Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Jeremy Rivera, your unscripted SEO podcast host. I'm here with Benjamin Benroos of Branding, who's going to lay it down, tell us who he is and why we should trust him as we kind of explore his past and what he's working on now.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Hey everybody, I'm Benjamin. I'm with the branding team. We're in every major metropolitan city.
And why should you trust me? I think reputation is key and I've learned that your past helps create your future and the future looks bright. So I think we have a lot of amazing things that we've been able to accomplish. A lot of happy customers that are able to kind of share and we make our clients dreams come true. And I think that's the best part about our job because helping small businesses, middle sized businesses or amazing project take flight, that's what we thrive to do. That's what we love to do.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: My previous guest, Julia Novgova, she said that empathy is a core business skill because it allows you to basically understand your customers because they're in pain.
That's why they're willing to take their hard earned cash out of their operation and give it to somebody else because they're hurting.
What are some of the hurts that you've been solving for your clients recently?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: You're a powerhouse by using a word called empathy.
Because that word is something that is getting forgotten because of AI. And I just recently came back from a trade show where I was able to sit across from some of the biggest people in the industry, spending billions of dollars a year. The team at Morgan and Morgan, I was recently able to go to their trade show and one of the things they really harped about and they're taking in 75,000 thousand leads a week.
Something they really harped on was the empathy and how AI doesn't allow you to have that empathy. You're talking about someone at scale that has that 75,000 intake to be able to say, no, we don't want AI where it would just change that process. But understanding how empathy is important for us.
We're not a good match for everybody. But if do people do give us a call, we try to at least put them on the right road. And I've had this amazing experience of the world coming back to me.
Someone will come to us and we might not be a good match today and we'll be able to say, hey, here's a better road. Take these two to three steps and come back. And I just had this happen where we had this apparel brand. It was a mom and pop brand.
And they were able to get into a better position to now want to be bring us on. And it was three years and he's like, you're still here. I'm like, we're still here. You guys still here? Yep. So we were able to kind of help them at the last magic trade show. They were able to really take their business, help it grow. And we've been that figure with people. And I think it's just understanding that it's not businesses, it's people, it's their dreams. And just respecting that really does make a big difference in the long run.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: My friend Matt Brooks at seoterics brought up the point that it seems like scale is on the opposite side of authenticity.
Would you agree with that statement?
And if that is the reality, then how do we as marketers balance that equation?
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Scale comes in many different forms.
Scale can come from shifting Your business to six clients that pay $2,000 a month to one client pays you 25,000.
Scale comes in a lot of different shapes and forms. It's just how you apply it and how you want to apply it. I have clients that businesses that run like a subway, where it's just non stop business coming in and that fulfills their business model and their liabilities and everything else. I think when it makes sense, it makes sense. I don't think there is a right or a wrong. I think it's just based on the situation, the liabilities at hand, and what the person's appetite is.
I have monsters that I deal with and they're amazing entrepreneurs. Some of them have appetites to eat the world. Some of them want to be a little bit more strategic. And you know, we have all kinds. And it's not right for me to say right or wrong for this. It's really based on the situation, the details.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: I was talking to a consultant who does end of business planning and it's an area that I realized I certainly when I went into business, I didn't have a plan of how to get out other than feet first.
But he had a question he wanted to pass on to the next guest.
And that question was, what part of the business plan that is written down do you usually see fail or forgotten or forgets to be written? Because I'm sure that as a marketer, you come into these businesses and they've got ops. They're, they're doing stuff. Is there a consistent theme of like this hidden part of the business plan that's just consistently underdeveloped
[00:05:39] Speaker B: you know, it's that whole notion you don't know till you don't know. Like you know some, you don't know till you know. So sometimes you really have a lot of businesses that do two different things.
And I look at it, sometimes it's businesses that do the hard work, but just miss that one line of just getting on the blowhorn to let people know that what they're doing is great. And the only big difference with that is, is the timeline of their success.
So when we meet a company, they're two years in mom and pop and you're able to see that they've been able to establish a good reviews on Google, Yelp, a good business, but they're only seeing X amount of clients. They're only able to be open two days a week. For me, it's rocket ship time because they have facilitated a back office that works well. They just haven't done the front office stuff of getting visibility. So it's time to rock and roll.
The only thing for a marketer that you don't have control of is the back office of how the demeanor of that business owner is.
So if you're able to look up a company and able to see that their back office works well and they're able to see their reputation is at a good place. And mind you, I'm not one to say that one bad review in 10 years or whatever that is, it happens. But there's consistency with certain things you're able to identify. And even with us, before I take a client on, I go look to see if they're nice people.
I really do. And I think that really goes a long way. And if we see a business that is at that point, they're at rocket ship mode. And I use that term because they're one step away of just saying, and this happens to us. You know what the best feeling in the world is for a marketer? Best feeling in the world.
Turn it off. Turn it off. We have too many leads. We're booked out for the next three to four months and we've had that happen around seven times this year. And I have, and I write it down because it's important to me. That's happened seven times this year and I love that. That's what makes us happy, to be able to drive results for people and working with business owners like that, to give them what they want to, where they're like, oh my God, turn it off. I don't think I'm going to be able to manage it. But for me, it's a really good sign when they say turn it off because their quality is there too. They want to make sure the quality of the business is there. So there's that balance. We always try to give them what they want, allow the businesses to thrive.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: When it comes to home services, whether that's home contracting, somebody's building concrete fences and dropping it into people's backyards or for commercial, whatever, what's your advice for those that category of business in this season based off of, you know, the new AI tools, how people are receiving things, what's, what's the go to play for home services?
[00:08:34] Speaker B: We're, we're killing home services right now.
We know blue collar work is going to be the future. We know that AI can't fix your roof, it can't fix your door, the electrician can't. You can't AI zap something for it to fix your electricity or your plumbing. So we know the future millionaires of this country are going to be blue collar workers. And right now other people know this too. So it's a very inundated market. So for me, you're not going to find a parking spot behind five other cars. Get creative, do things that other people are not doing.
Understand that people are not picking up their phones anymore because they just had enough of that spam calls.
Find avenues to where you can actually be personal.
For us, we have a full blown street team that we're able to deploy into any city and everyone's wearing the T shirts, they're able to see it and for us it's a layered approach and touch points. If someone's able to see your brand three to five times, they feel comfortable with it. So if, if my team is coming to you with, with some print deliverable in your hand, smiling and giving it to us on your door, you have a meta ad that hits you because of your geolocation. So I've created the funnel from the top middle and then the last part when they need you just to be that last hit.
And it, it's, it's not difficult. It's just there's this stupidity of this is enough and you'll pay the money. It'll go nowhere. You're like, oh, I'm doing marketing. It's really tough market. It's not. People are dying to find people that are able to do blue collar work. They are in a chaos to be able to find a provider and those people on the sidelines, not working. It's one of those things of understanding is I'M saving this much money or I'm losing this much money a year by not doing this. If I have companies, they have like five staff members, they have three trucks and they're just sitting there. I'm like, man, your roof is on fire, my brother. You need to get them working because that's a liability for you. So for us, we do a full scaled approach from every prom because we know other people that are in Pakistan or call centers or whatever this is, that thing is over. That silo type of engagement is done. People don't pick up their phones. So we're the, hi, how are you? Here you go. We're putting a face, we're making it personal.
We're creating brands that are better than other people because we're engaged and we're in your face and we're giving you something that's actually personal.
We're showing up at Venice Fest, we're showing up at the local event that's happening and you're able to see the brand engage with you, where you are, where your family is.
Our holistic approach is different and we're not a good match for everybody. Some people, it doesn't make sense, but some people, it does because they're like, oh my God, there's too much noise. I need to have my brain be seen. So something impactful that you're able to place where you know, your customer base is actually out and about, it works so much better.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: My friends over at Pure Air Oxygen Monitoring, they are exploring kind of this post Google world.
You know, I would, I posit this theory that, you know, 2010 to 2020, there was this golden monopoly moment where Google became everything. You know, Microsoft became Bing and it dropped itself to third and off of the radar of the budgets and. But Google also had the rules relaxed enough where, you know, you could just pour your marketing budget just into SEO and get a huge return on investment.
But what I'm seeing now is we're seeing the market impact of a decentralized market. There's no single one player yet. Google still has a huge outsized impact, but now we have multiple competing channels and it's competing with itself in the AI Gemini space versus traditional serves.
I've seen with them kind of an outsized benefit to IRL impacting what used to be URLs.
I love that your approach talks about that, but I'm curious if there's any layer you add to your IRL stuff to help it echo online.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah, there has to be multiple touch points.
So if we're having someone go out in the field, there has to be some type of protocol to get them to take a next step. Is it a QR code, is it an offer?
As well as following up with meta geo targeted ads, if I'm able to grab them and have their, have their URL or have their IP address tracked and I'm able to hold on to them for that 90 to 120 days, it's a win win. So it's really having them cross that border and holding on to them and it's really having a executable plan with this to where you know one asset is going out and what are the next five steps you want them to take. It's really thinking that whole process out. And what is your goal? You want to hold on to them for the next 120 days. Amazing. You're able to keep hitting them, you're able to have retention on places that they are. So if I have them scan that QR code, they hit my website, I remarket them on social because that's where they're living. What do I get? I'm able to hold on to my customer base on their terms, where they are. And it's something I'm going to tell all all marketers. The sooner you figure this out, the better you're going to be.
Go into the market on your customers terms. What are their pain points, what are they worried about? Just because you have AI services, they don't give a damn.
But they may want their calendar to work better. Just because you have SEO services, they don't. They might not understand how that's connected to something else.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Well, I'll, I'll let it out so we can let that ring out.
All right, good.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Good bro.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: All right, let me use that second then to, to think more clearly. I know what I'm gonna do.
I'm curious what Market breaker you're thinking of using AI technology? Because that's what I think.
We've all been given this superpower and in three or four different forms and formats and they keep releasing new versions of this Market breaker.
What's a unique implementation of AI capability that you've brought to market?
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Well, it's funny you say that. I have a brand new startup that we've been kind of cooking on for the past 12 months. It's called no agent list dot com.
We are the Robin Hood of real estate. Our goal is to be able to get access to all. We believe that there definitely is a different way that people are going to want to Buy a home, it's no longer going to be from a tour, from an agent. It's really going to be from your fingertips and finding the property that makes the most sense for you and your family and giving you those access and tools. What we've been able to do, and I'm so excited and I want everyone to check this out as well.
We've given access to tools that Fortune 500 companies, investment companies, groups that are not the normal person are using at insane rates. We're seeing the people on the market charging 500 to a thousand dollars a month for some of these products.
We are just giving it to everybody to use.
Our, our goal is no longer having the agents pretty much being the first encounter, the last encounter. We want the people to take initiative on their own. We want them to be able to have access to more tools. We want them to understand that on market is one thing, but off market that's completely something else. Our product allows you to see more than just the 10% of homes that are on market, the 90% that are not on market, that maybe someone doesn't feel comfortable dealing with an agent. And it happens and they're not seeing the value that they want. Because losing 4 to 6% to be able to give that to an agent in this market, that's not something a normal family can do.
So we're really trying to give more tools to people and I'm really excited because this is the better way for people to be able to live the American dream and to be able to take their own, take their life in their own hands. So really amazing tools from being able to pull out options, things are going to pre foreclosure things that have really good remodel value right away. And we're grading things for you. So the second you hit the website, if you find an A plus property, we've done that hard work. You don't have to call an agent to say is this, is this a good deal? We've done that for you. So I really implore everyone make sure to check out the website. We have a free account, we have a seven day all in. You're able to check it out and see how the platform works. And my biggest thing with AI is there is this contemplation with people that it's taking jobs away, that it's doing certain things in actuality, it's really empowering users to do more with less.
So creating like I love to say, creating a castle out of mud. So with one prompt you're able to Create a whole city. And it's just really understanding the power that we have and having a compliment.
I'm dealing with this right now and it's utterly insane where I'm having certain companies put people in charge that are not qualified in the position and that's pretty much them looking on Claude and responding.
And that is the kiss of death.
So I'm so fearful of this specific type of marketing to where it's that bot telling you what to do, where the machine is controlling you, where you need to control the machine.
So I really implore people to really use your own due diligence, use your own brain. Because this word of hallucinations is real. Like AI does have hallucinations, if there's something that there's 12 chapters in a book, but if you prompt it enough, it'll create the 13th chapter and give you a response. So be mindful of what you're doing. Really understand as you're doing something, what is your end goal. And if you are using AI to create something, understand how you're prompting it to actually give you the better responses.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: I think one tip from my side is going in. If there is a doubt or question, just staging it and putting the prompt in as, hey, give me five unique different voices on this versus just asking the question straight up. Because then you can have it compete against itself and that way it can't bias you in the answer. You know, I saw somebody, they have a skill that you can download. I'll add it to the show, look it up and add it to the show notes. But I think it's like a council of seven with seven distinct personalities for each of the members of the council. And so you can evaluate from, you know, somebody who's super conservative, somebody who's super ambitious, somebody who's looking at the numbers. But that way you're leveraging the, the creativity of the tool and not taking the data set at its face value. Because I had this conversation with Mark Williams Cook, who was on the show about the nature of LLMs and how, you know, they have their training database that they built and they have their default answer, and if they don't have it, they'll go and scrape Google, basically, like there's a Google wrapper element to it. But really like those two things aren't, you know, they're secondary, adopted layers of knowledge and they're not the same as talking to a real person. Because AI doesn't have its own anecdotes. It can only parrot, paraphrase or parse. And repeat portions of other people's anecdotes. So something I do as a practice for, for each of my podcast interviews, I actually specifically ask it to extract anecdotes and then semantically relate them to the topic so I can reference it later.
Because the way that we as humans are built is storytellers and story listeners and you know, we don't have to, we don't have to get a bullet point version of the Boy who Cried Wolf. You can tell us the story and we infer from the anecdote what the allegory means.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: I think there really is something to be said about being able to provide analogies, to be able to provide easier way for people to understand what you're saying. And I think within LLMs they don't have.
I grew up in front of the television. My, my life is pop culture. So I was a little kid. So everything I know I can relate to something that happened into the past. I, you know, so for me, I'm understanding ability to be able to have a group of people understand what you're, what you're saying and for it to hit home.
You do that with giving them analogies. You do that with giving them real world, real world examples that you, you've kind of gone through and that allows that relationship to kind of happen. So I do think, I don't know if the word is empathy, but just having a course line of emotion that kind of gets ingrained into it. But I, I've had this conversation with my other partners within the business and I think it's one of those things of it will, it will. And it'll be a personality type similar to a friend, friend of who you choose to kind of have with you. But I do think seven Council approach and having different people is a great perspective and I know we spoke about this earlier, really being able to understand what the other people's pain points are and how you can kind of leave those within your conversation is instant. So I think that's a great point to kind of think about as you're doing more.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: What are some of the. What are. What's one other silver lining that you've spotted from, you know, AI becoming such a major player like I came across, you know, from the pressure point of now we've got these data centers sucking down the energy from the grid. Well, they just announced, you know, a behind the grid, completely green turbine engine solution for data centers to get their energy off of the grid.
You know, so what are societally or personally some of the other positive upsides that you've seen from AI Being so widely adopted so quickly, this is probably
[00:24:21] Speaker B: the easiest answer for me, hands down.
We've been in business since 2007.
The best asset and tool that AI has is built to search and sort at a very rapid rate. It's searching and sorting our history.
It's searching and sorting our awards. It's searching and sorting our relationship with NYPD for our toy drive. It's showing our donations to Shriners Hospital in Hawaii. It's talking about our annual beach cleanup in Santa Monica.
There's certain things that we've been able to champion, and I'm so thankful for AI because some of the things we did that are a part of our past. And, you know, as a marketing company, we promote them, great. But now we're having those things kind of flush forward.
We're having the ability where AI is that free friend that asked those eight additional questions where you say, hey, who's the best marketing company for a fishing company? And then it, it runs through the company that comes up. It tells you, hey, the review was left from another fisherman talking about how they designed a really nice net for their company. And then look at these other places where they are. They posted something on social media, et cetera, et cetera. So I think the compliment for our company, because we are doing the work work, we are posting, we are visible, we are doing local events. It really allows us to shine. I think for the company that's brand new and doesn't have those accolades, it's really difficult. So there is this spamming of sorts where these cold emails and all these things. So, like, I think there's definite benefit of it, like everything else, and you can make it what you want. So there's people fearing it. I'm excited for it, we're championing it, and we're really looking at the values that we can take away from it because it's not going away.
If you want to look for something wrong with it, you'll find it. It's like everything else in life, you find what you're looking for. So for us, we're definitely finding the silver lining. I think we're definitely getting connected to some of the bigger entities in the country, and we're able to give really amazing companies their flowers. Like people that have been in business for 40 years and they're like, hey, I want to come up on AI I want to be able to have.
Be visible on modern luxury, or I want to be able to be the go to plastic surgeon. In the country, there's certain things that we're doing and it's helping because the manners in which that we marketing from the PR aspect to be able to get them. We just had Fox News at one of our medical spots in New York for Wellness Week and they just did a whole spot there. And it's because of our outreach, is because of that relationship we're creating. Like there really is this differential I'm seeing with the kind of marketing that we. We've been doing for a really long time. Now it's getting highlighted. Now it's even doing better because of the ability for people to weed stuff out. And the people that were faking it, that were doing mass websites, they were doing stuff that don't have the connection to social, that don't have a gmp, that don't have all these assets that AI is pulling from, they are no longer visible. So it's a very positive thing for companies like ours that had that history.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: I love to hear that you're doing a trash cleanup. I have my own nonprofit Community Clean Link, where I offer a connection service for businesses that want to do a community cleanup. And I make sure that we recruit local volunteers and spread that.
Every city has at least three event websites. At least three. LA is ridiculous. There's like 30. But you know, then you have the news, man.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: So for us, we're, we're so lucky. Like, if you look us up Earth Day beach cleanup, you'll see us come up for branding Los Angeles. One of our aunties in la, where I'm at, you'll see Rick Dicker, he's the weather guy. We have, we were on the Fox News. We're able to have big entities like bank of America came out, came out, Chase came out. We had some people from Spotify HQ come out. So we're really fortunate. And luckily there are people that want to be able to do good. There are people that want to connect with others that are in that same mindset. So my group that we just had, because we had it during Earth Day, we had about 120amazing human beings. We had about 20 of our own staff, about 100 different people from different organizations, our clients and people that just want to come and meet people. So really we're very centric on our community events. And I love to hear that you're doing.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: I think one of the great powers. And this came up with my interview with Andy Choi of Good News.
There's a lot of partnering that isn't being done but could be done with for profits with nonprofits of so much more. It's the classic, oh, Tom's story, like, hey, people do want to know, buy stuff and also do good with it. And that doesn't mean that you have to necessarily convert your business into a nonprofit. But there's so many.
If you go to your local rotary club, if you go to your local entrepreneur center, there's a class of nonprofits just sitting around and waiting for businesses, you know to have to jump on their opportunity, cross market, co market and collaborate. And you can get so much farther and so much more bang for your buck. You know, $10, you know, a hundred dollars in a collaborative effort with a nonprofit is going to go ten times as far than if you just spent that hundred dollars yourself.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: I think right now, the biggest thing I'm going to say is from the millions and millions and millions of dollars that we spent market research, everything, we've kind of done common day, a consumer, the consumer might not want to go out and clean up the beach, but they want the brand that they're purchasing from to do that for them. And they're looking for the brand to be socially conscious because that's the energy that they want to cut goes the whole notion with Toms as well. So I think what you're saying definitely makes sense. I think there definitely is opportunities for brands to kind of come through that kind of net of not being visible and help themselves stand out and do good. I think consumers are looking for brands that are doing good. I think there definitely is a reality of if you're not doing it, that's one gap of accessibility to your consumer you just lost. So I think it definitely is an opportunity to get more visibility and do good.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Let's close on a hot take. Your hottest take of the biggest mistake you can make with your brand right now.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Creating it for yourself and not your customer.
Having an egotistical thought of what you're creating is masterful, but actually not solving a problem.
So perception is key. What problem are you solving and how are you helping your customer? Because if you're not doing that, you should just shut down the business now.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Love it. 100% agree.
Give a shout out to your brand if there's any events that you're promoting, conferences you guys are at. How can people connect with you? Are you on just one particular social channel or should people be looking up Anandle specifically? I'll be sure to include all of these links in the show notes for anybody. But some people, they're walking around listening. They're like, oh, I'm going to look that up on my phone. So what do you got?
[00:32:13] Speaker B: So I'm Benjamin Beh. You guys are. Please feel free to look me up. You guys can probably find me on Apple, Play, Spotify, a ton of different things. I do guest speaking around two to three times a month to try to give as much value as I can to my consumer base because that's where I'm kind of finding value in my own life, being able to help others.
We are across the country, so from branding los angeles.com branding nycity.com branding texas, agency branding mia and branding aloha, we're in five major markets. We have amazing clients in every market. And if you guys are looking to join our team, if you're creative, we love to have new people join us. So reach out. If you're looking for your business to kick ass and actually scale and to have a growth marketing partner that's actually here in America and actually not giving you generic stuff because that's all they know.
We're a team of a hundred people.
We don't have thousands, but we have some of the most elite people possible. Through my 17 years, I've really been able to put together a team of selfless human beings that do everything they can for our clients and that's what's allowed us to strive and we continue to do that, help others. So if you guys are in that mindset wanting to do more and create amazing things, love to have you join our team or if you'd like to have a consultation with us to see how your business can actually go through the roof. Because I think the the word of the year is possibilities.
And really understanding that the possibilities are in front of you. You just have to open up that door and we'll be there to greet you when you're ready.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Absolutely. Love it. Thanks for stopping by. This has been the Unscripted SEO podcast. You can catch more episodes at Unscripted SEO.
You're more into small business conversations. I've got Unscripted smallbusiness. Com. I've got unscripted SaaS, unscripted, home improvement, Unscripted, everything.
I've got a whole network going on. So stop by, check out some episodes like and share. Thanks, folks.
