Strategic Positioning in Uncertainty: Chris Rodgers on Adaptive Leadership in the AI Revolution

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Today, you have to define who you are, what you do, the problems you solve, and the audience you solve them for at a much greater depth. So the LLMs are looking for that on-the-nose problem-solution fit. You are the best solution for this person in this situation, right? So if we get at a tactical level, Yes, for B2B, we've got solutions, we've got industries, but we've probably also now got industry-specific solutions.

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No. So, let's see. I was actually a psych major for my undergrad. I went to UIC in Chicago. I was a psych major. I was actually patient activity director, taking out schizophrenic and bipolar patients out into the world on their breaks. All very interesting stuff. I love psychology, but very quickly as I got to the end of that engagement, I realized that I wasn't going to make much money. And I saw the people that were the coordinators and they didn't even really spend much time with the patients. Most of what they were doing was like paperwork. So I had done like sales in high school and those kinds of things from like popcorn with the Boy Scouts to like my jobs that I had during high school, like selling two-way radios and cell phones. So when I got to the end of my degree, I was tired of kind of living the poor college life. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to go into something around sales. And I interviewed with RH Donnelly, RH Donnelly in Chicago. Published the Yellow Pages, right? And I went in there and I was like, I don't care about Yellow Pages. I'm not really interested in this, but I need to practice interviewing. And I went in and it ended up being really interesting. And what caught me was the marketing aspect to it. So there was a whole marketing side of this job, which very much was learning about businesses, identifying their customers, their unique value proposition, helping them create ads. So I ended up going to work for R.H. Donnelly.. And then within my first year there, they rolled out a pay-per-click product and it was like an automated pay-per-click system where it would go in, do keyword research, it would bid on keywords. And very quickly I gravitated toward this product because of the data that was there. So there's a lot of tracking data there that you just didn't get through print ads, right? So that it removed a lot of the ambiguity. And very quickly I became like a leader in our division. I think we had like 70 people or something. In that program because I just geeked out on the data, the technology, but the program itself was horrible. Like it was very crude. You're talking like, this was like 2005. So the ads were not good, the matching was not good, but they had these profile pages that lived on a domain and you could go in and update these profile pages. And what I found is that these profile pages had a tremendous amount of authority. So what I would do is I discovered early on-page SEO, which back then was pretty much keyword stuffing. So I found that some of my clients were getting all of this traffic and business from these pages, way more than they were paying for the paid product. So when I'd come to do my sales call, instead of spending time trying to sell them advertising, I'd quickly get through, you know, kind of what we had to talk about, and then I would spend the time optimizing their profile pages. Nice. And what I found is that some of these people just made a tremendous amount of money and it really was the charge that drew me into digital marketing. So I ended up working there for about 4, almost 4 years, focused really on the digital. Ended up going to like the division, the director of the Midwest division and said, hey, I really want to get into the product development side. Like I want to do SEO. I want to help you guys develop this product. And he was like, well, Chris, you know, I don't know about this Full Sail University you're talking about. Like, it sounds like a bad idea and I don't know how any of this is going to help you with your sales numbers. And I ended up walking out of that meeting. I'm like, thank you and goodbye. And it was like, he made it really easy. So I went and did a full-time master's program in internet marketing at Full Sail University and learned some foundational things. Ended up leaving RH Donnelly, moved to Colorado, launched my first startup, which was mountainstats.com. It was a social media and travel site for the ski and snowboard industry. Also a, a big snowboarder. So it was the, the kind of the, uh, intersection of, of tech and snowboarding. And, uh, then I also started working part-time for an SEO agency that was based in Chicago from some folks that were at RH Donnelly. Went to my old manager there and said, hey, I want to come work for you guys and do SEO. He's like, great, I'll get you in sales. I said, no, I don't want to do sales. I want to do SEO. I want to do execution. He's like, okay, I'll, I'll connect you with Mark. Mark taught me the basics, which back then was, here's your titles, meta descriptions, keyword research, and keyword planner. And now here's the like 5 to 7 people you need to follow on Twitter, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and this is where you're gonna figure out everything else on your own. And that was it. So then I had my startup. I was working as a contractor, as a senior SEO analyst, and then did that for a little while. Mountain Stats was lots of fun. But ultimately learned some, some important lessons about entrepreneurship on my first venture out. Essentially got some opportunities for funding, did not feel confident in the friends and family that money was going to get turned around. So ended up pivoting, started my own SEO agency, started bringing on our own clients. And that was really the beginning of what was at the time Colorado SEO Pros.

Okay. Which became CSP.

Which became CSP Agency. So our first year, I think I went out, the idea was it was going to be a local SEO company for the Colorado market. I moved out here 2010 and I went and I found all of these businesses that were like ranking at the top of page 2 for really lucrative terms. So I basically found businesses that I'm like, hey, these are people I can help make a lot of money through SEO. So I actually went to these businesses and said, hey, I want you to do SEO. This is how we do it. This is, this is how we're going to make you a bunch of money. And I don't know, like 98% of them were like, what's SEO? I don't understand this. This is confusing. So I had to, we had to scrap it, went back and decided we were going to build out our own website, do SEO for ourselves. Did that. It took about maybe 6 months, maybe a little bit more. And we started getting major traction in the market. So that was 2012. And all of a sudden I started getting leads from not only all over the country, but like international. So our SEO really took off. We knocked out one of the big local competitors that was here that was a national company in rankings. And I had an intern from Mountain Stats that I ended up hiring on full-time. Then it was just kind of hang on that first year because when the market was, the demand was exceeding the providers. It was really the spot you want to be in, in any business. And yeah, I mean, then the rest is kind of history, but we're, you know, we hung on. I think we were behind on reporting like 2 or almost 3 months or something at some point because we had, we were just trying to, you know, I was trying to figure out a business at that point. The SEO side was the easy part. And then it was figuring out how to scale. And then from there, we started bringing on interns that then we would train that would turn into FTEs. You know, moved into our first remote office location and ended up getting our, our first full-time like office location. And yeah, it's been a journey. And so now we're, we're 13 years in at this point. So it's, it's been a wild ride.

I was going to ask if you got most of your business because of using SEO for yourselves. And so I love that journey that you just shared about how going out to the market, people didn't know what it was, but then obviously people were coming to you once you built your brand. And so they got to see it in action and see how successful it was with your own business as the proof. Little side notes, my first agency role was in the mid-'90s in Chicago at a company called Rosenberg and Associates. I was also a club promoter at the time, and I also, not doing it really anymore, but have been an avid snowboarder for, I mean, almost 30 years.

Oh, right on. I used to, I used to spin records at Zentra. Nice. That was one of them. There's a few different places. So I was also a DJ in Chicago. Love that. Drum and bass and house scene there.

Good times.

Yes. Love that.

Love that. That's what I was involved in. But I think it's always fun when I meet other people who come from that background who are now in this digital world because there are so many of us and We were really early adopters to things that we didn't necessarily realize at the time that we were early adopters to. There were things that piqued our interest and we knew a lot of people. And you describe your approach as human first, and I think when you come from that background, you also, it's all about being human, being collaborative, being together, connection, community. So, human first versus data, tech. Talk about your philosophy, where it came from, and how it's shaped your agency for the past 13 years. Bringing your business dreams to life takes heart and about 1,000 decisions a day. That's why Atlantic Union Bank's knowledgeable bankers are here for you with the right guidance and customized solutions to help you reach your business goals. So whether you're planning your next move, upgrading your space, or scaling to meet demand, we make sure your business is ready for what's ahead. Because we are big enough to support you, yet small enough to know you. Atlantic Union Bank, any way you bank.

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Yeah, for sure. So the early start of Human First was with a client we had, it was K2 Software, and I think they, they got acquired, workflow software, and it was in the early days. I had a handful of employees. We were really good at SEO, just, you know, forward thinking the way we did it. I remember I was still doing client meetings at that time and had a, one of our first meetings with Todd at K2, and I was really excited because our, our rankings were up, our traffic was up, you know, the audit scores were looking really good. And so I went through recording with Todd. And he was pretty quiet as I went through. I'm showing him all the gains and everything. And at the end of the meeting, he came back and he said, Chris, I'm glad that our ranking's up and our traffic and the audit scores are looking good, but we're not making any more money. And it was a, like a, like a 2x4 upside the head. And I came away from that meeting really just thinking like, well, like, what are we doing? If we're not helping businesses, then nothing that we're doing matters. So there was a shift there that I knew we had to orient ourselves to a value-based approach. Fast forward, you know, I don't know how many years it was, but we really shifted into more of a business-centric approach where instead of doing the, what I'll call is like the classic SEO approach over the last decade, okay, you need SEO, give me your domain, give me your competitors, I'll come back with a strategy. Right? That will get you— well, I don't even know what it gets you today. Not a whole lot. But even throughout this past period, if you do that right, you create the content that's going to get you rankings, that's going to get you traffic. And if you're lucky, that turns into business. But that last part is a big gamble if you're not being strategic about the way you do it. So it evolved really into this business-first approach, which really is the human-first. So when we talk about human first, it starts with understanding the business, the unique selling proposition, identifying who the audience is, who those personas are, and understanding the connection that you have to make so that the end result is meaningful outcomes, whether that is leads or whether that's purchases or that's form fills or whatever it is, there's a real connection that has to take place. So that is the human first. It's dialing into the humans that are at the the center of all this, the, the humans that are making the final buying decision. And that holds true today, right? So we characterize it today as human first, AI enhanced, 'cause AI is ingrained in this. It's powering things, it's enhancing things, but at the same time, it is ultimately understanding the human needs, right? So even when we're in an agentic web and we've got agents that are going out and making recommendations or even purchase decisions, That is going to be based on that persona, what their needs are, what their wants are, what their fears are, their frustrations, all of those things. So, so that is human first because at the core, it's going to come down to a need that a human has and making that connection.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think this is, I love those intersections where technology meets the technology, the data. So not just the demographics, but the psychographics. And so I love where that meets storytelling. And how we're sharing and, and how that leads to, I, I was just speaking with somebody earlier today who has a great company, great business model. It's talking about their statistics and all the things they can do. And I'm like, you're forgetting to tell your story, why you started this company. That is so impactful. And what did you do this weekend? They're a hyperbaric oxygen company, right? They saved a girl's eyesight who had an ocular stroke., and she's now regained 80%. They're still working with her, so hopefully by the end of the week she'll be at 100% recovery. But I'm like, you're literally saving people's lives, whether it's people who have diabetes to people who are losing their eyesight to whatever other things. And so we need to make sure that we're using that human element, telling the story, and in there we will weave in the important information that's important to investors or other potential clients or hospitals you wanna work with. You know, those, SEO keywords, but it's not just, you know, it is a, a business decision. It's a technical decision, but it's also bringing in that human element first.

Yeah. And ironically, as we now move into generative engine optimization, AI search, that human element is more paramount. It has to be more at the center as we're going down more the AI road, which is, uh, pretty interesting.

That was actually where we, I was going next. So perfect little segue. Talking about AIO, SEO, GEO, I always encourage, for instance, my students at USC, search for yourself on your favorite LLM. See, is that your profile or is it somebody else's? Google search, what LLM search is, what they're saying about you, who you really are. And the same thing holds true for businesses. But I've also heard whether AI overviews or Google or Bing or what have you, that the way that they search is a little different than the way LLMs search. And LLMs may want to pull something from Reddit or from somebody they think of as a human reviewer who is an expert on whatever field, because that's more organic. So can you talk to us a little about your work, this humanization factor that you're talking about, and how people should think about each of these different ways that we now have to search?

Yeah. Well, so there's, you know, we've obviously got this big shift from traditional SEO that's going into AI search. And right now it's, you know, ChatGPT and these LLMs, and then you've got AI Overviews in Google. But Google's been pretty clear that AI mode is the future. So I think we can expect that a conversational interface is where this is going to end up at some point. And the way that the LLMs function is very different. It is not deterministic, right? It's probabilistic., right? So that means we don't have rankings like what we have within traditional search where you get into number 1 and it's pretty stable, right? And then it just moves every so often. Like it's very inconsistent and the LLMs are pulling their information from a much larger set of sources to your point, right? So like when we look at the factors around SEO versus GEO, like one of the biggest shifts that we see like for your website, when we're optimizing, that need for audience alignment and understanding your audience at a much deeper level than you do with traditional SEO. So traditional SEO, you might say, okay, here's my products. If you're B2B, maybe here's my industries. And now I'm going to go create a bunch of informational blogs to attack top of funnel and maybe do some internal linking, right? Like that's kind of the classic cluster pillar approach. Today, you have to define who you are, what you do, the problems you solve, and the audience you solve them for at a much greater depth. So the LLMs are looking for that on-the-nose problem-solution fit. You are the best solution for this person in this situation, right? So if we get at a tactical level, Yes, for B2B, we've got solutions, we've got industries, but we've probably also now got industry-specific solutions. And then we're dialing down even deeper to say within an industry-specific solutions, what are the particular problems, those category entry points that these people have and really fleshing that out. So the, as the LLMs are seeking, they see that, hey, I have this person who is the CTO of a SaaS organization. That has to solve A, B, and C problems. And you have now fleshed this out to that degree where it's very clear that you solve a problem for CTOs of SaaS organizations, right? So it really, it goes so much farther beyond keywords that we're getting much deeper into who those people are, what their problems are, you know, what the context is, where they're coming from. And that has to be the basis of what we do before we're looking at any data. So it's like you've got to create the strategy and have all that market research before you're going into any kind of tool and trying to use that as an approach, if that makes sense. And then, you know, that filters to the website and then now it is all of those other websites, right? And understanding, you know, where is it Reddit? Where is it YouTube? Where is it LinkedIn? Where is it Medium? Where is it Quora? You know, and there's tech that can do that, but you've gotta have that strategy on the front end so you know what you're going after. The tool is not gonna solve it for you, which makes it challenging, but also presents a tremendous amount of opportunity if you're doing it the right way.

And that's why you need experts like yourself and your company, because I think we can only get ourselves so far, and most things that are done well do take that really strong foundation, right? You might think you have a great business, you're getting a lot of clients, but to get the next level, and especially because you work with enterprise-level clients for the most part, right?

We are, I would say our sweet spot is mid-market. Yes, we've done a lot of enterprise and large enterprise. There's a one that we may be doing coming up that's like 45 countries scaling their geo strategy. I like mid-market a little bit better, to be honest, because you're closer to stakeholders, you can affect more change, and there's like more you can do. Once you get to that large enterprise level, you're such a little cog in such a big machine. And I like SMB-funded startups, like anyone who's like found their product market fit, has enough going on on the marketing that the SEO and, and geo is not trying to pull the whole ship. Those are good, good fits too. But yeah, certainly we've done a lot on the enterprise side as well.

Okay, fantastic. You have this framework, MEET, but it's M-E-E-T. E-A-T. Can you talk to us about this framework and why it matters for businesses trying to win in search today?

Yeah, so you've heard of E-A-T, right? The E-A-T framework that really Google came out with— experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness. MEAT is really tacking on multimedia and engagement, right? So it's just expanding out on, you know, what they have or some kind of more ethereal things and putting some more tactical elements that you can act upon. I do think it's relevant. Like when you look at the LLMs now, like Gemini is multimodal, so it can break down audio, video, text, code, break it all into, I don't want to get too technical, but into numbers and then compare the relevance of those things together. So all that is to say that multimedia is really, really important. All those different frameworks. And then yeah, the signals for engagement are absolutely paramount. We found out from the antitrust lawsuit that happened with Google, all that stuff that came out, all the stuff that they were telling us in the SEO space didn't matter. Now we found out you were lying to us the whole time. So we found out all the things about Chrome and click-through rates and all that stuff. All that is to say that we were vindicated. Yes, of course engagement has a factor and yes, they are actually measuring these things. How engaging is your content? Are people staying on the page? Are they bouncing?

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Oh, 100%. Yeah. And we, um, for GEO, the 3 pillars that at least we frame is accessibility, owned media, earned media. Although in the earned media, there's a bunch of pay-to-play stuff in there. Uh, well, it doesn't fit in your traditional paid media, but it's the reality of what's out there these days.

I will say though, you appear on a lot of podcasts and you're starting your own. And so that is certainly earned media.

That there's no pay-to-play going on here.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. And that's why I always talk about podcasting as the best medium to get your thought leadership out. So get off my little high horse for a minute.

Yeah.

But so if a local business or a smaller business and a big national brand were coming to you, would you use pretty much the same framework, the same strategy to start with? And then of course, depending on what, where they wanted to go and budgets and all of those things, maybe tailor it or would they, I mean, would they differ at all?

I mean, the same factors apply, so that same foundation applies, but I guess the big question would be if it's a small local business, is the brand established, right? Or are they, it's more like, are they starting something from scratch, right? Or are they, you know, if it's a small local business, but they already have an established brand and maybe they've, they've done SEO and they have a footprint, a lot of those same things apply, but local SEO is very different. We do like multi-location projects, but don't do a lot of local SEO. Once you get into like LSA, like the LSA ads and all the Google Maps stuff. It gets a little bit out of our realm of expertise where we play, because I feel like that's its own world that is, I think, a little bit divergent from even national businesses, B2B, B2C, e-commerce. Our two main segments are B2B and e-commerce. Okay, nice. As a whole. So, I think that the core concepts would apply, but very different approaches.

Okay, wonderful. Now, getting into digital marketing entrepreneurship, was there— obviously you've seen a lot of changes and you've had to roll with every new thing that's coming out and figure out how you wanted to approach it. Was there a season in particular in building CSP Agency that really tested you and how did you get through it?

Yeah, I mean, we've been going since 2012, so, you know, it is not just a straight shot up. This is like the stock market or the housing market. It's ups and downs along the way. There have been a lot of challenging times. I had times when I've been able to very much work on the business. I've got a son and a daughter that are now, my son is 4, my daughter's almost 6, and by the time my son came, I was able to take a lot of time with my family and the business was doing very well. And then I've had periods where I've had to jump back in and very much work in the business. So even I would say now it's an exciting time, but even now is a challenging time. I have been building out our GEO program over the last 6 months. And so doing that while being CEO and having those same responsibilities, has been awesome. It's the most fun that I have had in this in, I can't remember how long. It's like the early days of SEO, but it's all new and you can do it. But that being said, it's evolving in real time. So it is developing, testing, and then rolling out all while we're running the business. So it's just, it's very, I would say that it's challenging because of just the amount of time and frankly, having a family and not having, you know, not as much as I'm happy to go work late nights, I've got to take care of the family. So it's challenging. So how do I get through it? Well, you got to have good people that you can lean on within the organization. And I've got a fantastic team of dedicated people that care about what they do and really live and breathe our mission. And that helps quite a bit. And then other than that, you know, I make sure that I have time to focus on the things I'm passionate about and I enjoy in the business. And then I've got to do the, all the other stuff that I have to do. Yeah. That's not so fun. That bubbles up to the top. CEO, you know, you don't deal with a lot of the problems, but by the time they get to you, they're more significant problems.

So, yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that you put intentionality into that and that you do try at least to take the time for your family. 'Cause we can often get caught up in the work cycle. My daughter is going to be graduating high school this year, so that's a whole other side. Wow, you're OG mom.

Yeah.

So, whole other side of the spectrum. So I'm through a lot of the stuff that you're gonna be getting into with these sports and activities and who having to be across town at the same time for two different things and all of that.

Yeah, their rules are they can do anything they want as long as it's in the mountains on the weekends. So, they can either be out on their snowboards or they could be in the lodge. Okay. So, we'll see how long, uh, I can hold on to that, but so far they're having a good time.

Amazing. So, people we know will be able to go to your link to csp.agency for your website. We'll have your LinkedIn profile in there as well for people who want to reach out directly to you. You know, obviously we've covered a lot of ground. You've given us great advice on the things that people really need to consider before they put a plan in action and some of the differences in the different kinds of search and what they're looking for, for ranking right now.

Is there one last piece of advice that you'd like to leave the audience with today? If you're anywhere near this sector in business or in marketing, I would be spending as much time as I could building AI. That's honestly, I do think there's rapid changes that are taking place and there's a lot of opportunity, but there's going to be, I think there's going to be wide sweeping changes that take place. So learn how to use AI, learn how to become more efficient, more effective. Again, we're human first, AI enhanced. So the human is what really drives this stuff, right? Like, AI, it can only go so far on its own, right? It is like it has the training data that it's trained on, and if it just produces stuff out of there, there's only so much it can do. So it's got, it has to eat. And if you don't provide it any human insights and human information, it's like the snake eating its own tail. And what it outputs is not very good. So it is about bringing in like that human first, understanding your audience. What are the pain points? What are the, aha moments? What is the gain of information? That's a ranking factor we found out about, and it's particularly relevant in the AI world. What are you bringing in that doesn't already exist in that system? But yeah, build with AI, figure out how you can, you can get ahead of things to become more effective and be a leader at whatever you're going to do and keep humans at the center. The human part, I think, is going to have more and more value as we get farther along this this AI evolution.

Yeah. I completely agree with you there.

Okay. Final question.

Do you have a favorite quote, poem, verse, mantra, family motto?

I don't have it memorized, but there is a quote by Theodore Roosevelt and it's a long one and it is the man in the room. I have it hanging up in my office, so I'll let your viewers look it up. The man in the room. And it's a quote, but I'll give you the gist of it. It is about being the person who is in there, who is doing, whether you are winning, whether you are failing, but you are actively out there and you are fighting the good fight. You are doing things that matter. And it is better to be that person that's out there forging that path, whether you win or lose, than being someone who's sitting on the sidelines commenting on the people that are there winning or losing. So, be the man or woman in the room and get out there and make it happen.

Nice. That's a great one. Chris, thank you so much. This has been a fun conversation. You've definitely shared things that I wasn't really considering. So, now I'm going to re-listen to this interview and also start following your LinkedIn newsletters and posts so that I have more information for my business and also to take back to my students and for my clients. So I just really appreciate your time on Your Brand Amplified today.

Awesome.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Of course. And thank you to everybody who's watching this episode or listening to it. This is probably the biggest play you can make for your business is really thinking through search, whether it is the alphabet soup that search is now. I know even for my podcast and for client podcasts, I'm looking at Apple, what Apple looks for versus what Spotify looks for, making sure I have some of those, the right language in descriptions for our podcasts, and also taking a new view at how we're coming up or how different people are coming up in the different kinds of search so that we can figure out how to be better. So take a moment, that's your homework for this week, and I'll be back again with another amazing guest very shortly to share some tips and tricks to make your business better. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of Your Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out at yourbrandamplified.com.

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