Beyond the Search Bar: How AI is Redefining Visibility for Small Business | Maria Elena Duron

Unlocked Professional: AI and Future of Work: you're worried about AI replacing you if you're robotic and you don't have any personality or any uniqueness to what you do or your unique perspective. Yes, AI will replace you, but thankfully that's not a large majority of us because everybody has that uniqueness that they bring and when they have that passion that's something AI can't replace. And so then I look at somebody and I think, ⁓ yeah, you're the cashier that people will stand six or seven people deep in an actual checkout line and they'll actually wait for them because they're gonna ask me about my kiddos.

They're gonna remember that why I was here, they're they're nice, I'm gonna get to update and find out what's happening with their kiddos. So there's actually a relationship there that AI can't replace. It's just something interesting when you mentioned the grocery store and in terms of innovation. things that I've heard, such as like Amazon or even just other larger chains, some of what we might see in the future is like almost cashierless stores where you go in and you pick your products up and you leave.

And then the other thing, which may be not so exciting for everybody, is dynamic Pricing. I don't know if you've heard of that, where there's actually you might walk up to with your phone and you might walk up to your the serial section and all of a sudden it identifies that it's Maria. And they say, Let's charge Maria a little bit more because we know that she really likes this cereal. Some good, some bad, but it's coming either way.

Most small business owners feel like they're running a race that never ends. You finally figure out how to show up on a search page, and then the rules change. Now computers are reading your business. Writing a little summary about you and handing it to a customer before that customer ever even clicks on your link.

You didn't write that summary, you didn't approve it, and you have no idea if it's even true. That's a big messy problem. Our guest today has spent over 11 years helping people clean up that mess. She's the CEO and chief AI officer of a smart brand systems and a growth with Google Coach.

Her superpower is translation. She takes scary tech changes and turns them into a simple plan so your business stays simple, accurate, and trusted. She's not chasing the newest shiny thing. She's helping people build a safety net that actually lasts.

Maria, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate being here. Thank you for having me.

Excited about this today. I've been dabbling in the world of marketing and search. And I know that the how things are working or changing and evolving so quickly is going to be a huge value add for the audience and myself. So I'll be taking notes, Maria, and I'll kick it off with the first question here.

You have been helping out businesses grow for over 11 years, but I want to go back before all that. What was your first grown-up job and did anything from that experience stick with you when you started helping people navigate those big tech changes? Yes, actually it's funny because I feel like I've always been working. I put myself through college and working so many different jobs while still carrying the actual load, the course load of that.

But what my first real job after college, after after graduating, was with a large grocery store. In fact, it's one of the number one family owned grocery stores in the US. And from there it was just seeing how that grocery store translated from simple things. You're talking about how things were priced and put on the shelf to now all of a sudden we're going into digital and having everything scanned, having inventory and scan bars.

And how do you account for productivity there? as opposed to also the productivity when you're connecting with a customer and you're helping them and talking to them and ⁓ being able to be that great customer service because they definitely have that culture in this particular store that you know you don't just point out this is down this aisle. You actually would walk people through there, getting to know them and helping them find exactly what they need to find on the shelf compared to now where you can just look simply on the app.

And you can just go there and get pointed to there and even find out before you walk into the store if that's an inventory. So just seeing that transition to me has been amazing. And to see the opportunities that have just even from there, from graduating from college, to see what happened then and to see now the opportunities that we have as we have AI actually come into fruition. And even though it's still at the point with large language models, it's exciting to see some of just the technical changes that people didn't even have access to before.

And now all of a sudden it's just it's it's common. Everybody has it on their phone. And that's just going to speed and increase, you know, with that that have that kind of customization. ⁓ looking even just recently as a tool was dropped, I think it was earlier this week, by the Google team and being able to have large language model locally on your device and keep it there and secure and for free.

And so that's really cool to see what's exactly happening. So for me, it was just the being able to see that transition, navigating that, but still also navigating that with people. Because at the end of the day, it's still people doing business with people. Even though we may have other all these other tools assist us and introduce us in different ways, it is still that.

Yeah, just something interesting when you mentioned the grocery store and in terms of innovation, things that I've heard, such as like Amazon or even just other larger chains, some of what we might see in the future is like almost cashierless stores where you go in and you pick your products up and you leave. And then the other thing, which may be not so exciting for everybody, is dynamic pricing. I don't know if you've heard of that, where there's actually you might walk up.

to ⁓ with your phone and you might walk up to your the cereal section and all of a sudden it identifies that it's Maria and they say let's charge Maria a little bit more because we know that she really likes this cereal. Some good, some bad, but it's coming either way. It's funny because it's ⁓ that actually that technology, it was back in 2008 ⁓ that I was introduced to that technology. So if we had the ability to do a dynamic pricing, even then in vending machines.

It was a hot day, You know, we can bring up the price. And if it was not, then then you could bring down the price even so you you just can get people on that supply and demand and that need that they have. So yes, it it's interesting to see that. But I have seen, Jeff, such a difference too that some of the the big boxes that put a lot of cashierless in actually pulled back from that and took some of that away because people were looking for the personalization.

And I think that's the big thing with AI. I tell people if You're worried about AI replacing you if you're robotic and you don't have any personality or any uniqueness to what you do or your unique perspective. Yes, AI will replace you, but thankfully that's not a large majority of us because everybody has that uniqueness that they bring. And when they have that passion, that's something AI can't replace.

And so then I look at somebody and I think, ⁓ yeah, you know, you're you're the cashier that people will stand. you know, six or seven people deep in an actual checkout line and they'll actually wait for them because they're gonna ask me about their k my kiddos. They're gonna remember that why I was here, they're they're nice. I'm gonna get to update and find out what's happening with their kiddos.

So there's actually a relationship there that AI can't replace. And I look forward to that future where we have more opportunity to be people and make those connections. And that's my hope is that AI automates the busy work and we get to go back to being the people that we are meant to be. Yes.

⁓ I love that. So you travel all over the country and you also host a podcast called hashtag brand chat on top of everything else that you do. When you finally get a moment that's just for you, what is one hobby or thing that you do that helps you stay fresh and creative? It's funny, I don't think ever since my boys were born, I'm the mom of three boys, have I ever had really a moment alone?

Nor have I wanted it. I absolutely love and relish the role that I get to be of mama. That's my best role ever. And so my creative getaway is getting to do stuff with the kiddos.

It's been like that as all their life and as they've been growing up. They're all grown now. But we still love to getaway and go to Renaissance fairs. So we love Ren Fairs.

We go to the Vegas Ren Fair. We've been to several in Texas. Of course, the largest Texas one is in Houston, the Texas Renaissance Fair. Love, love, love that.

Cause it's a chance now to to be in character, to play, to just relax, to see how creative everybody gets. And when you're just out there in the fair and you're ⁓ out amongst the woods, should we say a forest, because it's really the Texas Renaissance Fair is right out there, just in the middle of a huge forest. And you just feel like, okay, I have no connection to anything. I yes, I may have my phone for photos, but that's about it, because there's way too much going on to even spend any time looking at your phone.

And you are just going through and seeing how creative everybody can everybody can be and the creative conversations that they're having, that really helps just to me. It's a refresh. It's a chance to stay away from technology for a little bit and remember even when technology was far removed from any of our lives. And yet to also think about, ⁓ this is where, you know, tech has helped us and supported us.

And ⁓ this would be a great idea here, even where some of those ideas were born. What's your favorite Renaissance fair food? I would have to say it and this is funny because it's I go to the Texas Renaissance Fair, which to me is is where I get spoiled because you know I'll do the the the turkey, the drumstick, and and of course, you know, you've always got to have mead. I I I'm definitely like mead.

But at the Texas Renaissance Fair, they have They're amazing at crawfish etuffet. And so I love the crawfish at Tuffet at the Texas Renaissance Fair. I look forward to it every year. I'm first there.

I would say the other one that you see commonly in other rent fairs is bacon on a stick. So bacon on a stick does also do well too. Really cool. Yeah.

We took our daughter, yeah. The big turkey legs are I'm a big fan of those. And then also the joust, right? I think that I love the joust.

That's so much fun. Yes. Cool. So You have spent years as a professional trainer, but you often say that AI is a transition, not just a trend.

What was the moment, the thing you saw happening in the world that made you stop and say, I have to help people with this right now? I think it was even just playing with AI. So I had early access to some AI. And when I was playing with AI before it people even knew that artificial intelligence was something that they would even think about accessing and working with is I was trying different things like putting three people together and having them morph and see what they would communicate or what kind of advice it would give.

So I was trying all these different things with AI. And then when I saw it first roll out, the first time I told somebody about it, they were just like, ⁓ that, you know, that's something, you know, yeah, I've heard a little bit about it. And that was it. Then all of a sudden it was, okay, I'm using it for email.

I'm using it for this. And I realized just about how impactful it was. It was no longer just this tool, this new software that I was using. It was more like electricity in that it was the operating system that were people were starting to put in.

And truly early on, even yeah, after graduating from college, one of my first experiences, and and it's one of those things that you kick yourself for because it was eBay back then. ⁓ was big and I was an active eBayer buying more than selling, but I did a little bit of both. And I was offered the opportunity to buy ⁓ eBay stock early in the day and I thought, ⁓ this is just a fad. And it was one of those moments you wish, ⁓ if I could do a redo, that would be the only redo.

I l everything else, you know, I understand, but that redo, so when I saw AI come around and started to see that, I thought, you know what? This is something also that people need to learn how to navigate. And there's a lot of fear when it first came out. And there still is some.

I still hear that. But at least now people are realizing how they can wield this system and it can help them, as you said, focus more on being human and not doing the tasks that are just taking them away. Because I do hear business owners often say, I got into business because I love what I do. And now all I do is work on the business side of business.

And I don't want that and I'm tired of doing that. So I appreciate what AI can do to help solve that for them. What type of work can you explain to the audience just what it a typical day in the life of Maria looks like and with the work that you do? Sure.

So most all days I'm doing some sort of webinar or training. And training people like earlier today I was training on how to build marketing assets faster with Nano Banana. Yesterday I talked about visibility in AI search and also how you can turn documents into living action with notebook LM, how you can utilize all sorts of AI tools, but still keep governance and AI use policies in place. So you're keeping your information safe and secure and not just your business proprietary, but also what you're doing with your customers pi PII, personal identifiable information.

So much of my day is about making sure people are utilizing AI securely and looking through how people have done their settings. Are they leaving it on default mode of Training the public model or are they not? Do they have their systems in place? Do they have the human in charge so that they're not letting AI transition one thing to another without some sort of human quality assurance?

So I'm looking at systems, I'm talking to people, either coaching them through and training or actually deep diving into their different systems, which I was doing yesterday afternoon. And I'll do a little bit more this afternoon into deep diving into looking at how systems are working. to make sure that they're visible. So I spend some time with some clients who a lot of them are family-owned businesses.

Some of them are people who are founders, so they're founders that have been around for a while and they're the parent. And now they have to transition their information that they have in here and they've lived now to children that they're looking at putting together a secession plan with. Some kiddos that are ready for it and some that don't want anything to do with it. So it's interesting to be able to utilize even AI in those moments to capture that information of what the founder has and the founder stories that the kids may have heard all their life, but never did anybody record it and keep it anywhere where you can ask it questions and really kind of understand the even the strategy behind it.

So that has been fascinating for me to work on, but that's me in any given day. So it's always with people. Usually on camera, but sometimes in person, and then always delving into looking at their different systems and explaining how it could work well for them in a way that they can start applying. Because yes, there's a lot of tech speak out there.

And I am one who does not like tech speak. I like to give practical. Let's get this so it can get you to where you want this to help you, not just different interesting factoids. So you ⁓ just sort for some context here.

So I know you do the Google coach the group grow with Google coaching, but then you also are the the chief AI officer of brand system. So is there are you doing one more than the other? Do those mesh together? Those could you just give a little more context behind, I guess, the different functions that you're involved in?

Sure. So with Grow with Google, it is definitely in teaching businesses, small business owners. specifically on how you can utilize all of the Google tools in Google's ecosystem, especially the AI that Google's rolling out and how you can keep your information safe and secure. A lot of people are utilizing these different workspaces and keeping in that ecosystem, which I like to keep things secure.

But I'm also very familiar with all the other tools. So that's, I would say that's probably about 50 to 60% of my time is working with the Google team and making sure that everybody from small business development centers, business incubators, banks even who have large amount of customers are having this kind of access to training. And they have somebody who can field a lot of the different questions that some of the small businesses have as they're tr trying to apply how AI could help and assist them in growing and scaling their business.

So that's about as I said, fifty to sixty percent of my time. Sorry. No, go sorry, go ahead. Yeah.

I know that those two parts. So And then the other part of the time is being involved with a lot of training in working with chief AI officers that are consultants too. So I help train them on how to utilize not just the Google tools, but a lot of it's the Google tools, but how they can be visible within AI search, within being able to be seen in platforms and answer engine optimization. So I talk a lot about that and I actually train them in.

I'm really familiar because of that, training with them with other systems like ChatGPT and Claude. I'm very familiar with how to utilize those tools if you weren't utilizing just the Google ecosystem. Within Grow with Google Coaching, I do stay within just the Google tools. But then outside of that, I can branch into other tools and just see how people are using that to do marketing or even operations within their business.

So how and when did you get aligned with the Google Grow Coaching? That was about nine years ago. Actually, I say nine years ago was officially when I became a Google trainer. So there are several different roles at Google, but it was back in 2013 when ⁓ Google had a program called Google Help Out.

Actually, it was a little bit earlier than 2013, but they had a program called Google Help Out. And that was really what started ⁓ the journey for me because at that time Google was it was all very confusing to me. I was a small business owner. And I was trying to figure things out and just reading the instructions was overwhelming.

And trying to follow along with anybody, I thought, ⁓ my gosh, I was just thrown off by the lingo. So any just even the explanation and the definitions of things was enough for me to be done. So what I did next is I what I reached out to see how could it help with Google. And there was this thing called Google help out.

You could get with somebody on chat, on video, or even on the phone. For 15 minutes and I'd walk you through something. It wouldn't cost you anything, and it was only for 15 minutes, not a minute more. So I love that.

And I thought, ⁓ I want to do this for people. Let me at least figure out the marketing, some of the marketing tools and see if I could. Google was definitely looking for volunteers to do that. I was able to do that and got involved in help outs and I helped out so many small businesses just with.

How can I find my password? Where do I find this app? You know, how do I log into this? Those are some of the basic questions people have.

And then it became even more how come I can't see this? How come the agency I work with can see it and I can't see it? And then I realized that a lot of people were having people take over a lot of their actual ⁓ their control, even their access to things because they didn't know how to do things. So they just would hand that over.

with passwords and basically giving them the keys to the kingdom and not know how to access that that information back. So then it became a mission. So now when ⁓ Google was looking for trainers, I was actually speaking for an email marketing company and they approached me about training because I'd been on Google help outs before. And I said, absolutely, I would love to do this.

And I became a Google trainer. And then Google Trainers worked for about four and a half years that program was on and then it became Google Coaches. So I've been ⁓ with ⁓ in the Google ecosystem for at least nine years officially as somebody in the Google team member. And before I was a volunteer with Google.

So you were doing this is pre AI tools, probably more like Google Workspace, email, whatever was in the ecosystem. What tool what tools were they, by the way, back in twenty thirteen? What were the hot tools workspace, Gmail? The hot tools were tools for Gmail.

It was really Gmail and YouTube. You Gmail and YouTube were the two that people wanted to talk about all the time. What about was it Spaces? Was Spaces back then too?

Do you remember that? The there was like a social media network that they had. And I'm kind of thinking I think that was it. Plus.

It was like their yeah, their social media. And I was on there. I was pretty excited, but I think I was the only person on there. Right.

It it took a while and it just really they had so many things. They launched what I loved about and still love about Google is they have so many ideas that they want to try out and they're proactive and launching it. But that's also can be disappointing sometimes if you become one of the people that falls in love with something and you're like, wait, come back, bring it back. I'll tell more people about it.

⁓ I'm curious, do you just c going back into more of today and like More the agentic tools. Do you ever do you advise or coach on like anti-gravity or any of the more agentic AI tools? Yes, I love using and I do that quite a bit with anti-gravity, ⁓ Google's AI studio. Of course, we've got Gemma for just a lot just dropped earlier this week.

And that's part of a ⁓ a project with a lot of AIs also are working on a project Glass Wing. So there's lots of things happening. There's vertex. The good thing now is you can go to Discord.

And look at the different Google labs that are happening there and jump onto a Discord channel there and give them some feedback and even test some things out. So the labs are now where Google does test a lot of product and decide whether or not there's enough interest and enough enough value really in something to see whether it should launch as an actual Google tool. So I love doing that. That's something that I've always been excited about going out and testing things even before I was on the Google team.

So Is it fair to say that you're pretty hands-on with the tools? I talk to some folks that are like chief AI officers or they're more about strategy. So you're coaching, giving feedback, advice, making suggestions, but you're also you also dabble, like you could do integrations, you could set up an agent. Do you do that or do you have a team that does that?

How does that work? I have a lot of people I refer to that do that. So myself and my team know my you know, my team, we focus on ⁓ really a lot of the visibility side. of search and AI and into AI platforms.

So just being there where people are asking questions or where people are looking for answers. That's our focus area. For builds, I know what take it it takes to put a build together. I've been there involved actually with builds as they launch, ⁓ actively being a part of it, actively even creating some of this code, which just to me is a whole other world because I tell people I don't code.

So I don't even know how to look to see if there's any code injection issues or opportunities. So I know what to ask for because I know it that in that way. And I know what to make sure that there's stop gaps and and strategy towards, but I don't do that myself. No, I I would take forever to build something because I would become fascinated with one little area and I would delve deep into that and then forget that I need to do the rest of the build because that's my background.

If anything, I look more at the data. So I am a data whisperer to watch, you know, how the traffic flows, what's happening, how are people using what area of the actual tool are they using? And you know, where does it seem like they're they're seeing some glitches? So some user experience that may need to ⁓ be brought more attention and maybe redesigned to.

I think with the tool the tools that are available right now, that there's more of an opportunity these days to to give coaching and advisement and suggestions and understand how these tools integrate together. There's a huge opportunity for that. Obviously, this is what you do. And I just think more for the audience that maybe some folks may be less familiar with these tools in general.

You can just get started by asking questions. Open up your LLM, start asking questions, explaining a little bit about what your business does, be cautious about what you're sharing, right? Make sure the privacy and security component has to be there. But just like you, right?

Like I've specifically learned a lot of these tools on my own. I'm definitely not the most technical person. I've been hiring engineers for the last 20 years that can do way more than I can. But I mean at least enough I have an at least enough understanding of how systems work and how they integrate together.

And solving those business problems for me is fun. I I enjoy that type of work. I like to think of what opportunities might be available to integrate different stacks together or how to solve again kind of business problems. I'm curious with obviously a big part of what you're doing is the search component.

Could you give us some feedback on what are the common themes that you're seeing from customers right now in the work that you do in terms of solutions that they're looking to solve for? Sure. A lot of them are looking for issues are yeah the they're looking to solve for getting fet being found in search in all of the search engines as well as in AI platforms. That seems to be the biggest ⁓ sticking point because everybody's posting like crazy and they think it needs to they need to post more.

And that's not the solution at all. In fact, if anything, that will cost you a lot of time, energy, and money. What the so that seems to be what they're asking about. And then also ⁓ a lot of people have questions about agentic AI and they're also delving into trying to put that together, but then it becomes this really costly experiment because they don't know what they're looking for.

You know, they don't want know what the end result is. They don't even have a baseline to start measuring towards that. So staying on the search side for a moment, with the search side, what I talk to them about is just, you know, really understanding who their customer is and the way they search. What I love about small business owners is the fact that they do have a very great superpower, which is they know their customers by name and they know how they make decisions.

There's no committee they need to get together or pulling a database that they need to download. They already have this. And the good thing is they can be nimble. I can teach them or talk to them about strategy on Tuesday and by Thursday they've implemented it and they're ready to go with it.

And that to me is the most exciting is when they can see how that can help them. All the AI tools can help them in gathering even information and tracking information. Now they can start even making better decisions because it's still the good customer data that they have and they know personally, but now they're seeing it in volume. They can see, you know, how many from you know Lubbock, Texas do this?

How many from you know Las Vegas, Nevada, or maybe, you know, out in Reno, or are they out in Scottsdale? And they can really get to know and have a f familiarity with seeing what the actual analytical trends are. So I I I get excited about that. I told you I'm the numbers gal.

⁓ I definitely love that. And that is a place that I see them really excelling. The other place where I see the the potential, as I said, pitfalls are are in the experimenting. And it's the hardest thing.

The hardest conversation I have with people is the first conversation that we have about AI. Number one is they think it can do all things and they don't think that that needs to give be given any instructions. So they're truly disappointed when I tell them. You need to be able to tell me step by step, one, two, three, what the process is.

And then if you can't do that, that's the first thing you're gonna have to figure out. And they're kind of disappointed about that because they just want AI to figure it out. And then the second is that they get in there and they want a, you know, they want AI to do all these things, but they don't even know because my second question is always, what tools are you currently using? And they may know some of their tools.

Many of them that I've worked with have to look at their, you know, their their ⁓ bookkeeper statement to see where all the invoices are that they've approved to see. And then I talk to them about shadow AI, if they work with any freelancers or team members or consultants or agencies, how's that handled? And then all of a sudden it feels overwhelming to them. I give them the steps of how they can get prepared for that and and be able to navigate that.

But I think it's things they haven't considered yet. But I would much rather that. Then the sadness of everything like you talked about with the security is release and you can't bring it back. Once it's out there, it's out there.

With search in general, with search in general, how do you see it evolving? Traditionally, right now, people for the last 20 plus years probably have been utilizing Google searches. And now with AI, I see a trend and have heard and have been involved in a lot of conversations where people just leverage. their Gemini or Chat GPT tool to in in replacement of Google.

I'm curious what is because you're dialed into that space, like what is the current theme? Is Google they understand that, right? Is search dead? What do you see the future that how is the future going play out over the next few years as it relates to search?

I think when we look at search, we need to look at people's behavior like you're talking about. So anecdotally, yes, that's being supported, but facts too. 15% of all searches starting January 2025 were different, never before seen searches. So you're talking about that's a big shift when search has been around.

You said this is the early 2000. Then all of a sudden here we are at 2025. And there's such a remarkable shift to see brand new searches where people are asking in full questions and expecting full answers back. In fact, oftentimes people, when they're looking, even when they're using Google search, are looking at the AI overviews and just seeing what the answer is and then they're never tapping through and going to a website.

They just can get the information there. AI has harvested it from a site. They never have to have the person that created that in there. So how do you as a small business navigate that?

So I explained to them you want to make sure that you have your unique human perspective into everything because search, yes, you still have search with the 10 blue links that we all know, but you do see there if you go to any search that there's an AI mode in play. And if you're using email Or any search, you are using AI. They're all powered by AI now at some level. And when you see that you can go to AI mode and you see that that very much looks like a Gemini or even a ChatGPT bubble that you're asking questions, that's where search is going.

Knowing that it's no longer about ranking, but it's being where people are looking for answers and being able to provide that. For us as small business owners, we have to show our unique perspective. So for example, if I'm going to put out content, even on a blog post, or let's say I'll do a video on it, and I'm talking about how can you cut an onion? If I just do a how to and how to cut an onion, guaranteed AI is going to see that as generic, harvest that and there'll be no attribution, meaning no links, no mention to me, which is a waste of my time as a small business.

So mine might be, how do you cut an onion when you wear contact lenses? And how do you deal with onions and jalapenos at all? Now I've given them my unique human perspective on how I have to and how I handle this. So now they are going to pull it in.

If I use my name everywhere or the name of my business, they'll also see that and pull it in because I've got the rest of the story. They're only picking up the first 50 to 60 words that you actually put in an actual answer. But do know that when AI is searching, a lot of people have said, you know, SEO is dead, search is dead. It's not.

It is still pulling into some of the basic things that create search, which is your, you know, the first place that it looks in an actual ⁓ when it's doing any searches online is your business profile because that's seen as trusted information that they can feel confident and trusted in already and vetted by somebody as big as Google. That's also works for Bing Places. Bing Places is Bing's answer to Google's Google business profile. So you have that the second place that it looks is YouTube.

YouTube has been around for years. And it's seen as a place where people learn and look for information. Even when they don't get an operator's manual, they go there there next to look. And then the third is they looked at LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a highly professional network. So the information there is also seen as very valid. And also AI can be confident in the results that are happening there. So that's where it's just looking online, let alone for a website where it's going to look at.

And so I do talk to businesses about making sure you have FAQ pages written in the question and answer format that. And using the exact words that people use when they're searching. Because when you can do that and it can pick that information up, and then you've got the rest of the story past those 50 or 60 words, now you're the clickable link that you want to be or the tappable link that you want to be where people can find you. So to set a baseline, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but from my knowledge, the past has traditionally been organic search is for let's say you're a small business and you're any type of business.

You're looking to advertise, you have your website, which is the S SEO search engine optimization. So when people put keywords into Google search, does your website come up? Where does it rank? Does it come up within the top 10?

Is it in that first page? Those are all key critical factors to organic search. That if you are a small business and you're not coming up on that first page, then people probably aren't clicking on you and you're not getting that sale. So what they to in order to boost that up.

There's the opportunity, and this probably still current currently exists in what you're talking about, which is the sponsored ads or ads. And so if you pay, if you want to pay out of pocket for specific keyword matches, then you can pay for those ads, which will rank your your the search result of your business up towards the top, right? So that is traditionally how it's been, and now it's evolving to something completely different, right? Because Of the way that AI, of what AI is doing and how it's integrating and how people are leveraging AI tools.

But I think it's more important now than ever to have that on-the-channel approach for a small business or a company. Like you want to be, as you mentioned before, you want to be on LinkedIn, you want to be on YouTube, you want to, you want to have all of those spaces and a personal brand built that's redirecting you in the traffic that's searching, whether it's in Google or in Gemini, to bring you up. into those higher results, which is just a much bigger challenge, right? It's it's now you need to make sure that you're all over the place instead of just focusing on having the right keywords in your website or optimizing your website or paying for those keywords at keyword ads.

So I'm curious, just like what's w and and I know you're you can't speak for Google with your crystal ball in the future. What do you think? How is Google going to make money. If their money in the past was built upon ads and search, where's the future for them?

So yes, I mean it's Google is still going to make money on ads because you can look at, I mean, there's YouTube ads, so you've got video ads. You have ads showing up within workspaces. You have ads showing up in when they're searching. But you also see that with AI overviews and AI mode.

So I don't believe that's ever going away, but people always trust organic information and where they can find answers much more than we've ever trusted ads. That's been since, I mean, from the newspaper time, right? So we've always felt that kind of of connection when it's a friend recommending and doing things which they can do really quickly now. They can snap, you know, a video real quick.

They can circle something and share it with you, you know, just quickly. From your phone. You just have to circle it and tap and you can share it right away. So I think now what you're gonna see is you're gonna see a whole lot more of ways that the ecosystem can support each other.

You can keep data and information secure. You're also gonna see a whole lot of what you can build and use safely. That's why, you know, I was really excited to see Gemma 4 launch since that's a local LLM that you can carry. on your phone and not have to worry about integrating with any public model.

So that's kind of cool. I mean very cool, especially for the the security standpoint. So again, I can't speak for Google. There is a great video that I saw though that was just recorded a few days ago where ⁓ the head of Google does go over what the future of search is going to look like in 2027.

And I'm really taking a lot of notes from there on just how to make sure that people see and you're visible wherever they're spending time. Be it that they're in a platform, be it that they're working in an app, you've got to know where that is. And that's why as we as small business owners, even going into 2027, we have to be experts at our customers and really know where do they hang out? Not where we think they do, but where are they?

Yeah. Key takeaway, just with seems like everything else with AI is that things are evolving rapidly. So keeping a pulse on what's going on out there is critical for any small business. And ⁓ you have something called a smart AI readiness kit for a small business owner who feels completely lost when it comes to these new tools.

What is one specific thing inside that kit that would help them take their first step? Think locating all their data, knowing where their data is and their information, because a lot of times when they start working together, it can feel or working on this to bring AI into something that they're even considering. It is overwhelming just to find things like where is w who has which portion or which part of the data or where did I house that? Which account is that in?

Because the fact that we could start free personal Google and Gmail accounts is great, but that's a blessing and a curse because now you gotta figure out how to log into all those things that you don't remember how to do because it may have been a year or so since you've used it. So I understand just trying to gather all that is the biggest challenge. And I make a checklist of that of what to gather and where your data could be, maybe even places you hadn't thought your data is.

And then really outlining what that process looks like. What are your different processes? It's not the big sexy things, Jeff, that people will see success with with AI right away. Some of the basics I've seen them take their AI, which right now is just kind of a glorified ⁓ spell checker and maybe writes things a little bit better.

And all of a sudden they realize. that it can help them actually review emails. So instead of looking at 300 emails, they get a summary of it. They can just tap on it and it puts it on their calendar if it's a task or an appointment they need to go with.

If there's people, key people that are, you know, they can't miss their emails, those are brought to the top. It can help organize those. And I know that people for I mean, as I said, I used to speak about email marketing a long time ago, that for that long and even more People have been wondering, how do I get to inbox zero? How does that happen?

And that's a challenge. And we've all as small businesses always asked that question. I wish there could be another me. We've always made that that comment.

And this gives us an opportunity to get there. But in getting ready for that, that does mean some of the components and the task and the steps that you take for it need to be captured. And where small businesses or individuals can start is just leveraging the tool, opening it up. And they know their business better than anybody else.

So starting small, like you mentioned, trying to solve for smaller tasks. And then they as they start playing with a little bit, then they start asking questions. Maybe we can do this, maybe we can do that. One one thing that stands out to me, I advise and talk to small businesses as well.

And oftentimes I find it's a question they have very high hopes, like you mentioned, that we there's a lot that can be done. And I would agree that there is Absolutely a lot that can be done. The question is how much are you willing to invest in it being done? How much is that operating cost going to cost you when it's in product production and you're actually having to pay for that?

Does that actually augment the cost of that employee that you think you're going to be able to replace? So those are key variables that definitely need to be considered. But ultimately, things like you mentioned, right? Cleaning up emails, the basic tasks, start there.

See how that plays out in your company. See how you know it makes your life a little bit easier or even a little bit more challenging. Get some context there. And then when you get lost, call Maria and she'll help you figure it all out.

Well, the you definitely will see your gaps then when you do that. And I love to ⁓ the actually one of the very basic questions people for the first time interacting with AI have is how has is how you could talk to AI. And I explain to them, just ask questions. like you would an assistant who's untrained or somebody you're collaborating with, just ask questions and you can start to get into some interactions so you feel comfortable speaking to AI.

I used to write to AI all the time now. Now I just speak to it. It can pick up my pregnant positives and my nuances and I like being able to do that. I'm much faster at talking than I am at actually texting and typing.

So I love that it they can become more familiar that way. And then you can even Spend some time, spin it a little bit with AI about how you could even validate some of your ideas. I've done things like, okay, pretend you're a grumpy investor and I'm gonna pitch this idea, tell me what you think. Or here's my idea, give me the postmortem of it.

Let's say it failed, because we all learn in failure anyway. So tell me what that failure is and where the key points are. And that's so eye-opening, giving me different perspectives that I myself not may not have. Again, it's not right or wrong.

It's just a different perspective, which I appreciate since it's been trained out there on the public model. It can give me that or it can even hone it in better and giving it instructions on how it needs to behave and what it needs to mirror. Yeah, we do some consulting and we work on real estate transactions, commercial real estate transactions. And oftentimes when we evaluate properties that we're looking to purchase, it we're asking for the books and The PLs and understanding how those businesses work.

And it's surprising to me how many businesses there are that are still literally running on paper and pencil. And so I'm just curious, like in what you do in the companies that you work with, do you see that? What percentage of companies out there are just very archaic in terms of the tools and systems that they use, where just literally like using something basic like Google Workspace is going to be a huge level up for them. Maybe they don't need AI yet, but they're just.

They're gonna see immediate improvements with just basic tools. What percentages at the paper and pencil level? I would say it's still about it's still fifty, about fifty-five percent, Jeff. I know that surprises you, but I work with a lot with Main Street America, so brick and mortar, Main Street America, and there's a lot of pen, paper, you know, ⁓ analog recording devices.

So writing things down. That's exactly how they're doing that. And it's funny because even with oil and gas, so oil and gas service operators. So I happen to live in in the West Texas area at the base of the panhandle.

So I'm deep in the oil field area. So you have large oil companies. I mean the big, huge names that you've heard. And then I've got a lot of small one to two, three person operators that I work with.

And so they're having to go to the county courthouse and look at records that were back from the 1800s. None of those are digitized. They are there. So you could bring you could bring them out.

You can physically see them. And they have to take pictures. They're amazed now the fact that you can utilize any of the LLMs. You can take a picture and it takes all the text off of there, pulls it all off, and you got all that information into a spreadsheet, ready to use, that you can now start calling to see whether or not somebody might be interested in, you know, their the mineral rights or sharing the lease or even leasing out the area.

So you see people who every day are dealing with manual and that can now see, ⁓ this is how AI can help that. And it could just be. in garnering that that shortcut of information. Or as one oil and gas operator I work with, I said, you know, he he goes to the courthouse every morning.

And I said, why don't you know hire a a college student or something to go to the courthouse, take the photos for you, upload it to AI, then you just take over the the ⁓ the ⁓ spreadsheet from there and then you take it there. That saves you some time to focus on what you're best at. And that to him has been such a change, a game changer in his business. Yeah, and businesses and individuals, I think, run into a similar situation where you're just doing business as usual.

You're doing your job as usual. And that's a big part of what I want to discuss on this channel and what I want to help bring some light to for the audience is that there are significant automation level ups out there that are available. There's a lot of things that they can do. You get stuck in this rut of doing things.

And if you have a system that works, it's great. But what I see and is I see huge opportunity for companies that are trying to disrupt those older models. I don't want to throw any fear tactics out there, but I do think that it's important for small businesses to start considering that there's a lot of other companies and people and individuals looking at what it is that they do and trying to leverage these tools in order to do it more efficiently. And I don't think that's gonna change.

That's gonna keep growing and growing. Where it starts again as a kind of a recap, I think it's just asking questions and putting your particular business cases into the model. And like a prompt might be into Chat GPT or Gemini. This is the type of business that I do.

You are an expert in this business. Tell me what you think you would do to solve XYZ problems. Start there. It'll start giving you ideas and solutions.

Some of those may be more complex than what you're you're willing to take on, but you can see if it's something that. You might be able to tackle because I do think that's an important takeaway for the audience is just start somewhere. Yes, I agree, Jeff. So I know we're coming up on time here, Maria, and we actually didn't get to a lot of the questions that I wanted to ask.

So maybe we'll get a chance to talk again next time. But there is one question that I think is really important and it's more of a crystal ball question that I like to ask everybody to see what their thoughts are. Now with your experience and what you do, you have a very unique vision and probably understanding or thoughts on what this looks like. But here it goes.

So we talk about being an architect and not just a worker, someone who builds something bigger than a to-do list. Looking at where things are going, what do you think the future of work looks like in the next three, five or even ten years down the road? think the future of work is we're gonna get to focus ⁓ more on the stuff that we love to do and why we got involved because there's gonna be more agents. So I s I do see more agentic AI coming into place.

And so that's gonna take care of some of the basics that we've had to do before. And ⁓ I'm excited about that because I think that's something that we've been struggling with really since ⁓ as the the tech revolution came in in the late seventies or mid 70s, early 80s, you know, everybody was busy and and you know, it seemed like busy wasn't the more tools we got, the more software. We just became even busier than that. And I think there's going to be a a shift in that way that people are looking at quality of life and not just ⁓ the fact that we can work harder.

It's definitely going to be working smarter. And that to me is I'm very excited about that because I do see that opportunity coming again with just ⁓ why and the different agents that you see coming in that are kind of built into everything as well. And yeah, it's just such a shift, Jeff, because I think about the fact and I talk about this often is that, you know, we're so we're not far away really from the time when electricity was a luxury and not something that was a necessity.

If you think about When people would work in the daytime, they'd have a wood-burning stove and a kerosene lamp. They didn't need electricity, nor did they think it was great when it first came about. And now here we are where, you know, electricity is everything that we need and we operate with. And now we see the same kind of start with AI.

And we think, ⁓ you know, it's novel and we could try this, but pretty soon it will be a part of everything. I mean, we see it already as it it becomes in all of the different functions. So I am hoping that it will give us a chance to get to focus and have more time to be human instead of, you know, now we have eighty hours in a week instead of forty hours, because it seems like we've been running that way for a while. And I would hope that we would get a break from that.

You know, the the time of of at least I remember when everybody thought it was ⁓ it was a big, what do I say, social cred to carry how many beepers you have, how many phones you have, all back in the day is like That those days are now over and now we're gonna look at ways that we actually have much better and richer lives and much better and richer conversations with people. I've even heard rumors of like devices going away, right? So more like new new things that are out there.

They're talking about maybe we don't have phones anymore. Maybe we're just all connected in some other way. It's all via voice. And so it interesting to see.

We'll we'll have to Watch and stay tuned. But Maria, so where can people go to follow you and find out more about your work? Sure. They can find me on Instagram.

I'm marketing coach Maria. My website is Smart Brand System. So not plural, but System, SmartBrand System dot com. You can find me there or Google me ⁓ because I you will find me to do that or search me on AI.

You'll find me. My name is Maria Elena Duron, and you're welcome to look for me. I look forward to questions or even feedback. If you've had a chance to listen to the podcast, I'd love to hear.

I'll definitely stay active in the comments here too. Perfect. And everything that we talked about is also going to be in the show notes as well. And thanks for helping us stay unlocked and don't be a stranger.

Thank you, Jeff.