Your AI can do what?

Speaker A: You know, if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how to communicate and talk with people throughout the customer journey. From if I'm meeting them on LinkedIn, on the top of Funnel, through the podcast and then getting them to my site and into my CRM and then through the customer journey to become a customer, it's really hard because we're trying to integrate different content types, different platform types and different delivery types of SMS, email, voice, webinar and so on. And in fact, 82% of customers expect businesses to provide seamless experience across all these different channels. But 60% of companies, including me, and maybe you struggle with this fragmented conversation. That's the problem that we can solve with Reid. Reed Hanson runs a company called Market Search out of Evanston, Illinois and he's going to talk to us about how to build really a joined up conversation with your customers throughout their journey and with using AI to do some of their heavy lifting. Reid, thank you for joining me today.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure. I really appreciate this opportunity and um, love to talk to a broader audience.

Speaker A: Yeah, well it's wonderful to have you come across the pond and this is a joy, isn't it? A podcast that we can really go across the world and it's a worldwide problem for entrepreneurs that we've got the desire, the need to be more and more online, to create more and more content and yet knitting it all together is really, really hard. So Reid, tell us about Market Surge, you know, to help people understand and uh, help me to understand more about the agency you're running. But then we'll talk into the customer journey and you know, we're going to walk through together how an entrepreneur can solve each step of the customer journey and communicate with them in a joined up way that means they don't lose them on the journey.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, Market Surge is a digital agency. Uh, um, we utilize multiple technologies to help facilitate uh, communication with clients where they are found, where they are most comfortable. And um, the, we enable our clients to have access to SMS to um, uh, platform for voice calls and um, automatic dialing emails with a view that these can all be seen in the same place. And um, thanks for bringing that up. So um, a unified view of all these communications is really critical to understanding your customer. Many individuals have different preferences on how they want to be contacted and reached and um, having those options, uh, are critical for any business. But uh, to have this in one place is very important for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, um, to maximize their efforts. Now we work with our clients to develop frameworks, uh, and processes that can be both automated, um, examined as they uh, are out in the wild. You know, when we actually get feedback, um, you know we re examine and adjust whether it's verbiage or timing of communications or particular um, offers. We work with our clients to make sure that that is continuously optimized and that uh, um, the needs of the customer are accounted for and um, you really meet them where they are.

Speaker A: Okay, so we've got a couple of things in there. Well actually lots of things in there Reid. And it's MarketSearch IO for anybody that wants to find Reid after this. Of course I'll include his details in the show notes. But Reid, we've talked about the need to have multiple touch points as people come across the customer journey or go along the customer journey, but that each technology platform may be doing something slightly different. You know, SMS may be one platform, you maybe got Facebook with another platform. You've got a CRM which is one platform. How do you help an entrepreneur, or rather how can an entrepreneur if uh, you like remove the work of you know, going on to zapier and make and all these other tools that then kind of are trying to do automation across the different platforms? Because some of us spend as much time trying to get it all to work as actually doing the work.

Speaker B: Yeah, well obviously we uh, have, have done this for many years and we have ah, for instance specific industries that we've developed a lot of best practices in. And so um, as an agency, you know, I'd recommend this for any agency owner that they niche down and focus on businesses that they've worked with and use that expertise to um, you know, not, not proprietary information but share, share best practices with future uh, clients and try to build a community in ah, a given niche. Now um, we, so we use, utilize frameworks uh, across different businesses but we've found that um, we need to continuously refine. As I was talking about before, um, sometimes the messaging worked in this business or in um, this time zone in the usa, but it didn't work in a uh, different state in the usa. Um, so we adjust and refine. So we start with the framework and then examine results and iterate uh, based on response rates or customer um, conversion rates.

Speaker A: Okay so Reid, when you say a framework that presumably is if you like from A to Z every time that the potential customer has a touch point with your client and do you want to just take us through. So you are also using AI and we're going to talk about how you're using AI and how we can all use AI at each sort of touch point. Do you want to start at the top of the funnel or uh, I guess, yeah, outside the funnel and just take us through so that you know, uh, we can learn from you what are some of the tools and some of the best practices that we should put into place.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So you know, it's a very deep topic and so I'll do my best to be as concise.

Speaker A: Yeah, obviously. But in a way detailed and yet top line, you know.

Speaker B: Sure, you bet. So um, what, um. Well, let me just start. One thing at the top is, I'd like to emphasize that if you are using uh, ChatGPT, for instance, as a business, if you have an account. So the. One of the first things you should do is create an agent that's very specific to your business. And the um, maybe Jim, you've talked about this on past, uh, podcasts, but you should. The ChatGPT, if you use it a free version, if you just open it and start typing questions, it will only remember things that you have um, input into that thread and it will um, reflect that. But if you create what ChatGPT calls an agent, and there's also other, um, other versions on other platforms, agents are available on Rock and Gemini as well. Um, you create uh, uh, so what I've done is I've created a market search strategy agent and then I've also created an agent for each one of my clients. And this every time I open the agent, it um, I've uh, put paragraphs and paragraphs of information about uh, the uh, practices we have at our business, our preferences, our experience, um, and case studies. And you can add file uh, attachments to even extend that further. You can have a whole uh, Wikipedia for each client. And that is where I would start with using AI in any step of the process is that you have that context, uh, the, the bot with the context like top of mind. So every question it answers, it's. It's acting as an employee or agent of that business.

Speaker A: Okay, and just to be clear then, so um, Reid, you call it an agent. Is that what is also termed a custom GPT?

Speaker B: Correct? Yep.

Speaker A: And then that's good for when you're working on like the content. For example, I know some people in, in uh, in storytelling have built a custom GPT or agent for storytelling. But how can you then, if you like, serve your customer with that agent? Because otherwise you're getting an intelligent assistant for you to do the work or Maybe a team. But part of what we're talking about today is how, how you improve the customer experience. And I noticed on your website for example, you say that 78% of customers buy from the first business that responds to their inquiry and yet the average lead response time is over 47 hours. So that's low hanging fruit Reid, isn't it? Absolutely. Is there some way that you can use or that you are using that GPT to be the first responder?

Speaker B: Absolutely. And what we have is software um, that can respond dynamically to a client when they submit a form or any kind of inquiry. And so um, it uses natural language processing to read the response. We have open ended fields, uh, like question fields, like tell us why you need a marketing partner and so they give us a few sentences and um, it reads that it synthesizes it and uh, provides a custom response. And now the ideal is that you have a human answering every response, a polished professional. But that doesn't always happen because those inquiries come in uh, after the 9 to 5 work schedule or on a weekend. And so we have a chat agent that answers sms. I also utilize voice AI agents, um, for incoming phone calls. The training process is similar to how I train a custom GPT but um, extensive testing is required and you want to uh, make sure that you are monitoring the responses and the dialogue between the two entities. And um, if you ever see anything inappropriate or odd, that's time to add some additional instructions for the robot.

Speaker A: Uh, and Reid, I'm just going to ask you that you're using voice, which voice are using? Because I've experimented with 11 labs for example for clients to create um, a multilingual agent because they're a travel agency and they're selling services in uh, in Spain but the clients are in America. So that's great. What are you doing in terms of voice and is that something that is on the website? Because especially for people maybe that are visibly, you know, have uh, do you call it impairment? Sorry, I've got a bit of a flu.

Speaker B: I'm.

Speaker A: It slows it. But you've got people that are visually impaired is the term I'm looking for. Your voice agents could be very useful, couldn't they?

Speaker B: Absolutely. And so the technology I'm currently using, so I have actually experimented with 11 labs and um, one other, um, what I'm forgetting but because of the fact that my CRM is built on the Go high level platform, there is a native voice AI that um, after a few iterations, so day one it wasn't Great. But after a few iterations, um, I've been very happy with, uh, the results.

Speaker A: Okay, that's interesting. And then on Reid's website at, uh, Marketsearch IO, um, you can find a sort of catalog of ways that he's using AI. Um, if you want to look at my YouTube channel, Jim A. James, you'll see a screen share. But he's got content AI, conversation AI, workflow AI, voice AI, which we just touch on, and funnel builder AI. So really this is then using your platform across the entire process, isn't it, Reid?

Speaker B: Yes, uh, yeah. Um, we found that the AI, uh, is able to examine a lot of potential options for workflows and it has ideas ready to go. So if you ask it simple questions, you'll get simple out of the box workflows, for instance, or, um, email campaigns, very simplified. Um, and so that is where you, as the business owner or business leader come in. You have to give it better instructions to get better outputs. And um, I like to joke, I am not a computer, ah, developer or ah, technician by, by background, um, I got an MBA and then in undergrad I actually was an Italian major. And so I do like to say that AI actually has empowered the humanities majors of the world to play strongly in the technology world. Um, because so much of the output of AI depends on the quality of input and the thoughtfulness that you, uh, give in prompting it.

Speaker A: I think that is such a great point that really it is only actually as smart as the prompts that you give it. That's right. So Reid, we talked then about top of Funnel. So maybe someone's doing a podcast, Perhaps you could take us through, maybe a customer that you've got without, if you don't want to divulge names, but a case study of how you've managed to build this flow. Because for many of us, I say we end up with these kind of points of contact, points of AI, and then we spend our time trying to manage the AI in the same way that you might manage a member of staff, just without the conversations and the Christmas parties. So, yeah, so take us through a customer, you know, a client that you've got and what you've done for them and how that's worked.

Speaker B: And then just to clarify, do you want me to talk about how I've helped them implement AI or how I've taken them through the sales cycle with,

Speaker A: um, let's, let's talk about what you've done for them. So, you know, have they got, they've got an, you know, so let's think that I'm a potential client and you're saying okay, this is the solution that we can, we can put all the way through.

Speaker B: Perfect. So one, you know I really enjoy working with, um, one niche that I really enjoy working with in particular are pest control clients. And um, in the, in the U.S. i don't know if this applies in the, in the UK quite the same but in the US um, the pest control companies, um, they've evolved a bit but they are very high volume outbound sales organizations. And is that the case in the.

Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it's a commodity item. Right. Sort of lowest price, coming to a neighborhood near you on Thursday.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Booking your $50 extermination.

Speaker B: Right, exactly. And so um, there's a tradition of college students, they spend summer walking the streets and they knock doors in the warmer climate states and say hey, you know they, they sell right on the spot. It's one of the few industries that still does a lot of door to door sales. Right. They also generally have very high volume call centers, um, both inbound and outbound. Um, like you said it's a commodity. So they, they prize um, the velocity at which they can respond and um, finding people's needs before they even pick up the phone. Thus the door to door agents. And um, so speed is critical and volume and reach are also critical. So um, in the case of talking to a Pest Control Client, 1, so there are two aspects that needed to be managed. There were multiple ways that customers were coming inbound. Um one was through um, organic search. They typed in pest control services near me and we work with them to manage the SEO in a way you know effectively. We use, we utilize AI to analyze the current state of uh, like audit their um, SEO status and the keywords that they are ranking for and opportunities for improvement. Um so we, so we have that analysis. We create blogs, we recreate landing pages and other things to improve their organic ranking. And then we also do advertising uh based on the, the high volume searches in their area. So some areas are going to have higher volumes of termites or uh, rodents. And um, we, we, we do an analysis and, and represent that in um, uh AI generated keyword uh embedded content for, for those pages. Then um, we also help them facilitate um more. So we, so in this case we, we suggest uh an AI agent for both chat and voice for calls that they miss. But they have large call centers so there aren't many that they miss. But we um, have also embedded these, these agents, these AI agents in nurture campaigns. Because once they have worked with a uh, pest control company, you know, as, as it is fairly commoditized and um, you know, honestly it could be a little bit forgettable what company they worked with and they're going to Google it again. They create uh, campaigns where custom uh, message goes out via chat. You know, there's a task assigned to a rep to send out a custom message, say hey, um, it's been a while. Um, you know, I know this, this is the season, the high season for um.

Speaker A: M. You know, weevils or something.

Speaker B: Weevils, yeah, exactly. So, so um, just wanted to check in, see if you're ready and then when they respond and you do that, you could potentially do that in mass. And then when they respond you have um, an agent that can book an appointment and uh, take it through close. Um, so, so it's in part because there are so many channels that we have to. And, and in a situation where there's high competition, um, that, that speed is so important and there's so many different ways that a business uh, reaches its customers that um, you know, we provide basically AI technology at each channel.

Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. And then I could see on your offering you have email, sms, sales funnel, website call tracking, surveys, bookings, CRM tracking analysis. You've even got courses. Looks like you're working with kajabi and teachable uh, there. And you've got reputation management and you're giving your clients uh, a menu of offerings or they can presumably buy the whole.

Speaker B: That's correct. And like you said, um, to um. Generating content in a lot of different forms is very valuable for uh, the customer journey. Um, some. A lot of customers aren't really customers yet until they do a little searching after they've tried to do it themselves. Um, so they might be googling in the pest control situation. Like how do I, uh. How do I Poison.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Myself. And. And then you have a guide to download that from your website. Um, or a video course, something that you provide. And. And then that turns into, wow, they really know what they're doing. I don't really want to touch those chemicals. Let me uh, let me.

Speaker A: Yeah, so you've got, you've got. Reed. I have to ask you then. Um. Excuse me, you, I have to ask you. You talked about ChatGPT for the Intelligent agent.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, at the risk of geeking out here, um, what tools are you using for writing the content and also then for the graphic design or videos? What are you playing with there? Uh, to generate consistent quality.

Speaker B: Yeah. Great question. So, um, I have been using Jasper AI for a long time. Um, but um, it's funny, at the beginning Jasper was not that great. It was just kind of impressive that it could do anything.

Speaker A: It was one of the first movers really, wasn't it?

Speaker B: Exactly. And, but what I found is, um, if I use two AI, uh, engines to. So I write either in Jasper or uh, Chat GPT and then I ask the second uh, GPT to rewrite it and uh, you know, improve, you know, make it more persuasive or make it more concise. Um, you know, give it an additional instruction. Um, it's better than just having one write it and less, um, uh, it's more challenging to tell uh, that it was written by AI.

Speaker A: So in the old days, you know, when I ran my PR firm, um, you'd have. Every press release would have four eyes, right? The account exec would write it and the senior would, would review it and then go back and then the client would review it. I don't know, I don't know what it would be called when it's AIs. Checking AIs as they have. No, I guess it'd be two AIs, wouldn't it? Not four eyes, sure. I've also found, um, using Grammarly. Very good. Um, because I'll create content in AI Writer, which is another good one, for example, or ChatGPT, and put it into Grammarly and that makes it local for the uk, for example, and checks against passive voice, which I find AI struggles with quite a lot as passive voice. So it's interesting that you're pairing up and I will then get the benefit of your wisdom with video, uh, images. What are you finding works there?

Speaker B: Uh, let me just, um, I want to double check. Okay, so. Because I just started using one yesterday that I actually really liked. Um, okay, so there is of course the Chat GPT, uh, Sora, it sounds like you're familiar with that.

Speaker A: I'm playing with Zora. Sorry. Yeah, that's kind of fun.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And also with Descript, you know you can type, yeah you can type a script into descript, um, and it will make for you a video.

Speaker B: And I'm also a Descript user.

Speaker A: Um. Yeah, you, ah, go Descript. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker B: M and then. But my, um. I just, I'm just going to click through my tabs because I want to find this, um, before I, uh, speak that I've, I've actually really liked and it was quite inexpensive. It is, um, I'm Sorry I didn't have this top of mind, but, um, it's unfair.

Speaker A: I dropped this on Reed just because when we talk about all these different tools, I think one of the, uh, one of the options that we have as entrepreneurs is to try and stitch them all together ourselves. And you can tell I play with them a lot. But for the sort of prices that Reid is charging for putting all together, which is, you know, you've got sort of $99 a month, and the whole package is like $1,200 a month. Right. It makes a lot of sense to find someone like Reid who's doing all this background work and making it into a consistent customer journey for you. Otherwise, you're trying to get all these different tools together and then get the content from one place to another. And, Reid, you're. You're plainly doing that for clients. That's, That's. I wanted to go into the kind of tools that you're using because they do exist, but it can be as time consuming to find them and learn them and use them as it can be just to outsource and get on with running your own business.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I found the platform. It's called Leonardo AI, uh, which I found is actually. It seems to be, uh, quite good value for the monthly membership, um, and very high quality video as well.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So a little plug for. For that platform. I'll also say, too, to your point, I, um, You know, I willingly put a target on myself. Um, I will. Any, almost any sales representative that comes to me with something that seems original, a software that seems original, I will, I will talk to them and meet with them. I, um, I feel like that's part of my role, as you say, to be, um, aware of all the technology and at least have an opinion on it, if not some user experience, uh, that I can speak to directly.

Speaker A: And, Reid, for the client of Market Search, I'm assuming that they talk with you about the framework, as you call it, the customer journey. Yes, the avatar, you know, the ideal customer profile. And then you map out the different omnichannel. You know, whether it's SMS, whether it's WhatsApp, whether it's email, whether it's podcasts or whatever. Uh, but the client, Your client really just logs into a dashboard, I'm assuming, and gets kind of just go in and find the people that want to buy from you. Is that right?

Speaker B: That's right. And we have a combination of automated and, um, manual steps in each process. Uh, you know, we like the first interaction to be, uh, Custom, whenever possible. So if we're going to start a cold email campaign, we'd like the first one going out to uh, be written by a human or the first cold call is placed by a uh, human, um, when, whenever possible, um, obviously. And you know you can help, you can help qualify clients that way, uh, you'll quickly remove them from a customer flow and prevent uh, angered.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a really great point that we were going to come onto this question of authenticity and we've maybe sort of got ourselves to that point. Do you think what you've just stated, that the first call, the first email should really have a human touch because it's that sensitivity, isn't it, that enables you to build the relationship with the client? Would that be your recommendation?

Speaker B: That absolutely would be my recommendation. Um, for a few reasons like you say, um, people are getting more and more communications and unsolicited, um, outreach than ever before because we have these softwares that make it so easy to do it. There's forces in the other direction like um, the telecom companies with their filters and the email systems with their filters. But um, people are on guard. They don't want to be, um, they don't want to be annoyed, but they also don't want to be taken, um, advantage of. So it's fair on their side that their guard should be up. But when, um, I rarely get a call from a human, um, anymore unsolicited. And so when I do it's like, oh, um, this is a real person. And the novelty of that is often enough to start a conversation.

Speaker A: And I think that's a, that's a really great point that in this age of AI, being human can be the source of competitive advantage, can't it? You know, and that's actually very reassuring because it doesn't mean the big companies are going to win. Reid, you've run Market Search for a number of years now. So as an entrepreneur in your own right, what would you say is your sort of number one piece of advice to other entrepreneurs when it comes to building your business?

Speaker B: Well, it's been a real growth journey for me. Um, I though I have worked in sales and marketing for my entire career. Um, sometimes I can surprise people and confess that I am an introvert and that a lot of uh, human um, a lot of meetings kind of exhaust me and um, it feels like, feels like work. But um, I have learned to push back against that instinct because of uh, the rewards that I get from networking. Um, so as I said, I love to Take calls from potential vendors, um, potential job seekers. I get people from my university. They'll reach out frequently for the purpose of networking and asking about the industry. And um, I love taking those calls because, um, the best customers come from those kinds of networking interactions. Um, you know, like we've, we, you know, like, I'm open to help people for free. Absolutely. And, um, you know, whether it's with advice or, or point, uh, them to, uh, software that I've really enjoyed using or article, uh, so the one piece of advice that I'd say is, uh, you can't overvalue opportunities for human interaction and networking. Um, despite all the technology that we have, the best outcomes are going to come from speaking, uh, to people. And um, maybe I'd say without a motive, like if those um, open kind of settings and uh, you may have to overcome some introversion, um, those lucky extroverts are going to be happy. But I think that's exactly what we should all be focused on.

Speaker A: Okay, Reid, that's wonderful. And in terms of focus, I do ask about a book or podcast that you may be focusing on when you're not working.

Speaker B: Well, when I'm not working, um, I have, you know, I'm on my third listen of the podcast the History of Rome. Um, I don't know if you've heard this one, but it is, um, uh, a comprehensive history. Might be 10 years old, but it goes through every year of the Roman Empire. And in, in detail, it's a one person talking and, and um, you know, it starts out, he's got a very low quality setup. And then you hear, and over the, the podcast, it greatly improves and um, it is just fascinating. I, I'm one of those, those people. There's a meme going on about how often do you think about the Roman Empire. And you know, it's, it's probably daily for me.

Speaker A: Well, I guess right now, especially as you've got sort of Caesar in the White House, um, just one question is going to be who's going to be brute? That's the question. Reid. Reid, um, if you want to get hold of you and talk to you about market search, how can they do that?

Speaker B: So the best way is, uh, to go to marketsearch IO, uh, take a look at our offerings and uh, we have pop up forms and other forms at the bottom of every page. But you're also welcome to reach out to me directly at reedarketsurge IO and I would be happy to talk. Even again, it doesn't have to be a customer client discussion, Happy to network, happy to bounce ideas. And, um, just. Just love meeting new people. And, um, I'm sure I would benefit as much as you would.

Speaker A: Thank you, Reid. And for an introvert, I appreciate you being, you know, um, open, open handed and open hearted. Reed Hansen, joining me from Evanston, Illinois, thank you very much.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: So Reid and I got into the weeds a little bit about AI partly because I'd like, you know, to share with you some of the tools that are available, but also to know that now there are agencies like Market Search that can help you with all of that. Uh, it could be a lot of heavy lifting. And unless you really enjoy it talking to someone like Reid or talking to Reid directly, why don't you just call Reid, um, and help yourself by letting them help you. So that's been today's episode of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur. If you've enjoyed it, please do share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. Uh, and we really don't want anyone to go unnoticed. And until meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating.