S1E8 - Steve Krull - How Missteps in SEO Catapulted His Career to New Heights

Jim Banks [00:00:00]:
Welcome to episode eight, Bad Decisions with Jim Banks, the leading digital marketing podcast where guests openly share their mistakes so others don't need to make the same mistakes. Our guest today is Steve Krull, and Steve is the CEO of be found Online, a full service Chicago based digital marketing agency. Before we get into this week's episode, I have a cheeky request. If you enjoy listening to the podcast, can you please make sure you follow it and share it with an industry friend or someone you know who's trying to break into digital marketing as a career? Now let's crack on with episode eight of Bad Decisions with Jim Banks, with my guest, Steve Kroll. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Bad Decisions with Jim Banks. I'm your host, Jim Banks, and I'm a digital marketer based in the UK. And I'm absolutely chuffed to bits to have one of my very good friends, Steve Krull, on the podcast today. And Steve is based in Chicago today.

Jim Banks [00:00:54]:
I'm in Chicago, my friend, but you're a world traveler, a bit like me, travel all over the place. So welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about your journey to where you are now, Steve.

Steve Krull [00:01:03]:
Wow. That's a long term question, Jim. I've been at this over 20 years. I found my way into this from a tech background. I used to manage technology, build networks, own and manage websites. And what did you have to do back in the day? You had to figure out how to optimize websites. Our friend Dave Rohr and I tricked the business we were working for into some SEO. We made some SEO changes to a website.

Steve Krull [00:01:28]:
We drove traffic and leads up significantly, and we sat in a room with the business for 60 to 90 days while they each took credit for the improvements of web traffic and leads before we finally came clean. And the reason we did this was because they kept putting our projects at the bottom of the list. So with my being in charge of web Dev at the time and Dave being a great developer, we said, let's go sneak some changes in. And we snuck some changes in. We made the business a whole bunch of money. And two SEOs were born that day with Dave and myself. And we'd both been doing it ever since. And along the way, we were acquired and I found myself liberated, and I could have found my way and remained in technical operations, building networks, and managing websites.

Steve Krull [00:02:16]:
But I got the bug. I got the bug and I said, I think I'll start an agency now. I don't know what business I had from there, starting an agency because I've been on the operations side for a decade before that. But I said, what the heck? And knock on wood, I'm still here.

Jim Banks [00:02:32]:
I've talked to lots of agency friends and I always say, how'd you get into agencies? And usually most people never really think that they're going to set up an agency. It's just something that evolves over time and again. I think a lot of people, certainly more recently, I don't know about what it's like for you guys. Certainly I'm talking to agency friends here in the UK and it seems like life's tough at the moment for a lot of agency owners. So how are you finding business generally?

Steve Krull [00:02:58]:
It's been difficult to navigate. We thought coming out of COVID that the world would open up. There's a movie, Hoofrey and Roger Rabbit, where they break through this wall and everything is rainbows and unicorns. And we thought that would happen coming out of COVID But then you bad all of the shipping delays and global logistics, and then you have wars and you have economies and you have this mess. We're scrapping and clawing for business. We're trying to refine our message and our go to market strategies. And it's that question you ask yourself frequently, who do I want to talk to? What am I selling to them and why should they line up to buy my product? And as being a digital marketer yourself, there are 10,000 people selling what we sell. So you got to be able to make a difference.

Jim Banks [00:03:41]:
And the barrier to entry is incredibly low. So it's so easy for people to set up a digital agency, they can do it overnight. Probably less than a couple of you're, hey, guess what? We're running an agency. I run a Facebook group. It's got about four and a half, 5000 people in it. And a lot of people are running agencies and they say, hey, I'm running an agency. I've just landed my first client. What do I do now? Jesus Christ.

Jim Banks [00:04:04]:
If you're having to ask questions of what do I do now? We're in deep trouble. And I've always maintained part of the reason for having the podcast, part of the reason for having the group in and of itself is to help educate people to be able to do better work so that clients don't get shafted. Because unfortunately, if they do get shafted, that makes the pitch process for you, pitching for business to win it that much more difficult. Because they're coming at it from an angle of anger and resentment, because they've been stitched up by an agency that had really no business to have their business in the first place.

Steve Krull [00:04:38]:
It's a catch 22, actually. Recently lost business to another dear friend from the UK. And the reason we lost the business, and he was very honest with me, was that we didn't open the kimono enough up front and show him enough of what was wrong and what we were going to work on where the other agency did. Turns out his boss was burned twice previously by agencies and wanted to see more of what our first six months looked like in terms of what a project would be. And typically we're going to go in and we're going to peel back the onion for an SEO project and we're going to understand what's going on the web property. So it's a very fine line between how much do I share with the client and tell them I've had situations in the past where we've done more comprehensive audits than we probably should have, and the client says, thanks a lot, and they walk out the door, give it to their kid that's running their SEO, and they go and make changes. Hey, thanks for all that free advice. So it's a very fine line.

Jim Banks [00:05:37]:
Yeah, it's funny, I think one of my Bad Decisions way back in the day when I first started getting into this, was I got invited to basically apply for a job with a company. So they wanted me to do a presentation. So I spent a ton of time and a ton of effort pulling this presentation together, came up with a whole go to market strategy, and then probably, I guess it was maybe six to eight months later, like, I didn't get the job. They said, oh, we're just going to promote somebody internally to take over that role. We didn't think you'd be a kind of good fit for the company. So about six to twelve months later, I saw that they won an award. And when I looked at the sort of the case study that they put forward, it was my strategy, almost like word for word, you could go, hang on a minute. So they basically just got my whole everything out of my head onto paper and then used that to formulate their go to market strategy and had huge success on the back of it.

Jim Banks [00:06:34]:
Right. And for me, it was gratifying to know that the strategy worked. Sure. And the influencer, that executed properly, but it made me very cynical about wanting to do that type of thing moving forward. So now when people say, have you got a case study? Have you got testimonials? I'm like, no, don't have those. Don't have those because they're so easy to fake. Right. I could quite easily fake a case study or a testimonial like, that doesn't mean anything.

Jim Banks [00:06:57]:
And really, again, that just tells people what we've done for that client, not necessarily what we do for you. For me, I guess I've become a commudgeny old cynic that doesn't really want to share too much right out of the gates. And again, I'm okay. I'm happy. I think I mentioned on one of my previous podcast episodes, we're a boutique agency, which means we're small. All right? I use boutique, which we could easily replace with small. So I'm quite happy running a small agency because I don't want the headaches and hassles of running big agencies. My previous agency was 25 people.

Jim Banks [00:07:31]:
Way too many people for me, right? Too many HR issues, too many kind of toilet paper issues and all that sort of stuff. Just didn't want to do that.

Steve Krull [00:07:39]:
I understand completely.

Jim Banks [00:07:41]:
So, Steve, I want to take people back. So, people on the podcast, again, it's called Bad Decisions with Jim Banks. Where did we meet? I want you to help share the story of how we actually met.

Steve Krull [00:07:50]:
We met in a body house in Boston. Not quite a body house. It was actually more a trendy hotel at this outskirts of a conference. It turns out I was ready for a pint after. I don't know if it was midday. It was probably midday, Jim, knowing the.

Jim Banks [00:08:03]:
Two of us, it had gone past lunch.

Steve Krull [00:08:06]:
Yeah, it had gone past lunch, slid down an escalator, bellied up to the bar, and wouldn't, you know, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes later, there we were, getting on like we'd known each other for years.

Jim Banks [00:08:16]:
Exactly. And I think what was quite interesting is, again, we had both gone to the same event, HubSpot. At the time, we were a HubSpot partner. I think you're also part of a kind of a group that was a HubSpot partner. So we were both at the same event. This was an agency kind of event before the actual inbound event that HubSpot has. And don't get me wrong, I love HubSpot, still use it, still think it's great, still love inbound, the event. I just found that, again, my attention span as I'm getting older for watching people present on stage diminishes quite quickly.

Jim Banks [00:08:48]:
Right. So again, I took the opportunity. Watching a couple of sessions in the morning, I'm like, wow, this is not really floating my boat too much. So I went out to get some lunch and found my way into the pub, siddled up to the bar, standing, waiting to get a drink. And lo and behold, I think you were there with Adam. I think you were sitting having a drink with Adam. And, yeah, as you say, we hit it off right out the gates. And again, some other people that I met on that particular trip have become good friends of mine.

Jim Banks [00:09:16]:
And again, we keep in touch and it's just been great to make those connections. And I think sometimes that's one of the biggest challenges, is that a lot of people think it's all about. I get frustrated. I've sat in hotel bars quite often, having a drink with random strangers, talking about the business, the industry, the event and all that sort of stuff. And you can see people and they're on conference calls, they're doing emails, they're doing proposals and all that sort of stuff, and you're like, if you're going to do that sort of stuff, don't come to this event. That's pointless. It's pointless coming to an event if you're just going to do your normal job. I see people sitting in the corridors on their laptops and I'm like, why are you doing that? That is pointless.

Jim Banks [00:09:52]:
That you're missing the opportunity of what this whole event is about. This whole event is about meeting your peers, potentially meeting potential new customers. But it's got to be something more than just you're there to just do your job. If do your job.

Steve Krull [00:10:06]:
If you jump into and out of session at something like that and then stop and work in between, you're missing, I would argue, two thirds of the opportunity to really enjoy and grow, because some of the best conversations and some of the best information come out of those meet and greets, come out of standing next to some bloke at a bar having a beer with Adam, meeting Alison, who was a wonderful human being.

Jim Banks [00:10:29]:
As well, when we met together, and.

Steve Krull [00:10:31]:
Then also figuring out that we both knew Dave along the way and some of the other same people, really, how did we not meet before this? It was just this weird, eye opening moment.

Jim Banks [00:10:41]:
It was spectacular. Again, I think that's the beauty of six degrees of separation. I think we're all so closely connected to each other without really realizing it. Right, absolutely, yeah. And I think sometimes it does take you getting out of your comfort zone. Again, a lot of people, they said they're introverted, then they probably are. Right. Which, again, is one of the reasons why I like to have a drink.

Jim Banks [00:11:01]:
I'm not necessarily introverted, but I do like to have the confidence of having a beverage in my hand so I can go and talk to somebody. And that beverage doesn't necessarily need to be alcohol. It could be coffee or whatever it is. Right? So again, I've struck up great conversations with people when I'm stood in line waiting to get a coffee at the breakout session at a conference. I've made some great conversations. And again, most of my biggest deals have been closed at probably one or two in the morning by cementing the relationship with the person who knows, likes, and trusts me enough to then want to then go through the process of a pitch or a proposal or whatever it might be. Right? And again, I'm more comfortable and confident to do that because I know this person is somebody that I can interact with socially, rather than it just being like we're across a table and I'm in the suit and tie and everything else.

Steve Krull [00:11:48]:
Going back to your idea of the new agency, and the individual says, okay, I've won this first deal, or you're going out to try and win your first deal. And we talked about giving away too much and giving it away for free. Trust is the factor. It's that idea of you meet somebody, you bond with somebody, then they trust you enough to bring the RFP to your front door or the proposal, whatever the case is. And it may not be tomorrow or next week, it may be three or six months down the line, but the idea is that you're there and you're being of service and you're earning a little bit of trust because that's what it's about. You give the trust freely, and that if they have to chip away at it because you don't deliver or you don't perform, that's another thing. But if you continue to earn that trust, you deserve a seat at the table.

Jim Banks [00:12:29]:
Yeah. And again, I've seen a lot of people posting on LinkedIn to basically say, oh, I was going to go to this event. I don't really like the whole networking and drinking and all that sort of stuff. And I'm like, that's probably this is the perfect thing not to go, because if you can't do that sort of stuff, that's the reason for having those events. Otherwise you can just log on to a virtual event. Again, I've just been watching the many chat Instagram. I can't think what it's called, but basically for $10, I was able to get all the sessions from 22 and 23 for this Instagram event that many chat held, and they're great. I mean, I went up to London on a train yesterday and I was watching some of the sessions, making all these notes and I got that for $10, right.

Jim Banks [00:13:09]:
But that might be great for putting kind of ideas into my head, but it doesn't really help fill me with that kind of feeling good about life and going out and meeting people. Right. I think that's one of the things that's really important. If you work in an industry, you need to know people in the industry, help people in the industry as best you can, and do what you can to give back to it. And again, that's part of the reason for me with the podcast and also with the Facebook group is to try and give back to an industry has been really good to me, and I.

Steve Krull [00:13:38]:
Made a mistake along the way. If we talk about Bad Decisions is that I made a conscious decision several years ago to sit on the sidelines of the technical side of the business and I wasn't speaking as much and I wasn't going out as much. I was leaving that to others within the organization and realizing now, post COVID, I've got twelve or so speaking engagements booked for the rest of this year. I've got to get on stage. I'm a people person. I need to get out there. I need to meet people. Not every time I jump on stage or meet somebody will it make me money, but it just refines the message, helps me get out there and it helps me gain some of that personal satisfaction of just going out and meeting people and expanding my network.

Steve Krull [00:14:13]:
And I'll even connect people randomly across networks if they have a need. I've never written a line of code in my life, although I've managed web developers and built websites. I refer web development work constantly to people that I trust and I know and all sorts of other stuff. If you need to build a brand, I've got people that can build brands for you. And I try to belong to networks that support that so that I can refer people through. Because you know a ton of people, Jim. I know a ton of people and I want to stay true to what I know, because if I go too far left or too far right from what I truly know, I'm going to make myself look foolish. I'm going to fall down on it.

Steve Krull [00:14:49]:
So if I start building websites today, I'm not going to do well at it. Now, if I were to bring in some folks that really know what they're doing to build websites that might be a different story. But if we just said, sure, we'll build a website, we're going to haul in our faces. So bring in trusted resources and understand that I'm part of this. I'm in the middle of this thing, right. I'm going to handle your digital, I might handle some of your audience work and some of the other things. The idea is bring in trusted resources so you never know who you're going to run into, who you're going to meet and who you can connect them with. In fact, I just connected somebody last week.

Jim Banks [00:15:19]:
He said, hey, you've got a couple.

Steve Krull [00:15:20]:
Of really some friends in your network who look really good to me. Would you mind introducing? Absolutely. I'm happy to build that bridge and you're lending your trust to that.

Jim Banks [00:15:30]:
Yeah, but equally, Steve, I know people that will be like, yeah, introduce you to those people, but you need to give me something for it. And I'm like, again, I just don't work that way. Again, I'm not saying I made a decent chunk of my success in the industry on the back of affiliate marketing, which is basically I'm introducing people to other people's products and getting a kickback as a commission on the basis of that. But I think when it comes to if somebody says, hey, I have a particular problem that I'm looking for, sort of a solution for, don't start the conversation with, I can help you there, but you need to give me something for that because it completely makes the connection that you're going to be giving to the person that much less valuable as a result of that, because you're thinking, did they do that? Because this is the person that's paying them the most money, rather than this is the best person to do the work. And as you say, you never know what that again, I've always said when you interview somebody, I've seen a lot of people, they get people in for an interview for a job, they start talking to them, realize immediately that they're really a poor candidate for the role that you're looking to fill and they're looking to wrap the interview up immediately to get them out the door as quickly as they can. And I've always said that's the worst thing you can do because you never know what that person that you see is going to leave and go and do. They could end up leaving that company and going and working and being a huge deal for another company. And if they're going to go, I'm looking for a digital marketing agency, who do I know if they had a bad experience with your agency because you didn't give them the treatment that they deserved in the interview by understanding a little bit about them, but also selling your agency to them.

Jim Banks [00:17:07]:
I've always said it's a due diligence process on both sides. You've got to be persuaded by them and you've also got to persuade them that you're a good company to go and work at. And that's not going to come unless you're good at portraying how your agency is and what it's like and the culture of it and everything else. Right? And I think so many agencies think it is just about them persuading you that they're a good candidate rather than the other way around. Right, being two way. And equally, that person, like I said, that person could go and leave and become a big deal for another company. And if they've got two agencies, one they interviewed for, one they didn't, they're going to go. I didn't have a good experience there.

Jim Banks [00:17:45]:
I'm going to go with that one.

Steve Krull [00:17:46]:
That exact thing happened to me so many moons ago. I interviewed this young kid, his name was Edward, and we passed on him for the role. I remembered his name. He went to the same university I did, albeit several years later, but I remembered his name. And then I saw him around as I go back to the university and I try to give back there at the school. And I kept running into Edwin and Edwin moved on and he took a job at a large agency. He went on to do some interesting things. And now Edwin has become a good friend.

Steve Krull [00:18:16]:
He's now an independent consultant and he specializes in the salesforce marketing cloud and he's doing really great work. In fact, he's listed as one of the top SEOs in the platform. And it's really a cool thing to see. And the fact that we did have a good interview and I know I didn't hire him, but to see what he's doing now and the fact that we're friends is really part of that reward that you talk about like never discount somebody, never try to shoe them out. Now, if you make a bad decision hiring somebody and they show up at work drunk like somebody else that I once hired, then you realize you've made a bad decision in the interview process.

Jim Banks [00:18:48]:
Yeah, those sorts of things, you can't preempt them really. No, you can't predict. One of the first jobs I had in the space, I was a sort of sales manager for a web design company. And one of the people that we employed we were just basically doing outbound tele sales, right? So it was pick up the phone, call the numbers, and I was the sales manager. And what was really interesting, one of the girls that we had working for us, she would disappear for 1520 minutes and come back and sit down. And I was watching her. I'm thinking, she's not actually talking to anyone, right? She was going through the process of pretending to talk to somebody, and you walk over to see if she's okay, and she just sunk a booze. And basically she was going off in her breaks to just basically with a hip flask and down it.

Jim Banks [00:19:28]:
And again, it's difficult because I've always looked at that type of thing as, yeah, fine, you don't want people to turn up drunk, but ultimately, if she's an alcoholic, then that's an illness. It's not a drinking problem, it's an illness. Right. So for me, it was, again, challenging to try and address that sort of situation. So, Steve, like I said, I know that obviously we met in Boston, we met the HubSpot event. We forged a good friendship that sort of lasts to this day, which is great. And hopefully after you've been on the podcast, friendship will continue. But I'd love to understand a little bit more about what motivates you, what sort of things keep you up at night, that type of thing.

Steve Krull [00:20:07]:
Boy, oh, boy. Motivation. Right now, motivation is team and clients. I just simply adore the people that I get to work alongside every day. I love to see people grow and develop, and I consider it a blessing to be able to give back. I've done this a long time, and I know a fair amount about digital marketing. I know a lot about running a little company. I know a lot about leadership.

Steve Krull [00:20:30]:
So I love to be able to give back in that way. So I go back now, and I teach at the university a bit, as well as trying to share internally at the company. So I do like that. I love to see people develop and grow, and it motivates me to really delegate authority. I know people that are command and control leaders, and it's not my style. And I watched a television show here in the States recently, and the two characters competing at the lead, one was a command and control leader, and the other was somebody who delegates, and the command and control leader didn't make it halfway to his goal. And the other guy who delegates and supports his team, he blew his goal away by 30%. And it's that sort of difference.

Steve Krull [00:21:10]:
So I like that aspect of it, but I'm also somebody, as I mentioned earlier, I love people. So I like to connect with people. I'd like to understand what makes them tick. And then I still love this space, Jim. It just changes so much. It keeps me on my toes. If you're not paying attention almost on the daily, you're missing out. You're falling behind.

Steve Krull [00:21:29]:
And again, you don't have to implement every change. But I've been enamored by all of the changes that Google is making to try and keep up with the AI revolution. And right now, in fact, as of today, March eigth, I don't know when this will go live, but March eigth 2024, Google is going through a major core update on the SEO side and they're shaking up websites.

Jim Banks [00:21:49]:
And it's funny you mentioned that, obviously, the last time we saw each other was in Vegas. Had I not been visiting family in the UAE, I'd have probably been in Vegas at Pubcon. Right? And that's just literally just finished. And it's quite interesting. The last time I was at Brian Necio, I was sitting having dinner with John Mueller, who's like one of the sort of the tech guys at Google, and an update was being rolled out and he just raised his eyes and laughed a bit. And it's almost like the same thing happened when Pubcon was happening. And all these people are on stage talking about the SEO update because of. And again, I think, interestingly enough, I think Lily Ray, who was one of the speakers there, she actually did a whole presentation on that very topic, which must have been really great on the fly to be able to pull together a deck with such great detail to talk about a topic that clearly has decimated a lot of businesses who have leaned heavily into AI.

Jim Banks [00:22:41]:
And I don't know what your thoughts are on AI. I'd love to hear them. But I think for me, one of the challenges with something like AI is like, it's good, right? But I think you've got to be careful with it, right? And I think a lot of people will just be like, hey, I'm just going to create 10,000 blog posts of 600 words each, press the go button and then upload it, and then expect that to just change their rankings dramatically. And it may well have done for a short period of time, never going to be a sustainable business model. What's your kind of thoughts on AI in terms of how it should be used? In terms of businesses? What should they be using it for?

Steve Krull [00:23:15]:
It's interesting. Just a couple of days ago, I sat in on an AI panel. I wasn't a panelist. I was listening to several other agency owners who are talking about AI and the future of AI. And I agree with a lot of what they've said. And our director of marketing, Kyle, says it. I love the way he says it. He says it's really an unpaid intern.

Steve Krull [00:23:32]:
It's really smart, but it doesn't understand your business, doesn't understand where your business is going or why. So I think AI is an assistive technology and yes, it's going to grow. I use a great tool, ArPrm. It's an overlay for GPT four and it comes up with moods and feelings and writing styles and it's got 5000 marketing prompts that I can build off of. So I can use it, but I use it to get started. I don't use it to finish work. I find that it's insanely verbose. You have to tell it to practice brevity and even when it does, it uses ten cent words that nobody cares about.

Steve Krull [00:24:06]:
So it's going to be an assistive technology. You mentioned HubSpot earlier and I think about marketing automation and AI in similar way. Marketing automation was an assistive technology. We used to keep spreadsheets. Right when we're dialing for dollars, we keep spreadsheets. We'd count our touches in the spreadsheets and we go, okay, did I mail them yesterday? No, I'll email them today, phone call tomorrow, and then what am I doing next week with these folks? Marketing automation made that easier for us and AI is going to make a lot of things easier for us. Do I think it's going to replace jobs? It will eventually, but right now I see more SEO jobs being created. I also think that AI has been part of the paid media landscape for years already we've been using it.

Steve Krull [00:24:46]:
And the way I like to say it, I was on stage talking about this last year that they've now given us the remote control. So before it was the Xbox spitting stuff out, now we actually have the game controller for chat GPT, so we can play with the game and make it do what we want instead of using the platform that's using the tools to get what we need out of it. So we've only had the controller in our hands for just over a year, right? Year and change, year and a half now. So there's a lot of room to grow and change. So we'll have to see where it goes. Now that Google's getting in the war, Apple's threatening to build an AI model. Facebook's in the game. We'll have to see exactly where it goes.

Steve Krull [00:25:23]:
And now Ellen Musk is suing OpenAI. I don't know where it goes. All I know is that I can use it for some of what I need to do, but I can't use it for all of what I need to do. And I need a strategy to guide whatever I'm doing. If I'm going to go in and use a tool, I need a strategy to guide how I'm going to use the tool. And AI doesn't give me that.

Jim Banks [00:25:42]:
Yeah, and it's funny, obviously with the podcast, there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes and quite often, again, I've been like, it's all well and good. Sort of recording an episode, you've got to edit the episode, you've got to get social promotions ready, because again, you want to try and make sure if you have a guest like yourself on the podcast, you try and make it worth their while to be a guest. Because ultimately, again, I've always said as a podcast host, your job is to be there to help put the person that's the guest on a pedestal and help promote their involvement in the podcast. It's not about me. For me, this is very much about my guests and helping aspiring digital marketers to come into the industry and not make mistakes that we've made. Right. That's part of the reason for having it. But it's quite interesting is that I use quite a few tools.

Jim Banks [00:26:26]:
So there's one called cast magic. Cast magic. I can upload the video or the audio at the end, having shot it, it will give me suggestions for titles for the video, YouTube keywords. It'll give me LinkedIn posts, all this sort of stuff. And again, I can choose as much or as little of it as I want. If I look at them and go, I don't like any of those titles because again, I've spent 25 years honing my craft of being able to write decent sort of titles for Google Ads and Facebook and everything else.

Steve Krull [00:26:55]:
Yeah, you should be able to write a title for podcast.

Jim Banks [00:26:59]:
You'd like to think so. But equally, it's just nice sometimes to just see what a piece of AI can come out with. So again, I can take that. That spits that out. I can also use something called opus clips. Opus clips will give me the ability to upload a video like this one. Because again, I think a lot of people are just running down the road of having an audio podcast. But we've got audio and video.

Jim Banks [00:27:20]:
Part of the reason for having the video is to enable me to be able to put video clips onto TikTok and snap and wherever else, and just get additional eyes of people onto content to help, again, increase the likelihood that more people will watch the episode as an overall thing. So one of the things I'm quite interested in talking to you about, Steve, because, again, I've loved watching them. Whenever you post them, you post these kind of short form videos on LinkedIn. I just wanted, if you could tell me how that came to be, how you started doing them, and how you've actually found it in terms of the results as well doing them.

Steve Krull [00:27:56]:
The interesting thing I started recording, I'm a horrible writer. I mean, I can write, but I write in bullet points, and it's very short and I can think through an outline. But for me to sit down and put together a 500 word blog post will generally take me weeks. You know, the demands of running an agency, and you're stuck between things. So sitting down to write and putting the blinders on doesn't work for me, and I'll find myself doing everything but writing. And so what I came to realize is that if I had a list of topics I could record and they could be transcribed. So I started creating blog posts through transcription. And then I have to credit Kyle, our director of marketing.

Steve Krull [00:28:34]:
He said, steve, would you do me a favor? Would you get a ring light and use your good microphone and just start recording some of these? I'll edit them, and I get prompted with ideas from Kyle and the rest of the team. And then I'll sit down and I'll record. I'll do four or five. And one of my hang ups historically with podcasts is I want to tune in. I want to learn from the host. So I'm a big fan of Jim.

Jim Banks [00:28:57]:
Banks, and I want to learn what.

Steve Krull [00:28:58]:
Jim has to offer. And what I really like about the dialogue we're having is that it's not just peppering Steve with questions. We're sharing stories in conversation or driving it forward there. So they're learning from both of us, because you've got a ton of history. Every time we get together, we share stories, war stories of the road, about history and church, and we learn from one another. And I love podcasts where I get to learn from everybody. And I'm sorry to say, but so many of them are interview style, straight up interview style. I feel like it's a late night talk show and I don't get to learn anything about the host, but that's who I'm dialing in for.

Steve Krull [00:29:31]:
So I decided that I would do the big ideas with BFO so that I could simply share my stories in three to five minute clips. Just keep it short, keep it quick. I think people watch it when it's shorter. They don't watch longer videos sometimes. And you mentioned it, too, cutting this up into clips so that it's easier for consumption. So that's why I do it. The genesis of it was that as far as the performance of it, the comments, and the feedback that I've garnered from it motivate me to do more. In fact, I need to post one this morning when I'm done speaking with you.

Steve Krull [00:30:03]:
So I've just recorded several more, and I'll have a couple of months worth of big ideas content, and I'm really looking forward to posting that and getting some additional feedback and new ideas.

Jim Banks [00:30:13]:
Yeah. And again, it's really interesting when you see what some of the people are talking about when it comes to podcast success and everything else. And again, I've always maintained, sure, I would love to be like the Kelsey brothers, and we're ranked number one across the board. I shaved my beard off. So at the moment, probably not. But again, who knows? You never know. But I think from the point of view of, yes, it would be great to have a number one ranked digital marketing podcast in the whole of the universe, across the board. But again, just from my kind of connections of people I know and people that I don't know who have said to me, jim, love the podcast, love the format, love the guests you've had so far, hope you have more good guests, blah, blah, blah, right? Those are the sorts of things that kind of inspire me, and I just want to try and influence.

Jim Banks [00:30:59]:
It's almost like each episode, I'm hoping there's enough nuggets in it. You have one point of interest that will help one person, and if we've done that, then as far as I'm concerned, we've done our job right. That's all I'm looking to do, is I'm looking to influence one or two people each episode that goes out no more than that. Because like I said, I think I want it to be probably a smaller, intimate kind of audience. Right. Which is what it is at the moment. Right. But at the same time, I hope it grows, because then that way I can get the opportunity to put more people that need a decent platform in digital marketing.

Jim Banks [00:31:34]:
I can help to provide that platform, give them the space to be able to talk about some of the things that are bothering them and everything else. And again, I think one of my segues into the podcast episode was basically, when I looked at my stats, it was all old men that were listening to the podcast, right? And I really want to try and get younger people, new people into the industry and females to listen in. And I'm trying to find more of those types of people to come onto the podcast as guests so I can help. Again, just give them a platform, but also understand a little bit about what some of the challenges are coming into an industry. Like I said, we've been doing this forever, right? When we first started, there was no YouTube. Now there's a YouTube, now there's TikTok, now there's everything else. People can learn about whatever it is they need to learn incredibly quickly. Whereas before we just didn't have that, a lot of it, we just had to work it out.

Jim Banks [00:32:23]:
And again, I don't know, again, I'm probably sounding like really old here, but I think there was always this respect for your elders. And I think a lot of people that are coming into the industry young, they're able to make money quickly, right? And rather than looking at it from the point of view that money can translate into helping other people. A bit of philanthropy, everything else is, here's my lambo, here's this, here's that. It's all about the extravagance of what they've got as a result of having the money. And I don't think that's necessarily going to be the right way for us to continue to have the industry evolve. I think a lot of people will become cynical. And part of the reason maybe why some of the agencies that I'm talking to here in the UK are struggling is because there is this perception from the client side that maybe there is this sort of almost like an arrogance that some of the people in the digital marketing space have about what the client's role is in everything else.

Steve Krull [00:33:19]:
I've heard it. I've heard clients say, I must be.

Jim Banks [00:33:22]:
Paying you too much.

Steve Krull [00:33:23]:
I've seen the cars in the parking lot, and as agencies, right, I have an old philosophy that says if we make the client money, they like writing us checks and you want to grow, but there's a certain point where you're looking at things, you're saying, okay, can we continue to grow this? I'm getting a six x return on ad spend that's pretty good for the industry, in the market. How much further can we really go. We can diversify. Let's go diversify platforms and channels and do things like that. But also that whole idea that, yes, as agencies, we need to make money, and hats off to the agencies that can print money, but the idea of showing off as an agency. I remember early days, I won't name any names of people who were like the industry darlings when we were growing up in the space. And they used to flunt it, they used to throw money around constantly. I remember being in Vegas once and somebody took us out and personally dropped $10,000 on a random Thursday night at Pubcon just because they felt like spending money and partying with us.

Steve Krull [00:34:18]:
And they bought friendship that night. And I wasn't about to argue, I was just cutting my teeth in the space. Early agency days. Yeah, I'll party along.

Jim Banks [00:34:26]:
This is fun.

Steve Krull [00:34:26]:
Let's go. Who wants to stay up till five? Let's do it. But, yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right.

Jim Banks [00:34:32]:
I always remember that there was an agency here, a performance based agency here in the UK. Like, they did a lot of legion stuff. And I remember turning up to their office one day. I got invited and I drove my car up to their office. And as I was walking down the pathway to where the office was, the MD of the company, he had a Rolls Royce on one side and a Ferrari on the other, parked right by the front doors of the building. And again, if you're a client, yes, you want to see the agencies that you're working with having success, but ultimately that success has come at their expense. So, as you say, it's like a little bit of a double edged sword, right? Like I said, you want the agency to appear to be successful, but at the same time, you don't want it to be costing you a fortune for them to be successful. And sometimes there's no correlation.

Jim Banks [00:35:20]:
Sometimes the client is not having that success. I mean, you strip it away, it could be 90% of the success has come from brand terms, right? And the other money has just been wasted on crap. And it's quite often. It's difficult to challenge that if you're the client, if you don't know, right.

Steve Krull [00:35:34]:
I think we all want nice things, though. I don't know that I would ever. Maybe I drive a Ferrari. Look at that. The Rolls Royce isn't for me, but I could do the Ferrari.

Jim Banks [00:35:42]:
The Latino, I couldn't get into a Ferrari. I've got to be honest, I would.

Steve Krull [00:35:46]:
Never get out of the.

Jim Banks [00:35:47]:
If Ferrari want to send me one to try it, I'm quite happy for them.

Steve Krull [00:35:51]:
You can go to Miami and you can rent one for a day.

Jim Banks [00:35:55]:
Yeah. Again, it's funny, I've got a friend who just went on, he booked an Airbnb and he went on this Airbnb. It's basically like a converted private jet, right? So you can go in and have a photo of yourself taken on a private. Like, they've got like a screen up behind that shows it looks like you're flying up in the air and everything. Right. But it's just like a disused private jet that's been turned into a quirky Airbnb and. Yeah, again, I think a lot of people. Is it real or is it fake?

Steve Krull [00:36:26]:
That's the other part, I think a lot of. And such. Sorry, go ahead.

Jim Banks [00:36:32]:
No, carry on, Steve.

Steve Krull [00:36:34]:
No, it was the TikToks and things. Right. Have you played with be real at all? I don't use it, but it's the idea that it tells you when it wants you to record and it has front camera and back camera simultaneously, so that it knows that you might be in a warehouse and you've just dressed up this beautiful set to show that you're pretending to drive a Lamborghini. That's the idea behind be real, is that they're supposed to be real moments. It hasn't really caught on like they would hope.

Jim Banks [00:37:00]:
And it's a bit of a sad world that you need that sort of thing to even exist. Right. Again, you would like to think people, when they open their mouths, they're telling the truth. Right. But the reality of it is that in a lot of cases, they're not.

Steve Krull [00:37:11]:
No, it's really interesting.

Jim Banks [00:37:13]:
What is this?

Steve Krull [00:37:14]:
I don't know if it's Jake or Logan Paul. I just read that Mike Tyson and this influencer are getting it in boxing in July. And I don't know about you, Logan Paul. Good for him. He's got millions and millions of followers. He's turned it into a living. It's delightful. But I'm still waiting for him to get his block knocked off by one of these fighters.

Steve Krull [00:37:31]:
But he's proven that he's really talented in the ring and I can't believe Mike Tyson at 57 years old. But that's going to be real. And they're doing it. They're doing it and they're doing it at a football stadium that sees 60,000 people. It's going to be incredible. But that's where it's gone to. But that's a real side of it. But I know to that point.

Steve Krull [00:37:48]:
There's a lot of people out there. I'm sure they're faking it. I don't have proof that people are faking their.

Jim Banks [00:37:54]:
Yeah, but let's be honest, Mike Tyson is the gift that keeps on giving. Right? He's been one of my idols ever since he first burst onto the scene. Right. He's been like an idol of mine ever since. Because, again, he's the epitome of Bad Decisions. Right? A bad decision. Mike Tyson would be a fantastic podcast as an alternative to this one, because I'm sure he's made far more Bad Decisions than I ever have.

Steve Krull [00:38:17]:
It's for a lot more public, too, usually on screen, on audio.

Jim Banks [00:38:25]:
So, Steve, I've obviously been delighted to have you on as a guest, and in the show, notes will be all the places where people can reach out to you. Is there one place in particular that you would prefer people to consume your content? I'm guessing maybe LinkedIn, but I don't want to put words into your mouth. I am spending a lot of time on LinkedIn lately.

Steve Krull [00:38:42]:
I've found that there's just great conversation to be had and you can contribute, and you get contributions on LinkedIn. It's really been a lot of fun for me to network there, so I'll be there.

Jim Banks [00:38:52]:
Yeah, I think for me, it's quite interesting. Obviously, I think your agency primarily focuses on B to B. So I think from where's the right audience going to be? LinkedIn is definitely still going to be it. I think for me, like I said, I'm doing TikToks and it's great. I get people say they like it and blah, blah, blah. But when I see people posting goofy shit that gets like millions of views and I'm getting like a couple of hundred again, I'm not disheartened by it. At the end of the day, I really care, right? I haven't set myself out to be a TikTok influencer, and that's going to be my entire livelihood, right? I made a very good living from a digital marketing career that spans now for 25 years. Right? So now, like I said, I'm just trying to reach people in places where ordinarily I wouldn't go.

Jim Banks [00:39:34]:
I would say when I first started using TikTok, every time I watched TikTok videos, I wanted to go and have a shower afterwards, I felt so dirty. It's got better.

Steve Krull [00:39:43]:
It has. I've heard somebody mention this, that your next decision maker is probably on TikTok. I hate to say this, Jim, and maybe you know it already, but we're aging out of the space, right? We're getting on, maybe. And listen, I want to work another 510 years. I love what I do. I'll probably contribute after that, because I've been in tech and in marketing for so long, I won't be able to just give it up. I'm not going to be able to go and paint murals. I'm not going to do that.

Steve Krull [00:40:08]:
I'm sure I'll have hobbies and things, but the idea is that our next decision makers, that the person who's going to issue that RFP or need a proposal, is going to be on TikTok. That's that 18 to 35 crowd is hanging out there and you're talking.

Jim Banks [00:40:24]:
And I think when we went into the pandemic again, I think all bets were off at that point. I think so many people that ordinarily would never be on Facebook, never be on TikTok, never be on Snapchat. All of a sudden, they were everywhere, right? So sometimes the key decision makers, CEOs of companies are on Facebook. They got a Facebook profile. If you've got content on there, you've got a chance of reaching on again, they're on TikTok again. I'm like a cranky old man and I'm on TikTok. And again, I've started to get my sort of friends and following the kind of point where I quite like what's in the feed. It's no longer the sort of big bosomed woman jumping up and down and changing clothes and stuff like that as it was when I first started.

Jim Banks [00:41:05]:
But again, I'm sure it'll continue to evolve. I think, again, if you talk to anyone that's under the age of 20, not one of them I've talked to uses Facebook anymore. Like, just none of them use Facebook at all. Right? So again, if you're an advertiser running ads and your target audience is young people, Facebook is not the place to be. Right. Which is, again, peculiar to me. That's the data. The data doesn't lie.

Steve Krull [00:41:27]:
I will make a commitment to you here. I will only consume these podcast videos on TikTok.

Jim Banks [00:41:33]:
Yeah. So again, for me, I put the short decisions of snippets of the episodes onto TikTok, but again, they've changed the rules now and a lot more of people are posting long form content. Right. So, again, there may be an opportunity for me to get some kind of exposure on TikTok as well as everywhere else. I'll be excited Steve, thank you so much for being.

Steve Krull [00:41:55]:
I was going to say I'll be excited. We did it again.

Jim Banks [00:41:59]:
Okay, I'll shut up. I'll shut up. I'll kill that one.

Steve Krull [00:42:03]:
I'll be excited to learn in a year what your TikTok stacks look like if you're able to keep it up.

Jim Banks [00:42:08]:
It's funny, I've got kind of like a chrome plugin. I think it's called talk audit or something. So basically, you can look at every single person's TikToks and it will give you every single video that they've done. How many views it had, comments, likes, all the links it has, all the videos. Again, it's an amazing kind of plugin. Again, incredibly cheap to get. So again, for me, whenever I'm looking at somebody's profile, being the kind of geeky type of person that I am, what I tend to do, the first thing I'll do is I'll look at their stats, see, again, if they're blowing up, I'll see if they've recently blown up or have they been on a while, how many videos they posted, all that sort of stuff, because it's very easy for somebody to post something, it gets virality, and all of a sudden they're a huge viral influencer. But really they just got lucky with one video.

Jim Banks [00:42:56]:
And again, I think a lot of the people that get virality, they get virality, but it fails to sow what test, right? So they got virality. Show me the money. Right? Where's the money from that? How many clients did you get? How many sponsors did you get for your videos that you may post or whatever it might be, right? That's ultimately what the name of the game ought to be, right for people that are creating content. So, Steve, thank you so much for being a fantastic guest on the podcast. I've loved having you on. As I mentioned, all the show notes will have all of Steve's contact details. LinkedIn would be his preference in terms of where you can get to. So, Steve, thanks again for being a great guest, and hopefully we'll be able to celebrate in person at a bar somewhere in the not too distant future.

Steve Krull [00:43:40]:
My not so distant future includes France in May, and I might sneak back to the UK. So I'll let you know if I make that happen. Jim, thank you so much for having me.

Jim Banks [00:43:48]:
If you do, it's been a phenomenal to have you on again, it's been great to reconnect with you as a friend. But again, for those of the viewers that don't know who you are. Hopefully they get to get a little bit of an understanding as to why I think you're such a great guy to have.