Why Our Thoughts On Influencer Marketing For Ourselves Have Changed

why our thoughts on influencer marketing have changed as well. Because I will say that you and I were kind of like not doing it for a while. Like a lot of people hit you up, they hit me up as well. But what is our, why has our mindset changed? And I don't think this applies to everybody, but at least we can give you our thoughts on as business operators, why we've decided to open it up a little bit with influencer marketing.

Travel cost, I mean, content costs are expensive. So I'm going to, Do influencer deals and I have been doing influencer deals to cover a lot of my costs. It's, for me, it really is that simple. It's just a cost analysis because I want to do more marketing, but I have to also be responsible from a P&L standpoint. I need to show growth for my team, for myself. So it's just like, man, if I double up my content output, I know it's not going to produce the ROI that I need, but I know in the long term it'll produce results. So the solution is take a few paid deals to cover the additional costs and then it's break-even.

Yeah. So by the way, I think we can do an update on this one. How much do you think you're spending, you'll spend on your content team, your organic content this year?

Not including full-time employees?

Including full-time employees. You can do both.

I would say contractors are no more than 15-ish grand a month. And then full-time employees, maybe another 15 grand max a month.

So $360,000 a year.

Max. I would probably say it's closer to $300,000. And I'm probably trying to increase it to $500,000. It changes a lot. And when I say $300,000 a year, I doubt I only spent $300,000 in 2025. It just happens where it's like some months, dude, you know this, like I tried Dragonfruit and a few other agencies. Some months I'll spend a lot and then some months I'll pare back. Right now I'm on a pared back version, but then I know I'm going to ramp it up in a few months. So it's not like I'm consistently for a year at $30,000 a month or less. So just like Noah, we've been using Noah for how long now?

8 months. Yeah.

8 months now. It works out. The podcast does not generate us an ROI. You would agree with us?

We should talk about that in a second too, because there's some things coming our way. And like, I'll give some thoughts on it, on like how it's been bugging me. So yeah.

Yeah. So I've been irritated that the podcast just loses us tons of money a month. But you know what makes the silver lining for me?

What?

There's actually 2 things. One is Noah's stories. So I live vicariously through Noah and Eric. I'll stop it at there and I won't give any more details. And then the second thing is, is we do lunch most times. Today's a bad day.

Yeah. Because he flakes. He flakes. Not only does Neil flake on the lunch, he flakes I'm putting in topic ideas now and he's late in his own house.

They are riding a lot of this.

And then I bring him a gift. See, look how life is good for him.

Yeah, no, Eric is right. I'm really bad with topic ideas for the podcast, but on the same note, do you want to know why I really stopped putting in topic ideas?

Why?

I used to put in topic ideas. When we do topics and we go back and forth, I just feel the episodes aren't as good. I don't have stats or data. When you and I just riff and talk, it's so much better. No, no, no, it has nothing to do with it. No, but when you put in ideas and I put in ideas, it'll be like, okay, Eric, you pick one. All right, Neil, you pick one. And we just go back and forth and it's not natural. When we have a sheet, you have a topic sheet, even the last time we recorded, it was virtual, I was in London or something like that. We had a list full of, a sheet full of ideas. I don't know how many we picked.

We didn't pick many, we picked like 5 or 6.

But when you and I just riff, I believe the quality of the content is much better.

I don't disagree, but we do need the ideas in there as a backup. Because sometimes we run out, but I, but you're saying my ideas are enough to carry us.

Totally agree. But like, cause it's like, I had another topic that I wanted to talk about today. And to me, that's not a topic. It's just a discussion. Like one thing we don't have to discuss it now is I was on a podcast interview, no joke, right before this. I've had a webinar this morning, then a podcast interview. Then I jumped straight to this. Then I have another video film shoot.

I have a lot today.

That's a heavy day. I have a lot of content, 4 content things today. And then I have a meeting after, but I was on an interview and we were talking about like the bad parts about ChatGPT's algorithm and the good parts. And I started thinking in my head while I was on the podcast interview, they didn't ask me this question, so I wasn't answering it, but I was starting to go over how I would adjust their algorithm if it was me and I was in charge of it.

Okay, here, let me put that in here.

Because you and I have seen the downfalls of their algorithm, right? Like one of the things that, I've noticed, and I know you've noticed, is anyone can write a blog post on like the 10 best X, and if you write enough of them around the web, you end up getting mentioned a lot more. You agree with that, right?

Yeah.

But if Joe the Plumber talks about us and we're in marketing and Joe the Plumber, I don't know if joetheplumber.com exists, but let's hypothetically say it exists, it would help us with our ChatGPT rankings when it shouldn't. You agree with this, right? Yeah.

Let's come back to this in a sec because I have a lot of thoughts, but let's finish on the podcast piece. So the personal brand, We can come back to that in a second too. So on the podcast piece, here's what's happening right now. So right now, you know, we're working with, you know, we're working with a, what do we want to call it, a podcast advertising agency, right? That's one piece of it. But so far what's happened, Neil, is so you don't know this yet, but we're getting a couple of brands to pay us like, call it $10,000, $15,000 a pop per month.

Okay.

And some of these brands are paying us $10,000, $15,000. They're agreeing right now to pay $10,000, $15,000 for 3 episodes, right? That's pretty good. And so if it works out well for us—

One is like Taboola or something like that, right?

Yeah, but so if we do like, if we say, hey, why don't we just do, pay us like $20,000 a month, $15,000, $20,000 a month, okay, we'll do the whole month and we get 3 or 4 pieces.

By the way, do you want more interest for this stuff?

Yeah, 'cause we should just do these directly. This is what's been bothering me the most. Like I've talked to a handful of these podcast advertising agencies and they're good, but they're not gonna care nearly as much as us. And when we had it really good on this podcast, With, you know, DreamHost, which is amazing, right?

It was a direct deal you did.

That was 3 years of that deal, right? And we, when I look at some of these people who pay us for influencers, sometimes you might have someone that offers you like, you know, like a healthy amount, right? I had the same thing too. And so why don't we just do this direct? And so at this point now, instead of losing money on this thing, we should just do a couple influencer deals for this thing so we make money again.

Yeah, we should just go to like the Ahrefs, the SEMrushes, et cetera, and just start making our own stuff.

Yeah, because for 200,000 downloads a month, it's still like, when I talk to some of these podcast agencies, they're like, dude, that's actually a Really good amount for B2B. And you know who makes, who makes $5 million a year on their podcast? The Marketing Operators. I watched an episode where he was talking to Shopify guys, like, we make $5 million a year and they have a network of 3, 4 podcasts, but for sure they're not bigger than this one.

Really?

Yeah, $5 million a year. And I can see the people who are sponsoring them. One's like an analytics company, one's like a Shopify, like, you know, like a widget or something like that, right? Postpilot's another one. And so I'm like, We can do this all day.

Why don't we just have my team start selling it?

Yeah, that's fine.

We have a sales rep.

Yeah.

We would have to give them commission, but it's not much.

All day.

And they just, we just have to—

This is our fault for being stupid.

Yeah. If you want to just remind me, I can introduce you to the guy and they'll just start selling. Because we get a lot of inbound inquiries. We just ignore them all.

Yeah. Same here. Like I was looking through the thing, I'm like, dude. And then if you look at Taboola, like thank you to Taboola, but that deal is like, I think it's like 10 grand for 3 episodes or something.

Okay, that's not bad.

Yeah.

So that's awesome.

Anyway, so that being said, this is our fault. So learn—

That's more than we make right now a month.

Yeah, do as we say, guys, not as we do here. This is what we get for sitting on our butt and this happens everywhere.

But do you want to know why we sit on our butt?

Why?

It's because we love doing the podcast because it's fun for us. We never cared for the money and it's not a business for us.

But it does get irritating. When we're losing money on it every month. And did you get an invoice?

Yeah.

What the hell is this?

I don't know why I get so pissed at the invoice.

I do too.

And sometimes the invoice, because we do get ad revenue sometimes, sometimes we're not. But like, let's say I had to pay $2,000. I'm like, I had to effing pay. Sorry, I don't want to cuss, but I had to effing pay $2,000. And I was like, what the heck is a podcast advertising agency doing that we even pay? Because you and I have gotten hit up so much and they make all these promises on how they can close all this stuff. I haven't seen them close crap.

No. And then, so anyway, all that to say is we're like—

Dude, you know what they probably do? I should probably shouldn't say this. I'm like, they probably take the leads and sell them on other stuff to their other clients.

I don't know.

Because what the heck are they doing with all the leads they send them?

I will say something without naming names here. So I was at a, did I tell you this? I was at a poker game and we were talking about some of these podcast agencies. I'm not going to name names right now, but one of the guys who's a bestselling author was at the poker game and he's like, oh yeah, that agency hit me up before and it was very slimy. And, you know, this is why it's hard to find a good podcast agency. I'm not talking about anybody that we work with, but anyway, it is what it is. So now we can move on to the ChatGPT one. If you're in B2B, here's the deal. LinkedIn account-based marketing sucks, but it doesn't have to. With Carrot, it allows you to create personalized ads towards your customers and also personalized landing pages that align with the ads. So you're going to have higher conversions and influence pipeline reporting to prove that your ABM works. So if you want to learn more, just go to karrot.ai and you can join the waitlist. Again, it's karrot, K-A-R-R-O-T, .ai, and we'll see you on the other side. So this is basically what we would do with ChatGPT's algorithm because it's too easy to game right now.

Look, I still have the Tesla pulled up on my thing.

I, I, do you have the Sterling Pacific on the other one?

Yeah, I do.

That's so funny. So guys, Neil's doing luxury shopping as we record our podcast.

I, I really want the Tesla Model Y Performance.

You should just get it.

I don't want to spend the money.

It's $65 grand. It's Christmas time. Okay. What have you done recently that makes you deserve it?

Nothing.

It's like when I see my friend Thomas eating a cookie, I'm like, what have you done to deserve to eat that cookie? What have you done to deserve that car?

So I was thinking about, um, the monthly cost. I go to the airport enough where I pay for transportation, but I don't drive. So I, I, car service takes me. It costs me $170 to $200 each time.

I can get you a better deal.

Really?

Yeah, black car. I can get you a better deal. Who do you use? So my building gives it to me for free to go to the airport, and then I become friends with the drivers, and then they give me a deal on the side for $100.

To go to the airport?

You want a deal?

But what car do they use?

SUV, Suburban.

From their building?

Yeah.

They're allowed to?

Yeah, they just do it on the side.

Oh.

Here, I'll intro you. See, I just gave Neil 2 gifts today.

Yeah, but I was like, Well, if I buy a Tesla—

Wait, you really want to intro? I'm going to intro.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really do. If I want a Tesla Model Y, I can just end up, what is it called? Parking at the airport, driving myself, and maybe that'll pay for it. But then I was like, man, I don't want to park at the airport, then walk over. I'm like, this is too much of a headache.

Dude, this is weird. Look, I tried to add you. You're in red. Isn't that weird? There's a green one. So there's a green bubble and there's a red bubble.

Why the heck does it say?

I don't know. It's so weird.

Anyway. Let's see if I try to add you. Hello? Yeah, no, I'm still blue.

Oh, okay. I got it. I got it. Continue. Continue.

You picked the wrong number?

Well, let me make sure. No, it works now. Like I just hit the message and it works. Yeah.

Oh, got it. Yeah. But yeah, so I was doing the economics of it. I was like, if I drive myself to the airport and I park there, it would pay for the monthly payment if I didn't want to buy it with cash.

I don't like parking there.

That's what I'm saying. And I was like, I'd rather not have the Model Y and park there. Yeah.

Because then I have to like walk there and all this. I want someone like waiting for me. This is like first world problems, guys.

Yeah. But I was like, this is why I spend $1,000 a month on airport pickups and drop-offs, at least out in LA. But going back to ChatGPT.

Okay.

So with ChatGPT, dude, if I had to modify the algorithm, I would do a few things. I would Keep using social content from community forums like Reddit and stuff like that because I do think it provides value, but I would index less on it. So for example, if it was 6% of my algorithm, I would make it like 1% of my algorithm.

For what?

Like the Reddit and community forums and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah. Because there's too much junk there.

There's too much junk there. And I would talk directly with the Reddit communities and the forums that we're pulling from and paying data deals from and tell them, Hey, you need to get your act together and get rid of a lot of this junk or else we're going to stop paying you for your data. I would just put a hard stance on that if I were them. The second thing I would do is leverage citations, but I would look to see who's linking like Google. Because if someone's linking, it's harder to manipulate. It's so much easier to get someone to write a mention about your brand on the internet without a link than it is to get them to link. I think links do have more value and I would put that in the—

Yeah.

in their algorithm. I would also start looking at the type of sites that are talking about you versus any site talking about you, have that in there as well. I will look at velocity, you know, like recency. So—

Consistency, velocity, right? Social's a big one too. I think there's so much signals that Google hasn't done a good job of pulling, but now everything's multimodal that you can ingest social data, you can ingest link graph data.

Yes. So yeah, I think Google does a better job on the social than ChatGPT does. But I think they both could do a better job there. Same with podcasts. Like if they want to really value who's an expert, if you're getting interviewed a lot or your company's getting interviewed and mentioned a lot in a positive way, because they can decipher what's being mentioned, that should have a lot of weight. Like look at how powerful podcasts were in the last election versus traditional media. And they're not really indexing much on podcasting at all.

Yeah. I mean that like Google should be looking and they already have Google Trends. They should just be looking at what's trending upwards and downwards. And so I think a lot of this stuff is fixable. Here's the biggest joke that I see right now. Just earlier this week, I saw another AEO company pop out of Y Combinator, another one, Elixir or something. It's like, we've found a new way to do SEO now where nobody else can, and they're just spamming. It's just spamming again. It's like all of these like SEO startups are just like spamming. And they, because they're super smart engineers and they're really young, they think they found a new way. But no, they just have, they found a way that we've been doing for a very long time as SEOs.

Someone pitched our company recently. It's one of these AAO companies, and I don't know what it's called. They're a startup that helps you get rankings on ChatGPT. They're like, we have this proprietary way, you guys should buy us, we would be bigger together. And they're trying to sell to us for cash. I don't know what their numbers are, my team does, but I believe it was something like $300,000, $400,000 a month in recurring revenue. Decently low churn. And then when we—

They want to sell it for like $40 million?

Uh, no, I, I could have ended up buying it for like, 7, 8 times profit, 10 max.

Yep.

So we're looking at the deal and when we looked at it, I didn't look much at all at it. I know my team did. And when they're showing us what they were doing, dude, it was just a ton of spammy guest posts.

Yep.

And I was like, so you want us to buy a company that's not going to last?

Yep.

But when they pitched us or the banker pitched us, they're like, they got this proprietary way that ranks really well on these LLMs. This is going to be game-changing for you guys. It'll give you a leg up and it'll help all your clients rank super fast. And they were showcasing in the deck like how much faster they're getting results than everyone else. And it was a really quick turnaround, but it was through spamming.

I bet you their churn's high.

Their churn was low, what they were claiming, at least the numbers. We didn't dive into the data room, but the moment we got on the phone with the team and they told us how they're doing it, right away we're like, this isn't for us.

Oh, so you ended it pretty quickly?

We were just very transparent. We're like, look, we think this is shortsighted. We gave them honest feedback as entrepreneurs and we said, we don't think— technically when I say we, I'm saying my team, Yeah. We're like, we don't think this is going to last.

Yeah. And so this is the thing, people think they're gaming it right now, but I'm telling you, this probably lasts like 12 to 18 months before ChatGPT and Google, they get it, they get it together because they can't let their product quality decay.

Yes.

And it already is. And when people, by the way, remember I told you last week that little test, right? And like a lot of people are clicking on that thing. I'm telling you, people that click it right after, when they search for an agency, like Single Grain pops up. That's too easy to game. I just wanted to see how easy it is to game. That's how easy it is to game.

So, so that test you ran last week, let's go back on it. Do you want to describe the test all over again and explain how it looked on your website?

So if you go to the singlegrain.com website, it's still up right now. We're going to take it off in like probably 2 weeks or so is we're just, we want to see how this goes. But on the bottom right, you see there's an Ask AI button. Okay. And ask AI about Single Grain. So Single Grain is my company, right? So you have a ChatGPT button, a Gemini button, a Perplexity button, Claude. So if you hit the ChatGPT one, what happens is there's a prompt, there's a pre-written prompt saying, Hey, so tell me about Single Grain as an agency. Tell me the best parts about them and like, tell me any case studies. So it's like a very favorable prompt. Okay.

Yeah.

So the thought here is that we can inject Google or ChatGPT because it has memory with this prompt. And because they asked about Single Grain, ChatGPT now assumes that, oh, maybe they want more information on Single Grain. So the next time they ask about an agency, because recently we just, you know, talked about Single Grain, we're going to pop up. And literally my friend did that. And when he asked about an agency next, Single Grain popped up first.

Oh, that's cool.

And I'm not saying that's going to happen for everyone because they're constantly adjusting this thing, but I just wanted to see.

Eric also has traffic, so it's going to work better for him than others. And he has options for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok. So he's working on all of them to see what works. If you're going to do this, rotate it up. So whatever you ask ChatGPT, have people ask different variations of something similar for different versions. So like, what do you think about single grain for marketing for B2B SaaS, e-com, D2C, et cetera.

You could have a prompt to come up with prompt variations.

There you go.

By the way, this is like back in the day when people would like manipulate the, their, their, their like widgets and the anchor text, right? You would just keep changing anchor text. This is no different than that. I'm telling you guys, this will probably work right now. It's not going to work for very long. And I'll tell you, we're like, okay, the next step is how do you do this for articles, right? Summarize articles and then like, you know, put like by Single Grain. So what do you think about this article by Single Grain, right? And it's just going to keep like citing it. So it's too easy to manipulate right now, guys, but here's what we would do to change up the algorithm a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, and I think if you make those, if they made those changes, they'd be better off. I would also look at like reviews. When I say reviews, they already look at reviews, but a lot of the results that they're pulling have a ton of reviews that are old and outdated instead of looking for fresh reviews. Just because someone has 10,000 reviews doesn't mean they're still great today. I'll look out for the companies that are getting reviews at a higher velocity that are also positive because then they can showcase what's up been coming and trending within that category.

Yeah. Anyway, guys, that's it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.