Your AI can do what?

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

It's a pleasure. I really appreciate this opportunity and love to talk to a broader audience.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, top line, obviously, but I mean, in a way, detailed and yet top line, you know?

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

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

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

Okay. And Rita, I'm just gonna ask you, you're using voice. Which voice are you using? Because I've experimented with ElevenLabs, for example, for clients to create a multilingual agent because they're a travel agency and they're selling services in Spain, but the clients are in America. So that's great. What are you doing in terms of voice? And is that something that is on the website? Because especially for people maybe that are visibly, you know, have, uh, do you call it an impairment? Sorry, I've got a bit of a flu. I'm —bit slow. But you've got people that are visually impaired is the term I'm looking for. Your voice agents could be very useful, couldn't they? Absolutely.

And so the technology I'm currently using, so I have actually experimented with ElevenLabs and one other, but I'm forgetting. But because of the fact that my CRM is built on the GoHighLevel platform, there is a native Voice AI that after a few iterations, so day one it wasn't great, but after a few iterations, I've been very happy with the results.

Okay, that's interesting. And then on Reid's website at marketsearch.io, you can find a sort of catalog of ways that he's using AI. If you want to look at my YouTube channel, Jim A. James, you'll see a screen share, but he's got content AI, conversation AI, workflow AI, voice AI, which we just touched on, and Funnel Builder AI. So really, this is then using your platform across the entire process, isn't it, Reed?

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

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

And then just to clarify, do you want me to talk about how I've helped them implement AI or how I've taken them through the sales cycle with, um, let's, let's talk about what you've done for them.

So, you know, have they got, they've got an You know, so let's think that I'm a potential client and you're saying, okay, this is the solution that we can put all the way through. Perfect.

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

yeah, I guess it's a commodity item, right? Sort of the lowest price coming to a neighborhood near you on Thursday, right? Booking your $50 extermination, right?

Exactly. And so we, um, we— there's a tradition of college students, they spend summer walking the streets and they knock doors in the warmer climate states and say, hey, you know, they sell right on the spot. It's one of the few industries that still does a lot of door-to-door sales. They also generally have very high-volume call centers, both inbound and outbound. Like you said, it's a commodity. So they, they prize the velocity at which they can respond and finding people's needs before they even pick up the phone, thus the door-to-door agents. And, um, and so it's— so speed is, is critical, and volume and reach are, are also critical. So, um, in, in the case of talking to a pest control client, one, um, so there are two aspects that, that needed to be managed, is there were multiple ways that customers were coming inbound. Uh, one was through organic search. They typed in pest control services near me, and we work with them to manage the SEO in a way, you know, effectively. We use— we utilize AI to analyze the current state of, like, audit their SEO status and the keywords that they are ranking for and opportunities for improvement. So we have that analysis, we create blogs, recreate landing pages and other things to improve their organic ranking. And then we also do advertising based on the, the high-volume searches in their area. So some areas are going to have higher volumes of termites or rodents, and we do an analysis and represent that in AI-generated keyword-embedded content for those pages. Then we also help them facilitate more. So in this case, we suggest an AI agent for both chat and voice for calls that they miss, but they have large call centers, so there aren't many that they miss. But we, have also embedded these, these agents, these AI agents in nurture campaigns. Because once they have worked with a pest control company, you know, as, as it is fairly commoditized, and, um, you know, honestly, it could be a little bit forgettable what company they worked with, and they're going to Google it again. They create campaigns where a custom message goes out via chat, you know, there's a task assigned to a rep to send out a custom message, say, hey, it's been a while, you know, I know this, this is the season, high season for, you know, weevils or something. Weevils, yeah, exactly. So, so just wanted to check in, see if you're ready. And then when they respond, and you do that, you could potentially do that en masse. And then when they respond, you have an agent that can book an appointment and take it through close. So, so it's in part because there are so many channels that we have to— and, and in a situation where there's high competition, uh, that, that speed is so important, and there's so many different ways that a business, uh, reaches its customers that, um, you know, we provide basically AI technology at each channel. And yeah, interesting.

And I could see on your offering. You have, you know, email, SMS, you know, sales funnel, website, call tracking, surveys, bookings, CRM, tracking analysis. You've even got courses. Looks like you work with Kajabi and Teachable, uh, there. And you've got reputation management. And you're, you're giving your clients a menu of offerings, or they can presumably buy the whole That's correct.

That's correct. And like you said, um, to, um, generating content in a lot of different forms is very valuable for, uh, the customer journey. Um, some— a lot of customers aren't really customers yet until they do a little searching after they've tried to do it themselves. Um, so they might be Googling in the pest control situation, like, how do I, uh, How do I poison myself? And then you have a guide to download from your website or a video course, something that you provide. And then that turns into, wow, they really know what they're doing. I don't really want to touch those chemicals. Let me—

Yeah. So you've got— Reid, I have to ask you then. Excuse me. I have to ask you. You talked about ChatGPT for the intelligent agent. Yes. Um, at the risk of geeking out here, um, what, what tools are you using for writing the content and also then for the graphic design or videos? What are you playing with there to generate consistent quality?

Yeah, great question. So, um, I have been using jasper.ai for a long time, um, but, um, you know, it's funny, at the beginning Jasper was not that great. It was just kind of impressive that it do anything.

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

Exactly. And, but what I've found is if I use two AI engines to, so I write either in Jasper or ChatGPT, and then I ask the second GPT to rewrite it and improve, make it more persuasive or make it more concise. You know, give it an additional instruction. It's better than just having one write it, and unless, um, it's more challenging to, uh, tell that it was written by AI. Yeah.

So in the old days, you know, when, when I ran my PR firm, you'd have every press release would have 4 eyes, right? The account exec would write it, and the senior would, would review it, and then go back, and then the client would review it. I don't know, I don't know what it would be called when it's AIs checking AIs, as they have no I guess it'd be two AIs, wouldn't it? Not four AIs. Sure. I've also found using Grammarly very good because I'll create content in AI Writer, which is another good one, for example, or ChatGPT and put it into Grammarly. And that makes it local for the UK, for example, and checks against passive voice, which I find AI struggles with quite a lot, the passive voice. So it's interesting that you're pairing up and I will then get the benefit of your wisdom with video.— images. What are you finding works there?

Let me just, I wanna double check. Okay, so because I just started using one yesterday that I actually really liked. Okay, so there is of course the ChatGPT Sora. It sounds like you're familiar with that.

I'm playing with Zora, with Sora. Yeah, that's kind of fun. Yeah. And also with Descript, you know, you can type. Oh yeah. You can type a script into Descript and it will make for you a video.

And I'm also a Descript user. Yeah, you go Descript. Yeah, that's right. And then, but my, I just, I'm just going to click through my tabs because I want to find this before I speak that I've actually really liked and it was quite inexpensive. It is I'm sorry, I didn't have this top of mind, but—

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

I found the platform, it's called leonardo.ai, which I've found is actually, it seems to be quite good value for the monthly membership and very high quality video as well. Okay. So a little plug for that platform. I'll also say too, to your point, I, you know, I willingly put a target on myself. I will, any, almost any sales representative that comes to me with something that seems original, a software that seems original, I will talk to them and meet with them. I feel like that's part of my role, as you say, to be aware of all the technology and at least have an opinion on it, if not some user experience that I can speak to directly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you, Reed. And for, for an introvert, I appreciate you being, you know, open-handed and open-hearted. Reid Hanson joining me from Evanston, Illinois. Thank you very much. Thank you. So Reid and I got into the weeds a little bit about AI, partly because I'd like, you know, to share with you some of the tools that are available, but also to know that now there are agencies like Market Search that can help you with all of that. It can be a lot of heavy lifting.. And unless you really enjoy it, talking to someone like Reid, or talking to Reid directly— why don't you just call Reid and help yourself by letting them help you? So that's been today's episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. If you've enjoyed it, please do share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. And we really don't want anyone to go unnoticed. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating.