Helping Stakeholders Help Themselves

Helping Stakeholders Help Themselves written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch talks with Bill Shander, information designer, data communications expert, and founder of Beehive Media. Bill shares insights from his new book, “Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask.” The conversation covers how to turn complex data into clear, actionable stories, the importance of questioning order-taking, and why active listening and genuine curiosity are the keys to building trust and delivering what stakeholders truly need. Listeners will learn practical strategies for stakeholder engagement, leadership, and data-driven decision-making in the age of AI.

About the Guest

Bill Shander is a data communications expert, information designer, and founder of Beehive Media. With over 25 years of experience, he has helped leading organizations—including the United Nations, World Bank, and Deloitte—turn complex ideas into clear, actionable stories. Bill is a recognized thought leader in data visualization, storytelling, and stakeholder engagement, and is the author of “Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask.”

• Website: billshander.com
• LinkedIn: Bill Shander

Actionable Insights

• Data storytelling is about communicating meaning and insight, not just sharing numbers and reports.
• Order-taking leads to missed opportunities; real value comes from questioning, listening, and guiding stakeholders to what they truly need.
• Active listening, curiosity, and asking better questions are essential for building trust and uncovering stakeholders’ real objectives.
• Silence is a powerful tool for reflection and better conversation—embrace the pause to allow deeper thinking.
• Stakeholder engagement applies to all roles, not just marketing—including HR, IT, and leadership.
• Recognize and prioritize all stakeholders—sometimes the real goals and needs come from several layers up in the organization.
• In hybrid and remote work environments, intentional communication and Socratic questioning are even more important.
• Organizational culture and leadership openness determine how effective “stakeholder whispering” can be—seek or build a culture that values questioning and strategic thinking.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

• 00:45 – What is a Data Communication Expert?
  Bill explains the importance of storytelling and visualization in making data meaningful.
• 01:44 – Why Stakeholder Whispering Matters More Than Ever
  Why questioning and guiding stakeholders is critical in the age of AI and short attention spans.
• 04:28 – Beyond Order-Taking: Leading with Questions
  Bill shares why challenging requests and using a consultative approach delivers better results.
• 07:41 – The Power of Active Listening and Curiosity
  Tips for asking better questions and truly hearing stakeholders’ needs.
• 09:16 – Silence is Golden
  The value of pausing, reflection, and pacing in communication and presentations.
• 10:28 – Common Pitfalls: Mistaking Tasks for Outcomes
  Why focusing only on what’s requested misses the real goals.
• 12:58 – Recognizing the Real Stakeholders
  How to identify and prioritize who really matters in any project or initiative.
• 15:13 – Culture, Leadership, and Whisperability
  The role of culture and leadership in fostering open, strategic conversations.
• 17:01 – Adapting Stakeholder Engagement to Hybrid and Remote Work
  Why face-to-face or Socratic dialogue is essential for discovering true needs.
• 18:58 – Real-World Example: The Power of Questioning Assumptions
  Bill tells a client story where open-ended questioning led to a far better outcome.

Pulled Quotes

“Our job is not just to execute tasks—it’s to succeed and help our organization succeed. That means probing, questioning, and challenging the status quo.”
— Bill Shander

“Active listening, curiosity, and asking the right questions are what build trust and uncover what stakeholders really need.”
— Bill Shander

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:00.878)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Bill Shander. He's a data communications expert, information designer and founder of Beehive Media. Over 25 years of experience, Bill has helped leading organizations, including United Nations, World Bank and Deloitte turn complex ideas into clear, actionable stories. We're going to talk about his latest book today, Stakeholder Whispering, Uncover What People Need.

before doing what they ask. So Bill, welcome to the show.

Bill Shander (00:34.34)

Thank you, John. I'm really happy to be here.

John Jantsch (00:36.736)

So I just, sometimes people have things in their bios that I have to ask about. So what does a data communication expert do?

Bill Shander (00:45.654)

That's a good question. So, you know, everybody these days has data, whether it's your sales data, your marketing data, your HR data, everybody has data. We're always packaging it up in PowerPoint presentations to present to our bosses or reports for the board or whoever. And people don't really do a very good job of it either because they're not really thinking about communicating ideas. They're worried about shoving numbers at people. And so I help people.

John Jantsch (01:09.314)

Yeah. Right.

Bill Shander (01:12.216)

tell stories of data, as well as visualize that data in an impactful way.

John Jantsch (01:16.462)

Yeah. And I think there's probably a lot of people, myself included, that I want to hear the story. Like, what does this data mean? you know, rather than just saying, look, we got this much traffic. Okay. Is that good? Is that bad? Yeah. So what inspired you to write the book? I mean, is there, is there something going on today, you know, in the business world that you think it makes this idea more critical?

Bill Shander (01:22.553)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (01:29.014)

Exactly. How many clicks is good? Are clicks even useful? We don't know.

Bill Shander (01:44.378)

That's a good question. I don't know if today it's more critical in that this has always been an issue, honestly. I've been looking at it for 30 years and took me a long time to realize that this is the thing. Like I've been thinking about doing a book for a long time and this was finally the idea of the nugget that said, yes, this must be done. It's been an issue that's been around forever. Is it more important today than ever? I would say maybe possibly because of AI. mean, okay, we're already talking about AI, know, it's 2025, of course you have to, but.

Honestly, when you ask AI to do something, it just does it. AI is an order taker. And we as humans, what can we do better than AI today? Maybe we can still discern, what really should be done? And maybe we can ask good follow-up questions on all the kinds of things that I talk about in the book that we have to do in order to make sure we're delivering against the right tasks. AI is just going to do it. So it's even more important for that reason.

John Jantsch (02:19.064)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:38.198)

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. mean, I think you can make a case for being more important today and in some ways, because what you mentioned AI actually allows us to crunch a lot more data than we ever would have been able to in some cases. so we certainly have that even the smallest of companies have access now to big crunching. But I think also, I noticed a lot of people, stakeholders included, you know, have much shorter attention spans. And so,

Bill Shander (02:57.082)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (03:04.258)

You know, that 27 page PowerPoint deck, you know, can be condensed into a story or a metaphor. You know, that might actually be a better way to present the information.

Bill Shander (03:15.748)

Well, that's it. so stakeholder whispering is, you the basic idea is your stakeholders ask you to do things based on their automated response. How do we usually do it? Well, usually we put it to 27 page PowerPoint deck together. And the problem is to what you said, you know, first of all, attention spans are shrinking a hundred other reasons why that may not be the best solution. But on top of that, like,

I mean, they don't even know what they need. They're just going to go with the automated response. And so our job as workers, and it doesn't matter what role you're in, if it's marketing, great, but HR people need this, IT people, finance, et cetera. Whatever we're working on, we need to question the ask, know, question that automated response. Maybe it is a PowerPoint deck that's needed, or maybe not to your point.

John Jantsch (04:03.928)

So you mentioned the word order taking, know, I actually, ironically, somebody just said this to me the other day. We have to, you know, we have to sell them what they want so that we can get the trust to sell them what they need. You've probably heard that before and you're kind of advocating for the idea that, no, we need to lead them to what they need and not, you know, and maybe use numbers to help do that. Talk a little more about that idea of beyond order taking.

Bill Shander (04:15.502)

Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Shander (04:28.738)

Yeah. And what you just said is also true, right? Like you do have to gain trust before you can lead them effectively. But yes, the fact is our stakeholders don't know what they need and our job is to guide them. I often say it's like therapy. I have a whole chapter in the book about how to conduct a therapy session because it is very much like therapy. Someone comes to a therapist because they have an issue and they need help. And the therapist doesn't tell them what to do.

They ask them questions. say, well, how does that make you feel? Right? And the questions, right. And the questions allow you to look inside yourself and say, wait, yeah. How does that make me feel? And so in work, okay, you know, we're launching a new product marketing, make us a brochure. Okay. You know, why would a brochure be better than an app or better than this, that, or the other? Huh? Yeah. Maybe, maybe we should do an app. that introspective opportunity is what guides us down the road towards maybe another option.

John Jantsch (04:56.406)

Yeah. Why do we want that?

Bill Shander (05:24.634)

you know, when you're new, like you're in a new role, new boss, whatever, you haven't gained that trust yet, maybe all you do is you try one thing, one question, which is, the question could be, how do we measure success? How are we gonna know this is gonna, when this has worked, how are we gonna measure that? And just that one question, it's not gonna get them all the way to some new way of thinking maybe.

but it's an initial ask. It's at least one step beyond overtaking. And then over time, you'll gain more trust and you'll be able to sort of expand on that guidance way of thinking about it.

John Jantsch (05:58.144)

You know, what I have found is, is that's a, that's an incredible technique in selling. you know, a lot of times people will come to us and say, want this, listen, this. and if, if we have the posture or the courage to back up and say what you said, how will that, how will we know that's successful? What would success look like? How are we going to measure that? have you considered, I find a lot of times people will put their guard down then and like, we're going to actually have a conversation about.

Bill Shander (06:04.793)

It is.

John Jantsch (06:26.764)

what we should be doing, I don't have to pretend I know what to tell you to do. And I find it very disarming in a sales conversation. I mean, not to the level of being obnoxious, you know what I mean? But definitely to the level of saying, let's think about insights instead of actions.

Bill Shander (06:30.658)

Right.

Bill Shander (06:36.42)

Totally, you're building trust.

Bill Shander (06:40.9)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (06:45.806)

Yeah, you're building trust the moment you do that, especially in the sales context when there's, there's that built in lack of trust in a way. And on top of that, you know, what, what I found in my career, the only success I've had in my career is because I was good at the skills, stakeholder whispering. And, know, part of that is no question. It's the consultative approach. I'm not here.

to sell you widgets, I'm here to solve your problems. I'm here to actually help you succeed. And when you really honestly are doing that, then that includes, yeah, that asking questions like that, will lead to the right solution, not just a solution that puts dollars in my pocket.

John Jantsch (07:22.552)

So of course you're implying that you have to actually care about getting them a result, right? Yeah. So we've covered one side of it, asking better questions, but what role does actually being a better listener play in this?

Bill Shander (07:26.818)

You do. You have to care and you have to be curious. Those are two things that go sort of hand in hand.

Bill Shander (07:41.848)

Yeah, active listening is something is a phrase people talk about. But do you really listen? know, and you know, what's interesting is like, here we are, we're having, of course, and like, you're an interviewer in this context, and you have to do that, right? And like, when I'm talking to a client, I got to be taking notes, I got to be thinking about my next question, response, or you can't avoid some some of that. But at the same time,

John Jantsch (07:49.07)

No, I'm thinking about the next question I'm going to ask.

Bill Shander (08:07.61)

What I encourage people to do is as best you can within that reality, you try to really listen. And a friend of mine just recently told me his phrase is, listen with your ears, not your brain. So really hear, and yeah, you're gonna jot notes, you're gonna notice a little trigger word, they said X, put a little circle on that, whatever, but don't start formulating your next question as much as you can avoid it until they stop. Truly listen for that whole time.

John Jantsch (08:18.766)

Mm-hmm.

Bill Shander (08:35.354)

It's really hard to do. None of us could do it perfectly, but we can strive towards that ideal.

John Jantsch (08:41.132)

I think it's a little bit cultural too. think, you know, Americans are just like, we need noise. They're like silence, you know, just kills us, right? I read a study the other day that said Americans, I think the average like silence before they become very uncomfortable is three seconds. And in Japan, it is very common for somebody to get asked a question and to literally wait for eight seconds before answering to give it thought and to give it, you know,

Bill Shander (08:50.702)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (09:04.536)

Wow.

John Jantsch (09:08.486)

emotion and I thought, you know, that's probably I mean, most people if I sat here for eight seconds of dead air, people were like, what's wrong? It's pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Shander (09:16.495)

Yeah.

So I have a chapter called Silence is Golden. And not only do I talk about that, but even the chapter, the book is put on the pages in a way that each page is just one sentence with silence all around it. Because it is that important, but it is uncomfortable, it's true.

John Jantsch (09:29.42)

Yeah. Funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've taken I've do some public speaking and I've taken some training on that and frequently a coach or something will say no let that pause let that sit let the audience digest that boy when you're up on stage it's like can I do it. It's really hard. It's funny. So so what are the

Bill Shander (09:55.186)

It is, but yeah, good, Go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, yeah, that strategic performance, which includes pauses, silence, pacing. I can speak really quickly and I can slow it down. And that has an effect on your audience for sure. Whether it's an audience of one stakeholder or a room full of people.

John Jantsch (09:59.084)

Go ahead and finish, sir.

John Jantsch (10:15.278)

Right. So what are, let's go with the negative. What are the common mistakes that people make? They might get the essence of this book and then charge in. What are some of the things that you see are pitfalls?

Bill Shander (10:28.312)

I mean, you one of the biggest problems people face is that they think that their job is to do what their boss tells them to do. And like on paper, there's some truth to that, but, clients, not just bosses, clients, investors, whoever your stakeholders are, there's a broad range of them. Obviously your job is to execute on tasks for your organization, but it's not just to be that order taker that we talked about. So you have to, the most important thing I'm hoping people remember after reading the book.

is that they just need to do this. Like, see the world in a new way. Your job is not to execute those tasks your boss tells you to do. Your job is to succeed and help your organization succeed. And that includes probing. know, just asking, is this the right thing to be doing? Is this the right way to be doing that thing? So, step number one, acknowledge that this is a thing and just try to do something about it.

Another challenge is that some people are less whisperable than others, right? Some bosses are not so even into having these long conversations, like, you know, just do what I said, right? And obviously that takes confidence to push back and really engage your stakeholders, which also of course takes trust like we talked about. And I would say one of the third things is that, you know, it's challenging for

John Jantsch (11:33.614)

you

Bill Shander (11:53.004)

ourselves, just sort of acknowledge to ourselves that, you know, essentially we're all walking around being driven by our subconscious. We're like literally all of our lives is driven by our subconscious. Tons of research shows us that we're not very good at reasoning. We're not really very good at deliberative thinking. We're just being driven by our subconscious. And so if we can just think about ways to tap into the subconscious, yes, even in work, it's like therapy, then we're all going to do a better job doing what we need to do for.

ourselves and our organizations. And it is for ourselves also, like you're going to be promoted if you're the one who actually challenges the status quo, brings strategic thinking to the table and delivers against that. know duct tape marketing, the basic idea, right, is be strategic, don't just execute on tasks, right? And so it's a very similar way of thinking.

John Jantsch (12:40.782)

So I'm curious, have you ever considered children to be stakeholders that we have to whisper to? As I heard you say that, just do what I said. was like, that's probably not the most current way of thinking about parenting, it?

Bill Shander (12:46.382)

They certainly could be. Yeah. I mean, and that's

Bill Shander (12:58.264)

Yeah. And actually brings up the fourth really important thing to be thinking about and a risk, you know, a problem with this is that we don't recognize, acknowledge, define, and prioritize all of the stakeholders. Right? So my boss tells me to do something, I do it. I am thinking my one stakeholder is my boss. No.

Your boss asked you to do that because his boss asked him and his boss, her boss. And so it's four chains deep. And by the way, the board of directors is going to show this to their investors. Like the stakeholder list is actually this long. And now you can't worry about all of them, but which ones are the two or the three whose opinions and actual goals really matter the most. Really zoom in on those ones and really make sure you understand their actual needs.

Like if it's ultimately about the investors, even though your boss has you do it, they're the real stakeholder. So make sure you understand what they really need and make sure your boss understands that they're his stakeholder. And so that they're involved in that stakeholder whispering with them.

John Jantsch (14:01.176)

So that brings up an interesting quant. How do you balance the fact that the objective might be to create a better experience for the customer? However, what my boss is doing, my objective has to be to keep my job. And so now I'm kind of torn between that. This isn't really the right approach for that stakeholder. But if I want to meet this objective, how do you balance that?

Bill Shander (14:26.49)

Yeah, it's the million dollar question. It's hard one, right? So like some bosses, some people are not going to be very whisperable. And yeah, you could jeopardize your job with that person theoretically. I would say long term, most of the time, if you serve the customer, you're not going to jeopardize your job.

John Jantsch (14:31.598)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (14:47.884)

and everything's going to be for the better. Like you're going to be the one who gets promoted. You're going to take your boss's job, right? Essentially, because you're going to really solve problems. Should. Occasionally it won't. And you either are willing to face that risk for the potential reward and or if your boss isn't whisperable, guess what? I say, find a new boss, right? Because that's really honestly the answer. You don't want to work in a culture like that.

John Jantsch (14:52.782)

should work that way, right. Yeah.

John Jantsch (15:07.362)

me. Right.

John Jantsch (15:13.09)

Like so many, I would put this book into a leadership category. Hopefully that jives a little bit with what you're thinking. And it seems like most leadership ideas really start with the culture of the organization.

Bill Shander (15:22.51)

Yeah, definitely.

Bill Shander (15:29.166)

They definitely do. Yeah. And I have a chapter at the end, which is called some love for my stakeholders or some love for the stakeholders. And I talk about the fact is first of all, I do, I love my stakeholders and it's not just like blowing smoke. I've really enjoyed the work that I've done for the last 30 plus years. I've enjoyed working with the vast majority of my clients and I really, am curious and I do care and I want to help them. And so.

When I think, when I talk to them in the book, I say, first of all, thank you for teaching me for all these years how to do what I do. But then I also do turn the page a little bit on them and say, okay, now you may be reading this because you're a middle manager. Guess what? You're somebody else's boss, aren't you? Also, you are somebody's stakeholder today, even though you're thinking of as the order taker. So how whisperable are you? And so companies need to develop the culture where they create.

know, cultures of whisperability. And I have some clients who have amazing cultures where they, listen to me, they listen to their employees. It's not about hierarchy or anything else. And I've worked for, you know, as a vendor for some companies that were really not whisperable at all. And I didn't work for them for, for very long for a variety of reasons, but it's really hard to be in that type of environment.

John Jantsch (16:45.262)

You have a chapter about, I mean, so many people are working either hybrid or remote or does that change kind of the framework at all or the structure or does it just add kind of another layer of complexity?

Bill Shander (17:01.978)

think it adds another layer complexity for sure because communications is harder, right? Like right now, I'm not looking at you, I'm looking at my camera, but the viewer is looking at my eyes. So at least there's some eye contact it feels like happening. And so, you know, when it's all on Zoom, it's harder to have that real, really productive conversation, certainly better, you know, the body language and all kinds of other things disappear. So there's definitely that added complexity.

But the process is still the same. You've got to have conversations. You've got to ask good questions. And something we didn't talk about, but there's a key part to the question asking, which is when I ask my stakeholders questions, I'm not doing it to learn the answers. It's actually the other way around. It's more of a Socratic dialogue. I'm asking them questions so that they can learn the answers. I want them to figure out what they actually need from me. I'm not trying to guide them. I'm not trying to tell them. I want them to figure it out. It's like therapy.

John Jantsch (17:44.483)

Yes.

Bill Shander (17:58.848)

Once they figure it out, then I'll do that. And so the question asking is a very, it's a two-way street for sure, but the goal is really to help them learn as much as to help me learn.

John Jantsch (18:11.406)

Yeah, you you call it therapy, but it really strikes me. It's a lot like coaching in some ways. mean, you're almost coaching people to think about things that maybe haven't even considered. know, one of my favorite phrases or least favorite phrases is, that's the way we've always done it. Or that's the way everybody in our industry does it. And, you know, just to even say, anybody ask why? So we've always done it that way. It's amazing how often people will go, you know, I don't know.

Bill Shander (18:16.591)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (18:28.515)

Right.

Yeah.

Bill Shander (18:36.697)

you

Bill Shander (18:41.55)

Yeah, it's true.

John Jantsch (18:41.586)

the answer to that. So do you have any in the book or anything you want to anybody you've worked with clients that you've worked with kind of a real story or example where you know stakeholder whispering has really led to a far better outcome.

Bill Shander (18:58.99)

Yeah, I I tell one story in the book and it's funny on the surface. It's a really boring story. It's not the most dynamic anecdote in the history of the world at all, but it's one of the most, the moment when this happened was like really eyeopening for me. so was working on project. was doing this data dashboard essentially for this client and we're having this conversation about whether we should show the rank position.

of countries on this one metric being measured. So this country is number one, two, three, four, five, or should we show the actual score they got on this measurement? So let's imagine it's about web analytics. Should we show the number of clicks they got or just the ranking in terms of clicks? And their argument was the way this type of data usually works, the way it's always been done, is we always just show the rank because people care if their country ahead or behind their favorite country that they want to compete against. But the scores...

John Jantsch (19:37.526)

Thank

Bill Shander (19:55.364)

were universally really, really high. Very few countries had a low score. So you might've been ranked 150th. That looks terrible, that sounds awful. But guess what? You had a super high score, just like everybody else. Only a few countries were actually bad. And so was trying to make the case that maybe we should show the actual score because the fact that this country was ranked low didn't mean they had an actual problem. And so the data...

John Jantsch (20:17.184)

Yeah, they could close 50 places pretty easily.

Bill Shander (20:20.886)

Exactly. They could close it easily and it didn't matter where they were anyways, as long as they were above X score. And so, you know, I'm asking all these questions. We're having this really long debate and she almost convinced me five times. I almost convinced her five times. But the point was, you know, it was a very open ended conversation, mostly each of us asking each other questions. and in the end, you know, there was this one moment where she said just literally, she said the word something to the effect of, I never saw it that way before.

John Jantsch (20:24.59)

Yeah.

Bill Shander (20:50.446)

You're right. And it wasn't gratifying because I was right, although that's nice, you know, but it was really because there was this moment of just incredible open-mindedness to your point. Like, why have we always done it that way? Who the hell knows? Like, well, why should we do it that way? Maybe we should consider, maybe we won't change it, but maybe we should at least look at doing it this other way. And even that I consider a win.

John Jantsch (20:50.819)

Thanks.

John Jantsch (21:15.222)

Yeah, awesome. Well, Bill, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the show. You want to invite people to connect with you somewhere, find out more about your work, obviously find out more about stakeholder risk.

Bill Shander (21:26.136)

Yeah, you can always find me on my website, BillShander.com. And I'm always happy to connect with people on LinkedIn as well.

John Jantsch (21:32.3)

Well again, I appreciate you stopping by. Hopefully we'll see you one of these days out there on the road.

Bill Shander (21:36.794)

Thank you very much, John. Nice talking to you.

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SEO’s Next Era: Manick Bhan on AI, Content Strategy, and Building a Brand That Lasts

SEO’s Next Era: Manick Bhan on AI, Content Strategy, and Building a Brand That Lasts written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Manick Ban, founder and CTO of Search Atlas—a next-generation SEO and content marketing platform. Manick shares his journey from building RankPay to scaling Search Atlas, and explains why the future of SEO depends on actionable insights, platform integration, and building a brand people trust. The conversation covers the evolution of search, the impact of AI, why high-intent content matters more than ever, and how marketers can thrive in a landscape that’s constantly being disrupted.

About the Guest

Manick Bhan is the founder and CTO of Search Atlas, an advanced SEO and content marketing platform used by over 20,000 websites and 5,000 agencies. A serial entrepreneur and engineer, Manick previously founded RankPay and is widely respected as a thought leader in the SEO industry. He’s known for his innovative approach to search, actionable advice for marketers, and commitment to helping brands drive measurable growth.

• • Website: searchatlas.com

• YouTube: Search Atlas Channel

Actionable Insights

• The future of SEO is about driving real change—not just reporting on data. Tools need to accelerate action, not just provide analytics.
• AI is transforming search: Conversion rates from AI-powered search (like ChatGPT) are significantly higher than traditional search.
• Marketers must focus on high-intent, core topic content that matches their business’s primary value—not just generic informational posts.
• Over-diversifying topics can dilute your site’s authority and harm rankings. Clear focus and topical relevance are critical.
• “Quantity” content strategies are quickly becoming obsolete; quality, brand authority, and community matter most in the new search landscape.
• Rented platforms (Google, LinkedIn, YouTube) will always be a reality for marketers—so invest in building a brand people seek out directly.
• In an era of information overload and AI-generated content, real-world community and peer recommendations are becoming more valuable.
• Entrepreneurs should embrace failure early and often—consistent effort and learning lead to long-term success.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

• 01:03 – Why Search Atlas? Building Tools for Action, Not Just Analytics
  Manick explains why he built Search Atlas to help marketers move beyond reporting and actually drive site changes.
• 03:03 – The Truth About “SEO is Dead” Headlines
  Why search is evolving—not disappearing—and how user intent and platforms are shifting.
• 05:05 – AI’s Impact: Higher Conversion from ChatGPT
  Manick shares real data on why AI-powered search users convert better and are more ready to buy.
• 09:12 – Winning High-Intent Searches
  The power of laser-focused content strategy and why matching your core keyword matters above all else.
• 13:41 – The End of Web Pages? Content’s Coming Transformation
  Why Manick predicts web pages as we know them could disappear, replaced by knowledge graphs and platform-generated answers.
• 15:30 – The Only Moat: Build a Brand They Remember
  How to create recall, loyalty, and direct traffic in a world of rented digital real estate.
• 18:05 – The Comeback of Community
  Why in-person connection and peer recommendations are more valuable than ever in an AI-driven world.
• 19:09 – Entrepreneurship Lessons: Fail Faster, Learn More
  Manick’s advice for founders and marketers: don’t be afraid of failure, keep taking swings, and success will follow.

Pulled Quotes

“If you’re not driving action on your site, you’re just watching through the looking glass. Tools have to help you move.”
— Manick Bhan

“In a world of abundant content, your only moat is brand—people need to know you, remember you, and come back.”
— Manick Bhan

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.144)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jantsch. My guest today is Manick Bhan. He is the founder, CTO of Search Atlas, a cutting edge SEO and content marketing platform designed to help marketers, agencies and businesses drive measurable growth. With a background in engineering and entrepreneurship, Manick previously founded RankPay and has become a respected thought leader in the SEO community. So Manick, welcome to the show.

Manick @ Search Atlas (00:30.847)

Thank you, John. Great to be here.

John Jantsch (00:32.686)

So let's talk a little bit about creating a search Atlas. How old is search Atlas now? Five years ish? Is that?

Manick @ Search Atlas (00:39.551)

I think the first line of code I wrote about seven years ago. Yeah.

John Jantsch (00:44.066)

Seven years ago, okay. So a lot's changed in that approach or in SEO necessarily. how did you approach or maybe even a better question, why did you think a tool needed to be built for SEO purposes? What was kind of your founding thinking of this?

Manick @ Search Atlas (01:03.187)

Yeah. Good question. with my first, my first tech company, we were in the live entertainment ticketing space. And if you don't rank on Google, you don't exist in that industry. You know, it's like the largest ticketing company is actually Google. It's not ticket master or stop hub. It's Google because you go to Google to then find those tickets. So if you're not on Google there, your business doesn't exist. So figuring out what the equation was, was something that I started trying to crack the code on, over a decade ago. And.

John Jantsch (01:13.428)

Yeah, right. Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (01:33.437)

What I learned very quickly in the process of trying to scale and grow that business is that other tools out there, conventional, what I call traditional or trad SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush, these are analytics tools. They give us reports, they give us like data, but if we don't move on that data, nothing moves, right? We're just watching through the looking glass. And so I felt what we needed really as an industry was tools that would actually help us accelerate

John Jantsch (01:43.789)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (01:52.034)

Yeah, yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (02:02.259)

change, like the changes to our sites, the changes to the internet that help us rank better. And that's where Search Atlas came from.

John Jantsch (02:09.592)

So people aren't familiar with search as necessarily, you know, it basically lives on a platform, but it connects with your website. And so it actually is able to make changes on your website from that platform. That sort of took some wizardry, didn't it?

Manick @ Search Atlas (02:25.087)

It did. It started as something on back of the envelope, trying to figure out how we would do this and make it fast in real time. But we're happy that it worked. Initially, we weren't even sure if Google would be able to see the changes that we were making. So there was a lot of risk in the early days, but I believed that we would figure it out. And we did. And now I can be, I think I'm happy to say, so over 20,000 sites powered by the tech, by the software.

John Jantsch (02:26.094)

You

Manick @ Search Atlas (02:54.269)

over 5,000 agencies on the platform. And it's a case study machine. Like it just produces case studies constantly. And that's been great.

John Jantsch (03:03.918)

Yeah. So you've probably seen these headlines of late. You know, it's become very trendy to start a blog post or something with SEO is dead. let's talk a little bit. So how do you see the landscape changing right now? I mean, there's no question it is evolving and changing, but certainly not dead. How do you see it? How do you see it today?

Manick @ Search Atlas (03:15.229)

Yeah, I wonder why that is.

Manick @ Search Atlas (03:29.363)

Yeah, I think the problem is that some people's brains are dead and they see those headlines and that's what they click on. But the truth is, search is like a basic human function. We have information demands and needs that we need to get met. And there will always be a search engine to meet us in that. The form of what that takes and how it operates and whether the modality is through text or through audio or other formats, that's going to evolve and become more interesting.

But at a fundamental basis, we're essentially providing a fragment of information, looking for knowledge. And that discovery process is just evolved. The landscape is now more fragmented than it used to be. The total size of search is actually bigger. And it's still Google's game, but the types and ways that we're searching are changing. And the kinds of people that search on different search platforms is also

John Jantsch (04:15.587)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (04:27.743)

becoming pretty interesting. What we're seeing in our data.

John Jantsch (04:29.826)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's almost like there's almost like search personality, right? Almost.

Manick @ Search Atlas (04:36.743)

Yeah, I mean, on the end, on the other end of the computer, there's an avatar, there's an ICP. And the ICP of the chat GPT user is someone who's willing to pay at least 20 bucks a month. Remember that, like we're paying for the subscription. Anyone can search on Google without even a dollar. It's a free platform. And so immediately there's a higher commercial possibility from the user of chat. That's why I guess when we look at our data, we're seeing

John Jantsch (04:38.062)

Yeah, yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (05:05.278)

5.5 times higher conversion rate from people that go to our site from chat GPT than from Google, which was insane. And then even for some of our product pages, we see, you know, 1.5 to 4X higher conversion rate. So it's undeniable that the conversion likelihood is way higher from chat than it is from Google. And that's what we're seeing.

John Jantsch (05:27.384)

Yeah, and I think it makes a ton of sense because at least today, the snapshot in the moment, I think that the consumer's belief is, chat, GPT or AI or something has gone out there and done all the research for me. And so these three results that it gave me, you that's all I need to look at. And I think that's really why you're seeing that. Don't you think that's why that intent and that conversion is so high?

Manick @ Search Atlas (05:49.843)

Yeah, for sure. And the other thing that happens faster on LLMs is that you're able to do your research in a more comprehensive way. So there's other prompts they're asking. They're asking refinements and they're digging in deeper. They're going and they're asking more questions. And then when they get to the final end of their journey, usually they're in a pretty close position, I think, to make the transaction happen and they're ready.

John Jantsch (06:16.022)

Yeah. Yeah. was a lot of those questions they used to ask a salesperson have now been answered. Yeah. Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (06:21.693)

Yeah, exactly. Way less objections and they're way more familiar with what they're buying. And from an information processing perspective, John, like that's the other amazing thing about it is it's way easier for us to interact with ChatGPT because we know the structure. It's text and it's structured in a way and it's easy to synthesize that.

John Jantsch (06:37.858)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (06:44.238)

Yeah, yeah, it's a conversation. Feels like a conversation, right? So, how, where do you, what do you see the biggest opportunities and maybe the biggest risks today for marketers with AI becoming, you know, so integrated into search strategies?

Manick @ Search Atlas (07:00.447)

Yeah, that's an interesting one. I think one of the biggest risks is

Manick @ Search Atlas (07:09.297)

One of the biggest risks is how the platforms themselves are changing. And if you're like, as an example, if you're a pure play organic search marketer that was good at creating content and you were creating a lot of informational content, that strategy is becoming more and more obsolete because the truth is Google and all the LMS, they already know what color an Apple is and they know that the sky's blue. Like we don't have to like create content to show that to them.

John Jantsch (07:29.027)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (07:38.143)

We have to create something new and different. And so some people that haven't evolved their marketing approach in organic SEO, that methodology is already obsolete and they need to retrain. So I think that's a risk is obsolescence. If you're watching podcasts like this and reading up and actually applying the knowledge, well, you're using an obsolete blueprint that's living in, hopefully not Windows 95, but an out-of-date era.

John Jantsch (07:44.408)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (08:07.064)

Yeah, yeah,

Manick @ Search Atlas (08:07.439)

So that's a risk. Yeah. And the platforms themselves are changing a lot. like what used to work two years ago on Facebook, for example, like I remember buying mobile app installs from, for my first tech company for less than a dollar by scraping the Facebook user IDs and running custom audiences. They closed that loophole. So just how the platforms work, their opportunities, that also changes. And it's changing faster with AI now than it was before.

John Jantsch (08:36.142)

So you described a lot of that how-to content. The theory was very top of the funnel, get people to my website, that kind of thing. The common advice that I'm hearing a lot and a lot of folks are giving right now is that our content strategy needs to be more around winning high intent searches, which I think people would say we've always wanted to do, right? But that person that's out there searching for best person to do X is a

is a better searcher, but how do we optimize our content for that type of probably more competitive search?

Manick @ Search Atlas (09:12.595)

Yeah. So it's, so it starts with really understanding your, like the central topic or the primary keyword of your business and being really laser clear about that. So for example, for search Atlas, some people would say it's SEO. No, it's actually not SEO. It's if it's SEO, then it's SEO automation and not just SEO automation, SEO automation software. Right. Or maybe it's marketing automation software.

John Jantsch (09:19.128)

Yep.

John Jantsch (09:34.551)

Mm-hmm.

Manick @ Search Atlas (09:41.279)

problem becomes first off when people begin the process from the wrong starting point and they don't really understand what is what's called like their primary keyword or their central searching town. So that's the first thing. what I, we do, because we also have an agency and we take on a lot of projects from people that have worked with other agencies that did the content process wrong. And they didn't understand what it was that this business was actually selling and they created as an example.

John Jantsch (10:04.781)

Nice.

Manick @ Search Atlas (10:10.463)

for a cardiologist in LA, an article about did Donald Trump have a heart attack? Well, I get the concept of a heart attack and Donald, that's somehow related to cardiology, but that has nothing to do with cardiology in Los Angeles or the service or the practice of it. And so when people take that path and they don't do the right content strategy, they confuse Google about what the site is actually about. And that is the part that is devastating when they...

John Jantsch (10:24.451)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (10:35.629)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (10:39.281)

increase the site's focus score, which is a metric Google is quantifying, when they reduce its focus score, when they increase its radius, when the site gets topical radius goes large, it becomes unable to rank for a core topic. And that's like the mathematics of how they do the demotion. That I think is the biggest problem with content strategies today.

John Jantsch (11:02.39)

Yeah. You see a lot of people that write these things that get a whole lot of eyeballs. And then when you really start drilling into it, it's like, well, these aren't, these aren't people that would ever buy from us, you know? And, so it's almost like you're hurting yourself, you know? Yeah. Great. We've got lots of traffic, but you're actually hurting yourself. So, so how should, how should marketers that's broad and beyond SEO be, thinking about AI today and certainly as it plays into, to your tool search analysts as well.

Manick @ Search Atlas (11:11.732)

Right.

Manick @ Search Atlas (11:33.097)

Well, probably the common thing anyone's going to say right now is like, learn more AI, like get more into the tools, practice it. And so I don't want to just say that. I like to come up with kind of my own little unique flavor angle on it. And what I would say is, create gatherings of people either on your team or people that you respect in the community and do your own hackathons. There's way more power.

John Jantsch (11:39.778)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (11:59.95)

Mmm.

Manick @ Search Atlas (12:01.971)

When a group of people collectively approach a problem together in like in the real world, by the way, not, I'm not talking about zoom. I'm talking about in the real world. we do hackathons with my team and I, I fly out all over the world to meet different clusters of our team. And we lead hackathons for like four days, five days. We all stay in the same place and we build and we build in at the end. We come out, but we come up with a couple of different things we've created together and the process though, we all.

become masters of some type of use case around AI in that process. And sometimes we'll even bring in people that I know that are experts in a particular discipline. And so if you don't know those sorts of people, go find them and make friends with them and learn as much as you can, not just from what's online and on YouTube, but from real experts that you can become friends with.

John Jantsch (12:49.975)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (13:01.87)

So there's a lot of common, know, the whole idea of quality versus quantity. And I see a lot of people looking at AI and saying, I can produce 10 times as much content, you know, in the same amount of time. And I think the flip side of that is I also think you can look at these tools and say, no, I can produce way better content in maybe the amount of time because I can go so much deeper. can have access to stats. I can have access to

know, reports to people have written and be able to pull quotes from other people. Is there a quantity versus quality kind of best practice or advice that you give people?

Manick @ Search Atlas (13:41.753)

So I'll give a controversial take. I think that web pages as we know them will be dead in less than 10 years. And the reason for this is that right now, and historically, Google have needed us to build web pages and really even Facebook to build web pages to lead people on an informational journey that maybe also includes a conversion journey.

towards some sort of transaction or registration or some path like that. And they needed us to box up the information because they didn't have it. When we live in an era where creating content, you can create high quality content and lots of it, where content, the value of it, whether it's a webpage or a blog post is essentially zero and high quality content is abundant. That's the future we're racing towards. And so in a world like that,

essentially all the information that's knowable gets compressed into a knowledge graph. And that knowledge graph is essentially containing all of the factuality, all the information consensus of all of the voices on the internet and the world. And then at that point, Google can just make their own web pages. They don't need us to build it for them. They just know what our query is. They have their lens and perspective on an answer or multiple answers. And so they will reconstruct

John Jantsch (14:55.138)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:04.627)

the webpage experience synthetically optimized for our exact question and the exact answer we're looking for.

John Jantsch (15:10.06)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dynamically created for that one person as well. Right. Which, which obviously we, you know, very hard for us to do as a website owner. Yeah. I guess the begs the question then like, what do we do to, compete with that?

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:15.859)

Yeah, on the fly.

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:30.633)

Well, good question. Number one, build the biggest brand you can fast. Build that brand, get people to know that brand and love it. Build something that they want to come back to. Use your resources to create a true brand. Ultimately, all these search systems are essentially trying to identify the brands. Larry Page said famously that the internet is a cesspool and the brands are the signal and the cesspool. That's literally what he said.

John Jantsch (15:33.294)

you

Manick @ Search Atlas (15:59.933)

And so what does a brand look like? Well, brand looks like people coming to your website, to your assets consistently to first a single purpose and for them to have like a high recall amongst your competitors. Get to that point. Even through traditional methodology, just get there because ultimately that's the signal you can't fake.

John Jantsch (16:25.612)

One of the things that I'm seeing a lot go on, you I've been doing this for a very, very long time. You know, the first kind of round of digital was like, once these other platforms started popping up, it was like, you know, go there, top of the funnel, get some exposure, but drive everybody back to your own property, your website, your email list, right? I'm seeing a lot more people that are investing in YouTube channels and in LinkedIn newsletters that are

of rented space, but that the entire conversion journey is actually happening in some of those rented places without necessarily sending people back to your home. So how do you feel about that kind of rented versus owned change that seems to be going on?

Manick @ Search Atlas (17:08.819)

I think we've always, yeah, I think we've always lived in a rent world. It's always been rented and we just maybe didn't want to believe it. because even ranking on Google, that's also rented, right? We're renting it. We could lose it if we, if we make a mistake. the exception to this would be Amazon, but even Amazon has parts of its business that are rented. and so I think it's becoming comfortable with the fact that across all areas that, that we have visibility.

John Jantsch (17:18.99)

Yeah, sure.

Manick @ Search Atlas (17:36.627)

we will always be competing with our competitors there. So that means at the core of what we're doing, we can't just use crony marketing techniques to box out, you know, the bad guys and just keeping the good guys. Good guys have to become better. You guys have to like keep evolving the state of the art in our craft so that we stay competitive. And like, I mean, that sounds like the most obvious thing, right? Like we just can't, you know, but I think that's what it is. And if you build something,

John Jantsch (17:59.436)

Yeah. There's no silver bullet in that, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (18:05.767)

No, there's not. And it's different depending on what industry you're in. ultimately, guess, you know, and I always hated like the Kevin Costner, if you build it, they will come like mentality that Google have. Like I've always hated it. But ultimately it is like in this perspective, it's true that if you build something of value and people will come back to it and you know, only other thing I want to add to that is also, I think because of this, we're going to see people move back toward community.

John Jantsch (18:15.512)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (18:34.585)

real face-to-face spaces that are free of digital advertising and just people that now feel like they're being misled by what they see online. feel like everything's been gamed and can be gamed. There's an increasing amount of people that are looking for recommendation from another person, not from the internet.

John Jantsch (18:34.69)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:57.048)

So last question, I always love to end on kind of a personal question. Looking back at kind of your entrepreneurial journey, any lesson that you wish you'd learned a little earlier as a founder?

Manick @ Search Atlas (19:09.663)

Don't be afraid to fail and fail harder. I had my days of couch surfing and crashing in New York City in the early part of my startup journey when I had no money and I zero twice. And I think we need to celebrate that more and be comfortable and support people who are there. And I'll say every single person I know that was in startups or building on their entrepreneurial journey a decade ago,

John Jantsch (19:11.31)

Yeah.

Manick @ Search Atlas (19:38.289)

every single one of them has landed someplace amazing. Like not just financially, but also just happy with like where they are in the world. And I feel like, you know, anyone who's listening to this and is in that early part of their journey, absolutely like commit to it, keep going and like, don't give up. you'll get there, like it will happen.

John Jantsch (19:41.196)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (20:02.69)

Got to keep taking swings, right? So Manik, is there some place, I appreciate you dropping by today. Is there some place you'd invite people to connect with you, learn more about Search Atlas, everything you're up to?

Manick @ Search Atlas (20:04.969)

Definitely.

Manick @ Search Atlas (20:14.451)

Yeah, easy person to find online. You can find me on Instagram at Monique Bonn, at Monique Bonn. I've also got a YouTube channel. If you look up search Atlas on YouTube, we do like weekly webinars and Google challenges and train people how to get better rankings on Google using Holistic SEO.

John Jantsch (20:34.06)

Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Manick @ Search Atlas (20:39.527)

Awesome. Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

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The Website Is No Longer the Marketing Hub: How AI Is Reshaping Customer Journeys

The Website Is No Longer the Marketing Hub: How AI Is Reshaping Customer Journeys written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing has shifted. Your website is no longer the central hub of your customer’s journey. AI-powered assistants, chatbots, and large language models are now curating content and guiding buyer behavior in ways your site never touches. If you’re not structuring content for AI visibility or building assets that live beyond your domain, you’re falling behind. This post breaks down what this shift means and what practical actions marketers should take right now.

---

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction: The Shift from Web-Centric to AI-Centric Marketing
• 2. Why AI Is the New Gatekeeper
• 3. How Prompt-Ready Content Replaces Traditional SEO
• 4. Building AI-Native Marketing Assets
• 5. Rethinking Marketing as an Ecosystem
• 6. Actionable Questions for Future-Proofing Your Strategy
• 7. Conclusion: Marketing That Moves With the Customer

1. Introduction: The Shift from Web-Centric to AI-Centric Marketing

For decades, websites were the command center of marketing. You drove traffic to them, optimized for conversions, and measured success based on visits, bounce rates, and leads captured on-site.

But that model is breaking. Today’s customers are interacting with AI interfaces—Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, voice assistants, and vertical AI tools—before they ever see your website. These systems are shaping perceptions, curating recommendations, and often resolving intent before a click occurs.

Callout: If your strategy still treats your website as the main entry point, you’re missing where the real journey begins.

2. Why AI Is the New Gatekeeper

Google isn’t your homepage anymore. Neither is your website. AI models now mediate access to information. This means content gets repackaged, summarized, and referenced outside your domain.

What This Means:

• AI tools curate your content whether or not users visit your site
• Keyword strategies aren’t enough without structured, scannable content

What You Should Do:

• Use headers, bullets, and short sections for readability
• Implement schema markup and semantic HTML
• Feed your content to GPTs, Perplexity, and Bing

3. How Prompt-Ready Content Replaces Traditional SEO

Search engines used to reward keywords. AI rewards clarity and completeness. It extracts direct answers from content that is structured like a conversation.

What You Should Do:

• Write content in a clear Q&A format
• Use summary blocks and concise explanations
• Test with ChatGPT or Claude to see how your content is interpreted

Callout: If AI can’t easily summarize your message, your audience won’t see it.

4. Building AI-Native Marketing Assets

Your static PDFs and polished landing pages aren’t dead—but they’re no longer enough. AI-native tools are interactive and value-delivering in real time.

Ideas to Explore:

• Create AI-guided chat flows using tools like ManyChat or Intercom
• Build a branded GPT that reflects your voice and systems
• Package useful prompts for your audience to use in their own AI queries

5. Rethinking Marketing as an Ecosystem

Your brand must exist across feeds, formats, and AI interfaces—not just your website. Visibility now means playing in multiple ecosystems.

How to Operate:

• Repurpose content across LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, email, and GPT inputs
• Use modular content: quotes, cards, stats, highlights
• Create embedded tools—calculators, diagnostics, or interactive guides

Callout: Don’t optimize just for clicks—optimize for where your audience already lives.

6. Actionable Questions for Future-Proofing Your Strategy

Before you publish content, ask yourself:

• Can this be summarized by AI in under 60 words?
• Would an AI recommend this in a relevant answer?
• Does it exist in multiple ecosystems?
• Is it structured to be referenceable by AI, not just linkable?

7. Conclusion: Marketing That Moves With the Customer

Marketing is no longer web-first. It’s AI-first. This is not the death of the website—but it is the decentralization of your marketing strategy. Your content needs to live and perform across multiple digital touchpoints, including those controlled by AI systems.

The Duct Tape Marketing approach remains the same: simplify, systemize, and stay customer-centric. But now, you must expand your playbook to meet your audience where they’re engaging—on AI platforms, in chat tools, and through curated content experiences.

Need help rethinking how your content performs in this new AI-powered landscape? Let’s talk.

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Outgrow Your Competition: The Proactive Sales System with Alex Goldfayn

Outgrow Your Competition: The Proactive Sales System with Alex Goldfayn written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Episode Overview

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Alex Goldfayn, bestselling author and CEO of the Revenue Growth Consultancy. They dive into his new book, Outgrow: How to Expand Market Share and Outsell Your Competition, discussing why proactive outreach is the key to consistent sales growth—especially in a challenging economy. Learn how simple habits, the right mindset, and strategic action can help you stand out, take market share, and build a sustainable sales culture.

About the Guest

Alex Goldfayn is a three-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author and a globally recognized sales consultant. He runs the Revenue Growth Consultancy, helping B2B organizations increase annual sales by 15–30% through proven, proactive systems.

• Website: runoutgrow.com
• LinkedIn: Alex Goldfayn

Key Takeaways

• 95% of salespeople are reactive—proactive outreach is the differentiator.
• The main blocker isn’t laziness, but fear of rejection.
• The COPE mindset (Confidence, Optimism, Positivity, Enthusiasm) is foundational.
• Track sales actions, not just results—“swing the bat.”
• “Did You Know?” questions convert at 20% and drive line-item growth.
• Everyone who faces customers contributes to sales.
• Storytelling and recognition drive cultural change more than incentives.
• Systems and repetition make growth habits stick.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

• 00:52 – The 95% reactive trap and how to break free
• 03:40 – Proactivity in tough economic climates
• 05:02 – Salespeople’s fear of rejection explained
• 08:04 – The power of the COPE mindset
• 12:20 – Tracking “swings” over “hits” in sales
• 14:23 – Using “Did You Know?” questions to add revenue
• 17:28 – Non-sales teams as a proactive sales force
• 19:25 – From sales training to sales action
• 22:28 – Recognition and storytelling as culture drivers

Pulled Quotes

“You cannot react your way to market share growth. The only way to grow is to take it—and that requires proactivity.” – Alex Goldfayn

“People just want to be helped. Not once has a customer ever said, ‘I’d rather you not make my life easier today.’” – Alex Goldfayn

“Behavior follows thinking. We can’t outsell our mindset.” – Alex Goldfayn

Learn more about Alex’s work at runoutgrow.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast for more expert insights on business growth and marketing strategy.

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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John Jantsch (00:01.006)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Chance. My guest today is Alex Goldfein. He's a three-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author, one of the most sought after sales speakers in the world. He's the CEO of the Revenue Growth Consultancy, one of the top grossing solo consulting firms in America, generating 7.5 million annually. His clients, primarily B2B organizations, implement simple, proactive actions that drive 15 to 30 % sales growth.

every year and we're gonna talk about his latest book out grow how to expand market share and outsell your competition. So welcome to show Alex.

Alex Goldfayn (00:39.721)

Hi John, thank you sir. Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch (00:42.06)

I want to unpack one of the core themes of the book. You talk about transforming reactive companies into proactive ones. Tell me little bit about that thinking.

Alex Goldfayn (00:52.91)

Well, I think, you know, over 415 clients over about 22 years that I've done these outgrow revenue growth initiatives with, what I've realized is about 95 % of all companies and also 95 % of all salespeople are generally reactive, meaning we take what's in coming. and when you take what's in coming and most companies that have been around.

some history are very good at this, like world class, right? When I arrive at an organization, usually they are world class at this reactive work, which is basically customer service work. Well, the only way to really grow in terms of volume growth, not inflationary growth, not acquisitive growth, but organic volume sales growth, the only way to do that is we have to take market share.

We have to, uh, take business from another company that already has the business. And the only way to compete for and take market share is to be pro active. You cannot react your way to market share growth. You can't do it. You're just, when you're reactive, you're just, you know, a rising tide lifts all ships, sinking tide sinks all ships. Uh, and you're just moving with the current. You go where the economy takes you.

And that is 95 % of all companies and 95 % of all salespeople. And that's actually good news because it means that it's really easy to stand out in that crowd. It's really easy to do better. And as a result, it's really, really easy, John, to grow.

John Jantsch (02:45.806)

Yeah, and you know, in this particular moment in time, starting the third quarter of 2025, as we record this, I'm seeing a lot of companies that it's even worse because they're not even even if they're unhappy right now, they're like not reaching out because there's a lot of uncertainty. And it's like, I'm just gonna stay put. So I mean, I would suggest that your proactive is probably even more necessary because there's probably less incoming right now.

Alex Goldfayn (03:11.62)

Not only is it more necessary, it works better now because of exactly what you said, because literally nobody's reaching out now. So outgrow proactivity works really, really well in good economies because people have money to spend and we can go to them and say, hey, what are you spending your money on? May I help you with that? I'd love an opportunity to help. But in a bad economy, John, because of exactly what you said, people sit around and your competition is like, I'm not gonna call them.

John Jantsch (03:15.202)

Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (03:40.506)

now, especially now, I'm not going to pitch them, you know, for more products or more services now in this economy. I'm telling you, when you call a customer and say, I was thinking about you, how's your family? What are you working on that I can help you with? Or perhaps what are you doing with my competition that I can help you with? And this is somebody, you know, does somebody have a nice relationship with? when you call somebody like that, John, you're the only one in that person's life.

John Jantsch (03:59.16)

Thank

John Jantsch (04:03.0)

Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (04:09.943)

doing that. Nobody else is doing it, especially now. So talk about standing out from the crowd and how easy it is. Just show up because nobody is.

John Jantsch (04:20.974)

I think I know the answer to this, but tell me a little bit about the term outgrow. What are you trying to project with that?

Alex Goldfayn (04:29.292)

Yeah, well, we want to outgrow the market. We want to outgrow the competition. We want to outgrow the average. We want to outgrow the company's own history year to year, you know, in terms of growth. And again, the way to do that is through taking market share. And the way to take market share is to be proactive.

John Jantsch (04:50.484)

So looking a little bit back to one of your very first things as saying that, 90 % of the folks just wait around. I mean, is that another way of saying that 90 % of salespeople are lazy?

Alex Goldfayn (05:02.198)

No, it's another way of saying that 90 or 95 % of salespeople have tremendous discomfort and fear with communicating with customers and prospects when nothing is wrong, which is my definition of proactivity. If somebody says, what do you mean by proactive? I mean, when nothing is wrong, when the price isn't going up, which is when salespeople call, when you need the payment, which is when customers hear from salespeople.

John Jantsch (05:20.225)

Yes.

Alex Goldfayn (05:31.258)

When you can't get them the order on time, which is when customers hear from salespeople, right? People only hear from people when something rises to the level of urgency to make the call. And so this communication, this proactive communication is when nothing is wrong. So that's my definition of productivity. And it's not laziness. It's intense and severe discomfort with bothering the customer, annoying the customer, taking their time and probably hovering above all of that, even higher.

is discomfort and fear of rejection. Fear of rejection. If I call them about this other offering, they might tell me no into my ear hole. And that's an intense personal rejection, right? And that's what we're trying to avoid. We humans, and you and I are too, we will do anything possible to avoid that kind of rejection.

including going out and asking for the business.

John Jantsch (06:32.428)

Yeah. You know, back, back when I was just getting started, I had a routine on, Fridays. I would just pick up the phone and call five people. I was not trying to sell anything. I was not trying to do anything. And I can't tell you, I used to laugh. In I wrote a big blog post about this, that about half the time one or two of those phone calls, would, would start with, I was just meaning to call you. And it was like, okay.

Alex Goldfayn (06:57.027)

Yeah. Yeah.

John Jantsch (07:00.162)

Get out my order pad. It was amazing.

Alex Goldfayn (07:02.201)

That's it. That's it. When you show up when nothing is wrong, you are saving the customer from having to think about it again. Whatever is in their head, whatever the need might be. If you don't call them like you just shared, they're going to have to think about it more, probably repeatedly, because once usually doesn't do it. You don't think about something and then do it typically. You think about something many times and then you might do it, but you might not. And it's incredibly valuable.

John Jantsch (07:06.35)

Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (07:30.819)

to do what you just described. And that's why my clients, and I've had tens of thousands of salespeople go through this and run these processes that we're talking about. We constantly hear from people, why will I have you? Or I'm so glad you called, can you please check on this for me? Product, service, whatever it is.

John Jantsch (07:52.227)

Yeah. Yeah. So would you say that this is just a, like, this is a habit, this is a system or is it cultural in an organization or is it all the above? Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (08:04.407)

Yeah, you need both. So I say that outgrow is two thirds mindset work because, you know, behavior always follows thinking and we can't outsell our mindset. So if we think we're bothering the customer, we're going to sell accordingly. But if we think it's our obligation to help the customer and they want our help because they're better off with us than with the competition who isn't as good as us, then we sell that way. We sell as though

John Jantsch (08:20.792)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (08:32.289)

we have a lot more value for the customer. So it's two thirds mindset work. In Outgrow, we have an acronym called COPE, John, COPE, confidence, optimism, positivity, and enthusiasm. And we need those mindsets because we have to bring them to the salespeople that we work with. We have to bring them to the organization. So culturally, in Outgrow organization that runs Outgrow,

becomes more cope, becomes more confident, more optimistic, more positive, more enthusiastic. And when you are those things, it's much easier to make proactive calls, to offer additional products, to follow up on quotes and proposals, and to ask people what else.

John Jantsch (09:17.55)

How, how ready does this, does a person using this system need to be for, if I start with a call with, just want to see if there's anything I could help you with. I sell widgets, but the guy tells me, you know what, we just fired our accounting firm. We're really screwed. How prepared do I have to be to say, you know what, I think I can help you with somebody, you know, unrelated to me, I'm not going to make any money off of this, but I think I can help you. mean, how prepared or, or, or how much of your system do you think?

relies on just being the person who solves problems.

Alex Goldfayn (09:50.988)

think people just want to help people. And I also think our starting position is people just want to be helped. You're calling your customers, your prospects. People just want to be helped. That's starting point number one. Then when we are showing up, we are simply offering to help people, which is what they want. John?

Over a hundred million outgrow actions, log, tracked and analyzed over 23 years by over 400 clients. So we log our activities and then we see the, you know, with the responses, the results, the outcomes. Um, not one time, not once has any customer ever said, I'd rather you not make my life easier today. Has it happened once people just want to be helped. if you're calling to sell a product and somebody has a need that you don't provide.

Well, then try to help them. Common sense, you know, human relationship stuff. in fact, I would argue that already happens. You know, if you're watching this right now, how many times does one of your customers ask you for something that you don't offer them? And you went and found a way to get it for them. Maybe you connected them to your competition. Even maybe you went to your competition and got what they needed for them. That happens all the time. And when you do that, the customer remembers it.

forever.

John Jantsch (11:17.774)

Well, and, and, know, once you've, I've, I've seen this all the time. Once I've, once I've got that trust, um, you know, I want to keep it. Um, and I keep it by just not, not allowing them to call anybody else, right. I'm the only one that they would call regardless of what their problem is. And, and either it takes a little extra work sometimes, you know, your stuff, you're not going to get paid for directly, but, um, as you've seen in, your research, uh, pays off time and time again, speaking of, uh, research.

how would a company set up?

measuring this, you know, because you might make 10 of those calls and nothing really happens today. you know, so now the sales person's like, you know, that's, that's not really paying off. you know, is there a way to measure you talk about them actions? think, I think that's what you called them. you know, you know, these actions, is there a way to then turn them into a system of KPIs so to speak that, that, you know, that doubt do kind of motivate people to say, this works.

Alex Goldfayn (12:08.0)

Yeah, yeah, outgrow actions. Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (12:15.754)

Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (12:20.342)

Yeah, so in the book, there are scorecards and metrics that we use all over at examples. And I don't know if you can see our video right now. You can see a couple of baseball bats behind me and we call it swinging the bat. So we don't track the hits and outgrow. We track the swings because we know what the batting averages are. So we are simply asking outgrow participants who we call out growers.

John Jantsch (12:23.746)

Yes.

Alex Goldfayn (12:48.854)

We are asking this. These are people who face customers for you. We're asking them to try to take our act to take our actions because we know, you know, in baseball you can hit the ball exactly right, dead on, and it flies right out of the fender and it's an out. And sales is the same way. You can do everything right and hit the ball perfectly. And then, you know, getting the win is largely out of our control. You can't really control if the customer is in a good mood.

You can't really control if the customer has an itch when you're calling to scratch. can control making my call, but I can't control if they need it in that moment. can't control the timing. the other thing we know is we need eight or nine nos for every yes that we got in sales. you, if you win 10 to 20 % of the time in sales, you're one of the best. baseball, you can fail 70 % of the time and go to the hall of fame.

In our work, we fail more than that.

John Jantsch (13:47.118)

Yeah, I don't know as good as pitching is these days, Alex. I'm going to say it's, you know, seven and a half times now.

Alex Goldfayn (13:53.955)

I know it's dropping, isn't it? I know. These days, 250 is a good batting average, right, in baseball? We were both baseball fans. We were chatting about that before we started our conversation here. Anyway, we do track the efforts because we know what the success rates are. You know, I'll give you an example. We have a technique called the did you know question, and we have another technique called the reverse did you know question. Both of these are detailed in the book.

John Jantsch (14:13.422)

Yep.

John Jantsch (14:19.853)

Mm-hmm.

Alex Goldfayn (14:23.394)

So the did you know question or DYK, did you know, is you suggesting an additional product or service to your customer that they don't already buy from you. They probably buy it somewhere else. They probably need it. They probably buy it from your competition, service or product. And so what we know statistically is that 20 % of those close, 20 % become a new line item. So if I say to you, hey, John, did you know I do keynote speeches? What about longer workshops? How about one-on-one coaching?

Of course, I work with organizations. I ask you five of those, and it's going to take me 20 seconds, maybe, one will close and turn into a new line for us to work on. And so let's say somebody listening to us has 10 salespeople. And each one of those 10 asks five digital questions and they're tracked. We do enter them into a system. We have an outgrow tracking form. a simple web form. You enter it in and at the end of the week, you get data back from us. We send the data back to you. It's all automated.

Um, 10 people ask five digital questions a day. That's 50 a day, 250 a week, a thousand a month, 12,000 a year. If my math is right, that's top of my head. 12,000 digital questions a year. If we can get 10 people to give us 20 seconds a day.

20 % of 12,000, that's the success rate, is 2,400 new line items. That's a fact. It's not, I hope they'll add 2,400 new line items. If they can get five Did You Know questions in 20 seconds from 10 people a day, every day, that's where the complexity comes. That's the hard part. Not asking the Did Knows, it's the choreography. It's doing it all the time, every day, they will get 2,400 new.

John Jantsch (16:07.726)

Yeah

Alex Goldfayn (16:12.032)

line items, then the question becomes how much money per line item and how many times a year will that new thing be purchased? Cause many people sell things repeatedly. It could be monthly, could be quarterly. It could be twice a year. You do the math almost always five digital questions a day gets you to millions of dollars in new revenue as a fact, statistically for sure. If you can get five digital questions a day.

John Jantsch (16:13.634)

me.

John Jantsch (16:37.356)

And I bet you every salesperson listening has had an experience where they walked into a client's office and the client said, yeah, we just did this new thing over here. And then they said, did you know that we do that? Right.

Alex Goldfayn (16:48.792)

And then you know what you hear is you hear, do that? I didn't know you did that. And you're like, dude, I just told you that I do that like two weeks ago. I know it was you because we were talking to each other just like we are now. And you had the exact same reaction two weeks ago. I didn't know you did that. Now I'm telling you again, two weeks later, you still don't know. So the takeaway for us salespeople is just because you tell somebody something doesn't mean they know. It means you told them doesn't mean a register doesn't mean they remember.

John Jantsch (17:05.518)

me.

John Jantsch (17:18.616)

So this is a good segue to non-sales department folks, right? I mean, how can they contribute to this kind of proactive sales culture? Sounds like they could be asking did you know?

Alex Goldfayn (17:22.615)

Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (17:28.096)

A hundred percent. mean, we're constantly working with customer service people, managers, frontline people. what, what it develops, you know, clients have called it a non-traditional sales force. even people like project managers, if you're in construction, client execs or, or, you know, engineers and architects who are like, didn't become an engineer to be a used car salesman. Alex, thanks dude. But that's not for me. And again, mindset work. You're not selling, you're helping.

John Jantsch (17:43.672)

Mm-hmm.

Alex Goldfayn (17:57.762)

People need more help from you. So yes, it is for anybody who faces customers, who can ask a, did you know question or two on the calls, even that are incoming, you know, proactive calls are a big part of our work. But if they come to you, if you have a counter operation or a sales floor of some kind, or if you're just customer service picking up the phone all day, you can say, do you need this? How are you on that?

We just got some of this in and ask your DigiNose.

John Jantsch (18:30.531)

So does that need to be in an SOP somewhere so that everybody's trained on it? Or is it more of a look for moments of truth?

Alex Goldfayn (18:39.751)

It's more change the mindset, make them confident and optimistic and positive and enthusiastic, and then say to them, please ask five a day because that's what we're doing now. does, you know, it's, it's warm and fuzzy above all it's positive work because we're helping customers more, but it needs tracking and accountability or else it stops. It doesn't keep going. It stops.

John Jantsch (19:09.528)

So how do you get this ingrained into an organization? Because I'm guessing, you know, they can come to one Alex's amazing workshops, get all the good ideas, and then go back to back to the shop. And it's like, we do it for a week. mean, how do you make it a habit?

Alex Goldfayn (19:19.989)

Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (19:25.045)

Right. Well, we, you know, you just said the key word habit. we say outgrow sales doing not sales training, because as you just said, sales training, don't grow revenue. Sales training tells people stuff probably that they already know. And then they go back to their reactive life. And you know, in sales, we have to do things to make money. We can't know stuff. We have to do stuff to make money.

John Jantsch (19:29.774)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:43.682)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (19:52.93)

Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (19:53.88)

There are some professions that can make money by knowing things. We're not one of them. We have to do stuff that we know. So, you we engage with clients for typically three to five years, And so we have a launch year where the work begins. It takes us about 90 days to create their proactive program. Then we teach it. It's a one-day workshop typically just for that client, just for that client's people. It's not open. It's just theirs. So it's a private.

John Jantsch (19:58.606)

the

John Jantsch (20:06.99)

Yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (20:23.287)

engagement. And then they begin this weekly cadence of the leader of the effort literally asks for or prescribes some target actions for the week. For example, this week, please give me five proactive phone calls to people that you haven't talked to in six months or more. That's specific. Five, did you know questions and five quote follow ups. It's three sets of actions, 15 things for the week. Then people go do it.

Step two, step three is they log it into our system. Step four is we put out data and we show them the scorecard. Just tracking efforts. Who tried and who didn't? Who cares and who doesn't? And then we put out success stories. We put out wins, we tell the wins, we tell the success stories in the words of the people who submitted them. That's five step sort of feedback loop that happens every week. Next week, they make a new assignment of actions.

John Jantsch (21:17.89)

you

Alex Goldfayn (21:22.259)

At 30, 60, and 90 days, we visit with them and do web meetings to review the data, to tell success stories to the group verbally. People actually speak their stories to each other, ask each other questions. Then we follow up with them in the next six months as well. So over a nine month period in the launch year, we are with them seven times. nobody cares what the consultant wants. The salespeople don't care.

John Jantsch (21:36.866)

Yeah.

Mm.

Alex Goldfayn (21:50.732)

what the outside advisor wants. They only care what their leadership wants. People only do what they think is important to their boss. So this work, as much as anything, is about, we coach the leaders. The leaders then have to do the accountability and the implementation and the buy-in work and the maintaining of energy with the people who are taking the swings and doing the outgrow work.

John Jantsch (22:17.996)

Yeah. I, know, that, getting them telling stories to each other, that sort of peer pressure almost that that puts on is probably a really powerful aspect.

Alex Goldfayn (22:28.215)

It does a few things. know, and all the research shows, John, that recognition is a more effective tool to make change with, to change behavior with than money is. Recognition is more powerful than giving somebody some money in private. The reason is that one, the person feels proud. You know, they're being recognized, they get to tell their story. Two, other people, it makes it impossible for them to say, this doesn't work here.

John Jantsch (22:33.87)

Yeah. Right.

John Jantsch (22:56.278)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Alex Goldfayn (22:56.683)

Cause here's stories about it working here. Three, those people aspire to be recognized next. Four, and the last thing, it teaches the work. It teaches what works, right? In the words of the happy salespeople, the successful people, it's education, peer to peer, not from the top down, peer to peer education.

John Jantsch (23:02.286)

Yep.

John Jantsch (23:07.31)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (23:19.736)

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, Alex, I appreciate you taking a few moments to drop by the duct tape marketing podcast. Is there anywhere you'd invite somebody to connect with you, learn about your work, obviously, learn about the book.

Alex Goldfayn (23:32.245)

Yeah, thank you, John. They can get the book on Amazon or wherever they buy books. Barnes and Noble has it. Books A Million has it. Anywhere books are sold. Actually launched as the number two best selling business book in America behind only Atomic Habits. I was able to outsell everybody except for Atomic Habits, of course.

John Jantsch (23:51.022)

That's only been number one for what, like six, seven years?

Alex Goldfayn (23:54.281)

Right. Well, it's good company, I guess. And then if you want to learn more about Outgrow and the revenue growth that we do, please visit runoutgrow.com.

John Jantsch (24:12.046)

Well, again, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you out there at Wrigley field or something.

Alex Goldfayn (24:18.572)

Thank you so much for having me go Cubs. appreciate that, John. Thanks for the Cubs. out.

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