#55 - Shooting the Bull: Rainbow Chasers and Widget Counters

Most business owners think hiring a marketing agency is a one-way transaction — you pay, they deliver. But the truth is, the client side of the relationship matters just as much, and there are two behaviors that quietly sabotage results every time. In this episode, Ken walks through two real stories: the client who couldn't stop chasing the next shiny idea, and the one who only valued tangible deliverables and treated strategy like fluff. If you've ever wondered why your marketing isn't sticking, the answer might not be your agency. It might be you.

Transcript

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You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut through marketing noise. Here's your host, Ken Carroll.

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Do you want to know how not to destroy your business? You're going to want to listen to this one. Okay. First of all, thanks so much for uh joining me with Over the Bull and in our news uh basically theme, which is shooting the bull, where it's me talking. You're not going to get a lot of pre-scripted stuff because you don't want pre-scripted stuff. You've proven that to me through the numbers, week in and week out on the podcast. You want podcasts where I'm talking real grounded truth with you. You're sick of the YouTube channels where it's got the goofy faces that say they got this great hack, they got this shortcut, they got this cheat, they know how to do X. You know those things don't exist. They're just trying to get you to watch a stupid video so they can monetize it. You know it and I know it. And that's why you don't want it here. So you're not going to get that here. Also, you know, a lot of books that are written by so-called experts, they tell you how they're going to walk you through from point A to point B. But the problem is, is as they walk you through the steps, they leave off the most important parts. Like how did you get from this point to that point? Because the steps in between those two points is where it's the hardest. You know, they make presumptions that you've got uh infinite resources, or they they make presumptions that somehow you can do things for free, and the free things that they propose are absolutely preposterous. They do not work. And you know this. So that's why you're here. And that's why the numbers show what they show, which is why you're going to get the starts, the stops, you're going to get all the um the things that are supposed to be wiped out in some podcast, and you're going to get me talking to you person to person. Now, of course, I'm not going to share names or business names with you because honestly, that's just not the way to do things. But uh I assure you the stories I'm going to share with you are 100% accurate. And man, some of them are crazy. Some are absolutely crazy. Okay, so um, I want to dive right in here. Now, here's the thing. Okay, before I do this, I'm I'm gonna throw this out because you know what? I'm being spontaneous. Um, running a business is hard. I mean, I think we can all agree that having a business, running a business, juggling it with family and life, and it seems like everybody's got some portal they want you to log into, from your dentist to your car to your insurance company to whatever, and everybody's got their own systems and logins and passwords and codes and all this junk that it's it's just so hard to not be overwhelmed in business. And sometimes the emotions get there, and sometimes the stress is overwhelming, and keeping your composure sometimes just feels like it's uh almost impossible task. And that's the reality of the world in which we live. Even if we didn't have a business or run a small business, you would still have all these things that go on. Now, to further cause problems, you as a business owner, you know as well as I do that most of the uh the games that are played when it comes to internet marketing are just that. They're people who are claiming they have AI solutions or that they can do things better than other people, and they're always trying to come at you from some angle, sending you cold emails, uh cold calls, uh just overpromises, all the stuff that you know exists. And you probably sit down and wonder, can I even trust the guy that's helping me with my website, my marketing? Is he really doing what he's supposed to be doing? Could it be done better? Maybe he just doesn't have that secret sauce or she, let's be politically correct here. And we wonder those things, right? I mean, let's be honest, those things really cross, you know. I know this crosses your mind because it crosses every business owner that I've ever run into that crosses their mind. And you got a reason to wonder that, because there are a lot of uh what I would call used car salesman techniques and people in this world. I mean, I have seen the courses. Take this course, and in two weeks you're a web developer or a marketing expert. I've been at this for over 20 some odd years. It's all I've ever done. And I can tell you the learning never stops, but I do build on the old stuff. Old stuff never goes away because the psychology of human beings remains consistent. You can't throw out the psychology of human nature just because technology changes. So there's a lot of stuff that goes goes on to that. Okay, so with that being said, emotions happen in business. Okay, so here's crazy story number one. Uh I've been working with this company, my goodness, for I guess eight, nine years, maybe longer. When I first started working with this company, it was with a uh a different owner. Now, the previous owner of this company, she was an amazing owner of a company. I mean, objective, she was thorough, she weighed things out carefully, she would build a plan, she had followed through on the plan, she was decisive, I mean, incredible qualities, incredibly leader, uh, a good leader. And what happened was she ended up uh selling the company to uh her lead salesperson, and I knew this person too, and I've been with them and through the transition and all of those fun things over the years. But the person that took over the company, even though I like her personally, she's not a good business owner. Uh she's emotional and she does a lot of things that are indicative of people who fail in business. One of those things is chasing the shiny. Some other idea comes across. You know, it's just like she looks at the shiny thing and thinks that that's going to save the day. For example, uh she wanted to uh use a different agency out of Charlotte, North Carolina for a while. This was years and years ago, because she felt that our agency, uh being a boutique agency, wasn't big enough, and she needed to go with the big agency out of Charlotte because a Charlotte-based agency would just take her places we couldn't. Uh I remember sitting in the meetings with her, and I remember listening to the discussions, and they were horrific. I mean, they were talking about uh making decisions based on subjectivity. What do you feel? What do you think? You know, things like that. And you're like, oh my gosh, I can't can't believe they're not using objective data to make these decisions. Anyway, she wanted to keep me on board and uh at the time, and I said, no, I really think you ought to go, and I'm I'm gonna sit this one out because I don't think that uh I'm gonna play nice in this sandbox because I don't think they know what they're doing. And um she uh decided to go with them, which I applauded and I said, Hey, great. I said, you know what, if it works out, then you know, uh, you know, it'll be awesome for you. And if it don't, I'll hear from you in about six months, and we'll have a fun story. And uh so uh bowed out, even though she wanted to keep me under the program with her and kind of be a a uh supporting cast. And uh six months later, almost to the day, it's probably more like five months later, she called me up and she says, um, hey, and I said, Hey, and uh, I knew it was her voice. And uh she goes, uh she goes, uh don't say a word. And I said, say a word about what? And she goes, okay, I want to hang up. And then I realized, oh, this is gonna be the story. This is gonna be the story. So I said, well, how'd it go? And she goes, uh, well, I'm ready to come back. And I said, okay. And she goes, don't ask, I'll hang up on you. And I said, okay, I, you know, I'll let it go. And uh I decided to bring her back on. And uh, so we sit there talking about it. It turns out she spent like, I don't know, like 50,000 bucks. And they built a website. When I say built it, they built it on like the equivalent of like a Model T car for the internet. I mean, they used old technology, horrible programming. And the company in Charlotte, that was the so-called big agency, actually farmed the work out to an IT company, not even a creative company, out of uh Tennessee. And then the company in Tennessee subcontracted it out to uh India. And so you had this ping pong where everybody's getting a piece of the pie, and it just blew the budget completely out of the water. And essentially all they built was like a glorified directory website. It was it was horrible, absolutely horrible. Anyway, she came back and we had to basically throw all that out because it was useless, and we had to go back to the archived version that we kept, and then we built, built from that website on. And things were good for a while. I mean, it's just like you know, the bad relationships, you know, where you'll, you know, you separate for a while and you get back together, you're like, oh, this isn't too bad. I think this is gonna work out. And it's like, no, it's not gonna work out. And uh so uh a little while later, you started seeing the emotional tendencies, chasing the uh the shiny was the uh the thing that happened. She would, you know, go with these different consultants, different people, they would give her different advice. She would hire people to do, different people to do parts of her social media, things like that, and they weren't qualified to do it. She hired some people to help her with her SEO, and she swore that they knew SEO better than we did. They didn't. And uh just wasted time, effort, and energy uh pulling us in and out of situations, and it just got very taxing. And it all culminated um late last year, where uh basically uh it was just a situation that was so nutty. Okay, so I'm gonna share it with you what she did. Uh her her latest shiny was she uh wanted to bring in a uh college professor and she wanted to use college kids to direct her business. No joke, college kids. I couldn't, I I cannot uh emphasize this enough. And she said that she wanted to have them work with us and they wanted to make the decisions and then us kind of carry out the plan. And I was like, no, no, that that's not happening. I'm I'm not really interested in that. And uh I knew she was, you know, chasing something else that somebody had told her, somebody sold her some idea, and she thought this was the latest and greatest. And um, you know, it's funny, you know, and people when you when you say you're not going to do something, you know, there's you can always see kind of like the mirror, because people think with the way they react is like a reflection on you, but oftentimes it's a reflection that kind of shows more about them than it does you. And her first way she tried to get me to uh to get on board with it was uh she was oh what was the first one? It was um I th she thought I'd want to work with kids to show them everything that we know and help them out and help grow the next generation. And I'm like, no, that's I was like, I already work with a partner network, I already coach, I'm perfectly happy where I'm at right now, and I'm not really interested in doing that. And then her second comment was the opposite, and that was she said that she didn't realize that we would be intimidated working with college kids. Now, anybody that knows me knows that that's absolutely the furthest thing from my mentality. Uh, but you could tell she was trying to just find the right button, hoping that she could navigate that to pull me into um her latest venture. But uh I knew the writing was on the wall at that point. So I basically said, hey, uh maybe you need to go find somebody else. And you know, maybe us getting reconnected wasn't the best of ideas. She couldn't find somebody to uh to work with her. Uh and so uh basically finding somebody that is competent in marketing and programming and creative and all these other arenas, it's just not easy to do. And so I made the recommendation that maybe she just stays on, keeps her program with us, we'll keep everything updated and managed, but we're not going to work under a retainer program. And if she needs any kind of technical assistance, we could do it on an hourly basis, and that'd buy our time. And uh so she was good at that. And actually, again, it looked like the relationship cleaned up. And I'm like, all right, this is this is good because I'm showing that I generally care about the business, and uh I'm showing, you know, I'm willing to work with you, and we got the long relationship, and you know, we can kind of say that this brand that I do like because I was involved with the brand for so long is safe. And uh so I was well, and then several months ago, she uh pops up and um she has this idea, and she goes, Okay, I want to start this this plan. I want to do an add-on for the website, and here we go. Um she sent a bunch of um uh she did a bunch of like HTML code using ChatGPT to mock some stuff up. Absolutely horrible, absolutely horrible stuff. I mean, anybody that looks at it from the outside in will be like, oh boy, this isn't good. And not only did she want to do this, but she had committed to a launch date that she committed to without even talking to us if we could even accomplish the goals within that time frame. No idea what would go into it, no idea the complexity of the programming, just wanted to get it done. So luckily we looked at it and with the project scope, we thought we could accomplish the goals. And uh man, that that's where the wheels really started coming off the bus on this project. Um some of the highlights was, you know, when you do programming, just so you know, it's like you have to plan every step of the way. You can't just say, make me a website that has this feature, no more than you can say, build me a house on in a yard. You know, it's like you it's too loose, too ambiguous, and if you start building it, it's gonna have the wrong square footage, the wrong features, the wrong amount of bathrooms, all those things. Well, program is the exact same way. You've got to scope it out to its very closest detail because if you don't, you're gonna find yourself going backwards and forwards, stripping things out, and it's gonna take forever, and it's gonna frustrate everyone involved. Well, um, we were talking about it, and I said, okay, I said, so let's write down everything that's gonna go into it. She stops me. She goes, Look, you're the expert. You know what goes into this. I don't need to get in the weeds. I need you to make it work and look like this, which was her Chat GPT HTML renderings. And I was like, uh, but we gotta no, no, you do it this way, this is what your job is, and she left it like that. And I said, Well, I f I physically can't do that. I I cannot, I I cannot get there. And so I was able to talk her off the ledge and get some project scope in place. And then we start programming it, and then one of the next highlights was I marked the words urgent inside of uh a tool we use for project management. And she needed to do that in order for us to make the next step, and then we had a meeting schedule, and I go into the meeting and we start showing showing her with another team member the uh the project. And no joke, we're going through it, and I'm like walking through the parts that were done, and I mean the wheels come off the bus. No joke, wheels come off the bus. And she starts talking uh, you know, just as Tyree, I mean, breaking into tears. And I'm not exaggerating, because she had put so much pressure on herself and was so distant from the reality of it that she was in tears that we could not literally read her mind in what she needed in this project. And uh so I stayed another hour in the meeting after that. And long story short, um, if we were to fast forward, so there's a couple nuances I want to share in this to kind of give you the bearings. Um when we did that first initial orientation and then one subsequent to it before the big blow up, we actually record complete transcripts of every session we do. Now we do that so that we don't miss anything or try not to miss anything. We're not perfect, but then we can run that through and then kind of assess it. So we had a we had a running tally of everything that goes on. And then the uh the other thing was was that when we assigned these projects, we also put in these uh assignments. You know, you got to check something, do something, sign off on it, and do those things too. So on the day she blew up, she was like, you know, we didn't follow the directions, we didn't do anything like she wanted it to, she wanted it to look like her chat GPT, HTML layouts, and uh we had already crossed the Rubicon on some of those things. And then I mean literally 20 minutes, 20, maybe 30 minutes later, I said, Well, I said, okay, well, and so I asked her assistant who was in there too, I said, Well, do you remember this and that conversation? No, I do not. I said, Okay, okay. I said, Well, could we go back and just real quickly, let's just peruse the transcript and let's just see exactly what was said. Oh no. She said, we don't want to do that. We don't want to go back and look at the transcript, because if we go back and look at the transcript, that's going to be a waste of time and we need to focus on moving forward. And um, so I thought that that was interesting because from our perspective, it's like, well, billable and non-billable, one. Yeah, if we were told to do something and we didn't do it, then uh, you know, one case is billable, one case is not. In the other cases, just to get clarity to kind of get a baseline to where we're at. Uh, but she didn't want to do that. And then plus, the other reason that she had gotten so upset was the uh the to-do that we gave her called urgent, urgent in all caps, she completely ignored. She didn't even look at it. And uh so anyway, uh I stayed, stayed an hour, hour and a half later, and helped her, you know, get it to where she was happy with it, and did the lot of that stuff in real time. Uh afterwards, I did a full assessment, I went through, and I took time. I mean, when someone says something, uh I think it very seriously. I mean, and uh so I went back through, went through the transcript, parsed the whole transcript, and I wondered if we were that far off. That's when I found the urgent email that was missed by her. And then I also found out that everything that they had told us to do previously that they contradicted in the emotional meeting, all that stuff was there. And so we didn't miss anything. But because they weren't on track and they were talking from ambiguity, that there was just uh a lot of issues there. So um needless to say, we're at the point where we're we recommended that the client, you know, move, and this time we're we're adamant about it. Uh, you know, it's just it's too much drama, too much drama and too much inconsistency and uh too frankly too much time and interruption in a regular schedule for us to be able to help this client out anymore. So what we've decided to do uh was we gave uh this client another three months in order to find, you know, a new solution to move on and even help them move into their own hosting where we would we would fully white glove the whole thing. White glove's uh a fancy word for saying we'll just handle it. Um but you know it's at a point where we can't do it. So what's the lesson that you could learn from this? I mean, no joke, this is a real situation here. The lesson that you could learn is that emotionalism and trying to fuel other people through anger, through frustration, uh, and trying to muscle your way over something um will burn out a crew quicker than anything. And then not being holding not holding yourself accountable and pointing directions and not being involved. These are all big problems that this customer has. Um personally, I really like this person. Uh personally, I want to see them successful and happy, but professionally I could not work with this person because of the impulsiveness, the directions, the emotions. Um in that last meeting I had to pull a team member completely out of the meeting because it was just so taxing. And uh didn't I didn't feel it was appropriate to subject um you know our team member to that. So the lesson you learned there is, you know, be involved, you know, make sure that everyone Understands the game plan from the get-go, and then build a plan, make sure it has objective goals to it, make sure everybody understands it. And then once it's done and that's been established, then stick to the game plan. And then if something changes, then all you know, the factors surrounding the launch date, the factors surrounding the program, all those things have to change too, because it frankly takes more time and those things have to be scheduled. And so it's an unfortunate situation, but it's one that came coming. So the idea is uh, hey, um, you know, stay on target. You know, uh, well, I don't know. I thought of something, but even then off the cuff, it probably wouldn't have been wise to say. Okay, so I want to move on to something else here too. Uh the the second situation is what I'm gonna call, I don't know, let's just call her the widget counter. And uh so when you're doing marketing today, guys, um doing marketing. Uh it's like saying doing science. It's it's horrible, horrible saying. But when you're trying to accomplish something on the web through marketing, let's try it that way, uh, what you want to do is you want to have a game plan. Okay, so we're all about building the blueprint before we start, you know, pouring concrete. And um a lot of agencies out there, they start pouring the concrete. They start talking about designs, they start talking about all these other things, and they don't have a game plan and literally like building a house without a blueprint. And uh so you'll see them build a website and then they'll run ads to it. It's the exact opposite. You build a plan, you understand the market, you build everything toward that market, toward the game plan, toward the goals, and then you build the whole thing and the whole thing starts to work. Now, this is how people are finding success with us. Period, every time. Now, there are some intangible ingredients when it comes to success online today. One of those is patience. The second one is being able to move based upon where the data and the results are going. If you have one plan and you need to shift it some to make things happen, you need to shift it. It's just how it works. So the the second uh situation involves a person, and this person um they signed up for the plan, which also involved building the blueprint. So, you know, if you're building the blueprint, there's a lot of work that goes into it. First thing is understanding a given business. Then it's looking at what competitors are doing in the area. It's looking at strategic advantages, disadvantages. Uh one of the common terms used in marketing today is called a SWOT analysis, S-W-O-T, strengths, opportunities, or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And um we have a process that we go through and we do that, but then we use analytical tools to kind of build a game plan. And then when we give get the game plan, then what we do is we collect all of the intellectual property, like you know, uh social media pages, web pages, all that fun stuff, email marketing, whatever they do, domains, we get an understanding of where all that stuff is at, and then we build a comprehensive solution that covers all of it, and if they want to do certain pieces, they can do it. But everything is marching in the same direction. Now that's the ideal way to build your business. So if your business was going to a do-it-yourself website builder and building a website and then running ads to it, this is why you're not doing very well. If your plan was hiring some WordPress developer to put a theme up and then run ads to it, that's why you're not doing very well. Because those models don't work. Those models actually died years and years ago. They're just being propped up because there's a whole big business around these do-yourself website builders and these strategies that honestly don't work. And of course, they're trying to further prop it up by saying that AI can give you those answers and they can build your website from scratch and they can, guys, the human mind is needed. The human mind is absolutely needed. And uh you need somebody that's got a work ethic, which I sometimes wonder which is harder to find today, you know, given given the state of everything, but let's keep trucking. So the widget counter um signed up, we started doing all the homework and everything, and then we started building everything toward what we discovered. Now, what's really cool is in this person's case, we actually discovered something about her business that she did not exploit. She was saying her business was one thing, but the way that people were finding her was a whole other way. And our exploratory part of building that blueprint showed that. And we're like, okay, we're going to build everything toward this, and then this is going to help you reach your goals. Okay, she is on board. Well, so we start updating uh her online uh collateral, you know, website, stuff like that, you know, the standard stuff that we do. And um then as we're doing it, she sends me over a uh um some MailChimp, like this proposal to rebuild MailChimp, and it had nothing to do with the scaffolding that we had created, nothing to do with the blueprint. You know, it's kind of like uh, you know, you're talking about making hamburgers and someone says, uh, would you like to put some plaster of Paris on the burger? And you're like, hold on a minute. Maybe Plaster Paris isn't the right thing to do. And um I hate to exaggerate, but I mean that was literally kind of that that kind of outside the game plan. And uh so I was like, well, you know, hey, maybe we need to rethink this. And uh and then as we're we're going through this and trying to uh negotiate those waters, what it came apparent is she was a person that was so caught up in the idea of doing tasks for dollars. And so these could be random tasks. They're not all marching in the same order. So building constant contact, even if it was completely misdirected and her con her, not constant contact, but Omel Chimps never really worked. They they never did what she wanted them to do. But it felt like she was doing something because it was task-oriented and she had something that she could touch, which was those emails in the end. Plus, she had somebody selling her that those emails are the only way to go. And so she spent, I don't know how many thousands of dollars building these email templates. And uh anyway, that they weren't going to feed the job. So uh, you know, like, well, it don't really fit the model. You know, are you sure you want to do this? And then what I found out was that she valued the widget work, she valued the tangible work, but didn't value the blueprint. And the idea is in today's world, the blueprint is what matters. The blueprint is the thing. And so starting with your website, but not understanding your market, not doing all the homework, not figuring out your website architecture, not figuring out why people actually do business with you, and just start building things and just start knocking things off a list like business cards, rack cards, email marketing, website, Google Ads, you name it, just kind of knocking those off in the list is the way that people don't make it today. Now, you know as well as I do, everything that we face today, we're we're inundated with marketing. We're inundated with people telling us what we should be doing and how we should be doing it. And boy, this worked for me, you should really give this a shot, all those things. And the idea is there's some really powerful companies out there, like there are in every other industry in the marketing world, who have motivations to keep it propped up, this idea that you can do things on your own and save money. You can do things on your own. There's zero doubt you can do things on your own. You can go to Chad GPT and tell it to write your HTML web pages. 100%, you can do that right now if you want to. You can go and spin up your own Google Ads right here, right now. You can hire people to do piecemeal projects right here, right now. There are all kinds of freelance websites where you can go get those things done anytime you want to, any way you want to, and yes, it can be accomplished and it can be marked off your checklist. No doubt. But here's the thing, it can be done, but it cannot be done effectively. It cannot be done optimally. And so what you're seeing is this person I sound serious now, don't I? Um this person felt like I was uh, you know, uh almost preaching there for a second. Did it feel like that to you? Um but what you'll see is these situations unguided lead to disaster, but they're making people money who are perpetuating the myth that it can still be done. As of 2025, the beginning of 2025, this model of piecemeal work, it was in its death death rolls? Is that how you say that? It was in its death rolls then, but now it's like it's dead. I mean, I have a guy right now who uh, you know, he's debating going up using this one guy for Google Ads. And like he uh it's all just the cards are stacked. I mean, he'll attribute everything to Google Ads. He'll put the the tracking phone number on Google Business, he'll put the tracking phone number on his vehicles. I mean, it's just stupid. And he'll do this, and and then you'll think that this guy knows what he's doing. Uh he's he's been on on our radar for a while just because his name keeps coming up. Uh, but it's it's silly. Um he doesn't do an effective job, he just takes ownership for every single thing that's out there that he does or not, and then uh they think it reflects uh reality, which it doesn't. Um and so the second lesson is the blueprint. You know, stand back. Was your online marketing strategy built using a blueprint? Was your strategic advantages really thought through? Where you serve people, where you realistically do business? Is that in the equation when your game plan was put together? Or are you jumping around from website designer to website designer to Google Ads guy to SEO person to whatever, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, and then having the exact same results? I think I think they they gave I think they gave Ben Franklin was it Ben Franklin they gave this quote to where it says uh something like uh, you know, doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is the definition of insanity or something like that. I don't think it was him that said that, but I think he he's sometimes commonly uh given credit for that quote. I could be wrong. Um but uh that's kind of what business owners do. They talk to the next web person, they give them a persuasive argument, and they let them rebuild the website. They talk to the next person about running their ads or taking them over. You know, they catch in a weak moment and then they take it over and you got the exact same problem all over again. It's because no progress is being made. You're just doing the exact same things over and over again. And that's what the widget counter is doing. Uh marking off tasks, thinking she's getting somewhere, and she's just running in circles. Don't run in circles. Don't run in circles. Okay, so um big lessons, right? Big lessons are, you know, be objective, go based on data, don't let your emotions, don't overcommit, don't put people in situations where they can't meet the goals that you need to meet. Make sure that you stay involved throughout the entire process and own your business. I mean, those are huge things. Don't turn over your business to a marketing person just because they know how to do certain things. That doesn't mean they know your business. I mean, my dad, uh, he was in construction. I'm an armchair carpenter on weekends. I love doing building things, decks, waterfalls, saunas. I just love building stuff. And uh I'm renovating a bathroom right now, but it doesn't mean that I'm an expert. It doesn't mean I know everything about construction or building decks or building things professionally and all that other things. I I can probably talk the game a little better than some, but it doesn't mean I'd handle it on the level that a professional, full-time guy would do it. And so me just handing that over to me would be a bad idea. Um by the way, well let's go ahead and go here, because this is triggering in my head. The the other thing is you don't want to go in the other ditch. Okay, there's a whole other ditch when I said that. And that is hiring a a marketing company that does nothing but plumbers or electricians or those kind of things, um, whole other ditch. So don't think that's the answer. You can't give your business identity to someone else. You've got to be involved in that. That's the hard part. This is why for the last, I don't know, year and a half, two years on this podcast, I've been talking about EEAT principles. Um you want to really look at that. The reason I keep saying it over and over again, everybody's going AI drunk. They're having AI write blog articles, they're having AI do their homework, AI thinking for them. Uh I think I shared last week with you where we had a client give us just a ton of data. It took like three hours to go through of what um ChatGPT told her should be done, and it's like none of it was valid, but it all needed to be go through and just looked at. Um it's crazy. You you need to to own it objectively, but don't turn your brain over to AI. AI is a good tool, but it's not to replace your intellect. It doesn't, it's not a it doesn't have all the answers. You know, the one thing that um I'm I'm rambling now, but hey, you you get what you get because we're shooting the bull, right? Um the thing about AI is um it doesn't it doesn't always have it right, and a lot of times we're having to massage information. I mean, we do that quite a bit where it'll spit something out and you're like, hold on a minute. Not only this is wrong, but this is like way, way wrong. Um I think I also shared a story with you about when I was working on putting tile up in my bathroom, and there's something called a ledger, and where it told me to set the ledger at was incredibly wrong. It would have made the entire tile uh set up uh sideways. I mean, it would have caused an incredible disaster. So anyway, you don't you don't want to turn your brain off, you want to stay involved in the loop. And the other thing is look, you don't go on vacation and just get in the car and just go somewhere. You have a general idea of where you're going to go on vacation. That way you can pack everything you want to pack, you want to get everything where you go. That's the same thing with online marketing. You've got to get your game plan, and then once you get your game plan, then everything goes into it. You know what to put into the suitcase. You don't just throw a bunch of random stuff in the suitcase and then randomly pick a direction to go. That's the equivalent of what most businesses are still doing on the internet today. Now, what's fun is when we get a hold of a business like that, we can absolutely turn them around and help them out and uh build the game plan, which I love doing. I mean, we've we've been swamped. Uh just finding time to do this podcast has been challenging for us because we're backed up right now. Oh gosh. Uh I think my project manager told us July 15th is when we could start a new project. Uh so that kind of gives you an idea. Uh you know, because people are hungry for reality, you know, they're tired of the goofy faces on YouTube. This hack, I made $500 bazillion dollars using this strategy. Trust me, let me show you. And I'm gonna sell you this package for $299, even though I've got a bazillion so-called dollars in the bank. I'm still gonna charge you $299 to learn this because I care about you. Yeah, right. Anyway, all right, guys, there you go. You got the uh the next installment of shooting the bull. I hope this does help you out. I hope this did take you on a bit of an adventure. And life is always an adventure in marketing. I mean, it's I told somebody today, I was like, you know, when you start a new marketing campaign and you're waiting for it to gain traction, it's always like you're sitting there waiting to have a baby. You know, it's like, okay, I'm ready for this thing to go. But then once you get it going and you get the machine moving and all the work was worth it, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. All right, guys, thank you so much for listening to Over the Bull. I hope this helps you out. I hope uh I didn't embarrass myself too bad in today's podcast. Uh again, you're getting off the cuff, you're getting reality, and you're getting the world as I see it, week in and week out. Until next time, this is Ken Carroll with Over the Bull.

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