543. Resonance Over Reach with Jay Acunzo

Most marketers are obsessed with reach. Jay Acunzo thinks that's the wrong game entirely. In this episode of Marketing Speak, I sat down with Jay Acunzo,  keynote speaker, author of Break the Wheel, and host of How Stories Happen,  who built a thriving speaking business from scratch, lost it all in five days when the pandemic hit, and came back with a sharper mission: helping experts stop being commodities and start being irreplaceable. Jay shares: Why resonance beats reach every time, and how to build a business where clients come because they want you, not just someone who looks like you The 'That's the thing about' device, a single phrase that turns a good story into one that actually inspires action Align, Agitate, Assert, Invite,  the four-part story structure that moves your audience from where they are to where you want them to be Why your competitive edge will never come from a $20/month AI subscription, and what to do instead The two things every great interviewer must master to capture real, specific, powerful stories from guests If you have something genuinely worth saying and want to say it in a way that actually lands, this episode is your blueprint. Listen now!  

Stop pitching from the stage. Start storytelling. Majeed Mogharreban shares how he engineers speeches so audiences imagine working with him—and hate imagining a future without him. Watch this @mktg_speak episode

The businesses that thrive won't be the ones that let AI replace human creativity. They'll be the ones who use AI to amplify it. That distinction is everything — and it's at the heart of how we operate at Net Concepts. I've been in the SEO game for 30 years. I co-authored The Art of SEO (now in its 4th edition). And I can tell you that what we're living through with AI is one of the most significant shifts I've seen in my entire career. But with great power comes great responsibility — and most people are wielding this power recklessly. In this solo episode of Marketing Speak, I'm sharing:  ✅ The 3 real risks of AI-generated content most agencies ignore  ✅ Our 5 core principles for using AI responsibly and authentically  ✅ The 8 specific rules we follow at Netconcepts The full client questionnaire that sets expectations from day one This isn't theory. This is the framework we use every day with purpose-driven brands that can't afford to get this wrong. Your integrity isn't a line item. Don't let AI compromise it. Tune in now! The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/541.

The most important marketing question isn't "What works?" According to Billy Broas, it's "What are human beings?" Sounds philosophical? It is—and that's exactly the point. On Marketing Speak, Billy (creator of the Five Light Bulbs framework and marketing strategist for Tiago Forte, Ryan Deiss, and major science-focused companies) makes the case for argument-driven marketing over psychology-driven marketing. His manifesto challenges the industry norm: Stop treating people like lab rats to be hacked. Start making defensible arguments to intelligent human beings. The practical impact?  ✓ Teams align around one clear message (no more conflicting arguments across departments)  ✓ Content has purpose (every piece advances the sale as a proof point)  ✓ Marketing creates "re-enchanted transactions" that build loyalty  ✓ You avoid the ethical quicksand of manipulation tactics Billy walks us through his complete framework, plus how to use syllogisms with ChatGPT to audit your marketing logic and identify where your claims don't connect. This is marketing that works better in the long term AND has a stronger ethical foundation. Listen now! 🎧 The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/540.

🚀 What if you could fix technical SEO issues with the push of a button? I just interviewed Patrick Stox, Product Advisor at Ahrefs, who's revolutionizing how we approach SEO in the AI era. Patrick shared how Ahrefs built edge SEO technology directly into their site audit tool—allowing users to automatically fix canonical tags, redirects, and internal links without ever touching their CMS. But here's what really caught my attention: Patrick revealed that 5 of Ahrefs' top 6 performing posts last year were data studies. Why? Because AI search systems are prioritizing original research and comparison content over traditional blog posts. Key insights from our conversation:  ✅ How to optimize content for AI chunking (not just keywords)  ✅ Why micro-influencers (your employees) matter more than brand accounts  ✅ The redirect automation script that saves hours of manual work  ✅ Why subdomain vs. subfolder debates miss the real issue (internal linking) If you're still optimizing for 2020's SEO, you're already behind. Listen to this episode of Marketing Speak to discover how Patrick is helping companies scale their SEO across the entire internet, not just their own websites. The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/539.

Growth doesn't slow because expertise disappears. It slows when trust erodes. In this episode of Marketing Speak, I sat down with Dov Gordon, founder of JV Grow, who has spent 15 years building a tightly curated community for established entrepreneurs who grow through joint ventures that actually work. Dov shares why broad messaging like "get more clients consistently" no longer works, and what narrowly focused messages build trust faster in today's skeptical marketplace. If you're an intermediate or advanced marketer using joint ventures to grow, this episode reveals the partnership strategies that work when audiences are overwhelmed, and trust is hard to earn. The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/538.

🚨 ChatGPT updates twice as fast as Google. Are you tracking the right metrics? Former Bing Webmaster Tools architect Duane Forrester just revealed a critical finding: Out of 50 queries tracked for one client, ChatGPT cited them ZERO times. Not mentioned, not paraphrased, not included at all. The old SEO playbook won't cut it in the AI era. In this week's Marketing Speak episode, Duane reveals the 12 new KPIs you need to track for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—metrics like chunk retrieval frequency, semantic density score, and vector index presence rate. Many businesses struggling with traditional SEO fundamentals are getting demolished in AI search. But there's a roadmap forward. Duane shares his custom-built tool suite (launching soon) and free frameworks to help you navigate this Wild West landscape. Listen now to discover:  ✅ Why tracking millions of keywords is dead (and what to do instead)  ✅ How to create your own vector index proxy  ✅ The citation tracking framework that reveals your AI visibility  ✅ Free 90-day learning path for implementing AI in your workflow This isn't optional anymore. ChatGPT is on track to hit 1 billion daily users in half the time it took Google.  The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/537.

In a world where ChatGPT can write 50,000 words in 5 minutes, how do you create content that actually ranks and converts? In this week's Marketing Speak episode, I reveal my framework for the AI era—and it's not what you'd expect. Instead of fighting AI with more tactics, I advocate for plugging into "Universal Intelligence" for truly original insights, writing for the "linkerati" and not just your audience or search engines, creating curiosity gaps that make influencers unable to resist linking, and coordinating cross-channel campaigns that leverage social for SEO gains. I also explain why citation analysis—the origin of link-based algorithms—is becoming MORE crucial as Google's AI detects unnatural patterns across EVERYTHING, not just links, but correlation between on-page optimization and linking behavior. If your content isn't remarkable enough to be "worthy of remark," quantity is irrelevant. Gert Mellak joins me for this masterclass in intentional marketing strategy for empowered leaders who refuse to get lost in the AI noise. Tune in! The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/536.

Is SEO dead in the age of AI? Not even close. Google's AI overviews are literally making up statistics, citing fake sources, and providing dangerous medical advice. People are actively searching "how to turn off AI overviews" because they can't trust the results. I had an incredible conversation with Samantha Riley on her podcast Influence By Design, where we broke down why SEO is more critical than ever. While Google Ads stop working the moment you stop paying, SEO builds an actual ASSET. An asset that appears on your balance sheet. An asset that generates traffic for months or years, even if you take time off. We covered:  ✅ The difference between "visitor authority" and "algorithmic authority."  ✅ Why your "Testimonials" page should be a "Results" page instead.  ✅ How to seed interviews to earn 5+ backlinks instead of just one. ✅ The trick questions to ask so you never get snookered by a bad SEO hire. If you're building on rented land (social media only), this episode is your wake-up call. Listen now!   The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/535.

🔬 What happens when you analyze leaked search engine source code and build an SEO tool from it? You discover the entire industry has been optimizing wrong for years. Ryan Jones (Head of SEO at Razorfish) joined me on Marketing Speak to share what he learned from the Yandex and Google leaks. The truth is uncomfortable: while SEOs count keywords and stack H2 tags, search engines are plotting documents in vector space using machine learning. Here's what actually matters in 2025:  📊 Complete topic relevance (not single keyword optimization)  🎯 Semantic similarity scores using cosine distance  🤖 BERT-extracted keywords from current top-rankers  📱 Intent matching using ML models (not keyword pattern matching)  🔗 Third-party consensus for knowledge panels  📄 Research papers that still accurately describe how AI search works Ryan built SERPrecon to measure content the way search engines actually measure it. The tool uses Yandex's exact-title-tag scoring logic. It applies Passage BERT to predict AI Overview citations. It extracts entities and keywords using the same open-source algorithms Google uses. Ryan reverse-engineers which phrases AI Overviews will cite based on Google's patent, then writes content incorporating those exact phrases. Result? He consistently "steals" citations from competitors. This isn't theoretical. This is production-level SEO based on actual source code. The show notes, including the transcript and checklist to this episode, are at marketingspeak.com/534.