When I was in Grade 7, something incredible happened. I unwrapped a Christmas gift that would shape my future, a Commodore 64. It was the first one to arrive in Sudbury, and there I was, the only kid in school who had his own computer.
Hooked to a small black-and-white TV, this machine became my world. I poured hours into programming, learning from magazines, experimenting, and creating. My first major triumph was a simple program – a square block I could move around the screen using a joystick. But then I figured out how to get that square block to bump into other objects on the screen and make a sound when it did! I felt like I’d touched the future!
Being An Early Adopter Has Its Perks
I was the go-to guy for teachers who were trying to stay one lesson ahead of us in learning computers.
Working on a computer keyboard, I became one of the few boys in high school who could type – a skill that has several times now given me a competitive advantage in life (starting with being the only boy in a Grade 12 typing class filled with girls!). A long story for another day, but it was my ability to type 85 WPM—not my business degree—that got me my breakthrough job at Manulife Financial which led to starting my first consulting business.
At Manulife, I developed a very niche expertise in implementing and customizing a specialized forms inventory system. (Insurance companies and the like have 1,000’s of forms that need to be managed, orders sent to branch offices, etc.). That consulting business took me across North America doing gigs for Fortune 500 companies like Manulife, Cooperators, Citibank, and Xerox.
But technology was changing and I saw that the inventory system I was working with was stuck in DOS (remember DOS?) and likely wouldn’t make it to the Windows revolution. So, I started phasing that out and phasing in specializing in working with Sales & Marketing automation software (Customer Relationship Management, CRM).
Fast forward a few years, I stumbled upon Mambo, an early website builder predating WordPress by a few years. It was a revelation. This tool could cut down website development time by 75%, and it was free. At the time, I was involved in the CRM (marketing automation) software industry, but Mambo showed me my true calling – Internet Marketing. I could now combine my sales & marketing experience with the reach of the Internet. It was my “Mambo Moment”.
A year later, I launched my first web business: The CRM Coach. I wrote a “confessions of a CRM consultant” info product and was selling it online (USD $650). Next, Jen and I helped my in-laws set up an online business for their boating expertise. I was at the fore-front of combining direct marketing with websites.
The real game-changer came when I discovered SEO
It was the early days, and anyone who knew SEO had an edge. On a Friday, I optimized my site for “CRM Consultant Toronto” and by Monday, I landed a lucrative gig from a Toronto company. That year, I billed them over $35,000, which funded my next venture, buying ladyben.com, a classic wooden boat listing service. With some smarts and elbow grease, we made it the #1 classic wooden boat site in the world with well over 1 Million visitors a year. Google was sending us a cheque every month from ad revenues! (It was our own little self-funding piggybank.) We later sold it for a nice pay‑day.
Before we sold websites to others, we were literally putting food on the family table from the money we made from our own online businesses. I quickly learned a truth in web marketing: “Results First, Technology Second.”
A website must be more than a pretty art project; it’s the engine that drives your business forward. If it’s not actively putting money in your pocket, it’s just a showpiece, not a sales generator.
I’ve been blessed to have a front row seat at the rise of Internet Marketing. The lessons I learned from being an early adopter are baked into my DNA now. These are the lessons that I’ve baked into the DNA of GravityStack.
Having been an early adopter in the world of internet marketing, I’ve absorbed lessons that are now a part of me and, by extension, the DNA of GravityStack. My journey from a curious kid with a Commodore 64 to a digital marketing expert is a testament to the power of early adoption and constant learning in the ever-changing world of technology.
And the world has changed again…(have you noticed yet?)
Yes, the world changed with Covid. The world economies are still recovering from the effects. The Bank of Canada is replacing its core macro-economic forecasting model to catch-up to the new realities of the world.
But, I’m not talking about Covid.
We’re now facing another “Mambo moment”. Folks, Artificial Intelligence is here. It’s real. It’s not going to become self-aware and rid Earth of the human population, but
it IS powerful. It IS a game changer. It IS going to change your business and your life.
True, we’re early days. There are going to be false starts, but there’s also real technologies taking hold.
Just like the Internet and technologies like WordPress have permanently changed how we market our small businesses, AI will do the same.
We’re still in the messy, early-adopter stage of AI.
[rely on us to pave the way] Early days offer BIG opportunities. They don’t need to worry.
Some of us are being the early adopters of AI. The ones who adopt and adapt will come out on top. The ones who don’t will, sadly, fade away.
The New SEO
Let’s look at a very practical scenario that has a direct impact on you getting Clients: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). How SEO is done has changed. I think the full effects of that are 12 to 18 months away but the businesses that adopt it now will now, before everybody else, will have the wind in their sails and get a major boost.
If we were doing SEO for a local bookkeeper, we’d focus on doing technical SEO for “bookkeeper [city]” on the key pages. We might have some related pages like “business tax planning [city]”.
That’s because people essentially do Google searches for terms like “bookkeepers in [city]”. And the search engines understand that.
But with the rise of AI, the day is coming when we use AI as an assistant. We’ll give it instructions…here’s what I’m looking for. Here’s what’s important to me. Go find me a short list.
Instead of looking at a bunch of websites and then using criteria to eliminate and choose, the AI will do that work for us.
“Find me the top 3 bookkeepers near me who are affordable and specialize in tax planning for newly incorporated businesses.”
Or, maybe the Search Engines will take your “bookkeepers in [city]” search and ASK YOU: “Are you looking for a bookkeeper for your business?”
Already, the Search Engines are connecting the dots of online presence and ranking results accordingly. It’s already happening. The search engines are already there. They’re ready for the new way to recommend a local business. But 99% of local businesses aren’t there.
It’s the early days of SEO all over again. When on a Friday, I could do some SEO work and on Monday get a $35K gig.
Now’s the time to be #1 for these searches, before your competition catches on. This is your Leap Frog moment. The businesses that get to first place now will win when these searches become common place. It’ll be harder to knock from top. ???
Move from “keywords” to “topics” and “themes”
SEO for local businesses is very different than for national or international businesses. How we go about it is very different.
Right now, the search results that come back aren’t great. That’s because the data set (the websites) aren’t optimized for this kind of SEO. Thing is, by optimizing for these kinds of AI driven searches, you also boost your rank NOW.
??ahead of the curve. First mover advantage.
- EEAT: Experience, Expertise, Authoritative, Trustworthiness.
- Properly structured and designed site.
- Fast loading mobile-first Site. (Astra, Kadence)
To be a Top 3 website in the new SEO, it needs to
offer your Clients legitimate value AND
be packaged for AI driven Search Engines.
AI is having a dramatic effect on our business.
- Using AI to work smarter: faster, better. Automation. (See the insert for a great non-marketing example)
- Adapting our services to feed into the new AI capabilities: driven Search Engines, Web design, Writing
- Using AI to do things we couldn’t do before. Data analysis.
We’re doubling down on becoming an “AI first digital marketing agency. Some of the services we offer today will either be sunsetted or will get a total revamp to leverage AI. We are continuing to do what’s working today to put food on the table of our Clients while laying the groundwork for a very different tomorrow.
In the last 30 days, we’ve invested over $4,000 in AI training and tools. For the past 6 months, we’ve been self-teaching. It’s the early days of Mambo all over again!
Fire hose
12 to 18 months. That’s it.
Principles. Gravity Score.
There is going to quickly be a BIG chasm between the Top 3 Professionals and the rest. The Top 3 Professionals are going to be the ones who have made the move now to themselves first to the new SEO. First mover advantage. And it’s going to be damned hard to break into the top 3 once they’re there. More than ever, the Top 3 Professionals are going to get 80+% of the Best Clients. Increasingly, the only reason the businesses that aren’t in the Top 3 will get any Best Clients is because the Top 3 are too full to take them.
The Top 3 Local Professionals will have to learn how to scale their businesses (and profits): increase their capacity through efficiency and hiring. They will need to learn how to leverage their top talent with junior talent.
There will also be pressure on margins because of AI.
Kinda like a “Professional of Choice 2.0”
I don’t know if the day will come when we drop Google Advertising as a service but the service will 100% change. It already has. We’ve already started using AI to help us analyse campaigns and recommend improvements. It’s crazy cool and crazy scary stuff.
We’re working on new services like:
“Quarterly Blog Blitz”. We interview you for an hour, get content for 6 articles (2 per month) and then queue them up to drip into your website and social media. These aren’t the “blog articles” of yesterday. These are high quality content pieces that are written for both human and AI consumption. We combine the power of the human interview with the speed of AI writing and the quality of human editing. The result is an affordable way to quickly produce high quality content that feeds the new SEO.
It’s crazy how fast AI is coming. It’s here. We’re having to spend a lot of time and money to stay ahead. We’re determined to be one of the small businesses that thrives on and because of AI. But many—M A N Y—will wiped out, replaced by “Professionals of Choice 2.0”. It’s your move.
