THA S02 EP#30 - Showing Up Where the Search Happened: Building for the New Search Reality

For more than 20 years, marketing teams built an entire discipline around getting found on Google. Keywords, backlinks, content calendars, ad spend strategies, all of it engineered around one outcome: rank on page one. That system did not disappear, but it got a new set of rules on top of it, and most teams have not caught up yet.

In this episode, Michael Cupps sits down with Arnold Huffman, CEO of Yalo, an Atlanta-based digital agency he founded 14 years ago as a one-man operation. Huff and Cupps have worked together before and that history shows in the conversation. They get to the point fast.

Huff walks through what has shifted in search, how ChatGPT and Gemini are now processing 2.5 billion searches a day between them, representing roughly half of all internet searches, and why that number is expected to more than double by 2028. The old SEO habits still matter, but they are no longer enough on their own. Today's AI engines reward brands that are clear, easy to navigate, and talked about positively in places beyond their own website. Reddit threads, Facebook reviews, third-party comments, all of it feeds the engine's sense of whether a brand deserves to be cited.

Huff calls the standard he applies to every site the "Boomer filter." If your mom cannot find what she is looking for on your website, the AI engine is not going to like it either. Cupps immediately renamed it the Linda Cups filter. That kind of clarity and that is the real point of the conversation. The brands that will get cited and recommended are the ones that sound like people, not landing pages.

They also talk about what AI-generated content does to your credibility with AI engines. The short version: the engines know, and they will not give you the same weight they give to content that reads like a real person wrote it with a real point of view.

On the personal side, Huff shares what keeps him grounded. He still runs and plays basketball five to seven days a week, something he traces back to identifying as an athlete since his college sports days. He also talks about a company habit worth noting: Yalo gives every employee an annual concert stipend, backed by research suggesting that people who attend live music regularly tend to be happier and live longer. His son and he are heading to Cleveland to see the Foo Fighters in August.

Cupps closes with a question about what happens when AI changes a personal daily habit too, and Huff's answer on how to challenge the engine rather than just accept the first answer it gives you is one of the better practical notes in the episode.

If your team has been putting off a website review or assuming your content calendar is doing the work on its own, this one is worth the 35 minutes.

This Show is sponsored by TimeBandit.io

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Habit Architect. I'm Michael Cups. Excited to have a guest on today that's been a friend of mine and we've worked together, so it's exciting to talk with somebody that you've known for so long. So we'll get to him in just a minute. I do wanna remind you to go check out time bandit.io. Cupps: 0:23

And well as soon we'll be having a free. Priority matrix, a web-based priority matrix. If you're interested in receiving a link to that free resource and drop me a note or DM on LinkedIn is probably the best way to do that. So today we're gonna talk about a very specific set of business related activities that is associated with your business and search. Cupps: But more so what's interesting to me about it is there's been a decade or maybe more and Huff can tell us in a minute of people engineering their websites and their content for a particular outcome. So they built this habit structure to build search, right? To make sure that they pop up on Google's front page as opposed to the last page how they spend their ad money, et cetera. Cupps: And that whole way of working. Is changing. I don't wanna say it's

eliminated because it may not be, and we'll learn with from Huff in a minute, but it has changed dramatically, which means marketing teams now need to change the habits that they're in order to get the rankings and the impact that they want with their ad spend. Cupps: 1:23

I think this hits us all. We all build a habit in our lives that we do and we do consistently, and then something changes and we have to alter that in some way. Maybe it's an illness and something. When your physical fitness and you have to change what you need to do, you don't want to quit altogether, but you need to change it so it can adapt to your new lifestyle. Cupps: And that happens with so many habits in our lifetime. So I'm, what I really want to inspect today is not only I want you to learn about. The new way of search is working, but also the fact that you have to retool and re-engineer and re reha something that's, that was been ingrained in you for some time. Cupps: So without further ado, I wanna bring on Arnold Huffman, who is the CEO of Digital Yellow. It's an Atlanta based digital agency. And again, I said more so that he's a friend of mine, so I'm looking forward to seeing him. Hey Huff, how are you Arnold Huffman: Doing great, Michael. Thanks for the invite today.

Cupps: Yeah, absolutely. Cupps: Looking, looking forward to talking to you. I think actually you were on a different podcast, one of my first guests on a podcast. It was a different podcast. It wasn't the Habit Architect, but it was something else. So you were the very first guest there, so welcome back, so to speak. Arnold Huffman: Yeah, sounds great. Arnold Huffman: Looking forward to catching up just like old tons. Cupps: Yeah, absolutely. So tell everybody about your firm and you a little bit. Arnold Huffman: 2:23

That was good. Thanks Michael. Yalo is an agency that I founded 14 years ago in this room as a one man show with a laptop. And one of the jokes I like to make is when you're starting a company, there are very few, if no English words left to name your company because either they've been trademarked or the URL has been. Arnold Huffman: Scooped up by somebody else. So in my case I decided to look at a foreign dictionary, and in this case, specifically the Fijian language and look for a word that would suit the

vibe and the attitude of what I was looking to do with my new agency. And so Yalo means Seoul in Fiji, and I felt that was a good. Arnold Huffman: Driver for the kind of work we wanted to do. Which at the end of the day, what I like to say is our why and why we exist is to help elevate the soul of our clients' brands. And the way we do that. And every agency's gotta have something that makes them different or unique. 'cause there's numerous of us out there. Arnold Huffman: 3:23

Our approach is one that, that leverages music in a way to help our clients identify. That right soul of their brand. And we call that exercise of soul song exercise as part of our creative discovery. And when we ask that question or when we'd state that we're about to start that exercise of soul song, the key question that we ask is, if this were a song, what song would this be? Arnold Huffman: And we debate the merits of various songs, the titles, the lyrics or just the vibe of the music. And the goal is Solano one

specific song that points us in the right direction creatively for the exercise we're gonna to and the assets we're gonna produce on behalf of the client. That really gets us to a real central or honing our focus to a central vibe and attitude and emotion for that brand. Arnold Huffman: And when that happens, we're able to create something that really helps the client associate very well. Or their customers associate very well with their brand. Yeah. Cupps: Yeah, that and full disclosure, we worked together. We when I was running marketing for a company, a software company, we brought you in to do that. Cupps: 4:23

And that was a fun exercise. It was an interesting exercise too, because, I think people initially were very shy about submitting a song because they thought they were gonna get wrong until we got 'em to relax and say, Hey, what do you think it is? What song do you associate? It was a fun exercise to get through because of just the opportunity to talk about your company in a different way. Cupps: Not just, Hey, we do this, we do, we make software or whatever it is. It was like, what song represents that? It was really a cool exercise. So glad we went through it and and let's go back to that day. So we did have you as a firm a digital marketing firm in a company which is

sold long ago. Cupps: The company was sold, otherwise we'd still be working with you, I'm sure. But the the. The thing that struck me is when we were going through, you guys did a lot of work for us, new website, all the stuff that you guys did, but there was a particular work stream, SEO, or search optimization. Cupps: 5:23

And there was a lot of stuff associated with it. And working with Google, and it seemed like Google was the only thing we were trying to optimize for. But there was a lot of weird things that I hadn't thought of before that you guys were doing, like link optimization, back links and stuff like that, as well as words used in content, words used elsewhere. Cupps: And just the exercise of finding out where we've. Fit into that was a, was another thing. That whole in, there's a huge industry around search optimization and you had to build a framework for that. You had to build a team that kind of did each element, so I'm talking about the system to get companies to be in the right where they need to be. Cupps: And now that's changing or somewhat changing. Maybe you could tell us that. So for those that know, SEO, if you wanna share a little bit about the

challenges there and you had the instrument there, and then we can get onto what what AI is doing to it. Arnold Huffman: Sounds good. So search engine optimization or SEO as it's termed, right? Arnold Huffman: 6:23

It's been around a long time since browsers and people searching for things on Google and Yahoo and Bing, et cetera. Was a process created by those platforms, those browsers, so that people could find things on the internet 20 plus years ago. And the. At that time, the engine of how the search worked was a mystery. Arnold Huffman: Over the years, people have gotten smarter and figured out how does, what are the key things that that how that ticks and how you can perform or rank better in, in various ways. Now those platforms are constantly tweaking those engines and there's been changes over the years on them as well. Arnold Huffman: There's new releases, which then throw everything a little bit into tailspin and folks adapt. And recover. But and it, the original first whatever number of years

in that world, right? A lot of it was kinda like taking your vitamins and going to the gym, right? Just produce good content, produce use words that people are looking or using when they're looking for something. Arnold Huffman: 7:23

Make sure your content is using those words. And it was a, constant improvement process that people had to do. To produce that content and continuously rank. And if you didn't keep up with it, somebody else would and you'd get bumped down. And it was just this game of motion really. Arnold Huffman: And so that's really what SE o's been for 20 plus years until about 18 months ago maybe 20 months ago. The advent of chat GBT and AI engines not only being great for. Asking general questions that made it very simple to get the answer. Rather than searching on a Google search and then having to look for the link that would give you the answer you were looking for evolved very quickly into tell me the thing that I'm

looking for. Arnold Huffman: Give me the best version of that, right? If I'm gonna buy something or if I'm looking for a partner for something. What SEO used to be now is evolved to, there's two terms you might hear, a EO, which is answer engine optimization or GEO for generative engine optimization. And really the, I'd say the a EO is the precursor to GEO and we're because the AI engines evolve so quickly. Arnold Huffman: 8:23

Really zooming through the a EO era and into the GEO era already, but give you a couple of stats, right? Chat, GBT alone. Don't forget about Gemini and all the others now processes, 2.5 billion searches a day. Wow. Cupps: Per day. Arnold Huffman: Between chat, GPT and Gemini, that's the searches that are happening there. Arnold Huffman: That's 50% of the searches happening on the internet in general, just in those two platforms

just in those two AI platforms. And that has become the primary tool now of how people find things, right? Whatever they're looking for. And it's supposed to, the expected traffic is gonna more than double between by 2028. Arnold Huffman: 9:23

So more and more people are getting comfortable. I think, early on there was a little bit of reticence of the term. AI is scary and feels scary, and invasive and taking over your life. But now I think, the way, for example, Gemini now just automatically shows up at the top of whatever you search. Arnold Huffman: Even if you don't use AI mode, you get the AI iter whether you want it or not. Yeah. Has made people a lot more comfortable with doing those kinds of searches on these platforms. And for example, I'll ask you a question. I, have you ever done a search where it's, give me the best of. This thing that I'm looking for or what are the top vendors for X? Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I think

the first version, you said answer engine optimization. I do that a lot. I ask a lot of questions. I don't say I'm looking for this, but I'm not, how do I fix something or how do I find something? And that's how I interact with it. And I, and you're right, the AI responses are more helpful. Cupps: 10:23

Because I can read a little bit about what I'm the topic and then there's, I, if I decide to click through, I can, but that's, that tends to be how I've done it more recently is just ask questions, Arnold Huffman: right? Questions like the best of something or the top or the leading provider of C thing. Arnold Huffman: Out of those 2.5 billion searches a day 250 to 350 million of those. Are just on that topic. Best top or leading product or vendor. So Cupps: yeah, Arnold Huffman: 10 to 10 to 15% of those. All of those searches are specifically people looking for the best or the top product or

service of something that they're looking for. Arnold Huffman: And so that gives you a sense of scale of how often Yeah. People are using. Cupps: It's amazing my Arnold Huffman: update. Cupps: It's absolutely amazing that, and it's convenient too. I we at our fingertips now have more answers than we, we could find it. I, for one, got. Just really tired of the Google search that had, 10 paid links and then you could find the kind of the natural links. Cupps: 11:23

And it was just exhausting to me that you had to fight through all the landing pages and the stuff like that just to get where you wanted with an answer. So it, so I'm sure it's a benefit to a lot of people, but it's interesting that you used the word AI and you said that kind of fear because Gemini does say, go deeper with ai, I think is one of the next. Cupps: At the bottom of their kind of short answer. Do you think, obviously that adoption is amazing. You mentioned numbers there. It, it's growing, right? Even people that aren't accustomed to AI are starting to adapt to it. Do they do you see traditional browser search, it's still even viable? Arnold Huffman: Yeah, it is.

And this is an important factor, right? That the way the AI engines. You or mention you as really, you're not being ranked anymore. It's getting mentioned and being cited in these answers that the AI engines provide is still built on the basis of how you would rank an SEO. Arnold Huffman: 12:23

So could the SEO ranking still count? And it's part of how the engine decides whether it's gonna cite or mention you. As a well, so you can't give up on the SBO game. It's just the next energy xmo on the ladder of what you've gotta be building to compete in the AI engine's eyes. And I'll mention something that, I'd like to simplify it into an analogy, right? Arnold Huffman: And in this case, I called the Boomer filter. And and what I mean by that is AI engines are built to think like humans, right? They process data. Like humans. They think like humans. So if you extrapolate that if a human doesn't

like the content that you've written because it's too marketing e right? Arnold Huffman: Yep. To, to flowery, right? And, or, and, or is confusing. Cupps: Yep. Arnold Huffman: 13:23

That's on the content side of it, but then also the way it shows up on your page, if it's not easy to find or navigate and locate, all of those things contribute to low interest. By somebody Yeah. Looking for it. And yeah, if that's how it works for a human, and like what I like to say is if your mom can't find what she's looking for on your website, then the AI engine's not gonna like your website either. Arnold Huffman: And so if we take that very simple filter and think about it that way, then that clarifies what needs to be done on for a brand in terms of the goal of the lowest common denominator. Very simple, clear, concise content, very well laid out, both

desktop and mobile so that it's easy to find, right? Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. Arnold Huffman: And that's what you gotta accomplish in order to. Look reputable to the AI engines. Cupps: Yeah. And I like that perspective mainly because my mom watches this podcast every Thursday, and she might fit into that category. So now we've got the Linda Cups filter, is what I'll call it then. So Arnold Huffman: there you go. Cupps: 14:23

There you go. There you go. See if she can't find her answer on your website, you're outta luck. That's great. So all that it, so the SEO stuff is still important. So really what we're talking about for marketing teams or your agencies that you use, or for solopreneurs that are doing it all themselves what are the kind of new things they need to start building for? Cupps: Or what are the habits they need to just plan on doing? 'cause I have always, one of the things amazing about search optimization in any capacity is it's not a one and done. You just got, you gotta keep rolling with it. So how do you adapt to this new environment? Arnold Huffman: Yeah, so that part's still true, right? Arnold Huffman: Like we mentioned early in the days of SEO, it was

take your vitamins, go to the gym, and it's still that, but now it's added adding new workout layers to that as well. Because the expectation of the AI engine not only being content is also. How does it look? How does it function? Is it easy to use? Arnold Huffman: 15:23

And that's, that adds two more layers. So the content game is still there, but now it requires very well des ux ui design pages that operate very efficiently, both in desktop and in mobile. Then the, and then the other rung of the layer that, or the ladder that's been added is then the technology side, right? Arnold Huffman: There are a new technology element like schemas and things like that, that you need to take into account with your site. So what used to be build your website and then just load it with constant content to stay in the rankings now

doubles down with. Not only change your content, but constantly optimize for the design of your site and the technology layer underneath it. Arnold Huffman: So it more work. And it's expanded work 'cause it's content design and the technology layer that all needs to work in concert because back to the Boomer filter it's gotta be clear, not only clear and concise, but super easy to use. Cupps: I think you meant to say Linda Cups filter, but that's okay. Cupps: 16:23

Forget that. So the so that's interesting. So I get, in LinkedIn, I probably get, I don't know, let's just say five a week. And that's probably being really conservative of people. I don't know, sending me a text that says, Hey, we can use AI and optimize your current sites, or we can scan it and then we'll optimize it. Cupps: They make it sound all automatic, that AI's doing everything. But you just said something early on that said what it's looking for is not an AI answer. It's looking for a human answer. There's no real shortcut here is that you can't just say,

chat ccp. TI want you to rewrite my website in a AI friendly way. Cupps: It's, that's not how you fix this, right? Arnold Huffman: 17:23

Correct. That's a great point. Early on when AI first came out. It was an easy way to produce content, right? Because if write, that's a lot of what people initially were using it for is oh, look how easy it is to produce this page of content for my website, or to write this blog in a more elegant way than maybe sitting down for two hours and banking out the copy and agonizing over the words. Arnold Huffman: The challenge with it is that AI knows ai and so if that's all, if you're only using AI to fill your site with content. AI engine's gonna know that and not give you the same credibility that you'd, you need to rank or be mentioned. So you've gotta use it. It's not to say you can't use it, but it can't be the only way you get content out there. Arnold Huffman: It's gotta be a, it, it's a tool to help you maybe do it quicker,

but at the end of the day, you still have to manage the final production of what you're putting out there. So it doesn't come across. It doesn't. So that the AI doesn't feel like it's just another AI piece of content, Cupps: And wants to talk to humans. Cupps: 18:23

So the, so the interesting thing about that is, so what is a, an entrepreneur, a, a founder or a marketing team in a big company what are they needing to add? The answer thing seems obvious to me. Are they writing? Content and stories about how to solve problems. Is that where there, what Just maybe rather than me, lead the witness, tell us what, how they should be writing, what are the habits they need to be thinking about? Arnold Huffman: Yeah, so one of the first things that we say to our clients is it's about thought leadership, right? You've gotta be able to demonstrate why people would care about your product or your service, right? And your product or service does X, Y, Z differently or better. That's unique because of A, B, C. Right? Arnold Huffman: And that thought

leadership is building your reputation, your brand's reputation in the market. And so having that level of, building that level of ownership in the market space is key to where you end up getting cited by the engines. So what that really then lends itself back to, and this kind of goes back against the, using AI to create content just to get more content out there. Arnold Huffman: 19:23

It's not necessarily a volume game, it's the quality of the content that you're putting out there. You wanna make sure it's written in that way of thought leadership. The second thing I would say is that beyond your content, because you talking about yourself, is not always the best way to demonstrate leadership. Arnold Huffman: It, it has to be coupled with what everybody else thinks about you, right? Reviews, comments on Reddit, Facebook ranking or re review testimonials, right? More people talking

positively about your brand. Contributes as much as you writing the articles in a thought leadership capacity. Arnold Huffman: 20:23

And so you've gotta think about how do you seed that conversation? How do you get people to comment and doesn't all have to be on your site because obviously the AI engine has that broad reach and can grab data from lots and lots of places, and you gotta think about how do you get your data in those places, or the commentary, the rankings and the comments about your brand into those places so that when the engine goes to aggregate its result, or its thought about, said question that the users put in, that it sees this breadth of support that your brand has from not just yourself, but third party. Arnold Huffman: Yeah. Cupps: Yeah and so you mentioned a few of those Reddits Facebook, I think you said. Does that mean that they, we need to start thinking about what we say on those as a, as a, as what we post, and then the

comments are what's feeding the AI optimization, or do I have that wrong? Cupps: How you, Greg? Yeah. Arnold Huffman: And it's better even if you're not seeding it, but you're paying attention to it. If people are saying things that are negatively swaying your brand. What are you doing as a brand to counteract that? Not necessarily going in there and defending your brand in the thread, right? Arnold Huffman: 21:23

Maybe it's a different thought, thought leadership article or launching a different customer support program because everybody's mad about what you did. Support ends after five days doubling the support to or, making it a Mong support program. Something like that, right? Arnold Huffman: Is how. It's being able to react to what's being said there because what's being said there is being considered as part of the sentiment about your brand. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. Got it. And so we talked about that. What what about your people are if you have a marketing team that was responsible for SEO, whether they're outsourced or insourced, are you now needing to

hire new people in addition to, or are you just retraining the same people doing this? Cupps: That job, Arnold Huffman: the content front is still the content. You need good content strategy. You gotta have a good calendar, right? You gotta have intriguing topics that are pushing your brand forward as a, as, again, a thought leader on that topic. The other skill sets, like I said before, a lot of, at least small to medium sized organizations that we work with, right? Arnold Huffman: 22:23

That don't, they've built a new site and that, and, it's a it's a bit of an effort to get there, right? Yeah. It's got a cost to it. A lot of 'em don't want to continue to evolve it. It's up good. It's there. Maybe we'll put some more content on it, but let's not touch it for the, for a while. Arnold Huffman: Yeah, that's where the changes come is that if you've got it out there and people aren't finding what they're looking for, you've gotta keep updating and optimizing the UX and gate, the UX layout of the

page through that. Not only the humans are able to better use it better, but same with the AI engines. Arnold Huffman: And so the continuous effort around improving and optimizing the website design and specifically the UX layout of it becomes a, an ongoing process. Just as much as the content has been in the past. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. So let's I. I we're right at the bottom of the hour and we try to wrap up in 35 to 45 minutes. Cupps: 23:23

So let's talk personally so you're a father. You've got three kids and you're very active with them. You're an ex-athlete for col collegiate athlete and basketball, and you still play basketball. I know you've always stayed on top of your fitness. So what are some of the habits that Arnold Huffman's into these days? Arnold Huffman: Yeah, see, you just hit on it. The exercise component. Running and playing basketball. I read speaking of habits what was the book for Habit Track? Habit Stacking oh, Cupps: there's a lot of them. Atomic Habits is the probably the best one. Or sign Tiny Habits. Yeah. Oh, there's one called Time Added too. Cupps: I don't know if you read that or not. Arnold Huffman: Yeah.

And one of the things that resonated with me from Nap Look was. Having played college sports and, I work out, I continue to exercise now, and the thing, the reason one of the things that I took away from that book is the reason why is that having grown up playing sports all, most, all of my life, really that I consider myself an athlete. Arnold Huffman: 24:23

I don't necessarily have to be a very good one, but that's what I consider myself. And how I tr exercise. And the things I do in my life ladder back to, I still in my mind consider myself to be an athlete. And that really helped me understand, little nuances about what and why I do, in terms of my health. Arnold Huffman: Yeah, and again, you don't have to necessarily be a great one, but if you consider yourself an athlete, you will naturally do things to maintain your health in a specific way. So running and basketball. Pretty much if not five days a week, seven days a week. And it helps me clear my mind, set chart the course for

the day. Arnold Huffman: Basketball's not in the morning, it's in the a in the evenings, but when I'm running, it's in the morning and clear on the head. Cupps: But you also have other habits that maybe are not. Daily or weekly, but you take your family on some fantastic trips. I think it seems to me from the outside looking in, you value that family time and experiences and so you I would consider you have a habit of that as well. Arnold Huffman: 25:23

No, that's a good one. Yeah. Part of our brand as a company, right? We're big music fans. And we actually, I try to, instill that same passion into the overall company in all of our employees. And so we have a health stipend that we give everybody every year to go to concert. And so they can take that money and they just gotta send us the receipt and take a couple of pictures that we will use in our social media feed to show our folks being out. Arnold Huffman: And and really it came from an article that was in, I saw on USA today, and it said, happy pe people will go to concerts, live longer. So I, Hey, that's a health bene. The

subtext is that people who go to concerts are happier people and happier people tend to live longer. So I use that as motivation for the our concert stipend is what we call it niece. Arnold Huffman: And yeah, on it, take My Kids. I just took my kids to a concert last weekend. Mount Joy if you know who anybody who's listening, know who they are, they're fantastic band. And my son and I are going up to Cleveland to see the Foo Fighters in August, so Cupps: Oh, nice. Yeah, Arnold Huffman: 26:23

we we like getting out, seeing shows. Arnold Huffman: We love, we, the whole family has a love of music, probably mostly because of me and yeah. Yeah, we like getting out, doing things, being outside, going to concert, traveling. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. Has AI changed your, any of your kind of daily, weekly habits from work or personal. Arnold Huffman: AI definitely, has a daily usage now that wasn't there. Arnold Huffman: It's more of a thought process. I don't do most of my interaction is thinking about or dialoguing with ideas and strategies

and things like that. The thing you gotta be careful with in that kind of a dialogue with the AI engines is that. If you don't ask the right question, you can, you could get the answer. Arnold Huffman: You could just get the answer you're looking for. And it may not necessarily be the answer that's gonna move you in the right direction, but you might feel good because you got the answer you wanted. You really gotta challenge yourself to challenge the engine to Cupps: Yeah. Arnold Huffman: 27:23

Ask the question from all the right angles with all the right elements to it to make sure you don't just get a default answer and be like, yeah, that's what I thought. Cupps: Yeah. There's nothing, they programmed them this way for a reason. It starts with, oh, great instinct, and it rewards you for your question, but it may not have been the right question, so you gotta keep challenging it. That's great. Yeah. I'm glad you were able to join us today. Cupps: The, but it's a, the GEO and the a EO if that sounds like, that one's kind of going away, but the Gus are vastly important. Topic. I think for business owners small and large, the large ones tend to have staff to go do it, but there's a lot of mid-market companies and smaller companies and that just need help. Cupps: And

so how will people find you if they wanna pick up the conversation around that with you? Arnold Huffman: Yeah easy to find us on our website. If you go to digital yellow.com there's a contact us form on there that lands in my inbox as well as other folks. It's sure not to get missed. Somebody will pick it up. Arnold Huffman: Sending me an email directly to Arnold Huffman at Digital Yellow will work as well, or hitting me up on LinkedIn. We're pretty active on our LinkedIn profiles too, so any of those works as far as getting ahold of us. Cupps: 28:23

Yeah. That's awesome. And would you tell him any where to start? Cupps: Statements where should, what should they be thinking about when they pick up the phone to call you? What are, what is it their behavior that has to change? Arnold Huffman: I think the first one is what is your goal? Our typical best working scenario with a client is someone that is looking to pivot their business for some type of growth, right? Arnold Huffman: They're either geographically going to expand, they're launching new product lines coming up. And they're looking

to really optimize and maximize the, their return on that. That's typically where, our best working relationship. And so them knowing what their growth goal is, a key, prep for them coming into the dialogue. Cupps: 29:23

Yeah. Excellent. Excellent advice. Thanks so much for spending the the time with us. A great topic. And it's an interesting thing that's happening for a lot of different, situations in our lives that AI can affect positively or negatively if you're not out in front of it. But it's a great opportunity to talk about one of those shifts and I appreciate you sharing with us. Arnold Huffman: Yeah, this plays with, the key thing is that it's a brand game now, right? You gotta think of your brand holistically and the way your customer or potential customer would view your brand as what you're aiming for, right? And you have to be reputable. You have to be respected. You have to be positively viewed, and that has to have proliferated in other people's comments on the internet for the engines to say, yep, these guys know what they're doing, or they know that product is