The AI-Native Marketer Looks Like This

0:00Eric Siu:When a buyer asks AI for a solution like yours, does your business come up? Most companies have no idea. And by the time they find out, they've already lost the deal to someone who did. HubSpot AEO helps you show up in those moments with the right answers buyers are looking for before the first click, before the first form fill. That's the moment HubSpot AEO is built for. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. So one thing I saw, so I did a webinar with this guy, Cody Schneider, who's a great marketer. So as we're doing the webinar, Neil, and we should talk about some of these tactics, right?

0:32Eric Siu:This is how I believe the AI native marketer is going to look in the future. And so one thing he did during the podcast, and this is nothing new to you and me, Neil, but he basically ranked a term number one within 38 minutes on Google, right? So he started the workflow on that one. So he starts the workflow there, right? And the second one was like, okay, I'm gonna show you how we do 11 ,000 ads for a month for our clients. and it's actually quality ads and it's performing well. You know, the cost per meeting is like 200 bucks that he's booking, which seems good, right? And he's only got six people on his team.

1:02Eric Siu:And so he's going through, it's like, okay, he starts running that workflow, like the SEO workflow. Then he starts running the ad workflow. Then he starts running like a LinkedIn DM workflow, right? And the thing that I mentioned earlier was like, okay, you know, people log into GrokBot, people logging into Metamuse, people logging into all their agents. They're just going to be managing agents all day. And I think the default expectation for a marketer is you're just going to be running multiple of these workflows and you're just kind of checking and you're spinning all these plates and you're just checking if the plate's still spinning, right?

1:28Eric Siu:And that's ultimately what you're going to be doing. It's the people that don't know how to adapt to start to work like this, those people are going to be in trouble. Because right now when people get to me on the interview side, when I ask them, hey, like as an SEO, how do you think your job's going to look in the next five years? One guy's like, oh, I'm just going to be an agent manager in the next five years, right? Probably even sooner than that. And so I think people need to understand. And the part of the reason I'm saying this too is because I know my team listens to this. Like, guys, if you're working like this already, you're in a good spot.

1:54Eric Siu:If you're not working like this, you got to step it up, right? Because I can't keep saying this over and over. It's becoming a broken record.

2:01Neil Patel:Dude, totally. Speaking of doing podcast interviews, I did one the other day with a guy named Cole Gordon. Have you ever heard of him?

2:08Eric Siu:I actually saw that yesterday. I saw a piece of it yesterday. I was like, oh, but did you do it in LA?

2:14Neil Patel:I did in LA. So they flew to Beverly Hills. They got a house somewhere on Truesdale that they're renting out. and then we ended up filming. So he hit me up, he texted me, he's like, hey, can you be a collab? And I didn't listen to the interview before I accepted it or not, but I saw the screenshot. And I was like, right away, the first thing I said is, the thumbnail said how Neil or something grew an agency to 150 million plus dollars. And then I was like -

2:40Eric Siu:This is 100 million, not 150.

2:41Neil Patel:No, no, I'll give you the whole story, but 150. And I was like, where'd you get the 150 number from? I'm like, we don't talk about our revenue. and I was like I'm like we don't really want to you know I don't want to end up going into it and he was just like I'm like can you remove that so then he comes back and he's like can I put a hundred million dollars I'm like yeah I don't want to say he's like but you said you put you said you do over a hundred million and all these other areas from years ago so can I at least do that I was like sure and then I ended up accepting it and then I listened it went live and I listened to it and then he does the intro he's like Neil's doing over 150 I'm like where do they get the number from but i have to say i like cole and it was probably one of the better interviews i've ever done on a podcast this guy came in so well prepared and doing research on my whole life and business and all this kind of stuff i was like wow this was really it was fun like i genuinely enjoyed it the only part i did not enjoy um i was supposed to go to i did the the marketing school at 10 ,000 the last time we recorded, I came from there first.

3:46Neil Patel:Oh, okay. So that's where you came from. Okay, well, you said I was doing a podcast. Got it, got it. Yeah, so that's where I came from. And the only part, I thought I was going to go to Brazil that day, but I didn't end up going to Brazil that day. So I was pushing everything for or else my podcast with him would have been in the afternoon. The only part I did not like about it is doing a podcast interview like at 8 a.m. in the morning in Truesdale. It's cold outside. Yeah, and you weren't wearing a jacket. That's what I remember. I wasn't wearing a jacket. I was a long sleeve, but it was good.

4:14Neil Patel:I genuinely enjoyed it. And it made me realize, you used to do a lot of podcast interviews, which I do think is a very effective way to build a bigger, bigger audience because you can do collabs and I don't think enough people do it in marketing. But for it to do well and perform well, you have to spend so much time doing research or pay people who are really good at it. And I don't know how good the team's going to be versus you doing it yourself, even if you use AI. like it's just very time consuming to be an interviewer you're better off just doing the

4:46Eric Siu:the research on your own and to your point neil i think it is a full-time job but then at this if you go down that route you become like a media personality right and so and by the way i would say that cole's been doing good interviews with business people and he's clearly done his research and that's what makes a piece of content good when you actually put the time into whether it's the research if it's a podcast interview or the packaging or thinking about the idea itself And that's why Mr. Beast has always said that he spends way more time on the idea than he does on the actual video itself.

5:15Yeah.

5:16Neil Patel:On a side note, I was at Social Next yesterday in Vancouver. And before that, I was in Quito, Ecuador. You know, I'm noticing a trend. My brand's dying. My personal brand is dying. How? How can you tell? The more events I go to, the less people are asking me for pictures. I'm just basing it off of that.

5:36Eric Siu:This is anecdotal, which is fine.

5:38Neil Patel:And the less people are hitting me up for questions at these events. I still think the presentations are really good because I see the rating numbers, right? And typically, I'm not trying to say I'm the best speaker or whatever, but I usually have really high speaker ratings. But I would actually say my personal brand is slow. I wouldn't say it's disappearing. It's definitely not where it was when I peeked out years ago.

6:06Neil Patel:but I'm not trying to like use a scapegoat or a cop-out. I'm actually really happy and excited. I was going to say that. Yeah, for years I've always wanted the corporate brand to be bigger and I don't think it's bigger yet but we've been pushing more of my team members to speak instead of me, right? And we're getting them to create a lot more content and we haven't noticed any negative effect in business. And I used to dream about owning a private jet and flying around. And, you know, I even wasted time going to aviation shows and looking at private jets and almost bought one two times. And I backed out two times.

6:45Neil Patel:And now my dream has changed all the way from, I want to own a private jet and flyer all around the world too. I just want to stay at home with my family and watch the kids grow up. Still want to run a business very hard and work hard. I just don't want to be on a plane all the time.

6:57Eric Siu:Yep. But I mean, by the way, like there's different seasons in life, right? There's a lot to talk about here. There's the concept known as the four burners theories, right? So you can only have two burners at any given time, right? Your family, your friends, your health, or work, right? You can only really have two at a time. So if you think about it, Neil, your work was all the way up before, right before you had kids, right? It was work and what else? What was the second burner?

7:21Neil Patel:What are they? Friends?

7:23Eric Siu:So we have work, family, friends, and your fitness, your health?

7:28Neil Patel:Definitely has never been fitness. I think I work out, but I don't think I work out hard enough for that to be a strong burner. Would you agree with that? Yeah. Like, no, I don't work out like Noah. Family, I've always been somewhat close, but it's not like I spend all the time. I would say friends and work.

7:44Eric Siu:Yeah, cool. So anyway, that was a little thing, but there's a couple of things here, right? So also I noticed one thing, and this is not talking about you, but I'm just saying in general, once social media changed from social media to interest media which is where it was much more follower based before where whatever you post is going to get a lot of views right um things change to now it's like whoever does the greatest hook the greatest storytelling that's going to get a lot more views neil and i were at a point in our lives i'll just speak for myself actually i'm at a point in my life where i don't want to do all the research for like these these hooks and these stories and i enjoy using the ai to kind of figure these things out because it feels like a video game to me.

8:21Eric Siu:But I don't particularly enjoy that. What I'll say is this. I think the type of content you should be making as an experienced operator should be based off of your credibility, right? Because the thing that Neil and I have that most people don't have if you're in their early 20s right now, I think it's just an age thing, is credibility. It's experience, right? So if you're sharing stories around that, that's going to do better. And shout out to Caleb Ralston on that. So he used to work with Gary Vee and the Hormozies. So he has a channel where he's doing really well. helps people grow their brands and stuff.

8:49Eric Siu:He actually put out a video, Neil, where the type of content you should make as a$30 million plus operator. And I thought it was good. I knew he was going to talk about credibility. So I watched a little bit of the video. And the reason I'm even saying credibility is because Ryan Toe, so shout out to Ryan Toe, he did an audit on my channel. He's like, dude, you need to stop just like, you don't even need to compete with these people at like, you know, my age or whatever, right? Don't even worry about that. You should just focus in on your credibility and the storytelling there. And so I think if you're an experienced operator, and you're more operator first and creator, I think it's worth it to focus more on the credibility piece and then mostly just focus your time on operating your business.

9:25Neil Patel:So what I found is I used to go, and Eric knows this, I used to create a ton of content, I still do. I used to spend way more time doing research on the content that I wanna create. Now my team does more of the research. I used to go and travel and speak everywhere. I still do, but I did slow down a lot this summer. Like how much often do we see each other for recording sessions in person? Yeah. And when I used to go and travel to speak and build the corporation's brand, we were hoping that eventually it'll lead us into bigger RFPs. RFP is a request for proposal. So another company saying, hey, we want NP Digital, your ad agency to do marketing for us.

10:06Neil Patel:And we may compete against 10 or 15 or 20 other companies. And what I found was I would travel, let's use Latin America for example. I travel there so many times to Brazil and Mexico and speaking. And then you look at how many years it's taking to get all these leads. And I still think it is worth it. But then I'm like, man, this is just so time draining. And then I look at some of our competitors who have been in business for 10 plus years, and they're getting a lot of the demand from the clients we want. And I was like, why don't we just go buy them? And then you start making offers and eventually some people come to senses and you can negotiate a deal that works for both parties, but both parties aren't smiling.

10:53Neil Patel:That's how I think you have a good deal. If both people gave a little in and they didn't get exactly what they want, you usually have a pretty decent deal that works for both people. And I was like, wait, this just gives us five times more of the scale. And then I'll just go speak there in Latin America. But instead of going there eight times a year, I'll just go two times a year and pick the two biggest events and then skip the rest and just not go anymore because, hey, we just bought something that's already at scale. We're good to go to spend the money on the press and so forth and so on. And I started really taking that approach because right now, I don't know what will close, but we have a deal in Latin America, you know, the LOI is already out.

11:28Neil Patel:So we just have to work on closing it. We have another one in the United States, same thing. And another one in Canada where the LOI, that one, the LOI is not out, but it'll go out next week. And I'm pretty sure they'll end up signing it. We already discussed most things. So I already have three there. And then I'm trying to talk in a lot in Europe because I've flown a lot to Europe over the years. And I'm like, why not just buy in Germany and France and Italy and Spain and wherever else you guys need. And then I just don't have to fly as much. and it just gets us market reach and leads and all of this stuff without me having to do a lot of content.

12:05Neil Patel:Yes, you still have to do marketing and integration and build a brand and combine and do all the synergy. So there still is a lot of marketing work, but Eric's right on the burners in life. And the way I look at it is, I think of a place in life where I don't mind working. I rather have my money work more for me and not have to do a lot of the manual grinding stuff like getting on planes all the time. It doesn't mean I'm not willing to put in the hours when I'm at home. I'm still grinding it out and putting the hours. I just rather be more by family than be on a plane. And I appreciate all the people following me, but I rather, if I could redo it all, because times are different 20 years ago versus now, now I do believe personal brands are super effective.

12:50Neil Patel:20 years ago, it wasn't needed as much. I started one accidentally. but I would have focused more on a corporate brand than a personal brand and in today's world because I've been doing this long enough I've built up enough money where I can just use the money to deploy it so that way I don't have to do some of the other things I don't want to do. Well technically you could just do that today. What do you mean? You could technically stop what you're doing today and do exactly what you just said. Of just buying companies? No, you could just live off the money. Yeah, but I can't because I'm addicted to money.

13:26Neil Patel:I'm the one person I remember. Exactly, exactly. So technically you can, but because you like the game, you've got to keep playing. Correct. It's just how to modify the game to work in the new stage in life that I've slowly transitioned into. And Eric called us. Eric even told me, I think it was like three, four years. He's like, eventually you're going to get tired of doing a lot of this kind of stuff. You're like, what's the point?

13:48Eric Siu:And then this episode is brought to you by Nudge, part of the HubSpot podcast network. Nudge is the UK's number one marketing podcast hosted by Phil Agnew. It breaks down the psychology behind why people buy, click, and make decisions. No fluff, no nonsense. Just science-backed ideas you could actually use with guests like Rory Sutherland, Robert Cialdini, and Dan Pink. So if you work in marketing, sales, or run a business, give it a listen. Search for Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

14:16Neil Patel:I'm slowly adapting.

14:17Eric Siu:Real quick, if you want to acquire customers faster and more efficiently this year with the latest strategies and tactics, then check out singlegrain.com. That is my ad agency. Again, www.singlegrain.com. Check it out. And if it seems like a fit, we'll get in touch and help you with a free marketing plan. Yeah. By the way, one thing, I'm going to show you my travel stats in a second. There's a correlation, not causation thing. I'm going to show you my travel stats over time. But one thing that we've been trying to do, and Neil, I think it's probably worth if you guys aren't doing this already.

14:45Eric Siu:I'm sure someone on your team's covering this. But it's not just UGC, user generated content anymore. It's ECG, it's employee generated content. So there's companies like Clay, for example, that do a good job of, I think they use Orbital. So everyone's kind of posting on LinkedIn. And you see like a box of like nine of them in Brady Bunch mode. It's like, look at all the people posting, right? They have this. And then, you know who does a good job of this? Goji Berry. On X, there are people who are always talking about, yeah, you know, Muse comes with like, Muse plus sales equals Goji Berry. So they're capitalizing on every single trend and each one of their employees is posting.

15:15Eric Siu:And so you kind of just hear them being talked about everywhere. And there's a nice branding effect from that, right? And so I think because organic social is so strong right now, whether it's on LinkedIn or X from a B2B standpoint, you see a lot more ECG happening. We haven't used this tool yet, Neil. it's called Orbital, which is tryorbital.com. I've heard good things. I think I talked to the founder once. I don't think we're ready for it yet. But as I get lazier with my content over time, I'm not speaking for Neil, but as I get lazier with it, I'm down for my people to create their own brands.

15:45Eric Siu:Like I have no issue with it. And if they go on to do amazing things in their careers, I've always supported that, right? And I've always kept in touch with those people. And Neil's the same way too. So let me show you my travel stats, Neil, over the years. So this is when destruction almost happened with my business. So this is 2022, okay? So 136 days gone, right? 120 ,000 miles flown. 28 total trips, countries, regions, five. Cities visited 35, okay? Then in 2023, this is very near destruction, right? 150 ,000 miles, right? I traveled more miles, but 107 days gone. So roughly a little less than 30 days.

16:23Neil Patel:Less days, right?