2481 - The Bold New Approach to Business Visibility with Houndstooth Media Group's Vivienne Wagner

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0:46Visit podverified.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, Vivian Wagner. Vivian, you are the founder of Houndstooth Media Group. You're found on the web at houndstoothmediagroup.com. Vivian, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Yes, and before we get going, talking about your superpowers, what you do, you always love hearing from leaders what they do for fun when they're not at work, and you keep busy. Tell me when you're not at work, what have you been doing for fun lately or into?

1:27There's lots of things I do for fun, including camping and gardening and all of those things. But the thing I'm into lately is feeding people. We look forward to Sunday dinner at our house so much. I start planning, like, what am I going to cook next week? Probably while I'm still cooking the current Sunday's dinner. And I just look, who can I invite? Who can I include? um you know and we're just we've been having a lot of fun bringing people into the house serving them feeding them and just having like really great conversation and uh basically bigger spaces at the table i couldn't agree with you more during covid i learned to cook like that was because i started with like those meal delivery boxes and just kind of went from there and which was good for me kind of get comfortable at least comfortable in the kitchen and and now i am so with you like Like there is just something so gratifying.

2:20You know, it's like I developed this compersion for others. Like if I can really, you know, like, and I see their face light up, they're like, you know, eating something like, you know, that they may have like tomato soup, for example, like I made. And I'm like, you know, and then see my family. They're like, oh, whoa, this is way better than a tomato soup should be. like oh like I just feel that in my heart space and I'm like oh I feel so satisfied doing that and of course bringing together people and then you have this of course communal dining experience which I think is just you know from an evolutionary standpoint is just such a beautiful thing to bring people together it is and when you hear that people are looking forward to Sunday dinner and oh you can bring a friend to Sunday dinner it just it's it's this constant welcoming hospitable place.

3:11But I do want to mention something real quick. You said you just cooked a really good tomato soup. Soups are hands down one of the harder things to cook. And people think, oh, it's going to be so easy. You've got to layer in all those flavors. You've got to really take your time. They are definitely underestimated as if you can cook a soup, you can cook. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much. I agree. Anyone who has toyed with the idea and they're like, oh man, entertaining can be fun. You know, it can be a lot. Like there's a lot of planning that goes into it. And like my, my wife will have friends over for bunco night or book club night.

3:50And of course, you know, I'm the one responsible for feeding 12 ladies. And I tell you, I look forward to it. I come up with snacks on each table. Oh yeah. I come up with like a craft cocktail for those who want, you know, the kind of pair with whatever I'm making. Usually I get, risotto requested quite a bit, which is another one, you know, you can cook a risotto. I feel like I'm okay at it. Yes. Yes. Okay. I mean, it takes time. You know, it's definitely, you know, it's going to take you a couple of hours to do it right. You know, from everything, but yeah, no, I love it. So thank you so much, Vivian.

4:28I couldn't agree with you more. I absolutely love it. And it's a new hobby for me. And I need to do more. I think I'd love more Sunday gathering. So very cool. Thank you so much for sharing. Vivian, tell me about your work with Houndstooth Media Group. Really, like the easy answer is like, oh, we're a marketing agency. Maybe we used to be that. We are a visibility agency. Everything that's been changing and morphing over the past several years, really, it's about helping good businesses not be invisible, helping good businesses get found and get recommended. That's the work that we do. The way we do it is through marketing channels, but really the end result, what we want is for businesses to be visible and get connected with their right customers or clients.

5:23Yeah. So what happens if, and I'm sure you see this frequently with new clients that said, well, we dumped a bunch of money into ads and not awesome. you always begin with strategy. And what does that look like? Like, how do you figure out what the right answers are from a visibility standpoint? Starting with strategy means we're going to start understanding who it is you're trying to attract. Google, everything, your customers, who are you, what do you do, and who are you for? It's really those three questions. If you can answer them clearly, you have a really good head start on identifying what your message needs to be in the market, right?

6:12So the strategy starts with, what are you even saying? We have to figure that out because if you're saying the wrong thing, you're going to attract the wrong people. Yeah. And people do that with their ad spend all the time. So the strategy work that we do, it's really foundational. If we go back to this discussion about, you know, having people over for dinner, if your kitchen and dining room are still under construction, if you've been in the middle of a remodel and you've got drywall dust and orange Home Depot buckets all over the place, the last thing that you should be doing at that moment is hiring a caterer and a florist and bartenders to come and set up a nice dinner party in that space.

6:52If you think about the remodeled kitchen as your foundational, who you are, what you do, who you're trying to attract, which really translates to SEO. Does Google know who you are? Is this nice, clean space? If you skip that step and go straight to advertising dollars, you're just paying for friends who are not going to have a great dinner party when they get to your house. And then the minute you stop paying for those friends, you're all by yourself again. Yeah. So I'm curious then, you know, if let's say, so obviously, you know, visibility is a huge part of what you do, attracting the right people into the room.

7:33I see, for example, like on your website, you know, you promote webinars. What are those, like what, when we think about, let's say, you know, let's say you have a bunch of friends coming over for Sunday dinner, right? You know, to use the allegory. What do we keep them busy with? Like, you know, obviously, you know, that's where we want to move the relationship forward. Maybe curiosity brought them there. And then what? So then, like, if we're going to continue to run with this hosting and hospitality metaphor, make sure they can see what they're looking for. So anyone who's starting to be getting into hosting and hospitality, any of that, if you have to wait on every single person who comes in and say, OK, what would you like to drink?

8:14What do you want? And you are running around like a crazy person trying to get individuals what they need, as opposed to set up a drink station. Whatever you have to offer, it's right there. It's clearly marked. They can go and see if there's a drink that they would like to get for themselves. If they don't want any of those drinks, like maybe they're not your ideal customer, they can leave. Right? But this is what we're serving tonight. And so when you create these little stations around your website, in your business, in your home, when guests arrive, they can immediately see where they're supposed to go, what's there for them, what's available to them, and whether or not this is a place they'd like to be hanging out in.

8:56So what would be some examples of drink stations that you could set up? And it's kind of a vague question, but maybe if you think back to it. Maybe we ran it too far. There's a lot, right? I mean, kind of depending on who they are. So let's, you know, kind of hone in on a very typical, you know, I'd say listener to this show. They're in B2B, maybe an agency consultancy. You know, they've got, you know, maybe some lower ticket things, but mostly, you know, they have professional services. Right. And so, OK, so like to abandon the hosting and drink station thing a little bit. People are searching for their pain points and their problems.

9:33Right. They don't go to your site looking. they will not have gotten to your site looking for their solution because they're probably looking for their pain point. In the same way that we wouldn't go to like WebMD and just type in cancer, we would go to WebMD and say, splitting headache. What is going on with me? And the answers can range from, you know, you need to drink more water, you're dehydrated to, you need to see a neurologist, we think you have a brain tumor, right? And there's all of that in there. If whatever is the middle pain points aren't listed on your website, or at least in a way where your ideal customer or client is going to look and say, I recognize myself there.

10:19That is, you know, back to the drink station. That is something that I want. I see that that looks good. That's going to have them stay and click around a little bit more and maybe see that you are the You are the business that will satisfy their need or ease their pain. Now, this adds on to the changes that AI-driven search has made, right? So when people Google something, I tell people to think of Google as a librarian. Google's going to go, yep, I see what you're looking for. That bookshelf over there has several books that might interest you. go read them yourself versus an AI summary or starting your search right there in chat GPT or clod or whatever you'd like to use, that AI is the detective who's going to go and read all of those books for you and come back to you with a singular answer and probably ask you follow-up questions.

11:17Right? And so we don't have to do that, read the Google librarian books. We have somebody who's going to have a conversation with us. Does that make sense? Yeah. Vivian, you shared recently a post that talked about, you know, when businesses market themselves, they largely do so at a surface level, polished branding, homepage messaging. I get it. That's, you know, obviously We got to get that stuff right. However, you make the argument for discoverability depending upon much more depth and relevance. Can you share just like what does that look like? Those those two kind of focuses. Right. And and let me preface it by saying that we tend to we the collective think of SEO and A.I.O.

12:16as competitors. partners that like you use one or the other. They work together. They're partners, right? So Google is looking at your website and, you know, coughing up keywords and, and ranking you that way. AI is looking at your website. It's looking at your social media. It's looking at visual search engines like YouTube or Pinterest, and it is making assumptions about you. It's interpreting what you've said, who you've said you are and who you say you help. And it's making those interpretations. So it actually makes good marketing sense right now to get a little more granular in who you help, what you do, what's your differentiator.

13:00You need to go deeper. And the more clear that you can be about who you are and who you serve, the more AI is going to surface you in those results. AI is literally the new personal referral. We are, I just, I've been buying products because AI told me to buy the product. I switched my skincare line because I had a little reaction to something I'd always used. And I wound up, I didn't go to my dermatologist, Josh. I went to chat GPT and said, these are the products I'm using and now I'm having a reaction. What have I done? And we discussed it. And here's the thing that's interesting to me. It was over a three week, four week period of time.

13:44I first start, because we all do this. We all have threads in chat or wherever that we go back to and ask follow-up questions. Very different than somebody at Google search. And then you don't go back to that search again. This is an ongoing conversation where we're bringing AI new information or new pain points that we have or new things we're interested in. And then AI is asking us follow up questions. And we're remembering the follow up questions because it's a conversation. It's not just some random search we did three weeks ago. Right. So now when we come back, what I did was I came back with a new product and said, can I use this?

14:22And it said, no, you can't remember because we had this conversation, use this instead. And it recommended a different product to me, which subsequently I, after arguing with it as to why I would use that product, because it looked like a cheap product to me, I bought it. It's great. And now I will continue to buy this brand, which I had never before heard of, never would have searched for. And I didn't have a skin condition that I would search for. I wasn't like I have psoriasis or rosacea or like, I need a product for that. I had this weird random thing that was a little personal hiccup in my skincare.

15:00How do you search for that? There's no, like what, how would I even put that into a search term to find that I couldn't have done that without AI taking my problem, reframing it and whatever this, this brand is, this Vanny cream brand that I'd never heard of their social media gave information, their website gave information that AI picked up on. So it's little details. So those details matter. It is better to be crystal clear on who you are and what you do and who you're for than to be the loudest voice in the room. Clarity is the new currency. Vivian, your website is houndstoothmediagroup.com.

15:48Speaking of content and value and resources, you have those. Do you mind sharing to our friend that's been listening their next steps, what they might want to do if they want to engage with you or gain value from the work that you're doing? Oh, absolutely. You can go to houndstoothmediagroup.com and you can check out what we do and that's fine. But if you would like to learn more about AI visibility and how to make sure that your business is seen and importantly recommended, we have under our resources tab, we have free webinars. We have live ones every month, and then there's some on demand as well.

16:28You please come and learn and hopefully get a little more visible as a result of that. Yeah. Houndstoothmediagroup.com. Vivian Wagner, you're the founder. It's been great conversation. Thank you so much, Vivian, for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

17:16That actually compounds. And if you're interested in being a guest or you want to turn podcast appearances into measurable business growth, visit podverified.com. You can start for free with your podverified score along with free podcast guest training and a free media kit builder. These tools are built to help you get booked on better shows, deliver stronger interviews, and convert audience trust into revenue. No more desperate sales. You truly can enjoy all the business you like by generously sharing your wisdom. Everything we offer is built by podcasters for guests with a focus on trust, organic growth, and long-term business success.

18:00Thanks again for spending your time with us. I'll see you next time.