Andre Savoie on Being a Better Client and Why AI Only Knows the Known

Andre Savoie spent 20 years running a digital marketing agency, sold it, and now advises owners directly through andresavoie.com. His take on why campaigns fail is not the one you expect from an agency owner: a lot of the time it's the client relationship, not the vendor.

"This isn't a magic show. Like you have to participate and pull your weight for this to work."

Andre and Jeremy get into what good clients do differently, the SEO pitches that waste a year, and why AI can't write the thing that actually ranks.

Read the full recap, with the quotes and the takeaways: Andre Savoie on being a better marketing client.

What Andre and Jeremy cover

• How Andre's early writing, done as "a work of art," still ranks in the top results almost 20 years later.
• Telling clients what not to do: the cold pitch, the random proposal, the SEMrush screen share that costs you a year.
• Agency burnout, selling the agency, and having the same conversation with client after client.
• The cobbler's children: marketing agencies with bad websites buying cold leads.
• Coaching upscale local businesses, from lighting showrooms to $50,000 kitchen installs, and his dad's "most expensive in town" construction company.
• Taking inventory before strategy: pages, photos, video, brand.
• "Are you a bad client?" and why a business coach makes a client easier to work with.
• AI as a tool, not a magic pill, and why it can only work with what is already known.
• The one thing to do today: slow down and take ownership of the process.

Related reading

SEO Arcade takes the AI half of this episode further in why AI only works with the known. Jeremy's own take for business owners is are you a bad SEO client? Joshua Ramsey makes the case for a narrative USP from the fractional CMO seat, Colby Wegter covers why freelancers fail at scaling, and Stephanie Long explains why SEO is the batter to your AI. Erica D'Arcangelo is on the same page about not publishing AI as her own.

Where to find Andre

Andre works as a fractional CMO and consultant; see how he works with owners. He also co-founded Saltwater Marketing, for charter fishing and tour operators.

Recorded January 2025. Host: Jeremy Rivera. Guest: Andre Savoie, former agency owner and marketing coach. Andre's group coaching program described on the episode reflects that date; today he works as a fractional CMO.