInchats that we've had ever since.
But you're fine, I live inchaos.
This seems normal to me.
SPEAKER_02 (47:55):
Oh, yes, that was interesting.
Kevin, I'll fill you in on thestory.
But so excited to have you guyshere.
SPEAKER_00 (48:04):
Excited to see what you guys have cooking up and
coming.
It's been a joy.
SPEAKER_02 (48:09):
Yes, and remember everyone, it's okay to slow down
a little bit.
Kevin was talking about thisyesterday.
It's going to be all right.
No one's life is actually atstake in marketing.
Um, so give yourself a bit ofgrace.
Yeah, it's going to be allright.
And we will see.
SPEAKER_00 (48:27):
Well, I do.
I have one question that I askeverybody.
So I have to ask you guysbecause I can't sign off without
doing it.
And that's if you could go backin time and give yourself one
piece of advice younger.
You could pick your age, itcould be personally, it's
professionally.
When would you go back to andwhat would you say?
Which maybe slowing down is thebit of advice, and that's okay.
But I have to formally ask it.
SPEAKER_03 (48:49):
Yeah, I just that was his answer.
SPEAKER_00 (48:52):
I love it.
I literally read my Kevin'sanswer, and he took it.
SPEAKER_02 (48:57):
So here, here, here.
Okay, Kevin, you do yours andI'll do mine.
Let's fix it.
SPEAKER_01 (49:02):
So, my advice to my younger self is it's it is okay
to slow down.
Um everything's gonna be allright, just be present.
Um, my younger self was sofocused on uh doing the next
thing, and and if I wasn'tconstantly busy that I I would
(49:22):
feel like I was failingsomebody, um, and that would
force me to not be present,which ironically was me failing
people.
Um, and so it's okay, slow down,just be present, be where your
feet are.
SPEAKER_02 (49:38):
And mine was um why be so serious?
No one's life is at stake inmarketing, yeah, generally.
So give yourself a little graceto echo Kevin's point.
It's going to be all right, andeven if it isn't, you'll be
surrounded by the people thatwill unlock your true unique
(50:00):
ability.
SPEAKER_00 (50:01):
I love that.
What a great way to end theshow.
Thank you guys both so much.
This has been like a masterclassin all things marketing, and
also highly recommend.
Hopefully, people watched itbecause I feel like this was a
funny one to watch our facialexpressions through.
SPEAKER_02 (50:16):
We're gonna have so much fun with the Opus clip.
SPEAKER_00 (50:19):
Yeah, I'm excited.
Thank you guys again um forcoming on the show and being a
part of TMSA, and I'll catcheverybody next time.
SPEAKER_02 (50:28):
Thank you, thank you, Jen.
unknown (50:29):
Bye.
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